Microsoft, Red Hat Renew Linux Patent Spat
From the blogs: Microsoft's code contribution doesn't mean it's letting Linux off the hook. — By Sean Michael Kerner: More stories by this author: — A command line view of IT — From the “Can Open Source and Patents Get Along?” files:
Context & Ripple Effects
This spat has a long arc: Microsoft began asserting that Linux infringes its intellectual property back when it called Linux anti-commercial, escalated with Fortune's 2007 report on its campaign against the free-software world, then stonewalled when asked to name the offending patents, drawing a public rebuke from Linus Torvalds along the way.
What makes the July 2009 renewal awkward is timing: two days earlier Microsoft shipped Linux device-driver code to the kernel community under GPLv2 — its first real participation in the project — yet it is simultaneously keeping patent pressure on Red Hat, the largest commercial Linux vendor. The contradiction lands just as Windows 7 hits release-to-manufacturing with Forrester data showing Vista stuck on roughly 12% of corporate desktops versus XP's 86%.
First-order effects
- Red Hat's enterprise customers face continued uncertainty over whether running RHEL exposes them to Microsoft patent-licensing demands — the same unnamed-claims ambiguity Microsoft declined to resolve in 2007.
- Microsoft's GPLv2 driver contribution is now read through a legal lens rather than an engineering one: code accepted into the kernel from a company still asserting patent rights over the platform.
Second-order effects
- Enterprise buyers deciding between Windows 7 refreshes and Red Hat deployments get mixed signals from Microsoft, complicating procurement at exactly the moment Vista's weak adoption leaves desktops up for renegotiation.
- Other commercial Linux distributors face pressure to offer or renew indemnification programs so their customers aren't the ones left exposed by Microsoft's refusal to enumerate its claims.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Microsoft normalizes a coexistence model of participating in open source development while retaining IP leverage over commercial distributions — cooperation at the code level, confrontation at the licensing level.
- Persistent unnamed patent claims keep the question of whether software patents and copyleft licenses can structurally coexist unresolved, leaving every major vendor-to-vendor deal to be negotiated case by case.
The trend: Microsoft is settling into a dual posture toward Linux — contributing code under the GPL while preserving patent pressure on commercial distributors — turning open-source engagement and IP assertion into simultaneous, not sequential, strategies.