| | Very interesting article! I thought that Microsoft should have pulled out of Europe completely when the E.U. attacked them. However, it wouldn't have been easy to do so.
If Bill Gates pulled out of some locale, then their chief competitor Linux would likely take their place within a few years. Developments on the Linux platform are already global, however. Developers barred from using MS's tools would start working on Linux-based software solutions, which would pose a huge threat to MS on a global level.
But yes, the leftists are reacting predictably. It is foolish and wrong to equate a company's pullout with "political blackmail." This article makes it sound like those 800 former Navision employees would simply vanish if they lost their jobs. More likely, they would reform Navision, or something like it, assuming there is little preventing their starting a new company in the Netherlands.
The issue of software patents, though, is not as simple. Europe doesn't currently have them. The question is, should they? Microsoft, Philips, and others say yes, and they probably seek a system similar to what the U.S. has. NoSoftwarePatents.com's activists say no, and make no allowances for them at all.
Open-source software developers use copyright law, rather than patent law, to protect their works, and closed-source software developers are likewise entitled to protection of their works. But would the institution of patents provide that protection, or just make software development more difficult by legislative fiat?
This issue needs to be resolved. I couldn't begin to answer these questions, but it seems to me that Europe provides an opportunity for working out some solutions.
|
|
