Microsoft Patents the Crippling of Operating Systems 394
theodp writes "On Tuesday, Microsoft was granted US Patent No. 7,536,726 (it was filed in 2005) for intentionally crippling the functionality of an operating system by 'making selected portions and functionality of the operating system unavailable to the user or by limiting the user's ability to add software applications or device drivers to the computer' until an 'agreed upon sum of money' is paid to 'unlock or otherwise make available the restricted functionality.' According to Microsoft, this solves a 'problem inherent in open architecture systems,' i.e., 'they are generally licensed with complete use rights and/or functionality that may be beyond the need or desire of the system purchaser.' An additional problem with open architecture systems, Microsoft explains, is that 'virtually anyone can write an application that can be executed on the system.' Nice to see the USPTO rewarding Microsoft's eight problem-solving inventors, including Linux killer (and antelope killer) Joachim Kempin, who's been credited with getting Microsoft hauled into federal court on antitrust charges." Sounds like the mechanism by which Microsoft sells one version of Vista to all users, and lets users upgrade to higher-tier flavors of the OS after cash changes hands.
I think there's already a word for this. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I think there's already a word for this. (Score:0, Insightful)
Prior art in the mainframe world? (Score:2, Insightful)
There may be prior art for this in the mainframe or embedded-systems world.
Anyone think of anything?
Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does MS actually think that *anybody* who makes an OS would want to do this (that isnt currently doing it, like themselves and.. anybody else?)?
As far as I know, the only real competition for Windows is MacOS and Linux variants...
It just goes to show how completely out of touch with reality they really are.
Apples and apples (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it just me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or does this read like the venture into a modularized price structure for an Operating System.
You want to Install Windows? $50
You want to Boot Windows? Another $50
You want to Install Applications? That'll be $100
You want to play Blu-Ray? That'll be another $50
You want sound on your Blu-Ray movie? Cough up $35
You want to use your peripherals? (Camera, webcam, ipod, printer, scanner) That'll be $10 per peripheral
After all, even the synopsis says "making selected portions and functionality of the operating system unavailable to the user or by limiting the user's ability to add software applications or device drivers to the computer' until an 'agreed upon sum of money' is paid to 'unlock or otherwise make available the restricted functionality.'", who's to say they don't want to make a Windows Core available for some low price, then add Multimedia capability as a $200 add-on, or Gaming Pack for $150, maybe a Video/Sound Editing pack for $300, or a Small Business Suite for $300?
Reads to me like MS is gonna kick the consumer in the junk, then take their wallet
Logical dilemma (Score:5, Insightful)
> 'they are generally licensed with complete use rights and/or functionality that may be beyond the need or desire of the system purchaser.'
If the functionality is beyond the purchaser's need or desire, why do you need to lock it away from them? If they have to pay you extra for that functionality, doesn't that imply that they really did need and desire those rights or functionality.
Linux Lawsuits - NOT! (Score:5, Insightful)
Who owns your computer? (Score:2, Insightful)
Obviously not you if you've got this installed.
Product activation (Score:3, Insightful)
They've patented product activation. You don't get the full app till you pay up, or find a crack.
Seriously, is this really any different than the countless other schemes for product activation that have been tried and found lacking over the years?
Re:Now it can claim (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The day... (Score:2, Insightful)
Prior art - blackmail trojan horses! (Score:3, Insightful)
Malware / trojan / virus writers have been doing this for years... locking up your computer files with encryption until you pay them money.
Just because it wasn't a "commercial" application, doesn't mean it's not prior art!
Prior Art (Score:5, Insightful)
Although I have no problem with Microsoft holding a monopoly on this sort of "innovation", commercial operating systems have always had different levels of functionality that can be enabled or disabled. Sun's UNIX, for example, had a very complex set of rights to run compilers, debuggers, specify the number of CPUs, and otherwise limit the available features or products that could run, with many different types of licensing schemes (e.g. number of simultaneous users).
Now, maybe the MS patent details some particularly clever method of validating usage, or changing allowed usage, but this type of thing is definitely not new.
Remember the IBM mainframes where you "upgraded" your hardware to have more disk space or memory by the Customer Engineer flipping a switch?
It's amazing how much money and effort has been spent on making products do less for the customer, and making them less reliable in the process. Wouldn't we all be better off if all that had been used to produce systems that worked better? Instead of HDTV sets that can't display high-resolution images from your computer because it doesn't have the right version of HDMI, they could have actually improved the quality and decreased the price, all because we can't solve the free rider problem in a more elegant fashion. My TV set won't pass on the full digital audio from my Blu-Ray player's HDMI output to my amp, it downsamples it to PCM stereo, even though the Blu-Ray player is happy to send a full resolution optical digital audio stream to that same amp. It isn't a problem with the TV, it happily sends 5-channel audio to the amp from digital broadcasts. It's so stupid that we have to put up with this garbage all so one industry can maximize profits.
Re:Apples and apples (Score:5, Insightful)
Ransomware. Crippleware [wikipedia.org]. Shareware. Nagware. Beerware... it's all been done [google.com] before. The only difference is that this is an "operating system" not an "application."
Apparently, that's enough of a distinction for the USPTO to award a patent.
Yes, please! (Score:4, Insightful)
"Sounds like the mechanism by which Microsoft sells one version of Vista to all users, and lets users upgrade to higher-tier flavors of the OS after cash changes hands"
Yes please!
Okay, look, I'm not really interested in encouraging people to use MS Windows. But in those situations where I am forced to support it, having the ability to enable additional features on an as-needed basis would be vastly superior to having to license and install a whole different "edition" of the whole freakin' OS to get the same feature set. (You bought a new touchscreen monitor and you want to add tablet support to XP? Great, that'll be forty bucks, ten minutes, and we're all done. As opposed to now, when it officially requires an OS reinstall.)
Plus, having the ability to monetize services individually will - Lord forgive me for seeing a bright side here - will encourage Microsoft to ship with a minimal default install, which one would hope would lead to improved overall security.*
The patent is pretty laughable, though. It strikes me as a tad obvious.
[*: Yeah, okay, maybe that's a bit of a stretch. But hey, it could happen!]
Of all the firms that might try to patent this... (Score:5, Insightful)
... Microsoft is certainly the one that deserves it. They've been practicing at it longer than anybody else, starting with Windows XP nine years ago. This is one patent, sadly, that Microsoft actually earned.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh totally. Until I started working in an enterprise 4 years ago, I had no idea how big of an industry there is for ripping off large companies.
* $1500 for a 500GB SATA2 hard drive
* $60,000/year for a search engine
* About the same for a web analysis program
* $1,000,000 for a 40TB SAN
* $6000 for a KVM that sucks and $100 a dongle.
And that's not even getting into what I've seen the Windows admins go through.
Re:Product activation (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, is this really any different than the countless other schemes for product activation that have been tried and found lacking over the years?
Apparently it's automated and fully in-product. The former is not that unusual, you can buy functionality for Quickbooks over the internet for example. Even having links to buy stuff on the 'net is not unusual. This seems (from the description, since I am way too lazy to RTFA let alone RTFP) like it is to that as Windows Update in Vista is to windowsupdate.microsoft.com or whatever.
In other words, whoop de doo. If you think this is bad, you must hate shareware. (Mind you, I despise crippleware and prefer to buy something else on general principles...)
Re:Logical dilemma (Score:5, Insightful)
If the functionality is beyond the purchaser's need or desire, why do you need to lock it away from them? If they have to pay you extra for that functionality, doesn't that imply that they really did need and desire those rights or functionality.
Only if you assume the end-user requirements remain static.
Finally a patent Linux will never infringe! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who owns your computer? (Score:3, Insightful)
OH NOES! (Score:4, Insightful)
> An additional problem with open architecture systems, Microsoft explains, is that 'virtually anyone can write an application that can be executed on the system.'
Of my dear Lord! You wouldn't want someone not working for a duly licensed corporate entity to be able to write for your corporate approved operating system.
First Joe Sixpack will write something for his own computer and then the terrists.
That statement is un-farking-believable.
"Problems" with open systems? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, according to Microsoft, problems with open architecture systems is that:
(1) The people who license (whether by purchase or otherwise) those systems can use them fully, and
(2) People can easily develop application software for them.
Why would anyone want to buy (or, for that matter, develop software for) an operating system from anyone who considers those things problems?
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The day... (Score:3, Insightful)
Piracy doesn't hurt Microsoft, it just chums the market at a lower price point.
Those who must pay, pay, Those who don't care, don't pay, but their mindshare is still taken by Microsoft.
What is this, ambiguous headline week? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that:
Microsoft Patents [the act of] (Crippling Operating Systems)
or
(Microsoft Patents) [are] Crippling Operating Systems
Pfft... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is a nothing patent. Here is something that would be scary:
A method and apparatus to prevent the installation of an unauthorized operating system over an authorized installation of an existing operating system.
Re:Apples and apples (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as it's not doing it the same way as someone else, there isn't prior art.
Whether it's the "same" or "different" is little more than USPTO handwaving. Their chutzpah is incredible.
They can't even reasonably say whether two shades of the color orange are the same or different let alone whether two ideas are the same or different.
---
Every new patent is a new law; another opportunity for a lawyer to make money at the expense of the wider community.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is that relevant? It's not "prior art" if it's not available publicly. Disclosed to employees under employment contracts: not public. Disclosed in a closed beta where all participants sign NDA's: not public. Released in an open beta: public (I think). Released for sale: public. Documented on external website: public.
You don't need to delay development to after you submit the patent. In fact, you aren't supposed to - theoretically, you must be able to show that your idea works before getting the patent, which means implementing it first.
(This doesn't mean I agree with the patent, merely that the application must precede public availability or discussion on the topic, which it seems to meet.)
Upon reading the patent... (Score:3, Insightful)
How does this differ from a guest or non-root login on a Linux system?
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ha ha ... Yeah my thoughts exactly. But to be fair to MS they aren't the first company to lockout parts of an OS until money has been coughed up. I think the difference is that this time it is designed to do this ... sorry just couldn't help myself.
Seriously, this is an anti-Linux (Ubuntu) move (Score:2, Insightful)
IMHO, Microsoft's goal is to fight Linux on cost, particularly in net-books and against Ubuntu. The scenario is that a very basic Windows is installed on a net-book for little or no cost. The mini-Windows boots, has a few very limited applications, Notepad, PDF viewer and some lame games (solitare, minesweeper). There is no: internet capability, print capability, add application capability, multimedia capability and so on. Each of the aforesaid are add-ons at additional cost. The (cost driven) purchaser buys a "Windows" machine and doesn't find out about how crippled it is until the money is spent and they are home. Then the CC number is sent to MS to get the addons to make a usable system. However, in the store, Windows is cost competitive with Ubuntu. The retailer is "compensated" by MS to limit the Ubuntu sales pitch, such that, to the clue-less user, there appears to be no difference between Cripple-dose and Ubuntu.
Pretty insidious and callous to the purchaser. However, remember the user isn't really Microsoft's customer.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
I suspect this patent will be declared "obvious" and nullified if someone challenges it.
Right. It is important to realize that a lot of the time big companies patent things simply to have steelclad assurance that no one can sue them for infringing. Microsoft knows their patent probably won't hold up under scrutiny, but this way they can be sure of never even going to court.
I think that a large chunk of the stupid patents we see in slashdot articles are exactly this sort of defensive patent, meant to help avoid frivolous lawsuits.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this dates back to Doom and Quake, personally, possibly earlier.
Doom and Quake aren't operating systems. The patent is narrowly scoped to apply only to operating systems. Microsoft can't use the patent against anyone other than an operating system provider.
It has also been the case of mainframe computers to have their capabilities artificially restricted, but from my knowledge it was implemented in hardware, accessed by flipping a single DIP switch. The license agreement for the hardware bars the end user from manipulating this physical switch absent a license for the added functionality enabled by the switch. But that's not an operating system restriction either so also doesn't count as prior art.
You might be able to argue for the last official version of GS/OS for the Apple IIgs as being prior art in that it shipped with Ethernet-supporting code in the binaries but without enabling it for end users. Unless they tailored their definition of an operating system to exclude GS/OS or something else disqualifies it (such as never being officially enabled that code outside of internal development of the never-shipped Apple IIgs Ethernet card AFAIK).
IMO this is a business method patent that should not be patentable due to it being blatantly anti-competitive.
Shareware? (Score:5, Insightful)
Used both for shareware and demos which could be unlocked via key.
Dont see why it should be patentable just because its now used in an os.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
And now you are installing other third party software? Why not just let the customers decide which software they would like to use themselves? First thing I always do when buying a system from a shop (as opposed to building it myself, which I usually do) is wipe the hard drive and put the OS of my choice on it, and whatever other software I wish. I hate pre-configured anything.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well neither have I, but I don't use Windows.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)