Balmer says Linux uses Microsoft 'property'

[Ben Scott]

  Steve Ballmer, Chief Inquisitor for the Evil Empire, has publicly
stated that the reason for the Novell deal was that Linux "'uses our
intellectual property' and Microsoft wanted to 'get the appropriate
economic return for our shareholders from our innovation.'"

(From Slashdot,
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/17/1324248&mode=nocomment)

  This pretty much confirms the most popular theory behind the deal.
It's extortion.

  It's a fair bet that we can expect to see Microsoft aggressively
pursing legal action against commercial organizations with a large
interest in Linux.  That means not just Linux-as-primary-product
companies like Red Hat, but also resellers/integrators (Dell, HP,
IBM), and large Linux users (e.g., US government).

  I'd say the SCO lawsuits were just the beta version of this.

-- Ben