Linspire Signs Patent Pact With MS

RLiegh sends us to an AP article reporting that Linspire has signed a patent deal with Microsoft. The company, which started out life as "Lindows," joins a growing list of patent agreements reached between Microsoft and vendors. Linspire will be granted a license to use True Type Fonts and "various code" that would allow for Linspire users to use voice on Windows Live Messenger as well as the usual patent protection for Linspire's customers. In return, among other things, Linspire will make Microsoft's search engine the default search on PCs shipped with their OS. Kevin Carmony, the CEO for Linspire, approached Microsoft a year and a half ago, according to the article.

Comments

Well isn't that special?

[blcamp]

Allow yourselves to be assimilated, and we will drop all litigation. Hell, we'll even let you call yourselves a "vendor".

Resistance is futile, indeed...

Re:Well isn't that special?

[DuncanE]

Okay WTF is going on?

I understand that these kind of small Linux vendors need to make money, but why are they signing up to this?

I can only think its cold hard cash talking. Both Linspire and Xandros have just signed their death warrants (Novell at least has other options).

Begun the Microsoft (Clone) wars has.

Re:Well isn't that special?

[russ1337]

Auctioneer: Going once.... going twice..... *bang!* This Soul goes to the man in red suit who just threw his chair.

Re:Well isn't that special?

[Stocktonian]

In return, among other things, Linspire will make Microsoft's search engine the default search on PCs shipped with their OS.

As someone who sells Linux ,and only Linux, pre-installed on PCs and laptops across Europe I'm disappointed in this. My company is a Linspire reseller and system builder and we've been awaiting the new Linspire 6.0 for a few months now with baited breath. Linspire 5.0 doesn't work on most of our hardware so we're not selling it at the moment and news like this makes me want to drop it all together.

It'll be a cold day in h*ll before I ship a PC with Microsoft Search as the default.
---
http://www.xephi.co.uk/ for Linux without MS Search

I want in!

[morgan_greywolf]

Okay. That does it. I want in. Where do I sign up for the free Microsoft cash?

The LInux business community...

[Recovering Hater]

...continues to hang itself. At least we still have Debian. Even though its derivatives will probably all sell out.

Re:The LInux business community...

[MichaelSmith]

At least we still have Debian. Even though its derivatives will probably all sell out

Even Ubuntu? I think you are wrong, but we will see, won't we.

Re:The LInux business community...

[Stocktonian]

Not to mention that Canonical is based in Europe where Microsoft's patents are currently worthless.

Re:The LInux business community...

[Ganesh999]

> ...continues to hang itself. At least we still have Debian. Even though its derivatives will > probably all sell out.

A little perspective here, please.

* Novell sold out because, despite their purchases of Ximian & SuSE, they never really "got" Linux; they were just trying to shore up a rapidly dying Netware product while continuing business along the same paradigms that killed it. Witness the resulting exodus of several core SUSE developers, further reducing the company's understanding of Linux; frankly I've seen Novell Linux brands as almost defunct for some years now. (go on, flame away...)

* Xandros sold out because their market share and community was miniscule. They sought to steal Windows market share, but (unsurprisingly) didn't have the resource to tackle Redmond. Xandros are already defunct and starting to smell; they just don't know it yet. (go on, flame some more...)

* Linspire haven't really recovered since having their teeth pulled, and they really don't "get" the security issue. The whole distro is very much Kevin Carmony's baby, and seems to be very fluid while it tries to find a profitable niche. Ubuntu's just broken into the territory it was trying to win (i.e. preinstalled mainstream linux), so I think the distro will die soon. Strangely, though, I don't think that Linspire has sold out, exactly, it's following in its father's footsteps; it understands business, not OS, and is evolving into a kind of "software accessibility enabler". Personally I detest the proprietary shit its peddling, but Ubuntu's already proven there's a demand for that.

So MS has munched on the low-hanging fruit. Sad, but not unexpected; the old & weak are always the first to go in war & business. What remains is :

* Several hundred non-commercial distros, top of the list is Debian, the epitome of idealism.
* Ubuntu - very smart, idealistic, breaking into the mainstream.
* Redhat - very smart, idealistic, pwns the enterprise Linux sector and employs the majority of kernel hackers (and just ballsed up royally with its recent partnership - *Symantec*, for gods' sake! - but they should weather it ok).
* Mandriva - still kicking, playing interesting tunes on 3D desktop usability.
* Various other commercial appliance distros e.g. firewalls, Tivo, etc.
* One lone idealistic guy with who owns the damn trademark.

So let's not moan doom & gloom too early, eh?

Now, if someone rings tomorrow to tell me that Torvalds just sold Linux(tm), then you might have a point. But the *source* will still be out there & owned by the community that developed it. There is now a minimum level of code & application quality that proprietary software houses must meet; and while they don't, there will always be an underdog.

Best regards,

Conrad

Re:This will devide the boys from the men

[oyenstikker]

He is mad that he never got the developer support for Hurd.

O rly?

[EveryNickIsTaken]

Linspire will make Microsoft's search engine the default search on PCs shipped with their OS. So that'll increase MS's total by 10 units? Why even make this deal?

That's how they've always done business

[Puls4r]

This is how Microsoft has always done business. From Internet Explorer to Media Player on down the list, bundling the software or having it as a "default" is a very very powerful tool.

For instance, most companies lock down their computers. I can't even install quick time on ours - which means that unless it works with windows media, I don't visit the website. Many websites know that - so they don't use Quicktime formats. It's a neverending circle.

If I were google, I'd be thinking about doing the same thing in reverse. Get your office suite working and then begin package it free on every computer manufacturer that you can negotiate with.

What are you waiting for?

[b1ufox]

What are linux big shots waiting for now?

Red Hat , Ubuntu please do the rest of the honours. I have no freaking idea what MS has in his pocket that all these companies have agreed to MS terms of so called *patent* protection.Hell yes, i am paranoid but that so only because MS is involved in all of these pacts, i am not at all comfortable taking the bullshit.

Why is Linux community silent on a whole? Only thing they can do is host a site called as showusthecode.com and challenging Mr Balmer. And MS responded by making one more Linux company its ally. Now i am really getting worried about my submitted code as GPL. Is this just me or something is really cooking up at Redmond?

Re:What are you waiting for?

[Otter Escaping North]

Why is Linux community silent on a whole?

Good god, man! Are you serious? The Linux community isn't silent about anything. Novell has experienced a backlash, and the CEO had to go so far as to address it publicly. That's not insignificant, in my mind.

Now i am really getting worried about my submitted code as GPL. Is this just me or something is really cooking up at Redmond?

I'm struggling with that, too. Trying to figure out how serious a concern this is. My one solace at the moment is that what we've really got is Microsoft managing to rope Novell, and then two bit players in the game. Xandros and Linspire? Microsoft isn't exactly taking down the titans of the Linux world.

They did get Novell, and I agree that's not small potatoes - but the general opinion really seems to be that as well as getting hosed, Novell also got conned by the boys from Redmond. In the fallout - RedHat specifically rebuffed Microsoft's public offer.

Many people have compared this to the SCO fud-fest that got going - and that actually seems to be a more apt analogy the further we go. A couple of small-frys have caved in -- in their own defence, they're not equipped for a battle with Microsoft, and we must assume these are businessmen and not fanboys.

I expect Microsoft will continue to pick off the small distros, trying to build some PR momentum before training their guns on the larger players in the Linux industry. Not dissimilar to SCO's approach.

What happens then, is what tells us what's really going on here...

Is Microsoft the new Styx?

[smittyoneeach]

I've got dozens of friends and the fun never ends
That is, as long as I'm buying

Re:Is this really that bad of a situation?

[denominateur]

The problem is that a lot of the software we use on a daily basis is largely copyrighted by these businesses in addition to the thousands of developers that have contributed code. Most of the nuts and bolts of a linux distro, including a lot of the kernel, came from redhat developers. As for the desktop, GNOME has a lot of contributions from Novell programmers. KDE is almost entirely Trolltech's child and so on. So in case any patent litigator has valid (in legal terms, we all know how much we agree with software patents) claims in any of these pieces of software, the community at large will be forced to rewrite large portions unless these copyright owners transfer everything to GPL3.

Divide and conquer

[sucker_muts]

Microsoft clearly want to divide and conquer: They know they cannot fight against the movement of open/free software, but they sure can influence companies. As long as there are big distro's as foolisch to walk the path Microsoft lays down for them these kind of agreements will keep coming.

I'm very curious what will happen with these agreements with Novell, Xandros and now Linspire when gpl v3 arrives. And don't forget, the list of companies signing agreements with Microsoft will keep on growing.

But it seems these companies do not handle in the best interest of the community anymore, but only to serve their paying customers.

Greed, anyone?

Re:Divide and conquer

[Bert64]

Microsoft are not the biggest worry when it comes to patents...
Sure they will talk and talk, but they wont actually do anything. They have as much to lose from ridiculous software patents as anyone else. If microsoft start suing people over patents, then a large number of companies will start suing them back, including big companies like ibm and sun, which could have significant impact upon microsoft's products.

The biggest risk, comes from the small companies who have a few patents but no products. They have nothing to lose, you cant sue them because they dont have any products anyway, their entire business is litigation.

The more things change...

[Otter Escaping North]

I look forward to Microsoft's statement on Friday about how great it is that companies like Linspire are recognizing the need to properly licence Microsoft patents and blah, blah, blah...

Followed, on Monday, I guess, by a statement from Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony that they never admitted to infringing on Microsoft patents and that they never talked about it, and that Linspire infringes on no one's patents, and, and, and ...

It is worse than you think

[dclozier]

The wool has been pulled over your eyes. Microsoft is only doing this to give it's patent claims some validity. Their stance will be "see, Linux must infringe, all of these distributors have signed patent deals with us". This is a divide and conquer move.

But I see this dark cloud with some silver lining. We will know which companies actually are part of the Linux community and which ones are not. So far Redhat and Ubuntu have vocally expressed that they will not do any such deals with Microsoft. There may be others but I am unaware of any at this time.

Its because they can't attack Ubuntu directly ...

[tomhudson]

1. Ubuntu and Lindows have a deal regarding "click-n-run", etc., and that future Lindows distros will use Ubuntu as the base.
2. Microsoft can't attack Ubuntu directly
3. So Microsoft attacks their partner.

No, there's no "... PROFIT ..." - except for Microsoft.

That's really funny

[kimvette]

It's really funny that Microsoft is "letting" Linspire use Truetype, especially considering that:

    - Truetype is an APPLE innovation
    - Truetype was developed over 20 years ago, so any patents pertaining to such have long run out. Even if there were valid claims, APPLE would have to be the one to pursue the claims. Somehow I cannot see Apple doing this.
    - Fonts aren't copyrightable, based on numerous court precedents (note: a font is distinct from a typeface: a font is a typeface with a style, weight, size applied)

A typeface dscriptor (a .ttf file) may be coprightable ( http://nwalsh.com/comp.fonts/FAQ/cf_13.htm ) however that is easily resolved: ttf2afm $foo $bar && afm2ttf $bar $zag. Granted, that is a sleezy way to work around the issue, but the end result is likely not going to be an identical binary file. That would be a slightly interesting test case. Considering that the outline itself is not copyrightable but the binary representation of it is, I wonder if such a tactic is clear of infringement in a court of law? I'm sure the big business would win, but it's not outside feasibility for that to be considered not infringing since typefaces are an odd creative work in terms of copyright.

So, licensing truetype fonts to Linux distributions? Ha. I hope these linux vendors are not paying so much as a dime for these "agreements"

Now, let's see what Linspire was saying before...

[efence]

Microsoft: "If You Can't Beat 'em....Charge 'em."

Our experience has been that Microsoft gives a lot of lip service to wanting to work with open source Linux, but then proceeds to drag their feet and delay in actually delivering anything meaningful. (Does anyone following ODF believe Microsoft's proposed "open standards" are really open, or just self-serving?) Given their history, I'm understandably very skeptical that Microsoft sincerely wants to do much here.

The patents are an afterthought

[halovaa]

Did anyone here actually read the AP summary? Linspire went out and licensed actual code from MS for Windows Live Voice stuff, Windows Media files, and Truetype Fonts (it doesn't say anything at all about patents for fonts, they probably just mean providing the fonts). They're also working on translating between OpenXML and ODF. These are all pretty important to people who want commercial Linuxes to "just work" in a Windows-centric world, and can't settle for partially working reverse-engineered implementations. And oh yeah, they also agreed to protect Linspire users against legal action by Microsoft in regards to any patents. It sounds more like Linspire went out to license these technologies from MS, then MS wanted to add in the patent protection stuff to make it sound like another Linux vendor is paying protection money to them (even though MS seems to be paying most of the money so far). Yes, I hate MS, and yes I think the patent deals spread a lot of FUD, but I think Linspire has managed to get some good things out of this deal, depending on how much they paid. Or maybe MS paid them again?

Re:Its because they can't attack Ubuntu directly .

[livewire98801]

What concerns me is that in spite of all the rallying on Slashdot, there seems to be no negative impact on the vendors that sign these deals. openSuSE is still third on distrowatch's rankings. This may not be an concrete indicator for installed base, but it does show that people are still reading about it and linking to their website.

We need to completely drop any Linux vendor that signs a deal with Microsoft. Change distributions to a "clean" one, remove any currently installed software, and contact the vendor for refunds on any boxed software purchased through them. I don't expect anyone to get refunds, but the calls will serve as a reminder.

This is serious people.