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Microsoft, Novell, and "Clone Product" Lawsuits
El_Oscuro writes "The MS/Novell deal specifically excludes patent protection for "clone products." In the agreement, a clone product is broadly defined as "a product (or major component thereof) of a Party that has the same or substantially the same features and functionality as a then-existing product (or major component thereof) of the other Party ... and that has the same or substantially the same user interface, or implements all or substantially all of the Application Programming Interfaces of the Prior Product." The text of the clone product definition subsections is very cumbersome to read, but it specifically mentions OpenOffice, Wine, and OpenXchange by name without asserting that they are necessarily clone products."
...The user interface
Problem Solved
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
OS, Office, Samba, Music Players, Directory Browsers, ...well, I'm bored.
Novell open source users are not protected from Microsoft's vaporware patent lawsuits.
Functionality is the key. Linux products are dependable and do not crash so they are functionally different than any MS product.
Profanity - The sign of a small mind trying to express itself.
out of OpenOffice. I sat in a Novell presentation about a year ago and the very charismatic presenter made Novell sound like the best thing to open source since binary. He mentioned what a great source of improvements for OpenOffice. I finished my bagel and left, but that was a tad rude of me.
Power to the Penguin!
Windows was a clone product. (MAC/X-Windows)
Microsoft Exchange is a clone (sendmail)
DOS (CPM)
Microsoft does not invent, only "embrace, extend, extinguish".
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
The section is vague at best. Hundreds of open source projects have "the same or substantially the same features and functionality as a then-existing product (or major component thereof) of [Microsoft] and that (a) has the same or substantially the same user interface, or (b) implements all or substantially all of the Application Programming Interfaces of the Prior Product."
Samba could be viewed as a clone product, but so could gedit (clone of notepad). Firefox might be a clone of Internet Explorer 7. What about totem? Looks an awful lot like Windows Media Player, at least the older versions. Nautilus behaves a lot like Windows Explorer, huh?
This section is stupid and ridiculous and is likely to get struck down by the first courtroom judge that looks at this thing as being too vaguely worded.
IANAL and this is not legal advice.
My blog
So according to their exclusion agreement, Novell can't create an operating system? While it may not use the same APIs, it sure as Hell duplicates obvious functionality (well, duplicates in the sense that they do the same thing, not in the sense of Microsoft doing it first).
Come to mention it, if such an agreement were widespread, how would anyone ever create a better product, since by the very virtue of the fact that you need to recreate some of the functionality to improve upon it.
Sigh, I feel as if a thousand lawyers screamed out in delight when they wrote that clause in...
Hopefully the customers will see through the effort. The marketplace has changed a lot. Netscape was smothered. But Firefox rose from the ashes. Let us not confuse Open Standard Software with free software or even open source. Another player with some financial muscle, that will benefit by taking a marketshare slice from MSOffice franchise should be able to challenge the fundamental applicability of patent protection for clone products.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
It has no other reason to exist but to run Windows software, so it clones the Windows API. Both Evolution and OpenOffice.org are no closer to Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Office than other competing software. They do substantially the same tasks and the free software packages certainly are influenced by the Microsoft competitors, but then again both of them are heavily influenced by the same software predecessors.
The more details come to light... the more I'm wondering what Novell got out of this deal.
I patent the numbers 0 and 1
A penny per usage
(patents for the numbers 2, letters F and U still pending)
While the definition is vague, and one could argue that programs like OpenOffice are no more clones of MS Office as any other office program out there, other programs like Mono, Moonlight, and WINE would absolutely be considered clones by any definition. So much for this deal promoting interoperability.
Have not clones become fully legal long ago? (I mean the IBM clone for example)
Sounds like a good enough set of reasons to not support Suse Linux any more. Ubuntu anyone?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
I think MS is playing a dangerous game here, and I think they are going to loose.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
a := a product (or major component thereof) of a Party that has the same or substantially the same features and functionality as a then-existing product (or major component thereof) of the other Party
b := has the same or substantially the same user interface
c := implements all or substantially all of the Application Programming Interfaces of the Prior Product
Clone Definition: a ^ b v c [a and b or c]
We will assume the standard boolean or in this case, being the inclusive form. Given all that, the definition is actually ambiguous. They could really mean (a ^ b) v c, or a ^ (b v c), given what little of the phrasing we have available to us it's hard to say. In the end, it might all depend on where the commas appear!
What a long-winded, obfuscated way of saying "interoperable competitor".
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
the nerve to clone wonderful original works like WordPerfect or Lotus123,,,,wait, are they saying MS Office is original?
1/ wine is named in this agreement./ 1220219
2/ dell joins the game.
http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS2035907410.html
3/ " Wine for Dell Ubuntu Users, Says Shuttleworth" and bullshit us about the true reasons:
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/11
4/ profit for who?
Which was the most popular word processor for a few years before Microsoft WordPerfect came out.
Come to think of it, Novell bought a pretty good clone of DOS long ago, originally from the makers of CP/M (Digital Research).
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
What isn't Microsoft trying to sue the hell out of it?
:)
Would be a shame though if that happened. WINE's gotta be the finest killer app there is in the linux world. Not only do you get to run all the linux goodies, you even get to run a lot of windows goodies! Can't beat that..
the word they're looking for is not "clone" but "competition". This is, therefore, a Very Special agreement indeed:
"We will not sue you for patent infringement as long as your products are not similar to ours."
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
IMHO the whole point of the effort on Microsoft's part was to thin the money-making distro herd.
1. Create the perception that there is an approved Linux distro. This is a requirement for bureacracy-bound businesses that have to check with Legal/PHB's before "purchasing" a Linux distro.
2. What better way to waste Novell's resources than create documents that protect nothing? It's a poorly run organization and this agreement is an excellent example of _exactly_ how poorly it is run. I'm sure there are great people that work at Novell, they just don't get to make strategic decisions. Novell is slowly circling the drain and Microsoft needs the perception of competition and cooperation to keep legislators pushing their agenda. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=NOVL
3. One of Microsoft's goals is to capture Linux revenue. This, more than anything else will keep OSS at bay.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Can't forget the .NET clone that's infecting almost every major Linux distro now.
begun the clone wars have...
mod up! stupid!
'cause MS Word is a clone product of Word Perfect!
(and Wordstar).
I've noticed that a lot of cars have the same functionality, API, etc. Does MS hold a patent on the look-and-feel of cars?
If you can sue a clone product, couldn't Microsoft be sued because Excel is a clone of 123 or VisiCalc, or IE is a clone of Netscape, or Windoze is a clone of Apple, or their anti virus is a clone of Norton or outlook is a clone of ...
IANAL, but if I understand things correctly (I'm sure lawyers in the crowd will correctly) Novell customers are in deep trouble if Microsoft ever decides to make patent lawsuits.
Novell basically agreed that there are infringing patents in SUSE Linux (otherwise, what are they licensing per SUSE license?). Novell customers who use the Microsoft coupons have agreed that this is the case also, so they are infringing.
But the N-M protects them, so they don't have anything to worry about for 5 years (the life of the agreement).
However, the N-M agreement excludes a large number of products which they are likely using. So if a Microsoft patent appears in both a covered and excluded product in SUSE, Novell customers are on the hook. And since they can't plead ignorance, they're a much easier target than someone use uses a non-SUSE distribution, in much the same way that SCO's customers were their first targets.
Now I don't think that Microsoft would dare file a patent lawsuit against Linux or Novell...there are too many interested parties in Linux that have patents and it would risk a patent Armageddon, but if you use SUSE Linux, it would be safer if you avoided the Microsoft coupon.
That's just my uninformed opinion.
---
Beware of Microsoft Geeks bearing gifts
The applications companies might even remotely want protection against Microsoft lawsuits for are OpenOffice, Samba, Evolution, OpenXchange, and Mono. Yet, it looks like the Novell/Microsoft deal fails to provide protection for specifically those packages. Seems to me that that makes Novell's deal largely worthless for licensees, since they receive no more protection by buying from Novell than they do by buying from RedHat.
(And while there's nothing legally wrong with their definition, it's absolutely ridiculous for Microsoft to go around and talk about "clone products", given that almost their entire product line consists of "clone products".)
> The text of the clone product definition subsections is very cumbersome to read,
> but it specifically mentions OpenOffice, Wine, and OpenXchange by name without
> asserting that they are necessarily clone products.
Ya gotta love lawyers.
"Clone products that infringe each other's patents shall be considered as not infringing on each other's patents. Such clone products are, for example OpenOffice, Wine, and OpenXchange, which are not clone products if you're going to sue us over patents and try to twist our words around to hurt us in unanticipated ways."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
As the Rebel Alliance of Linux vendors fought valiantly against the Evil Dark Forces of the Empire, little did they know that some of their supporters who claimed to be Open Source were pushing DRM behind their backs, and preparing their law suits.
But, even if they lost the wars and were betrayed like the Jedi were, they knew that the Force would ultimately prevail, for Information wanted to be Free!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I'm soft of totally confused looking for any relevance to anything here. Microsoft gave Novell $40M, and agreed not to sue Novell's customers, unless Novell's customers were using Novell's product (the wording of the exceptions seem to exclude anything that could possibly be in a distribution).
My question is, "What difference does the agreement make?"
M$ could possibly sue Novel, et.al., before the agreement was signed. Now, M$ is out $40M, and still could possibly sue Novel, et. al. The possibility of M$ winning such a lawsuit remains as remote as it was before. It appears that the $40M was simply the cost of a publicity stunt. Wouldn't another fake grassroots campaign have been more effective?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
There are more than one way to put a feature into software without violating a patent. Suddenly this document makes features as patents, which is not even true.
Microsoft's definition of a feature.
Microsoft's definition of a patent.
They are not even remotely the same.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
To Evil.
Does this mean Novell can sue Microsoft for copying the GUI from UNIX? X Windows is older than Windows and Windows certainly acts similar to the old UNIX workstations I used to use back in college.
No, wait, according to Apple, Microsoft stole the GUI from them! Ah, never mind. Maybe PARC should start throwing around some law suits...
Bearded Dragon
...as in "eats paste" special?
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
Did Novell just signed an agreement that doesn't really help them at all? I mean, from MS' view anything linux can be a clone thus this deal does not protect anyone from getting sued from MS it seems that MS' intrinsic fear of going to court in a patent suit does much more to protect Novell users...
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
And Novell is the current 'pusher' of Mono and it's Microsoft fanboy( Miguel de Icaca ). I wonder how much egg is on the face of the Novell lawyers now, or if they still have a job at Novell?
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
As in "After School" special.
Plot: Ronny meets Stevie, who has him sign an agreement. Ronny tells everyone it's a wonderful thing, but Stevie has other plans. What will Ronny do?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Take care
-mat
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
Microsoft invented/innovated everything in computing. Nobody had anything before Microsoft.
</JEDI-MIND-TRICK>
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
X probably exercises a lot of memory, so have you ever tried to install a memory checker such as memtest86, reboot with it, and run it all night? It might catch memory errors that don't often show up under regular use. I don't know about the i810 driver, but if you experience problems when you do the exact same action (e.g. playing a 3-d game or something) then you might want to spend the energy to complain at your distribution maker that game Y always crashes or has weird stripes in 800x600 resolution with your kernel version and video card etc.
I'm as big a Linux fanboi as the next, but I would never claim that you're doing something wrong. That kind of behaviour (lockups and crashes) is simply unacceptable, I think everyone agrees. When you say X.org is still in its infancy I guess you refer to the version 7 split into modular system; do you mean you never had such lockups under a previous version? That might also be an important data point to tell in your bugreport.
As you said, you submit bug reports where possible: great. For other readers I'd just reiterate: don't expect anyone helping you out if you never send in a short formal bugreport with the details you (at your technical level) deem important. The authors of the software (X.org in this case) may have never tested it out in your exact configuration; PC hardware is very diverse. Complain to your distribution makers: they'll assess it and pass it on upstream (possibly after a long time; if you want instant results, hire somebody to solve it).
Try to see it from the X.org programmers' perspectives (no, I'm not one of them, I'm guessing here): if you receive a lot of similar, readable, not too ranty, detailed bug reports then maybe (if you have time) you can track and fix the issues. But you are not going to trawl general forums (like slashdot) to see if somebody complains "it doesn't work".
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
Who the f*** decided that sentences on the Internet shall no longer be formatted with two spaces after a period?!
Thank you. I learned typing the old-school way (on a manual typewriter), and we always used two spaces after a period. This, of course, assumed said period was the end of a sentence, and not merely part of an abbreviation.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I think that GPLv3 is doing the right thing in disallowing the kind of deal that Microsoft and Novell concocted but I do have one concern.
The community has just demonstrated that it's willing to deal a major financial blow to a company who the community feels violants some of their core beliefs. Could this precedent deter future companies from entering the Open Source distribution business as they now fear a misstep could lead to a massive, and damaging, community backlash?
Note, I don't think this is a rational fear except for really big players like, Novell, Red Hat, and IBM, whos misdeed could be big enough to motivate a license change but I can see a lot of businesses being tentative about dealing with such an organized and motivated community.
I stole this Sig
So they can still sue the crap out of Novell if they include Open Office or Evolution with their Linux? Afterall they ae clones of Office and Outlook. Hell, most of the good Linux software is a clone of a better commercial product.
You know the fact that Microsoft and Novell had their own beef over the NDS and AD structures, seems to be ironic now that they are going after the open source community the way they went after each other. The whole purpose of other apps doing the same thing is how we improve everything that has ever been created from cars to toasters and computers. After all was this not Bill Gates very argument when Apple got mad over Bill creating Windows based on the MAC O/S? Microsoft has gotten too big for their britches and should be broken up into smaller compaines like AT&T had done to them; Novell would do well to think before they open their mouth again. Hiding in the shadows of Microsoft will only make them a more viable target for aquisition by Microsoft. Of course now if Microsoft were to win this one, Google would do well to look out as Microsoft will be then attacking Google with full forse over their new desktop apps that they give away as replicas of MS Office(which was a replication of Lotus and others).
well said and it lends proof that Microsoft must have another plan for how they will stop OSS/Linux growth. I've stated elsewhere that I believe one such plan could be the same plan they used on the Win32-on-UNIX vendors/customers( google for "Microsoft Bristol UNIX" ). In short, hook them on a licensing fee, then when enough customers bite, increase the licensing fee so much that it effectively ends any product(s) covered by the license.
I don't believe that there is any Microsoft interest in collecting money from OSS/Linux projects since Microsoft Windows has done well for them in the past and they fully control that platform. I also don't believe that just splitting the market by "growing" Novell Suse marketshare is enough since it still increases OSS/Linux marketshare and that removes from Microsoft's Windows marketshare.
The only way I can see the failure of the Microsoft plan to 'Bristol-ize' the OSS/Linux market is if as you stated, business stayed away from Suse. If only a handful of Microsoft customers get hammered with huge licensing fees while RedHat, Ubuntu, etc customers do fine, it'll just fizzle out like the "Get the Facts" campaign did. IMO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
No. They can still sue the crap out of Novell for any product if they believe it violates their patents. It's the customers who won't be sued in some cases. We've been talking about this for months, we do we still have to explain this distinction between the companies and the customers at this late date?
But if Wine is explicitly mentioned in this deal, it gives me the creaps to think that this might be why it wasn't included in the Dell/Ubuntu? *shrug* Please tell me I am wrong.
Maybe they *want* MS to buy them? After all, the major shareholders and the directors would all make huge fistfulls of cash in a buyout.
Unless there is something in this that isn't mentioned in the summary then this was already reported the day Novell released the details of the agreement.
HTML is supposed to trim out unused white space. A series of hard returns and spaces are equal to one space. That is why their are entities like as well as
and
. To force more horizontal or vertical white space than the default one space.
vi +
Microsoft benefits from the spector of legitimacy. If Novel and SUSE felt a need to sign an agreement, then there must be something there. As someone wrote a week or so ago. If you work at a businss where everything is passed in front of a lawyer. What will a lawyer who is not a sepcialist in software patents do? A) Study up B) Refer you to a patant lawyer C) Avoid the whole mess and recomend you just stick to using Microsoft products? C is the most likely answer.
Microsoft has been able to rattle their sabers, and put the stench of death on open source for the uninformd PHB's out there. I am sure that is worth 40 million dollars. To slow the adoption of Linux for a year or two.
vi +
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Is it just me, or is the blind hatred of Microsoft shielding people from the fact that the biggest 'clone' threat to Microsoft currently would be ReactOS?
You're wrong.
Good Post. Last year Novell's market cap was $2.24 Billion. Yeah, with a 'B'.
There's no doubt that Novell has been hosed in markets in which they used to be King of the Hill. For the last 10+ years they've transitioned to a King of Stealth/Doughbrained Marketing position, but in spite of this they've still got a chunk of business, and manage to put out the odd cool product.
All this in spite of regular /. declarations of Imminent Death and sometimes even obits.
The upside of the Microsoft/Novell deal is that we got to see that Jeremy Allison is more principled and has more stones than anybody I've seen in a long time.
[17] Leary, T., White, C., Wood, P. R., Bhabha, W. D., and Wirth, N. Lambda calculus considered harmful. In Proceedings
I have been waiting for this card to hit the table. Its kind of like playing hearts and waiting for the big hearts and queen of spades to go by...
OK, I'll represent 0 and 1 with high and low signals, or having lasers on and off, and patent those instead.
You are wrong because it is not included in any default install of Ubuntu. Dell is using a standard install of Ubuntu, not including things to make it more like Windows.
Try backstabbing.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The dictionary states that a 'clone' is an 'exact' duplicate. Let's see microsoft change the dictionary.