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Which rulings are you talking about? All I see on groklaw is the judge is asking both parties how they would like to proceed on copyright issues of the 37 APIs in question. There is no mention of headers or a ruling.

But it's so costly and difficult to run that particular legal marathon, hardly anybody has ever completed the course. (Really, has anybody _ever_ actually completed it?)

Novell, in SCO v. Novell

But that instance is legendary for how the respondent stuck to its defense, and the basic bad faith and scummy practices of the plaintiff.

And it only took 6 1/2 years, from initial complaint to Supreme Court refusing appeal.

So... yeah, at least ONE someone has actually completed the course. It may be the exception, though.

The White House has launched a new citizen input process that allows citizens to propose and post petitions to the White House suggesting government action on issues of interest. One such petition calls for the Administration to direct the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cease issuing software patents. The White House has issued a response to the petition, and you will note that it barely responds to what the petitioners are requesting. Why? Because the White House has no direct power to do what the petition asks.

So what has the public reaction to that response been? Why, another petition screaming even louder for the White House to do something. Right idea; wrong forum.

We have software patents in the U.S. because Congress has essentially said that "anything under the sun made by man" is patentable. This well worn quote was provided during testimony in the consideration and adoption of the Patent Reform Act of 1952, and since then the U.S. court system has done its best to embrace that concept, giving us patents on software, business method, and the human genome. The administrative branch of our federal government had no hand in either legislating or interpreting legislation.Those activities are the purview of Congress and the Courts. The Administration can only enforce the law of the land (and on occasion, influence legislation or file an amicus brief in a court case), so our right-headed petitioners who want to rid the U.S. of software patents need to shift targets. They need to focus on Congress and the Courts.

So what are the odds that Congress will actually ever act to revoke software patents? Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Greens, etc., would all probably peg those odds at less than one in a googol, since Congress appears to only answer to those who fund their campaigns with massive contributions beyond the reach of average voters. It is no secret that the largest players in the information technology sector all hold large patent portfolios, and it's a bit hard to imagine them walking away from the investment in patents willingly.

So because the two things are similar in one respect they should be treated as if they are the same?

Except that "software is mathematics, and patent law specifically excludes mathematics" is a widely cited argument against software patents.

Of course, whatever the fundamental identity is, few bits of software are derived through formal mathematical methods - and in that case it just shifts the "inventive step" from writing the code to transforming the real-world problem you want to solve into a formal specification from which you can derive algorithms.

Plus, I'm sure that its been true for many years that any substantial bit of electronics probably started life as "software" for a simulator. Not to mention the grey area of things like Field Programmable Gate Arrays where the "circuit" is just a data file saying how to hook the gates together.

Of course, the whole proposition is non-falsifiable unless someone can come up with a testable definition of what "x 'is' mathematics/y 'is not' mathematics" actually means. For legal purposes, I suspect it depends on a court trying to guess the intentions of whoever originally excluded mathematics from patent law (most of the 'mathematics' involved in computing theory post-dates the idea of patents by a long chalk... anybody know when the 'mathematics' clauses showed up?)

As MattBecker82 points out below, the real issue is that patents are far more disruptive to software business models, which rely on 'zero marginal cost', than they are to hardware production. Plus, computing has long been plagued with monopolistic practices, even without patents. The point of patents is to promote innovation and industry - its pretty clear that they don't do that for software.

Nor anyone who installed OSX on a hackintosh, for that matter.

huh? are you that clueless? does Psystar ring any bells?
They even bought PROPER Mac OS X licenses for EACH and every system that they installed it on and they still got sued into bankruptcy.

http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20110929014241932

http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=Psystar

Nor anyone who installed OSX on a hackintosh, for that matter.

huh? are you that clueless? does Psystar ring any bells?
They even bought PROPER Mac OS X licenses for EACH and every system that they installed it on and they still got sued into bankruptcy.

http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20110929014241932

http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=Psystar

Here is the latest article http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20111019223707715

"The trial date in Oracle v. Google, previously set for October 31, has been vacated. No new date has been set. "

So, my guess is that Google awaits the outcome for this trial.

Do you know any facts of this case? As I explained in numerous other posts to you and in the summary judgement, Psystar made modifications then mass installed their modified copies onto non-Apple machines:

The copies at issue here were not lawfully manufactured with the authorization of the copyright owner. As stated, Psystar made an unauthorized copy of Mac OS X from a Mac mini that was placed onto an "imaging station" and then used a "master copy" to make many more unauthorized copies that were installed on individual Psystar computers. The first-sale defense does not apply to those unauthorized copies.

Even if Psystar had not used a mass install, they still modified OS X and then redistributed it. USC 117(b) says specifically that the copyright owner is the only one that can give permissions to do so:

(b) Lease, Sale, or Other Transfer of Additional Copy or Adaptation. — Any exact copies prepared in accordance with the provisions of this section may be leased, sold, or otherwise transferred, along with the copy from which such copies were prepared, only as part of the lease, sale, or other transfer of all rights in the program. Adaptations so prepared may be transferred only with the authorization of the copyright owner.

Yes, she can. What she can't do is tell me that I can't modify a copy of the book I rightfully bought by, for example, writing on the margins or highlighting certain passages. In addition, she can't stop me from reselling a copy that I bought and modified by writing on the margins. She also most certainly can't sell the book under a license that says, "you're allowed to read it, but not to use under a table leg to help level it.

Highlighting a book or writing in the book margins is not what the courts have determined is "modification" and you know it. Changing the actual contents of the book is modification. In the case of Psystar it is clear that they modified OS X. It is clear they sold it. It is clear that they did not get Apple's permission. Psystar did not dispute that they did these things and lost in summary judgement.

Psystar infringed Apple's exclusive right to create derivative works of Mac OS X. It did this by replacing original files in Mac OS X with unauthorized software files. Specifically, it made three modifications: (1) replacing the Mac OS X bootloader with a different bootloader to enable an unauthorized copy of Mac OS X to run on Psystar's computers; (2) disabling and removing Apple kernel extension files; and (3) adding non-Apple kernel extensions. These modifications enabled Mac OS X to run on a non-Apple computer. It is undisputed that Psystar made these modifications (Def. Opp. 6—7).

As stated, Psystar made an unauthorized copy of Mac OS X from a Mac mini that was placed onto an "imaging station" and then used a "master copy" to make many more unauthorized copies that were installed on individual Psystar computers.

We do have some idea.

We know that Microsoft is approaching this in pretty much the most scummy and mafia-like way possible, using strong-arm tactics to make companies sign NDA agreements to prevent information leaking out that would allow other companies to protect themselves ahead of time.

We know that the patents that we have seen, mostly thanks to B&N having some balls and not falling for the MS's cheap tricks, are dubious and certainly not worth what Microsoft is demanding, given that you can licence Windows 7 for about the same price.

I personally know that I'll do my best to not give MS a dime of my money, though they sure know to take their rent from PC and phone manufacturers, and in fact I'm glad this story came up, because I was about to inadvertently buy some of their hardware, but come to think of it I won't, because who wants to subsidize shit like this?

Why did the old Sun website go poof right before trial then?

I cite this groklaw article to detail things: http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20110810152617279

"Google is being scrutinized by the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee for supposedly "cooking" their search results"

Are these accusations coming from the same source that scrapes Google search results and posts it as their own?

`Mr. Singhal posted a detailed post on Google's official blog describing how the company came to the conclusion that Bing was copying the Google search engine .. Google wants to compete with "algorithms built on core innovation, and not on recycled search results from a competitor"' link

link
link

"shockingly high licensing fees Microsoft was demanding" and "exorbitant per device royalty" are right from the filed Barnes & Noble complaint response. The wording is somewhat inflammatory, but those are exactly the terms the used when responding to the court.

That's an interesting question. There's a possibility Novell could sue them for slander of title. Ironically, this is one of the things SCO sued Novell over. See groklaw here.

Red Hat vs SCO, if I recall correctly, was an action brought by Red Hat *against* SCO - basically saying that SCO was making unfounded threats against Red Hat's customers, and interfering with their business (I might not have that exactly right, but I think it was something like that - essentially Red Hat was on offense, trying to get damages from SCO).

If anything, the fact that SCO never had the copyrights it was basing such threats against Red Hat's customers, strengthens Red Hat's case.

I just went back and found the very first filing by Red Hat which started the case, at Groklaw. Looks like I basically remembered it correctly:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090625114814535

I see no reason the Red Hat case can't proceed full-speed ahead now. . . except for the fact that SCO has no money or assets left for Red Hat to collect. Did SCO ever even exit bankruptcy? I don't think RH vs SCO can proceed until such time as SCO exits bankruptcy, and if SCO gets liquidated, it can never proceed because there will be no SCO left to sue.

Alsup did not deny Googles request - he said it was up to the magistrate judge (who he has handed off discovery issues to) to make a decision. Google and Oracle are still fighting like cats and dogs over the issue.

And the copyright brief is a brief, not a ruling, so this issue is still yet to be decided.

Maybe Slashdot contributors should leave legal reporting to the professionals...

Wha? Bilski and other cases have resulted from a far too relaxed view on patentability. Clearly invalid, obvious patents have indeed been granted due to not being specific enough. That was clarified again by the federal circuit. Long story short, too much has been patented on things that are not patentable.

That word "evil". I don't think it means what you think it means. This is evil: Plamondon. Do you see the difference?

The only way for it to cease existing requires a legal process, which even Google (who has a lot to gain by doing this) isn't even trying to do.

You might want to try removing that rock you've been living under. The patents are being attacked by Google, both at the USPTO and in court.

As just one example, Google is arguing laches - that Oracle, as the successor to Sun, sat on their rights too long. Also, that they relied on Sun's public assurances, such as you can see here, which is an equitable defense.

Oracle has already had most if its' claims thrown out. The rest will also die, or be settled for a trivial one-time payment, since the patents for the most part are close to expiry anyway.

Why didn't anyone link to the http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110815131443415 (Groklaw Debunk) .

The writers are soapbox trolls, who have ties to microsoft but have hid them. And they write articles about how GPL violations are in force (which it is the owner's decision to enforce or not)? Say it ain't so!

It is literally Florian quotes Naughton as his source, yet Naughton is basically a FUD machine.

I for one wonder how AAPL has avoided anti-trust litigation

That is explicitly because Microsoft has been waving the antitrust flag at Google for about 2 years now. In Europe and the US Microsoft gathered a group of their partners together and filed antitrust complaints against Google In Europe and USA.

That the construction of this "analysis" is without merit in terms of its conclusion "Bing more effective than Google" goes directly to the point. It means that the analysis is flawed in its premise, misleading, and probably deliberately so. Which then leads one to examine the motive for misleading research. For this, we usually don't have to go further than this lengthy treatise on the subject.

linkg to fosspatents just shows you don't even have a vague fucking clue what you're reading. You're reading a pro-MS blog where they are about as anti-google as it gets? This article is much about zero.

Wow, and they wrote an article anti-google? WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?!?

jeezus troll, get the fuck off slashdot.

How many times do we have to debunk this shit? I should hope once is enough. Maybe twice? Estoppel plus anti-FUD good enough?

linkg to fosspatents just shows you don't even have a vague fucking clue what you're reading. You're reading a pro-MS blog where they are about as anti-google as it gets? This article is much about zero.

Wow, and they wrote an article anti-google? WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?!?

jeezus troll, get the fuck off slashdot.

How many times do we have to debunk this shit? I should hope once is enough. Maybe twice? Estoppel plus anti-FUD good enough?

Whoa, fud spreader and microsoft lover. Google didn't jump in right away to defend their OEM's - there's about a million reasons for that, and guess what? Now they are starting to jump in, and be a lot more vocal about it too.

Meanwhile, your post about removing IE is 100% and total bull shit. It was not until Microsoft was found guilty of antitrust, in that same lawsuit where the documents show that they deliberately tied it in to the core of the OS, that they decided to make a version of the OS where it could be removed. IN EUROPE, which was then later removed as an option from europe. The rest of us were told to get bent. To this day, you still cannot 100% remove the browser as there are still dependencies in the OS itself.

The overall argument about browser tying is fact, not invalid. the IE situation is not even close to the first time they have done things to prevent interoperability. and MS has a history of being anti-linux..

Whoa, fud spreader and microsoft lover. Google didn't jump in right away to defend their OEM's - there's about a million reasons for that, and guess what? Now they are starting to jump in, and be a lot more vocal about it too.

Meanwhile, your post about removing IE is 100% and total bull shit. It was not until Microsoft was found guilty of antitrust, in that same lawsuit where the documents show that they deliberately tied it in to the core of the OS, that they decided to make a version of the OS where it could be removed. IN EUROPE, which was then later removed as an option from europe. The rest of us were told to get bent. To this day, you still cannot 100% remove the browser as there are still dependencies in the OS itself.

The overall argument about browser tying is fact, not invalid. the IE situation is not even close to the first time they have done things to prevent interoperability. and MS has a history of being anti-linux..

Apparently you've never read about James Plamondon and his "Technical Evangelists". The Combs-3096.pdf is a collection of his training manuals and describes "The Slog", and a real jewel you'll love called "The Stacked Panel". Then, I suppose, you've forgotten about the stuffed ISO committees, or the scam which gave expensive laptops to journalists in exchange for favorable stories about VISTA?

When his "work" was revealed in the Combs vs Microsoft trial Plamondon did a Mea Culpa, and now decries the tactics he used to help Microsoft establish market dominance. Too little, too late.

groklaw has good coverage of the trial as well

http://groklaw.net/

They should make a new rule. If you don't immediately(reasonable amount of time, 1-2 months?) sue another company once you found out they've made a product based on your patent, you give up any rights to said patent.

You shouldn't be able to sit on it and wait for it to be more "lucrative" to sue.

That's essentially what the doctrine of Laches (a form of Estoppel is all about. The plaintiff knew about a potential patent violation but sat on it for some length of time until the defendant actually committed themselves to a position where a lawsuit would be more harmful.

This is going to be part of Google's case against Oracle after having uncovered Jonathan Schwartz's blog entry congratulating Google on using Java technology.

It's a tough case to argue but it can be done.

If commentary on Groklaw concerning this very subject is any indication of probably outcome, then the case is pretty much already lost because of the doctrine of estoppel. It basically says "we were encouraged and supported in this route by the owners of Java and it became what it became in part because of that. You can't take that back now just because there are new owners." Permission to do what Google has done has already been given before Oracle took over. It seems unjust and childish somehow that it would be possible for new owners of something to step in and suddenly evict others from their intellectual property after they have been homesteading for so long.

The doctrine of estoppel defence is just one of Google's defences in this case, of course... Google will also, as much as possible, render as much of Oracle's IP useless in the process of defending their case. Oracle's arrogant aggressiveness, I hope, will result in a very humbling experience for them and give pause to anyone who wishes to assert software patents in court. The more frequently software patents are invalidated, the less likely new ones are to be approved in the future... and I pray that one fine day, they are simply dropped from the list of things that can be patented entirely.

Cant find direct evidence so quickly.. look for yourself here: groklaw.net documents for "Comes vs Microsoft" Iowa consumer lawsuit.
Maybe the text in GPs post is from the "Halloween documents", google that phrase to find them.
About OSS as threat to Microsoft: that's easily seen in Comes vs Microsoft exhibit PX 9695 where the Microsofties debate when they paid ITC for a study to compare TCO in 2002, and it showed Linux too favourable.
About FUD .. it becomes a lot more vague there. Well there's the "Evangelism is War" exhibit PX 3096 in the Comes vs Microsoft case for example. It's healthy for a company to want to win customers etc, but it's sociopathic IMHO if they want everybody else to lose instead.
Also about the TomTom patent case: why did TomTom choose FAT-32 as filesystem instead of, say, ext2? I believe this is because they wanted to be compatible with as many possible other systems so consumers could use their TomTom in combination with their own computers more easily, even if these home desktop computers ran MS Windows (97% market share?). And because MS Windows only recognizes three read/write filesystems namely their own FAT-16, FAT-32 and NTFS, as opposed to Linux which supports what, 79 different ones? (I'm ignoring ISO-9660 here because it's more for read-only). Software patents are a brake on innovation and a brake on healthy competition. In the USA and Japan only, of course.

Cant find direct evidence so quickly.. look for yourself here: groklaw.net documents for "Comes vs Microsoft" Iowa consumer lawsuit.
Maybe the text in GPs post is from the "Halloween documents", google that phrase to find them.
About OSS as threat to Microsoft: that's easily seen in Comes vs Microsoft exhibit PX 9695 where the Microsofties debate when they paid ITC for a study to compare TCO in 2002, and it showed Linux too favourable.
About FUD .. it becomes a lot more vague there. Well there's the "Evangelism is War" exhibit PX 3096 in the Comes vs Microsoft case for example. It's healthy for a company to want to win customers etc, but it's sociopathic IMHO if they want everybody else to lose instead.
Also about the TomTom patent case: why did TomTom choose FAT-32 as filesystem instead of, say, ext2? I believe this is because they wanted to be compatible with as many possible other systems so consumers could use their TomTom in combination with their own computers more easily, even if these home desktop computers ran MS Windows (97% market share?). And because MS Windows only recognizes three read/write filesystems namely their own FAT-16, FAT-32 and NTFS, as opposed to Linux which supports what, 79 different ones? (I'm ignoring ISO-9660 here because it's more for read-only). Software patents are a brake on innovation and a brake on healthy competition. In the USA and Japan only, of course.

Cant find direct evidence so quickly.. look for yourself here: groklaw.net documents for "Comes vs Microsoft" Iowa consumer lawsuit.
Maybe the text in GPs post is from the "Halloween documents", google that phrase to find them.
About OSS as threat to Microsoft: that's easily seen in Comes vs Microsoft exhibit PX 9695 where the Microsofties debate when they paid ITC for a study to compare TCO in 2002, and it showed Linux too favourable.
About FUD .. it becomes a lot more vague there. Well there's the "Evangelism is War" exhibit PX 3096 in the Comes vs Microsoft case for example. It's healthy for a company to want to win customers etc, but it's sociopathic IMHO if they want everybody else to lose instead.
Also about the TomTom patent case: why did TomTom choose FAT-32 as filesystem instead of, say, ext2? I believe this is because they wanted to be compatible with as many possible other systems so consumers could use their TomTom in combination with their own computers more easily, even if these home desktop computers ran MS Windows (97% market share?). And because MS Windows only recognizes three read/write filesystems namely their own FAT-16, FAT-32 and NTFS, as opposed to Linux which supports what, 79 different ones? (I'm ignoring ISO-9660 here because it's more for read-only). Software patents are a brake on innovation and a brake on healthy competition. In the USA and Japan only, of course.

"Allowing a particular technology to be continued rather than just sitting on it because they have no use for it should be applauded. I only wish IBM had done this with OS/2 many years ago. Who knows what would have become of it.

"Pursue a product development strategy that prevents IBM from claiming Windows compatibility. Prevent Windows applications from running correctly on OS/2.... Reposition OS/2 as impractical and incompatible in the minds of customers". link

This isn't about groklaw, but nothing shows for the judge asking anything other than telling Oracle to explain where it's magic numbers came from. Oh and potentially google seeking discovery sanctions on oracle but it has not been raised by google. That's about it. If this had actually linked groklaw somewhere, which it didn't. There is no "danger" for google in any form, nor did the judge imply it was plausible that google did anything. Where does TFS or the article make that shit up?

The only person who filed today was google, not the judge. So where does this shit come from? This article is fud.

Because as we all know, it's what happens on Pamela Jones's blog, not what happens in court, that matters. I mean, the IT World article has some direct quotes from the letter they are describing, but Pamela Jones didn't say it, and that's what matters.

This isn't about groklaw, but nothing shows for the judge asking anything other than telling Oracle to explain where it's magic numbers came from. Oh and potentially google seeking discovery sanctions on oracle but it has not been raised by google. That's about it. If this had actually linked groklaw somewhere, which it didn't. There is no "danger" for google in any form, nor did the judge imply it was plausible that google did anything. Where does TFS or the article make that shit up?

The only person who filed today was google, not the judge. So where does this shit come from? This article is fud.

Because as we all know, it's what happens on Pamela Jones's blog, not what happens in court, that matters. I mean, the IT World article has some direct quotes from the letter they are describing, but Pamela Jones didn't say it, and that's what matters.

This isn't about groklaw, but nothing shows for the judge asking anything other than telling Oracle to explain where it's magic numbers came from. Oh and potentially google seeking discovery sanctions on oracle but it has not been raised by google. That's about it. If this had actually linked groklaw somewhere, which it didn't. There is no "danger" for google in any form, nor did the judge imply it was plausible that google did anything. Where does TFS or the article make that shit up?

The only person who filed today was google, not the judge. So where does this shit come from? This article is fud.

Because as we all know, it's what happens on Pamela Jones's blog, not what happens in court, that matters. I mean, the IT World article has some direct quotes from the letter they are describing, but Pamela Jones didn't say it, and that's what matters.

where was the "florian mueller contributed to the article" and it's completely unreliable warning?

This isn't about groklaw, but nothing shows for the judge asking anything other than telling Oracle to explain where it's magic numbers came from. Oh and potentially google seeking discovery sanctions on oracle but it has not been raised by google. That's about it. If this had actually linked groklaw somewhere, which it didn't. There is no "danger" for google in any form, nor did the judge imply it was plausible that google did anything. Where does TFS or the article make that shit up?

The only person who filed today was google, not the judge. So where does this shit come from? This article is fud.

where was the "florian mueller contributed to the article" and it's completely unreliable warning?

This isn't about groklaw, but nothing shows for the judge asking anything other than telling Oracle to explain where it's magic numbers came from. Oh and potentially google seeking discovery sanctions on oracle but it has not been raised by google. That's about it. If this had actually linked groklaw somewhere, which it didn't. There is no "danger" for google in any form, nor did the judge imply it was plausible that google did anything. Where does TFS or the article make that shit up?

The only person who filed today was google, not the judge. So where does this shit come from? This article is fud.

"Oracle v. Google - Google Moves to Supplement Its Invalidity Defenses"

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110712074100640

But none of that really matters; Google should have bought the Nortel patents and sued the hell out of Apple.

Maybe Google took that "Don't be evil" mission statement of theirs more seriously than we thought?

Or, maybe even Google, as a lone 500lb gorilla, couldn't hope to outbid the whole consortium of 500lb gorillas who actually bought the patents (two of whom are well known for having supervillain-class vaults full of gold in their basement vaults)? Even if they had, you can rest assured that the unsuccessful gorillas would have climbed up to the next level and started rolling barrels stuffed with anti-trust accusations and their own patent portfolios at Google for the next 5 years.

But I have yet to see a rational argument for why physical inventions but not virtual inventions should be patentable.

There are lots of clear rational arguments against software patents

Freedom of speech;

Software source code is a form of Speech; it is a method of communication from one programmer to another about mathematical concepts and their usage. Free software, in particular (though probably not most "Open Source" software) is often political speech. As such, under the UN Convention on Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights and the Constitution of the USA, it is the most highly protected form of free speech. Software patents attempt to interfere with that and are clearly criminal.

mathematics / algorithms

A program is; simply; a large integer. Running a program is, exactly running a series of mathematical operations on that large integer. Mathematics is explicitly recognised as non patentable in most patent regimes.

A similar argument can be stated in terms of algorithms. Software patents always claim a "method and aparatus". The reason for this that a pure algorithm is recognized as not patentable, only things with

the nature of software development

Software is developed differently from bridges electronics and other areas of physical engineering. In other areas we much more start with a design, apply known techniques and get to a given end. New forms of bridges come out of separate explicit research where prototypes are built and actual work is done separately from the development process. This means that advances come more slowly and explicitly from research to development. In software, every new software development effort includes and should include new ideas explicitly. Once these ideas are developed it is very easy to package them up into libraries and make them available. The same ideas are re-invented repeatedly. At the same time, it is almost unheard of for a software developer to benefit from reading a software patent. Finally, a bridge builder will probably take days or weeks to consider a single idea. A programmer will probably use a hundred patentable ideas in a single day. The only reason that the programmer is able to work at all is that software patents are a new idea so 99.9% of those ideas will already have been used by someone else. In other areas, a patent search taking several days may be done for every new idea.

• there is no need for patents because ideas are continually re-invented;
• software ideas are cheap; the loss of one single new idea is not a big worry
• patents do not provide the benefit they should to the software development process.
• software can be developed by home developers who can't afford patent lawyers.
• the cost of patents to software development is much higher than to other areas
• handling software patents properly would need 1000 lawyers for every programmer

I'm not nearly the first person to put these forward. If you haven't heard them before, then you might want to have a look at Groklaw, the league for programming freedom. There is a long list of reasons given on the end software patents web site.

Bruce is 100% right here. There are two kinds of contribution agreement; those which promise to continue distributing the software on the same terms as you distributed it to them and those that cheat you. Canonical's agreements are the type which cheat you, whilst the agreements of the Fedora project, the FSF and most other FOSS projects are not. Groklaw has already done some serious investigation of Canonical and project harmony and that's probably the place to start.

What you want to watch out for is groups which take your code and establish a special advantage for themselves. Apart from the article above you might find the article "How to Tell When an Open Source Foundation Isn't About You" very useful. There are many examples of this danger, Oracle's recent mess being the latest. If a project won't accept your contribution then import it into Gitorious and fork it. Provide your changes as a patch and look for others doing the same. Eventually, when the project closes up you will have the basis of a free fork. Contributing to Canonical really looks like a thing to avoid unless it's really clear it's going to save you lots of effort and it's clear that someone else is maintaining a separate archive of the software ready to fork.

Bruce is 100% right here. There are two kinds of contribution agreement; those which promise to continue distributing the software on the same terms as you distributed it to them and those that cheat you. Canonical's agreements are the type which cheat you, whilst the agreements of the Fedora project, the FSF and most other FOSS projects are not. Groklaw has already done some serious investigation of Canonical and project harmony and that's probably the place to start.

What you want to watch out for is groups which take your code and establish a special advantage for themselves. Apart from the article above you might find the article "How to Tell When an Open Source Foundation Isn't About You" very useful. There are many examples of this danger, Oracle's recent mess being the latest. If a project won't accept your contribution then import it into Gitorious and fork it. Provide your changes as a patch and look for others doing the same. Eventually, when the project closes up you will have the basis of a free fork. Contributing to Canonical really looks like a thing to avoid unless it's really clear it's going to save you lots of effort and it's clear that someone else is maintaining a separate archive of the software ready to fork.

if you think having an ex hedge fund manager own the OIN has something to do with why you wouldn't trust it, I'd like to remind you of a: the list of licensees (which is huge - google and redhat for two significant names -microsoft and apple quite clearly absent) and B: If you had a fucking clue you'd have signed up with OIN last year to prevent SCO/MS/Attachmate threats in the first place.

From groklaw:

Here's how it works. The patents of OIN members and licensees are licensed to each other royalty-free in perpetuity. Even on a sale, the license remains in force for all pre-existing members/licensees. If you are a member/licensee of OIN prior to the closing on the Novell deal, then, you are covered. The proposed closing date is January 23rd, so you still have time to join OIN and get the benefit of the license to those patents. Then, if Microsoft shows up at your door, you can say, "Thanks, but no thanks. I already have a license." So here's what it all adds up to, by my reading: if ever you were thinking of joining the Open Invention Network, this is the sensible time to do it, as long as you get it done before this sale closes and that door shuts with respect to the Novell patents.

So yeah, keep saying that a hedge fund manager is somehow untrustworthy, and I'll stick with being in the clear to give the finger to MS and SCO while they spread all the FUD they want.

That's completely ridiculous. Microsoft didn't contribute a single line of code to those phones. Any patents they claim are likely periphery, just as with the Nook.

Some choice quotes from the Nook filing:

25. After sending the proposed license agreement, Microsoft confirmed the shockingly high licensing fees Microsoft was demanding, reiterating its exorbitant per device royalty for NookTM, and for the first time demanding a royalty for Nook ColorTM which was more than double the per device royalty Microsoft was demanding for NookTM. On information and belief, the license fees demanded by Microsoft are higher than what Microsoft charges for a license to its entire operating system designed for mobile devices,

43. Via the license price it demands and the onerous restrictions and termination provisions that would effectively require the negotiation of a new license each and every time a hardware or software update is made, Microsoft is leveraging the '372, '780, '522, '551, and '233 patents and its other patents to render the AndroidTM Operating System and other open source operating systems uncompetitive and unpalatable vis-a-vis Microsoft's own operating systems and force potential licensees to purchase Windows Phone 7 despite the fact that its patents claim only trivial and non-essential design elements, not an entire operating system.

And let's not forget that old chestnut the FAT patent. Nothing like rent charging your competitors just for being compatible. It's not like there aren't 100 other file systems they could use on flash cards, if just Windows supported any of them.
Note that when Barnes and Noble stood up to them, Microsoft didn't even have the balls to bring it out. It's pure mob tactics, and like true vampires they shun the light.

The ones listed in the B&N response:

5,778,372: Remote retrieval and display management of electronic document with incorporated images

A browser remotely retrieves electronic documents from a remote computer network for viewing by a user. For enhancing responsiveness, the browser initially displays an electronic document without a background image so that the electronic document is initially displayed more quickly. The browser also prioritizes downloading of embedded images of the document by their incorporation in the currently visible portion of the electronic document. Further, the browser dynamically creates additional connections for retrieving resources incorporated into the electronic document from the remote computer network.

6,339,780: Loading status in a hypermedia browser having a limited available display area

Described herein is a portable computer having a limited display area. An Internet or other hypermedia browser executes on the portable computer to load and display content in a content viewing area. During times when the browser is loading content, the browser displays a temporary, animated graphic element over the content viewing area. The graphic element is removed after the content is loaded, allowing unobstructed viewing of the loaded content.

5,889,522: System provided child window controls

New varieties of child window controls are provided as system resources that application programs may exploit. The preferred embodiment of the present invention provides a dynamic link library (DLL) for implementing the new child window controls as part of an operating system. The new child window controls include a header bar control for providing header bars in application programs. The new controls also include a hot key control that allows a user to view and edit hot key combinations. The new controls further include a tab control for establishing tabs that differentiate amongst pages in user interfaces provided by application programs. An image list data type is defined and functions are provided for manipulating the image list data type. Image lists include multiple like-sized images that are stored efficiently in a single bitmap.

6,891,551: Selection handles in editing electronic documents

A computer system and method for highlighting and selecting elements of electronic documents is disclosed. In one embodiment, a selection area identifies an initial selection of data, and one or more selection handles appear on the selection area to allow dynamic resizing of the selection area to select a larger or smaller portion of data or number of items.

6,957,233: Method and apparatus for capturing and rendering annotations for non-modifiable electronic content

A s

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110427052238659

"Microsoft has a scheme, Barnes & Noble asserts, to dominate Android and make it undesirable to device manufacturers and customers by demanding "exorbitant license fees and absurd licensing restrictions" -- a license fee that it says is more than Microsoft charges for its entire operating system for mobile devices, Windows 7."

Correction: 46 down, 122 to go.

There's seven patents in question, with a total of 168 claims being made. 17 of those claims from one patent were just rejected. Two other patents were also examined with claims rejected. Groklow projects that a total of about 48 claims will survive after all is said and done. After that, the question is how many of those 48 are independent claims.

Surprising statistic: over 90% of claims are rejected when reexamined. Really?!?