Posted on 10/20/2008 7:40:18 AM PDT by ShadowAce
Ina Fried has an interview with "Microsoft's top intellectual property lawyer", Horacio Gutierrez, and Gutierrez directly threatens to sue any company, like Red Hat, that refuses to sell out and do a patent deal like the one Novell signed up for:
"If every effort to license proves not to be fruitful, ultimately we have a responsibility to customers that have licenses and to our shareholders to ensure our intellectual property is respected," he said.So, more threats to try to force Red Hat to sign a deal that violates the GPL and that the GPLv3 makes very interesting in effects for Microsoft. I almost hope they mean it this time. Talk about anticompetitive use of patents, though. Nothing but the destruction of the FOSS development model and chosen license structure will do. No one I know, including FOSS lawyers, is losing any sleep over these threats.
In an effort to help head off patent disputes, Microsoft is an investor in Nathan Myrhvold's patent-buying Intellectual Ventures effort and has also made deals with several other such patent companies. "We've done deals with a number of others," Gutierrez said.OOOOh. Scary. The giant eats babies. Quick, do whatever he tells you!! Puh lease. The last straw sinking companies clutch at is patent lawsuits and other "IP" litigation to bring up the bottom line, when they see they can't win fair and square with products people actually want.
But what is clearer to me now is that Microsoft is apparently determined to control or destroy FOSS as we know it. And they think patents give them the power to do it. What I think will really happen is a whole mess of litigation, including some antitrust claims. I don't rule out Red Hat's ability to be legally creative, of course, but no one can do a Novell-style deal again, with respect to GPLv3 code, without triggering results [PDF] I am sure Microsoft would not wish for.
Slow news decade fro Groklaw?
IBM would unleash their army of lawyers on MS.
IBM has an impressive array of software patents...it’s certain MS is using many of them without permission.
Mutually assured destruction.
Software patents are evil....
Exsqeeze me? What the heck would MicroShaft have to sue Red Hat over?
I imagine the Nazgul would chew up and spit out Microsoft’s best. They’ve been playing hardball for a long time.
If MS was successful, the FOSS movement would move offshore—possibly centering itself in China.
Thanks for the comments so far—I’m gonna be on the road for the next 8+ hours, so don’t think I’m ignoring anyone. :)
To get or renew a patent today is a horrible mess of red tape and expense.
I am not a big corporation basher, but they are the only ones, who can afford to patent something today.
I let three lapse, because I won't recover the cost of renewing them.
Oh, the desktop bitmap background is blue, just like in Windoze.
But seriously, who knows? Perhaps some obscure code structure or sequence that Micr'soft patented long ago, that only Micr'soft knows about, that's been allowed into wide use just for this kind of exercise. Doesn't necessarily mean that MS would win the suit, but it could tie things up in the courts for years. See SCO vs. IBM.
These people need to start filing countersuits with a vengeance.
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