IP: Fear of Microsoft strikes the heart of OpenSourcePeople

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> > From: "Janos Gereben" <janos451 () earthlink net>
> > Subject: Fear of Microsoft strikes the heart of OpenSourcePeople
> >
> >       Open source projects fear Microsoft patents
> >       Rachel Chalmers - www.the451.com
> >
> >       London, Aug. 8 - July's debate between Microsoft executive Craig
> > Mundie and the open source community was far from interesting. But one
> > comment that Mundie made at the Open Source Convention certainly got
> > everyone's attention.
> >
> >       Asked by CollabNet CTO Brian Behlendorf whether Microsoft will
> > enforce its patents against open source projects, Mundie replied,
> > "Yes, absolutely." An audience member pointed out that many open
> > source projects aren't funded and so can't afford legal representation
> > to rival Microsoft's. "Oh well," said Mundie. "Get your money, and
> > let's go to court."
> >
> >       The attendees, who had been pretty well behaved up until then,
> > reacted to this comment with boos and hisses. For days after, Mundie's
> > comment was the talk of the convention. Did Microsoft have a
> > particular target in mind? If so, who was the unlucky victim?
> >
> >       Most first guesses - including that of Bruce Perens,
> > Hewlett-Packard's open source evangelist - identified Ximian, the free
> > desktop company that had just announced its open source implementation
> > of certain pieces of Microsoft's .NET. This is because Mono could
> > allow people to route around the Microsoft-centric nature of .NET, an
> > anathema to the company, and Microsoft is likely to have patented
> > everything relating to the applications framework that it possibly
> > could.
> >
> >       This week, though, another candidate emerged. Samba is the open
> > source implementation of Microsoft's Server Message Blocks. The Samba
> > team has been doing for years what the Mono developers must now learn
> > to do: reverse-engineering Microsoft protocols. To date, Microsoft has
> > treated Samba with a certain amount of respect, and developers on
> > opposing teams often exchange information. It was during one such
> > discussion that Samba developer Jeremy Allison learned of US Patent
> > 5,719,941 - the "method for changing passwords on a remote computer,"
> > which applies to a new password-changing feature in SMB.
> >
> >       Samba now has a dilemma: maintain feature parity and risk
> > violating the patent, or relinquish the feature and let the
> > functionality go. On the bright side, Allison has taken care to point
> > out that the company did not threaten enforcement. "I don't think
> > Microsoft is planning to wipe out Samba, and it is sheer paranoia to
> > speculate on that point," he wrote in a Slashdot discussion.
> >
> >       There's good news for Ximian, too. When Microsoft submitted the
> > C# language and common language implementation to the European
> > Computer Manufacturers Association, the company tacitly agreed that
> > all patented material would be licensed under nondiscriminatory terms.
> > It's a precondition for acceptance as an ECMA standard.
> > Nondiscriminatory usually means a small percentage of the per-unit
> > revenue derived from a software product that depends on the patent. In
> > the case of free software, of course, a percentage of nothing is still
> > nothing.
> >
> >       Microsoft is evidently holding its patents in reserve - as every
> > responsible public company is expected to do. However, these patents
> > are not the Doomsday devices they are reputed to be.



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