LWN: Comments on "FFII: EU tells open source to start paying MS patent tax"

Open Source != GPL

dmantione — 2007-10-25T04:56:29+00:00

There is no "deal" or "settlement" in the sense of a document with a 
signature of Mrs. Kroes below it. There is a "verdict" from DG 
Competition, and a "verdict" from the EU Court of First Instance, which 
requires Microsoft to publish interoperability information, not patent 
licenses. 
 
Now: 
* DG Competition interprets providing the "information" to competitors 
means any competitors, including open source competitors. Therefore open 
source compatible terms. 
* DG Competition interprets tying patent licenses with the purchase of 
the "information" as not complying with the verdict, especially as DG 
Competition considers the Microsoft protocols not innovative, and 
therefore has serious doubts on the validity of the patents. However, are 
outside the scope of the "verdict". 
* As the current situation is Microsoft has agreed with this 
interpretation. DG Competition has not agreed with Microsofts terms (as 
of yet).

Open Source != GPL

rahvin — 2007-10-24T22:58:37+00:00

The deal was negotiated in a back room with no presence of any of the plantiffs, of which
SAMBA is the sole remaining. This was a brokered deal between Balmer and an EU politico. The
license that has already been released requires the patent license to get the interoperability
info, you can't disclose source and you around bound to audits and other incomprehensible
terms that completely exclude GPL software.

The EU Politico that negotiated the "settlement" bent over and snatched defeat from victory
while listening to the soft promises of Steve Balmer. Just like the US anti-trust was
destroyed by political involvement so was the EU case. Mark my words, Samba will issue a
statement saying the settlement offers them nothing.

Open Source != GPL

dmantione — 2007-10-24T18:13:59+00:00

Hello?? Who was withness in court against Microsoft? Samba's Andrew   
Tridgell. What license does he use?  
  
Why wanted the DG Competition to make the terms open source compatible if  
they were already compatible with the BSD license?  
   
You can be confident that the DG Competition means "interoperability" it 
has compatibility with Samba in mind and will consider anti-GPL 
constructions as "not compliant" with the law.

Obviousness test

dmantione — 2007-10-24T18:06:26+00:00

This is nonsense, since Samba does not use its own protocol but a 
Microsoft protocol and is therefore by definition not a new "invention". 
Microsoft has always implemented any feature before Samba did. 
 
All information not published has to be reverse engineered. For patents, 
it doesn't matter a single bit if it is taken from published or reverse 
engineered information. Therefore, you can just as well buy Microsofts 
new official SMB manuals.

Obviousness test

khim — 2007-10-24T13:10:26+00:00

If you read the documentation you can not claim that something is obvious. If you invent something without reading the documentation - you can claim that it's so simple it does not warrant the patent. Weak defense, yes, but weak defense is still better then none...

Why should they ?

khim — 2007-10-24T13:07:35+00:00

Microsoft is writing the documentation for existing products, not makes the products in adherence to the documentation...

Story with OOXML is the same...

Open Source != GPL

khim — 2007-10-24T13:05:59+00:00

Three-clause BSD license is compatible with almost anything - and it's open source. Microsoft can (and probably will) construct the license to specifically exclude GPL - Microsoft did so in the past and also claimed that "it's compatible with open source licenses"...

Take a look on SenderID fiasco...

FFII: EU tells open source to start paying MS patent tax

nim-nim — 2007-10-24T08:06:19+00:00

Due to how patent laws are written, it does not matter if developers look at the documentation
or not. If they implement something covered by a patent, they can be sued even if they came up
with it by themselves in isolation.

FFII: EU tells open source to start paying MS patent tax

soul_rebel — 2007-10-24T07:47:57+00:00

WRONG WRONG WRONG!  
  
quote from the EC' FAQ:  
<  
Can open source software developers implement patented interoperability  
information?  
  
 Open source software developers use various "open source" licences to  
distribute their software. Some of these licences are incompatible with  
the patent licence offered by Microsoft. It is up to the commercial open  
source distributors to ensure that their software products do not infringe  
upon Microsoft's patents. If they consider that one or more of Microsoft's  
patents would apply to their software product, they can either design  
around these patents, challenge their validity or take a patent licence  
from Microsoft.  
>  
  
The GPLv3 explicitly states that you may not implement features covered be  
external patent licenses. Therefor these features cant be implemented in 
GPLed Software.  
  
What is even worse is that once Samba has a look at the Documentation they  
cant even reverse engineer the stuff, because MS will sue for patent  
infringement or demand the paying of fees from Distributors of Samba (any  
major GNU/Linux Distro) claiming that the features were not  
reverse-engineneered but implemented from docu.  
This will create major legal insecurity for Distributors further harming  
the reputation of free software. AND this although there legally arent any  
Software patents in Europe.  
  
So this actually IS A DISASTER.  
  
I can only recommend to all projects NOT to follow or even look at the  
documentation.

FFII: EU tells open source to start paying MS patent tax

dmantione — 2007-10-23T22:57:28+00:00

I agree Microsofts promises cannot be trusted too easily, but as I read 
it has agreed to make the license "compatible with open source". In such 
case it would have to violate the current agreement and therefore put 
itself vulnerable to further intervention by the DG Competition.

FFII: EU tells open source to start paying MS patent tax

chaneau — 2007-10-23T16:44:43+00:00

Well there be a difference between reverse engineered information and information from Microsoft manuals? No.

Well probably yes, I remember reading one the developer of Samba saying that they could not rely on the technical documentation provided by Microsoft , but had to code "from the wire" and be bug to bug compatible, otherwise it did not work. Apparently, Microsoft can't follow it's own documentation.

FFII: EU tells open source to start paying MS patent tax

ipes — 2007-10-23T15:25:20+00:00

Samba no longer has to reverse engineer.

That will very much depend on the license. And since it's Microsoft that writes it, don't expect it to be acceptable for Samba or any other FOSS project.

FFII: EU tells open source to start paying MS patent tax

dmantione — 2007-10-23T14:52:57+00:00

More BS. 
 
EU didn't tell anything to open source. EU told something to Microsoft. 
 
Is Samba in danger of Microsoft patents? Yes. 
 
Has it been able to evade them? Yes 
 
Will this change? No. 
 
Well there be a difference between reverse engineered information and 
information from Microsoft manuals? No. 
 
That's it. Samba no longer has to reverse engineer. Other than this, 
nothing has changed.

Will this hurt Samba?

georgm — 2007-10-23T13:59:42+00:00

Samba is free.

And 0.4 percent of 0 is 0.

Ok, they will get 10k once (what is a shame), but not any more from that...