Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft Claims Patent On Elements of Embedded Linux?

Posted by Zonk on from the strange-bedfellows dept.

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."

4 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. Japanese culture? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Japanese culture? by tbird20d · · Score: 5, Informative

      I work for Sony, putting Linux into many different Sony products. I also lead the CE Linux Forum, which has a number of large of members from Japan. I can assure you that Linux is used in Japan in droves, and that the range of practices for obtaining Linux, from paying a vendor to downloading directly from kernel.org, is as broad there as anywhere else in the world.

  2. Probably XPS by AirLace · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  3. Re:Useless Article... by nametaken · · Score: 3, Informative


    And there probably never will be. If you've ever contacted MS IP Licensing you know that you can't even discuss licensing their technologies until after you're under NDA.