TomTom suit suggests Microsoft's still Microsoft
The more that Microsoft's patent lawsuit against (and subsequent settlement with) TomTom simmers in my consciousness, the more I want to boil.
I gave Microsoft the benefit of the doubt early on: I know a few of the Microsoft personnel involved in the case, and I think that they're wonderful people of integrity and intelligence.
They're also fiercely competitive, and it's becoming apparent to me that the TomTom lawsuit was designed to bludgeon one of Microsoft's biggest competitors, Linux; it was not any serious attempt to protect its intellectual property.
The Linux Foundation's Jim Zemlin captures my sentiments well:
In the last several days, Microsoft has shown that despite claims of acquiring a newly found respect for open principles and technology, developers should be cautious in believing promises made by this "new" Microsoft.
When it counts, it appears that Microsoft still actively seeks to undermine those technologies or standards that are truly open, especially when those technologies pose a significant threat to (its) business.
Microsoft can rightly complain that it's a prisoner of the same patent system that it wields as a cudgel. But I don't believe in using the legal system to give someone--anyone--the edge in a product-driven marketplace. If Microsoft has to compete with lawyers against Linux instead of with product line managers, it should simply pay out a massive dividend and close up shop.
Microsoft is a better company than this. Unfortunately, its recurring rash of legal cunning against open source is getting stale. I want to believe that Microsoft can change. As Zemlin suggests, however, perhaps this leopard really can't change its spots.
Microsoft is asking the world to judge it by its actions. That's what we're doing, and Microsoft loses that case.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
I heard today that they finally figured out a way to make water not so soaking wet. It's called dehydrated water and it comes in powder form. All you need to do is add water and BAM - you have water! Um, but you have more of it. Unless it fails to work properly, then you have a nasty paste that tastes horrible.
Typical that such a person would try to muddy the waters by claiming that this is about something it's not about.
I also seriously doubt you bust your ass doing anything. Every coder I've ever seen complaining in this fashion is whining because they actually might have to get of their fat backside and work for a living instead of dumping out half-baked products and making money through vendor lock-in. F/OSS doesn't steal anything. The reason people like you hate it so much is because you know you can't hack it in a competitive environment.
Try to explain without violating any of my patents. I won't tell you which ones you violate either, but rest assured my league of attorneys (Dewey, Cheetum and Howe) will prosecute you to the full extent of the law when you cross that invisible (imaginary?) line.
The corollary to this is that when a corporation appears to be acting nice, it is ONLY because they perceive it will bring them some advantage.
If society doesn't like how a corporation is behaving, you don't plead with them to be "responsible." You make the undesired behavior illegal, and you enforce the law.
Of course, Reich also points out that corporations have attained far too much power over the lawmaking and enforcing process. He argues that they shouldn't be allowed to participate in politics at all.
As a fer instance, the endless march of greed is why are Internet infrastructure isn't even in the top 20 and why we are overcharged for the paltry service we get.
I think there has been an honest attempt by the high-management at Redmond to welcome open-source development, so long as they are in control of the channel that makes it possible. It is little trouble some from my POV since it would mean that, the ability to move (something that, as simple as it is, is a great and defining factor to Open Source and the Free Software Movement as a whole) would be hamstrung on the tools and methods that Microsoft provides. And the problem with this is that at some point, Mircosoft can disrupt that channel at any time, making all development on things like Mono under the MS-PL moot.
Sooner or latter, this will come to a head. And at that point, I wonder what will happen.
LOL
While there are a small handful of people working for MS that are intelligent, none have any integrity. If they did, they wouldn't work there.
If other companies counter sue MS over this, they are going to lose some patents, and will hasten their demise.
- by JoeThePlummer April 4, 2009 1:47 PM PDT
- Oh come on guys! There's nothing underhanded here. Companies trying to survive in the marketplace, that's all. Have you read this?
- Like this Reply to this comment
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- by pentest April 4, 2009 1:54 PM PDT
- Using bogus patents to squeeze money out of companies and use as a sledgehammer to enforce your monopoly isn't underhanded?
- Like this
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(13 Comments)http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2009/04/microsoft-and-tomtom-kat-hosts-dogfood.html
It's a pretty compelling reality check on all this. Any chance we could get back to the real news?
JP
In what dimension?