Has Microsoft's Patent War Against Linux Begun? 644
Glyn Moody writes "Microsoft has filed a suit against TomTom, 'alleging that the in-car navigation company's devices violate eight of its patents — including three that relate to TomTom's implementation of the Linux kernel.' What's interesting is that the intellectual property lawyer behind the move, Horacio Gutierrez, has just been promoted to the rank of corporate vice president at Microsoft. Is this his way of announcing that he intends going on the attack against Linux?"
FAT32 patents (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft has patented a bunch of stuff related to FAT32 and has aggressively licensed FAT32. They would have pursued this regardless of the OS underneath the TomTom software.
The right answer to this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Patenting mistakes (Score:4, Insightful)
FAT, as the lowest common denominator, is the best choice for flash cards and any other device that has to work in any random Windows, Mac, or Linux box. Otherwise, you'll have to develop and maintain filesystem drivers for your end users.
They will face my rage! (Score:3, Insightful)
Netbooks are a serious threat to them, and they know it. To follow the netbooks will be larger machines with limited processing for the avg joes out there.
On a personal note, I find it very delightful that a company that Embraced, Enhanced, Extinguished, might be brought down by a tiny, cheap machine called EEE.
Microsoft's last line of defense (Score:5, Insightful)
I know that it's always silly to try to predict the future, but here I go none the less. For the most part, all of the core computing applications have already been developed. Unless business processes change significantly, there are only so many systems that a company will ever need to deploy. There will be word processing applications, spreadsheets, databases, webpages, file servers, print servers and a slew of other devices. However the core of the network and the computing environment will remain rather static. Over the last decade, Microsoft developed a lot of core business applications in the form of Windows, Windows Server, Office and Exchange. As the room for innovation in the IT world shrinks, Microsoft will have to fall back to the patent portfolio. If their lawyers were smart, they patented every single technology that they could with the foreknowledge that sooner or later, someone else would want to develop software to do the same thing.
I think we are going to see Microsoft leveraging their patents more and more aggressively as time goes on. They have poured untold billions of dollars in R&D. It seems to me like they need to pursue patent litigation to generate some sort of ROI on all those R&D dollars.
Patent Abuse (Score:4, Insightful)
This has been foreshadowed for years (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft has been totally consistent in their rants on this topic. They are all for "Open Source" so long as they get a per copy patent royalty when it gets deployed in a shipping product. Because nobody can do anything without infringing their all encompassing patent portfolio. And they are probably right. And Linux is infringing patents held by every other tech company. Normally they just cross license between each other and little money actually changes hands, it is just a gate keeping new competitors without patents of their own to cross license at a disadvantage. Which is exactly where Linux is.
The patent system needs to be fixed. But every large company has billions invested in the current broken system AND, as noted above, depends on patents to keep new unexpected competitors from springing up.
Re:Microsoft's last line of defense (Score:5, Insightful)
Record that, and come back to read it in 20 years. Or wait 10 years and ask your information agent to find it for you.
Making their own laws? (Score:1, Insightful)
Looking at the pdf, it looks like Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, Mapquest, et al. are infringing on Microsoft's patent too.
When does Ford sue GM for making vehicles?
Re:This has been foreshadowed for years (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft will no doubt tread lightly because IBM and others will not tolerate them taking Linux head on... Hence, why they are trying to go around the edges. Their hope, I am assuming, is classic FUD...
Meaning, in no way will Microsoft ever be able to take on Linux directly.... Doing so would force the hand of IBM to get involved because they have much at stake...
Re:Microsoft's last line of defense (Score:4, Insightful)
Just one problem: They risk stepping on the toes of folks like IBM, Apple (who has more cash in the bank right now than Microsoft does), and other biggies that can make life very, very hard for MSFT.
Also, the payouts aren't as fast or as big as you would think: Sure, a small corp could/would cave in and settle almost immediately, and enough of them would provide an ongoing income for awhile. That said, doing so would force a lot of up-and-comers to simply abandon as much of MSFT as possible, just to avoid potential conflict.
Look at the GIF/LZH patent as an example - the whole damned thing mostly withered and died because Unisys was too desperate and stupid to realize that they could have taken a better approach. World+dog simply avoided using compressed GIFs, instead turning to other tech to get the job done.
I can see people start to do the same things with .NET, ASP, and more, if MSFT becomes an aggressive RIAA-style extortion machine.
To mangle a well-worn phrase: Nowadays, application developers see patent lawsuits as damage, and tries to route around them.
(I can also see other corps banding together and assaulting MSFT just out of preventative self-defense, too... see also SCO's troubles as a model.)
Re:The right answer to this (Score:3, Insightful)
Not a problem. Windows uses an Installable File System (IFS) architecture. All that has to happen is that the filesystem driver gets installed with the hardware driver. This can be entirely transparent to the end-user.
Re:FAT32 patents (Score:5, Insightful)
What makes you say that? The people who understand software and software patents well enough to understand what's going on already dislike Microsoft. Those who don't aren't going to change their mind over this.
Re:FAT32 patents (Score:5, Insightful)
> What makes you say that? The people who understand software and software patents well enough to understand what's going on already dislike Microsoft. Those who don't
> aren't going to change their mind over this.
Because people who aren't patent/tech nerds but who have tomtoms are going to hear about this and go `what the fuck?`...
Re:Actual complaint: (Score:3, Insightful)
That would require someone do something cool with technology. Who is? Google may be a nice company, but web mail, craptastically feature-light "office apps", and search engines aren't exactly "cool". And who is doing anything else? (No, Apple isn't doing anything cool, either.)
Re:Actual complaint: (Score:2, Insightful)
> I'm guessing MSFT is just hoping to force a settlement, so that they can then use it as a cudgel...
MSFT is looking for the FUD quotient. Apparently, from their perspective, anything they can do towards casting doubt on OSS is a good thing.
Grandma shouldn't be running Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
If every OS except Windows is able to
then Windows isn't the right OS for Grandma.
I know Windows still has major market penetration in many segments of society, but Grandmas just aren't where it should be. Get 'er a Mac. Or if you'll install it for her, get her Linux.
Re:The right answer to this (Score:1, Insightful)
Software patents are illegal to begin with. Software is math.
Re:Patenting mistakes (Score:4, Insightful)
What would be the point of a flash card if you couldn't take it out or update the unit anyway.
Re:FAT32 patents (Score:3, Insightful)
UFDs and portable HDDs don't care what FS you put on them; they're just block devices and don't understand anything FS-level.
To my knowledge the iPhone/iPod no longer uses FAT32.
You might have a point with digital cameras.
Re:The right answer to this (Score:3, Insightful)
If you honestly think MS is going to adopt whatever open source filesystem they choose, you're nuts.
Re:Microsoft's last line of defense (Score:3, Insightful)
You're going to say the nanotech revolution (if it ever happens) wasn't innovative, because it was just a hardware upgrade. :(
Why are there so many bitter ancient geezers on /.?
Re:FAT32 patents (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The right answer to this (Score:3, Insightful)
Is your data SAFE in a non-Microsoft format? How's that new version of ReiserFS coming along? You're spreading the very FUD people complain about going the other way.
You are completely wrong Saleen. Your data will be fine in ReiserFS format as it's open source and unpatented, hence nobody will be able to hold your data hostage. Which is effectively what Microsoft is doing. Microsoft aren't the only scumbags around that allow a format to gain widespread acceptance before launching widescale blackmail. Remember Unisys and the LWZ patent affecting GIF images?
Phillip.
Re:FAT32 patents (Score:4, Insightful)
> What makes you say that? The people who understand software and software patents well enough to understand what's going on already dislike Microsoft. Those who don't
> aren't going to change their mind over this.
Because people who aren't patent/tech nerds but who have tomtoms are going to hear about this and go `what the fuck?`...
Nah. Think about what's going to happen with this thing.
Currently Microsoft has filed a suit against TomTom. Most TomTom users probably don't know about it, or don't care. It's TomTom's problem.
If Microsoft loses, all is well, TomTom users won't care.
If Microsoft wins, and TomTom has to pay money to license the patent - TomTom will continue doing business, all will be well, TomTom users won't care.
If Microsoft wins, and TomTom changes their platform as a result, then TomTom users might care if it starts to impact them - but they might not make the connection or blame Microsoft.
If Microsoft wins, and TomTom as a company dies as a result, then TomTom users will probably care. "Where am I gonna get map updates or new, funny voices?" But how likely is this scenario? Microsoft doesn't want TomTom out of business, they just want money... and they want to assert their patents over pieces of Linux code. They can't continue to extract money if TomTom is out of business. And of course, TomTom themselves don't want to lose their lucrative business so they'll be trying to find a way to make this all work...
So I really don't see why TomTom users will get all outraged over this.
Re:Microsoft's last line of defense (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok lets reverse that think back 10 or 20 years ago and what has truly been innovated today? and is not just an evolution of existing software taking advantage of faster and more widespread hardware?
20 years ago. That would be 1989.
*World Wide Web and everything it entails
*Global positioning system
*Digital Cameras
*3D Graphics cards
*Rewritable Optical Data Storage
*Digital Audio (MP3/iPod)
*Digital Video (DVD)
*Practical Cell Phones
*Wireless Data
*Mobile Computing
*Roomba
*Instant Messaging
The iPhone still feels like it belongs in a Sci-Fi movie. You mean I can pull this small rectangle from my pocket and:
1) Call anywhere in the world.
2) View a movie on it.
3) Hold my entire music collection.
4) Take a picture of someone and send it instantly to anyone on earth.
5) Connect to some whole world network and read or watch the latest news and find out the weather anywhere.
6) Play a video game with 3d graphics that blow away anything from 1989.
7) Have a large photo album on it
8) Find my location anywhere on earth and be able to plot a path from where I am to anywhere in the country.
9) With Google Earth, bring up a satellite image of practically anywhere on earth.
10) Have more classic books than most libraries thanks to Project Gutenberg.
All of this in a device that is 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches and 4.8 ounces. It may not seem like much since we have been through the changes
gradually, but if you take a step back it is mindblowing.
There are also a host of other technologies that were around in 1989 but were not in widespread use due their cost. Presumably, that means that
there are a host of technologies that exist today that we are barely aware of that will be widespread in 2029.
Re:The right answer to this (Score:2, Insightful)
The only issue there is getting it to be supported on Windows. Grandma wants to plug her memory card/flash drive into any computer and have it "just work". If M$ doesn't give in and support the OSS FS, it'll be a tough battle.
I have a degree in computer engineering and I want my memory card/flash drive to "just work". It's called "having something better to do". Linux is going to be stuck in the IT room until the people pushing it *finally* realize that.
Re:Patenting mistakes (Score:5, Insightful)
You jest (or at least the mods think so), but actually, you're not so far off the mark. As Windows does not come bundled with support for any file system that isn't patented by Microsoft, lording those patents over people is quite anticompetitive. Or, at the very least, more-so than the whole IE thing which started all this monopoly stuff to begin with.
Then again, the entire point of software patents is to make monopolies, so perhaps this is just what's supposed to be happening.
Re:The right answer to this (Score:5, Insightful)
> is to get companies to start using a different FS on memory cards
It's not going to happen, and here's why:
* The royalties are capped. Beyond a certain point, it costs SanDisk, Minolta, and the others nothing in additional royalties for cards produced during a given year.
* As a practical matter, Microsoft can only force you to pay royalties if you sell the card preformatted. Leave it up to the end user to format the drive himself, and Microsoft can't make you pay them a cent. Technically, the end user would be responsible for paying the royalties himself if he formats the card with FAT32, but as a practical matter Microsoft isn't going to come knocking on his door.
Thus, it's self-limiting for large users, and there's a de-facto escape hatch for small users. The limit is high enough to make Microsoft lots of money, but low enough to not be worth the development and support costs of any alternate filesystem for the large users.
In any case, I'll be shocked if Microsoft ever launches into an all-out assault on Linux. Frankly, Microsoft BENEFITS from having a small & noisy group of people loudly insisting there are alternatives to Windows. It lets them point and say, "See, we aren't REALLY a monopoly!
Re:Bring it on (Score:1, Insightful)
M$... M$... M$... M$... M$... M$... etcandsoonandsoforth
twitter? is that you?
Re:Microsoft's last line of defense (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that most of those really core ideas, like your "retrieving data from a database", were done in the '60s if not earlier... yet the patent system allows companies to dress them up in new language, maybe add an "on the internet" or "in a car", and re-patent the whole thing.
Patent 6,175,789 is exactly this: It's a patent on a computer system... IN A CAR. The other patents are on driving directions (I don't know enough to judge this one), the infamous FAT32 long-name patents, and one on flash memory file systems (which I simply do not believe Microsoft was first to invent).
Re:The right answer to this (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The right answer to this (Score:3, Insightful)
It means that an algorithm is a mathematical construct with certain properties. Not that different from a natural number, a graph (as in graph theory), a real-valued function, or a finite state automaton.
You can't (and shouldn't be able to) patent any of these, so why should you be able to patent an algorithm?
Re:Grandma shouldn't be running Windows (Score:1, Insightful)
been there, done that got my ass kicked with constant whining and why doesn't this work... in windows it did.. meh
Grandma can do her own shit
Re:Microsoft's last line of defense (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, the fact that GIF is patent-encumbered isn't what made it lose out to PNG.
It was a question of features, pure and simple. GIF can simply not represent pictures with more than 256 colours, and JPG - while it can store more than 256 colours, is not a lossless compression format.
PNG simply filled the void - a losslessly compressed raster image file format with support for more than 256 colours. And it happens to have transparency support that sucks considerably less than GIFs.
PNG, however, does not support animation. (Yes, there are extentions and sister standards to PNG that do, but they are not widely implemented in web browsers.) And GIF only supports a very limited range of animation. What filled that void? Macromedia Flash -- the single most non-free part of the world wide web today. GIF animations are still used, though, because they're considerably lighter than an obnoxious Macromedia Flash crapplet.
Same argument - why does everyone still use MP3 even though it's patent-encumbered and there are better alternatives both technically (AAC, for example) or in terms of freedom (OGG Vorbis)? Because MP3 is good enough.
GIF simply wasn't good enough. So it got supplemented by PNG and Macromedia Flash. It has nothing to do with patents.
Re:FAT32 patents (Score:5, Insightful)
Boy, you've made a very good argument for an ANTITRUST case. Perhaps the government will look at this and get the antitrust case against Microsoft right this time....
Re:Patenting mistakes (Score:3, Insightful)
IANAL, but if I was I'd recommend filing in the EU rather than the US, given Opera's progress there.
Re:Patenting mistakes (Score:4, Insightful)
As Windows does not come bundled with support for any file system that isn't patented by Microsoft, lording those patents over people is quite anticompetitive.
Well that was the whole fucking point of patents: keeping people away from your invention. Granting you a time-limited monopoly so you can capitalize on it.
Unfortunately said time limit is waaaay too long. Law does not keep up with the exponential nature of technology. That's the real problem, not what MS does with their patents.
Re:The right answer to this (Score:2, Insightful)
Ubuntu and Mac OS X are the two operating systems I can think of where things "just work" when you plug them in.
Windows is the operating system where plugging something in will break Windows unless you've previously installed the right driver for the thing you're about to plug in.
I plug my Nikon into my Mac and the Mac helpfully shows the contents of the CF card. I plug the same Nikon into a Windows box and it doesn't give me any option except to install the drivers. The Nikon is just presenting itself to the computer as a USB storage device.
I can't even plug my Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 into a Windows machine without being prompted to install drivers.
Windows doesn't "just work" except when you replace "just" with "barely".
Re:The right answer to this (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Patenting mistakes (Score:5, Insightful)
Physical devices, with huge sunk costs in R&D and fabs make a patent a reasonable tradeoff to incentivise development.
Software, not so much.
Re:Patenting mistakes (Score:5, Insightful)
I think what's really fucked up about this is that Microsoft is just now deciding to do something. FAT has existed for almost two decades, and the FS driver in Linux for quite some time as well. They waited for their FS to become a de facto standard so they could drop the hammer on people.
If you own a trademark you have to actively defend it, lest it become a standard term for the product type. Shouldn't technology and patents be the same way? If you allow entire industries to adopt your patented method without defending it you should lose the patent. Coming in after the fact just so you can grab your competitors by the balls is just crooked.
Microsoft might have tried to push WinCE on tomtom (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect MS has tried to push WinCE on Tomtom to replace Linux, and threatened them to sue them if they refused. These days, we see windows coming on devices where we would not expect it, and it is possible that there is some back pressure from MS.
Re:The right answer to this (Score:3, Insightful)
If you view software as text, as instructions on how do do something, like a recipe, then it is obvious that copyright is the preferred method of protecting your IP.
If instead you say that software isn't just text it's special text that incorporates an algorithm then what you are trying to patent is the algorithm. As has been stated, algorithms are mathematically based, and so this is where the expression "Software is math" comes from. Not that all software is math, (although that can be argued as well), but that the parts that are worth patenting are.
At least that's how I see it.
Personally I think software patents are a terrible idea, and copyright is too long.
Similar to the GIF fiasco? (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember back when GIF was the number one image type on the internet? And then there was a licensing issue?
Almost killed the use of GIF as a filetype. Gave rise to the predominance of JPG and the growth of the PNG format.
I can't remember the last time I saw a gif that wasn't animated (Which seems to the be preferred small moving animatic format. For now.)
Watch Microsoft starve (Score:1, Insightful)
And MS make minimal profit from each EEE/XP. They make almost nothing on XP itself, and most people who buy an EEE won't install Office on it (too difficult to do, as EEEs have no CDROM drive).
If the netbook takes over a huge chunk of the computing market, watch Microsoft starve.
Re:The right answer to this (Score:3, Insightful)
Tomtom are a european company (from holland i believe), software patents are not valid in europe therefore they had no reason to waste money.
They also had no choice but to use fat32 in order to interoperate with windows, a potential antitrust issue... Other filesystems are light years ahead but ms don't bother to implement them in windows.
Profile of a Sociopath (Score:1, Insightful)
This sort of behavior should really help the world out in these times of recession/depression
Im so pleased i stoped using microsoft products about 8 years ago as microsoft behaves like a child sociopath most to all of the time like a troubled brother you never wanted as he has caused nothing but shame to the family.
Profile of a Sociopath
* Glibness and Superficial Charm
* Manipulative and Conning
* Grandiose Sense of Self Feels entitled to certain things as "their right."
* Pathological Lying Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis.
* Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities.
* Shallow Emotions When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive.
* Incapacity for Love
* Need for Stimulation Living on the edge. Verbal outbursts and physical punishments are normal. Promiscuity and gambling are common.
* Callousness/Lack of Empathy Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others
* Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others.
* Early Behavior Problems/Juvenile Delinquency Usually has a history of behavioral and academic difficulties, yet "gets by" by conning others. Problems in making and keeping friends.
* Irresponsibility/Unreliability Not concerned about wrecking others' lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.
* Promiscuous Behavior/Infidelity Promiscuity, acting out of all sorts.
* Lack of Realistic Life Plan/Parasitic Lifestyle Tends to move around a lot or makes all encompassing promises for the future, poor work ethic but exploits others effectively.
* Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution.
= Profit ?
Re:Patenting mistakes (Score:2, Insightful)
I assume you do not manage software projects. The assumption that software does not have a huge sunk cost is incorrect. Think about it.
Lets take an obvious example, win95 vs. win98 - three years with hundreds of developers, QA staff, tech writers, etc. (we'll assume only 100), at a low assumed price (today dollars) of say 60K each, including benefits etc., that is 3 years * 100 staff * 60K avg salary = 18 million dollars. A more realistic example might be 200-300 staff and 80-100K salary/benefits/cost (salary, benefits, heat, lights, rent, software tools, hardware, ...) getting you to something like 60-90 million dollars to produce the gold master CD/DVD. Glad you do not think that's a large R&D sunk cost.
Before you start, yes win 95/98 is way back when. That's not the point, the point is that ANY large software project has staff and that staff costs dollars (direct in salary and indirect in benefits, hardware, software, and 'cube space'). So the sunk cost for a software project R&D is AT LEAST staff * time * salary (forget, management, marketing, research, ... for now), which can add up.
I WILL AGREE that software has little per unit distribution cost. Burning another CD/DVD is cheap, but getting the first one right can be REALLY expensive. Software development is ALL about sunk cost recovered over time.
Before someone else chimes in about open source. Open source projects have the same issues/costs BUT they POTENTIALLY get subsidized (Red Hat, Ubuntu, etc. being counter examples). Developers donate time ($0 salary), work from home ($0 space/lights/heat), use personal equipment ($0 hardware) and use open source tools ($0 software). Obviously this reduces sunk cost from a cash flow perspective for projects using those 'advantages'.