Linux and Patent Suits

[hci]

Anyone concerned about these patent suits and the future of linux?

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/59806.html

I hope it all works out ok. I think there is a real need for patent reform myself.

Matt

[nobaloney]

I'm not concerned; this is something that's going to be fought out by companies with deep pockets.

In the short term it's going to mean that both Novell (note that DirectAdmin doesn't run on Novell) and Red Hat will spend money on the suit rather than on continuing open source development, but in the long run it's going to man a stronger Linux.

Patents are fought, won, and even legal, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, so of course Red Hat, Novell, CentOS, et al, could always close their US offices and distribute from, for example, the EU. Then it'll be up to anyone claiming patent coverage to sue every little guy; that's too expensive and probably won't happen.

In the worst case scenario (which I believe will not happen) Linux goes away, well we'll just all switch to FreeBSD, then, won't we ;) .

Jeff