Verily I say unto thee, that Rex Ballard spake thusly:
> In order to get as much of this prior art into the public archives as
> possible, companies like IBM, Kodak, HP, Sun, and even Red Hat,
> began to file thousands of patent applications every year, listing as
> much prior art as they possibly could, in "High Quality" patent
> applications. It didn't matter whether the patent was granted or
> not, the mention of the prior art made the prior art part of the
> patent office archive.
This would explain why IBM is currently the biggest holder of software
patents, and makes the most new claims. They use patents defensively
rather than aggressively like Microsoft. The fact that Microsoft has not
actually pursued anyone for patent violations in /court/, does not mean
that they don't abuse their "IP" as a weapon against others ... they
certainly do. FUD and veiled threats has turned out to be a far more
effective weapon than litigation, and cheaper too ("Linux infringes 235
of our patents", "Red Hat customers have an obligation to compensate
us", "we believe every Linux customer basically has an undisclosed
balance-sheet liability").
Maybe people like Smith can shut up now about their claim of "hypocrisy"
WRT our complaining about Microsoft's patents whilst ignoring IBM's. As
with so many other things, motivation is the key. Microsoft is clearly a
/threat/, IBM is not.
He even tried to use this "same behaviour" excuse to claim "hypocrisy"
against those who complained about Microsoft's bribery and corruption
during the OOXML debate, claiming that IBM was essentially doing the
same thing. Ignoring for one moment that AFAIK IBM didn't (unlike
Microsoft) actually bribe anyone during either the OOXML or ODF debates,
and that IBM's fictitious "vested self-interest" was for something they
could not possibly abuse to benefit themselves exclusively (unlike
Microsoft with OOXML), again it boils down to motivation. Microsoft's
motivation is monopolistic greed derived through the destruction of
others, whereas IBM seems to be quite happy to coexist with the rest of
the industry. That wasn't always the case, but it certainly is today.
Regardless of whether one is considering patents or standards, or pretty
much any other aspect of computing, Microsoft is a threat where others
in the same area may not necessarily be. Microsoft are only interested
in /one/ thing, and that is total domination through destruction. They
prove that in word and deed every day. The fact that other companies
have patents, or lobby for one standard over another, does not magically
turn those companies into monsters like Microsoft. They have entirely
different motives.
This is also why I advocate purging Mono from Free Software too. As I've
explained many times, it isn't so much about the /patents/ in this case,
it's the /patentor/ that's the problem.
To repeat an analogy I used recently: A chef with a knife is simply a
man chopping carrots, but a psychopath with a knife is a dangerous
murderer. IBM may have a knife, but unlike Microsoft they just want to
chop carrots, not kill people.
--
K.
http://slated.org
.----
| "The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining
| armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos
| neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate
| technology, led them into it in the first place." ~ Douglas Adams
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Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.23.8-63.fc8
17:33:30 up 207 days, 14:09, 4 users, load average: 0.49, 0.46, 0.41
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