HP memo forecasts MS patent attacks on free software, Jul 20, 2004

A two-year old memo from HP executive Gary Campbell to other HP execs has been wending its way around the backrooms of the Internet this past weekend. One of the places it showed up was in the NewsForge submission bin. We held off publishing the memo until we verified its authenticity and gave HP a chance to respond.

The memo -- its full text is provided later in the story, along with HP's response -- briefly explains a patent cross-licensing deal between HP and Microsoft. By itself, that's not a big deal, especially since it was sent two years ago. But the memo asserts that "Microsoft will soon be launching a patent-based legal offensive against Linux and other free software projects." Leaders in the open source community have been warning of such attacks for some time. The memo reveals there may be very good reason for the worry.

Dispelling the perception that Linux is cobbled together by a large cadre of lone hackers working in isolation, the individual in charge of managing the Linux kernel said that most Linux improvements now come from corporations.

“People’s stereotype [of the typical Linux developer] is of a male computer geek working in his basement writing code in his spare time, purely for the love of his craft. Such people were a significant force up until about five years ago,” said Andrew Morton, whose role is maintaining the Linux kernel in its stable form.

Morton said contributions from such enthusiasts, “is waning.” Instead, most code is generated by programmers punching the corporate time clock.

In a recent statement, Oracle's Singapore-based Executive Vice President Derek Williams noted that nearly one-third of the company's software sold in China now runs on Linux. He called the trend to Linux use "an unstoppable wave." Oracle has said that China is the company's fastest-expanding market.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates' tour through Asia recently created the expected column inches in the newspapers, with most of the stories highlighting the cut-price offers for its Windows operating system (OS) that Microsoft promised to sell in Asian markets to address affordability concerns.

At a big-picture level, one wonders if Microsoft would have gone to Malaysia and China with that message if the 'L-word' was not around. That's right, 'L' as in Linux, the operating system which is available free on the Internet, and which Microsoft has acknowledged as one of its primary challenges going forward.

A £7.5m Cambridge University drugs research institute has adopted a Linux-driven 64-bit computing system to handle data on tablet formulation and drug doses.

The Pfizer Institute, a collaboration between the University of Cambridge, the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre and drugs company Pfizer, has installed a Beowulf high-performance computing cluster based on dual Intel Itanium 2 processors within an eight-node HP Integrity rx2600 system.

This turnkey solution is powered by RedHat Enterprise Linux Advanced Server, and was configured by reseller Cambridge Online Systems.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer simply couldn't remain seated when asked to discuss the benefits of commercial vs. open-source software during a keynote question-and-answer session at last week's Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto.

Ballmer paced around the stage -- blaming the iced tea he had to drink or the fact that he's a "little bit of a caged animal" on the topic -- as he exhorted more than 5,000 partners in attendance to consider where their opportunities exist today.

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