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Microsoft Taking Heat For Patent Stance
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Nov 21, 2006 08:07 PM
from the what-balance-sheet-liability? dept.
from the what-balance-sheet-liability? dept.
Yesterday Novell released a statement disavowing Steve Ballmer's claim that Linux infringes Microsoft's IP. Linux-watch.com reports that Microsoft quickly responded with a statement of its own that softened, but did not entirely back away from, Ballmer's claim (but the article offers no link to such a statement).
xtaski writes, "Everyone took notice when Ballmer spewed forth FUD about Microsoft and Linux IP. Now CIOs are asking just what did Ballmer think he was doing? They are not fooled — but rather, a little angry. ComputerWorld covers the news including one CIO who says 'There were some applications I had been thinking about moving to a Microsoft platform, but this has now totally alienated me from Microsoft.'"
And an anonymous reader points us to the statement by the Open Invention Network — whose investors include IBM, Novell, Sony, Red Hat, Philips and NEC — on the Microsoft-Novell agreement. From the statement: "OIN continues to support the Linux community's ability to collaborate and innovate. Through the accumulation of patents that may be used to shield the Linux environment, including users of Linux software, OIN has obviated the need for offers of protection from others."
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Ballmer Says Linux "Infringes Our Intellectual Property" 820 comments
Stony Stevenson writes "In comments confirming the open-source community's suspicions, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Thursday declared his belief that the Linux operating system infringes on Microsoft's intellectual property." From the ComputerWorld article: "In a question-and-answer session after his keynote speech at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) conference in Seattle, Ballmer said Microsoft was motivated to sign a deal with SUSE Linux distributor Novell earlier this month because Linux 'uses our intellectual property' and Microsoft wanted to 'get the appropriate economic return for our shareholders from our innovation.'" His exact wording is available at the Seattle Intelligencer, which has a transcript of the interview. Groklaw had an article up Wednesday giving some perspective on the Novell/Microsoft deal. Guess we'll have something to talk about in 2007, huh?
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Are they feeling pressure? (Score:5, Interesting)
Kinda reminds me of communist Russia and their fences and guns keeping their people from leaving the country.
http://www.windows-admin-tools.com [windows-admin-tools.com]
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
In SOVIET RUSSIA, coutry abandons YOU!
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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Additionally, if these statements could be shown to be d
Re:Are they feeling pressure? (Score:4, Insightful)
Something Just dawned on me regarding GPL mk III. Lets say it got into the kernel.... And microsoft are busy distributing SuSe Linux.... Wouldn't that mean that by implication Microsoft disclaim the right to sue over Patents hypothetically violated by linux? Or hell, is that already covered in version II?
The implication of III "fixing" that would be that yet again whilst everyone is throwing rocks at our communitys favorite beardo, said beardo has yet again got it right.
viva liberation!
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Are they feeling pressure? (Score:4, Interesting)
"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete stand-still today. The solution
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Re:Are they feeling pressure? (Score:5, Insightful)
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anticompetitive, barriers to entry (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, that's not all they are: they are also barriers to entry, because small, commercial, closed-source competitors find it hard to enter a market in this situation. That's not what the patent system was supposed to do. And, sooner or later, it may lead to some serious scrutiny by the DOJ.
Nevertheless, it may work to the advantage of open source, since it means that new software companies may find it advantageous to figure out open source models for software that they would otherwise have released under a proprietary license.
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Re:anticompetitive, barriers to entry (Score:4, Informative)
That's the common view, and it's wrong
However, if your software uses some patented algorithm (yes, I know, that's a hideous turn of phrase) then odds are you'd never risk releasing the source, so you could probably infringe forever and nobody would ever know.
If the algorithm is important and difficult to work around, then the patent holder will know even if you ship just binaries, and they can and will compel you to produce source code. In addition, your behavior will likely be interpreted as willful infringement, exposing you to extra damages.
That is really the greatest threat to open source software from software patents: the fact that it is substantially easier to determine if an open source package is infringing. In a litigious environment, it's easy to say, "why take the risk?"
That's pure FUD (do you work for Microsoft?). Open source has been around for several decades, and I'm not aware of any serious consequences for end users from patent infringement by FOSS. First of all, for the very reasons you mention--people know they are being scrutinized--patent infringement by FOSS is rare, and when it does, people simply remove the offending code.
You're far more at risk with closed source software--infringement seems to be far more frequent, lawsuits happen often and with serious consequences, and whether you as the customer are directly liable for infringement or not, you will often still face substantial costs if your vendor is found guilty.
So far as DOJ scrutiny is concerned, does anyone know if the DOJ has ever charged a large corporation with an antitrust violation for using a patent portfolio to suppress competition, given that that is the intended function of patents?
There is ample precedent for the government interfering in how companies license patents. But what's at issue here is not the exclusionary nature of patents in general, it's the inequitable way in which it is being used: companies who cross-license the entire portfolio have no costs, while newcomers to the market may not be able to enter at all.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Here is a related question.
Are all of the patents in that Free Software protection pool from companies who have their entire portfolio cross-licensed with MS and others who would harm Free Software? Especially of the copyleft sort...
all the best,
drew
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The simple fact of the matter is that Microsoft HAS used their portfolio to intimidate the little guy producing free products, there is no reason to believe that they will not flex their muscles to enforce their monopoly.
(insert a "f-bomb Microsoft" here)
Re:Are they feeling pressure? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can hardly argue that's Microsoft flexing their legal muscles. That would be about as threatening as the guy who cleans the floors at Harvard telling a student that if he cheats on his paper, Academic Affairs is going to expel him.
Now, there may be OTHER times when they have done so, but that's not one of them.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You picked a poor comparison. IBM's foolish actions in the 80's included some epic IP blunders. In fact, those blunders are a large part of the reason Microsoft has its dominant market position today. Further, a lot of IBM's patents are obselete or irrelevant. And there's no action that IBM can undertake that would remove a legal threat from Microsoft in seven days. I'll admit that I don't see any true Microsoft legal action going anywhere, but this sort of train wreck would take more than seven days to go
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
While all my knowledge of balmer is superficial, he just scares me.
Well, he is the only CEO of a major company who is also a potty-mouthed chair-throwing monkey dancer who threatens to kill his business opponents.
Other than that, he might be mostly harmless.
On a more serious vein: isn't it about time for the Microsoft Corporation to evaluate whether their current CEO might be a hindrance to continued profitability, rather than some kind of weird unmeasurable asset?
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The deal is supposed to be about interoperability. Microsoft has a couple of standards that they would like to see adopted wider.
It'll never happen (Score:5, Insightful)
The Windows vs Linux battle is a perfect example of mutually assured destruction.
Nobody will win if the lawsuits start flying back and forth. It wouldn't even be good for business.
If MS really thinks there are patent issues, then MS should either try to work out cross licensing deals that benefit or have the offending IP removed. Anything else is just FUD.
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If MS really thinks there are patent issues, then MS should either try to work out cross licensing deals that benefit or have the offending IP removed. Anything else is just FUD.
First, Microsoft has "invented" nothing we use today. Have they?
I would suspect, even a California judge would have to find in Linux and FOSS favor with regards to patents. Take for example the tabbed Firefox browser with a close button on the top right? How long do you think it will be before Microsoft files a patent on it, t
Re:It'll never happen (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:IBM power -5 overrated (Score:4, Insightful)
So SCO is doing a rather prolonged FUD campaign, but with little hope of getting any money out of IBM. At the same time, they might have to pay IBM more damages than they can afford. I'm starting to believe what many people on Groklaw said:
SCO is doing the anti-linux propaganda for M$, not acting in its own best interests as company.
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Backing away from the agreement? (Score:3, Interesting)
wow... (Score:4, Funny)
Linux throwing chairs (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft has a problem enforcing their patents. (Score:5, Interesting)
Any plaintiff has a duty to mitigate damages. A plaintiff who does not mitigate damages is coming to the court with unclean hands. Microsoft also has the problem that it is convicted on antitrust charges.
If Microsoft wanted to sue someone for violating one of its patents by using Linux, it should have done so a long time ago. All it has now is the weapon of every bully; intimidation.
On a side note, every time I have heard a company talk about monetizing its IP, it has nothing left. SCO is the classic case of that.
Emotionalism (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Who says it's emotional?
You can look at the "benefit" that is being reaped from this deal with Microsoft and say: "Do I really want my company to be assosciated with these guys? Can I trust them?"
Of course a decent CIO should know that you can't trust Microsoft at all. this should be obvious from all the charred, burned-out corpses of former Microsoft "partners" littering the IT landsc
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Allow me to fix this for your...
He's not looking at the platform on its technical merits but at the threat of litigation posed by someone who's job is to administer the fortune of the largest software company on Earth.Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
WTF???
You, sir, are confusing the role of the Chief Executive Officer with that of a dispensible shill.
CEOs should be rarely seen, and heard even less often. Any CIO should seriously question the stability of a possible vendor when that vendor's CEO is acting out of character. It raises serious questions about whether the vendor is making sound strategic decisions, and will be able to support its product throughout its expected service life.
Re:Emotionalism (Score:5, Insightful)
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CIO's response is logical (Score:5, Interesting)
Since most companies that use Linux typically have at least some Windows machines, Microsoft's perceived threat to either sue or enforce licenses for all Linux users was highly alienating and rather disrespectful of their customer base. 'What was he thinking' is right. A smart company woudn't form a half Billion dollar agreement then tell the target client base of the agreement that they're gonna be sued
Re:CIO's response is logical (Score:5, Insightful)
In theory... but in theory, Microsoft could patent swinging sideways on a tire swing and start suing kids on playgrounds. And kindergarden teachers can deny the validity of that statement, but it will be a matter for the courts to decide at some point.
Balmer is posturing. Microsoft's lawyers have assuredly already told the big hothead that there is slim to none chance that Microsoft could possibly win any such lawsuit. Why do we know that? Because they haven't sued anybody.
If MS thought it could have won such a lawsuit, it would have sued years ago, before or during the height of the SCO fiasco, when the public's perception that Linux might contain compromising intellectual property was strongest. They didn't, though, for all of their talk and FUD and veiled threats.
Think of what a successful MS lawsuit would have done to Linux market penetration, too. Even an unsuccessful, or settled lawsuit that dragged on long enough, would have sent CIOs and execs running scared from Linux... Right into the arms of Windows.
Even Balmer listens to his lawyers.
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Re:CIO's response is logical (Score:5, Interesting)
The primary reason that didn't and won't happen is that one of the backers of Linux also happens to be the largest patent holder in the entire software sector (IBM). If Microsoft wants to bring a handful of patents to the war, IBM can roll out the machine guns. I guarantee you Microsoft and most other companies are infringing on one IBM patent or another.
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To hell with them both. (Score:5, Interesting)
Several days ago I had to submit a report to management regarding these proposed transitions. Put simply, I had to recommend against the use of the offerings from Novell and Microsoft. I don't feel that these companies are worth dealing with. Instead of putting money towards the development and improvement of their products, they've gotten themselves involved in this stupid deal. I'm sure a number of contract lawyers made quite a bit off of this arrangement. And for us, we don't need the uncertainty this deal brings.
I had to recommend that we migrate much of our corporate network to FreeBSD, with Solaris or Debian Linux being my second choices. Thankfully, we write most of our Windows software in-house using wxWidgets for the GUI and PostgreSQL as the relational database of choice, so the transition should go fairly well.
Threats and FUD can intimidate: Steve lip-farts (Score:5, Funny)
Eben Moglen on the Novell-Microsoft deal and GPLv3 (Score:5, Informative)
Prof. Eben Moglen says that GPLv3 will prevent a user's loss of freedom [theregister.co.uk] in light of the details of the Novell-Microsoft deal. He also takes the open source movement's lack of focus on user's freedom to task by ignoring "the politics" of the situation, leaving it ripe for being moved closer to what proprietors want.
This is only logical (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that when it comes to patents, everyone, including the USPTO is looking at them more skeptically. Look at what the final outcome of this could or should be; MS looks better than before the situation, or MS gains credit with people who pay real money for MS products. MS currently doesn't have too many worries about home users switching to Linux. Its businesses and governments and educational institutions that MS has to keep on board the MS wagon. By acting open, or F/OSS friendly, they get to keep customers that were wavering... that can be billions of dollars per year. By actually pulling this off, they do more than keep money, they harm their competition in terms of market share. Every battle is not won simply on brute force, but often on preventing such force from being brought to bear against you.
The trouble here is that nobody on
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The USPTO is running as fast as they can, in an attempt to keep up with the stream of incoming patent applications.
The USPTO has neither the time, nor the manpower to do a good job of "looking at them more skeptically".
God help them if they actually had to go back and do a review in order try and catch all the 'bad' patents that they've approved.
Somebody call SCO... (Score:5, Funny)
This is part of Microsoft's DNA (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft did this to Netscape. They tried to kill Apple years ago and only let Apple survive to prove that they were not monopolists. They funded SCO through a back door third company in their lawsuit against Linux. Now that that has failed, Microsoft is going directly against Linux. In the meantime, very little innovation has been realized from the massive profits that the company generates. Contrast with Apple. They first popularized the GUI. The 3.5 inch floppy. SCSI. PDA (Newton). Built-in networking. Hyperlinking. MP3 player with integrated software on the computer/synchronization paradigm. And they've translated their entire operating system and hardware line into a new technical architecture in less than half the time Microsoft has needed to upgrade their piss poor OS to a newer resource hogging OS with few significantly newer features.
What is so funny is that Microsoft coming out with the Zune! They see Apple with a big new music market. Microsoft wants a piece of this action! And they are going to fail, because Apple has a huge ecosystem of hardware, software, accessories, and ever car makers putting iPod interfaces in! Did you see that even the airlines are working on iPod interfaces for power, audio, and video in their airplanes?! Hahaha to Microsoft - Apple is doing the same thing to Microsoft that Microsoft has done to them in the PC OS! And I'm glad!
So I'm not usually highly emotional about these things, but Microsoft is scum! Microsoft - up yours!
Microsoft's patent bluff (Score:4, Insightful)
Furthermore, FOSS developers try hard to avoid infringing on people's patents, and Microsoft's patents are scrutinized, so the number of infringing software packages is likely small. In the few cases where Microsoft might have a valid patent claim against a piece of FOSS and could actually identify someone to sue, it would be hard for them to be able to claim willful infringement or get any real damages, and the infringing code would be removed instantaneously, making the case fall apart.
If Microsoft actually believes they have IP that's being violated, they should stop bluffing and start asserting it in court. That way, they can get what they deserve, and they create certainty for everybody else. Of course, certainty is the last thing they want.
We need counter FUD (Score:5, Funny)
According to the Vista EULA, if you develop code on the Vista platform, MS can claim IP rights to that code.
Is that true?
Dunno... It's just what some lawyer friend told me...
Clarification about Who Owns Linux (Score:5, Funny)
Who Owns Linux?
Linux is not owned by anyone. One misconception many first-time Linux.com readers have is that this site, Linux.com, is similar to Microsoft.com, which is owned and controlled by the company that produces the Windows operating system.
Not so!
No one company or individual "owns" Linux, which was developed, and is still being improved, by thousands of corporate-supported and volunteer programmers all over the world. Not even Linus Torvalds, who started the Linux ball rolling in 1991, "owns" Linux.
(However, the trademark "Linux" is owned by Linus Torvalds, so if you call something "Linux" it had better be Linux, not something else.)
I still don't understand why Novell and Microsoft are swapping millions of dollars back and forth and how it relates to Ballmer's IP claims, but as long as apt-get doesn't start asking me for license codes I'm happy.
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I still don't understand why Novell and Microsoft are swapping millions of dollars back and forth and how it relates to Ballmer's IP claims, but as long as apt-get doesn't start asking me for license codes I'm happy.
Actually it would be quite handy if apt-get did ask for license codes.. for proprietary software. It could even offer option to buy software or install trial version. It would be handy if one could just add 'proprietary' or 'commercial' to sources.list after 'contrib' and 'non-free', no need
Re:Clarification about Who Owns Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
This is correct. In the past, Microsoft has tried to define Linux as Red Hat, and failed for this reason. The whole point of this patent deal (at least from Microsoft's POV) is to narrow the definition of Linux. If successful, the deal would separate Linux into legal and illegal groups of Microsoft's choosing. If Linux can be limited to a few corporate entities, then it becomes much easier to turn on those limited number of groups and exterminate, or reign in, Linux.
I don't think that Microsoft wants to completely exterminate Linux at this point. Linux is a highly visible competitor that Microsoft can use in defense of Monopoly claims. However, Microsoft can't keep it under their thumb with such a broad definition.
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Re:There's no doubt that Linux violates patents (Score:4, Interesting)
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I'm sorry, but I consider that to be a bit of a bogus argument.
If you don't intend to sue, or protect your IP, then it's just FUD. And
Re:Patents (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope, that only applies to trademarks - defend them or lose them.
Patents and copyrights you can selectively enforce. Patent trolls frequently do this, going after the easily intimidated companies first to build up a warchest before tackling someone who is more likely to fight back. There are some limitations on damages if you can be shown to have known about the infringement for a while before suing, but that in no way invalidates the patent.
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Re:Obviated (Score:5, Interesting)
To anticipate and dispose of effectively; render unnecessary.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/obviated [reference.com]
They're saying that the companies supporting Linux have enough of a patent library that should MS try to go after Linux, Microsoft will find itself in hot water.
Who, exactly, is the high school dropout?
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:By the same token... (Score:5, Informative)
False. This is actually a little bit of M$ FUD which you have somehow bought into. If Microsoft was found to have infringing GPL code in Windows, one option would be to GPL all of Windows. The other, more likely option, would be to simply remove the offending code. The exact same think any open source project would do if it was found to have infringing code found in it.
The idea that companies need to be afraid of having their closed source application forced open because some GPL code slipped in is one of the FUD meme's the Microsoft throws around to try and limit open source adoption. The reality is that the only companies that get screwed by the GPL are the ones who insist on trying to distribute GPL binaries without source knowingly even after they've been asked not to.
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