Pending Lawsuits? (Score 1)

Regardless of whether the document is valid or not I did notice one part that I think could be a real issue and most people seem to have overlooked. In a couple places throughout the document there is mention that the respondents would view OSS unfavorably if there was a chance of lawsuits due to copyright or patent infringement. I have to wonder if this could be a real threat to the OSS community as time progresses. With the large number of patents and copyrights that companies such as Microsoft are turning out, it becomes increasingly difficult to develop something that does not already have a patent protecting it. With new technologies like .Net which are controlled by Microsoft and incorporated into Linux distributions, they may be able to "discourage" companies from migrating to Linux or OSS with the threat of lawsuits.

-- Rubberman