It's no secret that the idea of Continnum on Windows 10, was for the most part stolen from Canonical. if you've been living under a rock, Continuum is basically Microsoft's way of unifying the tablet / laptop / and phone into one device. it's an excellent idea, and is the future, the issue is, Microsoft patented the "Stolen" idea. and also have been trying their best to bring their proprietary software to Linux (Bringing azure Tool kits to Java, and bringing Visual Studio to Linux as Well). the biggest issue is the fact they patented the idea of Continuum EVEN THOUGH canonical has been working on it years prior (but took to long to release it.. [it's still not out yet] ) the article goes into depth about how Microsoft wishes to turn "Linux into Windows" and close the platform to some degree. the article seems more like a rant than anything else, but there are some excellent points, for example how Microsoft wishes to tax Linux, and how they extorted Novell with the Microsoft-Novell Patent Agreement. another thing mentioned is that what will happen when Canonical brings Convergence to market, and what will happen when Android combines Chrome OS.
This is part one of the two fold reason Fedora (and others) doesnt ship non-free software, they cant get sued. The other is the whole Free Software aspect.
Its a great example of why propitiatory software and overbearing patents aren't good, and hurts the consumer. We just get screwed over. Its the reason using libdvdcss is potentially illegal in the US, the same reason VLC is potentially illegal in the US. The same reason ffmpeg and gstreamer are kept at arms length because of the patent encumbered media formats they support put Linux based companies at risk.
Yet without them were left behind as those same companies that would sue us, push their own patented and patented algorithms onto everyone to make them standard.
You need to forget about Microsoft working as a single organization with all its departments working together. In my experience dealing with Microsoft the different departments might as well be different organizations - the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.
I could well believe that one part of Microsoft might be collaborating with Linux companies on the latest Open Source tech whilst another department is enforcing patents and suing the same Linux companies!
@Masterfulliam I was looking for a source as i couldn't watch videos at the time.
This is fairly old news (like maybe 10 years old...?), a number of companies have been leverageing patents against Linux and free software for a long time now. Companies like canonical pay up for thing like mp3 support.
Microsoft have traditionally been targeting Android for this, taking a slice out of every phone sale.
The fact is software patents are pretty stupid, and their length even worse, at least its not as bad as copyright. As I said in my original post, this is one of the reasons distros like Fedora don't ship non-free software, because they are patent encumbered and filled with legal gray areas.
