Novell sold to Attachmate [LWN.net]

Novell sold to Attachmate

Posted Nov 23, 2010 13:07 UTC (Tue) by gnufreex (guest, #70396)
In reply to: Novell sold to Attachmate by garloff
Parent article: Novell sold to Attachmate

>Sidenote: If MSFT wanted to use this for troll attacks against Linux, they surely would have found a set up where they would not be obviously and publicly behind. They have just too mnay customers that use Linux as well who would not at all appreciate such behavior.

So basically: If they do it publicly, then apologizing goes "it ain't so, they wouldn't be stipid to do that in front all those people; there must be another explanation".

If they do it secretly and some people start connecting dots, then it goes "Prove it or else you are paranoid conspiracy theorist".

Apologizing for MSFT often involves circular argument.

I would say that MSFT have already done secret attacks. For example Acacia might be funded by MSFT, because they got paid off by Redmond (under a guise of cross-licensing deal) as soon as they ended case against Red Hat(and we don't know how that case ended).

Call me paranoid.

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Novell sold to Attachmate

Posted Nov 23, 2010 14:47 UTC (Tue) by ccurtis (guest, #49713) [Link]

Garloff's concerns are valid.

I don't want to spawn an MSFT tirade, but it is irresponsible to hold such enmity towards a single company when there may be larger threats lurking.

The tricky thing with corporations is that they are unpredictable. MSFT, under Bill Gates, was generally anti-patent. Gates publicly warned against software patents. I don't know so much about Ballmer, and even less about whoever might preside next.

If you want to be snarky about it, MSFT isn't an innovator - they're a copier - and as such could be a great ally against software patents. But in reality, they didn't like getting sued by Apple or the other patent trolls and I think that like most engineering-minded entities, they would rather not have to deal with any of that.

The money behind the SCO suit could have been "testing the waters" as some suggest; it could be cronyism (which runs rampant in certain circles, from my experience); or it could be something as simple as "doing the right thing" (by paying for these [maybe not phony] licenses) while being mildly amused by the tempest it creates, because - hey - you've got more money than you know what to do with and it's not going to hurt your business.

So for those reasons it's valid to keep an eye on what MSFT is doing, but also to recognize that - at least for now - they may not be the biggest threat out there.

I do have to admit that I don't follow a lot of these interactions closely and so may not be adequately informed, but Oracle seems to fall into a scary "litigious bastards" camp, and doesn't seem to prefer to use its patents defensively. They also own all of Sun's IP, and we're still learning how that's going to play out ...

That being said, Patent Trolls are a _major_ threat because there is no "defensive patent" contingency that can be used against them. The embedded/small-device market is becoming extremely litigious as well, which is likely to spill over into Linux usage and growth there.

I think defending against these "pure play" patent threats is more beneficial than tirades and pages and pages of conspiracy theories surrounding MSFT. Like all amoral and schizophrenic corporations they need to be watched, but not at the expense of ignoring armies gathering at the back door ...

Novell sold to Attachmate

Posted Nov 23, 2010 15:54 UTC (Tue) by gnufreex (guest, #70396) [Link]

I don't see why it is important to measure who is biggest threat? I we have to measure, I say MSFT is worse, but that is not so relevant IMHO. You are assuming that Oracle will get a free pass if people don't leave Microsoft alone. Not so. Both can be watched. (And Apple too). Both Oracle and MSFT are threats, they are both bunch of litigious bastards and none of them use patents only defensively. I don't think MSFT would go through the trouble of crating consortium and blowing up $450m only to sit on Novell's patents. Microsoft just crated a patent trolling consortium, it is that obvious. They are creating patent trolls, and their existence now only depends on how much they can squelch free software. See what ex Microsofties are doing when they leave mother ship. They do patent trolling, against Microsoft competitors. Paul Allen and Nathan Myrhwold are biggest examples, but there are more.

You seem to imply that Microsoft is using patents defensively only. I don't think that patent extortion is acceptable or "defensive only". Whey you threaten someone, that is offensive. And I think it is more dangerous to have company go around and suing/extorting GNU/Linux users and OEMs (like Microsoft does regularly), than to sue someone directly and blatantly (like Oracle did). Microsoft should either openly sue and show patents in question, or shut up.

>That being said, Patent Trolls are a _major_ threat because there is no "defensive patent" contingency that can be used against them.

That is why Microsoft is creating shell companies and breading patent trolls. They don't have guts to sue for themselves, so they are using proxies.

Please check the facts first

Posted Nov 24, 2010 21:50 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

The tricky thing with corporations is that they are unpredictable. MSFT, under Bill Gates, was generally anti-patent. Gates publicly warned against software patents.

Wow! Nothing can be further from truth. Here is the actual quote:

PATENTS: If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. I feel certain that some large company will patent some obvious thing related to interface, object orientation, algorithm, application extension or other crucial technique. If we assume this company has no need of any of our patents then the have a 17-year right to take as much of our profits as they want. The solution to this is patent exchanges with large companies and patenting as much as we can. Amazingly we havn't done any patent exchanges tha I am aware of. Amazingly we havn't found a way to use our licensing position to avoid having our own customers cause patent problems for us. I know these aren't simply problems but they deserve more effort by both Legal and other groups. For example we need to do a patent exchange with HP as part of our new relationship. In many application categories straighforward thinking ahead allows you to come up with patentable ideas. A recent paper from the League for Programming Freedom (available from the Legal department) explains some problems with the way patents are applied to software.

Everyone seems to remember first sentence, but not the rest. Microsoft never was anti-patent company. At first it was ignorant, then they discovered dangers and opportunities and embraced them as useful (albeit dangrous) weapons against competition. Note how Bill Gates proposes to use the usual trick again (use monopoly power to muscle it's way into adjacent areas).

So for those reasons it's valid to keep an eye on what MSFT is doing, but also to recognize that - at least for now - they may not be the biggest threat out there.

You are right - but sadly not because Microsoft changed one jot (it's the same untrustworthy bully it always was), but because there are other, more sinister dangers around (Oracle is the biggest one, but Apple is serois enemy too). Remember: former best friend is often the worst enemy - and this certainly applies to Apple and Oracle.

But this is temporary situation: it certainly looks like Microsoft is bound and determined to prove this old adage wrong and to prove that it can win back title of "the worst FOSS enemy".

I think it follows

Posted Nov 24, 2010 23:04 UTC (Wed) by ccurtis (guest, #49713) [Link]

I thought I had posted a followup but apparently I don't know how to use the comment system properly. Sadly, I think it may have clarified my wording.

I think the full quote justifies my belief, but allow me to try to paraphrase my lost response: Software patents are a fact of life for software companies doing business these days. Bill Gates' position is actually the responsible one in the business environment we're living in: the only defense against a software patent claim is to have a large collection of patents yourself - a patent form of mutually assured destruction. The result of this is an oligarchy or an (unintentional) software cartel, but that's due to a bug in the legal system, not Microsoft's behavior wrt patents.

My comment was in relation to Novell's patents - this new company (after the merger and likely IPO in a few years) appears to be a software company, and thus would be in need of a patent portfolio. I also had a rant/warning about patent trolls because they don't participate in the cartel - they, producing nothing, have no need for patent agreement pacts or other legal defense.

[Pondering ... I'm not sure right now if software patent trolls are a long-term good influence or not at this point ... I'm thinking that patents are rarely enforcable against non-commercial infringement. It seems like OSS (GNU-style, anyway) may be effectively exempt. OSS companies, though, are for-profit. They're also easy targets for the trolls to hit first to establish their legitimacy. Thoughts for another day ...]

But back to the point: Gates' words are clearly reactionary, and not of a "here's how we use this to win" nature - they're "here's how we don't get killed". The man is afraid of patent suits not only from competitors, but also from his own customers.