IIRC, Canonical is based in a country which does not recognize software as being patentable, so Mark S. doesn't have much to worry about. Seems like the same pertains to the Xandros folks. It's the Red Hat boys who have put their necks on the line.
In any case, software patents are at best questionable. Can you patent the solution to a math problem? As I understand it, there may be a truly innovative solution to a significant math problem every few years, not by the thousands per year as you would expect by the rate at which software patents are issued.
Back in the early days of issuing software patents, patent examiners with inadequate knowledge of the prior art issued patents for basic programing concepts that Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace had described over a century before. . . To this day (in the US) more disputed software patents are invalidated than upheld. You can often see this in the behavior of patent trolls: they will often settle for FAR, far less than their initial demands rather than risk having their patent invalidated at trial and rendered worthless.
Nice artical, I like the image of drawn battle lines, and possibly the defeat of Micro. However there is one persnickety little thing, Ubuntu is not a company, Canonical is the company that makes Ubuntu.
***Past this point there is nothing of value, only ramblings***
It will be interesting to see how this plays out, it is odd to think that such a small proportion of the population know this is happening. Most will be thinking 'Ooh, i prefer good ol' XP, i don't be like this new Vister thing' (this person happens to be a farmer). Most will never believe that a fight is going on for the desktop/server market that doesn't involve Microsoft fighting both sides of the battle.
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