Microsoft Tries Hard To Play Nice With Open Source, But There's an Elephant In the Room

Esther Schindler writes: They're trying, honest they are. In 2016 alone, writes Steven Vaughan-Nichols, Microsoft announced SQL Server on Linux; integrated Eclipse and Visual Studio, launched an open-source network stack on Debian Linux; and it's adding Ubuntu Linux to its Azure Stack hybrid-cloud offering. That's all well and good, he says, but it's not enough. There's one thing Microsoft could do to gain real open-source trust: Stop forcing companies to pay for its bogus Android patents. But, there's too much money at stake, writes sjvn, for this to ever happen. For instance, in its last quarter, volume licensing and patents, accounted for approximately 9% of Microsoft's total revenue.

Comments

But... patents != copyright

[i.r.id10t]

But the patents aren't copyrighted code. Sure, they could create an implementation of the patented method and Freely license that code, so that anyone who licenses the patent could use that code as a reference/starting point/as-is. But freeing the patents could affect other products ...

Lol, this site is so 1998 angery

[Anonymous Coward]

When any of you have a billion dollar company, let's see how much money you just let go. Because I'm sure MS doesn't pay their fair share for other people's patents as well.

Seriously, it's time slashdot grew up a bit and joined the big girl and boy world. Every MS post is like an angry 13 year old that has no idea how the world operates.

Re:Lol, this site is so 1998 angery

[Dutch Gun]

I'm not upset that MS is playing the patent game as best they can. I would, however, like to see the rules of the game changed for everyone. Software patents need to go.

I don't hate Microsoft. To me, that makes as much sense as hating a tiger for chasing down and tearing apart its hapless prey. It's pointless to get upset at corporations for just doing what they do, which is to figure out how to make as much money as possible within the current rules of law and society. If they're doing something which is legal but which we don't like, then we only have two options: we can either create societal pressure (bad publicity, boycotts, etc) to alter their behavior, or we can change the laws under which they operate.

I'd suggest that, as far as software patents go, it would be far more effective to go the second route (changing laws), because there's just too much money involved involved, not to mention a lack of public awareness, to make any serious traction with the first method. Of course, given that there's so much money involved, changing laws isn't going to be easy either, but at least it has a chance.

Re:Lol, this site is so 1998 angery

[halivar]

Speaking as someone active on Slashdot in the era of the Halloween emails, and Gate's "open source == cancer" speech to Congress, there was a LOT to be angry about. It really was like watching a cartoon villain. I switched to Linux completely for 6 years over it, even. That was legitimate anger.

But you know what? In a few years, we're going to have working professionals posting on Slashdot who weren't even born when this stuff happened. It was perpetuated by people who aren't even in the industry anymore. At some point, we as a collective group are just going to have to accept the fact that we won; we licked MS and their anti-FOSS stance, and it's ok to get over it now.

Re:Lol, this site is so 1998 angery

[sjames]

Al Capone gave the occasional lolipop to a child in his career. Does that let him off the hook for the rest?

Let's face it, MS is a three time loser (that is, a recidivist jailbird). It is only rational to be a bit suspicious if they suddenly want to roll a gift into the city.

This is big-league ball, kid.

[westlake]

There's one thing Microsoft could do to gain real open-source trust: Stop forcing companies to pay for its bogus Android patents.

The geek never sounds more adolescent then when he whines about Microsoft cross-licensing patents with its major corporate partners, It happens all the time and these guys are big enough and old enough to take care of themselves.

Re:This is big-league ball, kid.

[andydread]

Software patents should be outlawed. The US Supreme Court seems to take a dim view on software patents. Code that allows text to render before images is not innovation. Telling you that I own any code you write that enables a specific feature such as that is not innovation its extortion...legalized extortion. Software patents for simple features like that should have never been applied for and should have never been granted. Microsoft abuses patents on software in an effort to stifle open-source in the marketplace. They have even warned that this is the method they will use against Linux and they have been executing that plan for a while now. It's not just Android it's any device that runs Linux. They have been using fat patents against Linux device makers for a while now. Companies like the NAS maker Buffalo which uses Linux on their devices and have nothing to do with Android has to pay up.

Re:This is big-league ball, kid.

[ilguido]

And here I always thought that a sane market, not encumbered by extortion and bullying, would benefit _consumers_. Silly me.

Haters gonna hate

[SirJorgelOfBorgel]

At this point, a large part of IT simply will never appreciate Microsoft, no matter what they do.

"We'd trust them if they'd only do X!" No, you wouldn't. You'd figure out some other reason to hate them.

News flash, it's 2016, and Microsoft is no longer the most evil or dangerous bigcorp out there. Apple, Google, and Facebook, have all surpassed Microsoft. Can we get back to some actual issues?

Re:Haters gonna hate

[drinkypoo]

At this point, a large part of IT simply will never appreciate Microsoft, no matter what they do.

It would take a spectacular fucking idiot to trust Microsoft at this point. Are you a spectacular fucking idiot? Because only spectacular fucking idiots trust Microsoft.

Microsoft has proven time and again that they will abuse their customer base, the law, and anything else that stands in the way of profit. People who give them money are part of the problem.

ObDisclaimer: I paid for Win 7. I still feel dirty about it.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[ilguido]

At this point, a large part of IT simply will never appreciate Microsoft, no matter what they do.

"We'd trust them if they'd only do X!" No, you wouldn't. You'd figure out some other reason to hate them.

News flash, it's 2016, and Microsoft is no longer the most evil or dangerous bigcorp out there. Apple, Google, and Facebook, have all surpassed Microsoft. Can we get back to some actual issues?

I don't think that there's anything more evil than the whole UWP (Universal Windows Platform) plan by 2016 Microsoft. Since UWP comprises W10, Xbox, Mobile and Server, it's basically everything MS is doing right now, can you be more evil than that?

Oh yeah, it doesn't include older windows versions, but perhaps you've heard about the ridiculous push to adopt W10.

Re:Haters gonna hate

[UnknowingFool]

News flash, it's 2016, and Microsoft is no longer the most evil or dangerous bigcorp out there. Apple, Google, and Facebook, have all surpassed Microsoft. Can we get back to some actual issues?

We would like to forget of all the evil that Microsoft does but it keeps reminding us.

can someone explian

[Kkloe]

I dont understand what the android patent(s) has anything to do with open source...

Re:can someone explian

[rastos1]

It raises cost of FOSS from zero to cost of FAT license. And you can't just drop FAT support because it has a monopoly (as in "dominant") position on the market.

Re:can someone explian

[ilguido]

Not to mention the "standard" SDXC that requires the patent encumbered exFAT file system, even though FAT32 would be enough or F2FS would be better. A SDXC compliant device can automatically format your card if it detects a blank card, and if the card is formatted with an unknown file system, including FAT32, can be detected as blank. I'd like to know how much MS, sorry, M$ paid for that standard so convenient to them to be approved.

An interesting premise

[Marginal Coward]

TFA has an interesting but unlikely premise: Microsoft cares about the "trust" of the open source community. Why should they? Isn't the whole idea of open source (with a suitable license) supposed to be that you don't have to trust the originator of the software? For example, open source is often cited as a solution for the problem that the originator goes belly-up. Fine, just maintain it yourself or with the help of the community.

Besides, why should Microsoft care about the "trust" of the people they're giving stuff to? First, it's unlikely they they will ever gain the trust of those who forever view them as The Evil Empire. Second, they've already got the trust (by and large) of their paying customers, much as a male black widow spider trusts the female: trust her, but don't become lunch.

For example, I have a large body of software I've developed over the past 20 years that's written for Microsoft's "MFC." (Seemed like a good idea at the time...) I trust them to keep supporting that (as they have for 20 years), and I also trust that they'll make me buy a new version of Visual Studio every few years when the old one no longer works on modern versions of Windows. (Been there, done that.) That sort of trust is called "business."

Steven always pounds the drum for Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything Microsoft does for Linux is for their own benefit and nothing else. Get a clue Steven, Linux should be thanking Microsoft for even taking the time and doing something for Linux. Which seems pretty much in the same place it was years ago on the desktop. Android has plenty to thank Microsoft for, and how can you blame Microsoft a for profit company for Android patents? They obviously are not bogus or Microsoft would not claim them. Besides, Microsoft is not to blame for them being patent's to begin with. Hey let's not forget how many open source ideals are taken from companies who make huge profits and give little back to the linux communities.

Re:Huh?

[ConceptJunkie]

Microsoft has been threatening Linux with patents for many years. That they are playing hardball with patents against Google is definitely relevant because they could decide to cripple the Linux world by tying it up with patent lawsuits. Even if every one of them were ruled not in Microsoft's favor, they could throw enough money and lawyers at the problem to cripple or destroy any company they wanted to, except other juggernauts like Google, Apple, Samsung, Sony, etc.

So while the Android patents don't directly affect Open Source, they do show that Micosoft could do tremendous amounts of damage to Open Source should it choose.

It's a good sign that MS appears to be trying to play nice with the Open Source world, and to contribute to it as well, but no one can, nor should, forget about the previous 30 years of Microsoft's behavior. They should be earning some good will for these efforts, but there's a long, long way to go before they should earn the trust of the Open Source world, or to even prove that their intention is more than just to put up a screen of "nice" behavior to cover up their more nefarious, ant-competitive practices.

What Microsoft Still needs to do

[simpz]

If Microsoft want Linux people to trust them they have a lot of ground to make up. And they claim they want this for Azure. Here are a few little things:

1/ Stop loading standards committee with your goons, then back genuine open document standards. Thereby showing you embrace openness and want your products to compete on features not just lock-in.

2/ Stop deprecating the few Linux desktop products you have or give them limited functionality (e.g. Skype) . Okay so you are interested in Linux on a server. But your desktop nastiness just makes us all think you aren't sincere on the server either. How about releasing some other Linux desktop products, if you really want to show willing.

3/ Stop being nasty to PC vendors that want to ship OS free or Linux based PC's (increasing price of Windows licenses).

4/ Stop threatening Linux/Android vendors with patents for obvious things e.g. FAT long file names., exFAT which is also pretty straight forward. And make them open standards, they are pretty obvious anyway! That just looks grasping and controlling. Lets face it MS, the only reason you have a patent of any value is you have a Desktop monopoly.

5/ Don't release new Linux products with functionality crippled compared to the Windows versions, and give some commitment to it's long term future.Not giving equivalent functionality (at the same time) makes me think you will move me over to Windows if I need a particular feature. And the lack of commitment makes us old Unix heads remember IE on Solaris and HP-UX which disappeared as soon as you destroyed Netscape in the market. Not forgiven yet for this piece of obvious nasty behaviour. Otherwise people like me who work in corporate IT will not touch Linux SQL Server with a long pole, we only use it now on Windows where we have no choice.

6/ And a little contrition wouldn't hurt, "we know we haven't been fair to this community in the past etc" style. Maybe you'll realise that the whole world will one day not be running Windows!!

Anyone who doesn't get why the above has really annoyed the Linux community, is probably the definition of a MS shill. These changes would benefit Windows users too!

Re:What Microsoft Still needs to do

[simpz]

1/ OOXML: I'm not saying you can't get some level of interop. Not being able to fully use OOXML in anything else is a huge inhibitor to adoption of a competing product. Putting a disclaimer on a product will massively inhibit adoption. The standard is now OOXML, if you don't have support that fully, people will be much less likely to use your product. There is a huge fear with end users of it not working perfectly.

What I'am saying, is that the signal MS is putting out by still not using an fully interoperable file format (by default) is MS doesn't embrace open standards but lock in. This isn't helping their case!

3/ Bundling: It maybe good business, but so is the mob's protection racket! This has been looked badly on by various courts around the world, including the Italian Supreme court that said (from Wikipedia) "a commercial policy of forced distribution" and slammed this practice as "monopolistic in tendency".

Again we are talking message here, this policy that makes free operating systems MORE expensive the commercial ones on the same hardware, just doesn't sit well with people who might value freedom over being abused cause someone thought good business. Well guess what this is now bad business as it makes us want to give MS a wide berth.

4/ FAT patents: Wow. Just Wow. Long file names on FAT, everyone who know this field thinks this technology was obvious. It's a very obvious engineering hack to make long file names on FAT. There were companies doing long filenames on FAT fully compatibly before MS (using a variety of methods, and often more backward compatibly than MS), it's just that MS could make the standard. I'm afraid you are just plain wrong on this one!

Even ignoring the rights and wrongs of software patents. There are companies that like Google that have patents on software, that only use them defensively, not MS they are using them aggressively on rather obvious technologies because they are exploiting their monopoly. Put another way, they are making a ton of cash on a something that probably took comparatively little thought (read R&D expenditure) to come up with.

Re:who says they are bogus

[Rob Y.]

There are plenty of examples of software patents that have been shown to be bogus based on prior art and rubber stamping 'inventions' that are simply not understood well enough by the P.O. employees to evaluate them properly. As a Slashdot reader, I assume you know this.

But even if you allow that some software patents are truly valid, how do you assign a cost to licensing them? Microsoft is currently charging Android device makers as much to license their unspecified patents as they used to charge for their own OS, which implemented those patents - as well as a whole mess of other stuff, including y'know, an OS... These days they don't even charge for their own OS. So how can the courts support charging for someone else's implementation of a patent that has no monetary value? Okay, I guess there's some value to the ability to threaten to keep a competitors products off the shelves, but is that really what patent licensing was supposed to be about?

Re:who says they are bogus

[Megol]

Parents? Assuming you mean _patents_ the whole idea behind them is to get people to _willingly_ disclose an innovation in such a manner that others can implement it, implying a patent holder have to be forced to disclose them is ridiculous!

List of Microsoft's 310 Patent Claims on Android

[Freshly Exhumed]

Microsoft's 310 Patent Claims on Android
Text Dump of an original Chinese Government Document Freely available here:
http://images.mofcom.gov.cn/pe...
Format of this list:
List Example Number Patent Number Patent Application Title

SEPs Generally Implemented by Smartphones
001 5634192 Mobile-Assisted Handoff Technique
002 5982324 Combining GPS With TOA/TD0A Of Cellular Signals To Locate Terminal
003 6058309 Network Directed System Selection for Cellular and Pcs Enhanced Roaming
004 6088578 Burst Request Method and Apparatus for Cdma High Speed Data
005 6091952 Distributed Subscriber Data Management in Wireless Networks from a Central Perspective
006 6223028 Enhanced Method And System For Programming A Mobile Telephone over the Air Within A Mobile Telephone Communication Network
007 6298461 Encoding and Decoding Methods and Apparatus
008 6324515 Method and Apparatus for Asymmetric Communication of Compressed Speech
009 6363251 Network Directed System Selection for Cellular and Pcs Enhanced Roaming
010 6411629 Data Interleaving Method
011 6430174 Communication System Supporting Simultaneous Voice and Multimedia Communications and Method of Operation Therefore
012 6438369 Network Directed System Selection for Cellular and Pcs Enhanced Roaming
013 6549771 Enhanced Method And System For Programming A Mobile Telephone over the Air Within A Mobile Telephone Communication Network
014 6628641 Header Error Detection For Wireless Data Cells
015 6738618 Method and System for Regulating Autonomous Messaging by Subscriber Units in a Wireless Communication Network
016 6880088 Secure Maintenance Messaging In a Digital Communications Network
017 6947483 Method, Apparatus, and System for Managing Data Compression in a Wireless Network
018 6947490 Cellular Radio Communications System
019 7042858 Soft Handoff for OFDM
020 7072336 Communications Using Adaptive Multi-Rate Codecs
021 7082114 System and Method for a Wireless Unit Acquiring a New Internet Protocol Address When Roaming Between Two Subnets
022 7145889 Efficient Frame Retransmission in a Wireless Communication Environment
023 7228133 Mobile IP Mobile Node Device and Access Information
024 7317680 Channel Mapping for OFDM
025 7436834 Efficient Frame Retransmission in a Wireless Communication Environment
026 7440433 Mobile IP Notification
027 7486735 Sub-Carrier Allocation For OFDM
028 7545766 Method for Mobile Node-foreign Agent Challenge Optimization
029 7646710 Mobility in a Multi-Access Communication Network
030 8046000 Providing Location-Based Information in Local Wireless Zones
031 8264996 Signalling Channel and Radio System for Power Saving in Wireless Devices
032 6298463 Parallel Concatenated Convolutional Coding
033 6782422 Systems and Methods for Resynchronization and Notification in Response to Network Media Events
034 7016705 Reducing Power Consumption in a Networked Battery-Operated Device Using Sensors
035 7089415 Authentication Methods and Systems for Accessing Networks, Authentication Methods and Systems for Accessing the Internet
036 7099689 Energy-Aware Communications for a Multi-Radio System
037 7110783 Power Efficient Channel Scheduling in a Wireles Network
038 7142855 Power Efficient Channel Scheduling in a Wireles Network
039 7187660 System and Method for Continuously Provisioning a Mobile Device
040 7203463 Power Efficient Channel Scheduling in a Wireles Network
041 7209740 Power Efficient Channel Scheduling in a Wireles Network
042 7230933 Reducing Idle Power Consumption in a Networked Battery Operated Device
043 7245936 Power Efficient Channel Scheduling in a Wireles Network
044 7284062 Increasing The Level of Automation When Provisioning A Computer System to Access A Network
045 7295522 System and Method for Continuously Provisioning a Mobile Device
046 7376122 System and Method for Link Quality Source Routing
047 7433936 C