Some time ago, Microsoft started a new campaign against open source. They claim that different open source projects violate 235 patents. Now anyone with more historical knowledge then a gold fish and more then half the brain of a monkey [1], knows this is just the marketing department talking nonsense. To scare corporations away from using anything that smells like Free Software. In other words, it is just the old FUD once again.

([1] there is a reason hard drugs are prohibited in the Netherlands)

Now "Microsoft details patent charges". Mind you, all they /had/ to do is say what software project is violating what patent. That wouldn't have cost anything, wouldn't give away any proprietary information since all patents are open for the public anyway. But then, all they could win was egg. On they face of Bill. Since doing this would start people to investigate if the patent was legal in the first place . The patent office is braindead and there are numerous patents out there that have "prior art", maybe even from an open source project. And if it would be true that an OSS projects violated a real patant, active open source projects would -if possible- make a patch and fix any issues that might have been there.

Note that "deatils" means nothing here. All its says is:

...that the Linux kernel violates 42 patents, and the Linux GUI violates an additional 65; email programs infringe on 15, and other open source apps violate an additional 68 Microsoft patents. OpenOffice – a direct competitor with cash cow Microsoft Office – violates 45 patents, Microsoft claims.

Note that OpenOffice.org (no, not OpenOffice Intranetjournal!) is the only other project besides the Linux kernel that has been named. Linux and OpenOffice.org are two projects that will be seen by the general public as direct competitors of the MSFT offering. Mozilla being a good candidate as well but less in the corporate world.

So what are the other open source projects? According Webpronews there are some options. They state:

How will this affect you? If a court finds that these programs do infringe upon MSFT’s patents, programs like Linux, Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, Apache, Drupal, or Joomla will no longer be available.

Note that it is pure speculation, nobody knows what patent is violated by what open source project, even Microsoft doesn't until they start their randomizer. It might be Wine, close to Microsofts' business. But yes, It might also be Drupal. The journalist writing the article doesn't know more then we do. In fact she might know less even if she is writing on a Drupal site.

Drupal developers are not aware that it /might/ be the case and as Linus pointed out, that is a good thing! Yet, we -as a community but also the Drupal Association- must be aware that the ballgame will be harder. And playing against The Beast means there will be lot of mud throwing between the fastballs. Some think that "getting even" by countersuing is the solution, I am too European to think of that as a solution.

It also raises another question. Drupal owes much to the hosting party OSUSL. The quality of service we get, the bandwidth we use, it sums up to a couple of K's dollars per month if we would buy this commercially. However, they /are/ located in the United States and hence "spreading" Drupal is under American law where software patents are deeper embedded in the legal system then for example in the EU where they are still banned, despite Bolkestein's actions.

The rules are changing. We are no longer just a nice hobby project. We have top customers (including Sony and IBM to name a few) and hence we have entered the corporate arena where the bully is watching us. We are however amongst many friends.