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Microsoft Too Busy To Name Linux Patents?
bob_dinosaur writes "According to The Register, Microsoft's Patent Attorney Jim Markwith told the Open Source Business Conference that the reason they hadn't named the supposedly infringing patents was that it would be 'administratively impossible to keep up' with the list. 'According to Ramji, the executive tasked with the difficult job of straddling Microsoft's growing support for open source in server and tools, and aggressive and unpredictable statements from management on patents, made a jaw dropping attempt to explain away the Forbes article. "The reason we disclosed that, is because there was a request for transparency following the Novell deal Iast November. This was a response to that transparency," Ramji said. It was at that point the OSBC audience erupted.'" That transparency apparently extends to multiple levels. ZDNet is reporting that Novell will share the details of its agreement with Microsoft sometime in the near future.
Try physically impossible. You can't list what isn't there.
I realize that there would be a lot of paperwork involved in defending those patents once groups start having to verify with MS as to specific infringements, but isnt this overhead a cost of doing business concerning protecting your IP? Can companies infringing on patents that companies refuse to disclose information for even be considered to be infringing?
Ignorance of the law may not be a defense, but being told that you CANT know what the law is sure seems different. Mind boggling, unless i'm missing something key.
Perspectives are necessary, someone point out what i'm missing.
Ice Cream has no bones.
Microsoft patents attorney Jim Markwith told OSBC it would be "impossible" for Redmond's bureaucrats to respond to the volume of responses that would result from disclosure.
Do they really believe they'd have less work to do if they acted on their threats to deal with it in the courtroom? MS is just trying to keep the FUD of "using teh Linux may get you sued!!!11```" alive.
Trolling is a art,
Not the list. There's a big difference.
...because they're too busy working on the next Vista security patch. I also heard that there was a chair throwing class that the lawyers were going to.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Microsoft is too busy to figure out the list of infringing patens eh? then how did they count the exact number of infringing patents? if this number didn't come out of a countable list, perhaps, just perhaps, they must be pulling it out of their collective arse...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Wow, apparently not only did the customers not know the details of the contract but apparently neither did Microsoft. Fortunately Novell is being forthcoming and letting Microsoft know what they agreed to. Maybe we'll be next.
" as ZDNet is reporting that Novell will share the details of its agreement with Microsoft"
It's just that, when using the bloated Word with the equally bloated Vista, they're going to need a year or two to get the list completed.
p.s. How about just the top five then? Certainly that won't take too long, right?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Actually, despite what so many other people may think, I for one say Microsoft is 100% right in their reasoning: this list might be just too hard to administer.
After all, how many hours do you think it would take for the open source software to re-write their code to work around a patent after it was added? The effort of removing patent after patent is just more than Microsoft could ever bear.</sarcasm>
Do you like Japanese imports?
They must be too busy innovating and creating new patents. ;-)
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
they claim that there isnt enough time to list off how much was infringed which then brings up the point that they waited way too long to make their charges even if they were actually correct [unlikely to begin with] which also means that they likely would have waited past what is considered timely. you couldnt do this to any person under the law [RIAA for example] so why should a company be able to do this? there has to be something illegal about this whole thing.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Once the summer interns come in, they'll get on this right away.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
CAT(1) User Commands CAT(1)
NAME
cat - concatenate files and print on the standard output
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cat [OPTION] [FILE]...
DESCRIPTION
Concatenate FILE(s), or standard input, to standard output.
-A, --show-all
equivalent to -vET
-b, --number-nonblank
number nonblank output lines
-e equivalent to -vE
-E, --show-ends
display $ at end of each line
-n, --number
number all output lines
-s, --squeeze-blank
never more than one single blank line
-t equivalent to -vT
-T, --show-tabs
display TAB characters as ^I
-u (ignored)
-v, --show-nonprinting
use ^ and M- notation, except for LFD and TAB
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output version information and exit
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Impossible and contradictory tasks, answers depend on who you ask, infighting, these are the hallmarks of a company in trouble. Vista took too long to develop, does not work and is not selling. Office is being escaped by real standards based productivity apps which can no longer be fought off. Those are their flagships and their money makers. GPL 3 prevents them form stealing free software, so they will soon have to compete honestly. Not only won't they be able to grow as promissed, their revenues will collapse.
This is good because M$ is an enemy of free software and has made trouble for everyone else far too long.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If there is some kind of deal with Novell, me may not be able to say any of the details publically, but that doesn't negate the fact of what he said before that sounds like a load of krap. I mean I'm a MS supporter, but I firmly believe that lawyers should be nowhere near anything that has to do with PR.
And if they're making up patent infringement claims, does that count as a form of libel? Could they be sued (the American answer for everything =)) to put up or shut up? Would it be worthwhile to pursue such a course?
Your brain is not a computer.
If you read the actual report that the magic number came from you will see that Microsoft only holds about 11% of the 235 'unchalenged' patents that linux 'possibly' infringes on.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
to find the infringing code.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Dear Messrs. Smith and Markwirth,
Right. It's not standard operating procedure to list the patents when you are claiming patent infringement in order to use it as a weapon. You declared war on the Free and Open Source Software Movements, you're the ones pointing the gun, so c'mon. It's time to put up or shut up. Sue the community, sue Red Hat, sue Linus, sue the Mozilla Foundation, the Free Software Foundation, and sue Sun. Sue IBM. Sue me! Maybe my little project violates your patents! Let's have it! SUE US!
Stop this cowardly spreading of FUD. I declare that the Emperor has no clothes. Take us to court. You know we'd sue you if you violated the GPL, so let's have it.
Or do you, as I said before, are you afraid? What is it? Fear that you'd have all of your patents thrown out of court? Or maybe you fear that the industry would turn against you? No, I think it's all those things, but most of all it's that your bluff would be called and you'd have to stop spreading FUD. You know you can do more to damage Linux's reputation by sullying its good name with lies and innuendo about patents that are either obviously invalid or non-existant.
We have a saying where I come from: "Don't let your mouth write any checks that your ass can't cash!"
Put up or shut up. Sue us!
My blog
You have a patent attorney, who is too busy working on protecting your patents to tell you which patents are being infringing upon? I'd love to see that stand up in court, I have a feeling it would look a lot like the Gonzo testimony.
"Sir, I don't recall being at the meeting where the number of infringing patents was discussed..."
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Here we go again.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
To say you have 235 nuclear-tipped missiles sitting in a silo, somewhere, and they could be pointed at you! But we won't show them to you or say where they are.
If you are going to mention them at all, you should not be surprised in the least that people will want specifics, and therefore you should be prepared to provide them, or at least show a couple of examples to demonstrate the whole thing isn't a bluff.
For heaven's sake, what's so difficult about listing the patent numbers? How hard is that? How much work does that take if you've supposedly inventoried the relevant patents sufficiently to state with confidence that there are 235 of them, broken down by category? An hour's work, including proofreading? If that's too much effort, pick the most important dozen.
Throw us a bone!
Everyone else who cares will take it from there by looking at the patent applications, which are well-documented at the patent office. All we need is a few numbers.
Perhaps MS is afraid the patents are duds?
Let me be the first to say "Horse shit!".
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
...Does Microsoft's company directory use the term "FUD Division" or "Division of FUD"?
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
It's funny, because that figure has three significant figures. They didn't say "over 200" or "about 230" but that there were 235 patents.
So, the only way to count them was to have a list. A list they could very easily share with us if they wanted to. Of course, as everyone else has said, we'd code around them, challenge their validity, etc. And no, it wouldn't matter if the list wasn't 100% correct. It'd just be useful to say that, hey, we really don't infringe that one, but whatever, while fixing all the ones we might infringe upon with OSS.
Of course, that's exactly what they don't want us to do. They don't want us to stop their FUD. And therein lies the problem: promissory estoppel (they promised not to sue), laches (they knew about the infringement and did nothing), unfair competition and anti-trust actions, as well as a whole host of other things you'd see a real lawyer argue if they actually tried to bring a patent infringement suit. Of course, IANAL, so get one if you ever want to make claims like those in court.
BTW, you know why I think they gave that promise not to sue? To keep any of us from bringing a declaratory judgment action against them. I seem to recall that case law is mixed on that point, but it gives them some wiggle room to avoid having anyone bring a lawsuit over this. I wouldn't be overly surprised if Red Hat or someone had their lawyers send a nasty letter to Microsoft over this and they realized that they had to cover some ass and pump out a little more PR as a smokescreen to hide their backpedaling on this issue.
Don't get me wrong, they'll probably still use the FUD they've created as another way to strong-arm vendors, but I bet they'll do it a little more quietly and they'll do it to people they already have some hold on.
> [...] Ramji, the executive tasked with the difficult job of straddling
> Microsoft's growing support for open source in server and tools,
> and aggressive and unpredictable statements from management on patents [...]
They should hire Tony Snow, he can do that on mere brain stem functionality.
At some future time Microsoft will press an existing patent against someone. The first defence will be Estoppel. Microsoft is once company that cannot claim it did not have the resources to defend itself. If Microsoft fails to defend at this point, especially after making the pubclic claims it is effectively estopped from raising those claims in the future.
IANAL but I like to try on the hat
Wow, these sniveling little Microsoft lawyer punks have had their bluff called out! Looks like their patents on walking and breathing are not going to do them any good.
It would be a good start if they could even name just one patent infringed upon. Just one.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
I had a big list of patents being illegally used in Linux too. :(
My dog ate it though.
I must admit, i was wrong about the Novell/M$ deal. It looks like the Suse guys have turned the tables on the embrace/extend attempt by M$. Now with Redmond's claims that they have no intention to sue (which is doubtfull if they even could...sorry Bill, you're a Linux distributor now :) ), and with Novell saying that they are going to reveal the innards of the deal, Im thinking that this was a great strategy to ensure the future of Linux. M$ just underestimated the viral nature of the GPL. How do you like the taste of your own medicine, Mr. Ballmer?
... we're just making shit up...
There is a war going on for your mind.
My dog ate the patent list.
That's actually more believable.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Microsoft cited administrative overhead for not detailing the 235 Microsoft patents its chief legal counsel recently told Forbes exist in Linux and open source.
This is true! An extra 235 patents to monitor would overload their workforce that is already concentrating on the 235,000 bugs located in the first release of Vista! (May I say 135,000 of those deal with using Vista as a gaming platform)
...Microsoft's Patent Attorney explained that the reason they hadn't named the supposedly infringing patents was that "we know what the U in FUD stands for".
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
Today's statement blew their credibility totally - out of 235 patents, 11% are supposedly owned by Microsoft. But they don't know which ones and it'd be too difficult to find out.
So if they don't know which patents might be infringed upon - and find it too difficult to research it - then where did that attack against Linux come from? Pure fantasy, of course. It's probably actionable fantasy, too - all the elements of libel are present in Microsoft's "Linux infringes on Microsoft patents". Say - that might be interesting; to defend against a libel charge they'd have to prove that their statement was true. That'd keep their legal staff busy for a few months or years - and give everyone else a target to aim at.
We can only hope that most media outlets make note of the conflicting statements and complete lack of any reason for their claim that Linux infringes Microsoft patents. Microsoft has NO SUCH EVIDENCE of infringement - and has made a public statement that it's too difficult / not worth their time to try to find any such evidence.
Translation: FUD takes just long enough to make a "claim" to the press. Doing research to possibly substantiate those claims is not effecient allocation of FUD resources - there are other "claims" that could be made during that time.
Now we know that it's all smoke & mirrors...
So go ahead, infringe on ALL of ms's patents, since they're just too busy to hassle you.
"FUCK, I told you someone was going to ask which patents they were!"
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
come on guys!
:o
you could at least try!
-what? are you...
ccchicken?
The way MS phrased their statement (and previous statements) is stupid and doesn't make a lot of sense. They made it sound like they had a list of patents, and now say they don't. However, the statement I think they were trying to say is, "We have so many patents that we know that some open source software somewhere must be infringing on something we've patented." Then they tried to clarify that they haven't actually made a list of them all because, "it would take way too much administrative time to find out which ones they are and list them all." Stated that way, their statement would make a lot more sense, and it would probably be true.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
If I remember correctly, if you don't protect your trademark and prevent people from using your name as a generic term (Kleenex, Google, Band-Aid), you lose your rights to it as a trademark. It becomes the general term instead and is no longer protected. (That's the short version. I'm sure there's a lot more to it than that since laws are so specific.)
Is this also the case with patents? If they don't sue, do they lose the rights to them?
Sigh... There is a bit of a misrepresentation of what was said. The MS lawyer actually said, "'Most people who are familiar with patents know it's not standard operating procedure to list the patents,' Markwith said. 'The response of that would be administratively impossible to keep up with.'"
This is significantly different than "it would be 'administratively impossible to keep up' with the list."
I agree with the lawyer that the response to revealing the patents would be enormous and probably too difficult to keep up with. There would be all kinds of questions like "*How* does it infringe?", "Will this change help?", "What about this prior art?", etc, etc. There are thousands of Linux/GNU/whatever developers who are implicitly implicated by their accusations. Many of these are associated with large organizations which have teams of lawyers themselves. There are probably only a few lawyers dealing with this issue at MS. Thus, it *would* be administratively impossible to handle the response.
My feeling is that if you don't want to deal with the response, then shut up. But I guess they don't agree. But it is an interesting comment none-the-less.
BTW, I'm not being sarcastic in this post, but it's pretty difficult to tell given the absurdity of the issue.
Do not try and list the patents... that's impossible.
Instead only try to realize the truth... There is no list.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I can't bother to care.
Guess we're even.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
-nt-
Microsoft is in violation of 100,000 patents that I own, but I'm too busy to document even a single patent.
And naming even a single patent would be just spreading FUD because, as I've said, I'm too busy now innovating to sue at this moment. If the infringing code could be rewritten, I'd say something because I know Microsoft respects IP and I don't want people violating my IP unintentionally. But since the code it can't be rewritten without using my IP, so I'm actually doing Microsoft a favour by keeping quiet.
But tell you what, since I know even mentioning Microsoft's violation can cause uncertainty, I'll license each of my patents to Microsoft for the low low price of 1 dollar per patent, payable once every month. As stated, I'm too busy to sue anyone using Microsoft products at the moment, so Microsoft customers are safe...for now. But who knows what will happen to people who by unlicensed Microsoft projects in the future.
I'm not a lawyer, and I technically don't know jack about anything, but it sounds to me like Microsoft is inadvertantly laying the grounds for Linux's eventual Laches defense. If I'm right, this apparently wouldn't completely protect Linux et al from lawsuit, but it would certainly mitigate the potential damages.
I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but I'm honestly just sick and tired of companies using threats of litigation as a weapon in the press, rather than using the courts to solve their problems. If Microsoft feels that Linux and other F/OSS projects are infringing on their patents, they should either tell the projects so they can work around them, or if they feel they've suffered damages, bloody well sue and be done with it. Shit or get off the pot, as I believe the saying goes.
You can't win, Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
It's FUD. It doesn't matter if it doesn't make any sense. It's meant to scare the PHBs, that's it. A rational argument is the incorrect response to this bullshit. Any other industry they would have been buried under lawsuits for wrongful interference, but our industry has colluding software empires with their own bullshit patents and a bunch of nerds playing the wrong game. This aint about truth, its about perception, leverage and power. Some one needs to kick them in the teeth with steel toes.
Couldn't they let the rest of us know about SOME of the patents? How is that administratively impossible for the biggest software corporation?
If it is impossible, then doesn't it seem like there is something really wrong here? Isn't a patent supposed to be tangible enough to warrant a claim or some sort? Then, how can it be impossible to list what the patent violations ars?
One more possinle naive question: didn't Linux borrow heavily from UNIX, much more so than from anything Microsoft has done? And didn't UNIX predate Microsoft?
I am more baffled than ever.
Office 2007 is actually crushing everything else. It is making people excited about an office suite again (which is pretty amazing, actually).
Yes, cursing is an expression of excitement. Witness Fanboy Mossberg's reaction and judge for yourself:
In my own tests, I was cursing the program for weeks because I couldnt find familiar functions and commands, even though Microsoft provides lots of help and guidance.
Wouldn't it be a better idea to spend those weeks learning something like Open Office on GNU/Linux? After spending six years on XP, anyone in a hurry to get better software is going to find it in the free world before they fork over the cash for a Vista Heavy Metal Super Computer.
Vista is not selling as well as XP did and may go the way of the Zune. M$ has stuffed it's channels and is doing all the usual PR blitz but they can't change reality. When you say:
It [Vista] works perfectly.
you are flying in the face of reviews and personal experience. Despite the low expectations most M$ users have, I have yet to meet anyone who says that Vista just works. Most have stories like this.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Opps my bad got two studies confused.
A 2004 study by a Open Source Risk Management, a company selling insurance against risks of using open-source software, concluded that Linux could violate at least 283 patents, 27 of them Microsoft patents.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
>Not only won't they be able to grow as promissed,
>their revenues will collapse.
I'm not a big fan of Microsoft, but this is just plain ridiculous. Why are these posts allowed to float (or crawl!) up to the default view?
chairs throw CEO of Microsoft Steve Balmer into Cowboy Neal's coffee mug with 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0 on it while Ballmer launches baseless claims about Linux infringing on 235 patents.
The reality is IBM (and the US government to an extent) developed lots of ground work on Operating Systems, hardware/software addressing and the internet itself 25+ years before Bill Gates graced us with his presence.
M$ will not named those patents because IBM owns them all and anything the US government cooked up got public domained.
M$ just wrote a HUGH ASS check...let's see if they can cash it.
We're an entirely Linux/OS X shop here, however.
If MS/BSA ever decides to try an audit us, my response isn't going to be, "We don't use MS products, period."
My response is going to be, "It would be administratively impossible for us to list the software packages in use throughout our company."
Then, when they kick the doors in, and find not a spec of MS software, our lawyers will have a nice round of settlement discussions with their lawyers.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Who knows? Maybe this is the first indication that the cost and workload of software patents are of no real benefit to anybody, even Microsoft.
I keep dreaming the States will wake up and do away with software and busines method patents. Might prove handy in stopping the European Union doing something stupid (again) and listening to the patent lawyers on the whole subject, which has seemed imminent for a painfully long period now.
I dislike Microsoft as much as the next person, but answer me this:
REGARDLESS of how shady their buisness practices are, why is it OK for companies to infringe upon Microsoft patents but NOT ok for Microsoft to infringe upon other companies patents?
Living With a Nerd
Could someone claim in court that they thought it would be ok to violate Microsoft's patents, since they apparently have announced that they don't plan on enforcing some of their patents?
You can selectively enforce a patent. You may not selectively enforce a trademark.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Didn't Joe McCarthy use the exact same tactic in the 1950s? Claim you have a list but then don't let anyone see it? Worked out great for him, he's one of the most beloved figures in US history! Where'd I put my my "Tailgunner Joe" T-shirt...
> And exactly which "any of us" would that be that has the $ to bring what would almost cetainly be a very long and drawn out case?
Hell no. I'm not a Linux coder. I've released some GPL'd stuff, but it's nothing very important simply because I haven't coded anything that wonderful.
Anyhow, like I said in GP, I expect that Red Hat or another Linux distributor would bring a lawsuit if they thought it was worthwhile. Usually you start out with some stern letters and only bring a lawsuit after it becomes clear that they're not going to stop doing whatever they're doing. I wouldn't doubt that Red Hat or others did something like that and Microsoft turned around and gave that promise not to sue as a means of legal ass covering after talking with the lawyers.
But that's why you get a real lawyer to represent you, rather than listening to random Slashdotters. IANAL, and you damn well need one if you're going to sue someone like Microsoft. Look at how long SCO has held up against IBM with the weak case they have if you don't believe that a good lawyer with no case can drive you insane. Had IBM been sloppy, they just might have tripped IBM up on some stupid technicality and gotten somewhere instead of ending up tangled in their own net.
This can only mean that the SCO vs IBM case is about to be wrapped up. M$ needs another diversion and a new supply of FUD.
You never catch me alive
If it is administratively impossible for Microsoft (of all companies) to know all of their own patents that are being infringed upon, this speaks loudly about how much more impossible it is for anyone writing software to know what patents are being infringed. After all, the author can never know Microsoft's patents as well as Microsoft does (nor the many other company's patents that might be infringed).
The system is just plain broken and impossible to fix. The only question is how many innocent people are going to be hurt until we collectively admit that it has to stop.
to hire Lawyers to review the patents for them that have been violated. I mean why should Microsoft employees do it, if they are too busy putting spyware and backdoors into the next Vista service pack and finding a new way to shut out Vista pirates as well as invalidate legal copies of Vista so they can have false positives to force the sale of more Vista licenses?
Microsoft gave us a number, 235, that means somebody either counted them or pulled them out of their rear-end in some FUD attack against Linux and Open Source? If the former, then just let the lawyers read the list of 235 and give us a legal summary of what is in violation?
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
The number 235 didn't come from any Microsoft internal research or MS funded research. It came from an independent research paper that examined patent vulnerability of various software. Microsoft saw the paper and decided to run with it, saying that the paper proved that "Linux violates 235 of Microsoft's patents".
/., I think about a week ago. I'll let someone else dig up the link for some karma.
Then the paper's author spoke out, saying that MS was misrepresenting the results. First, it was 235 potential infringements, in part because none of those 235 patents had been tested in court and could be invalid. Second, these were not all Microsoft's patents.
Frankly I think he was far too kind. Microsoft turns "potential" into "actual", and "235 patents" into "235 of our patents". That's not "misrepresenting", that's fucking lying, especially when it comes to implicitly claiming ownership of patents which are not theirs.
Oh yeah, and thirdly the author said that Linux was not atypical compared to closed source software in how many patents it potentially violated. The fact is, and one of the conclusions of the study, was that software patents are such a minefield that pretty much every piece of software potentially violates some.
This was all on
By the way, this probably means that the best source for finding out which patents Linux hypothetically violates would come from the original paper.
The enemies of Democracy are
So let me see here...
Before:
Nobody knew how many patents they may hold
Nobody knew if they would use them
Nobody knew if they would hold up in court
After:
It is obvious they can't do anything
They have more or less agreed not to sue anyone
If they don't name the patents soon you an use it as a defence
So essentially they have just managed to clear Linux from the FUD surrounding their patent portfolio, make it obvious to business around the world they don't have the balls to do shit with it, and pretty much offered everyone a great defence against their entire patent portfolio. I mean... wow, just wow. I knew the FUD against Linux would go away soon, but that Microsoft would do it themselves without even entering the courtroom... wow. I guess the Vista slogan was right after all...
They claimed to be "too busy" to continue publishing the M3 number last April.
The story should have been on the front page of every newspaper, and should have immediately triggered
a global dollar-crisis, but instead the world believed Bernanke, and here we are today.
Go for it Microsoft. Because apparently we're living in an era populated with unquestioning sheep.
(I know, I know...it couldn't have been more offtopic... but this post gave me some deja vu.
Don't mod me down -- people really do need to wiki "M3", and get a little scared...).
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
"I can get any girl I want, anytime I want. I'm just too busy."
Did you just kinda miss that part [recommending buy the new office ... and the whole upgrade train wreck] or are you in FUD mode right now?
No, I did not miss the part where he thinks the new Office is better than the old Office, I just wanted to know how low the man's standards are. After cursing the changes for weeks, he thinks it's better. It's not really better, he just got used to it and put his blinders back on. That, just like you, is a fanboy in action.
Normal people want a tool that works and free software has it for them. M$'s new line up does not. M$ knows it because they do not have blinders on.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
So let me see if I get this right. You think the article is useful when it says Office is not good, but you think he's delusional or lying when he says it's good. The same article.
Am I parsing that right?
Let me ask you this: Do you think people who read your posts are retarded? Because if that's not the case the only possible explanation to this "logic" you enjoy so much is that you are, and you just don't know it.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Im sorry, its administratively impossible for me to keep track of all the bullshit coming out of Redmond.
I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
It's not just that we dislike software patents in general (though we do). We also dislike FUD, and we dislike lies.
Microsoft says that Linux infringes on a bunch of Microsoft's patents, but they won't tell us which ones. There's no attempt to present an issue and get it cleared up. There's only an attempt to tar Linux as publicly as possible with the "patent infringer" brush while providing nothing concrete that can be refuted. That's FUD.
Microsoft says that it can't tell us what the patents are that Linux infringes because it would be too much work. But they can count them and tell us what the number is. That excuse sure looks like a lie to me.
Being hostile to FUD and lies is not the same thing as being in favor of infringing Microsoft's patents, and that's why the original post was a strawman. If Microsoft tells us what the patents are, we'll either break the patents or fix the code. Until then, there's really nothing to talk about, except to tell Microsoft to put up or shut up.
Well, yall can start with the supposed 235 yall claim you have over linux..
You think the article is useful when it says Office is not good, but you think he's delusional or lying when he says it's good.
Yes, I think people who curse something for weeks and then say they love it are delusioned and mind fucked.
Let me ask you this: Do you think people who read your posts are retarded?
Yes, dadazo, I think you are retarded.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
TheRegister refers to a Forbes magazine article ... they actually mean Fortune.
Big mistake; I think Forbes is mostly garbage, on a par with something like TheRegister.
Also, why do people keep saying Microsoft promised not to sue?
Microsoft said that they have no immediate plans to sue.
Quite a different matter, especially when their plans also include Linux users buying licenses from Microsoft.
....makes the US late 90s dot bomb boom look like a lemonade stand when they run out of lemons and switch to yellow food coloring. They are holding a lot of paper too, a LOT, and it's going into *fluff* right now. When that collapses, and it will, no more cheap chinese manufactured goods, and everything they do make will go for hard swaps for energy and raw materials to try and keep their masses from going into open revolt. Now think what they will mean for places like the US which has done everything they could to destroy manufacturing and switch people to a "service" of some kind. Folks will find out that food and shelter are not "service" but tangibles and necessary for existence and their leet service job skills won't be worth much, nor will iPods or bluegreen ray 42 inch laser plasma displays or 7/8ths non paid off status mobile they drive around in or homes with 35 years left on the inflated mortgage. Managing/selling/rearranging *nothing*-the smoke and mirros service economy, is not a valuable national skillset and makes for a pretty craptacular economy. When you swap machinists and boilermakers for advertising guys and patent troll VC vultures and managers for the advertising guys then managers for those guys..well...you've deluded yourself, and that is what this nation has done. You have to have REAL stuff to live in the REAL world. Not pictures of stuff, or electronic bits of stuff, or long legal documents that describe stuff, no, you really need the real stuff to live. They've run their paper scams and skimming cons about as far as it can go now, and when it hits it will be felt globally. Hedge funds? Derivatives? Betting on the weather as an "investment"? HAHAHA! Now they want to trade CARBON CREDITS? OH MANOMAN is that funny!
And no one is gonna give crap one about global warming then,or those carbon credits, or the latest fad paper financial FUD product once that casino craps everyone out.
I'm into tangibles now, bigtime, nothing else, the only thing that is real.
I think TS is gonna HTF sometime soon. We'll have one to three more large scale regional wars first, Iran-syria-lebanon first of course, then it will get really really bad as the world fights over natural resources and abandons paper fictional representations of resources.
Anyway, enjoyed your little offtopic post and wanted to chime in with mine,(yes folks, read about the M3 and ask yourself "why"?) along a similar vein. Been watching this coming now for a long time. Kinda scary really, but what the heck, it sure won't be boring!
They say that linux had an infrigiment with 235 patents, they can count them but they can't list them? So, that means that's a big fat lie!! We're not stupids...
ghostbar page.
It's "administratively impossible" in the sense that the administrator, Steve Ballmer, would Fucking Kill(TM)®© any Microsoft employee that enumerated the patents!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Linus should now sue Microsoft. They have defamed him by claiming "that the Linux kernel - the deepest layer of the free operating system, which interacts most directly with the computer hardware - violates 42 Microsoft patents."
Since Linus exerts control of what code goes into the kernel, they are, by extension, saying he is either incompetent or doesn't care about patent infringement. Either way, it's defamation of his character.
The best part is, if he sues them, they would have to defend their claims. That's right, they would HAVE to tell us what these 42 claimed infringements are! Show us your FUD cards, Steve and Bill!
HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT HE WAS THERE?
I'm way to busy to see if there's somebody in front of me before I shoot!
CATS: all your base are belong to us
oh and this isn't offtopic because there are plenty of indians who are poor, and not busy.
I hate Microsoft, but I have no doubt that these patents do exist, and that GNU/Linux systems do violate the patents. This isn't a problem with GNU/Linux, it's a problem with the patent system. With all the ridiculous software patents granted every year (and most/all are), there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that hundreds, if not thousands, of Microsoft's rubbishy patents are, in fact, violated by GNU/Linux systems.
Then again, the same goes for Apple, Google, Compaq, Dell... they all violate each others' patents, and when company X gets pissed off at company Y, they whip the patents out and sue. Patents are no longer used to "protect innovation", they're used as stockpiles of weapons to attack one's enemy-of-the-moment with.
This isn't so much evidence that MS is evil (honestly, do we need more evidence of that?), but rather evidence that the patent system is evil.
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Patent violations : nil-point .
None of the MS Patents are valid in the EU where linux was created. From where I'm sitting (in the UK) linux, openoffice, firefox etc violate NO patents. They might do so where you are but not here.
The solution is not to get the patent list and challenge/license but to fix your patent system.
This is not a signature.
I could do this as an Anonymous Coward, but I'm sure noone can object if you flame Microsoft ever again. There are no words in the world to describe how stupid Microsoft behaves here. My 5 year old son does a better job of lying when he is caught with his hands in the cookie jar and knows he isn't supposed to do that.
Come on Microsoft you can do better than that!? Are you now really changed from Micro$oft to MicroFUD?
You, sirs, are subject of the laughter of all the world. It is absolutely hilarious. It would be all a big joke if you weren't so serious about it.
I sincerely entertain the thought of going to some venue where Bill is speaking to ask him what comicbooks are on Steve's shelves. I want a piece of that.
No really, words cannot describe the utter astonishment of how stupid you are.
- New Motion?
- Completely new motion. That eh there be immediate action...
- Once the vote has been taken
- Well, obviously once the vote has been taken....
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
"'Most people who are familiar with patents know it's not standard operating procedure to list the patents,' Markwith said. 'The response of that would be administratively impossible to keep up with.'"
Who are these people familiar with patents? Why not get them to tell us?
"The reason we disclosed that, is because there was a request for transparency following the Novell deal Iast November. This was a response to that transparency"
Who exactly asked for transparency? How can you be transparent and not tell us what the patents are, at the same time.
"We had another round of here we go again... we are pretty confident we can offer the customers coverage [from prosecution]"
translation: Buy our stuff or we'll sue your ass off.
was: The synopsis has it wrong (Score:5, astroturf)
davecb5620@gmail.com
What about trying to properly name only one patent picked amoung said list?
Hey, cutting administrative cost by more than 200%, no pointy-haired folk would have dreamed of that!
More seriously? The "Typical failure" thread may have it right: the compagny is not really collapsing, but may be about to split, last move to avoid being slapped to hard for anti-competitive behavior?
http://www.google.com/patents?as_drrb_is=q&as_minm _is=1&as_miny_is=2007&as_maxm_is=1&as_maxy_is=2007 &as_drrb_ap=q&as_minm_ap=1&as_miny_ap=2007&as_maxm _ap=1&as_maxy_ap=2007&q=inassignee:Microsoft+inass ignee:Corporation&lr=&sa=N&start=590
600 visible US based patents have been granted, so which of these 235 do they mention ?
now you can cross reference with google code search too see which codes are potentially infringing, or prior art
They have invented the way all software is installed, of course:T O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fs rchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6618857.PN.&OS=PN/66188 57&RS=PN/6618857
T O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fs rchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,594,674.PN.&OS=PN/6,5 94,674&RS=PN/6,594,674
T O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fs rchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,604,008.PN.&OS=PN/6,6 04,008&RS=PN/6,604,008
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
they also claim to have invented archived files:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
And last but not least, they have also created game scoring for computer games:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
Even if you lose, you have forced them to name the exact patents and violations.
Actually, Microsoft violates 236 patents that I hold... I would list them, but I need to wash my hair.
If Microsoft are too busy to list all the patents then let them name just one.
They just go thru all their patents without making a list, just incrementing a counter. At the end of the day, they have a number but not a list, all patents are piled up somewhere, but they don't know which ones linux infringes.
...cartoon: http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/05 /the_ballmer_the.html
Bye,
Oliver
Here is the actual statement: "Most people familiar with patents know it's standard operating procedure not to go out and list the patents you have because of the administrative work required," said attorney Jim Markwith with Microsoft Legal and Corporate Affairs. "The response that it would invoke would be administratively impossible to work with. You won't see any company list the patents they have. Even those they are actively licensing or cross licensing." When asked why the company was so specific on the number of patents but unclear beyond that, Ramji said: "We disclosed [the number] because of requests for increased transparency, but this was as far as we could increase transparency."
i just got a free linux cd from someone and put it on my computer with the instructions and it is so obvious that linux ripped off microsoft!!! obviously linux just copies the windows cd to make the linux cd and they make some small changes to it like make the start button orange as if that will fool anyone!!! all of the screen and the internet are basicly an exact rip off it is so obvious! if most people and the congressmen would do this cd they would be OUTRAGED that this THEFT is allowed to go on and who knows how many linux cds they already made! just because bill gates is rich does not mean you can steal!!! i dont understand why he does not just sue linux and the people in charge go to jail, or if not, the goverment needs to step in!! whoever uses a linux cd is obviously steeling from microsoft it is so obvious if you have eyes and a brain! everyone should know if you are getting something for nothing that is a definite red flag or if it doesnt then i really feel sorry for you!!!