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46 Comments
- estvir, on 10/11/2007, -9/+67The real news is how many fanboys heads will explode when they read this paragraph:
"But let’s step back from the coal-face for a second. I have high regard for Microsoft. They produce some amazing software, and they made software much cheaper than it ever was before they were around. Many people at Microsoft are motivated by a similar ideal to one we have in Ubuntu: to empower people for the digital era. Of course, we differ widely on many aspects of the implementation of that ideal, but my point is that Microsoft is actually committed to the same game that we free software people are committed to: building things which people use every day."
I know you guys try to emulate everything people like Shuttleworth says so maybe this will be a interesting beginning.
But I agree on the patent thing, it seems to be in an absolutely ridiculous state. - nubtard, on 10/11/2007, -9/+39Comment spam. Buried.
- GMorgan, on 10/11/2007, -3/+31Nobody has ever claimed that MS make no good software. It is farcical to believe that MS could get where they are making junk all the time but often they have produced sheer junk which only survived because their previous stuff was good.
The main arguments against MS are focused on their business model (leveraging a monopoly to expand market share in other fields) and their development model which is proprietary and hence inefficient and for myself and unacceptable position to be in with regards to what I accept onto my systems. Given a choice I will use anything bar proprietary software because that makes me more secure.
Shuttleworth is right of course and in the end MS will be on our side on the patent issue because they don't compare well to IBM on this measure and are vulnerable themselves. They know this already I believe, they are just doing as much damage to OSS as they can before they switch sides. - NihilFist, on 10/11/2007, -3/+27dugg, for intelligence and point-making ability
- jasmin888, on 10/11/2007, -2/+25A very good read. And pretty much to the point.
- generalloy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+12People might want to know about other software patent battles.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gif.html LZW and Unisys patents on GIF
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-audio-format-matters.html MP3 (and AAC) patents vs patent-free OGG - stable, on 10/11/2007, -2/+11> I personally have 2 USPTO pending patents for stuff MS and Sony are ultimately going to step on and explode.
Congratulations for turning yourself into yet another patent troll. - cynicist, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7I respect programmers who work at microsoft these days, after all they've done a pretty good job with what was handed to them. (I mean look at 95/98...) I think the people we all really hate make up the microsoft legal and marketing departments, and the executives that let them push their agendas.
- GMorgan, on 10/11/2007, -2/+8Did you read the article. In time patents will cost MS more than they will earn them. It's a business decision, nothing more.
Nobody claims the ghost of christmas past will visit Steve Ballmer and he will find a heart and work to get patents banned. We're saying the ghost of MS bottom line with come out in an extremely red colour when talking about patents. All the billions they will lose on things like the recent MP3 thing will stack up and they will lose far more there than they will extort from Linux users. That MP3 case was an early one, in future years we will see them regularly. - Fduch, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6MS is doing the same defence you idiot =)
And when they don't have patent fights thay say patents are bad =) - flag564, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5"I know you guys try to emulate everything people like Shuttleworth says so maybe this will be a interesting beginning."
This is why Shuttleworth is the de facto leader, in my opinion, of the Linux "movement". He is level headed, serious, mature, and most of all, he has a real sense of reality. I've said it many times that he should be the face of Linux 24/7 and not these loudmouth, hate MS drones. They make the Linux community look like a bunch of hotheads. - tknd, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4(sometime in the future:)
USPTO to beercosoftware: patent rejected.
patent pending != patent granted.
The purpose of the patent system is to invoke innovation. If you're using it to fight on legal grounds against existing innovations then there is something wrong with the system. The correct solution is not to abuse the broken system, but to lobby for changes to the system to fix the issues. - grumpyrain, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6> Nobody has ever claimed that MS make no good software.
You mustn't pay as much attention to digg as I thought you did. I see it claimed nearly daily.
> It is farcical to believe that MS could get where they are making junk all the time but often they have produced sheer junk which only survived because
> their previous stuff was good.
When I think of sheer junk and Microsoft, I think of technologies that either failed or I just wish would have. Things like Windows ME, ActiveX, IE6, IIS5 come immediately to mind. I don't think you could argue that a lot of these technologies had good predecessors.
Today you have Vista, IE7 and IIS7, all of which are light years ahead of the technologies I mentioned above. ActiveX has virtually been phased out. Sure most of the versions of Office between 97 and 2003 were ho-hum in terms of improvements, and IE7 was started far too late. Visual Studio is one of the best IDEs available today. Office 07 is probably the best office suite. Until recently, XBox has some of the best online gaming in the console market. You can see the money MS has invested in DirectX, and in some of the underlying storage technologies in Vista like ReadyBoost, ReadyDrive and Superfetch.
I look no more favourably upon the business practices on large corporations than you, and I agree with Mark Shuttleworth on about 99% of his points. Microsoft had to pay how many million because visiting a website could cause an application to launch? Microsoft gets sued for paying only the mp3 licensing to one of the partners (and I admit to not following the case, but I thought it was later overturned). There are real problems with the patent procedures and durations. People are awarded patents which are obvious extensions to existing technologies. Prior art is often not noticed and someone has to then choose whether to challenge some big company in court or just pay the possibly small license fee. Furthermore, the duration of patents stiffles innovation. If someone wants to patent a piece of software, why do they need 25 years? 1982 was a long time ago. I believe that 3 years is more than adequate for most software to get the 'edge', and probably not too long to cause any lasting problems for the industry. - BullTaco, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4>File suit against the big companies and not free software.
Is it really free when IBM invested a billion in Linux in 2001 alone in order to further their own bottom line?
So if I am a small inventor and I have one of the .01 percent of software patents that are truly genius and noteworthy I shouldn't go after highly profitable IBM because they are shielded by your feel good cause?
Don't kid yourself with your hippie, free love mirage. IBM exists in an amoral dog eat dog world just like MS.
To hold one accountable and not the other would be based on some simplistic logic, indeed. - grumpyrain, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Addressing the points of Mictester, who does not seem to be capable of replying to the correct message.
G>> Today you have Vista, IE7 and IIS7, all of which are light years ahead of
G>> the technologies I mentioned above.
M> Let's take these products one at a time:
M> Vista: essentially a skin for XP with added DRM. MS squandered five years
M> on technologies that they couldn't make work (like WinFS, for example),
M> and their marketing department were desperate to get something to market.
M> "Vista" was thrown together in about nine months, and looks like it. It
M> breaks compatability with earlier software, it won't fully run on more
M> than 90% of the hardware out there, and it costs silly amounts of money.
Let me pull apart those arguments, because they were clearly put together after your conclusion was reached.
On one hand, you argue that Vista is nothing more than XP with a skin. Yet if that is true, why would there be this breaking of compatibility with earlier software you also claim? You can't have your cake and eat it. Either there are some significant differences or these compatibility problems are exagerated.
I agree with your criticism of the cost of the retail release, although the OEM cost is on par with what XP Pro was.
Your claim that it won't run on 90% of the hardware is misleading. Find me a Dell PC / Gateway / HP Compaq / Acer / ASUS / whatever PC that was sold since Vista was RTM that is not capable of running Vista WITH AERO. Sure it won't run on my old Celeron 433 with my beloved Voodoo 2 card, but that is called progress. I would much rather my next OS took advantage of advancements in hardware.
M> Vista is also a security nightmare, mostly because it's more spaghetti
M> code. Vista is the strongest advocate for the use of a modern Linux with a
M> modern window manager!
And the fact you need to drop to a term window to share a printer in Ubuntu is the strongest advocate that the window managers in Linux are not yet ready to take over the mass market, what is your point?
On the security front, people who actually know what they are talking about would disagree with your "security nightmare".
---
Affected By 8 Secunia advisories
Unpatched 25% (2 of 8 Secunia advisories)
Most Critical Unpatched
The most severe unpatched Secunia advisory affecting Microsoft Windows Vista, with all vendor patches applied, is rated Not critical
---
Source: http://secunia.com/product/13223/?task=advisories
M> IE7: horribly slow, full of security holes and still not standards
M> compliant.
I would say it is faster than FF (not that it is fast enough for me to switch BACK). Not standards compliant, but you should seek professional help if you can't recognise it is a heck of a lot better than 6. It also runs with a lower security level, which if applied to IE6 would have mitigated many historical exploits.
IE7 security: http://secunia.com/product/12366/?task=advisories
M> IIS7: forget it. It simply doesn't work stably enough to be used in a
M> production environment. It might be good enough for a hobby site, but you M> wouldn't dream of running anything commercial on it. LAMP wins on M> security, reliability and price.
No, you don't run a commercial site on IIS7, but that is because you use 2003 Server not Vista (for MS hosting), which means it is IIS6. My comment is equally valid with IIS6.
IIS6 has fewer known exploits than Apache 2. (http://secunia.com/product/1438/). Again, that does not make me want to switch back to IIS. I am running Apache 2.2.3 on this laptop. Furthermore, despite how much it must pain you, .NET is actually quite a good environment, and there are a lot of enterprise environments running ASP.NET websites. PHP may be fast, but it can be a real mess to maintain (particularly prior to PHP5).
M> MS have lost the plot. They now have no products to compete with the Open
M> Source world. They lost their technological lead about six years ago, and
M> are at least five years behind the stuff we're writing now.
It is amazing to think that people would pay money for things they feel have no techological merit, yet this is exactly what you are pushing. If Ubuntu did everything the average home or business user wanted, it would have taken over. Here in the real world, people are a lot more rational. We want to spend less money, yet we recognise that sometimes it is cheaper to spend some money and save some time. It increases our efficiency. - Phlosten, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Software patents are indeed bad for everyone. They might be providing some short term money for some, but in the long term it is just unworkable.
- Spr0k3t, on 10/11/2007, -3/+6@jfoun3
You have the option to filter out Linux/Unix topics. So why don't you do everyone a favor. Also, if you would read the blog, you might understand the problem with software patents. Instead, go back to playing WoW while you wait for Halo3. - prammy, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5@Dankoozy:
I would actually cut that list down to just IE and MS Bob. Windows and IIS has improved since the NT4/2000 era when they had more holes than swiss cheese. And bob? well that was just bad :)
Sadly IE7 still does not conform to standards and thats where my beef lies. With IE6 it was standards AND lack of support for png transparency. Maybe IE8 is the killer MS browser ? - GMorgan, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4'The correct solution is not to abuse the broken system, but to lobby for changes to the system to fix the issues.'
I disagree with that. Lobbying does nothing. The most certain way to fix a system is to show where it is broken by abusing it. Success will come far quicker via letting the damn thing take it's course rather than trying to pussy foot around it. This is the free market way of fixing things. Let broken things die by their own means.
This is why I don't fear MS at all on this front. Any move will lead to a patent war which:
1. MS will lose given the weight of other patent holders who back Linux
2. Will lead to the abolition or serious reform of software patents
Let the abuse be the solution.
Personally I think we should be strengthening the portfolio of patents held by OSS friendly groups. What is needed is leadership on this front, we need a license that allows us to grant use of patents on OSS projects. Perhaps this is where the GPLv3 comes in but that specifically ties the patent to that project alone. - rocket777, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3What needs to be understood about IP is that it can only exist at the point of a gun. Without guns, there could be no patents. This is not a free market concept that aids both parties to a trade. Therefore it is not efficient.
On the idea of patent trolling, I have an idea that will probably come about in the future, and maybe even the near future.
If I can boot from a usb device, like a flash drive, then someone might build a disk-less system that you find in an airport, bus, hotel room, etc. I plug in my flash drive, boot, and everything I have, tools, data, programs, etc. become available and I never have to lug a laptop around.
I bet there are thousands of programmers who have thought of this. It's obvious. But if I get a patent first, I could hinder an entire industry.
I agree that software should not be patentable, but I go further and think that all IP should be unenforceable through law. Copyright is different since it can simply be a contract between the buyer and seller, to not distribute the material one purchases. I don't know how to enforce this contract, but I'm sure someone smarter than me would come up with a solution (and profit by doing so), were it not for the interference of governments. - ssam, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2have you considered working with the OIN
http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/ - mvent2, on 10/11/2007, -3/+4If MS isn't going to do anything then why don't they just... well... keep their mouth shut?
- DonPMitchell, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2I think there are some deep problems with abuse of the patent system, but property rights are important to business and innovation. It's easy for students and professors and journalists to point at programmers and say, "You should give away your work" or "You should forfeit your rights to intellectual property".
And of course Microsoft is the ugly poster child of the software industry, but there are thousands of small struggling software companies out there with new ideas. Recently a couple friends of mine started a company. They crashed on sofas at my house while up here on a business trip, to save paying for hotel rooms. For their business, going open source or not patenting their ideas would be the instant end of their business plan. Microsoft or the open-source hackers would copy their idea, and they would lose everything.
Now in addition to the patent trolls and the big corporations, we have to worry about ideological zealots like OIN. So many of the free-software fanatics seem to hate anyone who tries to make money from software, so who knows what they will do with their growing portfolio of IP. Use GPL3 or be wiped out by litigation? - Dankoozy, on 10/11/2007, -4/+5@gmorgan
that is true. not too many people go around hating MS office. some good stuff in there. Its just Windows, IE and IIS that get bashed all the time
maybe Microsoft Bob wasn't the best either. but who cares - BOFH2, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1@grencez
What's wrong with that? I fail to see the impending doom which this statement's connotation suggests.
There is nothing wrong with that. There is no impending doom in the statement I made. Impending doom would have been suggested by me stating they would do something with the information that is not already being done. Companies check on their competitors all the time but just use the data to check on their strategies. It was a question to make people think about why is it necessary to beat this dead horse. I know linux is gaining ground and so does anyone with half a brain, but who cares? - slapthemonkey, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2I agree with GMorgan
- Fduch, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1>i will believe it when i see it
What about shutting up and opening your wyws then? - aura, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1From the Ubuntu buglist:
1 | Microsoft has a majority market share | Ubuntu | Critical | In Progress
https://bugs.launchpad.net/~sabdfl/+assignedbugs - grencez, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0bofh2: "Did anyone think that this is a tactic for MS to see how much support is out there for Linux and then gauge it's marketshare and userbase against something that does not cost anything at a store?"
What's wrong with that? I fail to see the impending doom which this statement's connotation suggests. - TheNameless88, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0Microsoft is a FUD-machine, always has been. I hope they have enough sense not to become the next SCO.
Software patents aren't allowed everywhere, but modern countries have to get their money and protect their funds somehow. Hoping for a patent-free world. - beercosoftware, on 10/11/2007, -4/+2@Fduch,
I would ask that you do one thing. Educate yourself on Patents and IP, and do not repeat "all patents are bad" just because someone told you so.
Even if you use Linux and Free software, you have the right to learn all the facts and make an informed decision regarding IP such as patents based on merit and not here say.
A patent is only as good as it's owner, and currently most of those owners are large corporations. Imagine if small entities owned most of the important patents on software and technology. It would be a different world for sure. Corporate lawyers do not have hearts, good sense, or personal discretion like software developers do.
Patents on drugs can mostly only be filed by large corporations with the means to develop such drugs, but for software we are very lucky, because with $425, some free guides, and a very inexpensive computer, you can make sure a giant like Microsoft does not step on your hands like they did with BlueJ
http://www.bluej.org/mrt/?p=22
Do you want to be the next BlueJ??
I don't think anybody does.
EDIT: I apologize, this was supposed to be a response to the original comment - beercosoftware, on 10/11/2007, -6/+4"Congratulations for turning yourself into yet another patent troll."
These are original software and hardware inventions. They are not trollish patents on obvious ideas or stupid patents such as the warp drive.
That being said, if you can think ahead a little as to what will probably come about in the next gen or the next, next gen. If you have a little imagination and can effectively use dia on Linux, you can do some defensive patenting.
A full patent application from start to finish if you do it right the first time is only $425. Not bad considering a trademark is $325.
The key is not to use a lawyer or patent agent, and use all the free guides at the USPTO on patent writing and other information found on Google instead.
Red Hat recently patented DRM in the same vein, so this is becoming a cool trend. You don't have to use patents the same way Microsoft does. A patent is just a tool. Just like you don't have to use a gun to kill people. You can use the patent tool in which ever way you see fit if you are the owner.
Good Luck! - baalzebub, on 10/11/2007, -4/+1GMorgan, i will believe it when i see it, considering microsoft's track record for the last decade it is hard for me to has a positive outlook about microsoft like shuttleworth has...
and i mean actually really see results because the FUD coming from microsoft can fill a freight train a mile long... - bobablob, on 10/11/2007, -4/+0I got buried for pointing out that U.S. Patent Law isn't the incoherent mess that Shuttlesworth makes it out to be? Wow. Go read the U.S. Code for 5 minutes before bashing systems you don't understand.
- beercosoftware, on 10/11/2007, -5/+1@tknd,
My patents were not assigned to a company if that's what you mean.
"USPTO to beercosoftware: patent rejected.
patent pending != patent granted."
You mean like the warp drive patent and all the others?
The patents were filed properly I believe and all prior art the inventions are based on was listed.
"If you're using it to fight on legal grounds against existing innovations"
If you're trying to kill your mother, then I suggest you stop. You never said that, but I thought I would throw it out there to mislead people the same way you are trying to.
I only filed patent claims on new and unobvious inventions, nothing more. Nothing like what you are suggesting was ever mentioned. - schestowitz, on 10/11/2007, -14/+11The USPTO will soon collapse and be rubbished and as for Canonical... well, they are outside the United States, so it's not (shouldn't be) a problem for Ubuntu.
See the following about the sad state of USPTO: http://www.youtube.com/v/0LQqx-gp9e8 - bobablob, on 10/11/2007, -6/+1Patent Applications fail for lack of novelty and nonobviousness. Granted Patents are successfully challenged on the same grounds. Shuttleworth's argument that holding companies will somehow remove ideas from the public domain is disengenuous.
Buried as poorly thought out. - baalzebub, on 10/11/2007, -7/+2i do not agree with shuttleworth here, i have yet to see microsoft to anything good & benevolent towards anyone, microsoft is interested in only two things, dominance in the computer/desktop software market and making as much money as possible regardless of who gets hurt...
- beercosoftware, on 10/11/2007, -7/+2@bulltaco,
You speak as if you know I worked with an IBM account team in the past.
NO, I never said to leave IBM alone and go after Microsoft exclusively.
I said to leave FOSS alone and go after large corporations if you are to use your patent gun to kill somebody.
I know what IBM contributed to the apache project, and also about Ted Tso's contributions.
If IBM was working on FOSS, and your patent covered part of the idea, I would advocate leaving it alone. If IBM was working on proprietary AIX stuff and your patent covered part of the idea, I say take them to the cleaners. Microsoft, Sony, Novell, ect... too. Chances are they won't have patents to fire back at you with if your project or software is very small and limited. There's no reason not to get damages if somebody is MAKING MONEY off of your idea, and not sharing with the public. That's my perspective and I know it is different than the FSF which is against all patenting. Not just patents who's owners enforce the patent protection against free software.
Say hypothetically your patent covers part of IBM's RTS java clone metronome for example. They won't release that to the public?
If you go after them for using part of your invention in a proprietary application such as that, then nobody really loses anyway and you still get your patent protection afforded to you by the US govt. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -9/+3>> Nobody has ever claimed that MS make no good software.
>You mustn't pay as much attention to digg as I thought you did. I see it claimed nearly daily.
>> It is farcical to believe that MS could get where they are making junk all the time but often they have produced sheer junk which >>only survived because their previous stuff was good.
>When I think of sheer junk and Microsoft, I think of technologies that either failed or I just wish would have. Things like Windows >ME, ActiveX, IE6, IIS5 come immediately to mind. I don't think you could argue that a lot of these technologies had good >predecessors.
> Today you have Vista, IE7 and IIS7, all of which are light years ahead of the technologies I mentioned above.
Let's take these products one at a time:
Vista: essentially a skin for XP with added DRM. MS squandered five years on technologies that they couldn't make work (like WinFS, for example), and their marketing department were desperate to get something to market. "Vista" was thrown together in about nine months, and looks like it. It breaks compatability with earlier software, it won't fully run on more than 90% of the hardware out there, and it costs silly amounts of money. Vista is also a security nightmare, mostly because it's more spaghetti code. Vista is the strongest advocate for the use of a modern Linux with a modern window manager!
IE7: horribly slow, full of security holes and still not standards compliant.
IIS7: forget it. It simply doesn't work stably enough to be used in a production environment. It might be good enough for a hobby site, but you wouldn't dream of running anything commercial on it. LAMP wins on security, reliability and price.
MS have lost the plot. They now have no products to compete with the Open Source world. They lost their technological lead about six years ago, and are at least five years behind the stuff we're writing now.
Game Over, Microsoft! - Repeater2000, on 10/11/2007, -9/+2Digg implosion in 3,2,1......
"Bububu Bill Gates!!!" - BOFH2, on 10/11/2007, -11/+3MS fanboy here - MS is NOT going to do anything. Saber rattling at best. For the love of all that is good PLEASE stop posting crap about this. Did anyone think that this is a tactic for MS to see how much support is out there for Linux and then gauge it's marketshare and userbase against something that does not cost anything at a store?
- stable, on 10/11/2007, -10/+2"building things which people use every day"
I stopped reading right there. He doesn't really understand what makes free software move. It's not about making something for others, it's about accomplishing a goal, it's a constructive hobby, it's something you can boast about in your resume that won't be questioned in an interview, and it's the most fascinating way of gaining experience I know. The last thing I think about when I write a piece of code is other people. I am my target audience, and since it doesn't cost me anything to release the result of my work, I just do it for the benefit of others, if nothing else because I also benefit from their work.
Do I care about the end users? Hell no! They don't contribute! - beercosoftware, on 10/11/2007, -13/+4I personally have 2 USPTO pending patents for stuff MS and Sony are ultimately going to step on and explode.
They have a good chance of approval and one will be important technology in gaming in the future.
Will MS ever be anti-patent as Shuttleworth suggests? NO. To say that he does not know Microsoft.
Can we all invade the USPTO with new software invention patents that we use against MS, Sony and the likes while not making claims against GPL and FOSS software? Sure we can. Red hat does it, IBM does it, I did it and so should you.
I disagree with the FSF on this one. Defensive patents should be ok. And by defensive I mean patents you use against big bad companies and not free software.
File a patent today and stick it to the man:
https://sportal.uspto.gov/secure/portal/efs-unregistered
By the man I mean Microsoft - jfoun3, on 10/11/2007, -19/+4spam.why wont these linux fags just go away. cant you see with your ***** eyes that linux isnt making an impact??? cant you see that it is just a fun little tool used for hardcore nerds entertainment???? why do u think its free?? why do u think its on a live ***** cd??? wow, i hope linux disappears. seriously. BURRIED!
- tenderstorm, on 10/11/2007, -106/+4Pure spam. Buried...
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