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Microsoft Getting Paid for Patents in Linux?
kripkenstein noted an Interview with Jeremy Allison where the interviewer asks 'One of the persistent rumors that's going around is that certain large IT customers have already been paying Microsoft for patent licensing to cover their use of Linux, Samba and other free software projects.' and Jeremy responds
"Yes, that's true, actually. I mean I have had people come up to me and essentially off the record admit that they had been threatened by Microsoft and had got patent cross license and had essentially taken out a license for Microsoft patents on the free software that they were using [...] But they're not telling anyone about it. They're completely doing it off the record."
Yes, I know, software patents are the spawn of Satan, no-one (not even me, actually
I'm nowhere near a fanboy for Microsoft (quite the opposite, if you read my posting history), but in this case, I can't see they've done anything *wrong*. You can argue that software patents are bad - yes, agreed. You can argue that these particular patents are flawed, perhaps they are. You can argue that it's just not moral to profit from the work of others, and yes I agree with that too.
But, sadly, what they're doing appears to be legal, so perhaps the ire ought to be directed at what makes it legal, rather than shooting the messenger (dammit
Simon (ducking)
Physicists get Hadrons!
While the idea is plausible and scary, where's the proof? If I were being threatened by Microsoft, I'd sure as hell make it public. What better way to defend yourself than getting support of the entire Linux/Free Software community?
Most home users have been forced to buy XP home anyway.
No big loss. NFS is easier to use, has real file permissions, etc.
... oh wait ... I get it.
Just another "innovation" from MSFT [smb] that they'll try to horde instead of playing the "let's weigh in on technical merits" game.
And for fuck sake, why doesn't Windows support NFS? It makes mixing boxes on a lan such a bitch
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Write a free cross platform client and server network filesystem which runs on Windows, OSX, Unix, Linux and which uses an open standard for locking, authentication, encryption, ACLs etc.
Leaving file serving in MS's control simply leaves you open to patent infringement etc.
Deleted
Would like to discuss your annual donation...
Rocco and Knuckles will be by to pick up the envelope.
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
Every time I think of Microsoft and the harm they are causing the end user, and the consumer, it just irritates me beyond belief. Nothing they do benefits the consumer, NOTHING. And yet, the government applauds them for their fine efforts at being completely monopolistic in our modern day capitalistic society.
Makes me want to puke.
Relocating to San Francisco / Palo Alto... Hire me?
Do publicly traded companies have to report this kind of thing? I would be quite concerned if a company whose stock I own was paying money under the table to organizations that had been found guilty of criminal acts. Does anybody have an idea of what companies are doing this, so that they can be asked in a stockholders' meeting.
Maybe we should patent patenting stuff, and than we could sue people who patent something?
Menzoberranzan Networks
I heard the illuminadi made them pay Microsoft because these companies know about the Venus base! NOBODY IS SUPPOSED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VENUS BASE! Anyway, the aliens in the Venus base don't use Windows because they know the French government has installed electron bugs in it which can enter your brain and make you like blueberry bagels, and really, who wants that?
Comment of the year
The patent holders will be first against the wall when revolution comes!
Slashdot: where posts using the "f-word" and threatening mass murder get modded "Insightful."
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
But, sadly, what they're doing appears to be legal, so perhaps the ire ought to be directed at what makes it legal, rather than shooting the messenger (dammit :-).
In this case, the messenger is also the guilty party. M$ is one of the largest proponents of software patents and other bogus "IP" laws.
The reason you should be outraged is that they now own your code. Without any further effort than paying off a bunch of lawmakers and lawyers, they have secured an income on .... everything. They also grant themselves the power to shut down projects they don't like. Make no mistake, a little control for M$ is total control when it gets in the way of your software freedoms. Long after Vista bombs in the market place, M$ will be profiting from your work and using it to cause you further harm in any way they please.
This is why anti-patent language in GPL 3 is so important and why everyone should support it. The true cost of supporting M$ though judicial extortion will only be revealed if we hang together. The internet itself would not function without GPL'd code. Laws will change if suddenly that code is unavailable.
I'm nowhere near a fanboy for Microsoft (quite the opposite, if you read my posting history)
I will do exactly that. See you in half an hour or so.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I have yet to hear of any evidence, *ever* in the history of computing, where software patents were anything more than the proverbial Turd In The Swimming Pool(tm). You CAN'T polish a turd! Plate it with gold and voila -- it's STILL a turd!
As Floaters ensure that only the most discusting little kids ever use the swimming pool, Software Patents ensure that only the biggest, most amoral lawyer infested companies thrive in the tech industry.
You are where you are at the time you are there.
The process is clearly not exhaustive, because of the amount of prior art that is typically missed. Perhaps you meant exhausting. But even so, that doesn't mean it was meritorious or worthwhile (you could waste a lifetime of work making a marshmallow car. If no-one wants marshmallow cars, you've just wasted your life) - in this case you're telling someone to do work on satisifying the patent monopoly bureaucracy in a purely artificial system*. The work effort would be better spent on developing something cool (the fact you say "find something to patent" shows how low the USA has sunk - mere discoveries("finds") aren't supposed to be patentable in the first place), profitting, and pumping some of the profit back into the campaign to abolish the patent monopoly system (which ultimately needs to go the way the institution of slavery went).
*In fact, it's now been shown that that patenting work activity SUBSTITUTES for research activity, at least in the software field. That is to say, the patent system isn't just not encouraging innovation and progress, it's actually actively discouraging it. Brilliant.
...is that MICRO$OFT extends things which are not considered "prior art"; yet, if you want to extend M$' things, you're in for serious "legal" threats.
Corporate bullying should never be tolerated in a mature nation. Also, corporation profit compromising as a motive for prosecution tells a lot about (lack of) respect for humans.
I regret to inform you that the firm which I represent has acquired a patent on "the desire of shooting people in the motherfucking head" technology, which you've included in your most recent post to Slash Dot.
The licensing fee for this technology is $100, however the penalty fee for utilizing the technology without first having acquired a license is $900, so we will be collecting $1,000 from you post haste.
As of yet there is no proof they are doing this. " off the record, anonymous contacts" mean nothing.
Now, if its proven to be happening, then ya. its time to get pissed off. ( though, no one can say this wasnt unexpected )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You guys totally missed the point of the article. It was about the burrito command.
Mmm, burrito.
Now we can see that Microsoft's deal with Novell was explicitly designed to create and solidify this impression amongst companies using Linux. Novell were well and truly bent over the table, despite the fact that they so innocently claim that they have not admitted any IP issues with Linux or the software they use.
-- jchenx
Long ago and far away, before there was OSX, when sysadmins needed to connect Macs to Windows shares, there was... DAVE. :)
Dave does WINS.
+++ATH0
... you can as well hand over your company to Microsoft and do something else. Like flipping burgers.
If you think the shares of a company going open about something like this would tank, I would like to see what would be the result for MS shares (whose price had remained pretty flat for some time now).
I think this article is baseless, but it is nice weekend speculation, conspiracy theories and all that.
But then again, if somebody would have described SCO's actions before they started their disgraceful charade, few would have believed it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Wouldn't you think that IBM, HP, and other large Linux server sellers would be a little annoyed at Microsoft shaking down their customers? The more their customers get shaken down, the less like IBM and all would get repeat business, right?
I would think that IBM could charge Microsoft with Racketeering (which is essentially what MS is doing) on behalf of their Linux customers.
Maybe the average corporation doesn't have the clout to stand up to Microsoft, but IBM does.
(Note: I'm not really a big IBM fan. I'm just pointing out that Microsoft isn't infallible).
This space left intentionally blank.
*I* won't be advocating any sort of violence but if MS is engaged in patent extortion then I'm VERY angry about it. This means MS sees me as someone to shake down rather than to make a customer. Right now, I merely dislike MS and their products. If my workplace were ever shaken down in this manner I would be an implacable enemy. If I MUST buy certain technologies then I will make a point of buying them from MS' competitors. Any FOSS solutions they don't put a shadow over will be used in preference even if MS' items are in any way "the right tool for the job".
Do you hear that Mr. Chairman? This sort of behavior doesn't make an willing customer of me. If I have anything to say about it, you won't make an unwilling customer of me either. Either make something I want to buy or hurry up and die. In no case will I be forced to enrich you further.
There is a huge problem with this.
'Write a free cross platform client and server network filesystem which runs on...'
Here is the catch.
'...OSX'
Only Apple can make OSX natively support your new standard. They probably will since it is an open standard.
'...Unix'
Unix is modular and you could plug in your solution even if vendors didn't ship it. You probably wouldn't have much trouble getting vendors to include an implementation of your protocol since it only benefits them to do so.
'...Linux'
Duh
'...Windows'
And here is the show stopper. Only Microsoft can integrate native support for your protocol in windows. Further Microsoft has complete control of the API's that would be required to hook support into windows after installation and can change them at will and break your solution's installed base.
Since Microsoft is a monopoly they don't have to play ball and interoperate with you. For the same reason, in order to have a chance of success you must interoperate with them.
In this case, blaming Microsoft for this (assuming the claims are real) is not shooting the messenger.
Microsoft refuses to reveal which code is infringing so that it could either be rewritten or (more likely) have the patent struck down due to prior art.
They're basically saying "You did something wrong but I'm not telling you what you did and you have to make up for it or else.". This is just plain extortion and should be dealt with as such.
As the old saying goes, when messenger is the message it's okay to shoot the messenger.
I would not doubt that Microsoft would try to extort its own customers in a SCO-like shake down. I'm pretty sure they paid SCO to do it as a sort of trial balloon. An insignificant piss ant like SCO first attacks giant like IBM, drags the litigation out for years and then Microsoft comes in: "See what SCO is doing to IBM? Nice little company you have here... Be a shame if Microsoft had to destroy it through litigation..."
I also don't doubt that some businesses may have capitulated. That does not, however, give any validity to their patent claims.
As an IT community we need to respond to Microsoft's aggression in several ways.
First we must start screaming for the justice department to once again prosecute them for their continued anti-trust violations. They must be held accountable for the damage they are doing through leveraging their monopolies. We must insist that they be broken apart into at least three and probably four separate companies.
Second, we must not cooperate with Microsoft in any way. Any "gifts" that they offer always turn out to have strings attached. Do not support any part of their dot-net strategy. I use "dot-net" in a loose way to cover many different things like their libraries, ASP.NET etc. The Mono project should die. Don't support it, don't use it.
Third, we should work to make Java, PHP, etc the defacto standards in delivering active server pages.
We all need to work together to make Microsoft irrelevant. It won't be quick, it won't be easy but it must be done. This company has shown again and again and again that it is not interested in coexistence.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
It is much cheaper to invest in lobbying against software patenting. Europe tells a lesson here. It is just a matter of ressources. Support the anti-softpatent movement.
Deleted
Yes, and the keyword there is suddenly. If the code is slowly, quietly and profitably (to the right folks) swapped out, it will happen.
And that's why we've got to raise a ruckus.
If you patent a mechanical device and someone infringes on your patent to sell me a knockoff, you can sue them and make them stop selling it, but you can't sue me and make me stop using the one that I bought.
Something like this happened years ago. Kodak came out with an instamatic camera, one that ejected the photo paper when a picture was taken then slowly develops. Polaroid had a patent on this and sued Kodak, Kodak lost and was required to either issue a refund for those who bought the camera or exchange the camera for a Polaroid camera. The only reason to keep the camera was as a collector's item, they wouldn't be able to use it because Kodak could not sell the photo paper and the camera was incompatible with Polaroid's paper. Something similar probably would happen here with software. While a user might decide to keep it they very well may find they can't get support for it, at least not legally.
FalconShould there be a Law?
...society just needs to revolt against the "company store" mindset. Corporations are not ever supposed to have gotten so important as to be so thoroughly entrenched into society that they become an obnoxious threat.
It is way past the time with that despicable company. There are a few out there that are the epitome of sleaze and greed, enron, exxon, haliburton/kbr, the media companies represented by the MAFIAA price fixing cartel come to mind.
And Microsoft.
I applaud the foreign nations who are actively resisting and moving away from them as much as possible. Regrettably, I know the USA will be the last to see the light on how they are dragging down and ruining the computer scene, they are well past any sort of usefulness for society. All they represent now is economic inertia and "the big skim".
For the past several years now I have expected nothing from them other than severely restrictive, over priced buggy bloatware, being pushed in the sleaziest manner possible-and I certainly haven't been disappointed in the least, they nail it every chance they get. And what is worse-you can't "vote with your wallet". You as an individual can decide to not use their stuff, but that doesn't stop some piece of all your tax money and some piece of the cost of everything you buy winding its way back into their already stuffed to the seams bursting wallets.
That is a clear sign when some corporation has just gotten too large and too intrusive and too greedy and too powerful, when you can't even avoid them when you want to.
The original icon with bill the borg was just so right-on. In fact, it's worse, imagine a corporate society that took the worst they could find from ferengi society and the borg and combined them, that's MS.
The only people I feel sorry for are the ones stuck working there in this economy, because they need a job that can pay the bills. I know there has to be a lot of folks there who know full well that "things are just not right", but are stuck for a handy alternative.
Perhaps those folks and any non-greed filled stockholders can turn that company around back to being useful and ethically straight-not just "profitable", I mean ethically straight. No one really minds honest decent companies, and no one really minds if someone makes a buck, but people do mind and do notice once companies have gone off the deep end into uncontrolled spasms of pure greed.
Yes, Balmer, someone does need to "take the food off your plate", you and your slobbering yes-men are overstuffed bullies and just plain rude and obnoxious in my opinion.
Put the damn fork down and push away from the table, haven't you gorged enough? Is society now supposed to fund your computing vomitorium so you can keep eating at the economic trough well past any semblance of normalcy and decency? Did you ever stop to think that yes, it IS possible to be civil in our civilization?
Reports of a hostage-taking in Redmond, Washington say that an unidentified man has taken several Microsoft employees hostage and has issued demands for bug fixes as well as the return of Clippy.
"I want system-modal Ok-Cancel dialogs to stop being buried under other dialogs," said the statement released by the man. "I want spyware completely removed from my computer and I want my registry to be less fragile."
"But most of all, I want Clippy back in MS Office. Clippy would have helped me write a better list of hostage-taker's demands."
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Wow. Your post shows a lot of ignorance. OS X has a kernel API for implementing new filesystems which is similar to BSDs although using opaque structures with accessor "methods" rather than direct access to structure data. It was apparently good enough for Amit Singh to implement FUSE on top of which now allows any Linux FS that can run under FUSE to be readily ported.
UNIX of course depends on what variant but at the very worst they all have some sort of NFS client so you could theoretically run a localhost-only NFS server to expose your filesystem to the kernel. Some UNIX and UNIX-clones like linux are open source so anything can be done.
And finally, we come to Windows. I know for a FACT that Windows has supported pluggable network filesystems for a long time now. What do you think Novell Client32 is? Sure, it's a GINA replacement for login but it also is a "filesystem redirector". It makes \\SERVERNAME\SHARENAME\... try the NetWare File Protocol on SERVERNAME before deferring to MS's CIFS.
And as others have mentioned, there is OpenAFS which does something similar.
I think the real problem is that most developers would rather deal with Windows remotely. Writing a CIFS server using your favorite development platform (generally some type of UNIX) is a lot nicer than writing a network redirector for several versions of windows. These days though it's probably easier because almost everything now is of the NT lineage so one versioni with maybe a few conditionals should be sufficient.
Still, it's worth pointing out that Novell has dropped support for NT4 and doesn't yet support Vista. Samba works with all of them.
I think you, sir, are the troll. Could you throw FUD or accusations of murder or attempted murder after the fact in the direction of FSF or Linux Users? By doing it now, you are claiming us of a zealotry (no, internet posts don't count, especially when someone releases steam) that has not surfaced yet when it has been shown time and again that MS is the lawbreaker and predator. Not us.
Thank you.
Go work for ANY Microsoft 'Gold Partner' and you'll see how far a company has to open it's behind to get the cheaper licensing. And oh I forgot to mention, they can always come around and change stuff or make a 'friendly request' to implement a solution using their software (and friendly request as in, if you don't we'll pull your status). This is especially true in Gold Partners that provide services to other customers (like hosting companies).
My record: I have worked so far for 5 Gold Partners in Europe and the US and they all have the same 'problem'.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I am going to call 'urban myth' on this one. If I'm wrong all of slashdot can give me virtual noogies as punishment.
1) If a publicly traded company is under real threat of lawsuit, they would have to publicly declare it or face SEC and exchange scrutiny.
2) Now suppose that they pay up quietly. There has to be a paper trail somewhere. Not openly declaring expenses on your balance sheet/share holder report once again may be a violation.
3) There would be dozens of people involved. The CIO, the CIO's staff, possibly a CEO + staff, accountants + a legal team to review any licensing agreement. Multiply by dozens of companies and you have hundreds of people involved, at minimum. No way a secret can be kept for any length of time with that many people involved. One disgruntled accountant is all you need to blow the lid off.
4) Why would they hush it up? Why not proudly proclaim that they have insured that they are in compliance and that they respect IP?
It doesn't add up. There is a much higher likelyhood that Chewbacca is from Endor.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+