While Microsoft is hoping to enter into a patent deal with Red Hat similar to the one it has with Novell, the software giant has not ruled out going it alone and providing some sort of indemnification for its customers who use Red Hat Linux. Bill Hilf, Microsoft’s general manager of platform strategy, acknowledged that it is an awkward situation having Microsoft’s customers who use Novell’s SUSE Linux covered by the covenant not to sue, while those Windows users running Red Hat Linux are not.
Many Microsoft customers are also running Linux. That’s why campaigns such as “Linux is Evil Incarnate” have fallen on deaf ears. I think we’re starting to see a new Microsoft emerge, where interoperability is seen as a new market opportunity.
Or perhaps Microsoft is going back to their roots. Remember, Microsoft never started by controlling the markets. It started by “embracing” standards and slowly extending them.
“””Or perhaps Microsoft is going back to their roots.”””
You mean these roots? 😉
http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/gateswhine.html
Edited 2006-11-16 00:18
Still waiting for that deluge of good software.
“What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?”
Linus? RMS?
Most directly, the thing you do is theft.
That sums up ole’ bill’s feeling towards the GPL and OSS quite nicely!
“Or perhaps Microsoft is going back to their roots.”
http://www.joe-ks.com/archives/WouldYou.jpg – These ones? 🙂
“Remember, Microsoft never started by controlling the markets. It started by “embracing” standards and slowly extending them.”
It’s not just extending, it’s not using. There exist many standards in the world of computers, and I’m not talking about PCs only, I also mention Macs and professional workstations (as they’re build by SGI, Sun or HP). MICROS~1 seems to confirm a “lowest leven standard” for some things, but has “own standards” (NB: Tautology!) that chance year wise or few years wise. Common standards are not supported by MICROS~1 products. Because the worst solution always wins, they dominate the market.
//I think we’re starting to see a new Microsoft emerge, where interoperability is seen as a new market opportunity.//
If Microsoft truly want to interoperate, why don’t they just simply release the specifications of how their interoperability protocols work?
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/06/430…
Doing simply that would save them a hell of a lot of money in fines, and it would also achieve the interoperability without having to pay any money at all to Novell or RedHat or anyone.
Edited 2006-11-16 00:15
Rubbish. There is no new reality for Microsoft. The only reality MS recognises is FUD – and in the end the enemy has either been embraced and cannot breath anymore or simply dstroyed.
think we’re starting to see a new Microsoft emerge, where interoperability is seen as a new market opportunity.
no, just plain scared, because they know if they sue redhat or other linux distros on patents. they will get
counter sued by all the companies that has a part in linux, and if ms gets sued by IBM who owns more patents then ms. then ms might not be in the good state it currently is in.
Edited 2006-11-16 05:47
Perhaps those of us who work on FOSS should consider extending the favour. We should consider indemnification for SOME microsoft customers.
Microsoft claims that they don’t know whether Red Hat will make a patent deal with them.
Are they the only people in the world who don’t understand what the word “Unthinkable” means? RedHat has been very explicit on the matter:
http://www.redhat.com/promo/believe/
Of course, the real reason for this continued talk is to try to establish the meme that OSS users need indemnification. Expect more of this. They believe that if they just keep saying this long enough, people would come to believe it is true.
SCO was the appetizer, and this is the main course.
Edited 2006-11-15 23:45
Of course, the real reason for this continued talk is to try to establish the meme that OSS users need indemnification. Expect more of this. They believe that if they just keep saying this long enough, people would come to believe it is true.
I couldn´t agree more …
I am starting to change my tune about the Novell/MS deal… Thanks to many points that have been brought up in the past week or so…
Anyway… Consider this. Someone somewhere claimed that linux may infringe on up to 240 patents(dont remember the number). just humor me and say that it does.
The FOSS community states that they dont want to use patented code. So if some software does contain patented implementations the FOSS community states that they will just remove the offending code or write around it. Fine and dandy. But the code has been distributed as GPL and the updates that work around that patent would only be available going forward. Meaning, that it could still be in use today, tomorrow or whenever (I still find redhat 6.2 servers around).
So even if the code is removed/worked around the patent is still being violated. How do you correct that?
While there was a possibility of Linux infringing Unix code due to the similarities and common ancestory, I doubt that there is much of a chance between Linux and Windows. MS has been anal about keeping their code to themselves, they really have no way to claim Linux infringes their code. Also remember that reverse engineering for the purpose of interoperability is legal AFAIK. Not to mention that MS isnt in a position to enforce patents against Linux without serious risk of antitrust violations.
//Someone somewhere claimed that linux may infringe on up to 240 patents(dont remember the number).//
The statement comes from a patent lawyer who said that Linux MAY infringe on up to 284 patents. The lawyer was hired by a firm offering patent indemnification insurance, so take that with a grain of salt (it is better for those who hired the lawyer if there is some concern that Linux may infringe someone’s patent).
Of the 284 potential areas of infringement, only 28 of those patents belong to Microsoft.
Since the time of that lawyers initial investigation, IBM and Novell have donated a significant number of patents to Linux.
None of the patents involved have been confirmed to be valid patents, and Linux has not been confirmed to violate any of them even if they are valid.
None of the patents involved have been confirmed to be valid patents, and Linux has not been confirmed to violate any of them even if they are valid.
Unfortunately, the reality of patent system is such that patents need not be valid and you need not be confirmed to violate them. If you don’t have millions to pay the lawyers for your defense against bogus patent claims, you lose.
“If you don’t have millions to pay the lawyers for your defense against bogus patent claims, you lose.”
Patent practices and legal systems are different in different countries.
Correct, I should have written “USA patent system”.
So even if the code is removed/worked around the patent is still being violated. How do you correct that?
Recoding and distributing the new code free of patent (or copyright, etc) infringement is enough to satisfy their legal requirements.
After that point, it is the end user who is responsible, and end users are generally small potatoes that large corporations don’t go after (except if you are a 12 year old kid or a 87 year old granny and the RIAA thinks you are sharing music).
//So even if the code is removed/worked around the patent is still being violated. How do you correct that?//
If this turns out to be the case in an actual instance, then this is a failing of the US patent Office.
Any patent is supposed to be awarded for “a good new method of doing <something>”. It is not supposed to be awarded for “any method of doing <that same thing>”.
If it is not possible to “work around” a patent by coming up with a distinctly different method of doing whatever the patent describes, then the original patent is too broad (and probably therefore invalid).
As an example, take the electric light. It should be possible to get a patent for “a method of producing light from electricity” based on the original electric light. That method was (historically) an incandescent bulb, where a wire was placed in an inert gas and heated using the electric current to the point where it became so hot as to emit light. OK, so that is the patent that could be awarded for that method of “producing light from electricity”.
This patent would not then cover flourescent tubes, nor would it cover super-bright LEDs. Those are both distinctly different methods of “producing light from electricity”. They should not violate the original patent for incandescent bulbs, because a distinctly different method is used to accomplish the same end result.
That is, in essence, how one goes about “correcting” any patents in software. One finds a distinctly different method of achieving the desired process.
Edited 2006-11-16 23:36
They believe that if they just keep saying this long enough, people would come to believe it is true.
Exactly. This is nothing new, not at MS, not elsewhere. It’s like when coming up with a fairly unneeded product and trying to establish a market for it, you know, finding a problem for your solution. What they are trying to do is just insert the little bugs into average users’ heads so be disturbed a bit. MS are not dumb, in fact, they are masters at what they do – no, I don’t mean sw development, I mean management, marketing and PR – and since they already tried to dance a few rounds with Linux and failed to properly take the lead, now they try a different approach.
A very unsympathetic one, but I have a very bad feeling that they could be on the right path this time – from their point of view of course, not from ours.
I think you may be right.
Personally, I think the whole idea of indemnification is utterly ridiculous. If somebody steals your technology, your fight is with them, not the honest customers who were also duped.
Indemnification is just a scare tactic. Unfortunately, it seems to have some teeth in US law; which is also ridiculous. Therefore, the only thing I can do as a customer, is refuse to buy products from companies who mention the word.
This is the thing that really shocked me about the SCO suits against Autozone and Chrysler. I always thought that if GM had a patent on anti-lock brakes and Ford encroached upon that patent, that GM might have a case against Ford, but not against the Jones family next door, who happen to own a Thunderbird.
Of course, with SCO it was copyright and not patent.
But still. Instead, I got the impression that if SCO had really owned the copyrights that they claimed to own, they *could* have had a case against the end users.
Unbelievable.
I think this is an unfortunate side-effect of FOSS. With FOSS there’s often no one to sue. You can sue developer “Jones” but he has no money, and he’s the one who actually broke your IP.
So you sue “Jones” customers who are well to do, ie, companies. It doesn’t seem right to me either, but I’m not sure how to fix it.
Exactly!
In my mind, SCO had every right to sue IBM (or rather would have if their claims hadn’t been completely fabricated) for releasing their code into the wild, but no right or moral stand whatsoever to sue customers.
Indemnification is a clever word for putting all the shaving cream back in the can.
//Of course, with SCO it was copyright and not patent.
But still. Instead, I got the impression that if SCO had really owned the copyrights that they claimed to own, they *could* have had a case against the end users. //
No.
Copyrights award rights to original authors in respect of controlling the copying the original work. End users of software would not violate copyrights by the mere act of using software, in the same way that readers of books do not violate the copyright of the authors of said books.
Patents are a whole different ball game.
But even with patents, in the case you mention “if GM had a patent on anti-lock brakes” … it should be OK for Ford to come up with their own anti-lock brakes as long as they used a different method of avoiding locking than the method that GM had patented.
Don’t forget, a patent should not be awarded for “anti-lock brakes” per se, but rather it should be awarded for “a method of preventing brake lockup in automobiles” or somesuch. In the end, it should be possible for Ford to compete with GM without having to pay any royalty to GM by Ford coming up with their own different method of implementing anti-locking in brakes.
Edited 2006-11-17 00:17
MS are trying to do what SCO is failing at. If some customers enter some sort of patent endemnification agreements, then it adds weight to MS claims that patents are infringed in linux, and they will attempt to stop linux by suing the companies involved with it. I don’t see it working, and I can’t see many people entering one of these agreements.
IMO i think redhat would be stupid to seriously consider giving into doing such a deal like this,
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Redhat’s arrogance is going end up biting them in the ass. If they are trying to prove a point or whatever, exactly who are they trying to prove it to? The FOSS world, or their customers? Methinks it’s the former, however there is a large distinction between the two.
“””
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Redhat’s arrogance is going end up biting them in the ass. If they are trying to prove a point or whatever, exactly who are they trying to prove it to? The FOSS world, or their customers?
“””
I disagree. It’s not arrogance. It is a belief that if they stick to the straight and narrow, rewards will follow in the *long term*.
What you are missing is that their public views and actions are not an act. This is not just PR.
Now, depending upon your viewpoint, they may be acting unusually wisely for a publicly traded company… or may be acting unusually *unwisely*. (I happen to think that they are acting wisely.)
But either way… RedHat is *not* your average NASDAQ company, and if you view them that way, you are bound to come up with incorrect conclusions about them.
Edited 2006-11-16 06:01
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Redhat’s arrogance is going end up biting them in the ass.
What arrogance would that be? The arrogance that Microsoft continually displays? Arrogance for not going for a meaningless and FUD-ridden deal with Microsoft?
If they are trying to prove a point or whatever, exactly who are they trying to prove it to? The FOSS world, or their customers?
So they’re trying prove a point by not going for a FUD-ridden deal with Microsoft? I have no idea what you’re trying to say there. It’s drivel.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Red Hat are safe for the foreseable future. They aren’t incompetent buffoons like Novell, they know open source software and how it works and what damage it would do to enter into any Microsoft agreement. They’re not incompetent idiots like Oracle, trying to do a copycat distribution, and they know the open source landscape, unlike Microsoft.
Red Hat’s position as number one Linux distributor isn’t going to change, and has been consolidated by the events of the past few weeks.
If they make a deal with someone for IP and agree to let them release said IP under GPL, they are consenting to have said technology released under the GPL license.
This means if I get MS a few million to let me release MS Word under GPL, the people who I sold it to can do what ever they please with the source and are not required to give MS a dime.
Because of this making a deal with just one Linux distributor exempts all the others who are distributing the same source code, so if this is an anti-GPL strategy it is a really poor one.
If you don’t think MS knows this about GPL already you are wrong.
MS knows Linux is going to be around for a while, I believe they are covering their own asses by ensuring companies like Novell and RH can’t sue them.
I think these agreements could be good because it generates some extra money for the major Linux players and removes some patent roadblocks allowing them to focus on their products rather than their legal strategy.
As for MS, every time they want to add a feature they need a team of lawyers to research who is going to sue them for it and these agreements are cheaper than losing court cases. They are just protecting their own asses.
When companies like this get tied up in multi-year court cases the only people that win are the lawyers, I think this is a mutually beneficial agreement (unless you are a lawyer).
“MS knows Linux is going to be around for a while, I believe they are covering their own asses by ensuring companies like Novell and RH can’t sue them.”
Thats exactly what I feel. This isn’t about Microsoft trying to cause grief to Linux. They can’t; it’s basically that simple. The code is out there and can not be stopped; whatever it is.
It’s about them realising they are exposed and trying to cover their butts. If Microsoft covering their butts throws money into the Linux/F/OSS world along with some marketing bucks then great.
SCO used to sell agreements like this. Anybody else remember?
This makes me very nervous because it’s too much like SCO. However, SCO had no argument at all and was on its way out of business where Microsoft has a weak argument and a ton of cash.
I seriously hope that no sane person actually believes that any linux user ACTUALLY needs to be covered for these supposed patent infringements. I relate this situation to the whole binary-driver debacle. The more people that use binary drivers, the more the case for FOSS drivers is weakened. It is the same with this. The more people that take MS’s offer to no sue, the more it weakens the case for Linux as a legitimate OS in the corporate world.
I don’t use RedHat, but I am behind them 100% on this. Say no to MS FUD. Reclaim your souls.
I agree with you. MS failed in getting people to believe that Linux was evil and would cost more. So now they are trying the legal angle to rope in as many unwitting Linux companies as they can. The aftermath of this situation is not good. So Linux companies which are free and some which are under MS’ thumb. I am beginning to think that all the Mono bashing was true. It might be completely patent free but there is enough doubt to get companies to scramble to cover themselves from FUD.
//MS failed in getting people to believe that Linux was evil and would cost more. So now they are trying the legal angle to rope in as many unwitting Linux companies as they can. … I am beginning to think that all the Mono bashing was true. It might be completely patent free but there is enough doubt to get companies to scramble to cover themselves from FUD.//
There is one very interesting aspect to the latest anti-Linux FUD attempts from Microsoft. That aspect is that Microsoft seem to be talking about “respecting IP” and “IP protection” and “patents”, but Microsoft are very careful to only imply never accuse Linux of infringing any Microsoft patents.
Even when they make these vague and indirect accusations, the most notable thing about them is the lack of specifics. Microsoft has not identified any single patent which Linux is accused of violating. Not one.
Microsoft’s older “TCO” and other nonsense type FUD at least wasn’t vague. Wrong yes, vague no.
We should write msft, and ask for a list of specificly patent infringments. Explaining that we need the list to make sure we are not infringing.
If msft does not respond, then msft can not sue us, after all, we asked.
Question: why are these supossed “patent infringments” a big secret?
Maybe I’m missing something here, but it would seem to me that the following would hold. Ok, Novell produces SLES and SLED which both include a version of the Linux kernel. Probably a very similar kernel to any of the other distros out there. The kernel is for the most part the kernel no matter what distro you are using. So if Microsoft is saying that Suse Linux is ok to use aren’t they basically saying that any version of Linux is good to use since they are similiar as far as the kernel goes?
I just hope people see through this whole sham by Microsoft for what it is. It is just a ploy by them to discredit Linux as usual. More FUD to the fire. They are just trying a add enough uncertainty to make people hesitant to go with Linux. Luckily they found their poster boy in Novell who for some money totally just sank their chances in the Linux arena. They totally just took something very promising and shot it in the head in Suse Linux. Its a shame, but its what desperate companies do and that is exactly what Novell is.
I have in my hand a document of peace signed by the Fuhrer. In it Chancelor Hitler promises peace in our time!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Der penguin
what for Slackware users ? Debian ? Yellowdog ? all others ? BeOS users ? AmigaOS users ?
Why would they be threatenned by MS because they don’t use a mainstream distro/OS ? That’s plain discrimination of the minorities. Who cares about MS patents anyway, they are irresponsibly granted software patents on common-sense ideas they stole from other OSes.
“Who cares about MS patents anyway, they are irresponsibly granted software patents on common-sense ideas they stole from other OSes.”
unfortunately, the answer to this is: lawyers
Could there be an anti competive linked sales issue? They are indemnifying one customer and not another, and the only difference between the two is that one gets his Linux from Novell, and the other, with no other possible patent violations, gets his from elsewhere.
So effectively they are threatening a customer with exposure because of not buying Novel Linux.
If you have monopoly share of the OS market are you realy allowed to do that?
I could see there not being a problem if the particular IPs that are cross licenses are public. Then they can say that they have reached an agreement on the use of them with Novell but not with Mandriva. Then Mandriva has a choice of not using them, everyone knows where they stand. But its not like that.
Take a different example. A former monopoly telco announces that it will indemnify customers of only one particular PBX manufacturer or one competitive common carrier against patent suits. It declines to specify what patents it has in mind that might be actionable, but it implies that all other common carriers or PBX manufacturers are vulnerable to suit if it chooses.
Do you think this would really fly with the regulators? Not a chance, if they still have monopoly market share.
“Perhaps those of us who work on FOSS should consider extending the favour. We should consider indemnification for SOME microsoft customers.”
That’s funny… although it would illustrate a point beautifully, I think we should try and stand above such tactics.
Also, besides Red Hat, there are a gazillion of other distros… don’t they count? Or just don’t fall under the scope of the MS/Novell agreement?
Edited 2006-11-16 07:21
while those Windows users running Red Hat Linux
Ok, listen up, people, you are _not_ Linux users, you are Windows users running [x] Linux ! Got that ?
Yes exactly, like :
there are no heterosexual, but only badly charmed homosexual
People want to see so much in this deal, while in fact there isn’t all that much to see: Microsoft and Novell only did this because they think it can make them money. That’s all there is to it. No silly conspiracies. That’s all they and their shareholders care about– luckily, as that is what drives our economy and made us all wealthy.
Microsoft and Novell only did this because they think it can make them money.
That would make sence if patent infringement wasn’t brought into the spotlight.Or do you think MS has a case rightfully so acting as a SCO look alike?
People want to see so much in this deal, while in fact there isn’t all that much to see: Microsoft and Novell only did this because they think it can make them money.
Novell stupidly thinks that, but this is a one-way ticket. Microsoft gets access to Novell’s customers and is allowed to use coupons to sell SLES (how ludicrous is that?), but how much do you want to bet that the Microsoft sales people start bad-mouthing SLES and pushing Windows Server in the door where it wouldn’t have been before?
Additionally, Microsoft gets access to Novell’s Netware customers, and Microsoft has long wanted to completely exterminate Novell software from Windows environments. Because a covenant is sent directly from Microsoft to Novell’s customers Microsoft now knows who they all are. The mailing list alone is worth paying $300 million for.
As for Novell, they’ve shot all their bolts now. Hovsepian and the people at Novell actually believe that a deal with Microsoft is a unique selling point that they can use to increase sales rather than improving and concentrating on their software and listening hard to their Netware customers.
Conspiracy? There’s no conspiracy, because it was as clear as day from day one what was going on. If you wanted to know what Microsoft was paying for, that’s it. It’s a deal they can use to try and exterminate Novell (primary goal), whilst putting some nice fear out into the open source world.
That’s all they and their shareholders care about
In for a bit of a shock then, aren’t they?
People want to see so much in this deal, while in fact there isn’t all that much to see: Microsoft and Novell only did this because they think it can make them money. That’s all there is to it. No silly conspiracies. That’s all they and their shareholders care about– luckily, as that is what drives our economy and made us all wealthy.
rofl
))
Does this mean that the Novell-MS deal will make us all rich?
Your infinite wisdom never ceases to amuse me. Let me understand your logic:
1).The Novell-MS deal is ok because that’s what shareholders want (yeah, Novell shareholders will be sooo happy in a few months:))
2). Lets assume that, indeed, this is exactly what shareholders wanted.
3). Shareholders are now happy.
4). They drive the economy.
5). PROFIT for all of us
I think I’ll send your explanation to the Samba team, SFLC, PJ@groklaw, and all those people with their “silly conspiracies.” They can relax now, because all is for the greater good
Your infinite wisdom never ceases to amuse me Thom
))
Edited 2006-11-16 22:03
“That’s all they and their shareholders care about”
You say it like its a good thing.
“as that is what drives our economy and made us all wealthy.”
Who are these “all” of whom you are speaking?
I’m sure the homeless people I see every day who live on less than $1/day are going to be happy about this though.
When can I expect your check to arrive in the mail?
Can’t help but wonder what is Microsoft’s hidden agenda behind all this.
Is it threath of Oracle Linux?
Are they hoping to mess up Linux markets? You know the old Roman war strategy; turn the enemies against each other.
Do they want to push .Net (Mono) against Java?
Or prehaps all of above?
So far Microsoft is working whit comercial Linux vendors whose OS pays the same or even more than Windows Server. They are not really doing this for the community.
Could the fear of Microsoft be competion against free Linux such as Debian or Ubuntu? Think about Munich for example.
So many questions… that secret document in Redmond holds the answers.
Can’t help but wonder what is Microsoft’s hidden agenda behind all this.
I’m not too sure if their agenda is hidden…
Create a covenant not to sue to make people wonder if you’re actually capable of suing, and then sell this FUD to people like Novell so they can use your FUD against their competitors. This makes your FUD seem less like FUD, and tricks other Linux distributors to thinking about paying the “FUD fee”.
If within those 5 years developers take advantage of the covenant and start including features that you would’ve sued them for if the covenant wasn’t there, then wait until those 5 years are up, bring in the lawyers, sue a lot of people for a lot of money and shut down some Linux distributors.
If after 5 years you still can’t find a viable reason to sue, pretend you were being nice and charge everyone the FUD fee again (for “continued protection”).
It reminds me of something I saw on Seseme Street a long long time ago…
Burt: Why have you got bananas in your ears Ernie?
Ernie: It stops the alligators from coming
Burt: But there are no alligators around here!
Ernie: See – it’s working!
MS is playing SCO look alike.
Browser: Links (2.1pre20; Linux 2.6.17-hardened-r1 x86_64; 80×24)
It’s funny reading first how “evil” EU is suing MS, and now how “great” EU is for not allowing the crap they call software patents.
Flamewarsy or not, it’s true.
Perhaps redhat should move over here and simply give MS the finger as anyone who wants to not care about something which they shouldn’t in the first place.
Ofcourse there’s still the problem with customers in the US, but I’m not sure how this whole software patent thingy works internationaly?
EG: if I was a company in Europe, and I sold something to the US and some other company sued me for some software patent infringement, what could happen to me?
I always wanted to know that.
EG: if I was a company in Europe, and I sold something to the US and some other company sued me for some software patent infringement, what could happen to me?
I always wanted to know that.
The worst it could happen’ is that tell you to pay the amount they specify as penalty. Or even forbid your product in US.
Regarding the first you can simply throw that in the trash can. And unless you’ll be stupid to show up in US, nobody can do you anything. In this case you can kiss goodbye to US as your market.
So, if it is in your interests to keep doing business with US, pay the fine. If not, throw it in the trash can and don’t show up in US.
If your question was related to EU giving fine to MS. It is in MS interests to sell their products in EU. So, they will just pay the fine and act as nothing happened. 470mio potential customers does that.
If you’re OSS coder and you don’t want to bother with these stupidities. It is simply enough to include clause: “This software might be illegal in US. If you are US citizen you can only use it on your own risk.”
This way you could completely remove any danger from your self and transfer it to users. Except, in my opinion this is not what OSS is about (OSS is about freedom, it is not about world separation). You’d be doing the same thing as Novell did, shameless FUD act based on self interests.
Maybe FOSS needs to start looking at MS patents. Are they infringing on anything. Possibly hire a bunch of lawyers and start to see if there are patents they are infringing on. Are they using open source GPL anywhere in their code? It would be nice for once to turn this back on them.
Now, which redhat users might that be? The one who pay msft? The ones who obey msft?
In other news, “Bruno” is saying that *some* shop-keepers will not have their knee caps broken.
I think MS has a real opportunity to destroy FLOSS here. They couldn’t just begin to sue people who develop open source. This would just demonstrate how unbelievably stupid software patents are. With a final result of just abolishing software patents all together.
By this tactic the begin to split the open source world in two camps, the legit camp in the industrial economy, a playing field they know, and the camp of suspect communist, patent infringing, anti DRM pirate developers.
In this manner they’ll be able to really destroy commons based peer production when the time comes. They just have to say, “look, opens source is great and all, but we need some control, or else we can’t have sensible business deals.”, besides they have no respect for patents at all, isn’t it time to make this kind of suspect, and economically unsound, behavior criminal?”
But before this there have to be some important patent deals regarding DRM, palladium (or what it’s called these days) between MS and the open source “industry”.
So I think the strategy here is to simply make commons based peer production illegal.
I’m probably going to be modded down for this one, so what.
MS is probably utterly stupid. Trying the same song again after seeing how the first one has fallen.
If they want indemnification from Linux users, I think it would be enough to say:
We never, ever plan to assert claims or sue any linux vendor/user. And you can have it in writing if you want.
Here, we said it, we showed the good faith, now it is time for all anti-patent partisans to stand behind their words. Either that, or all big speeches until now were just words
It is hard for little guy to show faith to a bully, it is easier if bully steps in and shows it.
But MS lacks one more thing, they simply can’t understand that OSS is not property you would make agreements like this one with companies, you have to make it with whole world and show a little leap of faith.
I think what they’re trying to do is use legal threats against companies while trying to continue to fly under the radar. If they just started trying to enforce patents on people it would end up being “big guy vs little guy” media circus which would end up in government involvement (no matter how incompetent).
Like SCO, if they get enough companies to sign up, then they can use that as “precedence”.
Companies “using” software shouldn’t really be held legally liable, perhaps just the ones selling the software. Of course with the current utterly corrupted US legal and patent system this whole system isn’t working anyways.
Any company that signs up with MS is stupid. T
The idea of attacking Free Software with patents has been in Microsoft’s agenda at least from 2004.
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/07/19/2315200
http://news.com.com/HP+memo+Microsoft+planned+open-source+patent+fi…
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2004/07/21/203990/HP+memo+wa…
The pact with Novell has been months in the making now.They are trying the field now, trying to get some partners in this felonny, and spreading as much FUD as they can meanwhile. At the same time they have set Jason Matusow blog just as a honeypot so Free Software advocates can speak their, partly buying in the false claim of the interest of Microsoft to interoperate winth F/LOSS, so MSFT can know they enemy better in order to build new distractions.
But they will attack mercilessly once Microsoft get what they want, and this is software patents approved in Europe (they are illegal right now, and proposals to pass a law allowing them have been defeated once and again in the European Parliament, but Bill Gates is on tour around the European Union lobbying the politicians, and making the delight of patent lawyers firms, in order to impose a system as corrupt as the one in the U.S. through the EPLA (European Patent Litigation Agreement) or through the so-called London Agreements)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/08/business/patents.php
The FF.II., a member of the FSF Europe is fighting against it:
http://www.techworld.com/applications/news/index.cfm?newsID=7348&pa…
http://epla.wikidot.com/
http://www.digitalmajority.org/
Edited 2006-11-16 14:05
This deal has absolutely nothing to do with Linux what-so-ever.
All Microsoft wants is to buy out Novell in a year-or-so to get
their hands on the eDirectory technology.
Microsoft couldn’t give a rats arse about Linux, they want
to improve Active Directory.
To the open source community.
“However, today’s news is a big step forward for the Linux market. Today, for the first time, Microsoft is collaborating directly with a Linux and Open Source software vendor. With this news, Microsoft is saying that Linux is an important part of the IT infrastructure.”
or as the Black Knight would say, “All right. We’ll call it a draw.”