#Linux snickers at #Microsoft 's victory declaration | ZDNet

My compadre Ed Bott does a fine job of digging under the surface of Microsoft’s annual report to find that Microsoft no longer considers Linux a serious threat. Who does Microsoft think they’re kidding?

Sure, on the desktop, it’s a Windows world, but guess what Sherlock; the desktop is declining in importance. The mobile, server, Web and cloud worlds are where the twenty-teens’ billionaires will come from, not the desktop. And, guess, who’s already in all those spaces large and in charge? Yes, that’s right, Linux.

Manila Standard Today -- The future of Ubuntu

“The patent system is... sold as a way of giving the little guy an opportunity to create something big … when in fact patents don’t really work that way at all,” he says.

“What they do very well is keep the big guys entrenched and the little guys out. For example, it’s very common in established industries for all of the majors to buy up or file as many patents as they can covering a particular area. They know and accept that the other majors are all in the same industry and essentially cross-license each other to keep the peace within that defined market. But they use that arsenal to stop new entrants coming in and disrupting the market.

“That’s almost the exact opposite of the way people think about the patent system.”

In the mobile market, he says, Google is trying to disrupt the ecosystem with Android and the resulting lawsuits are all aimed at keeping it from doing so.

“None of it is particularly constructive and it’s hugely expensive, often at the cost of end users who don’t have the real range of choice they should have,” Shuttleworth adds.

#Cisco and #Twitter join #Linux patent protection pool | ZDNet

In case you’ve been under a rock for the last decade, you might not know that today’s technology wars aren’t over who has the best prices, the most features, or the greatest quality. No, in 2011, instead of working on innovating, tech. giants like Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle, are now wasting their resources on intellectual property (IP) lawsuits. So, perhaps it should come as no surprise that networking powerhouse Cisco and social networking force Twitter, is joining the Linux patent protection group, the Open Invention Network (OIN).

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/cisco-and-twitter-join-linux-patent-protection-pool/9372

Patent Trolls Sitting Under The UX Bridge: How the U.S. patent system may affect your everyday UX work

Patent Trolls Sitting Under The UX Bridge: How the U.S. patent system may affect your everyday UX work:

"The reality is that generic elements of digital interfaces or parts of websites are in fact owned by various corporate entities and some of these entities have no intention of commercializing them within their own products. Simple functions within UX design as basic as menu systems and “upgrade” buttons are patented. These patents cannot be freely used by the people who don’t own them. I am sure almost every UX designer has unknowingly infringed upon a U.S. patent."