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."

Comments

constitutional lawyers?

[Lord Ender]

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?

Re:constitutional lawyers?

[koreth]

Software patents that were reviewed by qualified examiners and only granted if they were truly novel and non-obvious would promote science and the useful arts. I think far fewer people would have trouble with the concept if that were the reality -- in that case the intended bargain (the patent makes public the details of an idea that nobody else would have thought of on their own) would apply.

But the "grant first, ask questions later" approach of today's patent office, where one can patent an implementation that any programmer of above-average skill might come up with when presented with the same problem, means that we'd be better off with no software patents at all.

I'd be happy with either fixing the examination process or dumping software patents.

An example of a software patent that would reasonably be granted under a good examination regime, even though it did irk a bunch of people back before it expired, would be the RSA patent. That was not obvious to 99% of the skilled practitioners of the art until it was published. (And even now I expect most programmers have at most a high-level understanding of why it works, me included.)

Re:constitutional lawyers?

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

Software is obsolete in 5-10 years.
A patent last for 20 years.
Copyright lasts for 95 years.

When the incentive monopoly lasts well beyond the life of the invention, the effect is obviously not promoting innovation. The effect is innovation suppression and wheel reinvention.

Re:constitutional lawyers?

[Lord Ender]

We are talking about software, not a cure for AIDS.

I work in a software company, and I can assure you that we would be writing just as much software if there were no software patents.

Also, we have NEVER wondered how to write a particular algorithm, then found the solution in some patent disclosure document. Do you realize how absurd that sounds?

Re:Sad or Telling?

[smilindog2000]

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.

The Community is doing MS's work for them

[umStefa]

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.

Linus nails it. Again.

[symbolset]

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.

Cause of monopoly: Government granted monopoly

[openright]

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.

Re:Cause of monopoly: Government granted monopoly

[zotz]

"If the government ever really wants to address Microsoft as a monopoly, they should realize that the underlying monopolies are granted by the government."

Bingo!

MOD parent up!

And government granted monopoly means that the Free Market cannot fix the problems. The government will have to do that.

all the best,

drew

Re:Heavens, the breaking news!

[Dynedain]

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.

What distinguishes his comment from all of the ones here on /. 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).

Let them show it

[WindBourne]

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.

hmmmm

[EvilPoster]

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?

Re:Sad or Telling?

[rasputin465]

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.

Class Action Lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Sad or Telling?

[flyingfsck]

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.

Re:Sad or Telling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, the damage is done. 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.

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.

• Perl scripts that make reports? Gone, you can't run the reports without the open source interpreter.
  
• MySQL/Postgresql databases? Just because you're using Access on the front-end doesn't mean Access as the data store.
  
• Email? Even if you're running Exchange, you might still be protected with a hardware anti-spam device, which often runs a modified version of spam-assassin.
  
• Web filters/proxies? Again, most hardware based filters run off of an open source backend, in this case Squid.
  
• Web servers?
  
• File servers?
  
• Even not being able to use FireFox would upset some VIP somewhere, enough to get the decision reversed.
  

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.

Re:Sad or Telling?

[vertinox]

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.

Re:Sad or Telling?

[Petersko]

"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.

Re:Why do their work for them?

[jmorris42]

> 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.