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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!"
"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.
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
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.
--
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...
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.
Looked at that way, Linux is probably the very safest Operating System out there from a patent point of view, because undoubtably Baystar/SCO and friends would have searched for any such patents critical to Linux and tried to acquire them.
I challange Balmer to hire someone to go through the Windows source code searchcing for IP violations with the same dilligence SCO has used looking for ways to own Linux.
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.
Often vendors/makers don't even have the right to sublicense patented techcnology to the end users, like the case of Cognos, who lost the lawsuit with Timeline despite the fact it was Microsoft who had infringed
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?