Microsoft's stolen code and IP infringements
With all of the FUD coming out of Redmond, Washington these days about Linux infringing on Microsoft's IP, I thought I'd do a little research and see if Microsoft has ever been guilty of stealing code or infriging on others' IP. The results weren't surprising. If you live in a glass house... you know the rest.
Examples of Microsoft stealing code and infringing on IP:
As a response to Digital Research's DR-DOS 6.0, which bundled SuperStor disk compression, Microsoft opened negotiations with Stac Electronics, vendor of the most popular DOS disk compression tool, Stacker. Stac was unwilling to meet Microsoft's terms for licensing Stacker and withdrew from the negotiations. In the due diligence process, Stac engineers had shown Microsoft some Stacker source code. However, Microsoft chose to license Vertisoft's DoubleDisk instead of Stacker.[2]
Soon, MS-DOS 6.0 was released, including the Microsoft DoubleSpace disk compression utility program. Stac successfully sued Microsoft for patent infringement regarding the compression algorithm used in DoubleSpace. This resulted in the release of MS-DOS 6.21, which had disk-compression removed. Shortly afterwards came version 6.22, with a new version of the disk compression system, DriveSpace, rewritten to avoid the infringing code.
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"Linux infringing on Microsoft's IP"
The only thing that Linux infringes on MS's IP is the vfat driver, correct?
The Novell/Microsoft
The Novell/Microsoft agreement says it gives Novell and Novell's customers protection to use Samba, OpenOffice, and Mono within SUSE Linux without fear of being sued.
EDIT: I seldom post without an edit.