Microsoft Stoking the IP Fire 99
gokulpod writes to tell us the Financial Express is reporting that Microsoft is heating up the IP battle once again with warnings about IP indemnifications issues. From the article: "Analysts believe that the core issue at stake is whether open source software increases litigation risks. Open source advocates are quick to point out the IP litigation faced by Microsoft itself. Ubuntu founder and leader Mark Shuttleworth says, 'Linux is growing fast and whenever there is a new way of doing things, people will raise all kind of issues.'"
MS say they will fight for end users (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft Users not protected from patent claims. (Score:5, Interesting)
For example - if you use functioanlity covered by the excel patent case [theregister.co.uk] microsoft lost recently, then your business will suffer.
Gartner recommends [gartner.com] the following: So... MS loses a patent case, you're liable to clean up the mess.
Furthermore, if the functionality is essential to you, and you avoid installing the service pack, you could be sued [blogspot.com]
MS is no different to Open Source.
First the vendor is sued, if the litigation is successful, they remove or work around the patent-protected functionality, then if the user continues using the disputed code, the user is liable.
Risk to USERS of open source from patent claims? (Score:5, Interesting)
2) Any patent lawsuit costs the suing party at least several hundred thousand dollars.
3) Any patent put before the courts is at very great risk of being destroyed by prior art.
4) Any payout awarded from a single end user has to be in proportion to value of the patented technology. The value of a single instance will could only be measured in hundreds of dollars, not coming close to covering the costs of suing
5) Patent lawsuits take six years to over a decade to work it's way though appeals.
6) Developers will release new software using a method that circumvents the patent in question within two months. This will be quickly adopted and by the time the first patent case is resolved there will be no further customers for the patent holder to sue.
7) The outrage generated in taking out a case against any open source will result in Groklaw [groklaw.net] and other groups putting the suing party and their lawyers under the closest scrutiny. You will not believe the level of bad publicity, let alone the the amount of prior art, dirty business practices, and legal suspect practices and even violation of statutes [rcn.com] that will be uncovered.
Lastly to quote Pulp Fiction, and then "we are going to get medieval on your ass."
Any IP case against users of open source pute the attacker at a far greater risk.Re:The New Global Economy (Score:5, Interesting)
It looks like they picked on the wrong guy with IBM though, the groklaw headline reads IBM Subpoenas Microsoft! Sun! Baystar and HP! [groklaw.net].
Imagine the cockroaches that are going to crawl out when those documents hit the court. Presuming of course that those documents haven't been lost, shredded or otherwise just become unavailable.
I wouldn't be surprised if IBM sued MS after the sco trial is over just to get their money back from the lawsuit. You know MS is going to settle, they tend to pay up pretty quickly when slapped with lawsuits.
I'm surprised people believe MS will protect them. (Score:4, Interesting)
According to Techweb (and many other sites), 25% of Office users will suffer the pain of having to alter apps because Microsoft didn't own some of the technology it shipped.
http://www.techweb.com/wire/software/179100683 [techweb.com] Users are currently infringing patents now. But come the next update apparently MS will disable these features.
Thus your applications will go bang. I see that as bad.
Recall how MS issued the WMF vulnerability patch by remotely rebooting people's machines, including servers ?
If you buy an MP3 or DVD player which breaks someone's patent, it's hard to care if the manufacturer gets sued. But if you look at the Blackberry debacle, we see that a patent holder can reach into a user's equipment and disable it.
RIM is not a trivial firm, albeit smaller than MS, it has fought hard, but is losing.
MS lost it's case, and recall all the fights over tech in IE ?
Perhaps this is the real reason the MS is pandering to the copyright holders in the MPAA and RIAA for Vista ?
Thus we have both a legal and technical framework by which you can be shafted. MS can't protect you.
Like with viruses, it's very size makes it more vulnerable, and a more attractive target.
If you were a SCOlike entity would you rather extort $1 from every copy of Windows or Gentoo Linux ?
There are (I guess) >50,000 patentable things in Microsoft's product line. Most of which are of course prior art, or a few licenced or owned. But MS cannot afford even to buy off all the patent holders who might come after it.
Thus MS protection is very limited.
Part of my education was during the Cold War about the role of the British nuclear deterrent, which was a distant 3rd after Russia & the US. It couldn't destroy Russia, but could make an awful mess.
To me it points to what the open source movement should be moving towards with future versions of GPL etc.
By patenting a slew of s/w features, MS, Oracle et al now have something to fear.
The gangs of lawyers on contingency unleashed if MS tries to screw the O/S user base have the same deterrence as as the UK nukes. Not the end of the world, but the end of your world, which is good enough.
Since the lawyers are being used weapons, not as revenue generators, you can cut a deal where they get to keep all the money.
This means they will be more effective than the SCO gang, because their goal is to make a profit, not mutually assured destruction.
DCFC the Pimp. http://pauldominic.com/ [pauldominic.com]
User responsible on their own? (Score:2, Interesting)
But in today's patent-happy legal minefield, do they really expect that no-one would stand up for Linux users? It's a matter of precedent - no matter whether the case is brought against a particular user or not, what's really on trial is the allegedly infringing software. If the user is found guilty, then the software is found guilty and cannot be used by anyone else. The makers of the software, and more likely organisations such as distros and Linux advocacy groups will all have an interest and no doubt a role in protecting the product (and the user).
Anyway, does anyone else think it's sad that you can be sued for using IP-infringing software, rather than the software makers? That implies the onus is on the user to pore through the source code and the list of software patents, looking for any potential infringements, which is quite patently (pun intended) ridiculous.
How to burn the house down (Score:4, Interesting)
I much prefer the approach taken by the government of Brazil. They decided to put in some support for open source, and when Microsoft objected they told Microsoft to go sling their hook. There was no chair-throwing or calling down of world war three, at least in public. Microsoft swallowed hard and started to behave themselves. Good to see that standing up to bullies can work.
If you have money, you are going to get sued... (Score:4, Interesting)
The unfortunatly thing is that all these lawsuits make it prohibitivly expensive for the little guys (who can't afford an army of lawyers), and give big corporations the advantage - and at the same time that this is handing the world over to big corporations, we have to listen to people tell us that if it wasn't for this lawsuits "we would be taken advantage of by big corporations". *sigh*
there's na FOSS marketing issue here (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, take a look at the ridiculous and downright insulting terms of sale that have been associated with proprietary software over the past few years: We've seen EULA terms that boil down to, "we own your computer, we're just letting you use it," spyware, rootkits, data tagging, terms of sale that demand holes in network security so the software can call home to snitch on you, and the occasional ABA software license compliance audit.
Frankly, in objective terms, buying proprietary software puts the user in a lousy legal position.
FOSS, on the other hand, lacks the power to impose any of that nonsense on consumers. You get a nonexclusive right to use the software, and the freedom to bypass or remove any pieces you dislike. You don't have to agree to bend over and lube up just to install the stuff.
This whole 'indemnity' issue is misdirection. Micorosoft wants to keep people so busy worring about the (overall very good) legal status of FOSS that they ignore the (overall rotten) legal status of Microsoft's own products.
This is a big-ass hint, gang.. Microsoft is telling us what it fears. It fears a world where corporate lawyers shoot down potential deals with Microsoft because the legal encumbrances on the software are unacceptable.
We need to counter this FUD by making lots of noise about how good the FOSS legal package is. We need to see Microsoft's:
"if you use FOSS, you MIGHT get sued"
and raise it with:
"if you use proprietary software, you WILL get EULA terms roughly equivalent to a full body-cavity search, you'll PROBABLY get spyware, you COULD get a rootkit, and you MIGHT get a software audit from the ABA. (and by the way: the number of ABA audits every year is larger than the number of lawsuits against FOSS)"
Loudly. And frequently.