02.14.08
FUD Tactics and Jim Whitehurst’s Latest Interview
A few days ago we saw Red Hat’s CEO responding to a question about Microsoft’s software patent plot. He was asked a very similar question in a newer interview with Jupitermedia and his answer was similar. It is worth quoting here for the record.
Q: Are you saying then that you’d prefer an open standard to some kind of patent licensing agreement?
[Whitehurst:] A patent licensing agreement is a whole different thing than do Red Hat products interoperate well with Microsoft products. We’re happy to work on interoperability. The patent issue we’re still not sure what it is, we’ve yet to see a patent we’re supposedly violating.
We’ve asked and asked and asked and Microsoft has yet to tell us. It would be nice if they tell us at least what they are. The beauty of the open source community is that I feel very confident that is Microsoft will tell us what they [patents] are we’ll work around them pretty fast.
As you can see, he still urges Microsoft to be specific. This comes just before suspicions that Microsoft is pulling the plagiarism guns again (SCO). Expectedly, in neither case is the claimant being specific. It’s a case of fear, uncertainty and doubt where the goal it to make the uncertainty persist for many years. This has a long history. █
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.