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.

Comments

question

[nomadic]

Why do we get so many legal analyses on slashdot from non-lawyers?

Re:question

[Sj0]

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.

Re:question

[omar.sahal]

considering Bruce Perens consults on avoiding licence issues for a living we can take his words seriously.
I know this is a bit vague, but as we already have initiatives for collecting of patents could there be a pool of cash collected from donors (as in small amounts of monthly donations from any interested individuals). Any company could then fight patent trolls by then putting in a nominal amount into the fund and getting support from the fund to protect its self against bodies trying to sue it. The threat of having to settle despite a week claim would then disappear, and Linux would be helped.

Re:question

[tuxgeek]

OSDL has implemented a legal defense fund for this purpose.
http://www.osdlab.org/en/Linux_Legal_Defense_Fund

I'm not sure how it works but I believe you can make donations to them (tax deductible?) specifically for the purpose of defending OSS developers against lawsuit from litigious douche bag companies such as M$, SCO, and various other patent trolls.

Re:question

[soren202]

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?

Re:question

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Very good point. At the time of the Novell - Microsoft pact, I was arguing with Bruce here on Slashdot over how evil/ not evil it was and I generally sided with Microsoft. Well, not anymore. I've replaced Suse with another distro that does not have a pact with Microsoft, and am no longer convinced that microsoft is a gentle giant. It is clear that they are abusing their monopoly in this act. And I was a defender of Microsoft (at times) in the anti trust case in the late 90's. This is much much worse in my eyes than bundling IE with windows ever was.

Re:question

[erroneus]

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

DOJ Needed

[b4upoo]

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.

The answer is obvious.

[lostmongoose]

...and calls it essentially a paper tiger

It's really simple to fight then. They need a scissor lizard!

EFF as a friend of the court?

[shentino]

This case of david versus goliath sounds worthy of the EFF's attention...or soemthing.

Tomtom needs help, not because he's right, but because he's an ally.

MS is up to no good here, as usual.

1) If MS wins, FAT implementations will get smacked down quickly due to the effect of a cascading precedent. This includes linux mounting a floppy disk OR a flash drive OR a camera OR... need I go on?
2) If MS forces a favorable settlement, the chill factor will freeze out competitors
3) If MS settles out, we get nothing
4) If MS loses the case, we have victory.

Anyone who can call MS out as bullshit and back it up, get in touch with TomTom AND his lawyers post haste.

Re:Yes, but...

[timmarhy]

isn't "inventing it first" what innovation is?

Re:Yes, but...

[tpgp]

all i heard was blah blah blah.

I'd consider getting new text to speech software then.

Re:Only non-Windows GPS System

[linuxrocks123]

Factually incorrect. Garmin also uses Linux; others probably do as well.

---linuxrocks123

Re:Yes, but...

[Divebus]

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.

This may interest some of you

[Sparx139]

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