It turns out that Microsoft not only refuses to be specific about so-called infridngements which it counted, but it also refuses to say how these were counted. This leads some to wondering if alleged patents violations were ever truly counted. Was anything at all counted properly? Was it possibly bogus? SJVN weighs in and asks "how dumb does Microsoft think we are?":

You can't make this stuff up. Top Microsoft blogger Mary Jo Foley asked, "What kinds of tools/processes did Microsoft use to determine which open-source code allegedly infringes on Microsoft's patents?" Their answer: "No further details are available at this time."

Does this remind you of anything? Other than SCO, there is another analogy which Tim O'Reilly, SJVN and even the following blog gleefully mention.

Sen. Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin made a speech in Wheeling, W. Va., in which he said he had a list of 205 names of State Department employees "that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party."

Is Microsoft playing the same game? Has it taken a lesson from sad history and (yet again) decided to equate us to communists? Of course not. That's just far-fetched, but it has a certain value of hilarity.