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Microsoft Claims Patent On Elements of Embedded Linux?
Preedit writes "An InformationWeek story points out a recent deal between Microsoft and Japanese printer maker Kyocera Mita. Under the agreement, Kyocera obtained from Microsoft a license to patents used in 'certain Linux-based embedded technologies.' The question the author asks is why Kyocera needs a patent license from Microsoft to develop its embedded Linux products."
Agree to the deal or get a chair in your face.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I used to be an embedded Linux developer.
However, I could more thoughtfully comment on this if the article revealed just what patents Microsoft believes Kyocera to be violating. It could have nothing to do with Linux; moreover, it could very well be a patent on some method of printing which is specific to the Kyocera hardware and just happens to be implemented as a Linux driver.
Looks more like FUD against Linux than anything else.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
We know that Microsoft claims to hold patents that Linux users are infringing... but they won't tell us which ones. What's new?
So there are two possibilities: either they've got a specific one or two that they're really able to show Kyocera that are troublesome, or they've just got this massive library of "probable" ones that Kyocera decided to give in to. What would be more interesting to know is who approached who about the deal. What does it permit? What did that cost?
Anyway, this is at the stage where it isn't using patent law, but is just using corporate risk expectations. Very dangerous... which is why MSFT doesn't want to show their hand.
Software patent lifetimes should probably get quite a bit shorter, too...
--
Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation.
But seriously, it seems that Microsoft is going to keep after Linux until it has it surrounded on all sides. Then I suppose they'll get to a lawsuit. And, while Linux will be found to be free of MS patents, it will end up costing Microsoft's enemies so much to defend Linux that they will be forced into oblivion...
My uncle works in IT for a Japanese company of some size. He often speaks of the Japanese management as if this were still the eighties and sometimes its almost racist,so I apologize for him if this is insulting to anyone so take this with a heaping dose of salt.
He thinks that it goes against the Japanese culture to use a technology without paying for it, that it shows disrespect to not pay for software licenses. He is not even allowed to consider using Linux or any other OSS for that matter.
Kyocera Mita appears to be a "small" company - revenues for the parent corporation (Mita is their printer division, it appears) were a little shy of $3 billion in 2006, while Epson had revenues of $12.7 billion last year. Granted, I'm not sure how valid this comparison is, but if this disparity is typical, it could very well be that Kyocera decided it would be safer to play Microsoft's game than to potentially face a court battle they would have trouble fighting.
The GPL states that they may only distribute the code if they accompany it with the rights for any derivatives to use any patents it infringes. If they discover that they infringe some patents in Linux then they must stop distributing Linux until they have obtained a license to the patents that is compatible with the GPL (which means that anyone who is in the transitive closure of recipients of the code from them also gains the license). In summary, if they have obtained a license from Microsoft then either they are in violation of the GPL or no one else needs to obtain such a license and Microsoft's FUD evaporates in a puff of logic.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I think it is more than fud...
By binding potential developers (and we will may never see what is in the agreement in total) to MS it may make it a lot harder for them to deliver products that work with linux.
Now everytime they go to release a driver legal are going to have to have a good hard look at driver and the MS agreement.
How long before it gets to be too much hard work and they not bother?
"developers, developers, developers" is still true. Without delivery of new products any OS will die. Kyocera Mita make stuff people want to use in business settings - printer/fax machines and stuff like that.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
"Is it adding proprietary Microsoft technology on top of embedded Linux?"
:(
These MS trolls are getting boring. We get it, they're evil. Complain about something else for a while
...started when Bill Gates ported BASIC.
The practice of making money off others peoples work.
Maye we should all get in touch with them and say that we might own patents that they may be infringing. Just to be sure, they need to sign this licensing agreement and pay $xxxx for an assurance that we won't sue them in the future.
This seems to be just what MS have done, but being bigger and scarier than we are, they can get a way with it.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
What does Kyocera get? The right to use patented Microsoft technology in its printers, copiers and "certain Linux-based embedded devices."
Maybe Kyocera just licensed Fonts/ODBC or some other mundane MS technology to use in their products. Food for thought.
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
In fact, most distros prefer it.
And often, the reality is just easier and more mundane....
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Seems to me that it is Kyocera that is bending over.
What does Kyocera get? The right to use patented Microsoft technology in its printers, copiers and "certain Linux-based embedded devices."
This seems to say that Kyocera will get it's ass in a sling putting Microsoft crap into an embedded linux cellphone or something. This is hardly what the article title seems to be suggesting. In fact, tfa seems to suggest the M$ is allowing certain linux embedded devices to employ it's IP. I hate M$ just as much as the next linux geek, but I call bullshit whichever side of the fence it's on.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
getting their printer drivers "certified" on Vista...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I find this to be rather ridiculous! Did they buy a license to use "all" microsoft patents? Without since explicitly defined range of identified patents, then they didn't explicitly buy anything at all. Microsoft must have identified which patents, in particular, they feel Linux is violating or else a Japanese company wouldn't have been persuaded to buy it. It goes against everything I know of Japanese personality to buy anything "nebulous." If they bought "protection" from microsoft, I'd be inclined to believe that. That much does fit the Japanese personality traits I am familiar with.
So I'm really curious as to what the nature of the deal was. Did they license specific patents or did they buy protection from law suits? And if they bought "law suit protection" then microsoft is once again guilty of organized crime.
Seems to me, Kyocera needs to release the added "MS IP" code they are using as required by the GPL ASAP!
If the Linux source code Kyocera is using is really containing "IP" from Microsoft, we should be able to see what the heck Kyocera licensed.
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
I'm guessing this wasn't the core of what Kyocera needed. It's just as likely MSFT threw it in there as a FUD grenade target of poopertunity. An IP stink bomb.
This whole thing is just so...seedy. This is not how a supposedly world class company acts. It would be far more effective if they fielded high quality products at reasonable prices. Or is that a quaint concept nowadays?
Of course, with telcos spying on Americans, banks and credit card companies nickel and diming customers to death at will and collection agencies routinely operating outside the law with little fear of accountability...maybe this is the new standard in big corp conduct. We're all the poorer if it's true.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I'd give my eye teeth to know whether the same kind of effort Microsoft put forth unsuccessfully in Nigeria worked in the more understated environment of the Japanese corporate world. I doubt anything will ever be proven, but watch out for a quid pro quo down the road somewhere.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
That this Japanese company is forced to pay shake-down money to a company that DOES NOT OWN THE TECHNOLOGY THEY ARE DEMANDING PAYMENT FOR!, means that La Cosa Nostra is alive and well but instead of being headquartered in New York or Chicago or Las Vegas (or Cuba), they have put down new roots in Redmond Washington. The technology was developed elsewhere by other people. Thank God Don Knuth published "The Art of Computer Programming" so many years ago. It covers thousands of algorithms (basically mathematical statements) covering computing, and thus, a source of prior art for all of the so-called patents that Microsoft so greedily tries to get (basically by checking a copy of the book out from the Library --they are too cheap to buy their own copy), and patenting everything in sight, then taking all and sundry to court for patent violation. When prior art is called, they say whoops, sorry, and in the mean time, the market has been swallowed by them (again). Bastards! Lying, stealing, cheating Bastards! Morally bankrupt and without a shred of decency, BASTARDS!
Kyocera makes everything from ball-point pens to machine tools.
Kyocera is interested in things like data security in printing. Kyocera Mita America's Data Security Kit Offers Critical Data Protection of Stored Data on Color Multifunctional Products [November 14, 2007]
Microsoft is also interested in things like data security in printing.
Tell me why the Geek trots out his paranoia every time two companies that compliment each other sign a cross-licensing agreement.
it only says they're gaining the right to use Microsoft IP in embedded Linux devices. It doesn't say they were using the property already or that there was any infringement. Kyocera could make this deal and start using Microsoft IP that they were not using beforehand and Microsoft could word it exactly the same way. Kyocera could gain the permission to use Microsoft tech combined with Linux and still not plan on using it, and Microsoft could still word it the same way.
Okay, I haven't really followed the history of Microsoft and its Linux patents. Can someone point out the background story of the whole "Microsoft can sue Linux users because it holds patents" thing? What parts of Linux (kernel or distro?) does Microsoft supposedly own? Thanks.
I distinctly recall Microsoft stealing tons of things before.
Does that count?
By the way, how is my patent for the lightbulb coming?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
We know Microsoft has some patents involving anti-aliasing and other font rendering stuff.
We also know that UCLA has recently sued over the non-licensed usage of it's patents by a number of software technology firms, including Microsoft.
All your stolen Microsoft patents are belong to Cali!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If they can tie up enough hardware and software distributors and make it difficult to release anything commercially for linux, it will help kill it off or at least reduce it back down to a mere hobby and no longer a threat.
Once the next generation of hardware comes out, and you cant get a driver as its so tied up in the legal world that it can never escape, what will you have left to run? Why, officially endorsed Microsoft software and hardware of course.
It wont happen today, or tomorrow, but they have the time and money to think *really* long term ( like in decades ) on this
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Do you need a team to figure it out? How big is Kyocera?
my guess the reason is they need a filesystem both linux and windows can r/w easily.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Companies need to stop paying the monkey and start spanking it!
There were a few who bought SCOSource licenses out of fear too, without actually thinking through whether or not there might be any validity to the claims. Kyocera has most likely just writ that large across their forehead.
Of course, it's always possible that Kyocera told them "We won't buy a license unless you show us the patents under NDA" and MSFT agreed, but I doubt it. Most likely they are just being extor^H^H^H paying protec^H^H^H buying insurance.
This is likely to be about XPS, the Microsoft XML Paper Specification, Microsoft's PS/PDF successor. I'd guess that Kyocera has written an XPS implementation for Linux, and wants to deploy it to support uses printing directly from XPS-enabled software. An open source XPS implementation was written within a few weeks of the release of the XPS spec -- maybe they're even just shipping that: http://www.ndesk.org/Xps
The spec is freely available, but the introductory paragraphs in the spec suggest that implementing it without licenses is not permitted.
You knew it was don't ask don't tell the moment you saw that penguin.
> I don't know anything about Japanese culture, but in business the need to have some else that's feet can be held to the fire if something goes wrong is a big deal.
:-)
I have a slight idea of what "have some else that's feet can be held to the fire" could mean, but since I'm not Japanese nor from the US*, I won't put my hand into the fire...
* I am an American, since I live in the American continent. Calling the US "America" is foolish.
Microsoft and LG Electronics, best known for its DVD players, home theater systems, and cellphones, announced on June 7 that they had entered into a patent cross-license agreement to enable LG to use Microsoft patented technology in its product lines, including in its Linux-based embedded devices.
You know, it certainly wouldn't make a news story, but the first rational response to this news isn't that microsoft is trying to assert ownership over linux (which is the impression i got from tfa), but rather that they licensed some form of interoperability to kyocera. For instance, ntfs support? any of the office formats? decent exchange inter-opability? some aspect of smb et al thats currently not in samba (hrm active directory in a stable branch of samba?), so on and so forth.
Then again however, that wouldn't make a sensationalist blog post.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29130/
I'd imagine that this whole issue goes back to that fateful day in 1998 when we learned that...We also know that UCLA has recently sued over the non-licensed usage of it's patents by a number of software technology firms, including Microsoft.
I think we need to stop providing federal money to universities that act like patent trolls.
This is my sig.
Software patent lifetimes should probably get quite a bit shorter, too...
Software patents shouldn't exist at all, neither should patents for business methods. Only non obvious hardware implementations and unique solutions not already published should be patented.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Hmmm... A story involving Microsoft. To this, I must add the obligatory "flying chair" comment:
Google is a better company than Microsoft.
This story also mentions Linux. Did I mention that the better company uses Linux extensively? Hmmm... maybe that has something to do with Google being better.
Microsoft are no Enron, Worldcom, Blackwater or even a Halliburton - but they still get up to some dirty tricks and look bad because they slide into our feild of view. A general clean up of corruption in US based multinationals would improve a lot of things (and the others would be good too but the US can only clean up it's own backyard, try to keep other bad players out and try to stop foreign powers bribing people in high office).
when they ARE out to get you.
See the public comments by high executives in Microsoft if you doubt they are out to "kill" FOSS
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
I know it is an *utter flight of fancy* but how about having a reporter (or just someone you can call a reporter) to like, you know, ask those guys?? Kyocera might even want to be sure they don't appear evil or stupid, and your "reporter" could mention how much trouble Novell has gotten into with the community from their own patent agreement with Microsoft.
If slashdot is not able to evaluate, hire and manage investigative reporters then there are a few other options. So I'll just state all the options off the top of my head here.
Presumably Kyocera will require some sort of licence for embedding them in their printers.
Incidentally, Kyocera are very much second tier printer makers and their products lag technically behind HP/Canon and Xerox. This is partly because of their emphasis on their long-life drum technology which unfortunately doesn't seem to give as good results as some other manufacturers. Both Microsoft and Kyocera benefit from any publicity which seems to associate them and to recognise some sort of IP rights. As something of an industry watcher, I have to say that I regard this whole story as fluff. As a user of Ubuntu and the (excellent) HP Linux Printing System, connected at the other end of the wire to (equally good) Oki and HP laser printers, I have to say I really don't care.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Everyone who hasn't seen it should watch this hillarious video of Eben Moglen, describing Microsoft's "threaten to sue over patents" strategy, and why MS is more likely to keep threatening rather than to actually sue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YExl9ojclo
P.S. captcha was "expert" =)
Our power of the purse is a strong one. We geeks usually recommend, or not, technology based on our experiences and many people usually ask us: "What should I buy."
Well, this is just one more manufacturer that will starve to death. There's too much competition in that space to survive pissing off the technologically knowledgeable people who otherwise would recommend your products.
As loathsome as HP is, it makes competitive products and has excellent Linux support.
Lastly, the deal is probably a net payout from Microsoft. Microsoft pays to use Kyocera's patents, and Kyocera pays Microsoft for its patents. Only Kyocera ends up making money from Microsoft to sign the deal and create anti-Linux FUD.
Like I said, boycott. Trash Kyocera everywhere you see it. Say bad things about their products in the stores like: "Oh, don't buy that one, it just isn't compatible."
See, easy. Its not a lie and it dissuades a purchase. If we kill off the companies that enter into these shady IP deals with Microsoft, no amount of Microsoft FUD money is worth corporate suicide and that will make the whole campaign much more difficult for Microsoft.
...microsoft claims ownership of tooth paste manufacturing and everything else.
Seriously, who cares any more.
Just ignore them.
Nothing to see here...
As off-topic as this is, I'd have to agree. Similar experiences here.
With liberal help from looking at source code dumps from a BASIC interpreter for a TOPS-20 system, according to some insider sources I have spoken to... one of whom actually has a printout of Microsoft's source code for their BASIC interpreter, their claim to fame.
The source with the printout claims that some non-Microsoft copyrights are still visible in source comments, although I personally find this surprising. Nobody doubts that there were some clever hacks employed to squeeze everything into 4K of RAM, hacks that wouldn't be necessary on a TOPS-20 system. But Gates et. al. didn't start from scratch, that much is certain. So I'm not sure it's incorrect to talk about "porting" BASIC to the 8080. It's a kinder word to use than "plagiarized."
... as in Kyoto, JAPAN.
Based on the recent news of a major Korean company being under investigation for corruption/et cetera
I fail to see the relevance. Asia is not one big homogenous society--it isn't even a "bloc" as was the "communist bloc" of Soviet republics and eastern-European satellite nations. Japan's economy and business community differ greatly from Korea's. Furthermore, given the history between those particular nations, Koreans of a certain age would take great offense to being compared with the Japanese. They understand each other about as much as Americans and Russians do.
Aside from being offensive to Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, etc to be lumped together as all the same because they're Asian there isn't any indication that they are any more apt to be duped my MS (or to be co-conspirators) than anyone else in the world. MS' first and highest-profile "intellectual property assurance" deal was with an American company involving a German-developed Linux product after all.
This isn't an "Asian world" or even "business world" thing...this is just MS finding a firm with a weak-enough constitution to participate in MS' mafia-inspired protection racket.
Look at it this way. Microsoft did NOT say Linux infringed their patents or something. They gave Kyocera permission to use their technology. Try to read the paragraph ignoring the highlighting/italics. It probably meant much of the products had embedded Linux, and that the embedded products required a technology that Microsoft patented. I can see this without as an undergraduate from high school, guys.