Microsoft patents

An interesting article in The Register. The idea is that Microsoft can probably attack Linux with patents but hasn't yet because it's been too busy just dealing with its own growth. But now it's "mature" and Office and Windows-based growth is slowing, so they need other forms of revenue -- hence their movements into digital watches, etc.

Enforcing patents will be one more form of such revenue. One of the early manifestations of this change is the recent announcement about licensing the FAT file system. But of course in the case of Linux, patent enforcement would not only be a source of revenue, but of threatening the competition.

Microsoft's actions so far don't constitute a full frontal attack on free software. It's often been rumored that Microsoft has a number of patents - the number varies - on the Linux kernel itself. [Register]

This could get ugly, folks.