Through the Patent Looking Glass with Microsoft 187
Andy Updegrove writes "By now you've probably read more than you want to about Microsoft's announcement that it owns 235 patents underlying leading open source software, including many opinions about whether Microsoft's new assertions do, or don't, represent a real threat to Linux, OpenOffice, and other OSS. To get to the bottom of the issue, though, you have to take a deep dive into how patent cross licensing works these days. When you do, you realize that patents don't mean what they used to, and have far more defensive than offensive value in the marketplace today. It also becomes apparent that it really doesn't matter whether Microsoft has valid patents or not, because so many other companies do as well. Today, what companies worry about isn't asserting their patents against other companies, but maintaining their freedom of activity. In this case, the open source community can simply ride the coattails of the major vendors, because Microsoft doesn't hold enough cards to win the hand, much less the game." Relatedly The Register is reporting that the author of the main report being used by Microsoft to support their patent claims has come out against Microsoft's interpretation of his work and Jonathan Schwartz gives some free advice to the overly litigious.
Re:No matter what MS says (Score:4, Insightful)
But I thought Linus made a point of not investigating possible patent problems with Linux so that he couldn't be accused of deliberately violating them. If he hasn't looked into the patents, how could he possibly know that MS's claims are FUD?
Of course, no matter what he might actually believe, Linus is obviously going to call it FUD just as Gates will obviously say it isn't. You're not going to get an unbiased response from people who have so much to gain or lose, so why bother to ask? It's like asking a politician "Do you think you can win?". You already know what the answer will be.
And furthermore... (Score:1, Insightful)
If the rules do not accomplish their stated goal, then they must be changed.
For the cynics: if the actual goals of the rules is to harm the many to the advantage of the few, then again, they must be changed.
Re:Is this just repeating Ravicher's 2004 rebuttal (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft could well be using this "patent news" in a very underhanded, but very tactical way to scare corporations away from adopting open source tools and/or OS, in an attempt to tip the balance so corporations buy Vista. Non-technical Corporation bosses would be afraid of this kind of underhanded sabre rattling tactic of Microsoft, as they would fear wasting time and effort on Linux and so go the "safe" route of using Microsoft tools & OS. ("Safe"=What M$ tell them is safe).
Its blatant scare tactics hidden behind a supposed news story, which Microsoft's own PR departments created the news story.
Major correction for you (Score:5, Insightful)
"there is almost no difference between this "everyone has defensive patents" world, and the "no one has any patents at all" world. In both cases, companies that hold a bunch of patents are free to operate as they see fit"
See the important difference. It's the *thousands of companies who don't hold a bunch of patents. They are not free to operate as they see fit in the former case, and in fact live in a Damoclean situation where their continued survival is dependent on being below the radar of the patent oligarchy. In the latter case, they are free to operate as they see fit.
Or did you have some plan for providing these defensive patents to "everyone"?
Delaying tactic. Nothing more. (Score:5, Insightful)
Intentionally or not, Microsoft has trained corporate America to wait until the first service pack or two before adopting their new operating systems. The new hardware specs for Vista will provide a further incentive for companies to delay the 'upgrade.'
Microsoft has come up with a short-term pump-up for Vista that was briefly referenced in another thread here and was supported by a friend of mine who is in CS @ a local university... students recieving free installs are being run through an e-commerce application with the price fields zeroed... which means they are being counted as sales. I wonder how many other individuals are recieving free licenses through this method for corporate evaluation etc...
Microsoft then releases public attacks to slow corporate adoption of competing products. In 9-12 months the market will naturally have reduced the overhead for upgrading to Vista and Microsoft will have time to release some major patches.
Profit!!!
Vista is not the only product they are using delaying tactics with. In 4th Qtr '06 MS dropped Virtual Machine licenses from $499 for corporate to $99 after announcing the delay of Viridian, their new upgrade.
Sad thing is... these tactics will probably work. Good thing is Microsoft does not appear to have a winning legal strategy. Not that they need one, but we probably won't be seeing C&D notices out of this.
I hope this is all that's behind this.
Regards.
Re:No matter what MS says (Score:5, Insightful)
That's an easy one. If they weren't just FUD, Microsoft would detail the patents and the infringement. This is directly analogous to the SCO case, where rather than showing which code was copied they just claimed that a bunch was.
If you're truly being harmed by someone's infringement, you have a legal duty to let them know as soon as possible so that they have the opportunity to quit infringing. If, on the other hand, you're using FUD to muddy the waters...
Where's Novell fit in? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No matter what MS says (Score:2, Insightful)
Groupthink? (Score:3, Insightful)
Keep in mind that I don't personally agree with MS's argument. I just think we'd all benefit from being open minded and having an actual debate on the topic. This applies to all topics we cover, but this one struck me as particularly obvious.
All patents are offensive, always (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no such thing as a defensive patent; that just does not make any sense at all. The whole point of a patent is offensive; it is a restriction placed upon the rest of humanity that they may not do something. It does not matter whether anybody gets sued, the mere existence of the patent has already done the most harm. Suing someone is just looting the body after you've already killed them.
And it is not just a software-only issue, patents are just as dangerous in many other fields. For a much deeper understanding of how patents are harmful, please read Against Intellectual Monopoly by by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine. http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/again stnew.htm [dklevine.com]
This is quite a long read, but it is very important.
Everything (Score:3, Insightful)
Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899
Edit: Everything that can be invented infringes on a existing patient, 2007
Re:Does the end user pay? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's because no major player has threatened Microsoft with their patent portfolio yet, and I doubt that will happen until Microsoft makes its next move. I think the major supporters of Open Source, IBM, Red Hat, Google, OIN, etc, are all waiting to see what happens next. Will MS go after a distro? Will they go after a company that uses Linux? Or will MS just continue to bluff?
The "patent war" is a cold one right now, and I don't think anyone wants it to go hot. It would be devastating to a lot of people and companies - Microsoft included. They know they have more to loose from this than the Free Software movement because they have a bottomline to watch and shareholders to appease.
Re:Groupthink? (Score:3, Insightful)
The world is round. And despite the twisted dialectic that modern journalism would lead you to subscribe to, there is no other side to that story.
there's a huge difference (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a huge difference.
Existing companies with big portfolios and cross licensing agreements have a nice oligopoly, whereas new entrants have a really hard time to enter the market.