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Ballmer Says Linux "Infringes Our Intellectual Property"
Stony Stevenson writes "In comments confirming the open-source community's suspicions, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Thursday declared his belief that the Linux operating system infringes on Microsoft's intellectual property." From the ComputerWorld article: "In a question-and-answer session after his keynote speech at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) conference in Seattle, Ballmer said Microsoft was motivated to sign a deal with SUSE Linux distributor Novell earlier this month because Linux 'uses our intellectual property' and Microsoft wanted to 'get the appropriate economic return for our shareholders from our innovation.'" His exact wording is available at the Seattle Intelligencer, which has a transcript of the interview. Groklaw had an article up Wednesday giving some perspective on the Novell/Microsoft deal. Guess we'll have something to talk about in 2007, huh?
I haven't seen patent one infringed upon let alone a whole balance sheet's worth so you'll have to excuse me if I seem a bit pessimistic about you strong arming me into using SuSE.
That's right, you can spin it anyway you want
It's not just any old regular FUD, it's new improved Microsoft FUD.
Enjoy your $500 million, Novell.
My work here is dung.
SuSE is dead.
To quote South Park: Novell just got F'd in the A.
Pretty much any Linux geek will tell you that's a load of jibberish, not unlike the SCO case. But, should it come to Microsoft and Novell going to court over this, couldn't this still spell trouble for Novell? A lengthy trial isn't cheap (and neither are out-of-court settlements). And the worst case scenario - maybe this could even spell trouble for Linux itself? It certainly makes for some excellent FUD for Microsoft to feed to the CIOs and managers of the world.
With Microsoft's track history, I wonder why people trust them at all. Especially when the stakes are high, like in this situation.
Basilisk Digital
If you can't beat 'em sue 'em.
Alright, enough of this bullshit. Isn't there some kind of Libel suit that can be filed about this kind of garbage? I know I, as a private citizen can't go around telling newspapers that the Coca-Cola company kills a kitten for every can of drink they sell, without getting sued nine ways from breakfast. Why is Microsoft any different? If they've got something, let's see it, if not, can't they be forced to stop spreading FUD on pain big nasty fine-y death? Surely Redhat, and the other corporate Linux entities have some interest in trying this?
Without that essential information, Microsoft are behaving in a commercially-inappropriate way. Intimidating and destructive to creativity.
I need the chance to way either that the patent does not apply where I live; or that there is prior art; or that I will do something in a different way. Or to find a patent of mine (or of my employer's) that they would like to cross-licence. I also need to know when the patent expires.
"Talk is cheap, show me the code!"
it appears that with the passing years the microsoft top brass is getting old, and surprisingly losing their sanity before their due time.
arent they already aware that eu is bashing them because of their similar behaviour ?
do they think that eu will just let them force people to use their own 'partner''s distro just like that ?
i can see fines raining down like hell.
Read radical news here
I hoped that Novell/MS deal was really something meaningful, not yet another PR/Marketing stunt from Microsoft. Putting all that "protection racket" bullshit aside, which I can buy a little bit, this Balmer speech asks for more serious investigation, because it just roars "antitrust".
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
It all makes sense - MS is starting to worry. Not about the "boom in linux in just a few years" - that has been "just a few years" for over a decade now. What they are worried about is the "Big War" on the very immediate horizon. Computing is about to undergo a huge revolution.
Now that (as far as a lot of the top end guys at MS are concerned) Vista is out of the door they are looking at what is next. Customers (home, but most especially business) are not going to pay for another OS - many might not even buy Vista. There is little else MS can put into an OS that sells - stability and modularisation don't sell. They tried the "eye candy" route for Vista - because if they didn't it wouldn't sell one copy. The thing is they can't do the same thing again "Windows Corumo - just another coat of paint on the same OS" - nobody will buy it.
The future? Subscription based economics - they don't have to produce another OS - they just continually charge for the current one. That too goes for MS Office etc.
Why the current turn by MS - because linux really does cause them difficulties in that business model. $30 per month for windows or $0 for a flavour of linux.
The big battle is ahead - the business model that has held firm with computers (both software and hardware) over the past 20 years is being broken up. This can be proven in the easiest way imaginable. Ask yourself this question. As a member of the "bulk" of computer users (ie not high end gamers or 3D designers - home "write an email and watch a dvd"'ers or business "write a spreadsheet or create a presentation"er's) - why would you *want* to buy a new machine/new OS? - the old one does everything just fine - super fast and relatively trouble free. That has not been the case for the past 20 years - it is now.
This is getting really old and although many here will probably disagree, it will eventually have an impact. I can just hear my legal department now "We keep hearing case after case of Linux infringing on someone's IP. We better ban it. Microsoft is a big secure company that would never do anything like that and if they did, there is no way the effects of it could ever impact the end user"...Oh wait.. .. Scratch that.
--- Liberty in our Lifetime
With the monopolist pressure they are forcing my relatives, my employers, my contractees, my government to use their own software and wont let them bail out, limiting me on what i can or cant do with my audio&visual equipment in my own house, increasingly deciding what i can or cannot see on the internet, oppressing my open source community, suing people to the extent of harrassment, causing my relatives, friends, close ones to get into pain over their lacking&incapable&insecure softare and me to run fix-up errands for them, trying to funnel cash into decision makers to influence political decisions against my democratic wishes.
In short, they are using me and all the people i know for their own personal profit against their wishes.
i request that microsoft cease and desist immediately
Read radical news here
I think the difference will be that SCO was claiming their actual code was in the kernel, while MS is claiming that it "infringes on their IP".
For all we know MS has some patent on Operating Systems or taking input, processing it, and giving output, or the color blue, or something.
That's the problem with software patents, as it stands right now, if Linux really is infringing on some MS patent then the functionality will have to be removed, not simply re-implemented in a different way. If this patent is on something core to the operation of Linux, then it could be very bad.
Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if Linux does violate some MS patent- not because the kernel developers have been stealing from MS, but because software patents are far to broad in nature. The best possible scenario would be that Linux is violating some MS patents and that is used as a stepping stone in order to reorganize that entire software patent system so it's not so stupid. More likely is that either Linux isn't violating any MS patents, or it is but MS doesn't do anything about it in court because they are afraid of having to fight IBM on one side, and Antitrust lawsuits from the EU (and possibly the US, though we saw how effective that was the last time) on another side.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
Interoperability... Are they are putting in decent VT100 terminal support for a mere few 100 M$ ? Sure.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
The whole point of the BSD license is that the code may be used freely, by anyone, anywhere, for any purpose. BSD programmers care more about seeing their code put to good use than about getting something back in return. I'd just be happy to see my code being used to improve such a widely-used product, thereby improving the lives of millions. Much less likely with the GPL, you must admit.
And now, a PSA from David Lynch.
Microsoft Windows infringes on our intelligence.
Don't you think that's what this is about? I mean, Gates knows and respects unix; and they know it predates Windows and does not infringe on Microsoft intellectual property. The Linux kernel itself is almost certainly not infringing on anything of Microsoft's at all. I'm guessing that Microsoft can only be referring to projects like Samba and Mono.
Both projects are basically reverse engineering of Microsoft protocols or APIs with the goal of interopability, or cross-platform deployment. I think reverse engineering is perfectly legitimate. It's been supported by the courts before.
Listen to what Ballmer is saying: "Therefore, our job has got to be to help our customers get interoperability. And, of course, all vendors secretly are wondering when they do interoperability, did I do something that's going to help me win more of their customers, or something that's going to help them win more of my own customers."
The other Microsoft related headline is that Europe is trying to force Microsoft to share information about Windows protocols with open-source projects like Samba, to allow and improve interoperability with other operating systems. Microsoft's initial response was to only offer that information to other businesses at a high price. Europe persisted, and Microsoft has adopted this new strategy; still insisting they be paid for compliance with government regulation.
Actually, Microsoft's plan is even stupider than that. Microsoft wants to charge a per seat license for Linux users, but they aren't really offering enhanced interoperability. Novell and Red Hat are both going to include the same software. It's not like Novell is going to have its own version of Samba, for instance. The primary difference is that Novell customers are going to be able to "sleep easy" because Novell is paying Microsoft so that Microsoft won't sue Novell's Linux customers.
Microsoft isn't going to sue Red Hat's customers either, but that's only because suing Red Hat customers would be ridiculously foolish. At its heart the real issue is that Microsoft has such a poor relationship with its customers that many customers are worried that Microsoft will drag them into patent court. These customers are willing to pay money, not for any sort of patent license, but for a short term commitment from Microsoft that they won't be sued.
Next thing you know Microsoft execs will be brutalizing school kids for their lunch money.
The truly ironic bit is that Microsoft is not going to sue anyone over patents. Microsoft execs know that if they did this the various organizations that have a stake in the success of Linux (which is essentially everyone but Microsoft) would pay for a well-funded defense. Millions of dollars would be spent, and in the end the patents in question would either be shot down or removed from the Free Software product in question. Depending on who Microsoft chose to attack it could even trigger retaliation from other large players with huge patent repositories. What's more, Microsoft's patent aggression would start a wholesale migration away from Microsoft's technologies.
If Microsoft started suing folks using its technology then its technology would become much less popular virtually overnight.
This is why Microsoft has wisely chosen a middle road. Instead of actually taking people to court, it is simply going to threaten to take people to court and hope that they'll throw money Microsoft's way.
Who merged the Linux Genuine Advantage code into the tree? Come on, speak up - I know it was one of you.
Funny, but the wrong thing to ask.
The right thing to ask is how much open and public domain source made it to Windows? Was not Linux preemptive multitasking before Windows, POP3, SMTP/sendmail, DNS/BIND, Kerberos, telnet, ftp, http, ssl, TCP/IP itself, and probably more. At least in concept everything in Windows even windows itself is borrowed from other peoples works. Windows itself is an extrapolation of other people's prior works at best.
The lack of specificity is the most damaging. Clearly msft's game is to flood the media with vauge innuendo about linux being a legal mine field. A lie told often enough is the truth. If msft were specific, their claims could be evaluted and appropriate actions taken.
Msft = the fud factory.
Ah, but those decent human beings didn't patent their work. And in this world, the validity of the patent only matters if the one being sued has enough money to hold out for a non-speedy civil trial for 2-5 years while the prosecutor stalls, trying to bleed the smaller company dry on law costs.
That parenthetical note is key here. Linux didn't have an SMB server before Microsoft did; no, Samba isn't part of the Linux kernel, but it is part of a lot of Linux distributions (as well as being used on other UN*X OSes), and Microsoft do have a licensing process for SMB and various protocols that run atop it, so that might be what Ballmer was referring to.
With the Novell deal, Microsoft pretends to 'embrace' Novell SUSE Linux and casts a FUD shadow over non-SUSE Linux but that's not the whole thing. Next will come the Microsoft products that extend SUSE Linux to 'interoperate' with Windows and, guess what, they might actually become popular and useful for both Windows and Novell SUSE Linux users. Finally comes 'extinguish' where the new products become obstacles to using other OSS software and non-SUSE linux.
While this approach isn't what the FOSS community would like, it at least provides a possible method of closed and open sourced software to coexist. Take drivers for example. Since the linux kernel will never have a stable internal API, it becomes impossible for a closed-source vendor to simply write a driver and then leave it at that, like in Windows. The vendor must continue to update the driver basically forever, as the internal structure of the kernel continues to change. Using the intel open-source-kernel-module-communicating-with-binar y-blob method allows the vendor to basically stabalize a small part of the kernel, since it will continue to be updated by the FOSS community as the kernel evolves. Development on the binary blob can be discontinued, and it will still work years down the line.
It's not perfect, but at least it's a solution.
Also, keep in mind that Microsoft reinvented itself back in the early 90s. MS wanted a product line that would win in the desktop AND the server markets. It crafted the desktop off of what Apple had done and it wan't to use the leverage they'd get from the desktop to win over the server market as well. The only way to do that was to create a propriety system from the ground up. The OS design was an "anything but Unix" design. It wanted to make sure no other system could talk to Windows and no Windows desktop could talk to anything other than another Windows computer. It developed its own networking protocol, its own file sharing protocols, its own Windows API. The idea was if you have a Windows desktop, it could only talk to a Windows server and that was how MS was going to win over the server market as well.
But an interesting thing happened on the way to total market dominance... There was the Internet and the WWW. Remember, Microsoft didn't originally support TCP/IP but was forced to when the Internet became widely popular in the mid 90s. There was the web browser which allow people to run applications on Unix servers and have the output displayed on their desktop screens. And worse of all, there was reverse engineering. Oh wow, the very tactic Microsoft used to become powerful in the first place was being used against it to chip away at its dominance.
Now that everyone has figured out how to get Windows computers to interact with non-Windows computers, Microsoft is feeling the pinch. Its losing the server market as the Linux market is a more efficient and more cost effective platform to put a server application on. Its losing the desktop market as low cost applications are replacing the big cash cows like Microsoft Office.
So about the time we're feeling comfortable about how everything is one big happy family, Microsoft is going to throw a monkey wrench into all of this. Vista appears to be a BIG blow to interoperability as MS vows to reinforce its proprietary dominance. A new set of protocols and a new DRM layer will make applications tougher to run and data harder to use. Now, Microsoft is going to the next level... using its near monopoly status and huge cash coffers to shut down its competition. If Vista is a failure, Microsoft could very well wither away. It's betting its future on Vista and its new line of products wrapped around Vista. It's betting Vista will bring back the Microsoft only universe. But if MS thinks Vista is going to be a slam dunk winner, why is it bothering to put out all this propaganda about Linux. Maybe its covering all the bases in that by forcing the hand of Linux and FOSS, it will convince users that the risks of using OSS are too high and they will run back to proprietary Microsoft.
Its amazing how this has flipped 180 degrees. Twenty five years ago, Microsoft was using DOS and Basic to allow people to develop software to get out from underneath the proprietary world of the large mainframes of IBM, Dec and others. Now, Linux, supported by IBM and others is offering FOSS to allow people to get out from underneath the proprietary world of Microsoft.