On 08-12-2010 22:32, Jan de Groot wrote:
On Wed, 2010-12-08 at 19:47 -0200, Armando M. Baratti wrote:
It works because the patents are granted perpetually to OIN members that have jointed before the closing date, even in the case of a sell (like occurred in this case).
If Microsoft wants to get you, they will do so anyways, OIN member or not. OIN does not have a patent license for ALL patents that are being sold, and even if they had them, Microsoft has several other trivial patents like the ones on VFAT that can be used to sue everybody. Newsflash: they don't. Remember Google getting sued by Oracle? Both are OIN members, it's just a fact that not all patents owned by Oracle are shared with OIN, so Oracle is free to sue any OIN-member that uses those patents without a license.
I have to agree that MS isn't going after the small guys, it's not profitable. I also have to agree with Ng Oon-Ee that joining may be raising the subjective value of the patents. However if joining is free and there are no maintenance costs, being protected from some patents is better than nothing, even if MS or any other party have other patents in their arsenal that can make the small guys close the shop if they want to. It would be interesting to know what other distros are doing, specially the larger ones which might be a target first. -- Mauro Santos