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Linus Responds To Microsoft Patent Claims
An anonymous reader writes "Linus Torvalds has a sharp retort to Microsoft executives' statements in a Fortune article that Linux violates 235 Microsoft patents. In an emailed response to InformationWeek's Charlie Babcock, Torvalds writes: 'It's certainly a lot more likely that Microsoft violates patents than Linux does.' He added: 'Basic operating system theory was pretty much done by the end of the 1960s. IBM probably owned thousand of really "fundamental" patents... The fundamental stuff... has long, long since lost any patent protection.'" Torvalds also commented on Microsoft's stated intention not to sue Linux users: "They'd have to name the patents then, and they're probably happier with the FUD than with any lawsuit."
Can someone please explain to me how software patents "promote science and the useful arts?"
Wouldn't a patent law which does NOT promote science and arts be unconstitutional? Or am I misreading the constitution?
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
That was a funny article. Linus is probably right... Microsoft probably violates more software patents than Linux. Shall we start a web page listing patents that /.-ers believe M$ violates? It might be useful one day, if M$ goes all legal on us.
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
The more we post articles about how Microsoft is claiming patent violations, the better it is for Microsoft. This is simply a case of the more your story is in the news, the better the results for you. MS will NEVER sue anybody using Linux because the consequences of MS losing that case would be disastrous. Instead they will simply try and make managers (who in most organizations outside the tech sphere are technologically illiterate) make the following connection:
Linux = Patent Violation = Unreliable
Instead the Linux community should turn the tables on Microsoft and find a patent that MS has broken and feed the media the story that Windows users are going to get sued, hence making getting sued for using any OS a null point.
Technology is most abused by the very people it was created to help
If they had patents that could kill linux, what would Microsoft do? Would they hem and haw and bluster about unspecified patents, or would they drop everything and file suit so they could get restraining orders against all the distributors of this "cancer"?
Microsoft's duty to their shareholders is to maximize value and exploit their IP. Of course they must choose the latter.
Therefore, they ain't got diddly or the blabbing would be done and the lawsuits begun.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
You are right. Linus couldn't possibly be a little bit more informed than the rest of us about the fundamentals of Linux. I'm sure Bill Gate's comments about the internals of windows would be meaningless patter as well.
Davis http://davis.foulger.net
> Why not start debunking the FUD to prove how spurious their claims are? Is it because this would be too much work?
Um... yeah. The burden of proof isn't on the Linux community here. Addressing even one patent before knowing the claims is a waste of resources.
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
If the government ever really wants to address Microsoft as a monopoly, they should realize that the underlying monopolies are granted by the government. The 95 year software publishing monopoly is granted by the government. The 20 year software design/algorithm monopoly is granted by the government. If these monopolies were reduced to reasonable terms, the tight control given to these large companies by these monopolies would be lessened.
Linus's comments strike me as indistinguishable from the hundreds of comments we've had on Slashdot on this issue in the last 48 hours.
/. is that Microsoft will listen to his comments. Being who he is and what he's done, his comments hold weight in the discussion, whereas /. postings are just background noise (this one included).
What distinguishes his comment from all of the ones here on
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
This is the same exercise that was done with SCO. In fact, MS was probably wanting to see a trial run at this, to know what pitfalls they were going to have. Now, they have an idea of what to avoid. SCO's big downfall was having the patents outed. Once that happened, the community went to work on it and has destroyed SCO.
Why not debunk it? Nothing to debunk until they play their cards. They are being told to show cards after a call, and they want more rounds of betting. That is normally a bluff.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
IANAL, but couldnt the statements that M$ employees made about Linux infringing XXX many patents be considered slander? This was obviously done to harm the reputation of Linux, and absolutely no information was given pertaining to the actual patents that Linux violates. Perhaps, it's a different word when this is said about a product rather than an individual, but it seems like damaging the rep of a 'competing' product (with no proof) would have legal ramifications. maybe not?
Wouldn't it be just great if there was a rerun of the Halloween memo, involving a list of 235 patents that linux allegedly involves, which suddenly "dropped" into an appropriate inbox?
Wishful thinking, I know. But it's happened before....
todo - The developer's equivalent of confession: "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned..."
Dell's move is huge for Linux as a jumping-off point, and MS (imho) is trying to keep it from looking like Linux is a real competitor.
Yeah, and the ironic thing is that, by making all these spurious accusations, M$ is only validating Linux as a viable competitor.
It's time for Linux contributors to start a class action (defamation) lawsuit. Given the number of contributors, I'd say we're looking at several billion in damages. Maybe then we'd see some details.
Good - your company obviously wasn't serious about open source software anyway. Note that Redhat pledged to indemnify their users, so your powers that be were not really serious about anything.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I suspect that Samba would be largely immune, as a good chunk of it comes from the olden days of the IBM-Microsoft alliance, and thus is likely under IBM's shield. Where Samba could get into real trouble is once version 4 is production-ready and people start implementing Active Directory networks on *nix boxes. Then you'll see the shit hit the fan, because I'll wager Microsoft has stuffed its portfolio full of AD-related patents.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
For those companies who do get Open Source, this is latest round of Microsoft FUD is nothing more than, to joke about during lunch time.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
it should be Xerox. Apple stole the GUI from them, and then Microsoft stole it from Apple.
Too bad that for those 123 times there is not an easily accessible 'Cancel All' button.. ;P
I bet most institutions would be dead in the water if this advice were taken quite literally, as Microsoft used BSD code in there TCP/IP stack for a long time. Goodbye 95/98/NT/2000. Even if your not totally literal, there are tons of open source stuff that every company makes use of everyday, even if it doesn't register in the minds of the layman.
I'm sure there are more, but I believe that if all the admins of the world who got this request complied, Microsoft would be lynched in a heartbeat.
In fact, there should be a "Open Source or Die!" day where all machines that run open source software turn off. The inability to do anything would boggle the corporate mind.
Assuming MS really does have valid patents, how could just rewriting the code prevent Microsoft from seeking royalties for past infringement?
Well, infringement wasn't willful and developers would address it quickly, so any compensation would be for damages. And it would be hard for Microsoft to claim significant damages since most Linux users also have Windows licenses (for now).
Surely Linux 2.6.x is more modern than 1960s technology, right?
Not by much. Neither is Windows for that matter. Sad but true.
Would you care to bet that Microsoft will claim AD is an innovation on LDAP? I'm not saying that this or any other potential MS patent claim is legitimate. That's not the point. That's not the point of this whole topic. We all know that most (if not all) of MS's 235 patents are probably obvious inventions or have tons of prior art.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I work for a large financial organization that was *just* venturing outside of Microsoft operating systems and the lawyers sent out a notice today that we are to remove all traces of "open source" software, effective immediately.
Could you give me a hint of which financial company? I'm worried that I'm keeping my nest egg funds in a company who lets idiocy run its course without actually checking the facts. I suppose such a company would likely panic for any non-serious market trends which leads to me being poor because someone freaked out over something that was simply not true.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Microsoft probably violates more software patents than Linux. Shall we start a web page listing patents that /.-ers believe M$ violates? It might be useful one day, if M$ goes all legal on us.
With enough eyes, all patent violations are visible. Chances are, many large companies that hold patents that MS infringes upon don't even know the infringement is happening. If users were to discover and publicly document a few thousand tidbits such as, "Windows Vista's user-account control database clearly violates IBM's patent 1,559,664 of June 29, 1997," why, companies like IBM would almost be obliged to sue MS for damages.
I like this idea a lot. It's elegant as hell, because it takes advantage of the fact that Microsoft has more to lose than anyone from software patents.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
If they aren't going to discuss it publicly, then who exactly are they going to discuss it with privately?
They're not basing that notice on any actual legal risk, they're just happy that they have found a good excuse not to have to learn something other than Microsoft Word.
Microsoft is not a bit player, and it's FUD will have an effect. Legal advisors are going to be telling their clients and/or bosses to stay far away from open source, or at the very least look into paying MS's license extortion (which is almost worse than not using open source at all). It might even mean that some commercial contributors may even have second-thoughts.
At best, this is going to be a roadblock. At worst, it's going to mean very tough times. Microsoft is not SCO. It's a powerful and deep-pocketed corporation that has ran over almost every attempt to slow it down.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"You need to change jobs, because the only damage done here, is to your company."
He works for a large financial company - one large enough to have its own law department. While eliminating open source software from their infrastructure is certainly unreasonable, it's unlikely that they'll be "damaged" by it. There are plenty of good closed-source solutions out there.
As for having to change jobs, well, changing jobs on the basis of software morality (a dodgy proposition at best) might be reasonable in a very select few markets. Lots of people can't simply throw a tantrum and quit just because they don't get their way.
Just 'cos something is a standard, doesn't mean there aren't patents involved. I'll wager that there's a whole host of patents related to JPEG images for example.
I work for a large organization where the lawyers are seasoned and don't run amok from simple allegations. We have a large installation of solaris and linux hardware with some Redhat clustering coming down the road for Oracle. The plans are not changing until/if/when the legal system determines the Microsoft allegations are founded and laws have been broken. Until then, Microsoft is, as usual, probably full of shit. As I suspect your post is.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
> We'll have done their homework for them.
No, I think this idea has merit in a bigger sense. Think about it, post where I'm wrong if you see an error.
Ok, Microsoft threatens Linux/OSS with a patent fudbomb. Now the world is waiting for a response. But lets focus on the part of the world that matters here, large instituitional shareholders of Microsoft stock. If our response is to just start at the most recent patent on record and devalue it by documenting weaknesses (prior art, obviouslness, whatever) and showing every intention of moving backward until we hit the expired ones what sort of potential paper losses would that involve? Remember that they derive a non-trivial income by cross licensing that patent portfolio and the size of it reduces the cost they pay to license other companies patents. Directly attack that treasure chest and they would certainly feel pain. Even a credible threat of a concerted distributed attack on that valuable balance sheet line item would get the interest of the professional investors. Remember the one thing they dislike is uncertainty when assessing risk.
In summary it is one of the only ways we can demonstrate a counter attack that would do more than simply annoy them. Microsoft only understands force and the threat of it. They ruthlessly attack when they see weakness and deal when they encounter strength... and look for ways to undermine the foe and then attack.
Democrat delenda est
No, you change jobs when your boss tells you to use a screw driver to hammer nails into place. Believe it or not, microsoft and linux dont always live in the same space. Linux/unix is much more well suited to enterprise backends and massive farms. MS is better for homogenized workstation environments and small workgroup installs where depth of knowledge isnt as important as availability of knowledge.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
I think this is an excellent idea, set up a wiki, start listing the patent details then start adding in listings for prior art etc. Sure, thats the /. community doing the prior art research etc, but who better? If we can't find prior art, then we are alerting the OSS community of something that needs to be changed to ensure MS has no valid claim. If we can, then we are lessening/weakening Microsoft's collective IP that they use to bash other companies over the head with. We are striking back.
It would take some work to get started, and you would want a lawyer or two involved to ensure that opinions are valid when it comes to the details, but its certainly doable and exactly the sort of thing that an army of geeks is quite capable of accomplishing.
If you truely hate software patents - or the current patent system - why not help set this up?
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
It will never be a real threat until Dell starts shipping boxes with OSX to Fortune 500 companies.
As long as it's in the realm of the willing hacker, MS is quite safe.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
I don't know, but I doubt you're supposed to be posting on Slashdot using technical terms like "shit" and lots of dollar signs to spell the names of companies. But hey, I'm sure free software is all better off thanks to you.
That I absolutely agree with. I think of Bill as a hacker who was in the right place at the right time with the right idea and just the right lack of ethics to build a great company. But that is often how the world works.
Its not exactly random. The Popular Electronics issue that introduced the Altair microcomputer kit was the obvious beginning of a major opportunity. I recognized the moment as being a pivot point where someone with the right idea could leverage a fortune. I talked about it with friends at the time. We just didn't know what we could do to take advantage of the moment. Bill Gates and his Harvard poker buddies (Paul Allen and Steve Ballmer among them) recognized the moment as well, but distinguished themselves by understanding what they could do with the moment. Bill hacked together a workable Basic that would run on the machine, dropped out of school to make it happen, and, to his credit, did.
Everything from that point on was riding the ever larger waves of the PC revolution. Bill adapted the Basic (sometimes badly, and often burying the bad hacks used to make one machine work with more bad hacks) to a growing range of machines. It doesn't make Bill a great programmer, and they did they steal and/or buy (sometimes both, as with DOS) many of the pieces they needed along the way). But the growth of Microsoft inevitably put Bill in the position of making the key technical decisions. To make those decisions he had to have a more than passing knowledge of the code (even when he didn't write it).
That doesn't make him smarter than the rest of us (any more than Linus Torvalds or Tim Berners-Lee smarter than the rest of us. But all three were in the right place at the right time to make something important happen, all three have a broad reputation based on having done so, and those reputations have given all three credibility that most of the rest of us don't have when they talk about their products.
Which is why, going back to the beginning of this thread, it didn't matter that Linus' comments on Microsoft's FUD reiterated things that others had said before. His words had special weight.
Davis http://davis.foulger.net