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."

Comments

Aww, man

[Anonymous Coward]

Now Microsoft will have to buy a new study that says what they want.

Law? What law?

[superpixel2000]

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!

So we just get to take MS's word for it.

[Maul]

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."

Not really

[Alcimedes]

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.

Re:Not really

[jkabbe]

No, really

It's more like:

Study concludes A
MS decides that A is bad and tells everone about it.

It's certainly disingenuous of them to change "potentially" to "does." But other than that they really aren't contradicting the study. This just falls under the category of "lies, damn lies, and statistics"

Re:Not really

[starm_]

I guess that everybody just follows the government example. If the president can do it than it must be ok.

This has been a common theme lately

[RAMMS EIN]

``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?

Re:This has been a common theme lately

[ZorbaTHut]

I've never understood why blatant corporate or political lying isn't a finable offense. It seems so simple - if someone in a public office says something obviously wrong, or displays a study that clearly contradicts their claim, slap 'em with a fine. If someone in a corporate structure does the same, hit the corporation with a fine.

Why is this so difficult?

Oh yeah, because the people who make laws got there by lying.

Re:This has been a common theme lately

[JAFSlashdotter]

In the last election for example an incredible number of Americans were shown to believe in things that were demonstrably false. For example saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11 and that Iraq had nuclear weapons. The odd thing is that even if you were to go to one of these people and argue that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 they would dismiss you as being a communist/liberal and stop listening to you.

My personal experience is that people form an initial impression about an issue on an emotional basis, so whoever reaches their emotional buttons better (or maybe even just faster) sways that initial impression. Once they have that initial impression formed, they seek out support for that conclusion (hooray for me for making a smart decision!) and they discount evidence to the contrary (because that would only make them feel stupid for being wrong).

OK, that's not everybody all the time, but I think I see it enough to say it happens frequently. Of course I could just have formed that opinion and been ignoring evidence to the contrary...

It's all about perception

[bogaboga]

Another "expert" will come out and claim the opposite of what the author meant. Guys, it's all about perception. The real truth rarely matters.

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..

Curious

[edbarbar]

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.

Re:The author needs to learn how to do math ...

[tricorn]

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.

Yes but the Patents are dubious

[Skiron]

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.

Re:Yes but the Patents are dubious

[Skiron]

That is what FUD is... scaring. I think the SCO case woke MS up [funding it] when it didn't go all their way. Now we have the threat of them doing it with their cash reserves.

Could an open source project code team afford the legal costs to protect what is theirs against dubious patents awarded to MS in court? I doubt it.

Accuracy is really not the point

[DukeLinux]

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.

more secure than IE

[Admiral Burrito]

Another example is FireFox, many claimed it's flawless, but the realistic others know that no software is bugless, but its OPEN status allows things to be fixed relatively quickly. So it would be unwise to claim that FireFox has fewer bugs and more secure because it hasn't been exploited yet.

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.

That's why TCO does not include migration costs.

[khasim]

TCO is only one factor to consider when evaluating a system, but it is also one of the most easily abused numbers. Particularly in the "studies" funded by Microsoft.

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.

now, since ms still has the lion's share of the desktop and workstation installs and a healthy chunk of the server space they maybe could be forgiven for glossing over this crucial fact. but, still, it just boils down to making a simple unstated assumption that changes the whole outcome of the data.

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 ...... and that Microsoft depends upon locking up your data to keep you as a "customer".

Hardly.

[khasim]

To begin with is a long and unclear argument of what 'security' means.

Then define why you mean by it to establish the basic terms used in this communication. Don't just say that it means different things to different people.

A significant number of 'exploits' on IE are due to users stupidly agreeing to install components that they shouldn't. While there are arguments about how easy it should be for a user to do something stupid -- download, find, and execute vs. click on the wrong button -- I think it is sensible to cast these aside.

And I don't think it is. That is part of the "security model" of the application/OS. Firefox uses the "whitelist" approach. You cannot download and install an extension unless that site is in the whitelist that you controll. Microsoft takes the opposite approach of shipping their product wide open and requiring users learn how to block specific sites.

What serious exploits are left? Undoubtedly people will feel tempted to bring up past track records, but this doesn't lead to any constructive discussion.

Why not? The past record shows better than anything else how Microsoft approached security within IE. Unless you have evidence that Microsoft has changed their security model, the track record is the best, real world evidence of their practices.

Most of the negative attitude here about IE has less to do with the quality of IE, and more to do with a general anti-MS sentiment and some bitterness about the way they stomped on the competition...

Try to support your position without claiming that people who disagree with you are religious nutcases, okay? Thanks. :)

I do not think it is difficult to imagine that the next big browser exploit will be for FireFox rather than IE..

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. html) there is still evidence that Microsoft has existing flaws that it hasn't dealt with. Bad flaws. Very bad flaws.

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.

Based on the wrong premise . . .

[Eric Damron]

"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.