Post by thread:[OT] Microsoft demands royalties for open-source s

This patent mess leaves us with this: - Incorporate. - Make an honest attempt to find and pay royalties on code you use in your product. - If contacted by patent holder, make an honest attempt to work something out. - When it gets insane, fold up, bankrupt the company, sell the assets to your wife/cousin/friend, move the office, re-incorporate. - Repeat as needed. In other words, this crap makes criminals out of anyone who wants to make a living as a programmer. What else are you going to do? If you fight, the lawyers win. I do hope the open source people find away around it. --- James. P.S. I've never done that, but I've seen it done twice now. The first time was not so honest but the second time was very much so. > {Original Message removed}

James Newtons Massmind wrote: {Quote hidden}> This patent mess leaves us with this: > > - Incorporate. > > - Make an honest attempt to find and pay royalties on code you use in your > product. > > - If contacted by patent holder, make an honest attempt to work something > out. > > - When it gets insane, fold up, bankrupt the company, sell the assets to > your wife/cousin/friend, move the office, re-incorporate. > > - Repeat as needed. > > > > In other words, this crap makes criminals out of anyone who wants to make a > living as a programmer. What else are you going to do? If you fight, the > lawyers win. > > I do hope the open source people find away around it. I haven't read the *Fine* article but: Slashdot: Sue me first: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/21/229219 I did read another article (can't find the link) where they spoke with various customers (O.S. and other) and some basically said that they what MS was doing amounted to nothing because MS has been doing nothing. So it looks like this round of FUD isn't going as well as MS has hoped. But there is still something bothering me about this whole thing. What' MS really up to? They had to know that they would get this kind of reaction. Something else is up I just haven't figured out what yet. I hope someone does, soon. -- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry spam_OUTncherryTakeThisOuTlinuxha.com http://www.linuxha.com/ Main site http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog Author of: Linux Smart Homes For Dummies

Neil Cherry <ncherry <at> comcast.net> writes: > But there is still something bothering me about this whole thing. > What' MS really up to? They had to know that they would get this > kind of reaction. Something else is up I just haven't figured > out what yet. I hope someone does, soon. I don't think that they are up to something specific. It's a wave type of system where there is pressure from one side and opposition from the other. When something changes there is some trashing and then the equilibrium resettles soon after that. The losers are those caught in the momentary upheaval. The lawyers and the stock operators always win. The lawyers get paid no matter who wins and the stock operators get a nice cut on the ensuing swift trade's margins, also no matter who wins or loses. Sometimes, rarely, the upheaval leaves some marks in the judicial system, in the form of an invalidated patent, or of an enforced license. Peter P.

On Mon, 21 May 2007 09:37:10 -0600, Robert Rolf wrote: > FYI > > www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyId=89&articleId=9019238&intsrc=hm_topic > > Also see > > http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/3937 > > But what I found more interesting (on above page) is that Microsoft's FAT patent is invalid, > so using FAT with PIC's (flash cards) is no longer a patent infringement. Of course, this is a mainly American problem, since most of the rest of the World doesn't have patents on software. They tried to slip it in in Europe last year, but it was soundly beaten. Won't stop them trying again, of course! Cheers, Howard Winter St.Albans, England

{Quote hidden}> > FYI > > > > > www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasi > > c&taxonomyId=89&articleId=9019238&intsrc=hm_topic > > > > Also see > > > > http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/3937 > > > > But what I found more interesting (on above page) is that > Microsoft's > > FAT patent is invalid, so using FAT with PIC's (flash > cards) is no longer a patent infringement. > > Of course, this is a mainly American problem, since most of > the rest of the World doesn't have patents on software. They > tried to slip it in in Europe last year, but it was soundly > beaten. Won't stop them trying again, of course! Wouldn't the copyright on FAT have expired anyway by now? Tony

The guy who propagated the software patents so hard here in Europe is now the French president, so will see. Tamas On 5/22/07, Howard Winter <.....HDRWKILLspam@spam@h2org.demon.co.uk> wrote: {Quote hidden}> > On Mon, 21 May 2007 09:37:10 -0600, Robert Rolf wrote: > > > FYI > > > > > www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyId=89&articleId=9019238&intsrc=hm_topic > > > > Also see > > > > http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/3937 > > > > But what I found more interesting (on above page) is that Microsoft's > FAT patent is invalid, > > so using FAT with PIC's (flash cards) is no longer a patent > infringement. > > Of course, this is a mainly American problem, since most of the rest of > the World doesn't have patents on software. They tried to slip it in in > Europe > last year, but it was soundly beaten. Won't stop them trying again, of > course! > > Cheers, > > > Howard Winter > St.Albans, England > > > -

On 5/22/07, Tamas Rudnai <tamas.rudnaiKILLspamgmail.com> wrote: > > The guy who propagated the software patents so hard here in Europe is now > the French president, so will see. > > Tamas > Oh no! Does that mean that he has a pricetag on his head? Nothing new for france though, if I may believe some of my french friends. Sean

On 5/29/07, Sean Schouten <.....dev.seantechKILLspam.....gmail.com> wrote: > Oh no! Does that mean that he has a pricetag on his head? Nothing new for > france though, if I may believe some of my french friends. The first thing he did was going on a $200k prepaid vacation with his family. The frenchies went into rage because of this, since $200k is pretty much more than Joe Random makes for salary for an entire life. The president's simple replied was "I really can't see the problem". So, what this goat will turn the EU into is yet to observe. -- - Rikard - http://bos.hack.org/cv/

At 08:10 PM 5/21/07 -0400, Neil Cherry wrote: >But there is still something bothering me about this whole thing. >What' MS really up to? They had to know that they would get this >kind of reaction. Something else is up I just haven't figured >out what yet. I hope someone does, soon. I looked at the Computerworld article, and thought about this, "...the Redmond, Washington, software company signed a Linux deal with Novell Inc. that indemnifies the company against Microsoft patent claims over Linux. Last week, Dell Inc. joined the deal, becoming the first hardware vendor to do so. " Has MS traded "protection" for some agreement (like not distributing OSS)? Maybe IBM can hire everyone in the country at no pay, thereby extending the protection to all of us. Barry

Barry Gershenfeld wrote: {Quote hidden}>At 08:10 PM 5/21/07 -0400, Neil Cherry wrote: > > >>But there is still something bothering me about this whole thing. >>What' MS really up to? They had to know that they would get this >>kind of reaction. Something else is up I just haven't figured >>out what yet. I hope someone does, soon. >> >> > >I looked at the Computerworld article, and thought about this, > >"...the Redmond, Washington, software company signed a Linux deal with >Novell Inc. that indemnifies the company against Microsoft patent claims >over Linux. Last week, Dell Inc. joined the deal, becoming the first >hardware vendor to do so. " > >Has MS traded "protection" for some agreement (like not distributing OSS)? > >Maybe IBM can hire everyone in the country at no pay, thereby extending the >protection to all of us. > >Barry > > > Sounds like a high-tech protection racket -- sign-up and we wouldn't beat you up. David

On Tue, 2007-05-29 at 13:15 -0700, David P Harris wrote: > Barry Gershenfeld wrote: > >Has MS traded "protection" for some agreement (like not distributing OSS)? > > > >Maybe IBM can hire everyone in the country at no pay, thereby extending the > >protection to all of us. > > > >Barry > > > > > > > Sounds like a high-tech protection racket -- sign-up and we wouldn't > beat you up. Exactly. This sort of thing sounds EXACTLY like the "protection money" some people have to pay to certain organizations. All it proves to me is MS KNOWS that if it tries to actually litigate it's "patents", they will likely be thrown out of court and their patents invalidated. So, it's using fear to get as much money as it can (sound familiar?) for as long as it can. If I wasn't so sure of MS before, this sort of behaviour seals the deal IMHO. TTYL

I read the whole thing-and it all seems perfectly logical to me. If Bill drops a 100 dollar bill on the ground, it costs him more top bend over and pick it up then it would for him to pretend he never realized it and go on with his business::> Seriously though, it's about market share. Bill wants miscrosft to be known to the world, even in places that don't have electrical power to run computers on. If it has anything remotely to do wioth computers, it has to be associated with Bill. Patents are not necessarily moneymakers for him, but are a means of advertising and publicity. In the end, Bill will own the world unless we stop him soon. Eventually he will just step up to the MAN and ask 'how much to buy the world?' When he gets the answer, he will simply say 'fine, it's a deal, I brought cash'. Microsoft is not about software, it's about owning (or controlling) the world. Enjoy. Shields up. Art

On 5/29/07, Art <EraseMEKY1Kspam_OUTTakeThisOuTverizon.net> wrote: > In the end, Bill will own the world unless we stop him soon. > Eventually he will just step up to the MAN and ask 'how much to buy > the world?' When he gets the answer, he will simply say 'fine, it's a > deal, I brought cash'. > > Microsoft is not about software, it's about owning (or controlling) the > world. > > Enjoy. Shields up. > > Art Well... maybe us Europeans should watch out step because maybe, just maybe, Bill (evil genius?) has this humongous red button situated right in the middle of his desk, labeled; "drench Europe in a load of muck and havoc". This big, red and obviously evil button will crash all windows based computer systems on which we rely for our daily needs. The only obvious good thing that can come of this is that we will be forced to pay him royalties in potatoes and sand, because he also just unwittingly liquidated our bank balance! This little imaginary story of mine makes me wonder if HE has HIS financial systems running under vista? Sean P.S: If it really does happen and the water at your local supermarket is sold out, try buying milk. We had this e-coli-in-the-watersupply scare a couple of weeks ago and all the bottled water was sold out. I noticed that the milk was plentiful though.

On 5/30/07, Sean Schouten <dev.seantechspam_OUTgmail.com> wrote: > P.S: If it really does happen and the water at your local supermarket is > sold out, try buying milk. We had this e-coli-in-the-watersupply scare a > couple of weeks ago and all the bottled water was sold out. I noticed that > the milk was plentiful though. Good advice! -- - Rikard - http://bos.hack.org/cv/