There's a good overview on the battle between Microsoft and open source developers/users/distributors--of all places, on CNN's Money website. The lengthy article goes into the history of software patents, an overview of open source licenses, a biopic on Richard Stallman, the father of the GPL open source license, and the latest chess moves in the Microsoft/Novell agreement regarding Linux.
The good news is that the U.S. Supreme Court recently raised the bar for the types of patents that Microsoft is using to threaten open source. The bad news is that large corporate customers of open source are more likely to be cowed by the threat of lawsuits than they are to fight Microsoft's shake-down attempts on principle.
Read more on the CNNMoney.com website.
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