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SQL Server Developers Face Huge Royalties
superpat writes "The Register reports that Microsoft licensed SQL Server technology from Timeline. Trouble is, they didn't license the tech for use by MS customers... After 3 1/2 years in the courts, the final judgement rules that MS SQL Server customers must pay Timeline patent royalties. The argument that Microsoft said it was OK is no defence, apparently." News.com.com.com has another story.
Someone needs to start a list of companies Microsoft has screwed over. It needs to be the first site that comes up when someone googles for "Microsoft Business Partner"
Let's see:
Citrix ("Yes, we're building virtual desktops into Windows now...")
Sendo ("Hey, nice phone tech, we'll just be taking it, then. Enjoy your chapter 11.")
Timeline, Inc. (New, from article)
VMWare ("Oh, and virtual system imaging is going in, too. Thanks Connectix!")
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
They said people who 'added code' to the SQL server. Does this mean altering the source, or just using it from inside a program (ie, not SQL Explorer or whatever)?
The article says:
Who is to decide this? Another court ruling? MS? Timeline?
I don't even understand this enough for IANAL. I need a new acronym: IHNFCATL. (I have NFC about the law)
/syle
Every SQL "distribution" has it's own quirks. For example, Oracle isn't (or wasn't last time I looked) ANSI SQL 92 compliant. MS SQL does a better job of this.
Everyone implements triggers diferently, or not at all, some SQL databases don't have stored procedures, locking mechanisms vary, even connection methods vary. The optimisations you have learnt, and coded for on one database server generally fail on another.
I've been on the sharp end of migrating Oracle to MS SQL server, and in the end we threw the Oracle stored procedures away and rewrote the SQL.
Probably because Timeline wouldn't sell out. The patents may be worth a lot more than MS was offering.
Winners? Victors? I don't see any, I'm afraid.
Though this WAS worth a hell of a laugh.
Just my 1/250 of $5.00.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
I wonder if this news will slashdot mysql.com and postgresql.com with people looking to switch...
Liberty uber alles.
Really it more underscores the completely assinine idea of patenting software algorithms when it means patenting what is essentially mathematic formulae.
But still, if someone is going to get a beJebus sued out of them here its got to be Microsoft. Why you ask? Think of this little scenario.
Suppose Microsoft wants to target unofficial Xbox developers (Xbox Linux and the like). All they need to do is: Create a subsidiary, have them patent a piece of code, stick it in a desired product (bootloader anyone?) and open source it.
Then six months later they can sue the entire Xbox developers group into the poorhouse for not only using patented code but distributing it to potentially an enormous audience.
Suddenly Xbox Linux dies out.
If you read the article, Microsoft bought Timeline's biggest competitor and tried to develop technologies that would replace Timeline's. Amazingly, even though Microsoft has the resources to buy companies they can't develop anything worthwhile on their own?
This is a good example of what I call peeing in the pool. Timeline claims that because Microsoft is not a law firm, SQL developers who believed Microsoft's statements about SQL licensing were acting irresponsibly. Wow! Score one for the ludicrous vision of each of us having a lawyer accompanying us everywhere like a guide dog.
So SQL Server developers, fearing legal harassment, start lookin into alternatives like MySQL, encouraging the development of new features like triggers and native stored procedures, and making MySQL even more attractive as competition. See how IP encourages innovation? Uh, sort of?
For the more risk-conscious companies, there shouldn't be any difference. For the companies that still don't look at licenses, it doesn't make any difference.
For the companies that just now start looking at licenses, I see this as a good thing. After all, would you rather your boss be aware of the licensing options of OSS vs the licensing options of other software, or would you rather him blindly choose one or the other?
I say that awareness is a better solution, and the fact that he's aware of the EULA will encourage him to shop around.
Manager's will still make a decision yea or nay based on their own reasons (or reasons handed to them), but at least it's not as much of a shot in the dark.
What's this Submit thingy do?
I never understood the Spyglass thing. Here's why: Microsoft, in court, has admitted that their browser is an absolutely integral part of the operating system. Therefore, Internet Explorer costs $250 a copy for the client versions, and something like $800 a copy for server products. Shouldn't Spyglass have made out great with that, or did Microsoft rewrite the rendering engine from scratch at some point?
...And then Microsoft would be in the unenviable position of advising its customers to migrate to free Sybase for Linux (11.0.3.3), since it is compatible with SQL Server 6.5.
Why isn't Sybase having this problem? SQL Server and Sybase were at one time the same product (v 4.8).
Bad faith is "not simply bad judgment or negligence, but rather it implies the conscious doing of a wrong" -- Black's Law Dictionary.
Microsoft is not legal counsel, so any reference to them has no standing in a bad faith claim. It's the same as asking your dead grandmother via seance if she thinks it's ok. In fact I bet the Microsoft EULA specifically disclaims patent liability issues of this type.
I find this case highly ironic because it has been Microosft who has been making claims about use of Open Source being dangerous from a potential patent infringement point of view. Now they are found to have a problem.
Using open souce software won't solve the fundemental problem here.
Sure, Microsoft potentially screwed their customers. They'll fix it. Reason? If they don't, then *noone* will buy their software anymore. Stuff like this could kill Microsoft if they don't deal with it. No worries, either way.
I own a small software company. I use microsoft sql-server (and, honestly, don't have much of a choice if I want to *sell* my software, but that's a whole different problem). Without reading the patents, I have no clue if my software infringes on Timeline's patents.
But then again, none of us have any clue if MySQL violates patents. I'm willing to bet that it does. Someone out there has a patent for pretty much everything. Even if the code was written on a planet orbiting Vega, and, assuming for the moment that no-one on Vega's planet ever even heard of the earth, they could still write code on their computers (go with it, they have computers, ok?) that do something substantially similar to something that someone has patented.
It's a fundemental flaw in our patent system... and ignorance is no excuse.
Most software developers just ignore the whole thing, thinking (and in general, rightfully so) that they are safe if they didn't steal an idea from somewhere. And they are safe. No one notices most infringments. Occasionally, if you make it big, someone will notice your infrigement, and will basically want a piece of your action (i.e., a big settlement) and they will get it... even though you didn't steal the idea, you invented it yourself. Hopefully you can find prior art.
Because that's how patents work.
.gif / LZW / Unisys fiasco. They had a patent on using a compression technique, and everyone who supported that technique had to pay a license fee. And the end-user was the one responsible for verifying that their gif encoder was licensed correctly, not the producer of the program.
They have a patent on use of a process, and the use of that process without a license is a violation of the patent.
Just because someone sold you a device that allows you to do the process does not give you a license for the process.
Just like Dell isn't responsible if you write or use software that violates someone else's patent on a computer they built. They aren't even responsible if someone has a patent on using RAID for a specific application, and they sell you a RAID machine.
Unfortionately, this rapidly degenerates to making any development nearly impossible as you have to do a patent search for every thing your company does. Or else you just do it, and worry about the licensing later.
And software patents are even worse, because there are hundreds of things you could be violating, some of which might even be created by the interaction of different groups that aren't even aware of the others' actions.
Witness the
SKG