Don't get worked up. Eagleton uses the phrase, "loosely described as patent terrorism", so the comparison is not particularly strong.
The reason he is making these comments is because part of Sun's strategy around open source software is that they provide indemnification for customers, meaning that if someone like Microsoft files a patent suit, customers will not be held liable for infringement. This is a big deal for large customers making big investments in infrastructure.
This story is just a reminder to Sun's bread-and-butter enterprise customers that open source software from Sun is "safer" than open source software from other providers or which was just downloaded off the 'net. Nothing to see here, move along.
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Don't get worked up. Eagleton uses the phrase, "loosely described as patent terrorism", so the comparison is not particularly strong.
The reason he is making these comments is because part of Sun's strategy around open source software is that they provide indemnification for customers, meaning that if someone like Microsoft files a patent suit, customers will not be held liable for infringement. This is a big deal for large customers making big investments in infrastructure.
This story is just a reminder to Sun's bread-and-butter enterprise customers that open source software from Sun is "safer" than open source software from other providers or which was just downloaded off the 'net. Nothing to see here, move along.