Microsoft/Samsung Ink Patent Deal

An anonymous reader wrote with an article at ZDNet, discussing further implications of their patent cross-licensing initiative. With options already in place with Fuji Xerox, the company is now signed up with Samsung as well. From Samsung's perspective, it is simple: these deals ensure it can sell products using Linux without facing a suit from the Redmond-based corporation. "The notion that customers and businesses need Microsoft's legal go-ahead to run Linux has been controversial for some time, with the issue rising to the surface last November after Microsoft reached an accord with Linux vendor Novell. Novell has since taken issue with Microsoft's assertion that the deal represents an acknowledgment that Linux infringes on Microsoft patents."

Comments

I'm going to start a business

[Trigun]

Where I tell people that if they give me money, I won't sue them. What a concept!

Re:I'm going to start a business

[kebes]

I don't understand what the companies signing these deals are thinking. It seems like suicide to me. You sign the deal, and MS agrees not to sue you for awhile. But eventually you have to re-sign the deal, and MS can dictate whatever terms they want... because if you don't sign the deal, you won't be able to distribute Linux anymore?

After all, MS can argue in court that your acceptance of the prior deal was basically an admission that you wouldn't have been allowed to distribute Linux without their blessing. So as soon as you sign the deal, you are forever controlled by MS (at least with regard to Linux distribution). Why would a company purposefully agree to have one of their business plans depend upon the whims of another company?

I typically don't like conspiracy theories, but it is almost as if Microsoft is creating these deals (using shady behind-the-scenes payoffs?) in order to create a climate where they can, eventually, either crush Linux through patents, or at least make money off of every Linux sale.

Got Permission?

[netrarc]

these deals ensure it can sell products using Linux

So nice of Microsoft to give organizations permission to use Linux. Do I need to check with them before I use my electric toothbrush, as well?

Re:Got Permission?

[Sponge Bath]

Do I need to check with them before I use my electric toothbrush, as well?

That depends.
Does it run Linux?

Microsoft/Samsung Ink Patent Deal

[Bloke down the pub]

Microsoft/Samsung Ink Patent Deal

They're conniving to make us pay licensing fees for "a solution or suspension of some or other pigment that [800 pages snipped for brevity] dries leaving a visible mark on paper or some similar or different substance"?

I call shenanigans, it was invented years ago. There is, quite literally, prior art!

Novel, pioneering the fututre

[pembo13]

Thank you Novel for pioneering the future where MS doesn't even have to use or code for Linux to profit off of it. Thank you for the future where we essentially need MS's permission to run software.

Re:Novel, pioneering the fututre

[drinkypoo]

Well, do the right thing and don't buy any Novell or Samsung products and this will all blow over and go away eventually. Not buying Novell products will be easy :) but Samsung is harder as a lot of their memory and many of their hard drives go into various OEM computers. Of course, you have to avoid Microsoft products too, but if you care about this, you are already doing that.

Patent Monopoly/Cartels

[Doc Ruby]

This "patent indemnity" system is turning patent monopolies into patent cartels as protection rackets. They are all so clearly anticompetitive that they should not be allowed whatsoever.

I've been part of some negotiations to sell some new applications that include GPL software to some established service providers to be deployed in their networks. They're all freaked out about "patent indemnity": how will a little company offer patent indemnity along with the apps they deliver? When the little company tells them "we abide by the GPL, so we're safe from license problems, and we wrote the new code ourselves", that's not good enough. The big companies now love to say "what if something happens to you like how Verizon is shutting down Vonage on patents, how will we cope with losing your services?" Even though Vonage has deep pockets, and there's nothing GPL about their conflict with Verizon.

Not only are the patents monopolizing innovations, and way too broadly. The entire racket has big, risk-averse companies avoiding business with the source of most innovation and economic growth: little companies. We are heading for a total freezeup of real innovation and growth. And these bogus patents, used like a weapon, are killing it.

Re:Patent Reform

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Software patents are the worst thing to ever come out of the patents office.

Actually, you have the courts to thank for allowing software patents (at least in the U.S.).

outsmart Microsoft lawyers? Novell added to list

[Locutus]

There is over 20 years of Microsoft's lawyers striking up 'deals' with 'partners' only to find out that what the 'partner' thought the contract/license/deal/scam ment was something entirely different from what Microsoft planned all along. In 1996 I was shocked that Sun Microsystems could even THINK that Microsoft would work with Java and play the good Java citizen but their lawyers thought they trust Microsoft even then and once again, we know what the result was. And that was 1996. Here we are over 10 years later and Novell lawyers and executives are surprised that what they thought they signed is different from what Microsoft knows it signed? Somebody is REALLY flunking law school or maybe their just too 'full' of themselves to realized Microsoft is not a trustworthy partner. Either way, these people have not learned a single thing from over two decades of Microsoft double-speak. IMO.

LoB