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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.
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.
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".
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...
Call the BSA!
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
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
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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.
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."
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 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?
That moview was Antitrust, and they specifically mentioned Microsoft as being a competitior to the company in question so people wouldn't draw parallels between the company in the movie and Microsoft.
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
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
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.
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
Bill Gates can do anything he likes. But, you can't do anything to him. It's a child's dream.
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
what kind of crack are you on ?
..it must be lsd to see so many rainbow hues.
.. M$ is never going to 'pound linux into the ground' They may have a lot of money .. but linux is not a centralized corporation. You can't sue .. lets say .. 500 people for writing under the GPL ..
.. its not like unix and its deravitaves are 'new players' or anything .. hell .. i learned to code on a Next station. long before windows was on every pc in the workforce.
.. which is cool.
.. we were having an issue with our graphics department's server [it was not allowing group read/write permissions]
... oh .. its a permissions error. Especially since he was playing with the group permission settings the previous day.
.. he called m$ technical hot line (our company pays a yearly fee to be able to do this) and started a 4 hour tour into 'lets play with this until it works' with the 'afore vaunted' CS graduate on the other end of the phone.
.. instead of having to learn their code .. they can just hit the net to find examples .. i cant COUNT the # of times my nephiew jumped into the mirc rooms i hang out in .. and started asking programming questions .
.. i prefer it in a non secure/desktop setting ..
2nd thought
First off
Linux (as much as M$ hates it) is here to stay
Making something technologically 'easier' to use doesnt always help either.
granted . it makes it easier for folks like my mom to get e-mail
but a lovley growing trend i see now is a lot of CS grads who can't *DO* anything.
those 95% [who's ass did you pull that # out of??]
of recent CS grads that work with windows are friggen trained to call the M$ help desks.
example : i work for a fortune 500
common sence would think the network admin (who gets 85+ a year) would say
instead
even your average unix/linux neophyte can chown -r a folder on their own.
these CS grads had it too easy in college
these guys turn into coders who have to have net access to do their job. or who's company needs to pay the annual fee to microsoft for tech support.
now, im not saying windows is crap
im not even saying m$ is evil (i might be implying it though)
im just saying your argument is silly.
especially if you think abstract knowledge of a system makes you BETTER at programming that system.
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
And considering the BSA, software audits, etc. I think it would be fair to characterize them as a racketeering organization. So if the laws were really enforced equally, then the govt. would immediately sieze all of their assets before starting prosecution on the charges. Then, since they couldn't hire any lawyers they would be quickly convicted, which would really prove their guilt, and the govt. wouldn't have to return any of the booty.
.... they're so bad it's non-sensical. I respect copyrights. But since the DMCA, I seriously doubt the justice of "legal copyrights". (I've been dubious about it ever since the Sonny Bono copyright extension act, but now... UGH!)
I sometimes don't know which I think is more evil, our government, or the people it "protects" us against. Sometimes, however, I do.
If you want to see where this kind of law can lead, check out the history of the inquisition. It has already seriously corrupted at least some of the US law enforcement.
Yes, MS is guilty. But using government approved laws to validate this is
Justice needs to be defined in terms that pay no heed to the laws, because the laws are corrupt. Legal punishment is defined in terms of the laws, because there isn't any other way. If you know a decent way out of this, I'd sure like to hear it, because I sure don't.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
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
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
Like Steve "Monkey-Boy" Ballmer?
I wonder what the Greek is for "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!"?
I sure hope it's not "Eureka! Eureka! Eureka! Eureka!" - Steve Ballmer running naked through the streets naked is a scary thought.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
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"
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.
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.
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