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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.'"
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
If I'm a licensee of a software package, particularly under the GPL, since when do I pay royalties and not the licensor?
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.
Absolutely, and ultimately Microsoft is screwed either way. Either they attack FOSS and lose, or they don't attack and FOSS they lose anyway. There's no way they can win this fight - no matter how many lawsuits they file and how many open source projects they try to attack.
If FOSS were somehow limited to the US, maybe they could hire enough lawyers to mount an offensive. But with the extremely strong chunks of the community around the world they literally have no chance. At best they can just fuck things up and make themselves look even more "evil" than they already do.
Haiku for you!
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
Nope, I refer you to the text base browser called "Lynx". This is a unix program and had tabbed navigating. So once again Microsoft claims a patent on something that it didn't invent.
Microsoft has between 15 and 20 patents on moving the cursor around (look it up). Please remove all your cursors.
The point about software patents is that the only way to protect yourself is to counter sue or to move to Europe.
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 ]
Problem: most FOSS projects don't have the resources to make sure they don't violate patents.
No, those are not the problems you're looking for.
There are roughly 1,400 (Patent Storm Search) Microsoft patents covering OS kernels. Microsoft says Linux is infringing 45 of them. A quick look through those patents will bring up gems like Patent 6711625, found on the first page of results;
Microsoft currently has about 24,000 Patent Storm patents in its portfolio, a significant proportion of which should never have been granted. Microsoft is using those dodgy patents to generate FUD, and make businesses less likely to use software which competes with its own products. That's the real problem."I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
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.
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*
My pet conjecture is that they are in the process of setting themselves up to switch to something completely different for their next OS.
I don't believe it will be Linux. It is more likely they will fork their own copy of one of the BSD's, probably FreeBSD, and then port all their own proprietary stuff on top of that.
In other words, once again, Apple will show them the way.
Actually, this is a great way to fight back,
start referring to Balmer as the new McCarthy, paint them with that nasty brush, it's a PR nightmare if it catches hold.
Emphasize the chair tossing, all the nasty things MS has done to the competitors over the years, what politician/lawmaker would want to be identified with the new McCarthy?
Say, Apple OSX has BSD unix under the hood, but I bet they don't go after apple with this smear campaign.
Much easier scare small businesses out of using linux.
Oh, and Hah!, to the novell people who claim they didn't sell out.
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.
I know my school suddenly became a member of the Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance because they were almost giving the memberships away. Which meant all the CS majors downloaded free copies of MS Vista Business. Which meant that we went through an eCommerce site where we filled our carts and ran through "checkouts" that stated we owed $0.00, which seemed funny at the time. Now I know several hundred copies of Vista showed up as "sold" when they weren't really.
I'm a patent agent and when I read the article contribution, the same argument sprang to mind and I looked whether someone had used this argument. I believe it has some validity, but unfortunately I also have a counter argument. A patent doesn't mean that nobody else could think of it, just that the ordinary person skilled in the art wouldn't think of it. And with the big FOSS community, there are surely sufficient people that stand out (i.e. aren't ordinary people skilled in the art), who also could come up with the idea.
Bert
Who believes that getting rid of software patents is an uphill battle with the upcoming revision of the European patent law (in particular because of TRIPS, which contains an innocent looking but very nasty clause, that patents must be obtainable in any technical field).
(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
If Microsoft starts sueing IBMs customers, then IBM will go to war, just like they did against SCO. IBM Legal aren't know as The Nazgul for no reason.
If this comes to blows, IBM will have to a) provide non-infringing replacements, or b) indemnify their customers and go to the mattresses with their unparalleled patent arsenal. My guess is the MS just bit off more than they can chew. There are some rules you never break, and getting into a patent battle with IBM is right up there with starting a land war in Asia.
Don Negro
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall
It was already stated that Microsoft uses a good number of IBM-patented things. Currently they seem to have some sort of agreement (such as a blanket license), but if Microsoft really starts bullying IBM customers IBM might pull out the blanket agreement (if they can) and start bullying Microsoft (or its customers, depending on what's possible). IBM might be able to undo "Noboy Ever Got Fired For Buying Microsoft" and that's bad PR on a scale even Microsoft should fear.
I'd like to see IBM lean on Microsoft and point out that patent warfare is a multiplayer game. If Microsoft isn't out to raise the bar on corporate stupidity that should silence them quite fast.
By the way, notice something? Who just entered a patent agreement with Microsoft and thus can't participate in this fight? Right, Novell. For some reason I like that corp less and less...
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
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 ]
> Ironically, McCarthy underestimated the number of Communists working in the state department - the 'true' number
... he is famous for making it up as he went along and for getting very publicly caught at it.
> derived from Venona intercepts was even higher.
That is completely irrelevant. McCarthy pulled his number out of his ass. In fact, he pulled it out of his ass a few times and it was a different number each time.
Then he named names, which he also pulled out of his ass.
I can tell you for certain that there are murderers and rapists living in your city, out on the loose. I don't even need to know what city you live in. There are murderers and rapists loose in every city. However if I say there are 122 murderers loose in Philadelphia and I don't have a list of names and I start picking people randomly out of the Philly phone book then it really doesn't matter if later down the line a study finds that there are actually 375 murders loose in Philadelphia. McCarthy was not at all involved in the actual enumeration of communists in the US gov't. He was completely and totally involved in his own self-aggrandization.
> 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?
Also irrelevant. That is not at all what Kennedy is remembered for, while McCarthy is CHIEFLY remembered for pulling a "number of communists" out of his ass and then witch-hunting around all the while refusing to provide any documentation to back up his claims. McCarthy is not the only political figure ever to exaggerate or be wrong
If Ballmer can't back up his number of patent claims with actual documentation of same then the original analogy of McCarthy and Ballmer is apt and valid. If Ballmer says "238 patent infringements" and then he can't give you a 238 page memo to go with that then he will have "pulled a McCarthy."
If somebody shoots Ballmer in the back of the head over this, then he will have "pulled a Kennedy."