Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 26th Jun 2007 21:09 UTC, submitted by WillM
The Linux community is splitting - right down the middle, at this point - over Microsoft's controversial claims that the open-source operating system infringes on patents it holds. Last Tuesday, Mandriva became the third Linux vendor within five days to say it isn't interested in signing a licensing deal with Microsoft to avoid possible infringement claims. A blog posting to that effect by Mandriva CEO Francois Bancilhon followed similar declarations by officials at Red Hat and Canonical.
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RE[2]: Why do people find this so hard to believe?
by google_ninja on Wed 27th Jun 2007 04:18
in reply to "RE: Why do people find this so hard to believe?"
Member since:2006-02-05
I, and many others do not consider the goals of the FSF as being "unrealistic". If you are trying to infer that big business bribes politicians to make laws that give it its own way, then yes, you are correct.
I believe that there are some situations where not giving away all data is the only real way to do business. The FSF does not. The OSF does. This is why next to nothing was accomplished in the decade or so of FSF activities until linux arrived, which was done by people working with the open, not free methodologies. Open Source is practical, Free Software is religious.
Corruption is not one of my ideals of a modern society, but freedom is most certainly one of them. If you think the FSF ideals are unrealistic, can you please throw out the United Nations Charter of Human Rights, and the Geneva convention as well. We might as well keep the Berne convention, since it primarily deals with keeping business happy.
My friend, I believe in freedom as much as you do, however I find it offensive to compare the Charter of Human Rights to The Five Freedoms of software code. Just because you call something a right doesnt mean it is, just like how democratic republics rarely are either.
Linux violates Microsoft patents? Can you please list exactly which patents are violated? Come on. I'm waiting! As to the rest of this 3rd paragraph, the recent US supreme court decision on the obviousness of patents will absolutely hammer Microsoft and others. We now have legal precedent for the court system to invalide software patents because they are OBVIOUS. Of course, the USPTO should have been doing this in the first place (as well as checking thoroughly for prior art I might add), but since the USPTO is a big money spinner for the US government, things won't change, at least not unless we get rid of the corruption that is currently in place.
I never said I had proof, I said that if you look at it logically, you should really be asking for proof that linux does NOT infringe on their patents. But anyways, how about these?
first, we have dragging icons onto a toolbar
http://www.google.com/patents?id=tBYfAAAAEBAJ&dq=microsoft+toolbar
next up, contextual menus
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT5664133
last but not least, smooth scrolling
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT5495566
This is five minutes work at google patents.
Now, what you said about the system being retarded is bang on, but I said that too.
Your last paragraph made me laugh. Really. Jobs did a deal with the devil because it was either that, or go bust. He NEEDED funding to go ahead with the re-implementation of NEXTos as OS X.
Its the deal with the devil part that I was trying to illustrate. Microsoft is a corporation, like any other corporation, it exists without morals to make money. Assigning labels like good or evil to corporations is silly. If you were around long enough, IBM used to be one of the Great Satans. Now it is the messaiah of the corporate world. Apple used to the cool company of engineers out to change the world, nowadays they are acting more like bloodthirsty microsoft. And Microsoft, the evil empire itself, now is actually working with people it isnt ordered to by a court of law to get good interfaces going with their products.
Linux may violate some legitimate Microsoft patents, but I doubt that it's many. And, it doesn't give Microsoft the right to spread FUD and false claims against the community without either adequate proof, or the allowing the Linux community the ability to redress the issues and re-write the necessary infringing code/ideas.
I agree 100%. However, as I said in my origional comment, indemnification was only a small part of all three deals, and it is also the only part the tech media wants to talk about.
In reality, software patents are bad, and should be abolished. They create nothing but problems, and they create vendor lock in (thus encouraging monopolies), they also stifle real competition imho.
I am a big believer in copyright (the way it was intended to be anyways), but patenting software is like patenting literature, it just makes no sense. The situation is only made worse by the USPTO not doing their jobs. However, this is the world we live in, and just because it isnt right doesnt mean they dont exist.
There were really two points I was trying to make in my post. First, that MS is actually working with desktop distros, and that is a Good Thing, and secondly, even though they are stupid, they probably have at least as many patents being infringed as they say they do.
RE[3]: Why do people find this so hard to believe?
by lemur2 on Wed 27th Jun 2007 08:48
in reply to "RE[2]: Why do people find this so hard to believe?"
Member since:2007-02-17
next up, contextual menus
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT5664133
... This is five minutes work at google patents.
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT5664133
... This is five minutes work at google patents.
So?
Patent number: 5664133
Filing date: Apr 30, 1996
Issue date: Sep 2, 1997
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_menu
"Context menus first appeared in the Smalltalk environment on the Xerox Alto computer, where they were called pop-up menus. The NEXTSTEP operating system further developed the idea, incorporating a feature whereby the right or middle mouse button brought the main menu (which was vertical and automatically changed depending on context) to the location of the mouse, thereby eliminating the need to move the mouse pointer all the way across the large (for the time) NextStep screen."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto
"The Xerox Alto, developed at Xerox PARC in 1973, was an early minicomputer and the first computer to use the desktop metaphor and graphical user interface (GUI)."
That was one minutes work on Wikipedia.
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Member since:
2006-12-16
1. I, and many others do not consider the goals of the FSF as being "unrealistic". If you are trying to infer that big business bribes politicians to make laws that give it its own way, then yes, you are correct. Corruption is not one of my ideals of a modern society, but freedom is most certainly one of them. If you think the FSF ideals are unrealistic, can you please throw out the United Nations Charter of Human Rights, and the Geneva convention as well. We might as well keep the Berne convention, since it primarily deals with keeping business happy.
2. Linux violates Microsoft patents? Can you please list exactly which patents are violated? Come on. I'm waiting! As to the rest of this 3rd paragraph, the recent US supreme court decision on the obviousness of patents will absolutely hammer Microsoft and others. We now have legal precedent for the court system to invalide software patents because they are OBVIOUS. Of course, the USPTO should have been doing this in the first place (as well as checking thoroughly for prior art I might add), but since the USPTO is a big money spinner for the US government, things won't change, at least not unless we get rid of the corruption that is currently in place.
3. Your last paragraph made me laugh. Really. Jobs did a deal with the devil because it was either that, or go bust. He NEEDED funding to go ahead with the re-implementation of NEXTos as OS X.
Linux may violate some legitimate Microsoft patents, but I doubt that it's many. And, it doesn't give Microsoft the right to spread FUD and false claims against the community without either adequate proof, or the allowing the Linux community the ability to redress the issues and re-write the necessary infringing code/ideas.
In reality, software patents are bad, and should be abolished. They create nothing but problems, and they create vendor lock in (thus encouraging monopolies), they also stifle real competition imho.
Dave