At least, that is what Steve Ballmer claims in an interview. This so smells like another round of FUD from Microsoft.
Mind you, he does not deliver any form of proof, but it’s more a continuation of the deal with Novell earlier this week, where Microsoft agrees not to sue users of Novell products. ( like SUSE linux).
Oops, big mistake Steve. Not only you’re putting your personal petty issues with Linux as a competitor on record, but you could also easily get the full wrath and anger of IBM on your neck. I think companies, and certainly management should refrain from such remarks, certainly if they come without a shred of evidence.
Instead of focussing on creating FUD like this among your customers (plenty of companies use Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and windows side-by-side), you should work on improving interoperability. Most of the code for Linux was written in countries where your silly software patents do not apply anyway, so suing will most likely win you nothing, and will cost you a lot.
I thought you understood by now that FUD is something warmongering nations do, and after being convicted of illegal business practices, Microsoft understood the importance of having good relationships with the open source community. But no, the corporate mentality of Microsoft has once again prevailed over common sense. Steve, you can not fight open source, it would be fighting breathing. Every now and then in human history a group of people (the open source community) will rally behind a common idea to make things better, and that is a thing which is hard to beat.
War on FUD is a series of blog posts I have made, concerning all manner of FUD and why inteligent lifeforms should not pay attention to it.