Stallman Feeds Gates His Own Words 647
soloport writes "C|Net has published an article, written by RMS, in which Stallman points out that Gates is merely calling the kettle communist. Toward the end of the article, Stallman strengthens his point by feeding Bill his own words. Back in 1991, Bill said, in an internal memo: 'If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today...A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose.' Now, if only Bill were as clear-minded on the subjects of Innovation and Interoperability."
How can anyone trust these people? (Score:2, Informative)
With such an underhanded move to crowd out free software, who can really trust these people when they claim to be acting in your best insterests?
Re:all the smugness in the world (Score:1, Informative)
CIFS patents used in attack (Score:5, Informative)
Early history of CIFS
The relationship between Samba and Microsoft wasn't always so contentious. In 1996, when Microsoft was just introducing CIFS, it had to contend with competition such as the Sun-Novell alliance behind Sun's WebNFS software. Microsoft at that time pledged that it was "making sure that CIFS technology is open, published and widely available for all computer users," and it noted that Samba used CIFS.
Microsoft submitted the first version of CIFS to the Internet Engineering Task Force at the time, a first step in the standardization process. That process went nowhere, but a 1997 version of that submission is still available on the Internet. The submission made no mention of two related patents, which Microsoft received in 1993 and 1995. In addition, Microsoft shared information in a series of CIFS conferences that began in 1996.
The patents, however, rose to prominence this year.
In the technical document describing CIFS in Windows NT 4.0, Microsoft prohibits companies from using the information in software covered by the GPL, which includes Samba. Microsoft requires readers of the document who plan to implement its description to sign a license agreement that raises the specter of patent infringement.
Specifically, the agreement grants a company a royalty-free license to two Microsoft patents but prohibits the developer from using the CIFS information in software that would subject that company to "intellectual property rights-impairing licenses," including the GPL.
the part stallman left out... (Score:5, Informative)
The solution is patenting as much as we can.
In the article, RS is implying that Bill Gates once agreed with him on patents, and the quote he gives would make it seem so....however, if you include the bit that he "conveniently" left out, it reads quite the opposite, gates stance on patents has always been the same, and against RSs stance. Nice to know that Microsoft isn't the only one capable of FUD...well done RS.
Re:YRO? (Score:2, Informative)
Software patents intefere with the right to use software.
Stallman's speech The Danger of Software Patents [gnu.org] provides an excellent explanation of this. I read this speech for the first time yesterday and think it is one of his best ones.
Re:In fairness to M$FT... (Score:5, Informative)
Hey RMS quotable quotes need to be quoted fully (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know about you, but by reading this, Bill's intentions become clear from the start. Isn't he instructing his staff to patent as much as they can? Funny how RMS would hide this essential piece of the quote in [...]
Re:Stallman's FUD (Score:4, Informative)
Re:In fairness to M$FT... (Score:5, Informative)
From the second weblink:
See this link [ffii.org], or:
Avery Lee 00-12-05: ASF support removed at request of Microsoft
Avery Lee, author of http://www.geocities.com/virtualdub/, a free software tool for converting multimedia file formats, reports sad news:
Today I received a polite phone call from a fellow at Microsoft who works in the Windows Media group. He informed me that Microsoft has intellectual property rights on the ASF format and told me that, although the implementation was still illegal since it infringed on Microsoft patents. I have asked for the specific patent numbers, since I find patenting a file format a bit strange. At his request, and much to my own sadness, I have removed support for ASF in VirtualDub 1.3d, since I cannot risk a legal confrontation.)
--From the above-cited link
They didn't need to file a lawsuit, they eliminated competition just by THREATENING one. That's the whole problem here. This is not a "defensive" use of their patent, the creator of VirtualDub had not made a threat to MS that they were responding defensively to.
Re:What about the centralization aspect? (Score:3, Informative)
> to centralize all of the means of production.
While this is certainly true of the USSR, it is by no means part of overall communist ideology. Lenin said, essentially, that the general public was too stupid to know what they really wanted, so the proletariat, the smart guys who just happened to be in power, got to tell them exactly what they should be doing. They're the ones who centralized everything. A straight communist society (as oppposed to Marxist or Leninist) would simply consist of factories that were controlled by its workers and owned by its workers, just like we see the Open Source community today.
There has been a huge push from Western Society to equate Communism with the governments of the USSR and China and Cuba, etc. They are more accurately 'State Capitalist' societies, where all the means of production are controlled by a single party. Communism is really terribly benign, although basically totally unworkable on large scales (because, as I've said before, it requires all citizens to work with foreign entities the same way).
> and production for individual benefit becomes illegal.
This is exactly what the FSF is about. Down with Intellectual Property, Software Patents, and Copyright Law, all of which were instituted to ensure the individual the right to profit off of the production of ideas.
Re:Where's the "-1: Idiocy" mod option? (Score:5, Informative)
So, what "fundamental economics principles" are you citing? Your developmental cost ("opportunity cost", cost of living, etc.) is part of "sunk cost." (And I believe one of the fundamental econmic principle was this: "Sunk costs are sunk", and another one "Sunk costs are really sunk".) I was referring to "marginal cost", which has to do producing an additional unit---i.e. copies---and it may be considered a "fundamental principle" (I'm not sure if it is, IANAE), but it is clear that "price of a good should exceed its marginal cost." Softwares (and intellectual property in general) are unique in that the marginal cost is phenomenally low---whether that justifies a phenomenally low price is arguable, but it is arguably the strongest blow against $200 softwares (which is one of the consequences of proprietary softwares).
Now, with this understanding, does my point about RMS (and probably OSS) not breaking any "fundamental economic principles" get across to you? Don't let my domain (*.berkeley.edu) cloud your eyes---otherwise, my predecessors would have fought for free speech in vain.
PS. BTW, you are forgetting that the corporations' support of software patents (which RMS is opposing) are nullifying the very force of licenses that you are so fond of. Would you like an "artistic patent" so that no artist/writer may "steal" an idea from another?
Re:the part stallman left out... (Score:4, Informative)
I did not get the impression from the quote that Bill Gates had shifted his views from the time of the quote until now. It merely indicates that all the high-minded ideals Gates talks about when he talked about 'intellectual property' count for squat, and that what he's really interested in is a world where the large players can shut the small ones out before they get a chance.
Here is a more complete version of the quote:
So, yes, you are correct. But the first part of his quote clearly illustrates that he knows exactly what kind of world strong and pervasive patent protection will create. That's the world he wants, a world where the IT industry is at a standstill because everything is owned by Microsoft and they have no interest in going anywhere anymore.
Re:Well You know what they say about absolute powe (Score:3, Informative)
It was in the '80s -- you must have missed it.
Re:Perhaps bill should heed these words (Score:1, Informative)
He earned a Macarthur grant. He did something. You're just a loser, writing crappy software that nobody really gives a shit about.
There are plenty of developers that write code for a living and don't sell it. We have some where I work and we're not a software company.
If you don't like what he has to say, then don't read it. Nobody is shoving anything down your throat.
Re:Cut from the same cloth as Bill... (Score:1, Informative)
If you infringe a patent you are liable for damages.
If you do a patent search first you are considered to be knowingly infringing the patent (even if you didn't find it) and you are liable for triple damages.
Hence you should avoid patent searches.
Re:He cheats (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know where you've been the last quarter century, but Republicans are the big spenders in American politics and the Democrats are the party of fiscal conservatism. It wasn't always this way, but under Nixon the Republicans captured the poor southern white vote and started slowly bleeding off the capitalists. Today the Dems have about 2/3 of the fiscal conservatives while about 1/3 remain with the Republicans out of a sense of duty, entrapment, or just because they are the party in power. They are a force in neither party, but it's pretty obvious the Christie Whitman's of the Republican party will fail. When the Democratic party recaptures power the Republicans will have the social conservatives and the Democratic party will have the fiscal conservatives.
Whether the social liberals and the fiscal conservatives might have problems getting along once they are back in the same party is an exercise left to the reader. When they were both in the GOP they never had problems before they had power, but once they did they often had so many problems that they lost the next election.