Fun with FUD

Both Dell and Novell have moved way down my purchasing and/or use list as a result of these patent shenanigans with MickeySoft.

Stinky is as stinky does, imo.

Microsoft Takes on the Free World - Fortune - 28 May 2007

"It might seem counterintuitive that Microsoft would end up paying millions to Novell when Microsoft is the one trying to get royalties for its patents."

"Moglen had another card to play. In his view, the fact that Microsoft was selling coupons that customers could trade in for Novell Linux subscriptions meant that Microsoft was now a Linux distributor. And that, as Moglen saw it, meant that Microsoft was itself subject to the terms of the GPL. So he'd write a clause saying, in effect, that if Microsoft continued to issue Novell Linux coupons after the revised GPL took effect, it would be waiving its right to bring patent suits not just against Novell customers, but against all Linux users. 'I told Brad,' he recalls, ''I think you should just walk away from the patent part of the deal now.''"

"Microsoft had hoped that the Novell deal would become a model it could use to collect patent royalties from other distributors of free software. In that respect, its 'bridge' to the free world appears to have failed. That, in turn, seems to have taken us a step closer to patent Armageddon."

Fun with FUD

Both Dell and Novell have moved way down my purchasing and/or use list as a result of these patent shenanigans with MickeySoft.

Stinky is as stinky does, imo.

Microsoft Takes on the Free World - Fortune - 28 May 2007

"It might seem counterintuitive that Microsoft would end up paying millions to Novell when Microsoft is the one trying to get royalties for its patents."

"Moglen had another card to play. In his view, the fact that Microsoft was selling coupons that customers could trade in for Novell Linux subscriptions meant that Microsoft was now a Linux distributor. And that, as Moglen saw it, meant that Microsoft was itself subject to the terms of the GPL. So he'd write a clause saying, in effect, that if Microsoft continued to issue Novell Linux coupons after the revised GPL took effect, it would be waiving its right to bring patent suits not just against Novell customers, but against all Linux users. 'I told Brad,' he recalls, ''I think you should just walk away from the patent part of the deal now.''"

"Microsoft had hoped that the Novell deal would become a model it could use to collect patent royalties from other distributors of free software. In that respect, its 'bridge' to the free world appears to have failed. That, in turn, seems to have taken us a step closer to patent Armageddon."

The Hidden Gas Tax

My friend creek_muskogee has gone the extra mile to do a quick estimate of what a conservative cost for providing military protection for "our oil" in the Middle East might be.  Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) references a study, pre-W's War as I recall, that conservatively puts this cost, in peacetime, at $50 billion.    My friend pulled up the total U.S. gasoline consumption as being about 185 billion per year.  Then he did the math and calculated that the amount folks are paying for gas, via income taxes (which is hardly user specific), figures out to about 27 cents per gallon.   

That doesn't count the oodles of subsidies that go to the industry nor the significant adder that one might apply depending on if one thinks that we would have invaded Iraq if it was a banana or nutmeg producing republic.  (Wait, let me think about that last bit more.)

At any rate, yet more socializing costs and privatizing profits.  Bless their military-industrial-congressional hearts.

The Hidden Gas Tax

My friend creek_muskogee has gone the extra mile to do a quick estimate of what a conservative cost for providing military protection for "our oil" in the Middle East might be.  Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) references a study, pre-W's War as I recall, that conservatively puts this cost, in peacetime, at $50 billion.    My friend pulled up the total U.S. gasoline consumption as being about 185 billion per year.  Then he did the math and calculated that the amount folks are paying for gas, via income taxes (which is hardly user specific), figures out to about 27 cents per gallon.   

That doesn't count the oodles of subsidies that go to the industry nor the significant adder that one might apply depending on if one thinks that we would have invaded Iraq if it was a banana or nutmeg producing republic.  (Wait, let me think about that last bit more.)

At any rate, yet more socializing costs and privatizing profits.  Bless their military-industrial-congressional hearts.