... may get seriously hurt by the sword. Today, a California court ruled that Microsoft infringed a couple of Alcatel-Lucent patents on compression of MP3 files and awarded a $1.52 billion damage payment from MS to A-L.

This will not kill MS, but is may teach it a lesson or two. Maybe Bill will wake up from his monopolist's sleep rediscover the value of competing by inventing. Maybe he will recall his earlier statements about the software industry that would have never happened if copyrights and patents had been enforced back then, and he will donate a nice billion to a new Foundation working to free the world of one of the most dangerous man-made viruses, IP.

While we wait for the miracle to happen, let's smile at MS misfortunes and laugh at the following statement by the A-L's lawyer "We invented it, and everybody else is making money off of it."

Yup, someone invented reading and writing, my dear, and we are all making money out of it. It is called progress.

There's much more interesting: hearing before the supreme court that drifted on wether software is patentable or not (article in french but quotes and link are to english).

To quote CNet: "It's not every day that both the U.S. government and advocates of free and open-source software align themselves in court with Microsoft."