Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Assembles Patent Arsenal for Longhorn
stock writes "The heat is on. Inside eweek.com are some remarkable articles: 'You see, Microsoft is busy patenting everything it can lay its hands on with
all three. In fact, Microsoft is now building up its patent arsenal, applying
for a rather amazing 10 patents a day. The idea isn't to ensure that
Microsoft makes a fair profit from its patents; it's to make sure that no one
else can write fully compatible software.' An older article mentions some other patents."
And the plot thickens... They are doing this (as the article states) to keep Linux and other OSs from being compatible. By breaking their network filesystems they force people to upgrade, stay away from free alternatives, and make more and more money.
This will also be to make sure that DRM can succeed. If there were ways around their "innovations" for security what good would it do? First thing you have to do is break networking and make sure that only other secured machines can talk.
Remember people: the end of computing as we know it is coming fast.
I'm applying for a patent on my business model which involves abusing American Intellectual Property law by filing endless frivolous patents. (I'm hoping MS and SCO don't try to claim prior art.)
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
This has been a tactic of many companies over the years, the only thing different about this is the fact that some of the patents that MS is getting approved have prior art conflicts.
sin
Merf
Why do we let a convicted monopolist obtain patents?
It seems a no brainter that they should not be allowed to protect any IP until a nonmonopolistic market restored.
"Right to innovate" be damned. You illegally got in top, now you can be made to share the top spot, a la the Sherman Act.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
If its on Slashdot, it MUST be true. No other evidence is needed.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
...use the courts. Admittedly, the government is responsible for laying out and enforcing the underlying rules of the market, but abuses can occur. I think it is not to much of a stretch to say that standards available to everyone -- starting with ASCII and progressing forward to HTML, XML, SVG, and others -- are what have made it possible for computers to be successful. You think we'd have the Internet if it weren't for the various RFCs being made available to everyone? Hell no.
This is an act of desparation, but that doesn't mean it won't have deleterious effects upon the market as a whole. And you KNOW that the overburdened patent office won't be able to properly check all these for the existence of prior art, which I'd bet would cause 99% of these patents to be rejected.
After all there already have been various lawsuits against MS which have forced them to cough up some serious $$$. They do have a right to protect themselves against a broken patent system.
Nothing to see here. Just another sure sign that antitrust has no effect on the paranoid Microsoft.
Heck, IMO, this is a sure sign of the problems with software patents. In normal due process you should not be able to patent as much as that in that sort of time, unless something is up with the system.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Patents and monopolistic lock-in is the only way MS can compete with Linux (or any other decent OS). They know they are going down, they are just trying to slow the process.
The idea isn't to ensure that Microsoft makes a fair profit from its patents; it's to make sure that no one else can write fully compatible software.
Thank you slashdot, but I can think for myself. I'd rather have the bare facts (which speak for themselves) than a link with some anti-MS spin.
Gates and Co. didn't get rich by giving away software. This approach seems to have worked well for them in the past.
Live wrong, impostor.
Are they going to break all compatibility with their older OSs? If they don't, can't Linux/OS X/etc. still connect? If they do, don't they risk pissing off businesses?
If that doesn't count as anticompetitive behavior, I don't know what does.
I see this as good news for the future, since the repercussions on MS should be more severe than last time.
For the short term, everyone keep an eye on their applications, and look for prior art!
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
It will be really interesting to hear Miguel's views on this! Earlier on, he stated that MS patents wouldn't be an obstacle for Mono and .Net based development on non-MS platforms...
(Assuming this is correct, of course - may be a big assumption...)
Did they learn _nothing_ from Thomas Penfield Jackson? At all?
Bush and others like him won't be in the Whitehouse for ever. As soon as there's a DoJ who are actually prepared to enforce anti-trust laws rather than mistakenly believing that monopolies are good for innovation and the economy, any company that has amassed a portfolio that simply stops anyone interoperating with their systems will get taken down, quickly.
It's rather frustrating to see continued blatant monopoly abuse from MS. Hopefully, a sensible DoJ will eventually have so much ammunition from the last few years that MS' break-up becomes utterly inevitable.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
too bad the gov can't reject the patent applications because MS is a monopoly ... i think some antitrust laws need to be changed
One very good reason to patent everything possible and build up a huge patent portfolio is to defend oneself against patent infringement lawsuits. If you own a lot of patents, chances are better that anyone suing you for patent infringement will themselves be infringing on your patents, giving you the means to settle without being extorted with huge licensing fees (like Eolas dinged Microsoft for).
Man, this makes me sick to my stomach and makes me suspect that RMS is right on. i mean this is just above and beyond "protecting an idea". This just sounds like blanket-patenting. It'll tie up the patent office (that is already over loaded) and muck up the legal system in a few years (in a few? it's a done deal already, i think ;-)
i say it's akin to the myriad of "crap laws" still on the books: you *will* get fucked if you piss off the wrong person with enough money for you are *always* violating some moronic law. So it will go with this, write most any software and, "i'll be damned, who'd have patented that?!" It'll be interesting to see where this leads in the next few years.
This is one of those articles where everyone gets to rehash the same old MS bashing. Then, they all get modded up. Easier for me to read because all the responses are 5, Interesting. When can we get our next iTunes article?
Oh, hush.
This, to me, looks like irrefutable evidence of anticompetitive behavior. For the next antitrust trial.
(Why do I feel so optimistic all of a sudden?)
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Is it just me, or is this article spreading the same FUD that we have come to expect from the pro-Microsoft side? It is one thing to dislike Longhorn because of its DRM, but quite a stretch to believe that Microsoft will patent every common computing process used in Longhorn.
Unlike what most here probably believe, patents are not the problem. Microsoft will not be able to patent Linux out of existence.
----- It's Intuitively Obvious, and can be proved with Mathematical Induction!
I guess when Microsoft hands over a stack of patent applications, we should respond with a stack of examples of prior art (surely they must exist)? Either that or start applying for patents first and if they're granted make them publicly licensed under certain conditions (e.g. for OSS)? Of course, that makes open source the demon... argh.
Of course, knowing the patent office, they'll just rubber stamp Microsoft's applications. Right next to 1-Click and that new method of swinging one.
they're just doing it so some other company can't patent it later and sue them?
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
There are many reasons companies patent things, ranging from the defensive to the offensive. Unfortunately it's hard to tell a priori what the actual reasons are.
This seems like microsoft has sidestepped their previous antitrust issues with the patent process, Would this be considered antitrust behavior if they use those patents to hurt competition?
Im unclear if this would be considered the same thing, perhaps prior art could be used to stop blatant misuse, but it would give them an advantage...
Does IBM patent things with the idea that they can then use the patents to prevent other people's software from interacting with their own?
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
This is primarily the fault of our stupid patent law, which doesn't give someone the right to produce something, only the right to keep other's from producing it.
Sample output:
e-commerce
e-communism
e-constipation
e-conifer
one-click shopping
one-click shipping
one-clock shopping
one-click slapping
BASIC
ADA
difference engine
mouse
rat
.....
Not only this, but it can generate 1,400 patent applications per day, all conveniently dated to 1878 so you can beat everyone to the punch. Microsoft "Created" this after it embraced and extended a third-party password-guesser program.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
This approach could backfire on Microsoft.
Large users of MS software now understand Microsoft's game. Go back five years or so and many didn't get it, or didn't care. But they've seen how lock-in allows MS to turn the screws on the when it comes to licencing.
It wouldn't suprise me if a lot of organisations decide to stop at Windows XP for as long as possible, rather than go to Longhorn, to avoid the tighter MS handcuffs of Longhorn.
No, the Justice Department blew it by giving up after they'd won thanks to a change in administration. Had they kept going on the course they were on before Bush & Ashcroft took over, we'd have two or three "Baby Bills" today, and the world would be a better place.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I think Bill's finally lost that grasp. And I don't think anyone here should let this be a concern - in fact, it's an ultimately good thing.
Longhorn is still two years away. Linux is getting better and better and the endless virus plagues are beginning to get to mom and joe user. If Longhorn comes on the market with an entirely new, relatively backwards incompatible system (like XP was - the XP "emulation" engine doesn't even work as well as WINE on, for example, Am. McGee's "Alice") all this lockdown is going to come back to haunt them. Does no one remember the early PC wars and two little computer companies named Apple and IBM? Yeah, they're both still around - but I don't think I need to tell you which one became the standard bearer. Does no one remember why?
Microsoft is making the exact same mistakes IBM made twenty five years ago. So just shut up with the complaints lest you reopen that crack uncle bill is fixing in his door...
Tim
I hope that someday soon Congress will understand the seriousness of the current problems with software patents AND give a damn. Microsoft and other companies are patenting tens of thousands of software ideas, almost all of them obvious and/or existing in prior art, and despite their invalidity, it'll still take more money than any of us has to fight them. Reading a random selection of the software patents that have been granted recently would make me pass out with laughter if they didn't threaten my own freedom to innovate.
Wouldn't building up such a huge patent arsenal actually work against their interests? This would seem to be pro-Linux in that if I, as a developer, want to make software that people can use, without fear of litigation, move to Linux. The relatively small number of Linux users is only growing, and sooner or later it will reach a critical mass where the "average" user will now see real competition with Microsoft in the consumer space. If I were a Linux PR guy, I would try to spin this as "Microsoft Bad For Innovation" or the like.
Seems like a big mistake to me to do this.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
I really think Microsoft is making a bad call here. But then again, they have known how to secure sales in the past, more than anyone else. Time will tell whether they will be able to continue to charge ridiculous amounts of money for Windoze and Office.
"Interesting...so what's the plan for that other bastion of patents-out-the-wazoo, IBM?"
Well at the moment they are about to bend SCO over a court bench. Also they seem to have been behaveing themselfs recently...
And by all means let the times you visit get fewer and fewer
The fewer M$ fan boys here the better.....
Article quote: Now, after having their hands gently slapped by the Department of Justice, the boys from Redmond have another plan: Make it so that users of their next desktop system won't be able to use non-Microsoft-blessed servers or programs at all.
What utter FUD this is. This is nonsense of the highest degree, it suggests that Microsoft will not only shut out every independent developer on the planet (i.e. nobody who isn't "blessed by" Microsoft can write software for this thing) but also prevent users from accessing their network infrastructure. What gobshite. People will still be able to write software for Windows, people who use Windows will still be able to use the Internet, FTP to and from Linux boxes, and communicate with Samba servers. I am no authority on this, but if Microsoft prevented people from doing said things then:
1. Nobody would use Windows.
2. Windows Longhorn would not be able to access shares and resources on Windows 2000/NT/XP hosts.
Also, people like Mozilla and Open Source are frightened, according to this article. They're building up defenses! Hah. Many companies who are NOT open source use portable windowing toolkits for cross platform compatability. Look at Adobe -- all its products that run on Windows do NOT use the standard Windows widget set, or look at Macromedia -- same there.
So Microsoft's covering it's ass with patents. Plenty of people have done this in the past. Perhaps Linux and the Open Source community should be doing it first.
This is mostly off topic but seeing as how most software patents that make it to Slashdot are frivolous and have a long history of prior art, why has no one gone through this:
http://www.nist.gov/dads/
and patented everything in there? At the time the algorithm or data structure was created, it was a novel invention. Hell any algorithm is novel otherwise it wouldn't be worth learning in school right?
I think I'm gonna patent calculus and see how far I can get with it.
However, holding patents for defensive purposes isn't much use against pure "IP litigation" companies.
:-)
Since these companies don't produce actual products they can't be caught out for infringing any of your patents.
It's only really useful against other large companies (e.g. IBM) since it gives you better bargaining power for cross-licensing. And for locking out new competitors, of course
It's not functionality if it gets in your way; it's feature creep. Functionality would be adding performance enhancements. Functionality would be making it easier to interoperate with other systems. Functionality would be letting the file system be a file system and not a way to print photos, browse the web, or create new text documents.
Functionality is not locking out competitors and forcing your customers to buy more of your product (complete with all the security holes and vulnerabilities) just so they can get some work done.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Starting to make the prior article about tiger better and better. This is why I switched to Linux and OS X and also why I will not be going back anytime soon.
The net effect of the current patent/copyright frenzy will be quite simple...
Progress will move away from the US and EU, and into India and China.
Both may be signatories to WIPO treaties, but IIUC they're not leading the charge. Both run rampant with piracy, though at the moment that seems to be passed off as an 'enforcement difficulty.' By the time we quit pussy-footing around, I expect both economies to have grown enough, and be busy enough modernizing their own nations that they'll be able to just chuck ^H^H^H^H^H withdraw regrettfully from the IP treaties, or renegotiate them. In any event, THEY'LL have the innovative lead, at that point.
Others have mentioned the IP-restrictive environment of New York being responsible for the rise of Hollywood.
IP laws, they way they're being misused today, circumscribe the pie so IP owners can own bigger chunks of it. Growth in the pie itself will happen elsewhere.
Oh yes, IMHO patents and copyrights were meant to compensate inventors and artists for their creative effort, and keep them in the creative business. For far too many copyrights and patents, the main expense is in filing, and the creative effort was trivial. The competitive roadblock is the reason. IMHO, this is abusive and retards progress in the US.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The USPTO only has one type of patent. The "I want a monopoly on this" patent. There should be defensive patents, patents issued saying "we figured out how to do this on our own, we don't want to stop other people form figuring out the same thing we just don't want to be prevented from using our inventions." The cost should be (much) lower and they should be approved faster and nobody should own them. That way you know right off what's going on.
I also like the proposed reforms making large companies who apply for lots of patents pay much more and individuals pay much less.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
While I am going to start with the disclaimer: I am NOT comparing Gates to Hitler or Software Patents to the Holocaust.
The guy that runs the VA Holocaust Museum in Richmond, VA, spent like, a year as a child living in a potatoe cellar dug into a field in eastern europe to escape the SS and certain death. When he asks tour groups "do you think that the holocaust could ever happen again?" they say no. Predicibly, they answer the same when he asks "do you think it could ever happen in the USA?"
He then gets rather livid. You would think that people who hear stories from previous visiters would have figured it out. He insists, and rightly so, that as soon as you write it off as a possibility, and say "it'll never happen here," or "never again, anywhere," that is exactly when it will. There are evil people and there are stupid people. Evil people prey on stupid people, and that is how they get away with it.
Don't let yourself be caught unaware. Don't let your guard down. Otherwise, Nazism can rise again, Communism can rise again, Islam could conqure Europe again, or Microsoft could take away our ability to exercise freedom of speach and press by controlling the only medium available with a still-low-enough barrier to entry. The death camps wouldn't have been possible without IBM. Who knows where we are being forced to goto today?
This is part of an emerging strategy that a friend of mine explained to me. In the past Microsoft has competed in the marketplace. In the future they will compete in the courthouse. Would-be competitors will be sued before their products gain enough of a following to be a threat. Microsoft's lawyers will tromp around beating their chests and making threats intended to intimidate others much the same way that the "church" of $cientology's lawywers persecute those who speak out about the cult's abuses and fundamentally evil nature. Microsoft is pursuing these fraudulent and frivilous patents because it costs money to defend against patent suits. Microsoft will not really care whether they win or lose the court case because the purpose of the suits and the threats of being sued is to intimidate their competitors and force them to tie up resources they cannot afford in their legal defense. This is exactly what CLABS did to Aureal a few years ago, filed phony patent suits and used the courts to bankrupt the company.
This really worries me because if blatant fraud and deceit become accepted business practices that are allowed to succeed, what does that say about the state of our civilization?
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Oh no, of course not.
IBM is a guardian of open systems and the free exchange of ideas.
If IBM had its way, your PC would be a glorified 3270 emulator connecting to some AS/400 or Mainframe.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I fully agree.
Also, having read the article, it seems to me that the author's comments about Microsoft only doing it to scupper OSS is only his opinion, not _fact_.
Wasn't it Red Hat that patented and then explained that they were only doing it so others couldn't snap up the 'goods' ? I can't see why MS would not want to do the same. That's the idea of patents, to protect ones ideas so that others cannot capitalise from them.
And as MS is a company that owes it's shareholders the best chance of a return, surely it is obliged to patent key technologies ?
At one time they did.
Read the book: Big Blue: IBM's use and abuse of power.
This book is literally an education on monopolist behavior. If you read it, you would amazed at how many of IBM's dirty tricks are practiced by Microsoft.
One very important lesson. The monopoly and especially lock in are the most important things. Even more important than short term profitability. Even more important than staying within the law.
After all the law will do is fine you. Maybe even painfully. But in the end, you still have a monopoly with locked in customers. You can charge what economists call "monopoly rents". So you're still in control of the game. Nothing is more important than maintaining the monopoly.
Anyway, I'm off topic. But the book is a very interesting read of things done in decades past that many here are too young to remember.
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
There's no need to register such patents. Just publish the information. If there's a dispute having a patent isn't better than having prior art. The debate is still about what infringes what. Of course Microsoft doesn't contribute much to the state of the art by publish. Some, but not very much.
This will also be to make sure that DRM can succeed.
And the continuing raft of viruses and worms will be used to help usher in the DRM age.
But I have to question whether it will really succeed.
DRM is being driven not by demand from consumers but from owners of copyrights. That's not exactly a recipe for success. It sounds to me like it will be as much a rousing success as DAT and for the same reasons.
Despite a deployment of DRM with euphemisms that most consumers aren't expected to understand and possibly low introductory prices on DRM-protected content, I foresee a lot of folks annoyed with the restrictions more than they are joyed by the content.
I still advocate calling the technology for the dog it is Content Use Restriction or CUR. It's designed to bite the unwitting.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
There is already an easy way to do just that. Publish a so-called defensive publication, in one of journals USPTO (as well as researchers) read and use for their prior-art evaluation process. It's too bad not more companies and individuals know this, but it is a practice some (big) companies do use, as it is significantly cheaper than doing full patent application.
Or, rather than profit motive or monopoly propagation, it could be option #3: Microsoft may just not want a repeat of the Eolas debacle where they get sued for something seemingly public domain 5 years down the road. Many companies (IBM comes to mind) maintain huge patent stables for precisely this purpose.
There are many reasons companies patent things, ranging from the defensive to the offensive. Unfortunately it's hard to tell a priori what the actual reasons are.
Unfortunately Microsoft has already told us exactly what they plan to do. I forget which one of the "Haloween" documents it was, but in one of them they clearly made the point that the most effective tool to combat against Open Source software, including Linux, was through intellectual property, and specifically patents.
In that light, the article makes perfect sense, including the reasons why Microsoft is patenting everything they can. It's just part of the war plan they have to battle Linux and Open Source software. What better way than to "innovate" in such a way that is incompatible with previous releases, and then patent the methodology so that it becomes difficult to impossible to create a competing method without violating a patent of some kind or another.
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Wow, what an effort and a change in strategy. Microsoft made its mint by being proprietary, but sort-of compatible with their old products while embracing and extending other people's killer apps.
Now, with every other OS based on a *nix core, not only does Microsoft continue to ignore this trend but they try to 'go it alone' and isolate themselves through locking down their interfaces with patents and tough to engineer interfaces. Sounds like the Great Wall of China, and that set back China a century or two when they were ahead of the world by about that much.
I think this strategy might have worked 5 years ago before OS X and Linux - particularly now that Linux has hit critical mass on the server. It's probably too late now to try and get users to walk from Linux just for a few killer features in Longhorn.
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had?
There should be defensive patents, patents issued saying "we figured out how to do this on our own, we don't want to stop other people form figuring out the same thing we just don't want to be prevented from using our inventions."
Actually, there are. They're called Statutory Invention Registration these days. For a very small fee you can just register that you invented something, without actually obtaining patent protection for it. But, the patent office will have that you invented it on file.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I support friends and family computers. Most use XP, while a few are ME and finally some stalwarts still on 98 (hey, it works fine for their needs)
I do my best to recommend OS upgrades ONLY when they're necessary, and honestly, most times they are not needed.
When Windows 2000 came out, several of my friends/family wanted to switch to it, and I told them that if they switched, I could no longer support them. I don't have the time/engery to hassle with a "new" os, with "new" innovations. (I help them with XP, because I use it at times, and am at least familiar with it, and it comes on all new boxes... I have yet to sit in front of a Win2k box)
This tactic worked. you'll see in the list, above, that there are no friends or family running 2k.
I'll simply say the same thing when "longhorn" comes around (love the "mess with the bull" garbage). "I'm sorry, but if you choose to upgrade/install "longhorn", I cannot help you.
Since I get at least 2-3 calls for help a month, I know that my services are needed. Since I'm not charging money to help them, the least they can do is *help me* to help them.
Slashdot | Microsoft Assembles Patent Arse...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
I disagree. In addition to all the anti-trust issues pointed out by others here, if we ever needed ammo to convince users that single-vendor lockin was bad, HERE IT IS.
No company can do anything without income, and I think Longhorn will drive users away in droves toward simpler and more robust alternatives. There's no way the market is going to select Microsoft's plan for the future because it will be appalled at what Longhorn WON'T let them do. (heh, heh).
I know I'm not going to upgrade -- I've purchased my last copy of Windows because the price of future versions will be too high, even if they give it away.
BTW, Why is Microsoft's solution to design problems "more code" instead of "less complexity"? They must have skipped that day in design school.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Publication has most of the properties the grandparent wanted: turnaround time is typically 6 months to a year (depending on whether you go conference or journal), costs are minimal (usually a few hundred dollars for a conference, less for journal), and it gets disseminated to a wide audience.
The downside is that the bar for patents appears lower than for publication; it seems like I'm always reading on Slashdot about patents that are successfully granted for ideas that do nothing to advance the state of the art, which leads me to suspect that there may be a "gray area" of ideas that are patentable (at least under our current system) but would have difficulty being accepted for publication. This is probably where "defensive patenting" would be useful.
There should be defensive patents, patents issued saying "we figured out how to do this on our own, we don't want to stop other people form figuring out the same thing we just don't want to be prevented from using our inventions."
These already exist. They're called publications. Once you've published something, nobody else can patent it (and you can't either, once a one-year time limit expires).
The only case where someone else could patent a method which you are already using is if you've kept the method a secret -- which is exactly what the patent system is designed to stop.
While there can be no doubt that the actual implementation of the patent system is severely flawed, the overall purpose and approach -- using the granting of monopolies to encourage people to publish their research instead of keeping it as "trade secrets" -- is certainly reasonable.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Shuffling the technology deck in the middle of the game to ward of competitors does not seem to work in some cases -- just ask Intel.
HPC for Primates. Read Cluster Monkey
It shouldn't really be much of a surprise. This is how power works. Microsoft will get what they want, and the world will just suck it up and deal.
:)
Yes, it will be expensive. But it will also be affordable. If it is too expensive Microsoft won't make any money at all. So they will find the pricing structure that allows them to suck just as much money as possible from everybody, without driving the masses to relatively unworkable alternatives.
And people will purchase music online, watch DVD's, play computer games, and accomplish work for their employers....all on very tightly controlled computers.
Its not the end of the world. Its just the end of the freedom that computers used to represent. Your computer won't do everything you would like it to do anymore, but it will do enough to keep you upgrading it.
I will resist it tooth and nail, of course, as will other geeks. But the masses won't even see it comming, and they will ruin everything for us. It sucks, but its life, and there isn't much we can do about it.
Unfortunately that's not how defensive patents work. It's more like: "You want to stop us doing business with your stoopid patent? Fine, we'll wipe your face across the floor using our stoopid patents!"
Patents can only be defensive in the same sense that nukes are defensive: as a threat for retaliation.
If all you're looking for is a recognition of your prior art, just publish in a well read journal, as other posters have pointed out.
I really think this is great, if Microsoft will patent all the flaws and then fight in court to prevent anyone making the same mistakes :-) Did they patent their nine-time-reboot technology yet?
Cheers, Erik
I think that Microsoft is tacitly acknowledging that they can't keep up with the F/OSS communities any more. Even without being hit by Sasser at work, I'm hard pushed to think of anything that XP does better than the SUSE 9.0 distro I use at home, except interoperating with closed Microsoft products. The only advantage Windows has is in things that are opaque to F/OSS developers, so effectively making some key elements of Longhorn opaque is the only way they can hope to compete in the future.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
The hardest, most expensive part of development is the creation of the overall formula / mix of technologies that will make a successful product. Tremendous energies are spent debating the rights and wrongs of various approaches on technical, strategic technical (long term evolutionary goals), business and business technical grounds. The energies are spent both in informal and formal ways. Microsoft spends many millions just getting 100s of people to come in and use different interfaces so that they can determine scientifically which approaches are best for which populations. That is their investment and the overall look and feel and selection of technologies to employ is the result. And, they probably make that investment 20 times over before they actually have one product that really hits the right formula. Coding is the easy part.
Then people come along and copy the formula, many times under more relaxed less demanding conditions and implement something better (though years later), top it off with openly speaking of stealing the show, and actually have the GAUL to CRITICIZE when the company realizes that maybe they need to start patenting the results of their investments?
Anybody can code. Anybody can code even better when they don't have to make money on it. But few can architect. Architects are only about 1% of our population and architects with business sense and a true sense of the average joe non-geek user are far fewer. Regrettably, we, as a society in general, do not give them their due. We look at what they did and just dismiss it with "that's obvious" or "anyone could do that" or "its all been done before", all of which may be true, but if it hasn't been put together in that combination and the combination does show greater value, then they did it first, they deserve their due, others shouldn't copy it without paying their respects and dues and that's that.
Most people spend their whole life and don't come up with a single marketable idea. Some companies spend billions and only come up with a few. I admire both the people that succeed and the companies that succeed and only hope to get my turn just once.
And yes I'm a hypocrite who has made copies of all of their CDs and multiple family members listen to those copies in different places at the same time. But that's different isn't it? :o)
Desite being a linux loving zeleot myself, I have to say I do not know of any instance where microsoft has really used any of its patents in a way which I think is really bad. The closest we can get is the FAT one, but I actually don't think they have even enforced that anywhere.
Of course I may be proved wrong over time, but I just think they are doing what all other major US companies are doing.
Don't believe me? Think Pocket PC, where virtually any PPC is the same as any other. The next logical step in all this is Xbox, where Microsoft sells the hardware and everyone else is a supplier to Microsoft. Indeed, Xbox is a learning platform for how to marry the OS with the hardware such that one won't work without the other.
When you tie the OS so tightly to the hardware the anti-trust issue goes away. Of course only Xbox plays Xbox games -- and only PS2 plays PS2 games. So what? Of course only Longhorn PCs run Longhorn applications -- and only Macintoshes run Macintosh apps. So what?
Oh, sure, someone will get Linux to run on Longhorn PCs, but it will be just like trying to get Linux running on an Xbox. It can be done, but it's klugy and possible illegal and really not worth the hassle.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
They received 3415 patents in 2003. If MS manages to keep up the "10 patent per day" rate, then of course, IBM will have to turn over the crown. But IBM is an Open Source darling, right?
Is this sig nificant?
IANAL. Apart from making money off of patents, and apart from patenting everything so that non-ms software will be incompatible, do you think that another reason would be to patent things before someone else DOES? A sort of preventative measure?
If IBM had its way, your PC would be a glorified 3270 emulator connecting to some AS/400
You seem unaware that IBM went out of its way to make the original ISA architecture royalty free. The PC revolution happened because anyone could make a compatible hardware system. After enough other players made their fortunes they got together to make standards such as PCI and AGP without some individual company mandating it. But the ball started rolling with IBM's freely giving away the specs and rights to make compatible ISA.
You may ask how in the hell they managed this one, but it seems they have devised a novel way to herd Worms. They just set boxes of Windows out in the fields, and the worms just keep rollin in. AMAZING. Wormherders everywhere are jumping for joy.
Even master wormhered Paul Maud'dib had to give them credit.
Another view is that big companies patent lots of things, and then by the implicit threat of suing the "small guy", prevent innovation from moving forward. In practice this is harder than it sounds, since the damage to the image of the company can be considerable if it tried to sue a small target - that's why you rarely see it happen.
In the mind of everyone who would learn about and understand such an action, Microsoft's image has already been damaged. For most of their customers, however, such an attack by Microsoft would slip under the radar... which is probably why Microsoft apparantly has no moral objections to making such threats against small targets and why people like this blogger can talk about that situation as if it were a hypothetical "view" rather than a recent occurance.
Microsoft, you see, is electing to make WinFS not just a mere file system but a complex database engine application that will manage relational and XML data as well as file data.
Microsoft says this aims to give users a way to search for information content independent of format. I say that's a job for search engines, and Google's doing just fine, thank you very much.
So this guy wants people to use Google to search for stuff on their hard drive?
This is an example of anti-MS zealotry in action:
Phase 1: denounce any radical ideas Microsoft plans on implementing as stupid, better done by (X), pointless, etc.
Phase 2: after a couple years of this "pointless" MS tech being used, find out that it's actually not that bad and perhaps even better than a competing "kosher" technology (see SAMBA vs NFS), and start making a Linux implementation.
Phase 3: bash Microsoft for not innovating.
I don't see any real need to deconstruct something as basic as a file system and replace it with such a complex infrastructure except to make it harder for anyone else--say, the open-source community--to make WinFS-compatible programs and servers.
Maybe, just maybe MS is trying something different for a change. Of course it's going to require big changes to the filesystem. I have a feeling that their interests lie in making a better FS first and an incompatible one second, not the other way around, as many would speculate. The author seems very intent on being able to access Windows disks over the network -- Longhorn won't really change that. If SAMBA doesn't work with Longhorn, there's always FTP. Somehow I don't think it's going to be as dire as the author makes it out to be.
I'm ignorant; why does publication have to be through a journal or a conference?
And why is there a "bar" for publication? Why is there not a dedicated journal, printed on cheap paper in black and white to keep costs easily covered by low fees?
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Well... Wait until RedHat runs out of money or some jackass gets the helm. No one thought Caldera would do what it is doing now four years ago. Hindsight is always 20/20. :(
Let's get a few things straight.
First, Microsoft isn't trying to compete with Linux. If they were, Linux would need a similar desktop market share. Linux isn't even close. That's why you bitch about Microsoft having a monopoly. If they were roughly equal in market share, you would call it an oligopoly or a cartel, depending on their level of cooperation.
Second, Microsoft wouldn't be stupid enough to purposely break compatibility with everything. Obviously, the author of the article is merely trying to spread FUD. Longhorn is going to be delayed while they add new features, reduce loopholes, and make sure their software is as user-friendly(read: built for those who don't know what they're doing) as possible.
Third, they've had trouble with patents recently. People are suing them for trivial shit that would appear to be common sense or common use. Therefore, they want to cover their asses by patenting anything they consider necessary, useful, or at the very least something someone like SCO would consider suing them over.
All that said, this article was written to do two things: whip Linux users into a frenzy, and show non-Linux users that Linux users don't think like the rest of the world. The article is so slanted, that it makes Linux users look like paranoid fools. All the author does is throw a few wild conspiracy theories out there, and hope that someone will publish him because of his love for an operating system.
Ah, but once Microsoft gets hit with an antitrust suit, a key issue will be opening the API. Which means that the Linux kernel will be able to support the DRM system.
You'll still need a key for the hardware to accept the kernel as a trusted piece of software, but that can be accomplished by a third party providing a compiled binary optimized for your system, along with a key and the source code.
From that point on, it's the user's responsibility to keep that key safe, and not allow anyone else to have access to it! Media will likely be encrypted and watermarked using your key, and you'll get accused of copyright violation if a copy of that watermark is found outside of your computer.
The compiled binary+key+source concept would also have to apply to playback software.
You need a compiled binary because software will need to be somehow certified safe. And the only way to do that is to have a "trusted" (by the copyright holders, that is) entity perform the auditing and compilation of the software.
It does raise barriers to software development, though, the tearing down of which is part of what free software has been all about. So it's not an ideal solution, but it's workable.
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These already exist. They're called publications. Once you've published something, nobody else can patent it (and you can't either, once a one-year time limit expires).
Dream on. It might work in some alternative universe, but in this one it only applies if you have the $$$ to contest the issue in court. Against a Microsoft, IBM, or IP litigation factory, you don't have a chance even if you are totally in the right.
I read the internet for the articles.
Why does the open source community hate patents so much? I think that if the open source community came up with something new, they would hopefully patent it just like Microsoft are doing. If they didn't patent it, then they're fools because someone else will.
The thing that differentiates free and open source software from closed source is the lack of holding pieces of it hostage for money. It's what makes it open.
Having patents on an something atomatically makes open source software unable to implement it. Even if someone invents a way to get there and allows other people to use it, they are prevented from doing so by the patent.
Since copyright prevents someone from copying your invention in the software world, patenting software is only useful for preventing other people from coming up with another way to solve the same problem you did. This was not the original reason for patents.
You were supposed to be able to "build the better mouse trap" and patent it, not patent "building mouse traps".
Many open source licences (apache, samba) specifically say the software can't be used if any money is charged for licencing patents held on any technology inside. This prevents someone from creating a patent and sueing every company using the software for money to keep using apache/samba. They can ask that companies stop using the software, but they cannot ask for money to keep using it since if the company pais the money they are then in violation of the software's licence and must stop using it. It keeps unscrupulous companies from trying to gain effective ownership of other people's work.
The debate over patents is an old one. The benefits of having the freedom of to use knowledge and innovate vs the benefits of the profit incentive from being able to own patents. Open source software operates with the freedom of knowledge and innovation at it's core. Holding pieces of knowledge and pieces of software hostage for money can't work with open source.
I hope this answers your qutesion.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
It is NOT workable. Why I the admin/developer/end-user should need some third party to say what software I can and cannot run? Why I should need some entity to tell me that I have to pay them to sign my own code so I would be allowed to run it? Why shouldn't I be able to design my own media player, or to take a FPGA and a couple DACs and making my own sound card? What is the purpose of the computers - being a tool for the people, or making sure some rich suit'n'tie bastards can become even more rich without having to do any real work?
If this system takes off, it becomes just another disincentive for being legal and law-obedient citizen.
..is simple - STOP using microsoft dependent software if you fear being locked in. End your dependency. It'll be like quitting smoking - difficult at first, most rewarding in the end.
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
Why isn't microsoft jumping on the DMCA wagon, and making it illegal to reverse engineer their protocol?
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
Maybe they are just busy patenting all the worms :)
What does this get you? A copyright doesn't protect an "idea," it only protects an expression of an idea. And you can't protect an idea with a patent either. The original poster was right -- just publish the material into the public domain if you want to keep others from patenting the work.
However, remember that in the U.S. you can file for a patent as long as the material hasn't been publically known for a year, so there is still some danger involved. In the rest of the world, however, publication before submitting an application for a patent absolutely bars a patent being issueds.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Let's see: Microsoft dictates the price of the OS; Microsoft dictates the price of the BIOS; Microsoft dictates the design of the rest of the hardware. Doesn't leave much room for innovation or cost-cutting, does it?
Replace Microsoft with Apple.
This has been Apple's business model for years yet few complain. Apple does innovate (I love my iPod). The only problem I have with Apple is the tight relationship between hardware and software. Yes I know this allows the computer to be much more stable.
I think Apple could make some serious cash if they created an x86 based OS. Their computer sales would take a hit.
Ok, I will stop ranting now. I just (hits self in head) clicks submit Feels better
Microsoft is not innovative company as far as Computer _Science_ is concerned. This is more or less true statement. However, they shine in other aspects. It is too be predicted because they're in a unique position in the history and have to come up with ideas to maintain this position.
Here's a list from the top of my head:
- Triple E: Embrace-Extend-Exterminate
- Psychological take-over: MS annouces it will
start competing in market X. Customers in market
X stop updating their software waiting for MS
to release their thing. Market X vendors
stock goes down, MS acquires one of them only
to lay off everybody and butcher the software.
- Including court system in business process:
it's OK to be fined for being a monopoly as long
as Wall Street expectations are met.
Any others?I keep reading "anti-trust" this and that here, and of course it's all true. But I think it's very clear from the US Government's actions (lack thereof), that they have NO INTEREST is pursuing Microsoft in any way, shape, or form. The EU might have a chance, but then Microsoft can roll them up in a huge ball of procedural delay until it's simply a moot point. I think the only choice left is to simply ignore what Microsoft is doing (assume it's doing bad things) and concentrate on building a Linux platform (yes, an idiot proof application install standard, do something about dependency hell, and of course the "desktop") that corporate buyers actually want to deploy.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Yes, and they learned the lessons from ISA (ie smaller competitors will kick IBM's rear) and came back to conquer the desktop with proprietary MicroChannel. Rember the PS/2?
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
What does it have to do with all of this ? - Well... if MS does what everyone else here is predicting, then the younger generation will find ways around it or replace it (and move to Linux or Mac, etc). They will convey this information to others and it will slowly spread.
In my view, the best you can do is to teach others about alternatives. I use Linux solely at home, except for my wife's Win 98 machine. She has clearly stated that she has no reason to upgrade to the latest and greatest, since all she does is read emails, browse the web and write Word documents. She has also specifically stated that rather than upgrade she'd switch to Linux, since the later versions of Windows appear too complex to her and she has no desire to spend that kind of money. It was simply a matter of education, and it's only a matter of time before my whole household is on Linux.
Then you better join a campaign outlawing hardware-level integration of DRM. Because that's the only way I can think of to stop it.
IIRC, TCPA doesn't have to be enabled. That means you can still use newer hardware, just without the abilities granted by "trusted computing."
I'm not really a consumer of streaming multimedia, so I don't see a problem for me.
That doesn't mean I don't fight it...I've written my congressmen several times, even if I only get boilerplate letters back saying "blah blah blah we don't have the authority to pass laws regarding blah, so blah..."
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> Microsoft could take away our ability to exercise freedom of speach and press by controlling the only medium available with a still-low-enough barrier to entry.
3 words, 2 phases:
China, Russia, OSS, hordes of programmers, laughing at US patents.
Or to put it another way, when enough people violate a patent and post it free for download...
Really I can't see how any of the doomsday scenarios posted here can come about without an unprecedented national policy of isolationism that includes a pretty totalitarian U.S. National Firewall. Dell and MS are going to have us ALL arrested? I don't think so.
"Do you think it could happen here?"
In this context the whole interweb thingy changes everything about the word "here". For our purposes today "here" is Earth. No I don't think it could happen here. As long as we keep hacking xbox's, building community WLANs, cheering on our Skylarov's, and writing OSS, we'll keep ahead of the Corporate Nobility.
Worse comes to worst, there will be a black market here for foreign non-DRM hardware and a string of International WLANS along the borders pumping free software inwards. They don't have a Department of Corporateland Security everywhere.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
The problem is that anti-competitive practices are just that, they have to be practiced. Right now they can plot, plan, and develop to their hearts content, since they are not practicing anything.
Even after the rollout it will be years before any complaints hits the courts, by then MS will have made billions and be ready with the next anti-competive plan for the marketplace. The court cost and fines will be microscopic in comparison to the profits that have already been booked.
Just remember how long the AT&T and Standard Oil monopolies were allow to live before the US courts stepped in to actually break them up.
--laz
"Just remember, it takes a village idiot." -- The Motley Fool.
I really hate to crush such optimism, but patents are intended to be anti-competitive by their very nature (for a limited time).
Plus, looking at the results of the previous anti-trust trial (at least in the US), I'm not so optimistic.
You are right... they should be worried.
Remember, in ten years... hardware will be free.
Just ask MicroSoft.
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
Interesting...so what's the plan for that other bastion of patents-out-the-wazoo, IBM? You know, the Linux hero in corporate clothing?
Hopefully, now that they've realized the game is much more fun when all can play, IBM will make sure their portfolio stays ahead that Microsoft will have to cross license everything to legally sell their system. At least until the rest of the world realizes how much power not implementing software patents will give them over the US.
Don't think they will? It doesn't take a genuis to figure out that if everyone but Americans could freely use American ideas America's IP based economy would be royally screwed.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Instead of spouting FUD (as so many accuse Microsoft of doing), why don't we see what someone from Microsoft has to say?
Chris Pratley gives us a small bit of insight:
"One of the methods for protecting intellectual property is the patent system. Now, everybody hates the patent system. After all, it is pretty broken. The original idea of patents (I gather) was to promote the spread of ideas and inventions. With no protection for ideas, inventors resorted to secrecy. e.g. the exact method by which a chemical was made was kept secret and locked up in a factory vault, so that society could not benefit from the idea except to the extent that the inventor used it himself. The patent system offered what seemed a reasonable proposition. In return for explaining the idea in great detail so that others could understand and use it, the inventor was protected for a period of years where they had exclusive rights to use the idea, or to license it to others. If someone stole the idea, the inventor had legal recourse.
Well, fast forward to "now", and the patent system is used almost entirely differently. At Microsoft, we used to pay little attention to patents - we would just make new things, and that would be it. Then we started getting worried - other big competitors (much bigger than we were at the time) had been patenting their inventions for some years, and it made us vulnerable. One of these big companies could dig through their patent portfolio, find something close to what we had done, then sue us, and we would have to go through an elaborate defense and possibly lose. So Microsoft did what most big companies do, which is start to build what is called a "defensive" patent portfolio. So if a big company tried to sue us, we could find something in our portfolio they were afoul of, and counter-sue. In the cold war days, this strategy was called "mutual assured destruction", and since it was intolerable for all parties to engage, it resulted in a state called "détente", or "standoff". This is what you see today for the most part in lots of industries.
There are lots of other problems with the patent system. For example, Microsoft gets "submarined" quite often. A small company or individual has an idea, which they patent as quietly as possible. Then they sit back and wait (years if necessary), until some big company develops something (independently of course) that is sufficiently similar to their idea that they can surface and sue us. I have been involved in a couple of these, so I can speak from experience. The people involved often never had any intent of developing their idea, and they also make sure to wait until we have been shipping a product for several years before informing us they think they have a patent on something related, so that "damages" can be assessed as high as possible. This simply makes innovating the equivalent of walking into a minefield. This doesn't seem to be helping the process of moving humanity forward.
Another view is that big companies patent lots of things, and then by the implicit threat of suing the "small guy", prevent innovation from moving forward. In practice this is harder than it sounds, since the damage to the image of the company can be considerable if it tried to sue a small target - that's why you rarely see it happen. I think this works both ways of course as I described in the last paragraph. Basically whoever has the patent has the power.
Another complete perversion of the original patent system is that because there are triple damages if the plaintiff can show the infringer knowingly infringed on a patent, there is a huge disincentive to look at the patents on file at the patent office. If you do a "patent search" to see if what you want to do is patented already, and you find nothing, you are still liable for triple damages if someone sues you and can show that you looked at their patent. This matters because even if you think their idea is irrelevant, a court may not agree with you. So the only safe thing to do is not loo
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
Its about controlling everything that is digital on the planet.
Compatibility is just a side issue along the path to total domination.
I'm still waiting for the government to pull a fast one on us, and mandate only 'approved' software can be used due to 'security issues'. Then require rather large budgets ( and proper DRM components ) to get on the approved list..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Considering the above interpretations of the reason behind Microsoft's patent direction, Longhorn, DRM and BIOS lock-in, Sun's settlement doesn't sound as bad as all the "Sun caved in" pundits would have us believe. At least for Sun.
.Net/web platform APIs in the future, while MS tightens the noose in general and other software vendors get locked out.
If Sun has an agreement to be on the 'inside' and is guaranteed access to MS protocols, formats and APIs in the future they stand to profit nicely from Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior. Meanwhile, other server/UNIX vendors might be locked out.
Sun will be able to share files, directory services, access Exchange and all
Of course, this doens't help open-source, but Sun has never seemed very comfortable with OSS anyway.
Actually, publishing is only a defense if the others are slow to file. I believe that they have a year. Of course, it's illegal to lie when you claim that it's your own invention, and we know that nobody would do that. And it's dangerous, because they might prove you wrong (which,as said earlier, would be illegal).
To read the sarcasm in this correctly, one must remember that corporations can't be put in jail, and thier officers are largely immune to prosecution for the misdeeds of the corporation.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The only problem with your argument is that M$ has a long history of stealing other peoples ideas. How can they patent something based on stolen goods or is not theirs anyway?
Patenting a slightly different way of doing things is innovation, not invention. Patents were devised to protect NEW ideas, not 1 click shopping, or a variation of virtual desktops.
An architect does not patent his building. The tools used to design it are not patented. The concept of building from drawn plans and not a scale model is not patented. So, why should the tools and ideas behind software be locked away, but architects can use their tools and ideals freely?
If Rockefeller had patented the concept of a gasoline filling station would the governmet and general public have allowed it? What if Carnegie patented modern steel production? This what we are up against and of an equal or greater scale since the rest of the world would not have respected thoughs claims, but now the US is in a position to force the world to obey this stupidity.
Remember, all M$ products are based on STOLEN ideas,concepts, and code. They are not in a position to claim originality on any derivative products. (To borrow some SCO legal logic which M$ seems to agree with)
no
I think they patent their shit to protect themselves from scumbags like Eolas threatening them with $500M lawsuits for all kinds of ridiculous things. I've never seen Microsoft actually ENFORCE any software patents. No, VFAT thing doesn't work. They merely sell reference implementation spec, and they didn't sue anyone so far.
- i kinda look on this as part of the natural evolution of the software industry, which seems to be moving along the same path of the electronics industry, in which there is much cross-licensing... - for example, neither Sony nor Kenwood, or Toshiba, et al, design, produce and market a new CD/AM/FM/clock without first transferring millions of dollars between themselves in order to avoid IP/patent lawsuits... it's getting harder and harder for an engineer to design a new CPU, let alone any electronic device without someone, somewhere popping out of the woodwork with a lawsuit UNLESS a cross-license fee has been paid... - lots of money changes hands between the large-scale industrialists on a regular basis... - unfortunately the proprietary software industry as a whole still has not woken up and recognized the opportunities of open source licensing and free software: 1. no money need change hands and everyone benefits from everyone's efforts 2. state of the art is advanced rather than choked off in wasted time and effort in the govt. and court systems... 3. better business relationships are created and maintained between companies and customers when companies collaborate and customers are the object of support...
And you're forgeting the other salient point: you could get the prevalent operating system (DOS) from someone other than IBM. Since Microsoft's deal with Big Blue was non-exclusive, they could, would, and did sell DOS to anyone and their brother. Thus Joe Blow in his dorm room could buy processors from Intel, motherboards with Phoenix Bios' to fire the thing up, running DOS (and thus Lotus 1-2-3, which was what really mattered), and assemble computers able to use the literally thousands of ISA cards that had been developed for use on IBM PC's. Wow, ain't non-exclusive deals and competition grand!
Never forget that MS was there and is partly responsible. And Joe Blow in his dorm room was really named Michael Dell.
There are many ways to prevent businesses.
Microsoft has prevented many people from doing business. First, they controlled the distribution channels for hardware back in the day when IBM gave Microsoft an exclusive OS deal on the PC. When the clones came out, there was only one OS available: MS-DOS.
When DR-DOS arrived on the scene, Microsoft was quick to block it with exclusionary deals with the distribution channels. Sure you could buy DR-DOS; but since every PC came with MS-DOS (and *only* MS-DOS), what was the point? When DR approached distributors, they were rebuffed and told that their contract with Microsoft would not allow them to distribute another OS.
This is true even later: when Be approached distributors, willing to *give away* BeOS, they were told they couldn't, as Microsoft's contracts would not allow the PC distributors from allowing another OS to appear as a boot option.
This is not even discussing the products that never saw the light of day because Microsoft purchased the company and dismantled the product simply to avoid competition. Back in Java heyday, back before the blush was off the rose, Microsoft bought up a very large portion of the java development startups. They claimed they were simply purchasing the developers (essentially), but considering Microsoft never had a Java development strategy (other than hijacking the language), this argument is disingenuous.
Microsoft has succeeded more by regulating the market than by participating *in* the market. This is the one strikingly clear fact of the entire Microsoft history.
Anyway, this is a long rant; but I'm tired of the "Microsoft is soft and cuddly" comments. Microsoft *has* prevented others from doing business rather than compete with them head-to-head. And personally I consider any control by a single entity as market regulation, with or without government backing.
The major difference is, a corporation is vulnerable to something like Linux. As long as Microsoft is forced to compete on worth, they won't stand a chance. But as soon as they gain government backing (such as a huge frivolous patent portfolio), Linux is suddently put back "in its place:" as a hobbyist OS.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Your kidding right? Think how long it took for the whole anti-trust ball to get rolling with MS. The next time it would have to get very bad for some fat politician to get off his/her butt to even get the ball rolling (3 - 5 years of major complaints). Then a few years for the government to get the effort "organized". Add a year or more in court and throw in one extra year for miscellaneous garbage. By the time it all played out, it would not matter, MS would own all major IT channels, software, control of hardware specs, BIOS, 1,000's of patents. There will be no practical way to compete.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
I think the issue is that we had this situation once before, in the early 80's. Guess what happened? The more open hardware became the standard for 95% of the world. So if wintel becomes too restrictive - in terms of hardware like the xbox, I'm certain china or AMD or some chip manufacturer will come out with the Wal-Mart generic PC with Linux or whatever, and guess what - being open and able to add new hardware from 10,000 different vendors will win the day again.
Software I can see trying to be restrictive, but people just will not accept their computer hardware becoming like X-box hardware, where you can't upgrade, you can't add any printer or scanner or sound card or whatever. The masses are pretty apathetic, but they have shown time and again that because of that they will ditch en masse a product that makes them care about what they get to use with it for one that doesn't make them care.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
I think the dictatorships of tomorrow will be democracies. Contradiction in terms? I'm not so sure. More and more, power is distanced further and further away from the people.
The EU is adding another layer, distanced from the national parliaments. The US has long since done that with an election system where the only stable constellation is a two-party system.
What EU is passing now, may be law here literally years from now. In the US, rider bills are tacked onto anything. In either case, the people doesn't know what's going on. There are political debates but those are galleon figures.
The actual issues are almost forgotten. It's all about style, profile, personality and character, not to mention doing your worst to the opponent's. Politics is merely the arena they attack each other in.
The real politics are decided afterwards. Not by the people, but by those in permanent power. Those that have created a circle of power around them, those you can not afford to be on bad terms with. Lobbyists, supporters, business interests, leaders of other government agencies all encircle them.
Dictatorships of yesterdays gave no choice. Dictatorships of tomorrow will give you choice that is no choice. The great masses will be fooled into thinking they are making a difference.
And you will be written off as a conspiracy theorist. Discredited is far more effective than disappeared. Those create questions, martyrs. Internet gives you a voice. But a voice that noone believes is no voice at all.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Why do people keep saying "convicted monopolist?" It's not illegal to be a monopoly. You're not "convicted" of being a monopoly. If you said "abusive monopoly," that would be different, but "convicted monopolist" doesn't mean anything. It's redundant. Just say "monopolist" or "abusive monopolist."
Microsoft have been convicted of abusing their monopoly.
The accurate description is therefore "convicted abusive monopolist". "Abusive monopolist" doesn't capture the fact that they have been convicted of it, "monopolist" doesn't even contain the information that they're doing anything wrong.
Since "convicted abusive monopolist" is too long to type more than absolutely necessary, people try to shorten it. They do that by cutting out the least significant information. In this case, the least significant fact is that their monopoly was abusive: that goes without saying, because they wouldn't have been convicted of anything if it hadn't been.
Therefore, "convicted monopolist" is not meaningless or redundant. Please shut up and fuck off now.
There are always two - a master and an apprentice. And long ago, the apprentice became the master. ;)
Patents were never designed for software, and it is becoming more clear by the day that they are ill-suited to the task. They are stifling the very thing they are supposed to promote: innovation.
What we really need here is a new form of IP protection specific to software, or perhaps simply a modified version of Patent protect without the far reaching gasp of the currently model. Maybe Patents for software should only last a few short years, or perhaps they should be solidly rooted in an implementation rather than a protocal.
They are just speculating on the purposes of these patents. My guess is that the purpose is defensive. Microsoft is a big target for everyone who gets a bogus patent nowadays. It is in their best interest to patent every damn thing they can that their software does, simply to prevent others from doing so.
Maybe it'll take a whole seventeen years ..... by which time the patents will have worn off and everything they covered will be in the public domain. And, of course, software patents are unenforceable in some countries ..... the USA will soon be overtaken. See, people who pay for software are a minority. Perhaps one in ten copies of a closed-source application is properly licenced. Even much of the world's business relies on pirated software. Once people realise they can't use their copied Windows applications anymore, cheapo imported hardware running Linux or FreeBSD will become the order of the day. Unless Microsoft's DRM is cracked first.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
In my state, three felonies, buh bye,(might be 2 actually) automatic LIFE in prison. By my count, gates has been convicted of three now, his recent personal "gosh, I musta fergot, aw shucks" stock trading, and the fed anti trust suit, and in the EU similar, him being head schmoo over to redmond. I think other states have similar, 2 or 3 times, adios, have fun in jail. But, if you are REALLYBIGCO, it don't matter, because something you can't put in jail the legalised 'person' called a corporation, can't be locked up.
It's not time to bust up microsoft,that's way long past as far as I am concerned, it's time to get rid of the federal law (santa clara versus union pacific railroad)allowing *legal* "personhood" to a piece of paper with a stamp on it called a corporation, and put it back to NAMED human beings are always responsibile for their decisions. All incorporation does is give these goons a free skate and a legal shield to HIDE behind for crimes and to hide behind for taxes and to hide behind for campaign briberies, something joe sixpack never has. WHY is this considered "fair" and legal anyway?
It's disgusting. Not just MS, several bigcos out there are deserving of being dissolved, their stockholders left with useless paper and digits, then MAYBE it might sink in to companies and "investors" to not invest in being crooks.
man, this stuff gets me steamed....... and software patents? puh leeze, that was a big mistake a long time ago.... if they want to make it closed source to "make money" give them at most a 5 year copyright when they can keep it secret, then it opens up to the public. This forever and a day noise is too much too with copyrights.
You don't even have to publish it in a Journal...you could publish it in your Online Church newsletter and it would still be counted as published....
i.e.
Our Lord Christ the Savior Virgin Mary Church of Obedience Newsletter,
May 5th, Wednesday night service at 6:30 pm
May 9th, Bible Vacation school starts
May 14th, sunrise breakfast
Please congratulate Brother Jeb for coming up with a process that uses a database that uses cookies on a congregate's website to make tithings through a remote payment system that remembers the congregate's information so future tithing can be done via a one-click process
May 21st, Movie night, Passion of the Christ
May 28th, Friday night bookclub discussion, "The Da Vacini Code" fact or fiction?
This would count as publication
That's what kills me. IBM was a wonderfull example of how such hard ball practices fail, in the early 90's they got nailed harder than anybody.
After 40+ years of abusive monopoly control, crushing competitors, even in the 1950's.
Example: Early 50's. IBM discovers that Rand has an entry level computer way cheaper than IBM's hugely expensive machines. So IBM make their low end machine available for half of what it costs to manufacture! But with barely enough memory to be useful. Soon the customer would need memory, and IBM would more than make a profit on the entire system once the memory upgrade was purchased.
The book is just chock full of dirty tricks.
You suggest that such tactics fail. Well, I suppose I agree that they must fail eventually. But am I doomed to spend my entire career under Microsoft's control? Oh, suppose, by your theory that they fail badly by the time I retire. Who cares anymore?
Thank goodness, it looks like the industry will have some freedom much sooner than happened in IBM's case.
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
Yes, but you are not going far enough!
Recompile the kernel, it wont work, not signed.
They don't just want all the money, they arent interested in money...
Its the power. No coders outside microsoft. only the corporate equiv. of script-kiddies allowed, and once moores cranks up so that decent apps can be coded in scripting languages, even that will be taken away.
Microsoft does not make all these apis soo big and clunky because they are a large corporate that cannot make something elegant and easy to use.
This is a mindgame designed to keep external programmers tearing there hair out with frustation battling the API and system.
Why do you think microsoft changes the core of every major subsystem every 2-3 years...
Cant have people getting to know the interface enough to engineer a decent management layer over it so that decent productivity can be achieved.
That abrogates too much control.
Keep the system fluid, force developers to restart their learning curves every couple of years.
Look at X, it has had the same underlying model for decades.
Ok there are layers of abstraction layed on top, but the basic core of static.
lock everyone else out of the "real" bare metal coding, keep the core to themselves. make everyone else subservient to the whim of microsoft.
DRM is the prize, a legal mandate to lock away our own systems away from us. To lock out all competition. whats next? Using the DMCA to force the uptake of MS DRM so as to lock out everyone else.
DRM ONLY works when the DRM scheme is locked away from external developers by a partitioning of the system into TRUSTED and untrusted...
By this, read "THEIRS" and ours.
Don't give away your machine along with your freedom.
Ahhhh.... I sound like a ranting lunatic, and I probably am, but lunacy is a blessed thing.
Final words...
In the end DRM is a trick being pulled on everyone to make them think that systems can have meaning embodied in them... "This bitpattern is an artifact with an owner, so can only be used in certain ways"
Rubbish, a bit pattern is nothing more than that and needs something to interpret it for us into some meaningful set of actions.
If any part of the system is free (as in speech), nothing is safe as everything is just a Turing machine.
Meaning free.
I read some guff today about MS DRM being able to lock down content even unto the analogue output.
Now I ask you, who are they kidding?
At some point the bitpattern of that top 10 hit is rendered into an analogue electrical signal that has to be pumped into some speakers, how can this signal be so altered as to leave it secure from re-sampling?
THERE IS NO MAGIC in computing.
No amount of pigopolist flagwaving will make computer systems into anything they are not.
What is bill going to do when computers are soo fast that an excel spreadsheet can be used to playback fullscreen video by changing the colour of the cell backgrounds to generate pixels.
Ranting off. Tired. Sickened.
Clearly Islam and Nazism are not the same. Or are they? Take an objective look at it (as objective as I can be through the filter of being Irish Catholic) like this:
Both ideologies hate Jews, and fundimentaly, are anti-Christian as well. Christianity, like it or not, is the underpinning of western civilization, particularly in America. Read the founding fathers' works sometime. Props also to the Roman Republic.
Anyway, Hitler was hell-bent on world domination, as was Islam in its early days, and still is if these alleged "extreamists" aren't that "extream" afterall, which they may not be. Osama bin Laden won't stop until everyone is on a prayr rug facing Mecca or dead. It doesn't matter if you vote for Bush or Kerry or Godzilla. It doesn't matter if you are in the KKK or marching in the streats with a red flag advocating utopian socialism. It's all evil unless it is fundamentalist Islam. The same could be said of people like Pat Robertson, but no one ever hijacked an airplane or murdered children in a shopping mall because of Pat Robertson. Sure, people have done some diabolical things in the name of Christ. However, the crusades were a military operation bent on keeping evil invaders from the east out. Rome and Persia had been going at it for centuries before. Christianity v. Islam is just an extension of taht fight.
Sure, not all muslims are evil terrorists. There was also Schindler, so I guess not all nazis were bad people, either.
People like my mother (a spanish teacher who was a romance language major at Princeton, now working on her masters and doctorate in Spanish and 2ndary Education via William and Mary), and persumably yourself, will point to the so-called "golden age" of Spain, durring the time the Moores ruled. Well guess what, the alleged "golden age" is a bullshit story concotaed by the British as a propaganda measure to justify alling with the Ottoman Empire. Islam is fundimentally agaisnt Christianity and Judaism. They were brutal and oppressive just like the Soviet Union, the DPRC, Cuba, et cetera.
Frankly, I do not belive that the Persians and Arabs went from worshiping dark angles, djins, and the necronomicon to comming back into favor with the Hebrew God, when they have been the sworn enemies of the Jews since Abraham stuck his dick in that whore and knocked her up while thinking that Sara was barren and unable to have kids. I firmly belive that the Islam is a guise for Satanism and that if there is ever going to be a last "great battle" between "good and evil," it is going to be the Christian West vs. the Islamic and/or Communist East.
Religion aside, as frankly all theocracies are bad (Civil Government should be composed of individuals who are moral and realize that all rights come from God and that government protects rights, not grants/restricts rights), the establishment of a totalitarian regime that is fundimentally anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, anti-free thought, et cetera, is exactly the aim of Hitler and Bin Laden. It was the goal of Stalin, Mao, and Castro (not Che; he was a good man). It is also the traditional goal of Satan throughout the centuries. Therefor we can assume that they are all in league.
Saddam thought Stalin was the greatest thing since sliced bread. It has been proven that Al Queda gave money to Neo-Nazi groups in Europe just because they were anti-Jewish.
I am all for "tollerance," but that means I'll put up with Islam. I will never accept it, nor do I expect them to accept Christianity. I believe I am correct and they are not, but they believe the same thing. People shouldn't change beliefes without imperical data showing them to be wrong, or at least a VERY sound Philosophical argument. Otherwise I do not respect them (like John Kerry. Vote Michael Peroutka in '04).
However, tollerance can only go so far. Everything has a place. Everyone has a place (while I am a believer in oligarchy and the Roman Republic, I believe everyone should have the chance to better their station in life and then recieve the extra rights
Who says you can stop it? It looks like its going to happen, the uninformed WILL continue to support their HP,DELL, etc. DRM supported hardware, and the informed will probably purchase non-DRM boards from ebay,Soyo, Asus, etc. I think besides contacting your congressman, you should spend more time informing joe-consumer about this. This would work for spam too, see, if noone buys DRM enabled sw/hw, or rather the non-drm sw/hw sells like hotcakes, then there is no demand to keep selling the DRM stuff....but these people are so insidious they'll try to bury DRM lock-in mechanisms everywhere....we'll see.
Although, I think its going to backfire. What if the system were "accidently" set to play "unauthorized media" at startup, how much of longhorn would break? Or what about a new plague of viruses that create DoS attacks on your own machine by using an authorized program to manipulate files and make your system believe that all the data on your hardrive is copyrighted and you were unauthorized to view it? Oops, cant view user32.dll. Has MS/HP/Intel considered these issues, or will they just wait until their support lines get "slashdotted" by joe-consumers? Like:
Joe: "Hello, I keep getting 'copyright error: unauthorized access' messages on my screen when my son tries to open his word document, and he has to finish typing his book report by tomorrow morning, how can I turn this damn thing off?"
drone: have you tried restarting the machine?
Joe: yes, several times.
drone: Ok...have you tried reinstalling windows?
Joe: WHAT?!!
drone: Oh sorry, wrong script....Lets see here...Oh ok, you have to contact the IP owner of the data you are trying to access."
Joe: "WTF? He IS the owner"
Drone: "I am sorry sir, computers do not lie so clearly he must be plagerizing. I cannot help you any further. Thank you for calling, have a nice day."
...small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri...