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?
Sorry. That was me. I also added the module that executes arbitrary code downloaded by a network application, and the code that requires root access for trivial applications. Did I do something wrong?
I am forwarding my old SuSE 8.1 Pro CDs & DVD to you, along with appropriate instruction on where you can put them (including facilitation of the process with a sharpened poker.)
Alright, enough joking. Enough of the Balmer, chair and DRM jokes. It's time for industry leaders such as IBM, Intel and other supporters of F/OSS to step up to the plate and take action against these claims. Also, I haven't heard nothing from the likes of Linus and RMS. Where are they hiding?
Who merged the Linux Genuine Advantage code into the tree?
Come on, speak up - I know it was one of you.
Funny, but the wrong thing to ask.
The right thing to ask is how much open and public domain source made it to Windows? Was not Linux preemptive multitasking before Windows, POP3, SMTP/sendmail, DNS/BIND, Kerberos, telnet, ftp, http, ssl, TCP/IP itself, and probably more. At least in concept everything in Windows even windows itself is borrowed from other peoples works. Windows itself is an extrapolation of other people's prior works at best.
Is it just me or does it sound like MS is going to charge a per seat charge for some enhanced ability to connect from a Windows machine to Linux servers? Or is it just straight blackmail for exemption for future litigation? Or both? I can't tell.
Actually, Microsoft's plan is even stupider than that. Microsoft wants to charge a per seat license for Linux users, but they aren't really offering enhanced interoperability. Novell and Red Hat are both going to include the same software. It's not like Novell is going to have its own version of Samba, for instance. The primary difference is that Novell customers are going to be able to "sleep easy" because Novell is paying Microsoft so that Microsoft won't sue Novell's Linux customers.
Microsoft isn't going to sue Red Hat's customers either, but that's only because suing Red Hat customers would be ridiculously foolish. At its heart the real issue is that Microsoft has such a poor relationship with its customers that many customers are worried that Microsoft will drag them into patent court. These customers are willing to pay money, not for any sort of patent license, but for a short term commitment from Microsoft that they won't be sued.
Next thing you know Microsoft execs will be brutalizing school kids for their lunch money.
The truly ironic bit is that Microsoft is not going to sue anyone over patents. Microsoft execs know that if they did this the various organizations that have a stake in the success of Linux (which is essentially everyone but Microsoft) would pay for a well-funded defense. Millions of dollars would be spent, and in the end the patents in question would either be shot down or removed from the Free Software product in question. Depending on who Microsoft chose to attack it could even trigger retaliation from other large players with huge patent repositories. What's more, Microsoft's patent aggression would start a wholesale migration away from Microsoft's technologies.
If Microsoft started suing folks using its technology then its technology would become much less popular virtually overnight.
This is why Microsoft has wisely chosen a middle road. Instead of actually taking people to court, it is simply going to threaten to take people to court and hope that they'll throw money Microsoft's way.
"That rhythmic thudding sound you hear is the sound of every computer professional on the planet simultaneously laughing their balls off."
Damn, sure isn't a good day to be a janitor at an IT firm. Running around yelling "Don't step on and SQUISH the things! Makes it a lot harder to sweep them up!"
"Novell pays us some money for the right to tell customers that anybody who uses SUSE Linux is appropriately covered," Ballmer said. This "is important to us, because [otherwise] we believe every Linux customer basically has an undisclosed balance-sheet liability."
Do me a favor, disclose your 'undisclosed balance-sheet liability' and then we'll listen to you bitch about Linux.
I haven't seen patent one infringed upon let alone a whole balance sheet's worth so you'll have to excuse me if I seem a bit pessimistic about you strong arming me into using SuSE.
That's right, you can spin it anyway you want... but what I see is that Novell just lost all their street cred by selling out to you. What they sold was their future in the open source community. Why do I have this strange view of it all? Well, because I have this sinking feeling that a year or two from now you're going to package some form of Linux (maybe with Windows maybe separately) and you aren't going to release the source code & you're going to earn a profit on supporting it. And people will be pissed and there will be a court case. But you'll hire a thousand and one lawyers and they'll show up and they'll point out to the judge that Linux kernel "infringed upon Windows anyway" and the deal you made with Novell only confirmed it and admitted that they were facing lawsuits from you. The whole time, there won't be any patents cited, no logic will be used but at the end of the day the judge, bless his computer ignorance, will probably agree with you and allow you to continue to release & profit from Linux. But that won't be enough, you'll go after ever user using non-Microsoft-mutated-SuSE Linux and sue every other Linux distro. If that's not your motive, why are you already issuing warnings to users of other distros?
It's not just any old regular FUD, it's new improved Microsoft FUD.
the judge, bless his computer ignorance, will probably agree with you and allow you to continue to release & profit from Linux.
I don't believe they will have any more success than SCO has had. Microsoft's biggest mistake is not understanding how well the GPL resonates with developers and how poorly DRM resonates with users. They are stuck with a DOS mindset.
Their second biggest mistakes was proxying SCO to do their dirty work. The SCO case has shown how poorly this infringement idea flies [wikipedia.org], and it is going to make it incredibly hard for Microsoft to get any traction with the general public and with Wall Street when they take their turn. The legal traction won't be there either, but they can afford far more lawyering than SCO and will manage to drag out Son of SCO for a long time. But the end result will be even better for Linux.
Bear in mind that Boies Schiller Flexner, SCO's law firm, is really, really good. They're the firm that defeated Microsoft in the antitrust trial. The fact that they've been able to drag this case out as long as they have with no evidence whatsoever is testament to that.
But IBM has some fantastic lawyers as well, and they are not going to take Microsoft intimidating and/or suing their customers lying down. The nightmare scenario is IBM, MS, and Novell collaborating on a plan to monetize Linux, but with Red Hat already having line in the sand, and Sun and most of the developers unlikely to play ball, that could end well, too.
This deal won't have any influence on the courts. Its all about PR and thats as far as it goes. And everyone in the know knows how this is complete bullshit. If Linux is infringing on MS patents, then why is MS paying Novell, a linux distributer? Shouldn't Novell be paying MS? What is MS paying for? FUD, thats what. But FUD doesn't work in courts. FUD is about muddying the waters and the law is all about very specific little details.
It seems they are referring to the interoperability features. Things like NTFS support and even Samba. Of course as we speak the EU is forcing MS to disclose these interoperability secrets and saying they don't belong to MS. A lot of this stuff was also covered in the initial trial here in the US. They got let off, but the political climate is changing. They might be figuring, hey we need to license this stuff quickly before the government forces us to give it away..
What is it about monopolists that they end up thinking no one else could possibly be as good as them and their team, that no one could possibly compete, that no one could come up with an idea on their own?
Why do monopolists assume they own the world when their fragment is a paltry slice compared to the whole?
Why would someone whose anti-trust investigation mysteriously evaporated shortly after the Bush election be flapping their gums when the Democrats are on the rise and looking into any and all events for influence, connections, and blame? Instead of worrying about Linux, Ballmer should be worrying about the spectre of renewed anti-trust investigations.
The Linux code is up for public review. The straw-dog SCO attempt to tear it down is all but done. Let Microsoft publish their code and identify the purported IP conflicts. They don't and won't because they can't, and they know it.
We are willing to do the same deal with Red Hat and other Linux distributors, it's not an exclusive thing.
My, how nice of you. So you're willing to include others in your protection racket? You're much too gracious.
Seriously, this is f*cked up, in a disturbingly devious way. Basically, Ballmer's philosophy here seems to be: "Microsoft deserves money for every single computer out there, and we will get it one way or the other."
Pretty much any Linux geek will tell you that's a load of jibberish, not unlike the SCO case. But, should it come to Microsoft and Novell going to court over this, couldn't this still spell trouble for Novell? A lengthy trial isn't cheap (and neither are out-of-court settlements). And the worst case scenario - maybe this could even spell trouble for Linux itself? It certainly makes for some excellent FUD for Microsoft to feed to the CIOs and managers of the world.
With Microsoft's track history, I wonder why people trust them at all. Especially when the stakes are high, like in this situation.
Oh, I believe that Linux (especially when you look at an entire distribution) DOES infringe on some MS patents. Wasn't it a year or so ago where 20 some odd MS patents were dug up by Linux proponents as a concern?
I think a couple of things have been holding MS back however. IBM and THEIR patent war-chest, and the EU / DOJ with the anti-trust / abusive monopoly issue.
MS wouldn't go after individuals in any case, they would go after businesses.
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday November 17 2006, @09:22AM (#16883294)
Well said. It's likely that every non-trivial piece of software infringes on some patent somewhere. But there are two reasons nobody wants a patent war:
It would be carnage. The only certain outcome would be lawyers getting rich.
Software patents are still disallowed in Europe, but there is intense lobbying to get them introduced. A US software patent war would show what a disaster they are.
I think this will certainly spell trouble for Linux. Not "the end of Linux" - but certainly trouble. Mostly it comes down to the fact that, when MS gets around to sueing people, some retarded judge is going to look at Novell signing a deal with MS as "admission of guilt" and - while it might not win the case for MS - it will lend a lot more creadance to their FUD for a lot of people.
As for Novell, I don't think Microsoft will take them to court, but I don't think they need to. I don't really know of anyone who was supportive of the Novell/Microsoft deal- and very few were even willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. This whole thing is going to really deamonize Novell in the eyes of the open source community. The way I see it, and a lot of other people too, is that basically Novell had the idea that Microsoft was going to start suing people over Linux, and rather than stand up for Linux and the community, they decided to become another MS lapdog.
But seriously, when the first SCO thing came about, the Linux people said, "We don't want to infringe on anyone's IP, so tell us where it we are infringing, and we will rewrite the code."
Same applies here. Open source takes a little of the fun out of these things, now doesn't it?
I think the difference will be that SCO was claiming their actual code was in the kernel, while MS is claiming that it "infringes on their IP".
For all we know MS has some patent on Operating Systems or taking input, processing it, and giving output, or the color blue, or something.
That's the problem with software patents, as it stands right now, if Linux really is infringing on some MS patent then the functionality will have to be removed, not simply re-implemented in a different way. If this patent is on something core to the operation of Linux, then it could be very bad.
Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if Linux does violate some MS patent- not because the kernel developers have been stealing from MS, but because software patents are far to broad in nature. The best possible scenario would be that Linux is violating some MS patents and that is used as a stepping stone in order to reorganize that entire software patent system so it's not so stupid. More likely is that either Linux isn't violating any MS patents, or it is but MS doesn't do anything about it in court because they are afraid of having to fight IBM on one side, and Antitrust lawsuits from the EU (and possibly the US, though we saw how effective that was the last time) on another side.
Alright, enough of this bullshit. Isn't there some kind of Libel suit that can be filed about this kind of garbage? I know I, as a private citizen can't go around telling newspapers that the Coca-Cola company kills a kitten for every can of drink they sell, without getting sued nine ways from breakfast. Why is Microsoft any different? If they've got something, let's see it, if not, can't they be forced to stop spreading FUD on pain big nasty fine-y death? Surely Redhat, and the other corporate Linux entities have some interest in trying this?
Ballmer added later in the speech "You'll notice that BSD also infringes on our Intellectual Property. You'll notice that the BSD network stack is identical to the one Microsoft created. Anyone who thinks otherwise has been brainwashed by the Great Satan [freebsd.org]"
Microsoft need to be specific; what are the patent numbers, which countries are they valid in, and what is the licence fee that Microsoft would like from an individual user ?
Without that essential information, Microsoft are behaving in a commercially-inappropriate way. Intimidating and destructive to creativity.
I need the chance to way either that the patent does not apply where I live; or that there is prior art; or that I will do something in a different way. Or to find a patent of mine (or of my employer's) that they would like to cross-licence. I also need to know when the patent expires.
With this license agreement, Novell has a license to put MS patented technology into their Linux. Is it safe to permit Novell engineers to submit code to common Linux repositories? It seems to me that they would need to certify that none of their code contains any of the MS IP that they now have access to. Unless MS is willing to identify which portions of SuSE are covered by their patents, this could be difficult.
by Anonymous Coward
on Friday November 17 2006, @09:03AM (#16883058)
It all makes sense - MS is starting to worry. Not about the "boom in linux in just a few years" - that has been "just a few years" for over a decade now. What they are worried about is the "Big War" on the very immediate horizon. Computing is about to undergo a huge revolution.
Now that (as far as a lot of the top end guys at MS are concerned) Vista is out of the door they are looking at what is next. Customers (home, but most especially business) are not going to pay for another OS - many might not even buy Vista. There is little else MS can put into an OS that sells - stability and modularisation don't sell. They tried the "eye candy" route for Vista - because if they didn't it wouldn't sell one copy. The thing is they can't do the same thing again "Windows Corumo - just another coat of paint on the same OS" - nobody will buy it.
The future? Subscription based economics - they don't have to produce another OS - they just continually charge for the current one. That too goes for MS Office etc.
Why the current turn by MS - because linux really does cause them difficulties in that business model. $30 per month for windows or $0 for a flavour of linux.
The big battle is ahead - the business model that has held firm with computers (both software and hardware) over the past 20 years is being broken up. This can be proven in the easiest way imaginable. Ask yourself this question. As a member of the "bulk" of computer users (ie not high end gamers or 3D designers - home "write an email and watch a dvd"'ers or business "write a spreadsheet or create a presentation"er's) - why would you *want* to buy a new machine/new OS? - the old one does everything just fine - super fast and relatively trouble free. That has not been the case for the past 20 years - it is now.
At the end of the day for basically the whole 18, 19 years that we've been pursuing the server and enterprise opportunity, our number one competitor in the data center for new applications has been Unix. Unix, Unix, Unix, Unix.
So they need lots of developers, developers, developers, developers to keep up...
With the monopolist pressure they are forcing my relatives, my employers, my contractees, my government to use their own software and wont let them bail out, limiting me on what i can or cant do with my audio&visual equipment in my own house, increasingly deciding what i can or cannot see on the internet, oppressing my open source community, suing people to the extent of harrassment, causing my relatives, friends, close ones to get into pain over their lacking&incapable&insecure softare and me to run fix-up errands for them, trying to funnel cash into decision makers to influence political decisions against my democratic wishes.
In short, they are using me and all the people i know for their own personal profit against their wishes.
i request that microsoft cease and desist immediately
Ballmer: Great, I'll send you some Windows licences. Misa or VasterCard?
IT Shop: No, we need a well-architected, secure OS that's designed for networking.
Ballmer: Great! I'll send you some Vista licences. You should see Aero. Wow!
IT Shop: No, in the last 10 years, Windows has cost billions of dollars in lost time because of security flaws in Microsoft software.
Ballmer: Um... well... er... heh...
IT Shop: We're going with Linux.
Ballmer: Did you know? All the good parts of Linux were designed by us. Novell even admits it. We release so much great code every day that we let the hippies have some for free. So, in fact, when you buy Vista, you get all the good parts of Linux. Plus... you get Aero! Wow! Will that be Misa or VasterCard?
So, if there is "infringing" IP in Linux, is there a liklihood that similar infringements have been made in Apple's code?
Really, I'm not trolling. It sounds like Ballmer is saying that MS has so much of the system tied up in IP that effectively everybody who writes an OS which can interact with MS software is infringing. Does Apple have cross licensing?
The lack of specificity is the most damaging. Clearly msft's game is to flood the media with vauge innuendo about linux being a legal mine field. A lie told often enough is the truth. If msft were specific, their claims could be evaluted and appropriate actions taken.
The whole point of the BSD license is that the code may be used freely, by anyone, anywhere, for any purpose. BSD programmers care more about seeing their code put to good use than about getting something back in return. I'd just be happy to see my code being used to improve such a widely-used product, thereby improving the lives of millions. Much less likely with the GPL, you must admit.
Alright, own up (Score:5, Funny)
Come on, speak up - I know it was one of you.
Re:Alright, own up (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Alright, own up (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Alright, own up (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft Corp.
Redmond, WA
Dear Mr. Ballmer,
I am forwarding my old SuSE 8.1 Pro CDs & DVD to you, along with appropriate instruction on where you can put them (including facilitation of the process with a sharpened poker.)
Regards,
Sfled
Parent
Re:Alright, own up (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Alright, own up (Score:5, Insightful)
Who merged the Linux Genuine Advantage code into the tree? Come on, speak up - I know it was one of you.
Funny, but the wrong thing to ask.
The right thing to ask is how much open and public domain source made it to Windows? Was not Linux preemptive multitasking before Windows, POP3, SMTP/sendmail, DNS/BIND, Kerberos, telnet, ftp, http, ssl, TCP/IP itself, and probably more. At least in concept everything in Windows even windows itself is borrowed from other peoples works. Windows itself is an extrapolation of other people's prior works at best.
Parent
Samba (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Samba (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Samba (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, Microsoft's plan is even stupider than that. Microsoft wants to charge a per seat license for Linux users, but they aren't really offering enhanced interoperability. Novell and Red Hat are both going to include the same software. It's not like Novell is going to have its own version of Samba, for instance. The primary difference is that Novell customers are going to be able to "sleep easy" because Novell is paying Microsoft so that Microsoft won't sue Novell's Linux customers.
Microsoft isn't going to sue Red Hat's customers either, but that's only because suing Red Hat customers would be ridiculously foolish. At its heart the real issue is that Microsoft has such a poor relationship with its customers that many customers are worried that Microsoft will drag them into patent court. These customers are willing to pay money, not for any sort of patent license, but for a short term commitment from Microsoft that they won't be sued.
Next thing you know Microsoft execs will be brutalizing school kids for their lunch money.
The truly ironic bit is that Microsoft is not going to sue anyone over patents. Microsoft execs know that if they did this the various organizations that have a stake in the success of Linux (which is essentially everyone but Microsoft) would pay for a well-funded defense. Millions of dollars would be spent, and in the end the patents in question would either be shot down or removed from the Free Software product in question. Depending on who Microsoft chose to attack it could even trigger retaliation from other large players with huge patent repositories. What's more, Microsoft's patent aggression would start a wholesale migration away from Microsoft's technologies.
If Microsoft started suing folks using its technology then its technology would become much less popular virtually overnight.
This is why Microsoft has wisely chosen a middle road. Instead of actually taking people to court, it is simply going to threaten to take people to court and hope that they'll throw money Microsoft's way.
Parent
Re:Samba (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Listen closely (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Listen closely (Score:5, Funny)
Damn, sure isn't a good day to be a janitor at an IT firm. Running around yelling "Don't step on and SQUISH the things! Makes it a lot harder to sweep them up!"
Parent
Re:Listen closely (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Listen closely (Score:5, Funny)
thud thud Not thud thud anymore thud thud thud thud
Parent
Microsoft Brand FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't seen patent one infringed upon let alone a whole balance sheet's worth so you'll have to excuse me if I seem a bit pessimistic about you strong arming me into using SuSE.
That's right, you can spin it anyway you want
It's not just any old regular FUD, it's new improved Microsoft FUD.
Enjoy your $500 million, Novell.
Re:Microsoft Brand FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with you, but I think it is worse than that. I think the deal changes the perception of Linux, which is what the point of it was all the time.
Parent
Re:Microsoft Brand FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't believe they will have any more success than SCO has had. Microsoft's biggest mistake is not understanding how well the GPL resonates with developers and how poorly DRM resonates with users. They are stuck with a DOS mindset.
Their second biggest mistakes was proxying SCO to do their dirty work. The SCO case has shown how poorly this infringement idea flies [wikipedia.org], and it is going to make it incredibly hard for Microsoft to get any traction with the general public and with Wall Street when they take their turn. The legal traction won't be there either, but they can afford far more lawyering than SCO and will manage to drag out Son of SCO for a long time. But the end result will be even better for Linux.
Parent
Re:Microsoft Brand FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
But IBM has some fantastic lawyers as well, and they are not going to take Microsoft intimidating and/or suing their customers lying down. The nightmare scenario is IBM, MS, and Novell collaborating on a plan to monetize Linux, but with Red Hat already having line in the sand, and Sun and most of the developers unlikely to play ball, that could end well, too.
Parent
Re:Microsoft Brand FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Microsoft Brand FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
What intoxicant is Ballmer consuming? (Score:5, Interesting)
What is it about monopolists that they end up thinking no one else could possibly be as good as them and their team, that no one could possibly compete, that no one could come up with an idea on their own?
Why do monopolists assume they own the world when their fragment is a paltry slice compared to the whole?
Why would someone whose anti-trust investigation mysteriously evaporated shortly after the Bush election be flapping their gums when the Democrats are on the rise and looking into any and all events for influence, connections, and blame? Instead of worrying about Linux, Ballmer should be worrying about the spectre of renewed anti-trust investigations.
The Linux code is up for public review. The straw-dog SCO attempt to tear it down is all but done. Let Microsoft publish their code and identify the purported IP conflicts. They don't and won't because they can't, and they know it.
Parent
Re:Microsoft Brand FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
Also from Ballmer:
My, how nice of you. So you're willing to include others in your protection racket? You're much too gracious.
Seriously, this is f*cked up, in a disturbingly devious way. Basically, Ballmer's philosophy here seems to be: "Microsoft deserves money for every single computer out there, and we will get it one way or the other."
Parent
Re:Microsoft Brand FUD (Score:5, Funny)
-Eric
Parent
Re:Microsoft Brand FUD (Score:5, Funny)
You know, for $500 million.....
Parent
No need to wait for netcraft... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you'll find... (Score:5, Funny)
Never send a boy to do a man's job (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Never send a boy to do a man's job (Score:5, Funny)
-Eric
Parent
really, he should have said... (Score:5, Funny)
Okay... (Score:5, Insightful)
With Microsoft's track history, I wonder why people trust them at all. Especially when the stakes are high, like in this situation.
Re:Okay... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think a couple of things have been holding MS back however. IBM and THEIR patent war-chest, and the EU / DOJ with the anti-trust / abusive monopoly issue.
MS wouldn't go after individuals in any case, they would go after businesses.
We shall see!
Parent
Re:Okay... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Okay... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Okay... (Score:5, Insightful)
As for Novell, I don't think Microsoft will take them to court, but I don't think they need to. I don't really know of anyone who was supportive of the Novell/Microsoft deal- and very few were even willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. This whole thing is going to really deamonize Novell in the eyes of the open source community. The way I see it, and a lot of other people too, is that basically Novell had the idea that Microsoft was going to start suing people over Linux, and rather than stand up for Linux and the community, they decided to become another MS lapdog.
Parent
SCO did it! (Score:5, Interesting)
But seriously, when the first SCO thing came about, the Linux people said, "We don't want to infringe on anyone's IP, so tell us where it we are infringing, and we will rewrite the code."
Same applies here. Open source takes a little of the fun out of these things, now doesn't it?
Re:SCO did it! (Score:5, Insightful)
For all we know MS has some patent on Operating Systems or taking input, processing it, and giving output, or the color blue, or something.
That's the problem with software patents, as it stands right now, if Linux really is infringing on some MS patent then the functionality will have to be removed, not simply re-implemented in a different way. If this patent is on something core to the operation of Linux, then it could be very bad.
Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if Linux does violate some MS patent- not because the kernel developers have been stealing from MS, but because software patents are far to broad in nature. The best possible scenario would be that Linux is violating some MS patents and that is used as a stepping stone in order to reorganize that entire software patent system so it's not so stupid. More likely is that either Linux isn't violating any MS patents, or it is but MS doesn't do anything about it in court because they are afraid of having to fight IBM on one side, and Antitrust lawsuits from the EU (and possibly the US, though we saw how effective that was the last time) on another side.
Parent
Put up or Shut up (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Put up or Shut up (Score:5, Funny)
Bemopolis
Parent
BSD too (Score:5, Funny)
So what happens (Score:5, Interesting)
Patent numbers and licence fees ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Without that essential information, Microsoft are behaving in a commercially-inappropriate way. Intimidating and destructive to creativity.
I need the chance to way either that the patent does not apply where I live; or that there is prior art; or that I will do something in a different way. Or to find a patent of mine (or of my employer's) that they would like to cross-licence. I also need to know when the patent expires.
is this going to force a fork? (Score:5, Interesting)
The coming war (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that (as far as a lot of the top end guys at MS are concerned) Vista is out of the door they are looking at what is next. Customers (home, but most especially business) are not going to pay for another OS - many might not even buy Vista. There is little else MS can put into an OS that sells - stability and modularisation don't sell. They tried the "eye candy" route for Vista - because if they didn't it wouldn't sell one copy. The thing is they can't do the same thing again "Windows Corumo - just another coat of paint on the same OS" - nobody will buy it.
The future? Subscription based economics - they don't have to produce another OS - they just continually charge for the current one. That too goes for MS Office etc.
Why the current turn by MS - because linux really does cause them difficulties in that business model. $30 per month for windows or $0 for a flavour of linux.
The big battle is ahead - the business model that has held firm with computers (both software and hardware) over the past 20 years is being broken up. This can be proven in the easiest way imaginable. Ask yourself this question. As a member of the "bulk" of computer users (ie not high end gamers or 3D designers - home "write an email and watch a dvd"'ers or business "write a spreadsheet or create a presentation"er's) - why would you *want* to buy a new machine/new OS? - the old one does everything just fine - super fast and relatively trouble free. That has not been the case for the past 20 years - it is now.
Winning quote (Score:5, Funny)
Quoth Ballmer:
So they need lots of developers, developers, developers, developers to keep up ...
Microsoft is infringing upon my Human Rights (Score:5, Insightful)
In short, they are using me and all the people i know for their own personal profit against their wishes.
i request that microsoft cease and desist immediately
Pirates O' The Valley (Score:5, Funny)
Mod Ballmer's genius up. (Score:5, Funny)
IT Shop: We need some robust 24/7 uptime servers.
Ballmer: Great, I'll send you some Windows licences. Misa or VasterCard?
IT Shop: No, we need a well-architected, secure OS that's designed for networking.
Ballmer: Great! I'll send you some Vista licences. You should see Aero. Wow!
IT Shop: No, in the last 10 years, Windows has cost billions of dollars in lost time because of security flaws in Microsoft software.
Ballmer: Um... well... er... heh...
IT Shop: We're going with Linux.
Ballmer: Did you know? All the good parts of Linux were designed by us. Novell even admits it. We release so much great code every day that we let the hippies have some for free. So, in fact, when you buy Vista, you get all the good parts of Linux. Plus... you get Aero! Wow! Will that be Misa or VasterCard?
OSX question (Score:5, Interesting)
Really, I'm not trolling. It sounds like Ballmer is saying that MS has so much of the system tied up in IP that effectively everybody who writes an OS which can interact with MS software is infringing. Does Apple have cross licensing?
FUD means never having to say anything specific (Score:5, Insightful)
Msft = the fud factory.
Re:M$ takes and does not appreciate (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent