Friday, August 13, 2004

Patents? No WAY!!

Few weaks ago, some issues about software patents delayed the Linux migration project that was supposed to be implemented by Munich Government. The issues involves a regulation to support software patents that could make GNU/Linux and OpenSource project stopped because everybody will race for patents that could give them royalty or money from license that they got from other people who used their application or source code.

Well, unfortunately, this delay was only a few weeks long, since today, The Register reports that the city of Munich is moving ahead with its switch to Linux. This means a big loss to Microsoft who couldn't make Munich Government to change their mind about this big migration, even though Microsoft was willing to give some extra discount and full support if they would buy Microsoft's product, such as Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office.

Besides Munich, big countries such as China is starting to develop their own application while some part of it was still using OpenSource project. This means that there will be another players in the OpenSource project after Munich. Will this be a nightmare to Microsoft that already confessed that GNU/Linux was their second biggest threat in their business role? We don't know for quite sure, but this losses have made Microsoft think twice to fight againts OpenSource. A few months ago, they released a few OpenSource Project, which called WiX, Windows Installer for XML (I suppose, or correct me if i'm wrong). Will soon be another OpenSource project from Microsoft? or will they release their source code for Windows and Office? We'll see in the next few years.

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