Free software is great, and corporate America loves it. It's often
high-quality stuff that can be downloaded free off the Internet and then copied
at will. It's versatile - it can be customized to perform almost any large-scale
computing task - and it's blessedly crash-resistant. A broad community of
developers, from individuals to large companies like IBM, is constantly working
to improve it and introduce new features. But now there's a shadow hanging
over Linux and other free software, and it's being cast by Microsoft. The
Redmond behemoth asserts that
one reason free software is of such high quality is that it violates more than
200 of Microsoft's patents. And as a mature company facing unfavorable
market trends and fearsome competitors like Google , Microsoft is pulling no
punches: It wants royalties. If the company gets its way, free software won't be
free anymore. The conflict pits Microsoft and its dogged CEO, Steve Ballmer,
against the "free world" - people who believe software is pure knowledge.