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Microsoft Details FOSS Patent Breaches
CptRevelation writes "Microsoft has released more detailed information on the patents supposedly in breach by the open-source community. Despite their accusations of infringement, they state they would rather do licensing deals instead of any legal action. 'Open-source programs step on 235 Microsoft patents, the company said. Free Linux software violates 42 patents. Graphical user interfaces, the way menus and windows look on the screen, breach 65. E-mail programs step on 15, and other programs touch 68 other patents, the company said. The patent figures were first reported by Fortune magazine. Microsoft also said Open Office, an open-source program supported in part by Sun Microsystems Inc., infringes on 45 patents. Sun declined to comment on the allegation.'"
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
So the thing will explode in ms's face.
Read radical news here
I guess this is more detail than just saying 235 violations - but it is still not enough detail to be really useful. So I think I'll just keep sitting tight until something meaningful comes up. And when that happens, I'd like to see the community respond with an unprecedented level of development and patches being submitted to make the whole thing moot. That would be nice.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
One more level of zoom required, Microsoft. Still can't tell what you're actually saying.
Cheers,
Ian
I'm wondering what patents Microsoft could be holding regarding email, which is several decades older than Microsoft itself. Man, I should have went to law school.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
The OSS Community should call their bluff and let this go to court. The non-obviousness requirement of patents most likely will invalidate most of their claims.
So, where are the details? This is just as thin as the other articles...
More detailed as in 'more detailed FUD'.
Show which code!!
... someone add the FUD tag!
No sig for now.
"Despite their accusations of infringement, they state they would rather do licensing deals instead of any legal action."
Well, of course they would. Please sell me protection M$ so your goons don't have to break my legs.
Have some people at IBM tally up publicly how many patents Windows and Microsoft Office violate. Then have them say, "what's the point, are you going to actually sue someone over this?"
What we have is a great opportunity for a Lessig or a Moglen to lead a peaceful overthrow of a sorry state of affairs.
The software patent issue needs to be driven to the front of 2008 election politics.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
> they state they would rather do licensing deals instead of any legal action.
How magnanimous. Thanks M$.
u-bend
after all, who knows more about breaches than Microsoft
Microsoft's customers too...they get used to having their breaches around their ankles on a daily basis
And if MS settles or wins, does that mean that Apple and Xerox can jump on the bandwagon and take out MS?
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Maybe if Microsoft were a little more "open" we would find just as many if not more "borrowed" ideas. This is gonna get messy...
Ubuntu- Linux for human beings.
Excuse me? As I recall, part of the Java settlement was that Sun got access to Microsoft patents and technology to improve OpenOffice. So "detailing" 45 patents in OpenOffice seems a bit specious to me. Does anyone else remember this settlement?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
This is still old news. There are no new details in this article that were not already present in the one Slashdot reported on Sunday (the CNN Money article, http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_arc hive/2007/05/28/100033867/index.htm?section=money_ latest)
Unix is simple. It just takes a genius to understand its simplicity. -Dennis Ritchie
Just starting out, but go here
http://twoclick.org/unnamed/
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
This is hardly anything I'd consider "details". As TFA clearly states, Microsoft still hasn't offered any specifics, or evidence, and they probably never will.
until we get patent numbers and exactly what it is that is infringing on it. Put up or shut up.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
They're still being vague about it. They need to start listing actual patent numbers if anybody is going to take them seriously. Then those patents can be ruled as obvious, or having prior art, and this can go away.
If they don't start being specific very soon, they're just going to look like SCO. Considering they backed SCO, this is not too much of a surprise.
I don't know about you, but my servers run on the power of cotton candy and happy thoughts. -Anonymous Coward
By getting ourselves worked up about this we are only playing into their strategy. This threat worries only the people who don't know better. (Not coincidentally, these are frequently the people making technology investment and purchasing decisions. This is an old, faithful Microsoft business technique.)
We all know that this is a ruse. We know it.
We can do our part by ignoring this non-event.
--Richard
"You are violating a bunch of my double secret patents. You have to guess which ones. I don't have to tell you. Give me money."
Now, where have I heard this before?
Another day closer to redwood heaven
They forgot "scroll bar" and "window" or did they....Noooooo
:
Still only some numbers and vague weaselspeak. There is really no reason to strike a deal with 'em, they will never speak out on details, so they'll never sue. Let's move on.
Trust me, I work for the government.
So far I'm thinking this *could* start an interesting battle... It looks like an attempt at a squeaky wheel to get some grease. I'm liking the idea of the OIN holding the patent bubble over MS's head as well. I'm also wondering what is the real point of MS doing this, is it for increased publicity? It seems they're grasping at straws, and I don't see them being that foolish or arrogant. correct me if I'm wrong.
When SCO failed to damage Linux even with MS-funding, MS had to do something themselves.
Not one of those 'patent violations' is named and they won't, you can bet your a** on that.
Standard MS-FUD with zero content.
Microsoft is afraid, plain and simple. This an edorsement by the market leader that Linux is ready for the desktop. They were afraid to see Novell pushing it but when Dell went onboard and picked the most user friendly of distros to do it with; Microsoft became terrified.
Do you know why you never saw something like this from Microsoft before? They didn't think it was worth their time.
In any case, it is FUD; there might be a vulnerable project or two but there is basically a stalemate on this one. That is why they are pushing for licensing instead of filing a lawsuit.
This is a good thing. Most MBA's will see right through both the motivation and the push for licensing.
That's why they aren't going to tell us exactly which patents are being violated. Unfortunately for them, that may make it impossible to sue anyone for violating those patents. The law says that when you notice that a patent is being violated, you have to sue then. You can't wait until later in order to jack up the damages.
How does this relate to the Open Invention Network? They are supposed to hold a large number of very high profile patents, and go after any company that tries to use patents to go after users of various high profile open source components, including the Linux kernel. (See http://lwn.net/Articles/178673/ for more information)
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
Microsoft will have to send over the cops to take my software away from me.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Here, just right now, looking through the window, there is a 20 year old apartment block that has its flats, windows and balconies organized in similar fashion to windows organizes "windows" - on top of each other.
what is it going to be now ? sue the apartment builders who built this building 20 years ago, or sue right holders to apartment who bought the flats 20 years ago because some idiot in patent office awarded something OVERly common in real life for the last 2000 years (since rome) to a smartpants applying from microsoft ?
it is evident that current patent/intellectual property system is wrong.
Read radical news here
Linux used to infringe on 235 patents...
I suppose that by the time you read this, it will be 230 patents...
225...
219...
Microsoft knows that as soon as they are forced to reveal exactly which patents Linux infringes, Linux won't infringe on them any more.
I used to think Linux would perpetually remain on the fringes of larger society, but these recent events suggest that Microsoft sees it as a very real threat to their operating system monopoly. I'm thinking that Microsoft is going to have to reinvent itself to remain competitive.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I don't really like to jump in the "OMG M$ SUX" bandwagon, but this is pretty telling.
Free Linux software violates 42 patents.Competes with Windows
Graphical user interfaces, the way menus and windows look on the screen, breach 65.Similar interfaces make it easier to switch to FOSS products.
E-mail programs step on 15Outlook
and other programs touch 68 other patents the company said.This probably covers stuff like IIS and .Net
Microsoft also said Open Office, an open-source program supported in part by Sun Microsystems Inc., infringes on 45 patents.Microsoft Office
I think that covers all of Microsoft's cash-cows doesn't it? Very telling.
Sorry to keep plugging myself, but I really want this to take off and pling-style sites need users to go
I
twoclick looks at patents in the GUI category:
http://twoclick.org/unnamed/index.php?category=GU
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Invention_Networ k
My only question is, what is SONY doing in OIN?
In case you haven't realized, "Linux" is not a single entity. When you say Linux breaches patents on email or graphical user interfaces, are you aware that:
Best Regards from Sweden,
Someone who doesn't care about your patent claims.
Method and apparatus for clicking
Abstract
A click is made when someone's finger presses down on a mouse
Inventors: Microsoft
Assignee: Microsoft
Filed: March 14, 1929
See!
Infiltrated dot Net
If I were in charge of a larger company approached and asked to pay I would insist upon knowing exactly what infringed patents I was expected to pay for. And if MS can't tell me, and do so without keeping it under secrecy, let them sue me, because if they do sue the patents have to become public knowledge. You can't claim infringement of patents or copyrights and then keep the proof secret, not if you are expecting to base any actions, especially with legal consequences, on them.
"...but the company says it still prefers licensing deals with open-source developers, software distributors and users instead of legal action against them."
Me too! I prefer people to just give me money rather than have to go through all the hassle of producing something of value.
Hey, Microsoft! I've got a bunch of patents that you're infringing and I would prefer that you go ahead and license them from me rather than starting an ugly legal battle. I'll even give you a deal (just this once, because you like a nice kid): $100 Million for the lot. This offer won't be repeated, so take advantage while you still can!
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
The owners of these projects should make a deal with Microsoft to give them 30% of the revenue from the open source code in return for licensing the patents. 30% of 0 is still 0.
Come to the place there are no software patents, where open source software is being used and encouraged by governments, where you still have the freedom not to be spied upon constantly because of the "war on [whatever scares people currently]", where convicted monopolists do indeed get punished, where capital punishment is history, where copyright infringement isn't a more serious crime than rape or child abuse, where wages are high and paid vacations are long.
Come on you open source fellas, leave the USA and let it choke on it's frivolous patent system and corporate ass-kissing.
Come to the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Come to (continental) Europe!
"A patent for a method to distinguish between obvious, non-obvious and not non-obvious patents and/or patent applications that consists in asking oneself if someone properly trained in the field in which said patent is filed into would have come up with the same idea if only presented with the problem in question, and also a method of research that consists in finding prior art for said patent."
Ah-ah! Now you can't say my patents are invalid without violating this other patent! Catch-22, you're screwed!
There are no details provided. This is the same information we got earlier. A brief skimming of patent infringement allegations without specifying which ones are in violations in particular.
I suspect that they are weak or otherwise defeatable patent claims.
SCO called and wants it's business plan back.
Giving counts is pretty useless. Calling it more detailed it like saying you'll release the personal information of the vicitms and just giving a list of nationalities; you really don't know more than you did before, but the feed got you to stay tuned.
I expect most of the kernel infringements are in optional kernel modules. I've heard rumblings about vfat having patents in the past, and I expect there are some in the SMB client code. Unfortunately, it may be impossible to re-implement those to avoid the patent issues, because the patents may cover core aspects that are required for interoperability.
If we ever get a full detailed list of patent issues, I can foresee the day that one of the first questions in the kernel configuration is whether to include portions that may violate patent rights, and the help text on various options would cite specific patent numbers that have been claimed. Or, perhaps more generally, it could ask what legal jurisdiction you're in, so that it can block the modules that are protected in that country.
I am not 100% sure on US law, but in the article it says MS has been aware of this for over 3 years. Do they not lose their right to prosecute after being aware of an infringement for a "reasonable" time and not acting on it? Thus giving implicit permission for the further use of this "patented" ip/code...
I dunno, executing JavaScript in emails was a pretty novel idea. Mostly because nobody else was stupid enough to think of it.
Ba-fuckin'-dump! Thanks for my morning laugh.
235 examples of the new 'obvious' changes to patent acceptance. I hope every one of them gets flushed down the toilet. Most companies probably have thousands of 'obvious' patents.
This was predicted months ago. Microsoft will bring the lawsuits in 2009.
The implications for all this are interesting. Does Microsoft really want European software slowly to drift away from its link to the US? Because they are exposing more and more to European legislators that, in effect, they want to enforce a charge on European businesses based on US law that is not applicable in the EU. They already have done themselves no favours with the Competition Commission. Given that the Open Document format is now an international standard, the EU is quite free to use free software to implement it while the US might end up having to pay a Microsoft tax. That is an interesting possibility.
Many years ago at a seminar on patent and trademark law, I asked the lawyer who was acting as convenor what, in his view, the position would be if a manufacturer attempted to claim that only their patented technology was able to create an instance of something complying with an international standard which was embodied in European harmonisation. To which his reply was "You're just being a smartass." It looks like there could yet be a test case.
Pining for the fjords
Yeah. Microsoft, Look and Feel is not actionable - otherwise Apple would have had your ass years ago. Drop those claims first.
Moving along: detail the rest of 'em, and we'll give a shit. No seriously. You can't just say, "You infringe on 25 of my patents. Can I have my licensing fee now?"
It doesn't work like that.
Of course, the reason MS won't name names is that they want their license fees. They don't want Linux and its related projects going, "Ok, we'll code around that, thanks."
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
Until they tell us specifically which patents are being violated by what software, we cannot take any remedial action.
There are two possible cases: 1) no free software violates any MS patents; and 2) some free software violates some MS patents, but we don't know what software violates what patents because MS refuses to tell us.
Ergo, it is reasonable to assume that since MS has made it impossible for potential infringers to take any action to avoid infringement, that they have an interest in any infringement that occurs. That is, MS is promoting infringement of their own patents.
Indeed, the article says, "But Augustin also acknowledged that it's not in Microsoft's interest to do so: Open-source programmers could rewrite their code to avoid infringing on specific patents, or the courts could find that Microsoft's patent isn't valid."
I am not a lawyer, but when a party promotes the infringement of their own patents it might be reasonable to assume that they may be estopped from ever enforcing those patents in the future.
MS needs to tell us specifically which free software is violating what patents. If they do not tell us that we are justified in assuming that either no free software violates any patents, or that MS is entirely ok with all the free software that violates any of their patents. If they were not ok with it, they would tell us exactly which free software violated exactly what patents.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
about software patents.
Read radical news here
I didn't see any detail in this article that wasn't in the previous one.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
IANAL but I always assumed that the defendant in a patent infringement case must be notified beforehand that they are potentially infringing. In which the specifics are mentioned such as the actual patent and the actual instance of infringement. Then if the defendant refuses to comply then a case may move forward.
Now if Microsoft did notify the relevant parties wouldn't they then have the ability to remove all potential infringing material before Microsoft could actually sue them? Or can you just bring a case to court without the defendants even knowing they were potentially infringing?
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Apple called, they want thier lawsuit back.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_v._Microsoft
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
The previous article had the same information, this is not a new release by Microsoft, just a different headline for the same story.
l
See for yourself, but nobody RTFAs anyway, do they? If people actually did then sensationalistic dupes wouldn't constantly get reposted...
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/05/14/0018242.shtm
This action seems like it will be beneficial to free software in the end, as it will hopefully cause a re-examination of the miserable state of our patent system. I, for one, hope that MS does take this to court so we can start to see some change. However, it seems that its main goal here is to spread FUD and scare the industry into letting MS profit off of the hard work of OSS developers.
I mean really, are they going to claim that outbreak's calendar integration is patentable, I can think of 15 mailers that do calendar integration, no bother and that covers the 15 breaches of their patent.
As for UI/Menus really guys do you think you'll get "Heirarchical menus" past a wide awake patent court?
Don't Sun have a cross licensing deal over Star Office, so there go those
And if your trying to tell me that the Linux kernel infringes, where, in the drivers?
- SMB/NET Bios was an IBM technology from '84
- vfat, I heard you intend suing camera/flash card manufacturers for this too, but do you really want to start a war with (the much derided) Sony, they're also part of the OIN
Look I could go on playing guessing games but unless you are willing to stand up a case why in the name of Xenu should I take you at all seriously?"Linux is for noobs"-The new MS fud strategy
Yes yes, we all know that MS copied apple copied xerox... and so on... But putting aside knee jerk reactions that, "MS is bad" and "OSS is good", could Microsoft have some standing? I've noticed that many Linux versions try to emulate the windows setup, as closely as possible, to entice new users with a sense of familiarity. Many have similar "start" button functions, application bars and menu layouts. All distros certainyl have their own style and have definitely not copied MS, but it is hard to say that they were not inspired by the layout and form of Windows (and OSX too).
Since Windows95, Microsoft and Windows have developed their own brand identity, different from the Apple OS they emulated so long ago... and settled with long ago. Maybe Linux distros, in trying to create familiarity and entice users by creating a similar look and feel of windows, are slightly guilty of some, albeit probably small, degree of infringement.
It's not about creativity or invention, first to file is the rule.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
IF this passes, then the software, music and movie industry should be required to remove ALL DRM and Copy Protection from their products including but not limited to MS Vista, MS Office, DVDs, Music, etc and make it a FEDERAL CRIME to annoy American customers with such DRM and Copy Protection.
What was MS thinking, waiting until Supreme Court made the ruling that made invalidating these patents easier? Is this a feint to get IBM into court to invalidate IBM's patent portfolio?
of the profits.... I downloaded Feisty a month ago and I say that Microsoft should get 30% of what Canonical charged me for it.
load "$",8,1
"You're trying to kidnap what I've rightfully stolen."
It must be something if it's got Microsoft on the run.
Autonomous Retard -- Is your camp safe? UnsafeCamp.com
What the fuck does this mean? You invented neither menus or Windowing GUIs and we run multiple toolkits and Desktop environments.
Please put a price on the one off payment for you to fuck off with your dubious claims. If it's reasonable we'll have a whip-round out of pity since it's becoming obvious to everyone that you can no longer compete in the marketplace.
part of the attraction of .NET and C# was supposed to be open standards/API/specifications for interoperability in the enterprise. Now Microsoft is sending signals that if you implement these you might be sued.
These articles say nothing. Patent counts are useless. Scalability.org fisks the articles and quotes. See these two posts for more. Joe also covers the original PR-FUD.
The same day that Microsoft publishes the details (which patents are being violated and in which FOSS project) the comunity will whipe out every code line that can jeopardise the software's legitimacy.
This whole story is only about spreading some FUD about FOSS. They are not even after the money (there is no point in going after someone that owns nothing).
It depends on how you define "open." Like "free," its a wonderfully overloaded term, and its very easy to use that to your advantage.
Ok I RTFA and I do not see any more detail than was in the previously posted fortune artical.
/. so dupes are not uncommon, nor is blatantly misleading summaries, but it would have been nice if it could have got it right this once... its a fairly obvious scenario!
Ok this is
$_="Slashdotter";$syn="OTT";s;..;;;sub _{print shift||$_};s!ash!Perl !;s=$syn=ack=i;tr+LLEd+BLAH+;_"Just Another ";_
In Soviet Russia, you violate Microsoft. Not bad?
Have they posted the specific patent numbers with their allegation and would there be any prior art involved.
davecb5620@gmail.com
Note that many of these are for things we may not care about (like mice, keyboards etc) so the number to analyse will go down. Still non-trivial, but all it needs is persistence, the help of a few law students, and the IT crowd to hunt down prior art. And lets put it all in one place where anyone that gets sued can go to for a definitive reference.
BTW, I am not aware of such a thing being out there already, if so then please let me know, my quick search didn't find it this morning.
What do you all think?
MS has 155 patents with the word "User Interface" in the title. Have a look:
T O2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-b ool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=Microsoft&FIELD1=ASNM& co1=AND&TERM2=user+interface&FIELD2=TI&d=PTXT
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
What sucks is that yesterday they only had 151...
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
It would be smart of the FSF to file a suit right now for slander of title against Microsoft. They need to put up or shut up... doing otherwise is "tortuous interference" with Linux and other OSS vendors' businesses by making legal accusations that aren't true to stymie their business. It may be good to deal with 200 patents at once rather than one at a time. Microsoft has money to play that game, the FSF does not. Also, patents en mass in court can show a clear misappropriation of the patent system in the field of software and business model patents that one-at-a-time can't prove effectively in separate non-connected cases.
Despite their accusations of infringement, they state they would rather do licensing deals instead of any legal action.
That's because legal action takes years (see also: SCO) and does not have any guarantees of return on investment. If they just "make deals" so that authors avoid the hollow legal threats, then they get their money right away. This isn't about being nice to the FOSS authors, even though they spin it that way. I'd bet that it would be an even better investment for these projects to fight these patents in court. The legal fees would probably be less.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
I always figured that a patent war would be the last resort in battle, similar to SCO's intellectual property claims. I find it very telling that Microsoft said they were more interested in receiving license fees than suing.
Once Linux passes this futile attempt, by dismissing bad patents and bypassing valid ones, there will be nothing left for Microsoft to attack Linux with. I'm looking forward to it.
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
The InterNet is a little red fox curled around a blue sphere.
There, fixed that for you...
http://www.eweek.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=13966 9,00.asp
Seems that Ballmer was apparently quoting a study done by someone else during his little speech. And the author of that study says that Linux infringes no more so than any other large scale piece of code - including Windows! Where has this article gotten such detailed figures? I'm pretty sure the authoer of the original piece didn't get that specific (did he?) so does that mean that Microsoft decided to break them out? And why was Ballmer's number lower than the original author's numbers? The author seems to support Linux and feels he's being taken out of context it seems.
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
I'm talking out my ass here but, given what I know of the past history of software companies, when you start using lawyers as a key part of your business plan your days are numbered.
Given just how large Microsoft is, they might be able to innovate, open up new markets, and crush their competition with legal action all at the same time. But I think it shows a weakness in their armor that they feel they must spend so much time and money to control Linux.
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
SCO already tried to DOS (denial of service) Linux by sucking away CPU/brain cycles from all those developers who kept reading the stories about this supposedly epic bureaucratic battle of the lawyers, instead of coding and making Linux more user-friendly. Now, Microsoft is doing more of the same. Fortunately, the most prolific coders aren't really interested in all those lame stories about legal gobbledygook. So sorry, Microsoft, your DOS-attack on us is doomed to fail once again.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
OK, so let's look at historical precedent. Microsoft was sued by Apple (unsuccessfully) for infringement of look-and-feel "copyrights" and various UI patents. This case dragged on for years, and resulted in Apple and Microsoft eventually calling a truce.
Then along came Adobe, which sued Macromedia because Adobe had patents on certain types of tool palettes. Adobe then turned around and bought Macromedia. (Yes, some time elapsed between these two events, but still...)
Now Microsoft is alleging that they own intellectual property used in the Linux kernel and various key pieces of software outside the kernel. The above claims are interesting, considering Microsoft's track record of claiming ownership of various UI elements. So far, Apple and Xerox have remained silent, but they may not for much longer. I'm even more curious about the claim of 15 patents in e-mail. After all, e-mail technology has been with us since ARPANet; SMTP and POP are exceedingly well established, and were certainly not invented by Microsoft; I don't even think MS can claim ownership of IMAP. So, what exactly are they claiming ownership of?
To me, this looks like a ploy to "convert" Linux and all of the ancillary GNU programs and FOSS programs that are widely used. By "convert," I mean obtain ownership of. Since Microsoft can't litigate a particular company out of business in order to kill Linux, they're playing a much sneakier game. They've already bought off Novell so as to avoid having to deal with them in any SCO-style lawsuits. How long before the settlement offers start pouring in -- and the settlements basically mean ownership of the code?
As has been pointed out by others, this article really doesn't demonstrate that Microsoft has revealed any more information -- they'd already broken down the number of patent violations by category a couple days ago. But you can bet that Microsoft will make sure to keep this story in the news as often as possible... especially with an Attorney General in office who's willing to push legislation to favor Microsoft.
All distros certainyl have their own style and have definitely not copied MS, but it is hard to say that they were not inspired by the layout and form of Windows (and OSX too).
Layout and form aren't patentable or even copywritable (aside from specific logos and words). That's how Microsoft got away with copying Apple.
This is all settled law; it was beaten to death in the 80s and 90s. The fact that Linux uses some of the same general design elements that Windows (and in many cases the Classic Mac OS, and OS X, and AmigaOS, and god knows how many other GUI OSes that are now basically extinct) doesn't necessarily constitute infringement.
What Microsoft probably has are some very overbroad patents that were granted in error, and they're hoping that they can use to rustle up some protection money with, because the cost of challenging them and getting them invalidated, even with lots of prior art, is so ridiculously high.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Then again.. In most of the rest of the world, software patents are either not accepted, not condoned, illegal, or considered plain stupid. (Which is one reason why Microsoft has quite some problems with the European Comission)
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
I see that nothing has changed.
They lose the vast majority of their cases. In fact, they routinely settle far more. I think that once the patents are found out, some will be discarded, others will be worked around, and many will be shot down with prior art. Obviously, that is why MS is not being forthcoming on what the infringements are.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
While Microsoft still hasn't said exactly which patents are being violated, and many of their claims are likely invalid, they probably do have valid claims on certain parts of Mono's implementation of .NET (specifically, Windows.Forms, ASP.NET and ADO.NET). If the Mono team removes those parts, then Mono is effectively dead, in my opinion. Not that I'll be losing any sleep over that, mind you. I always thought Mono was a waste of time for Linux. Even more so now that Java is GPLed.
Objection. So far MS hasn't actually specified any patents which they claim are infringed. They've given numbers, but they've declined to say which patents are on the list. I think I'll have to borrow the phrasing from IBM's very first few interrogatories to SCO: Please identify with specificity which patents held by Microsoft are alleged to be infringed, and which code (by software project, file, version and line) is alleged to infringe upon those patents.
Despite their accusations of infringement, they state they would rather do licensing deals instead of any legal action.
A prerequisite for licensing is to identify exactly what the licensee will be paying for a license to. Until MS places that on the table, why should I pay good money for a pig in a poke?
If so, please point to it. .... stop doing it or pay.
As long as they don't publish patent # in relation to their claimed cases by product it's hot air.
Maybe I am redunant? But my guess is if they would publish such a list, there would be much more activity in fixing or disputing and I may have seen it.
Guess: nothing but hot air and FUD up to now. They are not interested in fixing some "wrong" - hey, you are inflicting on my IP, there:
So - my thinking is: JERKS!
This 'magic number' keeps coming up, and the idea that by saying Linux 42, UI 65, etc etc somehow equates to a detailed description of patent breaches? Let's get real here. I want to see the actual claim. Show us the code.
Perchance the MS IP team are worried that if they actually showed which of their patents were infringed they would be laughed at? IANAL but it seems to me that even if by some remote chance a MS patent had been infringed by a kernel developer somewhere, that MS has the responsibility to let them know exactly what patent they have infringed. Failure to do so would seem to make any legal action they attempt nothing short of harassment. Or am I way off-base here? /. lawyers, where are you?
Death looks every man in the face. All any man can do is look back and smile. - Marcus Aurelius
Probably relevant articles:
Apple Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., 35 F.3d 1435 (9th Cir. 1994), aka the "Look and Feel case" on Wikipedia, and the actual ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The MIT AI Lab has a fairly good introduction to the basis for the current U.S. software IP system, including what elements are typically protected by copyright and which by patents. (Basically: "Expression" = copyright; "idea/implementation" = patent, "concept" = (hopefully) neither.)
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
to what Microsoft is really doing. They're not trying to stop the innovation or progress of OSS development. They are trying to stop the adoption of OSS by making these patent claims and then having the claims published in trade magazines and the web.
This is probably the most effective way to protect their bottom line. Going into court isn't what they want. They want doubt in prospective OSS adopters. With doubt comes the likelihood of sticking with what's safe. It's the same sort of campaign they "allegedly" helped SCO take-on to help stifle OSS adoption. From what I can tell, it had a impact for quite some time.
I am sure Microsoft knows that quite a few patents may not hold up. They'll only get bad publicity in the tech world, but to shareholders and the rest of the world, they'll look like they're protecting their assets. They had record profits last quarter and will continue to do so by spreading doubt in prospective adopters minds. It's so simple and yet so effective.
There's nothing wrong with copy protection. It's not nearly as annoying as it's often made out to be. Books in plain text on floppy disc could be considered a form of copy protection to people who don't have a computer handy and would have been able to make more use out of a physical book.
What's annoying is when someone comes along that's willing to expend the effort it takes to bypass that protection because it could be useful, that THEY are suddenly rendered a criminal just because it is a forgone certainty that the technological measures he or she develops would otherwise eventually be used by significant numbers of people to infringe on copyright, even though such actions may never be endorsed or condoned by the person who wanted to bypass the copy protection.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If Microsoft ever gets their heads out of their (lawyers') asses they will do the smart thing that Apple and Sun did: Give away all development tools for free. That's the only way that the Windows platform will survive the onslaught. What kernel do computer science students study in school today? Clue: Not Windows. What compiler and tool chain do most college students learn C with? Clue: Not Microsoft's. Which OS gives the community the most ability to customize for the Long Tail? Clue: Not Windows.
I'm so sick and tired of the Microsoft school yard bully. I'm taking my lunch money and going to open source! ;-)
Software patents suck!
deez nutz.
What makes you think Apple would fall on Linux's side? Apple has cross-patent deals with Microsoft that protect them from this kind of thing and Apple is very clear in the marketing materials that they are just as eager as Microsoft to see Linux go away. There seems to be this naive idea within the Linux community that Apple is a friendly company. Here's a clue guys, the enemy of my enemy is NOT always my friend.
Why does this look like stirring the pot. No real info , same stuff thrown to the masses again.
Can you you say "repackaging".
Considering that the original concept of a GUI comes from Xerox Parc, I fail to see how Microsoft or Apple either one can hold patents on that. Considering that Microsoft totally rips off each new version of Apple's OS, I fail to see how they can hold patents on that too.... I think that the FOSS folks should claim that they, too, ripped off Apple and not Microsoft. Since they're both ripping off the same source, of course they look familiar. As for OpenOffice, I can only imagine that the patents in question are the ones that concern document (data) formatting for the Microsoft proprietary document formats.
2 cents,
Queen B.
HDGary secures my bank
Is Microsoft a monster, or just a bogeyman?
sigs, as if you care.
Unless you write your congressman about issues you are damned to be a slave with someone else calling shots and filling the vacuum. Like a drunk drive you take those around down with you. The rather cheap price of freedom is having to forever letting your representatives know what you want. It's about turning off the TV or pausing your work on that perfect operating system, yes I'm talking to you Linus, and write them. We must be have enough people to make a difference. You can't really complain if you allow these things to come to pass. That is dishonest. The fight for freedom never ends, it's your job, so get out there and fight. If you don't fight you have just shown your complete support for having the RIAA and MPAA, and many other control you. Freedom or not. It's an easy choice for me, freedom. Slavery is an easy choice also. It you think you are free and not a slave, check your tax return. Money is time, for most people. If you work for money then you are really working for those that benefit from taxes. For some it's 40% of their time. Write a little to you rep. Since you have donated more of your life to tax than anything else, why have that money spend in a way that you disagree with.
Slashdot is 10% solutions and 90% complaint, it seems. That's good. Now let switch those number around. Get active, vote, write a little a week, keep up with the issues, run for office, keep them honest, and don't let us down.
PS: Politically active people get the super models. Did I mention that?
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
msft doesn't want anyone to know there is *nothing* to code around!
rather, they are spreading more fudd to pressure their customers to pay more to them and to pressure a new player... dell... to move away from ubuntu and over to suse licenses bought from msft.
maybe pressure isn't the right word... THREATEN is a better word.
my guess is they are working behind the scenes to work out payment from dell to msft for every ubuntu box sold or to force them to use suse purchased from msft instead.
it will be interesting to see if dell caves in.
Just take a look at this one, for instance.
T O2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-b ool.html&r=4&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=Microsoft. ASNM.&s2=%22user+interface%22.TI.&OS=AN/Microsoft+ AND+TTL/%22user+interface%22&RS=AN/Microsoft+AND+T TL/%22user+interface%22
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
There is not a judge in the world, much less a jury, that could possibly even comprehend the text of this patent.
And there is no way in hell that the patent examiner could possibly have comprehended what the patent application was about.
I'm calling a repeat, but with less information than the original.
And as for MS supposedly scaring off customers of FOSS...it's possible. MS certainly has better brand recognition than the likes of SCO. However, with the quick (and loud) response of the FOSS community basically calling MS out, there's going to have to be more than the normal line of, "Well hey...you Linux guys...we think you should pay us for something that has been free ever since it was introduced to you. Something that we have had next to no involvement in (unless you want to believe conspiracy theories that we injected the patented code in to these projects in the first place)."
Either we have a patent license or Microsoft is committing commercial scale (criminal?) copyright infringement. Let's tell the world!
As has been pointed out above, this article IN NO WAY presents any more information than the article posted on Sunday. The only thing that could be construed as more information is that this article explains the meaning of the term GUI in more detail, although this is simply an explanation of what was already there.
Secondly, I'd like to point out that neither this article nor the article posted on sunday really give us any new information except for providing specific numbers for something we knew to be the case already (or at least suspected)--by "we" I mean slashdot readers, i.e. nerds. We knew that, considering the state of the U.S. patent system, especially with regards to software, GNU/Linux software had to violate at least some of Microsoft's patents (as well as probably every other megacorporation that makes it a habit to stockpile patents). I think we should look at this as a positive thing, because now we have a specific, fairly small number (compared to the set of all Microsoft patents) from which to work. Now, considering that the figure for the total number of Microsoft patents granted is probably around 6000/7000 (last year MS celebrated 5000th patent granted, google microsoft 5000th patent if you wish to verify), that puts the figure for patents violated at 3-4% of all microsoft patents. This means that if picking at random, one would have an approximately 1/30 probability of picking out a patent "violated" by open source software. And even if the figure is 7000 for total # of microsoft patents, if we got a mere 200 relatively bright people together (there are several degrees of magnitude more that read slashdot regularly), each person would have to examine less than 40 MS patents each, which we could quickly narrow down to possible candidates (after which more technical knowledge of particular programs would be required). But, the point is that we don't even need Microsoft to give us specifics over and above their claimed number. Now we have a starting point apart from just "probably some".
So, anyone feel like starting a Microsoft patent digging project?
I see no details in this "detailed information." I see nothing more than vague allusions with numbers attached such as 15 patents in email programs. The question is which patents in which programs. Some one should acquaint MS with the concept of due diligence and remind them that their first obligation is to stop the infringement, if any. Lawsuits and compensation can be talked about later.
A simple inspection of the Patent Office web site shows that Microsoft has 6723 patents. How hard would it be for some civic minded patent lawyers to iterate through the list? How hard would it be for some "large corporation making money off of OSS"'s patent lawyers to iterate through the list?
or..
What's the opposite of FUD? Hope, Optimism, and Confidence? Have some OSS pundit spread some HOC by announcing "235? We found 236, got 'em all
fixed. Thank's for the heads up!" Then when M$ complains that they missed one, reply with "Which one? The first one or the second one? Did you talk
to the guy?". Get all Abbott and Costello on them. The first mistake is to treat M$ seriously.
... untill MS presents the evidence, the evidence is researched by those who are the coders of suppose infringments, and recognition of infringment is done by such coders.
Until then it can safely be assumed that MS is being what we all have come to expect them to be, due the reputation they have worked to establish. Dishonest.
Its best to call MS's cards on this. The sooner it is addressed openly and honestly the better.
I could go on, but I'd have to RTFA.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Microsoft is at a crossroads here. Truthfully I think its best for them to look the other way compete with us. After all, the have already admitted the patents are easily worked around or invalidated. Up until now, FOSS hasn't really fought Microsoft, rather just looked at them as a competitor. Now, Linux is crushing them in the enterprise sector. I mean, out of the box, Windows cannot do 0.001% of what Linux can do. That is their problem, not ours.
Its actually interestingly funny how torn Microsoft is over this. The entire press release is not coherent at all, but written in a way where you know many people with many views were able to put in their 2 cents. Ballmer probably wants to go around throwing chairs and suing people. The lawyers, they want money. Marketing is on the floor in the fetal position like they usually are when Ballmer is angry, and the technology side has wanted to more like Linux and at least adopt OSS ideals for years now. Those people who have gotten sick of this shit have already left for Google, Yahoo, or IBM.
Thanks to the SCO debacle, which we can thank Microsoft for bank rollling, the OSS community is prepared.I mean, these guys are just really bumbling over themselves, its hilarious. FOSS has an emperor now, named IBM. "Now witness the firepower of this fully ARMED and OPERATIONAL battle station!"
From: suzanavy@web-mail.com.ar
_ archive/2007/05/28/100033867/
O PEN_SOURCE?SITE=AZMES&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAUL T
Subject: LOOKING FORWARD TO HEARING FROM YOU URGENTLY
Date: May 15, 2007 6:20:37 AM PST
MRS.SUZANA NUHAN VAYE
%BARR.OMENKA.P. WILLIAMS
TEL/FAX:27-11-507-6559
EMAIL:omenwilliams@web-mail.com.ar
ATTN: MD/CEO
Kindly accept my apology for sending my mail to you.I Am a true God fearing person, and I want you to trust me and help me out in this my condition. I believe you are a highly respected personality, considering the fact that I sourced your profile from a human resource profile database on your country in the Internet.
Though, I do not know to what extent you are familiar with events and fragile political situation in Liberia but it has formed consistent headlines in the CNN, BBC news bulletins.
My Name is MRS.SUZANA NUHAN VAYE from Liberia, a Country in West Africa. My late Husband is Issac Nuhan Vaye, Deputy Minister of Public Works in Liberia. My Husband was falsely accused of using open source software in his office. Without trial, Steve Ballmer killed him. You can verify this from some of the international newspapers posted in the web sites below:
(I)http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune
(ii) http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MICROSOFT_
Before my husband was killed, he moved out the sum of $21.5 million and large quantities of Diamonds through a diplomatic means, and deposited it with a Security Company Abroad.
All that is needed is for my lawyer to instruct the company to transfer the funds/diamonds to your account, I will remunerate you with 20% at the end, but most of all is that I solicit your trust in this transaction. I have been confined only to our country home and all my calls are monitored, So I will advise you contact my private Attorney on his contact stated below for onward proceedings: -
NAME:BARR.OMENKA.P. WILLIAMS (ATTORNEY)
TEL/FAX:27-11-507-6559
EMAIL:omenwilliams@web-mail.com.ar
Kindly include your Full Name, Private Telephone and Fax Numbers where you can always be reached, your Residential or Company Address to enable him send detail information/documents that will enable you receive the fund without any problem either now or in future as all modalities as been perfected.
Please your urgent response is needed.
Best Regards.
MRS.SUZANA NUHAN VAYE (WIDOW)
Reason #32767 not to use VB6: Integers are 2 bytes... Think about it!
Like rycross said, "open standard" != "patent free", those are very different animals. ISO (for one) only states that in the event of submissions containing patented material, that the holder be willing to negotiate worldwide licences under their rights with applicants on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions. On that note, software patents really should not be allowed since software should fall under the realm of copyright. Right now, it's the same as patenting the "concept" of a spy novel, very silly indeed.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
1) Create a fuzz around FLOSS patent infringments 2) Have the FLOSS projects contributors incriminate themselves by emailing each other admitting patent infringments 3) Subpoena ISP for such emails 4) Ask them to pay and if they won't bring them to court
They didn't release any details. I was shocked to hear the headline, but as usual, Slashdot summaries never fail to disappoint.
Ford doesn't sue the soccer mom that drives a Chevy Suburban if the Suburban violates patents Ford owns - Ford sues Chevy.
Funny you should bring that up. You should take a look at this page, in particular, to the broadside that's reproduced about 1/3rd of the way down the page. The "Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers" (holders of the infamous Selden Patent) frequently threatened to sue not only the manufacturers of unlicensed autos, but also their owners, since "use" of (not just manufacturing) an infringing device constitutes patent infringement by law. I don't know whether they ever actually bothered to do it though, because like Microsoft, their aim was to funnel business into the coffers of their financiers.
So anyway, the reason Ford might sue Chevy for patent infringement, rather than going directly after Chevy drivers, is mostly because Chevy is a much bigger (and deeper-pocketed) target.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
What exactly has msft "detailed" ? I don't see where msft has specified one single patent infringment.
Yeah, I'm sure that will put MS in their place.
It's a shame you had to be so harsh, but it had to be done.
sic transit gloria mundi
We need to be proactive. Let's create a groklaw type service just for Microsoft Patents and start building prior art cases for any patent Free Software is potentially infringing on. They are gathering their troops, let's start gathering ours. See if they are as bold.
The last company that made sweeping claims like this against Linux is just now starting to circle around the bowl.
I think this is a result of the recent Supreme Court action that raised the bar for patentability. I suspect that a large number of Microsoft's software patents (and everyone else's for that matter) will not withstand scrutiny under the new test.
This is just a net being scattered far and wide to try and turn some of their (now worthless) patents into revenue before anyone has the chance to challenge the validity of those patents.
My suggestion? Don't take the bait.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
since when did microsoft become a patent troll?!?!? they have flexed their legal muscles before, but not like this.
destiny, chance, fate, fortune; they're all ways of claiming your fortunes, without claiming your failures. -gerrard
Why is Microsoft doing this now? And more importantly, is the onus on the patent holder to make this claim in a timely manner?
It seems to me that a viable strategy of patent holders (looking to profit from previously unprofitable patents) would be to
allow them to be tread upon by competing products, until at such time that those competing products become financially viable...
and *then* file suit.
This strategy seems less about protecting one's intellectual property, and more about encouraging the competition to cement
its dependency on your patents in order to extract greater compensation at a later date.
Anyone know if there's a requirement to file a cease-and-desist in a timely manner?
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Fun while it lasted. Come back a little bit later
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
/ignore micro$oft
Is this one of the patent breeches. It sure sounds a lot like SUDO to me bit then again I've never been to lawyer school.
.. a method comprising:
.. executing an administrative security process under the
administrative privilege level;
'Sudo was first conceived and implemented by Bob Coggeshall and Cliff Spencer around 1980 at the Department of Computer Science at SUNY/Buffalo'
--
United States Patent 6,775,781 Aug 2004
Administrative security systems and methods
We claim:
davecb5620@gmail.com
that today's other story is about legislation that would potentially enforce their claims.
Because the other guy -- Elisha Gray -- wasn't able to prove that he invented it earlier. It's pretty clear now, in hindsight, that Gray really did invent it first, and what occurred was really a miscarriage of justice on a grand scale, but at the time he couldn't show sufficient evidence of earlier invention, and Bell got the patent based on his date of filing. [1]
... although Edison had his own patent-related conflicts, particularly with Berliner, although the outcome was somewhat different.
Wrong guy
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
...is Linus' answer to that.
btw. I didn't see anything new about wich patents MS is talking about... and we will never know because allmost 90% of all MS patents are prior art and wouldn't survive a in a court.
SCO shares have recovered significantly after having filed for patent infringement regarding the latest Microsoft business strategies.
I think we should now officially call them MicroSCOft.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
You know, when you look back at when 32bit cpu's hit the market and we had linux that was a real 32-bit protected mode OS with pre-emptive multitasking, compared to windows with its 16bit msdos based co-operative multitasking OS with those cursed win32s extensions. MS was unable to even produce think about SMP or a 32 bit OS and DEC built NT for them, competing with IBM's OS/2. It all reminds me of this from Star wars:
Darth Vader: I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I met you I was but the learner. Now, *I* am the master.
Obi-Wan: Only a master of evil, Darth.
Following the entirely logical series of events i predict that in future the following will happen:
1) Linus Torvalds will turn out to be Steve Balmer's son.
2) Bill Gates will turn out to the be incarnation of all that is evil
3) Steve Balmer and Linus will have some kind of battle in redmond involving high-voltage electricity.
4) Steve Balmer will kill Bill Gates by chucking him off the Seattle space needle (though, how they got there will remain a mystery)
5) Steve Balmer will die and his dying gift will be to give Linus a HD-DVD will all the source code to every windows product.
6) Sadly (or happily?) the world will never see the source code cause it'll be a sony blu-ray dvd with heavy drm protection.
I know, call me Nostradamus.
Under the old patent system inside IBM you used to get 1 point for a "publish" and 3 points for a "file." (file for patent) Every time you accumulated points to a multiple of 12 (ie: 12, 24, 36, etc) you got a "plateau" and a small (a few thou) bucket of cash.
...", "Using the PF2 key in PROFS to do ...". I didn't read details on any of the publications, let alone all of them. But since there were 12 PF keys on the old terminals, it seems obvious that they guy got himself a plateau and a bucked of cash, one key at a time.
Once long ago I was looking through the "publish" book. Inside IBM managers used a thing called PROFS to do office and email. (I believe Ollie North used it too, and the backups were how he got caught.) I found a series of publications, "Using the PF1 key in PROFS to do
In today's climate I wonder if those would have been patents...
I'd like to see a suit involving any one of those hold up in court. Reverse engineering for compatability is allowed by law. Also, CIFS is just a new name SMB.
If Microsoft can enumerate the number of 'infringements' to this level of detail, then there has to be an Excel (maybe OpenOffice or Quattro??) spreadsheet with the Details. PUBLISH IT TO THE WEB!!! Stop posturing and playing games.
If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?
MS says OpenOffice violates its patents. Read somewhere today that Sun-Microsoft deal of 2004 took care that StarOffice, which is commercial OpenOffice distribution from Sun, won't get affected even if MS dares sue OpenOffice users. . No wonder Sun declined to comment.
What makes you think Apple would fall on Linux's side? Apple has cross-patent deals with Microsoft that protect them from this kind of thing and Apple is very clear in the marketing materials that they are just as eager as Microsoft to see Linux go away. There seems to be this naive idea within the Linux community that Apple is a friendly company. Here's a clue guys, the enemy of my enemy is NOT always my friend.
Not sure I buy this. I wouldn't say that Apple is exactly #1 in the "Linux Fan Club," but they have a lot to gain via open standards, at least when it's a choice of "open standards or Microsoft's proprietary standard." (I'm sure they'd much prefer their own proprietary standard being the One True Way, but as long as that's not going to happen, it's better nobody own it than a competitor.)
I don't think you can sum up Apple or the Macintosh platform's relationship to open source in general, or Linux in particular, as just "love" or "hate." It's much more nuanced. Apple has a lot to gain by any slip in Windows marketshare and a loosening of Microsoft's hold on the desktop, particularly the home desktop (it's been a while since they've gone after the business desktop and I doubt they'll ever really try again). It's a lot easier for Apple to compete against Linux than it is to compete against Windows, because Linux has less lock-in. (I.e., you can switch a Linux user to Mac more easily than you can switch a Windows user to Mac.) However, at the same time, they compete with Linux in the smaller segment of "non-Windows OSes." (So, it's the converse of before -- it's easier to switch a Mac user to Linux, than a Windows user to Linux. Such is the double-edged sword of open standards.)
You see the same issue with IBM -- on some levels, IBM is (or was) competing with Linux; e.g. vs AIX. (For this to make much sense you really have to think back a few years before they jumped on the open-source/open-standards bandwagon heavily.) Some of their divisions I'd expect still do (maybe database software?). There are probably a lot of non-IT examples around that people could come up with, too.
Corporations, because they don't have a single controlling mind, can in many cases do things that would appear to be hypocritical or contradictory if they're anthropomorphized. There's a lot that's been written about this sort of behavior (Google "coopetition"), and it's a lot more complex than 'friends' and 'enemies.'
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Are they trying to patent modified (adaptive) lasso tool ? That would be obvious if the patent application would have been written in human language...
"I have here in my hand a list of 235... a list of patents that were made known to the PR newswires as being used by Linux developers and who nevertheless are still working and under development outside of the Microsoft Corporation..." Sound familiar? yeah, (JAF) Joseph McCarthy analogy.
There was a SuSE before Novell, there will be one afterwards.
"I stomp in clown shoes where daemons fear to tread."
Nothing good has ever come from Redmond. They've stolen everything right from the beginning (ripped off Seattle Software's CP/M). So, naturally they get touchy about their rights to what they didn't create.
Look at the history of the GUI, and you'll realize that it was being used by others long before Microsoft was even a company. Here's a Wikipedia link with a timeline. Yeah, I know wikipedia is "suspect" at times, since everyone can edit entries pretty much, but read it, and then look at the references at the bottom. Microsoft wasn't first. Not by 20 years or so.
i cal_user_interface
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_graph
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Come on...jump...
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
Marc
-- PGP keyID: 0x4C95994D
This has been the objection against the Mono project since its very inception, and we were always told that it just wasn't an issue. Can the Mono project still say this with a straight face?
.net, but you will always have this lawsuit/patent question looming over your project. Now we have MS saying there's over 200 patent violations, how do we know none of those are in Mono?
.net, you are better off running it in the platform it was intended to; Windows.
It was always a risk to implement anything on Mono, not only are you lagging behind all the latest features of
At the end of the day, it seems the only safe way to use Mono is to run it using Novell's version. For that limited platform choice, if you must use
- sigs are for wimps.
It sounds like a fair number of these infringements might be describing design patents, which, like trademarks, are intended to prevent consumers from confusing two products.
Oh, and IANAL.
I wonder how this FUD campaign copes with MS problems in Europe.
How can MS claim in EU that they support interoperability while in US they threaten free software for basically being interoperable with their products? How can openoffice be compatible with word without using the "doc" format? You can't have your cake and eat it too.
We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us
I guess since they won't tell us which patents are infringed we just need to start filing claims against ALL of their patents. Every single one... all 3000+ of them and let them prove to the USPO that they are legitimate.
I think this is a small step in a FUD campaign, a kind of damage control. The SCO FUD is grinding to a halt and likely to backfire. The reason is simple: nonobvious copyright infringement is quite hard to prove and unlikely to be ubiquitous in OSS. The outcome of the SCO case may convince users that OSS is reasonably free of IP problems. MS has to act now, proactively.
This new case will be pushed to the media. It'll linger for some time. MS won't disclose the patents too quickly, waiting for satisfactory media coverage. Finally they will, and then MS will be very reasonable - first they'll just want compensation (we can see that already), then they may even choose to donate some of the patent rights to OSS. No real harm done, end of story. But the PR effects will be great for MS:
So, just as copyright FUD started by SCO is dying, MS is preparing an exhibit A for further FUD campaign, a proof that at least patent infringement is a real problem in OSS and a basis for the line "there are IP issues in OSS and sometime, someone might go after YOU, the user, and noone will be able to help you".
In short: a lot of the patents are probably rock solid, and the fact that OSS can work around them should not make you think this case is not a serious problem. Who will invest a sum of money comparable to the MS PR budget in a media campaign showing just how easy it was to deal with the patent issues?
Software patents are not legal in Europe... Yet
Mono was officially dead the moment the Novell deal was signed.
you had me at #!
The irony is that, in the begining of Windows' life (circa 1.0) couldn't draw Window-over-Windows. It only worked with tiled windows and only pop-up could appear above application.
When they moved to true overlapping windows Apple sued Microsoft and the borg lawyers got paid to prove that for various resons, several of the GUI patent couldn't be considered valid.
Microsoft is using the exact same strategy to attack OSS today, that it have to defend against back then with Windows 2.0 and 3.0.
As for technology in GUIs, most of it can be traced back to Xerox, which didn't patent much back then. So there's tons of proof of prior art that pretty much invalidate the bulk of Microsoft's claims.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The basic for Linux comes from roots that are from the year 1969. You can see it here.
http://www.levenez.com/unix/
This is odd.
Remember when Apple sued MS for copying their gui?
Remember when Xerox sued Apple for copying their gui?
If MS were to win this, would it then mean that Apple could re-open and win its case, then Xerox would re-open and win theirs?
And in the end, Xerox would become the richest software company in the world because it would wind up owning ALL the patents?
That would be interesting.
CD
The '80s were a long time ago.
That's what libel suits, injuctions, and anti-trust suits are for.
Go get yourself a good team of lawyers, and start working on it. This will be one fun summer.
Weren't there allowances for interoperability in patents? I can't remember if it was patent law or not, but I remember that interoperability was strictly allowed under certain regulations/laws.
They don't want to open the can of worms. They have no intention of opening that can of worms.
This is the best FUD against Linux ever. They had SCO playing dirty up until now, so they didn't have to bother, but with SCO completely discredited, they just want to get this out there to keep that fear in the back of CIOs' minds when it comes time to replace aging proprietary UNIX servers. Microsoft wants the datacenter, and they want it bad. It's going to be Windows or Linux, and the tide will turn any quarter now...
They don't need to sue, they don't need to win, and they certainly wouldn't get enough money out of a suit to justify it. All they need is to make big businesses worried about choosing Linux.
Well, Cornell's website seems to be down at the moment, so neither of those sites or working, but Title 35 is also available here and here.
Although I'm not a lawyer, my reading of Title 35 is that infringement-through-use is actionable: So therefore, if use is infringement and infringement is actionable, use is actionable; you can sue someone for using your patented invention. There might be a defense in there somewhere if you were truly an "unwitting" consumer, and the product was represented to you as being non-infringing, but if the patentee widely advertised that certain products were infringing (as the holders of the Selden patent did), and you continued or began using one, that defense would seem somewhat thin. (And I never stipulated that the user was 'unwitting' in the first place, and never meant to suggest that.)
I can't find another easily-readable, online version of the FRCP, but since Title 35 explicitly says that use is infringement and infringement is actionable, I can't see why it would stop a theoretical patentee from going after users. My understanding is that the FRCP is mostly mechanics (which courts have jurisdiction over what, how to file complaints and pleadings, how to initiate suits, etc.); the important part is whether something is actionable.
If you have a specific reason why you think this reading doesn't apply, or is incorrect, I'm genuinely interested to hear it. Or if there are any lawyers who'd like to weigh in, that'd be fine, too.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I say screw them... They've ripped off Mac OS X, why should Linux developers care. M$ can shove their patents deep up their ass.
Code ways, and algorithms shouldn't be able to be patented on.
If you patent code, you make other people, who will think of this trivial (as a developer) ideas and wouldn't be able to use them cause it violates some patents. THIS WILL MAKE COMPUTING STOP and not to develop further.
code cannot be patented !
Read and Comment at my BLOG
!!!
Why didn't they use OpenOffice.
Because they didn't have a time machine to go into the future and bring back a copy?
Apple v. Microsoft was concluded in 1994; at that point, OpenOffice was just a glimmer in some German programmer's eye.
For christsakes, if you're going to troll, at least put some effort into it. That was just lazy.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Here's Stallman citing the original report, in context:- transcript.en.html#patents
http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/tokyo-rms
Squirts Ballboy is just showing what a fine leader of Monkeysoft he is.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
The Apple vs eMachines dispute was a more straightforward trade dress case than Apple vs Microsoft. It comes from some portions of the Lanham Act that allow trademark-like protections for distinctive design elements of a product.
If you take a look at the eOne, it's pretty blatantly iMac-like; I kinda wonder what their lawyers were thinking when they green-lit that.
At any rate, that suit, like most things that Apple seems to get involved in, was eventually settled out of court, and no precedent resulted. But we can infer that eMachines didn't feel like they were winning, because the eOne disappeared quickly afterwards. (It didn't help that the thing never sold well, either, or that it was offered exclusively through Circuit City.)
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
You don't think that public opinion is already swinging against MS, and would do so even more if they followed through with such a thing?
Why should MS care what the public thinks? They're a monopoly.
Oh sure, we here on /. know they're not, but for all other people they are. You want to do your taxes. You go to BestBuy and buy Quicken. You take it home. Now...what operating system are you going to need?
It's like the gasoline infrastructure. You need to get to work. So you drive your car to the gas station and buy gasoline. At exactly whatever lousy price they offer it to you for. There is no substitute.
Oh sure, we here on /. know there are alternatives. Solar, hydrogen, whatever. Still doesn't help 99.9% of everyone get to work though. Tough to tell the boss you'd be in, if only you could find a hydrogen pump within a thousand miles of your house.
Same thing with Microsoft. They don't have to care what the public thinks of them. And they never have, honestly. They may or may not be a legally definable monopoly, but they are a monopoly inasmuch as there is no way for the average person to get around them. Just like how I know all about hydrogen, and PEM cells, and all that fun stuff but still have to shell out at the gas pump to make it to work.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Dupe.
They had already given the breakdown in the Fortune article:
"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."
And this new article even admits that: "The patent figures were first reported by Fortune magazine."
Nothing new to see here.
They don't want Linux and its related projects going, "Ok, we'll code around that, thanks."
More like, "90% of that isn't defensible in court in the slightest, and we'll code around the rest to be careful, thanks."
Unfortunately for mono, the parts that could be liable to patent claims are the parts that allow Windows interoperability. Given that interoperability is the chief claim to fame of
From wikipedia:
Not in the United States. In the U.S., first-to-invent is the rule, not first-to-file.
That's heartening. However, as stupid as it sounds, the patent itself will be seen by many as being proof of invention. Even if there is pre-existing published material, as is probably the case in 99.99% of the software patents granted, one still has to afford to go to court long enough to get the patent overturned.
So if M$, or any other political party for that matter, files and receives a couple hundred software patents per year for a decade or so, who will pay the lawyer bills for the overturned patents? The figures I saw a few years back indicated an average cost of about $4 000 000 USD per software patent, with no mention of the lost staff hours (specialists key/staff can't be replaced, burnout of said specialists, etc). If there's no punishment for junk patents, such as paying the whole cost of the case, then there is no disincentive to churn out as many software patents as is administratively possible in as short as time as possible, which is what seems to be the case with M$ here.
Besides, any given computer program or activity is probably going to be treading on several patents. According this bit of FUD from the article, anyone running the linux kernel for any purpose is in violation of 280+ M$ special, super secret software patents. Passing a hat and hoping 4x10^6 people put in a dollar 280 times won't likely work. Better to pass the had and buy some more sensible laws for the US.
For material not published on paper or any other less transient medium, proof of having been published will be harder. A lot of web sites from the 1990's are not around any more, nor are many FTP archives from the 1990's let alone 1980's.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Microsoft would patent the moon, and try to get money from licensing deals from everyone who looked at it.
So if I install an Aqua theme, then there isn't a problem right?
Come fuckin' on. Any patents that fall in that category would cover any modern OS. Drop down menus and "windows" were around before Windows.
They keep saying Linux. Last I checked nearly any window manager, e-mail client and many other applications that run on Linux run on BSD as well. However they repeat "Linux, Linux, Linux...!" to steer people from Ubuntu Linux, Debian Linux, Slackware Linux. How much more obvious a FUD campaign can they make this?
Show the world your code MS. There has to be a little bits of GPL crawling around in there somewhere.
Look and feel. Give me a break.
No sig for you!!
The other parts, if they are approved as standards, will be non-patentable.
Not necessarily true. Many standards bodies will allow standardization of patented implementations so long as non-discriminatory licenses are offered. IOW, the patent holder will give a license to anybody who wants one at the same price they charge everyone else.
2yr old eWeek interview
So it's ok for MS to swipe other's ideas but do it to MS and you're a patent infringing criminal. Unless they can specify swiped code line for line, this is all bullshit. Every OS pinched from the other guys.
Quick someone patent method for throwing chairs.
No sig for you!!
Perhaps with the help of (late) Phil Salin's document about free speech in software, found here:
http://www.philsalin.com/patents.html
we can finally rip apart this bogus corrupt system.
There's nothing wrong with copy protection.
Yes there is. It makes it difficult to copy things.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
The US patent office is a bank of concepts that allow courts to more cleanly delineate authorship, invention and ownership. That's all. It's not a commercial endorsement, not a proof in and of itself, and not final. Patents granted are the Office's best attempt at assigning a submitter to a described concept, and giving it a number.
However, the US doesn't reach across the globe (hence concepts may be easily copyable but not ultimately marketable), the concepts may indeed have originated elsewhere and diligence suffered, and a patent's only value is in the market it commands.
MS's entry into the market competes with a free product. That product can use ANY AND ALL of MS's patents, knowingly or not, and continue to survive well. Why? Because MS cannot chase down every user of the free products. Also, the companies using these products must be given adequate information as to *what* is in violation and time to remedy said problems. Only until it steadfastly refuses to do this can it really be considered in violation. Even then, it may disagree with MS's assumptions on the description of the patent, with the conclusion of the Patent Office, or finally with the jurisdiction of US patent law.
If MS leans on US foreign policy lawmakers to pressure other governments to punish violators of their claimed patents, several layers of argument cascade out: What foreign/domestic patents has MS themselves violated, or disregarded? Which patents are not considered valid in a global environment? Additionally, what aspects of global trade can the US tweak without painful repercussions?
They will pester and *maybe* sue the largest users, suggesting settlement by installing MS replacements. I believe this is a flawed strategy, however. MS can only create bad blood. It's hands are not clean, and its targets are also its customers. It should realize at some point that choice will arise and bridges burned are rebuilt in other directions - as has been going on for the past 10 years.
They don't realize this yet, but attacking FOSS only causes it to morph into something strong, more impervious to said attacks in the future. But attacking their customers about their use .
One has to ask why M$ is so secretive about everything.
It's my contention that M$ code consists mostly of STOLEN CODE from Unix and the many other flavors of Unix that have emerged over the years, plus the many other assorted and obscure operating systems that have also emerged. M$ has probably been reverse engineering software and operating systems for years, stealing the code and burying the evidence with encryption, patents and threats.
Bill Gates has a long, long documented history of theft, coercion, illegal activities and mafiaoso style bullying. There's an 800 pound Monkey Boy(TM) in the room and everyone is afraid to flinch lest they incur the wrath of M$. Everyone knows that no one can outspend M$ in court. It's just not possible. Even if IBM "Turned the sky black with lawyers" they couldn't stand forever on the battlefield against M$ and their vastly deeper pockets. IBM might stand and fight a valiant fight but it would be a war of attrition and M$ would easily remain standing in the end. All the rest of the world, that is the little people, know full well that they better not even show up for the fight, you can't fight against atomic bombs with BB guns.
M$ is a criminal organization that engages in criminal acts and is run by criminals.
RICO charges need to be filed against M$ and their empire needs to be brought down.
M$ crushes innovation and stiffles progress. If they aren't stopped somehow they WILL achieve their global domination goal of Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein OS.
M$ and their FUD campaign will work just as well as the SCO FUD worked to stifle the progress of FOSS GNU/Linux the past few years. Now that SCO is a walking corpse they had to find another way to stoke the embers and re-ignite the fires. The Novell deal was extremely harmful to the movement. WE all know it's BS but the rest of the uninformed world doesn't. They get their 30 second CNN/FOX "news" clips and/or 2 paragraphs of FUD via the web and they believe it. "Hey, I heard it on the news, so it's true!"
It's a shame that the villagers can't gather with their pitchforks and torches and march up the Redmond hill for some old fashioned mayhem. Several of the critters in the compound need to be drawn and quartered, at the very least.
I figured that it is about time that I started filing a few patents.
I think the first one will be the use of fleshy, rigid, jointed extremities (hairy, clean, dirty, shaved, covered or any such coverings applied or natural to the extremities shall not render this patent void) to propel an object and or person and or animal in a forward or sideways motion (leave out backwards to humor myself) at a speed of less than 15kph.
So... All of you can now cut off your legs and use prosthetics, walk backwards or... jeeses MS wins again... Use an IT for transportation.
*** Security text generated word - "hating". Maybe you should remove vowels so I can't start a lawsuit against you for hate crimes.
The "founding fathers" were against parties, or as they called them factions. Getting rid of parties would do a lot to reform this country to what the "founding fathers" intended.
I was told that the Windows UI interface had lost its patent status because of its overuse or something... Similar to how, say, kleenex is now a public term.
Despite their accusations of infringement, they state they would rather do licensing deals instead of any legal action.
Of course, they do. That's because they know that their patents are worthless.
So, please go ahead and sue us.
Microsoft's own code must be full of patent violations, since their developers and engineers have been told not to look at patents. So, I wonder what a careful examination of Microsoft's source code would reveal. I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't also some GPL code in there.
Remember the Mono project? It sounds like you picked up the spin from these people.
Despite instant rebuttal this "Dotnet is standard" claim got plenty of airtime and repeats on Slashdot, either in the form of de Icaza's breezy and tendentious "status reports" or from individuals whose notion of being helpful to FOSS was to encourage ever more brain-dead cloning.
To repeat the clarification, C# and the CLR are ECMA standards and are thought to be free of patent liabilities whereas the other 90% of the Dotnet API is not. And thanks to the clarification from MS themselves, the whole Mono thing is now pushing up the daisies.
First, I exepct that, in the end, this will work just as well as the SCO fiasco; i.e. not at all! All it will do is degrade what little respect there might still be left for the legal system in the US.
Second, no good can come out of this for Microsoft (not that they have ever given a good goddamn about public, government or personal opinion in the past).
Third, I expect that everyone's response to this will become exactly what mine has just become: Why in the hell should I care about IP rights at all when it is just another cynical way for the world's greatest disrespector of IP rights to deliberately blackmail everyone else in the industry? This whole notion of "You are violating my IP, NO, I won't tell you which IP so you might defend yourself or remove the violation BUT... you owe me money" just makes a mockery of the very things Microsoft says makes this legal!
Fuck 'em! Just fuck 'em!
Wny don't we set up a foundation, funded by donations, to go through Microsoft's patent portfolio and contesting the dodgy ones. Given the nature of software patents, I'm pretty sure we could make most of them go away.
I think the next step, here, will be a deal with Dell where MS gets to charge fees on Linux.
That's a bombshell. It looks like almost every developer of Microsoft Windows software is also violating Microsoft's patents also. That's not just the developers, but the users of said software too. If Linux and it's applications violate the patents, then most Microsoft Windows software surely does as well. Heck, I'm probably violating Microsoft's patents by using Skype right now. I would say since they run on Windows, applications built for Windows are probably more likely to infringe. I don't remember anything in the Visual Studio EULA granting me the right to sub-license Microsoft's UI patents to the people I distribute my application to...
> But there's been a write-enabled NTFS driver in the 2.6 line of kernels for at least the past year and a half, as part of the core kernel source distribution, and that runs in kernel space.
/only/ write operation it supports is overwriting a file with another file of EXACTLY THE SAME SIZE as the original. So, to use it for anything, you would have to first boot Windows and create a file of the proper size, and then boot Linux and overwrite it with another file of the proper size.
The write-enabled kernel NTFS driver is a joke and is almost entirely useless. The
It's dubious at best that any M$ NTFS write implementation patents would cover something so primitive as the Linux kernel's NTFS write support. And you still have the interoperability and antitrust defenses if they do.
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
I don't believe that's still true. ISTR using the write support once or twice without facing such limitations. (Notice they took the "DANGEROUS!" warning off of the kernel compile option?)
:wq
Regardless, there's more to NTFS than how data is written. There's how it's organized, how files are stored, how the internal file compression works, metadata, etc. And those are things that would be present in a read-only implementation.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
next time some micro$oft fanboi gets up and tells the slashdot crowd to stop beating on micro$oft... can we all remember to point him in the direction how how micro$oft behaves (like send him to this article for instance). i mean, im sick of the m$ fanboi's getting up in arms when we laugh/poke fun at/state the plain obvious about microsoft... especially when the company they're sticking up for does things like this.
235 only? I was expecting something in the thousands. It is likely that the violated patents will be shot down with show of prior art, work around, perhaps too obsecure to be considered or the violating software removed.
I am not 100% against software patent. However, software patent should be clear and limited by the submitted binary. Thus a binary of the claim must be deposited as part of the patent, if not the source code. Modification, even new rewrite of codes/binary after expiry of the patent are likely to be a new invention, as it improve aspects of the software. Thus the binary must be the point of reference.
I do not know how this venture will end up being. It is likely to be expensive process. Like it or not, I think that providing a binary should be included as part of the invention/patent claims for the sake of clarity.
But as shown in recent US elections, many USians do not think that is an important issue.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Yep. The computer.
And that runs what? Yup, software.
If that is not important, well, I don't know of many things that could possibly be.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Here we go again with the patent FUD.
But the FUD is part of something larger.
As a Linux admin I am personally harmed financially and by reputation because of the intentional slander, FUD, hype, astro turfing, perversion of the US legal system (lobbies), and confusion caused by MS. Proving this in a court of law would be a real bitch, but I know it to be absolutely true. I have lost jobs to MS monkeys, and taken heat from clients who really believe Gates is a genius and CANNOT be wrong because he's very very rich and famous. The 'fact free environment' is real, damaging, frustrating and perverse.
While the prevailing US cult of greed cannot be blamed entirely on MS, Gates, and Ballmer, the poisoning of public information sources certainly can. Slandering Linux specifically does harm to the OSS world and the Linux trademarked name. The public, worldwide, is being intentionally DEPRIVED of the ability to make an informed choice when the media is poisoned by the immoral and fraudulent acts of a greedy corporation.
The insidious damage of astro turfing and the erosive effects of bloated ad budgets on a supposedly free media are disturbing. When editors will not run an unbiased story, the public loses.
Perhaps a class action lawsuit could be brought against MS for corporate slander, defamation of (Linux) trademark, fraud, racketeering, bribery, monopolist activity and certainly for endangering the public by contributing to fraud. The contribution to fraud is by false security claims and gross incompetence. As for endangering, MS products are used in military and critical services agencies in the USA. (Disgustingly stupid, really.)
In short, it would be nice if we as individuals could do what the US FTC/Congress doesn't have the balls to do, require more civilized behaviour by certain greedy, ego maniacal cretins in the software business.
IANAL, but it seems MS has really deep pockets full of essentailly stolen cash. We take money from dope dealers, thieves, RICO busts, stock scams, mob guys, why not from MS?
At the very least I'd like to see an injunction against this sort of FUD, and simple legislation to regulate astro turfing, which is certainly damaging to public discourse. Astro turfers can say what they want, but like SEC rules for financial advisors, say who you work for. (And what stock you own.) Industry shill web sites should also have a prominent statement of mission and backing. Anything less is fraud.
Getting back to the point...
This patent FUD is part of a malicious, slanderous tort and a free speech issue where public information is being poisoned by special interests. USPTO was established to foster innovation, not predatory litigation and overt racketeering.
It seems to me there may be broader, perhaps actionable legal issues here. Part of free speech is the ability to be heard above the noise, disinformation and damn lies. When the public loses the ability to make an informed choice, based on real facts, that is a denial of freedom of choice. Informed action relies on accurate information. When MS lies, we're damaged by the adverse effects of monopolism and fear mongering.
I know this went a bit off topic, but the whole MS patent FUD issue is buried neck deep in other evil deeds and broader social issues. I don't have the resources to do anything about this directly, but I hate to see the bad guys win, again. If we can't save the public, at least sue the bastards so they leave the basically good OSS people alone and let us make a freaking living.
My 2p.
Penguin kill zombies with orange badges. Penguin kill, eat zombie meat. Gooooood penguin...
MS is scared, period. To protect their monopoly they will spend millions to spread FUD and attempt to delay Linux and other Open Software efforts. Ultimately, this will backfire. Attacking all developers, supporters, and users of Open software will only hasten the eventual consolidation and cooperation between Linux flavours and Open applications. My money will continue to be spent towards Open solutions wherever possible.
Especially because Macrovision (as an example) does not magically vanish from the work after copyright protection ends. Does the DMCA have any rule for breaking DRM to access a work that has entered the public domain?
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
Once the list of alleged patent infringements come out, it would be amusing to see the OS community
1) Come up with better technologies than the patented ones where possible
2) Come up with workarounds where necessary
3) Make them modified OS: Any of the new methods should be usable by any and all except Microsoft.