Microsoft's Patent Pledge "Worse Than Useless"

munchola writes "The Software Freedom Law Center has declared that Microsoft's patent pledge to open source developers is 'worse than useless'. SFLC chief technology officer, Bradley Kuhn, has written to FOSS developers warning them that 'developers are no safer from Microsoft patents now than they were before'. According to Kuhn: 'The patent covenant only applies to software that you develop at home and keep for yourself; the promises don't extend to others when you distribute. You cannot pass the rights to your downstream recipients, even to the maintainers of larger projects on which your contribution is built.'"

Well....

Did you expected a different result?

Re:No kidding

Business and hippies don't mix. It's like oil and water.

The point is, open source people _aren't_ hippies. They've been running successful businesses for years now. But microsoft wants them to be hippies, wants the world to believe them to be - and now, is trying to make them be, using software patent monopolies to shut down open source businesses. The message is "if you're a hippie hobbyist coder, we won't sue you. But dare to build a business, and we will". Remember, patent and copyright monopolies DESTROY free market capitalism. Microsoft, like most large software corporations, are absolutely terrified of a true free market in software.

"hippy and communist" are just wrong when applied to free software folk: "Raging gun-nut libertarian" is far more accurate. Microsoft are playing with fire.

Re:No kidding

"Remember, patent and copyright monopolies DESTROY free market capitalism. Microsoft, like most large software corporations, are absolutely terrified of a true free market in software."

Bingo. A point I have been trying to make for what seems like ages.

There are no free markets when it comes to goods protected by copyrights or patents. With copyleft you can perhaps get close to a free market in those goods.

all the best,

drew
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/262954 [ourmedia.org]
Sayings - Deterred Bahamian Novel

Surprised?

I doubt anyone here is actually surprised by this. Since when has Microsoft ever done anything truly for the good of OSS?

Re:Surprised?

Unfortunately, a whole lot of people have been writing code and assigning copyright over to Novell, which is now basically no better than writing and assigning copyright over to Microsoft...

But if Novell released said code under the GPL, then the genie is out of the bottle. Stick with the code that pre-dates the agreement between MS and Novell, and I think you're okay.

Oh, and stop contributing code to Novell.

Re:Surprised?

I doubt anyone here is actually surprised by this. Since when has Microsoft ever done anything truly for the good of OSS?

They created ME and Vista. I would consider the users that left Windows because of ME or the ones who might leave because of Vista, something truly good for OSS.

Because we all know...

Because we all know how Microsoft treats those it writes contracts with... I seriously have to wonder why Novel thought that was a good idea. Are they so lacking in cash that they felt it was worth dealing with Bill G.?

duh.

duh. in fact, double duh. because if microsoft can make money by making up patents for things everyone uses and sneaking it by our USPO, they will.

Boycott Novell

http://edu-nix.org/shanecoyle/?p=8 [edu-nix.org] / www.boycottnovell.com

Re:Boycott Novell

This is some amazing shit. No one has any idea what the ramifications, if ANY are going to be from this deal and everyone is so quick to run and lynch a company who has dedicated millions of lines of code to open source projects that they make zero dollars from. This is the same Novell who along with IBM took a stand AGAINST SCO and cost those bastards millions in legal fees. This is the same Novell who is activly sueing M$ for patent violations in the MSOffice product. Shane, how many lines of code have you contributed to any open source projects? What have you done for the community that can come close to comparing to even a little of what Novell has done for Linux in the last few years. Is it really so boring up there in New York that you have nothing better to do other than sit around and stew about some shit that none of us will probably ever even be affected by? All of you armchair lawyers need to STFU and wait until something bad actually happens to the community before you start trying to crucify a fairly benevolent company, relatively speaking, who dedicates themselves daily to the Linux community. WHEN/IF something like that does happen I will be more than happy to join in the ripping of Novell's spine from their body and showing it to them, but until then can we please move on?

Ok...

Now, people who keep tagging every article "itsatrap" This would be a proper usage of that tag.

DUH

...and snow is white and Tom Cruise is a closeted homosexual. Tell us something we don't know.

Not the Novell Deal

Note, this article is not talking about the deal with Novell as almost every post thus far has assumed. It mentions that deal, as something still being researched. This is about MS's recent promise/contract to not sue hobbyists for patent violations.

Re:Not the Novell Deal

"The patent covenant only applies to software that you develop at home and keep for yourself;"

Meaning the stuff they would never know about to sue for in the first place. Gee they won't sue you for stuff they don't know you did, how generous ;)

Ya' know...

I'm starting to think Microoft might not have my best interest at heart?

Enough

This is getting worse than Zune news.

No one writing about this knows any more of the details than what was released to the press. At best all of this is blind supposition and wasted mental bandwidth.

If all of the effort that went into these various prognostications of impending doom had been spent on coding we'd all be a lot better off.

Re:Enough

This is getting worse than Zune news. No one writing about this knows any more of the details than what was released to the press.

I know it is not normal to RTFA, but if you did you'd see it was a press release about the license MS released with regard to their promise not to sue open source hobbyists over patent violations. It is not about the Novell deal, despite the fact that every comment thus far (except my previous one) seems to be assuming otherwise. So people do know more than was published in the press release, just not about what you seem to have thought this article was about.

There's already a (correct) way to open a patent.

It's called 'dedicating' it. No restrictions.

It shows people people that your patent was only filed to prevent other people from patenting the idea and causing trouble. People tend to look very favorably on dedications.

For isolated, uncompensated, unimportant developer

From the Bradley M. Kuhn's Letter [softwarefreedom.org]:

Microsoft has used this patent pledge to indicate that, in their view, the only good Free Software developer is an isolated, uncompensated, unimportant Free Software developer.

Groklaw also raised questions about Novell's deal [groklaw.net]:

Novell here is stepping outside the line of fire and agreeing with Microsoft that *end users* are the ones that you must go after in any patent infringement dispute. Shades of SCOsource. Thanks for nothing, Novell. More questions: When were Novell SUSE customers asked if they wished Novell to negotiate a agreement with Microsoft on their behalf? When were Novell SUSE customers asked about the terms of said agreement? What consideration does Microsoft get from Novell's customers? Does negotiating this agreement on Novell's customers' behalf indicate that Novell assumed Power of Attorney for their customers in this matter? Did Novell truly represent the best interest of their customers using Power of Attorney? Can Novell legally assume Power of Attorney for their customers without a written grant? Do Novell customers have the ability to "opt-out" of this agreement? Is this agreement binding on customers?

Something of intrest and my $0.02

I found that this blog [technet.com] was kind of interesting in the sense that it clears up a bunch of things that people are worried about. However, I think that at the same time, there are a lot of people going 'where the heck is the PROOF of the patients!?' I'd like to have SM give some of the patients that they claim are being infringed upon and then I might be willing to loosen up on the whole idea. At the same time however, I think that there is something that people have to realize, and that is, like it or not, there is going to be some changes in Novell, and I know that people are going to think that that would then mean that they are in Microsoft's pocket, there is nothing that can really support that as of now. I am going to take this whole thing with an open mind and at the same time, a dash of skepticism and a hint of hope that it is going to be different than before with other companies.

huge number of patents

here's some other information on MS patents http://www.s5h.net/linux_news_reader_article_5505. html [s5h.net]. MS seem to be getting patents in huge swarms right now. it's quite sickening. i think there should be new ammendments to prevent ms from applying for more patents. they are taking the piss, literally.

Itsatrap AGAIN?!

Can we mod down tags? This is getting ridiculous.

Patent Pledge for Hobbyist Contributors missing?

I, too, have been reading through the pledges at the Microsoft website, to figure out the exact wording and implications.

The "Microsoft's Patent Pledge for Non-Compensated Developers" is indeed rather useless, because it only covers creation and local use, and specifically excludes distribution.

The "Microsoft's Patent Pledge for Individual Contributors to openSUSE.org" is also not interesting, since it covers the transfer of code from an author to SUSE, and only that and nothing else.

The "Microsoft's Patent Pledge for Hobbyist Contributors" is referenced from the above one. This should be the one that is covering the community distribution part. But is missing on the Microsoft website: Either it doesn't exist at all and the reference is a mistake, or there is a reason why it was left out from the web.

Has anyone managed to find it? Why Bradley Kuhn doesn't mention it?

One question comes to mind,

Is there a leper colony available to send bad/sick/naughty Linux companies to?

People need to vote with their pocketbook and put Novell out of business, ASAFP.

By what right...

...does Microsoft determine if YOU are allowed to code at home/bedroom/cellar/tent/train ~ whatever and decide that what you code is theirs to make a judgement on and assume ownership?

What terrible arrogance.

So...

This seems rather much ado about nothing, from my uneducated glances over the wording.

Basically, this agreement is saying that Microsoft won't wield patents against those contributing software to OpenSuSE until after the Microsoft-Novell deal runs out or you try to wield patents against MS themselves.

But, really, what was the situation before? Either you wrote software that DIDN'T violate MS patents, or you DID and just hoped like hell that they wouldn't use their patents to sue you. There is a false sense of security in violating MS patents because there is a perceived "MAD" policy of MS's patent farms versus IBM/Novell/etc.'s patents, but, realistically, there's no saying they'd come to your rescue if you contributed something to an open source project.

So really, how does this change the strategy of contributing to linux through open source projects or the kernel itself? Either don't violate patents or hope they won't wield them against you. Either route you choose hasn't been closed by this agreement between Microsoft and Novell.

Trying to trap people into getting sued

If M$ wanted to help, they would deregister the patents. You will get sued, period.

I've said it befoe and I'll say it again

Please name one company, group, organization, or institution which has partnered with Microsoft which did not end up getting screwed. Among the losers, IBM, Stac and Sybase come immediately to mind.

This is why software patents are stupid

According to Kuhn: 'The patent covenant only applies to software that you develop at home and keep for yourself; the promises don't extend to others when you distribute.

You know, I can build anything damn thing I want to with my Craftsman tool set and sell it. Sears has never had to promise that they won't sue me. I can even build, sell, and distribute competing products as long as its done under a different brand name.

Microsoft seems to be forgetting all those nice shareware programs built for Windows that added value to the platform (Paintshop, Pkzip, TextPad etc). I wonder if those applications would have been written if the Programmers thought they were going be sued by distributing them.

Enjoy,

Hmmm, why do this now?

Why now, at this point in time are Linux developers being threatened in this way? Why not last year? Why not two, five years ago?

I reckon they are terrified about Vista... They're terrified it'll be a dead loss with millions jumping ship to Linux. They're trying to fence of Linux from their ex-customers in advance of it's release.

 

Has Microsoft Ever Sued Someone Over a Patent?

I know MS lawyers have claimed that Microsoft has never sued someone over Patent infringement unless it was a counter suit. In other words, I believe it is MS policy to use patents as a defense. The only reason they even need to use it as a defense is they are a huge target due to their large bank accounts. This is not to say they don't license patents if someone wishes to license them, and it's not to say their policy will never change. In fact Bill Gates however has spoken out for patent reform to reduce the patent trolling. While MS certainly seems to love the DMCA and Copyright law, I don't believe they love patents as much as everyone seems to think they do.

No Suit Promised where No Suit Possible

My understanding is that private use of software isn't considered a cause of action for a patent suit.

Even if it was legally possible, how is MS going to find out about me violating their retroactive patent on sudo (oops, loose lips!) in order to sue me, if I'm not allowed to distribute the result?

For somebody who claims that it is possible to sue someone for private use, can you point me to a case where such a case was successfully prosecuted?

I'm still not sure this Novell/M$ deal is bad

I'm still not sure why people are scared about this Novell/M$ deal. I'm a nub to the Linux (SuSe) community and I'm excited about this deal. A lot of end users like M$ products and this will make it easier for IT to give them what they want from a Linux back end. If M$ then sues said IT for using compatibality software to allow MS/Linux integration, said IT will then just return to previously used Open Source solutions/applications. M$ would be shooting theselves in the foot by said lawsuit and only causing a slight burdon to the IT community. I haven't quite "connected the dots" in how M$ will then own the SuSe version of Linux, or any other distro. Help me to understand why I should be scared of this deal. Thanks

Do I have this right?

It seems to me that what their "pledge" is saying is that if I develop any software on a Novell system and distribute it (by giving it away or selling it), Microsoft will prosecute me. My only defense is to make sure that I haven't had access to any Microsoft stuff. So obviously I should just refuse to develop anything on a Novell system. I should just stick to systems for which the OS and libraries are all GPL'd.

Is this the basic import of this story?

If so, it seems that Novell has just signed their own death warrant.

In any case, until I get a reliable (i.e., from a knowledgeable lawyer), I probably won't be using anything from Novell in the future.

Sorry, I'm excited about this M$ Novell deal

Qualifier: I work for a company that has dealings with Novell. However, I'm near the bottom, so it's not like Novell going completely under would kill me or anything. My company could eventually migrate away from SuSe Linux without "too" much pain.

Now, that being said, let me get to the point (and please don't mod this as flame bait because I'm just trying to give my honest opinion.

I'm excited about this Novell/M$ deal. I'm excited about it because it will allow IT departments to give their end users the M$ applications (most office drones do like them) they want. Now, lets get down to this lawsuit business. Hypothetically, lets pretend M$ decides to sue a company for coupleing their applications with a non-Suse distro if Linux. They could manage to squeeze all the money from their bank account (sorry guys/coal mine canaries). This however would never go unnoticed by the business world. It would trigger every company running M$ applications on a non-SuSe back ends to dump their M$ applications an revert to their old OSS applications (if they're running Linux backend, they probably ran a Linux front end at one time). This would be a painful switch, but not the end of the world for them.

M$ is trying to get the Linux community to adopt their applications. We're obviously not going to touch their OS. The money they get from that first lawsuit would never equil the revenue they receive from the expanding Linux community using their applications. It would be very "penny-wise pound-foolish" to choose the money from that one lawsuit over continued revenue in application sales (and it would not take more then one or two of these lawsuits to scare every IT department away from M$ applications forever).

So, here's to a brand new day. Lets drink to not being the first company eaten by the M$ wolf.

"I don't have to outrun the troll, I just have to outrun you"

Evil on one side, evil on the other

Instead, Microsoft has used this patent pledge to indicate that, in their view, the only good Free Software developer is an isolated, uncompensated, unimportant Free Software developer.

This from the man who believes [omnipotent.net] that the GPL is the only FOSS license with the right to exist.

Mr. Kuhn, you are every bit as much a part of the problem as Microsoft are themselves. In fact, you are moreso. At least Microsoft do not try and pretend to be anything other than what they are. You are not one micron less a fascist...merely from a different direction.

You can take your warped, cultic distortion of the word "freedom," and cram it where you feel most appropriate. You and Richard Stallman are open source's answer to David Miscavige and L. Ron. Hubbard, respectively. You are the proverbial scorpion on Linux's back.

Some who use Linux with the total inability to think for themselves may delude themselves that they need to use your brain and Stallman's in leiu of their own. I am not among such people, and I defy, reject, and repudiate both you, Stallman, and the entirely *false* freedom which the FSF stands for. You would have us reject Microsoft as our masters, only to install yourselves in their place.

You do not speak for everyone who uses open source. You most certainly do not speak for me.

Re:Patents don't protect that anyway - wrong

No. US Patent Law does not make any such distinction or exception for private home use. You can be infringing if you mass produce 100 billion copies to sell, or if you just "practice" the art in the privacy of you own home. Granted, the likelihood of any bad consequences for infringing (or even anyone finding out you're infringing) are not at all equal.

But I think this commonly held misconception might be one reason why the general public sees nothing wrong with patents...they think it only applies if you're trying to make money off the idea or running a company, e.g., it doesn't apply to them so why care. But a patent is an absolute abridgment of freedom, and really has nothing to do with money or intent at all, nor does it have anything to do with stealing (like copyright or trade secrets) as you can unknowingly infringe even if you thought up the idea all by yourself. Of course any legal remidies, actions, rewards, etc may be based on money and scale, but not the determination if you're guilty of infringement or not.

IANAL applies, but I have read through the US Law as best as I could understand it. If somebody more knowing than me knows something else, please be kind and point out exactly where in the law such distrinction is made because I can't find it.