Microsoft to Linux: Pay Up ('Cause, You Know, It Worked so Well for SCO)

Another one for the you gotta be kidding me files. "People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us," Ballmer said last week at a company event in London discussing online services in the UK. Oh no he didn't!

Microsoft aims patent guns at Red Hat

'You're violating our IP, now pay up,' Ballmer theatens

Tom Sanders in California, vnunet.com 09 Oct 2007

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has warned users of Red Hat Linux that they will have to pay Microsoft for its intellectual property.

"People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us," Ballmer said last week at a company event in London discussing online services in the UK.

A video report of Ballmer's speech (registration required) was posted on Mydeo over the weekend.

Red Hat has repeatedly stated that it will engage in a patent licensing deal similar to the Novell-Microsoft partnership, referring to its as an 'innovation tax'.

Microsoft has been the second most aggressive party in pursuing alleged intellectual property claims against Linux and open source in general.

The firm ranks behind SCO, which failed in its attempt to prove that it owns the intellectual property to Linux and now faces bankruptcy.

Microsoft inked a partnership with Novell last year in which Novell agreed to license Microsoft's intellectual property in exchange for a patent pledge to users of Novell's SuSE Linux.

Ballmer praised Novell at the UK event for valuing intellectual property, and suggested that open source vendors will be forced to strike similar deals with other patent holders.

He predicted that firms like Eolas will soon come after open source vendors or users. Microsoft paid $521m to settle a patent claim by Eolas in August.

"Every time an Eolas comes to Microsoft and says: 'Pay us,' I expect they eventually would like to go to the open source world [as well]," said Ballmer.

"Getting an intellectual property interoperability framework between the two worlds, I think, is important."

Microsoft supported the (rejected) European software patent directive, which would have allowed software patents to be filed within the EU.

Software patents are permitted in the US today. But poor oversight and quality control at the US Patent and Trademark Office allow for many 'bad' patents to be awarded.

Patent critics argue that software does not need long term protection by patents. Development costs of software innovations require fewer investments than for mechanical or pharmaceutical innovations.

Today's cutting edge innovations, furthermore, are reduced to commodities in a matter of a few months or years.

Repeating his call for software patents, Ballmer argued for a limited reform of the US patent system.

"The thing I worry about is that people will want to throw the baby out with the bath water and say: 'Let's just get rid of this.' That would be a terrible thing for innovation in companies large and small," he said.

"Reform makes sense, but we should make sure that it facilitates innovation in our industry as well as others."

In related news, a Linux group has challenged Microsoft to produce the patents or shut up.

Linux group calls Microsoft's bluff

Show us the patents

Iain Thomson, vnunet.com 04 Oct 2007

The head of the Open Invention Network (OIN) has dismissed Microsoft's claims that Linux violates over 200 of its patents.

OIN chief executive Jerry Rosenthal told vnunet.com that Microsoft's assertions are simply an attempt to undermine the open source movement.

Rosenthal added that it is time for Microsoft to reveal the patents that are supposedly being infringed, or to drop the claims.

"The FUD is clear. If you have a patent that you are proud of, then disclose it," he said.

"If your patent is a good patent then you are not worried about revealing it before going to court because you would be confident of success."

Rosenthal believes that, if there are grounds for patent infringement, there would either be easy workarounds or the open source community would find 'prior art' which would invalidate the patent.

Rosenthal pledged to continue the work of the OIN as a protective measure until Microsoft stopped such tactics.

OIN buys patents on the open market and makes them available to companies royalty free, so long as those companies pledge never to use their own patents to attack open source code.

The organisation was set up by IBM, NEC, Novell, Philips, Red Hat and Sony and has a war chest of millions of dollars.

Mark Taylor, president of the Open Source Consortium, agreed with Rosenthal and described Microsoft's tactics in damning terms.

"We say show us the patents," he told vnunet.com. "This has been the strategy against open source all along. It's precisely the same tactics as SCO used: implied threats and mafia techniques. This is just FUD. It's smoke and mirrors. "

Taylor added that Microsoft is sorely mistaken if it hopes that its actions will slow down the spread of open source.

Laurant Lachal, open source research director at research firm Ovum, said: " Microsoft is too easy a bogeyman in this kind of situation.

"It is true that Microsoft is using FUD to attack open source, but the software industry has traditionally used FUD as a tactic. It is a normal way of doing business. IBM started it back when it was the powerhouse."

There should be register where you can look up what patents are owned by whom without disclosing too much at the same time. Or is there?
I find it strange in this debate that MS always seems to allude to certain patents and obviously the other side guesses which ones are meant, but MS doesn't want to tell which ones exactly in fear of disclosing secrets? BS, I say, it's just to build up pressure.

Very predictable. Vista turns out to be, shall we say not all that great and M$ turn their guns on to GNU/Linux...

It was a few months ago when M$ stated that Linux violated their IP (~230 patents, IIRC), and Linux providers needed to sign on or have their legs broken. At the time, the Linux community said "What IP is being infringed?" M$ was silent, knowing that even if it had a case, the community would just code up solutions that got around the supposed infringement. Now, having sat on it's claims for a couple of months (and apparently, for a few more), never having informed the community of the specific infringements, they have endangered their case (if they had one) to a laches defense.

Basically, if they had a case, they would have stated it and forced the Linux community to remove the infringement from their distros, if this was not done quickly enough, lawsuits would follow for damages. Instead (since they probably don't have a case), they are just trying to extort money from the Linux folks. It's good to see that the community is telling Ballmer to go throw a chair.

It would be funny if IBM tossed it's lawyers into the fray. I hear they have a few that know how to fight these cases. ~D

You know Bungie split off from MS this week, Vista sales are stinking things up, complaints abound about the new Office, and now MS is trying the old 'We own you,' lawsuit? Sounds like there's trouble in Gatesland. Should be pretty interesting to see how deep the Ballmer-hole goes. :2thumbsup:

Yeah, I hope they go bankrupt and have to take down all their XP and Vista activation servers. :2thumbsup:

Looks as though Microsoft is once again using a sock puppet to attack Linux. Read the details.