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The Microsoft-Linux Story As Told in the Comes Exhibits

By Pamela Jones et al.

As we are working on the data in the Comes v. Microsoft exhibits, describing the contents or transcribing each so as to make them keyword searchable, we are coming across some interesting materials regarding Microsoft's view of Linux. As far back as 1999, Bill Gates was asking his executives if there was a way to make things harder for Linux. For example, here's Comes Exhibit 3020:

From: Bill Gates
Sent: Sunday, January 24, 1999 8:41 AM
To: Jeff Westorinon; Ben Fathi
Cc: Carl Stork; Nathan Myhrvold; Eric Rudder
Subject: ACPI extensions

One thing I find myself wondering about is whether we shouldn't try and make the "ACPI" extensions somehow Windows specific.

It seems unfortunate if we do this work and get our partners to do the work and the result is that Linux works great without having to do the work.

Maybe there is no way to avoid this problem but it does bother me.

Maybe we could define the APIs so that they work well with NT and not the others even if they are open.

Or maybe we could patent something related to this.

1999. He wanted to patent something so as to hobble Linux and keep it from "working great".

Wait until you read about the EDGI program to keep folks in governments and educational institutions from switching to Linux, and then there is another exhibit that shows exactly how Microsoft tried to worm its way into OLPC and who helped it.

Full post as published by Groklaw on January 15, 2010 (boomark / email).