Pintou hoje no LXer um 'esquentado' (requentado?) artigo de Glyn Moody, "A Brief History of Microsoft FUD". Trata-se realmente de um resumo de como a MS, desde 1997, encarou a 'ameaça' GNU/Linux. Resumo do resumo:

1. 1997: "Eles não são concorrentes"
2. 1999: Mindcraft: "O NT é muuuuito mais performático"
3. 2001: "É coisa de comunista" - "Linux é um câncer!"
4. 2002: "Peguem os fatos: somos mais econômicos!"
5. 2003: "A SCO falou que eles são ladrões - de propriedade intelectual"
6. 2006: "Eles são ladrões de propriedade intelectual!!!!"

Err... pra entender, 'assimilando alguns fatos', é melhor ler o artigo original do Glyn. Que foi provocado pela seguinte colocação do Ballmer:

"Well, I think there are experts who claim Linux violates our intellectual property. I'm not going to comment. But to the degree that that's the case, of course we owe it to our shareholders to have a strategy."

Glyn encerra seu artigo da seguinte maneira:

Since the indirect legal FUD failed, Microsoft has taken the last, desperate option it has available: to begin direct legal FUD. Hence Ballmer's cunningly veiled threats: he's not saying Microsoft will sue somebody in the GNU/Linux world over possible violations of intellectual property, it's just something that, well, he owes it to his shareholders (like Bill Gates and himself, presumably) to consider. But if Microsoft's track-record in the FUD stakes is anything to go by, it's not going to work – not least because it will pit Microsoft's Goliath against the David of GNU/Linux, in front of a crowd that always roots for the underdog.

Ballmer's comments do indicate, however, that Microsoft has reached the end-game as far as FUD is concerned. After patents, there is nothing it hasn't already tried. So what will Microsoft do then? Simple: lose.