Microsoft Tries Hard To Play Nice With Open Source, But There's an Elephant In the Room 163
Esther Schindler writes: They're trying, honest they are. In 2016 alone, writes Steven Vaughan-Nichols, Microsoft announced SQL Server on Linux; integrated Eclipse and Visual Studio, launched an
open-source network stack on Debian Linux; and it's adding Ubuntu Linux to its Azure Stack hybrid-cloud offering. That's all well and good, he says, but it's not enough. There's one thing Microsoft could do to gain real open-source trust: Stop forcing companies to pay for its bogus Android patents. But, there's too much money at stake, writes sjvn, for this to ever happen. For instance, in its last quarter, volume licensing and patents, accounted for approximately 9% of Microsoft's total revenue.
But... patents != copyright (Score:4, Insightful)
But the patents aren't copyrighted code. Sure, they could create an implementation of the patented method and Freely license that code, so that anyone who licenses the patent could use that code as a reference/starting point/as-is. But freeing the patents could affect other products ...
who says they are bogus (Score:3)
Evidently a lot of companies able to play lots of lawyers have instead paid up in huge amounts. I don't know what the patents are but the poster didn't even give a clue about why they are bogus so for me the circumstantial evidence is on Microsoft's side for now
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Microsoft were forced to disclose these parents in a Chinese court. You can read about them here:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po... [arstechnica.com]
Re:who says they are bogus (Score:4, Insightful)
Parents? Assuming you mean _patents_ the whole idea behind them is to get people to _willingly_ disclose an innovation in such a manner that others can implement it, implying a patent holder have to be forced to disclose them is ridiculous!
Re:who says they are bogus (Score:4, Informative)
The patent is public information, which patents of the thousands Microsoft is suing Android makers for is private knowledge of the courts.
Re:who says they are bogus (Score:4, Insightful)
There are plenty of examples of software patents that have been shown to be bogus based on prior art and rubber stamping 'inventions' that are simply not understood well enough by the P.O. employees to evaluate them properly. As a Slashdot reader, I assume you know this.
But even if you allow that some software patents are truly valid, how do you assign a cost to licensing them? Microsoft is currently charging Android device makers as much to license their unspecified patents as they used to charge for their own OS, which implemented those patents - as well as a whole mess of other stuff, including y'know, an OS... These days they don't even charge for their own OS. So how can the courts support charging for someone else's implementation of a patent that has no monetary value? Okay, I guess there's some value to the ability to threaten to keep a competitors products off the shelves, but is that really what patent licensing was supposed to be about?
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Huh? (Score:1, Interesting)
What do Android royalties have to do with Open Source? It's not open source coders who pay Android royalties. It's big cellphone companies. This is a very contrived opinion piece. Why not broaden the topic and talk about all the companies who milk open source for a profit and not just one. I.E. the most profitable company in IT who have the biggest margins they could narrow a bit...
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft has been threatening Linux with patents for many years. That they are playing hardball with patents against Google is definitely relevant because they could decide to cripple the Linux world by tying it up with patent lawsuits. Even if every one of them were ruled not in Microsoft's favor, they could throw enough money and lawyers at the problem to cripple or destroy any company they wanted to, except other juggernauts like Google, Apple, Samsung, Sony, etc.
So while the Android patents don't directly affect Open Source, they do show that Micosoft could do tremendous amounts of damage to Open Source should it choose.
It's a good sign that MS appears to be trying to play nice with the Open Source world, and to contribute to it as well, but no one can, nor should, forget about the previous 30 years of Microsoft's behavior. They should be earning some good will for these efforts, but there's a long, long way to go before they should earn the trust of the Open Source world, or to even prove that their intention is more than just to put up a screen of "nice" behavior to cover up their more nefarious, ant-competitive practices.
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If they are committed to open source then they must be opposed to software patents. The only logical course is to turn their software patent portfolio over in the same manner IBM did and help build the war chest to defend against patent
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Open source software should not be encumbered with potential patent threats, whether Microsoft is currently milking the patents or not is beside the point because they are always the silent borg letting people put more and more effort and resources into something then pull a SCO attempt and strike.
There
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Because if they'll demand money for obvious solutions implemented in Android, they'll demand it for obvious solutions to problems you devise as well. They have effectively made Android less free. If you modify Android and put it out there, MS lawyers will sooner or later darken your doorstep.
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The Android royalties are based around threats of suits for undisclosed patents. Whenever any specific one of them has been disclosed (see China) it has turned out to be either trivially work around-able or intrinsically invalid (i.e., invalid when issued because of, e.g., prior art). But if they don't tell you what the patent is, you can't avoid it, and a lawsuit to expose the patent as invalid it too expensive for most companies to afford AND too dangerous to risk. (Courts have made some very peculiar
Comment removed (Score:3)
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A patent give one a license to in-rich one's lawyer.
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Stop hacking people's accounts, Joe_Dragon.
Re:It can't happen (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps. But your chemical patents were patents on actual inventions that your company, presumably, intended to manufacture and sell. Microsoft's patents are on ideas that are not particularly inventive - or original, and intended largely to stifle competition. The granddaddy of Microsoft moneymaking patents is the one they have on the FAT32 long/short filename setup. That patent is not there to prevent someone else from designing a crazy long/short filename scheme. It's there because that scheme is used by Windows, and anyone who wants their removable storage device to work with Windows PC's is pretty much forced to use it. So that patent was applied for and those lawyers were paid in order to enable extortion based on a form of monopoly tying that shouldn't be allowed in the first place.
If the software in question were significant enough to get people to pay for it instead of implementing it themselves, Microsoft could sell that software instead of extorting patent royalties. In the case of Windows itself, that's true. Anyone who wants Windows functionality has to pay Microsoft for the copyrighted OS software. Anyone who simply wants to plug an SD card into their Android device can use free software to do that.
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If one can apply for the right to use the patent for a reasonable sum of money then it _isn't_ a monopoly. That is the case here.
A better example would be the use of the exFAT filesystem on larger capacity SD Cards but even then calling it a monopoly would be wrong.
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Unless you can apply to a vendor of your choice, it is a monopoly. In fact, you can only apply to one entity.
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Even worse, although mostly forgotten, the linux filesystem UMSDOS implemented long filenames and more. That eviscerates the claim that long filenames were in any way non-obvious.
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Anyway a lot of the patents expire by the end of the decade, so it becomes a smaller and smaller issue.
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"he would probably get sued for taking an action that traded a billion or two dollars of pure profit for "good will." From a fiduciary responsibility perspective, it would be just cut and dry."
Cut and dry, but not in your direction at all. Nadella might be sued, but he would definitely win.
Corporate fiduciary responsibility does in no way mean that a business decision must maximize short term profits.
The Business Judgment Rule [wikipedia.org] means that unless Nadella had self-interest, self-dealing or operated in ba
Why bother (Score:2)
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You do know MS changed their licensing for SQL Server to match Oracle with per core (not cpu) licensing, plus seat licensing, and I would not be surprised if the Linux version of MS SQL Server only works on Azure where you pay a cloud service fee too!
Sure it is available. Maybe free for fun for non commercial or low cost if you rent it out from Azure for just you.
It is not free.
That is fine for an enterprise as you can argue a return on investment where an outage has financial consequences but for us geeks.
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because of Oracle...
In many organisations for whatever reason the choice is often limited to MS-SQL and Oracle. Also many applications you can buy support MS SQL or Oracle.
In corporate dollars, running it on Linux can be a lot cheaper. The license costs are not so much the issue. If you have a good Unix team, maintenance costs per server can be a lot cheaper.
And if OS is not a factor, MS SQL vs Oracle can be very tempting. Technically Oracle may be ahead, but their license schemes would make Tony Soprana bl
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Wow I know Ford has went down in quality in recent years, but to use Kia is a whole new level
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Ka is teeny-tiny car from Ford Europe.
Achievement unlocked: HTTPS support (Score:3, Informative)
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Great, however their RSS is still served over HTTP only.
This is big-league ball, kid. (Score:3, Insightful)
There's one thing Microsoft could do to gain real open-source trust: Stop forcing companies to pay for its bogus Android patents.
The geek never sounds more adolescent then when he whines about Microsoft cross-licensing patents with its major corporate partners, It happens all the time and these guys are big enough and old enough to take care of themselves.
Re:This is big-league ball, kid. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yep, software patents should go. I say this as a guy who currently holds two software patents. However, until that happens, it's the responsibility of the corporate officers to extract value from the patents that a corporation holds. So, lobby for change in patent law, but don't blame Microsoft for acting like a corporation.
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Ah yes, the argument to support sociopathic behavior. "It's, like, totally legal, so companies should just go out and do it."
The fact that very large companies use their financial clout to get legislators to perpetuate and even enlarge the influence of IP doesn't factor into this at all?
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It is the responsibility of corporate officers to make sure the corporation is in the public interest. That is rarely enforced but it is part of the bargain.
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Sure, but who's to say that software patents aren't in the public interest? Yes, you and I, but we're hardly the majority, aren't we? All those people receiving paychecks thanks to the patent license fees might have different views...
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And all of those not getting hired because of paying patent fees might disagree. So might everyone paying more for products to cover the patent fees.
Plus, if the patent royalties are demanded after the fact when someone easily (even accidentally) re-invents the patent, it is pure economic rent, which is generally agreed to be harmful to the economy.
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What a corrosive attitude. No. Corporate officers are not obligated to take actions they see as immoral or otherwise wrong that would create profit just because it's legal.
You've evidently never worked for a big corporation. Else you'd know that's *exactly* what corporate officers are obliged to do--make money for the stockholders in any fashion they can legally get away with.
Don't like it? Change the laws regading corporations and corporate governance.
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You are confusing a 'free market' with what we really have: 'cartel socialism' which benefits only the political elite(both parties are full of dirty, corrupt, garbage ).
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Robbing the liquor store happens all the time too. That doesn't make it OK.
Haters gonna hate (Score:1, Insightful)
At this point, a large part of IT simply will never appreciate Microsoft, no matter what they do.
"We'd trust them if they'd only do X!" No, you wouldn't. You'd figure out some other reason to hate them.
News flash, it's 2016, and Microsoft is no longer the most evil or dangerous bigcorp out there. Apple, Google, and Facebook, have all surpassed Microsoft. Can we get back to some actual issues?
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At this point, a large part of IT simply will never appreciate Microsoft, no matter what they do.
It would take a spectacular fucking idiot to trust Microsoft at this point. Are you a spectacular fucking idiot? Because only spectacular fucking idiots trust Microsoft.
Microsoft has proven time and again that they will abuse their customer base, the law, and anything else that stands in the way of profit. People who give them money are part of the problem.
ObDisclaimer: I paid for Win 7. I still feel dirty about it.
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At this point, a large part of IT simply will never appreciate Microsoft, no matter what they do.
"We'd trust them if they'd only do X!" No, you wouldn't. You'd figure out some other reason to hate them.
News flash, it's 2016, and Microsoft is no longer the most evil or dangerous bigcorp out there. Apple, Google, and Facebook, have all surpassed Microsoft. Can we get back to some actual issues?
I don't think that there's anything more evil than the whole UWP (Universal Windows Platform) plan by 2016 Microsoft. Since UWP comprises W10, Xbox, Mobile and Server, it's basically everything MS is doing right now, can you be more evil than that?
Oh yeah, it doesn't include older windows versions, but perhaps you've heard about the ridiculous push to adopt W10.
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yet, if Apple or Google built a universal OS for desktop, server, mobile and stand alone devices, it would be hailed as innovative and visionary, done for the most benevolent reasons and all profits would go to caring for abandoned puppies...
UWP has issues, especially for gamers. But Evil?? You need to turn on your TV or read a newspaper before throwing that word around so c
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If Apple did that it might actually work.
(Google might be able to make it work, but nobody would be able to fight through the UI to find out).
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God yeah, a plan to offer a set of libraries that work across multiple platforms and sandboxing to avoid 30 years of criticism about malware. What fucking assholes.
Sorry, but warning people about installing software without a valid signed certificate is the world we live in. There is no way around it. You can sideload UWP apps more easily than any other similarly secure platform so it's not even the most draconian system. And the security certificates are free. I've developed 4-5 UWP apps and I've nev
Re:Haters gonna hate (Score:4, Insightful)
News flash, it's 2016, and Microsoft is no longer the most evil or dangerous bigcorp out there. Apple, Google, and Facebook, have all surpassed Microsoft. Can we get back to some actual issues?
We would like to forget of all the evil that Microsoft does but it keeps reminding us. [slashdot.org]
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It's almost like you have to hate Apple because they have shown Microsoft a path that enables them to make their products more controlled and more locked in -- walled garden web stores, forced software updates, touch-centric user interfaces.
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I could see arguments that Comcast is more evil than Microsoft, but for all the others you named, I have to think you are turning a blind eye to the evils (plural, large in number, both distant past, recent past, and on-going) done by Microsoft.
P.S.: I'm not whitewashing any of those others you mentioned, but I haven't seen any information that puts them even temporarily level up to Microsoft in the evil department.
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Then why is it exactly that Microsoft needs to rent seek on Android?
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Except at no point have I stated MS is alright - that's what you are making of it. The point is that none of the big corps have our best interests at heart, and they're all various degrees of evil. While the order they appear in is subjective, Microsoft apparently still gets the bulk of the hate.
can someone explian (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:can someone explian (Score:5, Insightful)
It raises cost of FOSS from zero to cost of FAT license. And you can't just drop FAT support because it has a monopoly (as in "dominant") position on the market.
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It's not that simple. You can't avoid an unspecified patent, so when Microsoft comes up and says "Nice business you've got there, be a pity if something were to happen to it." and accuses you of violating a patent, but won't tell you what patent, well...
FAT could be avoided, but it wouldn't help. You license the patent they want you to license at the price they want to charge, or else.
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Re:can someone explian (Score:5, Insightful)
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Don't UEFI boot partitions require fat?
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Don't UEFI boot partitions require fat?
No, when I installed Windows 8.1 on a blank disc last year, I ended up with a NTFS formatted UEFI partition, which confused Linux, so I replaced it with an ext2 one.
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Sorry, I meant don't Linux UEFI boot partitions require fat. They can't have NTFS, and I didn't think they worked with ext2?
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Sorry, I meant don't Linux UEFI boot partitions require fat. They can't have NTFS, and I didn't think they worked with ext2?
You install your own boot manager. Not sure really is ext2, in any case, I couldn't make Linux and Windows recognize the same UEFI boot partition, so I ended up reinstalling windows, making it think it was booting the old fashioned way, and then letting Linux control UEFI and just boot Windows like an old fashioned boot partition. Though it still causing trouble.. Somewhere along the way I forget why UEFI was something I wanted anyway.
An interesting premise (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA has an interesting but unlikely premise: Microsoft cares about the "trust" of the open source community. Why should they? Isn't the whole idea of open source (with a suitable license) supposed to be that you don't have to trust the originator of the software? For example, open source is often cited as a solution for the problem that the originator goes belly-up. Fine, just maintain it yourself or with the help of the community.
Besides, why should Microsoft care about the "trust" of the people they're giving stuff to? First, it's unlikely they they will ever gain the trust of those who forever view them as The Evil Empire. Second, they've already got the trust (by and large) of their paying customers, much as a male black widow spider trusts the female: trust her, but don't become lunch.
For example, I have a large body of software I've developed over the past 20 years that's written for Microsoft's "MFC." (Seemed like a good idea at the time...) I trust them to keep supporting that (as they have for 20 years), and I also trust that they'll make me buy a new version of Visual Studio every few years when the old one no longer works on modern versions of Windows. (Been there, done that.) That sort of trust is called "business."
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Trust in open source is based on quality.
Trust in business is based on quantity.
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Specifically, the quantity of money you have to spend on lawyers.
Re: An interesting premise (Score:2)
How little do you make as a software developer that it isn't worth buying the tools that you need?
If you work for any decent size company you probably have an MSDN license and all of the development tools come with it.
For that matter if I were an independent consultant, I would buy my own MSDN license.
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How little do I make? Suffice it to say, it's a sad story. I don't worry about having to pay $700 or so for MSVC every five years. The bigger problem of running a home business on the small scale that I do is having to fill out a couple of dozen tax forms every year. For example, the state I live in makes me pay unemployment tax in case I ever get laid off from my one-man home business.
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Hmmm...I hadn't thought about that. Heck, I thought they were releasing their software under a liberal open source license because they wanted people to use and develop the software as part of their larger business model - not as some sort of devious trap.
Now that you mention it, though, I can see how naive this "Occam's Razor" [wikipedia.org] sort of thinking really is. After all, Richard, they are The Evil Empire...
Microsoft devs and open source are doing just fine (Score:3)
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(You're right though, it definitely has changed things in Microsoft shops).
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I vastly prefer TFS simply for ease of use. It's a lot more intuitive than git (for me).
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Oh, dear, no. I meant for private repositories for internal projects, for which git is increasingly coming into use.
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Git, OTOH, can suck my balls. Git is made for distributed and/or non-organized (which is not the same as "disorganized") development. Corporate dev shops don't work that way, and shouldn't work that way. For an organization doing development, it's far more suitable to use SVN or TFS or Perforce or something like these.
That said, all of Microsoft's .NET team (C#, VB, .NET framework, .NET runtime) are doing their work in the open on GitHub. The team really appreciate the GitHub workflow, issue-tracking, openness.
Turtle and the m$ Scorpion (Score:3)
Doesn't add up (Score:2)
Something doesn't add up. Aside from the question of whether Microsoft's licensing of patents to Android OEMs has any impact on whatever else they may do with open source, I find it hard to believe that Microsoft is successfully extracting billions annually from "bogus" patents.
Yes, litigation is difficult, expensive and time-consuming. But if the patents really are bogus, it's well worth spending a few hundred million over a few years in order to stop paying billions annually. Samsung et al, may not wish
Tangenting OT here... (Score:2)
I'm particularly curious about this with respect to *current* Eclipse and Netbeans versions, not those of years long since past.
Still a Business (Score:2)
Their goal as a publicly-traded corporation is to make money. Why would they ever give up a huge stream of revenue that they "earn" simply by signing a bunch of legal paperwork every few years?
Unless there is a clear way for "real open-source trust" to turn into American dollars, it will never happen. Even good things like marketing, perception, and outreach have little value compared to cold cash; in fact, those things are pursued solely because they tend to bring in money in the future.
I agree with the op
What Microsoft Still needs to do (Score:2, Insightful)
1/ Stop loading standards committee with your goons, then back genuine open document standards. Thereby showing you embrace openness and want your products to compete on features not just lock-in.
2/ Stop deprecating the few Linux desktop products you have or give them limited functionality (e.g. Skype) . Okay so you are interested in Linux on a server. But
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Those actions would help, but the real thing they need to do is stop doing things like that from now on. At this point I look at the way they treat their own customers who don't want to upgrade to MSWind 10, and say "Why should I even consider working with someone who acts like that?".
It's no longer even just that I can't trust them, it's that I CAN, and what I can trust them to do.
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What I'am saying, is that the signal MS is putting out by still not using an fully interoperab
Free as in Freedom. (Score:2)
List of Microsoft's 310 Patent Claims on Android (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft's 310 Patent Claims on Android
Text Dump of an original Chinese Government Document Freely available here:
http://images.mofcom.gov.cn/pe... [mofcom.gov.cn]
Format of this list:
List Example Number Patent Number Patent Application Title
SEPs Generally Implemented by Smartphones
001 5634192 Mobile-Assisted Handoff Technique
002 5982324 Combining GPS With TOA/TD0A Of Cellular Signals To Locate Terminal
003 6058309 Network Directed System Selection for Cellular and Pcs Enhanced Roaming
004 6088578 Burst Request Method and Apparatus for Cdma High Speed Data
005 6091952 Distributed Subscriber Data Management in Wireless Networks from a Central Perspective
006 6223028 Enhanced Method And System For Programming A Mobile Telephone over the Air Within A Mobile Telephone Communication Network
007 6298461 Encoding and Decoding Methods and Apparatus
008 6324515 Method and Apparatus for Asymmetric Communication of Compressed Speech
009 6363251 Network Directed System Selection for Cellular and Pcs Enhanced Roaming
010 6411629 Data Interleaving Method
011 6430174 Communication System Supporting Simultaneous Voice and Multimedia Communications and Method of Operation Therefore
012 6438369 Network Directed System Selection for Cellular and Pcs Enhanced Roaming
013 6549771 Enhanced Method And System For Programming A Mobile Telephone over the Air Within A Mobile Telephone Communication Network
014 6628641 Header Error Detection For Wireless Data Cells
015 6738618 Method and System for Regulating Autonomous Messaging by Subscriber Units in a Wireless Communication Network
016 6880088 Secure Maintenance Messaging In a Digital Communications Network
017 6947483 Method, Apparatus, and System for Managing Data Compression in a Wireless Network
018 6947490 Cellular Radio Communications System
019 7042858 Soft Handoff for OFDM
020 7072336 Communications Using Adaptive Multi-Rate Codecs
021 7082114 System and Method for a Wireless Unit Acquiring a New Internet Protocol Address When Roaming Between Two Subnets
022 7145889 Efficient Frame Retransmission in a Wireless Communication Environment
023 7228133 Mobile IP Mobile Node Device and Access Information
024 7317680 Channel Mapping for OFDM
025 7436834 Efficient Frame Retransmission in a Wireless Communication Environment
026 7440433 Mobile IP Notification
027 7486735 Sub-Carrier Allocation For OFDM
028 7545766 Method for Mobile Node-foreign Agent Challenge Optimization
029 7646710 Mobility in a Multi-Access Communication Network
030 8046000 Providing Location-Based Information in Local Wireless Zones
031 8264996 Signalling Channel and Radio System for Power Saving in Wireless Devices
032 6298463 Parallel Concatenated Convolutional Coding
033 6782422 Systems and Methods for Resynchronization and Notification in Response to Network Media Events
034 7016705 Reducing Power Consumption in a Networked Battery-Operated Device Using Sensors
035 7089415 Authentication Methods and Systems for Accessing Networks, Authentication Methods and Systems for Accessing the Internet
036 7099689 Energy-Aware Communications for a Multi-Radio System
037 7110783 Power Efficient Channel Scheduling in a Wireles Network
038 7142855 Power Efficient Channel Scheduling in a Wireles Network
039 7187660 System and Method for Continuously Provisioning a Mobile Device
040 7203463 Power Efficient Channel Scheduling in a Wireles Network
041 7209740 Power Efficient Channel Scheduling in a Wireles Network
042 7230933 Reducing Idle Power Consumption in a Networked Battery Operated Device
043 7245936 Power Efficient Channel Scheduling in a Wireles Network
044 7284062 Increasing The Level of Automation When Provisioning A Computer System to Access A Network
045 7295522 System and Method for Continuously Provisioning a Mobile Device
046 7376122 System and Method for Link Quality Source Routing
047 7433936 C
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The childish "we won't publically declare the patents in question" is childish, especially as quite often there are prior art...
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Yes, those childish people at MS who think obvious solutions to a problem are somehow worthy of being awarded a 20 year monopoly really do need to grow up and learn that it's not that special, everybody poops.
Re:Lol, this site is so 1998 angery (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not upset that MS is playing the patent game as best they can. I would, however, like to see the rules of the game changed for everyone. Software patents need to go.
I don't hate Microsoft. To me, that makes as much sense as hating a tiger for chasing down and tearing apart its hapless prey. It's pointless to get upset at corporations for just doing what they do, which is to figure out how to make as much money as possible within the current rules of law and society. If they're doing something which is legal but which we don't like, then we only have two options: we can either create societal pressure (bad publicity, boycotts, etc) to alter their behavior, or we can change the laws under which they operate.
I'd suggest that, as far as software patents go, it would be far more effective to go the second route (changing laws), because there's just too much money involved involved, not to mention a lack of public awareness, to make any serious traction with the first method. Of course, given that there's so much money involved, changing laws isn't going to be easy either, but at least it has a chance.
Re:Lol, this site is so 1998 angery (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking as someone active on Slashdot in the era of the Halloween emails, and Gate's "open source == cancer" speech to Congress, there was a LOT to be angry about. It really was like watching a cartoon villain. I switched to Linux completely for 6 years over it, even. That was legitimate anger.
But you know what? In a few years, we're going to have working professionals posting on Slashdot who weren't even born when this stuff happened. It was perpetuated by people who aren't even in the industry anymore. At some point, we as a collective group are just going to have to accept the fact that we won; we licked MS and their anti-FOSS stance, and it's ok to get over it now.
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I also have my windows system running solely for games. That's the only thing running on it.
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Possible, but I think it would be a mistake on part of Microsoft to let this happen.
I agree completely, but it would be a mistake similar in magnitude and type to letting IE stagnate and losing control of the portal to the internet.
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The stuffing of the ISO meetings on word processor document formats wasn't that long ago. The Android patent extortion is on-going now. There was something else just last year where I said to myself, "OK, Microsoft hasn't reformed.", but I can't remember it in particular because it's been drowned in the noise of all the other vile things they've done.
Distrusting Microsoft isn't only about what they've done in the distant past, it's maintained by things that I run across every year. And then there's Windo
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FOSS is no longer contested, legally, and all major computing firms (including Microsoft) are now neck-deep in it. MS's bid to kill Linux in the crib failed.
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That's completely orthogonal to the fact that MS failed to kill open source, which is now thriving in all quarters (not just Linux).
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Desktops are becoming less important, much like mainframes did. There's plenty of other fields. Linux is doing nicely in servers, embedded stuff, and Android phones and tablets. The combination of iOS and Android almost rules mobile, and more and more tablets are able to do everything a very large number of people want to do. That's why Microsoft was happy to annoy the heck out of desktop and laptop users to try to make their mobile offerings look more attractive.
Microsoft's business isn't going away
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Al Capone gave the occasional lolipop to a child in his career. Does that let him off the hook for the rest?
Let's face it, MS is a three time loser (that is, a recidivist jailbird). It is only rational to be a bit suspicious if they suddenly want to roll a gift into the city.
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Don't be so mean to elephants.
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