06.05.12
Gemini version available ♊︎Taxing the Competition
Summary: Remarks about the need to counter practices that distort fair competition and reward abusers
TO TAX the competition is to make money from another company’s work while at the same time making this company’s products more expensive and thus less appealing to the market. Microsoft has been trying to do exactly that to GNU/Linux (starting with SUSE), then to Linux (e.g. TomTom) and Android. Microsoft uses all sorts of methods to achieve this, starting with the funding of SCO to sue Linux vendors over copyright matters, then patents (also by proxy), and now quite arguably digital signatures.
“In a similar fashion, Mono pollutes the non-kernel space.”For the most part, Microsoft’s malicious and anti-competitive endeavours have failed, but the OIN told us that owing to file system patents Microsoft has been able to extort many companies, using patents that are so dubious that Torvalds can shoot them down. This new press release reminds us that Tuxera, for example, has been aiding Microsoft in its attempts to tax Linux and Android. In a similar fashion, Mono pollutes the non-kernel space.
If we do not stand up and counter this injustice, it may become a norm to just pay Microsoft for Linux, making the free/libre option expensive/non-gratis and making Microsoft richer, as a cynical reward for its competition violations. █
“He [Bill Gates] is divisive. He is manipulative. He is a user. He has taken much from me and the industry.”
–Gary Kildall
ᶃ Gemini Space
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