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Documentation Compliance Means MS Can Resume Collecting Protocol Royalties
angry tapir writes "Microsoft may begin collecting royalties again for licensing some protocols because clear technical documentation is now available, according to the US Department of Justice. The change comes after the DOJ issued its latest joint status report regarding its 2002 antitrust settlement with Microsoft. The settlement required Microsoft to make available technical documentation that would allow other vendors to make products that are interoperable with Windows."
You can't copyright recipes, and anything can be regarded as a trade secret.
How we know is more important than what we know.
A protocol is simply a statement of facts.
Facts are not copyrightable.
Sweat of the brow does not determine if something is deserving of copyright either. It must have _some_ creativity. Indeed, this is why software for years was not deserving of copyright, because it was considered a "list of instructions for a machine" instead of creative. This changed in the early 80's I believe (correct me if it was earlier).
A recipe is not copyrightable. It is a list of facts to reach a goal. The artwork, layout, etc, however, is. Thus cookbooks are copyrighted.
Software is unique in that it's now protected by both copyright, as if it's art, _and_ patent, as if it's a machine. Why one needs both is baffling to me.
--
BMO
Just mix these commonly-found spices together! Great when used for skinless chicken fingers too.
2 tablespoons salt
2 cups flour
2 tablespoons pepper
4 tablespoons paprika
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 tablespoon mustard, ground
1 tablespoon French thyme, ground
1 tablespoon sweet basil
1 teaspoon oregano, ground
1 tablespoon jamaica ginger, ground
http://www.bubhub.com.au/community/forums/showthread.php?t=14201&page=2
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Not only that, the DMCA explicitly allows reverse engineering of software in order to allow for interoperability with other applications:
see paragraph (f) here:
http://static.chillingeffects.org/1201.shtml
Microsoft has no ground to stand on from the copyright angle, so it's attempting to imlpement the same limitations from a software patent angle. Which currently has no value in most of the civilized world.
http://samba.org/samba/PFIF/
Samba and any other free software project (via the PFIF) has a royalty free license to most of the patents that are important for these protocols.
There are some patents that are excluded from this (see appendix 4 of the agreement for a list of the excluded patents), and we do indeed need to avoid infringement of those patents. That has not so far proved to be an insurmountable obstacle, although it is an inconvenience.
Cheers, Tridge