Comment Microsoft's IP Record (Score 1) 394
I do not believe that Microsoft will ever sue Open Source over patents.
A patent lawsuit would force MS to allow inspection of MS source code as part of discovery. MS has used BSD, quite legally, in the past. With the copious amount of open source code written, the chance that a FOSS coder wrote an algorithm that MS has similar code inside Windows is very great. The second issue is that borrowed proprietary code may also exist inside Windows.
MS has already lost patent lawsuits, the dirty hands defense could make case that MS cannot sue because of the past misdeeds.
FUD will continue, but I don't expect any lawsuits.
A patent lawsuit would force MS to allow inspection of MS source code as part of discovery. MS has used BSD, quite legally, in the past. With the copious amount of open source code written, the chance that a FOSS coder wrote an algorithm that MS has similar code inside Windows is very great. The second issue is that borrowed proprietary code may also exist inside Windows.
MS has already lost patent lawsuits, the dirty hands defense could make case that MS cannot sue because of the past misdeeds.
FUD will continue, but I don't expect any lawsuits.
