235 is the loneliest number

Crazy Steve is at it again, which puts me into my ramble and rage mode- get out of the way, or put on a pair of steel-toed boots.

Ballmer: Linux infringes on 235 patents!
Sane person: Which patents are those?
Ballmer: Well there's 42 in the kernel, "graphical user interfaces" have 65, OpenOffice infringes on 45, e-mail programs 15, and 68 other transgressions"
Sane person: Yes, yes- but which specific patents are you talking about?
Ballmer: We will enforce our intellectual property! Resistance is futile!

Steve-o's empty words remind me of another great dictator... Forgive me, I meant President and his minions. Sure Ballmer will tell us what's infringing, just as SCO's lawyers told the judge which code was copied into Linux. Do you recall this doozie: "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." "Somewhat"? Don't you love how much we value precision these day, especially when it comes to the collection of intelligence and its use in dictating global policy? It's as if we don't care for truth anymore, or do we?

The reason for being so forthcoming? If he presents evidence, the Open Source has the chance to refute it, or invalidate his obvious and unoriginal patents. But keep them secret, and you can sell those coupons and keep the Windows monopoly for another year or two. It's a brilliant strategy- rant about how you're being attacked and violated, and nobody will doubt your sincerity.

As usual the financial media are clueless when it comes to anything out of the ordinary tedium of stock price fluctuation, record Dow figures, management shuffling, and their stupid unending and almost universally wrong forecasts. The piece I linked to at the start of this article isn't bad compared to the general coverage of Linux and related issues, even if it does include jokes it assumes its readers don't understand. But most of the article is fluff, unnecessary, and providing little of actually-necessary context. Here's one small example of incompetence appearing at the core of the issue at hand...

Assclown... um... I mean, Fortune Magazine senior editor, Roger Parloff writes: "Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith and licensing chief Horacio Gutierrez sat down with Fortune recently to map out their strategy for getting FOSS users to pay royalties. Revealing the precise figure for the first time, they state that FOSS infringes on no fewer than 235 Microsoft patents." (emphases added). Tell me Mr. Parloff- how is "no fewer than" a "precise figure?"

Why is it that Ballmer's image is now that of a politician, and why does Parloff allow him to get away with it? Maybe Parloff just doesn't want to upset Microsoft's PR division. Is it related to how spineless and corporate news media has become? That is what put Parloff's CNN only slightly below Fox News on my list of things to think about during my daily two minutes of hate.