While Red Hat welcomed Microsoft’s recent decision to comply with the European Court of First Instance’s antitrust ruling, Michael Cunningham, general counsel for Red Hat, stated that the company was still concerned about Microsoft’s patent model. “We are reviewing the European Commission’s announcement in the Microsoft abuse case and congratulate the Commission on the improvements announced,” Cunningham said in a statement. “Our enthusiasm is somewhat tempered, however, by concerns that the patent arrangements may have not been made compatible with open-source licensing, especially given the pro-competitive effects to consumers of the open-source model.”
Most linux users say Redhat is the MS of the linux-es. Well I love redhat for there hight quality products and doing massive things for the Linux community in general BUT also for keeping the resitance hight against MS.
They are not like Novell and Turbolinux who are selling there souls to MS.
But there’s no such thing as a soul, silly
Hmmm, hang on, sounds like a good deal then, sell something that doesn’t exist for a ton of money.
I have one premium soul for sale, hardly used, only brought out on Sundays and Christmas, all offers considered!
Edited 2007-10-25 09:07
“But there’s no such thing as a soul, silly
Hmmm, hang on, sounds like a good deal then, sell something that doesn’t exist for a ton of money.
I have one premium soul for sale, hardly used, only brought out on Sundays and Christmas, all offers considered! ”
I’ll take it off your hands. -Lucifer
“there” should be “their”
Since when did a business have a soul? They’re all soulless organizations at their core, even if their business plan(s) happen to align with our sense of IT morality along the way.
A corporation is legally an individual with the behavioral characteristics of a sociopath that has neither a soul to save nor a body to incarcerate.
That is unless you count desks and leather executive chairs that are auctioned off when the company goes belly up!
anyone who says redhat is the microsoft of linux is an idiot
During World War 11 every country or entity that signed a treaty with Hitler, signed a death warrant. Same thing here, be afraid, be very afraid.
“””
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Whether these things are actually comparable or not, I don’t think that we want to go there. Making such a comparison is bad PR for *us*, and IMO, in poor taste.
There are plenty of ways to criticize MS which do not involve making comparisons which some may (very reasonably) find offensive.
I’m pretty sure we’ve only had 2 official world wars yet.
It’s even wrong in the binary number system 😉
Perhaps it is written in some sort of UNARY number system… I mean… no 1 == 0, one 1 == 1, two 1 == 2, and so on… 😉
It’s almost like the EU took a page out of the US antitrust ruling. The language is worded in such a way that the one major competitor of MS (Open Source software) cannot benefit from it. Microsoft’s lawyers must be cheering.
That the EU would accept this is very strange to me. It’s akin to the US remedy where MS had to provide free vouchers for MS software. It isn’t a punishment in any way. After all this time, effort, and money, MS can still go on its merry way like there was never a ruling in the first place. It’s astounding.
exactly, the EU lost the case on a technicality in the settlement. They settled for Microsoft having ANY rights on other people designing software to access their OS. The whole point of the EU’s argument is that if you have an office of windows computers you have the right as the owner of the computer to use Mac or Samba or whatever to access your files on those machines.
Just like you can have other printers or monitors attached to your computer, you should have other file sharing devices attached. The EU was viewing the file sharing rightfully as a “black box”. They were requiring a “manual” for how to interface, not requiring Microsoft to release code, or write code for other people… very reasonable. In meat-space there’s no comparison to software, you can take a part off your car an make a copy in a machine shop if there’s a real need for it, in software you’re not even allowed to “measure” to see how to fit the part! So the govt had to step in. This should have been FREE, as in part of the owner’s manual for windows. it’s critical information how to USE your computer in a mixed environment, not something Microsoft has a right to keep given their market position. It would be like GM trying to make their own gas stations and actually enforce it.
Microsoft was waiting for IP rights because now they have the power to control competition, they’ll rewrite the terms for the next service pack and demand the 10k over and over. OSS, the only real competition and the EU just stabbed the citizens and computer purchasers in the back.
This thread was Godwin’ed on the very first page, but I’ll continue the thread anyway. :p
There’s something I don’t get.
I keep seeing people posting to various message boards that software patents don’t exist in the EU (slashdotters say this all the time). If so, then how could one complain that an EU/MS agreement failed to deal with patents in a manner that the complainer wished? The EU couldn’t deal with a “patent model” if it doesn’t recognize software patents in the first place.
So can anyone here answer the question as to whether software patents exist in the EU or not?
Edited 2007-10-25 16:56
As far as I know they don’t (but I dont live there). The real problem is that software is an international product. The EU should have considered the ramifications of its decision on the industry as a whole because much of the software they use is made elsewhere. Sure, if you write and use the software only in the EU you may be fine. But in other places you are going to get sued. That hurts both the people outside the EU and people inside the EU. If the SAMBA team is based in EU, and they use patented ideas from MS, MS can sue them for SAMBA being used in the US for instance. So it doesnt even really provide protection for the people in the EU.
Firstly that wouldn’t work because IBM designed the protocol. It was ruled obfuscated by the courts in reference to Microsoft’s changes since then (the latest iteration of their protocol is actually slower than the original design because of this). It would not be possible for them to successfully patent someone else’s work.
Secondly, No. Provided they don’t distribute the software inside the US it is not an issue. The problem lies with internet distribution, would you consider that distributing to the US or not? The currently accepted view is no that would not be considered distributing to the US. But that can always change.
Edited 2007-10-25 17:26
There are no MS patents that can apply.
MS obscured a protocol invented by IBM to make Windows networking. MS’s obscured version of IBM’s protocol is then a “trade secret”.
You cannot have a patent on a trade secret. To have a patent, you must publish how your invention works. The deal for patents is that you get a period (20 years) of exclusive rights to your patent in exchange for publishing how your invention works, so that afetr 20 years everyone can make your invention.
Microsoft chose not to do this with their networking. They did not publish how it works, they kept their obscurations as a secret. Ergo, Microsoft have no patent protection on it that can apply to Samba.
The other observations to make here are that (1) it is perfectly legal to “reverse engineer” something that is kept as a trade secret, (2) it is not necessary to reverse-engineer a patented invention, because the patent itself should disclose how the invention works, and hence (3) if reverse engineering is necessary to discover how something works, then in general no valid patent can apply (since clearly the invention is not published and explained well enough that others can implement it after any patent expiry).
Edited 2007-10-26 00:08
The catch-22 is that many organization discourage or even forbid their engineers from researching patents, since the patent laws provide for harsher punishment with “willful” infringement. So often times developers do have to reverse engineer something they could easily reference, but by referencing it they would be committing willful infringement. The whole thing is ridiculous, and software patents should simply face a quick and merciful death.
Totally agree with your point about trade secrets, that’s something people often overlook, particularly since Samba is so often referenced. There’s nothing MS can do to prevent Samba from doing what they do, other than continuing to jerk around the protocols with each Windows release.
Using SAMBA was a poor choice. My point was that any project that uses MS IP in the EU runs the risk of incurring patent problems if the distribute to the US, which most projects do. Just because the court said MS has to release some info in the EU doesn’t automatically clear it from patent protection in the US. But what you said regarding Trade Secrets is correct, if that is what MS is using to protect some of their property.
but in the original context you would need this to interface with microsoft products.. so you already have a patent license in buying the product. What the EU was pushing is that it’s an “owner’s right” to interface their machines and the info should be available for anybody that’s bought a Microsoft product!!! (how many people is that?) This is like being able to repair your house or your car. While car makers try to make you buy new parts, stopping shops from making cheaper replacements is hard unless there are explicit patents being violated and often now days the “knockoff” parts are made by the same OEM that put them in your car in the first place. With software there’s no way to 100% measure the part or compatibility so you have to press for specs from the makers. With Microsoft’s market position they have no “rights” to keep that info from users of their products.
We do have software patents but they are handed out very very rarely and tend to have extremely narrow definintions. You can’t just patent anything like in the US, it’s extremely limited. As far as I know because of that we haven’t yet had any problems regarding them, software patents are really out of control in the US.
They are not like Novell and Turbolinux who are selling their souls to MS.
So true. It is good to see people are recognizing that Red Hat is one of the few commercial companies refusing to go along with MS’s patent indemnification schemes. These legal threats from MS are more about control and less about protecting IP. Intimidation is control for them. You have to admire Redhat’s attitude of not yielding to intimidation while so many other companies have accepted the position of being yoked around the neck like a yak.
Edited 2007-10-25 23:53