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80% of MS Server Protocols Are Unpatented

perlow writes "ZDNet blogger Jason Perlow and Centrify's Tom Kemp discover that 80 percent of all Microsoft server protocols are un-patented. What exactly then, did SAMBA license? Are Microsoft's patent and intellectual property threats simply the growls of a paper tiger?"

2 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Ok U'm stupid today by sm62704 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why should a server protocol be patented? A patent should be for something you don't want copied. If I were selling servers I'd want to interoperate with clients and other servers.

    Oh, Microsoft. Never mind, my bad.

    --
    mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
  2. WTF? by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ZDNet blogger Jason Perlow and Centrify's Tom Kemp discover that 80 percent of all Microsoft server protocols are un-patented. What exactly then, did SAMBA license?

    Is this article trying to present me with the logic: 80% of protocols are un-patented, therefore SMB is un-patented?

    Because I don't see how that follows at all. Is SMB part of the 80% or part of the 20%? If you want to know what SAMBA licensed, why don't you just ask them? I'm sure they'd know...