Microsoft Office: Still for Sale?
When it comes to Microsoft Office sales, there are rumors and then there are facts. Some blogs are reporting that Microsoft had to halt Office sales on January 11 in order to comply with a recent court order. But before you press the panic button take this piece of advice: Ignore the rumors and check out Mary Jo Foley’s report, which includes proper context and comments from Microsoft. That’s all The VAR Guy has to say about that.
I wonder when Microsoft will concede that software patents have to die.
All software patents have to die? Not sure The VAR Guy agrees… But our resident blogger is willing to listen (and learn…)
-TVG
Software is the ONLY field of human endeavour that gets TWO kinds of legal protection: copyrights as well as patents. Everything else has to make do with one. Why should software be so special that it gets to double-dip the legal system?
Lawrence: Hmmm… Perhaps there is a follow-up blog waiting for The VAR Guy to write. Our resident blogger will do some more search on the topic.
-TVG
You’ve probably heard of Richard Stallman railing against software patents. A really good place to find collected research on this and related topics is
http://techdirt.com/
Search for “software patents”. Though there’s loads of stuff there on patents in general, copyright in general—everything you might describe as “intellectual property”. And all meticulously cross-referenced.