Slashdot Mirror
Open Invention Network Calls Out Microsoft
Stony Stevenson writes with news that the head of the Open Invention Network has summarily dismissed Microsoft's claims that Linux violates a number of its patents. Calling the move 'clear FUD', Jerry Rosenthal calls them out by asking for Microsoft to disclose the patents they are worried about. His argument is that if the patents are something to be proud of, if the software giant feels they're sure to succeed in court, there's no need for behind-the-hand namecalling. "Rosenthal believes that, if there are grounds for patent infringement, there would either be easy workarounds or the open source community would find 'prior art' which would invalidate the patent. OIN buys patents on the open market and makes them available to companies royalty free, so long as those companies pledge never to use their own patents to attack open source code.The organisation was set up by IBM, NEC, Novell, Philips, Red Hat and Sony and has a war chest of millions of dollars."
You know what, I don't think Microsoft knows which patents Linux is violating. There was a study done a few years ago, which was reported here on Slashdot, that said Linux may be violating a number of patents, but it didn't disclose any of them. I'll bet you anything Ballmer read that and thought, "Sweet! We've won!" Then at a certain PR event, he felt so excited about it he couldn't hold it in. He had to tell the world about this awesome study he'd heard about. Just like a little kid.
And that study may or may not be accurate, but Microsoft has no idea. They haven't gone through the code, it's just a bunch of hot air. Hope this doesn't stir up the water and get them looking.
Qxe4
If I'm Microsoft and I think I have patents that Linux infringes upon, why would I want to specify which ones? I would keep mentioning them to try and scare corporations away from using Linux. If that does not work to my satisfaction and Linux does someday become an actual threat, I can sue then and claim damages for all the time that Linux was being used and was infringing. If I tell now which patents I think are being infringed, then both of my options might be less effective.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
deep down everyone knows that linux distros (not linux itself, necessarily) violate patents en masse
What a bogus, unsupported allegation. Either cite a violation or clam up. Oh! wait, here's one:
As an example, VideoLan admits that their VLC player runs afoul of mpegla patents
VLC is not packaged by either the Fedora Project, or by Red Hat, with the codecs which may/may not be infringing. Looks like your "deep down truths" are not so truthful.
But big companies like Red Hat *can* pay the necessary patent fees, and they shouldn't be getting a free ride.
Red Hat does not infringe any patents. So it's not getting any free ride. Furthermore it has to waste resources on legal counsel instead of coders in order to help in the creation, defense and maintenance of the Open Invention Network. (The legal counsel are excellent and do a good job. Mark Webbink especially seems like a top-notch guy).
Anyway, you're full of it. You can't even cite ONE, not ONE actual instance of patent infringement and neither can Microsoft because it doesn't exist.