Torvalds Says Microsoft is Bluffing on Patents 157
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft's aggressive defense of its intellectual property, which includes claims that Linux violates a number of its patents, is nothing more than "a marketing thing," according to Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel. "They have been sued for patents by other people, but I don't think they've — not that I've gone through any huge amount of law cases — but I don't think they've generally used patents as a weapon," Torvalds said. "But they're perfectly happy to use anything at all as fear, uncertainty and doubt in the marketplace, and patents is just one thing where they say, 'Hey, isn't this convenient? We can use this as a PR force.'""
Re:back to the kernel, Linus. (Score:5, Informative)
That's funny-- the patent lifetime is 20 years in the US. Since Microsoft sold it's derivative of AT&T's Unix to SCO[1] in 1987, it seems unlikely that the patents involve Xenix in any way.
Microsoft didn't really do any real research on Xenix. It was a pretty straight-forward 16-bit port of the AT&T source code, with lots of BSD code thrown in for flavor. This was a big deal mostly because they were getting Unix code to run on standard microprocessors. Once that was done, they licensed Xenix to SCO and a bunch of other companies, who ported it to their own platforms. Most of this was done in the early 80s. Back then, Microsoft wasn't applying for too many patents. And, since this was a port of existing code, there was little opportunity for "worthy" patents. If there were, they would've been granted over twenty years ago, and so would have expired by now.
Anyway, not to put too fine a point on it: it's extremely unlikely these patent threats involve Microsoft's port of AT&T's UNIX.
[1] SCO as in, "Santa Cruz Operation," not as in "We used to be Caldera, but wanted to confuse people into thinking we're Santa Cruz Operation."
Re:back to the kernel, Linus. (Score:5, Informative)
Linus actually *reads* the kernel code, and is aware of how the code arrived in the Linux kernel. And while Linus is not an author of law texts, he's certainly had to review and deal with copyright and patent law previously in the Linux kernel.
And oh, yes, if you're referring to the SCO lawsuits, go over to www.groklaw.net. The lawsuits were funded by Microsoft "partnership" deals with SCO and other Microsoft partners, and have fallen through because Novell actually owns the UNIX code in question. SCO is now in bankruptcy and delisted (or being delisted) from the NASDAQ after wasting years on a frivolous lawsuit instead of actually doing work.
Re:That's right, Linus... (Score:3, Informative)
So no it won't be a problem ?
Re:back to the kernel, Linus. (Score:3, Informative)
He does not write text books, news articles, or legal documents. His guess is as good as yours or mine as to what Microsoft's intentions are.
Yah.. he's only the single guy most familiar with the thing Microsoft says it has patents on. So he sure doesn't know anything more than you or I about it.
The patents involve Xenix. Look it up sometime, it may seem oddly familiar.
I'm unaware of Microsoft giving out any information about WHAT these patents are. The stories I've read are all about Balmer blowing a lot smoking, while yelling "We'll Sue! We'll Sue!"