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Microsoft Says Free Software Violates 235 Patents
prostoalex writes "Microsoft told Fortune magazine that various free software products violate at least 235 patents, and it's time to expect users of this software to pay up patent licensing royalties: 'Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith and licensing chief Horacio Gutierrez sat down with Fortune recently to map out their strategy for getting FOSS users to pay royalties. Revealing the precise figure for the first time, they state that FOSS infringes on no fewer than 235 Microsoft patents.'"
Ladies and gentlemen, we have tonight a bout between two of the worlds greatest software idealogists.
In the Blue corner weighing in at 289 pounds we have Monkey Boy Ballmer, his speciality move: The chair.
In the Red corner, weighing in at 432 pounds we have the one and only R.M.S, speciality move, being R.M.S.
Who will win this epic battle?
liqbase
Microsoft, fuck you!
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Let us know and we'll just remove them. Should have replacements in no time at all... well... at least less than 5 years from the last major release.
Doesn't this just serve to show how screwed up the idea of software patents are?
I once has 235 itches too. Remember: DON'T SCRATCH!
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
And does microsoft know how many patents from, Sun, IBM, HP, Novell and a lot of others companies IP violates?
We'll see...
Â_Â
... to pay your $699 licensing fee you coke drinking ice-tea making ... oh wait, nevermind.
This was expected sooner or later from MS and now the real fight between FOSS and MS begins.
If I'm a licensee of a software package, particularly under the GPL, since when do I pay royalties and not the licensor?
Now that will be a cold day in hell when they get that money out of me.
it's time to expect users of this software to pay up patent licensing royalties:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
free software violates 235 MS patents?
Ok just get rid of software patents. Software should've never been permitted to be patented in the first place.
Good luck. Linux and FOSS is so entrenched that it would be suicide to try anything.
All those who did not know this was going to happen, signify so here.
Is it really possible to exercise ones patent rights on a free product? Is this a joke?
Very strange...I thought April Fools day was last month.
--
we do da thizzle dance
Censorship is obscene. Patriotism is bigotry. Faith is a vice. Slashdot 2.0 sucks.
Microsoft declares full scale war, with much territory already occupied in Europe, the Americas and Asia. It's the BuGs or your favorite Linux.
Of course, it was fairly obvious that free software would infridge on some MS patents: there's so much code from so many people, including people who have no clue what they're doing (don't get me wrong, also a lot from totally brilliant people!), and I doubt maintainers check the source at every checkin to be sure no patent is being messed with...
However, I always saw it as a way for Microsoft to loosen its illegal monopoly status: by letting free software use some of its patents, its leveling the playing field.
And now they screwed it up. Countdown before more anti-thrust lawsuits start, 5...4...3...2....
Tell Mr. Balmer he is welcome to a portion of the $699 Linux IP license I paid SCO. I hear they sold lots and lots of them.
My rights don't need management.
Software patents are nonsensical. MS is worried people will flee their authoritarian software tyranny, and switch to Linux. Their dubious patent threats will not stop people from seeking freedom.
Just like how, on opposite day, when Ford violates a patent that GM holds, the users of Ford cars pay GM (Ford does not have to pay). In other words, prior case law supports going after the open source authors. Prior case law does not support going after the open source users.
Here's what the interview should have been:
Microsoft: It's a fact that Linux and free software infringe hundreds of our patents.
Journalist: Which ones?
Microsoft: Well, the kernel violates 60, the GUI violates...
Journalist (interrupting): which 60? Where is the list?
Microsoft: I'm not prepared to disclose that at this time.
Journalist: Well this is a big fucking waste of my time, isn't it?
Journalist: I went through this same dance with Darl McBride. Call me when you have something to say, bye
Start litigating Microsoft, you're not working in the shareholder's favor by sitting idle and letting these blatant IP violations go unpunished.
I am sure they are right that a Linux distribution violates at least that many patents from microsoft. The better question is how many of those patent are worth the paper they're printed on. With so many computer companies like Microsoft and IBM patenting every trivialities under the sun, it's near impossible to NOT violate one of their patents. The good news: the supreme just had a ruling that's gonna make it a lot harder for MS to win a patent fight. The bad news: it's gonna take a lot of time and money to go through that battle, and the open source community is going to have to endure a lot of FUD during that time. The one mitigating factor: linux is going through a similar situation right now thanks to SCO, and so open source is now somewhat familiar with the process.
If you have evidence, show it. If it's infringing, it'll be removed. But you don't want to. You want to spread FUD to generate $$$.
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
42 !!
The Supreme Court recently ruled that the courts don't get to pretend that patents on obvious things are valid. It is unlikely that /any/ of these 235 patents will hold up in court. Microsoft is just using them to create FUD; they know they won't get any judgements.
This shows how fearful Microsoft is really starting to get paranoid about the linux desktop revolution. 2007 is *the* year, I don't care what anyone else thinks--I know this to be true because this is the first year I've actually got friends to honestly convert over to free software/OSS software. And they're even talking shit about MS now that they've seen the light! With all the linux populatization going on these days--microsoft is shaking in its boots... The days are quickly approaching when microsoft is bound to become an even more dreary version of GM. A question for those more knowledgeable than me on this subject--was microsoft not behind the whole SCO debacle? Perhaps they've now taken their proxy war public. They're pathetic.
...can see this, because I'm doing it as hard as I can: mlm
And when the software idea land grab completely owns every possible idea, the laws will be changed like copyrights to extend length of ownership 100, 200, 500, 1000 years after the author's death.
Support your Innovator!
A cajón is a big box (the aumentative of caja). A cojón is a testicle. Maybe that's the word you were looking for?
that most of these 'patents' that MS owns are general in scope and probably would make all other OS's infringing on their patents anyway, not just free software. I believe it's time to work on making process/software patents unacceptable, especially when they are so broad that no other company could work in the same space. Patents on things like "integrating email client functionality into office apps" is just too broad, and as such can only serve to hamper innovation and business in general.
When MS can claim to have 235 patents that are violated by F/OSS we need to look closely at why they have that many that can be infringed upon by people so easily... perhaps they are not unobvious at all or too broadly stated to be of use other than to be an offensive tool to use against competitors.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Let's just look at Microsoft's code and compare that to the opensource code.
Oh... Right.
Seriously, Microsoft's patent portfolio is not that small. I really doubt that Free Software applications only infringe 235 of it's patents. And Microsoft also infringes patents owned my Free Software companies and advocates. What else is new? The patent system is flawed and everyone know it - they just pretend not to.
How do we know if M$ violates the GPL? There code is closed so we can't tell....I smell a rat!
It's about time this software patent crap was given a proper workout. Let's hope MS handles its global invasion with the same finesse as G.W. Bush. Let's see: a) Evil US based company, b) US has recently burned its bridges around the world c) "IP" law is a drain on most countries, apart from the US. d) A significant portion of computers run free software.
The most likely result seems to be the rest of the world ditching software patents (or paying them lip service) while the US chokes on its own vomit. The reason being the US's gag reflex (democracy) has been disabled.
Hax-fu?
be specific microsoft, is this "so-called" infringement in the Linux kernel? or some other piece of software that make up the average GNU/Linux disto...
so far it seems like a generalization or FUD spewing, unless specific infringement is shown & proved i call it FUD...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
MS tested the waters with SCO, saw that copyright attacks failed now they are using frivilous patents, which we predicted years ago.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
sue me
CfkRAp1041vYQVbFY1aIwA== RV/hBCLKKcSTP5UFK3kqsg==
So if free software voilates patents, Microsoft has to ask Windows users to pay for using free software on their OS too.
I'm happy to see people's favourite free messenger or browser becoming non-free. I mean; it will be easier for Microsoft to monitor software usage on Windows machines; they must be charged first.
If they succeed, people will become aware of the sickness that is Microsoft.
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
the user has to pay. Because a $50 license for 1,000,000 users is worth more than a company's $20,000,000 settlement. Bulling of the user, as far as I can tell. The old monopoly bug got them again pretty badly.
Give Kashyyyk back to the Wookies
I think that the discovery period should reveal that. REMEBER DON'T SCRATCH!
It seems that this is going to be the final "slow bleed" for Microsoft. People aren't buying Vista (in fact, Dell is reoffering XP on systems just to shut up annoyed users). But hey - they have the lawsuits, and they'll be more than happy to pull a SCO and threaten to sue the pants off of people who don't pay off their protection racket.
Odds are, they'll be smarter about it than SCO - rather then go right for IBM (with tons of dollars to pay lawyers), they'll make "deals" with places like Novell and others so insure that PC tax continues no matter whom the likes of Dell and Gateway and others finally go through.
The sad thing is, there still isn't a great competitor to Windows. Linux is nice and Ubuntu and other distros have come far, but it seems they lack that final step (like "How do I change my screen resolution?" or other bits that only techies would know). OS X is my preferred OS as a security analyst, but it only runs on one system (I know - Apple sells hardware, blah, blah, blah, but damn - if they make Leopard for *all* X86 systems, they might take over the desktops - I've met plenty of CIO's who want that).
Either way, Microsoft's plan is to continue to be the "gasoline" of computers: they don't make the computers, but they get paid for every one that's made. Through their threats and strategic lawsuits/threatening of lawsuit, they'll ensure their money for a long time to come.
Unless, of course, there's enough people who stand up and say "No" and pool together *their* money to help companies fight back....
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
SCO failed with their patent suit so this is just the next round. Watch for tactics like SCO's where they refused to specify what was infringing.
I don't care how big of a chair Ballmar rests his fat-ass on...this is ridiculous. What's next? "Open Office mentions and can save in the .doc file, an Excluse Extension (tm) of the Microsoft Extension Registration (tm) program."
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
Confused and angry, The Redmond Monster makes it way to the Town and the Bazaar, lurking in the shadows, waiting to attack...
/me thinks that this will be The Great Patent War and, hopefully, the beginning of the end of software patents and The Redmond Monster.
I wonder how many patents IBM and allies will fire at the Monster.
...infringment on 1) use of numbers 2) use of words, punctuation, sentences... 3) use of algebra sum(A1:A22) 4) excessive problems with operating systems and applications -- I can prove my mental condition is much worse having used MS products and so on...
And our lawyers will work pro bono because so many of them hate MS too.
Help end the use of Sigs. Tomorrow
Them's fighting words.
I am anarch of all I survey.
Of course, I've been saying to people for almost 20 years now that software patents are a bad idea.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
...that you're talking to Microsoft, as open source software is the intellectual property of its authors, and they have every right to license it to others to use as they wish.
On the other hand, Microsoft has a long history of appropriating others' ideas.
Whether or not you agree with the idea of limiting intellectual property rights, open source advocates aren't the ones pushing the appropriation of others' intellectual property, here.
Kythe
If it is, it's really poor timing, given the recent rulings on software patents.
The line has been drawn in the sand - Microsoft delenda est!
at least some of those patents are general ideas like right-click or allowing the user to access the desktop using a username/password pair. i am against the patenting of ideas. only implementations of ideas should be allowed patents. but then software owners would have to publish code to at least the patent office and then the (wonderful and efficient) patent office would have to have reviews who can evaluate the code. i have to agree with "fsck you, M$!" this whole patent thing goes with my thoughts on Microvell. M$ wants us to think (because they firmly believe) they are the alpha and omega of computing. they evented software. any software vendor (free or otherwise) who does not partner with them and suckle from M$'s teat is in obvious violation of the idea(R) they are life(c) itself. I hope their board take a hard look at SCO's stock performance before moving on.
Power to the Penguin!
Pushed M$ into a corner and they get the itch to stand up and to what they were internally talking about for years and collecting nonsense patents up to the wazoo...
Maybe another SCO show coming?
IOW, we've learned from the SCO lawsuit how to handle these situations. Make a big stink in the press, share as few of the details as possible, and ride the wave of FUD to the promised land.
Because this stance worked sooooo well for SCO...
Congrats, Linux.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
- Mohandas K. Gandhi
We've been joking about world domination and the evil empire for years here. But despite the kidding around, despite our biases, we've never been motivated to go all-out. We can ruin Microsoft. In the terrain of the Internet we hold much of the high ground - the servers, as well as not a few firewall-routers and other essential equipment. Microsoft for years has had no qualms about breaking competitors' functionality. We can cripple Microsoft's functionality in a wide variety of real-time environments - and stay a hair's breath within the law just as they've (almost) done.
Building stuff that can replace Microsoft's products is one thing - honest competition really. But we've never stooped to Microsoft's own favored methods of dishonest competition. Is Redmond really stupid enough to motivate us to take that step?
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
...why in the hell have they been prattling on and on about the infringements and NOT telling us with specificity what's infringing?
For that matter, what specific patents are these applications you're alluding to being infringed in what applications?
You HAVE TO do that, or if you don't pony up an infringement, you're guilty of trade libel.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
SCO's tried this, and it hasn't worked out too well for them. Go for it, if you want. But the history of those who can't learn from mistakes isn't a very good one.
Kythe
Last paragraph
"
If push comes to shove, would Microsoft sue its customers for royalties, the way the record industry has?
"That's not a bridge we've crossed," says CEO Ballmer, "and not a bridge I want to cross today on the phone with you."
"
Tech company sue it's own customers?
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
the tighter they hold on, the more that will slip free.
> get rid of software patents
So is it finally time to rise up and tear down the gov't patent office? Man, I've been waiting ages for a good 'ol revolution like this.
FTA:
"Microsoft counters that it is a matter of principle. "We live in a world where we honor, and support the honoring of, intellectual property," says Ballmer in an interview. FOSS patrons are going to have to "play by the same rules as the rest of the business," he insists. "What's fair is fair."
Since when? Of all the corporations that have trampled small businesses IP rights Microsoft have to be the biggest shower of shits in existence. Most of their product range is based on other people's ideas and much of that, e.g. IE was ripped from small business with minimal reward to the innovator.
Basically, name them. Yep, name the infringements. Don't hide behind lawyers and withhold information, BE SPECIFIC!! Many of the IP claims that Microsoft put forward to the EU were minor extensions to existing Open Source software and are no "innovative" enough to justify the high fees requested, equivalent to making an add on to a car and claiming IP over the entire car. If accidental infringment has occured then it's reasonable to allow the FOSS authors the chance to remedy the situation by rewriting code but it's also reasonable to give them access to the information required to perform the task.
It's a constant embarrassment to me that the toadying twat that runs my country saw fit to give a convicted monopolist and proven unfair player like Gates a knighthood and until Microsoft starts behaving in a reasonable and honest manner Gates, Ballmer and Co. can stick their royalties up their arses where their heads have been for the last twenty years.
To reiterate, STATE YOUR CLAIMS IN FULL. Stop hiding behind misinformation, partial information and the pathetic, sad bullshit that has for so long been a trademark for Microsoft business practice.
There, I feel a bit better now.
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
It's the Global Thermopatentular War! Let the shooting begin!
I'm a big fan of MAD, so we shall see how Microsoft, IBM and other big companies will mutually destroy themselves with patent lawsuits.
MS violates a goodly portion of the Open Innovation Network patent pool. Sue Linux or a batch of participating FOSS projects and get a goodly portion of their server and other products shut down but good. They flatly don't want to do this. In all honesty they really don't want to be doing this sabre rattling either, but they're being stupid because Vista's NOT doing well for them and costing them dearly.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
...that Vista is surpassing all sales expectations?
This doesn't sound like the words of a company that thinks it's doing really well.
Kythe
First, free here means free as in freedom, not free as in beer. Many companies have made money from "free software" (e.g., Red Hat), and it's considered perfectly kosher to do so provided you keep to the terms of the licenses.
Second, patents apply to almost all use, not just to things that are bought and sold - you can't undercut someone else's patents by giving away their inventions for free.
Third, every company that uses free software (and who doesn't?) does so presumably for commercial advantage.
Maybe, because Apple and MS have made special a deal. MS protected Apple at the time of its near demise. Apple's OS X is partly based on public support with the incorporation of software that was open source, so the PR in crying foul to FOSS (like MS just did,) would be negative to their unprecedented move to Unix back in 2000. On that last point, since I remember the Apple ads promoting their new *UNIX* roots, Apple didn't get sued on similar grounds by Sun --do they pay SUN? I thought mentioning UNIX when you use a BSD release, instead of Solaris, would have some kind of "lie label" attached. To our dismay, "Linux" was expressly ignored in their ads for OS X, btw.
Anyway, when a company flat out comes for patent infringement claims on OpenOffice, which has been out for years, and uncontested by other companies, you know there's a claim to be BS'ed somewhere. It's not like they had foresight to let the SCO thing die down, and already know they were going to do the same patent-suits in 2007. Is it?
Microsoft starts on the offensive with patents, and suddenly they get slammed with patent suits from everyone and their brother. FOSS has lots of supporter with huge patent portfolios, I'd be willing to bet Microsoft infringes on hundreds collectively. Microsoft is either blowing steam or has finally gone stupid. Now since Microsoft does not hire morons in their legal department, they know that this is an uphill battle at best. If big supporters like IBM, Red Hat, and HP fire back then could ruin Microsoft.
If Microsoft put as much energy into making a good operating system as they did in planning how to "defeat" open source, they might have a halfway decent product. Sadly, they keep dicking around with crappy models and outdated notions. If M$ released a product which was as interoperable as Linux, as customizable as Linux, as modular as Linux, and as user-supportive as Linux, there would be no pressing need for Linux. Imagine if M$ sold Windows in boxes at a retail store for one base price (for individuals and families,) where you could install updates/optimizations/customizations/etc without having to buy a new OS to get said features. M$ would indeed make more money selling a license in this manner due to sheer popularity. (For comparison, see http://kerneltrap.org/node/8197 where Linus talks of all the new architectures and stacks available on 2.6.22-RC1) Imagine if users of M$ products could get new, optimized stacks for free. Would that not make you love Windows? Sadly, M$ is committed to charging more and providing less. That's why we have Linux.
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
Not that it's at all unexpected, coming from Fortune--a bastion of support for giant corporations--but man, is that article biased. I love the photos on the right: A picture of Steve Ballmer, wearing a suit, looking harmless, and captioned "The patent owner", followed by a picture of Richard Stallman, looking like an Al Qaeda member, captioned "The patent hater". Maybe this is just a coincidence but I like how they refer to RMS specifically as "Richard Matthew Stallman," which makes him sound like a presidential assassin or serial killer. Like there's another Richard Stallman we might get him confused with if they didn't use his middle name? :)
Later the article manages to imply that there's only one license that all FOSS projects use. You get three guesses which license it is, and the first two don't count.
Does anyone know where we can find out the 235 patents that MS claims are infringed? TFA didn't give any examples.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Of course they never will show us the code, that would allow us to rewright any patent infringing parts of the code and of course would stop Microsoft from attempting to make money off of other people code by attacking un-knowledgeable users and businesses.
This is what happens when the front guy (SCO in this caes) fails, and the real boss (Microsoft) must step up and handle things him/herself.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
- How many GPL and other licensing violations are there in MS software?
- How many patent violations are there within MS software, particularly those patents owned by OSS contributors?
I'm sure there are violations, and when we've been made aware of the issue, many distributions go out of their way to correct the issue. But as long as we're making accusations, lets get everything out in the open.P.S. Pot, the kettle is on line 2, seems to be upset about some "black" comment you made.
Normally companies break out the patent portfolio for a last minute cash-dash as they run down the gurgler.
Perhaps there is a bright side to this.
I've been using Microsoft products since the late 70's. I started out loving them, then I had mixed feelings during their ruthless and illegal business practices period, and have since settled into an ambivalent frame of mind. If this goes forward, I will aggressively work to switch all my resources away from MS solutions, relegating all Microsoft products to compatibility testing in the lab. I hope they're not so stupid to push people like me over the edge.
"First, they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." Mahatma Gandhi
Microsoft wants to take on FOSS? Oh, this oughta be hilarious. This is going to make the SCO debacle look like "Great Moments in Brain Surgery."
Gifts for Geeks
nuf sed
Table-ized A.I.
IBM announces to that they believe Microsoft is in violation of several thousand of their patents, and it is time for them [Microsoft] to pay up.
Listen, if MS wants to wind up in an eternal battle with the only company in the US that could probably sue their asses under the table, then by all means, please sue FOSS projects. People may not want to think IBM is some great savior of FOSS, but they are the closest thing to a large money source the movement is going to have. They also have a good deal to lose since they have sort of positioned themselves into this position. We have already seen that Novell doesn't want to have to defend FOSS. (Why do you think they signed that deal with MS?) Red Hat does not have the money to do it. HP has too much to lose since their business is still largely dependent on Windows based PCs. This really leaves you with one company, IBM.
I believe Microsoft has spread words like this before, and it seems to be a common thing whenever they feel they are losing some degree of steam. (After all, I think we are at the consensus that Vista is a flop, well until they officially force computer manufacturers to switch to Vista full-time, sometime around EOY.) The idea of the software industry and software patents has been the idea of a mutual peace. The industry will probably destroy itself if suits started flying. I also find this odd after the recent SCOTUS ruling in KSR v. Teleflex, which should make patents infinitely easier to overturn on obviousness issues, even some of those old flimsy software ones.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
Let's say patented software is valid.
What would be a practical way for me, as a programmer, to check if the code I imagined/designed to solve a certain specific task is in fact violating a patent by Micro$oft or any other company?
Doesn't that make software patents unforceable?
I mean, there's only so many ways of adding numbers in a program...
FTA: "The Redmond behemoth asserts that one reason free software is of such high quality is that it violates more than 200 of Microsoft's patents." Well this proves that Microsoft is lying as their software is certainly not high quality.
Maybe. But how much bogus drivel laughingly called "patent" are we talking about here? Such as, from the article:
The Linux graphical user interfaces - essentially, the way design elements like menus and toolbars are set up - run afoul of another 65, he claims.
How much you wanna bet those include attempts to patent things such as double-clicking a folder to display a directory?
Funny how they're being coy about the patents (shades of SCO). They've seen just how fast the GNU/Linux/(everybody-else-there-are-too-many-to-na me) communities move when faced with similar problems. How long did it take the kernel developers to dump the proprietary software management system (who got snotty) and write their own? A week?
But maybe it is time. The FOSS community has been piling up examples of prior art to beat sixty. And now there are enough corporate patrons of Linux (et al) to make it worth their while to fire back (as in how many patents has MS violated and shall we start counting them now?).
Heh. And how long ago was it that Microsoft was claiming that they would only use their software patents defensively, in case another company sued them?
I hope every major vendor in the business nails them for every patent they violate.
Come on Microsoft, don't pull a SCO. If you think there's a problem, point it out so we can fix it. Tell us what patents, exactly, are infringed and what software, exactly, is infringing.
Sure, it's a bit risky. Any patents you point out are going to be put under a microscope and the collective knowledge of a very large and lore-rich community will be brought to bear in an exhaustive search for prior art, but if you really think the patents are truly valuable, novel inventions, and that you are really being damaged by their infringement, tell us so we can find a way to avoid infringing.
If we can't find prior art, and can't find a way to show that the software isn't actually infringing, and can't find a FOSS-friendly company to use its patent portfolio to negotiate a deal, then we'll get busy finding a way to change the software so it doesn't infringe. Actually, given the nature of the community, we'll probably change the software so it doesn't infringe even if we can address the issue another way. We don't like software patents, but we feel quite strongly about making sure that our software is free from any legal encumbrance. Tell us what the problem is and we'll try to fix it.
But, please, the biggest software company in the world should have at least a *little* dignity. Don't pull a SCO.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Why don't they come out and say what is infringing? Probably because that number is bullshit.
...yup: that world is Microsoft-land, where only MS owns intellectual property, and everyone else are MS's intellectual serfs.
... so prepare yourself to kick back and watch the MS share-price tumble. Personally, I'll be looking on and laughing, with a can of beer in my hand.
I wonder how many patents MS infringe? Not directly relevant, but it means some immunity it companies like IBM are being infringed by MS.
I love this quote:
"We live in a world where we honor, and support the honoring of, intellectual property,"
As a Free-Software user I don't feel intimidated by this - nor would I if I were using Free Software in my business. I view this as a sign of desperation by MS, in fact the article even says as much:
"And as a mature company facing unfavorable market trends and fearsome competitors like Google"
This is part of Microsoft's new Vista campaign for 2007 and 2008:
"If you can't innovate... LITIGATE!"
I RTFA, and I don't see an itemized list of the FOSS packages which they claim infringe, and the relevant patent numbers that are apparently infringed-upon. Until I see an itemized list, I can't properly audit my collection of FOSS to replace or rewrite those referenced packages.
Until I see an itemized list of FOSS packages and relevant patent numbers, this is all just smoke.
It's impossible to write any software these days without infringing on some patent. While Microsoft can probably afford to license a good number of patents, I wonder how many thousands of software patents Microsoft's products infringe on. Seems to me like this is pandora's box here. The FOSS community won't take this lying down. Although we lack money and resources, we are willing to make a fuss. Once a fuss starts to be made, I wonder how long it will be before we get 100 Eolas's suing Microsoft? I think having Microsoft go after infringers in a big way will be great. It will finally draw attention to the real issues of the absurdity of most software patents. Hopefully along the way we'll get most of them dismissed. It will be long and costly, though. I don't think Microsoft thinks they can ultimately win at the patent infringement idea, but if they can just make RedHat bleed long enough, they will accomplished their goals. The wild card in the mix is IBM, though. IBM holds more patents than any other entity in the world. Microsoft has likely licensed many of them. But IBM is also committed to the Linux (despite AIX), and I wonder if they will use their patents in defense of Linux or not. They are a big, evil company, true. Will they help us or hurt us?
Anyway, Microsoft's true colors are coming out. They don't feel they can compete on merits alone any longer. So I'm concerned, but still hopeful.
(entering article text)
(selecting "FUD --> English")
(clicking "Translate" button)
Huh. It came back...
"Vista's tanking."
Lawsuit Invokes DMCA to Force DRM Adoption http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/11/12 48219
Wouldn't it be nice if some sensible judge would knock these nonsensical suits back to the Stone Age, or at least throw them out and fine the perps a few hundred million for filing frivolous lawsuits?
Perhaps instead of trying to fight each claim one-by-one, maybe we could look for ways that MS abuses the anti-trust judgements placed against it, and as part of a settlement, have it promise to leave open-source alone.
Table-ized A.I.
I love the way Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith refers to selling these patent licenses as a "bridge to the FOSS community".
To all those Fortune 500 companies that have bought patent licenses from Microsoft.. I have a bridge you might like to buy.
Wait until your share holders find out that you've been paying Microsoft millions for something that is not only unnecessary, but is outright fraud on Microsoft's part.
I bet the patent license doesn't even list the products that supposedly infringe on these patents.
Is it a fact of nature that billion dollar companies are always run by idiots?
How we know is more important than what we know.
The number one distortion that the interests holding patents have foisted on the public debate is that being granted a patent constitutes an iron-clad certification of entitlement and enforcability. What a patent actually grants, so far as I can figure it out (any country where the lawyers alone are privileged with such insight falls short of functional democracy), is the right to impose litigation on parties engaged in purported infringements.
Besides, an infringement is not against a patent itself, but against the claims put forward in the patent, each of which can be struck down separately. It's almost a certainty that if these Microsoft patents were put through a concerted legal challenge, hundreds or thousands of claims contained within these patents would be struck down, through at great cost to the litigated parties.
Why didn't Microsoft pursue these patents years ago? Because the threat was worth more than the reality, and they might only get one chance to swing the mighty hammer with maximum FUD. I'd have to guess that Apache and Open Office are presently illuminated with countless red dots to the chest and groin. Prior art in the areas of virtual memory and file systems greatly favours BSD over Microsoft. I figure MS will have far better chance of success on technologies where their own patents were filed during the technology's primary gestation, not that their FUD at the outset will bother conceding this.
If a patent oriented Groklaw emerges from this challenge, the world might yet become a better place.
...and with the supreme court stuffed with corporate whore-bags, i wonder which way a case like this would fall.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Microsoft now knows through research that a large portion of the enterprise market is holding off on switching to "Linux" because they are afraid that a company will come after them for license fees unexpectedly (SCO for example). Mainly CEOs and CTOs who don't get it.
By having an article like this in Fortune, Microsoft is using FUD to keep that market group too nervous to make the switch. Even if it's only 10% (or less), it's still a very cheap way for them to retain their current customer base.
None of this will hold up in court (and Microsoft knows it wont), but it makes good business sense to keep people thinking that they need to be paying you because the alternative is illeagle.
I wouldn't loose any sleep over it. Free Software is something that is too big to die now. We have delt with software pattents before (LZW). If there is a legitimate pattent we'll either find prior art or we'll replace it with something that hasn't been patented (zlib) and in the process probablly come up with something better anyway.
I own the patent for the Mathematical algorithm of SillyLawSuits! I'll see you in court.
So Microsoft played hardball behind the scenes and threatened to kill the family of the old Novell CEO. The new CEO agrees to all of the Microsoft maneuvers. The "Linux front" now in place, Microsoft pulls off the mask and picks up the BF Patent Gun and tells all the Linux shopkeepers to pay up.
The Linux shopkeepers have no guns because Microsoft subverted the patent system and made it impossible for the little guy to get any patents.
Of course no one will pay until Microsoft makes an example of a few little guys.
When the little guys call in the samurai, well, that will make it interesting.
Samurai #1 knows where Vista was stolen from.
Samurai #2 knows where many Office 2007 features were stolen from.
Samurai #3 knows where much of Visual Studio and "Expressions" was stolen from.
Samurai #4 knows where much of "Silverlight" was stolen from.
.
.
.
All this is to say that the mafia is not without weaknesses. Any business that is based on theft (and other crimes), such as Microsoft's software mafia, has skeletons in the closet that will break them.
We shall see how the movie goes.
I'd be curious to actually see those claimed 235 "patent violations". This smells just like another SCO-like attempt to me. Fortunately the judges will be probably clever enough to spot it. Good luck, Microsoft...
Software is patentable in the US. But not in Europe for example. And fees for patent violation cannot be claimed there.
That will at least limit the action of Microsoft.
but if you go read it, you'll see how.
Ahh, who am I kiddin'? Here's the skinny:
Microsoft has been approaching Fortune 500's for years now and offering to sell "patent licenses" on any of the software that the companies might be using without one. Basically, it's extortion. "We think you might be running software which utilizes our patented technology without a license, but don't worry, we're not going to sue you, so long as you buy this license from us."
That takes care of all the big fish.. last year they went after the little fish too, by approaching Novell and making that patent deal you might have heard of. When Redhat crumbles (assuming they haven't already) we'll all be paying a Microsoft tax.
How we know is more important than what we know.
This assumes those patents are even valid. Patents have to be non-obvious and if the developers merely implemented this stuff on their own it stands to reason that it's not an obvious invention. Not that "non-obvious" inventions can't be discovered more than once, but the vast, VAST majority of software development IS obvious, if not necessarily easy, and most of the stuff that is hard or non-obvious is based on math that is in the public domain.
At any rate, this is one of the biggest reasons Microsoft hasn't challenged those patents. They're afraid of losing. Imagine what it would mean: that all that time and money was a waste of time, but more, it would undermine the whole concept of software patentability.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
I'd say this signals end of ignoring and laughing. Them's fighting words.
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
There are a lot of comments saying Microsoft should tell us what's infringing otherwise they're just creating FUD. Well yes, they are creating FUD but what a lot of people don't seem to understand is that FUD WILL impact OSS adoption in the business environment.
They don't need to prove anything. They just have to scare enough people away to make sure Windows is the OS of choice.
A hundred and twenty characters ought to be enough for anyone...
I am not paying for licenses for patents covering "innovations" such as:
* Long filenames
* Double click
* Toolbars (ok, you name them ribbons, they are the SAME FUCKING THING)
I run Linux, I punted Windows from 95% of the machines at the office, and our servers run Linux. Why? Because I personally got fed up with your anti-customer policies and your business practices. Since Adobe does not appear to be releasing the creative suite for Linux any time soon, we'll be getting Macs to replace the remaining Windows PCs. Everything else we need for most tasks will run just fine under wine.
Have a nice day.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
All I have to say to Microsoft is;...
Bring it! Bring it bastards! You are probably the biggest bastards of copyright law mangling.
This is designed specifically to first force anyone developing software for free under the cover of a corporation to spend gobs of corporate cash defending themselves against frivolous lawsuits in the hopes that they drop any and all free projects and stop helping the Linux camps.
Secondly, those of us beginning to embrace Linux (especially Ubuntu), doing so on a private level; and NOT paying Micro$oft for a Vista license will be threatened in much the same fashion as the RIAA is going after people with frivolous suits. This all under the pretense of "Guilty Until Proven Innocent". So a lot of people will be ponying up license fees to Microsoft for an OS that they will not use.
You should also know that there will be very few lawyers willing to defend individual clients against Microsoft because they know that it will be tied up in courts for years and they won't be able to charge the client anything in reality for billable hours because most people don't have it in the first place. So many will be forced into signing agreements with Microsoft and paying them large sums of money to avoid the litigation.
I know where this is going people. This smells and it smells bad if it turns out to be true.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
Now the question is what are we (the FOSS community) going to do about it?
What about Europe and all other nice countries that don't apply an idea of patent as regard software? May this lead to a scenario like this: US citizens will face troubles for using free software while the rest of us will just keep going ahead, get scared of Microsoft and improve free software much more (as the US market for FOSS will collapse and developers will have to work outside of US patent system?). US may have a point in defending Microsoft Co. as it is a (strong ) American asset, but there's no way the rest of the world is gonna be willing to suddenly import US patent system just to become a slave of Microsoft patent portfolio.
Yet more scaremongering from Ballmer's boys.
... and this ladies and gentlemen is why this will not come to court because M$ never want to talk about their code or clarify their claims. This is merely saber rattling for their current racket of frightening more spineless corporations into signing patent covenants.
SHOW US THE CODE OR STFU.
I'm looking forwards to the day when someone in the FOSS community takes M$ to court for deformation, and wins, and subsequently all these corps that signed patent covenants come knocking on their door with lawyers demanding their money back.
How many of the 235 are actually valid? I'd suspect none of them.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Yup... M$FT is drawing their guns and making the preemptive strike they have been prepping for for about 8 years.
I expect this is going to be the live free or die battle of the life of linux. SCO was just a probe that m$ft sent out to learn how fossers will fight, now they have collected their data, prepared their tools, set the political agenda and paid off some bribes here and there...
and now they strike...
I certainly hope fossers win... this could be a great PR for getting the post feisty Ubuntu's on the laptops of grandparents and bimbos... which is actually very important.
Anyway... yeah, I suspect that the fight will be long and unpleasant. It's not going to be easy... they had too much of a learning experience with their fools mate game with the SCO pawn. I think fossers can win though...
but yeah. no quarter asked, none given.
Fuck You Mr. Gates. And your fucking ballmer chimp too.
Very deniable of course, since Microsoft was only being oh-so careful with other peoples' "Intellectual Property". Nevermind that Microsoft has a long history of being sued for blithely copying other people's code.
Now the SCO scam really lost altitude ever since judge Kimball ruled that SCO had been able to show "no competent evidence" for copyright infringement, and magistrate judge Wells ruled that, no, SCO cannot bring to trial allegations for which they cannot show specific lines of allegedly infringing Linux code. That case is now really a question of how much time and money Flexner Boies and Schiller are willing to spend on a lost cause (their fees have been capped a long time ago in a sudden display of far-sightedness on part of SCO).
So does Microsoft do now? Ah yes ... they have been stocking up on patents, of which they seem to have a couple of hundred that were "triggered". By Linux (remember Microsoft's XOR patent and their "not is" patent? With that calibre of patents you can quickly amass a portfolio.)
Now I think we can all agree that the patents that Microsoft is waving are anything but good-faith results of hard work that they would like to protect. On the contrary ... they even refuse to disclose what patents are allegedly infringed in order to get a maximum "chilling effect". They clearly don't want revenue ... they just want to kill Linux. Not a "good faith" manouver, but who cares? It's "Legal", so they will be able to win in court and then use that to get a national crackdown on all Linux distributions that aren't under the umbrella of firms that they have patent license agreements with.
And quite regardless of what folk here on Slashdot seem to think ... it doesn't matter what those patents say and whether they can be upheld on appeal. Appeal of patents takes a looong time (years), and in the mean time there are all those nice shiny letters stating "patent awarded", and they happen to have value. Especially when it comes to demanding injunctions to stop the spread of Linux. Microsoft can now argue that it looses money and market-share to free-as-in-beer and free-as-in-speech Linux because Linux competes with their commercial offerings.
And it only takes one single patent (out of 235) to be found "infringed" by Linux to make whoever distributes, sells, or uses Linux liable for license fees. License fees which only corporate editions of Linux can pay, but free-as-in-beer distros cannot. Therefore their distribution has to be stopped by way of injunctive relief. And this is precisely what Microsoft wants ... Linux out of the "free as in speech" domain because of the patent infringements, and only corporate opponents which it can cut to shreds with time-honoured tactics. And no more "free as in beer" distributions for the same reason.
The long and the short of it seems to be that Linux is dead in all countries that allow US style software patents.
Too bad ... it has been nice knowing you Linux. We will miss you.
All those who wish to continue to work on and enjoy free-as-in-beer Linux: buy a one-way ticket to a European country of your choice (well ... perhaps better buy an open return in case the EU decides to adopt US-style software patents after all).
everyone else.
There is a human characteristic about software that make its not patentable.
MS has teamed up with CMU on a project that distorts the origins of computation and gives credit to the machine rather than the humans who have made the computer all that it is. Do a google on "Computational Thinking".
At any rate the human characteristic is that if the natural ability to apply Abstraction Physics and as such software is really not of patentable nature.
All the software patent law suits are fraudlent. It s really rather ignorant due to the fact that copyright is more appropriate and terms are longer. Patents on the other hand try and be what copyright doesn't cover, and that is broad claims.
I'm glad to see this happen. I think it's time you people pay up for your use of Microsoft's innovative code. Pay up and quit riding their coat tails. I think it's a shame that MS does all the work and Linux just grabs their patented code. For Shame...
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
Microsoft is making disparaging statements about another project, without any specificity. They do this to cast fear, uncertainty, and doubt on the competitive offerings of other vendors.
I think the corporate members of the community should take the proactive step of making Microsoft put up or shut up. IBM, HP, and Oracle should step up and do it.
Ok, let me guess. Darl Ballmer is going to start filing lawsuits against users of all sorts of FOSS software, claiming they violate 235 of Microsoft's patents. When it gets to court, the world FOSS community will bring reams and reams of proof that these patents should be dissolved due to prior art or other reasons. Microsoft will bring an index card full of proof that these are innovative technologies that Microsoft invented. The case will go through all sorts of legal wrangling the likes of which can be found in Charles Dickens' classic, Bleak House, and 100 years from now, the case will simply evaporate because Microsoft won't exist anymore.
In case you haven't heard of it, Bleak House is the story of a rich dude who dies and leaves behind a will that has some kind of legal problems in it. The case goes to trial and lasts two whole generations. In the end, the only ones who profit from the whole darn thing are the lawyers. The law is concerned only with the law.
M$ are a joke and this is their latest attempt at a sitcom.
FOSS would probably be better off without the crud parts that are related to MS..if they even are. Kubuntu has 2X the necessary components to make it 4X times better than the best MS can offer in a fantasy scenario.
I guess now MS comes out from behind it's proxy and is trying to continue this ridiculous losing battle openly.
MS has been ruled to be a monopoly that illegally used it's power to stifle competition. And that ruling came based on Windows 95/98, not on the increased "lock in" that XP and Vista have introduced. This means that they CANNOT use their patents in such ways as they are attempting.
Corporatism != Free Market
I have this really weird deja vu now. I mean... Linux infringing patents, nobody says anything 'bout which patents, nobody discloses anything tangible...
I have this strange memories of some company that tried this stunt before, to save their share value. It's one of those penny stock companies... I'd have to read up the name to remember it. SCUM or something like that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
When I first read the story headline, I got a sick feeling in my stomach. I don't know why, but I fear that Microsoft can do some real damage to FOSS if they put their mind to it. Corporations seem to fear Microsoft and this can play into MS's hand. Am I just being paranoid? I'm really starting to hate them. I've been pretty neutral up until this time, but Fuck, why can't they just leave the FOSS alone?
All it takes is for the first case to make it to SCOTUS and for SCOTUS to agree with Moglin (which i bet they would if it's explained how assinine they are - IE something someone invented 25 years ago is "patented" by microsoft 6 months ago, and now they're suing over it).
If SCOTUS agrees with Moglin it instantly invalidates all software patents. 235 Motions to dismiss with prejudice from the defendants, and possible countersuits.
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
Hasn't it always been the position that if you have a patent you feel is infringed upon you should just say so and FOSS will clean room re-engineer their implementation so it no longer infringes?
This is barely a threat at all when the people you threaten have unlimited resources to simply work around your claims by throwing skilled bodies at the problem, who work as volunteers.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Is there any legal precendent for suing users of a product for patent infringement as opposed to the creators?
I know SCO kept claiming they were going to but they never actually did.
I stole this Sig
Perhaps buy more judges, juries and other legal instruments?
This is a crock of shit.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
And how many standards does Microsoft break or corrupt?
I had to make a quick run to the toilet, i hastily emptied my load, only to realize that i probably have violated one of Microsoft's Patents covering the technique of "Online Shitting"
Read radical news here
Here's an example - probably bad, because it's not based on Microsoft patents (as far as I know, anyway).
FFMpeg's legal page clearly states:
"Q: Does FFmpeg use proprietary/patented intellectual property?
A: Yes. There is a lot of multimedia available in proprietary/patented formats so it becomes necessary to support such formats and even reverse engineer them where required."
Who should be liable here - the developers of FFMpeg for including this patented code without paying the royalty fees, developers that incorporate FFMpeg into their products, people that use FFMpeg derivatives to do stuff with video (I assume Google is one of these as FFMpeg is/was one of their Summer of Code projects), or people that just use FFMpeg to play video? Or, of course, all of the above.
At the same time, Smith was having Microsoft's lawyers figure out how many of its patents were being infringed by free and open-source software. Gutierrez refuses to identify specific patents or explain how they're being infringed, lest FOSS advocates start filing challenges to them.
But he does break down the total number allegedly violated - 235 - into categories. He says that the Linux kernel - the deepest layer of the free operating system, which interacts most directly with the computer hardware - violates 42 Microsoft patents. The Linux graphical user interfaces - essentially, the way design elements like menus and toolbars are set up - run afoul of another 65, he claims. The Open Office suite of programs, which is analogous to Microsoft Office, infringes 45 more. E-mail programs infringe 15, while other assorted FOSS programs allegedly transgress 68.
Still numbers out of thin air - and the real reason is more likely that the Linux groups would work on rectifying the patent conflicts much to the disadvantage of Microsoft.
I would count no infringement until Microsoft tells us what we are infringing on. Kind of like me telling you guys on Slashdot you owe me $800, $500 is for my time and the other $300 is for stuff I provided. without offering any proof besides a mention of a lawyer verifying my amount (yep, he said it was $800 too). Hmm, kind of sounds like the RIAA come to think of it....
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
It's widely known that these enormous arsenals of software patents has been something of a nuclear arms race in that it more or less assures a great deal of mutual destruction should one side decide to wage war using those weapons.
But now Microsoft is threatening the nuclear option against the third-world nation of OSS users. Will IBM and RedHat move to defend as they have suggested they would?
IBM owns its own enormous arsenal of software patents. Microsoft does too. I believe everyone knows what a catastro-fsck this would be if they actually took actions.
Microsoft is running out of dirty tricks. Their SCO activity is all but failed... we're just waiting for the finals... there's no way this is turning around. Now, if they take some sort of action, they will have to take it under their own name, using their own resources and facing all the direct reaction and repercussion that would result.
The question is whether or not they will take that fatal step.
We could screw them over.
But not without simultaneously screwing over millions of windows users.
Which would piss people off with the FOSS community, not MS for breaking standards.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
"No, this is what happens when you base your economy on the ownership of ideas..."
Ah, yeah because that whole making widgets was a safe bet too.
Microsoft, like SCO, is going to look like a fool. Comments
Oh no! Free software violates Microsoft patents! And we know how valuable those patents ALL are!
We'd better shut down the infringing software.
Shutdown that pesky BIND. That means you, too, root servers.
Shutdown that horrible infringing Apache, and all of those evil websites using it.
Oh, and don't forget sendmail, postfix, and exim.
And how about all of that silly routing software, arp, and such.
Weren't patents recently "reformed" to grant coverage to "first to file" instead of "first to invent"?
Sometimes I really think the best way to fight idiots is to give them what they're asking for ALL of it, and COMPLETELY. Let Microsoft just TRY to rebuild the internet, or anything remotely like it - using Microsoft sofware and ONLY Microsoft software.
What IDIOTS we've become in the USA. The handwriting is on the wall for the demise of our greatness, and this is only one sign. (Actually a BIG sign - facts, information, and ideas are under assault from many sides.)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
It seems to me that stating a specific number without listing which patents these are escalates their ordinary FUD in line with Ballmer's announcement of a lawsuit campaign to a restraint on trade. Considering that they are a convicted monopolist this is no laughing matter. How is this even legal?
Ideas can and have been patented. All you need to do is get the "specific implementation" to be worded broadly enough, and you can indeed cover every way of doing something.
I knew it! I'm infringing on patents. Just the other day I was trying to hand code some config files and managed to make my Linux install crash. What else could explain it except blatant copying of Windows behavior.
They would stop fighting other OSes and port their software as widely as possible. No reason why libraries like DX, and programs like Visual Studio can't exist for other platforms. All this anti-OSS shit is just bullshit posturing, and history will judge them poorly for avoiding the obvious.
Of course this is most likely due to the marketingdroids that run MSFT who have zero community experience and don't see how useful OSS can be. This is what happens when a tech company is run by non-technical people.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Well, he doesn't say which software or which patents. I wish they would get to it soon, because I'm getting tired of this. It's also a very risky move by Microsoft. It's likely half of those patents will be voided in the process.
But if you wanted proof that the SCO vs IBM lawsuit was over, this is it. Microsoft knows SCO won't be eating Linux's lunch anytime soon, and figured that they will need to get their hands dirty.
I say bring it on bitch! If they sue, I hereby pledge $400 (the price of Windows Vista Ultimate) if the victim opens a defense fund.
Meanwhile, I'm making a donation to the Public Patent Foundation (Pubpat.org). You should too if you care about Open Source. Actually, you should even if you don't care about open source. Bad patents are bad for everyone.
Really... do.
Shakespeare poems - infinite monkeys with infinite time.Computer tech support - a few trained ones working from 9 to 5.
This looks like too a big job for M$. I suggest that they be broken up into 4 seperate businesses: 1) IE, 2) Windoz, 3) Word and 4) SCO. The division of labor should be quite helpful to their success. Remember: Don't Scratch!
"Microsoft holds at least 235 patents that should have never been awarded, of which some OSS projects infringe."
There fixed it. I'm with John Carmak that patents being filed for software is incredibly stupid and just a blatant way to attempt to scam off the broken system we've created.
If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
The amount of spin and hand waving in that article was excessive.
This is largely just FUD.
They won't give specifics to the patents because the are worried about challenges being "flung" at the courts.
Seems to me that even this heavily spun article is hinting that these patents are more for threatening then for use in court.
All too true. You know, it's sad, but the FOSS community knew since 1998 that MS would eventually bring out the patent guns. OSRM even did a study a few years back and found ~200 patent violations in the Linux kernel alone. But still, the devs have treated software patents like the bogeyman; if we don't believe in them, they won't hurt us. And thus we fiddled while Rome burned.
Jesus is coming -- look busy!
This just in! In other related news, Microsoft has been found to have more than 235 invalid patents.
I buyed a product, i payed by the product.
...
Why have i to re-pay the 2nd time for the unspecified royalties of my ya buyed-and-payed product?
If so, i backs the unsatisfied product and returns my money!!! and returns from the payed tax too!!!
A product is not from M$, a product is a product, can be a Linux product, or a IBM product or a Dell product or
Seriously, write to Fortune magazine and complain about the bias you feel they entertain, by not giving anyone else the chance to offer some refutation to yet another *yawn* Microsoft FUD attack, just like back in 2001 when MS' Craig Mundie was frothing at the mouth and calling Linux a Cancer.
Better yet, write to every major newspaper and offer your view before they, in their usual utter clueless manner, copy the story verbatim. The BBC, for instance, since they tend to be especially dumb when it comes to parroting the Microsoft party line.
I don't think this is real because IBM has a lot at stake in Linux and MS almost certainly infringes on many of those. I'm pretty sure that MS also infringes on numerous Apple copyrights and Aplle could do something good for once and shake their own stick at MS.
Lastly, Microsoft, you should be ashamed at your behaviour. You know why so many countries and institutions are ditching your products for Linux and others? It's because of the way you behave. SCO almost certainly got the idea to sue IBM from you, Microsoft, and if that ever comes out in court, Fatman Ballmer is going to be doing some dancing in court, because IBM also knows this and they won't take it kindly.
Hope your tube of KY is ready Steve.
Hope you're all nice an cozy in your Redmond patent blanket. I'll be grinning when Microsoft pulls a Microsoft on you.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
The key to the whole issue is that Microsoft doesn't name any of the patents. They don't have a case; this is pure standover tactics. Demanding payments from Linux users when nothing has been proved - or even claimed - in court?
Unlike SCO, they do have a lot of money, and can run any number of lawsuits more or less indefinitely. But still, this is the first sign I've seen of real panic from Microsoft.
This "news" is nothing but corporate propaganda spread by cnn.com. Microsoft might try to sue, but when the lawsuits are finished and lost, Microsoft is going to be where SCO is now. Worthless.
This http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_v._Borland looks a little bad for M$. X11 in not even a clone of Windoz, it follows a completely different history. It is for networking first, it just happens to be graphical.
You know, .NET and Silverlight porting people. I want to read their comment about this story.
They were defending MSFT against us, paranoids last time. Click "Reply", I know what will you say, just want to make sure others read.
Let's see if I've understood this correctly... Microsoft claims that some piece of free software infringes an MS-held patent. MS identifies me as a user of said software. MS sues me for patent infringement? Let's change the names, to see if this makes any more sense. Let's imagine a purely hypothetical situation involving automobile manufacturers. Toyota claims that certain models of Volkswagen infringe a toyota held patent. I drive one of those VWs. Toyota sues me for patent infringment? Nope. Doesn't make any sense to me... Beef.
Well I'm going to patent the "Hello World" algorithm and then sue the shit out of anyone that uses it.
Microsoft the convicted monopolist must of acquired many patents during its illegal monopoly period (not that it ever stopped). I mean how many times does the bank robber get caught, get convicted and get to keep the money. Some smart lawyers need to dig through how much of these patents were illegally obtained and invalidate them. A very good question to ask your congress person too.
I take none of those products was a spell checker.
There, fixed it for you.
This is the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Slashdot
But no; they're going to step up and play the same game themselves. They're using the same game plan - point and say "this violates our patents / copyrights" but keep the details of these supposed violations secret - then shake down some companies for a payoff.
They're making the same mistake, too - attack the open source community. Of course, they can't sue everyone at once, they have to pick a target - but while they're bogged down in that battle, thousands of other open source proponents are sniping at them from the rooftops.
Saying that they can't reveal which patents are being violated because they'd be attacked shows how firm their foundation is; they're afraid that any patent they trot out would be challenged and invalidated. That also prevents any corrective action being taken by the supposed violators. If someone is doing you wrong, you're expected to let them know and ask them to stop before you take legal action. If you don't - and instead avoid letting anyone know what wrong your complaining about - don't expect a warm reception in the courtroom.
This looks like the beginning of the end for Microsoft. They are entering into battle with a superior force - with nothing to gain if they win and everything to lose if they don't. Even the Republican administration won't be able to save them from this mistake.
Microsoft loses this one not because their enemies have vast resources, but because a world of lilliputians is allied against them.
235 is specific. There must have been a study. The study is discoverable. Somewhere in the world Microsoft is in court facing discovery every day.
Therefore we will soon have a list and prior art, non-original and obvious matter will be found for the vast majority of these patents. In a few cases, some projects will work around the issue. Two or three projects will have to be abandonded. Mono will probably be one of them. It will take a few years but it's inevitable that these patents will never be licensed by the OSS community, and Microsoft will never prevail against a single one in a meaningful way. Microsoft will _not_ begin suing end users -- sadly they're not that stupid because the backlash from that would wipe them out for good.
In short, this headline could read "frantic Microsoft voids 200+ patents". Nothing else new will come of it.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
"We live in a world where we honor, and support the honoring of, intellectual property," says Ballmer in an interview. FOSS patrons are going to have to "play by the same rules as the rest of the business," he insists. "What's fair is fair."
Ballmer talking about 'fair' is like Kobe Bryant talking about 'consensual.'
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
Their problem is that they can't just keep braging that there are "238 patent violations in various OSS". The SCO case has proven how much staying vague about the actual violations is useful.
...BUT...
Microsoft, for credibility will have to produce a detailled list of said patent violations (and eventually a list of specific OSS application that they think are infringing).
And this, my friends, is a double edged sword.
On one hand, it will show that Microsoft HAS tangible proof that OSS are inferior because no company can be held responsible for patents infringement, and that patent lawyers will go after the users.
On another hand, such a list, and maybe a couple of days of work distributed across the whole community is everything needed to circumvent said patent and implement it either with a slightly different approach (see marching cubes vs. tetrahedron in 3D), using more generalised version (arithmetic coding vs. range coding in compression), or simply recycle some very old code in place - code who's age is a proof of prior art.
And suddenly, all this MS PR stunt is moot.
Just imagine :
This week press titles "Microsoft says OSS dangerous because patent mine field", "New microsoft sponsored studies proves TCO to by higher for OSS because of patent fees", "Microsoft to go after individual users MAFIAA style".
Next week press titles "238 patches and upgrades on Debian and Ubuntu repositories", "OSDL sponsored study proves that OSS has the highest reaction time in terms of patch release", "RMS & Linus to give speech about strengths of OSS development ; Ballmer responds throwing chairs".
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The only difference is that with the RIAA, you download "stuff" for free illegally. With FOSS, you get software that until now was completely legal to share, modify and use. I can't wait till they start naming names now, to see if IT rules across companies are forced to change. Failing that, companies will be audited and sued one by one until the rest begin to willingly deploy Microsoft-only solutions.
GPL'ed code is freely browsable for this type of lawsuit research, after all. SCO was proof of that. The kernel has been public since about '92, and they just now notice there's "infringement?" These patents and infringements can't all be new, seing the article's chart with the growth of patents. Might be stuff MS patented *after* seeing the kernel. MS's OS quality has been improving, after all
too bad for Microsoft I hold the patent on using main() in a program
still waiting for them to pay up.....
It might be FUD even if they gave a list. Without a list, it's the perfect prototypical example of FUD. Nothing could possibly be more FUDly than this assertion with the number "235".
See scalability.org. The press coverage appears to be Marketing-by-legal-threats(TM) from Microsoft.
I'm guessing he's better at English than you are at whatever language he speaks natively.
...they have to indicate with specificity what patent that is alleged to infringe. Otherwise it's nothing more than hot air, treading pretty much into Lanham Act violation territory.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
We're preaching to the choir, here. No one, here - at least no dyed in the wool /.er - would say that MS is doing a [good|intelligent|moral] thing. We all know they're not. But, to steal a phrase that still gives me the giggles, "from the abyss of our parents' basements, we strike at thee with our nerd forum debating skills." Which is all good, but somewhat useless.
We need to get our message to the right people: we somehow need to let the Fortune 500 folks who are about to succumb to extortion know that they're just being ripped off. How do we do that? I say we take up a collection and place a full page ad in the NY Times, or WSJ. I got, lessee, two bucks and forty-five cents. Wait, I found another penny.
Truth, Justice. Or the American Way.
Ha, the ironies of ironies. MS who has been crushing little innovators for years and assilimating their stolen ideas is now upset because Microsoft's "obvious" patents have been violated.
:)
This should lead to a great deal of entertainment for all of us in the computer industry as we watch Microsoft self destruct and become the next SCO. Now that Microsoft's evil apprentice (SCO) has been turned into a dry husk by IBM, Microsoft has no choice but to step out of the shadows and declare war on open source. However, Microsoft will only be able to fight this war in North American since Europe is free from software patent sillyness and China could care less about Copyrights, Patents, or Trademarks.
Let the self destruction begin! The lackluster and mostly useless Vista was the first step in the Microsoft selfdestruction process, now bring out the lawyers. Microsoft should be able to get the computer industry and user base allied against them within a month or two. Ohhh, this is going to be fun, fun, fun to watch! I hope Microsoft can get started next week!
It seems like it would be easier to spend money on innovation that would benfit the Windows user community, but I guess it is better to spend money on DRM and lawyers. Steve! Turn to the Dark Side! Embrace it! You do not know the power of the dark side! It will consume you!
We're gonna be nuked!
What?
This sounds more like the classic 'freeze the market' ploy by m$. Scare everyone into thinking that they have patents, and now, anyone thinking of switching to Linux will reconsider or, at the very least, hold off on the switch. There still is no evidence of any patent violations. This is still only posturing and FUD.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
I have in my hand a list of the 235 patents being violeted by communist software!
Actually, Ford market share had been falling steadilly from year to year. In 1927 Henry Ford finally acknowledged that Chevrolet had reached a majority of the market.
1927 was the last year when the Model T was produced, but it was too late for Ford. The Ford Motor Co. never ever after had the market share they once enjoyed.
Sounds familiar?
is there really anything in the kernel that could be patented? wouldnt only single projects be affected (ie samba) not Linux itself?
"The idea is to ... make people start to get nervous..."
So, Microsoft is the new SCO. The result will eventually be the same.
Adversarial behavior eventually destroys those who engage in it.
If you want a very good indication of the effect this new rotten behavior by Microsoft will have, just look at the Slashdot comments. People are ready for this after years of considering SCO. The parent comment is an example of this; the parent comment shows complete understanding. The SCO case has prepared us.
Microsoft has always depended on ignorance. That ignorance is disappearing.
>Why on Earth Microsoft would decide to launch an attack like this is beyond me.
Desperate people do desperate things. That is why they should be avoided.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
"crucial portions of Linux remain governed by Stallman's GPL".
I hate how the author uses this kind of spin to make Stallman out to be a bad guy. Linus (and thousands of other GPL'ed projects) deliberately chose the GPL after careful consideration to provide the best license/protection their creations.
SD
The number 235 is a magic number!
Ballmer sees much Uranium that emits 235 neutrons to kill to free world and to open source world.
Ballmer is a contamined sir.
Seeing the dumb photo of Ballmer:
Ballmer said: they did eat me my foo! foo! my food! my foo! the pirates did eat my foo! food!
Ballmer repeatly said: they are eating my money!!! my money from my pooooocket! my moneeeyyyy!!!
Is it not time we flush the patent system and Microsoft with it?
What benefit does either provide us?
I've had Linux systems running *in production*, with tens of thousands of users, with over *two years* of uptime. Now, you could rightly say that there is perhaps a significant lack of proper system administration going on there, and I would not argue with that. But, you have to acknowledge the impressive uptime without a single breach of security.
In my experience, Microsoft could not hold a dust bunny to that, never mind a candle.
So, While Linux *may* be be violating somebody's viral* patent, show us the source Microsoft, to convince us you are not violating any, and let us then improve your source to achieve the levels of stability and interoperability that one can find with on other operating systems.
*: what i mean by that is a patent without any justification, one issued without any proper research for prior art, as so many have been. Perhaps there's a better name, I just can't think of one right now.
Before you join the witch hunt on 'kill all patents!' first go educate yourself on how essentially everything you depend on in your daily life is related to intellecutal property and patents. Take just 10 minutes to get educated. You might become marginally more intelligent when you post.
I am a lawyer for all you IANAL-but-I-slashdotpretendtobe
Would push me to move out of this country, to one with freedom.
it's not just that open source violates patents
Microsoft believes that the open source community is Illegal, and i can prove it mostly because when i started working in the GNU proyect, the list of disasters in my life were endless not just because i used to have a bank account but problems related to the usage of traditional justice
against any kind of new legal systems in which the open source licencing are included.
Open source licencing is believed to be illegal for some high courts because it's a new order of sharing things, and it cannot be named just marxism but the concept of sharing software or pieces of intellectual properties is almost the same as in marxism, and that is where reside all the trouble of the legality of the usage of the internet for example, criticized of course by some antique ideas of how mankind should behave, of course one of the most powerful people is behind the criminalization of open source licencing and that one might be benedict
?
The best outcome of this sleazy Microsoft strategy to destroy competition with monopolies it's bought from the US government will be OSS people demonstrating, through prior art, how the MS patent mill abuses its monopoly power in the most starkly clear terms.
Through sustained effort, not only will the MS strategy backfire. But the entire patent abuse industry could start to crack under the pressure of its futility finally getting demonstrated.
Bring it on!
--
make install -not war
This Slashdot story about "235 patents in free software" reminds me of 205 communists in the State Department: "... in February 1950, an undistinguished, first-term Republican senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, burst into national prominence when, in a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, he held up a piece of paper that he claimed was a list of 205 known communists currently working in the State Department. McCarthy never produced documentation for a single one of his charges, but for the next four years he exploited an issue that he realized had touched a nerve in the American public."
Microsoft is to software what McCarthy was to politics?
"Gutierrez refuses to identify specific patents or explain how they're being infringed, lest FOSS advocates start filing challenges to them."
What fu%^ing planet are we on when challenging the validity of a patent is a bad thing?
OK, perhaps my understanding of history is incorrect or my memory isn't that great, but I seem to recall that Bill Gates used to work on a GUI project with somebody else. Things didn't work out, so good old Bill walked off with his partner's intellectual property and started M$. He then released WinBlows (which incorporated the aforementioned intellectual property). Later, M$ released a version of Win that came bundled with copyrighted media. At this point they had no concern for pirated media. Years later, they want to sue for software piracy, patent violations, etc. It looks to me like M$ is not in the software distribution business, so much as the lawsuit business. Isn't it about time that those whose intellectual property M$ has stolen go after M$?
Windows Vista costs US$ 300. I'm dividing and conquering it.
US$ 50 for many lawyers + US$ 50 for the judgement coasts + US$ 50 for the tons of papers + US$ 50 for the fueling + US$ 50 for the food diets + US$ 50 for SCOX's NASDAQ + US$ 200 for my pockets = US$ 500!!
US$ 300 - US$ 500 = US$ -200!!! And no money to pay to the M$ developers!!!
Conclusion: the M$'s software is bad software for the users.
More to the point, in most EU countries this would now be a 'silent consent' that Microsofts software patents can be (ab)used. If you know someone is infringing any rights you might have, then it's obligatory to do something about it. Now that they in fact have identified a problem (regardless if from our POV it's worthless shit), they can't just sit back doing nothing anymore. Failure to disclose the purpoted violated rights hereby and right now, not demanding the 'intellectual prop' misuse to stop, means that Microsoft will have a hard time to achieve any court verdict later on.
I Say Proprietary Softwares Violate More than 235 Patents, so it is dangerous to use any proprietary software, the proprietary software may lead to potential lawsuits and monetary losses.
Can some one show that I am wrong?
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
"...then they fight you"
Gandhi, tell us what's behind curtain number 4!
Ironically, computing with well-implemented technology 17 years in the past is still better than being on Windows.
So I wonder how many IBM patents Microsoft is violating. Betcha at least 235.
This is an interesting idea. If MS files patent lawsuits, all FOSS supporters should shut down their websites on the same day and display the same message in protest of MS. Even if Google and IBM were the only major players who did so, that would get everyone's attention :-)
Too bad if something was to happen to it". - MS
Come on MS. Put up (With specificity) or shut up. You gonna hire Darl to be your mouthpiece when his SCO gig is over? I suspect he'll be available very soon unless he's wearing that orange jumpsuit.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
You know, there are other ways to deal with the Mafia than paying their extortion.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Just like other DotCom critical mass companies, the also-rans (who do not already have massive patent portfolios) will never accumilate enough agreements and acquisitions to have an impact. As an individual or startup, you just try create something that does not in some way cross an IBM or Microsoft patent. The Fortune 500 may love it because it manages a risk "promotes stability" and keeps a huge swath of terrain for the "Players" alone. It's win/win at that level.
It gets intersting when you think about the huge, reliable stream of revenue this sort of thing might generate, and the long term temptations of an easy life. Why bother taking the risky path of creating new products yourslef when you can sit back and rely on other companies? "We let other companies take the risks and charge them royalties or acquire them; why on earth would we risk our own cash?". For example, want to develop a killer video codec? Better sign a cooperation agreement (including first right to buy) with one of the majors. One might even conciously slow down the pace of innovation so one can properly recoup investments at each generation. The saving grace is that, large companies have demonstrated a willingness to take a genuine long term view and see the risks of this easier path.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
M$ has always had a pretty good patent rep--their arsenal has been considered mostly defensive.
That being said, I'm all for royalties and patents for truly innovative work--but I suspect most of the "infringed" patents are fairly obvious things. (Consider: In the anti-SCO suit, IBM accused them of stepping on, among other things, IBM's patent for a "hierarchical menu system." That was a defensive use of something so obvious it ought not to have been patentable, but expecting people to pay royalties for it is ridiculous.)
Sure. They'll get exactly the same amount that SCO got.
Fuck you Gates.
Microsoft has been found guilty of patent infringement in the MPEG area, but AFAIK no end users have been sued for using the technology.
You want to sue me for being a user of an OS you don't like...erm, I mean, is your only real competition...erm, I mean, violates an arbitrary number of your patents? Fine; I'll ditch my Linux box and go buy a Mac. So fuck you; I will never purchase and will never recommend for purchase another Microsoft product so long as I shall live, simply because you feel the need to bully *me* for Free Software developers unwittingly violating patents you've not even specified yet. I'm through with your bullshit, Microsoft; I'm through with you trying to charge me for software you didn't even create, I'm through with your lazy-ass practice of buying companies just to run competing companies out of business, and I'm sick and fucking tired of people treating me like I'm a criminal because I use a Free OS. And I'm DEFINITELY sick of you shipping beta-quality software and convincing PHBs that it's *enterprise-ready*. I've been a dual-OS user since 1997, and it's single-OS from here on out, with that being whatever OS you don't currently try to steal money from me for.
;-)
In all honesty, I doubt the legal team will even let Ballmer do something this abysmally stupid. It'd be like suing Palm for violating an obscure and overly generic patent, then mailing out overdue account notices to all Palm owners. If they're really that desperate it's time for a re-think of a lot of things, starting with their broken busines model which requires a constant increase in their business growth.
Fix your company, fix your O.S., and don't rely on attacking your userbase (some of us using Linux are..erm, *were* loyal MS customers) just to bail your pathetic fucking asses out.
Don't even talk to me about how sad it is that it'll probably take *IBM* to bail us out...
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
I would think that Microsoft throwing around these sort of claims, spreading the FUD, would count as libel?
If thats right, then shouldn't the Linux community threaten MS with a lawsuit, especially due to the repeated "show us the code and we will remove it" message sent by the open source software community?
You can't just go throwing around claims like that without expecting some sort of action. Unless, of course Microsoft thinks that the open source community can't/won't/doesn't want to do anything about this...
By the way, I heard Microsoft once burnt down an orphange because they thought the ophans were using illegal software...
What a serious strategic error this is, even if its only a PR trial balloon. Not only has Microsoft ignored a significant shift in national intellectual property law (per recent Supreme court decisions) and pretended the collapse of SCO litigation was irrelevant, but Microsoft once again presumes all commerce is predicated on U.S. intellectual property law.
Faced with serious issues in Australia, China, nearly every emerging market and even much of the EU, Microsoft wants to play "us vs. them" with open source? Even much of the Fortune 500 has been investing significantly into Linux (such as the corporation I work for, which is one of the larger global financial companies). Our company didn't take previous patent trolls lightly, and Microsoft's reliability issues don't give it a reliable foundation on which to make life any more difficult for us.
In an era of unprecedented foreign confiscation of pharmaceutical intellectual property, can Microsoft be this utterly ignorant and stupid? Does Microsoft not realize it has zero leverage outside the U.S., facing serious penalties in the EU for its disregard for their law and even worse conditions elsewhere? Does it really believe it can force Brazil, China, Mexico, India, Malaysia, emerging Eastern Europe, Russia and countless other markets to pay excessive royalties for a bunch of questionable patents it had its attorneys sneak through? The only certain outcome is that U.S. intellectual property law will be even further ignored and real issues like drug patent confiscations more common.
Apparently SCO was only the warm-up act. This certainly is going to be an interesting train wreck for us to watch if they venture down this path.
*scoove*
Exactly MS probably violates several hundred IBM patents.... Remember They're were writing OS's before Bill Gates parents were born. Also now that they no longer sell desktop pc's I doubt they care how much M$ charges them for a copy of windows. They make more money off servers now. Yes it may be 1000lb Big Blue Gorilla that ultimately determines the outcome of this one. Another important one here is the other 500lb Gorilla, Oracle. They have quite a bit invested as well. Wonder how many Oracle patents SQL Server violates ...
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
When they pry it from my cold, dead hard drive.
This sig is false.
From the USPTO:
Emphasis mine. They could literally sue you for using Linux at home, just like the RIAA sues people for having downloaded music on their computer. I have to agree that this is not their intent, though. They want to scare enterprise users away from OSS since they are loosing ground there.
Tolerance does not tolerate intolerance, or hypocrisy.
And people think Novell "licensed" patents from Microsoft? Who bought patents and protection from whom?
I've customised my version of Linux so it uses the registry, runs outlook, internet explorer and has a DOS prompt. It's admired wherever I take it. I was worried that this would happen, though. That finally Microsoft would catch on to my nefarious activities. Now I'll have to revert to plain-old, bog-standard linux, and give up the genuine advantage that I'd accrued for myself. Please don't make me remove MS IP from my distro.
Lets face it, if it wasn't for Microsoft's patented ideas, Free Software wouldn't be worth using. >-}}}}}8>
More FUD. Not even one example given. When SCO couldn't do their dirty work for them, they decide to crank up the FUD engine and see if they can take on F/OSS software themselves. We'll see if the list is ever produced with the actual patents and what software infringes on them... Andy
The thing I see good about this is as follows:
1. We knew this was going to happen sooner or later.
2. Its better it happens sooner, Linus was getting impatient with the FSF folks
and rightly seeing them as paranoid. If it had been a year or so more, the kernel
might've been forked with some GPL v3 and GPL v2... This forces the FOSS community
to circle their wagons and get along.
3. I welcome this challenge, because what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
MS executives are doing it now to appear like they're working hard because the
great Redmond machine is running out of steam and they need to keep that stock
price propped up for a few more years while they sell:
When was the last time you saw an insider trade of 'buy' MSFT? They have a
good margin and great revenue, but so did Kodak and Palaroid just a short while back.
Ideas can last forever, companies don't.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
Seastead this.
The king of thieves has been robbed? What rubbish! Now M$ in fairness has made some good stuff at times. There are usergroups that would still be left in the cold without M$ projects, I cite Microsoft Robotics Studio. They have driven the industry to move fast even if was under a whip. This is an all time low blow even for them. I do have to applaud thier tactic of using Forbes as the vehicle in its latest fear/smear campaign. Like someone mentioned earlier non tech savy CEOs will be re-made weary of OSS. 'Techies' have thier info sources they trust, and so do the 'suits'. Im a techie and think of Forbes as glossy toilet paper. =) My 'manager' thinks /. is a liberal, hacker-ego-handjob site. So touche' M$ and En Garde! This may hurt you more than Vista.
As a sidenote does M$'s pet, Mac, risk any impact of said patents since thier OS is somewhat linux too? I admit im not as savy with OSwhatever as id like to be....I know it looks beter than vista ;)
I wonder if Microsoft took into account all the copyrights they have infringed on when coming up with this anwser!
I would also think that Microsoft winning the Look and Feel lawsuit against Apple will shoot it in the foot when it comes to the FOSS bunch.
I violated MS's MOM's patents!
I'm a capitalist pig just like the next guy, but Jesus Christ, how much more money does one man need? Bill Gates needs to take a chill pill, shut up and tell his lawyers to be quiet too.
Yesterday /. asked: "Why Doesn't Microsoft Have A Cult Religion?"
Today's item answers that question. Nobody is going to make a cult of people whose sole desire is to get you.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
From the CNN linked article... "The Redmond behemoth asserts that one reason free software is of such high quality is that it violates more than 200 of Microsoft's patents." Funny, Microsoft owns the patents and you guys code it in a higher quality fashion? I'm suitably impressed that the FOSS coders are better at coding STABLE projects than the owner of the patents. GOOD WORK, folks!
There is nothing new here. This is classic Microsoft FUD - Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. Its all about not losing market share to FOSS. They have no intention of suing anyone. They tried that approach with their proxy SCO.
Microsoft can't even innovate their approach to controlling the market.
I wonder if this is a move to help Novell out since they would be immune after their little deal with Microsoft. Otherwise, I think this is more FUD along the lines of SCO, which Microsoft helped finance. I'm not too worried since Linux also has its own 800 pound gorilla in the form of IBM. IBM's patent portfolio is even bigger than Microsoft's. Also I wonder how many of those patent would actually stand up in court? Someone wiser than me once commented that a patent is a silver bullet but you get only one shot. If it gets rejected in court, it's over and you can't threaten anyone else with it anymore. The best scenario for patent holders is for the other party to roll over and hand over the cash instead of actually challenging it in court.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Software Patents are like trying to patent a plot device in a book, then turning around and saying all the other novelists out there can't use this plot device because you own it. That never flew in the literary community, and should of never flown in the programming community either.
I wonder what M$ will do once software patents are no longer valid... all of a sudden, they'd have to play fair.
Hey!
/´¯/) / /
/'/ / / /¨¯\
MonkeyBoy!! ,/¯
/
/´¯/' '/´¯¯`·¸
('( ´ ´ ~/' ')
\ Patent This!!! ' /
\ _ ·´
\ (
\ \
Crackberry users weren't sued, that is true. But there are only 2 ways end users can be protected:
1. Patent holder decides not to go after them. This is purely at the whim of the patent holder.
2. Indemnity. Manufacturer foots the bill when the end user is sued. Note that the end user is still sued in this case, it is just they don't have to pay the (full) bill.
i will pay them the exact same ammount that it costs me to get linux... awww crap its free... i think there a little screwed there...
(yes i know i suck at spelling fell free to correct my grammar and/or spellin i dont care, im still not going to change
...they just want to kill Linux. Not a "good faith" manouver, but who cares? It's "Legal", so they will be able to win in court and then use that to get a national crackdown on all Linux distributions that aren't under the umbrella of firms that they have patent license agreements with.
That national crackdown is EXACTLY what will happen...and sooner rather than later. Microsot will sue some easy and vulnerable target, then get an injunction against distributions of ALL Linux distributions that are not under their licensing umbrella. Then they'll selectively use that to hammer on users. Then it won't be long before the BSA will be scanning for the presence of non-conforming linux during their 'audits' and disgruntled employees will be turning in their employers for having linux somewhere. If you want to buy Linux pre-installed on a pc, it will have to be Novell...and so on.
People here are underestimating the financial power, the tenacity and the absolute desperation of Microsoft. Microsoft will stop at nothing to keep their monopoly franchise.
Really, it's not the users responsibility, it's whomeever violated the patent.
If the playstation III violated your patents, you go after Sony, not the users. You would never have the suit get passed a judge.
Bring it MS, I dare you.
FUD spreading cum stains.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The good news is that most of those patents are violated by MONO and when Microsoft hoists them up as an example the debate on whether that was ever a good idea will be settled once and for all.
I was idly chatting with my mom not too long ago. She's no computer
expert and uses windows on her home system (solitaire). She knows I
use something different and that it's 'open-free-something'[1].
I told her that Microsoft was threatening this sort of software with
patent lawsuits. Her reaction?
"Those greedy sons-o'-bleep, don't they have enough money without
attacking free stuff?" And so on. I admit I was a little shocked
and, now that I think about it, if she recognizes this as a bully
tactic, so will an awful lot of other people.
I now feel slightly better about the whole thing. Thanks Mom!
[1] I mainly use FreeBSD, cue the eulogy.
http://www.converium.com/2103.asp
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
In Soviet Russia, Microsoft bashes YOU!!!
We are at war. Either the employees, customers, and stock holders in the BSA lay dead or in jail...or my friends and myself will.
There will be bombings of meetings, shootings, assasinations, lawsuits, prosecutions, etc.
Lock & Load!!!
Andy Out!
People keep calling out crazy patents and explaining how they would defeat them with obviousness or prior art, but does anyone yet know WHICH patents Microsoft is talking about? Maybe MS is giving their maximum number to create more of a scare. Maybe they have already filtered out anything they consider too obvious and this announced number is more defendable/actionable. Unless a person knows which patents are/aren't being considered, just hold off on the guessing for now. People can still shout about patent reform and abuse, though it is pretty much preaching to the choir.
It seems to me that software should be copywrite issue more than a patent issue. I can see
a lawsuit being justified if actual code was cut , pasted, and distributed but i doupt that is the case. If it does the same thing does mean it goes about it the same way? If my neighbor uses switches one three and two to turn on his porch light and i use switches two,one, and three am i violating his claim on a three switch light emiting apparatus? Perhaps computers and software have reached a place in society where it is a violation of our personal liberties to try and restrict its free development by the public. What if Gutenburg was the the only one ever allowed to print those strings of letters called "words" , im sure he would have made a killing off royalties by now.
PJ won't run out of evildoers to investigate on Groklaw after SCO finally goes under.
Ironically, McCarthy underestimated the number of Communists working in the state department - the 'true' number derived from Venona intercepts was even higher.A few years later a Senator from Massachusetts (initials were JFK) claimed that the Soviet Union had close to 200 missiles ready to launch against the US - the truth was that the Soviets had 6 ICBM's ready by mid-1960. So maybe it is safe to say that Microsoft is to software what Kennedy was to politics?
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
Has anyone considered this as assault on Google? They are pretty dependent upon Linux...
-- Dyslexics of the world - untie!
No, you do not own these ideas. No, the world does not benefit from your attempts at treating information as if it were property, and suppressing its productive use by non-microsoft-affiliated entities. No, we will not pay up. No, you cannot make us. No, you have not realized how the legal and technological landscape is changing, and no, you cannot control what shape it will take. No, you will not survive long if you keep this up. No, this plan of yours will not work.
"The Masses" are going to treat information however they see fit, and your efforts at making water flow uphill will prove fruitless.
The sooner you figure out what the new game is, what the new rules are, and where you fit, the better things will go for you.
Think fast, time is running out.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
- I don't see blue screens of death with Linux.
- I must have rebooted my wife's new Vista laptop a dozen times while setting it up and installing the updates. I only reboot Linux boxes when there's a new kernel.
- I don't have to worry about trojans and other malware with Linux.
- I don't have to do "theraputic reboots" on my Linux boxes to keep them stable; they just run.
- Linux has mature technology for limiting program actions called SE Linux. It would make the intrusive actions of UAC seem laughable if they weren't so annoying (UAC is kind of like clippy but able to stop programs from running).
- etc.
The only way the quoted assertion could be true is if Microsoft has such patented technology but it doesn't put into Windoze. Darl McBride of SCO fame claimed Linux couldn't have matured and become "enterprise capable" unless it infringed SCO's IP for it's OS that doesn't scale and that is rapidly becoming ever more obsolete. Wouldn't Linux incorporating Microsoft IP mean that Linux should be the same sort of unstable piece of bloated crap that Windoze is?Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
When patents were supposed to be used to promote innovation and reward the innovators, but now is the time were patents are used to block innovators and to protect entrenched monopolies
Well-put. It's about trying to create a climate of fear. The funny thing is that MS's spokes-droids, and miscellaneous lick-spittles profess to not know why MS is so hated. That's hilarious, starting with their successful plan to destroy Netscape (not just out-compete Netscape, but put it out of business) in order to teach the lesson: "Fear us!". They succeeded. What are the BSA and WGA programs about, if not about creating a climate of fear? What is all this patent-saber rattling about but an attempt to repress freedom with fear? There's an old saying, "It's better to be feared than loved." Note the implicit dichotomy: fear or love. It is because fear and love are fundamentally incompatible.
Fear breeds hatred. Want to make me hate you with a pure, cold, and unrelenting hatred? Make me fear you. Don't expected to be feared and loved, it is not human nature. Expect to be feared and hated, and for those who fear you to work tirelessly for your destruction. Ironically, MS has shown the way to this, it destroyed Netscape by giving away IE. Now the brass gods of Redmond are looking at the payback (what comes around goes around), and they don't like it.
Want to be feared, Mr. Microsoft? Go for it. You know what else to expect.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
maybe i am clueless...doesnt microsoft know that they have a bad reputation? i mean, worldwide everyone (governments, tech industries and individuals) is either suing them for unfair practices, monopoly building or just being shady-or being sued by them...do they really operate in some kind of bizarro world out there in redmond? i know it is in vogue to bash huge corporations and all but dont they have a clue as to how they are seen, or dont they care? i find it hard to believe that they are ignorant to how the world sees them. is bill gates down in some bunker like hitler in the last days of berlin and ballmer (goebbels) is whispering lies into his ear. i find it quite surreal. these people have to know they come off as the borg or corporate bullys or whatever. they connot stamp out the advance of these other OS's (yes i use winders and linux). soon i dont think that even OSes will even matter as people are making their own and porting apps and all-(i mean that it will become homogenous-sort of like pop-all basically the same-carbonated water and sugar...just different flavors/labels-you know what i mean)...i just dont get it...it is not a sane business plan even if you have all the money that they do. no one likes it when the big guy beats on the little guy-even if the big guy is right. so, what could they possibly gain? gates is a crafty guy but you know he really wants some love-even vader wanted love in the end (no pun intended). so how does microsoft benefit?
"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."-- Fred Hampton
oh wait--nobody said why in the first place.
Did (do) people _really_ think that ms wants to help open source out of the goodness of gate's & co. heart? Did it not occur to anyone that ms could be only interested in hijacking open source and taking everyone's hard work for their own benefit/profit?
Why is ms having it's people contribute to (or is that "taint"?) open source projects and continuing to threaten open source?
come on people, pull your heads out, wipe them off and look around. reality aint up your collective ass.
This is from a young 13 year old computer but whom I'm mentoring.
"Several FOSS groups have created a portfolio of patents that Microsoft violates that are owned by FOSS groups though. So in theory M$ would have to pay a percentage of all of their sales to the Linux community. But since Linux is less popular, Linux would make more money... Because what they have to pay back for each SALE would be tiny. Hah!"
Horns are really just a broken halo.
In the beginning, there were no tools, and all of the people in all of the lands had no shelter to live in.
Bob, Bill, Barry and Beatrice all became annoyed at sitting out in the hot sun or the freezing cold and decided to do something about it, so they thunked up "tools".
Bob thunked up the hammer, Bill the saw, Barry the nail, and Beatrice the Measuring tape, and all was wonderful in the world, and they made those tools and became rich.
Later on, they noticed that the market was so saturated with tools, that they were having a hard time selling more, so they decided tools need very small changes, and although the tools were always roughly alike, these small changes became the "style" for others to adopt, because after all the 4 big Bs were so smart and rich and successful and all, the "new" tools just had to be better, so they sold even more tools, and became richer.
Now there were MANY tools in the land. It became so hard for the Big Bs to sell new tools they decided to restrict the use of tools to only people who would "license the tool to use", and to help that along, they got the great kings of the land (after much court wining and dining and donations to the kings treasuries) to issue royal edicts to restrict the use of tools to only the Big Bs designs-and no one else could design or build a slightly similar tool without paying the kings royalty edict fees to the Big Bs..
So now the Big Bs became trebly rich! They have become the richest of all the lands!
All the original tool buyers and the licensers have all grown up, and have children, and now those children are grown up. Many of them questioned just how much difference there was with the concept of a heavy hard weight on the end of a stick, or marks on a specified length of material, or a pointy sharp sliver of metal, or a thin chisel that could slice out small pieces of wood, so they became weary of having to continually pay for the same tools their grandparents and parents already paid for, and trebly so. They just wanted to be free to build their own houses, and just couldn't understand why the big Bs now needed to be paid a fourth time for essentially the same hammer, saw, nail and measuring tape.
So one day, they all rose up and went to the Big Bs house, and said most politely, "well, fuck you very much, but we and our parents and grandparents have trebly paid for the tools already, that should be more than enough money for you!". Then they all went to the doddering old kings castles and yelled at the walls "well, fuck you very much, but if we can't build our houses, we will no longer allow you to be king, get it, you old fool?".
Then they all went home and drank some beers they bought with the money they saved by not paying the Big Bs once again for the same old tools, and proceeded to build some new houses.
And the Big Bs finally realized they were rich enough that it didn't matter, so they finally shut up about it. The old kings realized they really liked their cushy jobs so they shut up about it. The people were happy because now they could all swap around their tools and help each other build houses so no one had to sit out in the hot sun or freezing cold. And all was well in the world.
THE END
According to my ex-GF, I hold the exclusive patent rights to the concept of being a complete and utter asshole.
Looks like royalty payday is coming up real fast - how dare MS step on MY patent !!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That's a lot of bold, caps, and arrogance for somebody who is dead wrong.
Hint: Learn a bit about the law before spouting off about it.
And the thing is: If they sue some random company over a supposed MS patent in Linux, what happens when that company gets disclosure of all of MS's software and gets someone to go over it looking for patents that they (or someone in the OS movement has)? And then what happens if they find all sorts of embarrassing things in that source code that come out in court?
The nasty thing (for Microsoft) is that just about anybody who has contributed to the code that Microsoft sues some random user for using can probably ask for standing "because it's my code that they're impugning", and then counter-sue MS over some patent that they have (or have just been assigned by some friend in the OS community).
We've already seen what's happen(ed,ing) to SCOX over their claims of 'millions of lines' of Linux code, now Microsoft is making similar claims -- and with the SCOTUS just having gutted patents, this seems to me like calling wolf, but everybody knows that, even if the wolf is real, it's lost most of it's teeth and claws and may be on a leash.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
I understand that the true reason for patents is to prevent another company from taking your businesses wonderful ideas and selling them as their own. Patents give your business the right to capitalize on an idea, or profit by licensing the plans of that idea to another company. It is not to stifle competition or to eliminate similar works of creation through competition. But if Free / Open Source Software is not competing on economic scales then do these works even violate these patents? I believe that since there is no monetary value attached to the FOSS applications then they do not violate these patents in any way shape or form. Once you ask for money for this software, then the patent violations should be considered. Distributions often sell the pre-packaging of a products but not the actual applications per se. They also sell support or updates, I'm not aware of many distro's which are selling their distribution as a closed and individual work of creation. (Such as Apple OS X.)
It should also be determined if these patents are so broad in description that they are invalid to begin with.
State Department employees who are Communists!" Sheesh, talk about fear-mongering. They should list where the patents are infringed, and let things get sorted out. Jackals.
BAH HA HA HA! OH...Damn, thats hilarious. Are they serious? 235 patents? On what? Do they want to be laughed out of a court room? Microsoft Lawyer:"Yes, and they infringe on our patent of a pointy thing that moves across the screen when moving a 'mouse' attached to the machine. We call it a 'cursor'... " What could you possibly have patented that would account for 235 separate occurrences in FOSS? Oh Microsoft and their FUD slinging. Remind me to delete my Vista partition and make my machine full Ubuntu ASAP. Those clowns are through with my business.
-=Curtis=-
*coughcough* Sorry, had a chair in my throat there.
I would be surprised if this hasn't been mentioned already for this posting. A pity that the 1 May date has already come and gone.
Calling a sword by a pretty name is no more than adding perfume to poison.
Fortune seems to have a penchant for covering this material poorly. This is the best coverage they've given thus far.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Shit, I haven't paid a dime for all of the Microsoft software I've been using for the last 25 years -- what makes them think I'm going to start paying for patent-infringing FOSS software?
I think it is about time that some FOSS friendly company started making noise about MS patent violations, without specifying which ones are being violated. Make sure that customers don't feel any safer using MS software than they do using Linux.
Unfortunately, it seems that nobody wants to rock the boat like that, for fear of the brutal retaliation that MS would provide for them. And MS has already cross-licensed their IP portfolio with many of the companies that they payed off in the anti-trust lawsuits, so they've taken away that avenue of attack.
Red Hat and Google are the only ones I can think of right now. Red Hat would probably be crazy to try such a stunt, and I'm not sure they're big enough to scare MS or their big customers anyhow. Google has the motive (MS has basically outright stated they want to kill Google), but do they have the resources to fight MS in the IP arena? I'm not so sure.
I make some funny sounds when I'm on the toilet, too, and they have as much relevance outside a courtroom as the noises these jerks are making.
Well, it seems like were in for another miSCOsoft all over again...!
Michael
http://s1.sfgame.us/index.php?rec=58163
Specially because you live in the same country or language area you were born while most of us live in other one were casually this web forum is hosted.
Welcome to being the most hated company on Earth.
Sincerely,
The Computing World.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
You know, if having patents equated to high quality software, Microsoft would have high quality software as well, rather than exploit ridden code that causes problems for millions of users that Microsoft disclaims any responsibility for.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
hey this is just proof of how well google translate works!
...can suck my big fat cock.
There is a well known point in the tech company death spiral where the most valuable thing about you is your patents.
I call bullshit. Microsoft could always hold harmless any customer and enjoin any suit.
(This is completely bogus, but is an interesting thought experiment.)
What if Microsoft's direct goal were not harming Linux, but rather destroying the software patent system? Obviously, Microsoft would love for Linux to disappear, but they could be thinking much deeper. Microsoft has argued for patent reform before when they lost $521000000 to Eolas. Clearly appeal to Congress and the courts has not worked.
By creating complete chaos in the software industry, these legal threats could force changes to the laws to avoid a breakdown.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
It's called contributory infringement; please look it up before you open your mouth
you [b]fool[/b]
Did Microsoft decide we weren't hating them enough anymore? Too much hate going to the (RI|MP)AA? Yearning for the glory days of the late 90's? "Hey guys, we're still here and we're PLENTY evil!" I mean come on, it's not as if gratuitous litigation is really getting any traction these days. The litigant always ends up looking like a fool. (Just ask SCO.)
Obviously Microsoft won't touch IBM.
This is about litigation that do NOT draw IBM into the fight.
It's likely they'll attack a company using OSS software. The point, just like the RIAA's litigation of individuals is to instill fear in the form of litigation costs into the business decision.
The thing is, they can keep coming back into court with new patent litigation against new OSS consumers. Individuals and companies who have specifically been chosen because they can't afford to litigate.
It will cost Microsoft practically nothing, as they transition away from actually producing something to simply charging an innovation tax.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Translation: "A broad group of people (which we don't detail) somehow (we don't tell how) violates (we don't say to what extend) a large number (we even give you a number, look! we just don't say what it means or what's inside) of patents (at least in the US). Now be afraid because that's what we want!"
I hereby claim that the MS executives are all going to jail because among them they have broken at least 25 laws. I'm not saying if it's speeding or murder and I won't say who exactly broke which law. But it's time to pay up, suckers, yeah. You're all going down!
Oh yeah, I could mention that patents aren't a problem for users, but for developers. But I'm sure at least 50 other comments already point that out.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
IBM sued Amazon for violating 2 IBM patents in October of last year. Since IBM claims that there are already others who have purchased a license for these patents, the motivation for suing Amazon can't be any "patent rattling" on Amzon's part. Like every other company, IBM patents exist to further the profitablity of the company, nothing more.
The troubles MS has re Vista makes me wonder if business is really all that well over there. Honest people will spell out why they feel you have wronged them; they won't idly allude and threaten ...
Before MS continue along these lines, they should take time out and do an analysis of the skills
and type of people they will be attacking. FOSS is for and by free people.
They will be starting a war they cannot win...
time time everywhere and not a second to spare
If not for software patents, there would be no open standards... The only protection would be keeping it secret and preventing others from re-implementing their designs. Software patents are too long, but still almost an order of magnitude shorter than copyright.
Software patents have gone insane... However, throwing them out all-together would be a horrible idea. There are some innovating things going on, and offering them no protection or compensation for their work would cause corporate research and development to grind to a halt.
I doubt anyone would claim that h.264 is obvious, but software patents are the only form of protection and profit model it has. And to make matters worse, the US is basically subsidizing the rest of the world, as we pay the patent license fees, while most other countries do not.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
to map out their strategy
Here's their so called strategy: a bunch of mega-asshole, Nazi-shitbox driving, cocaine addicted laywers will go around bullying people who can't afford to defend themselves into submission. End of strategy.
The MS execs and lawyers will laugh all the way to the bank and to the apartments of their call girls. Oh, and they'll stop to buy a six pack of politicians on the way, politicians who will laugh when they see *your* email companining about MS's actions and the need for patent reform.
All we can really do is hope that their dicks slowly and painfully rot off because the whores all got some sort of super-STD.
Other than that, everyone without billions in cash, my laddies, is well and truly fucked in this manner.
Welcome to the desert of the real, Neo.
It seems to me that Microsoft is now openly and directly extorting some of their bigger customers that have Linux servers.
http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/24641/
My personal wish is that someone would have enough guts to call the police on one of their sales reps and set some things in motion...
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.
from years of spamming the US patent office with garbage.
FAQs are evil.
ROFL Microsoft can claim what they like ... the truth is known about them.
They will never get a cent more out of me, the cut & paste merchants.
What a bunch of dicks and shitheads to hide behind their bullshit tactics. I get so tired of looking at that baldheaded (no offense to others folically challenged) idiot and his rampant mouth.
He's always running his mouth off like some geek toady. Microsoft and ethics is one of the biggest oxymorons that I've seen in the last decade. I have no respect for the company nor its leadership. Even my granny thinks they are egotistical bastards.
Ballmer == McBride
LAMO, that is not just in Soviet Russia!
www.aleo.no
The patent system is nothing more than a form of corporate arm-wrestling, with money-fuelled lawyers substituting for beer-fuelled muscles. The notion that inventiveness, originality, or creativity has anything to do with it is LAUGHABLE.
I would like to know what Windows would be like if Unix and GNU and that stuff was all patented... Oh wait, they'd be owned by MS.
signature is pants
Dear Microsoft,
We live in a world where we honor, and support the honoring of, intellectual property. We play by the same rules as the rest of the business. Recently it has come to our attention that certain products of Microsoft (among which Windows XP, Vista and Microsoft Office) infringe on no fewer than 236 software patents.
We won't identify the patents, by which you might attempt to avoid our insane software patent licensing costs and Armageddon. We'll just scare everyone into never doing business with you ever again.
Sincerely,
Darl McBride, SCO
This sig is intentionally left blank
On what grounds do you assume that the post you replied to was written by a native English speaker?
I didn't expect to see this day so soon. Microsoft is at last seriously worried about open source. This means that open source sw has proved itself and has reached several milestones in one night - top quality, high acceptance levels with large userbases, hurting commercial competition and it's winning the game.
I would love to have seen Richard Stallman's face when he found out about this.
And my point was that, in the following weeks when the OSS community release incredibly fast modified software that doesn't infringe on their patents,
the same target audience will get the *IDEA* and the *PROOF* that OSS can reacts very quickly to whatever threat is thrown at them.
(As already previously proven with fixing critical exploitable bugs fast, or updating free antivirus ClamAV for new threats).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The previous poster writes, "Take just 10 minutes to get educated."
A judicious selection of readings from "Against Intellectual Monopoly" is ideal for educating oneself about intellectual property, in the ten minutes generously alloted for this purpose by the previous poster.
For example, Boldrin and Levine demolish the conventional claim of intellectual property apologists that intellectual property is just like real property. Boldrin and Levine point out that property rights have to do with the right of the owner to exclusive use, whereas intellectual property is a government grant to create a legal monopoly over all copies of an idea.
The use of patents by monied intellectual monopolists to impede innovation for their own profit is ancient. Microsoft belongs to a long line of rent seeking intellectual monopolists, which includes such historical figures as James Watt, who spent more time protecting his monopoly on the steam engine and prosecuting inventors with superior designs than he spent on development; and Marconi, whose contribution to the development of radio was the introduction of the ground wire.
The original poster is unwittingly correct: if /.-ers were to follow his advice, they would be only "marginally more intelligent." But why should they settle for that, when they could read Against Intellectial Monopoly, and be brilliant?
As Microsoft has already generated the list of patent infringements, wouldn't the list be availably from Microsoft UK to any UK company who was planning to release a Linux based product to the US market.
Where's the Gandhi quote?
Huh?
Um, I would like to see your reference material; yes, IE was an offshoot of Mosaic, but it's been established that IE came from Spyglass. MS was to give a percentage of the revenue of sales of IE back to Spyglass, and that they screwed Spyglass over by charging nothing for the use of IE, resulting in as little money as possible going back to the original developers. Spyglass of course, tanked.
Please, try to take the 4 minutes it took me to search, vet, and link material for your claims - it'll help everyone out, including you.
"Microsoft is to software what McCarthy was to politics?"
Actually, I like "Microsoft is to software what Shere Khan was to Jungle" analogy better. "Lungri" (The Lame One) indeed, LOL
Then the developers can start from the top and alter the infringing features, and IBMs lawyers can work from the bottom and invalidate the patents using prior art.
For one thing, I've been producing open source software longer than the name Microsoft has existed. As end user of my own creations, I am never infringing anyone's patents. All my source code is now permanently in VB6 on WinXP where it will develop quite nicely, over the coming decades. To me, I rationalize this platform and language as ideal in its frozen state like a new dead language, say Latin. I could have been pissed off that my latest 10 year development took so long that it drove me into another box canyon: I'm not. Nonetheless, As a developer, I will not contemplate a dotNet future because Microsoft has broken my trust in them. Linux is out of the question until I can run the VB6 IDE on it. Imagine my good luck in knowing that I can capitalize on my VB6 and WinXP experience, forever, starting by putting it on an affordable Nano-ITX + PicoPSU with an FM transmitter. From there under the passenger seat, to my car stereo, my open source software will come alive as never before. I need it in the car to handle mp3 mixing, as I won't put up with any other mixing software but my own. Mine is a total 24/7 entertainment AI that travels with me. Text To Speech and voice commands are as important to me as the music that's playing. Imagine 100+ turns of a slinky, with song links arranged around its 15bpm diameter, in order of beats per minute. Then, that long slinky is made into a big cat's cradle, looping with itself in real time. Time takes its toll by commencing a new song only when the second hand reaches 60. Every half hour or so, Winamp's shuffle is turned on, for the next song only. Depending on the hour at hand, more or less songs are started this way on an ever learning ocean of emotion. That's by way of a background to explain my main thing about these patent woes. I see them and DRM and such like from a very different perspective which is that I think the Synarchy is preparing to retreat to its idealized single state, like Britain in the movie, "Children Of Men", so I see outsourcing and off-shoreing as a strategic move for them to prepare for bringing the axe down on all of humanity. Computers as a commodity with legions of experts is a problem to be dealt with in a climate of fear in which people will become wary of helping each other. Unaccredited technical assistance like Systernals or me could be easily mopped up and consolidated by a few scientists and their robots. Once we've had the "HEADS Up", like the alerted wildebeest, in Dr. Spencer Wells' Journey Of Man, it's easy to keep the Bushman in our sights. Tell others too and this game is up.
Argumentum ad Probabilitum
And IBM pays to Microsoft. And they both pay to Hitachi (another huge patent holder). In fact, IBM was the company that changed Microsoft's attitude towards software patents. MS was indifferent to patents, by and large. They did file them every now and then but it wasn't a company-wide mandatory thing it is now. That was all good until one day Bill received a nastygram from IBM telling him that Microsoft owes IBM a bajillion dollars because IBMs software patents are being infringed upon. Bill got the message. The very next year they set quotas for every single product unit and middle managers MUST fill their quotas to even have a hope of a promotion. Quality of the patents is pretty much irrelevant. I also heard that big patent holders get together once a year and decide who pays whom and how much.
For all I care this house of cards needs a few cases of _successful_ Eolas-like pwnage. Patent something stupid but fundamental (this costs roughly $10K), sue everyone for billions in "damages". Lather, rinse, repeat. After a while patent holders themselves will lobby the Congress to abolish software patents or at least do a patent reform.
In response to Mr. Ballmers assertion that FOSS violates Microsoft patents, I quote my favorite (late) author, Dr. Isaac Assimov:
"That remark bears an uncanny resemblence to the proverbial crockpot full of the fecal excrement of the male bovine."
Registered Linux user # 170078
Should have a peer reviewed patent observation project, to cope up with threats like these in the future. OSF should perhaps also look at patenting for protection.
Vista is NOT ready to compete with other desktop OSs and won't be anytime soon, ... oh, wait...
Vista is NOT ready to compete with other desktop OSs and won't be anytime soon.
Tralalalala...
Vista is NOT ready to compete with other desktop OSs and won't be anytime soon,
Vista is NOT ready to compete with other desktop OSs and won't be anytime soon.
Traaaaahlalalalaa...
Vista is NOT ready to compete with other desktop OSs and won't
Trust me, I work for the government.
Wonder how many patents are violated by closed software.....
To be patentable, an idea needs a concrete expression. That comes from having to explain your idea in sufficient detail to reproduce the patent.
It should also be non-obvious from patent law.
It ought to be something special too. Mostly because, if it can't be protected by trade secret, why should we grant a patent? The public get nothing from the deal except restrictions.
SCO's case is about intellectual property, in that case, licenses, I understand.
Patents are another kind of intellectual property.
If such a trivial patent is valid, then the US patent system is realy b0rked.
But even, in such a case, the patent can be circumvented.
See, given the era when screensavers started to appear (i.e.: when CRT was the main method of displaying image for computers), so there a very high chance that such a patent will be formulated as the GP poster said : method in which the display shows random or non-random patterns in order to avoid screen burn-in.
See, the main point is that, as pointed-out by the Wikipedia, nowadays screensavers are primarily used for entertainment or security purposes, because LCD panels are a lot less susceptible to burn-ins than CRTs.
So the whole idea is to do exactly the same result, using slightly differently stated method. Call it a "screen protector". Define it as a piece of software that :
- Monitors user (in)activity.
- After a given time, turns the LCD panel of for power saving
- After a given time, switches from the user desktop to a different environment for security reasons (protect both the access to the desktop and the data displayed on the desktop from undesired intruders/eavesdroper)
- Switching back from protected mode to desktop mode requires that the user enters his log-in credential again.
- Password prompt conditions may be optionnal : one may decide to use auto-logon and only protect data visually (can't eavesdrop through window, but anyone could unlock)
- The protected mode may be just blank screen. As an added bonus, the protected mode may also display some sort of audio-visual entertainment.
It does exactly the same thing, but it is defined as a different product.
It's not just a flying toaster on the screen to avoid burnins,
it's a "screen protector" with "power saving and protection of privacy, with audio-visual entertainment option activated".
It's the same way the Arithmetic coding can be circumvented by substituing it with the closely related Range encoding.
Or substituing the patented Marching cubes algorithme for producing a surface from a volume, with the simplier but functionnaly equivalent patent-free Marching tetrahedron.
The only limitation is for a couple of things where, to achieve it's goal (interoperability with formats or network communication between microsoft and linux softwares), the software has to follow one specific implementation (ffmpeg may infringe on some of microsoft patent on VC-1 video) but the implementation can't be changed because compatibility will be lost (using alternative non-patented algorithms for video compression/decompression will result in incompatible data).
That hapened during the GIF and MP3 patent controversies. (Although in GIF's case the patent could be circumvented to produce legal GIF although not compressed).
But in the specific case of those 235 patents, some juridiction - mostly EU - will back the open source community as patents are used in ways to explicitely stop interoperation from concurrence. (See what happened with Samba)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Seasoned readers may remember that when Netscape forked the code tree for the browser and made it open source, Wang, backed by Microsoft, sued for an alleged patent infringement. Mozilla.org put out a call for cases of prior art, received several hundred, and buried the case. If Microsoft is stupid enough to go ahead with a case for any of these so-called infringements, the chances are that every one will have prior art or one kind or another. Patents rarely stand up in court with the right amount of expert support.
You are visting an English-speaking board and as such you are expected to speak decent English. I am not a native English speaker but I do the best I can to pass off as one. On an Italian board I'd expect visitors to speak decent Italian. What's wrong with that?
Besides, PP was innocently making fun of GP and I don't think anybody but you, not even GP himself, was offended by the mockery. Maybe you could try to be a little less PC and have a bit more fun?
Global warming is a cube.
RMS has proven himself a visionary once more where some thought he was going too far. The whole GPLv3 thing might seem a bit paranoid in the beginning, not just for Linus, with all this talk about forking off a lot of commercially-backed development --- people took SCO's failure as a governing example and thought that other big players would abide by the status quo, with the patent stockpiling by both sides to be an assurance of mutual peace... Following this new development, however, GPLv3 WILL mature and get adopted much quicker and on a larger scale. You're right on the money saying that now the forks will not likely happen.
VKh
Ten years ago, a crack development unit was sent to prison by the Supreme Court for patents they didn't infringe. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security datacentre to the Swedish undernet. Today, still wanted by Microsoft, they survive as kernel-devs of FOSS. If you have a core-dump, if no one else can debug, and if you can Email them, maybe you can hire... The Gnu-Team!
RMS has to be B.A, Linus as Hannibal, Ballmer as Colonel Decker
#include <sig.h>
>> After Iraq aborts the invasion that is being
>> carried out by the American and British villains,
>> the USA will no longer be a superpower. Its
>> deterioration will be rapid.
The dude was kind of right. They're currently in the process of aborting the invasion. Short of total nuclear elimination of Iraq, I have no doubt they will succeed. What this means is, the US can't win a full scale land war. Then Iran and North Korea will finally build their nukes, which will allow them to show a middle finger to everyone else, and this, in turn, will demote the US from the status of a superpower, because there will be countries on which it does not have influence. This place of a superpower will be taken by China within 30 to 50 years, not in a small part because GWB wasted $500B on a pointless war instead of spending them on keeping his country ahead of others in all the right areas.
In fact the only reason why the US is a superpower today is because other countries are benefiting from the status quo. When this is no longer the case, they'll ask the US to repay its debts, which it can not.
In the office, its a classic developer prank (from time to time) to hack remotely the fully patched and suppostly secure windows work-stations of the network admins while they are in front of them
This m$ bully would piss-off enought people, with frecuent access to 0 day security holes in m$ products, to erode even more their market share. Today only inmmature fools and/or greedy criminals do it... why they want to trigger a practical "Holy War"?
I'm no lawyer, but it seems very unethical at the least to sue someone for patent infringement without sending them a letter notifying them of the infringement beforehand. Does anyone know if it's legal? Also, is it possible for them to win a suit against Linux users? Or do they have to go after distributors?
My new blog
That happens when you have laws that allow anyone with the money to patent every trivial little algorithm. I wouldn't really blame MS for this: if you give somebody a nice weapon the legally kill off competitors, why shouldn't that weapon be used?
It was obvious that this would happen years ago, it was obvious how every little patent of how to convert a binary number to an ASCII hex string (I think that one belongs to IBM, incidentally) could eventually turn into a weapon against any programmer who just does his normal job: writing pograms. Give credit to the assholes who are responsible for this: the lawyers and the lobby from the patent organizations who obviously and with good reason see a paradise of high-paid jobs and endless trials open up before them.
I suppose we all knew it would happen sooner or later, that Microsoft would try this on. But let us step back a little and think about it.
FOSS is widely used, not just by Linux enthusiasts; some very big corporations and the governments of several large nations are using this stuff. They are not going to hang their heads, mumble 'sorry' and pay up, if Microsoft actually try to litigate. On top of that I think it could well give very bad publicity for Microsoft, which I don't think even they could afford; they are not stupid (or I don't think they are), they don't want a lot of publicity that paints them as a monster out of control and their opponents as some sort of hero.
SW patents are not internationally recognised, and I suspect that if there are too many of this kind of thing, many countries will think again before they implement laws that allow SW patents.
What will happen if they actually try to sue somebody? It depends, of course - if they try to go after important enough parts of Linux, like the kernel, I think we will see companies like IBM and Oracle team up against Microsoft; they have invested too much in it to just give it all away. Apart from that, I find it hard to imagine that a company like IBM haven't thought about exactly this question a long time ago. They didn't grow big by blundering headlessly through the world.
No, my best guess is that this is yet another case of FUD. But what exactly do they hope to achieve? I think they have realised what a lot of us already guessed a long time ago: they can't beat Linux of FOSS, so they have to see how they can make money from it. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them migrate more and more stuff to Linux. We already know what kind of player they will be in the world of Linux: a bully that will use any means to be the biggest if not the only player around.
What anarchy are you talking about? We've been doing just fine without software patents in Europe.
News outlets however pick up Ballmer's rants and ramblings while the patch releases you describe would be lucky to be mentioned.
It seems to me that M$ wants to sue people/companies etc for having the intelligence to not use Windows. Steve is gonna need more chairs.
I prefer Classic Slashdot.
I wonder if MS will be able to provide us a list like sco did ?
"The Linux GUI"?
...) makes them sound like SCO with their unspecified copyright violations...
Linux distros use two major and dozens of minor GUIs, based on a window system that's older than Microsoft. Calling it "the Linux GUI" without qualification (KDE, Gnome, GNUStep,
Clearly this round of sabre rattling is not going to end up in court. For a start MS would find itself in very hot water about these vague patent claims : it would create doubt in Microsoft's ranks and jeopardize the stock value.
On the other hand, the issue is to create doubt among traditional US corporate structures. Some might be frightened enough to move back to Windows. On the other hand, smart IT shops won't probably care. When Microsoft start suing their own customers RIAA/MPAA style it might be a sign of their own impending doom.
Oddly enough, the confirmation of Linux's success comes from Microsoft itself. You know they have to be desperately afraid of Torvald's creation for them to make this last ditch effort to gain from the courts what they could not honestly win in the marketplace.
Microsoft may try to enforce their probably bogus patents, but if they do so they will be clobbered by Linux's allies.
How dare these communists and agitators dare PAY people for their work when slavery worked so well before. My walrus mustache chortles at them. I say. Now I must go and get my monocle washed with the tears of brown-ish children. Get back to work, losers.
The results are..... interesting, to say the least.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Software can't be patented, software patents are on the functionality of a general purpose computer performing instructions contained in some specific piece of software. The end-user infringes by running executable code, that's why MS were able to indemnify Novell end users.
I'm reading only one thing, Microsoft (tm) admitting FOSS software is great. And they want a piece of it. Sadly enough FOSS people tend to hate m$ because of all the evil things they do. Like having WGA phone home every day. Not to mention all the US law that windows(tm) falls under, which makes it an economical risk for other countries. Novell got $$$ out of the deal, the FOSS people that mattered, - possible exception being miguell- left. It's an empty shell now, microsoft is getting desperate. Furthermore Suse uses RPM,hah. It's as simple as this. Microsoft does not have a patent, on "opereating systems". Anything that makes sence to have been patented will be invented around. But Microsoft will not dare to make the list of patents known. Like SCO all they have is some idle thread. linux and windows are entirely different operating systems. Linux has in the past done it's best to avoid patents that make sence. For example SeH(structured exception handling) which is in all lightlyhood better than the signals used in linux, was not "ripped" because of these issues. Email programs would infringe 15 pattents. Tell me how xmail manages that ;). most of those
however will be UI? can you really patent a "reply all" button? (Let me save the courts some work)
No.
There are Billions of lines of opensource software, we only infringe 235 pattents of microsoft?
Let microsoft make a list of 235 things opensource software should be allowed to do, and then let
the courts decide. Ofcourse this won't happen. All they want is to send some stupid press releases
out.
They are desperate, they should have though of 235 ways to make Vista not suck so badly.
Tell me how can you screw up copy and move of files
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx? PostID=1358057&SiteID=17
write a browser that anno 2007 only needs this to overwrite arbitrary files
http://www.milw0rm.com/exploits/3892 ...
Windows just doesn't make sence anymore. The dumbed down UI with poor performance was great in the earlier days of
IT, but it didn't evolve right. Sorry.
One more thing, are they going to sue, all those african/south american childs who are just
now recieving their XO's (OLPC) ? How's that for being evil?
MS decides to cry over FOSS because vista is selling poorly? Did MS forget about stealing Vista from a mac o/s? hope ms actually opens this can of worms, would be funny to watch IBM and Apple respond.
SCO, SOBS, MOSS, BullShit, SameShit ....
... it ain't CAPITALISM or DEMOCRACY.
USA Corporatist Capitalism (by any other name) is Corporate Fascism, Communism, Socialism or
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
To all those out there who defend MS and tell us how they've done such wonderfull things to the IT industry. Who sit there wondering why the rest of us (who typically have been around for a while) hate microsoft with something akin to a passion. Here's your answer why.
Do you think we're suprised...
That all this attention MS has been putting on Open Software is actually a good thing? After all, MS would be ignoring it if it wasn't popular and becoming more popular (Starting to cut into their bottom line). Plus, this is MS's normal way of reacting to this type of threat - either buy it or go to court. Therefore, I think we will see MS becoming even more desperate in the near future.... Track how popular OSS is in relation to the threats that MS makes.
http://timcol6.freehostia.com/
Dear Sir I am Prince Abu Niffigihiffigitty-Swakabaka Shibazz of Nigeria And I Have Need Of Your Help. I Found Your Name On The Internet While Looking For An Honest Deserving Business Partner. I Must Get $180,393,282,191,482 Out Of My Country Before ...
"Tu fui, ego eris" - Virgil
I mean...
if we are sure we are not breaking it (prior art?), someone should sue microsoft for... i don't know how this is in english... basically it's spreading f.u.d. on someone...
and since they claim they know someone who brakes the law, are they still in the right of sueing someone lots of time after their first claim?
and in this case aren't they sort of responsable, since they knew, they had no excuse not to say that to the police, and still they didn't tell anything official?
and why there seems not to be any court that takes care of those claims of law-breaking?
IANAL of course, just seeking answers, tnx.
Surely if GNU/Linux violates hundreds, then they could compile a list of infringements by Apple. If you're really interested in protecting those patents, then protect those patents!!
Microsoft found to be full of shit up ears and rest toilet paper.
that lawyers were like the mafia in that they never work FOR YOU, they do outsourcing/contract work. Surely a lawyer knows
he can earn the $1500/hr to him self & partner, rather than a 30% cut and 70% to 'agency'
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
How about something like http://www.eff.org/patent/ but for *every* patent owned by Microsoft.
If the value of a company is based in part on the amount of interlectual property it owns, or thinks it owns then having large numbers of them declared invalid even if unrelated to directly to Linux etc. would hurt them.
everything I've read in the financial press about Vista's sales performance has been positive
Same here, which has really puzzled. It's not permitted yet in our Fortune 500 company, and won't be for the foreseen future. While much of the prohibition is due to reliability concerns, we also have to evaluate its impact on our own production environment and there just isn't a compelling reason to incur that expense for an upgrade that provides us with functionalities not already present. I'd imagine we'll upgrade kicking and screaming when XP support is finally cut off.
From my experience with personal users, almost nobody has bothered. So who is driving all these incredible sales?
Why not move free projects outside of the US, let's say, to Europe? Patents for algorithms are not valid in the rest of the world. Should the projects be in free countries we are no longer bound by this stupidity and can do whatever we want with the source code.
And we're rattling them *really* loudly! [Rattle rattle rattle] Hear that? Be afraid!
No, you can't look at them. There's 238 of them. We counted them this morning.
Trust us.
[Everyone else draws their swords]
treated exactly the same as physical products I think we need to revisit the product liability of these as well. I suspect the amount of damage from poorly written software and questionable content would be many times that of the product's value. If you had to repair your car every week to keep it safe you could sue under the lemon laws. If a physical product your kid used would increase the chances of them engaging in dangerous behavior you would sue.
... you have to do it yourself.
SCO failed, so Microsoft is going to try to handle this personally.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
....that FOSS software generates. I think a court should decide that's a fair compensation.
You can't sue someone in the US if you've been aware of some situation and waited to pursue a lawsuit purely for tactical advantage. For example, a landlord can't know someone's in violation of their lease, let it slide, then use the condition to throw them out later on.
It's called laches. Check wikipedia.
Problem is that it will take about 5 years or more to fight these battles in court. If you go to Google Patents and search on Microsoft, you'll see the bulk of the patents where filed in the mid to late nineties.
So yes Microsoft may sue and may win and by that time it will be 2013-15 and the patents will expire.
Now ... all Microsoft needs to do (and is doing) is to demand license fees for the use of their patents. This won't affect Linux'es availability for anyone who's willing to pay for a license. How much opposition do you think this will engender in corporate America? How outworldish is it to try to monetise your patents? I have this sinking feeling that most of the industry will shrug it off with "Well ... we knew they're bastards, but that's why they make such a lot of money.", and simply make sure that their Linux distributions are covered by patent license agreements.
Google
Will Google suddenly litigate 150-odd patents (they won't be using the gui or Open Office, just the kernel), or will it consent to pay, say 15$ a copy in licensing fees? Eh? What would you advise Google's CEO if you were in charge of Legal Affairs?
Novell
Novell has signed this patent-agreement, so wouldn't automatically be required to oppose Microsoft when MS asserts its patents. And what about Red-Hat? Will they charge the windmills?
IBM ... will Microsoft see it as a winning strategy to get into a court battle with IBM about anything they can sue other much smaller companies for first? I'd be surprised.
And IBM? Will they even be a party in the initial legal battles? I mean
SUN
And yes, SUN will not take allegations that it's Open Office infringes on Microsoft's patents lying down. But will it take up the cudgels to protect the Linux kernel when it's trying to make a go of Open Solaris? Really?
The little guys
Although I will readily admit that "corporate" use of Linux has helped it along enormously, there are still the "purist" and "hobbyist" distributions. I'm guessing that there are hundreds of small specialised tweaked Linux distributions (ranging from Knoppix to firewalls) brought out by individuals and tiny little companies. That's where Linux shines. And that's where you see the oddball experiments and many of the interesting new developments.
So what are those small guys going to do when they receive a pay-license-fees-or-cease-and-desist nastygram? Their entire assets might just be enough to have a lawyer read the letter and explain to them what it means. My guess is that they will be unable to defend themselves and will quickly fold and withdraw their distros. That alone would be a blow.
The Kernel repositories
And then the Kernel repositories. What are the chances that those will have to take down the infringing portions of their code, if asked? Of course I can't say how likely this might be, as I'm not a lawyer. But Denis Crouch is and his response here ( http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2007/05/microsoft_ foss_.html) doesn't completely reassure me that Microsoft won't get anywhere.
What does Microsoft have to loose really? ... who likes buying Microsoft? A show of hands please! ... And now, who of you buy Microsoft because it happens to come with the hardware, and it works after a fashion, and you're locked-in anyway?
And about other companies giving Micorsoft a hard time
Really ... what does Microsoft have to loose from some bad publicity when trying to collect licenses on their patents? Somehow I can't even imagine that it would spark off an anti-trust suit, because all the "corporate" Linux distros aren't affected. Microsoft isn't (formally) trying to siderail an opponent, it's trying to get money for patents they own. Well yes, it's lethal to free-as
I had some recollection along the lines of non-commercial use not being infringing .. but can't recall the specific section of The Act (in the UK).
>>> "The only possible safeguard for private persons is that at least in Europe, patents can only be infringed in a commercial environment (so private not for profit use is never an infringement). I don't know whether this is the case in the US as well though."
I think you're right except for the "so private not for profit use is never an infringement" being perhaps a little too broad. Private non-commercial use is never an infringement (IIRC). But, not-for-profit and non-commercial are not equivalent. If it damages Microsofts revenue, for example, then it can be considered to be commercial use if it's promoted by some enterprise or other.
Now take a large pinch of salt.
Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith and licensing chief Horacio Gutierrez sat down with Fortune recently to map out their strategy for getting FOSS users to pay royalties. Revealing the precise figure for the first time, they state that FOSS infringes on no fewer than 235 Microsoft patents.
How can a philosophy like FOSS violate a patent on software? Philosophical concepts are not patentable. Software patents cover specific constructs and implementations in specific lines of code, not entire computer ecosystems.
The statement is nonsense, and it comes straight from Microsoft, so one can only conclude its a continuation of the propaganda that saw SCO extort hundreds of millions of dollars from gullible investors - stock that became worth less than the paper that represents them once the truth about the scam got out.
And this can only be a scam. If I write a GPL'ed 'hello world' how in the hell can that violate 235 microsoft patents? It certainly is FOSS code. What about the claim that an infinitely intangible and undefinable code-base such as 'FOSS' can violate a specific number of patents? Ballmer might well say 'The official 2.6.19 linux kernel violates X patents', but the lack of specificity hes given is proof that hes is talking out his ass.
Its as farcical as saying 'Peruvian capybaras violate 37.2 of our trademarks!'. Gibberish, and the sign of a company turning to crime as a means of profit now they can no longer compete or earn lawfully and fairly.
That would only be relevant if the parent also posted on forums in the GP's native language.
When did Darl McBride start working directly for m$? I swear its as if they watched everything that happened with the sco fiasco, and said "Hey, I bet if we try the exact same thing, something different will happen this time"
The point that most people miss is that indeed, many corporate patents would not stand up to scrutiny when challenged, but that's not their purpose. The purpose of many of these patents is defensive. The intent is to prevent others from stopping sale of their product. Instead, big corporations get together behind closed doors and start signing cross-licensing agreements to mutual benefit based on patent portfolios that likely could never be defended in court. That is the exact opposite of what MS is trying to do here, using FUD on a patent porfolio that is likely inherently defensive which they know they could neven go to court with successfully.
If only that logic translated correctly to the stores, companies, and government offices here in the US. Press 2 for ___. Yeah, I'm going off-topic from the OP, sorry.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Is Microsoft to FOSS like Enron was to California electricity generators?
Certainly, we must demand from Microsoft what we demanded from SCO: Put up or shut up.
Stand strong against this menace!
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Pay by credit card, each 1 cent payment will cost them 5 cents in processing fees.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
235 ... the fissile (fissionable, as used in nuclear bombs) isotope of uranium... coincidence?
Notice how he says Linux and open source software? He doesn't make a claim on how many Linux itself infringes - and that is most certainly intentional. He's still painting with a VERY broad brush. Yes, it's quite possible that a bunch of projects nobody's ever heard of and nobody uses infringes on MS patents. BFD.
Until Stevie gets very specific about alleged infringement his claims CANNOT be taken seriously.
The BSD public "NET" release are almost 20 years old and the code base is even older, which means that 1) any patents covering the code has passed - or is close to - the expire date, and 2) Microsoft hadn't begun their patent collection yet, so any patent violation found in the BSD code would in fact be prior art and invalidate the patent.
That's really the only question: which ones is Linux supposed to violate?
Give us a list and the case will evaporate within a couple of days, as the supposedly infringing code gets either replaced, or as people dig up the prior art.
If I, my mother (Hi mom! Happy 67th birthday!) and several friends and relatives are using Linux as their desktop OS?
Beyond he anecdotal, which company worth its salt has ever sued a competitor that is not a threat? (and here I do remind you that Microsoft earns a living from desktop computing mostly).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Microsoft are probably getting confused....
;)
They saw linux running on a 486 with X (yes it still does) but since it was going so slow they thought someone must have copied the doBullShit and doMoreBullShit API calls.
I'm sure you are all familiar with them...
doBullShit is the one that makes the system go slow and not respond to your mouse for a second or two, doMoreBullShit is the same, but first it turns on the rotating hour glass, in the middle allows you to actually click (still with the hour glass though) then goes non responsive before finally turning off the hour glass and returning the system to you.
Its an understandable mistake I'm sure... given what you need to run windows vista I'm sure the concept of X running on a 486 is one most people don't even contemplate
$_="Slashdotter";$syn="OTT";s;..;;;sub _{print shift||$_};s!ash!Perl !;s=$syn=ack=i;tr+LLEd+BLAH+;_"Just Another ";_
Ever wonder why Microsoft helped fund SCO's suits? It's the same reason Coca Cola released Tab before they released Diet Coke.
Let's see how many ways I can say this succinctly in a minute:
Microsoft wanted to test the waters before it took the plunge, and McBride and Co. served as their big toe. That was the cartoon, and this is the feature. SCO was the minor leagues, and out of suing end users, harassing end users in the press, bad-mouthing the competition, and suing the competition some of the players are getting called up to the majors. SCO was the Craftsman series, and Microsoft is the Nextel Cup. SCO was the sideshow, and Microsoft's the center ring. SCO was a motorcycle jump over water, and Microsoft's bringing in the flaming school buses.
There, I think you get the idea. The isn't another SCO show at all. It just means that practice is over and the legal battles made the main stage in front of the big audience.
If they dare do it, I am sure many people like me, normally apathetic regarding these issues, will work to help any company or individuals singled out by MS.
I don't know what is MS's budget for this sort of issue, but if they think they can defeat an army of commited people doing things for the love of a product and an idea that has given freedom back to them, then they will have a very rude awakening.
Go on MS. We dare you. Just try it please.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Microsoft has general patent cross license deals with many companies, including Sun and IBM, and perhaps also Apple. So if Apple or StarOffice violate some Microsoft patents, they might actually be in the clear nontheless. But someone who bought Red Hat, including Gnome and OpenOffice.org, could still be fair game.
Either big company has enough cash to drive a lawsuit for years ...
Any final litigation agreement would be years in the future, and not a concern.
What is years of FUD worth to Microsoft?
IBM is largely a consulting house these days, one with a big, fat patent portfolio. They're also not a consumer company; people don't get upset at them because most people barely perceive them. There's little Microsoft can do to their bottom line.
But: if Microsoft pisses of the wrong people enough and gets stuck with a bunch of patent lawsuits, their core businesses are in trouble: Windows, Office, Outlook, Exchange.
Microsoft, the new SCO.
Meh.
This reminds me, slightly, of the Compuserve GIF patent... where they went on a big rampage to collect dollars on a stinky image patent. The threats won them a ton of money.
Though, clearly Microsoft isn't yet hurting for funds. This is obviously one of many attacks on FOSS. They can't stand it, it threatens them, and they will continue.
The OSS world has to keep several steps ahead of them, both in OS design and patents.
I hope IBM catches this and takes them on. That would be impressive.
Ultimately it will come to war. As nation states like France, Japan, and others move to linux, to ban it or attack it and try to supplant it with a monopoly single closed source jailhouse of viruses like windows will be properly percieved as intervention in the internal affairs of nations at best; and as a coercive attempt at inserting an agent of espionage and subversion or actual sabotage into their economies; or as an overt cassus belli act of war by any nation of mind to pick a fight with us anyway for their own reasons. In short, say we try to force China to abandon their 'Red Flag Linux' distro and use 'windows'. We may make a show of using legal forums like the WTO or other organizations to put a face on it. The Chinese will not be fooled! They are the foolers, not the fooled. We the poor apathetic American public are the most fooled sleepwalkers of all. Say the Chinese Peoples Republic government makes a seemingly sudden change of officials and turn on us as economic hegemonists and would be intellectual imperialists. They will denounce our government's industry paid whores in congress as the 'true representatives of the american people' inasmuch as we have not and probably will not throw them out of office. In reality the real agenda will probably be to nationalize a then critical mass of american manufacturing and so called 'intellectual property' that moved to china over the last thirty years in chase of slave labor profits at the expense of the american middle class. Here gates' supreme bid for world domination will fall flat on the bayonets of a hundred million men of the Chinese People's Army. And American men and women will pay the supreme penalty for apathetically going along with windows just because it originally played games well, and did so behind their bosses' backs. The chinese have thousands of army divisions. How many real armed troops has bill gates? Paper court decisions are just paper. On a battlefield this paper is not even worth wiping your ass.
If Microsoft goes ahead with this... it marks the end for them. Open-source and Linux users and advocates from the world will unite with a force and power such that Microsoft will be utterly destroyed. Come together brothers and sisters, come fight the battle against evil!
Meh.
Perl?
This is pure FUD!! This article says nothing about any software other than Linux. THere is nothing about any of the BSDs.
Given that actually attacking Linux is equivalent to attacking IBM, it's clear that Microsoft's objective is merely to spread FUD and scare away corporate users from Linux. Microsoft is not dumb enough (unlike Caldera/SCO) to take IBM to court, who have deep enough pockets to fight it out legally.
Microsoft is scared of Linux, as it is not scared of the BSDs, because the GNU GPL keps Linux from being absorbed and co-opted (otherwise known as "Embrace and Extend") by Microsoft.
Fizz
My, another attempt to fight the trend. First it was propaganda, now this. Certainly shows they are getting desperate and fearful.
At least it's still "Press 1 for English". Can you imagine dialing an Indian call center 50 years from now?
..." 1
"Press 1 for Indo-European Languages, Press 2 for
"Press 1 for Indo-Iranian Languages... Press 3 for Germanic Languages" 3
"Press 1 for West Germanic Languages..." 1
"Press 1 for Anglo-Frisian Languages..." 1
"Press 1 for Anglic Languages..." 1
"Press 1 for English, Press 2 for Scots" 1
Here's my prediction for the future: as voice and data continue to merge, expect to see VoIP-like phones with default languages, regions, and other important information stored in the phone somehow. This information will be communicated with interactive voice response (IVR) systems through some sort of data channel to attempt to increase efficiency.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
Didnt they just promise not to do this last year?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Microsoft's refusal to prove they are infringing on open source patents is hurting my business. I have customers scared of linux lawsuits now that were rather happy a year ago. So, I'm going to do what everyone except the trolls on this forum want to do, but don't have the guts to try. I'm going to sue Microsoft and represent myself. So, any tips how I file a defamation lawsuit against Microsoft? I'm going to make them burn!
Sam
that the bullet is for OSS. Perhaps its meant for a large competitor that heavily utilizes open source in their service offering.
As somebody with MS, I would be delighted.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Or was that 532 patents? Or maybe 325?
Is Microsoft referring to those webcam Linux drivers?
your code Balmer!
http://showusthecode.com/
Relocating to San Francisco / Palo Alto... Hire me?
Time to start collecting as much source code as we can. Dont wait until tomrrow.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Not only has Microsoft ignored a significant shift in national intellectual property law (per recent Supreme court decisions)
Ignored a shift in IP law? By asserting their patents are infringed? I don't think the Supreme Court said you can't infringe a patent anymore.
As I understand it, the Supreme Court eliminated the Federal Circuit's bogus requirement that a prior art showing be a description of EXACTLY the claim to be rendered invalid.
As this percolates through the case law it should put teeth back into "obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art". This implies both the end of the flood of bogus patents on all aspects of computing and the invalidation of the bulk of those currently in the "stack of barganing chips" portfolios of companies such as Microsoft, as soon as any attempt is made to actually ENFORCE them.
With the value of the asset about to vanish, acquiring more bogus patents about to become extremely hard, and the bulk of the patents ready to self-destruct if challenged, it make sense for Microsoft to stop sitting on them and use them in a FUD campaign while the count is at its peak.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"And now they screwed it up. Countdown before more anti-thrust lawsuits start, 5...4...3...2...."
Get real.. this is the USA we are talking about here. M$ has the most money several times over. They own the courts and will never get punished for anything in the USA. Most reads here in Slasdot about this subject are so clueless. M$ can write its own ticket, it can do anything it wants here, it can operate outside of the law, it can even modify the law to its benefit. Don't be so stupid.
The only thing "Linux USA" can do to survive is to awaken to how the world around it really operates and start covering its ass for a change. It may be too late for that however.
"...a method for expressing anger by the repositioning of domestic or business-oriented furniture through the use of body strength to raise and project said furniture in order that it is relocated to different spatial coordinates."
AT&ROFLMAO
interesting... At Friday's meeting with Bill: "hey. Our new product (vista) launch isn't doing very well. Let's sue our users. Yes, I said it. Sue all of our users. Let's sue our distributors, too. Let's wipe out the whole planet." [turns to VP over research] "They found life and oxygen on some planet right? Let's get into that market with our original strategy back in the early 90's. Start shipping them vista for free. Be sure to tell them they've been selected to be on the beta team. Don't forget the t-shirts, mousepads and blinky gizmo's along with it."
Microsoft seems really scared of Open source softwares like OpenOffice and Linux to make such claims.
A lot of people can be greatly offended by someone realizing that they're not a native speaker of the language.
I don't know if you've ever experienced it or not, as you speak very good English. However, being noticed simply for the mistakes one makes (or, orally, for one's accent), gives one the impression that the first thing noticed is not one's message but one's accent and thus nationality. It's quite insulting.
Le français vous intéresse?
I'd put money on Mono infringing significant Microsoft patents, i.e. non-trivial techniques for which there wasn't a huge amount of prior art.
Mono is part of the standard release of the GNOME desktop, and hence a required dependency of the standard releases of Ubuntu and SuSE. In fact, YaST and Xen in SuSE require Mono, so you have to use Microsoft patented techniques to admin your SuSE system effectively.
So I think Microsoft probably have a plausible legal case against Novell and Canonical, for starters.
(Opinions mine, most definitely *not* IBM's.)
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Horseshit. Where do you think all those RFCs came from? The lack of patent protection hasn't stopped Ogg Vorbis or Theora, PNG, or SVG.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
It seems obvious to you, but computers are "all run by Pixies" to the US Patent Office.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Aw come on, how can you be offended by somebody *realizing* you're a foreigner? There's nothing wrong with not being a native speaker, as long as you make an effort to learn the language of the culture that's hosting you (ok, a bit of a stretch in the case of a web board). And of course I have experienced it, I wasn't born speaking English :) and I still speak with an accent. If anybody notices that and makes fun of it, well, I'll laugh along because to their ears it IS funny! I'll do the same when they try to speak my language. All in good fun, really.
Of course, people nitpicking while you speak and only considering you an error-spewing machine are dicks but, I believe that was not going on here.
Global warming is a cube.
Every stupid, asinine, patent claim needs to be tagged "KSR" to refer to the LANDMARK US Supreme Court decision on obvious patents. The patent landscape has changed, fellow Slashdotters, and it favors the majority, not the infinitesimal minority. Rejoice!
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Ahh...
I wish that we would have had software patents in the 80s. Then there would be no Microsoft. Apple and Oracle probably wouldn't exist today either. All of the technology they used to build their companies would have been patented by Xerox and we wouldnt have email, GUIs, pointing devices and many other things.
I wonder if anyone is going to realize that software patents dont work. I could tell 10 different developers to code a "desktop publishing app" and all 10 of them would come back with an app that would accomplish the goal in 10 different ways. Who do you award the patent to? The guy who finished first?
Software is an expression of ideas, like writing a novel or making a movie. Sure the ideas are structured, like math, but they are still an expression of ideas. We must protect them as such. We already have a mechanism for that, its called copyright.
Imagine what would happen if we could patent movies. A director could patent the scene "a girl in a bar sitting down" and now thousands of movies would infringe on that patent, even though the shot may be completely different. What about someone patenting "2+2". Many of you will probably think that is stupid, why would we let someone patent that, it's an idea. You would be correct, "2+2" is an idea and software is just a more complicated form of that same idea.
Right now, several incredibly creative developers are scared of releasing their own software because they have no idea whether they are infringing on patents or not. If you want to go back to the heydays of the early-mid 90s we need to get rid of software patents so that the software market can flourish again.
my $.02
--jake
Monopoly! Antitrust! Somebody call the cops already!
Microsoft can't keep people from pirating its own software, that is, obtaining and using without paying. Now suddenly they expect to collect money from somewhere (somewhere) when the SOURCE CODE for all of these supposed copyright violations is in the hands of the end-user? Honestly, I have not seen this much FUD come out of Redmond in quite a long time. "Open source? Didn't you hear? That's illegal now. Like sharing files with BitTorrent and owning non-Zune MP3 players."
it is pretty clear what caused this latest msft flair up - dell chose ubuntu over suse.
1. pressure dell to sell suse so msft hurts non suse linux and gets paid.
2. rattle the PHB cages again so they are less likely to use linux.
i find it interesting that they don't want to disclose the patents b/c they feel they won't hold up under scrutiny, though.
that *is* the reason they gave for not disclosing the specific patents, right?
However, I have a feeling that IVR systems will probably also have a prompt saying "Please state the language you wish to use" in a number of languages, and change based on the person's answer.
1. List every patent that MS registers
2. For every single individual MS patent, document reasons why it *might* be invalid (i.e. prior art, obviousness e.t.c.)
I am thinking something in the lines of an anti-MS patent Wiki.
Slowly, with community participation, their house of cards based on dubious patent claims will come crashing down.
Also think about it: they will know that every attempt of them to register a new patent will be so thoroughly scrutinized that it will be very difficult for MS to successfully register new patents --- especially if a process of public hearings is to be adopted by the USPO.
Furthermore, in time, we will amass all the necessary info needed to fight MS in the courts if they do a SCO on us.
I believe that only the existence of such a project will be a great showstopper for MS.
Man that MS just pisses me off!! It provides crap software, a buggy and hole-ridden set of routines for its OS, and then has the timerity to come accusing FOSS of stealing from it's crappy code-base?!? Get a friggin' life M$ - you should be so lucky that OSS coders even would read that woe-beggone buggy code that you call an OS, far less want to copy the damn stuff!! I can maybe give you reverse engineering in some more covert cells of engineering operation, and I'd also give you that we could improve your code 10 fold if you quit this st00pid proprietory stuff, and released your APIs and run-time calls for public purview. But to claim that we stole your codebase, violating your patents ... man, what did you have for breakfast????
And, BTW, did you ever wonder what would happen to you if the companies and ideas you absorbed through your aggressive marketing campaigns made you accountable to them? You'd fold under the sheer weight of the realisation that you do so precious little that wasn't already done before MS got the market share!
We now see step 2 of Novell's traitorous deal. We knew MS is evil. But now it's clear that Novell has moved to the other side, having nothing genuine to do with freedom.
As for MS, this is how fascists operate - they go to war for control. To them, it's simply about money and being the biggest bully. It has nothing to do with what is fair or reasonable. They will bring all the legal and financial pressure they can against OSS in an attempt to crush it. As they are aligned with a fascist (aka American) govt, the courts will favor them to a great extent, as they do the RIAA and MPAA. Observe the way MS's anti-trust lawsuit dissolved. MS's crimes aren't going to go away until the larger system supporting their crimes is addressed.
on your sig and say that not only is DRM theft but very notion of intellectual property is theft; moreover, in matters of abundance and excess resources the addition of markets only serves to create poverty, not wealth.
Yes indeed, the problem surely goes well beyond Microsoft and Steve "McCarthy" Balmer.
But I want to point out something that I haven't seen so far although it is alluded to in some comments lower down a bit and that is the lack of software patent protections in Europe to date. I think this is a pretty major hole in this plan. If they really wanted to make this stick, they'd wait till a time when the forces of darkness push through some kind of onerous software protection scheme in the EU. The US is certainly Microsoft's largest market, but if you look at global sales such as in this link you see that a third of MS's market is outside the US and you'd think they might want to close up that little hole before they started whooping up the war cries.
He's the biggest zealot I can think of! He's the person I think of when I think of the word "zealot"!
.. but geez is he a zealot.
Of course he's my kind of zealot, and I respect the guy a lot
zealot |?zel?t| noun a person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideals.
Yup.
M$ Sucks!!! This is why I will never use any of there products ever again. I am now 100% Linux and Free Software. I think M$ is feeling a little threatened here. Losing there business to free software. This will never happen M$ will have to sue billions of people and take 100's of years in the courts. Maybe they will bankrupt. I hope.
They threw a big sounding number out there to impress gullible journalists.
None of this matters until they cite specific patents and specific applications. Then, those patents have to be found valid. The applications have to also be shown to be actually infringing, not just in some lawyers imagination. None of this has happened. This is just meaningless marketing noise. Microsoft is now trying to pull an SCO. They will need far more than SCO had to make it mean anything. Microsoft should look at the history of these things. The only winners will be the lawyers on both sides.
The real upshot of this will be another antitrust suit against them. I wonder if it's worth it to Balmer to have the company broken up? All other remedies have been tried and failed. Since the company cheats on every agreement, that's all that is left. If they follow through with these threats, look for 3 or 4 baby microsofts in a few years. Also, look for large corporations to fund some lobbyists asking for serious congressional restrictions in the patent system.
See, every dark cloud has a silver lining somewhere.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
I live in the land of free and we dont have softeware patents (And now i dont mean US or thier lapdog Canada)
"Never EVER mess with a jumper you don't know about, even if it's labeled 'sex and free beer'." - Dave Haynie
I'm just wondering why MS is pointing this up in front.
People at home who change their OS (as a normal graduated linux user would do) how can that be stopped ?. What is someone writes down in code true type fonts acka windows quality, and say this is the code I provide it here a number, people cannot patent numbers the post would be legal. And basicly computer code is numbers.
Mainly i wondr why MS does this, probaply its not targeted to people who would do just that generate a treutype font or something else based on code (numbers) or alternative numbers (as alternative math) Math itself cannot be copyrighted (only kept secret as for encryption). So who they are targeting, perhaps the large deploys of linux, i can imagine that MS would visit a company who had hundreds of linux machine with violating code?
But whatif a company would also say this program is just a long number, like there are thousends of numbers, the numbers here happen to control a device working with numbers called a CPU, it's math device build for numbers working with other devices who work based on numbers. Together they hafe a function who ends up similair on display like the numbers and math you used. I just wonder where patents can define numbers as somthing that can be owned.
Probaply the only method to realy get it right is to create an encrypted operating system, no opensource at all, only protected by math itself. But then we get european style courts.
Well probaply the whole thinkg is a big joke for how long we will use current style PC's i think their design is outdated.. but it's just a matter of time before i386 design will make place for new designs, based on the knowledge of these days. Remember it wouldnt be the apolo to be the first choise to fly someone to mars.
I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.
>>Philosophical concepts are not patentable.
The problem is that according to current US law, they are. You can patent any trivial software concept and be covered against any possible implementation. All that matters is where it happened first. This is why software patents are so bad. They don't cover specific implementations, but rather computing concepts. To make matters worse, they're extremely easy to get so anyone who writes software can end up in court defending themselves against baseless lawsuits. You know that translation table you just constructed? Well, too bad someone patented translation between those two types of data. Now you have to go and try to invalidate their patent.
The article quotes Linus Torvalds as saying he is not worried about proprietary software because while the "FSF considers proprietary software to be something evil and immoral" he just doesn't care about it. Well, that's refreshing. It is what I believe Roger Parloff was getting at earlier in the article when he talks about businesses working out non-GPL licenses that that accommodate to the proprietary sector.
It is in that same vein that Microsoft has worked out licenses with customers and the agreement last year with Novell.
Richard Stallman once referred to a study - that was done by Open Source Risk Management - that the Linux kernel infringed more than the 235 patents cited in the Fortune article. So, patents on Linux is not new. What is new is a statement that Microsoft has identified 235 patents in its patent portfolio that cover free and open source software.
The statements by Ballmer and Smith are not a call to a war on patents. Stallman and Moglen seem to be the ones calling for that. Rather, Ballmer and Smith talk about licensing and not patent infringement actions. I suppose that that is one of the reasons for not naming specific patents and specific products covered by them - to avoid being dragged into court where they don't want to be on declaratory judgment actions.
It is true that recent Supreme Court decisions have pared back patentability of inventions and infringement actions - but I think that is an evolutionary and not radical alteration. There is also the peer to patent project of NYU. Really, all of this is good if it means weeding out good patents from bad. But none of this goes to the true desire of the FSF - to eliminate patent protection for software. In GPLv3, FSF makes their disdain for patents on computer software clear. But rather than taking the issue to the only party that can do something about it - the US Congress - FSF is more inclined to take it to the streets and fan the flames to ignite the "tinderbox" that Moglen referred to in the article. They would apparently welcome it. But it is cooperation and not conflagration that Microsoft is interested in.
No, we cannot all be friends - but we need not put our friends, customers, and software users in a cross fire, which is precisely what the GPLv3 does.
So, I am not worried about proprietary software or patents. I am not worried about how many patents Richard Stallman or Brad Smith thinks cover Linux. I am worried about the combatants on the anti-patent side of the aisle that do not take the issue on directly but who actively seek confrontation instead.
Universities... Other non-profits... A few companies that have more to gain by interoperability of their improvements than they spent to develop them. Obviously that's not the situation with something like h.264.
Theora is the worst possible example you could possibly have picked... Without patent protection, On2 wouldn't have developed VP3, and later open sourced the code and released their patents on it. Additionally, Theora is perpetually unfinished, and even the best possible outcome for the codec is, years from now, being a terrible performing, and still with about the quality of MPEG-1, on which patents have expired years ago...
Vorbis isn't the best example, either. The quality is only slightly better than the very old MP3 format, and requires vastly higher resources for both encoding and decoding. It lacks a vast number of features like multi-channel joint encoding, distorts in many situations, and overall just doesn't compare favorably with more recent patented formats like AAC. Musepack compares much more favorably in most every way, but they piggy-backed on numerous patents over the years, and still fall under a few.
And what must be said about every patent-free format is that their developers have depended greatly on patented technology... even if they then modified the patented process slightly to avoid patents. Numerous instances of that are well-documented in VP3, and I have no doubt there's plenty in most other patent-free formats.
And, additionally, it needs to be mentioned that in places where patents are not enforceable, there is rarely any use of these patent-free formats. The patents formats are superior in many ways to their patent-free equivalents that without the fees, there is no motivation for using anything else.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
No, I'm not saying Linux is a little guy. What I mean is, is this punishment for a small programmer that adds a small feature to the code base but doesn't have the time/energy/money/idea to patent it? But MS later patents something very similar. Here's to locating prior art.
These are some of the things molecules do...... given 4 billion years -Carl Sagan
... the power of determined nerds and bulk supplies of assorted stimulants.
For M$ of course... They're fighting the last battle. It will take a while however people and companies will move faster and faster towards new ways of using software, both OS and productivity. Software will be mainly a service and M$ will be out (and nobody will cry for this).
Ironically, Novell's weird arrangement allowing them to control the company now called SCO originally came about because Novell wanted to sue Microsoft by proxy, but feared retaliation.
So it not only has been done, but in that case it worked (the lawsuit, IIRC, was successful; this was well before Darl, though, and the current lawsuit from SCO is clearly doomed and contrary to Novell's wishes because they used the same clause to tell SCO to stop the suit immediately).
In other news, Phillip Morris strongly objected to people growing Hemp for commercial purposes.
"It is bad for people's health... and besides, tobacco can't be used in blue jeans." said a Phillip Morris spokesman. It violates and duplicates our copyright on Nicotine -- which we made after we figured out what all that brown stuff was on the handkerchiefs.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
I imagine that many of these ideas were developed independently, but that doesn't mean there will always be prior art. For example:
Linux Timeline for developing "Feature X"
Spring 2001: Think of Feature X
Summer 2001: Release initial code for Feature X
Fall 2001: Test and debug
Winter 2001: Release Feature X
Windows Timeline for developing "Feature X"
Spring 2001: Think of Feature X
Spring 2001: Patent Feature X
2003-2004: Hack away at Feature X
2005: Release Feature X
In this case, Microsoft holds the patent, but only due to their speedy legal department. Thus showing, once again, how stupid software patents are.
This could be ace for us. They say linux infringes on 235 patents or whatever. If they ever do show us a patent go "yeah, you said before, but then waited... that's against the rules. No deal". Then they can bring forward all they have, and if that is less than 235 we can say "ah, but you already knew about that but didn't tell us. No deal". We could well end up with free shots at patent infringement because of balmer's claims...
The only thing MS could do is admit lying to try and damage a competitors business... and thats as bad as it gets from a PR and Government point of view...
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
I will go back to using my Commodore Amiga (or buy a Mac) before I would buy another copy of Windows from these stupid fuckers. You will have to pry the penguin from my cold dead hands Microsoft! You cannot force people to buy your shit, if they don't want it. The only companies getting away with that racket is the auto insurance industry, but at least there is some form of competition there.
Death is life's great reward. R. Hoek
It clearly states that Microsoft's actions are unsound and likely to result in harm to the software industry on page 3.
When I clicked "Print" to get the 3 pages on one, sans ads, I got a printable version of page 1 only resulting in a more pro-MS version that many (like myself) might have read, then stopped reading...
I come here for the love
"Did he infringe 235 patents or only 347?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a GPL License, the most powerful free software agreement in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, Ballmer?
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
Apparently Smith didn't pay much attention in his equity classes in law school (not surprising since most people find equity boring and difficult - I on the other hand topped my year so :-P to Smith). This behaviour is going to give rise to a proprietary estoppel against Microsoft, and he has now publicly stated the hardest things a defendant would have to prove to get the estoppel. This is just about rule #1 of equity - if you know somebody is violating your property rights, and you let them expend time, effort and resources building something in violation of those rights without them having knowledge of the breach of your rights, the courts will not let you enforce your rights against those people or anybody who claims through them.
It would be a different matter if Microsoft had no knowledge of the breach, but having investigated it and found the breach, if they don't tell the projects affected what the alleged breach is in fairly short order, they are not going to be able to enforce their rights at all.
Even if he did not pay a lot of attention in his equity classes it seems unlikely Smith would not have some awareness of this. This suggests to me that Microsoft have no intention whatsoever of using the patents to pursue open source projects or even users who are building businesses based around open source products. If they did intend to do this, they would give specific notice. This leaves them with only intimidation as a strategy for exploiting their patents against open source.
It is a shame we have no examples of another company that turned to using unspecified intellectual property violations as an intimidation strategy against open source. Such an example might give us an indication of the ultimate result.
I can think about this issue only two possibilities.
First possibility: this Microsoft first punch is the start of a long-planned, long-term fight to revert the trend in their ever shrinking market. Well, at least to try. People and companies are switching very fast to Linux. Microsoft knew this situation since long time ago, even better than Linux enthusiasts. So we may expect more surprising twists in legal, publicity, media and propaganda battle fields. For sure, the world of operating systems will never be the same.
Second possibility: this Microsoft first punch is just a unthinked rebuff, the start of an unreflexive, unpredictable and brute force Ballmer-signed sequence of events. Revealing a hugely desperate internal state. With Stallman and Torvalds appearing in the middle of every nightmare to Microsoft executives. So we may expect really surprising twists in legal, publicity, media and propaganda battle fields. For sure, the world of operating systems will never be the same.
I can't think of anything in between.
As I see it, M$ is playing the RIAA and SCO cards. Users of OSS might start getting bills for infringement in amounts small enough that typical consumers will pay because it's cheaper than fighting it in court. M$ covers it legal costs plus a small profit.
On the other hand, maybe its claimed patent infringements result in court rulings that nullify patent after patent because said patents cover what is "obvious" and therefore unpatentable in the first place. In the short term, M$ may actually make a bundle, but in the long term will so alienate a customer base that M$ will wither.
Linux and OpenOffice.org must be seriously undermining M$'s business...
For example, what if those bogus trial versions of Microsoft (MS) software had open holes that people were unintentionally or intentenionally using that allowed them use to MS patents. If MS makes a deal with several hardware vendors to put trial versions every Windows PC without a fuller version and that trial-ware puts resources on computers that give access to the copy or modifies copy of developer, would MS be to blame.
Yes, it might be a stretch that MS be dangling tools or software that they would allow to work for most purposes and disallow for others, but it is possible. Adobe was allowing open source use of some functionality for PDF, but didn't want to openly allow MS for fear it would go beyond what they were allowing open source to do. MS invested some hefty dollars toward better fonts for both the printable and onscreen use. As was noted before IEEE Spectrum May 2007 issue mentioned the new VISTA/2007 Office version have some new fonts that can increase productivity from winners of a 2004 competition. Could MS tied the prize to giving up the work and doing any work tied with it, even if the work was in use on an open source project prior to the prize? If MS did then there could be patent issues. In the IEEE Spectrum article they mention Verdana was released in 1996, how long can only hold a patent on a font? In addition, since MS fought to prevent the Lindows name because it sounded to close to Windows would they have issue with similar names for equivalent fonts developed for Linux versions that don't have a deal with (i.e. not Novell/SuSE, but Red Hat/Fedora, Debian, Mandrake, Ubuntu,...)?
So basically, even if I come up with counterexamples, you'll claim that they ultimately depend on patented technologies.
In other words, you're carefully framing the terms of debate so that you're correct by definition, making your original claim vacuous.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Windows is the case of a monopoly supported by the government since Even Non-Windows users are forced to indirectly pay to MS. Also Copy-Protection laws also support Windows since this OS is the only one to play Blue-Ray-Discs legally (or DRM). Furthermore the German Government practically requires the people to make their income tax declaration using a Windows software.
This could fall under slander and libel. I think they have used the tactic long enough they (M$) should be forced to eat it with a lot of salt and crow. At the same time, they can explain the Windoze ip stack (BSD) to start with , along with all the other ideas and software they stole. How much of Mozilla is in IE7 anyway? If they don't want the law suit call their bluff. Otherwise, we will repeat this crap over and over and... again.
Yes, that's it" "No lawsuits" ... according to senior Microsoft Executives.
In addition there is a retort by Linus, here http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jh tml?articleID=199600443
and a scathing reply by OIN here, http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/press_release. php
and the ever insightful replies on Groklaw here: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200705151 25107293
It seems that this was again a case of Microsoft FUD and hot air. For which we can all be mighty gratefull I should think.