Microsoft goes after freeware and open source

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Now this is just going even farther than I'd thought they'd go. . .

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2007/05/14.3.shtml

[Tomato]

... Ok, somebody needs to hit these people on the back of the head. Suing Freeware!?! Are there some magical millions freeware developers have that I don't know about?

[Viking]

I sincerely doubt Microsoft is interested in extracting money from freeware.  Microsoft wants to control distribution and usage.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

But, they are selling licenses to one form of Linux, having scared that distributor into submission.

[BlueBard]

About all Microsoft might manage to accomplish is to drive FOSS development overseas beyond MS's reach.  That puts open-source software, oh, about a download away.  Intellectual innovation will move to China, India, and the Netherlands and stay there.  Yeah, that's gotta be good for the economy.  :P

That means the only folks Microsoft -will- be able to affect will be end-users in the US.  If they start playing hardball with end-users, they are guaranteed to lose even more market share in the business community.  There will still be alternatives like Solaris for Intel and the BSD's which are likely beyond Microsoft's attempts at patent monopoly.

I would also predict a head-to-head battle with IBM and Sun over at least some of those so-called patents.  And MS risks drawing renewed ire from anti-trust forces in the government.  Not to mention hacking from disgruntled programmers with time on their hands because their FOSS project dried up.

So, no, MS won't actually do anything.  They know they won't.  This is all about extending the FUD and trying to scare end-users into buying MS over downloading FOSS.  MS is big... but they're not bigger than the combined resources of all of the developers and end-users they'd have to sue to shut down all of the alternatives.

If MS would just stick to their strengths, they'd have a solid product and a solid bottom line.  Maybe they wouldn't rule the software world, but they'd keep a nice chunk of it.

Heck, for all I know this is MS's way of pushing patent reform.  Patent reform might hurt MS, but it might help them, too.  Imagine a Microsoft with complete freedom to copy other people's ideas.

[stumpy]

It seems like a big part of the problem here is the way software patents are granted. They have never even been explicitly approved by the Supreme Court, although a case in the early eighties confirmed that a patent should not be denied just because a novel device or process uses software. (Previously, software was thought essentially to be a version of a mathematical algorithm, which, by itself, the court had ruled as ineligible for a patent.) That decision was sort of inverted in 1998 when a Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that software could be patented if it met the test of creating a "useful, concrete and tangible result". Well, of course, it doesn't take much to do that and the patent office interprets that language very loosely, granting around 40,000 patents in 2006.

Because of such broad patents, people can patent most any software (this is why Verizon was able to sue Vonage) and there is a sort of arms race by companies to patent enough stuff so that if they are sued, they can sue their sue-er, and companies with enough patents can effectively be left alone. Obviously, this practice, though a huge waste of resources, is viable for large enough companies, but not for most FOSS developers, leaving them vulnerable to companies like MS who choose to abuse their patent power this way.

I agree with BB that this will shift some development overseas, but I think the biggest impact might be that corporate software users would shy away from freeware and open-source software, including having policies that individual employees can't install it on their machines.

There are a couple cases before the Supreme Court where it will have an opportunity to clarify and tighten up the patent criteria. It's not exactly the principle issue in either case, but amicus briefs are urging the Court to give some teeth to the non-obviousness requirements for patents.

[thalaw2]

I have seen some really wonderful FOSS software in China, so having more of it shipped overseas would be nice.  I think I'm gonna make a Linux box today.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

A lawyer got sick of it and started a website of defiant people who use open source software and invite Microsoft to sue them.  There are thousands!

http://digitaltippingpoint.com/wiki/index.php?title=Sue_me_first,_Microsoft

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

This just in, Sun Microsystems has just entered into the fray.  They have a pretty huge array of patents themselves, some of which apparently overlap with some of the patents that Microsoft is trying to use to take control of Red Hat and Ubuntu Linux.  Sun is defending both organizations, pledging that their patents will be used on behalf of the open source community.

In other words, they are saying since their patents apply too, they are giving these group permission to use those patents, and the legal help to use this to protect them from Microsoft.

I'm predicting that now that another big corporation has entered the fray, that Microsoft will back off rather quickly.