Following a claim by Microsoft's general counsel that Linux and other open source and free software apps violate 235 of its patents, OpenOffice.org, one of the targets of MSFT's new patent claim called Redmond's actions "desperate" on Monday. Open Office is free suite of open source office applications that includes a word processor and spreadsheet program that can run on Windows, Linux and the Mac. In an interview with Fortune magazine, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith claimed that Open Office violates 45 of its patents.
The claim has been met with widespread skepticism among the open source and free software communities. (And, it's worth noting, by commenters here on Epicenter.) Speaking to Computerworld, OpenOffice.org community manager Louis Suarez-Potts pushed back, calling the claim, among other things, "an extraordinary and desperate act:"
