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Torvalds Says Microsoft is Bluffing on Patents
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft's aggressive defense of its intellectual property, which includes claims that Linux violates a number of its patents, is nothing more than "a marketing thing," according to Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel. "They have been sued for patents by other people, but I don't think they've — not that I've gone through any huge amount of law cases — but I don't think they've generally used patents as a weapon," Torvalds said. "But they're perfectly happy to use anything at all as fear, uncertainty and doubt in the marketplace, and patents is just one thing where they say, 'Hey, isn't this convenient? We can use this as a PR force.'""
FUD used for marketing
News at 11
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Microsoft does not use their patents as a weapon because their revenue continues to surge despite the increase in the popularity of Linux.
If/when Linux becomes a significant threat to growth, you can be sure Microsoft will use all tools at its disposal, including parents, aggressively.
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Linus writes kernels- actually, a single kernel. He does not write text books, news articles, or legal documents. His guess is as good as yours or mine as to what Microsoft's intentions are.
Wait, scratch that. Mine is better- I am not an engineer.
The patents involve Xenix. Look it up sometime, it may seem oddly familiar.
However, I believe he's right in saying linux is not in any danger. It isn't- the only companies that might get pricked by these patents are commercial enterprises who are profiteering off of peoples' open source work. (see: the companies that Microsoft has signed patent treaties with)
but when it comes to politics (and this is politics), Linus Torvalds always seems naive to me.
Is Taco trying to completely set /. into a total flamewar? Two political topics, MS vs Google, and now a Linux vs Microsoft article?
I've never understood how a programmer/direction manager/geek like Torvalds could raise so much interest over his opinion, but I do understand the draw to him. I rarely agree with what he says, but in this case it is truly spot on.
Microsoft is in trouble, and it has nothing to do with "anti-monopoly" legislation, or corporate badgering, or any of the sort. Microsoft is in trouble. This is defensive posturing in hopes of the market taking note and taking action by putting Microsoft ahead of the pack that has overtaken it.
For years we had geeks here call for Microsoft's abolishment, but lonely me with a few other market economy believers have said that Microsoft will fall from grace as IBM, Compaq, and GM had -- because they lost their competitive edge. The future is not in desktop software, that Microsoft heralded in with great accomplishment. Microsoft tore us out of the client-server picture, and now we're heading back there. They don't understand the situation, and their "Desktop first" mentality makes it near impossible to turn around.
Why they care about Linux is beyond me, though. The backend platform is slowly becoming useless as the protocols for integrating features-on-the-screen are quickly becoming irrelevant as the idea of hardware abstraction is truly coming to be. I remember when Microsoft's NT was released, with their first attempt at a hardware abstraction layer. I held out high hopes for it, but it was a failure, pure and simple. Today, though, we ARE hardware abstract in the processes most important to many of us: HTML, PHP, SQL, and the rest have become their own important entities, regardless of what is behind them.
Lately I am finding myself moving away from the desktop, more and more. Other than graphics design and CAD, I am almost entirely performing my computing duties in client-server mode. I've moved to Google Docs (buggy, but SO convenient since I have no need for a hard drive or memory stick), Google Mail for Domains, my blogs for newsletter dispersal (Wordpress) and phpBB for group comms. The underlying software and hardware is irrelevant to me as all my servers run different OS and hardware combos.
Microsoft is screwed, plain and simple, but I don't think any Linux providers are in better shape. The more I delve into relatively open source code (Wiki, WP, PHPBB, etc), the more I am amazed at what the masses can do to create better code for the reasons important to me. As I produce these low or no cost apps to my clients (not Linux, mind you), I am able to charge more for saving them the downtime and bugs and glitches and software costs. I can't wait for more server farms to become available as those costs will come down more, so my customers won't even need much of their own hardware.
In 1984, when I first connected my Hayes 300 baud modem, I would never have believed we'd return to the client-server days. I remember the reason for logging onto a BBS was to get stuff to my desktop; the idea of using it as a form of communication AND laboring was foreign to me, even when I ran my own BBS. Now, I can't imagine downloading anything when I can conveniently edit it, print it ("to PDF"), and distribute it almost entirely online.
I am with Linus on this one.
I just happen to believe that not agreeing with Linus is treacherous for anyone.
Who's gonna be the new SCO?
In Soviet Russia, everything runs linux.
Can't one of the many Linux organisations try and get a legal injunction barring Microsoft from claiming patents in Linux? A sort of defamation lawsuit?
This whole MS-patent crap is going to keep lingering over Linux' head, and MS is happy to leave it at that. If Linux community wants to get rid of it, they are the ones that have to take action.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
And the BitKeeper license is not going to be a problem, right? Because they've never screwed over an open source project before, so they clearly won't start now.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Anyone else get the feeling from Microsoft lately that they are acting like a cornered and scared animal?
I'm not saying Microsoft is on it's way out or anything, but I think in the past couple of years they have finally realized "hey...if we aren't careful, we WILL become a moot point in this industry." Scared animals always make uncalculated and rash decisions.
Living With a Nerd
He may be sort of right about this in that Microsoft probably won't want to fight because as soon as they reveal specifically what code infringes which patents the code will be removed, or prior art found. This has a potential of becoming a "McLibel" with poor programmers visibly stamped on by a multi-billion dollar company .... but with thousands of helpers in the background finding prior art, preparing cases that the patent is obvious etc. It could severely dent Microsoft's war-chest that is much more effectively used against commercial companies.
The way patents work in much of the business world is that big companies cross-license their patent portfolios, essentially promising not to sue each other for all the moronic patents each other holds (I'm oversimplifying a little, but you get the idea). This is pretty effective for them.
I wonder if open-source should look into the same thing.
Even lacking a cross-licensing agreement, the fact that EFF would have a portfolio of moronic patents to smack people back with might give companies trying to sue open source pause, because they would know a big counter-suit was coming.
It would take the teeth out of MS's patent claims. The only companies this doesn't work against are patent trolls.
Obviously, the licensing on the patents should be such that they are freely available for use unless a company sues an open source product. Perhaps patents are not licensable in this way, but a far as I can tell, you can license stuff in any crazy way you want, just about.
Yes, patents are evil, but until they go away, open source would do well to be able to wield the same weapon as everybody else. Obviously, open source would need somebody with deep pockets to file the patents, but I think it's worth pursuing.
Who is RTFM and when will he help me with Unix?
2007 called. They want their story back.
Oh, yeah, Linus is (still) right...
alias sudo="echo make it yourself #" ; # https://pipedot.org/~stderr & http://soylentnews.org/~stderr
Ballmer: Linus Skyvalds, I am your father.
Skyvalds: Noooooooooooooooo!
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Well whether Linux is violating any particular patents, I do not know... but if it isn't, then these are serious defamatory accusations, they are not simply "bluffs".
I still will NEVER EVER buy a Zune, I've almost completely exited from Office now in favor of Open Office, and XP is all that is left and won't be upgraded. Will NOT go Vista;... EVER.
Two laptops. One legacy XP Pro, and the other Ubuntu with all my code development stuff and electronics software on it.
Hay; Ballmer!... Shut your fart mouth ass up. Unless you got it you can't bring it. If you got it, bring it. Otherwise; shut the hell up and go back into your hole you call an office.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
Microsoft's corporate leadership used to speak out against patents. This was when they were getting sued, and patents were a ticking bomb in their "embrace, extend, extinguish" tactics. Patents kept them from being able to "borrow" from successful innovators to improve their product line with impunity.
So, after a few losses, they took to using their capital reserves to purchase such companies outright while they were small, as their success and huge capital reserves made them a lawsuit target. This was a necessary change in policy that came with the success of having all that captial to poach. It's why their getting rid of some of that capital: It exposes them to larger judgments.
Those days are over. Linus would be right in the 90's, but no longer.
Now Microsoft is in a bunker mentality, using patents to defend a near monopoly in market share. They have completely changed their tune, because what they now need to do is slow down inevitable attrition of that market share. In much of their market, there is no where else to go, and no way to grow revenue except by raising prices. Witness the pricing on Windows Vista.
Don't think for a second that they won't sue. They've already got expert patent firms on retainer from defending themselves. Certainly, they started the ball rolling with SCO, but that was just testing the waters. They will pursue this to their greatest possible advantage, regardless of whether the claims are reasonable, because they're already paying the lawyers.
If you consider a multi-million dollar lawsuit for marketing purposes "just marketing," then you've never defended yourself in a court of law.
Linus is wrong. He's thinking about the "hungry" Microsoft of the 90's. We're in the chair chucking, f-ing burying, Ballmer days now, and Microsoft is no longer an upstart. They run the desktop software industry, like the mafia ran Chicago. There's no reason, save the massive loss of judicial mind-share in various anti-trust cases, that they can't pursue legal options regarding their rapidly growing patent portfolio. Microsoft is, among other things, becoming a patent troll, and there's no reason to believe that they can't buy something actionable, if they don't already have it.
SCO was just an unsuccessful test case. Look out.
--
Toro
IMHO Microsoft's "defense" of it's patents (if any) has been anything but aggressive. Yes, they've made a lot of hot air in the media about how Linux might infringe some unknown patents they claim to hold. But if they were being aggressive, they wouldn't be making such a nebulous claim. They'd be sending letters demanding royalties and quoting patent numbers, and filing infringement cases when violators refused to pay. They haven't. They haven't even mentioned a single patent number they claim Linux infringes. And not without cause. My recollection is that Microsoft themselves said openly that the reason they aren't claiming specific patent numbers is that they're afraid if they got that specific that the open-source community would be successful in having those patents invalidated.
If you don't have a patent number, you don't have a patent. I'll consider Microsoft to be aggressively defending their patents against infringement in Linux when they start citing specific patent numbers.
Mr. Balmer now has war on two fronts. The patents are part of the war on Open Source and Linux. The Yahoo deal is war on Google. This doesn't sound wise. War on two fronts has rarely worked out well for the party with both fronts. Perhaps Microsoft's management has over-reached itself. Were I an ardent investor, I'd be watching carefully. Maybe, there is a short sell of Microsoft in the near future. Also, maybe the two front war will overload Microsoft to the point of reducing their position in the PC software market, to a position more appropriate to the caliber of Microsoft's products.
Linus uses speculations against Microsoft as PR for his own damn self, and slashdot gobbles it all up. Also, Microsoft just appointed Torvalds as "guy-who-would-totally-know-about-our-patents". True story.
You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
I think I have seen this before, maybe a few months ago....seems like Deja Vu
No, I don't know which patents, there are simply too many of them out there. But given the shear number of patents approved for so many stupid things, odds are pretty high (I'd guess 99%) that Linux infringes on at least a few of them. And the odds aren't all that bad the MS is behind a few of those patents.
In the same measure, I'd guess that 99% of the US population has violated at least one law in the past year. And a fair number of you violated a few laws just going to work this morning.
So the most likely result of all of this is that it's all just a bunch of marketing FUD and nothing will come of it. MS has much more to lose by going public with the patent list (backlash, prior art discovery, etc).
...get an overwhelming refreshing feeling after reading a torvalds interview?...
Linus is bluffing :
.. do KDE or Gnome qualify as violations ? Is it a stretch ? What would an tech-unsavvy judge against the best lawyers of the world do ? What is Linux on the desktop without KDE/Gnome ?
First, let's consider something more than just the kernel.
As an example http://www.google.com/patents?id=aCUfAAAAEBAJ&dq=5757371
Also.. and the real question is... is it possible to write ANY non-trivial piece of software and not violate an existing patent ?
But M$ is bluffing too :
Patent war is like the cold war. If they strike on Linux, IBM, Sun and more will strike on M$. They will never strike Linux with patent sues because they will be sued to blood by other companies. Instilling fear is the most they can do.
My 2 cents.
Isn't Bill Gates big into poker?
But.... MS have screwed up just about every attempt to diversify, even though they would love to. Gate's "visionary" keynotes of the last few years have all been about services etc that had very litle to do with MS core products (Windows and Office). Other people (Google et al) are doing a great job of realising that vision, but MS aren't.
So why are MS FUDding about the OS when it matters less and less? Well whether they like it or not, apart from Office, that's all they really have.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Linus seems to get it, but here's a better (and funny) analysis by Eben Moglen.
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
The spectacular failure of SCO casts doubt on the concept of patent war by proxy. If there is to be a next time, MS will have to put their own assets at risk. The people willing to put their companies at risk for MS are automatically unsuitable partners for this type of work. Anyone smart enough to run a successful business is not going to play the role of a kamikaze. That leaves desperados like Darl; slim pickings in a war against OSS.
Industry forces are aligned against MS, just as the same forces were once aligned in ancient times against IBM and to a lesser extent DEC. Anything MS does with patents will draw sniper fire from opponents such as IBM or Google. You might even see IBM or Google wage their own proxy war by defending cases where they have no direct involvement. If MS can funnel money to SCO for the purpose of suing MS competitors, wouldn't it be equally viable for IBM to turn the tables and fund the defense of MS patent defendants?
So now when Microsoft says that they have patents and they think Linux infringes, suddenly we don't think they have any patents that cover parts of Linux? They are bluffing? It is just FUD to advance their agenda?
Does that mean before this, when it was free software people claiming there WERE such patents, THEY were FUDing? What is going on here?
Ever seen a movie with somebody entering a shop and telling the manager he needs protection?
"Protection from what?" "Fires" "There are never been fires here" "There might be" "Are you a fireman or do you know somebody setting fires here?" "None of them" "So, why do I need your protection?" "To be sure there are no fires."
Substitute fires with legal action and you get a clearer idea of what this is all about, even if MS might be looking at it in a different way.
FOSS community is not replying to the tastes of M$haft and steve ballmer.whole GNU/Linux users,major corporate Linux users,FOSS companies all should unite and challenge M$ for the S/W patent FUD. Infact,it is the loose attitude esp of novell who "supposed to have" paid M$haft the patent money etc which divides the community. I think,still m$ should be trashed with the help of FOSS community and enemies of M$haft as we cannot expect a sane thing from US laws esp as they allows Software patents,DRMs etc laws bent to help monopolists like M$haft etc. Community should kick the arse of M$.else this stain of patent infringement FUD will be on the head of Linux users and new users will be scared of moving into FOSS.
move to FOSS,save ur nation's resources.
The proof of the fact that MS is not going to sue anyone over linux patents is this:
They have not sued Google. MS hates Google, they want to destroy them, they are doing everything in their power to destroy them, if MS had valid patent claims against Linux they would be using them, actively, forcefully, against Google. Google without Linux is well... does it even exist?!? I guess they could move to a BSD?
Anyway, the point is, MS is spending billions in R&D to try to catch google in search and online marketing (heck, they may spend 44 Billion to try to close the gap by buying Yahoo). If they had a valid patent claim against Linux they could probably spend 50 million in the courts and get the same, if not better result. If Google had to give up linux, they would have to do quite a bit of work, probably stop all new projects for at least 6 months to a year. Better yet (for MS), if MS in the judgment got a % of all of google's sales (because all of their sales depend on linux). Then Google would have to fund their biggest enemy. Heck, any judgment against google would be retroactive, MS could probably get 5-10 billion off Google since their whole business is based on violating MS's patents (assuming of course that their are valid patent claims against linux).
I've always wondered why MS is so pro-software patents.
Patent licensing is certainly not a major revenue source, they tend to be too PR savvy to be particularly aggressive with violators, but have, from time to time, lost a reasonable amount of money through litigation. As far as vague veiled threats about Linux go, most of the users consider themselves to be immune from being sued by Microsoft, so it's not a lot of use there either.
It's not Microsoft, it's barmy Ballmer who keeps sounding off about patents. He needs to chill.
There are patents Microsoft has which Linux may infringe on, but if tested many of these will be written off as prior art and if Microsoft has extracted money from others over these patents then the would have to return the money.
I don't think it's possible to write an OS without infringing on patents. There's a difference between coincidences and blatant copying.
I've held the same general opinions of Ballmer's bluster that Linus mentioned ever since I saw the words attributed to good ol' Steve. The reasons can be summarized very quickly:
1) Microsoft has lots of patents, and patents=innovation (at least according to those analysts who gave Microsoft the Innovation Trophy, having surpassed IBM a few months back in their eyes.
2) Microsoft's patent portfolio remains strong if it doesn't lose defenses against infringement. The easiest way to accomplish that seems to be that they don't even attempt to defend a good number of their patents (they just make vague claims about infringement that aren't legally binding).
3) Vague patent infringement claims do indeed cause FUD in regards to their competitors' products.
4) Microsoft probably knows quite well how shoddy many of its patents are. If they were to be struck down on grounds of obviousness or prior art, they would not only lose their FUD leverage, but their patent portfolio would shrink too.
5) By failing to defend their patents against infringements they allege are occurring, they risk losing the ability to defend them. The principle is much along the lines of adverse possession in real property (cf. the "land-grab" case in Boulder, where one couple claimed they regularly trespassed on their neighbors' land over several years, and since the actual owners never stopped them, they were therefore were entitled to take possession of land for themselves). As with real property, if the owner of intellectual property fails to step in and enforce their rights as owners, they stand to lose their ownership altogether. But in the case of IP, the fact that a shoddy patent simply exists in their portfolio is perhaps more important than its actual (utterly worthless) contents.
What I'd really like to see is for the folks backing Linux find a way to legally compel Ballmer to put-up or shut-up. If he was making those sorts of allegations against an individual, he could be sued for slander, and he would have to prove to the court that his statements were truthful or he'd be on the hook. But since it's Linux, he can make all the slanderous and defamatory statements he pleases, and apparently nobody can do anything about that from a legal standpoint. As long as that status quo remains, there's a cloud hovering over Linux, whether there's an inkling of truth to it or not. Linux backers have not been afforded the chance to defend the honor of their project.