Ballmer Suggests Linux Distros Will Soon Have to Pay Up 520
An anonymous reader writes "Via Groklaw comes comments from Microsoft's Steve Ballmer at a UK event, in which the company once again threatens Linux distributions that haven't signed up with their program. '"People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us," Ballmer said last week ... Ballmer praised Novell at the UK event for valuing intellectual property, and suggested that open source vendors will be forced to strike similar deals with other patent holders. He predicted that firms like Eolas will soon come after open source vendors or users. Microsoft paid $521m to settle a patent claim by Eolas in August.'"
Suddenly, I like Ballmer a little less (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Which IPs in particular? (Score:2, Interesting)
He could be right... (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft is unlikely to enforce it's patents, but what should scare us are the other Patent Houses where their business model is based on litigation [google.com]. They are the dangerous ones...
the reason microsoft won't show their patents (Score:5, Interesting)
IANAL... (Score:2, Interesting)
If this could be done, wouldn't it validate the patent and allow the plaintiff to then go after Open Source Software? It would be a bit like the whole SCO fiasco again but only with the power of the courts behind them.
Thank goodness that in this enlightened age, no-one would collude and pull off something like that.
Let's force him to put up. (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux's Retaliation (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Details of the IP in question (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's make it simple.. Take a lot of code and patent a few ideas. Someone else does the same. In review as your code gets complicated, you may very well have used someone else's IP in your implimentation. Often in a patent dispute regarding code, the countersuit results in a cross license agreement. IBM and others have war chests full of patents to protect FOSS against attacks.
MS hints at an attack as part of the FUD campaign. If they launch a real attack, the code of Windows will be put on the operating table for dissection for infringements. See any problems with this? Just to show an easy to see example, Microsoft was sued over the use of a trash can in Windows. That is why they have a recycle bin. Apple owns the trash can.
Now look at a copy of Ubuntu. It has a little box with a recycle logo in view right on the desktop. They call it the Trash. Who can sue? Apple, Microsoft? If Microsoft sues, guess what happens to tabbed browsing in IE7. This is something showing on the surface. Start digging into functionality and the fight could get ugly for Microsoft. The bigger the code, the bigger the possiblilty of infringment of someone else's pattent. The code doesn't get much bigger than Vista for the desktop.
Can you say HUGE BULLSEYE? The noise is just noise. It is intended to slow down the implimentation and keep obvious duplication of features to a minimum by the competition by raising the question of costly litigation. It's just the ongoing FUD campaign.
Prior art and other discoveries in a court battle could be very damaging to many of Microsoft's patents. If they don't name them, they can't be shot down.
Re:They must love FUD (Score:2, Interesting)
Hovsepian lies.
It's NOT what they SAY that counts, it's what they DO.
And what Novell does is to continue to PAY MICROSOFT A ROYALTY for each copy of SLES that it sells. Ballmer called that payment the "IP Bridge":
http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/press-conference_transcript.html [novell.com]
And you'll see, as well, an economic commitment from Novell to Microsoft that involves a running royalty, a percentage of revenue on open source software shipped under the agreement.
That royalty payment says that NOVELL "BELIEVES" that Linux contains MS IP, even though there has been no proof of such a claim.
Why did Novell do this? Hovsepain claims he couldn't sell SUSE against Windows, which is probably a true statement about his sales ability, but I believe he had $308M other reasons, and a hope that Microsoft's legal pressure on other distros would force FOSS users to move to SLES and pay for it.
Interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
Phase 1 was "state the fact about patent infringement".
Phase 2 is now "explain that since the VENDOR wont pay for patents, then the customers will be on the line" Phase 3 ???
Microsoft will eventually HAVE to file a suit or someone will file a suit against them for scare tactics of some sort. I'm sure the Microsoft lawyers understand this, which means they must have a phase 3 in mind. Who will be the first target? And in which court?
Sometimes I think Microsoft can't lose this battle. If their first suit really tests patent law and then win...well then they start the major money collection, and Linux suffers a hit for it's users having legitimate concerns of legality. However if the patent claims are denied...the Microsoft basically has the green light to use the patents owned by countless others. Because of their size and bankroll, they can implement such technologies much quicker than most companies, and they will pull ahead on many fronts.
Re:Which IPs in particular? (Score:2, Interesting)
Market Cap (intraday)6: 192.87B
Enterprise Value (9-Oct-07)3: 177.78B
Trailing P/E (ttm, intraday): 50.15
Forward P/E (fye 31-Dec-08) 1: 31.46
How many Linux servers does Google have?
IBM + GOOG > MSFT
Kill! Kill! Kill!
OOXML (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft hasn't honored my numerous requests to provide a list of the patent numbers is question even though I demonstrated that the ISO/IEC directives say clearly that patents should be disclosed.
Restraining order (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Which IPs in particular? (Score:4, Interesting)
The DOJ of course is completely hopeless at this point, but other countries can still offer some relief.
Re:Which IPs in particular? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Which IPs in particular? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:OOXML (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Linux's Retaliation (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Which IPs in particular? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Which IPs in particular? (Score:4, Interesting)
Think of it this way, the big corporation has money to burn on this issue and can easily wait out the small developer. It's extremely likely that the small developer, who can't afford a high powered lawyer, will run out of legal funds very rapidly and have to give up on the case. Microsoft isn't after money, at least not directly. They're much more interested in halting the development of an OS that, over time, has the potential to crush their business.
The sad part is that they can halt Linux growth just as quickly, and just as effectively, by never actually taking this to court. They're already off to an amazing start with the "IP deals" they've made with various vendors. The fact that some vendors are making deals with Microsoft is enough for all the PHBs throughout the world to sit up and take notice. While Linux may be the better alternative in many cases, PHBs will definitely err on the side of caution and try to "protect" the business by staying out of the murky waters. Better to deploy Windows and have receipts and licenses to prove it, than to deploy Linux and get sued later.
Regardless, I find it in bad taste. Instead of working to make a better OS, Microsoft is resorting to FUD. It's like the bully at school. He's big and mean looking, and you don't know if he can kick your ass or not. You're smarter, dress better, and will go farther in life, but he still scares you. Do you really want to stand up to him and hope you can deal with him? Or do you just hand over your lunch money and hope he goes away?
Re:Which IPs in particular? (Score:3, Interesting)
It would seem to me to be a variation of Slander of Title, but whether or not a "variation" counts here I do not know.
C//
Re:He could be right... (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's take a hypothetical (and false) case as an example. Suppose the original coders of the NCSA Mosaic browser (the predecessor of Netscape and essentially all graphical web browsers) decided to patent the back and forward navigation arrows as a "device to permit navigation of network-delivered content" or some such patentese. The only way to avoid infringing this patent is not to use navigation arrows, not to write a different block of code to implement navigation arrows. It's like the trash can issue mentioned in another posting in this thread. Patents don't cover the code itself but the process the code implements. Even if Microsoft showed us the patents, it could be quite difficult to avoid infringing some of these.
As a real example, take the case of the patent Microsoft holds on a procedure to update Powerpoint shows online. (I read this a while ago and don't want to spend the time to look it up at the USPTO again.) The patent covers a procedure whereby an application checks online to see whether there's a newer version of the file it is about to open. If so, it automatically downloads the update and opens it instead. Obviously this was targeted at people making presentations so that the staff back in the home office could make last-minute corrections, and the presenter would never need to download the updated file herself. The patents for processes like these often contain sweeping declarations of what's covered in the patent, so even updating systems that don't precisely match the specific one described might be deemed infringing. Suppose, for instance, that Azureus checked to see if a new Java version were available when launched and downloaded and installed the new version automatically. Infringement?
Re:Which IPs in particular? (Score:3, Interesting)
There's also the fact that Microsoft is a publicly held company, and is required to seek profits. No matter how much cash they have on hand, they aren't supposed to use it frivolously. Not that this stopped SCO, but SCO wasn't much of a going concern.
Further, there's no guarantee that Microsoft will have a friend in the White House come January 20, 2009, and starting lawsuits to suppress competition could backfire in the next few years.
Finally, software patents are of dubious legality in the US. So far, nobody's gone to the Supreme Court claiming that they're invalid, and so the Supreme Court hasn't ruled. (One of the interesting notes on one of the recent patent cases the Supremes heard was one justice asking another if they'd ever held that software patents were legal, and being told "no".) All of the parties to patent cases going to the Supreme Court have had a desire to preserve legal software patents, and have been arguing over things like obviousness.
If a company actually likes software patents, it would be very dangerous to sue a company like Red Hat over patent infringement. Red Hat has enough money for good representation, and can afford to ask the Supreme Court if software is patentable. Microsoft very definitely doesn't want to risk that.
Therefore, Microsoft is just going to continue to blow FUD over this. It's by far their best strategy if they want to use patents for anything.
Re:Which IPs in particular? (Score:5, Interesting)
While I agree with your analysis, I don't think it proves your point (about halting Linux growth). FTR, I'm talking about the desktop here. Linux owns the server space, MSFT's hardly even a relevant player, that's not going to change. Money talks, and while MSFT's got a lot of it, so does IBM. So does Sun. So do lots of other very large and well-regarded companies. Shit, I'm drifting away from my already drifted point! Which is this:
The great big boulder that will be desktop Linux will never start rolling with business. Regardless of lawsuits, IP deals, FUD, or counter-FUD. Not gonna happen. There will always be an excuse somewhere up the corporate ladder to "play it safe" and stay with Windows. Whenever someone tries a "from the top down" push for Linux, MSFT buys them off or scares business away from them, and that's not going to change anytime soon either. Linux on the desktop, therefore, must come from the ground up. Which is good, and inevitable. That's how Free Software works. That's how Free Software has always worked, and it works well, and even though it's slow, it's a steady growth. The Linux userbase grows every year, while MSFT has nowhere else to go. It'll happen. Not only will it happen, basic economics dictates that it must happen.
Patience, grasshopper.
Back on their word (Score:4, Interesting)
So who here actually believed them anyway?
Time to start hoarding source code people. Phase 2 of the war has started.
Re:Which IPs in particular? (Score:1, Interesting)
If a resident of Saudi Arabia visits the UK and drinks alcohol (which is entirely legal under British law) then he can't be prosecuted for it when he returns home. Nor can a Briton be prosecuted in the UK for smoking cannabis in the Netherlands. (Interesting aside: A US aircraft is considered US territory while on the ground anywhere in the world. So does that mean a car with an NL sticker on it is considered Dutch territory while it is on the road anywhere in the world?)
There is no Lanham Act in UK law. Due to the exclusion of software from patents in UK law, the offences of which Ballmer is falsely accusing the various Linux distributors are actually non-existent. Unfortunately, Ballmer hasn't broken the law.
Re:Which IPs in particular? (Score:4, Interesting)
What people should be doing is issuing certified letters to Microsoft requesting full disclosure with the notice that if they don't respond with the IP in question then all users are indemnified of all patents. Give them a time frame in which to proceed. Specifically state that the IP and Patents must explicitly be stated or the indemnification is automatic and global.
Re:Which IPs in particular? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's like saying Al Qeada is not liable for the 9/11 attacks because they are based outside the US.
The Lanham Act is designed to protect US companies from bullying tactics. Ballmer bullied a US company. He's liable whether or not he made such threats on US soil.
Re:Which IPs in particular? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:SCO all over again? (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe that's why they paid up to Eolus, so that it had a grounding to go after their competitors who might be less able to stand up to it. I believe that Microsoft were originally keen to fight and then they paid up? And as I recall, the Eolas patent was something pretty stupid.
I guess it's like... if you're a wizard with 1-hp and you're surrounded by goblins with 5hp, it makes sense to drop a fireball that does 6 hp damage on all of you. Yes - you get hurt, but your situation has still improved.
A patent atorney walks into a room of Linux admins (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting discussion anyway, even though I find the mix of lack of morality and the excess of $ deeply disturbing. Call me an idealist and cry me a river.