Ya know, a thought just struck me. Everyone's all grousing and freaking out about how Microsoft is gonna put the hammer down on Linux with this lawsuit. They're really not. Remember when Microsoft was threating Linux with their 200+ patents a few years back? Well, it was determined back then that Linux had nothing to fear, because the likes of IBM, the FSF, and others who have their own sizable patent portfolios and have a vested interested in protecting Linux would step in, and any legal jab that MS would make against Linux would be countered by these companies in a battle of mutually assured destruction.

MS won't ever go after Linux with patents, period. It's too dangerous. However, that doesn't stop them from wielding them for every FUD possibility imaginable, and Tom Tom is just one of those. This lawsuit they have will simply be used for more anti-Linux propaganda to try and scare other companies away from using Linux and (they hope) towards them. Or if not them, anybody who's *NOT* Linux.