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Microsoft's Overlooked Code Theft
Like2Byte was one of many readers to point out that "Newsforge is reporting that Microsoft was fined by a French court for three million francs "because it illegally included another company's proprietary source code in SoftImage 3D," something which (as the story points out) went mostly unremarked at the time. This is one of the points mentioned by Peruvian Senator David Villanueva Nuñez in his response to Microsoft FUD.
The congressman's letter was already posted twice.
The owls are not what they seem
...just how much GPL'd code in in M$ software.
from a slashdot article to get a full post for yourself?
**Life is too short to be serious**
Hasn't this already been posted here once or twice already.. this is one of the few sites I get net news at, and I know I've heard this several times..
But just how much straw will break this camel's back?
It wasn't "outright" code theft. There was a licensing agreement that was violated.
Microsoft has been known in the past to include BSD code. (It's TCP/IP stack is one example.) This "habit" is probably why they don't like GPL code - they prefer to quietly integrate the code.
Why another article? Oh ffs shut up. Why another article? Because Microsoft getting fined for this sort of thing will garner more attention than the Peruvian Senator. Although, truth be known, I want him as a US Senator.
My reality check bounced.
FYI (for your info
I wouldn't be surprised if they start supporting whoever is against him politically.
They have so much political power, it's nice to see that other countries are not necessarily "drinking the kool aid".
..."TRUSTWORTHY" computing. :-) I wonder if the MS-DRM scheme can protect non-MS rights? Seriously, I have to wonder why this was missed by all the anti-MS nuts out there until now.
Murphy was an optimist.
In any case, I find it hard to believe Microsoft would have done this. Not because they are saints, but because certainly they would have learned from the 'Stacker' incident (Which was a patent infrigment, not copyright, but similiar to this case in many ways).
Microsoft might be evil, but they aren't stupid. I'll reserve final judgement until more facts are known.
If this news came out in September of 2001, it was probably (figuratively) buried in the rubble of the World Trade Center.
A shocked and grieving nation could be forgiven for missing a legal event or two in France.
SoftImage is a Canadian-based CGI software company that was bought out by MS, plugged to Hollywood to be used in such films as Jurassic Park, and then promptly sold off. MS has since sold SoftImage and has no control of the code they write. It seems that the code in question was actually being used by SoftImage before it was bought out by MS. (although under license). This just seems like a red herring to shovel dirt on MS over an inherited problem from buying out SoftImage. Seems like the /. crowd is getting desperate for MS dirt to me...
They did get left with the mess by the previous company who reneged on the deal in the first place. The initial piracy was not their doing it got got handed over when they bought the company
Help the scientists free the world from the evil curse of the dracula
Call the BSA!
If I said "Murder is wrong", and then one of my kids went out and killed someone and I was fined 3 million francs for it, can't I still say that my viewpoint is correct?
Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
didn't the franc go away with the advent of the Euro? Is this, perhaps, a very old story?
I can't remember the title, but it's the one where they spy on this kid and take his code to make their software.... the guy from Shawshank redemption plays the Bill Gates type character, and some nutjob plays the "hero" computer guy. Anyway, Microsoft really is as evil as the movies say, huh?
~ now you know
I wonder if this could be cited as a reason to call in an audit on Microsoft. After all, there's now more evidence that they pirated software than the school systems they are accusing.
Miko O'Sullivan
I wrote modules of an operating system in sixth grade as part of my Introduction to Computers class. Granted, I didn't know a thing, and my OS consisted of printing "Hello World" and asking the user what kind of ice cream they liked.
But I've just discovered that my code is at the heart of the Longhorn project. Apparently, the new version of Windows is going to be called "Windows Hello World, Ice Cream Edition."
See, the problem with that theory, is that Microsoft knew what the deal was before they bought SoftImage. Right before MS bought SoftImage, they sent them over to Syn'X to present this new deal, i.e., hand over the rights to your code or it's no go. They probably thought Syn'X would cave in, but they walked instead, and that killed SoftImage's usefulness to MS. It doesn't take a lot of deep speculation to imagine that MS/SoftImage probably had some commitments with the product already, and got kind of burned when Syn'X pulled out of the deal.
Tina
tinahdee beautiful jewelry: silver, gold, gemstones tinahdee.etsy.com tinahdee.com facebook.com/beautifuljewelry
That's only like $500,000. Given that Microsoft has $40B on hand, were I a French court, I would have fined them a lot more, just for the hell of it.
Balmer called the GPL a cancer for intellectual property. What is oughtright theft? Cardiac arrest?
That arguement was a load of crap anyway - as many have posted, the GPL *PROTECTS* authors' IP rights in ways you don't get from BSD-style licenses. Don't like the terms? DON'T USE THE CODE. Exactly the same calculation with MS Eulas. The BSD license allows more or less unfettered code-poaching, which is what authors who use that license prefer. Cool, either way.
413,882.61 or so USD, francs don't really 'exist' anymore anyway. (www.xe.com/ucc)
What?
I've seen stories slip through /.'s fingers for a few days before, but this news is so old, I had to consult my "submit story" failures to find it!
2001-12-05 17:42:33 Microsoft France busted for Software Piracy (articles,news) (rejected)
Actually was a not half-bad movie, if you can get past Ryan Phillipe (sp?) as a l33t computer geek.
Tim Robbins' portrayal of the evil CEO was spooky - part Bill Gates, and to me part Steve Jobs. Hell, he even LOOKED a lot like a hip Gates.
VERY overboard movie in terms of the paranoia/conspiracy theory angle, but still, a fun watch, and a fair bit of industry jokes aimed squarely at Microsoft.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
When compared to Windows?
;)
Ummm... yeah.
In fact, where the hell have you BEEN?
The Peruvian Congressman's reply to the Microsoft FUD has to be one of the most well thought out, and level-headed arguments against MS that I have read. It's a rather long read, but you should check it out.
--
I've gotten to the point where no news of Microsoft's misdeeds would shock me anymore.
Microsoft is cutting up babies to make their user manuals! So what.
They're attempting to terraform the earth's atmosphere to more closely resemble Bill Gates' home planet! Big deal.
Steve Ballmer has Stalin's brain implanted into his skull to make him a more effective leader! What else is new.....
Seriously, anything you could say about something evil that Microsoft does...I wouldn't disbelieve it. I don't know if this speaks more about Microsoft's trashed reputation, or my jaded attitude toward MegaCorp(tm) style policies.
MS's involvement in this was pretty minimal. They bought Softimage, there was no, shall we say "meeting of the minds" and they soon gave up and sold 'em off. Any IP violations were pretty much Softimage-responsability and not their corporate masters du jure.
Of course Softimage is notable for being, as far as I know, the only shop that was ever bought up by MS that then succesfully fought it's way free.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
The biggest mystery is the obscurity of the story until now. "It looks to me as if the whole U.S. press missed the story," says Joe Barr, a technology journalist who frequently writes for IDG's LinuxWorld.
So let me get this straight. Two weeks after Sept. 11 and in the middle of the anthrax attacksthe U.S. press missed a story about $400,000 fine issued (IN FRANCE) against Microsoft (with $40 Billion on hand) for putting unauthorized code in an obscure software package that it no longer owns (Avid). No shit. Really! They must be biased!
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
Microsoft has already been down this road with file compression code that went into MS DOS 6.
They're a business plain and simple. I'm sure they evaluate every decision and every public comment carefully in terms of cost, benefit, risk of getting sued and for how much money.
Just because some people [like me] hold that ethics exist which are above this kind of cost/benefit analysis does not mean that MS cannot make a successful business strategy from subjecting ethics to fiscally responsible analysis.
Shoot, it could well be argued that their entire antitrust trial is just a continuation of similar business practices. There may even be some at Microsoft who are actually surprised (but will not admit it for a few years) that they were able to continue as long as they have with their strategy.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
He got $422,000.
Can you even Buy SoftImage for that price?
I don't have the numbers on me here but I seriously doubt it. At least not outfit an office with that much. Shoot Maya and Max can top 50 grand per workstation. They are not even near SoftImage's price range as it's directed mainly towards Hollywood.
If you really hate france, now is the time to send out emails to every travel magazine and
newspaper and chatroom in the world telling tourists to stay away from france because of the danger of being contaminated with mad cow disease or foot and mouth disease and bringing these plagues back to their home countries and infecting their fellow countrymen with these diseases. The french tourist industry will suffer because the filthy unsanitary lifestyle of the french bastards will scare tourists away! Did you know that the bubanic plagues and the black plagues of the middle ages were started in france because of the dirty lifestyle of the french bastards?
All dieases can be traced back to the french. They are nothing but monkeys! Their wine sucks!
lolololololololololo
desolé, je ne pouvais pas m'en empecher...
Still, seems sort of funny for a news site to openly admit that they are, in general, biased against a certain company.
__
Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall
SoftImage was a temporary subsidiary of MicroSoft, purchased then sold. They specialized in 3D CAD, mainly for the film industry. They were a pretty independent operation off in Canada, not really a part of the core Redmond culture.
I was beta testing "Stacker" just before M$ did the
same exact thing...they had a "loaner/review"
contract for it and Bill say's "Ship It" to wit
his marketing deputy at the time say's "But we
don't own it" and Bill replies back "It's ok by the
time they sue us we'll make ten times what they
can sue for"...this was testimony in the original
monopoly cause..guess Slashdot and the rest didn't
hear that one either eh..?? anyone ever hear of
"Drivespace"....duhhhhhhh.....!!!!
There are probably over 50 companies that
bastard has done this to....
BTW...Carl White of Stacker sued and got
millions but still folded his business and M$
wound up with the code....
Winmodems...Winprinters...Win does it end...??
Like Steve "Monkey-Boy" Ballmer?
I wonder what the Greek is for "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!"?
--
E_NOSIG
Maybe MS isn't any more at fault than the school systems they are threatening, but if we hold them to the same standards as they hold others, they are guilty. MS is willing to claim that the owner of a computer system is guilty of piracy if that system has any unlicensed software on it, regardless of who actually put the software there. OK, now we hold them to the same standard: if you distribute programs without the appropriate licenses to do so, you're responsible, no excuses.
Miko O'Sullivan
When asked what I think of using Microsoft software, I simply reply, "It's against my moral and professional standards to encourage the use of software written by criminals." The events of the past 20 years have shown that Microsoft has little regard for either it's customers, or the law.
Think about this one, folks. I know there are many arguments for/against open source, but the most powerful one may be that of ethics. You can argue up and down about the relative merits of the software, but Microsoft is undeniably a criminal organization - a fact brought to light by the courts of the United States and other countries. The next time someone asks why you don't run a Microsoft OS, simply reply that you don't feel like funding organized crime.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Maybe the way around DMCA and etc is to create a LLC that operates out of your home, the "work" being to evaluate DVDs, CDs, blah blah whatever you want, copy shit rip CDs software etc... just make sure the LLC has almost no assets. If you are ever SPA'd or sued under the DMCA, just roll over dead, declare the LLC bankrupt, and start a new one...
Would this work?
< sarcasm > How many FRANCS does MS have? Hmm? < /sarcasm >
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
This is probably the most insightful comment I've read today.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Wasn't there back in the good old days of MS-DOS 5 and MS-DOS 6 a program called Stacker from a company called Stac? In MS-DOS 6 MS provided a product called Double Space. Stac sued MS and MS was found guilty of stealing code from Stacker and MS had to pay an undisclosed sum to Stac.
Microsoft's Overlooked Code Theft? No, SoftImage's overlooked code-theft, and timothy's lame (but effective) attempt to drum up today's anti MS babble.
"A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force." -William Blum
The Free Source community is an offshoot of the same ideals, where cooperation is encouraged and revelation celebrated. What Microsoft has done here is not so different from what Linux Torvalds did to Minux. Just as his actions drove Minux out of business, so too will Microsoft proceed to drive Linux into the ground.
In the end, the winners are the users. For us, things just get more free and easier to use, which is what technology is all about. Empowerment to be our best.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
This is not terribly surprising, considering that Microsoft has been down with OCC (other companies' code) for years.
Don't forget about one of the best arguments against Microsoft's FUD regarding the evils of OSS:
OSS is what keeps Windows connected to the Internet
-D
Claire Forlani's trailer was parked beside our driveway.
As if you all care...
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
or not
Gizmos Gagets For Ninjas
Microsoft was also caught in 1995 using bits of Apple's Quicktime for Windows in an MS product. See this old cnet article for more details.
In that case, they blamed it on a subcontractor. It's been speculated that the big Apple/Microsoft deal at that time (to keep Office for Mac and to bundle IE with Macs, plus a big MS investment in Apple) may have been to settle a copyright infringment claim.
I'm the same, basically no more shock value. What truely surprises me, though, is how fans of the company aren't shocked either and remain fans! If I found a company that made a burger I really loved, then found out they were cutting up babies to add flavor, I'd turn around and dislike the company. It's amazing how some fans make excuses for all of the bad press (I have a co-worker notorious for this), but at some point any reasonable human being will have to see all this bad press is created because of a bad company. It's hard to believe so many people choose to remain so blind.
It doesn't bother me that I'm no longer shocked. It bothers me that fans of MS and their software aren't shocked.
Developers: We can use your help.
-Patrick "real deal" Bateman
It would be more accurate to say Microsoft bought Softimage for unclear reasons, tried to Microsoftify it to some extent, decided it wasn't really worth owning, and found Avid as an exit strategy. Softimage was completely owned by Microsoft, and the decision on what to do with Softimage was made by Microsoft.
So how are things up there in the tundra...is Marche Michel still around?!?
- adam
How much is that, about 10 bucks American?
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Has anyone seen Anti trust the movie? I'm pretty sure thats as close to the truth as possible. :)
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
Bill Gates can do anything he likes. But, you can't do anything to him. It's a child's dream.
If this is the stolen part is core technology or technology you have become dependent upon (let's say disk compression technology so you can buy smaller disks for all your employees) what happens to you when the company is caught, gets fined enough that they to go belly up or stop support of the technology, and suddenly the owner of the technology wants either license fees or for you to purchase their "disk stacker" software?
This could be crippling and/or exhorbinantly expensive.
http://www.base.com/software-patents/articles/stac . tml
Microsoft Corp. was found guilty of patent infringement and ordered to pay $120 million in damages to a tiny California firm in a rare setback for the giant computer software company.
However, the federal jury on Wednesday also ruled that the violation was not willful and awarded Microsoft $13.6 million on a counterclaim against Stac Electronics, which makes a data-compression program called Stacker.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
i know this will get modded, if at all, flamebait or offtopic, but i think the expression FUD has reached over-saturation. it's not really applicable in this case, beyond adding a veneer of bias to the article summary, and often is over applied in posts anyway.
i hereby offer an appeal to move away from the thick, dripping brush of FUD henceforth. let's see things as they are and not make summary pronouncements, eh? (and then we can unfreeze hell.)
go get it
You, sir, are a gay faggot.
It was probably missed because it was probably posted to a French Web Site. (Which of course requires everything to be in French and who wants to bother translating French News)
In politics, that's known as "innoculation": you accept a small penalty for a problem so that you avoid bigger problems later. I wouldn't be surprised if MS did that here.
Miko O'Sullivan
If I said "murder is wrong", and then went out and killed someone, does my statement make me any less guilty?
Microsoft will go into negotiations with a company. Their engineers will also be working with the prospective company while they happen. The deal goes sour, so Microsoft pulls out. But some schmuck engineering manager or possibly some exec decides it's not worth it to re-write the code from scratch, let alone create a "clean room" version. The code stays, it's not published, it's hidden from view and few know about it because the software is "closed source." This fact makes me laugh when Microsoft says Freedom Software "violoates IP" -- because Microsoft has blantantly plagerized actual source code verbatim over and over!
Microsoft has done this to such companies as IBM, Digital, SCO, Pen Computing and Micrografx -- none of which would ever see a dime in compensated, even though their code is in Windows today. Another, non-software product where this has happened has been the Microsoft erogonomic mouse (cannot remember the company's name). Verbatim rips of the design, down to the tenth of a millimetter. As Microsoft is finding out, it can no longer sustain the legal issues of this common practice in its own organization.
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
Is that we're convinced that money is the solution to everything. So, if we want M$ to stop doing something, we try to fine it a significant portion of its assets. On the other hand, in some countries (such as, I think, France), the way to get a country to change is not to hit it in the pocketbook, but to hit it where it might really have an effect -- in PR. (Although, I will admit, they're not doing a very good job of publicising this case.) Anyway, if done properly, either case will result in fewer sales of M$ products, so how much money the court charges in fines won't matter (or so we can hope).
I mean, why do you think the Microsoft "Shared Source" agreement prevents you from suing Microsoft over IP violations???
.-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
Not that im an M$ advocate by *any* means, just curious if the infraction occured before they bought SI, and just got stuck with the legal issues when it was discovered?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Some gems from the response letter:
"... in defining any kind of purchase, the buyer sets conditions which relate to the proposed use of the good or service. From the start, this excludes certain manufacturers from the possibility of competing, but does not exclude them "a priori", but rather based on a series of principles determined by the autonomous will of the purchaser, and so the process takes place in conformance with the law. And in the Bill it is established that *no one* is excluded from competing as far as he guarantees the fulfillment of the basic principles."
"... the huge costs caused by non-functioning software ("blue screens of death", malicious code such as virus, worms, and trojans, exceptions, general protection faults and other well-known problems) are reduced considerably by using more stable software; and it is well known that one of the most notable virtues of free software is its stability."
"Your first argument, that migration implies high costs, is in reality an argument in favor of the Bill. Because the more time goes by, the more difficult migration to another technology will become; and at the same time, the security risks associated with proprietary software will continue to increase. In this way, the use of proprietary systems and formats will make the State ever more dependent on specific suppliers. Once a policy of using free software has been established (which certainly, does imply some cost) then on the contrary migration from one system to another becomes very simple, since all data is stored in open formats. On the other hand, migration to an open software context implies no more costs than migration between two different proprietary software contexts, which invalidates your argument completely."
"Questions of intellectual property fall outside the scope of this bill, since they are covered by specific other laws. The model of free software in no way implies ignorance of these laws, and in fact the great majority of free software is covered by copyright. In reality, the inclusion of this question in your observations shows your confusion in respect of the legal framework in which free software is developed. The inclusion of the intellectual property of others in works claimed as one's own is not a practice that has been noted in the free software community; whereas, unfortunately, it has been in the area of proprietary software. As an example, the condemnation by the Commercial Court of Nanterre, France, on 27th September 2001 of Microsoft Corp. to a penalty of 3 million francs in damages and interest, for violation of intellectual property (piracy, to use the unfortunate term that your firm commonly uses in its publicity)."
student of animation and the fine arts
Microsoft did similar with the XBox. They just started using the name without checking if someone else has it trademarked, well someone did. that would have been fun to be one of the XBox consulting lawyers, "Yes, Microsoft you are going to write a check so large, it hurts, or we will get a cease and desist order until after xmas"
This is a good point - and one I'd like to expound upon.
I would like to ask every software developer who reads this to please do themselves and everyone else a favor: GPL your code. Even if it's already BSD.
Why do this? Because of situations like the above. Microsoft can leech off of your honest and hard work without ever contributing anything back to the community. They can (and have) also screwed over their customers with monopolistic practices and shitty license agreements. I believe that this would have been much more difficult if they had had to make all their code on their own, instead of stealing it.
Some will cry "but you can't SELL GPLed software!" This is a fallacy. There is nothing in the GPL that prohibits you from selling your software. If you are really worried about losing profits, just sell the binaries - and release the source code to paying customers who ask. By the rules of the GPL, this is completely allowable. You only have to give the source to people that you gave the binaries to.
Nathan's blog
I completely agree, and I think that one of the main reasons MS is willing to go to the wire against opening the code to their OS or APIs is that if that happens other companies and perhaps even open-source projects will find that MS has directly plagerized code, or done the plagerize + touch-ups thing.
I suspect they're scared to death at the thought of others seeing 1 - how badly produced & managed the code either is or has been before 2000/XP, 2 - parts that've been lifted illegally from other projects or companies, 3 - how whole parts of the OS could be interchangeable with other companies' products contrary to their claims, and 4 - how MS has hidden APIs that allow their own products to function with the OS better than their competitors. Of course I can't prove the above. It's just an extremely strong suspicion.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
The BSD license allows more or less unfettered code-poaching
... aw, you know.
BSD == poached code
GPL == hard boiled code
LGPL == soft boiled code
Apache license == code over easy
Artistic license == code Benedict
Mozilla license == code McMuffin
Sun ==
"The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life"
... should be:
"If I said 'murder is wrong', then later bought a cybernetic arm, and killed someone with my new cybernetic arm, then sell this cyber arm, does any of this makes any sense at all?"
Well, Slashdot isn't really a news site. It's more like a talk show. Topic today, Microsoft FUD and Peru! Discuss, discuss, talk amongst yourselves, very nice, very nice... mod mod, nod...
The bias part is a no-brainer. A LOT of people are biased against Microsoft because of their wrongdoing. Microsoft has been convicted of abuse of its monopoly powers to prevent consumers from being able to obtain competitors products, and a lot of people's livelihoods in the tech sector have been damaged in a personal way. I'm biased against Microsoft in exactly the same way that someone who just discovered that their car was gone would be biased against car thieves. I suspect that that's part of Slashdot's demographic readership makeup, and they know it. Show an anti-Microsoft bias on the Internet and you've got guaranteed readership. Works well, I like it.
~~~
Microsoft's code to make sure it isn't violating opther people's IP.
I figured the Open Source Community would jump all over this as an oppurtunity to rip M$ a new one. Apparently I was wrong.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise...
Wasn't DivX based on stolen MS mp4 code for the first release or two? Only like DivX 4 or something was finally rewritten from scratch.
Who else can come up with some examples?
Perhaps this is one of the reasons Microsoft is so afraid of Linux... they won't be able to steal new and innovative code because of the GPL. Microsoft won't be able to embrace, extend and destroy anything as they've done with everything else. As new systems and tools are designed and first released thru Linux, Microsoft won't be able to steal it. If they do (did?), they'll have to release their precious proprietary code. Hmmm... I wonder what's already under the hood.
"Just because you have a collection of porn of a particular girl does not make her your girlfriend", KingJoshi.
Years ago when GCC was about the only multiplatform compiler that was even close to stable it had the same optimizations as Microsoft C version 5. Since GCC came first and everyone could find its source, I wonder what an extensive code review of the two packages would show.
But we know MS is so pig headed they are going to rewrite everything in house anyway -- especially specs to "open standards"
With many large projects to day with many tema members, many things can leak in. For example 3Com's NBX 100 phone system has both Gzip and GNU tar in its binary image which makes the whole thing licensed under GNU but try to get source from them.
Well, Slashdot isn't really a news site.
Well that could be debated, considering that there is news on the front page, and their tagline is "news for nerds, stuff that matters".
However, thats besides the point, because it was newsforge, not slashdot, that claimed that newsforge (and the rest of osdn) are generally anti-MS. In other words, grandparent post's statement "Still, seems sort of funny for a news site to openly admit that they are, in general, biased against a certain company." had little to do with slashdot, and much to do with newsforge, which is inarguably a news site.
Gee that there bold tag sure is great, isn't it?
a) I guess your beef is with me, since I added that sentence-with-link.
...
.. but not that it's misused in this case. Have you read the MS letter to which Nunez was responding? It's full of exactly the things that the acronym FUD is all about. Vague allusions to dangers and risks, no real data or evidence. That's the essence of FUD.
b) I agree with you that FUD is overused etc.
c)
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
MS didn't steal any code for use in DoubleSpace. Stac bought some old patents and abused them to force MS to stop using technology that neither of them had invented. I think it is terrible the way you /. trolls flame other companies for patent abuse, but not if they are attacking Microsoft.
Does everyone forget where DOS origanly came from and how it got into M$'s hands? it was "bought" for a really cheap price... you could say stolen... he took the idea completely and ran with it....
What this "franc" stuff all about? They still have those around?
the slashdot summary gives the impression that microsoft did the code-stealing here. this is not the case. the original authors of softimage took the code and microsoft later bought softimage, inheriting this lawsuit.
Where are the proponents of "intellectual property"
when we need them? I always thought that
those who preach about the rights to own intelectual
properties will be the first ones who will support
the idea of keeping the source open for view
to the public as a way to make sure that the
binaries don't contain "stolen" code.
Bill gates: will that be cash or check?
It is perfectly fine for a news company that majors in news on a certain medium to be openly against some other medium. It would however be unacceptable for "all around" news companies, like CNN for example.
It has been all but acknowledged by Microsoft that MS-DOS 1.0 contained code directly borrowed from CP/M. _The MS-DOS Encyclopedia_, for example, notes that "the resemblance [between CP/M and MS-DOS] was even more striking at the rpogrmaming level, with an almost one-to-one correspondence between CP/M and MS-DOS in the system calls available to applications programs."
This was not a matter of common design or reverse engineering; there was actual CP/M code in MS-DOS, I believe specifically in the FCB-oriented file services.
I wish I could remember where I read the interview where Tim Paterson acknowledged "low-level borrowing" from CP/M. I can't seem to find it right now.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
MS steals intellectual property. And this is news?
It's been a well known fact for decades that MS does not respect other people IP.
Take a look at the whole DOS 6.2 6.21 6.22 fiasco when MS stole stacs compression technology.
I mean in all honesty how can you honestly prove microsoft has stolen code as many times as you seem to say they have. This seems like FUD. That is right... YOU are slinging gobs of FUD. (I can use bold case too)
Where is your proof? Where is your cold hard evidence that this is happening? Over and over and over. I am not kidding. I sure don't see any. What I see is a generalization. A mere idea that this is happening. You don't have any real proof. I mean if this were happening large companies like IBM, Digital, SCO, Pen Conputing and Mircografx would sue and win because plagerization is illegal. Not kidding. IBM is a power house and would sue the shit outta Microsoft for a nice little cut of the pie. You cannot deny this. IF! it was even happening.
See what you are is a Linux adovocate. All open source or nothing at all. What irritates me about people like you is how damn happy and excited you get when shit hits the fan against a company that you dislike. I mean, it doesn't have any direct effect on your life. What Microsoft does doesn't affect how you live, breathe, eat or drink. You are an Open Source guy. You are all about it. So who cares what Microsoft does. It isn't going to affect Linux at all. Not in your eyes. Because from every angle, you view Linux as a superior OS. Above the rest. The pinnacle of OS evolution. Well yippee for you! I am happy that you are happy. Ecstatic even. I also think you are full of negativity if you can take that much time to write a post that totally attacks somthing that doesn't effect you in any way at all.
The only time you might feel the push is when Microsoft reclaims the portion of the server market they lost. They will get it back. I can tell you why to. It has nothing to do with Windows. It has to do with War. A war is being fought and I can guarentee, unless the "judge" decides to split the company. They will reclaim their throne. It is how they fight. YOu think they are just gonna sit there and watch Linux take over. If you do think that, you are kidding yourself. No way. Won't happen.
I am not a Microsoft advocate, I am a realist. And reality is a bitter-sweet idea. Suck it up. IBM doesn't have the leg room to move Linux to the ground it needs to be on. COnsidering COmpaq and HP merged. A new dawn is coming. Watch out. Fight all you want but Microsoft has an edge that Open Source doesn't. They have your source code, and you don't have theirs.
~Admrlnxn
"I got your mom in my trunk"
ANd the number one website to fling more FUD in an hour than a billion dollar company can do in a 3 month period.
SLASHDOT.ORG
Go check it out today and see all the fear, uncertainty and doubt that just mutters... "LOOK AT ME... LOOK AT ME!"
"LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!"
Muwhahahahahahaha!
~Admrlnxn
"I got your mom in my trunk"
Without access to the sources, who knows what code makes up a typical Windows release. With s/w it's rare to find functionallity that cannot be implemented in a number of ways so it's very difficult to determine when code is stolen just by observing the external behaviour.
Book plagiarism is easy to detect because the "code" is the functionallity; software plagiarism is impossible to detect without open access to sources.
It wasn't as if Microsoft had to sieve through the whole of softimage codebase to check for IP-infringement. Is it really asked too much of MS to read the letters and look into the problem?
There wasn't even a reaction from MS until they were dragged into court. When MS bought softimage the responsibilities became theirs, especially after getting cease and desist letters. Ignorance is no way to avoid responsibility, it just doesn't hold up in courts, not even for megacorporations.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Unfortunately, the anti-MS bias is so strong here on Slashdot, I'll probably be modded down like nobody's business. Well, go ahead, mod away.
Mod me up cause I think yall will mod me down.
.ygolohcysp esrever
You jackasses. I'd have though that the moderators have been around here long enough to realize when a post is utterly dripping with sarcasm. Sheesh.
In would not either have awaited an account in CNN.COM. But what of PCMAG ? CNET ? Slashdot ;) ? There are many tech mag around there. None of them reported anything. Even one month after in October. or november two month after.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Not meaning to be rude to your co-worker but, the lights are on and no-ones home, prohaps it's a good time for mass demotion of people who are still to ummm.... stupid to understand.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
DCMA pot...kettle...black
semper ubi sub ubi
Is the code GPL or is the actual binary? Or both.
So if I don't like the GPL but want to use the code for a neato library, could I just distribute the binary with my program and link to it has needed?
and well spotted. You are truly a rare find on /.
--
E_NOSIG
Which was the point.
:)
And with fines and interest and stuff, I think they're up to a Billion dollars worth of stuff?
This was from '85 or '95, iirc.
And they *still* haven't paid.
I'd like to see the owners get liens and go and repossess any MS property and sell it. It'd make France a MS-free zone
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
Like 20 bucks or something. Wouldn't matter anyway. Unless somebody starts setting the fines at 10 zero's MSFT won't even notice
It's not about the money, it's about Microsoft's hypocrisy. A company that hates software theft steals software.
First, I would like to point out, that it was simply a request. If you don't want to GPL your code, fine. I was only asking you to do yourself a favor.
Second: it would seem that most people's "argument" against my request is that I'm a zealot. Nice line of reasoning guys, real smart to use an ad hominem attack. I'll bet you called people who disagreed with you in high school "fags" as well.
Nathan's blog
FUCKED-UP-DATA.
I like what I thought muh better than "Fear-Uncertainty-Death".
He helped modern medicine a lot by "experimenting". Should we love him?
Dear Bill, do you have a
... maybe "Run, Nunez, run!" rather, in the long term.
Villanueva Nunez is a brilliant man, and a brave one. He has to be, I'm afraid. Guns can be hired for cheap in some parts of the world.
Good luck and watch out, David!
Peruvian Activism
http://www.pimientolinux.com/peru2ms/
Regards,
W.
MS's involvement in this was pretty minimal
Perhaps on the surface however there is a striking resembalance between the sequence of events and the claims made about stacker disk compression software/Company. MS Offered to buy the Stacker but wanted to see the source code first, once it was handed over, they backed out of the deal and launched their own disk compression software in the next version of MS-DOS (IIRC v6).