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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."
I suspect that the Open Invention Network was set up to defend against this very possibility. If Microsoft makes a move the alliance will use their patents to counter. Which the companies involved have a pretty comprehensive portfolio.
Perhaps. Little shit lawsuits haven't stopped the RIAA. Microsoft has *much* more money then them, and they could possibly sue 100,000 people and not even sweat it. They could sue every Linux vendor, every medium and large enterprise using it, and do it all in your home country.
Most of the suits would be bullshit, but they could do some serious damage.
Microsoft has done some sordid things in their time, but I do fear the potential of Microsoft's wrath much more then anything else. With that much money on hand, there's no limit.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
What is going to take for the open source community to fight back? To stop porting code to Windows? To stop releasing Firefox for Windows? To create artificial incompatibilities - I know that's counter-productive, but let's talk politics and economics, for a second.
If the U.S. government won't use the Sherman Anti-trust Act to stop Microsoft, we need to rely on one of the fundamental principles of capitalism - Adam Smith's invisible hand. We need to stop buying, supporting, using, and working with Microsoft software. I do know how crazy that sounds, but revolutions require revolutionary thinking.
Many of you claim that you use Windows because your employers do - that's a crock. Make a personal choice. I work for a Fortune 50, in an enterprise-level position, and I haven't owned a Windows machine in over 5 years. I have may 98% of everything I need at home and work function with Mac OS or Linux. In the extreme cases (that last 2%), I use CrossOver Office. Once (ONCE) in the last five years, I had to borrow a colleagues' Windows machine to complete some training - because our server software was so out of date that the manufacturer's Mac drivers didn't support the old protocols. Every opportunity I have to recommend standards, I oppose the implementation of further Windows desktop or server deployments.
Not, seriously, I'm not crazy - I know all of this isn't feasible for all of you. Don't do anything to risk your livelihood, your sustainable income, or the ability to feed your family, but seriously ask yourself... "Am I doing everything I can to support Linux and Open Source, and help prevent the patent threat that Microsoft represents?"
So may on Slashdot these days have become Microsoft apologists - they aren't that bad... their UI is far superior... I have to use them at the office... all the good games are only written for Windows... ad nauseam. We need to use what power we have to stave off a serious threat to the technologies we are personally passionate about. We are the developers, the administrations, and the infrastructure of the nation and world's IT organizations. We must stand strong if we want to have any options. Because after Linux, it's Mac OS, then Solaris, then AIX, until all that's left is Windows. All that's left is crap. Yes, it is *that* slippery a slope.
And, if we stand united, we can affect Microsoft's profits. Make their shareholders listen. Make the board of directors require policy changes. I don't hate Microsoft or any company - but this "Patent Cold War" is despicable.
I am not advocating overnight change 180 degrees. Only that you ask yourself one simple question every day...
"Am I doing everything I can to enable choice in technology?"
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
Red Hat and Novell? They're big enough to fight it, and even if they lose, I was using GNU/Lunix before they were around, and it'll still be available after they're gone. IBM? IBM have been building a patent portfolia for decades. Bring it on!
Linus? Not even Microsoft could countenance a PR gaffe of that scale. People like Linus.
The FSF? Well, Stallman is no Linus in the popularity stakes, but I'm sure he'd relish the opportunity to be given a soapbox to point out that patents are indeed the big threat to competition and choice.
Whatever they do though, Microsoft will send one message loud and clear: they can't compete on technology, so they have to stifle the competition.
Is that really how desperate they've become? If so, then that's a good sign for their competitors, both Free and otherwise.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I welcome a Microsoft lawsuit against Linux. If MS can point at Linux open source code and make claims -- the claims must be backed up with hard evidence (and stalling tactics would be frowned upon as bullying by many, thus hurting MS in the media). The Linux legal team could argue that since Microsoft has a right to view Linux code and raise legal concerns about it, then the Linux "team" (ie: open source community) must also have a right to view the Microsoft code, and scrutinize it heavily as well, for GPL infringements. Which code will have more infringements? Care to hazard a guess?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Fedora's Greg DeKoenigsberg has finally posted a explanation on why Redhat has now included Mono in Fedora Core 5:
If Microsoft should choose to sue people for using projects under the umbrella such as Linux or MONO, the Mutually Assured Destruction clock hits midnight.Also see what Risk to USERS of open source from patent claims?
Ultimately, they concluded they needed to find a way to start all over with their OS. Microsoft will wind up doing the same, eventually.
I don't think that's a foregone conclusion, although it would be a welcome one. They're going to put out Vista first though, come hell or high water.
As the NYT article states, MS holds backwards compatibility sacred. And yes, they've broken it in small ways in the past (XP SP2 was probably one of the largest breaks in recent years), but nothing big. They're scared of breaking it in a "big" way because they know it could cause market fragmentation -- if I'm stuck on Windows because of some proprietary app that we lost the code for years ago and that's essential to my business, well if Windows 2010 breaks it, then why should I stick with Windows?
Frankly, I think they're a little over-concerned on this front. Yes, there are a number of apps out there like that. But that's solvable now -- they could spin up an entire virtualized copy of XP in a VM. It'd be slow, but it'd at least work. And most businesses would stick with Windows over the alternatives because that's what their IT knows, it has the widest range of apps available, and the widest hardware support.
Heck, how much crap could they be rid of if they simply ditched DOS and the entire 16-bit layer? What about for crap like WMF and other archaic data formats? Would ditching FAT32 as a bootable FS (or an FS for "special" files, like profiles and swap) buy anything?
Of course, I suspect that that's not the real sticking points when it comes to "compatibility". There's craptastic API calls all over the Windows API. There are entire layers of APIs that MS stopped promoting years ago, but are still used. And what about the craptastic IE5/6 renderer? Talk about a support and development nightmare.
Apple had the "fortune" circumstance of being a bit player. Microsoft doesn't. If Apple fragmented its market share, well, there wasn't all that much to lose in the first place. The same cannot be said for MS, and MS's entire business plan has revolved around a unified OS (supplied by it) for decades.
MS is on the death march toward Vista, the death march toward Office 2007, the death march towards a .Net strategy.
Wars on the IE front, Wars on the server front, Wars on the standards fronts.
Legal battles with various corporations, the patent office, and various governments.
Let them come against Linux. Who are they going to pick a fight with, IBM? Redhat? Novell? Maybe this lawsuit will break the (MS) camel's back. I do know that discovery in any MS versus (Linux Corp.) case will be very, very interesting. Linux's dirty laundry is avaliable for everyone to see, but won't it be nice for (Linux Corp's) our lawyers to take a look at MS source, MS confidential e-mails, MS's internal documents?
I think so. Not to mention that IBM'll be able to contribute a bunch of that stuff from their current discovery involving MS's contacts with SCO. And if IBM gets drawn into (Linux Corp) versus MS, I think very interesting things will happen.
Not to mention that MS will never have any success versus Linux; even if they smear one linux company, the "community" will rewrite those portions, and move on.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
So they sue 100k people in the US. On the other side of the Atlanctic Ocean, all their precious patents are futile. Oh, and there is some woman in Brussells who is not very happy with the M$ monopoly. She's got some power over there. But the negative press about the suits will NOT be futile on the other side of the ocean. Linux will be totally legal in Europe, while every newspaper tells people 'they couldn't beat Linux by technology, now they try it The American Way' (Europeans are on average not very impressed by the merits of the US legal system).
The fun is, there is more than one ocean. On the other side of the Pacific one, US patents are worth less.
Trust me, I work for the government.
It's not impossible for Linux or Linux users to be in the wrong by, e.g., infringing MS's patents.
If there is infringement, regardless of MS's motives, they are justified in taking action to protect their patent rights.
Do you think Linux gets a free pass under the law, just because the developers are trying to do something nice?
If there is infringement, regardless of MS's motives, they are justified in taking action to protect their patent rights.
Possibly. But they might also be reasonably worried about the result of an actual court case. It's entirely possible that if they were to sue over linux permitting such things as double clicks or nested scrolling (which they also have a patent on), the courts just might laugh and throw out the patents.
Like atomic weapons, patents such as these are primarily useful as threats and PR tools. Actually using them in a legal action could easily end their usefulness.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Thanks for noticing, for getting an on topic first post I was bitch slapped into karma oblivion. At least two people with mod points went back and knocked down all my previous posts to -1 with trolls, off topics and redundants. I was banned form posting for twenty-four hours and I'm not allowed to meta-moderate anymore:( There some mean people on /.