Microsoft accused of 'ulterior motive' in Linux patent sale Does the troll-blocking organization that recently secured a set of supposedly Linux-related patents from Microsoft need sizing for a penguin-shaped tinfoil hat? Or was the IP sale really Redmond's secret scheme to "create fear, uncertainty, and doubt" in the open-source community? On Monday, at LinuxCon in Portland, Oregon, …
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Why is is necessary to hold and 'guard' these patents? If the current owner really wants the world to benefit, can they not make a public statement that they 'hereby release and relinquish all rights in these patents to the people of the world'? Yes, I know it's an idealistic and perhaps naive choice of words and it would require an army of lawyers to draft a 50 page document to do it, but it should be possible.
The agenda this argument serves to hide is that laws are "bought" through influence by lobbyists acting for vested interests who want lucrative government-granted monopoly rights.
If you were a small software innovator choosing where to locate, where would you conduct your business ? In a country like the US where you could be sued out of your home and livelihood or in the UK where software patents don't apply ?
How he sits on his high horse and says that M$ did this to install fear, doubt and uncertainty in the community. Personally I think they did it because they got top dollar and could have cared less about the OIN because they would probably cry about the price being too much. "We would have offered top dollar" my ass.
of course there was another motive to create FUD for linux.
this is why the economy is in the shape it is in. companies like microsoft build false economies and thus everything else gets built on a house of cards. i.e. the whole virus industry.
the patent IP business is nothing short of shady and really needs to be overhauled.
this is the plan of attack on linux from microsoft. they can't compete on level playing field because linux is so far ahead technically of windows it isn't even funny.
I guess they don't want to risk government intervention so they directly won't attack linux but will do it through proxies like SCO.
By holding the patents, they can be sure that others won't use them in ways that isolate open source. If they were to release them, anybody could make use of them without fear of legal action. This includes companies that choose to apply them along with other technologies/patents and isolate the open source community from it. By holding the patents, they can enforce them and prevent companies from using them in a way that doesn't benefit the community. We've seen how ugly things can get in the slow moving court system, better to be the one bringing the lawsuit, than to be the one being sued.
Make no mistake, even freely available IP needs to be controlled to prevent others from misusing it.
Devil Bill, b/c this is exactly what MS wanted, to establish recognized ownership of probably sketchy patents so their other sketchy patents carry more weight down the road.
It's the mutually assured destruction defence. You're free to use these patents unless you use your patents against us.
It's as good as relinquishing all rights, but retaining some protection for themselves against others who have a less philanthropic view of patents.
But yeah, I definitely agree with the other posters suggesting that the patent system is broken.
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