FYI: Report: Microsoft says open source violates 235 patents
squishy
By Stephen Shankland
http://news.com.com/Report+Microsoft+says+open+source+violates+235+patents/2100-1014_3-6183437.html
Story last modified Sun May 13 20:35:06 PDT 2007
Microsoft claims that free and open-source software violates more than 230
of its patents, according to a magazine report published Sunday.
In an interview with Fortune, Microsoft top lawyer Brad Smith alleges that
the Linux kernel violates 42 Microsoft patents, while its user interface and
other design elements infringe on a further 65. OpenOffice.org is accused of
infringing 45, along with 83 more in other free and open-source programs,
according to Fortune.
It is not entirely clear how Microsoft might proceed in enforcing these
patents, but the company has been encouraging large tech companies that
depend on Linux to ink patent deals, starting with its controversial pact
with Novell last November. Microsoft has also cited Linux protection playing
a role in recent patent swap deals with Samsung and Fuji Xerox. Microsoft
has also had discussions, but not reached a deal with, Red Hat, as noted in
the Fortune piece.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is also quoted in the article as saying
Microsoft's open-source competitors need to "play by the same rules as the
rest of the business."
"What's fair is fair," Ballmer told Fortune. "We live in a world where we
honor, and support the honoring of, intellectual property."
The story notes that some big tech proponents of open source have been
stockpiling intellectual property as part of the Open Invention Network, set
up in 2005 by folks like Sony, Red Hat, IBM, NEC and Philips. The article
surmises that if Microsoft were to go after open source, these companies'
combined know-how might give it some patent weapons to go after Windows.
A Microsoft representative was did not immediately respond to an e-mail
seeking comment.
Given how deeply entrenched open-source software has become in the computing
industry, taking direct legal action against the open-source realm would be
a complicated, hackle-raising undertaking for Microsoft. Customers use
open-source software widely, and many major computing companies--IBM, Dell,
Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola and Oracle, for example--support
Linux work directly.
It's not the first time that open-source patent concerns have arisen. A 2004
study by a Open Source Risk Management, a company selling insurance against
risks of using open-source software, concluded Linux could violate at least
283 patents, 27 of them Microsoft patents.
Patents and the open-source movement get along awkwardly at best. Patent law
gives proprietary, exclusive rights to patent holders, but open-source
programming is built on the idea of free sharing. Newer open-source licenses
sometimes address the issue by requiring contributors to open-source
projects to grant users and developers of the software a perpetual,
royalty-free license to any patents that relate to the contribution.
Different companies have dealt in different ways with the open-source patent
conundrum. For example, HP has taken a pro-patent stance, while IBM, Nokia,
Sun and others have granted some rights to use some of their patents in
open-source software.
The Open Invention Network remains a relatively young effort, but it has
attracted participation this year from proprietary software giant Oracle and
from Linux support seller Canonical. A company may license the network's
patents for free as long as they promise not to assert any patent claims
against those involved in "the Linux environment."
The Free Software Foundation is working on a new draft of the GPL, one
element of which will ban partnerships such as that struck by Novell and
Microsoft.
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http://news.com.com/Report+Microsoft+says+open+source+violates+235+patents/2100-1014_3-6183437.html?tag=nefd.top
William Poaster
John Bailo
> Report: Microsoft says open source violates 235 patents
> Microsoft claims that free and open-source software violates more than 230
> of its patents,
Patents which were just invalidated by this month's Supreme Court ruling!
Read the journals, Brad Smith.
da...punk...A!!!
> Report: Microsoft says open source violates 235 patents
>
< . . . >
> It is not entirely clear how Microsoft might proceed in enforcing these
> patents
They probably won't try anything. Seems to me there are often MS
people telling the press how Linux violates this or that piece of MS
intellectual property, but they never actually do anything about it
because it's all standard practice FUD.
> Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is also quoted in the article as saying
> Microsoft's open-source competitors need to "play by the same rules as the
> rest of the business."
The "rules" Ballmer was on about are probably those that say that
developers should keep their source closed and get heavy with anyone
who uses their ideas. Openness and sharing scare the hell out of
Microsoft.
BC
> Report: Microsoft says open source violates 235 patents
>
>
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They are likely, at least for the moment, just trying to
seed FUD among their current corporate clients who may
be eyeing more use of Linux. It's been demonstrated well
enough that Balmer and the rest are just blowing farts in
terms of the validity of their IP claims.
-BC
JK Simmons
>
> They are likely, at least for the moment, just trying to
> seed FUD among their current corporate clients who may
> be eyeing more use of Linux. It's been demonstrated well
> enough that Balmer and the rest are just blowing farts in
> terms of the validity of their IP claims.
>
This thread is entirely academic since IP does not exist.
"There's no such thing as intellectual property." - Mark Kent in
Message-ID: <740o34-...@ellandroad.demon.co.uk>
da...punk...A!!!
JK Simmons wrote:
> BC wrote:
>
> >
> > They are likely, at least for the moment, just trying to
> > seed FUD among their current corporate clients who may
> > be eyeing more use of Linux. It's been demonstrated well
> > enough that Balmer and the rest are just blowing farts in
> > terms of the validity of their IP claims.
> >
>
>
> This thread is entirely academic since IP does not exist.
> "There's no such thing as intellectual property." - Mark Kent
I dunno if Mark was being philosophical there or what, but so far as
the law is concerned IP certainly /does/ exist. As countless copyright
"thieves" have learnt to their cost.
IP is wrong, to be sure. But plagues are wrong too, and are still real.
The Ghost In The Machine
<jks...@domain.invalid>
wrote
on Mon, 14 May 2007 15:05:13 -0500
<f2afeb$nd8$1...@aioe.org>:
> BC wrote:
>
> >
> > They are likely, at least for the moment, just trying to
> > seed FUD among their current corporate clients who may
> > be eyeing more use of Linux. It's been demonstrated well
> > enough that Balmer and the rest are just blowing farts in
> > terms of the validity of their IP claims.
> >
>
>
> This thread is entirely academic since IP does not exist.
>
IP demonstrably exists, although it's hard to say
how much profit can be had thereby. Shakespeare is
the epitome of IP; his writings survive to this day.
Of course the copyright has long since expired and the
works are now public domain, AFAIK, though everyone who
is sufficiently exposed to literature will recognize his
more famous works such as _Hamlet_, _Romeo and Juliet_,
and _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. Ideally, copyright
would last forever, but works would be freely modifiable
as long as proper attribution is done, and no profits
are inherently reapable thereby -- though bookshops still
sell _The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare_, for a
small profit presumably.
After all, copyright and IP are one thing; royalties
quite another. Patents get stuck somewhere in the middle.
On a slightly more relevant/modern front, various
designs such as Intel's 8086 chip and Motorola's 68000
microprocessor are clearly the work of many people, but
owned by their respective corporations. Presumably both
started out using CAD databases (at least, AFAICT, but CAD
was just starting up in my neck of the industry in 1978,
and was probably well in use by the time the 8086 and
68000 came out in the early 1980's).
It is far from clear when we'll see the 8086 or 68000
transistor/wiring CAD data. A Google coughed up nothing.
Of course such CAD data isn't exactly freeware (it's
probably still under copyright, after all, and will be for
about 120-150 years, depending on the age of the designers
at the time the chip was first prototyped).
>
>
> "There's no such thing as intellectual property." - Mark Kent in
> Message-ID: <740o34-...@ellandroad.demon.co.uk>
Well, that's Mark Kent's opinion, admittedly. I for one
don't agree with it and can't say it makes sense. :-)
However, I also don't agree with DRM, and am not sure how
to reconcile this mess properly.
--
#191, ewi...@earthlink.net
Useless C++ Programming Idea #12995733:
bool f(bool g, bool h) { if(g) h = true; else h = false; return h;}
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Linonut
> Of course the copyright has long since expired and the
> works are now public domain, AFAIK, though everyone who
> is sufficiently exposed to literature will recognize his
> more famous works such as _Hamlet_, _Romeo and Juliet_,
> and _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. Ideally, copyright
> would last forever...
Why?
--
Windows Vista -- Because you want to use your CPU as a toaster
The Ghost In The Machine
<lin...@bellsouth.net>
wrote
on Thu, 17 May 2007 01:53:01 GMT
<1AO2i.112$Xo...@bignews6.bellsouth.net>:
> After takin' a swig o' grog, The Ghost In The Machine belched out this bit o' wisdom:
>
>> Of course the copyright has long since expired and the
>> works are now public domain, AFAIK, though everyone who
>> is sufficiently exposed to literature will recognize his
>> more famous works such as _Hamlet_, _Romeo and Juliet_,
>> and _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. Ideally, copyright
>> would last forever...
>
> Why?
>
Why not? :-)
To be sure, there are some interesting issues, as to
exactly what the scope of copyright would be. H. G. Wells
may be illustrative.
[1] He wrote a book -- actually several. I have a copy of
several of his works, bundled; the one I'll focus on is
_The Time Machine_. (_War of the Worlds_ has similar
issues, among them a rather famous radio broadcast.)
Among other things, he mentioned a detachable crystal
bar or control handle -- this factors later in the
book as he struggles to regain his machine from the
Morlocks. I'd have to reread the book to get a more
precise description of his device.
(The book is now in the public domain in the US,
but for some reason EU still retains copyright.
Chalk it up to legal differences. H. G. Wells died
in 1946.)
[2] The 1960's movie is a reasonably good adaptation of
H. G. Well's work, though the mannequin apparently was
added by the screenwriter, and the latter part of the
work (after the traveler goes forward -- inadvertantly
-- from the Eloi and Morlocks, showing among other
things weak rabbit-like human derivatives and a large
metallic affair akin to a centipede or millipede)
is completely cut out of the movie, probably because
of time constraints.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:The_Time_Machine.jpg
contains a photo of Rod Taylor sitting in the machine,
though the actual "sled" is not all that visible apart
from the three lights and the large back spinning
wheel.
[3] imdb suggests that there are actually a few other
variants. The 2002 variant (directed by Simon Wells)
I've not seen, so can't really comment beyond its
existence, though I suspect the special effects are
very impressive. However, the imdb entry suggests 0
to 800,000 years in 1.2 seconds (the 1960's variant
wasn't quite that fast, taking about a minute; the
book isn't horribly specific on that matter either).
There are also several TV shows -- 1949 in the UK,
1978 in the US, and a comedy in 2006 regarding a
romantic encounter.
There's even "The Low Budget Time Machine", in 2003,
which describes "spacebabes, lasers, rocketships, and
foam monsters". The cover page thereof is a rather
strange looking purple foam monster carrying a woman
dressed in a metallic turquoise and white outfit,
with a silver rocket in the background. (One wonders
how the foam monster was supported.)
So, the question is (or should be obvious): would
H. G. Well's copyright extend to all derivative works
(of which there clearly are several here)? Apart from
the low budget and comedic variants (the Morlocks were
frightful but not exactly made out of foam), they all hew
to the storyline in a general sense, although they may
differ on some of the specifics.
Now, this is somewhat relevant to Linux, which in a way is
a story in its own right, though unlike human-consumable
material is designed to a very exacting language -- namely,
the computer language C -- and not designed to be read
in sequence, but jump from point to point, instructing
machine peripherals and/or modifying memory/state as
it goes. It is far from clear to me the precise copyright
of Linux (the original idea is clear enough, but it's been
mutated by thousands of contributors). Even if Linus dies
(hopefully not for many many years; he's younger than I
am :-) ), and 70 years elapses, will it still be public
domain, as required by current law, or will it depend on
who last contributed thereto?
An interesting question.
Another illustration might be _The Twisted Tales of
Felix The Cat_. The original Felix was popular in the
late 1920s, with his creation being somewhat disputed.
Pat Sullivan died in 1933. Otto Messmer died in 1983.
If one assumes Pat Sullivan copyright would have been
lost in 2003 (at least in Europe), which makes the 1995
release of _The Twisted Tales of Felix The Cat_ rather
interesting, if reasonably entertaining to children (myself
included) at the time.
Was copyright renewed? Was it produced expressly to renew?
Is your brain hurting yet? Mine was throbbing awhile ago.
:-)
--
#191, ewi...@earthlink.net
Linux. An OS which actually, unlike certain other offerings, works.