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Halloween X Author Mike Anderer Speaks Out
cdlu writes "Mike Anderer, author of the now-famous Halloween X document, has spoken out at NewsForge. Among the highlights is a prediction by Mr. Anderer that Microsoft has many more disruptive lawsuits planned up their sleeves."
C&D's don't mean anything - they're just scare tactics. The thing about the GPL which I suspect he's alluding to, is that you are allowed to redistributed copyrighted works if you stick to the terms. However, the act of redistributing GPL'd works could be argued as also breaching traditional copyright, if a previous contributor has included someone else's copyrighted work. Whether it would stick I don't know, but that's the obvious end-user attack - if they are redistributing the code in question. It doesn't affect Joe User who downloads Mandrake and runs it on his box at home.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
I get the feeling this man has a bitter taste in his mouth writing this. It's as if he's declaring to all the world: 'I did all this!', so that he can tell himself that he can stand by his actions, and convince himself that he's not feeling guilty.
It's the voice of hypocrisy.
Although I have more sympathy for this kind of hidden guilt, than for the greed and stupidity I have heard in many voices lately.
I just know I'm going to get every partisan in the place foamed up by saying this, but the Clinton DOJ was actually pursuing the MS antitrust case, and the Bush people dropped it like a hot rock.
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To be fair, Bush campaigned openly that he'd instruct the DOJ to seek a settlement. And, to be fair as well, there is a high likelihood that the anti-trust action was brought as a political move, rather than one based on law. That's not to discount the legal merits of the case, but that's the reason the case was brought. Most of the evidence supports the idea that Sun, AOL/Netscape, and other hi-techs with *vast* lobbying efforts in Washington DC consistently lobbied for a harsh line against MS. Both Clinton and Al Gore personally appealed to higher ups during the Clinton re-election for campaign donations - and both were refused. Until this point, MS had no widescale lobbying program, no nationwide political agenda, and no significant history of donations or involvement in DC politics. Not long after the Clinton re-election did the real meat of the DOJ attack start. The strongest likelihood is that MS was being punished for being politically neutral. The result? Now MS learned that lesson and in less than 10 years has the most well-funded lobbying operation in history. Go figure.
IANAL but I know the industry, and so do most of you. Let's be realistic. MS basically got off with a "please don't do it again, OK?"
There is another aspect you might have missed. The DOJ was going for a breakup. Ruling after ruling the DOJ was rebuffed on this issue, at one point the judge saying basically "it ain't ever going to happen with this case". At that point, the DOJ "lost" in terms of public perception. They lost the case by not winning their chosen punishment. Any penalty tha the point was moot - as we know, MS can work around any wording no matter how clever.
The only way in the long run to stop this "compete with anything but quality and price" attitude is for the government to finally enforce the antitrust law. And that may only happen if you all vote
The problem is now, there isn't a reasonable tech saavy person around who can argue that Windows still has a monopoly hold on any market. Linux is an equal or superior product in every possible way, without exception, without question, period. There is nothing MS can do to stop its growth, and its plain as fact for everyone to see. MS is fighting a holding battle as of now. And any future action would require first that MS be proven a current monopoly. Between Linux, MacOSX, and misc. products, it is MOST highly unlikely that MS would face any significant challenge.
Did anyone else read this interview and get the feeling that Anderer spoke a lot but didn't really say anything specific or all that relevant?
Yes. My favorite is:
"I helped build the channels for most of the products that corporate America is currently using and some they will be using soon."
So he builds "channels". To quote Benjy mouse "Sounds very significant without actually tying you down to meaning anything."
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
- I have filed more patents and owned/managed more businesses than you can think of. This deal was a microscopic, ultimately forgettable fraction of my business.
- I have nothing to say about the money Microsoft funneled to SCO (my excuse is that they won't let me).
- Everybody licenses Unix and they've been doing so for years. SCO as a licensor is only executing a rational business decision based on current market trends. Microsoft bought SCO licenses for SFU just like everybody else has been doing for years, there's nothing wrong with it.
- Microsoft is actually cooperating with you Linux guys with their SFU. They're good guys!
- The GPL makes IP matters confusing, and we have to leave it to the big companies like Sun and SCO to figure it out for the rest of us. They might even be kind enough to give it all away for free!
- Red Hat is still a bunch of small boys. Do you really think this johnny-just-come company with a few hundred million in the bank can actually indemnify its customers from the devastating effects of a settlement? They will be obliterated in no time! Better leave it to the big guys (Sun, MS, SCO...).
- We used to have all this crap figured out with patents and cross-licensing and stuff. You GPL people came around and messed up the whole thing, and now we're trying to clean up your mess. Stop making noise and let's clean this whole thing up for you.
- Why is everyone picking on me? I've done a lot of good stuff, and nobody says anything about that!
[Wow. I have to give this guy an award for managing to say so little in so many words.]
Am I a hipster-doofus?
You are right but I don't see how this has anything to do with the GPL. It applies to every software distributor out there.
The argument is always that the GPL specifically transfers some liability that other licenses don't. By your argument, Somebody can sue IBM for code it got from Computer Associates.
How does the GPL transfer liability. Liability != Waranty.
"Fighting terrorists with millitary might is like killing a mosquitor on your Dad's forehead with a rifle."
Up until the mid 90s, Microsoft hadn't initiated a single lawsuit against anybody. If memory serves, the first lawsuit involved one of the larger distributors of bogus Microsoft software, so even that was fairly benign. This is not a litigation-happy company.
That said, they have started to wrap some pretty evil licenses around all technical information disseminated about Windows, its SDKs and technical papers. Furthermore, they're starting to layer gratuitous DRM over the new MS Office file formats even where it doesn't make sense, leaving room to invoke the DMCA when people make Office file format importers/exporters.
MS salespeople have started to tell shops migrating to Linux that there would be "legal issues" preventing Linux from interoperating with future versions of Windows. There may well be a sea change in Microsoft's tactics ahead, or the salesmen may be talking through their hats. Either way, MS is starting to build up an arsenal of twisted legal manipulation every bit as formidable as IBM's patent arsenal.
Linux is an equal or superior product in every possible way, without exception
Even with respect to driver support for more recent desktop peripherals? My scanner didn't come with a SANE driver on its CD, and there exists no such driver in SANE CVS either.
I helped build the channels for most of the products that corporate America is currently using and some they will be using soon. In several cases, I am finally finding or developing ways to solve problems I have been working on for the last 20 years. The only way I can hide is to work so hard that it becomes close to impossible to track all the companies I have owned, bought, sold, rolled up, or sat on the board of. If you include the ones where I helped entrepreneurs and companies through tough times, or sat on non-profit boards, the list would be even tougher to follow.
Modest lad, isn't he? I'm always suspicious about people who feel the need to have such a self-serving description...as there's usually snake oil to follow.
this sentence reveals the author's bias:
Nobody wants to be the ultimate guarantor for software that was free (or close to it).
that's free as in beer, not speech--why is this so hard for $uit$ to understand?
although, given the state of the union, we may be coming to this:
Nobody wants to be the ultimate guarantor for speech that was free (or close to it).;>
Not everything is all black and white.
3)Person C is not inocent but its not guilty until it knows about it. Its the job of company B to tell all parties: "Hey you have my code please remove it from you software. And by the way I want compensation from the ones who but the code in there.". Only if company B doesn't comply would it be in danger of litigation.
I even think that it is REQUIRED by B to try to resolve the problem BEFORE going to court. By telling A and C to remove the code. Of course if it can prove A knew it was copying copyrighted material when A did it, B could claim some damages.
I would of though that everyone would know about these things by now with all of the SCO, Growklaw etc... brouhaha
oh and IANAL but I did a project on IP law once. (Canadian IP law, but because of international agreements I think it is very similar to US laws)
This guy has a messianic complex. I thought it was telling how he describes himself and his incredible career. Also rather naive of him to implicitly threaten companies who don't have billions in cash to defend fake IP lawsuits. Also rather stupid of him not to be able to imagine a world in which GPL protects producers AND consumers. Marianne
However, he is mistaken that "GPL type licence agreements push the liablity to the users." The GPL specifically puts the patent onus on the code contributor.
As far as end-user liability goes, I fail to see the difference between the GPL and the EULAs of closed software. While GPL projects are certainly vulnerable, there have already been significant successful patent infringement claims against closed software that may affect the end-users of that software.
For example, Timeline recently won a patent infringement suit against Microsoft that potentially could require licencing royalties from developers and even end-users of SQL Server.
There is also Eolas' successful suit against Microsoft for Internet Explorer, which Anderer refers to.
BTW, when Anderer says that MSFT has 50 patent lawsuits waiting in the queue, I read that as saying Microsoft will be the defendant in those suits.
This shows a serious lack of understanding. IBM, Sun and many other large contributors to the kernel have a lot of power in the industry, and they each own copyrights over the parts of the Linux kernel that they contributed. But they don't own Linux as a whole: each of them owns pieces of Linux, but the code surrounding what they contributed is licensed to them. The license is the GPL, which does not allow them to re-use the code under a license other than the GPL. So in theory Sun (or one of the others) could take code they contributed to Linux and put it in the public domain, but they couldn't touch the surrounding code, nor revoke the GPL-granted rights of people who licensed the code as it exists in the kernel.
The idea of Linux going into the public domain is wishful thinking that we've heard a few times from people in the industry. They need to get over it, because it's highly unlikely. They also would benefit from learning a bit more about how these collaborative uses of copyright work. Contrary to Mr. Anderer's comments, the economic model of the GPL has actually been thought out in great depth: there is little room for the licensing models employed in the past by priprietary software vendors, but this is intentional and not in need of fixing.
If they do this they will force IBM to supply their own IBM-Linux (Or buy Novell) that will be covered by the Gadzillion Cross-licensing deals they have plus anyone that attacks will be counter sued for Patent infringement by IBM.
The "Best" MS can do it nible around Linux as is the case with the Paul Allen funded SCO harrassment case.
IBM-Linux is a nightmare scenario for MS. The only reason IBM has not done this is that they development process of Linux is performing well and IBM do not want to face some of the Patent issues that may be lurking inside Linux. By Lurking I am not implying that Linux has stolen anything but maybe a lot of potential SCOs is watching.
IBM knows this and that's why they will make an example out of SCO. SCO will not only be leveled but the fields around it will be salted. Corporate Veil to Canopy will be ruled broken and they will be forced to admit guilt and settle or face extinction.
IBM has actively collected Patents for the better part of its life for a reason. This is it.
Help fight continental drift.
The real goal here is to strip the GPL away from Linux. Once its free of the severe restrictions of the GPL, they can take it, and start work on MS-Linux.
Remember the tactical situation in which Microsoft finds itself right now. Most of their money is being made selling copies of Microsoft Office, and copies of Windows to run it on. The two are viewed almost as a monolith by the public, because the cost of Windows is usually hidden in a new computer.
They find themselves with stuck with the results of 20 years of marketing driven development as their code base. Any new system has to be backward compatible to the point where most MS-DOS 2.1 programs still work. This severely limits design flexiblity.
With a switch to Linux, they could drop all of their bugs, grab a nice clean codebase from the public domain, and start fresh. They could blame any bugs on the Linux people, and claim their professional team of developers is working to enhance the stability and security of the software to meet the needs of corporate America. (oh, the Irony of it)
What member of the public wouldn't jump at the chance to buy MS-Linux? They would see it as the latest technology, with the Microsoft seal of approval. (We don't want those undesireable "hacker" types writing our software, do we?)
Once they have MS-Linux firmly in place, they can then extend their true monopoly (Microsoft Office) into the Linux space.
I assume this is obvious to some of you, but I wrote this just in case someone hasn't woken up yet to the reality.
To sum up, as long as the GPL holds, we can have a free (as in speach and beer) set of working software to build and share. Once the GPL gets breeched, we're fscked! (Just spend the $1000/machine, and pay for MS-Linux with Office)
--Mike--
Look he is wrong about a lot of things.
He is wrong about the GPL. He confuses the GPL with "public domain". He feels that you "have to go after somebody". That last one is quite disturbing actually. Why do you have to go after somebody.
This guy is an evil idiot. All he talks about is how great he is and how busy he is and how he knows so much and how us little old peons don't know what's really going on.
Listen. If open source means guys like this will make less money then that's reason enough to support open source. If this guy is representitive of the enemies of open source then then we should have no problems convincing people to adopt open source.
Just point to his letter and say "see you don't want guys like this running the world do you?"
The best way to support the US war effort is to continue buying American products.