Tom Sanders is reporting that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave a talk at a company event in the UK last week saying that Red Hat customers need to pay Microsoft for its beloved IP, whatever it may consist of:

Audio-recording: James Vasile of the Software Freedom Law Center talks about what the GPL is not; about false assumptions about the GPL and maybe shortcomings of it.

The head of the Open Invention Network (OIN) has dismissed Microsoft's claims that Linux violates over 200 of its patents.

A legal team enforcing the most widely used license in the open-source and free software movement has shown that it's not afraid to take its cases all the way to court.

One of the most important recent events in the world of free software has been the release of version 3 of the GNU GPL. There were fierce arguments about its utility while it was being drawn up, and although the rhetoric has abated somewhat, there is still a big question mark over its eventual success.

" It has become fashionable to toss copyright, patents, and trademarks—three separate and different entities involving three separate and different sets of laws—into one pot and call it “intellectual property”. The distorting and confusing term did not arise by accident. Companies that gain from the confusion promoted it.

On any given day you can find thousands of words of reporting, advocacy and debate over the role of patents in technology. One side promotes the availability of patent protection as the source of much innovation, while the other contends that patents have exactly the opposite effect, and many other vices besides.

If one were to believe Microsoft, antitrust law is for sore losers who are too lazy to innovate, and the decision of the European Court of Justice against Microsoft was to the detriment of consumers around the world. One might even believe that any company with large enough market share would now have to fear the wrath of the European Commission and its anti-innovation bloodhounds.