Microsoft

Microsoft has halted distribution of its Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool after questions were raised as to whether the software utility makes improper use of open-source code. The tool is designed to help owners of Windows XP-based Netbooks get Windows 7 onto their machines.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft has halted distribution of a tool aimed at making it easier to put Windows 7 on Netbooks amid allegations that the utility makes improper use of open-source code.

The software maker said on Tuesday that it has pulled down the Windows USB/DVD Tool while it investigates the issue, which was raised last week by Windows blogger Rafael Rivera on his Within Windows blog.

In his blog post, Rivera said Microsoft appears to use code from a tool called ImageMaster that is licensed under the GPLv2 open-source license. The General Public License, like other open-source licenses, allows code to be freely used by others, but has its own set of terms and conditions, such as sharing any modifications made to the code.

Microsoft confirmed it has launched a review of the matter and taken the utility off its online Microsoft Store until that inquiry has been completed.

"Microsoft is looking into this issue and is taking down the (Windows 7 updating) tool from the Microsoft Store site until its review is complete," the company said in a statement. "We apologize to our customers for any inconvenience."

Though somewhat arcane, the utility is important because it solves a technical challenge in upgrading the operating system on Netbooks and other PCs without an optical drive.

Microsoft had been exploring for months different ways of trying to help users of Windows XP-based Netbooks move to Windows 7. The tool, which was released last month alongside Windows 7, allows users to take a downloadable copy of the operating system and create a bootable drive.

The issue is also a thorn in Microsoft's efforts to show that it can play nice with the open-source community. As ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley notes, this isn't the first time Microsoft has been accused of misusing GPL code.

The latest dust-up comes as Microsoft is celebrating the third anniversary of its deal with Novell, one of Microsoft's biggest--and most controversial--efforts to blend its world with the open-source world.

Under that deal, Microsoft agreed not to sue Novell customers for their use of its Linux distributions.

Microsoft has also released a number of products under various open-source licenses itself, though typically not under the GPL, which it sees as one of the more restrictive licenses. Redmond has been particularly critical of terms in version 3 of the GPL.

The software maker did release a few Linux drivers under GPLv2, although it appears its hand may have been forced there. Some have suggested the drivers contained GPL code, meaning that they would have necessarily needed to be released back under the GPL.

Microsoft has taken a number of different approaches to open-source software, particularly Linux. The software maker has at times accepted the notion of a heterogeneous world where Linux and Windows co-exist, pledging to do better to make sure IT administrators can manage mixed environments.

At other times, Microsoft executives have lashed out, painting open-source software as violating hundreds of Microsoft patents. In its lawsuit against TomTom earlier this year, Microsoft for the first time made those accusations in court, alleging that TomTom's implementation of Linux in its GPS systems infringed on Microsoft patents. The two companies quickly settled the matter, although terms were not disclosed.

Given the beating Microsoft has taken lately, it's impressive that Microsoft still ranks third in Interbrand's "Best Global Brands 2009" report. Given Microsoft's still-robust brand, what should the company be doing to rejuvenate key areas of its business?

Only IBM (2nd) and Coca-Cola rank higher than Microsoft, and Google (7th) and Intel (9th) trail by a considerable margin. Apple, for all its sex appeal, barely scrapes into the top 20. Such resilience is all the more striking, given Microsoft's less-than-stellar year, as the report suggests:

2009 marks the first year-on-year decline in Microsoft's public history, despite a game console division that continues to be profitable. As the market matures, the giant faces stiff competition from faster, quicker rivals.

In terms of browsing, Microsoft's Internet Explorer has dropped 10 percentage points in market share every two years, while Mozilla Firefox gains 10 percentage points in the same time period. Additionally, a $300 million ad campaign featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates could have fared better with audiences.

However, Microsoft's Bing, a new search engine that launched in June to great reviews, is poised to give Google a real run for its money.

(Credit: Interbrand)

The technology elite may have given up on Microsoft, but the general consumer public apparently has not. What can Microsoft do to further burnish its brand and improve its financial results?

1. Throw bling at Bing. Google dominates search to a degree reminiscent of Microsoft's dominance in software for personal computers. Bing, however, has rejuvenated Microsoft's search market share by taking a different, innovative slant on search. Microsoft failed at its me-too Live search competition with Google. It needs to continue to differentiate and innovate.
2. Ratchet up its investment in the Xbox. The Xbox makes Microsoft look cool to a class of consumer that is either too young or too cool to buy Microsoft's "desktop" software. The Xbox positions Microsoft as a leader in an industry that doesn't do much to strengthen its personal-computer or server businesses but does wonders for its cachet.
3. Accelerate its interaction with open-source companies and developers, and in more positive ways. Years ago, Microsoft made a show of working with SugarCRM and a few other open-source companies. Since that time, the only real "partnership" announcements out of Redmond relate to patent-licensing agreements. This is the wrong message to be sending, as it positions Microsoft as a predator, not as a partner.
   
   Open source need not be a threat to Microsoft, even if individual projects like Linux are. The company's blunt message needs more nuance, and whispering "peace" while yelling "war" (or even the inverse) is not adequate. Microsoft needs open-source communities working with it, not against it.

These are just a few ideas. I'd love to hear yours, particularly with regard to open source.

The reality is that Microsoft struggles to see beyond Linux, when it discusses open source, and this is a mistake, on its part. I have no problem with Microsoft's sanctification of intellectual property, but this insistence on intellectual property leads the company to throw out all sorts of benefits it could be deriving from open source.

Those benefits could include low-cost distribution, an expanded partner ecosystem, external developer review and contributions to its products, Microsoft technology as the center of the world's fastest-growing developer communities, and more.

Microsoft seems to have its game together on Bing and the Xbox, and it increasingly does better in open source. But it has a long way to go, and it needs to realize that the open-source question isn't about peace and love. It's about capitalism.

Open source can drive greater revenue for the company by making Windows much more appealing. There's no reason that Windows, rather than Linux, shouldn't be the default platform for open source--that is, no reason other than Microsoft itself.

Microsoft has created the nonprofit CodePlex Foundation to target increased communication between open-source communities and software companies.

Citing an under-representation of commercial software companies and their employees in open source, the CodePlex Foundation aims to work with particular projects to bridge the gap between the open-source and commercial worlds.

The Redmond giant has contributed $1 million to the foundation and has filled out its board and advisory panel with many Microsoft staffers, including Sam Ramji, who is leaving Microsoft as its open-source point man but is also becoming CodePlex Foundation's interim president.

Unlike other open-source foundations, such as the Mozilla Foundation and GNOME Foundation, the foundation said on its Web site that it intends to address the full spectrum of software projects.

This is an unexpected and interesting move from Redmond. Don't think that this is completely like other open-source foundations that you may be used to, though.

Take this line from the Codeplex Foundation FAQ: "We wanted a foundation that addresses a full spectrum of software projects, and does so with the licensing and intellectual property needs of commercial software companies in mind."

Add to this that the About page states that companies will contribute code, not patents, and that is what I think will stop the existing open-source community from going anywhere near the CodePlex Foundation.

I can't see any patent-encumbered CodePlex project being accepted into, or contributing code into, any large existing open-source project while still having the patent specter looming overhead--it's something that the open-source community has tried to avoid whenever possible.

But this is probably not that audience that the foundation is aiming for--it's more likely to target purely Microsoft companies/developers and attempt to get them to open up a little. Allowing these companies to keep their patents will make it easier for them to engage in the Microsoft ecosystem but not in the wider open source world.

Chris Duckett of ZDNet Australia reported from Sydney.

Old dogs may struggle with new tricks, but they seem to be able to figure out new licenses.

In a shocking move, Microsoft announced Monday the release of Hyper-V Linux Integration Components (LinuxIC).

The news reflects Microsoft's continued interest in lobotomizing its virtualization competition through low prices, but also the recognition that it must open up if it wants to fend off insurgent virtualization strategies from Red Hat, Novell, and others in the open-source camp.

But the truly startling news is that LinuxIC is being released under the GNU General Public License (version 2). Microsoft once called GPL anti-American. Now it calls it friend.

The gods must be crazy.

Or maybe Microsoft is simply recognizing (finally!) that GPL can be a capitalist's close ally. That and the fact that many components within the Linux kernel are GPLv2-licensed make the move completely natural...at least, once you forget that this is Microsoft embracing GPL, rather than some other company like Red Hat.

LinuxIC is a collection of kernel drivers that enable Linux to recognize that it is running on Microsoft's Hyper-V and optimize accordingly, resulting in an "enlightened version of Linux," according to market researcher IDC. The device drivers have yet to be accepted into the Linux kernel, but the GPL license and general utility makes their inclusion probable.

The move opens up Hyper-V to much more than Windows, which has arguably been its weakest point. As IDC notes, this embrace of Linux is a "key element if Microsoft is going to successfully go head to head with VMware in large accounts--many of which already are dedicated VMware customers."

Importantly, Microsoft is now opening up even beyond its long-time Linux partner, Novell, to embrace an array of other Linux partners, including Red Hat. While Novell was the first Linux vendor to certify for Hyper-V, Microsoft's lack of real support beyond Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server was a weakness, as some have complained.

But this is arguably a new Microsoft. Redmond recently announced that Office 2010 will support Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox. The company is learning that its customers run heterogeneous software environments, and it's (slowly) responding. Microsoft's Sam Ramji, senior director of Platform Strategy, notes: "We are seeing Microsoft communities and open source communities grow together, which is ultimately of benefit to our customers."

Microsoft, in short, can't ignore open source, including Linux, without ignoring its own customers.

But surely this move is more Machiavelli than Santa Claus? Maybe, maybe not. I asked Novell's Greg Kroah-Hartman, a prominent Linux kernel developer who was deeply involved in influencing Microsoft to release LinuxIC, what Microsoft's move means for Linux. His response reflects an enthusiasm that is as surprising as it is refreshing:

We want Linux to work well for everybody. This move is not bad in any way for Linux, Xen (Novell's preferred virtualization technology), or KVM (Red Hat's preferred virtualization technology). This is not a competition, per se.

With LinuxIC, Microsoft is doing two things. First, it's saying that contributing open-source software under GPL is acceptable. And second, it's supporting the idea, which I and others in the Linux kernel community have long advanced, that all Linux kernel drivers should be open source.

LinuxIC is the latest example of how Microsoft is changing, and it's a big proof point. When Microsoft embraces Linux, that's news. When it does so by embracing GPL, it's perhaps time to start the countdown to Armageddon.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

Despite Microsoft assurances that a patent lawsuit against GPS navigation company TomTom is not targeting the overall Linux community, open-source leaders said on Thursday that the legal action is antagonistic toward the movement.

Microsoft on Wednesday filed two separate actions against TomTom before the U.S. District Court in Washington and the International Trade Commission, alleging infringement of eight patents, three of which involve Linux. Microsoft deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez said the legal actions were taken after attempts to negotiate on licensing failed.

Asked whether Microsoft would sue other open-source developers, Gutierrez said the software giant's dispute was with TomTom and should not be interpreted as a new salvo against Linux or as a shift in its position toward open-source software. "I think there shouldn't be any ambiguity on our expectations as a company. We recognize that open-source software will continue to be a part of the industry," he said.

However, open-source leaders were still bracing for a fight.

"Microsoft's behavior is threatening," said Eben Moglen, a Columbia Law School professor and chairman of the Software Freedom Law Center, a nonprofit that provides legal representation to developers and distributors of open-source software.

"The free (software) world has to defend itself," he said. "We are considering our options and evaluating the situation."

The move runs counter to Microsoft's efforts to work with open source, including announcing an interoperability alliance with Red Hat, embedding open source in its software, and adopting open-source strategies.

"The ongoing attempts to find a way of working more peacefully together are going to be hurt by this," Moglen said.

"I'm surprised Microsoft thinks they can get away with this and retain good relations to FLOSS (Free, Libre and Open Source Software) developers," Jeremy Allison, a prominent figure in the Samba open-source community, wrote in an e-mail. "Now we're seeing the mailed fist behind the velvet glove."

For now, Samba isn't affected by the litigation and Samba development won't change, Allison said.

Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, said he wasn't making assumptions about the scope or intent of Microsoft's legal action, but was cautious nonetheless.

"It is our sincere hope that Microsoft will realize that cases like these only burden the software industry and do not serve their customers' best interests," he wrote in a blog posting entitled "Note on Microsoft TomTomSuite: Calm Down, Hope for the Best, Plan for the Worst."

The Linux Foundation "is well prepared for any claims against Linux," Zemlin wrote. "For now, we are closely watching the situation and will remain ready to mount a Linux defense, should the need arise."

Keith Bergelt, chief executive of the Open Invention Network, an intellectual property company that uses patents to promote a collaborative Linux ecosystem, predicted that the Microsoft litigation would have limited negative impact on the Linux landscape, partly because it remains to be seen whether the patents are valid. He too took jabs at Microsoft for its action.

"This indicates that they don't understand how to actually participate as a responsible member of the open-source or Linux community," he said of Microsoft. "And their behavior is clearly antagonistic to Linux. It's unfortunate they decided to adopt this tact."

Bruce Perens, a founder of the open-source software movement, said he is concerned that Linux software is involved in the litigation and is watching the situation closely.

"Obviously we are looking at the software patent situation as we have been for 10 years," he said. "We do have our own defensive patents and we may bring some of them into action at some point" against a company like Microsoft.

Asked for comment, Microsoft spokesman Michael Marinello reiterated Gutierrez' statements that the litigation is targeting TomTom's specific implementation of the Linux kernel and that open-source software "is not the focal point of this action."

Patents at issue
While the open-source leaders accused Microsoft of being anti-open source in its latest litigation--which was only the third time Microsoft has sued over patent infringement--they said the Microsoft patents at issue do not seem valid.

"This case could come out very much to our advantage because it could finally put those patents to bed," Perens said.

One of the patents, which deals with the Windows 95 version of Microsoft's FAT file system entitled "A Common Namespace for Long and Short Filenames," was invalidated by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, but then part of it was re-issued on Microsoft appeal, Moglen said.

Microsoft could have trouble convincing a court of the validity of most of the other patents involved, too, said Van Lindberg, an attorney at Haynes and Boone and author of "Intellectual Property and Open Source."

Another patent, which deals with embedding a computer in a car, is questionable because of previous examples of Linux being used in cars before that patent application was filed in 1999, Lindberg said. And several of the other patents could be challenged under a 2008 federal court ruling "In re Bilski" which placed restrictions on "method" patents, excluding general business methods that are deemed to be abstract ideas, according to Lindberg.

Individual developers shouldn't be worried because the litigation is most likely part of Microsoft's licensing negotiations and an attempt to get TomTom to pay up, he said. However, longer term, it could be a first step in a broader campaign against Linux-using companies and a way to intimidate them into agreeing to patent cross-licensing deals, Lindberg said.

Microsoft spokesman Marinello said the two FAT Long File Name patents involved have been licensed to 18 companies and have each been affirmed twice by the patent office, and the car navigation technology patents also have been widely licensed.

"It is also important to note that our patent portfolio was recently given the topic rating for quality by the IEEE patent scorecard for the second year in a row, and we believe that is a testament to the innovation taking place at Microsoft and the quality of our patent portfolio," he said in an e-mail.

One Linux company, Timesys, wasn't worried.

"Linux has already been accepted as an embedded OS and is rapidly gaining popularity," Atul Bansal, chief executive of Timesys, wrote in an e-mail. "Microsoft recognizes this trend and clarified in their interview that this is a dispute between the two companies and not about Linux."

CNET News' Stephen Shankland contributed to this report.

Correction 8:40 a.m. PDT Sept. 19: Google didn't disassemble Vista to employ the security feature described below. See this separate blog post for details.

During Google's launch of its Chrome Web browser, the company went out of its way to acknowledge the debt it owes two open-source projects, Firefox and WebKit. But Microsoft, an uncommon ally in the open-source realm, might also deserve a tip of the hat.

After some digging through the Chrome source code, Scott Hanselman, a senior programming manager for Microsoft, found that the browser uses an open-source Microsoft project called the Windows Template Library, software for building a Windows user interface. (It uses an abstraction layer so other interface software can be employed on other operating systems.)

Microsoft's WTL project is available on SourceForge.net, a repository of open-source projects.

(Credit: SourceForge.net)

On its open-source Chromium site, Google lists WTL 8.0 as included third-party software.

Microsoft, while keeping its crown jewels proprietary, has been lurking around the fringes of the open-source realm for years now. Open-source software may be moved freely from one project to another; though license particulars sometimes erect barriers, both Chrome and WTL use relatively liberal licenses.

There's a bit more intrigue with some other Microsoft technology, though. For security technology called Data Execution Prevention, which can help block various forms of attacks, Google also apparently used an undocumented interface from Microsoft to get the feature working in Windows XP SP2.

Microsoft's Arun Kishan said the interface is "undocumented and unsupported" and "initially only intended for our own use" on a Microsoft forum posting. Using such APIs (application programming interfaces) can get software into trouble, because operating system companies offer no guarantees future software will support them, so upgrades can break compatibility.

And in describing how to use the security feature, Google said people could disassemble the Windows Vista's underlying source code--in other words, extract the operating system's low-level instructions from the Vista binary. Disassembly is one form of reverse-engineering.

Google spotlighted the technology in a comment in the Chrome source code: "Completely undocumented from Microsoft. You can find this information by disassembling Vista's SP1 kernel32.dll with your favorite disassembler."

The software takes the high road if possible, according to another comment: "Try documented ways first. Only available on Vista SP1 and Windows 2008."

Google didn't immediately comment on the move.

Matt Asay, a Mac user and an executive at open-source firm Alfresco, pines for a Mac version of Chrome, suggesting that leading off with Windows may have been a "strategic error" even if the Windows Template Library made it easier to get the Windows version out first. "It might make sense to aim for the mainstream (i.e., corporate IT, which would get the most benefit from an JavaScript-optimized Web browser), but the mainstream isn't in the habit of trying out the latest and greatest," Asay said.

Google's not dumb, though: there are plenty of programmers and early adopters using Windows, even if the cutting-edge crowd might be proportionally larger with Mac OS X or Linux. Besides, making headway in today's browser wars will take more than a few months and one beta version, and the Mac OS X and Linux versions of Chrome are under development.

(Via Redmond Developer News.)

Microsoft, one of the biggest rivals to open-source programming, has begun funding the Apache Software Foundation, one of open-source software's biggest supporters.

"Microsoft is becoming a sponsor of the Apache Software Foundation. This sponsorship will enable the ASF to pay administrators and other support staff so that ASF developers can focus on writing great software," said Sam Ramji, a senior director of platform strategy at Microsoft. He announced the move Friday in a speech at the Open Source Convention, and noted Microsoft's support of Apache on the software company's Port 25 blog as well.

Apache still leads Microsoft for Web server software market share. But the Apache Software Foundation has many more projects than just that early leader.

(Credit: NetCraft)

Obviously you might think this an opportune moment to cue up the soundtracks of record needles screeching and cars crashing into each other. But hold your horses.

For one thing, some within Microsoft have for years been making various encouraging words about open-source software, even though others have engaged in serious trash-talking. The company has no apparent desire to let the programming world have its way with Windows, as is possible with Linux, but Microsoft has been trying to make nice in some circles.

Playing nice with open source
For example, Microsoft has released its own open-source licenses and has put some technology under its Open Specification Promise, which lets open-source programmers use it. Also on Friday, Ramji said that policy makes it clear the promise applies to commercial uses of the technology, too.

Another example: Microsoft has been working closely with Zend for Windows support of PHP, an open-source project that lets servers create Web pages on the fly.

PHP is often used in conjunction with other open-source components: Linux, the Apache Web server software that's used to dish up Web pages, and the MySQL database that's used to store the data used to build Web pages elements such as online catalog pages or online forum postings. In fact, the four are used often enough that there's an acronym for it: LAMP.

But there's also the idea of WISP, which substitutes many of Microsoft's own components: Windows, Internet Information Services for a Web server, and SQL Server for the database. On Friday, Microsoft released a patch to ADOdb, a package PHP uses to access databases. The patch lets PHP use SQL Server.

In other words, some parts of Microsoft are learning how to play nice with some parts of the open-source world.

Apache's liberal license
Second is the Apache License that governs the foundation's projects. Many of Microsoft's attacks on open-source software were aimed at the General Public License, which has a reciprocity provision: If you make a change to a GPL project, then distribute software employing that change, you must share the change under the GPL.

The Apache License, though, lets programmers take software and combine it with proprietary software in any way, with no obligation to share. That's how IBM, for example, uses the Apache Web server software in its proprietary WebSphere product.

For Microsoft, that means Apache's projects can be used within Microsoft. And there are some that could be of interest.

Apache: Useful projects
Third is what the Apache Software Foundation is up to.

When it began, Apache didn't have too many projects under its umbrella besides the HTTP Web server that has surpassed Microsoft's competing products in market share since at least 1995, according to Netcraft's Web server survey.

Now Apache has dozens of projects.

Here's one that Microsoft, given its so-far fruitless efforts to catch up to Google in search, might enjoy: Hadoop, an open-source version of Google's MapReduce algorithm that's instrumental to processing huge data sets. Yahoo contributes to Hadoop and uses it in its own operations.

There's nothing stopping Microsoft from using Hadoop or any other Apache project without funding Apache, but sponsorship makes some sense for political and practical reasons.