"Free software is great, and corporate America loves it. It's often high-quality stuff that can be downloaded free off the Internet and then copied at will. It's versatile - it can be customized to perform almost any large-scale computing task - and it's blessedly crash-resistant. A broad community of developers, from individuals to large companies like IBM, is constantly working to improve it and introduce new features. No wonder the business world has embraced it so enthusiastically: More than half the companies in the Fortune 500 are thought to be using the free operating system Linux in their data centers. But now there's a shadow hanging over Linux and other free software, and it's being cast by Microsoft. 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."
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Member since:2007-02-17
{A concrete example is MPEG2. There are plenty of OSS MPEG2 players that don't pay the MPEG2 license fee (which as around $10 per player).}
The problem here is that MP3 is not a Microsoft patent. Most Linux distributions, and indeed most Linux media players, do not ship with MP3 codecs.
If Microsoft does in fact hold a valid patent (for example, in a media codec such as WMV or WMA), for which there is no prior art (no prior art for a media codec? how are they going to argue that one?), and which patent is indeed implemented in Linux, then exactly how are Microsoft going to argue any damages? Microsoft don't offer a WMA or WMV codec for Linux, so Microsoft's sales of that patent are not harmed by a codec for Linux.
Microsoft don't offer anything for Linux. Microsoft are therefore not harmed if someone else makes a product for Linux.
Patents are, after all, meant to protect inventions, so that the inventor may offer it for sale. If Microsoft are not offering their stuff for sale in a given market, then they are not harmed by another party who does.
Member since:2005-11-16
Member since:2005-07-07
Depending on their countries' patent laws they might not be sueable at all.
For example in Austria non-commercial use of patents is granted by law, thus is developers can freely use them if they do not have any commercial interest.
Of course any third party distributing the software might have commercial interests and thus be bound to licence the patent.
It might not be legally distributable in other countries without such an exception, however, the developers are still doing nothing illegal.
Member since:2005-11-16
The problem, from Microsoft's perspective, is that there's no one enity to deal with in the FOSS community, so how do you make cross-licensing or royalty deals? Microsoft feels that the FOSS community feels free to violate any patent it likes because there's noone to make deals with or even to sue. And, indeed, I've seen OSS advocates on slashdot cite this as a virtue of FOSS - "We don't worry about violating patents because we're too spread out and not individually rich enough to be sued."
Unfortunately this works both ways. If FOSS projects don't have a single entity for Microsoft to take to court, then there isn't anyone capable of taking Microsoft to court (e.g. for defamation) to force them into defending their allegations.
Microsoft can happily say (almost) any FUD they like without disclosing which patents are allegedly violated. Microsoft can/will continue spreading FUD and disclosing nothing, most "normal" people (i.e. non-technical people) will believe them, and FOSS (with a few exceptions) isn't really in a good position to stop them.
As for the exceptions, which companies would volunteer for 20 years of arguing in court about everything imaginable (including "Who put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp?", "Who ate the last chocolate biscuit?", and whether or not the chicken came before the egg)?
Member since:
2006-07-04
"Microsoft violates all sorts of patents held by Sun, IBM, and many others. Some of those companies earn money on or through Linux. They would potentially fight back by launching a salvo of infringement suites of their own. "
The big companies generally have deals allowing for cross-licensing of patents. Even the article says, "So Microsoft took the third choice, which was to begin licensing its patents to other companies in exchange for either royalties or access to their patents (a "cross-licensing" deal). In December 2003, Microsoft's new licensing unit opened for business, and soon the company had signed cross-licensing pacts with such tech firms as Sun, Toshiba, SAP and Siemens."
The problem, from Microsoft's perspective, is that there's no one enity to deal with in the FOSS community, so how do you make cross-licensing or royalty deals? Microsoft feels that the FOSS community feels free to violate any patent it likes because there's noone to make deals with or even to sue. And, indeed, I've seen OSS advocates on slashdot cite this as a virtue of FOSS - "We don't worry about violating patents because we're too spread out and not individually rich enough to be sued."
A concrete example is MPEG2. There are plenty of OSS MPEG2 players that don't pay the MPEG2 license fee (which as around $10 per player). Microsoft, except for Windows MCE and now Vista, didn't ship an MPEG2 codec with WMP because they didn't want to pay for the license. Instead, they direct the user to pay $10 for an MPEG2 codec from a third party (like CyberLink), or let the OEM pay for the codec. Apple charges the user $10 for an MPEG2 codec for their QuickTime player for the same reason. But OSS devs make video players with MPEG2 support, without bothering with the license at all. And they feel secure in doing so because it's not worth the effort to sue them.