In its second such agreement this week, Microsoft has struck a deal under which it will extend amnesty to a company that's using what the software maker claims is patented Microsoft intellectual property embedded in the open source Linux computer operating system. Under a deal with LG Electronics, disclosed late Wednesday, Microsoft will forgo any Linux-related patent claims against the South Korean electronics manufacturer. In return, Microsoft will gain access to certain intellectual property produced by LG.
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Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2006-02-06
That's exactly what I was thinking: what if MS is actually showing these companies what they're talking about ? It would surely bring more credibility to their claims -- if the claims are valid ayways.
On the other hand, what if MS is just somehow getting those companies to agree, in order to get the rest of the IT world thinking just like the above conclusion ?
Things are messy. Really messy, these days... and I can't still find any reliable source about how software patent laws apply here in Brazil. Anyone have a clue?
Member since:2007-03-26
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I do see where you are coming from and if thats the case then MS have a *cunning tactic there (basically picking companies out one by one and scare them sh*tless until everyone follows suit). They'll gain more this way than a long and expensive, yet legitimate court battle.
* I say 'cunning' but what I really mean is 'evil'.
Member since:2006-09-08
MS pays these companies much more than they give MS in royalties (for now, anyways...) though. You rally have to wonder why they would give up all their patents to a vicious competitor just for a few hundred million though. Perhaps just greedy and thinking in the short term blip on their financial statements?
Edited 2007-06-08 18:33
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-09-10
It seems absurd for LG to surrender some of their intellectual property to MS simply because MS make unproven accusations about their patents.
I guess we have to assume that MS has shown them to LG at least.
I had been thinking of making a poll or bet at some site about which additional Linux distributors after Novell and Xandros the community think is most likely to sign similar deals (Linspire? Mandriva? Mepis?), but by now this is turning too unpredictable. What next? Volvo? The Catholic Church? Antarctica? The little smile on babies' faces?
[Edit: minor typo]
Edited 2007-06-08 15:52
Member since:2006-05-09
I cannot understand why a company of the size of Microsoft can try to shut up to its competition by that kind of dirty legal ways?
If Microsoft has so many resources, so many brilliant developers and engineers, is it so hard for them fighting against Linux in a technical way instead of using FUD and those Al Capone deals?
If Microsoft thinks the community is infringing several software patents, why they do not make them public before expanding the scare?
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2007-03-26
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I'm well aware of that, but how much arm twisting was envolved before LG 'chose' to sign that contract?
I doubt a company like LG would sell their IP unless they were either pushed into it or offered a very very sweet deal. Going by MS's past tactics I wonder how much of the latter went into the negotiations with LG
Edited 2007-06-08 16:02
Member since:2005-07-24
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Why don't these businesses stand together? After all - United we stand, devided we fall.
"""
Corporations are whores.
And cooperation to achieve a common goal has always never been their strong suit. It seems like the history of this industry has been one deal after another, with corporations pledging to work together to achieve some goal... but the goal is rarely achieved before they lapse back into their back-stabbing ways and the whole thing falls apart and is forgotten.
That's one of the things that scares Microsoft so much about the GPL. It's been more effective than anything in this industry at getting at least some companies effectively cooperating each other, in at least some areas, in a meaningful and long term way.
It's hard for Microsoft to sell their software as "rocket science" in the presence of examples of how a little cooperation between players can turn "rocket science" into "garden variety".
I'm afraid that it is up to us. Keep a list of those companies who enter into these deals. Do not buy from them and discourage others from doing so. Send those companies a courteous note explaining *what* you are doing and *why* you are doing it. Send a note to your new suppliers informing them of why you are switching to them.
Our wallets and our keyboards are the most effective weapons that we have in this important fight. I only hope that we can wield them effectively and that they are enough.
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it."I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight.""And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.
Member since:
2007-03-26
I couldn't agree more.
It seems absurd for LG to surrender some of their intellectual property to MS simply because MS make unproven accusations about their patents.
It's completely bonkers. Why don't these businesses stand together? After all - United we stand, devided we fall.