Microsoft Says Free Software Violates 235 Patents

prostoalex writes "Microsoft told Fortune magazine that various free software products violate at least 235 patents, and it's time to expect users of this software to pay up patent licensing royalties: 'Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith and licensing chief Horacio Gutierrez sat down with Fortune recently to map out their strategy for getting FOSS users to pay royalties. Revealing the precise figure for the first time, they state that FOSS infringes on no fewer than 235 Microsoft patents.'"

The big fight LIVE!

[LiquidCoooled]

Ladies and gentlemen, we have tonight a bout between two of the worlds greatest software idealogists.

In the Blue corner weighing in at 289 pounds we have Monkey Boy Ballmer, his speciality move: The chair.
In the Red corner, weighing in at 432 pounds we have the one and only R.M.S, speciality move, being R.M.S.

Who will win this epic battle?

Let me be the first to say...

[msauve]

Microsoft, fuck you!

Poison Ivy

[mdsolar]

I once has 235 itches too. Remember: DON'T SCRATCH!

Yeah right...

[Jordan (jman)]

Now that will be a cold day in hell when they get that money out of me.

Deja Vu?

[earthforce_1]

Tell Mr. Balmer he is welcome to a portion of the $699 Linux IP license I paid SCO. I hear they sold lots and lots of them.

where is the list of patents?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's what the interview should have been:

Microsoft: It's a fact that Linux and free software infringe hundreds of our patents.

Journalist: Which ones?

Microsoft: Well, the kernel violates 60, the GUI violates...

Journalist (interrupting): which 60? Where is the list?

Microsoft: I'm not prepared to disclose that at this time.

Journalist: Well this is a big fucking waste of my time, isn't it?

Journalist: I went through this same dance with Darl McBride. Call me when you have something to say, bye

Re:where is the list of patents?

[Anonymous Coward]

He couldn't list them because IBM owns the patent on listing patents.

Wait until patents get renewed

[dattaway]

And when the software idea land grab completely owns every possible idea, the laws will be changed like copyrights to extend length of ownership 100, 200, 500, 1000 years after the author's death.

Support your Innovator!

cAjones != cOjones

[mangu]

If MS has the cajones to file any patent suits

A cajón is a big box (the aumentative of caja). A cojón is a testicle. Maybe that's the word you were looking for?

Users file suit against Microsoft for ....

[BrentRJones]

...infringment on 1) use of numbers 2) use of words, punctuation, sentences... 3) use of algebra sum(A1:A22) 4) excessive problems with operating systems and applications -- I can prove my mental condition is much worse having used MS products and so on...

And our lawyers will work pro bono because so many of them hate MS too.

Re:no patents == anarchy

[Anonymous Coward]

> get rid of software patents

So is it finally time to rise up and tear down the gov't patent office? Man, I've been waiting ages for a good 'ol revolution like this.

Re:cAjones != cOjones

[The Monster]

I had seen the spelling 'cajones' on furniture, and had imputed that it meant 'drawers'. Gracias por la explicación. So the question is not whether one has cajones, but whether there are cojones in the cajones.

Re:No problem. What are they?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let us know and we'll just remove them. Should have replacements in no time at all... well... at least less than 5 years from the last major release.

Well that's where my secret patent comes in: a method for naming a collection of code starting with the letter L and ending with the letter X. Let's see you get around that one!

Re:since when do users pay royalties?

[The_Sledge]

I would expect we all send MS a check for $0.01, really. The administrative headache will be the stuff of legend, and I imagine MS will have to create a whole new department and employ an extra 1,000 people for mail handling and admin processing.

You've GOT to be kidding...

[GeorgiaCodeMonkey]

Microsoft wants to take on FOSS? Oh, this oughta be hilarious. This is going to make the SCO debacle look like "Great Moments in Brain Surgery."

Re:The big fight LIVE!

[southpolesammy]

And in the Big Blue corner, weighing in at 800 lbs and wearing the obligatory monkey suit...

Re:Real hardball

[smchris]

Speak for yourself. I was never _joking_ about the evil empire. I helped support a department revolt in the 90s against Word on our campus that at least left WordPerfect the "acceptable co-installed alternative" for another couple years. Felt that strongly that Word was a piece of crap.

I assume this is FUD mostly directed at Red Hat because it isn't like they are going to seize the international corporate headquarters of Debian or Slackware. What would they propose to stop the kudzu-like growth of the really free distributions? Take down notices on source servers? Set up servers to try to catch people using linux browsers?

Re:Software patents

[Torvaun]

A law firm I worked for did lobbying for MS, Bill Gates came to our office.

And if only you were Denny Crane, you would have had guns right there.

It's about time you freeloaders paid up

[mandark1967]

I'm glad to see this happen. I think it's time you people pay up for your use of Microsoft's innovative code. Pay up and quit riding their coat tails. I think it's a shame that MS does all the work and Linux just grabs their patented code. For Shame...

Re:Wow

[QuantumG]

Did you read the whole article? Or did you get bored after looking at the pictures?

It presents both sides of the argument fairly to me. It has plenty of praise for RMS on page 2. It clearly states that Microsoft's actions are unsound and likely to result in harm to the software industry on page 3.

All in all, I think the article is pretty balanced.

A picture of Steve Ballmer, wearing a suit, looking harmless,

Oh, and your idea of harmless and mine are clearly different. He looks ready to explode in that picture.

Re:No problem. What are they?

[setagllib]

LFreeBSDX. LSolarisX. Ah, crap, I couldn't do it :)

Re:No problem. What are they?

[poopdeville]

*psst* The answer is Lynx.

Re: reasoning me-self.

[Anonymous Coward]

I take none of those products was a spell checker.

Re:The big fight LIVE!

[Dragonslicer]

...six of them - IBM (Charts, Fortune 500), Sony, Philips, Novell, Red Hat (Charts) and NEC - set up the Open Invention Network to acquire a portfolio of patents...

Does that portfolio include Sony's patent on rootkits?

MS IP is fundemental to Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I've customised my version of Linux so it uses the registry, runs outlook, internet explorer and has a DOS prompt. It's admired wherever I take it. I was worried that this would happen, though. That finally Microsoft would catch on to my nefarious activities. Now I'll have to revert to plain-old, bog-standard linux, and give up the genuine advantage that I'd accrued for myself. Please don't make me remove MS IP from my distro.

Lets face it, if it wasn't for Microsoft's patented ideas, Free Software wouldn't be worth using. >-}}}}}8>

Re:The big fight LIVE!

[dangitman]

Well, if you're going to have a fight, you may as well make it an ape fight.

That's what my grandfather always said, may his soul rest in peace. Unfortunately, he never saw the knife-wielding babboon coming.

Re:This kind of PR stuff is a double edged sword

[_KiTA_]

Next week press titles "238 patches and upgrades on Debian and Ubuntu repositories", "OSDL sponsored study proves that OSS has the highest reaction time in terms of patch release", "RMS & Linus to give speech about strengths of OSS development ; Ballmer responds throwing chairs".

You're forgetting some other important ones:

"Linus Torvals demands to see proof of Linux patent violations." "All of Europe calls for a ban on Software Patents, again." "IBM claims Windows violates 15,302 IBM Patents, demands reasonable fee of $1 per patent per copy of Windows sold."

The good news...

[nrc]

The good news is that most of those patents are violated by MONO and when Microsoft hoists them up as an example the debate on whether that was ever a good idea will be settled once and for all.

Re:Microsoft flunks global test

[dilby]

Don't know what issues your talking about in Australia. Our current government motto when it comes to U.S. intellectual property law (in fact any law that a US entity wishes to impose on Australian citizens) is "We swallow"

Laches??

[MrCreosote]

http://www.converium.com/2103.asp [converium.com]

Re: U-235.

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, Microsoft bashes YOU!!!

Re:Microsoft flunks global test

[Anonymous Coward]

And THAT is why I love aussie girls.

Re:since when do users pay royalties?

[evwah]

I'm still waiting for all the money I was supposed to get from forwarding all those emails... maybe they'll just deduct my $0.01 from that

Re:The big problem is that...

[buswolley]

Do you LOL in real life?

Re:Dear Microsoft...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Computing World,

We already claim that title, but thank you for your most humble concern.

Sincerely,
Microsoft

Re: U-235.

[VagaStorm]

LAMO, that is not just in Soviet Russia!

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[slacknhash]

No chance! If we do, you'll only patent the phrase and where will that leave the rest of us if we want to say it?

Slashdot Japan...

[Dogtanian]

hey this is just proof of how well google translate works!

I don't know how well Google Translate works, but if you want to see the results of Babelfish's Japanese->English translation, view Slashdot Japan through it [altavista.com]. (Yes, that's the link I've had as "my" URL for a while now).

The results are..... interesting, to say the least.

Re:The big problem is that...

[TravisO]

I guess this just means MS found 235 apps on SourceForce than can read from a FAT drive then :P

Re:This kind of PR stuff is a double edged sword

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of the 328 patents likely have prior art, but that's a big number. I'm sure some of the 382 patents are legit. The open-source community has shown it's good at distributed bug-fixing and even development, but could we handle hunting down 823 patents?

I know what you're thinking.

[mtec]

"Did he infringe 235 patents or only 347?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a GPL License, the most powerful free software agreement in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, Ballmer?