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Monday, October 18, 2010

Windows Phone 7: the best choice for Patent Trolls. — Free Software Foundation — working together for free software

Windows Phone 7: the best choice for Patent Trolls.

by John Sullivan Contributions — last modified October 08, 2010 20:23

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Friday, October 8th, 2010 -- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today issued a warning to consumers over Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 Phone Series. The software release is backed by a reported 400 to 500 million dollar marketing campaign that aims to distract consumers from its history of abusive behavior, and recent actions as a patent troll: attacking free software based phones like Android.

"Software patents are the most important anticompetitive, anti-software-developer tool available. And right now they are being used by Microsoft in an attempt to crush computer users' freedom. Proprietary software like Windows 7 Phone are designed to keep users divided and powerless and must be rejected" said Peter Brown, executive director.

"Windows 7 Phone Series is another cookie-cutter example of Microsoft's bumbling maliciousness to everything it does.", said Matt Lee, campaigns manager, "Microsoft's damaging approach to software freedom, coupled with their utter contempt for customers and developers alike, has produced yet-another-platform of systematic control. This is a platform designed only to appease its shareholders and help the folks at the MPAAs and RIAAs of the world feel better about the chaos they seek to foster surrounding digital restrictions and other technical folly imposed on computer users."

FSF is advising citizens to help increase awareness for the threat that Microsoft posses to computer user freedom.

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at http://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.

About Free Software and Open Source

The free software movement's goal is freedom for computer users. Some, especially corporations, advocate a different viewpoint, known as "open source," which cites only practical goals such as making software powerful and reliable, focuses on development models, and avoids discussion of ethics and freedom. These two viewpoints are different at the deepest level. For more explanation, see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html.