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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."
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.
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.
For business users, I'll just name what would be the top 3 they know of or don't think about...
Device Drivers
Web Servers
SQL Database Servers
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
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...
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)
Yup, pretty much everything is excluded, making it a nonsence agreement. However, considering that MS paid Novel M$40 for the agreement, it makes sense from Novell's point of view...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
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.
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...
Doesn't matter to me though, Xenomai wins in every way and it is not encumbered by any existing patents.
--jeffk++
ipv6 is my vpn
the nerve to clone wonderful original works like WordPerfect or Lotus123,,,,wait, are they saying MS Office is original?
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
No, that lawsuit set absolutely no precedent. Apple had actually licensed Microsoft to use nearly everything they sued them for and most of the remaining elements were found to not be copyrightable since "they were the ONLY way you could do it" (not because UI isn't copyrightable).
The judge made NO ruling on whether you could copyright UI and it had NOTHING to do with patents. In fact, since the judge DID decide that some parts were NOT copyrightable because "they were the ONLY way you could do it", that would seem to indicate the judge at least believed some elements were copyrightable.
You'd have to find a different case to disqualify any copyrights or patents Microsoft has on look and feel. I'm pretty sure Adobe has litigated based on UI elements in their applications in the past long after the Apple look and feel suits were over with. Apple also continues to patent their UI elements as well as claim copyright protection for Mac OS X look and feel.
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
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
Actually there is a precedent for cars.
A patent on the automobile was granted and many manufacturers were forced to pay up. Look up the "Selden Patent".
It was Henry Ford who finally broke the scheme by refusing to pay and putting his money into lawyers to attack the patent holder instead. He initially failed, but kept at it and won on appeal on the basis that the engine design Selden used in his design (Selden had built an engine, but never a car) was not the same design Ford and other car makers were using.
If 'the people' in Amendment 2 are 'the state' then Amendments 1, 2, 4, 9, and 10 benefit the state, not you.
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?