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The Real Reason For Microsoft's TomTom Lawsuit
Glyn Moody writes "We now know that Microsoft's lawsuit isn't just against TomTom, but against Linux too: but what exactly is Microsoft hoping to achieve? Samba's Jeremy Allison has a fascinating theory: 'What people are missing about this is the either/or choice that Microsoft is giving Tom Tom. It isn't a case of cross-license and everything is ok. If Tom Tom or any other company cross licenses patents then by section 7 of GPLv2 (for the Linux kernel) they lose the rights to redistribute the kernel *at all*. Make no mistake, this is intended to force Tom Tom to violate the GPL, or change to Microsoft embedded software.' Maybe embedded Linux is starting to get too popular."
Only in so much as using means the same as distributing, or more specifically distributing to those countries.
So in other words, no.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
maybe they are just trying to protect their intellectual property
I'm not saying that "intellectual property" is a pointless concept, but what is currently implemented is frighteningly Philip K. Dick.
Software is particularly problematic. An invention does not always come from the intellect and work of the inventor. More often than not it is merely an observation and augmentation of the work and intellect of others.
Software is nothing more than building on that which was built by others, which was built on the work of people before that, and before that, ad infinitem. Even the implementor of a statistical analysis system owes credit to the creators of the programming language used to write it, the creators of the math system, etc.
Intellectual property my ass, it is a land-grab of an environment created by two generations of engineers that worked and published without patent protection. Now college drop-out Bill Gates, sues for trivial implementations of theoretical models created by men far better than him.
As a Samba developer, I would think he's especially familiar with Microsoft's strategies.
sig: sauer
And would make updating the thing nearly impossible. They do firmware updates by mounting it as a USB mass storage device. Without a hardware redesign to emulate FAT (which would probably also violate M$'s patents), they're pretty much stuck here.
This is why I've been arguing for nearly a decade that file and volume formats should not be patentable, nor the means used to read and write those formats. Free and open access to data formats is fundamentally crucial to the interoperability of all hardware and software, and as such, statutes should very clearly define those as part of a class explicitly excluded from patent protection. As soon as the courts allow even one patent like this to stand, they are pretty much saying "f**k you" to the entire computing industry and depriving consumers of their fundamental right to have access to data of their own creation. That data isn't Microsoft's. It belongs to the users, and it is a violation of the most fundamental rights of the users to deny them access to content that they create merely because they choose to not use a particular software product, regardless of whether that product is made by Microsoft, AutoCAD, or anybody else.
Locking down user content is fundamentally wrong and unjust, and any laws that allow a company to do so are also fundamentally wrong and unjust. Therefore, it is our right, nay, our duty to users everywhere to violate those bits of intellectual property at every possible opportunity until it becomes such a legal nightmare for these companies that they are forced to back down. Anything less would be uncivilized. I know this is no Rosa Parks moment, but it still very much necessary for the long-term viability of computing as we know it. Just say no to data format patents.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I don't know why companies just don't get *BSD working for them instead Linux. It would save them a lot of headaches.
Because the primary reason for the success of Linux is that it forces everyone to share their improvements. You get an exponential return on investment. The best you can ever hope for with BSD is an incremental return.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
You don't need to emulate the FAT long file names in order to do that. Only the long file name hack is covered by their patents. I see no good reason to even use long file names in applications like GPS or cameras, since you don't see the files most of the time.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Right, but then everybody gets your improvements. Where's the competition in that?
With BSD you get a solid base for your product and it's not infected with the GPL.
This old clinker again... Closed-source competition is so 1980s.
Software is a commodity. Any intelligent company now is not trying to make money on their proprietary code. They're making money on hardware to run their code, or services to support their code, or data to feed their code.
Sure, for certain niche markets, closed source can give a company a competitive advantage for a while... But if the market is "hot" enough, Open Source will eventually be there to eat its lunch. This has been happening over and over again for the past two decades. Were you asleep?
Let me ask you this: Have you ever written code and released it to the public? Was it used? I have. As a developer making contributions to public projects, I am much more inclined to contribute under the GPL than other licenses. Most of the world feels the same, hence the popularity of the GPL (and similar "viral" licenses) over the BSD-style licenses.
A host is a host from coast to coast...
Unless it's down, or slow, or fails to POST!
Wrong. FAT does not support permissions of any kind. VFAT adds long file names, which is done by using half of a given directory's entries for long filenames and the remainder as the standard 8.3 short names.
If you were talking about FAT attributes (archive, read-only, hidden, system, volume label), those are done with flag bits.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem