Companies should not fall for the temptations of purchasing a license for Microsoft's intellectual property with their open source applications because it allows the software giant to "divide and conquer" the software market.
The comments were made by Eben Moglen, co-author of the forthcoming third version of the General Public License (GPL) and founder of the Software Freedom Law Center.
Typifying open source applications as community software, Moglen argued that it requires a communal defense against patents from companies like Microsoft.
But Moglen told vnunet.com in a video interview that some in the community will be tempted to make a "private peace with the invader".