Microsofts new way of bashing Linux

[Alexander Jacob Tsykin]

On Saturday 17 June 2006 11:05, Lee Revell wrote:
> On Sat, 2006-06-17 at 08:11 +0800, Michael T. Richter wrote:
> > The fact is that many hardware manufacturers have trade secrets.  I
> > know the CT company I worked for had (and still has!) many trade
> > secrets around their software.  Exposing the driver source code can
> > give a competitor--one smart enough to keep their trade secrets to
> > themselves--a whole whack-o-clues about the trade secrets I have were
> > I stupid enough to give my driver source away.  So by making my
> > drivers open source, I basically give away my competitive advantage
> > and let my competitors reap the benefits of my hard-spent money on
> > R&D.
>
> Just patent your hardware innovations - you can release GPL drivers and
> no one can rip you off.
>
> Besides, the legal consensus is that closed source Linux drivers are
> illegal as they constitute a derived work of the Linux kernel.  This has
> not been tested in court yet but it's only a matter of time.
>
God forbid. While I would prefer for kernel drivers to be open source, 
primarily because it makes it possible to debug the kernel, we don't want to 
present an incentive for anybody to stop providing driver support for Linux.

Sasha