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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.
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".
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...
Skipping commercials is theft.
Copying one of your CDs to keep in your car is theft.
Extracting the text from an ebook and feeding it through a text-to-speech converter is theft.
But when you're a multi-billion dollar company and you keep using software after your licence has been revoked, that's not theft.
It's all so clear now!
--
E_NOSIG
I read the story this morning, but I'm too lazy to verify your claim (after all, this is Slashdot, where one is expected to make knee-jerk reactions). Therefore, I will accept that it is true, although now it seems another poster claimed you are wrong. Doesn't matter. My point is that with MS beating the drum, saying "If your licenses aren't 100% squeaky-clean, we'll sic men with shotguns on you, you low-life pirate!" Many cases of "piracy" in business is simply an inattention to the site license...in other words, a violated licensing agreement. QED, Pot...kettle...black.
And yes, if that Peruvian senator is for real, not only would I like him as a US senator (hmm--need to check the Constitution on how long he needs to be a citizen first), but I would actually support his campaign.
:Peter
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)
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 $40 Billion on hand) for putting unauthorized code in an obscure software package that it no longer owns (Avid). No shit. Really! They must be biased!
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
Microsoft has already been down this road with file compression code that went into MS DOS 6.
They're a business plain and simple. I'm sure they evaluate every decision and every public comment carefully in terms of cost, benefit, risk of getting sued and for how much money.
Just because some people [like me] hold that ethics exist which are above this kind of cost/benefit analysis does not mean that MS cannot make a successful business strategy from subjecting ethics to fiscally responsible analysis.
Shoot, it could well be argued that their entire antitrust trial is just a continuation of similar business practices. There may even be some at Microsoft who are actually surprised (but will not admit it for a few years) that they were able to continue as long as they have with their strategy.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Still, seems sort of funny for a news site to openly admit that they are, in general, biased against a certain company.
__
Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall
I don't even think it's unethical. The license was written specifically to be non-exclusive. Microsoft was not bending or breaking the intent of the license when they included the code. They were using as it was intended to be used. It's not any different than what Mac did with OSX. I'm no Microsoft apologist, but at least let's attack them for what they do that's actually wrong. I personally think the whole world could benefit greatly if M$ would take a cue from Mac and just go ahead and put BSD Unix under their crap OS. At least then, when I am forced to use M$ (which is often), it would actually work right some of the time.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
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
Well considering that 3 million Francs is about $400,000 and that Microsoft has about $40,000,000,000 on hand. That's about 100,000 straws. Now consider that Microsoft is still profitable. Average the amount of time to win lawsuits. Add money to "cash on hand". Repeat calculations. ;-)
$400,000 doesn't even make Microsoft flinch. It's silly to even think about breaking the Camel's back in such a way.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
Additionally, the GPL has never been tested in court.
And when it is, I sure hope it doesn't have to bust it's cherry battling Microsoft.
All the legal and moral righteousness in the world isn't gonna stand up to $40 billion in cash reserves...
__
Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall
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
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
Using BSD code isn't wrong, as you say, that's what the license was designed for. However MS using BSD code in their own operiating system, then telling the world that open source software is evil, doesn't make much sense. I'm not sure if that's what the previous poster was referring to as "ethically wrong", but that's my guess.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
Skipping commercials is theft.
No it isn't. Just because some guy at Turner Movies would like it to be, doesn't in fact make it so.
Copying one of your CDs to keep in your car is theft.
Can you cite a single case where anyone has been prosecuted for this, let alone found guilty?
Again, some misguided people may want to make that illegal, so far it is not theft.
Extracting the text from an ebook and feeding it through a text-to-speech converter is theft.
The Sklyarov case is still being argued, isn't it? Even if he looses this isn't theft, it illegally breaking Adobe's encryption, which is very different.
But when you're a multi-billion dollar company and you keep using software after your licence has been revoked, that's not theft.
Actually this is the only one of the four examples you quote that has been found to be an illegal act. Microsoft were fined for this.
It's all so clear now!
Or, in this case, obviously it is not...
Sailing over the event horizon
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 spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
This is honestly one of the funniest posts on /. for a while.
> Microsoft is undeniably a criminal organization
Because they are embroiled in a civil suit?
So... let's see, which of these heart-warmingly goodfellas do you recommend I start using instead: Adobe, Macromedia, Sony, Disney, US Steel, AOL TW, Walmart, Oracle, Nike?
> The next time someone asks why you don't run a
> Microsoft OS, simply reply that you don't feel
> like funding organized crime.
Ask any activist who has a worldview even slightly broader than yours, and they'll tell you that Microsoft would not even figure on their radar of exploitative transnational corporations. Walmart, Nike, etc would. Organized Crime my left foot. Some people take software too damn seriously.
I've released some stuff covered under a BSD-style license. I don't think it was a stupid move. I don't care who uses the code.
And I don't consider it theft. I knew what the license meant when I decided to use it. If I thought otherwise, maybe I would've used the GPL.
J
The truth is that Microsoft is out to make money, like any other company. And MS isn't particularly worse than any other big company. Apple has a very draconian history in terms of licensing technology. IBM ran the accounting machines for the Third Reich. Big car companies (all of them) decide to issue recalls on defective products only if the cost of litigations will exceed the cost of the recall--not because the defective product will kill people. Big media companies like Disney are far worse than MS because they are trying to control flow of information (all forms of it), and directly influence the way people think. And they aren't out to preserve an ideal democratic society.
I know a number of folks who work at Microsoft. It's an awesome place to work, and MS employees are good people. There certainly isn't a company policy of stealing code, killing babies, or whatever else you read on Slashdot. If MS stole code, I'm sure the developers honestly thought that it was legit, and some manager and/or legal person fucked up. People screw up.
As for "fans" of the company, there are a number of legitimate reasons to like Microsoft:
- The company's vision statement is "A computer on every desk and in every home." That vision is seeing completion (at least in the Western world). How much of it being attributed to Microsoft can be debated. However, Microsoft has been instrumental in enforcing standards upon the industry so that an open PC platform could flourish. Microsoft also provides software that almost anyone can use and use to be productive.
- Microsoft is consistently one of the most philantropic corporations around. They gives tons of money to schools, libraries and universities. They just gave 8 million bucks to build my new CS building. How many of y'all got donations from MS while you were an undergrad?
- Bill Gates has given $24 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, which will spend the money on AIDS research, cancer research, and vaccinations for the third world (among God knows how many other uses).
- Microsoft products are actually pretty nice. If you're an experienced Unix administrator or do-it-yourself Linux guru, I'm sure you can find lots of reasons to not like MS software. But it's typically easier for common folk to use than competing products (Windows) and sometimes just downright superior (Office).
I'm not saying you have to like Microsoft, I'm just saying that there are reasons why a person would.Unfortunately, the anti-MS bias is so strong here on Slashdot, I'll probably be modded down like nobody's business. Well, go ahead, mod away.
Where are the proponents of "intellectual property"
when we need them? I always thought that
those who preach about the rights to own intelectual
properties will be the first ones who will support
the idea of keeping the source open for view
to the public as a way to make sure that the
binaries don't contain "stolen" code.
I know this will probly be considered flamebait but here goes.
To the best of my knowlage M$ has never said open source == bad. They have however stated the GPL == bad. And their stance on BSD if I remember right is a possitive one. There is nothing ethically wrong with releasing your projects closed source, just as their isn't anything wrong with releasing them open source. However, the problem comes when you try to force a project to be open to be able to use your code. What really should be done is to give credit, because there is no reason that someone should have to open the source of anything.
There should be a massive thinking of the way open sourcing is done in the GPL world. Isn't the point of open source to spread ideas and to develop the community as a whole? How do you accomplish this by making other people have to do things your way. Why should you care if some company uses your code (or anyone elses for that matter) to make money off of, most likely by keeping it open no one was going to make money at all. However, by letting them use your code in a closed source project you are actually going to make a difference on something that some other people are doing.
If the world of open source would quit advocating that you should only do open source projects and let every one do it their own way with what ever they needed then maybe we will see their be a superior standard way of doing things on the PC market. Prohaps even going as far as to combine large portions of Linux into the windows market. If you people don't get your act together and quit being zealots about things then Linux will forever remain a non-major player in userland.