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107 Comments
- HappyHourChris, on 03/05/2009, -5/+62Microsoft's legal department might want to consult with their PR department before making the company look like a bunch of assclowns.
- kd420, on 03/05/2009, -7/+49Hopefully this backfires on MS. The OIN holds patents for tons of Linux inventions. It simply lets people use these, so long as they don't do anything "evil" against Linux developers. If MS goes through, they might feel the full force of the patents.
According to Ars Technica, the OIN might use the "so-called "nuclear option" and retaliate with its own massive arsenal of software patents. The OIN, which was founded to assemble a defensive patent portfolio for protecting Linux and some open source technologies, includes patents on basic principles of computing including networking, e-business, and bytecode compilation."
source: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/02/micr ...
A full list of the patents: http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/pat_owned.php
MS is truly opening Pandora's Box here, which is a sign that they have very few other options in competing with Linux for embedded devices. - spannerman2, on 03/05/2009, -8/+41Go TomTom!!
- gronya, on 03/05/2009, -4/+34It isn't the first time companies have had to chose, but it seems to be the first time it has become public like this. That is why we need to make this a big issue and not let it disappear into the hands of the lawyers.
- deadbaby, on 03/05/2009, -8/+37.... And people wonder why there's so much animosity and mist-trust towards Microsoft. I've been called a Microsoft hater before and this is exactly why. I'm completely happy just avoiding them and going on using other software but when they do something to threaten the software I do use -- and attempt to reduce customer choice and stagnant competition -- I get kinda pissed off about it. It cancels out any good things they may do as a company.
- balaknair, on 03/05/2009, -4/+31Actually a rather similar thought occurred to me while reading another article about this suit, that it was probably intended to pressure TomTom to switch to MS products instead of Open Source code.
- haid, on 03/05/2009, -1/+21It is designed to prevent a protection racket scheme. If they have a valid claim against Linux, they should simply announce those parts that are in violation. But the "we would hate to see your business disrupted" insinuation is what is shady. And if a company such as TomTom pays it, then it creates different classes of users, those "protected" (in the ganster sense) and those unsure.
GPL is evolving to this position because of shady behavior (e.g. MS / Novell cross licensing) - mrsteveman1, on 03/05/2009, -6/+25MS Products which all suck, WinCE is trash, XP Embedded can't run in the same footprint as Linux.
Microsoft is going to get itself attacked over this sort of thing, they haven't changed one bit. Their core business still depends heavily on screwing everyone else even when they are already the dominant player in a market. - pookydirt, on 03/05/2009, -2/+16Their lawyers were probably among all those layoffs last month.
Oops. - Khast, on 03/06/2009, -1/+13This lawsuit is over FAT? Give me a ***** break... Every operating system I know of can read FAT/FAT32. Microsoft is nothing but a bunch of bullies who will do desperate things just to stay on top. (Well, my suggestion to Bahlmer, instead of suing everyone for the tiny ***** which is irrelevant to your business model, try to make yourselves look good before the public...and not look like a bunch of *****.)
- buckrogers1965, on 03/06/2009, -0/+11How is fat even patented. Isn't it like 30 years old now, and based on prior art even 30 years ago?
And seriously? Long file names are patented? I think that one of the reasons I switched to Linux from windows 3.1 was because Unix has had long file name support for a decade or two before Windows did, so there is a little tiny bit of prior art there. - buckrogers1965, on 03/06/2009, -0/+11I love the current marketing campaign. "In a world without walls..." *LOL*
Which is hilarious because for a decade now people have been saying, "In a world without walls or fences, who needs gates or windows?" - noisymime, on 03/06/2009, -0/+10No. The open source implementation of FAT does NOT use Microsoft's own code, so it is not a copyright violation and therefore they are not using licensed code and not violating the GPL (any version)
You're confusing copyrights with patents. If you take someone else's work and completely recreate it yourself, you have not violated copyright as what you've produced is, without any doubt, your own work. However, you may have violated the original creators patent by reinventing their product. Microsoft's lawsuit is about patent infringement, not copyrights. - klij, on 03/06/2009, -1/+10did anyone else just feel like ditching xp installing ubuntu after reading this.
- mrsteveman1, on 03/05/2009, -1/+10The more ***** like this happens the more likely patent reform is going to take hold and make it impossible for companies to abuse patents like this.
- smotpoker, on 03/05/2009, -2/+11"What exactly are *we* supposed to do about it?"
Avoid MS products, discourage their use, support competing companies and let MS know how we feel and what we're doing as a direct result of their actions - just like we should with any other business runs around trying to strong-arm it's competitors and customers. - Fratz, on 03/05/2009, -1/+10I don't own a TomTom, so it's not clear to me why they need FAT32 on an embedded device. If it's to accept SD cards with maps or updates, then why not just format the SD cards with EXT3 and be done?
- Herolint, on 03/05/2009, -2/+11I don't know about deadbaby, but I for one don't care. I don't the software I use because of some ethical principle. I use it because I like it. I think software patents are retarded and Microsoft having one wouldn't sway me one way or the other.
If Microsoft wants to earn my business, they'll have to do it by making a product that is better than the competition. Currently they don't. - matthekc, on 03/06/2009, -0/+8@e2superman
http://www.patenthawk.com/enforce.htm
Basically what this says is if you know your patent is being violated you can't wait for the violation to become huge and expensive to speak up.
I.E. Linux has had fat for years Microsoft should have filed an injunction years ago. - twiztidsinz, on 03/05/2009, -6/+14From what I understand by reading this and other articles...
MS owns patents to FAT LFN (File Allocation Table/Long File Name) which it licenses.
Companies have used the code in their open source products, including Linux, but MS is only going after those who choose to sell products with the FAT LFN embedded into the hardware.
The companies, by clamming their software is open source and providing source, are actually violating GPLv2 and GPLv3 since they're using licensed code in their products.
Microsoft is choosing to go after those who sell the embedded software in hardware, but is not going after Linux itself for whatever reason they choose (possibly because Linux is free? or the backlash from that move). - smotpoker, on 03/06/2009, -0/+8They might affect you more than you realize (or prevent good things from affecting you as much as they otherwise would). Is a "more unified experience" worth having to wait an extra 3-6 years for more expesive products that do the same job [worse]? That is the way that MS's anti-competitive practices impact the most users/businesses negatively.
However it also impacts many users and businesses in other ways too. Perverting standards, strong-arming companies to sellout, forcing small businesses to pay unfair prices (making them struggle more and raising their prices), stealing ideas, bribing/conspiring with ally companies to prevent users from getting what they want and competitors from staying afloat, etc... you honestly don't think such practices don't have an adverse affect on the economy or that their impact is so trivial it couldn't possibly affect you? That every employee they put out of work can instantly grab another job?
Regardless, there is a big ripple effect and, especially with larger corporations who act unethically, those ripples extend to hurt a lot of people/businesses in a lot of ways you might not realize. Even if they are mostly smaller companies and ignorant users who don't realize what they are missing out on, you are naive to think that their practices don't substantially impact society. Like most corporations, they are too focused on cutting corners, marketing and strong-arming/conspiring rather than developing competitive products of equal or better quality - johanrocks, on 03/05/2009, -1/+8If the OIN uses the "Nuclear Option" I don't think it would end well for either side. However, I could only imagine how much more money and how many more resources Microsoft has, so I don't think it would be the best thing for the OIN.
- smotpoker, on 03/05/2009, -1/+8I think it is more likely that their main objective is to set a precedent which they can use to go after bigger Linux vendors and scare businesses away from it
- magus_melchior, on 03/05/2009, -4/+11Hello? AG Holder? I think I have a great RICO suit for you...
- FireSlash, on 03/06/2009, -1/+7While this is very unlikely, I would really love to see TomTom give MS the finger and switch to EXT2
- inactive, on 03/05/2009, -9/+15The idiots in the Microsoft PR department are the ones who created "THE WOW STARTS NOW!" Vista propaganda garbage.
- kimbja98, on 03/06/2009, -0/+6So why can't tomtom just use ext2/3 instead? If it's just over the file system, stop using it! There are lots of others to choose from (and who knows, may even spur more widespread adoption of open file systems).
- Herolint, on 03/05/2009, -3/+9That certainly wasn't my experience. Mine was, "The WOW starts. . .wait for it. . .wait for it. . .wait for it. . .
- goltzc, on 03/06/2009, -1/+6Most if not all SD cards come preformatted as Fat/16/32.
also Windows doesn't have default support for EXT3. - inactive, on 03/06/2009, -1/+5Frivolous lawsuit in one mile.
Turn left. - Claverhouse, on 03/05/2009, -4/+8Microsoft is not bound by the GPL.
Seems rather silly to have to say that. - matthekc, on 03/05/2009, -5/+9Microsoft (noun) Primarily a computer software company, also involved in hardware.
See also: anti-trust, monopoly, predatory pricing, and anti-competitive. - inactive, on 03/05/2009, -1/+5Because they're friends with Garmin.
- buddyw, on 03/05/2009, -1/+5That is part of why I like gpl v2 over v3. With that said, the list of patents Microsoft is suing for is bogus.
- FredFredrickson, on 03/05/2009, -7/+11Let me play devil's advocate for a second - what if, after all this is said and done, the makers of "your" software are actually found to be using proprietary work of Microsoft's? Are you going to abandon that as well? Will you turn on the people who make your software for breaking the law? Why should one company / group's unethical behavior be better than the next?
- Fratz, on 03/06/2009, -1/+5My original question still stands. What are they using FAT32 for? On the device's internal filesystem? Then replace it with EXT3. For map updates on SD cards that they provide? Then format the SD cards as EXT3. For map updates on SD cards that the customer provides? Then write a utility to format them as EXT3 for updating the maps, then tell them how to reformat it as FAT32 in Windows when done.
- HonoredMule, on 03/06/2009, -0/+4Wow...you make it sound somehow shady to expect full access to an open market without paying off MS. Or can Microsoft's customers not be anyone else's customers also? Patent and Copyright laws were never intended to protect vendor lock-in.
For the record, MS owns patents for FAT and FAT32, but the credibility of those patents is very shaky (both filesystems are extremely trivial formats, and MS cannot patent the format itself, yet any patent that would cover /any/ implementation of a driver for the format cannot be valid either), and it's not at all clear that they're enforceable or won't be revoked if used. When you use a patent system that leaves the real decisions up to the courts, a lawsuit itself doesn't really mean much anymore. - pinchduck, on 03/06/2009, -0/+4TomTom recently bought TeleAtlas, which means they have a huge share of the digital map market. There are only two real companies in that space, NavTech and TeleAtlas. MS knows that geo-aware apps will be big in the coming years, so I think this is an attempt to force TomTom to license their navigation data to MS as part of a settlement deal.
</conspiracy> - MCJackhammer, on 03/06/2009, -0/+4The fact that MS is resorting to these dirty scam tactics instead of taking OIN directly to the law tells you all you need to know about their so called "patent violations".
- LeeTXJD, on 03/06/2009, -0/+4Thank goodness. Finally, now that the election is over - there are finally decent tech stories on Digg again.
- celotil, on 03/06/2009, -0/+4There is an EXT3 file system driver for Windows. TomTom could provide that with the device, bundled into the TomTom sync software or whatever it is they use to share data with their device when plugged into a Windows-based machine.
- FredFredrickson, on 03/06/2009, -3/+6Jon, do you have any idea what "playing devil's advocate" means?
- ukblacknight, on 03/06/2009, -0/+3TomTom != The EU
- chadsmith729, on 03/06/2009, -1/+4For the record he doesn't mean "ha ha" silly. He means "holy ***** I really have to say this because someone doesn't know" silly.
- marx2k, on 03/06/2009, -0/+3buckrogers, thats hilarious. I lol'd
- Chupatumama, on 03/07/2009, -0/+3This is by far the most important part of the article:
"It isn't a case of cross-license and everything is ok. If Tom Tom or any other company cross licenses patents then by section 7 of GPLv2 (for the Linux kernel) they lose the rights to redistribute the kernel *at all*.
Microsoft has been going around and doing these patent cross licensing deals with companies under NDA's so they never come to light for *years*. "
And NDA does not give you the right to break a license. And Im not even sure you can enforce it when its made to hide something like this.
I guess the Eben Moglen and the lawyers at the SFLC are gonna have to take a look at who has been breaking the GPL2. - FredFredrickson, on 03/05/2009, -4/+7What exactly are *we* supposed to do about it? Regardless of whether or not the proceedings are public, this is still (currently) a private matter between the two companies. And most people who use either operating system will never know about it.
- noisymime, on 03/06/2009, -0/+3Technically you could license patents from Microsoft and still be GPL compliant, its just that the license with MS would have to be GPL compatible. That's not really likely to happen as MS simply refuse to license their product with such freedoms.
- adderx99, on 03/06/2009, -0/+3you mean like these guys?
http://www.arecentstudy.com/images/steve-ballmer-c ... - DrewPeacock, on 03/06/2009, -0/+3TomTom is one of Garmin's primary competitors.
THINK Douche. -
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