A pro-open-source group said on Tuesday that it has acquired 22 patents recently sold by Microsoft--patents that the group said could have been used against Linux.
The Open Invention Network said that the patents were purchased from Microsoft by an entity known as the Allied Security Trust. OIN said it has now acquired the patents from AST, although it wouldn't say how much it paid.
"Today's announcement evidences OIN's continued commitment to acquire patents that may be relevant to Linux," OIN CEO Keith Bergelt said in a statement. "The prospect of these patents being placed in the hands of non-practicing entities was a threat that has been averted with these purchases, irrespective of patent quality and whether or not the patents truly read on Linux."
Allied Security Trust said it was pleased that OIN had bought the patents. "OIN's purchase ensures that these important patents will not be used by patent trolls or others seeking to disrupt Linux and the many companies and individuals advancing this important technology," AST Chief Executive Dan McCurdy said in a statement.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that OIN was close to acquiring the former Microsoft patents.
In an interview, Bergelt said that his organization was not invited by Microsoft to directly participate in the bidding for the patents, raising the specter that Microsoft was more interested in selling to someone that might have targeted Linux as opposed to just maximizing the sales price for the patents.
"We were not offered an opportunity to participate in the bidding for this portfolio that Microsoft was selling," Bergelt said.
For its part, Microsoft confirmed that it sold the patents to AST in July, but declined to comment on the terms of the deal. Microsoft said that the patents were indeed ones that it had acquired several years ago in a deal with SGI.
"These patents were deemed to be non-core to our business and non-essential for our IP portfolio," Microsoft spokesman Michael Marinello said in a statement. "When an interested buyer for this technology was identified, after discussing it both internally and with the potential buyer, we felt this was the right direction to go in relating to these specific patents."
OIN began in 2005 and includes IBM, Sony, Red Hat and Google among its members. TomTom joined OIN earlier this year, during its now-settled patent spat with Microsoft.
Microsoft has long asserted that various implementations of Linux infringe on a number of its patents, however, until its suit against TomTom, Microsoft had never litigated any of those contentions. Linux-related claims were part of Microsoft's suit against TomTom.
Bergelt said OIN acquired the patents to try to help Linux-based companies avoid becoming targets for more legal action. "In this case it's not that we saw these patents as so fundamental that Linux was at risk," Bergelt said. "Our goal is to reduce the potential challenges that are associated with patents."
There's nothing like trashing the competition.
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The Free Software Foundation is using the launch of Windows 7 to try to convince businesses to dump Windows in favor of an open-source operating system.
(Credit: Free Software Foundation)And that's exactly what the Free Software Foundation plans to do on Wednesday, staging a demonstration in Boston where it will encourage businesses to throw away Microsoft Windows in favor of free alternatives.
In addition to the public display, the foundation is sending letters to the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, warning that Windows is a threat to their businesses' privacy, security, and freedom.
Although the demonstration and letter center around Microsoft's imminent release of Windows 7, Free Software Foundation Executive Director Peter Brown says the protest has to do with Microsoft's approach in general and not with the specifics of Windows 7.
"Any time Microsoft tries to push them to a new version, it's a good time to make that case," Brown said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
With Windows 7 getting fairly positive reviews, Brown said he knows it could be tougher to garner public support than was the case with the oft-criticized Vista.
"There's kind of this attitude of 'Well, it's better than Vista,'" Brown said, "so we are kind of working against the grain."
But, he said, the stakes are high--and it's about more than just which operating system gains market share. Brown points to Amazon.com's recent deletion of e-books from the Kindle as an example of the kinds of action that could become commonplace if the world becomes more filled with digital rights management technologies.
"That's the kind of power that proprietary software gives to these corporations," he said. "When we give that power, sooner or later somebody comes knocking, whether it is the government or the corporations themselves. Free software is kind of the answer to that."
Although the letter focuses on Microsoft, he said the group is also concerned with other products, including the new Snow Leopard operating system from Apple, which goes on sale on Friday.
"It's not just Microsoft," Brown said. "It's a problem generally for society that we should accept proprietary software when there is an alternative."
Microsoft's move to offer several Linux drivers owes a lot to a key programmer at Novell.
Linux veteran--and Novell fellow--Greg Kroah-Hartman suggested to Microsoft about four months ago that the company release the three drivers to be part of Linux under the GNU General Public License (GPL) terms that govern Linux code. Kroah-Hartman, who helps oversee the inclusion of drivers into Linux, said he worked within his company to find the right contacts at Microsoft.
"They reacted well," Kroah-Hartman said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. "They were open to it. It just took a while to hash out all the details."
Microsoft's Sam Ramji credited Kroah-Hartman for helping guide Microsoft through the process. "He provided valuable guidance and feedback to the Open Source Technology Center, which enabled the team to contribute the code in a way that was acceptable with the Linux kernel community processes," Ramji said in an e-mail interview.
The move illustrates the combination of social, legal, and technical factors that must be addressed before Microsoft's code could arrive. Anyone may contribute software to the Linux kernel, but actually getting it accepted can be a complicated matter, even for a company that hasn't bad-mouthed the GPL. This time, at least, Microsoft's pragmatism carried the day.
Microsoft had been working on the code contribution for some months, Ramji said; it happened to be ready in time to announce this week to coincide with the OSCON 2009 open-source conference.
As I noted yesterday, Microsoft made the move largely to help strengthen Windows Server as a host environment for Linux.
"Microsoft decided to release the drivers to support broader adoption and facilitate better performance of Linux running as a guest operating system where Windows Server 2008 is the host," Ramji said.
Kroah-Hartman said Microsoft met all the requirements for inclusion of the code in the Linux kernel and said it will probably show up in version 2.6.32 of the kernel, which will be released about four or five months from now.
Microsoft said it made sense to release the code under version 2 of the GPL, even though Microsoft has been critical of the GPL and used other open-source licenses for most of the code it has made freely available in the past.
"Because GPLv2 is the license of the Linux kernel, we are releasing the device driver code under the GPLv2 license to facilitate interoperability," Ramji said. "Our use of the GPLv2 license, as requested by the Linux community, means we will not charge a royalty for or assert any patents covering the driver code we are contributing."
Kroah-Hartman, who heads the Linux Driver Project, has been arguing for some time that all Linux drivers should be released under open-source licenses and said that Microsoft's move represents a change in its attitude toward the GPL and highlights that the GPL is a valid license for a project to be released under.
"It's just a validation of what all of us have been publicly saying for many years," Kroah-Hartman said.
He noted that Microsoft is now a full fledged Linux developer and will be responsible for maintaining its piece of Linux. He noted that the community has already submitted a couple of patches aimed at improving Microsoft's code.
Microsoft didn't close the door to contributing more to Linux.
"We expect to maintain the Hyper-V Linux device drivers as part of our product development and support process for Hyper-V, which we expect will involve ongoing contributions," Ramji said. "Part of the OSTC's charter is to continually evaluate open source, market conditions, customer requests and scenarios, and as such we will evaluate possibilities to work with additional open source projects in the future, including the Linux Kernel."
I asked Ramji whether Microsoft sees any dissonance in contributing to Linux at the same time it has claimed that Linux violates its intellectual property. His answer:
"Microsoft is pragmatically focused on helping customers and partners be successful in a heterogeneous technology world," Ramji responded. "We both compete and partner with traditional commercial vendors, and will continue to do so with open source-based businesses, with a focus on providing value for shared customers."
Kroah-Hartman said he doesn't spend a lot of time on the legal questions.
"Hey, companies are big," he said, noting that sometimes one part of a company has a different stance than another. "It has nothing to do with me."
Microsoft dropped a mini-bombshell on Monday, announcing that it is contributing thousands of lines of code for inclusion in Linux.
But lest anyone think Microsoft suffered a massive head trauma over the weekend, the code it is releasing isn't really about helping Linux compete better with Microsoft. The drivers are really geared at making Windows a better host for Linux.
"The Linux device drivers we are releasing are designed so Linux can run in enlightened mode, giving it the same optimized synthetic devices as a Windows virtual machine running on top of Hyper-V," Tom Hanrahan, director of Microsoft's Open Source Technology Center, said in a statement. "Without this driver code, Linux can run on top of Windows, but without the same high performance levels."
As noted by CNET Blog Network writer Matt Asay, Microsoft is releasing three drivers for Linux under the GPL that governs Linux.
Although Microsoft has released open-source code in the past, the company has generally favored licenses other than the GPL. That said, the GPL is the way into the Linux kernel and Microsoft wants this code in Linux.
In an article on its press Web site, Microsoft acknowledged the departure. The company has also been going after Linux for years, both on the marketing and legal fronts.
"Today, in a break from the ordinary, Microsoft released 20,000 lines of device driver code to the Linux community," Microsoft said. "The code, which includes three Linux device drivers, has been submitted to the Linux kernel community for inclusion in the Linux tree."
The move comes at a time of mixed signals from Redmond when it comes to Linux. Microsoft has said that the browser-based versions of Office, which are due out next year as part of Office 2010, will support Firefox, bringing at least a portion of Office to Linux for the first time.
It has also made peace with a number of Linux companies, most notably a 2006 pact with Novell, but has continued to rattle its legal saber at those with whom it has not struck patent deals.
After years of making claims that many Linux implementations violate Microsoft patents, Microsoft finally took a case to court in February, filing suit against navigation systems maker TomTom.
The two sides later settled, but the settlement left many unanswered questions and Microsoft hasn't said if it will take similar action against other companies.
Although the latest move is clearly designed to bolster Windows as a hosting environment for servers running both Linux and Windows, to me there is something slightly discordant about adding code to something you feel is already infringing on your intellectual property. Perhaps, though, that's just the very definition of co-opetition.
Microsoft is in an interesting position--seeking to compete with Linux while also understanding that many companies run both operating systems. Not only is it about making its business customers happy, but there is good money to be made by owning the management and virtualization layers, even if there is some Linux running atop Microsoft's stack.
For those that want to hear Microsoft's take on the news, here's a video of Hanrahan discussing the move with Sam Ramji, the company's senior director of platform strategy. (Note: Silverlight is required.)
To Bill Gates, Google's Chrome OS looks a lot like a familiar foe: Linux.
"There's many, many forms of Linux operating systems out there and packaged in different ways and booted in different ways," Gates said in an interview with CNET News this week. "In some ways I am surprised people are acting like there's something new. I mean, you've got Android running on Netbooks. It's got a browser in it."
Gates said it was hard to really say much about Chrome OS, since Google has said so little about how it will actually work.
"The more vague they are, the more interesting it is," he said.
As for the notion that the browser needs to act more like an OS, he noted that the browser has already become an extremely broad concept, with all of the plug-ins and other things that are now done inside a browser.
"It just shows the word browser has become a truly meaningless word," Gates said. "What's a browser? What's not a browser? If you're playing a movie, is that a browser or not a browser? If you're doing annotations, is that a browser? If you're editing text, is that a browser or not a browser? In large part, it's more an abuse of terminology than a real change."
Meanwhile, CEO Steve Ballmer suggested on Tuesday that Windows, rather than a browser-centric OS was the right approach. To bolster his argument, Ballmer noted that half of PC use today is spent doing work outside the browser.
"We don't need a new operating system," Ballmer said Tuesday, as part of his keynote at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans. "What we do need to do is to continue to evolve Windows, Windows Applications, IE (Internet Explorer), the way IE works in totality with Windows and how we build applications like Office...and we need to make sure we can bring our customers and partners with us."
Ballmer and Gates also stressed the fact that Google now has two operating systems--Chrome OS and Android. Ballmer noted that Microsoft learned with the separate Windows 95 for consumers and Windows NT for businesses that having two operating systems isn't necessarily a positive thing.
"The last time I checked you don't need two client operating systems," he said. "It's good to have one."
Ballmer and Gates also echoed the note Business Division President Stephen Elop sounded in an interview with CNET News last week--that Microsoft really doesn't know what Chrome OS will look like.
"Who knows what this thing is?" Ballmer said.
The overall market for enterprise spending may be weak, but Novell and Microsoft insist they are signing plenty of joint customers.
Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian (left) shakes hands with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer after signing a 2006 accord.
(Credit: Microsoft)In a statement, the software makers say they have signed more than 100 joint customers in the past six months. That's twice the rate at which they had been signing folks as part of an 2006 accord, the two companies said. In total, the two companies say they have sold $200 million worth of Novell support and maintenance certificates to more than 300 customers.
Microsoft says the economy is helping this piece of its business. "In today's economic environment, when customers are looking to derive the greatest value from their IT investments, we are seeing an increased rate of demand for the interoperability solutions and IP peace of mind benefits provided by our collaboration," Microsoft general manager of strategic partnerships Ted MacLean said in a statement.
Among the better known North American names signed since November are Honeywell Aerospace, Procter & Gamble, SC Johnson and Sony Pictures Entertainment. The companies also named several other U.S. firms as well as a number of companies in Asia and Europe.
The Microsoft-Novell deal is often held up by Microsoft as an example of how open source and proprietary software makers can work together. Striking that deal, though, was not easy, as noted in a book earlier this year co-authored by Microsoft's Marshall Phelps.
The arrangement has also led to technical cooperation between the two, including a plug-in for Microsoft's System Center Operations Manager software which lets IT workers monitor their Linux and Windows system environments all within Microsoft's management software. That module is due out later this month, the companies said.
In a statement, 451 Group analyst Jay Lyman said that "the partnership has substantially benefited Microsoft's Linux integration story and has driven Linux revenue for Novell.
"The development and work by the two companies to improve Linux and Windows interoperability addresses the reality of mixed enterprise environments for customers, who were largely the impetus for this collaboration and are now benefiting from the resulting technology and support," Lyman said.
Finally, Microsoft and the Linux Foundation agree on something. Neither wants to stand behind their products. OK, OK, that's not fair.
However, the Linux group and software maker are both opposing a law group's proposal that would create an implied warranty that software products ship with no material defects.
The two joined forces on a letter to the American Law Institute taking issue with its proposal. Microsoft and the Linux Foundation believe the proposal could do more harm than good.
"While the principles reflect a lot of hard work and thought by the ALI, Microsoft and the Linux Foundation believe that certain provisions do not reflect existing law and could disrupt the well-functioning software market for businesses and consumers, as well as create uncertainty for software developers," Microsoft deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez said in a blog posting.
The ALI is meeting in Washington this week and is scheduled to take up the issue, noted ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley.
Microsoft and the Linux Foundation aren't the only ones against this. As Foley points out, the University of Houston's Raymond Nimmer also wrote a biting critique of the ALI proposal.
Linux Foundation chief Jim Zemlin noted in a blog that its partnership with Microsoft makes for strange bedfellows. But, he said, the proposed legal standard would hurt open source and commercial software makers alike.
"The principles outlined by the ALI interfere with the natural operation of open source licenses and commercial licenses as well by creating implied warranties that could result in a tremendous amount of unnecessary litigation, which would undermine the sharing of technology," Zemlin wrote.
Gutierrez also noted that Microsoft and its partner in this effort don't necessarily see eye to eye on everything.
"The mere fact that the Linux Foundation and Microsoft are joining forces may be viewed by some as remarkable, given that our differences receive far more public attention than when our interests converge," Gutierrez said. "Our industry is diverse and sometimes contentious, but if nothing else unites us it is that we all believe in the power of software."
Gutierrez held out an olive branch, of sorts. "I hope that this represents just one of many opportunities to collaborate with the Linux Foundation and others going forward," he said. "We have a lot more we can do together."
The joint letter comes just a couple short months after Microsoft, for the first time, sued a company over its implementation of the Linux kernel. The company eventually settled with TomTom, but the move has created uncertainty over whether Microsoft intends to take legal action against Linux vendors that refuse to take a license to Microsoft's patents.
A Linux advocacy group on Tuesday said it is publicly seeking invention data that could help overturn three Microsoft patents that the software maker has charged are infringed by some implementations of the Linux kernel.
The Open Invention Network said it is looking for examples of so-called prior art that could help invalidate three file management patents that Microsoft used in its suit against GPS maker TomTom. Although TomTom and Microsoft settled, the suit raised the specter that Microsoft might pursue other Linux-related companies.
OIN encouraged those with examples of earlier work in the areas covered by Microsoft's patents to submit them via the Web.
"The patent vetting activity offered by the Linux Defenders portal offers a unique opportunity to bring to bear the collective knowledge, passion and ingenuity of the Linux community to better explore the validity of the patents that were the subject of the recent action against TomTom," said Keith Bergelt, CEO of Open Invention Network, in a statement. "I encourage active participation from the entire Linux community so that other companies seeking to advance Linux strategies can be better informed about the quality of these patents."
In a statement, Microsoft deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez said that the three patents in question "represent valuable technology innovations that increase the efficiency and functionality of file management systems."
"They have been validated through licensing agreements and highly scrutinized for validity by patent offices," Gutierrez said, adding that two of the patents relating to the File Allocation Table naming methods have been affirmed twice by the federal Patent Office and have been licensed to more than 18 companies. The third patent, with relates to how file systems work better with flash memory, has also been licensed to other companies, Microsoft said.
Red Hat, meanwhile, praised the move to try to invalidate Microsoft's patents.
"Red Hat is pleased to endorse the growing movement within the free and open-source community of gathering prior art to undermine invalid software patents," Red Hat's legal team said in a blog posting. "We're particularly pleased that Open Invention Network's Linux Defenders has now invited scrutiny of the three patents that Microsoft used in the TomTom case to attack open source, as numerous public reports suggest weaknesses in these patents."
The blog notes that Microsoft said its suit was specific to TomTom, but also notes that when asked in a CNET interview, Gutierrez refused to rule out further legal actions against Linux-related companies.
"If Microsoft's objective was to build trust and confidence with the open-source community, it failed miserably," Red Hat said. "It is unfortunate when a technology company decides that, instead of simply competing on a level playing field in the marketplace, it will devote its entrepreneurial energy to the patent protection racket."
For those wondering about Microsoft exec Stephen Elop's suggestions that Office is coming to the iPhone, let me be unequivocal. It is.
How do I know? Microsoft has already said so. The software maker is planning over the coming months to introduce Web-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Those programs will run not only in Internet Explorer, but also in Safari and Firefox. And, lest there be any ambiguity, Microsoft has already confirmed that this means Office for iPhone and Office for Linux.
Don't get me wrong. Those are both big deals--particularly Office for Linux (think Netbooks and other Web appliances). It's just that they weren't new revelations, as some thought, on Wednesday.
For those who want to hear about Office for the iPhone straight from Microsoft's mouth, here's a video interview I did earlier this year with Office development chief Antoine Leblond.
While reaction to Microsoft's settlement with TomTom was varied on Monday, there seemed to be a consensus that it will do little to settle the many questions related to whether Linux infringes on Microsoft's intellectual property.
Attorney James Gatto, the leader of the intellectual property section at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, said the quick settlement in the case may have as much to do with a pragmatic business decision by TomTom as it does with the legal merits of Microsoft's case. Complex litigation, such as the patent suit and countersuit in this case, could easily add up to $10 million to $15 million in costs, Gatto said.
"I don't think this answers any questions in terms of whether Microsoft's patents in any way cover Linux," Gatto said. Microsoft has long asserted that various implementations of Linux do infringe on its intellectual property and has struck a number of patent deals with companies that either distribute Linux or use it in their products.
The TomTom case, however, marked the first time that Microsoft had made those allegations in court papers.
Open-source pioneer Bruce Perens criticized the settlement, saying that it may instill fear in other companies that are using embedded Linux and thus have something of a chilling effect.
"What strikes me is the un-justice of it all," said Perens, who is the chief executive of open-source software development company Kiloboot. "Microsoft's patents (in the TomTom case) are not innovative, yet TomTom is forced to pay for the patents when a court would probably find them invalid. But rather than spend the money to prove the patents are invalid, because they probably can't afford to go to court and fight it, TomTom licenses the patents."
Gatto said that Microsoft's TomTom move doesn't necessarily mean the company is ready to go to war with Linux.
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