You have to take a look at Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz's blog today. He has pledged the company will use its patents to defend Red Hat and Ubuntu. That's the headline, and I'm really happy to know that Sun's very extensive patent portfolio is available, just in case it is ever needed. You never know these days. And yes, I take that as a message in a bottle to Microsoft. But he says it in such an interesting and creative way, I think you'll be glad if you go and read the entire entry.

Whatever is happening at Sun, it is very welcome. Remember the bad old days, when Schwartz would say things like we see no place for Linux in the server space? I used to write articles comparing Sun to the community's toxic boyfriend. Well, it looks like this ambivalent boyfriend got some therapy, because he is talking a different talk. In the blog entry, he compares the software industry with the newspaper industry, both of which produce creative content and both of which are undergoing a revolution away from tight control to user-generated materials. How can print media cope? They could, he points out, sue:

Full Story.

Also:

Yet, despite claiming it's not pursuing legal remedies, Microsoft delivers a veiled warning to open-source users. 'The real question is not whether there exist substantial patent infringement issues, but what to do about them. Microsoft and Novell already developed a solution that meets the needs of customers, furthers interoperability, and advances the interests of the industry as a whole. Any customer that is concerned about Linux IP issues needs only to obtain their open source subscriptions from Novell.'

That Full Story.