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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.'"
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?"
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Anybody else see parallels between this & Disney whining about infringment after they made movies based on long standing folklore?
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.
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?
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.
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.'
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