Microsoft Invests In Open Source Software Company

joabj writes "In what may be its first investment in an open source software company, Microsoft has quietly invested in TurboHercules, which maintains the Hercules open source IBM mainframe emulator. Perhaps the potential for purloining customers from the juicy mainframe market outstrips any misgivings Microsoft may have about open source. You might remember TurboHercules: In March, it filed an antitrust complaint with the EU over IBM's tying of its mainframe OSes with its hardware." A story from earlier this year gives more information on the related conflict between Hercules and IBM over patents.

Does competition law trump patents?

[ciaran_o_riordan]

Besides the people behind this case, the case itself is quite interesting too.

The European Commission (or Court of Justice) will have to decide if IBM has harmed TurboHercules through anti-competitive behaviour. IBM has also asserted patents. This means that if the European institutions find that IBM is doing wrong, then they will also have to decide if IBM can use its patents to continue the wrong. I.e. what trumps? Competition law or patents?

http://en.swpat.org/wiki/IBM_and_TurboHercules,_2010 [swpat.org]

http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Competition_law_defence [swpat.org]

If competition law trumps, then this opens a new path for breaking down the problems that software patents are doing to standards and interop.

http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Harm_to_standards_and_compatibility [swpat.org]

IBM is no different than Apple

[kawabago]

Apple ties OSX to it's own hardware and no one argues that is wrong, although I think it is.

Investment in FOSS

[Anonymous Coward]

Conversely, IBM should invest serious money/time in ReactOS and WINE ... and encourage the liberation of Mono...

Well, it's not like they have another motive..

[iONiUM]

While I'm happy Microsoft is investing in open source, I find that their target is fairly suspicious.. what easier way to take on IBM indirectly than to give money to an open source company who is already in conflict with them.

In addition, it's not like Microsoft isn't already trying to embrace open source. You'd be surprised at just how much stuff is released under MS-PL licence. And while that may anger you, as it's their own licence, it's rather free.

Re:MICROSOFT FUNDING IBM LAWSUIT

[killmenow]

The fact is Microsoft is funding TurboHercules and thereby funding the lawsuit. Now why Microsoft is funding TurboHercules may have little or nothing to do with said lawsuit.There's room for conspiracy theories there and those who are into such things can (and likely will) take that ball and run with it but I don't know or care to speculate. Still, "Microsoft is funding TurboHercules lawsuit against IBM" [sic] is a statement of fact. They weren't funding it at the start, but they are now.

Re:Some FYI (entire MS IP Stack is BSD based)... a

[shutdown -p now]

Microsoft's entire IP stack is based off the BSD model

It's a very old factoid that became an enduring myth a long time ago. It was really only true back in the days of Windows NT 3.1, the TCP/IP stack for which was a third-party implementation bought by MS. That one was mostly BSD-derived. Since then, however, it was rewritten from scratch (several times, in fact), and NT 3.5 and 95 already included that rewritten version, which is not derived from BSD.

However, the original userland utilities (nslookup, ftp, telnet, a bunch of other stuff) were originally BSD-derived and remain such. That's where the strings "Berkeley" etc (which are usually used as a proof of BSD derivation) come from. So GP is absolutely correct.

Here [kuro5hin.org]is a more detailed treatment of this.