Microsoft CEO Steven Ballmer is a wise man – regarding Free Software he told
Forbes [1] at the end of March: “I’m not saying it’s not a real competition.
Maybe the world has exactly what it wants. It has us moving fast and hard,
keeping our prices down”. Paraphrasing: Free Software is good at keeping
Microsoft innovative and hindering them from increasing their prices
arbitrarily. Furthermore he is honest, honest enough at least to admit that
he wants to litigate against Free Software if the company is not able to
withstand fair competition. In the same interview he said: “… there are
experts who claim Linux violates our intellectual property. I’m not going to
comment. But to the degree that that’s the case, of course we owe it to our
shareholders to have a strategy.” All in all the message seems to be:
“Competition with Free Software has become inconvenient to us. That’s why we
need to get control back again – by any means!”
Forbes [1] at the end of March: “I’m not saying it’s not a real competition.
Maybe the world has exactly what it wants. It has us moving fast and hard,
keeping our prices down”. Paraphrasing: Free Software is good at keeping
Microsoft innovative and hindering them from increasing their prices
arbitrarily. Furthermore he is honest, honest enough at least to admit that
he wants to litigate against Free Software if the company is not able to
withstand fair competition. In the same interview he said: “… there are
experts who claim Linux violates our intellectual property. I’m not going to
comment. But to the degree that that’s the case, of course we owe it to our
shareholders to have a strategy.” All in all the message seems to be:
“Competition with Free Software has become inconvenient to us. That’s why we
need to get control back again – by any means!”
Link: mailman.fsfeurope.org
Category:
- Legal
