On Jun 4, 9:41 pm, Roy Schestowitz <newsgro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> What does it mean for Microsoft
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | They get a new protocol licensee which I'm sure they'll be pleased to
> | trumpet to the EU.
> |
> | They get a renewed messaging platform for their continued
> | infatuation with customers and patents instead of customers and
> | solutions. It's a broken platform which shows no leadership, but that
> | apparently won't stop them from pushing it.
> |
> | They get to continue the messaging shades of grey around Microsoft
> | Office Open XML and ODF. "Xandros and Microsoft share the view that
> | competing office productivity applications should, by design,
> | make it easy for customers to exchange files with one another."
> | Microsoft sees its death in ODF. They will fight like a cornered
> | rat and message appropriately.
> `----
>
> http://stephesblog.blogs.com/my_weblog/2007/06/the_latest_micr.html
>
> Xandros Linux signs up for Microsoft patent protection
It actually might even make sense to have a "hands off my customers"
agreement with Microsoft. Again, this prevents Xandros from suing
Microsoft for infringements of numerous OSS devices, which Microsoft
has attempted to patent, without referencing the prior art (which
would be admtting that the device was a derivative of GPL software).
On the other hand, a strategic element of Xandros is the inclusion of
Crossover, which is a Windows emulation package which makes it easy to
run many 3rd party Windows applications. Crossover does license
technology from Microsoft, including a number of libraries which
extend the ability of WINE to run more applications originally written
for Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, and Windows 2000.
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Microsoft will provide Xandros users with a patent covenant that
> | protect users of the software from intellectual property claims.
> | Microsoft will provide the patent license directly to the end user,
> | which allows it to circumvent patent licensing requirements in the
> | General Public Licence (GPL) that governs Linux.
Actually, not quite true. The GPL patent nullification says that if a
copyright owner submits software that has been patented, they agree
not to enforce their patents against the GPL Licensed software. There
have been a few cases where software has been published under GPL, AND
under more flexible licenses such as BSD, and the BSD versions were
given enhancements that were patented. In many case the GPL versions
were also given numerous enhancements, which could not be published
under the BSD license.
The biggest problem, for Microsoft, is that many Microsoft patents do
not list the GPL predecessors in their patent application (or most
other non-Microsoft prior art). Perhaps those developers working for
Microsoft are something like Mental "Veal" - carefully recruited
before they have any knowledge of OSS, and carefully protected from
any "contaminating" Ideas and GPL or OSS devices. The other
alternative is that Microsoft knowingly withheld knowledge of prior
art, resulting in a fraudulent patent application.
> | [...]
> |
> | Co-author of the GPLv3 Eben Moglen has denounced exclusive patent
> | deals with Microsoft as a "divide and conquer" tactic that is
> | designed to break up the open source community.
Keep in mind that Microsoft is paying the other guys to take the
deal. Microsoft paid Novell $300 Million to accept a patent immunity
deal. It doesn't prevent either company from suing the other company,
but it does prevent locking up the market with injunctions and
prevents extortion schemes where customers are squeezed for $billions
because some little kitchen table company "MIGHT" own legitimate
patent on some piece of software.
> | Microsoft and Xandros declined to comment on the implications of
> | GPLv3 on the deal, pointing out that licence is currently in a
> | draft stage and might still change.
> `----
This may be Microsoft's more significant interest. Microsoft may be
attempting to put a bit more pressure on Richard Stallman and the GPL
contributors, to be less aggressive in enforcing GPL software
requirements on GPL software that has been patented.
> http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=53516&src=site-marq
Keep in mind that nearly all of our modern computer technology has
roots in OSS technology. Smalltalk, Emacs, NASA, DOD, DARPA, NSF,
Athena, W3C, and several others. Some organizations very carefully
monitor and track contributions. Other projects were a bit more
"loose", meaning that someone could show up with a 1/2 reel-to-reel
tape that proves he is the original inventor of some technology
critical to Microsoft, such as Web browsers, virtual machines, or
other critical elements of Windows.
The fundamental problem is that ever since Alan Turing started
programming computers to crack Hitler's Enigma coding machine in the
1940s, software has been developed without the structure of patent
applications. Then in 1996, the patent office decided that patents on
software made sense, and suddenly you have 40 years of PRIOR ART, that
is not included in the patent office archives. The problem is that
the patent office has no legal record that alerts them that someone is
attempting to patent a bubble sort "device" that's over 60 years old.
Classic example. Converting picture to serial stream - fax - back to
the 1960s. Using stream formats to store files - 1968 (unix), using
compression to compress pixel maps - 1974, compressing the difference
between two pixels (jpeg) 1978, compressing differences between two
pictures (mpeg) 1981, using buffers or queues to smooth the delivery -
1970. And yet these concepts, which boil down to a simple shell
script - trivial solution that can be intuitively derived by a college
freshman, gets patented - because the prior art was not included in
the patent application.
Some companies like IBM and Kodak, file thousands of applications,
with tens of thousands of software "devices" listed as prior art.
Even if the patent application is denied because it could be
intuitively derived from the listed prior art, the application becomes
a permanent part of the patent office archive. This prevents OTHERS
from filing patents on the listed prior art.
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