Microsoft Signs Another Linux Deal
Microsoft Corp. announced Wednesday that it will license instant messaging and digital media technology to a small desktop Linux distributor, Linspire Inc., adding to a growing number of deals meant to help the Windows operating system work more smoothly with open-source software.
Context & Ripple Effects
The Linspire agreement lands ten days into a deliberate campaign: Microsoft struck a broad collaboration with Linux distributor Xandros on June 4 and an embedded-software pact with LG on June 7 before turning to desktop Linux this week. The pattern stretches back further — Microsoft was already discussing Shared Source licensing terms with the Open Source Initiative in late 2005.
What distinguishes the Linspire deal is its content: rather than server virtualization or office-document work, Microsoft is licensing consumer-facing technology — instant messaging and digital media codecs — to a small desktop distributor, alongside what both sides describe as intellectual-property assurance for Linux customers. That makes it the most consumer-oriented data point yet in a series otherwise aimed at enterprise and device makers.
First-order effects
- Linspire gains licensed access to Microsoft's instant messaging and digital media technology, letting its Freespire-based desktop interoperate with Windows media and messaging out of the box where other distributions require reverse-engineered or third-party components.
- Linspire's customers also receive explicit IP assurance under the agreement — a promise that Microsoft will not pursue patent claims against those users, which is precisely what the larger deals in this series have been selling.
Second-order effects
- Every remaining commercial Linux distributor now faces a choice between signing comparable Microsoft agreements and marketing themselves as unencumbered — Xandros and Linspire have chosen the former, leaving Red Hat and Canonical to answer the implicit claim that unsigned Linux carries legal risk.
- For small desktop distros competing with Linspire, the licensed codecs and messaging stack become a differentiator they must match technically or dismiss publicly, forcing each rival to take a position on the Microsoft bridge.
Third-order effects
- If the deal-a-week cadence holds through 2007, the Linux market risks structuring itself into two tiers — Microsoft-aligned distributions offering IP indemnity and interoperability, and community distributions whose users are framed as exposed — shifting competition from features toward licensing posture.
- The series also tests whether open-source projects accept corporate bilateral IP deals at all: the 2005 OSI discussions suggest Microsoft wants community endorsement of these bridges, and the reaction to the Linspire terms will indicate how far 'commercial open source' can be separated from the upstream projects it packages.
The trend: Microsoft is converting Linux interoperability from an engineering problem into a licensing business, signing distribution- and device-level pacts that bundle technical access with patent assurance.