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MS-Sun Agreement Leaves Opening For OO.org Suits

Posted by timothy on from the on-what-basis-is-unclear dept.

newentiti writes "We all know Microsoft paid $900,000,000.00 to Sun and they also signed a LIMITED PATENT COVENANT AND STAND-STILL AGREEMENT. The agreement basically states that Microsoft will not sue Sun for any patents for the next 10 years and vice versa. What's really interesting is that according to this story the agreement had a special provision that lets Microsoft sue anybody, including Sun, over OpenOffice.org. I wonder what Microsoft had in mind?"

3 of 407 comments (clear)

  1. Change the name by BigDish · · Score: 5, Interesting

    IANAL, but it would seem to me if Sun changed the name of OpenOffice, this exemption for MS would no longer apply?

  2. Could be... by ElGuapoGolf · · Score: 5, Interesting


    What could happen is this...

    I remember reading that MSFT was going to tie some DRM into future versions of office... only "authorized" people could view documents. You'd, of course, need a MSFT policy server somewhere on your network to make sure you could set these permissions, and view documents, and all that good stuff...

    If OpenOffice decided to reverse engineer this, the loophole lets MSFT sue them.

    Does anyone remember the good old days when you could save your Word 6 doc, open it in WordPefect, and work on it there? Or, hell, when you could save your GeoWrite document, open it it Word Writer, and work on it there? What the hell happened?

  3. Hardly "funny"... by ites · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Insightful, yes.

    Microsoft make money from exactly TWO products. Windows, and MSOffice.

    Windows is under fierce attack from internet malware on the consumer desktop, and Linux in the enterprise. MSOffice is being eroded by the unbreakable OOo.

    I said this a while ago when Microsoft and Sun announced their happy settlement: the goal is to squash OOo. SCO and Lindows demonstrated that lawsuits are not just about recovering damages: the mere threat of litigation is enough to kill a product.

    OOo will not survive a SCO. It's not got enough grip yet. Microsoft must realize this.

    So: they will use a stick and a carrot. The stick: lawsuits against prominent OOo developers for patent infringement. The carrot: MSOffice for Linux. I predict within the next 6 months, since every day that OOo is free makes it harder for MS to squash it.

    And then... patents to make sure no-one can ever write a free office application again.

    "Illegal software" is going to take on a whole new meaning by this time next year.

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