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Microsoft Litigation vs. Linux NTFS Kernel Support
OrenWolf writes: "Microsoft has threatened to sue the current developers of r/w NTFS support in the Linux Kernel. Details can be found in the current Kernel Traffic post." No, your honor, we aren't a monopoly.
I'm not really sure of the details (I don't follow the kernel list), but I'm sure someone can expand on this.
Jeff V. Merkey used to work at Novell on Netware. He then left and went and developed something (a cleanroom NDS?) for a startup that had a fairly close relationship with MS. (I think the idea was MS was going to use this to combat Netware - like I said, I'm hazy on the details.)
Anyway, as part of that, (I think) he got access to the NT code, which means potentially MS might have a case, if he signed NDAs
Summary: Jeff V. Merkey had some prior realtionship with MS, which might give them a case. The rest is just hazy memories - I'll dig and try and remember exactly what was going on.
Linux Kernel mailing list archive, with 133 messages from Jeff V. Merkey in the last 26 days, including his posts about Microsoft.
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Wouldn't NTFS compatability in Linux allow anyone with a Linux micro-distribution(on a floppy) access the information on a computer running NT on NTFS? AFAIK the current situation is that even with local access, unless you have a l/p for NT you can't get to the info stored on the NTFS partition, even with a boot floppy.If so I could definately see this as a valid reason for Microsoft's anger, although not for grounds on which to sue.
- Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.
So, when are the t-shirts printed with NTFS code coming out?
Okay, Jeff V. Merkey's company, the Timpanogas Research Group is a Microsoft ISV. Now this doesn't mean anything in itself, but some MS ISVs do have access to the NT code.
Here is a (google cached) post about some problems Merkey had with his open source NDS implementation - Novell wanted him to sign a NDA.
Read this:
and this:
Now if this David Gobel person really did write "NTFS for MS", and now he has some kind of relationship with Merkey, Merkey's company or Linux, there could be a problem.
Also, read http://www.zd net .com/eweek/stories/general/0,11011,2426902,00.html for some more background (okay, it's ZdNet, so don't take it too seriously!)
Of course, I still don't know the details - just enough to annoy some people if I've got it all wrong!
Jeff Merkey is the head of a for-profit company, Timpaganos (or some such thing). There was some agreement between his company and M$, the exact nature of which I don't know.
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When Jeff said, "Microsoft has threatened us with litigation due to our support of Linux NTFS development" the <b>us</b> he was referring to was his company, not <i>linux</i> proper.
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Jeff was giving people a binary NTFS tool to help people recover their file systems after they got damaged by some bugs in the linux NTFS drivers. This is probably what Jeff is referring to when he says, "Microsoft demanded that we delete any and all NTFS tools we had been providing to customers..."
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Micro$oft is NOT threatening linux. M$ is NOT trying to have the NTFS driver removed from linux proper. This is not clear in the linuxcare article, but is clear if you followed all of Jeff's (sometimes logic-challenged) posts. One final note, you have to mentally tone down posts from Jeff, he tends to be <understatement> overly dramatic </understatement> and has a strange combative/cooperative cycle of posts.
The article itself states that they asked MS for a license which allowed them to use the NTFS specs. An fs which was completely stolen^H^Hdeveloped by MS :) But thats not the issue; iirc MS has licensed NTFS and they own the specs. If you want to use it in another way then accessing the available NT routines you'll need a licence. Like it or not; thats MS decision and you can only respect it.
The way I see it these folks decided to break the agreement (see quote) and therefor also threw away their right to make use of the MS specifications and routines which allowed them to access the NTFS internals. So? Is MS evil just because they are defending their product here? Sure, MS usually takes actions which are highly controversial, their development of NTFS is right among those IMHO (remember hpfs?). But that does not mean that every action taken by MS is evil/monopolistic/unfair/dictating/ by default. Besides, please do not forget that we only see 1 side of the story here. We didn't even get to see the entire letter send by MS.
Anyway; these people should stop whining IMHO. If they want to develop NTFS based programs and don't want to be restricted by the will of MS they should do what other did before them; buy the appropiate MS development tools which gives them the right to use the NTFS specs in their own software. Whether that software is Linux or Windows based is irrelevant.
Yes Andre, they did, they accussed me of knowingly conspiring with Linus...
That bastard Linus, he has entered a conspiracy to destroy Microsoft!
I think, in general, that OSS gives Microsoft fits because it is something that they can't make go away by buying it. If your are used to innovating with your pocketbook that would really screw things up, maybe this is the beginning of plan B: Innovate with lawsuits.
Icebox
Its not that simple.
Even if the people writing the code have written it from scratch and both they and Microsoft agree on that, they might have signed an NDA. (in this case, IIRC from reading LKML, that is what has happened)
The problem then comes down to being able to demonstrate that you haven't used any information provided under the NDA in writing the code. That can be tricky.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
There is misinformation here - the current Linux support for NTFS is nothing to do with Jeff Merkey or his company. AFAIK Microsoft has not sent any such threats to the developers of the Linux driver.
Reference: Linux NTFS page