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Analyzing Microsoft's Linux Lawsuit
jammag writes "Open source advocate Bruce Perens takes a close look at Microsoft's lawsuit against TomTom (discussed here last week), which involves an implementation of the Linux kernel, and calls it essentially a paper tiger. He notes: 'the technologies claimed in the 8 patents involved are so old and obvious that it's fair to say they have a high "Duh!" factor. There's an anti-trust angle to this suit that could blow up in Microsoft's face. And there's a high probability that some or all of the patents involved are invalid, due to recent court decisions.' Although the legal expense for TomTom to defend itself in court could be astronomical — meaning they may be forced to settle — in Perens' view Microsoft is aware its case is weak, yet hopes for a PR victory at limited cost." And reader nerdyH adds speculation from Open Innovation Network CEO Keith Bergelt that Redmond's action could be retaliation for TomTom's spurning a Microsoft acquisition bid in 2006.
Would there be any difference in how Microsoft handled this case if TomTom had used FreeBSD instead of Linux?
transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Why are there so many analyses of technology in law magazines done by lawyers?
Because our demographic demands it. There's only a few NYCLs in the community.
Either we get law analysis by techies, or we don't get anything.
It's been a long time.
That's a troll right? Or do you not see how a analysis by people with a technological background in a case involving technology would be insightful?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
This type of law suit in which the righteous party is forced to settle because of legal costs is exactly why Microsoft needs criminal sanctions. It is also exactly why stiff punitive fines should be levied against Microsoft. Hundreds of billions would be appropriate.
Is there an equal position for Microsoft and OpenSource community in the court? - Definitely not! OpenSource community should ask in the court to review Microsoft's initial position which is not fair ! OpenSource has their source open to the entire world, so even Microsoft can sneak for possible "patent breaks", but Microsoft has CLOSED source code, so nobody knows - are there any patent breaks or not. Is this equal position: if one player play with open cards, but another has rights to play with closed cards and asks judge to look closer only that player with open cards? At least at the court both parties should be equal and should come up with source code just because of there is no other options.
It's only for any operating system that wants to support FAT disks with long file names. Which is every OS within the last 15 years.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
This is desperation by a fat, overgrown bunch of boors to squish a smaller company thru litigation. This, my friends, is the act of a company that's very desperate. They can't rest on their "laurels" (read: guaranteed marketshare through bullying) any more, so they pull this out of their aforementioned hat.
Ballmer: if you're reading this, please advise your stockholders and the SEC that the backlash from this will hurt you and your credibility for years to come. My suggestion is to get a room on Paul's yacht, and get the hell out of Dodge.
Let the boycott begin!
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
It might be better to ask, is there anyone to whom this patent doesn't look trivial, and then why?
Bruce Perens.
So, it's not the technology. Microsoft's market force as an effective monopoly in desktop computing made FAT ubiquitous, and Microsoft is able to muscle other businesses into paying a patent royalty for FAT despite its lack of innovation, only because FAT is what Microsoft chose to put in its own systems.
It's hard to argue with this, even for MS apologists. When everybody is almost forced to use a system that you invented just because you invented it first, they shouldn't be able to use the legal system to strongarm you with it.
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
isn't "inventing it first" what innovation is?
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Yes. I've been trying to get other people to think about this for 10 years or more.
Bruce Perens.
User Friendly isn't a random comic, it is a shitty comic.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Are you denying that Microsoft is in the wrong on this one? I don't really think there's anyway to justify this move, as, basically, they're doing it to either gain money or hurt open source, as I'm fairly sure they won't lose anything in the long run if they don't pursue this case.
I'm not saying that all of Slashdot's anti-Microsoft articles are justified, but, really, considering how outright douchey this move is, can you really say the slant is unjustified?
than the EFF.
TomTom is the only major non-Windows GPS. All the other big names are WinCE based.
Message to all vendors of small systems, use WinCE or face the consequences.
I haven't looked into the OSDL, but if you are going to donate money to an organization with FOSS and customer rights in mind, please also consider helping the EFF. I have not affiliation with them, but they are constantly working to protect our rights and have never heard even a hint of them doing anything immoral, disrespectful or dishonest with the money donated to them.
No, but since I've reimplemented fat from scratch on an alternative ( unfortunately non-free) platform, I have some understanding in the technical underpinnings of Fat. By your logic, I can't comment on the legal side because I'm not a lawyer. Then how can a lawyer comment on the technical difference between say fat 12 and fat 16 ? When a legal issue touches on something that involves something other that pure law, there has to be a communication between the experts in that field and the lawyers. The layers might not understand all of the technical details, and the experts might not understand all of the legalities, but they have to come be able to understand and discuss some of the stuff outside their expertise if a fair judgment is to be reached.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Some say this has already happened: The ones who held up RIM and threatened to shut down Washington's BlackBerrys. Even THAT case didn't trash the US's fucked-up patent system.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
The TomTom I have carries a plain vanilla SD card. Any bets that it came from SanDisk (or wherever) already formatted with FAT32? I think SanDisk was one of the companies strong armed by Microsoft a while ago into buying a FAT32 license. Therefore, shouldn't the license to use said card transfer downstream? Or is it that nobody can write to a FAT32 partition without a further license? Microsoft will have its hands full if it's the latter - when The Planet attacks Microsoft in court like the RIAA.
Most of the stuff on
Are we about to hear yet another lecture on how being a so-called "convicted" monopoly means that MS can't take a shit without clearing it with DOJ and the EU?
There are PLENTY of pro-Microsoft people here. I was pro-Microsoft... was. But still, I know where they are coming from. Microsoft has been involved in some pretty ugly dealings. The whole OOXML thing should leave no doubt in anyone's mind the problems with Microsoft's behavior. But here's the problem that allows people to continue not despising Microsoft:
People think that Microsoft is a "corporate machine" and that it's faceless actions, while despicable, are the blameless actions of a machine and not directed or influenced by the people in the position to make the choices and directions responsible for for said despicable actions. People also think that "corporations are required to act in the interests of the shareholders" even though time and time again, corporate leaders do whatever they want even when it is in the face of shareholders crying out for a change in direction. This is a myth and has always been a myth.
No. The whole reality is that companies are run by people. If the company is known for despicable acts, then it is the people who run the company that are responsible for those despicable acts. The corporation is a shield legally, but not a shield morally. We know what they do and we know many of those responsible.
And by calling something a "bias" does not mean there is something inherently twisted or wrong with it or that by holding a particular position on an issue that they are not balanced in their perspective. Let's say I am biased against putting live human babies into wood chippers. Does my bias make my perception that this is "wrong" somehow disqualify me from making a sound judgement on the subject? I'm willing to bet that just about every last reader here who has read my position that putting live human babies into wood chippers is a bad idea will agree with me too. So are we ALL "biased" on the issue?
But here's the deal. We know that killing babies is bad. We are alive and everyone loves babies...especially live ones. So without much deliberation in our minds, we can conclude quickly that it's wrong to kill babies. Now what about open source versus closed source? Well let's look at the facts that we can all understand:
1. Open Source means we can look at the source and a few of us will know what we are looking at, but someone other than the author(s) will be able to look at it (and compile it) to determine whether or not it is doing what it is supposed to be doing and not hiding any secrets.
2. Closed sources means we cannot look at the source code of the software people are using. While it is rare that a company will sneak in secret and/or undesirable behaviors into binary-only distributed software, we know for a fact that it can and does happen. That it has been done by many of the most prominent names in the software business in fact is well known. This is more than enough proof to me and to most people with a clear thought in their head that closed source software offers a risk that open source seeks to eliminate -- the risk of secret and/or undesirable behaviors programmed into software.
The risk I describe is virtually the same risk posed by many commercial food products. Many people are catching on to the notion of being aware of what goes into our food and fortunately, many laws are on the books designed to increase the availability of this information to the public in hopes of protecting the public. (And isn't it interesting that the dairy industry has been trying to get the definition of "organic" changed so that their industrial milk can also use the term on their labels even though they don't match the classical definition of the term as we generally accept it to mean? It is clear the interests of "big dairy" are more important to big dairy than the interests of big dairy's customers.)
The interests of closed source software suppliers are more important to themselves than the interests of the users who use their software. (let's call it a "bias" shall we?) It has been demonstrated on numerous occasions
It has a duty to its shareholders to engage in as much trust making activity as possible, to compete as aggressively as possible, and in general make ROI (which it is doing).
When you are throwing a quarter of a trillion dollars in weight around you are going to make some people upset. Then you have a duty to your shareholders to defend your position according to the risk/benefit analysis your lawyers come up with.
So, yes, MS are doing their job, and looking at the financial figures, they are doing it very well indeed. If you are suffering butthurt regarding them being better at business than your favourite companies, then perhaps your complaint should be with the DOJ slash your government for not legislating more strictly?
Listening to some freetards trot out the "convicted monopolist" line is like me calling Redhat a bunch of "convicted patent infringers". I don't, however, because I am not a douchebag.
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
I think his point was that Microsoft approaches open source in bad faith. And it's true. Mono exists because of the Novell/Microsoft pact, which was an early step in a long-term strategy to use patents to destroy the GPL ecosystem.
Microsoft paid Novell to add legitimacy to its patent threats. Novell funds mono development. It's perfectly reasonable for GP to conclude that Mono is poisonous.
Precedent doesn't matter much in this instance. What matters is a challenge with the patent office (this costs an average of 5 million), the chances of the patents being upheld seem pretty small post bilski, at least the FAT ones (the others I don't know enough). But the law prevents judges from tossing a patent out, even when its blatently illegal, so instead of a moderately expensive publicly subsidized court battle (and appeals), patent cases end up being massively expensive for profit exercises mostly run by the patent office, *then* you get to do a round of appeals, depending on the outcome.
Once a patent is tossed out, MS can't use it anymore, but they have 227 others, so this is gonna be a long fight.
On the plus side, Tom Tom is probably going to fight if they aren't run by complete morons, otherwise they would have at least negotiated with MS.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
Are we about to hear yet another lecture on how being a so-called "convicted" monopoly means that MS can't take a shit without clearing it with DOJ and the EU?
You can express it crudely if you like, that about sums it up. Just remember one thing in business: obey the law, or go to jail.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
The free software foundation sent out this email to their subscribers on the 28th of February
Looking at Microsoft's FAT patents through Bilski glasses
http://endsoftpatents.org/looking-at-microsoft-s-fat-patents-through-bilski-glasses/
Yesterday, Microsoft attacked free software and GNU/Linux users with
software patent claims against the TomTom Navigator and its
implementation of the FAT file system. But do they have a sword or a wet
rag?
With widespread support for GNU/Linux becoming a reality, are these
patent claims an attempt to chill adoption? If so, then we need to make
sure everyone knows about Bilski. Please read this story and use digg to
help raise awareness:
http://digg.com/linux_unix/Looking_at_Microsoft_s_FAT_patents_through_Bilski_glasses_2
Sign-up or ask friends to join our End Software Patents mailing list to
get these alerts:
http://campaigns.fsf.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/esp-action-alert
Thanks
Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.
The Google G1 phone uses a 2gb SanDisk micro SD card. Lets see Microsoft pick on someone its own size.
Here's a list of Companies whose products write FAT32:
They could band together now and de-fang this nonsense.
Most of the stuff on
I (...) am no longer convinced that microsoft is a gentle giant
"I am no longer convinced that the 'Mission Accomplished' banner was a good idea." -- George W. Bush
"I am no longer convinced that the Titanic is unsinkable." -- Thomas Andrews
"I am no longer convinced that striking explosives with an iron bar is a wise practice." - Phineas P. Gage.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.