"How can any company -- open source or proprietary -- feel comfortable working with a company that has taken such an aggressive, pay-us-or-else approach to its patent portfolio?"

Microsoft's claim that it has found 235 patent violations in open source software could be good news for Novell, if advice from Redmond is followed.

Almost everything that can be said has been said about the latest moves by Microsoft to create Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) about Linux. Countless pundits and analysts have pointed out that Microsoft threats are toothless.

After reading portions of the Fortune Magazine story which contains the latest sabre rattling by Microsoft in its battle against free software, we asked Linus Torvalds, father of the Linux kernel, if he had any comment on Microsoft's claims that the kernel knowingly infringes on 42 Microsoft patents.

"The Free Software movement is dead. Linux doesn't exist in 2007. Even Linus has got a job today." Controversial statements from the head of Microsoft's Linux Labs, Bill Hilf.

With one stroke, Microsoft has ended any illusion that it planned to try to build bridges with the open-source community. And it appears the primary reason for Microsoft's decision to go back on the public attack against Linux and other open-source software is the looming Version 3 of the Free Software Foundation's General Public License (GPL).

Microsoft claims that free software like Linux, which runs a big chunk of corporate America, violates 235 of its patents. It wants royalties from distributors and users. Users like you, maybe. Fortune's Roger Parloff reports.

"What was able to drain the marrow of life from my body and leave only hollowed-out shell of the man who once occupied this space? Six years ago I began working for Microsoft."