Is Microsoft racketeering the Open Source community?

Microsoft is asking people to pay them for patents, but they won't say which ones. If a guy walks into a shop and says: 'It's an unsafe neighborhood, why don't you pay me 20 bucks and I'll make sure you're okay,' that's illegal. It's racketeering. What Microsoft is doing with intellectual property is exactly the same. It's a great company and I have great admiration for it, but this was not a well considered position," said Shuttleworth.

From What the Microsoft/Xandros deal means for Linux

This is a pretty funny comparison but I can't belive that the plans of Microsoft concerning the opens source community are that simple. I can't tell exactly what it is but I believe it 's a part of a long term evil strategy of Microsoft to destoy the open source community. There is enough evidence that Open Source has appeard already on the radar of Microsoft constanly detecting potential competitors. I has always been and it will allways be the goal of microsoft to defeat all competitiors that appear on their radar. Why should it be any different with open source? There is no obvious reason why Microsoft shoulde start to cooperate with some kind of sofware project that competes with their market. I believe its not the plan of microsoft just to earn some money I blelieve this is a strategie to attack a distributed target like the open source community. I belive its the long term goal of microsoft to infect the open source with closed source payware. These companes like Xandros, Novell and LG will serve as Trojan horses and virus droppers for Microsoft. I will be the goal of microsoft to sneak licensed technologies into the code of linux so that they can take leagl actions against any user of Linux and open source. The more companies Microsoft buys the more companies will be allowed to use this code and the more companies will distribute the infected open source Linux which will be something like Windux or Lindows that will compete with the pure opensource linux therby reducing the market share of which.