Microsoft Patents Self-inflicted Gunshot in the Foot

Need we wonder if some mate of Moglen's might be one of those to turn in an endlessly valid voucher? ))

clipped from www.groklaw.net

Moglen: SUSE Vouchers Have No Expiration Date! (Unlike MS's Patent Bullying)

Friday, May 18 2007 @ 01:25 PM EDT

This is news indeed. Todd Bishop has the story. Eben Moglen is saying that the SUSE vouchers Microsoft is distributing have no expiration date! I didn't know this. It's huge. This is, according to Moglen's remarks, another defense to any patent infringement claim by Microsoft, and it may well bring that campaign to a screeching halt. Here's why. Someone, Moglen says, is bound to turn a voucher it got from Microsoft in after GPLv3 goes into effect and GPLv3 code is being distributed, and at that moment Microsoft comes under its terms. And that should mean the end of Microsoft's ability to successfully sue anybody over its alleged patents allegedly in Linux, or to phrase it more exactly, it provides a probable defense to all Linux users and vendors, not just Novell's paying customers, if Microsoft does sue.