Software patents and Microsoft's o-so-sorid past.
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| PaulFerris Feb 02, 2005 4:48 PM EDT |
Had the present environment of "patent-threatened-enforcement" existed during the PC revolution, would Microsoft or any other software company for that matter have made it? Does anyone here remember the howling noise that Microsoft made when they were sued by Lotus for infringing upon their trademark slash key? The GUI -- Xerox PARC more or less gave it away -- but if they had patented it, and enforced that patent, where would would the world be today? Microsoft has been the King of intellectual property theft when it comes to software. Dig only lightly and you will come across some dark places -- places where the only way to get advanced coding tools from Microsoft meant showing them your future development plans. Many a story revolves around advanced developer sessions at Microsoft where products that were discussed showed up later as Microsoft products with almost verbatim look, feel and design "issues". Possibly they have stopped this kind of behavior, but it hardly matters -- it's partly how they got where they are today. They took and took, and now they want to suddenly act like everyone else is a thief. |
| AnonymousCoward Feb 03, 2005 12:51 AM EDT |
Or a pinko communist. |
| PaulFerris Feb 03, 2005 3:12 AM EDT |
I think this editorial (Shameless Rant mode plug) from May of 2001 says it best:
http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-05-06-002-21...
It's titled Rant Mode Equals One: "The Commie Rat Anti-Free Software Act of 2001"? In it, I speculate that now that Microsoft can't fight us on the technology front, it was all going to shift into Washington and whatever kind of legal issues they could stir up (Patents are one of those issues). Enjoy. --FeriCyde |
| tuxchick Feb 03, 2005 8:06 AM EDT |
Oh Mr Cyde, you did it again. I peed myself laughing. The good old days really were better, the comments are as good as the article. Like "Subject: It starts with Free Source Software ( May 6, 2001, 19:15:27 ) Then the next, they'll want to have Sex with the lights on. soon they'll be voting for a democrat & hugging tree's, followed in buying an economy Car. Then it's all Over " How different from the current /.-type level of commentary. |
| phsolide Feb 03, 2005 8:26 AM EDT |
I've often thought that MSFT's emphasis on preventing copying stems from unconscious shame they feel about their own copying. First, the mystery-shrouded past of MS-DOS: the QDOS deal later engendered a lawsuit by Tim Paterson. And then QDOS itself seems to have caused Digital Research to sue Microsoft. If you've got a copy of Robert X Cringley's "Accidental Empires", there's a quote from Gary Kildall to the effect that only he knows why '$' terminates strings used in MS-DOS interrupts, not even Bill Gates does. MSFT settled a lawsuit with DR about similarities between early MS-DOS and CP/M. If only the public could see the evidence in that one... Second, the rumored copying of Micah, DEC's VMS follow-on into early Windows NT. I've heard this rumor twice, from very different sources, with almost identical content. Third, the presence of the BSD TCP/IP stack in early Windows NT. Not illegal at all, but it does demonstrate that wholesale copying takes place at MSFT. |
| PaulFerris Feb 03, 2005 9:31 AM EDT |
tuxchick: Happy to make you laugh. phsolide: Oh, there's a bit more than that going on. "This is only a rumor" :Note to Waggon-Wheel-Egg-Storm sniffers -- run this by someone and see if it doesn't make their hair stand on end. Early versions of the Linux kernel that predate Windows NT had a way of initializing IDE hardware. You have to remember that "some companies" that were blazing for the first time into the Intel so-called "protected mode" zone, had some issues with how to read disks -- before NT, most operating systems could bootstrap a protected mode disk access driver into action. They booted in "REAL" mode, read the driver off the disk for "Protected mode" operation, then switched into protected mode (Think Windows 3.1x, 95 and 98 from what I've, um heard). But what do you do if you're trying to boot and read a disk, while the CPU is in protected mode? Imagine the problems you would face :-) You'd have to properly initialize the correct IDE subsystems and ask them to do real work before they had any code loaded from a REAL mode read. It's a tricky task -- you know it can be done, you're in a hurry -- you just need some good example code to study for the way it's done. Oh, look over here -- there's a GPL project that shows *exactly* how it's done... Problem is, the way it's done is like a digital fingerprint of the OS that you've copied -- and all of the evidence is burned to CD Rom for the future lawsuits ... Now, I have no way of proving this happened, or even if it's true. It was simply told to me so it could all be fiction ... It's an entertaining thought though, isn't it? |
| tuxchick Feb 03, 2005 9:48 AM EDT |
Phsolide, I know this is stating the blindingly obvious, but I am convinced that the primary reason for keeping code closed is to hide all the stolen stuff. |
| PaulFerris Feb 03, 2005 10:10 AM EDT |
tuxchick: it's not blindingly obvious to everyone. To us, yes, but the average joe has no clue how bad it is. |
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