Microsoft playing dirty

flyingcheesehead

flyingcheesehead

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, and Horacio Gutierrez, the company’s vice president of intellectual property and licensing, said open-souce software, including Linux, violates 235 Microsoft patents. And Microsoft wants distributors and users of open-souce software to start paying royalties for these alleged violations.
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Smith broke down the alleged patent violations during the Fortune interview, saying the Linux kernel violates 42 patents and the operating system’s user interface violates a further 65. He went on to claim that the Open Office application suite violates 45 patents and open-source e-mail applications infringe on 15 more. Other open-source software applications infringe on 68 patents, Smith said.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/macworld/20...n20070514_0;_ylt=ApLDln.ARKlCrk_h1sHHtA4E1vAI

The worst part: Microsoft is NOT going after Novell for distributing Linux because Novell has a deal with MS that indemnifies them from any claims over Linux. Dell just joined the deal this week.

THIS is the kind of crap "we" are talking about. You'd-better-be-our-friend-or-else tactics. Or, if-you-can't-beat-them-just-sue-the-crap-out-of-them. Apple, on the other hand, embraces the open-source community, and Mac OS X's Darwin kernel is... wait for it... Open source. I wonder if MS is gonna go after Apple with this too. :rolleyes:
 
flyingcheesehead said:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/macworld/20...n20070514_0;_ylt=ApLDln.ARKlCrk_h1sHHtA4E1vAI

The worst part: Microsoft is NOT going after Novell for distributing Linux because Novell has a deal with MS that indemnifies them from any claims over Linux. Dell just joined the deal this week.

THIS is the kind of crap "we" are talking about. You'd-better-be-our-friend-or-else tactics. Or, if-you-can't-beat-them-just-sue-the-crap-out-of-them. Apple, on the other hand, embraces the open-source community, and Mac OS X's Darwin kernel is... wait for it... Open source. I wonder if MS is gonna go after Apple with this too. :rolleyes:
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This is not "be our friend or else," this is "Stop stealing our product ideas or else."

I don't agree with them, and they will lose if the case goes to trial, but call it what it is, don't spin it to be pro-Apple. Remember the days of Apple's lawsuits to protect their own concept and design, and remember that you supported it when they did it.
 
SkyHog said:
This is not "be our friend or else," this is "Stop stealing our product ideas or else."

I don't agree with them, and they will lose if the case goes to trial, but call it what it is, don't spin it to be pro-Apple. Remember the days of Apple's lawsuits to protect their own concept and design, and remember that you supported it when they did it.
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Apple does it when it's blatant. Remember that eMachines box that looked EXACTLY like the iMac? Well, when Apple spends the money marketing the iMac and folks go in and think the eMac-hine is an iMac and buy it and then have a crappy user experience, that legitimately hurts Apple.

Linux doesn't look exactly like Windows nor does it work exactly like Windows. It works way better. Uh oh, gotta sue! I mean c'mon, Linux has been around for YEARS. Why are they just now starting legal action? 'cuz they're afraid.
 
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Yeah, I can't imagine where they look similar:

kde3_4.png

win98.gif
 
FlyNE said:
So, you think Apple embraces, do you?

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050221-4638.html
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Not sure what that article has to do with embracing open source. They're talking about a leak of a pre-release NON-open source OS which is a blatant violation of the developer agreements. If someone put a prerelease Windows Vista 2.0 on BitTorrent, I would fully expect them to take action.
 
Or some of the other products on the list:

Email:
tbird.gif

outlook2.jpg
 
NOW: if you want something to be ****ed off at Microsoft for, try this one on for size (I just did this search myself and found this):
linux.jpg
 
In other news: It was recently discovered that Apple has been clubbing baby seals to use the byproducts in iMac production. When asked about this practice, long time Apple fan Kent Shook said, "I think it's incredibly innovative. Once again, Apple has shown the world that you have to be a leader to stay competitive in the market."
 
FlyNE said:
In other news: It was recently discovered that Apple has been clubbing baby seals to use the byproducts in iMac production. When asked about this practice, long time Apple fan Kent Shook said, "I think it's incredibly innovative. Once again, Apple has shown the world that you have to be a leader to stay competitive in the market."
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:D:D:D:D:D:D

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
I think if Microsoft wants to really show the evils of Open Source they should remove any contact with that evil stuff, like oh, the whole TCP/IP stack in their Windows OSs which came from Berkeley UNIX.
 
SkyHog said:
How about some Excel ripoff:
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Practically any spreadsheet in existence will be considered an Excel ripoff. I mean, how different can you really make a spreadsheet program? (I hope Apple tries, so they have one to go along with Keynote and Pages, but I doubt they will or M$ would get ****ed.)

And, of course, Excel was a ripoff of Lotus 1-2-3 anyway. Of course, 1-2-3 was a ripoff of VisiCalc too. :rolleyes: ;)
 
FlyNE said:
In other news: It was recently discovered that Apple has been clubbing baby seals to use the byproducts in iMac production. When asked about this practice, long time Apple fan Kent Shook said, "I think it's incredibly innovative. Once again, Apple has shown the world that you have to be a leader to stay competitive in the market."
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Bwaaaaaahahahahahaha!!!!! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :D
 
FlyNE said:
In other news: It was recently discovered that Apple has been clubbing baby seals to use the byproducts in iMac production. When asked about this practice, long time Apple fan Kent Shook said, "I think it's incredibly innovative. Once again, Apple has shown the world that you have to be a leader to stay competitive in the market."
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Stop%20Clubbing%20Baby%20Seals.gif
 
FlyNE said:
In other news: It was recently discovered that Apple has been clubbing baby seals to use the byproducts in iMac production. When asked about this practice, long time Apple fan Kent Shook said, "I think it's incredibly innovative. Once again, Apple has shown the world that you have to be a leader to stay competitive in the market."
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'Shook continued, "The truth is, this was brought on by Microsoft. Without their monopolistic practices Apple probably could have been able to get by with an animal such as a cat or a raccoon."
 
FlyNE said:
In other news: It was recently discovered that Apple has been clubbing baby seals to use the byproducts in iMac production. When asked about this practice, long time Apple fan Kent Shook said, "I think it's incredibly innovative. Once again, Apple has shown the world that you have to be a leader to stay competitive in the market."
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jesse said:
'Shook continued, "The truth is, this was brought on by Microsoft. Without their monopolistic practices Apple probably could have been able to get by with an animal such as a cat or a raccoon."
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Also supportive of Apple was Chicago area native, Mike Andrews, who said. "The truth is that, yes, this is Microsoft's fault. It started when they cloned PC-DOS and released it as MS-DOS. Now there is baby seal blood on their hands. Apple is just trying to do right by the consumer."
 
Is this like Ford suing GM because GM uses 4-cycle 6 cylinder internal combustion engines in a V configuration that run on gasoline?
 
Greebo said:
Microsoft ripped off Lotus 1-2-3.
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Nawww... go back a few years. Remember Visicalc? I'm sure Bricklin wishes he had applied for a patent regardless of what was believed at the time about software patents.

Edit: Oops, I was beaten to it! But, oddly... the first time I had ever used Visicalc... it was on an Apple IIe.
 
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KennyFlys said:
Nawww... go back a few years. Remember Visicalc? I'm sure Bricklin wishes he had applied for a patent regardless of what was believed at the time about software patents.

Edit: Oops, I was beaten to it! But, oddly... the first time I had ever used Visicalc... it was on an Apple IIe.
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Visicalc was only produced for the Apple II series IIRC. 1-2-3 came out on the IBM PC and really solidified that as a "Business Machine." Microsoft's first spreadsheet, Multiplan, came out on the Mac and was relatively quickly replaced by Excel, also on the Mac. (Yes, both Word and Excel were Mac products first!) When Windows 3.1 came out, Excel for Windows followed quickly, and was way ahead of 1-2-3 for Windows. Too little too late for Lotus, and look where we are now. Excel is THE spreadsheet. :( (Nothin' wrong with Excel, per se, just that competition is good.)
 
gibbons said:
Which ripped of VisiCalc.
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Beat me to it.

===

Visicalc was also available for CP/M.

I often wonder why it is that Digital Research, which actually had a functional, stable operating system which was written there, was too boneheaded to make the right deal with IBM. Instead, MS-DOS / PC-DOS, which MS did not even create.

Remarkable. An empire built on the premise that you should always consult with counsel!
 
SCCutler said:
Beat me to it.

===

Visicalc was also available for CP/M.

I often wonder why it is that Digital Research, which actually had a functional, stable operating system which was written there, was too boneheaded to make the right deal with IBM. Instead, MS-DOS / PC-DOS, which MS did not even create.

Remarkable. An empire built on the premise that you should always consult with counsel!
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I recall reading something about CP/M very nearly becoming the standard rather than MS-DOS. Of course, I'd have to wonder if it would eventually "evolve" to the windows standard we have now.
 
KennyFlys said:
I recall reading something about CP/M very nearly becoming the standard rather than MS-DOS. Of course, I'd have to wonder if it would eventually "evolve" to the windows standard we have now.
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It was and did become the standard. MS-DOS was Q-DOS which was a cross assembly of CP/M. Gary Kildall's name was in MS-DOS up to 2.2. He said "Ask Bill why it's interrupt 26. I'm the only one who knows that."
 
My favorite story about Microsoft and intellectual property comes from (Wisconsin-based) TheOnion.com.

The opening lines:

Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes

REDMOND, WA?In what CEO Bill Gates called "an unfortunate but necessary step to protect our intellectual property from theft and exploitation by competitors," the Microsoft Corporation patented the numbers one and zero Monday.

. . .

The article is almost ten years old, but I laugh every time I see it.

Eric
________
Yamaha FZ6
 
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