[Interviewer:] One of the persistent rumors that's going around is that certain large IT customers have already been paying Microsoft for patent licensing to cover their use of Linux, Samba and other free software projects.[...]

Allison: Yes, that's true, actually. I mean I have had people come up to me and essentially off the record admit that they had been threatened by Microsoft and had got patent cross license and had essentially taken out a license for Microsoft patents on the free software that they were using [...] But they're not telling anyone about it. They're completely doing it off the record.

I'm sure some are saying things like, "How is this going to be any more successful than the 3DO or Indreama?" or "Is this just another Phantom?" The 3DO was a similar idea in that it was going to allow multiple manufactures to release the same consoles; however, it was a very closed platform. If you wanted to make a 3DO compatible system you would have to license proprietary chips and software from Matsushita, and by having an open standard, with open source software and off-the-shelf PC components the barrier to entry will be much simpler and less restrictive.