Great for linux, what about everyone else?

I'm using linux almost exclusively on my desktop, but what about all the other operating systems that are use open source or free software licenses? What about all the variants of BSD, and numerous niche operating systems? When I think about it Open Invention Network isn't very open...

I would hate to see some great open source projects eventually getting killed by a bunch of big corporations, because OIN(or anyone else for that matter), felt like defending the underdog. Like I said - I use linux - but I have a choice, I can switch to NetBSD, Haiku or whatever else I feel like - and I don't want this choice to be taken away from me.

It's great that linux is developing at such a fast pace recently, but this is just one more time that the guys from Linux Foundation and some other related organizations do things that leave me with a strange feeling that they're actually pretty selfish(yes it sounds kind of strange to me too).

I'm really thinking about switching to BSD now.

Absolutely Agree With The Linux Foundation Guy

I also think that we should ask the USA to behave like a responsible and benevolent global citizen, for governments worldwide to act in the best interests of their citizenry instead of themselves and while we are at it, wouldn't it be neat if everybody all just got along and was nice to each other.

Chess game...

This is a Chess game... but however clever Zemlin and Torwalds are... MS is very clever too, and won't give anyone any advantage unless provides a benefit for MS.

The match will go on for years to come...

fuck off Torvalds

Torvalds needs to realize it's not a "disease of hating Microsoft", but that it is instead justified objections to a company that has, over the past 30 years, used almost every dirty trick in the book (and a few that aren't in there) to further its own interests at the expense of damn near everything else. It has destroyed not just companies, but lives in their quest to crush their competition by any means, even illegal ones. A company that started out by selling something they didn't own - which is illegal - and grew to deliberately using a de-facto monopoly to crush competition in other fields - which is also illegal.

So although I admire the work Torvalds does coordinating Linux, he can take flying fuck if he thinks that I, amongst others, are going to ever start trusting that pile of evil bullshit called Microsoft.

LOL

Well, maybe MS will do that, but i wont hold my breath waiting.

What i would prefer is of MS just to come out and say exactly which patents Linux infringes on so the community can either laugh at them in the face, or if indeed there is an infringement then the code can be changed so as to remove the infringement.

Intellectual property is a sham anyway. How can ideas be property? Can you imagine if this sort of crap existed thousands of years ago?

Caveman 1: "Hey guys, ive just patented this idea for making a round wooden thing with a hole through the middle. I put this stick through it and attach 4 of these to a few other bits of wood. Look, it can now carry lots of things and be moved with little effort..... right, if you want to make one of these yourself you must give me some money"

Caveman 2: "Whats money?"

Caveman 1: "Ah! Thats my other patented idea"

Caveman 3: <Smashes Caveman 1 over the head and steals invention>

It'll never happen.

Quote: "Send a message to the developer community that cares about this that Microsoft is a company that will compete on how will they innovate and not on a patent portfolio."

Since when has MS ever competed by doing something innovative? It simply isn't how they operate, or even possible for them to do so. Their entire MO is to stifle innovation and extinguish it wherever possible in favour of their own antique software.

It'll never happen.

No way

I can't see Microsoft do that. Not because of any disliking of the linux community, but because it poses a real threat to them.

This would basically allow (for instance) Google to reverse engeneer Windows and put all the bits it likes into a free Chrome OS. Not bad for end users, but terrible for Microsoft itsself.

Also Microsoft currently rules the business end of computing. Giving up their patent rights would make it more viable for others to enter the market with similar code.

Not that this would not be good for everyone. More choice, cheaper software etc. Microsoft remains a business run by financial motives. There seems to be no reason that alligns with their financial motives to remove their patents (development they spent billions on).

dunno...

Personally, I don't feel that MS (or anyone) should agree to give up all [software] patents. Protection for specific inventions should not be thrown away casually.

What should happen is that software patents should have a stricter narrower definition.

And those current patents that then fall outside of this (including existing MS ones) should be removed.

What rubbish

"An Intellectual Ventures spokesperson told The Reg: "As part of our portfolio management responsibilities, we do regularly sort through our inventions to ensure the assets we hold apply to our primary areas of business."

OUR inventions? Hah! That is just the problem, they invent nothing.

Their primary area of business? Squeezing money out of hardworking people and companies and at the same holding back real innovations and harming the real economy.

One change to the rotten patent system is needed --> make patents NON-transferable! Only the original inventor (and I'm using the word in a loose sense here) can enforce - or not - his patents. All these leeches will immediately be out of 'business'.

WTF

"Microsoft's earned the respect of certain sections of the open-source community for its engineering work around open-source and Linux."

What on earth is this bloke talking about? Are you new on this whole OS thing?

Do not sleep with the enemy

MS seems to have been caught by i4i for flagrant patent infringement. And this proprietary stuff is in the ISO "standard" for OOXML! Surely it is now time for ISO to revoke that standard and tell MS to take a long walk off a very short pier.

MS were nearly caught for breach of the GPL, but the OpenSaucers allowed MS to turn it into a PR win. The morons. MS should have had its balls placed in a vice and squeezed until they popped.

Given how MS started life (a bit of an, err, "odd" deal for Q-DOS) there is a very clear pattern to their operations and that is take, take, take. You will note the lack of "give".

There must be no co-operation from the OpenSource community towards MS, Linus is so wrong with his current stance that it beggars belief. This is just another MS tactic to be their "embrace, extend, extinguish" operation. The OpenSource community should just sit back and watch MS get turned over and do everything in its power (e.g. appeal to ISO for the revoking of the OOXML "standard") to ensure that the mud sticks good and hard.

Torvalds

Is right and wrong at the same time.

No point in hating everything Microsoft and working towards good interop, etc., but anything contributed by them is likely infected by proprietary IP (maybe not even Microsoft's!) and should be treated as the kernel-tainting trojan horse that it is. Only this sort of stance will guarantee we continue to have the choices we have today.

Patent troll alert.

Mutually Assured Destruction

An earlier poster had it aright comparing software patents to nuclear weapons. Microsoft can't and probably shouldn't grant such a waiver. Instead what we need is a process of disarmament across all the big players - i.e. start overturning software patents.

Paris, because I link her icon even when I can't think of a connection to the story.

Patents v Copyright

Let's not forget that copyright lasts a lot longer than patents, and the act of registering a patent means you have to describe your idea sufficiently so that other people know not to copy it. So by patenting something you are placing at least part of your idea in the public domain. A patent is supposed to be nothing more than a head start over everybody else, to protect your initial investment. Copyright protects the nuts and bolts of how you did it. That is why the likes of the Ordinance Survey make plans with deliberate errors, so they can easily prove that a map was copied.

Obscurity

The thing that get me is that no one realised M$ was infringing on GPL until it released the code. Yet M$ could always view the open source code for possible intellectual property issues. They have a natural unfair advantage. We all know their past track record. How could you not think there was a strategic repositioning in play.

It's not a disease, it's a sane and rational response.

> "Torvalds called on people to get over their disease of hating Microsoft."

As the subject lines says, it's not a disease. Microsoft is a source of harm to me; that is to say, their interests are inimical to mine, and they are constantly taking actions in pusuit of their self-interest that harms my self-interest. On any remotely sane interpretation of how psychology is supposed to work for rational living beings, I ought to regard Microsoft as an enemy like any other predator that can harm me. So I do.

Linus Torvalds' self-interest may be predicated on some other kind of interaction with Microsoft, but most of us aren't in his position. He might be obliged to play the kind of politics and diplomacy that requires kow-towing to huge corporate interests, but the rest of us don't, and thus have the luxury of acting rationally and with personal integrity in our beliefs.

Patent descriptions

Let's not forget that while the letter of the law requires patents be adequately described, the people reading those descriptions have historically not had the necessary background to understand a software patent description, and thus software patents have not had any enforcement in the description requirement.

I've looked over many software patents in the past ten years; the only one which had an adequate description was the 'ISNOT' patent. Note that the ISNOT patent was not bounced out of the process the day it was filed like it should've been.

As far as trusting Microsoft - I pay attention to history, especially when I was around for it. Those that trust Microsoft end up paying for it.

Put me in the "diseased" camp then.

Microsoft has set the IT world back by at least 5 years and so they gain my distrust and anger. Until their poisonous products are removed from corporate desktops the world over those using computers will be forced to jump through hoops just to get functionality which could be easily implemented and widespread.

The operating system I am using right now, which was originally developed by Torvalds, would be much easier to use if it weren't for Microsoft's monopoly.

I'm almost paranoid enough to wonder if Torvalds has been the recipient of an offer of some kind from Microsoft.

Ballmer

has a big mouth, but if he can't provide evidence after (how many ?)years, then why is anyone doing any worrying ?

A FUD expert is all he is.