The Good Guys Win: Huge

[RoyGBiv]

Jacobsen v. Katzer is closed, after five years. Open Source won, and big. A manufacturer who attempted to collect royalties from an Open Source developer has lost two patents. As terms of his settlement with the developer, the manufacturer is paying $100,000 to the Open Source developer, has agreed to place himself under a permanent injunction, and has signed a release of any liability to all members of the Open Source project. The case was not “sealed” like so many settled cases, so its documents are available to the public now.

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/features/article.php/3866316/Bruce-Perens-Inside-Open-Sources-Historic-Victory.htm

Do yourself a favor and read the whole article. It's not that long, but it shows how Open Source developers effectively battle patent silliness.

Part of me wishes Microsoft would actually bring suit about all those patents they claim Linux violates, but I suspect they won't, and decisions like this will only discourage them further. They actually stand to lose far more than they ever could gain.

[pokerfan]

1. I saw that earlier

huge win for open source

http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2010-02-22-015-35-NW-LL

[madokie]

2. I don't know about micro$haft

I was reading a few days ago that they were outsourcing their legal department to India. So who knows what billy boy is up to. Best I remember he kinda, sorta stole Dos to begin with. Am I remembering that correctly?

It doesn't matter to me as I'll not be changing back to a windows machine ever. I feel I can actually say that now and with the conviction it deserves. I'm on ubuntu 10.03 alpha 3 right now and will not be looking back. Fuch micro$haft shit wad. I put a pencil to it recently and I've spent over a thousand bucks on their products since my first computer. I'm planning to slide some bucks over towards the developers of ubuntu here shortly. In appreciation and not because I have too, now ain't that a wonderful thought in and of itself?

[pokerfan]

3. I don't know if 'stole' is the right word

1. Gates makes a deal with IBM to provide them an OS for the PC.

2. Gates buys the rights to QDOS from Seattle Computer Products for $50K, keeping the IBM deal a secret.

3. Gates convinces IBM to let him keep the rights to the OS.

It has been argued (successfully in court) that QDOS was a rip-off of CP/M.

[RoyGBiv]

4. That fits my memory ...

Some people say he "stole" it because he a) implicitly passed it off as his own company's work before he even had the rights to it, and b) the amount he paid compared to the ROI was huge, the original purchase of Manhattan Island type of huge.

The deal and others like it also set the foundation for the absurd silliness that is our current patent system.

[TheBigotBasher]

5. Bill Gates

admitted that if software patents were around in the early days of Microsoft the company would have failed.

1991 -- when not quite so giant

If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today...A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose.

Forward years later and those who oppose software patents are communist. (His words).

[madokie]

6. Bill Gates won't be getting anymore of my money

the over a grand I've already given him since my first computer in '89 leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Ubuntu 10.04 is going to knock the socks right off a lot of people and billy boy gates is going to start feeling the pinch. That I would bet on if I was a bettin' man that is.

[TheBigotBasher]

7. He's no longer at MS though.

So even if you were to pay the Windows tax, he wouldn't be getting it anyway.

[pokerfan]

8. He's no longer employed at MS

But he's still chairman and the largest single shareholder.