Remember these are mostly mobile makers we are talking about, who have no need of Windows licenses.

Perhaps it went something like this.

Nice business you have here. It would just be too bad if there were repeated BSA audits shutting you down.

In the case of SCO though, the claims were obviously absurd.

In this case, careful review by a number of hardware makers has led them to pay Microsoft to license the patents. We may not know exactly what they are using but you can bet the companies paying Microsoft had to have pretty good proof before they simply handed over per-device fees to another company.

Perhaps they have checked them perhaps not. It could just as easily be that they believe Microsoft with its billions will take the case to the Supreme court (consider the i4i case where they did that while losing every step of the way) and this is cheaper than years of litigation.

SCO did get companies to sign up on the "SCOsource licences too. You would have thought that they would have reviewed the facts and found that SCOG were "trolling" but they didn't.

Why is no one mentioning the possibility that M$'s patents might be legit, novel patents that don't cover something frivolous?

Probably due to the words of a Microsoft executive. When Ballmer first started the whole "Linux violates our patents and some one has to pay" campaign people asked which patents precisely. The executive indicated that he wouldn't say as they might be challenged and invalidated. If Microsft is so sure why not tell so it can be fixed?

It is like the whole SCO fiasco claiming that Linux violated their Unix copyrights (which they have now been ruled twice in courts not to own) but they would never say what code it was out of fear that the "code would be replaced".

Both sets lawsuits seem to me to be based on the idea of never letting the alleged infringement be known and fixed so that they can collect eternal tolls based on their unsupported allegations.

Because they remember what happened to Netscape. They probably also assume that Microsoft HTML 5 will be incompatible with real HTML 5 or that this is just about as likely to see release on time as WinFS.

Short sighted? Or did they think ahead and realize that finding life bearing worlds hurts their religious voters?

There is a problem with the evolution theory. It is that so far not a single living cell was ever created artificially. Not a simplest cell.

It seems that life cannot be created scientifically or technologically. Maybe it cannot be created artificially at all. In principle.

May be it can be in future, maybe not. Until then the jury is out

.

You are aware that evolution is about how species change over time are you not?

Origin of life is NOT evolution. Evolution comes AFTER life exists.

Understand now? Your bringing up evolution not explaining something it does not purport to explain does not support your argument. Why do creationists always do this? Next we will be getting the "Why are there still monkeys" argument.

To wit: a Great Dane and a Chihuahua are both still dogs.

Please prove this by successfully breeding (without technological aid) a male Great Dane and a female Chihuahua and showing the adult hybrid offspring.

That's because you are an ignorant cunt. They owned unix and linux you know.

They claimed that Linux has substantial amounts of Unix in it which gave them "control" of Linux in their fantasy world. The problems with this were threefold. 1/ that they never proved the presence of Unix code in Linux and 2/ They have repeatedly been ruled in court not to own the required copyrights to back up those claims 3/ The moment the claimed code was identified it would begin to be removed. The legal owner of those copyrights says Linux doesn't violate them.

So no ownership of Unix or of Linux. All they are really trying to sell is the Unixware and Openserver businesses right now. Last time UnXis tried to buy it the bankruptcy judge said no deal, they need to get his agreement. Also Novell claims the right to veto such a sale and last time said they would.

Fair enough, I should not have said acquitted. However, they were not convicted of being a monopoly on their appeal, and then settled out of court.

Wrong again. The appeal confirmed the original judgment it only changed the sentence. It was NOT settled out of court in anyway shape or form. Check your facts.

The EU conviction was bullshit, and about 10 years too late to be relevant.

The EU judgment was delayed to give the U.S. the first go and when the DOJ went for a "slap on the wrist" after Bush (II) took power they took up the issue. If the U.S. had properly handled the issue the EU would have dropped it. Only because the U.S. dropped the ball did the EU carry on with it.

Just a minor point, there was nothing illegal in what MS did, as they were aquitted by courts.

Acquitted? I thought that being found to be an "illegal abusive monopoly" was a conviction? That was just in the U.S..

The E.U. also convicted them and fined them a quantity large enough to make them comply with court orders that they had been claiming they couldn't comply with.

So when and where were they acquitted?

Some distros may be better than Windows, but not Ubuntu. It's a bloated buggy hog of a thing that is overkill on netbooks, and Windows will beat it everytime.

Really? I find that strange. When playing high resolution video on my netbook under Windows it gets jerky. Using Ubuntu (10.4 actually) installed on a cheap USB stick the same video plays smoothly on the same Netbook. So for me at least Windows does not win every time.

YMMV of course.

Marriage is the foundation of the original Trinity relationship - father, mother, child - is completely irrelevent to your rant.

The conception of Jesus was an act of adultery. So instead of "sanctifying marriage" it sanctifies adultery.

well, obviously... you worship Satan

Damn dyslexics who can't spell Santa always get that wrong.