Ballmer Won't Dismiss Idea of Suits Against Linux

An anonymous reader writes "According to an interview with Steve Ballmer in Forbes, Microsoft is open to the possibility of filing patent suits against Linux in the interest of their shareholders. Ballmer said: 'Well, I think there are experts who claim Linux violates our intellectual property. I'm not going to comment. But to the degree that that's the case, of course we owe it to our shareholders to have a strategy.' Microsoft filed more than 3000 new applications for software patents in 2005 and already owns more than 4000 patents, including many patents on fundamental, but trivial technologies, like double clicks."

Comments

much ado about nothing

[winkydink]

You mention intellectual property. What's going on in terms of Microsoft IP showing up in Linux? And what are you going to do about it?

Well, I think there are experts who claim Linux violates our intellectual property. I'm not going to comment. But to the degree that that's the case, of course we owe it to our shareholders to have a strategy. And when there is something interesting to say, you'll be the first to hear it.

All you're seeing in that answer is "we have an obligation to our shareholders to protect our rights if we're being infringed". And if there's something interesting to say (in the mysterious future), he'll let Forbes know about it.

Taking that comment to mean MS is threatening to sue various companies over Linux infringements is akin to screaming the sky is falling when a bird shits on your head.

Re:More FUD from MS

[johnMG]

As GNU/Linux gains marketshare, Microsoft will become more and more desperate, and the teeth will *really* come out.

This is related to why I like the way GNU handles their official projects: you assign copyright to the FSF when you contribute to GNU projects. This means that the buck stops with them. They own the copyright, and they are doing the distributing. If MS wants to sue them, my guess is that RMS (or another FSF rep) will go to bat and either the patent will get nullified (dunno the correct terminology there), or else unfortunately the "offending" code will be removed and be re-written.

If there's no one single copyright holder (but rather, a big bunch of copyright holders), do they all have to go to court in such a lawsuit? Hm.

Hopefully, lots of cases like this will go to the courts, and hopefully enough fair judges will see the frivolity of so-called "software patents" that we'll see some sanity come back to the patent system.

double-click patent only for handhelds

[TekGoNos]

Microsoft's double-click patent only applies to buttons on handhelds (or, as they word it : "limited resource computing device", and later "Small, mobile computing devices, such as personal desktop assistants including hand-held and palm-type computers and the like").
And if I interprete the patent correctly, even then, only to physical buttons.

And I still think that the patent is bogus.
(You know, it's an innovation because ... well ... everybody did this, but never on ... well, you know ... small, portable computers. Yeah, there, it's a complet novelty.)

Do you know what FUD is?

[spun]

FUD is a good acronym: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. What other term would you use to express the concept? It isn't name calling, it's simply stating what they are doing. If they want to sue, sue. There is no reason beyond spreading FUD to announce that "We might sue."

The article isn't misguided, Balmer is. Precisely because he is spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt rather than, say, useful information about the merits of his product and how it has better features than Linux. Therefore, claiming that Balmer is spreading FUD doesn't distract from pointing out why he is wrong, it IS why he is wrong.

I'm now thinking that perhaps you didn't know what the acronym stood for and took it as some kind of insult. It's the only way to explain your lack of comprehension as to why the term is accurate. That or you are some kind of Microsoft sock puppet who is deliberately spreading FUD about FUD.

Re:Do you know what FUD is?

[spun]

What he is stating is business as usual, not newsworthy. There is no reason to state such a fact unless you are trying to discourage people from using Linux without the expense of actually filing a lawsuit. If Microsoft wants to file suit, that would be newsworthy, and not FUD. Simply restating general business practices such as "We sue people that infringe on our IP," or "Product X may infringe on our IP," serves no purpose but to scare away potential Linux users.

I can see no reason for Balmer to make this statement except to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about Linux. Can you imagine some other reason for him to state such a thing? Yes, we are calling his motives into question.

You see, his arguments aren't wrong. Microsoft could sue Linux. That isn't the issue. The issue is, why even talk about it rather than simply doing it? Balmer's motives are the issue, so it is completely legitimate to posit that his motives are to spread FUD. Doing so counters his assumed motives and puts the ball back in his court.

Not FUD? Then sue. Won't sue? Then it's FUD.

Without an actual lawsuit, there is nothing for potential linux users to fear. We are not trying to counter his arguments, we can't. Microsoft could perfectly well sue Linux. We are trying to counter his unstated goals by countering the fears he brings up. If they wanted to sue, they would have.

It's FUD until they actually sue. Then we can worry about winning the argument that Linux infringes on Microsoft IP. Until then, we will simply say, don't listen to him, he's full of FUD.

Re:Good

[pieterh]

Bzzzt. Wrong.

I've never heard of a patent lawsuit where the defendant was allowed to inspect the plaintiff's source code for other random violations. It probably made sense when you made this up but it's not the way the world works.

Take random huge Linux user, e.g. a large bank that runs 70% of its servers on Linux and is migrating the other 30% as fast as it can. Now produce a patent with 17 claims. Now if large bank cannot disprove each and every one of these 17 claims, they must stop using Linux immediately, or pay whatever the patent holder asks. It is up to the defendant to break the patent claims.

Microsoft will not enforce their patents, if they have any that they think undercut Linux, not because there is any real defense (there is not) but because they will wait until Linux is well-enough established that the patent negotations will go smoothly.

Patent licenses are a large planned revenue stream for Microsoft, and they are only possible when there is a large captive public of infringers who keep infringing. Thus, Linux growth is actually good for Microsoft, seen from this point of view.

Where the whole lovely effice collapses is when we see that for ever dollar MSFT can hope to earn from licensing "their" IP in this way, they will spend ten times that fighting and settling patent ambushes.

Patent holders have a huge power. Look at NTP's extortion of RIM. Microsoft think they can use this power to extort future Linux users. But it's a very risky gamble because MSFT are a lovely target for extortion themselves.