Not wasting time, Linus Torvalds responds to the latest “Fear Uncertainty and Doubt, Summer Tour of 2007″ from Microsoft.
Of course this will never happen since that would remove any fear and uncertainty. This saber rattling will go on for years.
After a judge held up a ruling that threw out most of SCO’s case investors punished the stock sending it down 40% to $1.20 on Friday. This was reported over at www.vnunet.com. Two great lines from the article that sum up the case.
The judge stated that the software firm had failed to produce any evidence to back up its intellectual property ownership claims.
SCO countered that IBM already knew what code it had “stolen” and was therefore in a much better position to disclose the details.
The second quote is the best. If I could sum up their claims in one sentence, this would be it. “We’re not sure what you stole, please tell us so we can collect monetary damages.”
Covered over at ksl.com NewsRadio. I think everyone expected this, just took forever.
I suppose SCO will now take a page from Microsoft’s playbook and claim that they are big supporters of Linux and want to embrace and extend it. sigh…
Irony, perhaps the best single word to describe the latest development with Microsoft. I find amusing that the most vocal company that is preaching about the true value of IP and patents, turns around and violates a patent of Prof. Lee Keung-hae of Hankuk Aviation University. The following is a quote from the Korean Times.
Microsoft, the world’s top software maker, may have to stop selling its flagship ”Office” suite program in Korea temporarily due to patent infringement, according to a local technology transfer agent.
I would assume that since Microsoft is an advocate for patents and IP that they would honor those individuals or companies that possess them, wouldn’t you?
Irony as defined by wikipedia,
Quite a gap indeed.
I could not have made this up, It came straight from the Microsoft press release site.
“Microsoft and Novell have agreed to disagree on whether certain open source offerings infringe Microsoft patents and whether certain Microsoft offerings infringe Novell patents. The agreement between our two companies puts in place a workable solution for customers for these issues, without requiring an agreement between our two companies on infringement.”
So what kind of “agreement” or contract was signed? How is the public supposed to perceive this “agreement” if the two parties involved cannot even agree on what was in the “agreement”.
The FUD has now reached a frenzy point, and everyone is now looking over their shoulder, not sure who to believe or what is going to happened next. I think this reaction was anticipated by one of the parties. It was not a misstep, the community reaction was already calculated .
Mary Jo Foley and blogs.zdnet.com raises the real question. What did Novell buy for $40 million, if it was not for patent infingment claims?
Microsoft basically is calling Novell and other Linux vendors thieves. Under what circumstances would a pro-customer company encourage its users to buy software from a partner who was stealing its own IP? I’m having trouble coming up with any justifications for that kind of behavior. And Microsoft isn’t supplying any convincing ones , either.
That really sums it up. Why would a company encourage users to buy software from a partner that is stealing its intellectual property?
Microsoft builds a an IP bridge to Linux so that there can be arrangement under which they (Novell) pay us some money for the right to tell the customers that anybody who uses Suse Linux is appropriately covered. This information was covered by Todd Bishop over at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com. Guess I did not realize that Microsoft owns the IP for Linux. Did you? Below is a quote from Steve Ballmer.
“So we built a technology bridge, and we built an IP bridge and a commercial framework that supports that. Novell said to us, ‘Hey, look, if you’re serious about this stuff, you better help us promote Suse Linux.’ To which we said, ‘You know we’re trying to sell Windows, that’s what we do for a living! Windows, Windows, Windows, baby! We don’t do Linux that way here.’
Their “bridge” reminds me more of a toll bridge. Guess anyone that uses Linux needs to pay toll! Below is one more direct quote.
“Linux comes from the community — the fact that that product uses our patented intellectual property is a problem for our shareholders. We spend $7 billion a year on R&D, our shareholders expect us to protect or license or get economic benefit from our patented innovations. So how do we somehow get the appropriate economic return for our patented innovation “
Maybe we can just buy a Microsoft/Linux FastPass or something.
The biggest software company in the world just admitted that its promise not to sue open source software developers was a little off target. Just read this from an article on ww.cbronline.com. A nice quote from article.
“Microsoft Corp has admitted execution flaws with its promise not to sue open source software developers and invited the wider community to tell the software firm how it can get it right. “
I just don’t believe that this was an accident. Surely they must have teams of Lawyers and Strategy personnel going over their partner agreements with a fine tooth comb. This was not created by a single “rogue” person in the PR department who accidentally typed this into the contract. It was calculated, and sent out for a specific reason. You just have to think of a common sense reason why they made the generous offer “not to sue open source software developers”.
