Linus Responds To Microsoft Patent Claims 496
An anonymous reader writes "Linus Torvalds has a sharp retort to Microsoft executives' statements in a Fortune article that Linux violates 235 Microsoft patents. In an emailed response to InformationWeek's Charlie Babcock, Torvalds writes: 'It's certainly a lot more likely that Microsoft violates patents than Linux does.' He added: 'Basic operating system theory was pretty much done by the end of the 1960s. IBM probably owned thousand of really "fundamental" patents... The fundamental stuff... has long, long since lost any patent protection.'" Torvalds also commented on Microsoft's stated intention not to sue Linux users: "They'd have to name the patents then, and they're probably happier with the FUD than with any lawsuit."
Sad or Telling? (Score:3, Interesting)
Linus, Linux, IBM, and patents (Score:5, Interesting)
Heavens, the breaking news! (Score:2, Interesting)
How about we wait until there's some actual news on this story?
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why not start debunking FUD now? (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft's patents [uspto.gov] (6723 patents)
Microsoft's UI patent [uspto.gov] (155 patents)
(for example)
Why not start debunking the FUD to prove how spurious their claims are? Is it because this would be too much work? (Admittedly, 6723 >> 235)
If it could it would (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems to me that it is just more noise from a blowhard company that is losing steam in the arena of operating systems. Sound and fury signifying nothing. Too bad the general public won't recognize it for what it is.
Past infringement? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Schwartz (Sun) responds (Score:2, Interesting)
First, they don't, and secondly they can't sue (Score:3, Interesting)
If they sue, it will be against major distro makers that aren't otherwise indemnified (like Novell, it's believed). If they sue end users, they will rue the day, and it will become like the RIAA except that there'll be alternatives to software, where there is a monopoly on music distribution.
Who will suffer? Microsoft. They're already in trouble with sliding OS sales because they can't make a quality product because of decisions made more than a decade ago that are architectural in nature. Would a Linux user be sued? Hardly. A distro maker? Sure. And how much money are they going to get? Not very damn much-- that's the interesting part. It'll be like SCOx vs IBM all over again. Watch the smoke, watch the mirrors.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem here is not that MS would ever dream of going to court, it's that the FUD could be very effective at slowing adoption. I suspect that if anything, it's OpenOffice that would feel the wrath of being dragged into court. Going after the kernel is ludicrous, and would likely turn up absolutely nothing.
Re:constitutional lawyers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Essentially what I am saying is that the part "To promote the progress of science and useful arts" is meaningless and the only important part of that section is: "by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"
The beauty of it is... (Score:2, Interesting)
under the pressure of having to (possibly) justify to their boards why they changed to a Linux environment and risk exposure or worse, rather
than pay the usual license fees, and be safe by staying with an all-Windows environment.
Another telltale sign of this is that all of these threads on here and elsewhere are getting zero answers or rebukes from anyone even remotely
associated with Redmond, as they probably all are under strict orders not to do so....
It is plain as day that M$ would probably not dare actual lawsuits, but yet these tactics indicate increasingly desperate attempts at solving
what many at the helm there have identified as a deeper and more pressing crisis:
As we read every day, Linux is gaining a hefty amount of traction worldwide, and this may yet be the safest course for slowling down
what they perceive as the ineluctable spread of a killer virus, and which in the OSS camp others view as nothing less than the long-awaited
liberation from the dark embrace of proprietary software's biggest monopolist.
Make no mistakes!... The M$ ship is finally flying its true colors.
It will be easy to dismiss these tactics, yet Redmond is full of very cunning and determined people who will 'fight to the death' to retain their
cushy jobs, $tock options and have grown accustomed to a way of life where they decide everything.
This was only the first salvo. Brace for more of the same tactics, only uglier.
Z.
Sue for FUD? (Score:2, Interesting)
I think it is possible to sue someone (at least in Canada) who act to make your reputation go dirty.
Is there a law for that?
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, the damage is done. I work for a large financial organization that was *just* venturing outside of Microsoft operating systems and the lawyers sent out a notice today that we are to remove all traces of "open source" software, effective immediately.
I suspect that lots of organizations were in such a boat and Microsoft played their cards accordingly.
Duty to Mitigate (Score:3, Interesting)
Questionable Business Practices? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Heavens, the breaking news! (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you think it's an accident that OpenOffice was the only OSS project specifically named? Put this in the perspective of MS fighting various governments to stop OpenOffice file formats from becoming the defacto document standards. Hey hey Mr. Massachussetts, that document standard your talking about, well the baseline software that produces it violates a bunch of our patents. Now the talking heads that get into public meetings will have a new and very potent tool in the arsenal, the threat of legal repurcussions if a switch to open software is made.
Re:Past infringement? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is compatibility even an issue here? I thought you could reverse engineer or the equivalent thereof, to make systems compatible. Isn't this even one of the tennents of the DMCA? I know that isn't really patent related, but, is it against the patent law to interoperate with another system?
Accusation - substantiation = slander (Score:5, Interesting)
Just raising the threat is enough to swing business into MS's camp. Without a single company to take point and sue MS for slander they'll get away with it.
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is an opportunity to educate. Don't waste it.
I got questions... (Score:2, Interesting)
1. Can't FOSS or some other Open Source-heavyweight counter-sue M$ for slander in the likely event their allegations can't hold water? We can't sue for lost profits (there isn't any), but instead propose some kind of gag restricting M@ from making likewise allegations again? I mean, lawyers like money, and this seems like stealing candy from a baby (who throws chairs).
2. Why doesn't FOSS-supporters construct websites touting all the patents M$ breaks, or patents that M$ claim as their own although prior art exists? It wouldn't be FUD, it would be stepping up to the table and unveil the shitty patent-practice M$ has. I mean, that's what patent-databases are there for, right?
3. In essence, wouldn't FOSS/The Open Source community be "the bus to get onto" for lawyers? It seems like an infinite generator of easy-to-win lawsuits waiting to happen because no-one steps up to the plate due to the de-centralization of open source. The lawyers would make money, the community would get M$ off their backs, everybody except M$ goes home glad.
IANAL, but gee, If Naomi can do community-service for flinging shit at her maid...
Fight Fire with Fire (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm sorry to bring politics into this, but this is exactly what Microsoft has done. They have aimed to cloud facts and use legal threats. They will likely succeed, much like SCO did. While nerds on
So what does one do? I suggest you stop preaching to the
Otherwise, the next CIO that is selecting Solaris vs. SuSe for his grid, he's going to go with the safe bet. And that type of "better safe than sorry" is exactly what M$FT wants.
Re:If it could it would (Score:3, Interesting)
This and other similar quotes were what turned on my FUD warning light. The fact that they don't want to be specific is quite telling. They just want a dark cloud to hang over Linux, so that people wouldn't look that way when they are disappointed by Microsoft's latest offering.
I know MS trolls and fanboys won't like this, but the fact remains: If Vista and Office 2007 were booming and replacing Linux and other F/OSS in the marketplace, why care about it at all? Why risk their in many circles very positive corporate image to FUD Linux and other F/OSS with patent threats? No, this probably means that the uptake of Microsoft's latest products is far below their expectations, almost to be considered a flop. Flops they spent many billions of dollars developing.
Re GoodWay:Sad or Telling? (Score:5, Interesting)
So, who will be the first to flinch in this obvious game of chicken/standoff. I suspect, that M$ is looking to be another dickless empty SCOrotum.
I ain't good enough with code, but I will continue to put some loss money on the Linux Foundation, FSF-GPL, EFF
!HAVEFUN!
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Heavens, the breaking news! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:2, Interesting)
This is the famous AARD code, written by aaronr
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~geoffch@ozemail.co
It's actually not as dastardly as you think. First it was disabled in the release code, it only warned people in the Beta. Secondly, Windows was really mixed up with Dos. For example, it called an undocumented function to get a pointer to the Dos data segment and modified that data segment. It also patched parts of the Dos code segment - it literally rewrite the code in memory. So most likely it would have issues running on any Dos that wasn't an exact binary copy of MSDos, and only a relatively recent Dos at that. I.e. Windows 3.x has code like this
Re:Sad or Telling? (Score:3, Interesting)
The only other patent I know of on CIFS is not owned by Microsoft, it's a Cisco patent [patentdebate.com]
MS probably still argues that those two patents are being violated and MS even spread some FUD by issuing a license for using CIFS on other OS's but excludes the GPL (Samba's license).
Things that are obvious, but Microsoft has patents on, that I'm aware of (thank you, bookmark file):
patent on RSS feeds [uspto.gov]
FAT patent 5579517 (which I believe has now been rejected as obvious after appeal and my ref was link-dead)
Spam filtering [uspto.gov]
IsNot in BASIC [slashdot.org]
or how about this one [uspto.gov], which is basically sudo
or this one [uspto.gov] which would be violated as far as I can tell by a Linux OS module updated over an https connection, though I think it would also need to include verification like an md5 checksum to fall under that patent.
and a couple that I don't think would affect Linux:
a patent that is basically the same as XUL, but for Windows only [slashdot.org].
a patent on this one [uspto.gov] on learning, which is broad and vague - see this guy's response [mail-archive.com] I found in a search which explains the stupidity better than I could (my original link is again dead - I need some housecleaning).