Re: Microsoft possibly to sue RedHat?

[Marc Wiriadisastra]

Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>  Marc Wiriadisastra wrote:
> > http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2200717/microsoft-sharpens-aims-patent
> >
> > "People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual 
> > property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us," Ballmer 
> > said last week at a company event in London discussing online 
> > services in the UK.
> >
> > Is this going to affect Fedora indirectly?
>
>  (Speaking for myself)
>
>  We can only speculate on what is planned.  Depends on whether this is 
>  marketing FUD or legal action, it can affect everyone involved and not 
>  just Fedora. Note the careful use of "People who use Red Hat" and not 
>  Red Hat itself. Also the comments were made in London and not U.S and 
>  that's important because different regions have difference laws on 
>  what constitutes false advertising.
>
>  This one has the entire talk and you can see for yourself how well 
>  this plays into the Microsoft Novell patent deal earlier.
>
>
> http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_Scrambling_to_Explain_Ballmer_C...
>
>
>
>  Some other relevant links
>
>  http://tieguy.org/blog/2007/10/10/on-joe-on-patents/
>  http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2193713,00.asp
>  http://www.press.redhat.com/2007/05/14/deploy-with-confidence/
>
>  Rahul
>  
My understanding is that the UK would still have Trade Practices Law (I 
study it at uni atm) which would constitute Misleading conduct on 
Microsoft's behalf. 

It could also be construed as Defamatory or Libel since he is defaming 
RedHat before you couldn't really question it because he was labeling 
Linux users very broad.  In this speech he singled out RedHat. 

I know you guys at RedHat Legal will look at it but yeah it was 
something I was shocked about when I read it.

Cheers,

Marc