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Ballmer on Linux
theodp writes "'In the Linux world, nobody stands behind patent claims,' warned Steve Ballmer, saying that Microsoft customers would be protected from the $550 million Eolas patent infringement judgment. 'I'm not trying to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt,' said the CEO of the company who earlier cried wolf about breaking IE in the wake of the Eolas judgment, prompting the W3C to go to bat for the software giant."
I like that last line of the article.
"I just think people should go out and research this for themselves".
Good idea, coming from a company that regularly commissions independant researchers to prove their point of the day.
My assessment (not that you asked)?...
Well, my research showed that patent infringement issues in Linux will more than likely get the same treatment as GIF files. If something does come up that really is an infringement, it'll stink for a few years, and then it will fizzle away as developers agree that there's a better solution than the patented one anyway.
Then again, I've already got my company running on Linux servers, so perhaps it's just wishful thinking on my part. *shrugs*.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
There's a first time for everything.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It's interesting to note the arguments on groklaw that an OS strategy might actually have *less* to fear than a closed-source one, compared to Mr Balmer's "It's not really FUD, honest" intellectual property FUD.
... eg:
:-)
Also, reading the article, either the writer is unsympathetic to MS, or Balmer is really putting out some mixed messages
"Ballmer scoffed at arguments that his company's operating system creates a computing monoculture" vs his statement "Microsoft's platforms offer better interoperability with the company's other technology".
Sounds like he's been spinning so much, he's dizzy
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
"Please get off, you're crushing me, you sweaty bastard!"
Patnets do not apply to end users only to maker/vendors..same as for copyrights
Try again Mr Ballmer, I suck at Patent Law...
Don't Tread on OpenSource
"I'm not trying to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt," Ballmer said
Fear - Ballmer argued that companies should be wary of the lack of indemnity from lawsuits, such as the suit filed by The SCO Group Inc. against DaimlerChrysler AG, IBM, Novell Inc. and others over parts of the Linux operating system that SCO claims infringe on elements of the Unix operating system that it owns.
Uncertainty - "In the Linux world, nobody stands behind patent claims," he said, noting that Microsoft could be forced to swallow a $550 million judgement if it loses its ongoing case with Eolas Technologies Inc., but that its customers would be protected.
Doubt - On the touchy issue of security, Ballmer also dismissed the notion that Linux is more secure than Windows, saying that Linux would be attacked just as frequently as Windows if the open source operating system had as large a share of the operating system market as Windows.
"Here at Microsoft, we spread duf(TM)."
'In the Linux world, nobody stands behind patent claims'
He does got a point here. And that's one of the (many) reasons why software patents are evil. Read more here.
Microsoft CEO says 'in Linux world, nobody stands behind patent claims'
IBM, HP, Sun, and others have ALL either stood behind or promised to stand behind their Linux patent interests. Ballmer's statement is a blatant lie and he knows it.
In the Linux world, nobody stands behind patent claims
what about OSRM?
just the fact that microsoft so quickly denounces Linux should tell you something
(as tux shoots at his feet)
"In the next ten years, you're going to see more positive change than in the last ten," Ballmer said.
yea.. he will be out of a job..
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
In other news, MS was just granted a patent concerning using TAB to move from Link to Link in a Web Browser: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnu mber=6,785,865
Ballmer singled out XML and Web services as the "big breakthrough" of the next decade that will spur innovation.
Puh-lease. I was at the introduction of XML and CDF back in 1996/7 by Microsoft. They also handed out 4.0 beta disks of IE 4.0 at the event. I think it was called World Wide Live.
MSFT's gone nowhere fast with XML, while the rest of the developer world embbraced and extended it. They (MSFT) finally decided on a strategy for it what, three years ago? And now it's going to be the next big thing of the coming decade?
No wonder Linux runs circles around the Redmond Behemoth...
Responsibility is the punishment for compentenc
it'll stink for a few years, and then it will fizzle away as developers agree that there's a better solution than the patented one anyway.
Which, when you think about it, has been the intiative behind lots of great development, if you don't like the toll road, dig your own and many fine things have come of this. Further browsers like Mozilla and Opera progress while IE stagnates.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Funny, my girlfriend said the exact same thing!
:-)
(to me that is, not Ballmer. Actually she wasn't my girlfreind, she just lived across the street and never closed her curtains).
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The W3C didn't stick up for Microsoft -- they went after Eolas for applying for and obtaining a patent for a technology that has multitudes of prior art. Had the USPTO simply cared enough to research claims like this, there wouldn't have been the need to debunk this claim. The fact that Microsoft stands to benefit (or at least not lose anything) as a result of the W3C's actions is collateral.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
I really dont belive that microsoft would step up to the plate to defend a user against a lawsuit due to an IP problem.
They would fight to keep the offending product on the shelves, but NOT to 'protect' its users..
And if they loose, you are on your own.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You see this argued a lot here on
The way Linux is designed and the way Windows (especially with integrated IE) is designed are fundamentally different, and one (guess which) is by design more insecure.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
Ballmer said that cutting back on the promised features at least allowed the company to announce a release date for the product, which was a "major accomplishment."
I am just speechless. I better sit down.Veritas patesco per quaestio questio. Truth is revealed through questions.
Not FUD?! What the hell. Every word in his talk was precisely that.
Despite the focus on the next version of Windows, Microsoft is also working to make its offerings more interoperable with products using other software platforms such as Linux, Unix and XML (Extensible Markup Language), Ballmer said.
Ahh, wait. Now why do they bother supporting Linux or Unix if they feel that it's not good enough? I would imagine that if you are that confident in how a rival product is shitty, you would just go ahead and not offer support. But MS wants to leverage customers who have Linux and Unix systems, but yet diss Linux. Sheer hypocrisy.
"If you have two popular operating systems, both will get attacked -- whatever is popular is going to be attacked," he said.
Yes smartass. But resisting the attack will be the better one, and that will not be based on what's popular. Are they trying to say that Linux is popular, now? Out of the horse's own mouth, eh.
"In the Linux world, nobody stands behind patent claims," he said, noting that Microsoft could be forced to swallow a $550 million judgement if it loses its ongoing case with Eolas Technologies Inc., but that its customers would be protected.
"I'm not trying to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt," Ballmer said. "I just think people should go out and research this for themselves."
Boo! The only reason the software industry is so messed up by patents is beause big businesses want to resort to their lawyers in case something goes wrong, and not technology. How about building great technology and not resort to cheap practices, for a change?
Sheesh. I'm fuckin' mad as hell. Not FUD? That's all there is in that.
Is it just me, or does Balmer sound like a desperate lawyer who collects every single possible argument he's heard for Microsoft, and then regurgitates them all at once?
--
Power to the Peaceful
"If you have two popular operating systems, both will get attacked -- whatever is popular is going to be attacked," he said.
Huh? Apache httpd gets attacked even though it has the market share of on-line web browsers... fortunately the attacks are looking for M$ IIS holes...
I'd love it if proprietary vendors allowed us the capability to evaluate the risks ourselves. I'll believe the story about proprietary being safer only after Microsoft lets customers audit their source to let me verify that their closed-source stuff doesn't infringe on patents I may be worried about. Note that they let important customers audit their source for security reasons. Losing mission critical infrastructor because a vendor didn't have the rights to it could be even more harmful to my business than a security hole (which I presume would be easily patched).
If my company depends on a closed-source application, and that application infringes on someone elses patent, I wouldn't want that software yanked out from under me. At least in an open source environment I can understand that the offending parts could be coded around. With closed source, it's more likely the vendor will have to stop providing the software. Also, in the open source case, there's a better likelyhood that people have scoured the source code looking for infringing patents.
So far most of the big vendors, MSFT included, have a pretty weak concept of indemnification - they'll cover purchases prices, and the like. Heck even Gentoo.org'll probably indemnify you the cost of the purchase price. Unless they start offering far better indemnification (cover the costs of migrating off their infringing software to an alternative), I'm better off with open source.
Noting the prevalent use of pen and paper by audience members, Ballmer wondered aloud why the content of his speech was not being captured and translated automatically, while also being synchronized with real-time video and a copy of his Microsoft PowerPoint presentation
Perhaps it was because no reporter was willing to bet their career on a laptop running Windows XP?
Ironically, 20 years from now, these reporters will still be able to read their handwritten notes, but Microsoft will have long abandoned the audio and video codecs used to record the speech today...
And that's assuming that the recording media is still playable. How many people can read 5 1/4" floppies any more?
In the Linux world, nobody stands behind patent claims," he said, noting that Microsoft could be forced to swallow a $550 million judgement if it loses its ongoing case with Eolas Technologies Inc., but that its customers would be protected.
This is an abject legal falsehood; a patent ownder can sue the users of the patent if they so desire. They might choose instead to sue Microsoft, but there is no legal indemnification from a patent lawsuit - Microsoft's EULA explicitly denies liability in this regard. And considering that Microsoft's customers have already been sued over patents (Timeline, anyone?), I don't see how he can even believe this truthfully. And to make matters worse, Microsoft has sued its own customers.
If anything, using Microsoft instead of open source software imposes an even greater risk of patent liability on the users.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Well, according to SCO, Linux doesn't exist. And the headline for this story is "Ballmer on Linux". So I gotta wonder if he's about to have one of those Wile E Coyote moments where he's standing on nothing and gravity decides to assert itself? ;-)
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Ballmer wondered aloud why the content of his speech was not being captured and translated automatically, while also being synchronized with real-time video and a copy of his Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.
Because the speech was encoded using WMA Digital Rights Management, restricting the delegates from recording his words except via an audio stream licensed from Microsoft. Extracting audio "snippets" was prohibited by the DRM software, which meant that reporters on radio could either stream his entire speech or none of it.
A separate license was required to decode the real-time audio, with royalties paid by-the-minute (even modern-day-techno-savy journo's don't want to pay to broadcast Ballmer looking like a monkey) to the owners of the audio-streaming technology, which in this case happened to be Microsoft.
Finally, the PowerPoint presentation was similarly protected by traditional copyright law (its binary), the DMCA (its digital transmission), and - if it's been XML exported with the latest Office - probably patent law as well.
The ways of gods are mysteriously indistinguishable from chance.
Microsoft could be forced to swallow a $550 million judgement if it loses its ongoing case with Eolas Technologies Inc., but that its customers would be protected.
Is he implying that I would have to pay the judgement if Microsoft did not? This is just wrong! End users of Microsoft software are not liable for Microsoft's theft of intellectual property.
Not surprisingly, a similar misunderstanding of copyright law was the linchpin of SCO's extortion of Linux users. It's not surprising because Microsoft's funding of SCO bought the suit in the first place.
So, let's see: they don't understand copyright law and they don't understand patent law. Maybe this is why Microsoft is continually being sued for IP infringement!
So, do we start calling Ballmer, 'Duf-man' or what?
"Duf-man, not spreadin' FUD, ooh yeah!"
-r
Just because something is free does not mean you have to take it.
Eyewitnesses at the conference where Ballmer made this statement noted that he started running around the stage trying to rile up the crowd by shouting "Patent lawyers! Patent lawyers! Patent lawyers! Patent lawyers!"
But don't worry about on a weekly basis your computer and all your precious data is at risk thanks to our security holes.
But you could lose everything you own, thanks to a Microsoft software bug and the EULA plainly states 'As Is' and they will not be held liable for your losses.
Exploits are already being found in SP2 Windows will be secure in about 10 years, maybe.
Don't spend those billions of dollars all in one place, Steve.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Eventually, hopefully, America will reexamine its patent and copyright laws and realize just how idiotic they are.
I'm all for protecting an individual's rights as the creator of something (be it software, music, film). But patenting concepts is stupidity in itself.
I hate Microsoft as much as the next computer literate person, but in this case I hope Microsoft wins.
So what has the EFF been doing? Nobody in the open source world creates patents, but at least we have the EFF to stand to help us out against these claims. Wasn't the EFF actually helping fight the Eolas patent claim.
Sure Microsoft has more money to throw at the problems, but then again they also spend their time flooding the system with more unnecessary patents, for whatever reason.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
"In the next ten years, you're going to see more positive change than in the last ten," Ballmer said.
I agree. I sincerely doubt that SCO will be around in ten years.
That's because we all know software patents are bogus.
AC comments get piped to
I hope they have something really good cooked up, because 1994-2004 is going to be tough to beat. Let's see, we have:
1. The Web*.
2. E-Mail*.
3. Home computers go mainstream.
4. Win95/98/NT/2000/XP (poke fun all you want, but you can't argue that these weren't a major improvement over what they replaced).
5. OSS, Linux, GNU, BSD*.
6. 3D games with realistic jibbing.
7. (about a dozen more which I'm forgetting)
* Yes, these were around before 1994, but between 94-04 is when they became tools of the common folk.
What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
On the touchy issue of security, Ballmer also dismissed the notion that Linux is more secure than Windows, saying that Linux would be attacked just as frequently as Windows if the open source operating system had as large a share of the operating system market as Windows.
He fails to mention if attacks would be as successful on attacking Linux as they are Windows. Great way to answer a question without answering it
I call bullstuff (on Ballmer).
It's not protection money. They'll just pass the cost on to their customers like every other business. In fact (with a $50 billion cash bank account they are just now starting to dispense to shareholders, etc.) you could argue they already have passed it on to us through inflated prices.
For all that talk Ballmer goes through about there not being any such thing as a free lunch, you'd think he'd at least have read what his ECON101 text book had to say about it.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Hmm, I always thought that interoperability implied multiple platforms.
I think at least the top heads at Microsoft are running macs with os X over there. They really have no clue about how windows or linux works for the end user. I'm sure when you're at that level of any company you end up becomming so disconnected from the details of the product you sell. I doubt the Ford executives test drive every new model of a car, but if these cars' tired suddenly blew out on the highway, they'd call in their engineers and ask them what the hell's going on. I don't have any inside sight on how Microsoft works, just a view from the outside like many. For anyone who works there, do these managers at least look at how their products are working and the amount of headaches they cause people all over the world? Or is it all just to get it out the door and market the hell out of it?
now where again did i hear that sentence...
He's right, linux would be attacked just as frequently as windows.
One word: APACHE
Which gets attacked more, Apache or IIS. Which has more market share?
The bat that Steve talks about swinging to protect its MS Window monopoly is the same bat used to pound customers into paying outrageous licensing fees for insecure product. Remember how that kinder gentler Microsoft was/is threatening US School districts with the help of their BSA buddies? Microsoft with ANY bat is not a good thing. Why isn't THIS brought up when Open Source and Microsoft are mentioned in the same session? The BSA would be DOA with FOSS. Or atleast the Microsoft problems which are most of BSA's mandate. IMHO.
;-)
And another thing about this Ballmer guy:
THIS was nicely worded, as only Microsoft could:
"If you have two popular operating systems, both will get attacked -- whatever is popular is going to be attacked," Ballmer said.
The interesting word is "attacked". Notice he didn't say 'broken into'. There is a night and day difference between being attacked and having attacks suceed. And in MS Winodws case, crashing to its knees from almost every attack.
Microsoft is THE master marketing company and could probably sell an elephant as a duck. Oh wait, they do.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
in overdrive again.
.NET computing architecture.
But Ballmer shed his visionary mantle soon after, taking shots at the open source software development community and warning participants to think twice before adopting open source products like Linux.
Translation: We're ticked people put software out there that we charge exorbitantly for and they have the nerve to code it better than we do.
"I'm as fired up now as I've ever been in 24 years at Microsoft," Ballmer said.
Translation: I've nerver been so damned mad and scared for my own cushy job security in 24 years of being at Microsoft.
"In the next ten years, you're going to see more positive change than in the last ten," Ballmer said.
Translation: This keeps up we're going to miss our quarterly projections again and continue to loose our monopolistic stranglehold on the home computing industry that we've had in the last ten over the next ten.
Ballmer promoted his company's products as a key to that transformation, including the next version of the Windows operating system, dubbed "Longhorn," and the company's
Poster's commentary: Makes me wanna revive the "Where's the Beef" commercials from over 10 years ago with all the hooplah, smoke and mirrors I keep reading about "Longhorn". I can see it now, They'll start calling computer viruses on "Longborn" (intentional mis-spelling) Mad Cow Disease and we see more countries banning the sale and distribution of Microsoft "beef" possibly.
Joking about recent news regarding a curtailed list of features in Longhorn, Ballmer said that cutting back on the promised features at least allowed the company to announce a release date for the product, which was a "major accomplishment."
Poster's commentary: Only at Microsoft would a major overshoot of a release become the joke to them that it is to the rest of us.
Despite the focus on the next version of Windows, Microsoft is also working to make its offerings more interoperable with products using other software platforms such as Linux, Unix and XML (Extensible Markup Language), Ballmer said.
Ballmer singled out XML and Web services as the "big breakthrough" of the next decade that will spur innovation.
"The fact that companies like Oracle (Corp.), IBM (Corp.) and (Microsoft) have bet on an architected approach to interoperability is huge," he said.
Translation: Since our corporate peers are lining up to kick our butt with Open Source we better buckle and see what all the fuss is about. This is merely another move by Microsoft to catch the last of the waves as the sun sets and they're "Johnny Come-lately" to the next trend.
While not perfect on security, Microsoft has a defined process for addressing security vulnerabilities, compared with the open source community, which he called "all over the map," when it came to addressing vulnerabilities in Linux, Ballmer said.
Translation: We better suck it up and realize we have to straighten out our backyard since the Open Source is making so many significant innovations and has an ability to patch their software so fast we don't even get to read the patch update notice before it's done, damn it! It's not far that Open Source has the ability to call on developers "all over the map", woe is us, how can we compete with the world? You can't Stevie, so suck it up and bask in your glory while it lasts.
"In the Linux world, nobody stands behind patent claims," he said, noting that Microsoft could be forced to swallow a $550 million judgement if it loses its ongoing case with Eolas Technologies Inc., but that its customers would be protected.
Translation: For them (Open Source), there too many targets. For us, (Microsoft) the litigants have an easy target. Strength in numbers, Steve! *grin*
"I'm not trying to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt," Ballmer said. "I just think people should go out and res
Scientia et Potentia
I'd really like to ask the question, will Ballmer, on behalf of Microsoft, put that in writing? Will Microsoft provide a written guarantee that they will indemnify their customers against claims of infringement by their software? Not from anything I've seen. So far, here is what Microsoft has put in writing:
From their site, For Business (Windows 2003 Server):
And from their site, For Consumer (XP HOME):
I really don't see where Microsoft is giving anything to people above what Linux is giving, i.e. nothing, except people can see the Linux source code and it is possible if something infringing is present it can be removed.Well, I have researched it for myself and gone right to your company's written EULAs and read them, Mr. Ballmer. Unless and until Microsoft is willing to give (or sell) written indemnification for non-infringement then all your claims represent are a worthless cant of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.
Paul Robinson
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Wasn't it something like two years ago when Microsoft got tagged for patent infringement over their SQL server, and they did not indemnify their users? What does the EULA say? Where's this indeminification Mr. Ballmer is talking about?
It was about a year ago after years of dragging out the case that it was proven the MS SQL 7 was stolen from or illegally used from another company MS response was "we will cover legal cost and suits up to the cost of the product" yeah MS really stand behind their work but the limit is as much as you paid to get it. So by those terms FLOSS is on equal grounds with MS support policy.
Ballmer wondered aloud why the content of his speech was not being captured and translated automatically, while also being synchronized with real-time video and a copy of his Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.
Mostly they probably didn't think of doing it, which I assume is your point. But even if they did think of it, I doubt that Microsoft declared your speech to be public domain or handed out written authorizations to reproduce it. In today's IP-obsessed, everything-is-copyrighted legal climate, which Microsoft has done a lot to nurture, the risk of infringement is probably a good deterrent against using these nifty technologies to record and reproduce anyone's output, other than from public employees and political candidates.
The answer of course is MS. How many people have seen the name Linux for the first time in an MS ad or press release?
You don't see car company A constantly talking about car company B. Imagine your a store owner on a triple A location selling X. Are you then really going to talk to the customer about you really are much much cheaper then this totally unknown store that is in fact just around the corner? Of course not.
So either MS doesn't know shit about marketing,don't tell the customer he can in fact go somewhere else, or they think they got no other choice.
Keep talking about Linux MS. The only thing you are achieving is that Linux is becoming more widely known. Each time you say linux is more expensive you just alert them to the fact that there is in fact another OS they can buy.
You don't see Archos or Creative or iRiver running ads on how they are cheaper then Apple do you? And everyone knows about the iPod.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
...based on the principle that it is easier to apologise if you exceed your authority than to get permission in the first place.
Once upon a time, telling lies for commercial gain was called "fraud" and punished accordingly. These days it's called "marketing" and proponents of it are rewarded with high-paying jobs.
Now tell me, why do we have a problem with being constantly buried in bull?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Imagine if that was patented. It's been shown to be the fastest sort possible, if I remember right. Or how about all those patents apple has on Font Rendering? There's lots of stuff in Math that there's only one way of doing right. That's why you weren't allowed to patent algorythms in the past.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Mono scares the living daylights out of me.
Given the triviality and obviousness of patents being issued today, there's practically no way Mono can be non-infringing. Yet it's even more dangerous to check for it, because then you get into a triple-indemnity situation. Letting Mono burrow its way into Linux culture, software, infrastructure, and support is ASKING for trouble a few years down the road. It's putting a giant SUE ME sign out.
Besides, "Microsoft done right" isn't aiming that high. We could do better.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Ballmer wondered aloud why the content of his speech was not being captured and translated automatically, while also being synchronized with real-time video and a copy of his Microsoft PowerPoint presentation.
How many times have we been told that you aren't allowed to use recording devices to capture a lecture because of copyright issues? Does anyone else think it's strange that Mr Patent is complaining because technology isn't being used in this way ?
Hint : it's not because the technology is lacking
The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.
That's not to say that users would be sued more often than those making and/or offering to sell, just that users certainly could find themselves sued as well. Which is to say there _is_ a legal theory there.
I remember hearing about that in Auto Tech in high school. I remember that the patent was eventually ruled invalid because it only covered two-cycle engines and at that point most cars were using four cycle engines.
The man was George Selden, and you can info about that patent mentioned here.
Whatever, just don't dance again.
FTA:
"On the touchy issue of security, Ballmer also dismissed the notion that Linux is more secure than Windows, saying that Linux would be attacked just as frequently as Windows if the open source operating system had as large a share of the operating system market as Windows."
What a load of crap. The logic here is that Windows is more vulnerable due entirely to its popularity over Linux. I'd like to see Steve FUDFace explain this away:
According to Netcraft, Apache has a market share of 67.7%, while Microsoft servers (IIS) have a grand total of 21.21% of the market. Assuming some sort of proportionality relationship between market share and vulnerabilities/attacks, one would then expect Apache to be significantly more vulnerable/more often attacked than IIS. Right?
I don't know where to get the figures on number of exploits. Anyone? If Apache has been subject to more exploits than IIS, I'll eat my socks.
I wonder why tech reporters never bust out this counterexample. I'd love to see Ballmer's face if, in the middle of a press conference and upon making such a ridiculous assertion, a reporter were to stand up and exclaim, "I call bull****! Apache is over 3 times more popular than IIS, but has experienced only (some small percentage) of the number of attacks/exploits IIS has. Now what's your excuse?"
This isn't the sig you're looking for...