Can we sue MS for defamation?

[Sunnz]

So any lawyers here or who is willing to donate money to help?

[hardyn]

i don't think this a fight that can really be won on MSs terms, im quite sure MS has the resources to keep something like this tied up in the courts for ages; much longer than money will hold out, or much longer than a pro-bono council has interest.

[rkh]

An earlier poster stated that "In the US you can sue for anything" or words to that effect. Insofar as you can pay your money, fill out paperwork and file it with a court, this is correct. However, although this is not my area of law -I am a lawyer- I wouldn't touch this suit with a very long pole. Its entirely frivolous under US law. You want to sue a corporation because their representative made a poorly worded, badly supported, but nonethelss statement of opinion against a family of operating systems -ie "linux"? Good luck with that.

Not to mention, its just kind of silly. Silly and petty. MS says this kind of thing every 18 months or so. Yes, its FUD. Yes its stupid. Yes its annoying. But you the user haven't been defamed. As frustrating as it is suing is not really an answer.

[Dr. C]

But isn't it saying that someone is in possession of stolen property defamatory if the property turns out not to be stolen?

I am also far from convinced that these statements from Microsoft were expressed as an opinion rather than as fact.

[rkh]

So what precisely were the defamatory words? Who were they directed at? Like I said, its really not my area of law, but I do know that the US is not nearly so friendly to Defamation suits as many other countries are. Moreover, it really sounds kind of like you would be alleging some kind of group defamation, which courts in this country have been particularly hostile to.

I know that there are a few other lawyers that lurk around these boards, so if anyone else knows more about this than I do I'd love to hear your thoughts. In the end, I just think that our collective energies would be better spent in other ways.

[Death_Sargent]

hear is what we do.

buy an *** of software patents that microsoft would now be infringing because linux owns them.

Then sue them if they dare touch us.

[hardyn]

but then you would have to decompile the MS binaries to prove that they were infringing, again illegal.

[steven8]

but then you would have to decompile the MS binaries to prove that they were infringing, again illegal.

It's not about stealing or copying code. It's much grayer than that. It's things like 'click a button to do something'.

The creators of VisiCalc could have said, "Hey, we had the first interactive spreadsheet, with with individual cells and rows and columns denoted by letters and numbers, so you can't do that." Thus, Excel would have been stopped cold.

[use a name]

Problem is, if we can't win, Ballmer will have a headline again. So, only sue if certain to win.

[kripkenstein]

This isn't defamation, since it is probably true. Every large piece of software infringes on SOME patents, that is just how screwed up the patent system is. Linus and Stallman are very clear about this: there is no "no such patents exist" defense - the patents exist. The question is what to do about them.

The best thing to do is to do nothing. The big players have already taken care of things: IBM and their partners have a ton of patents in the OIN, that can be used to defend Linux against Microsoft.