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Author of Linux Patent Study Contradicts Ballmer
An anonymous reader sends us this EWeek story, following-up on the recent Linux patent scare. The author of the patent study is contacted, and says, "Open source faces no more, if not less, legal risk than proprietary software. The market needs to understand that the study Microsoft is citing actually proves the opposite of what they claim it does."
Now Microsoft will have to buy a new study that says what they want.
As an end user, I'm mainly concerned about the legal exposure and risk that I face. Statistics on Open Source vs. proprietary patent claims, the validity of any such claims, the probability of future claims, etc., etc. is all largely irrelevant. I just want some assurance that my name isn't likely to appear alone beside the word "defendant" on any court documents.
One advantage is that there are more open source fans reading the source than litigious companies, so hopefully we will spot any infringement before they do.
I am trolling
OK, am I the only one who is seeing a legal problem here? If Coca-Cola said some study proves their cola is good for teeth, but the study shows it is harmful to teeth, don't you think the gov't, media, and a flock of 3rd party lawyers would descend upon Atlanta post-haste?
So what'll happen with this? Nothing. Your boss will still think MS is the bestest ever, the average dingaling will keep using Win98 SP1, and no major media outlet will make the tiniest peep.
Fight the power!
did you win a free ipod? build a case for it here
Terrorists live in the real world where there's no magical power that some terrorist-ring can wield over people to make them blow up crap.
LOTR is a story with magic in it that DOES do this kind of thing.
Real World. Fiction. Learn the difference.
RST
Given a copy of the source code and relevant patents, even patent lawyers couldn't provide absolute insurance against infringement, whereas with a patent on a mechanical device you can be pretty sure .software should not be patentable period!
Microsoft has been taken to court over patent violations before. Regardless of the outcome, it shows quite clearly that nobody is safe from the looming threat of software patents.
I'm sure Linux and Windows both violate some rediculous patents out there that have not been upheld in court.
But Ballmer is saying here, "Windows is 100% free from patent violations, Linux is one big huge patent violation. Yes, I know there is really no proof I can show you to back up what I'm saying, but you should take my word for it. After all, MS is run by businessmen and Linux is run by dirty pot smoking communist hippies."
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Seeing as they don't really care what the studies are saying, I'm not sure why you think they'd need to buy one.
Study concludes A.
MS decides B.
MS distributes B across the globe, everyone repeats. End of story.
No new study required.
``The market needs to understand that the study Microsoft is citing actually proves the opposite of what they claim it does.''
This has been a common theme lately. Microsoft did the same thing with various other studies. The Bush administration used reports that claimed the non-existence of WMD in Iraq to support its claims that Iraq was dangerous. Recently, I read a column where someone claimed that increased Firefox use would harm security (the larger target theory), with a reference to a report that showed IE gets more exploits per user than does Firefox.
People get away with spreading all this FUD, because readers don't verify the information that's being cited. When Microsoft says the report found Windows cheaper than Linux, people assume the report indeed said so. Unless, of course, they are inquiring minds and want to know how the report arrived at its conclusion. Then they suddenly find the report concluded the opposite!
What I don't understand is why the authorities get away with it. THESE PEOPLE ARE LYING TO US. Have you seen Ballmer in court over his allegations? Or Bush?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Perception keeps the "Linux is hard" mantra in people's mind, even when useability and ease continue to improve. I hope Slashdotters understand this.
So do not expect *cough*, *cough*, Monkey boy to stop his gospel soon, because I know that he knows that; you guessed it...It's all about Perception."
Cb..
Microsoft is willing to patent things, and to assume there are no patent infringments in the open source seems short sighted. And if they don't have the patents yet, eventually they will, as they push their technology forward. It isn't as if Microsoft consists of a bunch of incapable people, so eventually they will have, if they don't already, a lot of important patents open source will infringe upon.
When I was working at one large software company, we wrote a number of patents. One of the reason was that companies like IBM might sue you, and if you don't have patents you can exchange with them, the cost is higher during the settlement.
Honestly, it seems without "open source" patents, the open source community is fighting without an important tool, and like all wars of attrition with a determined foe, will eventually lose.
Ed Barbar, President and General Manager, Furnit USA
No, "potentially violates" means that a case could be made for infringement, but that it has never been tested in court, so it could very well NOT be an infringement as well. In addition, an untested patent has a fairly good chance of being overturned or limited. Patents that have been upheld in a court are much more dangerous.
Where Open Source has an advantage over Closed Source is that a patent holder who hasn't sued in a timely manner has much less of an excuse - with Closed Source, they aren't able to see how a program is implemented, so don't know that it violates their patent, and that's why they didn't sue earlier. Thus, a lack of patent holders suing over an Open Source product is a better indication of future safety than it would be in Closed Source.
Why is there always an assumption that MS can or even want to buy their way out of trouble?
Because the potential to buy their way out of trouble is always available to them. I don't believe that most people have the ability to resist a wad of dough thrown their way (AKA, "everybody has his price").
Microsoft have teams of lawyers working to patent everything and anything and it gets granted (et al the 'to-do list').
OK, supposedly the system only works when a patent is contested in Court. But due to the $$$$ Microsoft have in reserves, anybody that legally owns (or doesn't infringe) CANNOT afford to mount a defence against the diatribe of ligation, and has to recede.
Microsoft win everytime, whether legal or not (and if it dubious, they buy them out anyway).
Monopoly rules... do NOT pass go.
That's the nice thing about modern justice. If you are a pattentholder and you want to sue microsoft in the best case you get the case settled and it will cost them a small fortune. Like they care.
OTOH if they sue any small developer he won't even have the money to defend his case and will be bankrupted even if he is guilty or not.
For a company that is so phenomenally rich you'd think they'd settle down and go enjoy the rest of their lives and do something usefull, like sitting in the garden. At least that's what I would if I was given a few billions. But instead they keep bullying the rest of the world.
If I was in their position, I wouldn't care a bit about the successes of others, like the playstation and the open source projects.
Steve is not stupid by any means. He knew full well that he was lying. As we all know in business, the liars typically get away with their lies. Steve is scaring his audience into sticking with the devil they know. In the 1980's you could not get fired for sticking with IBM regardless of whether the product worked or not. That is how things are now. Just stick with Micro$oft and you keep your job. Whether your products work or not is not relevant. Essentially, Balmer is stating that the United States will eventually go after them. Given our recent escapades invading Countries with no pretense, I am sure places like Singapore are plenty scared. Sure he lied, but his audience will accept it hook, line and sinker.
I take issue with this. You're (unintentionally I assume) implying that because Firefox is not flawless, it doesn't have fewer bugs than IE. This is the fallacy of the excluded middle.
Nobody with a clue claims that Firefox is flawless. Just that it's more secure than IE. Which, when you think about it, is not a very strong assertion at all.
Why? Let corporations play "whack a mole" until their legal resources run out, and people will STILL be downloading the infringing tool. Stop one site from distributing? Someone in a more sensibly run country will pop up a mirror. Stop them? Someone else will pick it up. Even if you started sending hit squads and Interpol after sites, it'll just go underground -- and people will STILL be using it.
;)
You can't stop a social movement. That's why Bill Gates hates it so much.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Why is there always an assumption that MS can or even want to buy their way out of trouble?
Because they have a long history of doing just that. They settled with sun for a large sum. They settled with Burst. They settled recently with Novel for 500 million.
These companies all have one very common concern: shareholders. Legal proceedings like taking on Microsoft are costly, and shareholders are interested in their own profits. If you take a risky long term approach (like pursuing a royalty per end user) that's bound to create tension between shareholder and executive, resulting in the board firing the executive team and installing a pro settlement group. Furthermore, every time an investor decides against your policy of plan 1 or 2, the stock price suffers, which only fans the flames between the two groups. So for Microsoft, everyone does have a price. Few people consider patents a moral issue, and are simply willing to comprimise if it means their company can move forward faster in other directions.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
But that's my point. If OSS was so flawed as MSFT is trying to maintain than *BSD would equally be flawed.
The fact that they don't pick on OSS universally and focus merely on Linux is a strong indication they just want to pick on Linux and are looking for any excuse todo it.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
A quick google for "false advertising" turns up this, and mentions:
"[False Advertising] also includes advertisements that make representations that the advertiser has no reasonable basis to believe, even if the representations turn out to be true. An example would be an advertisement for a photocopier machine which stated that the machine used less toner than any comparable machine. The advertiser would have committed false advertising if it had no reasonable basis to believe the truth of this claim (such as through comparative tests), even if it turned out to be true."
Sounds to me like MS's Windows Server 2k3 vs Linux TCO analysis definatly comes under this catagory.
Linux Wireless Hardware in the UK
TCO only covers daily operation costs, upgrades, air conditioning, employees, etc.
All of the migration costs go under the category of "migration costs".
Otherwise, it is easy to increase the "TCO" of any other product to any amount you want by "assuming" that the company in the example will be running your product and that it will cost $X to migrate from your product.
$X includes all data migration costs, educational expenses, etc. So, you "estimate" that it will cost $500/person/hour to "re-train" the existing staff. If that isn't enough, then "estimate" that it will cost $750/person/hour to "re-train".
You can do the same with the data migration costs. If the company selling Product A needs Product B to be $100,000 more expensive, just "assume" that the example company will be running Product A and then "estimate" that it will cost $100,000 to migrate the data to Product B.I don't think so. They can add whatever costs they want to the migration cost amount, but they won't ever split it out correctly.
Otherwise, people could easily see that other solutions are far less expensive to run
It's probably very easy to imagine it. Just like people can imagine the flying cars and vast underwater cities.
Meanwhile, back in the real world (http://www.eeye.com/html/research/upcoming/index
Security is based upon your security model and your implementation of it. A good model can still have buggy code. As the bugs are found and fixed, there are fewer problems.
A bad security model can have great code, but the problems keep coming. See all of the Windows anti-virus companies for a real world example of this. Rather than Microsoft fixing their security model, they rely upon 3rd parties to issue daily patches that are unbelievably specific to an individual exploit.
"Open source faces no more, if not less, legal risk than proprietary software."
This statement is based on the premise that legal action will actually be based on perceived patent violations in open source software and that open source software contains either no legitimate violations or at least no more violations than most proprietary software. That is, all of the patents that it does violate are bogus being issued on prior art or trivial methods by a broken patent system.
Although it may well be the case that most of Microsoft's patent portfolio is unenforceable if contested by an entity with sufficiently deep pockets, I doubt that actual violations will be the deciding factor if litigations are pursued. I believe that Microsoft will weigh many factors before pursuing litigation and the legitimacy of their claim will weigh far less than any tactical or strategical advantage that perusing even a bogus law suit will offer.
Microsoft has repeatedly shown that it does not care about a fair and open market and is unconcerned of going afoul of antitrust laws. Indeed the weak response by the US justice system to Microsoft's past transgressions has had the same effect on this corporate bully as passive behavior has on the playground bully or the bully in the work place. A bully won't changed until forced to do so and some can never change.
To Microsoft, software patents are just another weapon to be wielded against anyone who would dare attempt to take a slice of the market. It is just another anticompetitive tool that they will use directly though litigation or indirectly though a FUD campaign.
It's time that the DOJ got their act together and removed this bully from the corporate playground. Microsoft needs to be broken into at least two and probably three separate entities before their blatant disregard for the antitrust laws permanently destroy any chance of an open and fair market in the software sector.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
The parent post is NOT A TROLL...
/. loses its credibility.
Even though we may not agree with the poster his post was not trolling but rather a valid point.
Please do not mod people down based on wether or not you agree. Be fair or
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
The thing that really gets me all confused is why in 's holy name do those enterprise people still use MS products in the first place.
Overpriced, under specced, complicated in the extreme and simply not fun to use.
Corporate IT is a weird, weird thing...
- It took western civilisation 2000 years to ensure popular literacy, and now we work with icon driven GUI's. Go figure.
Ballmer's statement sounds eerily similar to Joe McCarthy's "I have here in my hand a list of 205 known members of the communist party..."
Probably just about as credible, too.
...since end-users are not liable for patent infringement, anyway - only the producer (and possibly (ob IANAL) distributor) of the allegedly infringing product would have any liability whatsoever. Besides which, software patents are ridiculous - if I can think through the "patented" fucntion in my head, it's just logic and math. Some day, maybe TPTB will finally get that.
That would make sense for copyright infringment, but not patent infringement. You don't patent source code. Technically your not supposed to patent a function either, only a physical object which you've actually constructed. But software patents are on functions the software performs, most violations can be seen at a higher level than the sourcecode. For instance "A method by which an ascii encoded text file is interpreted for the purpose of deriving values".
It doesn't take seeing the sourcecode to determine if a program uses a text based configuration file. The reason every program violates so many patents is that our wonderful patent office would rant the above patent tomorrow if filed by a customer who spends enough on patent fees each year!