Earlier today, Microsoft announced it will begin actively seeking reparations for patent infringement by Linux and the Open Source Community in general. Larry Augustin posted his thoughts on the matter, expressing his opinion that it’s fear of having these IP-infringement claims debunked or challenged that’s keeping Microsoft from publishing these 235 alleged infringements to the public – and instead waiting until the OS community comes to the bargaining table. But let’s be realistic, shall we?
If Microsoft Corporation doesn’t have the biggest and baddest team of lawyers law firms, who does? It’s probably safe to assume that more than half of these patent infringements really are just that. Put aside the legitimacy of software patents in the first place and just look at the facts as they stand. Open source software gets its code from millions of developers and no amount of auditing or quadruple-checking will ensure clean-code. Despite Microsoft’s claims of “openly and knowingly” engaging in patent-violations, that’s most probably not the case.
But the real reason Microsoft does fear revealing the actual numbers and patents behind the IP-violation claims is that they can be worked around. 235 patents. 235 different issues, components, technologies, programs, and ideas. Most likely somewhere between 30-50% are extremely vague and fringe-cases that can disputed either way from here to kingdom-come and as such aren’t of any real significance.
But the remaining 150 or so issues – they’re the real meat, and that’s where Microsoft is afraid – most rightly so. US patent laws – despite all their ridiculous demands and restrictions – do provide for time to rectify errors/transgressions assuming they weren’t knowingly committed. Now if you told every single open-source contributor, every avid Linux programmer, every commercial entity whose entire existence depends on the free availability of open source software exactly what was wrong, to what extent, and how it needed to be changed to no longer be an issue – how long do you think it would take for all these violations to vanish into thin air?
It is much more in Microsoft’s benefit to have the open source community in “its debt,” so to speak, paying “royalty fees” and constantly under fear of being shut-down than it is for Linux and other open source projects to be 100% clean and out of legal quagmires. It makes too, in a twisted sort of way. If you can’t get everyone to buy your products, why not make money off of those that don’t as well?
The fact of the matter is, no matter how serious these patent violations are, any patent clearly-worded and not vague in purpose is addressable. It may take some time, effort, and tons of money to make it work; but chances are, it’s doable. So long as Microsoft hasn’t patented the right-mouse context menus, the concept of a desktop, or the word “Office,” the open source can – if the need arises – clear all these issues up and move on ahead.
Interesting….. What really surprises me is there isn’t a single MS fanboy coming to their rescue – not here or elsewhere on the web.
BTW – congrats on your EasyBCD 1.6 release.
@MCS:
>and there probably are hidden away in the mountains of MS code
Patents aren’t contained in code, but in ideas and features. It doesn’t make a difference if it’s closed or open source, whether you can see it or you can’t.
If you see a tot-truck, know that it’s in violation of that patent.
Ridiculous!
“It?s probably safe to assume that more than half of these patent infringements really are just that.”
That’s an incredibly ignorant statement. It’s only an infringement if a court rules that it is, and the legitimacy of software patents has never been ruled on by the Supreme Court … but it did recently rule that the patent office has of late been awarding a lot of patents that it shouldn’t, because they fail the obviousness requirement. What is “probably safe to assume” is that far more than half of MS’s alleged patents are either obvious or are prior art — and that is why, as they said, they don’t want to expose them to challenge by the FOSS community.
Anyone who accepts that MS has any legitimate patent complaints against Linux without first reading the actual patent claims is a moron.
Most likely somewhere between 30-50% are extremely vague and fringe-cases that can disputed either way from here to kingdom-come and as such aren?t of any real significance.
There’s a great deal about this piece that is wrong-headed and illogical, but this is perhaps the worst. It is precisely disputes that people have to fear from huge corporations with massive legal staffs.
The fact of the matter is, no matter how serious these patent violations are, any patent clearly-worded and not vague in purpose is addressable.
This is so ignorant. Patents on, say, decompression or decoding processes can only be addressed by dropping the functionality of decoding that format from the system; it isn’t sufficient to switch to another format (e.g., gzip or png) as long as files in the old format exist. And a basic technique like arithmetic coding, which is patented, is the best known method and is likely to be the best possible method; this can only be “addressed” by using inferior methods.
So long as Microsoft hasn?t patented the right-mouse context menus, the concept of a desktop, or the word ?Office?
These aren’t patentable! Sheesh, the whole point is about whether MS’s patent claims are legitimate, and then you come up with this nonsense.
the open source can – if the need arises – clear all these issues up and move on ahead
Strawman from a bozo … of course open source can “clear all these issues up and move on ahead”, one way or another — as soon as MS reveals what their 235 patent claims are!!
<i>No, because FAT32 (the specification) is patented. … The real trouble is going to come from the middle where it is going to require departing from an expected look-and-feel to avoid infinging on a patent. </i>
Get a clue, people. Specifications and look-and-feel aren’t patentable; only processes are patentable.
Any patentable aspect of FAT32 would have to be novel and non-obvious (to an expert practitioner of the art). As for look-and-feel, forget it — that’s a matter of copyright, not patent, and those cases haven’t held up (Apple did extort a license fee out of Microsoft, but it was never settled in court).
Open source software gets its code from millions of developers and no amount of auditing or quadruple-checking will ensure clean-code.
Linux clean code auditing is about copyrights, oh clueless one. And do you think that MS audits or quadruple- or even single-checks their code for violations of others’ rights? Since it’s public knowledge that MS was built from the bottom up on theft of the work of others and Linux is scrupulous about avoiding such theft and the SCO affair has demonstrated that Linux has been successful in that enterprise while SCO was anything but, you’ve got this completely bassackwards.
But the remaining 150 or so issues – they?re the real meat, and that?s where Microsoft is afraid – most rightly so.
So MS has been furiously filing patents for stuff they didn’t invent, and they are “rightly” afraid that they won’t be able to extort money via that practice? Uh huh.
Well, we do not care here. Europeans do not have such nonsense as “software patents”. The same goes for our brothers in Asia and Africa – they are free and do not care. I pity all Americans of course. Maybe it is time you do something with Microsoft and other marketeers. What they do to you (and tried to do to us many times) is an outrage. All that brainwashing they subjected you to and all those ludicrous claims… it is just preposterous. How can you live with that?!
But at the same time it?s hard to argue for a completely free world. Would Google have been able to rise to power, fame, and success if they would have been forced to release their search algorithm from day 1? Or if companies knew EXACTLY how the ranking system worked how much could you trust your search results?
People are so so so clueless … patents require you to reveal your technique.
Well, we do not care here. Europeans do not have such nonsense as ?software patents?.
Good grief, how can people be so ignorant? It’s only because of people who care that Europe is currently free of software patents, but the threat continues to loom. Get you head out of the sand and google Europe software patents, or just read http://fsfeurope.org/projects/swpat/
>and there probably are hidden away in the mountains of MS code
Patents aren?t contained in code, but in ideas and features.
Patent violations are contained in code, you silly goose.
Patents aren?t contained in code, but in ideas and features.
One of the big problems with the world today is that a great number of people are appallingly ignorant and are too arrogant to recognize it or admit it — they mistake their unsubstantiated beliefs for knowledge and present the former as the latter (this explains a great deal about George Bush, the invasion of Iraq, and American support ofr both, which is still around the 30% level). The person who wrote the above obviously knows nothing about patents, has never done even the most basic sort of research, the sort of thing that can be done with 5 minutes of googling, and yet makes an authoritative statement — a statement that is wholely and completely wrong. “ideas” and “features” aren’t patentable, only methods of implementation are patentable. So only by examining the code can it be determined whether a software patent has been violated.
As for patents, I would like software patents to be time limited
They are. Haven’t you people heard of “know your enemy”? How can you sally forth and write on these matters when you are ignorant of even the most basic and fundamental facts? From Article II, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution (emphasis added for retards):
“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries”
Make that Article I (The Legislative Branch), Section 8 (Powers of Congress)Interesting?.. What really surprises me is there isn?t a single MS fanboy coming to their rescue – not here or elsewhere on the web.
Yeah, Rupert. After all, the first post here doesn’t say “Dude, Opensource is screwed. Microsoft is going to be the clear winner here” and the second post doesn’t say “I agree with that guy. ^”.
Truth machine, most of what you are spouting is BS.
Patents aren’t for HOW something is done so much as the concept itself.
A tot truck made from wood – whether hand-carved or by machine, built from Balsa or Oak – is still in violation of that patent.
You can’t implement a filesystem per say, but by implementing the way a filesystem works, classifies information, organizes data, and stores the various chunks, you’re patenting a filesystem. Because FAT32 is just a method of storing data, same as NTFS, Reiser4, and even crappy old ext2/3fs.
Truth Machine, get a grip. You’re a FUD Machine, nothing more, nothing less… Except that you claim to know more than everyone else too.
Truth Machine wrote:
—
Well, we do not care here. Europeans do not have such nonsense as ?software patents?.
Good grief, how can people be so ignorant? It?s only because of people who care that Europe is currently free of software patents, but the threat continues to loom. Get you head out of the sand and google Europe software patents, or just read http://fsfeurope.org/projects/swpat/
—
Why do you assume we are ignorant? How very rude.
We do not have absurd software patents, because we fought for it when lobbyists financed (mostly) by american corporations tried to enforce them (inter alia by corrupting the European Commision)… a propos, thanks for your contribution to the world wellbeing, USA ;).
And only because some of us decided to do something about that and counteract (by educating people, signing petitions, voting) we do not care about Microsoft’s absurd claims. We laugh at it because we can – we fought for it.
Maybe it is time the people of the USA should do the same and stop polluting the world… because, I am sorry to say that, the cancer spreads from the USA.
Just out of curiosity… Where are you from, TM? USA?
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
Quoting Renee:
“Patents aren?t for HOW something is done so much as the concept itself.”
That so? I’ll go patent the concept of filtering out oxygen from the atmosphere to engage in aerobic cellular respiration, and charge everyone $1 USD per breath. It’s the concept that counts, right?
I think Microsoft and the Bush administration should sue each other because they have both violated each other’s patent on Pure Evil (TM).
About 30 years ago, when I was learning Turbo Pascal 3.02a on an Apple II+, I needed to sort a list. The first idea I came up with was called the “Bubble Sort”. The second idea I came up with was a “Linked List”, followed quickly by a “Double Linked List”. From there it was an instant leap to a “Multiple Linked List”. All of these sorting algorithms I thought up on my own without reference to any outside material. Imagine my suprise when I read “The Art of Programming” by Donald Knuth and found them described in his three volumes.
I believe that all except the Bubble Sort are now patented by someone. That is because the Patent Office is a political tool whose primary purpose has become generating “campaign” money for politicians, both left and right, who pull the strings behind the scene. This riggs the process in favor of patent holders with deep pockets. You can see this ploy in play in the VFAT patent appeal:
http://news.com.com/Microsofts+file+system+patent+upheld/2100-1012_3-6025447.html
“Microsoft has won a debate where they were the only party allowed to speak, in that the patent re-examination process bars the public from rebutting arguments made by Microsoft,” he told CNET News.com. “We still believe these patents are invalid and that a process that gave the public equal time to present its positions would result in them being found as such.”
So, prior art be damned. That is why IBM, Google, RH and other folks with money for political clout and patent portfolios to counter sue WILL get involved. They have to, or Microsoft walks away with the ENTIRE computer industry in America, from the hardware, through the development tools, to the GUI presentations and business algorithms. They won’t get by just by letting competitors or users sign cross license agreements or paying licenses or royalties. Gates and Ballmer’s greed knows NO boundaries. They will MONOPOLIZE the industry, not just PC OEM desktops, if they are ALLOWED to get away with it. What will be next, mobile phones becoming illegal unless they have Windows embedded in them? All gaming devices illegal except XBox? How much of a percentage of the house take will Microsoft take before the casinos and the mob strike back? Computer devices in warships, weapons, satellites, research vehicles, etc., all have to be running Microsoft IP? America trusting its security to Microsoft’s IP despite its miserable track record in protecting its on OS against viruses? To where will those politicians with chests full of “campaign” contributions run off into “retirement” if Microsoft’s IP embedded in security devices is going to “protect” them and their wealth? (They probably hide a line in a 3000 page omnibus bill allowing Unux in security devices owned by politicians only, and then only Microsoft’s Unix, formerly known as SUSE.)
It Mcirosoft does get away with this grand theft it will turn most personal PCs into door stops because Microsoft isn’t interested in making Windows/VISTA safe to use. VISTA’s only purpose is to act as a gatekeeper for the Entertainment industry while extorting huge license fees for Microsoft as well. I, for one, will hang this laptop on the wall as a monument to American corporate greed and political corruption.
But now there’s a shadow hanging over Linux and other free software, and it’s being cast by Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500). The Redmond behemoth asserts that one reason free software is of such high quality is that it violates more than 200 of Microsoft’s patents. And as a mature company facing unfavorable market trends and fearsome competitors like Google (Charts, Fortune 500), Microsoft is pulling no punches: It wants royalties. If the company gets its way, free software won’t be free anymore.
Remember Bill Gate made IBM surrender to his term…… Microsoft improved to next level system to fat systems. Just like Linux followed what Bill Gate did. But Linux made it comment to be free and use what ever is best for you.
When IBM and APPLE has the stuff. APPLES protected their rights. IBM surrender, They didn’t do enough protected their patient right…. Let say it was too late. When Window 95 came out… that when sources was patient and protection junk..
I have problem with Vista or Microsoft stuff. their application is old or should I say…. There was nothing new improved for 2006 or next three years… sure I gonna get hate mails or comments what I wrote…
Linux has best burner I see in long time… K3B… it sure does let you have freedom to what you want to do. I may be wrong… If you look in past years of Microsoft what they did… HOW they created new applications, programs, They got it from IBM and APPlE function.or UNIX princples. Linux is doing same way Bill created Microsoft …Linux has created it to be free… and use it what ever you or person like to do.
Despite millions of computer geeks all making their valid points of reference to the battle between Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer and Linux – all of this is part of life and life is a fun little theatre that gives everyone a chance to settle their emotions and show their monkey shines. Just like Bill Gates said a few years ago – 99 percent of all people who use computers have the brains of a Spider Monkey. That is still true today. How many people can create a Binary Assembly Program to run a computer or any part of a computer? How many people can write a program and call it BASIC? How many people can write a program called DOS? How many people can even use Assembly or BASIC or DOS or UNIX or LINUX or any thing resembling a Commandline Environment? Bill Gates is correct! 99 percent of the people who use computers have the brains of a Spider Monkey. How many people talking crap about Microsoft or Linux can use the OS’s (Operating System’s) to create drivers for computer peripherals? The truth is – computers and the softwares that run on them have been so dumbed down it’s pathetic. How many people that work with computers on a daily basis know the kinds of Clocks on a Motherboard. How many even know what a Motherboard is and that back in the day – Clock Boards had to be bought separately in order to even have a Clock in the computer?
The point here is – you need to know the complete history of Microsoft, Xerox, Digital Research, IBM, Novell companies and softwares like MINIX, UNIX, Apple OS, Atari OS, Commodore OS, OS2 and there’s several others to boot…in order to be the mouth of the Internet as to being correct. Most of whatever anyone says can have some sort of validity – but, based on what? Microsoft does hold a lot of patents – but, did you know that even though it held one of the Original FAT patents that it had to purchase the complete company of Digital Research (DR DOS) in order to have FAT32 and get the 32bit technology required to take Windows 95 to Windows 95B. That’s right – Microsoft doesn’t own everything and hasn’t for a long time – and just because it has the money to buy companies like Digital Research – the owners of DR DOS didn’t sell the land with the house. Microsoft doesn’t own FAT32 and 32bit but, have bought the rights to use it however they wish. That’s how Microsoft does things…thing goes into the world and walks like a bully telling everyone they meet that they own everything and invented and created everything. The truth in that system of doing things – it doesn’t take much to convince a Spider Monkey that it doesn’t have rights to anything so it had better be able to pay for it’s bananas. So – Microsoft does more things like in Disk Compression – outright stole Disk Compression from the company based in San Diego called Stacker and Stacker was selling its Disk Compression Softwares on the open market and Microsoft decided that since it’s own compression technology sucked and was killing its reputation by wiping out complete hard drives and losing complete databases – it had to do something quick like steal something that did work and that was Stacker’s Disk Compression — and to this day it is Stackers technology that MS uses in all of it’s Defragmenting and Compression Softwares and Microsoft is going to pay Stacker for the rest of Window’s software life span. So – as long as someone is using a MS product – MS is going to pay Stacker a handsome check every year. That was a court order.
Microsoft will never sue anyone over anything Linux. Instead – Microsoft has indemnified itself with Novell and can actually open up Linux and look inside and see what makes it work and see why it does better than Windows in some cases….and never get into trouble. If they do get caught using GPL in their softwares – the easiest excuse in the world will be used —- “We bought the rights to this technology so we can better make programs that are cross platform!” In the near future I guarantee you that you will start seeing things in Microsoft Windows Softwares that came directly from Linux just like Microsoft bought rights to using System V and Unix from that bad company that sued IBM over UNIX System V. We won’t say their name here. We want people to forget that company ever existed.
But, the important facts here are that Microsoft is in trouble technologically and for engineering anything new and there are limited ways of making a computer run and Microsoft needs an open door policy to Linux and UNIX and has indeed bought them….to have a conduit to open source from all the geeks in the world who are working on Linux and perfecting it. What better way to hire a 100,000 programmers world wide? Do get my point here? Why pay a 1000 immigrant programmers top salary when you can get most of them to work for free because of thier dedication to the task? Soon – Windows, Linux and UNIX versions of OS’s will be directly crossplatformed and all of them will work together as if they were —- made by the same company for the sole purpose of working together. Gee – I wonder why they all work together will be the next phase of questioning Steve Ballmer. How many products do you buy every day that are made by the same company but put in bottles with various different labels and each one claiming to better than the other. Well, that’s about to happen with all the OS’s and various other softwares such as office softwares and databases. Ballmer didn’t get to be one of the richest men in the world by paying all his money to people who think they are worth it. Ballmer got to the top by being one of the most shrewwed business men in the market and getting lots of people to do lots of work for free or next to nothing and then selling an almost workable product to the masses as a fully workable product and the Spider Monkeys didn’t and don’t the difference and therefore will keep supporting Microsoft and all the Open Source Programmers of the world creating products that do work and putting them on the market for free – will become part of Steve Ballmer’s library of sales. Ballmer is a salesman – not an idiot. If the Open Source Programmers don’t want Steve Ballmer stealing their technology and implementing it into Microsoft Windows – they are simply going to have to either patent everything they do – or copy right it or convert to Proprietary Software Licensing. That’s the bottomline. If you are going to put valuable free stuff on the market and brag that “look what you’ve done” then you can fully expect one of the best thieves in the world to take what you offer and sell it for their own.
Microsoft suing anyone over anything Linux — NEVER GONNA HAPPEN!
Microsoft stealing everything good from Linux and putting it into Windows – MOST DEFINATELY!
Linux getting anything from Windows – NEVER!
Who wins – HE WHO STEALS THE MOST AND HAS THE MOST MONEY TO PROTECT THEIR STEALING!
That would be — MICROSOFT – WINS AGAIN!
Who is at fault – YOU ARE! YOU PAID Micosoft and not the Open Source Programmers.
Who tricked who – YOU TRICKED YOURSELF! Only an idiot would put valuable free stuff where a thief can steal it.
Dear “Sometime” — What you wrote barely resembles English; I sure hope it isn’t your native language. But you’re a nincompoop regardless of what language you speak.
“I may be wrong” — and you are. ” Just like Linux followed what Bill Gate did.” — What the effing hell are you talking about? Linux is based on UNIX and Minix; it doesn’t “follow what Bill Gates did”, which is to steal QDos.t
“Truth machine, most of what you are spouting is BS.
Patents aren?t for HOW something is done so much as the concept itself.”
Renee, you’re an effing moron and a liar. I have my name on patents — do you? Even 2 minutes on google would make it clear that you’re wrong.
“Why do you assume we are ignorant?”
Tomasz, you’re an effing moron. I didn’t *assume* anything — you made it clear that you’re ignorant with your words.
“We do not have absurd software patents, because we fought for it when lobbyists financed (mostly) by american corporations tried to enforce them (inter alia by corrupting the European Commision)?”
In other words, you’re a liar — you *do* care about software patents.
That “linux blows” post is hilarious.
Where to begin?
Point 1, if Linux “blows”, we would not be having this discussion because no one would be using it.
Point 2, if Windows didn’t suck, there would be no impetus to use something else.
Point 3, desktop concept can’t be owned by Microsoft, if anything it would be Apple’s and, if it was, there is no chance that Jobs would let that slip even though his OS is BSD at it’s core.
Point 4, CDE has been using contextual menus for 20 years on UNIX.
Point 5, Microsoft winning here is a bad thing for everyone, even you stupid M$ fanboys. The problem is that they own so much of the market that they don’t really innovate anymore. Zune is a copy of iPod, Live Network is a copy of a myriad of other things that closely resemble the Google offering, MSN was their attempt to copy AOL, which was a copy of Prodigy. I can’t think of one new offering from the boys at Microsoft that they’ve developed. For the most part they have purchased anything that was good and crushed that square peg into the round hole they made for it. Hotmail, for example, was great before M$ bought it and crammed Passport into it.
Last point…
Microsoft < (IBM+Sony+Novell+fossCommunity);
while(openSourceAlternative.isAvailable){
smallBusiness++;
taxDollars+=taxRate*smallBusiness.getProfit();
}
Just want to point out the concept of “desktop” isn’t Apple’s at all, it’s all started off at Xerox – the print company, who didn’t know the goldmine they were sitting on. Lucky for us, they didn’t copyright it, Microsoft and Apple made a fortune off of it, and are now breaking the golden rule: Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.
They benefited from lack of patents/copyrights, but they want to ensure no one else does.
I love these people who proclaim themselves “gurus” but can’t even distinguish between a patent and a copyright. The claim that Xerox didn’t know what they were sitting on is an ignorant just-so story. Xerox PARC was Xerox’s R&D division,which in addition to inventing the GUI invented laser printing and a lot more that Xerox has profited plenty from. In exchange for demonstrating their GUI to Steve Jobs, they got a sh*tload of Apple stock that is worth a pretty penny.
Guys, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
First of all, nobody, and I say nobody, wants to see M$ playing the ‘big baby’ here. If each and every person in the US (or any other country for that matter) would patent every part of his and her full name, wouldn’t it be a little bit absurd? Or any person that can read a dictionary picks up a random word and submit it for patenting? (The patent office wouldn’t even agree on these anyway.)
Its like any monolithic, capitalist company pick any animal/plant/object from nature and get a patent for it? That’s insanity. Nobody can patent the air we breathe, the water we breathe, the food we eat, and even the words we write. That even goes for the words found in the source codes that every developer, hacker, programmer, engineer and architect in this world would write to make the very fabric of this ‘software culture’.
“Guys, let?s not get ahead of ourselves.”
Who are you talking to? And other than demonstrating that you’re a moron, what precisely is your point?
Microsoft has only one agenda here, to make corporate types fearful
of using and relying upon Linux on servers and desktops. MS does
not -have- to win in court. It never has to -go- to court. It mearly has
to make the conservative business crowd nervous. That way they’ll
“play it safe” by sticking with MS servers and Vista on the desktops.
As for Ma and Pa consumer, 90% of them will use Windows anyway
because it came “free” with their computer. Besides, they can’t figure
out how to use anything else and all their friends use Windows too.
SUSE ? (K)Ubuntu ? Fedora ??? Alien words. Probably communist …
The foundations of the Microsoft OS in conception and execution has almost certainly got some borrowed unix code in it. The only reason Windows exists is because UNIX couldn’t fit on the micromachines of the early eighties. There’s no other reason for it’s existence. Why doesn’t novell sue microsoft?
does microsoft pay royalties to xerox as well?
No one pays royalties to Xerox, because they didn’t ask for them.
Have anyone noticed that a person calling themselves “truth machine” is an anal retentive moron? Seriously. Just read their moronic (and offensive) replies to others ‘ posts and see for yourselves.
Why would Microsoft want to ID the patent violations when it is one company that likes to ship a new software each year? Isn?t that shooting themselves in the foot? Word is if you are a Novell Linux, Red Hat or HP user, you will be protected from their lawsuits. Microsoft could be doing the ?right? thing (for itself) by taking a case to court which they are likely to win, but in doing so it may accidentally create awareness and popularity of GNU/Linux, prompting its current hosted users to jump ship because of curiosity or disgust.