Slashdot Mirror
Ballmer Threatens Linux Patent Lawsuits
gillbates writes "Today Microsoft warned several Asian countries that using Linux could subject them to lawsuits, claiming that Linux violates '228 patents'. Apparently, Steve Ballmer believes he can enforce U.S. law in Asia." Ballmer is presumably speaking about this story. So, companies which sell insurance against lawsuits and companies which make competing products both warn of the dangers of using Linux. Maybe someone should point out that Microsoft is battling dozens of patent-infringement lawsuits itself, and any user of Microsoft software (including governments) could also be sued?
There's the problem. Microsoft has someone to do that. "Someone" who is willing to send out threatening letters to MS product users on behalf of the OpenSource community will be hard to find (or hard to pay for)
Johns: Well, how does it look now? Riddick: Looks clear.
I knew we should have taken out the ability to double click!
And in related news from Middle Earth...
OSGILIATH (Reuters) - Mordor Corp. warned Middle Earth kingdoms on Thursday they could face the wrath of Orc armies for harbouring and aiding Gandalf and his fellowship of hobbits instead of rightfully bowing to the will of Sauron.
The growing popularity of Gandalf - a wise and benevolent wizard who freely aids all in need and is a friend of all free people of Middle Earth - is a thread to the global dominance of Sauron's Dominion Of Evil.
Gandalf's fellowship has illegally kept Sauron's valuables, Mordor's Mouth of Sauron said at the regime's Middle Earth Kingdom Leaders Forum in Osgiliath. He did not provide any details on what exactly the nature of Sauron's valuables which were stolen are, which the Fellowship disputes.
Ex-hobbit Gollum McBride, who claims that "nasty hobbitses stole his preciousss", is suing elves and hobbits alike, including the Shire.
Rohan's Riders of Defense at Gandalf's council last month readied 20,000 horsemen to face the assault of Mordor Corp instead of submitting freely to the evil reign of Sauron.
Other kingdoms in the region are also beginning to rally under one banner. Gondor, Arnor and Erebor this year agreed to jointly combat Sauron's forces at Gandalf's advice.
The kingdom of Gondor, in particular, sees its proximity to Mordor as a potential threat. Conspiracy buffs believe that subliminal messages sent to Denethor from Sauron via his Palantir might drive the steward insane and thus confuse and cripple Gondor's defenses, possibly during a battle in the Pelennor fields.
The Mouth of Sauron said that security fears some rulers had about surrending to Mordor were "overblown".
"We think Sauron will provide far more security than Gandalf ever could. Sauron is a better protector for you lot because he has this awesome Ring which he forged, he fixed and he stands behind. Gandalf doesn't have an awesome Ring," he said.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
Keep in mind that China is a Communist country and any concept of intellectual property is relatively novel.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Isnt this the same Microsoft that a while back had some of its windows update or main website running on linux powered servers? so theyd have to sue themselves too i guess.
This should go over really well. At least MS is entrenched in most business environments here in the U.S. so they can get away with a lot of this stuff. But in Asia (especially in places where they are pushing the stripped-down edition of Windows) this is going to alienate them even more than just having high prices.
"Buy our expensive software... or try the alternative and we'll sue you."
Good way to make friends.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
I agree. Why do countries put up with this nonsense? I personally think these Asian countries should sue the companies for general stupidity. "Someday, for all countries that are entering the WTO, somebody will come and look for money owing to the rights for that intellectual property" -> Someone needs to slap Ballmer for pretending to have weight with the WTO. For shame sir, for shame....
There is an article in Groklaw about how Poland is voting against EU software patents, and that the majority has tipped against them. His comments only help to underscore why this is the correct decision, and can only help our cause. It looks like the US will be the only country to recognize software patents.
My rights don't need management.
You are not forgotten!
Well, this is a new approach to spreading FUD. If he's referring to SCO, I would doubt that anyone still buys that.
If he's saying that they are infringing Microsoft's own patents then why can't he give examples, and why haven't Microsoft already been taking legal action? They sure don't seem to be afraid of doing so
If you can't beat them threaten to sue their customers. I wonder how the general public would react if Microsoft's constant thinly veiled threats were actually reported by anyone other than obscure tech sites like slashdot?
This subject making is presented in a way that implies that some sort of legal authority be brought to bear to make Ballmer shut up. I say that the best way to counter mis-information is with good information. I'd rather live in a society where people fight back against this sort of thing rather than whine, cry foul, and expect mommy to make him stop.
maybe MS prefers that the asian countries use pirated copies of Windows instead of pirated copies of Linux ;)
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
I'm getting bored of seeing these patent lawsuits. To think that insurance companies exist just to sell insurance against such lawsuits shows just how pathetic our patenting system is. *yawn*
What ever happened to winning by doing better than the competition, anyway? Are American corporations so pathetic that they have to stoop to this level to compete now?
While the long arm of United States patent law cannot be enforced in the Asian countries Balmer accuses, I am sure he is referring to the influence that will be exerted (directly and indirectly) to these countries by Microsoft and it's respective surrogates.
-Teiresias
if patent no. 75842962989 ("Making silly movements to modern pop-music in front of an amazed audience") has also been violated by any Linux developer?
That will be a nice test cases for the legal status of Open-Source. And when they lose it will make govs think about their intellectual property laws. Some govs might finally stop listening to the 'advice' of big cooperations once they feel the consequences for themselfs. Either way it means improvement... But i'm not that hopefull, MS is just spreading FUD again, i don't think Ballmer will go as far as sueing govs, he isn't that dumb either. But other might...
(a) The EU is moving away from software patents (b) the majority of nations in Asia don't have them AFAIK (c) many governments are pushing OSS for open, stable file formats and to promote local entrepreneurs in development and support areas.
I suppose with the SCO FUD-fest against Linux imploding, that Ballmer feels the need to spread FUD direct from the source to combat the Penguin Horde advancing on the Gates of Redmond.
The US could complain to the WTO or somebody, but they are toothless. China is too big to start a trade war with.
Poland just recently decided against supporting software patents in the EU. Does that mean they will not respect other countries' patents on software or just that they will not go along with Europe issuing them?
...where the sun is rapidly setting on certain parts of his windows operation. The man might be a good businessman but he doesn't seem to realise that making veiled threats does not intimidate people as it does in the west , in asia its considered extremely rude and gets their backs up and hence they're MORE likely to be contrary and ignore you and your company even further.
WHO THE F*CK is microsoft to WARN?
> Apparently, Steve Ballmer believes he can enforce U.S. law in Asia.
No, I think he's counting on it that Asia cannot prosecute Microsoft under U.S.A. racketeering laws.
Enforcing US laws in Asia? Good luck MS - we will all have a laugh while you make an a** of yourself.
I believe the real war for M$ is in the trenches, and Ballmer making these stupid statements from time to time has only got to unnerve his customers (rather than his competitors).
What they really need to be doing is getting aggressive on making deals happen using price points that will work (which they are already doing), and work on improving their image as far as security goes (something they dont seem to have a high priority for). This type of arm-twisting may have worked in the past, but so far it has made no dent in the OSS roadmap.
All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be
"Maybe someone should point out that Microsoft is battling dozens of patent-infringement lawsuits itself, and any user of Microsoft software (including governments) could also be sued?" Am I remembering incorrectly, or hasn't Microsoft indemnified all it's customers from patent infringment in MS products?
Visit www.doc2pdf.net for a free, no need to register,
To quote Linus: They are smoking crack.
I think, therefore I am. I think?
You left out Tom Bombadil.
And the liberation of the Shire.
Bahhh...
I hope it will be included in the Special Extended Edition of this post...
I don't need a signature.
The original report said that the kernel potentially (since they are non-court validated) infringes an estimated 283 patents. And now Ballmer is sure that all of the issued patents are actually valid.
This sort of MBA doublespeak makes my blood boil!
Maybe someone should point out that Microsoft is battling dozens of patent-infringement lawsuits itself,
And not to mention, the open source in it's products... If you could prove a open source module exists you could invoke a derived works clause...
I wonder if google collects Redmond requests for source code?
Hilarious. That is like saying "I am the strongest man in the world because I have brown hair, I wear shoes, and I am standing here right now."
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Despite the fact that Asia is notorious for being a den of thieves when it comes to software, I'd bet that Microsoft can lean on enough people who can lean on the right people over in Asia to crack down.
And well they should. If the patents are bullshit then the lawsuits will put them permanently six feet under and if they're legit then Linux can fix itself for the future. Wah wah. Patents are coming. Boo hoo.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Ironic that Microsoft advocate the choice of software based on its merits rather than just jumping on the open-source bandwagon. Then they basically say not to choose software other than Microsoft as we'll sue you.
Surely Microsoft should target the vendor not the recipient of the software? that is if there's anything but FUD in their argument.
It just shows how desperate they are becoming.
Patent law, like copyright law, is essentially international in nature. You can be granted patents in any number of different countries; it's possible that MS holds patents in the relevant countries, not just in the US.
Besides which, a significant number of the projects that may be targetted are developed in the States, and thus fall under US patent laws. They may not have a case overseas, but that won't matter much if they cut the legs out from under the project. Sure, with open source you can take over development yourself, but most people simply won't want or be able to.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Hey, Steve! Just compile a Linux kernel and you will discover at last the joy to use some home-built software!
cd /usr/src/linux/
...
make
I am not Remy Mouton, unfortunately: http://remy.mouton.free.fr/art/
The BBC has an article about it as well. It has a nice tough at the end:
Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, has the most to lose should Linux use spread.
This nicely puts Balmers statement in the correct perspective for the readers that aren't 'into the bussiness'. I like that...
Advice to Ballmer: If you fight linux with patents, be prepared for Novell.
http://www.novell.com/company/policies/patent/
So *that*'s who is really going to replace Ashcroft as AG. The whole Alberto Gonzales thing was just a red herring.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
"Apparently, Steve Ballmer believes he can enforce U.S. law in Asia"
Can any country really take the US seriously anymore? Haven't we become a parody on ourselves?
From our elected officials to our foreign policies to our biased media and corrupt corporations.
How long can we fool ourselves?
Does anybody know when Steve's birthday is? I'd like to get him a monocle, a fake scar, and a white cat.
I think he can pull that look off better than Bill can.
Either that, or a pinstripe suit - so he can do the "Nice OS you have hear. It'd be a shame if anything were to happen to it" thing better.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I think M$ is planning this as a last ditch. I think they are being very wary of how they approach Linux as a competitor in hopes that suits like SCO's will stifle Linux. Now that it's becoming obvious that SCO's suit isn't likely to succeed, they are hedging their bets with patents. I think this could ultimately backfire on them even if they hold these patents. Prior art is one aspect they aren't figuring on. Another is the fact that Linux is being adopted by a lot of companies and governments. To go into court in, say, 3-4 years and try to sue bsed on these patents might not sit well with a judge. Especially some of the more silly patents. They could come off as looking like they let the patents go unchallenged and simply enforced them in an effort to stifle competition. Whatever the case, having IBM, Novell, and more big companies backing Linux is only going to help.
Wasn't this 228 patent violation thing started by PJ, Groklaw, and her employer? Yep, hate to break it to you slashdot, but Groklaw started all when it tried to sell Linux "insurance."
Sorry to attack a sacred cow like Groklaw, but the truth must be told.
MS needs to figure out a way to get into that untaped resource, that is what balmer is trying to do, he isn't stupid
They will be the cash cow in 10 years, i am starting to pickup chinese while i am starting to prepare for IP Law. i think it will be benificial to have that skill.
I am really going to watch this closely. If countries can be bullied by a corparation into buying their software this will redefine the whole "Choice" concept. Some tried to sue because changing laws were impacting business but this is new. It make me wonder if this situation will not trigger a diplomacy crisis because isn't Microsoft trying the "Offer you can't refuse" trick to an entire continent ?
I absolutely hope this doesn't go to the extent SCO has taken it, as otherwise this will get REAL ugly...
Mod the parent up. The issue has nothing to do with intellectual property. Software patents in general are trivial. Microsoft is trying to wield its monopoly power again to maintain control of its operating system market dominance. If they really try this there will be such a huge backlash...
Okay fine! If you're not our customer, prepare to be sued for it!
While I generally take legal threats and action fairly seriously, my knee-jerk reaction is that Microsoft will be laughed out of the arena on this one. This would be a persuit that would turn the public against them. I can see the IBM propaganda commercials on TV now. They'd be depicting a hobbyist writing making something in their garage or basement followed quickly by a SWAT team with guns pointed at his head.
While it's true that business has taken a natural interest in Linux. It's free, it's reliable, it's flexible, it's customizable and it's everywhere and simply growing and growing. It can't be stopped. Anything that Microsoft does againt the users of Linux will certainly make them look even more evil in the public's eye than ever before.
Public opinion has turned against the RIAA and MPAA because they're now known for suing children and little old ladies. Clear Channel has bad enough vibe out there that they are operating under the names of the companies they bought out just to hide their identity since many people no longer want to go to Clear Channel events. Most people accept Microsoft as part of their computer like a keyboard, mouse or monitor. But when people and small businesses start getting sued and the public gets wind of it, not only will it serve as free advertisement for the new "Underdog" but it'll cause a lot of negative opinion against Microsoft. Apple will start collecting more fans as their next home PC will be a happy-faced G5 running something that's not Microsoft.
Go ahead Microsoft... make my day.
Saying the Japanese and Chinese are like the English and the French is the understatement of the year. Japan invaded China to open World War II and killed nearly 30 million Chinese people.
This is my sig.
Their threats are empty. They are CONVICTED of being a monopoly and illegally USING that power to force themselves into dominance in other markets.
If MS attempts to use a patent to stifle Linux uptake, the courts can strip the patent from them even if it IS a valid patent.
Microsoft threatening like this is the best thing that has ever happened to those of us who oppose software patents. MS is huge and rich, but compared to the rest of the US and world economy, they are a flyspeck. Microsoft seems to be ACTIVELY trying to turn the whole world AGAINST them.
Funny how Ballmer is sounding like Darl McBride...
If you are a former customer, expect to be sued. You have our "presssccciiooouss" IP.
Suing your customers, or THREATENING to sue your customers is not a proven successful business tactic.
IBM has more patents than God, and their business interest is in protecting Linux. I am not too worried about MS or someone sucessfully getting Linux stopped via software patents, and the attempt will do more to teach our business community and our government that software patents are bad and should be abolished or limited in scope.
For one thing, companies should have to choose: Copyright or patent. They can have one or the other, not BOTH.
Corporatism != Free Market
Software patents are RIDICULOUS and ABSURD. Write your congressperson.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
"We think our software is far more secure than open-source software. It is more secure because we stand behind it, we fixed it, because we built it. Nobody ever knows who built open-source software."
Mr Ballmer, there is a diffrence between crackpot thoughts and facts. I suppose as a CEO you must have been advised at one point or another to check for facts and crackpot thoughts before presenting them. Or do you speak from your a** all the time?
This is just another public manifestation of the tactics used by MSFT. FUD FUD FUD....
But it is quite intesting to notice the effect this type of argument has on some IT people. The other day one of our clients (a manager of a US company) tried to explain me (and my team) how all open-source licenses are dangerous. It was kinda funny, because he couldnt event tell the difference between acronyms such as GNU, GPL, LGPL, CPL, MPL, etc. Basically, open-source is bad because lawyers told him so, although he was unable to cite any real example. I got really upset.
Yeah, Ballmer's arguments make a lot of sense from his own perspective. MSFT wishes to thank SCO...
--ASRG
What do you mean? This is business, plain and simple. Balls. The amount of /. mindshare that could be spent on writing better FOSS software, alone, is staggering.
In the US National Football League, this maneuver is known as a 'play action fake'.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Who really cares? We can compile just about anything for any POSIX system. So the kernel might have patent issues, use a different kernel. So the office software might use a stupid patent, use different office software. For business uses, I don't see any problem in avoiding the issue by evasive means. If it MS claims *BSDs use patented software too, then they'll have a lot more PO'd companies to deal with anyways.
Well, we always knew that Ballmer and McBride were just Gates's sock puppets.
Why do you think Gates hired him in the first place? It's not like he provides any strategic direction for microsoft, he's just Gates's jackass by proxy.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
How nice that OSRM, presumably pro-Linux, has provided such potent fodder for Steve Balmer. I've always thought the whole Linux indemnification thing was dangerous, and now we see that is true, it was only a matter of time before it was used against Linux. Thanks, OSRM!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Is it just me? Is being pissed at all manner of things just part of growing up?
Regards,
John
Falling You - beautiful
....is to make em all triple-clicks.
C'mon then, someone tell me that the patent says "two or more clicks in quick succession"....
Since when did China care about western laws and patents? Right now western corps are russing in there for business. There are a billion people in an up and coming economy. China doesn't care about M$ or US laws. They believe they are in the drivers seat.
China has the second most powerful military and the fastest growing economy. Plus they are not a democracy.... again, why would they care?
Evolution or ID?
Saying the Japanese and Chinese are like the English and the French is the understatement of the year. Japan invaded China to open World War II and killed nearly 30 million Chinese people.
I agree entirely. In fact see my post from the earlier article on Fusion. And while we're at it, it's worth pointing out that Korea is the China and Japan what Poland is the Germany and Russia as far as long term histry goes.
Had I been realistic, however, it would just get ignored, so I went for the soft sell...
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
and what about all the BSD code in Winders.... Yes it is sprinkled all through it. Look at the CL FTP client. Also what about SFU (Services For Unix) This is built on Open Source.
Guess Steve will have to sue himself!
Yes, why do countries and companies pay any attention to this sort of bullying? Why does (American) law allow any room for bullying? It's a waste of time, money and energy. Not to mention a source of frustration.
I just read that as "Ballmer Threatens Linux, Patents Lawsuits."
Too much coffee.
Today I submitted a patent to turn the steering wheel left. Sure, car manufacturers patented the steering wheel, but they never patented how to USE it.
From now on, every time you turn left, you owe me 2 cents.
Thank you, have a nice day.
is a fucking idiot, nuf said
Don't forget China is keeping our country afloat by buying up all our treasure bills and keeping the US Dollar somewhat competitive.. They can simply dump all their t-bills and we're screwed.
Separated at birth... they look alike and they both use FUD (fear uncertainty and doubt) as their primary method of making people do their bidding.
Pure evil
how is THAT offtopic.
Ballmer threatened patent litigation.
So did I.
On topic.
Thank you
OH NO! I'll have to go back to stealing Microsoft products.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
I just thought you'd like to know that a hundred centuries is somewhere in the vicinity of ten thousand years.
I do recall some small mentions of a hundred year war in various history texts, though...
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
I have recently been looking into Linux. I must admit I have been a Microsoft Admin for some years but there are simply too many people talking about it for me to ignore it. I hope that Microsoft's bark is bigger than it's bite. (I have tried Knoppix and it seems nice but I need to read up on how Linux works as a server in a Windows network)
No keyboard detected. Press any key to continue.
I think it was the Hundred Year War... a hundred centuries is 10,000 years. I don't think there was a kingdom of France or England in 8000 BC.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
A hundred century war ey? That's a mere 10.000 years there. Surprising that England and France were duking it out before the Egyptians had figured out how to stack stones...
A hundred year's war would do.
Why is it so that the user of a product not made by himself which violates a patent can be sued?
Mohahah!
China issued a statement...
"bring it on Fat Sweaty Monkey Boy!"
Microsoft had no comment at the time.
"Today Microsoft warned several Asian countries that using Linux could subject them to lawsuits, claiming that Linux violates '228 patents'. Apparently, Steve Ballmer believes he can enforce U.S. law in Asia."
"In a related story, Ballmer is suing Sony for allegedly producing an inferior product, Dance Dance Revolution, which he claims cannot stand up to 'real dancing.' Ballmer has reportedly broken 10 of the devices made for the PS2 doing, as he calls it, 'muh jiggy wifit foot stompin' moves....'"
"In yet another unrelated story, neighbors of Steve Ballmer are suing him for scaring their children with, as they explain it, 'producing high-pitched, glass-shattering, woman squeals.' Ballmer denied the allegations claiming that such noises are natural when 'getting jiggy wifit....'"
"I hear there's rumors on the Internets that we're going to have a draft." --George W. Bush
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
I believe you mean the Hundred Years War (which is generally considered to have lasted 116 years).
A Hundred Century war would be one that lasted 10,000 years, and that would predate the forming of England and France by oh, about 9000 years?
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Maybe someone should point out that Microsoft is battling dozens of patent-infringement lawsuits itself, and any user of Microsoft software (including governments) could also be sued?
Microsoft has already indemnified customers against IP threats.
Basically, if Windows was violating a patent held by IBM and IBM decided to sue MS customers then Microsoft has agreed to fight the case and pay damages on its customers' behalf.
Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!
Ts ts ts ts ts!
Yam, yam, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade
My country seems to have decided as a whole that actually manufacturing anything is so ... passe.
... nothing. Whereas if other countries refuse to buy "Intellectual Property" (ie paying tribute to others for ideas that they already have in their possession), then they simply use the "ideas" they already have for free. Which position would you rather be in?
Instead, we're pretending that the so-called "New Economy" actually produces something useful. Despite the bursting of the dot-com bubble, this illusion persists even today.
However, since we still need real manufactured goods, we run massive trade deficits with China and others.
And what do we try to export to offset this? "Intellectual Property", a largely illusionary concept created to protect the assets of industries that would not exist today if the sorts of "property rights" they espouse had existed over the last several decades.
Yep, we're trying to trade "the emperor's new clothes" for actual goods. Do you think the rest of the world is going to be dumb enough to take the trade? I don't.
And if they don't, we're going to "apply pressure", so I'm led to understand. Let me get this straight. Given that we don't produce anything real ourselves, if we stop importing these goods we'll have
Someone please put this pig Ballmer out of our misery. I am so sick and tired of hearing his shit. Lock him away in a damp dark dirty dungeon for 1,000 years.
"I have here a list of 228 Communist--er, patents that Linux infringes!"
At least we don't need to ask the rhetorical question about decency.
Paraphrasing from Mark Twain, "the threat of legal action is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
Steve Ballmer has an uphill battle to regain credibility among IT decision-makers if he has to abandon a tactic of directly comparing Microsoft's products to Linux and FOSS on the strict basis of features, price, bugs, security, standards adherence, kindly upgrade path lacking forced obsolescence, licensing terms, etc.
At least in the developed world where Microsoft has dominated the marketplace for years he can always bring up the Windows to Linux migration cost (neglecting to mention anything about the Windows to Windows migration costs) and backward compatibility to bolster his argument.
With this level of desperation, and with SCO's case foundering, MS may decide to fight more openly against Linux in the legal arena. But making such a move is risky from a PR perspective because it will cast MS in a bad light, opposing freely-available, zero-cost technology that helps anyone who cares to use it. While MS might be losing millions of dollars as companies choose FOSS in place of Microsoft products, it's not as if intellectual property violations (if they even exist) cause an equal - or even comparable - slide of millions of dollars into the pockets of greedy IP violators. Rather, most FOSS developers have minuscule wealth compared to Microsoft and stand to gain much less by contributing their work to the world at large. Pressing IP claims against software available to anyone and independently contributed by someone working from scratch in their garage at night is likely to smack of a David vs Goliath dispute, with Goliath wanting his tax from everyone else and David wanting to let the people keep their money.
Additionally, in the developing world they must regard claims of ownership of intellectual property as a curious and amusing Western contrivance for making money and preserving wealth, especially in light of the more preposterous patents that the USPTO has given over the last number of years.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Fuck off.
Love,
Tux
p.s. - Fuck off.
One way to look at it is that lawsuits are an expensive way to make noise. Ballmer has to make noise or else folks will resume paying attention to their work and finding that MS is an obstacle. Or worse, that folks will start checking out other options like OpenOffice.org or OS X or one of the Linux distros. Or, even worse, they'll start to realise that MS stock is a worse investment than Enron:
Mainstream press is starting to figure out that MS-Windows dominance will last only another 2- 4 years and that only because of the enormous marketing and lobbying engine that MS is. To add weight to that, MS blocked its employees from exercising their "underwater" stock options during 2004. That was intended to increase retention, as employees need to remain with Microsoft to receive the payout. Retention would not be an issue unless the company looked to have no future.
Many execs, however haven't been able to empty their portfolios yet and want more delay.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
"...In my opinion, Linux is thoroughly infested with patent violations. I have in my hand 228 cases of pieces of code which would appear to be either card-carrying patent violations, or certainly disloyal to the cause of intellectual property, but which nevertheless are still helping to shape the functioning of Linux..."
(if you don't get it...)
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
OK, guys, I blew it. s/Century/Year/
Need more caffeine.
Need to heed the Preview button.
Did anyone actually read the article? I would image that the person who submitted the story did and hope that Michael decided that it needed some more anti-microsoft tone too it and re-wrote it.
NO WHERE in the article does it state (in either yahoo or the register) that it will be Microsoft v.s. World. If you use half of your brain to remember that Microsoft indemified all of its customers from being sued (plenty of links in the comment area already) you would understand what Steve B is talking about.
Steve B runs Microsoft, Microsofts biggest competitor is Linux. Microsoft is telling Governments "Hey, we'll protect you if someone tries to sue you for patent violations. If you use linux, who will protect you from then ?"
Balmer is not saying "If you use linux I WILL sue you for violating patents". He is not saying "Use microsoft or you will be sued". He is saying that "I [steve b] will gurantee that you wont be sued if you use MS products, but if you use linux, you could be sued"
Even the register says "He did not specify that Microsoft would be the company doing the suing", which right after that it puts its own anti-MS propoganda.
so, MS fud? not a chance. Slashdot FUD? beyond all doubt.
I follow the SDK and GDN principles.. Spelling Dont Kount, Grammer Dont Neither
Looks like SUN is trying to live off corporate fear just as much as Micro$oft is: read this CNN story tech sites:
You gotta love it. "Microsoft.. warned Asian governments... they could face patent lawsuits..." Marmoset, meet the 900-pound gorilla. :) The idea of corporations having unlimited power and almost no accountability is somewhat foreign to the Chinese rulers. This kind of priviledge was historically reserved for the Communist Party, I doubt its leaders would welcome competition from Microsoft. :)
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
"Saying the Japanese and Chinese are like the English and the French is the understatement of the year. Japan invaded China to open World War II and killed nearly 30 million Chinese people."
But saying that the Japanese and Chinese are like the English and the Irish IS a fair comparison - maybe not in the numbers of those killed, but certainly in the hatred behind it. (And the Irish were part of the original analogy, making the France = Korea, not China.)
Yes, there are women on Slashdot. Deal with it.
the chinese will have to go back to sharing that one copy of MS Windows then...
It's like he just says any bullshit that comes to mind without stopping to think about if it actually makes sense. Why in the world is this man in charge of a multi-billion dollar company? I wouldn't trust him not to scare away the customers if I hired him as a cashier.
Sleep is futile.
Remember people, the freedom part of this great and glorious idea was RMS's and it's looking more and more important by the day.
I'm not too worried by "gnu/linux" vs "linux" but I sure as hell appreciate RMS's work.
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
Also said:
"We think our software is far more secure. It is more secure because we stand by it, we fixed it, because we built it. Nobody ever knows who built open-source software," he(Ballmer) said.
Wow, he has been in the buisness this long and in competition against BSD and Linux for this long and still doesn't understand how his product or Open Source functions?!
As long as I have been using MS products, they have never fixed a problem for me. Sure I don't have Torvalds at my beck and call with my Linux problems but I have a far greater unspoken and unsung mindshare to draw from.
Microsoft has never fixed a problem for me. Ever. And I know why: it isn't profitable to fix problems for me. Lets say that I have a laptop and I install Windows XP but the wireless networking doesn't work. Microsoft will say its the vendor problem, or I pray for a patch at some later undisclosed date, or call them up for a $75 an hour incident investiation (I'm sure they've upped the rate by now) which may or may not result in a hot patch.
Compare this to Linux where no one organisation will fix things for me but many people will help point me in the right direction. Install FC Core 3 on the laptop but the wireless doesn't work. I have logfiles. I have google and mailing lists. Importantly I have source code. If a fix is found I can apply it now. If no one has a fix and I feel adventureous I can jump in and start trying to fix it myself.
So go ahead and threaten to sue Mr. Ballmer. Having MS stand behind the software and fix it is a really expensive. I might still save money in the end by being sued for using Linux instead of throwing more money at MS.
ps. Why should we believe that Windows avoids the 228 patent violations? Anyone know how we check this? Oh yeah...MS says they are clean. I guess we should trust them instead of OSS.
When exactly did this whole business of customers getting sued for using a product someone else wrote start?
In past Groklaw discussions, I recall mention of a court precedent that, when it comes to Patents, you must sue the maker of the infringing product to resolve the problem before you can sue end users of the infringing product.
Squeak before you think? Huh?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
So can all the people who've ever worked on developping linux file defamation of character suits against Mr. Ballmer?
Before the companies I admin for would go to paying for windows servers, we would just switch from linux to bsd, I use slackware which is bsd-ish linux anyway and my databases and applications area usable on either platform so I could switch at night without skipping a bea. I would be somewhat of a pain in the ass however probably have to make a flight across the country unless I could get someone to install bsd on those servers for me.
One question to the bsders out there
for future reference which variant is best in your opinion for each of these tasks:
firewall
sql database (firebird/interbase)
mail server
www server
file server (for images mostly for rendition billing, at this point I actually use windows and netware but at some point I will phase out windows if they piss me off).
PS: Are there drivers for a bsd for an hp optical jukebox
And the centuries of wars between the english and french...were those just for fun?
It's been a long time.
Thanks for making us look like total twit-wits in front of the entire world, Steve. You're a great ambassador American values.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
In the dark past of Frenchkind, there is only war...
Ballmer! WTF are you thinking?! Use must really be for Linux. You know, when Gates was CEO, he'd was very ingenous and at the same time, very stupid. We would makes comments that would generally make people laugh at him, like "one day hardware will be free and people will pay for software." You, Baller, you make statements that really piss people off. With your greed driven attitude, I see you spiraling M$ into the middle of the Sahara Desert with no suuplies. Mesa thinks M$ is gonna die. I give it 5 years, 10 tops. But hey, I'm an advocate of linux. So you keep doing your thing Ballmer. Way ta go!
Apparently the poster has not been paying attention to either the article or modern history. When countries are in the WTO, they take place in the World Intellectual Property Organization also. Laws cross national boundries now.
Revolutions are never about freedom or justice. They're about who's going to be top dog. -- Kilgore Trout
and see what OS you see everywhere. It wont be linux and it wont be macintosh. MS products, whether legal or not legal copies, are everywhere. They are in the markets for sale, on all of the computers that people are using. Not once have I seen a Linux machine in China.
food for thought.
China supporting linux development is like the USA going to the metric system.
I guess it's official, Linux is a real threat to Microsoft's OS dominance. Now that Balmer seems to be going out of his way to put Linux in the limelight, everyone who's been on the fence to this point should take a look and see what all of the fuss is about. Here's a link to the Knoppix to help if anyone wants to try before they buy! The Slackware based Slax is worth a look too.
Balmer's attacks certainly mean that the threat on the server is real, but it may also speak to what MS projects on the desktop. No, Linux isn't likely to take the desktop in the US, but MS is probably projecting lowered sales of Windows there too. Why? Because the PC market is reaching saturation with today's machines more than powerful enough to meet the needs of most, which means fewer new PCs will be sold. Most sales of Windows are in new PC bundles. PCs also face competition from other increasingly capable consumer electronics like cell phones, music players, and handheld game consoles. These competing devices are less expensive than a PC and much easier to use. All of this means eroding sales of Windows over the next few years. Microsoft may have been holding out hope that the growing PC market in Asian might rescue Windows, but the Chinese-Korean-Japanese joint Linux venture threatens to close that door. So Balmer is probably getting a little desperate. Personally, I think if Microsoft is to survive, it'll be Bill Gates who figures out what they need to do. I think that in the end Microsoft will have to learn to play nice with Linux just as Sun seems to be doing now.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
I buy a car made by Ford.
Ford used a part that's patented by General Motors.
Can General Motors sue me for patent infringement?
Of course not. So how can Microsoft sue someone for using Linux?
If I buy Linux from Redhat, Suse or whatever, how can I be sued for patent infringement?
The problem that I see M$ running into is that Linux is becoming so entrenched in Corparate and Government life that any serious threat to Linux would be disabled on the Government level. We're complaining of software patents. But just imagine what will happen when someone threatens Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Electric Boat, Red Hat, Novell, et al., on a serious level. Then I bet you that these guys will start to lobby Congress rather heavily and software patents just might disappear. The issue that we have here is that there is little insentive to change, but when a threat comes along that has enough teeth, but is absurd enough then Congress will castrate them via lobbying efforts. You will notice that SCO didn't go off and sue the major defense contractors? Or the music/movie industry. Someone will be selfish enough to make the mistake of taking a lobbying group to court, and then it will be over. The same thing will end up happening in other countries and this would issue of the WTO will be moot.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
American consumers are mindless cows in comparison.
I don't think so.
It takes a rather sophisticated training and conditioning to be able to consistently select a product based on how smooth the marketing speak is, or how sexy the babe is. Sometimes the amount of gloss on competing marketing messages is very close and requires careful discrimination to select the more glossy of the two.
Even though this conditioning appears to be setting in at younger ages, it still requires years to develop the requisite skill.
Mindless? Hardly. In fact a very sophisticated discrimination is developed in American consumers. If you were to conduct experiments of consumer choices vs. say random flip of a coin, you would see that consumers are highly adept at selecting the slickest marketing message.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Gee. Thanks. Yet another mental image I neither needed nor wanted. That ranks (in all senses of the word) right up there with tubgirl and goatse.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Ballmar is a complete idiot, and it seems slashdot is good at missing out on news...
So why is this?
Well, last time I checked, most of Europe is in the WTO.
Now, as you can read on Groklaw also, Poland just decided on not supporting the EU software patent proposal, thereby removing the majority that was there, so it seems that patents are a logn way off in the EU for now.
MS can (and should imho) engorce copyright, but to claim that they can enforce their patents in any country that becomes a WTO member ? From what is happening in EUrope it seems they are more then a bit off there.
This is a typical case of what can properly be called FUD.
...then they laugh at you, then they fight you. Then you win. -- Gandhi
I'd say we're well on our way to stage 3.
--Tom
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Thank god for SCO! Without SCO, the very idea of the Redmond software juggernaut wielding its mighty IP portfolio to crush some upstart software system, written by some "random hacker in China", would send corporate executives scrambling for the protection of O Holy Microsoft.
... and suing IBM, and suing and suing ... and not winning (yet) ... and not winning, and not winning ... Hmm, maybe this intellectual property crap isn't all it's made out to be, after all.
But guess what? For over a year now, these executives have been hearing about this little SCO company suing IBM, and
And what's this Linux thing the executives keep hearing about? Oh, it's nothing to worry about, says Microsoft. Ignore it, says Microsoft. Pay no attention, says Microsoft's Steve Ballmer to Munich, skiing across the Atlantic to bring this not very important message to Germany. Don't bother to even think about it, says Microsoft, pulling out all manner of independent reviews to prove its point.
And now, Microsoft roars, if you use Linux, we will SUE YOU!!!! (if you're in China). The Price-Waterhouse executive quakes in his boots as he gazes on the corporate global map--
Hey, waitaminnit, he says. We don't *have* anything in China.
He picks up the phone. "Miss Wynton? Have you renewed our corporate membership in MandrakeClub Gold yet?"
Thank you, SCO.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
http://www.webpronews.com/news/ebusinessnews/wpn-4 5-20041117TwoMoreInternetExplorerHolesDiscovered.h tml. php/3 437231
http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article
so we have the situation where MS has finally lost its patience ? it seems more like it. they have gotten used to being happy - the only OS in the world, the other one is for servers and heavy duty apps (*nix). so any reference to the desktop by linux is treated with sco and other patent threats. the firefox is staling IE's thunder - and they are pretty pissed with "secunia not reporting reponsibly" . plain bull!!!
Overblown? Not unfounded? I love his choice of words.
"We think our software is far more secure than open-source software. It is more secure because we stand behind it, we fixed it, because we built it. Nobody ever knows who built open-source software," he said.
Oh yeah, We all know who built Windows. Bill Gates right? And Linus built linux! What a wonderful world Steve lives in. I wish he would invite me over to play. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. I wonder if Bill cringes everytime he hears that Steve has opened his mouth?
eom
Make no mistake, these actions not only generate resentment toward Microsoft, they also generate resentment toward America.
This is not a good time to further alienate the people of America from the rest of the world and the good of the American public is somewhat betrayed.
Odd; they say those who ignore history are bound to repeat its mistakes. Microsoft is a corporate super power. If you look at history there is an unmistakeable trend:
At some point the predominant empire feels threatened by a lesser opponent. If the empire leans too strongly toward an iron hand policy (and they almost always do) they also begin to alienate moderate entities and eventually even their allies. Over time they manage to create an atmosphere which unites the entire known world against them. At that point their power erodes until they finally implode.
I have no sympathy for Microsoft. If they so choose the path of the doomed, let them die. But there is another super power for whom I have very much love and sympathy. Let us hope their leaders will not repeat history's mistakes.
Is there any precedent at all for suing the users of a patent-infringing product?
This seems absolutely crazy to me. Am I expected to research every product I purchase or use for potential patent infringement in order to avoid being sued?
Microsoft has lots of cash to battle patent lawsuits and pay off if it loses. Linux companies don't. All it'd take is one big successful lawsuit to ruin them. A few Linux companies get ruined, and commercial Linux is dead.
guys like HP already do that in the case of sco - you nitwit (havent you checked that ?). MS itself is steeped in upto 35 patents at this point. although this does not affect users. its pretty much the same with MS. well, let linux be faced with such claims - i am sure - it will be well handled.
Or are Red Hat and Novell going to do it for us?
Can any one say MicroSCOft...
Meddle thou not in the affairs of Dragons, for thou art crunchy and with most anything.
but remeber Bill/Ballmer Patents are free for private use under some conditions!
Laws and Regulations provides links to English language translations of the Chinese law of copyright, trademarks, patents, etc. There is not much here that would look unfamiliar to the U.S. or any of it's major trading partners. No one is expecting any immeadiate changes on the street, but building a solid IP portfolio is beginning to look like a good business practice even in China. Microsoft Notebook: Piracy battle is key in China
You obviously were looking in a mirror.
And, you obviously did not read what Micorsift's indeminfication rules, loop holes and outs are for it.
Pull your head out of your nether region, read what Micorsift actually wrote in their indemnification agreement areas and then maybe we will listen.
...you threaten to sue customers and potential customers for not buying your product.
This is REAL bad for Microsoft. First, it shows how much of a threat Linux is.
Second, those companies and governments he is threatening will think twice about enacting any software patent laws.
Third, no one likes to be threatened! It's just a simple fact that threatening someone is the worse thing you can do to make someone do what you want. Instantly that "someone" is antagonistic and will try at the first available moment to escape.
When Microsoft competed against Linux on price and quality it had a chance. Now we know it's over.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
We will wipe the filth of his seed from the world.
MS threatening bogus legal action on software patents in Asia is stupid. Grossly overpriced, defective malware barf packaged as deserving "innovative" protection isn't going to cut there. Several warnings for Steve: a. Submarine patents? China has submarines and nukes. b. Remember the Chinese still prosecute economic crimes. It ends on May Day with a bang. c. Careful Slim, they might mistake you for food.
Secondly, who owns them?
After all, you have to get their permission to sue them!
It takes a rather sophisticated training and conditioning to be able to consistently select a product based on how smooth the marketing speak is, or how sexy the babe is.
FWIW all the studies I've read about lately actually indicate that today's teens are more skepical of advertising claims and less likely to be influenced by the "glitter" than any generation before.
Don't know what that says about their parents...
Why, oh why does anyone listen to this tripe? And how long will it take for Microsoft to learn that attempting to force customers into its arms at gunpoint isn't going to work?
As it shows a degree of panic on Microsoft's part. Ballmer starts out with the assumption that software patents are going to be conditional on entry to the WTO. This overlooks two main points:
1) The WTO is, by definition, the WORLD Trade organisation. Subserviance to a global Microsoft Patent arsenal would put Microsoft a step closer to killing off any competition from freely distributable FOSS that can be deployed in homes and businesses. As Linux is the only real competition that Redmond have had in the last 15-20 years to surrender to this would be tantamount to giving MS the global software market forever. Future free software development in countries other than the US would be more difficult, possibly impossible, leaving every country in the hands of the MS. Your country disagrees with America? Simple, Homeland security adds you to the export ban list and all of a sudden your DRM permission gets revoked. Far fetched? Manybe, but in the current climate I bet its gone through a few minds in high places.
2) There are not many countries that trust America at the moment. Europe's nervous about Iraq (why not it's a lot closer to Iraq than the US is), half of the Middle East is keeping its head down while the other half sit wondering whether their next and are probably tooling up just in case. The North Koreans? Wouldn't wanna be in their shoes right now. The Chinese won't want to submit to anyone as their economy's growing fast and they won't want to relinquish control. In short, global software patents suit one country and although Tony Blair will probably prostrate himself on the Whitehouse carpet while swearing to keep the UK government/Microsoft partnership going it's still part of Europe.
So; Given that the main effect of global software patents will be to kill of any other countries chances of competing with Microsoft, what reason have they got for signing up. If anything, this speech gives Europe and China a sign of the state of things to come adding extra impetus to turn to Mandrake, SuSE, Red Star Linux and forget about software patents for good.
As SCO come closer to death it's interesting to see Microsoft's anti-Linux activities seeming more desperate as they flail around looking for options however implausible they may be. The ultimate effect of this one though may be the isolation of Microsoft to American territory, their overseas markets cut off by their own hand.
Incidently, if terrorism is the art of threatening attack in order to influence governments or organisations the tone of Stevey Boys rant could easily be interpreted as such. I therefore suggest that Redmond be declared part of the axis of evil terrorist organisations. A UN force should be deployed in Ballmers office and sanctions be imposed on the evil dictator within. Alternatively, it could be subcontracted to the Israelis who can surround the aforementioned with Tanks, keeping Monkey Boy incarcerated until he's 75 and becomes entitled to utilise the French health service.
--
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
If Microsoft were serious about this, they'd be going after IBM, so I'm going to write Ballmer's jabberings off as FUD again.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
FUD - Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt
e.g.
"I'm not saying Linux is bad or anything, but if you were to use it...you may be sued and lose everything..."
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
Japan invaded China to open World War II and killed nearly 30 million Chinese people.
That's nice, but how can we blame the United States for that?
Do that monkey boy dance for us, go on.
Considered submitting this version of the story myself; what makes this one different is the commentary towards the end (edited here):-
What about all of those countries who're already members of the WTO? They should perhaps also get the message about how Microsoft sees IP law being used in the future. Which might well have a helpful collateral damage effect in Europe, if Europe's leaders are paying attention. Yesterday the Polish Government backed out of support for the EU patents directive, in a move which threatens to derail it... the sound of Microsoft threatening all-out IP war really ought to strengthen the opposition's hand, and make the European Parliament, which opposes software patents, more determined to fight. So well done, Steve, we look forward to the rebuttal.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Totally off-topic and not intended as a flamebait:
Does Fedora nowadays ship with mp3 and every-practical-movie-format support out of the box? If not, what is the easiest/fastest/cleaniest way to enable them? I've some PC using friends/relatives/whatever who are in a dire need of a proper OS and I'm looking for alternatives, because my favourite G/L distro, Slackware, is most probably not the thing they want.
Agreed, it's more like a UNC, Duke, and NCSU putting together a basketball team for a friendly game against a U of M, Michigan State, Ohio State squad.
Never confuse volume with power.
No one has done a study on this... wait.. no one CAN do a study. How convenient for MS.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
Seattle Software Party...
You mean something like having some people go out in the streets and protest against governments protecting large corporations with "unfair" laws?
Evolution is just a scientific theory. Creationism is not.
They understand the Asian business culture even less than they do the US. When your dealing with Asian culture they will smile and say we are sorry, what can we do to make you happy. While in the background everyone is getting the whips, chains, and tasers.
All Ballmer did with this statement is acknowledge that they were going to start a business war. What he may fail to see is that the business war has already started. He just told them where they were going to throw a salvo. So now they can posture being defensless and talk and negotiate on this point, while making other plans.
I really think that his statements were meant for the ear of US businesses.
"The Chinese government, in particular, sees its reliance on Microsoft as a potential threat. Conspiracy buffs believe certain patches in the Windows code might give U.S. authorities the power to access Chinese networks and disable them, possibly during a war over Taiwan."
Yes the fear is understandable.
"Ballmer said the security fears some governments had about using Microsoft software were overblown."
He never said that the potential didn't exist.
"We think our software is far more secure than open-source software. It is more secure because we stand behind it, we fixed it, because we built it. Nobody ever knows who built open-source software," he said.
Never mind all the patchs that have to be applied.
Does that mean all the people in my town are Franco-Korean, then?
Put identity in the browser.
Software patents are so crappy.
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com !!!!!!!!
....It was in grade-school. He didn't bother to attend class; he just hung around the perimeter, terrorizing those smaller than him and robbing them of their lunch money.
:P
Normally, thugs like these end up in prison, usually for assault-with-intent. In this case, unfortunately, this particular thug managed to hook-up with a corporation with a personality just like his....
Regards;
Never get involved in a land^H^H^H^H trade war in Asia.
If Balmer is right then Microsoft has just proved that they hold a monopoly in operating systems.
The Justice Department needs to remedy this by breaking Microsoft into tiny pieces and placing their patents into the public domain.
Then somebody needs to fix the USPTO.
Open source development is my way of competing with the low-cost programmers in India...
- John Titor
I am sorry for my stupid question but what is this Microsoft?
I am not one who likes lawsuits or believe in suing, but as an open source software user and writer, I may have to encourage just that. It seems to me that Microsoft is mobilizing its lawyer corps and is using its patent portfolios in order to deter Linux users. Microsoft is also vulnerable in this same area. Microsoft has settled with several companies regarding software patents. There is also another area in which I can see that Microsoft is vulnerable. This area concerns the amount of viruses, spam, trojans, spyware, and other malware that is spread by Microsoft's lack of security.
Yes, I know that people that use Microsoft products are forced to agree to their E.U.L.A. and that E.U.L.A. does away with customers' options to sue Microsoft for damages caused by their product. I also know of many who do not use Microsoft's products and are still affected by Microsoft's products' lack of security. I am one of these people. I use Linux at work, home, and on my webhosting service and at each one of these places, I have to deal with spam. This spam is in many cases sent by unwitting Microsoft users whos computers have contracted spam spewing worms. While they are effective blocked from suing Microsoft, I am not. Neither are the thousands of ISP's around the country who have to pay for the costs of filtering, storing, blocking, and receiving spam. If Microsoft's insecurity is a contributing factor in the transmission of any kind of attack and that attack ends up costing people who have not agreed to any of Microsoft's E.U.L.A.'s, then Microsoft may be responsible for its share of the cost.
Here is the costs to employers. If you do not use Microsoft's products, just ask yourself this question, "How much time do I spend at work filtering and deleting virus and spam email?" Take that time and convert to hours. Multiply the hours by your pay rate. Have other non Microsoft-using employees at your job site do the same. Add these costs together. Now take the total amount and multiply by the estimated percentage of spam spread by spam-spewing software which was spread by Microsoft's software vulnerabilities. This is the amount Microsoft costs your employer.
Now look at your ISP. If your ISP does not use Microsoft's products, they have a case too. Figure out the total bandwith used by spam. Multiply this figure by the percentage of SPAM sent by Microsoft's insecurities. Do the same for denial of service attacks. Add these figures together. If your ISP pays for virus, spam, and D.O.S. filtering and blocking, you can multiply cost of these by the persentage of attacks caused by Microsoft's insecurities. Add the blocking and bandwidth costs together, and you get what Microsoft costs your ISP.
Yes, it also costs governments. Look at how much it costs the government to produce computer security programs. Multiply this cost by the percentage of problems caused by Microsoft's insecurities. You get the amount of money Microsoft costs governments for computer security programs.
How much does Microsoft's insecurities cost you? Your ISP has to make a profit. So do most employers. Higher costs gives governments excuses to raise taxes. All these costs are passed to you in one way or another. You also have to filter spam, viruses and such from your emails, how much time does that cost you? Does this sound like it can make for many lawsuits? I sounds like it to me. So, I would recommend that Microsoft be very careful about how it uses it legal clout.
Apple flips shit whenever ANYONE out there gets crazy with the Aqua theming, which has caused a bit of resentment, to be sure.
:|
:|
Conversely, every time I use KDE or Gnome, I find myself trying to dig through the interface to find the Control Panel, or hitting the keystroke that pops the MS-DOS terminal to fullscreen, or expecting the windows key to work, or any number of little Windows-isms... because the interfaces LOOK AND FEEL LIKE WINDOWS.
Maybe a little bit of lawyer blustering would help to steer these desktops into a more innovative direction. I for one would like to see something new- for the linux desktop to be a killer app as opposed to a Win32 / OS2 / Explorer clone.
Until then, I'm sticking with blackbox and bbkeys.
but it's still not like the idea of the red sox and yankees even talking to eachother
--- Don't ever trust a woman until she's dead- B.B. King
"Steven Anthony Ballmer (born March 24, 1956)" from wikipedia
pfffew, don't you just get tired of this type of news?
I see the amount of lawsuits just growing as if it's a hype. Everyone sues everyone. Makes me want to be everyone's lawyer then..)
And then the patents, okay, it's good to get credits for your work, but this is just insane, looking through every bit of code to see if you can sue someone for it. Boy do I like the open source spirit, still one place you can feel a bit of love whereas all the patent-lawsuit stuff makes you shiffer..
But well, I guess bad publicity is publicity nonetheless..)
-- # man women
Easy , Etats-Unians signed a pact of protection when the first war ended , they where supposed to come to the aid of those under attack by the German when WW2 started , Luckily for the Etats-Unians the real Americans ( Canadians ) protected the continental states so they where never invaded on the continents , add they come to stop the Germans from the start the japanese would have never attacked them and would have never joined the axis.
So M$ is going to sue China in a Chinese court for breaking software patents only valid in the US. Wonder what the verdict will be?
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
The article only states that Microsoft dominance will last at least two to four years more, it does not imply it might wane after that point. Only that it is a lock until then.
However the article makes a terrible assumption, that Microsoft is way outspending "Open Source" with R&D dollars!! Six billion (for MS) to ten million (OSDL labs R&D budget).
If you think about it that is really absurd, you should really think about it in terms of raw manpower and not dollars spent. In software some guy in a garage working weekends is every bit a potential source of a great idea as some guy sitting on a million dollars worth of hardware. There is no supercollider or electron microscope of the software world without which it would be hard to make a contribution. Counting manpower, Microsoft is hopelessly outclassed by many orders of magnitude.
So, basically I would say just don't quote that article at all!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
bent over Ballmer ... Now whose your daddy
The blame is there if you have seen any anime like Samurai-X or others of the late imperial period. The theory is to outright blame the west for assuming more power in the emperor than supposedly what the people gave him at the time. The idea is that westerners required a supreme authority for trade negotiations.
This directly implies that all of the power the emperor used/abused in WW2 was not directly granted by the people. It is a carefully derived 'only following orders' defense.
This idea has some merit(and eases guilt), but not if you honestly hold people responsible for their own leaders/situation. It is a natural problem in basic human culture ie. 'indigenous tribes get screwed in deals with outsiders but the chief gets rich(its still going on today in remote parts of the world)'. It is sad, but that is about it.
Is that the same 2-4 year timeframe in which the Molex flying car is expected to arrive?
We were told 95 would be a flop, 2000 would flop, XP would flop. Instead they keep on dominating.
What's going to replace it? Surely not Linux Distribution of the month.
Was Ballmer wearing his underwear on his head when he said this? Man, if I wanted to drive away Asian goverments from using MS software during an era of Bush Jr. 'preemptive war' practices, I'd make threats like he is making.
In other news: RedHat head office moves from Raleigh (USA) to Guildford (UK).
It's just a statement of fact.The English and the Irish have traditionally not gotten on, but, it's been over 150 years since the Famine, but half that since World War II. So feelings in China about Japan are much, much stronger.
This is my sig.
Most Linux distributors don't do the same. Having an editor like Michael claim that there is no difference is biased and irresponsible.
You know this is starting to sound more and more like an episode in US history. .
. .
I am simply suggesting that you should each give your law makers a history lesson
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme!" -- Mark Twain (paraphrased)
I am not suggesting that we have "The Seattle Software Party". I don't think that polluting the Port of Seattle would accomplish anything in this case.
You may just be onto something here... If a million boxes of MS software got dumped into the bay, since technically MS claims perpetual ownership of all its stuff, and only liceses the customer the right to use its stuff under certain restrictive conditions, and therefor is the legal owner... Whenever trash gets dumped into the environment... provided that the "dumper" himself doesn't get caught doing the dumping, then the "owner" (if owner can be determined/located) is the party who generally gets charged with the responsibility to clean it up.
You have got it exactly right. The longer the case drags on the more publicity is generated for Linux, and SCO will become more and more an establishment joke within the industry. Actually I hope the case drags on for 10 more years if possible. It will certainly keep any other company from trying to file any copyright claims against Linux, since they would be told they must wait for resolution of the SCO case. Even a patent infringment lawsuit could be placed on hold. If the copyright to Linux is in question, then the copyright ownership issue must be settled first before a patent claim can be made because after all, if SCO owns Linux, they should be the ones who are sued for patent infringment.
I can see it on the horizon, the end comes closer. I skip over MS when ever I can and that is most of the time.
Has everyone forgotten about this word. While using a MS product might mean that you are infringing on someones patent somewhere, MS will protect you in court if someone sues you over it. Which of the Linux guys is doing that?
I am not saying linux is bad or MS is good before I get flamed here. I am just saying when it comes to lawsuites MS has something to offer that I don't think is offered anywhere in the OpenSource world.
My personal theory about why Gates stepped down as CEO, handing the job to Ballmer is that basically Gates is a decent guy who is just interested in technology and tinkering. His foundation (with Melinda) certainly is trying to do some good with all that money. Gates eventually grew tired of all the lying and deceiving that seems to be required (he certainly didn't lie very well in court and the DOJ). Whereas Ballmer clearly has no compunctions about lying and deceiving the public. He doesn't seem to have an ethical bone in his body. My sense was/is that Gates was sincere (however misguided or faulty his technology has been) about trying to do good things for the customer, whereas Ballmer clearly has no true interest in what is best for customer compared with his own self-interests. Gates never talked the way that Ballmer now talks...
Ok,
First world, that's us (well you maybe).
Second World, that's the commies.
Third world, that's everyone else.
Some third world countries do very well, (I think india's in there?)
And some 'firts world' countries arn't doing to good, e.g. The USA with it's horrible patent system.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
FWIW all the studies I've read about lately actually indicate that today's teens are more skepical of advertising claims and less likely to be influenced by the "glitter" than any generation before.
Wow, that's good to read. I like being pleasantly surprised by tidbits like this about our nation's youth, when it's so easy to get depressed about the future.
Don't know what that says about their parents...
It says their parents are complete morons. I'm getting close to their parents' age, and most of them are gullible fools who will buy anything (on credit, no less) that has slick advertising, even if it doesn't do anything at all.
Indemnification is like an insurance policy.
If I buy Linux from Vendor L who provides me with complete indemnification, and Company P's patents are infringed, Company P still has the right to sue me individually for injuctive relief and damanges.
I then send the bill to Vendor L, along with any costs associated with complying with the injunction, legal fees, etc. They reimburse me.
It's rare that indemnification is so complete and unconditional, but you get the idea.
In practical terms, knowing of the indemnification, Company P is likely to negotiate with Vendor L for a broad license that Vendor L can then sublicense to its clients. It saves tons of legal fees.
BUT if Company P wanted to be spiteful, it could go after Vendor L's customers first. This would likely drive Vendor L out of business, but it would also spell the end of Company P, since nobody would ever want to do business with them again.
Even if SCO had left its own customers alone, it's threat to sue Linux end-users made it a pariah. If Microsoft goes after Linux end-users en masse, expect people who are currently lukewarm MS customers to consider jumping ship.
Microsoft needs to remember that not only are it's biggest customers also Linux customers, but it's biggest customer play golf with some of Linux's biggest users.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"I've said it a thousand times:Balmer is a complete idiot.Balmer is a stuffed scarecrow speaking with Gates voice saying things that Gates knows he would sound stupid saying but nonetheless just has to say to see reactions."
I've watched Balmer in person in a Q&A format, and I'll tell you this Balmer is not a complete idiot. History with MS tells you that Balmer is not an idiot. In fact, while I hate what MS has done, I admire how they've done it, and I admire how adroit Balmer is.
I'll be wary of thinking Balmer is an idiot. If he said it, there was a strategic reason for saying the things he does. Do not underestimate this man.
We are unable to process your lawsuit at this time. Even though there is a legal basis to your suit, the defendent resides in a country whose market is very important to us. You are therefore ineligible to be heard in court on this matter.
Evil is the money of root.
An hour later they get the urge to sue another one.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
No, actually I have had it. I'm sick of them getting their greedy paws into every thing, stifling competition . . . No more. I'm switching completely over to Linux. If I need commercial software, I'll use the Mac platform. I refuse to buy anything branded 'MS'.
I think Balmer's threat is going to backfire real bad. It will scare China and the other Asian countries, not to mention the EU, and give them a big reason to stay away from making software patents legal.
The fact that Balmer would try such a risky move says to me that Microsoft is getting really desperate about OSS.
1. Friend runs MS software
2. You patent something friend is doing with software.
3. Sue friend.
4. Friend confesses in court and blows MS'es case.
5. Profit!!!
Cause see, the profit comes from MS, and then you split it with your friend afterwards. *wink wink nod nod*
The BBC with 75+ years of experience and engineering resources is struggling to advance it's scalable Dirac HD video codec. There are many areas of research where money and tools and organization still matter.
That's where one smart guy with a good algorithm can make all the difference. Do you deny that an innovative codec could still be written by one human at this point? If so, why? Who is to say that a better codec might not come from a super intelligent grad student somewhere rather than millions spent by BBC?
Codecs are one area where money can be used to focus talent on an area. I'm not saying there is no place for this - what I am saying is that it's also feasable for people just doing things because it interests them to come up with a result just as good, or better. I am saying that you cannot say that Microsoft is spendign billions and therefore automatically will win on the R&D front, because there are incalcuable numbers of people working on things for fun that may well surpass results they are researching.
If you are a creative genius, you can develop the Xerox process on your kitchen table and still fall billions short of having a marketable product, which you may never live to see, but you can also chose to work full time for Bell Labs and watch as your invention of the transistor transforms the world before your eyes, and maybe exit the stage with a Nobel prize.
But your metaphor fails in the end becaue it lives in the realm of the physical - look at shareware authors that make do quite happily with proceeds from very small development efforts. Unlike anything physical, you do not need a marketing or manufacturing plant behind you to succeed - marketing can of course be helpful but even that can be accomplished by one person.
How much does Slashdot advertise? And yet here we all are. It's not one person, but is an example of how something can be a success without a huge marketing wing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Taken straight from the top of the article:
Microsoft's dominance in operating systems will continue - though only for the next few years.
Note that whoever wrote the tagline is not the same person that generated the quote. You'd have to ask the originator what he really meant, but the tagline also is incorrect in deriving that result from the quote at hand.
As far as I'm concerned this is just a case of two wrongs still not making a right.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The amount of /. mindshare that could be spent on writing better FOSS software, alone, is staggering.
/. mainshare being wasted on posting inane comments instead of writing better FOSS software is also staggering. Oh ... never mind.
The amount of
What about the English relationship with the Irish, however? I don't know that the Japanese enslaved the Chinese for 400 years and used their own people's religion to cement a permanent rift in the population.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
Is it only my imagination or did I read recently that Linux is no threat to MS? If thats so, then why the recent crap from Balmer trying to undermine its growing popularity? Maybe he's really trying to decide where which is the truth, so he's covering both options. "Come sit beside me I said to myself, and though it doesnt make sense, as a small sign of trust, I held my own hand, and together I sat on the fence." (Michael Leunig)
I encourage Ballmer to make as big of a jackass out of himself whenever possible. Ballmer's threats do nothing but stir up more anti-american sentiment, which in this case can be interpreted as anti-"corporation-friendly IP law". There's an interesting book out right now called "The United States of Europe" and one of the lessons that is illustrated in that book is the trouble Jack Welch and GE got into when they thought that US anti-trust was the only thing that mattered in their attempted take over of Honeywell. Well, several hundred million dollars later, they found out they were wrong and Mario Monti shut down their plans.
Some US corporations are waking up to the reality that the days of US companies running rough-shod over foreign countries is quickly ending. Other US corporations still have not begun waking up to this (i.e. Microsoft). The EU is now a larger market by population and GDP. Which is why the EU has Microsoft over a barrel with this monopoly lawsuit. China, all by itself, is going to be HUGE. Probably the largest growth market for the next century. China alone could say fuck the WTO, fuck Microsoft, and fuck IP law. If they alone did that, there's a good chance it would fail. But in addition to China, many EU countries are realizing that they don't want these IP-law's that mostly goes to protect US monopolies (Microsoft).
It all boils down to simple numbers. The US only has a population of slightly less than 300 million people. Now that population tends to be fairly wealthy relative to the rest of the world's population, but number-wise it's just not that many people. And it's wealth actually is a hinderance in that it is no longer a growth market. There are only so many cashmere doggie sweaters or copies of Windows XP any one person needs to own. China, Asia, the poorer eastern EU countries could all be much more attractive growth markets in the near future. Microsoft wants/needs to be able to sell their product in those markets. Those countries are beginning to realize that they now have the economic clout to take or leave the rediculous IP laws being pushed by representative of US corporations.
There are too many linux flavors. there is only one windows. I HOPE all these linux flavors are all compatable, or we just diversifyed for nothing. The public will want a STANDARD linux. NOT FLAVORS. This isn't ice cream folks. You must remember that most of the public is ignorant on how linux works. They like windows currently because you turn it on, and you can remain ignorant about most of the operating systems functions that are going on in the backgorund.
However the public likes free things. Why else do people shop at those stores that hand out munchies while you are shopping. So if we could consolodate all the linux flavors in to one, purify it (as in security, performance, ect.) and then globally distribute things instead of all the developers tied up on a different flavor, we could overtake Count Microsoft and Ballmer.
remember, as far as PR goes, BALLMER SUCKS --> Search google for "Ballmer Selling Windows Like a Used Car Sales Man"
I am a linux fan don't get me wrong, but i've talked to a lot of people, and the name linux isn't getting attributed to one flavor, they ask me WHICH FLAVOR i'm talking about. (I also hear it's hard to use, but I have no problems running it). Where as windows get's attributed to the PC and Microsoft, and if they're smart, which most of them aren't, They will attribute to an operating system. The public knows windows, they arent' sure about linux. I DON'T SEE OVER A HOUNDRED OF FLAVORS OF FIREFOX LIKE I DO LINUX
As I recall, the ownership of these patents has never been revealed. For all we know, these patents could be owned by IBM. I know of one offhand - the RCU patent. IBM has publically stated that this patent is freely available for use within Linux (since they contributed it). Who knows how many other "friendly" patents are in there...
Ron Gage - Westland, MI
also remember the same thing being true of risk-takers.... "And people who eat cheese"?
Please stop stalking me, bro.
"Nobody ever knows who built open-source software," he said.
Y eah, let's stake the future of our companies on crap written by anonymous people in faraway countries, lol.
We always know exactly who built it. So what if half of them are fake names and are totally untraceable other than a generic email address? Wonderfully reliable people like "D3f_D0p3y_fr3sh" and "scr33pt0-hax0r@getsomestankyonmyhangdown.org".
Boss: "Why haven't you finished the financial application upgrades???" "We're losing money hand over fist!!"
Me: "Sorry, I'm waiting for someone known as "l337killa23" to finish the general ledger interface. He's snowboarding in Norway for the next few weeks. Ever since "darth_balls2004" graduated and quit to play HL2 fulltime, the company has been really slow to respond to any of our requests."
I disagree. I'd say is would be more like the Japanese and Koreans being like the English and Irish. China never beame a full on colony of Japan, but Korea did. Ireland was essentially colonised by England (well... sort of Dutch really - google on William of Orange).
As for "hatred", IME most normal everday English and Irish people get on about as well as everyone else does.
...and suing and suing --and suing and suing....
/. recently that good IT jobs are becoming scarcer in the US. Many of them are outsourcing to India.
I have read here on
Solution: re-educate and become a lawyer -- you will have full employment as everybody is suing everybody. If you can't "lick'em" join 'em. Good lawyers make MUCH more money than a good systems administrator or programmer.
All theory is gray
Of course lots of MS's patents are dumb--they often infringe on public domain and had no business being issued. And of course the mere existence of these patents and the threat of an invalid lawsuit harms the open source community.
But as stupid as it is, open source developers *can't* sue Microsoft because their patents infringe of the public domain unless Microsoft sues them first. Only the patent holder has the right to go to court. Holding a right to use the public domain doesn't get you there.
Details on what's required: to sue over a patent, you need to meet the actual case or controversy standard. You can't just invalidate a patent that is not being threatened against you. (See 28 U.S.C. 2201 (a court may declare the rights and other legal relations of any part seeking such a declaration "in a case of actual controversy"); BP Chemicals Ltd. v. Union Carbide Corp., 4 F.3d 975, 977 (Fed. Cir. 1993) ("the requirement of actual controversy encompasses concepts such as ripeness, standing, and the prohibition against advisory judicial rulings"); Grain Processing Corp. v. American Maize-Products Co., 840 F.2d 902, 905 (Fed. Cir. 1988) ("a case or controversy is a jurisdictional predicate for declaratory judgment under 28 U.S.C. 2201").
Open source developers (or any other developer who relies on a part of the public domain that is being cannibalized by patents) have only one option: reexamination with the Patent & Trademark Office. www.pubpat.org is a good place to check out how this procedure works and what's being done.
Molex is a connector type, and the name of the company that manufactures same. I think you're thinking of Moller International.
1. Ballmer never threatened to sue anyone as the story implicates.
2. Ballmer may not enforce US laws in Asia, but he can certainly bring the WTO and such organizations to bear.
3. Microsoft has indeed been hit with many patent lawsuits, but they've promised to pay legal fees their customers incur due to Windows patent disputes.
That being said, I think this is a ridiculous and insulting move on Ballmer's part. I hope that his talk has opposite the indended effect. I just don't believe in fighting misinformation with misinformation.
Well. I think they can pull it off. Theyll go all the way up to the supreme.
Since the supreme is own3d by your dearly chosen ass of the millenium (Bush) and, he in turn, holds ballmer as a great big chunk of what he calls his 'base', software patents will be accepted and confimed in final words by the supreme.
Congrats americans. Youve fucked up.... twice this millenium.
NO SIG
At a high enough level of abstraction, it's a video game.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
The China - Japan - Korea analogy to France - England - Ireland works rather well (with the pairings given in order).
China ~= France : both are continental powers with traditions of strong central government, conservative status-based culture and elite-focussed education
Japan ~= England : both are island/archipelago powers with each being the first to industrialise in their own hemisphere. Different to China/France they show learned interest in distant regions of the globe.
Korea ~= Ireland : both colonised by Japan/England. Koreans are often called the 'Irish of Asia' based on their capacity to drink and their emotional natures.
Of course, as with any analogising these pairings fall down if you take them too far or even examine them too closely. But as a broad brush portrait I think it's a fun one to muse on.
...need I say more?
The idea of applying pressure on Linus to know for sure who contributed what code to the linux kernel is akin to making a list of people to round up later....
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
To answer: Even if MS was found guilty and had to clean up the mess it would still be less than 1% of their overall income for the year.
American history has repeated itself several times already. Once every 100 years we have a war:
1. 1492 America founded.
2. 1500's Anyone know what went on during this time frame?
3. 1600's Also a large blank
4. 1700's war of independence.
5. 1800's civil war
6. 1900's World Wars
4. 2000's ????
Usually they occur between 50 to 100 years apart. Just long enough for the generations involved in the previous wars to have died off. Usually they occur just before or just after a era of depression (as in the great depression or like the depression America is about to go into due to the imbalance of wealth). They are also usually surrounded by smaller wars (such as the one we are in now).
And now for a little sarcasm: The government is trying to phase out sending people into space because it is "too dangerous". Yet they are more than willing to fly thousands of people around the world and let them get shot, maimed, and murdered. Flying into space helps to save lives, expand our awareness, and engenders good feelings for our country and coutrymen/women. The second loses lives, shrinks our awareness to our own greed, avarice, and short comings, and makes everyone else in the world hate us. So....why are we doing this again?
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
Just shift it to a US naval base in Cuba - no law applies there.
Someone needs to remind OSDN and others that the next time they're asked to comment they should point out the "protection" that Microsoft offered when they lost the Eolas patent lawsuit. In this case it was changes to the browser that would break a bunch of plug-ins and all the apps that relied on them. I reckon users faced re-development costs in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and possibly billions once you took into account all the effort required to update browsers, applications, etc.
Pot, kettle, black?
The two Open Source projects with brand name recognition and acceptance beyond Slashdot are Moz/Firefox and OpenOffice.org. Both have commercial, closed-source, origins, large development teams, substantial, stable, financial support, and neither are exactly cutting-edge, at a distance, a successful open-source project can look a lot like Microsoft.
You ignore a world of other fine programs, like the Gimp or a myriad of shareware programs done by one-person (or at least very small) shops. I am not just talking open source, but the world of small development in general.
You give me OpenOffice, which by its nature needs a large organization and a lot of people to create. But what about programs like PGP? Or PKZip? These are examples of programs that live in a domain small enough that one person can work on them. And thanks to evolving tools, the domain of problems that a single developer can work on is expanding. It is very easy now for one person to run a whole web site with commentary.
Your hyper intelligent grad student may come up with a plausible compression algorithm, but how does he test it without the backing of an organization that can bring almost unlimited manpower and financial resources to bear on the problem?...
Well, perhaps he would hook up with the guys at OGG Theora
Towards the end of your listing you were starting to confuse the container (like Ogg or Quicktime) with a codec (like Theora or h.263). Yes a codec needs to worry about things you mention, but someone designing a codec can get a pretty good idea if the results are acceptable by encoding and watching a variety of sources. You absolutely do not need a million people or huge organization to do this, to think otherwise is to get stuck in the snobbish mindset that only companies can produce things of value. In general you will actually find in any company that produces something really good, that in fact it's a VERY SMALL number of people that made that wonderful thing happen (sometimes as small as one!!!). This realization can also bring enlightenment as to how powerful a single individual can be outside the company, especially when banding with a few others with complementary strengths - thus a codec designer with Ogg folks, or any number of open source people relying on the framework provided by Sourceforge.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Though I doubt it will come to anything like this.
SIGBUS @ NO-07.308
I believe it will be only a matter of time before the economic credibility of patents comes crumbling down like a castle of cards. This is the argument that will ultamately win the fight against patents.
Value of flimsy ideas comming out of the patent system $0.
Economic loss due to having substantial reduced competition, next to zero innovation and overheads in software development $mega bucks.
It just is not worth it!
Now if you consider the term "intellectual property" and the parallel to physical property, having software patents is equivalent to saying that air should be owned by a corporation (thus making you pay for air) or that I have to pay someone a license to look at the moon, or that some corporation owns a part of airspace so that you have to pay 1,000,000 corporations to travel from Australia to USA. We have private property rights essential for a functional society that believes in liberty but we have also have limits to property ownership also essential for a functional and society that believes in liberty.
If you consider the Kyoto protocol, this protocol intends to moneterise carbon emission levels not for the heck of it, but because limiting and moneterising carbon emissions has much greater economic gain than the loss and overheads involved with placing an artificial barrier to the carbon emission levels. Thus this same principle must apply to patents.
There has been a huge level of innovation in OSS software. The GPL which is tied into copyright is mainly responsible for this. It has nothing to do with patents. The way the patent system is now, with a weekend worth of brainstorming I can generate a million dollars of patents. Where is the value? Now you really need patents when you have to invest in a billion dollar labratory to invent new innovations in any field. But to give someone a monopoly for so many software generations for zero value, we are just selling out our future!
Consider the hinderence to innovation. Spend 10 million dollars per innovation or spend 0 dollars per innovation, which will you choose? If I was given the option I would choose the cheaper option. But any patent authority that is meant to encourage innovation must make every company that applies for a monopoly really EARN their monopoly, which is not happening, nor will it ever happen with software patents.
Yet another ironic recursive statement.
LinuxDevices reports that Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) CEO Stuart Cohen has just issued a statement in response to the Ballmer remarks earlier today. The news item also notes that before launching its Linux insurance product, OSRM (Open Source Risk Management) said it determined Linux's exposure to patent infringement to be 'quantifiable and manageable,' while noting that '283 software patents not yet reviewed by the courts could potentially be used to support claims of infringement against Linux.' However, Linux is neither more nor less at risk from software patent lawsuits than proprietary software, the OSRM stated, according to LinuxDevices.
Remember folks, sg is about to move to a US-like copyright regime starting this Jan, after a successful round of FTA talks with the US. Essentially, we're about to get a DMCA-like law here, which includes criminalisation of piracy (currently, only selling pirated software is illegal; now even possession is punishable by jail), and yup, you guessed it, patenting of software.
Gov.sg organisations, which have been MS-friendly so far, are therefore running scared, and are fast moving over to OSS; to cite another example, the sg library system has also moved its systems over to Linux now. Smalltime .net-only ISV's like mine are already feeling the pinch; I know of at least two other ISV's like ours who are seriously considering migrating their code-bases to Mono or something like that.
Ballmer's comments should be taken in this context here; he's basically telling us that we can, possibly, run, but not hide, from the MS-patents keiretsu.
More than mere navel gazing.
You gotta admit, it would be pretty interesting to see actual numbers of what slashdot costs the national economy each year in wasted man-hours.
Please have a heart attack and die as soon as possible.
Thanks much!
The only thing more powerful than a M$ lawyer is an IBM lawyer. I was around in the 70's and 80's and remember the IBM anti-trust thang. (IBM wons theirs, but AT&T lost).
You want a signature? You can't handle a signature!!
I have here in my hand a list of 228 patents that the Communist Linux users are in violation of! We must remove all Linux users to keep the monopoly safe!
SAILING MISHAP
If they are really out spending FOSS then why are their products so bloated, insecure and crappy?
Isn't that the big question? They spent six billion dollars on R&D... and what did we, the public see out of that? SP2?
They have some interesting things going on at Microsoft R&D, but they seem really bad at turning things they learn there into feasible products. Did the XBox come from R&D? Nope, it was a couple of guys who thought Microsoft could put together a pretty good console.
Of course, it cost a lot of money to copy Java - I guess that's where some of it went.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why do SlashDoters think Linux should be above the law? Patents were filled, granted and now potentially enforced. What's the problem? Good for MS for protecting their R&D investments.
Maybe not sued but they still have to pay (or alredy paid) for such lawsuits. Where does Microsoft get the money from? From customers. Thus, if Microsoft is sued, costs are charged to their customers (more or less directly).
And IANAL, users can't be responsible for patent or copyright infrigement in software products they did not developed. Only those who actualy put the "questionable" code into the product should be responsible.
Thus, if customer is charged money for "indemnification" from IP lawsuits related to software he is using then he is not doing good purchase. No metter from whom he is purchasing (Microsoft, Sun, Red Hat, Linus & co., ...) and for what price ($1, $100, $1'000, ...). IMHO.
The whole "indemnification issue" from (at least some) software vendors looks to me like in best case like "Hey, customer. You know, todays IP laws suks and we are not sure whether we have some stolen-or-something IP in our products so while we do not want to pay the bill for such fucked-up system, you'll pay but to make you more comfortable with that, let us agree that we will call it indemnification and it means we are protecting you from bad-guys.".
Or, in worst case "Hey, customer. We stole some IP from others and put it into our product. It's great because we make money from you thanks to work of others. And because they may sue us, you have to pay us for indemnification so we do not go out of business. And while today IP laws suks, we can make all this fishy arrangement look like we are doing you a favor.".
hany
They should try something else... smoke some bullshit or something. I hear you can get high off that.
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
So you think that this is M$ saying "Use our laws if you want to trade with the US". Hmm. No trade between Asia and the US. Just out of interest, what would M$ Windows run on if there was nothing around marked "Made in Taiwan (PRC)", "Made in China", "Made in Japan" or "Made in Korea"?
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Oh, wait.
Someone did.
They seem to rally up a campaign over at www.fudfactory.com.