-
Website
Http://www.techflash.com/ -
Original page
http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2009/02/Microsoft_sues_TomTom_over_patents_in_case_with_Linux_subplot_40305732.html -
Subscribe
All Comments -
Community
-
-
Top Commenters
-
Popular Threads
Seriously, as far as I"m concerned Microsoft was a huge innovator in the late nineties but since then all they have done is hold innovation back. Vista, SQL Server, Windows Server, & everything else Microsoft makes or copies is a big me too second rate product. Here is another example of Microsoft showing the inability to compete so they are getting their lawyers involved. Steve is like a big bully 7th grader and I hope someone kicks his ass.
If you can innovate - litigate.
Some day they're going to wake up and realize that they've missed the boat. We are entrenched in the schools with far superior products/applications from open source community and apple. They soon disappear - everything they've recently produced is bloat and garbage - need I mention Vista or the worm hole called IE.
"Good to hear, as a shareholder I am tired of Microsoft getting taken advantage of."
Oh?
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Windows/Open-Source-Co...
So its ok for Microsoft to use OSS when it fits into M$' goals, but then turn around and make these claims? Remember, these are claims, not shown to be truths.
Like many of you, I'm writing this on a modern non-Microsoft system that can also handle translating long file names into those old 8.3 "~1" filenames when necessary for increased compatibility with very old systems that might still be out there.
Is the maker of my PC (and the hundreds of suppliers of the software applications that I use on it, many of which can still read and write the "~1" 8.3 filenames in question) next on the list for legal attack?
Believe it or not, this is not an idle question.
That would also apply if Microsoft ever tried to sue Red Hat, or Mandriva, or any other major Linux distro producer that hasn't sold out like Novell did. IBM would come a-chargin'.
Yes, please, Microsoft, sue somebody big. Sue Red Hat. Sue IBM. PLEASE! I can hardly wait. :-)
BOOM HEADSHOT!!!!
--SYG
What is so particular about TomTom?
Could it be that MS is very sure that TomTom will settle out of court and MS will use them as an example evidence for MS to continue using FUD against FOSS/Linux?
If TomTom doesn't join or ask OIN, something must be fishy.
Microsoft has always incorporated software from other vendors into its products under licence, including "open source" licences such as the MIT or BSD ones. This is nothing new and nothing malicious. It certainly is "taking advantage" if the creators of the software get nothing in return, but they quite deliberately give all comers this option with their choice of licence. If they wanted to prevent this, they could have chosen a "copyleft" licence.
It's commonplace for big technology companies such as Microsoft, Oracle or Apple to pay handsomely for free software which they incorporate into their proprietary products.
The use of a computer mouse, usb port, computer keyboard extended layout, numeric pad keys, graphic cards, sound cards, io cards, pci cards, ram and rom chips, etc. Of course, any other operating system will be written on using these objects on which they lay a claim to have patents for.
I wonder if my suspicions are on track.
Their innovations only looked and worked liked very slow copies of '75-'85 GUI workstation technology to me who remembers the birth of the CRT terminal. But I suppose for those who were little children back then, by the '90 the MS marketing and anti interoperability juggernaut had killed off all those original and better technologies, and so their much later poor man's copies looked like innovations to the new generation.
From my perspective the only innovation that MS has done is to reverse, slow down, and close off computing development to almost a complete halt in order that they can brand and market old public domain milestones as MS owned inventions they didn't even have to develop.
If we hadn't had Microsoft creating data transfer incompatibility, and patenting and copyrighting old public domain IP, we all would have had all seeing, all talking, all reading, all p2p high performance super secure grids by now.
Switching my last remaining windows machine to Ubuntu... tonight.
I've got NO problem with the concept of charging a license of technology. In this case it seems like TomTom wants to charge others, but not pay up when the shoe is on the other foot.
These are the (chronologically) first two of Microsoft's cited patents, about the FILENA~1.JPG filenames, something that clearly never could have been casually hacked together by some guy in a back room as a quick and dirty expedient.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5579517.html
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5758352.html
I'm seriously tired of most engineering programs being specifically written for a Microsoft OS, while having the Linux version turn out to be a turd port.
Windows 7 does seem great, let's hope they don't screw it up.
cd \windows\system32
findstr -i regents *
If there is no BSD code there then why does the BSD copyright still show up in so many (or any) files?
Much of the stack was rewritten quite early, but obviously some of the utilities were not. No need to hate MS. There is nothing wrong with using BSD code this way, but you at least have to admit you did it. MS admits it right inside their own binaries, why can't you?
Stop being a shill.
Hey why don't I get a patent for the idea of posting a comment on a message board and then I can charge a "message toll"
How many thousands of patents does Microsoft violate? Follow the link.
http://news.cnet.com/5208-1014_3-0.html?forumID...
Is Steve Ballmer a US citizen?
People are losing their jobs everywhere, companies are closing down to the recession and Microsoft is using half-baked patent threats to sue a small-market company out of business or into submission using Intellectual Property Rights. This means that as an innovator, you get inspired by the challenge of the times or by the charming words of Barack Obama, and decide to make cheap new useful thing, you face a huge problem: Either buy costly Microsoft licenses or deals, or, risk getting sued by Microsoft, jealous as ever of anyone else's success.
This is not encouraging news. America will become a land of lawyers and traders, and techies and scientists will be ordered around by goons in suits. I'm not exaggerating - why has China made such quick progress in technical infrastructure and capturing of markets? Because they dont sit suing each other in Chinese courts. They dont even care for copyright. And they dont even have the concept of licensing by and large for small firms. Their solution to multiple players in the same space is not to fight a legal battle and victory to the lone legal butcher - their solution is to target more markets and flood markets at lower prices - it worked for them because of the foolishness of people in siding with or not opposing corporations like Microsoft. See this to get a fuller explanation:
http://2stepsback.wordpress.com/2007/10/31/pate...
If Microsoft succeeds in suing small companies, this put a legal threat over every single new innovation because a simple GUI based software, PC or mobile or embedded, allegedly violates multiple Microsoft patents. This is inevitable, given the broad terms of the patents issued to Microsoft and the expertise of Microsoft lawyers.
Now how do you handle a company that is so big and powerful and does not want anyone else in America to succeed without paying them "IPR" - Intellectual Protection Racket fees?
MS has 10,000 patents as of a few days ago. They could be horribly predatory if they want, but they end up suing very, very few people. I would have preferred that this set of suits was not added to that list of few people considering the wide ranging implications, but if my preferences mattered then the US supreme court ruling from the 70s that negated software patents would actually be enforced.
Sachin
sachin
http://qtp.blogspot.com
"The first two patents relate to Microsoft's patented ABCDEF~1.XYZ scheme for making its 8.3 filenames, used in Windows 3.x, compatible with longer filenames and vice versa"
I've been around long enough to know for certain that that patent is long exhausted. Perhaps they can look backwards for revenues but it's a stupid thing to raise. Novell did similar, and was probably prior art.
6175789; 7054745; 6704032; 7117286; 6202008; 5579517; 5758352; and 6256642
All related to vehicle computer device and all have nothing to do with Linux technology/IP. The article is very highly misleading. Rubbish title.
Mikey sloth likes your money but treat their users like crap. Who would pay mikey sloth money for crap continually and like it. Well the answer lies in the mystery of your common retard.
What's the deal Todd? I just searched both of those PDF's for Linux and it appears ZERO TIMES!
I respect your reporting Todd so what's the deal here?
i believe you have your post in reverse... isnt't microsoft the one usually taking advantage of others?
Here is what Microsoft's ITC filing contends is illegal about Linux in this context (from Page 5).
"24. The portable navigation computing devices in question run a version of the Linux operating system, which is a general purpose operating system capable of supporting a wide variety of software applications. For example, the Linux operating system on the portable navigation computing devices executes a navigation application that uses the GPS data provided by the GPS receiver to generate driving directions.
"25. The Linux operating system used in the portable navigation computing devices and/or the software applications supported by the operating system also provide the devices with additional functionality such as file system support for long and short file names, memory management for flash memory commonly used on such devices, and a platform for integrating and controlling various electronic components used with the portable navigation computing devices, such as other components in a vehicle."
- Linux can work with long and short filenames, violating Microsoft's patents 5,579,517 and 5,758,352.
- Linux can manage files in flash memory, violating Microsoft's patent 6,256,642.
- Much more broadly, Linux can control devices in a vehicle such as navigational devices (and when it is used as an OS platform to integrate and control a vehicle navigational system that a vendor might choose to build on top of Linux, in doing so it thus violates one or more of the several other listed Microsoft patents that prohibit such uses. I'm not a lawyer and won't guess exactly which of the patents).
The main problem with Microsoft's citation of Linux as illegal in a vehicle control system (in my amateur opinion) is with the difference between the vendor's own work product and IP that actually performs vehicle control, and its use of a generic underlying operating system for computational devices, which does not.
Linux performs only its usual and more primitive universal duties, exactly the same as it would in providing an OS platform for any of the huge variety, probably tens of thousands if not more, of different kinds of embedded devices used in every industry today.
For me, this is the worrying part of Microsoft's attack on a competing OS. It's like declaring the electrical switches used in a vehicle navigation system to be illegal, simply because they perform their standard functions in the nav system, the same as they would perform in any other electrical system in the world.
If the courts uphold that, and they might, it will be a red letter day in Microsoft's history.
"Good to hear, as a shareholder I am tired of Microsoft getting taken advantage of."
I find it quite odd to read that, as I, too, am a shareholder of MSFT (~$7,100 before the market went bad) and I am getting rather tired of Microsoft taking advantage of everybody else.
If you were an actual shareholder, or rather, one who had any real knowledge of stocks and what affects stocks, you would be saying something very different. Considering how bad press negatively affects a stock (such as Microsoft looking like a nasty bully when they asked some 40 people for money back after they lost their jobs*) it would be far more prudent of Microsoft to play more nicely and stop all of their own abuses.
Just because something does not immediately affect a stock, does not mean it does not wear upon the public opinion. A person who may think of buying the stock in the future may think otherwise because of the bad press they have heard.
*While it was technically an attempt to get money that was their own back, considering the bad press and the low amount they would have lost (less than $200,000 total, in the absolute worst-case scenario), and considering their quarterly profits were some $4b, they would have been better off letting the people keep the money and making the act rather public, thus building some good will.
And it would take a lot of effort only to check for patent violations in your code.
That is a cost for economy that prevents innovation. Pure and simple.
The U.S. patent system is the most pathetic example of large industry politics in existence.
That makes it uneconomical to develop for Microsoft - because you never know when their threats will become reality.
The only way I would consider Microsoft Windows as a target architecture now, is if Microsoft released the source trees of - just for starters - the MS Win9x and the MS WinNT 3.x and 4.x OSes, under the GPL, version 3 with its repudiation of patent politics.
Here's a good Ars Technica piece that goes into more detail on what this complaint shows about Microsoft's Linux patent claims: http://tinyurl.com/bary29
GPL2 is much better, but GPL3 rules the day!
What a prick Balmer is.
The Open/Free/Floss community (who ever we are) is like an elephant. Nice, pretty lazy, but a great buddy to help you with your heavy lifting.
There is only one thing you shouldn't do with an elephant: Hit him with a stick. The first time he wouldn't mind, but if you continue to hit him, he will trample you at the next possibility.
A TomTom patent deal wouldn't bring Microsoft more that a couple of million dollars, which is nothing compared to the damage the Open source community can do to Microsoft if it is really, really angry.
Hate to disappoint your pally, but this Linux "bottom feeder" knows that Microsoft was completely caught off guard by the whole Internet "thing" and didn't even have a TCP/IP Stack in their earlier products. They grabbed the BSD Code and it was used up until Vista when they did their own implementation from scratch.
the BSD licence _allows_ for people to re-use in commercial apps. MS didn't do anything wrong by using it, it's not some kind of FUD or attack to claim they used it, and they plainly did, as can be seen using analysis of TCP/IP quirks (which have the same behaviour on the relevant MS systems as with the BSD stack concerned). It's totally irrelevant to the situation at hand, though, I agree
re: grep on windows. I use grep on windows... this is the wonder of open source, it cam be compiled anywhere :P
copy XEROX, copy APPLE
copy OPEN SOURCE, copy NOVELL
copy IBM, copy DEC, copy MIT
copy CP/M copy BSD, copy VMware
Name 10 things in 25 years that MICROSOFT actually invented ON THEIR OWN that shaped the industry ?
I'll start the list ....
BOB
CLIPPY
Because then everybody would switch to another Filesystem.
As of 2009, micros~1 window~1 is still only able to read 2 or 3 filesystems (guess why), companies are forced to use one of these because end users have window~1 pre-installed.
Very misleading title indeed, FUD spreading.
I doubt that Microsoft has a leg to stand on and that this litigation will go the way of SCO's.
Good for Tom-Tom for fighting this meritless suit instead of caving in and paying Microsoft for something Microsoft doesn't own.
I wouldn't be surprised if there were similar implementations on other operating systems as well. How can this patent be valid if prior arts exist ?
Or doesn't prior arts mean anything when you change the implementation somewhat ?
QUOTE
I'm not a lawyer and won't guess exactly which of the patents).
The main problem with Microsoft's citation of Linux as illegal in a vehicle control system (in my amateur opinion)...
/QUOTE
While I would defend Bob's freedom to voice his _opinion_ I think his own words have more or less conclusively shown he is basically talking out of his a$$.
It happens as product sets mature and the structure supporting the product stiffens up like an old person with arthritis.
I personally respect the benefits that the Microsoft Corporation has brought to technology and productivity, but it's not happening like it used to in that organization.
You can't defend your right to ride the wave when you're washing up on the beach. At some point it is time to pick up the board and go home...
The status of MS's German filename patent is interesting. In the ITC filing (under Related Litigation on Page 16) is this:
"78. One of the foreign counterparts to the '517 and '352 patents (German Patent No. 69429378) is the subject of a pending German nullity action filed in 2006."
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/86141
A German federal court declared the patent null and void. But is this merely a still-pending decision that has not yet taken effect?
Google's translation of the decision includes these statements near the end:
"About the realization of such a link there is nothing stated as that the person skilled in the consummation of the doctrine of the NK7 to its usual methods of linkage is referred. A basic knowledge of data processing or computer science engineering attributable method of manufacture of a data link between the use of (address) characters like the location of the referenced data and thus the finding of the linked data."
...
"The method according to claim 1 in the alternative version defended LY also not based on inventive activity and is therefore not patentable."
...
"It was thus neither the application nor the main claim of the defendants are ge-follows. It was the applicant's claim to follow, and the patent should be annulled."
If anyone speaks German and can find out whether the German patent is still enforceable or actually has been annulled, here's the decision as a starting point:
http://juris.bundespatentgericht.de/cgi-bin/rec...
I should take out a patent… “Structure with which you store yourself, your possessions, and pets and stuff” A box like construction that you keep stuff in and eat and sleep in that you could call for instance “house”. Then I’m suing everyone starting with Gutierrez.
Disclosure; I’m both a Windows and Linux user and administrator. I like both for different reasons and applications so I’m not just an MS hater. I’m disappointed that MS should go the SCO route (If you can’t innovate, litigate!)
By the way, Microsoft tried suing Novell already - it's called SCO v. Novell.
OPEN SOURCE... any idea what it is,
i have a great site for for you in case you don't understand the meaning of this, wikipedia!!!
With *nix, maybe that will happen when there aren't 40 million distros that do everything their own way. Before *nix can take major desktop market it needs to have a standard.
"I'm seriously tired of most engineering programs being specifically written for a Microsoft OS, while having the Linux version turn out to be a turd port."
If you were a developer why waste time and resources on an OS that is barely used on the desktop by anyone other than geeks?
Linux can be free of cost but was not designed to be an easy to use end user desktop experience from the start. I must say though that I've found the Mandriva Linux distribution easy for me to use.
Haiku (because it is inspired by BeOs) has been designed to be easy enough for Grandma to use from the very beginning.
Usability is a huge guiding principle with the Haiku development team!
The Haiku team is more focused on ease of use for the end user than being a competitor to Microsoft but the point is Microsoft may find themselves with an OS that is free and easy to use.
I'd be curious to see how Microsoft responds then, other than try to take what they can from Haiku as Haiku uses the liberal MIT license.
http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4050.html
Will it ever be ready in time for release???
It's just another Vista disguise anyway, don't let Microsoft fool you.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/12/09/Conso...
http://www.linuxnewsroom.org/patents
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=2...
I wonder how many IBM compile optimization patents alone every MS product violates?
When (if) it becomes possible to recover some of that garbage investment, I'll be thrilled to dump it in exchange for stock in an OSS-friendly software or hardware manufacturer. Or maybe I'll just donate it all to the Linux distribution or OSS project of my choosing. That way, we ALL benefit.
But I'm not so selfish as to value my monetary investment above the intellectual betterment of mankind. Please, everyone -- stop buying Microsoft's lumpy milk; you can have the Linux cow for free, and she is magnificent.
Windie!
http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html
If you want to try to fight, dont post comments on a website. Make copies of your favourite linux. Give it to as many people as you can. Show them how to use it. Show them all the applications and programs that come with it. Show them how all theyre photos and documents and such are 100% compatible with linux.
I would be happy if linux could command a 25% share of the home computer desktop environment before 2020.
I for one would be happy to play ball with window, if only they would stop stabbing the ball every chance they can, but micro$oft will never play nice
hhehehe linux today and tomorow
go to hell microzoft
There in Redmond weep so much, doesn't?
---------
Moco is mucus... :b
Nice sarcasm.Now go on, you moved you're mouse, it's time to reboot your machine, beware of blue screens.
http://www.codeplex.com/
(via http://port25.technet.com/archive/2009/03/12/jo...)
"If we genuinely believe that the collaborative practices inherent in open source are an important part of software development methodology, then we have to believe that (a) the world's largest creator of commercial software would benefit from contributing to open source, and (b) the world's largest creator of commercial software would be smart enough to recognize those benefits."
Close, but "smart enough" seems a bit of a stretch; I'd have gone with "greedy enough," or perhaps "terrified enough."
If this thing really takes off (a doubtful scenario), wouldn't it inevitably lead Windows users to adopt a free operating system to go with their free software? I, for one, would love to see this effort backfire in such a way. This could be Microsoft's greatest contribution to Linux yet. (Better than Windows, even.)
Joannah
http://linuxmemory.net
Can we all just give the MS vs Linux thing a rest? I mean, the only reason for this article is that they're mentioned, right? I'm no fan of MS, but they're here to stay as long as the only alternative is a wacko organization like the FSF. The issue here isn't whether one is better than the other, it's why the heck we think we can survive on a diet of Coke or Pepsi.
sikisim.com
online colleges
online degrees
online degrees accredited
online college
http://hubpages.com/hub/google-cash--
Betty
http://cellularaccessoriess.com