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HP Memo Predicts MS Patent Attacks on Open Source
Roblimo writes "A two-year-old internal HP memo has just surfaced that talks about how 'Microsoft could attack Open Source Software for patent infringements against OEMs, Linux distributors, and least likely open source developers. They are specifically upset about Samba, Apache and Sendmail.' NewsForge has the story, including the memo's full text, a response from Eben Moglen (who says the memo's author misinterprets part of the GPL), and a statement from HP saying they love open source, really they do, even though 'Microsoft continues to be one of HP's strongest partners.'"
so that would explain the 26,000 patents that MS has been busy filing to lock down everything in the world.
ahhh..
world domination..
never would have thought MS would stoop so low..
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
This kind of fluff makes front page news? Anybody COULD do anything. Why don't you report on it when MS does? In the meantime, isn't there better stuff to report, like real news?
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
But what people constantly forget is that america is not the world. Even if MS manages to lock down Linux and OSS development here in the United States, that does not necessarily stop the rest of the world from pulling ahead of US.
That is, of course, assuming that IBM doesn't decide to stand up to MS and pull a few patent tricks of their own.
Come on, Microsoft. Attack with that shit, and we fight back with prior art. No contest. End of story.
"They are specifically upset about Samba, Apache and Sendmail." Hmm ... perhaps becasue Samba, Apache, and Sendmail are better constructed than their Microsoft counterparts?
In soviet russia, You ask not what country do for you, but what you do for country!
Oh wait...
Two years old and we're just now seeing it.
Gotta wonder what they are saying now. Think about the original Halloween documents. Those'll be six years old soon. Think how much Linux has improved since then. I'm sure Microsoft's internal memos are lot more interesting now. (Probably something along the lines of oh shit...oh shit...oh shit) Wow, to be a fly on the wall of Ballmer's office...
Unknown host pong.
Only Microsoft could be up set by sendmail use of patent pending security holes.
The journey is better then the end.
I and millions of other developers and sysadmins have a looooooooooooooooonnnggg memory. If you MS decide to do this, we will do everything we can to make it cost you. You would be well advised to compete on the merits of your products and services. FOSS software being as large as it is today is largely a reaction to customers and developers being sick and tired of being bullied and treated like cash cows. More bullying can only help you in the short term. Pissing off your customers like a version of SCO on steriods will only assure your slow death.
If I absolutely positively have no choice but to run all proprietary software on all proprietary platforms (Which is a situation I won't tolerate. You can buy senators till the cows come home. I still won't tolerate it.), I will be damn sure my dollars go to your most credible competitors.
Do yourselves some favors. Make products people actually want without sleazy lock-in tactics and start diversifying. Your products are rapidly becoming a continuous cost center to those who use them. Any sane business will try to allievate this. No amount of lawyers will prevent it.
This can extend patent rights across borders and force participating countries into a 'lowest common denominator' sort of scenario, much as its starting to do with the restriction of free-speech.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
HP saying they love open source, really they do, even though 'Microsoft continues to be one of HP's strongest partners.'"
The fact that Microsoft partners with HP doesn't diminish it like for Open Source. HP is mostly hardware company and they want to sell their hardware to everyone. If the customer likes open source then there product will work on Open Source if their customer like Windows then their product will work on windows.
HP Has the recourses to be committed to Open Source and to Microsoft. The same with IBM, IBM actively competes with Microsoft and they generally don't like Microsoft but Microsoft is still one of IBMs biggest partners.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
so that would explain the 26,000 patents that MS has been busy filing to lock down everything in the world
What, you thought they were going to donate them to the Vatican or something?
Didn't Digital Equipment Corporation invent SMB and first deliver it through Pathworks?
Your move Bill.
My blog
This memo is a bit old to take it seriously, but looking at the OSS-Attack as a whole, I wonder if OSS community has enough resources to win the battle?
It's all good to talk about prior art, this and that, but please remember to destroy a competitor, you don't necessarily have to win the lawsuit, sometimes you just need to be resourceful enough to drag on and throw money at the case.
It's like poker games, you might have the best cards but if you don't have enough money to call and raise, how many times can you win?
Novell
IBM
Redhat
ILM
Google
Oracle
etc.
Any company that contributes to or heavily relies on open source.
One other thought occured to me. That memo stated that MS could target HP, Intel and other "partners". It must really suck to be an MS "partner". You do what they tell you and you can have some of the extra cash that falls down. Step out of line once and you can be squashed. Maybe that is why Dell is low key with their (small) Linux offerings.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
The memo is two years old. ok. And it mentions several softwares that it's unhappy with and want's to do something about.
What's happened in two years? Microsoft has lost (/is losing) the web server market. Samba has cost them revenue. And Sendmail? MS is not competing well. They haven't turned the ship around and it's heading for the rocks. ok, it's overly dramatic. But I believe that Microsoft is looking at some very unpleasant future pictures and looking at *drastic* actions.
Why did this memo pop up now? Maybe MS is getting desparate? big legal actions against OS operations would perhaps shut them down (or slow them down) at a cost tons of ill will. Which is why I don't think it's happened yet. This might be an easier out for MS than fixing it's problems.
eric
Seems to me that Apache and Sendmail are pretty likely to have prior art on anything important that also happens to be implemented on IIS or Exchange, given that both were fairly entrenched at a time when Microsoft still considered the Internet to be a passing fad. I suppose they may have bought some patents somewhere, but it still seems like a pretty remote chance.
Not only that, but those two aren't even licensed under the GPL, which is ostensibly the target here.
This all sounds vaguely like something this Gary Campbell fellow pulled out of his ass...
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
who has the most patents and money to ram them down everyone else's throat instead of who has the best product. Our whole system of Intellectual Property needs a serious rethinking and revision. The paradigm is broken. Litigiousness is choking innovation instead of encouraging it. Let's get behind organizations like Pubpat and Electronic Frontier Foundation to move forward.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
The authors can always re-release it under another license, or the FSF can release a "GPL 3" that avoids whatever legal trickery they pull... and since GPL software almost always includes a clause including "any later versions" they'll be covered.
MS is doing alot more than just filing patents. They are making other preparations as well. The SCO suit was just a litmus test.
burnin
Comment removed based on user account deletion
MS preparing to do battle
burnin
I've been looking at Office 2003's "Information Rights Management", which uses Windows Server 2003 as a key-keeper, along with
I really get the sense that people are scared of being the first to get hurt for publishing holes they've found in the system, rather than because the standards themselves are in flux.
It's a little creepy - on one side, you get people saying why DRM is wrong in so many ways, and should be avoided, but not allowing themselves to actually look at the system. On the other side, you've got people praising the idea with lavish strings of superlatives, saying that governments should use it amongst other things - it would be hard for a businessman to say anything other than Microsoft is fellow businessmen, and the other guys are crazy folks who don't know what they're talking about.
The FUD is working - the smart ones are staying quiet, and the dumb ones are making the rest look like they're all crazy.
Ryan Fenton
Is it time for the Open Source community to consider switching to another license model.?? Or changing the GPL....??
That sounds pretty foolish to me. You're scared of some oddball interpretation of one clase? Or that the GPL has never been tested in a court? That should make you more confident, not less. OSS has been fairly high profile for what, close to 10 years now? For all of its enemies, not one has tried to directly challenge the GPL in court. After all this time, that should tell you something - they know the GPL is unassailable, and figure that uncertainty is the best position for FUD-launching that they've got. So they'll stay out of direct challenges in order to leave the GPL a supposed "gray area".
If anything, the GPL's history tells us that it's doing very well. If OSS needs any "defensive measures", it's in keeping the kinds of paper trails that help defend against frivolous patent suits like the ones in the memo. Patent litigation and license weaknesses are two different avenues of attack, and it's the former that is the bigger threat now.
MS hires their IP task master
In case you don't get it let me help, Phelps is not interested in protecting MS from submarine patents. He intends to assist MS in smashing any competition be they open source or proprietary.
burnin
MS: Open Source! Prepare to die!
IBM: *SMACK*
MS: Fuck, that hurts.
Open Source: W0ot! Thanks IBM!
Why should the OSS people hide?
No patents were violated in the creation of Linux et al., to my (limited) knowledge. If any legitimate patents were violated, then code needs to be rewritten. OSS has already done this: see ogg vs. mp3, png vs. gif.
Illegitimate patent claims can be beaten in court. Plus, with the widespread and revenue-free (thus, legally ephemeral) development and distribution model of OSS, it'd take a severe legal hit to have all that much impact.
There's nothing wrong with the GPL, and the threat of frivolous lawsuits shouldn't make people contemplate changing it.
Keep your friends close,
Keep your enemies even closer.
What problem can they have with sendmail?
When sendmail was written, Microsoft were only just getting off the ground. And it hasn't changed much since Microsoft still thought the internet was a fad.
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
My department lost ten man-hours today because several of my people opened up an email attachment - let loose the new Bagle variant. Even a self-styled geek opened the payload. Yes, their software is a cost center. We have to pay for such lousy software up front (It COSTS) and keep paying in the back for lost man-hours (It COSTS).
This memo is two years old. One has to wonder if they've already taken the action HP anticipated. Taking a second look at the MS / SCO conspiracy theories with this memo in hand makes them seem that much more likely.
Worse still, the battle could put the whole question of software patents back on the table. If governments eliminate software patents, the entire portfolio goes poof.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Buf of course Mono will be fine and M$ will leave it alone because M$ loves OSS.
Even though we have short term protection, we need to lower our profile while still shipping products. We need to examine reducing our exposure on pre-loading Linux by off loading it to the channels exclusively.
We will need to change how we donate software to the open source, probably the type of license we use, lower the profile of our opensource portal, etc.
Basically, "we need to hope Microsoft doesn't see us." I'd love to see "We need to be prepared to stand up to them in court and kick their ass." HP has the money to do it. But this is pathetic.
Do you have ESP?
The only reason anyone would want to take action on a patent in such a manner would be in order to draw attention to themselves (e.g. a patent pool peddling patents). There is nothing MS can gain by doing this, and they aren't going to shut anything or anyone down. It is more than likely to backfire on them.
It's a cold war, and rogue nations would threaten to use the weapons (i.e. file a lawsuit to grab attention) - MS is a superpower, they are not going to push that button.
It just won't happen. MS is too worried about patents itself. They are only meaningful if you don't use them. Once you use them you lose any advantage that you may have had.
Microsoft is a big player. A stinkin'-big monster. But even the monsters can die, when swarmed with overwhelming number of individually weak enemies. Like when a rodent visits a beehive; the bees, much smaller themselves than the animal, feed it with enough poison - for the cost of lives of many of them - to kill it. Then they push it out of the hive, or seal the dead body off the rest of the hive with wax.
Not even the biggest players can survive long after making enemies all around.
Seems like these days, about the only one making threats at Microsoft are Gates and Ballmer. The real work is done by proxy -- through SCO, which at this point in time looks like a faliure. Also at ADTI, which was an abysmal failure. Now, a two year old scare memo from HP. Why is it surfacing now? From whom did it come -- and what is their motivation to put out an ancient strategy memo? In the world of computing, two years is a lifetime.
Putting my tinfoil-hat on, I seriously wonder if someone somehow at HP's dear partner Microsoft asked for a leak of this memo. It would certainly fit right in with the FUD-by-proxy strategy that Microsoft seems to be using to tide them over until their Next Big Big Big OS Release (tm).
Still it is a chilling look at the tactics that those of us who have been in the industry a couple of decades have grown used to.
Final thought: might this bode well for Apple?
The problem with the theory that acquiring patents protects one from "IP Companies" is that those IP Extorsionists don't actually make a product. With no product, there is nothing to leverage another protective patent against.
That is, having a patent portfolio to throw back in someone's face lets, say IBM and Microsoft or Sun to face eachother down because the "cross licensing" factor.
But "I am violating your patent while you violate mine, so lets do a deal" breaks down utterly when "the other party" doesn't have a product. That is, when Eolas (sp?) beat up Microsoft over patents, Eolas had the extreme advantage of having no product to "defend" in the exchange-of-fire. Eolas' own incompetence and lack of venture made them immune to counter-patent argument.
The reason that an IP Holding Company is such a disaster for us (technologists) as a comercial whole is that we have no leverage to push back against.
An IP holding company has no product, no market, vanishingly little capital, and no need of "good will in the marketplace". In short they are as smooth as a bowling-ball.
It is like an aircraft carrier (IBM with some Product) comming up against bombardment from space via aimed asteroid (an IP Holding Company.) There is nothing else to fire back against so all the guns in the world are of no use. You are left with only mobility and prayer. So small companies that can turn on a dime are less useful targets to an IP company because they are harder to hit and less satisfying to sink.
I would think that every software company everywhere would be desperate to remove software patentability.
After all, I could be nearly destitute, and a manufacturer of nothing, and hold a patent. Then I just need to hire a lawyer on spec to sue the IBMs of the world. They can't hurt me with thier patents (since I have no product) and I can soak them for money, all "at risk" with my lawyer on spec.
Software Patents in the hands of IP holding companies is asking for doom.
Were all software patents voided this very instant, with none to follow, every company on the planet would be instantly in a better possition despite the "loss of IP". Sure, they would "lose" the money they had already spent, and small upstarts could challenge their software, but it would be like "instantly" removing all the nuclear weapons all at once as if by magic.
The disarmament would be simultaneous and complete, and would free up assets and reduce risks to zero on a whole front of contention.
But most companies are too dumb to see that, and most "IP Lawyers" would lose their livelyhood. So it will never happen.
But until it does happen, any company can be soaked for Patent Extortion by any tiny patent held by a non-entity.
This is what I like to think of as "the instantanious, self-punishing nature of life". They feel that they *must* have this stone around their necks, and they keep trying to make the stone heavier and then they don't understand why they are so tired all the time.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Software patents threatens all software development and innovation in all software industry not in only free software. Free software is however somewhat more vulnerable as it is impossible to solve patent issues by licence fees.
The only option for free software would be to trade patents, but the problem is that few free sofware developers do patent their stuff. So there will be little to trade.
Besides, how do we handle companies buying or seeking patents on technology without having any software business on ther own. Companies just sitting on patens waiting for some patented technology to become a taxable hit. Not even companies like IBM would be able to fight them by using their enormeous list of patents as a weapon, as they could if the enemy was an ordinary software producein company.
God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
"For all of its enemies, not one has tried to directly challenge the GPL in court. After all this time, that should tell you something - they know the GPL is unassailable, "
I disagree. There are many other reasons why they wouldn't want to challenge it in court.
Example reason: They may not like the verdict if they win. Many potential challengers have EULAs and Licenses on their software too. It is conceivable to me that a clear verdict that says the GPL is invalid, may have implications on EULAs and other licenses as well - with the result that Licenses that require people to do XYZ and not to do ABC, and so on may not be enforceable in the court of law. Thus challenging the GPL may not be a good move for them.
I always wondered why they dumped their great linux-based NAS products in favor of the piece-of-shit Microsoft Windows Storage Server. Microsoft, I will hate you forever.
The US patent system is not worldwide... it extends only as far as the US Empire extends.
Even if MS gets the entire US Congress and court system to bend over and take it in the rear... even if it drives open source out of every server in the US.... there is a limit to its potential power... the law of intellectual property regimes only extends as far as the military and political might of the American empire.
Ultimately the conflict over intellectual property regimes escalates to an international and civilizational conflict, in which some nations (China, India) will use the OSS model... and enjoy its benefits.
The corrupt American empire, bought and owned by the multinational corporations that it once liscensed but that now licsence it, will not be able to compete.
At that point either (1) the US loosens up its intellectual property regime, moves away from "software patents" and other bad ideas, and remains competitive on an international economic level... or (2) its relative position in the world begins to slide as India/China and the World realize the economic externalities in an OSS software intellectual property regime and use them to compete.
The intellectual property regime we are constructing in the US is a deadweight on US international power.... a deadweight that large corporations would love to see remain in place.
It will be interesting to see what path we choose, given the paths that India and China will surely choose toward OSS.
(Of course... paradoxically... if you think the US is too powerful in the world... in this dialectical model, you would then root for the success of Microsoft, software patents and all sorts of other nonesense to ultimately reduce the power of the American empire. But you can resolve the paradox by considering that there are two kinds of power.... the power of domination and the power of leadership... power that is "we win/ you lose" versus power that involves "we win, and you win too." )
The losers in this war are the American (as in US) companies and civilians.
Microsoft will chew us up, while the rest of the world takes over with OSS.
Yeah, it certainly seems as though they 'get it', at least for now. I hope they continue to do so. But all it takes is a few bad quarters, and a change in key upper-management people to change all that.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
You seem to forget the Microsoft has lot's of lawyers and endless amounts of money. Just look at all the problems SCO has caused so far.
The only option for free software would be to trade patents, but the problem is that few free sofware developers do patent their stuff. So there will be little to trade.
I agree. Furthermore, much of the real "OSS economy" operates without money being involved, and thus it would be difficult to fund patent production.
It *would* potentially be possible, though it would make me a bit uncomfortable, due to the GPL bias, for a company to "cross patent" with the GPLed world. Basically, to say "you may use any patents we have *if* you are using them in GPLed software". If that company is writing GPLed software, they recieve the benefit of all the other patent holders that have climbed on. In essence, the company retains its IP monopoly unless another company is using that IP to produce IP that *they* do not have a monopoly over.
This is good for all companies that do not intend to use their patent portfolio as weapons against GPL-using competitors (which, at least thus far, are probably most companies). This would be an extremely bad trend for Microsoft, for instance.
I'd imagine that someone has suggested this before, but I haven't heard anything about such an initiative.
May we never see th
it won't work - even if they get the patent and try to shut down apache it will only help prove that MS is evil and that the patent and IPR regime is a fraudulent method of legalized theft supported by corrupt lawyers and politicos.
I like the idea of MS openly acting like the evil scum suckers they really are, only once again out in public (with no proxies) and likely in court.
they will reap the whirlwind
It's not such a happy old world. Sure HP is a hardware company but being a partner with MSFT means some dire things for any OS or Software company trying to work with HP.
HP slips out a Linux laptop. MSFT stomps on it behind the scense, HP wants to put Linux in its sales material. MSFT stomps on it.
Sometimes HP gets its way but mostly MSFT hinders competitors behind the scenes in ways Linux or Netscape or... never do against MSFT.
It was maybe 4 years ago I called Dell asking if I could get a Linux laptop, or a laptop without windows. No No No... I said ok, I'm going to purchase another laptop then.
You are not going to find a laptop without windows.
Sure! Its not a namebrand but I found one on the Internet. They even install Linux if you ask.
Who?
You've got a web browser. Search for it yourself. Thanks for your 'help.'
Those of us that have followed microsoft and linux know exactly what was going on. It has everything to do with 'Microsoft Partners.'
Now before going off on Linux isnt a big enough market and doing QA for linux would be too much work, It was clear I was looking for a laptop without windows. It didnt need to be a laptop with Linux. Same could be said for BeOS or *BSD or
Have some choice patents waiting if Microsoft interferes with their ability to use open source. It doesn't matter if MS has more, just one of the other guy's patents will stick and cover some major aspect of Windows MS can't easily work around. Look how much trouble browser plugins patent caused. Like titlebar on windows or something. It would be nicer if software patents were outlawed, just like patents on mathematic formulas. But in the meantime, guaranteed mutual destruction counts for something.
That's just the way it is - a patent "grants the holder the right to exclude others from manufacturing, using, selling or importing the invention". In all the patent rules and laws I've seen at various PTOs, I haven't actually seen any explicit mention of a prohibition on giving away copies of the invention but the manufacturing bit is enough anyway. Manufacturing copies of a software 'invention' is effectively unavoidable if you're giving it away.
The right of the software patent holder to exclude others from using the idea is just as sickening of course - it always struck me how outrageous it was that I could implement the RSA algorithm in a few commands piped together in the shell, and yet technically, the patent holders could legally prevent me from doing so.
I thought that about IBM, and deeper... It seems to the tech industry patent situation is a powder keg just waiting for a match. Every major company which has been in the field for awhile has enough critical patents to utterly strangle everyone else. If real patent war broke out, the tech industry would be smashed back to the level of ENIAC. Thus, patents are like thermonukes: everybody wants them, everybody hopes never to use them.
This is, I think, a part of the reason IBM is not wielding its patent portfolio against SCO. It absolutely does not want to touch off "patent war one".
Microsoft probably has similar inhibitions.
On behalf of my employer, I'm preparing a matrix to compare the relative strengths and weaknesses of the hardware vendors that have tendered a quote for my project.
While this internal HP memo is not the only factor leading to this, I included the following statement to the notes area of the section concerning Hewlett Packard;
Commitment to our platform of choice is questionable
Given that my employer places an emphasis on vendor support, I expect that statement to weigh heavily against HP in our deliberations.
There are many vendors of commodity hardware and the differentiator for many organisations is the level of support. I think HP has raised reasonable doubts about their level of commitment to support for a platform that is increasingly prevalent in the industry and that will cost them business.
Who cares if Microsoft goes after OSS in the US? They can really only sue American companies in American courts. They'll have an uphill battle in Europe and god help them if they even attempt it in China. They'll have a tough time suing individual developers (not that it's impossible, but it certainly won't be easy, and unlike the RIAA they're likely to find a lot of the defndands won't settle quickly), so most of the US based OSS contributors can continue their work and Linus et al can simply move back to Europe if need be. And even Microsoft can't afford to start suing every company that uses Linux or Apache - they might be able to afford the lawyers but even the most MS-friendly IT department is going to have a tough time convincing a CEO to buy millions of dollars worth of software from a company that's presently suing them.
So essentially Red Hat and a few other companies go out of business and the OSS community otherwise goes on unhindered. At worst, public adoption of Linux slows a bit and already market-dominating products like Apache and sendmail continue on unabated. Microsoft's lawsuits would do very little damge and utterly destroy their public image.
They're hoarding patents to protect themselves against other patent-hoarding companies; they're not dumb enough to try to use them against OSS. This is just plain and simple FUD.
"They are specifically upset about Samba, Apache and Sendmail." they are upset because these 3 together have the ability to keep MS out of the server arena entirely. the 3 main services your going to want to run on any network are likely to be web, email and file sharing.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I think that this memo's content is actually an indication of how MS are bullying their partners into not supporting the Open-Source movement. The section on Industry Reaction reads "Dell backed out of a lot of Linux activity and laid off their Linux marketing group, and Intel went radio silent on Linux publicity in March" and may just be hot air to scare HP away from adding their support to any open source project.
The paragraph titled 'Microsoft's Intentions' talks about suing companies whose use of Samba isn't covered by a patent-sharing cross-licence. And those that don't will have their Microsoft licence forcibly changed to exclude their use of F/OSS products.
Either I'm misreading this phrase "OEMs like HP that they force a change in their cross license to exclude open source software" or it's clear what's going on here: HP are forced to exclude the combined use of OSS projects when Microsoft products are also installed and delivered sold by HP as the OEM.
I'm really glad I got rid of WinXP this weekend (moved to FC2 -- thanks to the community sites that helped me!). I'm shocked by the behaviour of Microsoft and surprised HP didn't have more balls.
Take care.
love K3n.
Yes, Sendmail is much older than any MS mail system. Yes, Sendmail is ancient, obscure, cranky and historically buggy. That's not the point. The point is that Sendmail provides copper bottomed prior art for all other Internet or multi-protocol mail transfer agents, and, as the dominant MTA of today's world, prevents Microsoft imposing new delivery and authentication protocols without negotiating with Open Source.
Obviously in a clueful, uncorrupt legal system Sendmail would have to be secure against patent infringement suits from Microsoft, simply because of its primordial venerability. However, if Microsoft could find a lever to attack Sendmail, then all other open source mail transport agents would almost certainly fall too. You'd better hope the courts are clueful and uncorrupt, and that Sendmail can afford to pay defence lawyers.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Heh, I just realised another benefit for Microsoft - Threaten to sue everybody using OSS equivalents to their products, and then include the defence teams legal costs in Total Cost of Ownership comparisons...
"A goldfish was his muse, eternally amused"
...and it begs the question, could pro-opensource researchers setup multiple independent IP thinktanks and IP holding companies, and then henpeck M$ to death with patent lawsuits?
after all M$ is the biggest and least mobile target there is.
But Microsoft does more than pretend that IE is part of the OS, they actually have integrated it ... more than is wise. That's WHY IE bugs have become so bad - is because subverting the browser gives deeper OS access than if it were simply a browser.
As for the Taurus audio, I have to at least partly agree that the thing is proprietary as all get-out. For those that don't own one, the Taurus audio is a big oval, instead of the compact rectangle that is standard. Mine (1999, 2nd hand company car) has provisions for a CD player in the trunk, though I have no idea if the connector is 'standard' or not. Why have I never thought to check google on this before now? I checked the local junkyard years ago, and they wanted $200 for the unit. (Just checked google, the junkyard was a bargain.)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The GPL and other Open Source licenses cuts off his ability to commercially exploit FOSS and that ruins the MS business model. It IS the long term threat and they'll battle against it until they're a mere shell of their current selves.
If the GPL had an inherent weakness it would probably be exposed by now. RMS' genius was understanding how to cut off the commercial exploitation of free software. SCO's attacks have been useful in helping create an understanding of how to defend ourselves more effectively by documenting the history more carefully. In my opinion, "intellectual property" is kind of oxymoronic in the end. There might be temporary commercial advantages in it but, as a previous poster suggested, it doesn't work well in the long run against non-commercial entities without a product.