26.6.07

Strengths of Open Source opposing Microsoft patent threats

Recently, two actions by Microsoft seriously called the attention of the open source community. One is the strange alliance with Novell and another is the unproven statement that GNU/Linux infringes on 235 Microsoft patents. Although the community has the feeling that these actions are outrageous and illegal, it does not know how best to deal with them, since in the U.S. one has to spend much money in order to respond to unfounded statements by anyone, especially when the opponent is very wealthy.I have the impression that open source to challenge it in a justice court is exactly what Microsoft desires, so we should not get into this dangerous and expensive game.Therefore, I propose another game, in which the open source is strong where Microsoft is weak. Let us organize an event, where we place two large tables in a convention room. At the head of one table, one places a server hardware running Windows Server 2007 prepared as a thin client server with well-known applications: MS Office, Adobe suite, Interne Explorer 7, Outlook, for example. At the head of the other table, one places the same server hardware running a GNU/Linux distribution (RedHat or Ubuntu Server) prepared as thin client server with open-source applications such as OpenOffice, the Gimp, Firefox, Evolution etc. Along the tables, as many client PCs as possible are connected as thin clients, so that all sorts of people would run applications on the servers simultaneously, trying to overload the corresponding server with their input. On the wall there will be a projection showing how many applications are open on the server, and how they are loaded, like htop on GNU/Linux, so the surrounding people and journalists can see, and document, the load changes, the memory load, etc. in real time. It would be more fun if external users be allowed to log in to those servers and participate in the effort to use intensively the applications.My contention is that the Windows server can take less load from thin clients because the applications cannot handle many users, while the open source applications are able to handle many simultaneous users without crashing. For this reason, if many users open MS Word on their terminals, the server has to launch many copies of the application thus filling memory and going for the swap space sooner, eventually going to thrashing mode. I remember that this kind of test was done before, but never in public, side by side. This test will be entertaining if the important people of both sides show up, address the public in keynotes, and exchange ideas about the ongoing contest. The objective is to show for all to see how lean and mean GNU/Linux is as compared to Windows, and demonstrate that they are so different that GNU/Linux cannot be infringing so many patents and behave so differently. It is impossible to describe such differences with words, so we need a great, visible show. I guess people would like to buy stuff there, and there would be less waste of time and money than in a courtroom.
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