MS-Sun Agreement Leaves Opening For OO.org Suits 407
newentiti writes "We all know Microsoft paid $900,000,000.00 to Sun and they also signed a LIMITED PATENT COVENANT AND STAND-STILL AGREEMENT. The agreement basically states that Microsoft will not sue Sun for any patents for the next 10 years and vice versa. What's really interesting is that according to this story the agreement had a special provision that lets Microsoft sue anybody, including Sun, over OpenOffice.org. I wonder what Microsoft had in mind?"
Change the name (Score:5, Interesting)
Could be... (Score:5, Interesting)
What could happen is this...
I remember reading that MSFT was going to tie some DRM into future versions of office... only "authorized" people could view documents. You'd, of course, need a MSFT policy server somewhere on your network to make sure you could set these permissions, and view documents, and all that good stuff...
If OpenOffice decided to reverse engineer this, the loophole lets MSFT sue them.
Does anyone remember the good old days when you could save your Word 6 doc, open it in WordPefect, and work on it there? Or, hell, when you could save your GeoWrite document, open it it Word Writer, and work on it there? What the hell happened?
Could Be (Score:2, Interesting)
Or it could be that MS has intent to sue OO after MS receives a patent for something novel (like using a Tab key to jump between items) and then chooses to sue OO for _stealing_ their critical technology.
Sadly, I'm thinking it's the latter.
Microsoft "pretend" enemy. (Score:1, Interesting)
In that spirit of interoperation, we were very pleased a few months ago to reach a pretty major agreement with Apple to work together on a lot of things, extending some cooperation that had broken down in the past that we thought was very important, and adding some new things as well. One of the things we've always had is a dedicated team focused on our Macintosh browser work--the Internet Explorer group for the Macintosh. That team is actually down in this area. It makes it easier for them to work closely with Apple. They don't just take the approach of porting the code across. They do take advantage of some of the Windows code, but they also do the special work to take advantage of the unique Macintosh environment, and so we're very pleased to be working with Apple, including supporting unique things.
-Bill Gates
Re:Possible Simple Explanation (Score:3, Interesting)
More importantly though, this path of thinking brings up some disturbing ideas in my head about ways GPLed projects could be controlled. Example: Suppose a company decides to start a GPL/BSD/etc. licensed project and this company has many software patents, and/or a cross-licensing agreement with another company that has a number of software patents. Since this project was started and is maintained by the company, it can obviously use their patents, but if somebody else decided they wanted to fork this GPLed code, they would not be allowed to without removing the patent infringing code, correct? Even if they are, it's somewhat of a legal grey area, is it not?
Evil.... (Score:2, Interesting)
If I'm right, then they can discourage developers from writing code for FOSS software by scaring them away.
Re:Lawsuits ala Lindows (Score:3, Interesting)
Time to switch to Abiword... (Score:1, Interesting)
Go open source!
Not really important, except to Sun (Score:2, Interesting)
had something to do w/OOo before this agreement and after it. They'd still have to win a lawsuit
that proved they incurred damages, possibly to IP, patents, who knows.
So that little provision doesn't really change anything for users. It simply tells Sun
that MS can sue them for actions they have taken (and future action they take) w/OOo regardless of
this agreement not to sue them for 10 years.
-euphorik
Re:Lawsuits ala Lindows (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sinister? Or SNL plot? (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps that is why the proper name is OpenOffice.org. To quote:
Because of trademark issues, OpenOffice.org must insist that all public communications refer to the project and software as "OpenOffice.org" or "OpenOffice.org 1.0," and not "OpenOffice" or "Open Office."
Perhaps the Sun lawyers pulled a fast one over Microsoft!
Indeed... the quote comes from here [openoffice.org], and it looks like it's been posted there more than a year ago. So technically, there is no such thing as OO or OpenOffice, there is only OOo or OpenOffice.org.
I really wonder how well that can hold up in court.
Old news...at least to me. (Score:1, Interesting)
I cannot reveal my identity but on a visit with Sun, Chancellor Scott McFreaky, told me and two others from my company that MS intends to rain a patent storm all over OSS projects, regardless of merit. The intent is to do whatever to slow down OSS proliferation. The legal costs would be nothing to MS compared to revenue they're already losing to Linux, Mozilla, OO, Apache, PHP, MySQL etc...
McFreaky's pitch was that after MS is done, there will only be two viable companies left, Sun (of course) and MS.
He of course didn't have any good answers to my prompting about IBM, HP, Novell, SGI, Oracle amongst others having issue with an MS crusade against OSS.
I walked out of the session kind of shaking, it smelled a lot of FUD to it. But it's still very plausible.
Can Microsoft protect thier patents with DRM? (Score:3, Interesting)
1) being the file requester interface it is ugly and scary to a lot of users.
This is probably the first thing people see and it scares them word is like an old friend, even with clippy, they are familiar with it.
2) Less than perfect conversion of word documents into and out of OpenOffice.
word is a defacto standard, people see word compatability as essential since thats what is most commonly used.
As long as word format import and export is less than perfect Openoffice is always going to be on the losing side.
Microsoft are well aware the small problems with using anything other than their products keeps their user base. Should OpenOffice finally manage 100% word compatable import and export then there is certain to be a microsoft patient which can be used to hit openoffice and if there isn't they can just change the word document format just enough using incorperating a patented concept and then beat them with a big stick.
Perhaps the only way to beat this is if openoffice kept its import and export filters as plugins and perfect word format conversion would be an unknown 3rd party written plugin.
However even this might not be possible with DRM incorperated into Windows XP and Longhorn. Just as media player recognises infringing audio files it is probably no great leap to being able to isolate a patent infringing plugin.
Windows update will be able to ensure that Microsofts patents can be protected
Can Microsoft do this almost certainly, will they do this what do you think?
Hardly "funny"... (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft make money from exactly TWO products. Windows, and MSOffice.
Windows is under fierce attack from internet malware on the consumer desktop, and Linux in the enterprise. MSOffice is being eroded by the unbreakable OOo.
I said this a while ago when Microsoft and Sun announced their happy settlement: the goal is to squash OOo. SCO and Lindows demonstrated that lawsuits are not just about recovering damages: the mere threat of litigation is enough to kill a product.
OOo will not survive a SCO. It's not got enough grip yet. Microsoft must realize this.
So: they will use a stick and a carrot. The stick: lawsuits against prominent OOo developers for patent infringement. The carrot: MSOffice for Linux. I predict within the next 6 months, since every day that OOo is free makes it harder for MS to squash it.
And then... patents to make sure no-one can ever write a free office application again.
"Illegal software" is going to take on a whole new meaning by this time next year.
Turn in your badge, officer. (Score:1, Interesting)
Consider yourself kicked out of the language police.
1. The first sentence quoted above is a sentence fragment, not a complete sentence. Presumably the author meant to join it to the second sentence with a comma.
2. The possessive form of the word "it" in the second sentence is written "its", not "it's". The latter is a contraction of "it is".
Re:Optimism (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course Sun is free to hire a second set of lawyers and join the other side of the case attacking itself. Sigh, what a sad sad commentary that that sentence almost makes sense.
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people making money (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, if such a group of enterprising individuals were to come together for the purposes of turning a profit, it is at least equally likely that they would choose Windows as a platform, and not choose open source or free because they have no desire to donate anything. There are plenty of enterprising individuals who would rather go with MS Windows, and to be honest, there are some good third party Windows applications out there.
Therefore I doubt that Microsoft would do anthing that would start a patent war. They might be afraid of Oo.org, they may want to keep an eye or two on it, they may want to protect themselves, but I seriously doubt that they will attack it. The message that Micrsoft wants to send to the world, I think, is that if you want to make software, and not give it away for free, in other words... if you want to make software for profit, then choose our platform. If Microsoft were to unleash a patent wars on anyone - open source, free, they would be placing the stability of the entire software industry, and the reliability of their own platform as a "money maker", as a place where small enterprising software developers can feel confident they will be reasonably secure from ligitation, at risk. Microsoft might not be about giving away things for free, but by no means do they want to create a litigous atmosphere for those profit-driven individuals who choose to develop third-party applications for their platform.
I say don't worry about it.
Re:Lawsuits ala Lindows (Score:3, Interesting)
Now I haven't done a lot of digging, but I suspect that the licenses are non-transferable( the web site does imply they are), so if your Using OO you might want your legal people look at the terms of the license and get your own licence.
Re:Microsoft XML Schema Patent (Score:3, Interesting)
The work I've done in my projects outside of the OOo source code repository falls outside of the jurisdiction of the JCA. I and I alone own the copyright to that work and choose to license it as I wish.
So no, I can't get recompense for anything I've contributed back into the OOo source code repository itself since Sun owns it too. If I find any of my other outside code in the repository and I myself haven't committed it there, then it's a violation of coypright provided it's not compatible with SISSL licensing.
As OOo is LGPL licensed, the reverse isn't true...Sun can't do anything to me if I use the code in other outside projects, provided they're compliant with LGPL or SISSL licensing. Submarine patents, however, are a different story. Neither LGPL nor SISSL provide patent protection for derivative works.
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