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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."
From the article: "Consider this--not a single open-source software program has ever been sued for patent infringement, much less been found to infringe. On the contrary, proprietary software, like Windows, is sued and found guilty of patent infringement quite frequently."
While I am glad that OSS hasn't been suded yet, I think it's a bit immature to use this as a defence. First of all, you don't need to actually do anything wrong to be sued, and usually you're sued because you're making enough money that the plantiff might take a bite of it, or you have conflict of interest with the plantiff.
Wasn't it not long ago we read about SCO/MS Connection? It's pretty obvious now that the litigation is baseless, but this doesn't not stop corporates from taking it to the court.
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.
So a better argument might be OSS, given it's open, any potential patent infringement will be digged out before it goes far.
However, this brings another question, can we safely assume that nothing incriminating is in the source? Patent itself is illusive enough, and how easy it is to find out about a particular patent, and then relate it to a certain class in the source?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
I've this question. If I implement a piece of software that is already patented and put it in the public domain, can I be sued for this?
I mean in many CG books they describe algorithms that are patented, yet nobody sues the authors of the books. Can someone write a free implementation of a patented idea just for the sake of other people doing research on the idea (e.g timing and comparing certain patented algorithms, etc.)? This doesn't seem different from publication of said idea/algorithm.
It is my understanding that if somebody uses it for commercial purposes or if I try to sell it, then I/they 'd be liable. But can source code be considered as a publication in certain cases?
They don't have to... twisting information in their favour has been enough for a good while. For the common investor, what Ballmer says is much more interesting than some guy's studies.
Except that if Microsoft violates 100 patents, they can just license or buy the company out that owns it.
If one patent is broken by an OSS Project, its much more of a burden.
Technically unrelated to this article, but Fox News did go to court for making a story appear the oppisite of the facts. They lost at first, but won on appeal. Now they are suing journalists who refused to publish the false version of the report for court costs.
Fox News was able to get a court to rule that they have no responsibility to tell the truth because there is no specific law that say they have too. So if a news station can not be required to report on things honestly, then I don't think there is much change of getting a company (especially MS) to do so.
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