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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.'"
That's real cute, but to me, the more interesting question is, will IBM wade in? They are heavy supporters of FOSS.
I would guess that Microsoft probably infringes on some number of IBM patents - but then, pretty much everyone does. The thing I don't know is, does Microsoft already hve some patent license agreement (presumably some sort of blanket agreement) with IBM to cover them?
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
Doesn't this just serve to show how screwed up the idea of software patents are?
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.
No, this is what happens when you base your economy on the ownership of ideas, and obvious ones at that, and on a ridiculous unlimited growth model that demands a constant push toward monopoly to ensure that unrealistic and otherwise unattainable growth.
The Farewell Tour II
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....
Start litigating Microsoft, you're not working in the shareholder's favor by sitting idle and letting these blatant IP violations go unpunished.
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/
In the article, it explains why Microsoft chose this route: Since FOSS is (nominally, if not practically) written by a loose band of volunteers, and because they don't really sell the software (with some exceptions, but generally mostly they give the software away and sell the support), it is extremely difficult to track them all down and make them pay royalties. It is much easier to just threaten the major corporate users (who are extremely risk averse). To quote Neal Stephenson, "Microsoft is ten times smarter than your average government, a hundred times more aggressive, and bound by no particular rules."
In the old days, we called this extortion.
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.
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
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
Microsoft patents that Linux infringes on almost certainly include their patent of file system symlinks, which have been in Unix systems since the seventies, as well as a slew of other very obvious inventions, none of which have been tested in court. Getting a patent granted, as denizens of Slashdot are all too well aware, seems to be the easy part. Validating those patents in a court of law may be a little more difficult, especially when one of the supporters of linux, might have a patent portfolio that would push Balmer from chair throwing to crying uncle.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
This is really key. The fight shouldn't be against me, using the software at home, or even a distributor of a collection of compiled programs. It should be -- if we accept that software patents as an idea is even valid -- against the people who wrote it. They are the ones that are infringing Microsoft's patents.
Microsoft wants to have their cake and eat it too. They want to sue "Linux" for violating 235 patents, when in actuality, they should undertake roughly 235 SEPARATE lawsuits against the individual programmers whose code infringes. IT'S NOT LIKE THAT'S A SECRET. Code is always attributed in the free software world.
And what's with not being specific as to the patents? More SCO-like nonsense. They're afraid of giving people time to "open source" the defense using something like Groklaw to rally around.
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
It doesn't matter if the patent is "worth" anything, the fact of the matter right now is, if something IS infringing on that patent, it's breaking the law, and until the patent gets revoked or the laws change, that's the way it is. Even if all 235 get struck down, that's still a hell of a lot of judgments, court cases, and legal work to be involved.
We can't just ignore it because "software patents are wrong". Until the courts agree, we have to live with it.
ìì!
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.
Well, we'd better blame the software patents in the first place.
It's time for the US to rid themselves of that law.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
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.
I think IBM is as big a fan of their own patent stash as of linux and they would not do something that seriously jeopardizes their ability to hoard patents in order to help linux.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
However, Microsoft is leagues ahead of Linux in the desktop market, and people claiming that Dell selling XP boxes instead of Vista marks the death knell for the company and suchlike is clear Linux fanboyism and propaganda. Whichever of their OSes they're selling, they're still paying Microsoft hefty licensing fees, and that is unlikely to change as long as their OS and office suite is ubiquitous in the corporate world. Microsoft may be deceitful and manipulative, but anyone comparing this to a dying company making a last ditch grab for cash in SCO style is clearly stupid or ill-informed, however much we might wish that to be the case.
"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.
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?
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.
No one pays for Microsofts products now how do they expect anyone to pay M$ for the products that aren't theirs in the first place?
Uh, not sure what planet you're from, but I don't think many companies run pirated and cracked versions of Windows and Office. Whether you bother to shell out a few bucks for a legit copy, or just Bittorrent it, hardly matters. Your retail-box purchase, or lack thereof, is a piddly little nothing compared to the real money, which is in the corporate userbase, and OEM pre-installs.
You pay for Microsoft every time you go to a store that uses Windows-based POS terminals. You pay for it every time you go to a doctor's office with Windows PCs for running their scheduling. When you order something from a web site that ships goods from a warehouse that uses Windows on the pickers' terminals. Microsoft has insinuated itself into the "cost of doing business," and you pay for it, in fractions of a cent, every time you do anything.
Oh, and you also pay for them when you pay your taxes (or when your employer pays your taxes for you, because you're not trusted to actually do it), because the U.S. Federal government, like most other countries, is essentially a Microsoft shop through and through.
You only think that you're not paying for Microsoft's products, and that's exactly how they like it.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
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
I think you're trying to score political points rather than objectively analyze the situation both in the 1950s and today.
Here's the reality. Balmer is probably correct. He may well have pulled the figure out of his ass, but the likelihood is that free software probably contains technologies covered by hundreds, if not thousands, of Microsoft patents. This is not because free software is doing anything wrong, it's simply the reality of programming computers in 2007, and the nature of patents. Patents are routinely granted that, to people in the field, are obvious, or are covering techniques that are inevitably going to be re-invented multiple times by independent entities. The reality of getting a patent these days is that you don't need to be farsighted and smart when it comes to finding the solution to a problem, you just have to be farsighted and smart in identifying the types of problem people will need to solve.
Did it really matter how many "communists" were in the State department? If McCarthy had been attacking the government for its employment of soviet agents, then there may have been some moral legitimacy in his complaint (notwithstanding the fact that he almost certainly made up his figures and made up his list.) But the mere ideological viewpoints, protected by the First Amendment, of the people doing their jobs in the government, loyally to the US, is immaterial and that's what McCarthy concentrated upon. It was a "problem" in the 1950s because people genuinely were paranoid enough to conflate the two and legal and extra-legal hot-water was entered by anyone who had been unfortunate enough to believe there was a serious problem with Capitalism ten years before and had joined one of the groups that said this.
Today legal problems enter the fray for any programmer who encounters a problem that Microsoft, or some other group, has encountered before they did and deemed solutions patent-worthy, and who chooses the most obvious solution to that problem. That's the reality of patents. And most people have problems understanding the concepts, that patent infringement is not copying, that patents themselves are increasingly immoral, unjustified, and unsustainable in a society that requires constant progress.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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