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Microsoft Stoking the IP Fire
gokulpod writes to tell us the Financial Express is reporting that Microsoft is heating up the IP battle once again with warnings about IP indemnifications issues. From the article: "Analysts believe that the core issue at stake is whether open source software increases litigation risks. Open source advocates are quick to point out the IP litigation faced by Microsoft itself. Ubuntu founder and leader Mark Shuttleworth says, 'Linux is growing fast and whenever there is a new way of doing things, people will raise all kind of issues.'"
Those who can, compete.
Those who can't, sue.
May the Maths Be with you!
The big difference here is that MS say they will stand up for any user that has a MS license and fight to the death over IP issues, whereas with another vendor (whatever flavour it is) you will be on your own
Surely this just opens up a new market for a "insurance" style product. You pay a premium from a company
that has a list of open source software etc that it will protect.
If you ever have a problem, then come in spinner.....
-- Cheer, Cheer, The Red and the White.
When you license software normally, i.e. not Open Source, you don't run the risk of infringement because you are only the user of the software and have no rights to distribute it. On the other hand, if you somehow become a distributor of some software through the GPL or other Open Source license, then wouldn't you be liable? Though you aren't the creator of the work, you are essentially distributing it to others as your own work (in fact, it is your derivative work which you are distributing).
What if it were Microsoft incorporating Linux code into Windows? Wouldn't you want them to be held accountable? Aside from the obvious double standard, why would you think that OSS projects and distributors not be held liable as well?
It's a little disingenuous for Microsoft to claim that as a benefit, though. It's only because they don't grant you any rights that you have that protection.
At least I can safely say I own 127.0.0.1! Oh wait...
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. - Douglas Adams
Microsoft provide protection only for code they write. If the code in patented is part of what you provide or from a third party, even down to the enterprise glue code, Microsoft is not liable, even if it is based on calling Microsoft's API ( see the Timeline case ). You have to agree to let Microsoft take over your legal defence and if Microsoft prejudge that you are at all at fault then you have to agree to pay ALL damages and costs.
From the article:
Microsoft claims to provide "uncapped protection for legal costs associated with a patent, copyright, trademark or trade secret claim alleging infringement by their product". Open source majors like Red Hat also provide assurance programmes to protect their customers.
What has the world of patents and copyrights come to? We have product manufacturers offering to protect their customers from being sued for using their products!!! This is a feature?
Imagine Honda offering "uncapped protection" for their car users against being sued for driving them? Or Adidas offering the same for their shoes(they were recently sued by Nike for violating some "Air" patents)
I think I miss the vapourware days. Even if the features were imaginary, they at least sounded useful.
For example - if you use functioanlity covered by the excel patent case microsoft lost recently, then your business will suffer.
Gartner recommends the following: So... MS loses a patent case, you're liable to clean up the mess.
Furthermore, if the functionality is essential to you, and you avoid installing the service pack, you could be sued
MS is no different to Open Source.
First the vendor is sued, if the litigation is successful, they remove or work around the patent-protected functionality, then if the user continues using the disputed code, the user is liable.
My pics.
Ok, and how is this a Microsoft vs Linux Issue?
I'm sure the article meant this in more of an illustrative measure, but this is a very bad way to present the issue.
Sure companies are going to protect users from legal issues, this is a part of business. It is also a measure of success with a lot of companies, as some do include protections for their customers and are willing to front any legal blows.
Now if Joe Blow compiles Linux and straps on some tools and you use it in your business and you get sued over stuff it contains, what else would expect to happen?
But this is true of any piece of software or OS, why make this a MS vs Linux specific issue? Buzz, get Slashdot attention, make Microsoft out to be something they are not (good or bad)?
If RedHat is offering or trying to offer a level of abstract between their users and lawsuits as Microsoft is, how could this be Linux vs Microsoft? The last I looked Redhat pretty much only shipped Linux.
This is a common business concept and sure there are reasons when you have a lot at stake to go with the better protection. You could also buy insurance to protect your company as well.
Is this not news to just me?
2) Any patent lawsuit costs the suing party at least several hundred thousand dollars.
3) Any patent put before the courts is at very great risk of being destroyed by prior art.
4) Any payout awarded from a single end user has to be in proportion to value of the patented technology. The value of a single instance will could only be measured in hundreds of dollars, not coming close to covering the costs of suing
5) Patent lawsuits take six years to over a decade to work it's way though appeals.
6) Developers will release new software using a method that circumvents the patent in question within two months. This will be quickly adopted and by the time the first patent case is resolved there will be no further customers for the patent holder to sue.
7) The outrage generated in taking out a case against any open source will result in Groklaw and other groups putting the suing party and their lawyers under the closest scrutiny. You will not believe the level of bad publicity, let alone the the amount of prior art, dirty business practices, and legal suspect practices and even violation of statutes that will be uncovered.
Lastly to quote Pulp Fiction, and then "we are going to get medieval on your ass."
Any IP case against users of open source pute the attacker at a far greater risk.Timeline Inc has won a US Washington Court of Appeal judgment against Microsoft for the right to sue Microsoft's customers, and subsequently sued Cognos. On February 13, 2004, Cognos settled at cost to Cognos totaling $1.75 million
Microsoft is full of it when they claim they'll provide indemnification. They roll over and pass along the expenses to end customers like a lot of other companies.
Indemnification is advertising speak for "we're as screwed by the patent system as anyone, but our PR people figured out how to put a positive spin on it."
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I am sorry, but I don't understand why that is a mis-statement or exaggeration.
Google has confirmed that they do in fact use Ubuntu internally (see link below) and Ubuntu is a collection of open source software (which is in fact, an understatement, if anything).
link: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060131-6087 .html
From the article:
As for Shuttleworth, I've no doubt he is more charismatic than ESR and would likely make a better PR face for OSS than ESR, but is he ever actually mentioned out of context of Ubuntu? My point is that his recent publicity are mostly linked to Ubuntu, and not really other Linux/OSS related things.
MS will no doubt be up for fighting a SCO-like kamizaze attack. But I can't be the only person who spotted the way that MS will only do it if it doesn't cost much ?
According to Techweb (and many other sites), 25% of Office users will suffer the pain of having to alter apps because Microsoft didn't own some of the technology it shipped.
http://www.techweb.com/wire/software/179100683 Users are currently infringing patents now. But come the next update apparently MS will disable these features.
Thus your applications will go bang. I see that as bad.
Recall how MS issued the WMF vulnerability patch by remotely rebooting people's machines, including servers ?
If you buy an MP3 or DVD player which breaks someone's patent, it's hard to care if the manufacturer gets sued. But if you look at the Blackberry debacle, we see that a patent holder can reach into a user's equipment and disable it.
RIM is not a trivial firm, albeit smaller than MS, it has fought hard, but is losing.
MS lost it's case, and recall all the fights over tech in IE ?
Perhaps this is the real reason the MS is pandering to the copyright holders in the MPAA and RIAA for Vista ?
Thus we have both a legal and technical framework by which you can be shafted. MS can't protect you.
Like with viruses, it's very size makes it more vulnerable, and a more attractive target.
If you were a SCOlike entity would you rather extort $1 from every copy of Windows or Gentoo Linux ?
There are (I guess) >50,000 patentable things in Microsoft's product line. Most of which are of course prior art, or a few licenced or owned. But MS cannot afford even to buy off all the patent holders who might come after it.
Thus MS protection is very limited.
Part of my education was during the Cold War about the role of the British nuclear deterrent, which was a distant 3rd after Russia & the US. It couldn't destroy Russia, but could make an awful mess.
To me it points to what the open source movement should be moving towards with future versions of GPL etc.
By patenting a slew of s/w features, MS, Oracle et al now have something to fear.
The gangs of lawyers on contingency unleashed if MS tries to screw the O/S user base have the same deterrence as as the UK nukes. Not the end of the world, but the end of your world, which is good enough.
Since the lawyers are being used weapons, not as revenue generators, you can cut a deal where they get to keep all the money.
This means they will be more effective than the SCO gang, because their goal is to make a profit, not mutually assured destruction.
DCFC the Pimp. http://pauldominic.com/
Dominic Connor,Quant Headhunter
While I can't comment on whether that is or isn't technically illegal, it does show bad faith, contempt for the laws of the country (and by extension for the country itself), and a lack of ethics. But we knew those last parts already.
MS relies heavily on delay tactics anyway, so this method for destruction of evidence supplments them.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Between Microsoft and all the Linux distros combined, only one company or group has been found guilty in a court of law of IP violations. That's right, Microsoft...repeatedly.
/says/ you are using legally dubious software, and yet neither Red Hat, nor Novell, nor Canonical, nor Mandriva, nor any major Linux distributor has been proved to violate any IP-rights in any court anywhere. The closest they came to such a thing was the SCO issue, which has been universally panned as a bogus suit that will come to no good end for SCO.
/should/ be providing you with legal indemnity? The answer is easy.
This is a red herring. Microsoft wants us to beleive that they are "going the extra mile" to protect us from something that is really unlikely, but in truth, if you are using Microsoft products, you are already using work that has taken IP-protected material from other sources without permission or right. And several courts have already said so. But Microsoft doesn't want you to hear that.
If you are using Linux, Microsoft
So, between Microsoft and Linux, who
-Tom
1) How many of us would have wished for big G to be the gravitational force around which tech revolved over M$ four years ago?
2) I bet Ubuntu would not be too dissapointed in this, for the same reason that Duracell touts they they are the 'only battery trusted by some reandom adventurers'.
3) This is a financial website. Let's not forget that your typical /.'er isn't a typical computer user, let alone even close to being a normal human being. They do awknoledge Linux as a viable alternative to Microsoft, and states Ubuntu is the flavor Google is using. I would give that a big thumbs up for a financial paper.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.-TJ
I'm not a US citizen and I don't live in America. Some days I think "thank God". It is dismaying to see America's can-do spirit and open-minded, generous approach to life being wrecked by a never-ending avalanche of lawsuits, patent rows, legal opinionating and fuddish litigation threats, all egged on by "analysts" (the kind of fellows who were advising us all to buy stock the day before the dotcom bubble burst). There is nothing sane about setting fire to your own house.
I much prefer the approach taken by the government of Brazil. They decided to put in some support for open source, and when Microsoft objected they told Microsoft to go sling their hook. There was no chair-throwing or calling down of world war three, at least in public. Microsoft swallowed hard and started to behave themselves. Good to see that standing up to bullies can work.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
The difference though is that Microsoft has multiple cash cows, which makes all the difference in the world.
Just as freedom of the press was once said to be for people who could own one, justice is now the exclusive privilege of those who can spend the most on lawyers. You don't cut off your legal competition's air supply, you let the cost of litigating drain their lifeblood.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
IP is a broad term which I think covers both copyright and software method patents and I think Microsoft is trying to say it covers function as well.
If Microsoft imatated a function from Open Source, I would consider it an act of flattery. If they copied the code, the labor of coders who chose the GPL license, then Microsoft would be sued accordingly.
Open source doesn't "Copy" code from Microsoft. We imitate function in different ways.
Microsoft is certianly not offering the Patent protection that they said they were going to. The recent case against them resulted in a changed version of Microsoft Office. Now certian features which used to work will not work any more. You cannot install office and register it and use those functions any more. If your business depended on those functions you now have to find a way to do things differently. They call this protection from IP infringements. I think Microsoft is charging this discussion precicely because they have shown that they are no better able to protect users from IP claims than anybody else.
The law needs to be changed to only protect copyright protection to software source code. The law should not protect file formats, should not shield users from accessing the data they created/licensed/purchased (DMCA).
For a company that warns off others against using Open Source because of litigation concerns they do seem to spend an inordinant amount of time in court defending itself against accusations of violating/stealing other peoples IP.
"As an industry leader, we are committed to spreading awareness on the issue among the Indian CIOs so they can make the best software decision that will best meet their business needs while at the same time balancing the risks involved,''
As a convicted monopolist, we are committed to spreading as much fud amoung CIOs so as we can scare them off buying anything other thing MS as well as forcing up the cost of Open Source through the use of bogus IP litigation concerns.(end translation)
Most people have little to fear as you're not big enough to go after. Unlike Apple, Amazon or Blackberry for instance. Good times ahead for the lawyers I guess. The root cause of the current IP racket is the US Patent Office and its predilection to grant nonsensical patents. We need less IP law not more. Lets see where doing business with a 'legimite' software company gets you:
A List of Microsoft Litigation
Microsoft Litigation
davecb5620@gmail.com
It is really silly to worry about lawsuits anymore - You WILL be sued, no-matter what. Anyone with anything to lose is a target. The only thing you can do is make sure you have good lawyers.
The unfortunatly thing is that all these lawsuits make it prohibitivly expensive for the little guys (who can't afford an army of lawyers), and give big corporations the advantage - and at the same time that this is handing the world over to big corporations, we have to listen to people tell us that if it wasn't for this lawsuits "we would be taken advantage of by big corporations". *sigh*