Ubuntu Founder Says Microsoft Not A Big Threat 128
Golygydd Max writes "Who says that Microsoft and open source developers are enemies? It's not Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth. He says that Microsoft is not the patent threat Linux and open source developers should be worried about, and that the software giant will itself be fighting against the software patents system within a few years. 'He said the most dangerous litigants are companies not themselves in the software business, small ventures or holding companies that get their principal revenue from patent licensing. He singled out former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold and his company Intellectual Ventures, which is stockpiling patents at a rate that alarms large companies such as IBM and HP, as an example of such a potentially dangerous company.'"
Reform the System (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Reform the System (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Reform the System (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Reform the System (Score:5, Interesting)
The term of our patents was set in an era when sending a message from one city to another took days, or if it was separated by an ocean, weeks (potentially months). The flow of information moved at a completely different pace. Ten years then would have been a very brief time in which to bring a product to market. In today's world, I think it would be about 12-18 months: just enough to give the patentee a slight advantage over the rest of the marketplace, but not enough for them to amass an arsenal of patents with which to destroy all competition.
Now, perhaps there's something to be said for somewhat longer patents on pharmaceuticals, because of the long government-mandated review process that they have to go through, before they can become profitable (and which mandate disclosure of the ingredients, meaning that keeping it a trade secret isn't an option). However, I think this should clearly be the exception rather than the rule.
A patent length of a year -- five or at most ten for pharmaceuticals -- non-renewable, would do wonders towards improving competition and the production of new ideas in the technology sector. (While we're at it, lets have a 20-year copyright span, too.) Unfortunately I think by the time the major players come around to realizing that the system is hurting more than it's helping, the U.S. will be increasingly irrelevant.
Re:Reform the System (Score:5, Interesting)
The best way I can think to do this is to require a business plan to be filed with the patent, and the two go hand in hand. The business plan then determines the basic term granted for that specific patent, and is limited by allowing the patentee to recoup costs and some percentage of profit above and beyond that (e.g. you spend $100K to develop the patent, and then you get to make $150K guaranteed by the granting of the patent). Additionally, by putting a review board in (comprised of members from SEC and IRS) to review the business plans on a periodic basis (e.g. annually, ever other year, etc.) the term can then be lengthened or shortened to meet the industry based on the performance of the patent.
This would allow high cost patents (e.g. drugs) to be around for a long time, while low cost patents (e.g. software patents) would go away quickly. Additionally, if the cost was low enough the patent would not be granted as it would be recouped before the patent was granted.
Patent trolls would also go out of business as they would not be able to submit business plans that would qualify, and be exposed for what they are.
So this is a real win-win if adopted. (BTW, I would get rid of the USPTO and replace it with a new organization that had arms in the IRS and SEC to do the job. A lot of the information required is already filed with the IRS and SEC, and if anything would only require a little more documentation in the files as some stuff might have to be further broken down. Point is, it's already there.)
Re:Reform the System (Score:5, Interesting)
A different (even more unrealistic) approach (Score:2)
If we got a lot more strict about corporate charters we could solve all sorts of societal ills. If UnaCal is participating in the enslavement of Burmese to build it's pipeline, revoke the charter a
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Percentage-Based Patent Rewards (Score:2)
O
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It's easy to measure a business plan against. That's not to say it would necessarily encourage wasteful management, as the business plan itself would be under scrutiny and the cost part would have to be justified. Could you justify 5 engineers, and 10 people in management for designing a new toothbrush? Not likely. (And yes, I am familiar with how some of that goes.)
True - the proposed system does, as you say, give little weight and little RIO on inventions tha
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What's perhaps funny about this (very long run-on) sentence is that, at its heart, EVERYTHING IS SOFTWARE. Listen to particle physicists nowadays - they all talk about "
Fundamental difference. (Score:2)
Normal matter isn't.
When we get device that reorganize matter in any way we want in order to copy physical objects, then you may have a point, but for the time being, we will take you as a raving lunatic.
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As for patent length in pharmaceuticals, it takes 10 years and 80
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Since the major source of delays in the pharmaceutical industry seem directly tied to the FDA approval process,
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then perhaps that should be changed.
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For example, we've licensed a scheduler-planner algorithm (it's a trade secret and not patented), it's VERY hard (reference implementation is about 500kb of C++ code) and it took several years for the company to develop. It certainly is not one-click-buy type of algorithm.
Unfortunately, such algorithms are exceedingly rare.
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So? Coming up with all kinds of math was hard too, should it be patented?
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But some areas of applied math may be eligible for patents. For example, mathematicians are not very interested in these scheduling algorithms. Basically, scheduling algorithms consist of a large number of heuristics and pattern recognition. There's nothing interesting and exciting in them - and not much incentive to develop them as a result.
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More like it's not flexible enough to deal with todays rate of communications, and the development of mankinds knowledge turning into a million small, trivial, and disclosed steps.
What makes the software sector special is the extremely low barrier of entry into the market, the massively componentized approach to development and the prevalence of use of modern communications and collaboration methods. This, however, does not
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I actually think the fix is kinda simple. Simply ban "trade secret" patents (patents where you don't have to demonstrate an implementation). Since software is implemented in the form of source code, you should have to show the source code (implementation) in order to get a patent on it. This would protect specifically written software as if it were an invention, but would not be so broad that it could stop someone from implementing the basic idea (algorithm - I suppose we need a legal definition for that to
Re:Reform the System (Score:5, Interesting)
I've explained this before. I used to work for the US government many years ago. Look at it from Uncle Sam's perspective.
1) The patent office makes money. A lot of it. Unlike other government agencies who consume tax dollars, the patent office makes a profit. Profit = good. Why would you "reform" an agency who is making you a ton of money and thus make less money?
2) Businesses have yet to scream en masse that patent reform = a good thing. Until Microsoft and IBM and Cisco and Intel and lots of Fortune 500 companies say "The system is hurting us and costing us more money than you are making under the current system. A reform would actually bring you more money." then it will never happen.
3) Government bureaucrats are outstandingly good at protecting their own turf. Expect patent office mangement to fight tooth and nail against reforms.
4) The government is convinced that this is win-win for everyone because it's like Mutual Assured Destruction. Everyone has patents, so nobody will use them unfairly. Unfortunately, the reality is that Shuttlesworth is right. The company everyone should fear is the company that has nothing but patents, like the guys who went after BlackBerry.
5) Most people in Congress are lawyers. Most lawyers like patents. It provides easy work for other lawyers on both the "infringing" companies and the IP holders doing the suing. If everybody is being sued, lawyers have lots of work and earn lots of money. Win-win!
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On the other hand, the PTO was pushing hard for some sort of change, as the obviousness standard is a major swamp o
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Then the following will give them even less work:
Prior to qualifying for the Bar, one has to demonstrate that one has memorized the following texts, in their _original_ language, by reciting them to an audience:
* The Q'ran;
* The Mahabharata;
* The Tanakh;
* The YiJing;
* The Dao De Jing;
Then the audience gets to select a text for the person to translate into the original language of another text that the audience also gets to select. That translation is to be done in front of the audienc
Re:Reform the System (Score:5, Interesting)
Reality is that it is business and patent trolls that are fighting against patent reform. Even the USPTO has recognized a problem and been trying to reform some, and even Congress has been doing work towards that too. That's how we got the public peer reviews of patents going. So, yes, it is all about money, but it is more about whose money. Patents make a lot of money for a lot of people, gov't and business included; and until businsses get in line and say we need reform (which is starting to happen), then only have the stakeholders involved are for it, and the other half are against it and pay for the elections of the other half.
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And remember that almost everything in government is influenced substantially by money that came from somewhere, be it taxes, political contributions, or even patent fees.
I'm not saying that the way patents are registered shouldn't be changed--it should--but this money factor makes it difficult to change, at least from the perspective of the government officials in charge.
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Yes, they have screamed it, unfortunately who do you think their reform would be good for?
BTW, enough tax payers will get them to reform.
Which brings me to a minor nitpick. It is NOT the patent offices job to reform. They do what they are mandated by congress to do. You know, they people you vote for?
Sorry, I know to many agency that have sought change. The problem is the person from outside has
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It's nice to see someone who works for the government who also has passion in what he does. Props, and I mean that. : )
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The US appears to be dependant on Intellectual Property superseeding actual goods in it's balance of payments with other countries. Have a look at how standardisation of laws between the US and other countries regarding IP is a high priority now. Reforming the patent system would lessen the ability to do this - why do you think there is so much action around DRM and IP for music/movies right now? ;)
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I don't think you know what (in)tangible means.
Lobbyists (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Lobbyists (Score:5, Interesting)
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Those new laws or whatever legistlation won't be protecting us. Rather, I suspect that the government will keep Microsoft out of court in exchange for agreements not to leverage their own patent portfolio against other American companies, leading to an eventual federalization of the patent system. American companies will be able to use american technologies however they wish, and i
Re:Lobbyists (oops) (Score:2)
Re:Lobbyists (Score:5, Insightful)
Really Bad Idea. This breaks the basic premise that a non-obvious improvement to an existing design may itself be patentable, even if the existing design is patented by someone else. You may be able to patent it, sure, but you would never profit from it.
Take the old example of the automobile. It's a good idea, and was at one point patentable. Then, someone else invests the automatic transmission. It's a non-obvious improvement to the design, and is separately patentable. But the guy who invented the automatic transmission cannot build cars, because that would violate the patent held by the car inventor. The guy could try to sell the automatic transmission alone, but he would probably go out of business unless the car inventor chose to buy those transmissions. Why would the car inventor do that? If he just waits a few years, the automatic transmission inventor will go out of business, and, using your proposal, the car inventor could exploit the patent without fear of repercussion.
The basic premise for patents is not just to grant a monopoly in exchange for publishing your data eventually. The data is published up front in part to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.
Your proposal breaks that incentive, because, until your patent expires, no one else can build on your design without forfeiting their improvements to you.
Re:Lobbyists (Score:5, Interesting)
This is only one of the numerous examples of how the patent system has impeded innovation and has mostly made a mess of things. Another shining example was the airplane. Most of the basic patents in the US were held by either the Wright Brothers or Glen Curtiss. The Wrights and Curtiss despised one another and engaged in a decade of pointless and expensive legal wrangling. Aircraft makers were unsure what to license from whom and often couldn't negotiate terms. The result was that when World War I came along, the US was far behind Europe in aircraft technology even though the airplane was invented in the US. In order to get the US back into the aircraft business before the huns or turks or whoever started bombing New York, a patent pool was established and litigation was put on hold. Thankfully it was not reinstated after the war.
Y'know what. We got along just fine without software patents for 20 years. I think we could do so again. I'd go further than that, and (carefully) dismantle the entire damn Patent system. It's pointless, doesn't -- so far as I can see -- encourage innovation, and doesn't even work very well. We've got enough problems with global warming, overpopulation, incompetent and mendacious leaders, corporations run amock, etc, etc, etc. Why go out of our way to create more?
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What, they shouldn't have patented airplane technology? oh I get it, flight was just so damn obvious.
The patent system is fine except for 2 things:
Software patents, business method patents.
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You have balloons, birds, insects etc... it was fairly obvious to try and replicate existing behaviour with a machine... People have been trying to fly for centuries.
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Both true. BUT There are too many patents that are based on (often known) prior art, are incomprehensbible, overreach, or are obvious. I personally don't think the occasional case where the system works as intended is enough to offset its flaws. Neither does the system seem to be fixable.
If it were fixed, I wouldn't object to it.
***The patent system
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Terrorist!
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Yup! Goes to show what happens when you let Godless athiests establish the curriculum in schools.
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This will remove the original purpose of patents, to allow individual inventors to try and get funding for their inventions.
But if we look at many of the curent elements of business we see that this isn't working, too many market segments have monopolies or oligopolies that don't look outside the company to individual inventors. They may liscense it from oth
patent system failure cancel or allow? (Score:2)
if patents were issued based on good standards it shouldnt worry them but they're not. they're used as weapons to destroy any competition that could reduce their profits rather than actually innovating anything. in short, patents are doing the exact opposite that they were originally supposed to do.
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They were originally intended to help the little guy protect his idea and stop the big companies copying it. But it's now about the big companies attacking each other or smaller competition. Usually followed by the inevitable deal to work together, cross-licencing etc.
Chances of Microsoft using other's patents (Score:2, Interesting)
In-fact, if Microsoft really had a points in-which Linux kernel infringements Microsoft's patents, they would have show the exact spots in which the code were using Microsoft's patents.
but, Microsoft's code is closed, and more then probably they are using IBM's or any other standard OS thinking patents and that will be disclosured in the near - future in which Microsoft will have to pay explanations to
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Re:Chances of Microsoft using other's patents (Score:4, Funny)
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Patent Copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
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Just think, $i++; would be seperate from $i = $i + 1; which would be seperate from $a = 1; $i = $i + $a; Think of the poor coders who have to come up with every variation in every language!
Cuts down on a lot of repeditive paperwork to just hold a patent on "A method for incrimenting the value of a variable by a single unit."
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Almost a good thing (Score:1)
Will patents finally be a two edged sword (Score:3, Insightful)
come up with ideas, do initial work-patent pool (Score:5, Interesting)
There are lots and lots of creative folks that work with GNU, Linux, *BSD, and who read Slashdot. It would be great if there was an open invention process whereby one could take an idea, do the basic stuff, then submit it to the OSDL (or another reputable group) who would get the patent in your name, but assigned to them.
Such a process would reduce the barrier to entry for getting patents on truly new ideas. (I would have a dozen or more if my employers had filed for patents on some of my ideas.) It would also allow you to have your name on a patent which looks great on a resume (finally something that is actually worth something to the inventor). But, most importantly it would expand the pool of patents available for open source and remove additional ideas, concepts, and inventions further out of the reaches of the patent-only law firms.
This should be a call to action!
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But, most importantly it would expand the pool of patents available for open source and remove additional ideas, concepts, and inventions further out of the reaches of the patent-only law firms.
The evildoers only need one essential patent on, say, using electronic memory .... with a computer *.
... with a computer*?? Ding ding ding! It doesn't matter if you are an antisocial greedhead with no friends and no brain, because you too invent old and once-original technology and bend the world over a barrel for already using it! And it doesn't matter how many patents others may h
Or, using non-electronic memory without a computer. Wait, that will not fly. OK, how about: using non-electronic memory
Not (Score:3, Funny)
Of course! SCO is the REAL threat!
Those godless, marauding mancubi will feel no remorse prying your $699 from your cold, dead, chips/pretzel/pizza/popcorn/nacho/cheetos/Neal mix stained hands...
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"Neal mix"?
*shudder*
I don't think I what to know what goes into that, but I'm sure a very large blender must be involved.
Lulled into a false sense of security (Score:2, Insightful)
Patent Trolls (Score:3, Interesting)
These guys are the Osama Bin Laden of the patent system.
Shuttleworth is right. Companies with this business model are a far more serious patent threat than Microsoft.
Intellectual Property should not be transferable (Score:4, Interesting)
This means, that IP should be useless to those who do not create or otherwise use their inventions. IP should be useless to those who do not benefit from the arts created. If this sort of reform were to happen, we'd see an end to patent trolls because they would have to actually MAKE something that uses the patents in question, not simply license or sell the patents to other parties. (Licensing is okay, but the ownership of a patent should never be salable.) Song writers and musicians should never be allowed to sell their copyrights, but instead force the recording and media companies to bargain with them for each item they wish to distribute. This would force fair prices and values to be paid to the artists out there and prevent them from essentially being enslaved by the labels out there.
IP should have its value, but it should never be salable. And because it's salable, we have this ridiculous, abusive and litigious condition we have today. All of humanity would be the better if we could get rid of the salability of IP. The benefits of everything from life-saving drugs to works of art would eventually fall upon humanity and would give direct and arguably more bountiful benefit to the ACTUAL creators of IP.
Oh yeah... and reduce the limits on IP back to their original terms or less... This lifetime+70 years and 100 years for a corporation is simply ridiculous.
I say, don't let patents be transferrable (Score:2, Insightful)
That solves the original problem of "protect the little guy" while simultaneously preventing these patent-hoarding entities from causing any damage. If they want to buy a patent they have to hire the owner. That'll make patent-hoarding pretty expensive.
Moving to Uzbekistan (Score:1)
to Uzbekistan to continue coding...
- no insult intended to Uzbeks - it's the Kazakhs I can't stand
but move there I will if I have to to get these patent retards off my
back.
Coding is basically the application of math and logic to the world,
and those who tell me I'm not free to do that can go f**k themselves.
is there any evidence that m$ doesn't control the (Score:1, Redundant)
Phil Salin about patents (Score:3, Informative)
Too bad the guy is dead now, he could have helped us all out a great deal !
http://www.philsalin.com/patents.html [philsalin.com]
Mark spoke at our conference last week... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mark spoke for 30 minutes, and his keynote is available here [eupaco.blip.tv]. He provided this very elegant argument against patents on business methods and most software: patents are society's gift to inventors in exchange for disclosure. When an invention is self-disclosing, i.e. you understand it when you use it, society has no interest in granting a patent for it, indeed is penalised by doing so, and therefore should not grant it.
More on the conference here [digitalmajority.org].
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Just because it is trivial to understand (read: the inner workings are very visible) doesn't mean it was trivial to create. Patents are society's gift t
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Your argument that people invent to secure patents is completely bogus. People invent because it's the only way to create market advantage, and that's the only way to make money. There are a few exceptions, cases where patents have stopped the small inventor from being crushed by big competitors. These exceptions are so rare, and so proportionally unimportant t
Software == Knowledge (Score:2)
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This whole mess came about because of rulings by the Supreme Court and Federal Circuit court allowing both algorithms (mathmatical proofs if you will), and business method patents (the scarier patent from a business persons perspective) to exist. The business method patents hinder innovation in a way never before dreamed. Imagine you owned a bus
Not A Big Threat? (Score:3, Funny)
Not something to be complacent about, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference is that certain large traditional software companies have a motive to burn some of their spare cash - or risk or having a few patents invalidated - in order to cripple the pesky open source industry. Patent trolls - sock-puppet shenanigans aside - are only in it for the direct profit.
At worst, trolls are an equal threat to the whole software industry, not just open source. At best, the open source industry should be less attractive to them - attack an open source company with a plausible patent case and there is a risk that they'll go titsup.com before you get your damages. You certainly won't see any continuing royalties. Worse, lots of big players who would just sit back and eat peanuts while you went after a commercial competitor, have a vested interest in the same bits of FOSS and might gang up on you while every geek on the internet searches for prior art. Best stick to closed-soruce companies who have a budget for patent extortion.
The real glass-half-full aspect is that these clowns are helping discredit the patent system, and upsetting the Mutually Assured Destruction status quo that keeps the big players on the pro-patent side.
Patent Mills (Score:1)
One thing I'll never understand is why patent laws weren't changed the minute people started acquiring patents and not using them. The whole point is to feed innovation, so why not add a clause saying any patent that is held but not being developed against is void after X period of time? This way people still get to claim patents, but we don't have to worry about dipshits like Intellectual Ventures hoarding patents they have no intention of ever using.
Easy solution (Score:2)
So any patent would come with a price tag and it would cost something
The Prime Example (Score:5, Insightful)
p>What is the #2 result? A patent on how to find and protect intellectual property [google.com] (aka patents).
So, this company already has a patent on patenting patents. So all you slashdotters with the Step 1, Step2, .... Profit jokes owe them money.
Patent Trivia... (Score:1)
Can I patent the idea of making cereal at a restaurant and serving it to guests?
A.
Yes you may! It is a business method patent and will readily be accepted by the US Patent Office.
Imagine you owned a business wanted to serve cereal (simplified business problem). To your horror, somebody else has already patented the business method of serving cereal in a restaurant! You are now in a lawsuit and unable to serve CEREAL to your guests! You are screwed, and the economy takes another dive... cereal
The software patent war won't be a war (Score:2)
The software patent war won't be a war, but an extermination.
Where those companies that make things will be crushed by those that don't.
I know (Score:2)
Software is a special kind of product (Score:2)
Novell, Dell, (Score:2)
/me scratches off the Dell Inspiron 9400 from my shortlist of notebooks I'm looking into.
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Also, Shuttleworth appears to be a bit of a Microsoft fan. Read his confused comments here: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/118 [markshuttleworth.com]
Especially this gem:
"I have high regard for Microsoft. They produce some amazing software, and
they made software much cheaper than it ev
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Just because he isn't a foam-mouthed zealot doesn't mean he's an idiot (or an MS fan for that matter). Some people need to and wisely choose to be diplomatic rather than overly sharp-tongued.
It's quite common in the real world to soften things a little.
Re:Microsoft to Ubuntu (Score:5, Informative)
from Wikipedia: [wikipedia.org] In other words, it's a contextual view of humanity as being constituted of relationships. We are the relationships we have.
Re:Microsoft to Ubuntu (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Microsoft to Ubuntu (Score:4, Informative)
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin sun-java6-fonts
sudo update-java-alternatives -s java-6-sun
sudo -b gedit
(add "/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun" before the other entries, no quotes)
Then you get a Java that isn't unusably slow. It'd sure be nice if Ubuntu did this by default, or at least provided a n00b-friendly (ie, no command line) way of doing it.
If you're using Eclipse and would like for it to not take 30 seconds to display code completion, do this:
sudo -b gedit
(add "/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun" before the other entries, no quotes)
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That's a little bit like asking "Is there any chance that Microsoft helped Bill Gates start the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation?" The answer is mu.
While Microsoft probably has no direct involvement in Myhrvold's company, the stock options Myhrvold collected as part of his compensation from MSFT probably at least helped pay for the startup costs for his new company, and Myhrvold has probably solicited and gotten the help of ma
Re:People grow into Microsoft devs after open sour (Score:2)
When the source is open, you can afford to care (Score:1)
What about proprietary deveolpers who become open source developers when they realize they prefer their work to be meaningful? That's what I'm in the process of doing - and yes, I'm being paid for it.
I'm sure many developers find satisfaction in proprietary development. That's a personal thing. I find FOSS de
Re:People grow into Microsoft devs after open sour (Score:1)
Any chance of providing any form of data to back up your data, or are you just hoping someone feeds the troll? I have yet to see any actual study showing this trend, not least because there is a large number of people being paid for their work in free software (Red Hat a
Try this 2004 survey done through SourceForge (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.ostg.com/bcg/ [ostg.com]
About 2000 lead developers of the top SourceForge projects were surveyed. 30% responded. Of those 30% said they made money while creating open source projects. The top two motivators for open source were "intellectual stimulation" (i.e., fun) and "skill improvement" (i.e., training).
So...I'd say my basic premise holds: people often use open source projects to practice their sk