the missing link
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tuxchick Mar 05, 2009 1:54 PM EDT |
Quoting: It isn't a case of cross-license and everything is ok. If Tom Tom or any other company cross licenses patents then by section 7 of GPLv2 (for the Linux kernel) they lose the rights to redistribute the kernel *at all*. That seems to be the missing smoking gun that nobody else caught, and I'd say that Jeremy Allison ought to know. |
| softwarejanitor Mar 05, 2009 3:11 PM EDT |
I agree, this new revelation makes this whole thing a lot more worrisome. |
| Scott_Ruecker Mar 05, 2009 3:39 PM EDT |
I read that myself and was like "hmmm, I don't know jack about litigating the GPL but I know that doesn't sound good." And would explain all the non-disclosure agreements for sure.. |
| tracyanne Mar 05, 2009 4:36 PM EDT |
It makes a lot more sense, Microsoft does have a lot of very smart lawyers. They have to have talent somewhere, I suppose. |
| DiBosco Mar 05, 2009 7:32 PM EDT |
I don't understand the point you and that paragraph are making, TC. Would you mind explaining further please? |
| danns Mar 05, 2009 10:16 PM EDT |
I believe the point is that MS has been bullying companies to sign cross patent deals so they can "legitimize" their other company's said technology and provide assurance that they are within the licenses of any potential patents. Due to the changes made under the GPL v3 these types of patents violate the GPL v3 resulting in said companies not being able to release the code properly and thus they cannot distribute a product utilizing said code. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 06, 2009 3:53 AM EDT |
Or in short: If you (cross-)license Microsoft's FAT patent you break the GPL and you cannot (legally) distribute Linux. To correct danns: It doesn't just violate GPLv3. It violates GPLv2 as well. Which makes this a problem because the FAT code is in the Linux kernel which is GPLv2. |
| DiBosco Mar 06, 2009 5:20 AM EDT |
Is FAT code not in the mainline kernel then? Is it always added by distributions? In any (I think) modern Linux distribution you are able to stick a USB stick in and are able to transfer information in both directions. So, do all Linux distributions (that can read a USB stick) violate the GPL? |
| jacog Mar 06, 2009 5:31 AM EDT |
DiBosco: Nope, only ones that pay for cross-licensing deals. ... Anyhoo... I think we more-or-less understand what is going on here. Question is... what can be done about it? Invalidate the patents? The way I understand it, TomTom hasn't got a whole lot of money, mostly just debt, so they may not be able to win this, due to lack of resources. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 06, 2009 6:22 AM EDT |
TomTom has had a poor last year, but it's not out of cash anytime soon. |
| jdixon Mar 06, 2009 9:04 AM EDT |
> Question is... what can be done about it? Anyone who's signed such a cross licensing deal is in violation of the GPL. They have no right to use or distribute the Linux kernel. I can see a lot of lawsuits in the near future. Especially since TomTom can reasonably ask that the names of the companies who have cross licensed the technology be made public during discovery, as it's pertinent to the case. Dino would probably know if that's likely to happen or not. If the patent is upheld in the TomTom case, I think it's safe to assume that the kernel developers will modify the kernel to work around the patent or, worst case, remove the FAT code. TomTom could simply stop using FAT and use a native Linux filesystem. They coud provide a Windows userspace program to access it for Windows users. That wouldn't affect the other patents though. |
| number6x Mar 06, 2009 2:01 PM EDT |
Actually this is much bigger than an attack on Linux. This is an attack on every industry that uses digital storage. PDA's, Cameras, Phones, MP3 players. All of these industries have been allowed to implement FAT based storage, and then targeted with by Microsoft one by one. In these lean economic times the lawyers for these industries could save their clients billions by working with Tom Tom to invalidate MS's patents. However, I would be willing to bet that most of them have agreed not to do this in their separate NDA's with MS. |
| tuxchick Mar 06, 2009 2:28 PM EDT |
Quoting: In these lean economic times the lawyers for these industries could save their clients billions by working with Tom Tom to invalidate MS's patents. However, I would be willing to bet that most of them have agreed not to do this in their separate NDA's with MS. Heh, and they call FOSS a herd of cats. I was thinking along the same lines-- individually, everyone is weaker than MS and ripe for the plucking. If they would unite and stand together then they would have the clout to tell the bully to buzz off. |
| tracyanne Mar 06, 2009 4:21 PM EDT |
Quoting:If they would unite and stand together then they would have the clout to tell the bully to buzz off. It never happens, except in the movies. Invariably bullies don't have to divide to conquer, the bullied never come together in the first place. |
| jezuch Mar 06, 2009 5:01 PM EDT |
Quoting:In these lean economic times the lawyers for these industries could save their clients billions by working with Tom Tom to invalidate MS's patents. And what would they do with those billions? Not pay the lawyers? You expect the lawyers to commit some sort of financial suicide? |
| AwesomeTux Mar 07, 2009 7:46 AM EDT |
@DiBosco
>So, do all Linux distributions (that can read a USB stick) violate the GPL? No. Because "USB sticks" or "thumb drives" and/or "flash drives" don't have to use FAT, and, there are kinds that sell using a different filesystem. |
| gus3 Mar 07, 2009 9:52 AM EDT |
Then maybe it's time to start promoting Ext2 as an offline update-friendly filesystem. There are free drivers out there for accessing the data (do they support file write as well?), and as a result Ext2 is not bound to the OS. That makes it a feasible candidate for both the update provision system to write to, and the system receiving the update to read from. It should be moderately easy for the update providers to include source as necessary to comply with any LGPL licenses. Wow, you mean Ext2 may have a permanent niche? |
| techiem2 Mar 07, 2009 2:58 PM EDT |
Quoting:(do they support file write as well?) Yup. http://www.fs-driver.org/ |
| vainrveenr Mar 08, 2009 2:06 PM EDT |
Quoting:Quoted: If they would unite and stand together then they would have the clout to tell the bully to buzz off. Quoting:It never happens, except in the movies. Invariably bullies don't have to divide to conquer, the bullied never come together in the first place.Indeed, OSI's Michael Tiemann addresses this very subject of "uniting" and "sharing" to fight against the bully's FOSS encroachments within his blogpiece 'From the End of the Beginning to the Beginning of the End' linked to via LXer's http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/116880 As Tiemann concludes here: Quoting:Whatever the arguments may be, by filing against TomTom Microsoft has effectively pulled the pin from their legal grenade and have lobbed it into the center of the open source community. Can we pick it up and throw it back (like the FTC attempted to do with Rambus)? Will the grenade be judged a dud (if Bilski holds)? Will the legal shrapnel kill those who are trying to protect our village? And if it does, will Microsoft win anything more than a pyrrhic victory? As Brian writes, Microsoft's actions are despicable. But I remain optimistic. I believe that thanks to the financial meltdown and the stories of fraud and abuse coming from the most well-polished offices on Wall Street that the world understands now, better than it has for a very long time, that sustainable success depends on success we can all share and participate in. When monopolies rise all-powerful, when the power of a company becomes so great that we no longer question our need to police it, then that is the moment we must say "ENOUGH!". It is neither a sustainable nor a desirable condition to become beholden so such power, and we should do nothing, neither legally nor legislatively, to protect those monopolies against our own interests. Rather, we should fight against them with every strength that we have, knowing that when they are defeated, we can all build a stronger, shared success. And to paraphrase Microsoft's own understanding of open source, -- The ability of unfettered, free market competition to collect and harness the collective IQ of thousands of individuals across the entire world is simply amazing. More importantly, free market competition scales with the size of the world and succeeds much faster and much better than any top-down, controlled, monopoly efforts appear to scale or succeed. --- Or, to quote from the movie The Matrix, it's time to take the red pill.Perhaps these "thousands of individuals across the entire world" can successfully continue to ignore Microsoft and never be subject to their bullying in the first place. The LXer thread 'Why use linux?' at http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/28638/ in a sense ties into this concept of just saying NO to Microsoft. A continual question is just HOW realistically optimistic ARE the aforementioned strategies in this thread, to effectively fight off "the bully"? |
| hkwint Mar 08, 2009 3:07 PM EDT |
Funny thing is: All possible outcomes are bad for Microsoft. Actually, the Linux users Philips, IBM, RedHat, Sony, Novell and NEC have united in the case there's a patent threat against Linux in OIN, and they told they've contacted TomTom about this case. If the patent threat is against Linux, Microsoft has to worry because IBM holds prior art to their FAT-patent and it might be invalidated. Also, the six in OIN combined will have at least just as much lawyers and money as MS. Microsoft will look stupid anyway because most of the other patents they used to sue TomTom will be invalid anyway. The other outcome - if the FAT-patent is still valid and enforceable, will probably be that companies now using FAT start looking for alternatives and discover they don't need stinking FAT and pay extortion for it. Another interesting thing to notice is Microsoft starts to become a litigating company instead of an innovating company which sells products. Vista was not the way to earn money, Office has more competition too, which means they are leaving core business. So among other things they have to reside to license their ancient successes. Normally that's the end of a company producing and selling (innovative) products and the beginning of a 'dead' patent troll, much in the same way the sun burns out - or should I say SCO? |
| DiBosco Mar 08, 2009 6:12 PM EDT |
Quoting:No. Because "USB sticks" or "thumb drives" and/or "flash drives" don't have to use FAT, and, there are kinds that sell using a different filesystem. OK, all USB sticks that are formatted as FAT which is surely the vast majority. I'm still not clear on this I must admit: are there any Linux distributions incapable of reading a FAT formatted USB stick? If not, are all distributions not guilty of either this patent breach or guilty of signing this deal which violates the GPL? If there are, how do they cope with not being able to read FAT files as so many bits of gear seem to use it. |
| DarrenR114 Mar 09, 2009 2:39 PM EDT |
Ladies and Gentlemen, Even assuming that the FAT patent is valid, TomTom shouldn't have a problem with MS as no "software" patent is just about software - a valid "software" patent has to include in its claims a description of the hardware it will run on. When FAT was patented, did the hardware platform that TomTom is using even exist? If the patent is so broadly worded that even the hardware that TomTom runs on is covered, then the patent is probably too broad to be a valid patent. IANAL, so take this opinion with a grain of salt. |
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