Microsoft Taking Heat For Patent Stance 226
Yesterday Novell released a statement disavowing Steve Ballmer's claim that Linux infringes Microsoft's IP. Linux-watch.com reports that Microsoft quickly responded with a statement of its own that softened, but did not entirely back away from, Ballmer's claim (but the article offers no link to such a statement).
xtaski writes, "Everyone took notice when Ballmer spewed forth FUD about Microsoft and Linux IP. Now CIOs are asking just what did Ballmer think he was doing? They are not fooled — but rather, a little angry. ComputerWorld covers the news including one CIO who says 'There were some applications I had been thinking about moving to a Microsoft platform, but this has now totally alienated me from Microsoft.'"
And an anonymous reader points us to the statement by the Open Invention Network — whose investors include IBM, Novell, Sony, Red Hat, Philips and NEC — on the Microsoft-Novell agreement. From the statement: "OIN continues to support the Linux community's ability to collaborate and innovate. Through the accumulation of patents that may be used to shield the Linux environment, including users of Linux software, OIN has obviated the need for offers of protection from others."
It'll never happen (Score:5, Insightful)
The Windows vs Linux battle is a perfect example of mutually assured destruction.
Nobody will win if the lawsuits start flying back and forth. It wouldn't even be good for business.
If MS really thinks there are patent issues, then MS should either try to work out cross licensing deals that benefit or have the offending IP removed. Anything else is just FUD.
Re:Emotionalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:CIO's response is logical (Score:5, Insightful)
In theory... but in theory, Microsoft could patent swinging sideways on a tire swing and start suing kids on playgrounds. And kindergarden teachers can deny the validity of that statement, but it will be a matter for the courts to decide at some point.
Balmer is posturing. Microsoft's lawyers have assuredly already told the big hothead that there is slim to none chance that Microsoft could possibly win any such lawsuit. Why do we know that? Because they haven't sued anybody.
If MS thought it could have won such a lawsuit, it would have sued years ago, before or during the height of the SCO fiasco, when the public's perception that Linux might contain compromising intellectual property was strongest. They didn't, though, for all of their talk and FUD and veiled threats.
Think of what a successful MS lawsuit would have done to Linux market penetration, too. Even an unsuccessful, or settled lawsuit that dragged on long enough, would have sent CIOs and execs running scared from Linux... Right into the arms of Windows.
Even Balmer listens to his lawyers.
Re:It'll never happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Are they feeling pressure? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Emotionalism (Score:1, Insightful)
In the past, the business people would end up praising MS for such a quick and easy solution to their tech ills and will gladly be squeezed by them for license fees, even though they were the cause of the sickness to begin with! Only because Ballmer fumbled have people realized (only partially for most) that Microsoft is up to no good (always).
This is only logical (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that when it comes to patents, everyone, including the USPTO is looking at them more skeptically. Look at what the final outcome of this could or should be; MS looks better than before the situation, or MS gains credit with people who pay real money for MS products. MS currently doesn't have too many worries about home users switching to Linux. Its businesses and governments and educational institutions that MS has to keep on board the MS wagon. By acting open, or F/OSS friendly, they get to keep customers that were wavering... that can be billions of dollars per year. By actually pulling this off, they do more than keep money, they harm their competition in terms of market share. Every battle is not won simply on brute force, but often on preventing such force from being brought to bear against you.
The trouble here is that nobody on
Re:Emotionalism (Score:3, Insightful)
Allow me to fix this for your...
He's not looking at the platform on its technical merits but at the threat of litigation posed by someone who's job is to administer the fortune of the largest software company on Earth.Ballmer is a greed zealot (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Are they feeling pressure? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It'll never happen (Score:3, Insightful)
If MS really thinks there are patent issues, then MS should either try to work out cross licensing deals that benefit or have the offending IP removed. Anything else is just FUD.
First, Microsoft has "invented" nothing we use today. Have they?
I would suspect, even a California judge would have to find in Linux and FOSS favor with regards to patents. Take for example the tabbed Firefox browser with a close button on the top right? How long do you think it will be before Microsoft files a patent on it, then implements it then extorts for it?
What protocols does Microsoft use today that we commonly use (securely) on the internet?
Lets expand on FUD, FFUF, Fiction, Fear, Uncertainty and Fraud from M$.
Ever notice how Firefox 2.0 get both Microsoft and Linux spelling mistakes?
No wonder why everything is going offshore in innovation, you get you ass sued off for doing in in the USA.
Re:Patents (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't intend to sue, or protect your IP, then it's just FUD. And to reiterate - as far as I know, nobody, anywhere, has pointed to a single example of a Microsoft patent being in Linux.
The only difference between Microsoft at this point and SCO is that Microsoft is trying to not have to spend a fortune on lawyers. But I think their claims are just as baseless.
Re:Why would they? (Score:3, Insightful)
You picked a poor comparison. IBM's foolish actions in the 80's included some epic IP blunders. In fact, those blunders are a large part of the reason Microsoft has its dominant market position today. Further, a lot of IBM's patents are obselete or irrelevant. And there's no action that IBM can undertake that would remove a legal threat from Microsoft in seven days. I'll admit that I don't see any true Microsoft legal action going anywhere, but this sort of train wreck would take more than seven days to go through. Look at the SCO mess which really is Microsoft acting through SCO as a proxy. It's not going anywhere fast despite years of pointless legal maneuvering.
The heat in question was the supposed ire of Microsoft customers (or perhaps rather linux advocates). That's why I mention the "heatsink". Microsoft is fairly immune to that sort of criticism right now.Re:Patents (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope, that only applies to trademarks - defend them or lose them.
Patents and copyrights you can selectively enforce. Patent trolls frequently do this, going after the easily intimidated companies first to build up a warchest before tackling someone who is more likely to fight back. There are some limitations on damages if you can be shown to have known about the infringement for a while before suing, but that in no way invalidates the patent.
Re:It's frustration talking (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Are they feeling pressure? (Score:4, Insightful)
Something Just dawned on me regarding GPL mk III. Lets say it got into the kernel.... And microsoft are busy distributing SuSe Linux.... Wouldn't that mean that by implication Microsoft disclaim the right to sue over Patents hypothetically violated by linux? Or hell, is that already covered in version II?
The implication of III "fixing" that would be that yet again whilst everyone is throwing rocks at our communitys favorite beardo, said beardo has yet again got it right.
viva liberation!
IBM power -5 overrated (Score:1, Insightful)
A white knight action regarding software patents would be a major and clear public press release, something that landed on the front page of every biz rag out there, stating:
1)they will be lobbying to completely end software patents, in the US and internationally, at the very highest levels with all available resources. I mean their chairman going in front of Congress, that sort of serious level
2) opening all their existing software patents
3) A carved in stone statement that they will never seek any new ones, followed by a call for all other corporations to do the same
THAT would be the actions of an open source company that "gets it" with software patents and how stupid they are
They have only partially done one of those things, and they are the allegedly best out there with large corporations.. It's crap, a C- effort at best. The "bottom line" is don't trust large transnational corporations, no matter their name, any of them will turn on you and knife you if it increases their profits at some time if they need the cash (Novell, there ya go). Unless it's carved in stone and clear and legal and signed, don't believe the hype or astroturfing. Talk is cheap, let them show us the social contract.
Frankly, lately, Sun seems to be doing the biggest true change around, I think they are the only major old school tech company out there that at the top levels is *finally* starting to "get it" with open source and software patents.
Microsoft's patent bluff (Score:4, Insightful)
Furthermore, FOSS developers try hard to avoid infringing on people's patents, and Microsoft's patents are scrutinized, so the number of infringing software packages is likely small. In the few cases where Microsoft might have a valid patent claim against a piece of FOSS and could actually identify someone to sue, it would be hard for them to be able to claim willful infringement or get any real damages, and the infringing code would be removed instantaneously, making the case fall apart.
If Microsoft actually believes they have IP that's being violated, they should stop bluffing and start asserting it in court. That way, they can get what they deserve, and they create certainty for everybody else. Of course, certainty is the last thing they want.
Re:Emotionalism (Score:3, Insightful)
WTF???
You, sir, are confusing the role of the Chief Executive Officer with that of a dispensible shill.
CEOs should be rarely seen, and heard even less often. Any CIO should seriously question the stability of a possible vendor when that vendor's CEO is acting out of character. It raises serious questions about whether the vendor is making sound strategic decisions, and will be able to support its product throughout its expected service life.
Crappy Intellectual Property Non-sense (Score:2, Insightful)
anticompetitive, barriers to entry (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, that's not all they are: they are also barriers to entry, because small, commercial, closed-source competitors find it hard to enter a market in this situation. That's not what the patent system was supposed to do. And, sooner or later, it may lead to some serious scrutiny by the DOJ.
Nevertheless, it may work to the advantage of open source, since it means that new software companies may find it advantageous to figure out open source models for software that they would otherwise have released under a proprietary license.
Re:Are they feeling pressure? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can hardly argue that's Microsoft flexing their legal muscles. That would be about as threatening as the guy who cleans the floors at Harvard telling a student that if he cheats on his paper, Academic Affairs is going to expel him.
Now, there may be OTHER times when they have done so, but that's not one of them.
Re:CIO's response is logical (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually to nitpick, India, IIRC is currently the largest democracy (jibes about the current US administration aside.)
IMHO that's been the company plan for years. The tricks and underhanded maneuvers to try to get sw patents into Europe have been many. Eventually, MS via its proxy the US government may try to piggyback them to some future trade agreement like has been done for so many other regions and countries already. The European media has also been part of the problem by not covering the issue which basically affects anyone using a computer in their company or organization. One the rare occasions it is covered, the press has been wrongly playing the issue up as one that concerns developers only and open source developers in particular. That kind of portrayal gives the wrong picture of the threat.
Patents govern use. If sw patents somehow get into Europe then all the lame patents on RFCs, various computing science algorithms, formulas and even business methods then become valid there, too. In cases like that it doesn't matter how you got the software only what it does. And if what it does is patented, you or someone has to pay. e.g. if there is a patent on Quicksort (which there probably is), then it doesn't matter if you wrote it yourself in C, C++, Java, Perl, assembly, MUMPS, or Lisp, or if you downloaded it from an archive made in the 1980's or if you recently bought it as part of a library. What matters is that you are using a patent.
Copyright has done just fine for programs. Let's roll the US system back to something more sensible and harmonize US patent law with European, not European with the US.
In other words the only viable option is to go back to earlier patent law and drop sw patents. There are so many bad sw patents issued that there simply is not staff time, even if it could be funded, to go through and cull them from the patent register. Even culling is reactive and not proactive and would do nothing to stem the flow of sw patents on obvious, unoriginal and even widely used methods, algorithms, formula and business methods.
Re:IBM power -5 overrated (Score:4, Insightful)
So SCO is doing a rather prolonged FUD campaign, but with little hope of getting any money out of IBM. At the same time, they might have to pay IBM more damages than they can afford. I'm starting to believe what many people on Groklaw said:
SCO is doing the anti-linux propaganda for M$, not acting in its own best interests as company.
Re:Clarification about Who Owns Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
This is correct. In the past, Microsoft has tried to define Linux as Red Hat, and failed for this reason. The whole point of this patent deal (at least from Microsoft's POV) is to narrow the definition of Linux. If successful, the deal would separate Linux into legal and illegal groups of Microsoft's choosing. If Linux can be limited to a few corporate entities, then it becomes much easier to turn on those limited number of groups and exterminate, or reign in, Linux.
I don't think that Microsoft wants to completely exterminate Linux at this point. Linux is a highly visible competitor that Microsoft can use in defense of Monopoly claims. However, Microsoft can't keep it under their thumb with such a broad definition.
Re:Microsoft's patent bluff (Score:1, Insightful)
That's only one possible reason for them not sueing. Three others (not mutually exclusive) are:
1/ They dare not sue because if they really crippled Linux the EU would actually come down on them really hard (many EU governments use significant amounts of Linux)
2/ They dare not sue because the end result would be patent reform in the US, invalidating many or all of their software patents.
3/ They dare not sue because of the potential retaliation from IBM.
So they *might* have 'substantial and usable' patents but not dare use them at present. They might save them only for use as a final resort (e.g if their defacto monopoly in many area was seriously crumbling - which it isn't quite yet).
Re:$348 million (Score:3, Insightful)
The deal is supposed to be about interoperability. Microsoft has a couple of standards that they would like to see adopted wider.
Microsoft paid Apple to use Internet Explorer and it gave IE important extra marketshare to crush Netscape.
Novell are willing to play ball with Microsoft and it will now be easy for Novell to add some proprietary software packages co-authored by Microsoft which plays nice with Microsoft products like Exchange or even runs IE7 on Linux. This would all be well covered with lots and lots of patents to prevent wider adoption.
End result is Novell have an advantage for companies which mix Windows and Linux which keeps companies tied to core Microsoft technologies long enough for Microsoft to come up with (copy) the next big thing.