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Microsoft's Patent Pledge "Worse Than Useless"
munchola writes "The Software Freedom Law Center has declared that Microsoft's patent pledge to open source developers is 'worse than useless'. SFLC chief technology officer, Bradley Kuhn, has written to FOSS developers warning them that 'developers are no safer from Microsoft patents now than they were before'. According to Kuhn: 'The patent covenant only applies to software that you develop at home and keep for yourself; the promises don't extend to others when you distribute. You cannot pass the rights to your downstream recipients, even to the maintainers of larger projects on which your contribution is built.'"
I doubt anyone here is actually surprised by this. Since when has Microsoft ever done anything truly for the good of OSS?
http://edu-nix.org/shanecoyle/?p=8 / www.boycottnovell.com
--10scjed IANAL,AFAIK
Now, people who keep tagging every article "itsatrap" This would be a proper usage of that tag.
"To face death, that's nothing much. But to feel really stupid when you die, well, that would be insufferable."
Note, this article is not talking about the deal with Novell as almost every post thus far has assumed. It mentions that deal, as something still being researched. This is about MS's recent promise/contract to not sue hobbyists for patent violations.
Seriously...if, as CEO of a major company, Microsoft were to offer me $400 million ...I would take it. If I didn't my shareholders would lynch me.
The long term consequences don't matter here... all that matters is that for the next couple of years, profits go up
Welcome to corporation-think
This has nothing to do with feel-good, Microsoft is teh EVIL, I hug bunnies world.
A corporation exists to make money for its owners
period
too bad about SuSE Linux... it will be seen as a victim of collateral damage
It's called 'dedicating' it. No restrictions.
It shows people people that your patent was only filed to prevent other people from patenting the idea and causing trouble. People tend to look very favorably on dedications.
Groklaw also raised questions about Novell's deal:
This is getting worse than Zune news. No one writing about this knows any more of the details than what was released to the press.
I know it is not normal to RTFA, but if you did you'd see it was a press release about the license MS released with regard to their promise not to sue open source hobbyists over patent violations. It is not about the Novell deal, despite the fact that every comment thus far (except my previous one) seems to be assuming otherwise. So people do know more than was published in the press release, just not about what you seem to have thought this article was about.
..and snow is white. Tell us something we don't know.
> they are taking the piss, literally
no they are not literally taking the piss,
they are however patenting methods and means of urine extraction.
ignore all comments above, i should be sleeping
living the dream
Business and hippies don't mix. It's like oil and water.
The point is, open source people _aren't_ hippies. They've been running successful businesses for years now. But microsoft wants them to be hippies, wants the world to believe them to be - and now, is trying to make them be, using software patent monopolies to shut down open source businesses. The message is "if you're a hippie hobbyist coder, we won't sue you. But dare to build a business, and we will". Remember, patent and copyright monopolies DESTROY free market capitalism. Microsoft, like most large software corporations, are absolutely terrified of a true free market in software.
"hippy and communist" are just wrong when applied to free software folk: "Raging gun-nut libertarian" is far more accurate. Microsoft are playing with fire.
The "Microsoft's Patent Pledge for Non-Compensated Developers" is indeed rather useless, because it only covers creation and local use, and specifically excludes distribution.
The "Microsoft's Patent Pledge for Individual Contributors to openSUSE.org" is also not interesting, since it covers the transfer of code from an author to SUSE, and only that and nothing else.
The "Microsoft's Patent Pledge for Hobbyist Contributors" is referenced from the above one. This should be the one that is covering the community distribution part. But is missing on the Microsoft website: Either it doesn't exist at all and the reference is a mistake, or there is a reason why it was left out from the web.
Has anyone managed to find it? Why Bradley Kuhn doesn't mention it?
"Remember, patent and copyright monopolies DESTROY free market capitalism. Microsoft, like most large software corporations, are absolutely terrified of a true free market in software."
Bingo. A point I have been trying to make for what seems like ages.
There are no free markets when it comes to goods protected by copyrights or patents. With copyleft you can perhaps get close to a free market in those goods.
all the best,
drew
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/262954
Sayings - Deterred Bahamian Novel
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
No. US Patent Law does not make any such distinction or exception for private home use. You can be infringing if you mass produce 100 billion copies to sell, or if you just "practice" the art in the privacy of you own home. Granted, the likelihood of any bad consequences for infringing (or even anyone finding out you're infringing) are not at all equal.
But I think this commonly held misconception might be one reason why the general public sees nothing wrong with patents...they think it only applies if you're trying to make money off the idea or running a company, e.g., it doesn't apply to them so why care. But a patent is an absolute abridgment of freedom, and really has nothing to do with money or intent at all, nor does it have anything to do with stealing (like copyright or trade secrets) as you can unknowingly infringe even if you thought up the idea all by yourself. Of course any legal remidies, actions, rewards, etc may be based on money and scale, but not the determination if you're guilty of infringement or not.
IANAL applies, but I have read through the US Law as best as I could understand it. If somebody more knowing than me knows something else, please be kind and point out exactly where in the law such distrinction is made because I can't find it.
Why now, at this point in time are Linux developers being threatened in this way? Why not last year? Why not two, five years ago?
I reckon they are terrified about Vista... They're terrified it'll be a dead loss with millions jumping ship to Linux. They're trying to fence of Linux from their ex-customers in advance of it's release.
Deleted
Ya know, believe it or not, the "we're just out to make money" mentality, is not one shared by all businesses in all countries of the world. There are many countries in which a business's first priority is to their employees, then their community, and only thirdly to themselves (many businesses in Japan, for instance). Unfortunately, American's have convinced themselves that the only way to survive in the business world is to forsake all ethicality... and so they've made that true. It's very sad.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
The difference is here in america the goal is not to just 'survive' its to obliterate the competition.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Free market mean FREE. When someone says "you can't" then it's not FREE. Patent and copyright are LAWS which means they say "you can't".
Free market isn't defined as whatever the Republican's spout. Just like Communism isn't whatever the USSR spouted.
The point is that whether it has ever been successfully prosecuted or not is unimportant. Technically, you can be sued for infringing patents even if you never distribute the infringing item(s).
From Wikipedia: "In United States law, an infringement may occur where the defendant has made, used, sold, offered to sell, or imported an infringing invention or its equivalent." Making and/or using an infringing product is infringement. It may be unlikely that you will ever be sued for it (since it is so unlikely that any relevant patent holders would ever find out), but you COULD be.
I'm sure that there is some case of this happening. Look into patents on esoteric manufacturing equipment, or on early "instant" communication devices (Wikipedia's article on patent infringement specifically mentions Morse and the telegraph). I'm sure that somewhere is a case where a patent was infringed upon by somebody who had no intention of ever selling it, but just wanted to make their own.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Qualifier: I work for a company that has dealings with Novell. However, I'm near the bottom, so it's not like Novell going completely under would kill me or anything. My company could eventually migrate away from SuSe Linux without "too" much pain.
Now, that being said, let me get to the point (and please don't mod this as flame bait because I'm just trying to give my honest opinion.
I'm excited about this Novell/M$ deal. I'm excited about it because it will allow IT departments to give their end users the M$ applications (most office drones do like them) they want. Now, lets get down to this lawsuit business. Hypothetically, lets pretend M$ decides to sue a company for coupleing their applications with a non-Suse distro if Linux. They could manage to squeeze all the money from their bank account (sorry guys/coal mine canaries). This however would never go unnoticed by the business world. It would trigger every company running M$ applications on a non-SuSe back ends to dump their M$ applications an revert to their old OSS applications (if they're running Linux backend, they probably ran a Linux front end at one time). This would be a painful switch, but not the end of the world for them.
M$ is trying to get the Linux community to adopt their applications. We're obviously not going to touch their OS. The money they get from that first lawsuit would never equil the revenue they receive from the expanding Linux community using their applications. It would be very "penny-wise pound-foolish" to choose the money from that one lawsuit over continued revenue in application sales (and it would not take more then one or two of these lawsuits to scare every IT department away from M$ applications forever).
So, here's to a brand new day. Lets drink to not being the first company eaten by the M$ wolf.
"I don't have to outrun the troll, I just have to outrun you"
Instead, Microsoft has used this patent pledge to indicate that, in their view, the only good Free Software developer is an isolated, uncompensated, unimportant Free Software developer.
This from the man who believes that the GPL is the only FOSS license with the right to exist.
Mr. Kuhn, you are every bit as much a part of the problem as Microsoft are themselves. In fact, you are moreso. At least Microsoft do not try and pretend to be anything other than what they are. You are not one micron less a fascist...merely from a different direction.
You can take your warped, cultic distortion of the word "freedom," and cram it where you feel most appropriate. You and Richard Stallman are open source's answer to David Miscavige and L. Ron. Hubbard, respectively. You are the proverbial scorpion on Linux's back.
Some who use Linux with the total inability to think for themselves may delude themselves that they need to use your brain and Stallman's in leiu of their own. I am not among such people, and I defy, reject, and repudiate both you, Stallman, and the entirely *false* freedom which the FSF stands for. You would have us reject Microsoft as our masters, only to install yourselves in their place.
You do not speak for everyone who uses open source. You most certainly do not speak for me.
I have something backwards?
What exactly do I have backwards? Are you claiming that copyrights and patents create or enhance Free Market Capitalism?
You will need to bring some serious arguments and lots of whatever to put that case across.
Oh, and those ad hominum references to lemmings don't work too well.
all the best,
drew
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/262954
Sayings - Deterred Bahamian Novel
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free