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Red Hat wins Texas showdown (newsobserver.com)
27 points by jacquesm on May 1, 2010 | hide | past | favorite | 14 comments



This is especially sweet for me, not more than a few days ago I mentioned this very company trying to shake down TrueTech about 10 years ago :)

Props to RedHat, at least some companies are standing up to this bullshit in stead of paying them off so they have a bigger warchest to go after the next target.


Ugh. The least we could do is prevent companies who don't produce software from litigating on software patents. This "IP Innovation" place is just a patent troll.


Nice idea in theory, but easy for the trolls to work round by producing some trivial piece of software, I'd have thought.


"Both companies sell the Linux computer operating software, a cheaper competitor to Microsoft's Windows."

Most large organizations pay about the same in support for their Linux servers as they do in Windows.


You know, I don't believe that is true. Why? Because I work in a mixed Windows and RHEL world. Licensing from MS is steeper than RHEL.


Shrug. We own a few thousand licenses for each, but if you're experiences are different, that's cool. Either way, the point I'm making is that most business who use Linux use it because it's a great server OS.


It is a great server OS.


He said 'support', not licensing.

Sure the licenses are cheaper, but in the end the license is only a minimal part of what it costs to keep a server in the air over an extended period of time.


Give the guy a break, he attempted to summarize (to a non-tech crowd) what Red Had does in one sentence.


And he did it very poorly, that's the point they are making, and I agree with them. When I read one-liners like that, it makes Jon Stewart's "Appholes" piece look a lot like genuine tech journalism. Don't you think it's about time mainstream news outlets upped their tech game instead of giving the public stupid, non-factual, linkbait reporting?


Sure, but:

'Red Hat makes Operating Systems for servers'

would have sufficed.


Linux isn't just used for servers though. Do they pay the same in support for workstations?


This is nice to read and all, but I'd be curious to know exactly what patents they were litigating over.


Groklaw has the story here, http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100430223358785 , with plenty of back-story links, including search for prior art. One of them says: The patent is for "user interface with multiple workspaces for sharing display system objects"




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