Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
"...started when Bill Gates ported BASIC."
He didn't port basic. He wrote a Basic interpreter for the 8080!
I am not a Microsoft fan. In fact I am a Linux user but give me a break.
If Bill Gates ported basic then the Samba team ported Microsoft networking and the Mysql team ported SQL!
Porting means you have the source code to a program and you get it to run on a new cpu. Gates, with some help wrote a Basic interpreter for a tiny cpu in assembly. He WROTE a version basic for the 8080. He didn't port it.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
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.
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! --
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.
Just to make sure Samba gets credit where samba is due... They wrote the spec, not Microsoft. If it weren't for them CIFS wouldn't exist as it does today. MSFT embraced and extended as always.