-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
____/ Miguel de Icaza on Tuesday 12 May 2009 19:38 : \____
> Hello Roy,
>
>> What do you think about the TomTom case? You have never addressed this
>> question, AFAIK?
>
> I am not sure what Tom Tom has to do with GNote or your original claim
> that I disputed on my previous post.
The relevance of Gnote has to do with erasure of Mono.
> But since you ask so nicely, I will tell you my personal take (not
> speaking for my employer, include standard disclaimer, etc).
Understood.
> As a principle, I think that the patent system needs to be reformed,
> and I do not like software patents.
I know.
> But to be specific about Tom Tom: I only know what was made public
> during the case, and there is a lot that I do not know. I could
> speculate, but there is little value on it, I doubt I can add a guess
> that has not been presented before.
>
> I know that Microsoft sued Tom Tom for patent infringement on about
> eight to twelve patents (I do not know the exact number) and two of
> them were related to vfat, the bulk of them being on non-FAT bits.
What makes these patents unique is that without them, there is none of
that 'interoperability' Microsoft and Novell love raving about. This shows
that Microsoft sues over the glue which is based on the Microsoft 'standard'.
In this case it's FAT; in another episode it can be Mono. These patents cannot
be 'worked around' because of their nature of compatibility assurance. Jose X
has a good essaythat demonstrates this point.
> I do not know what triggered the lawsuit, why or how the settled.
They spoke behind the scenes, TomTom would not pay, Microsoft sued, TomTom paid
less than half a million Euro. Microsoft invited TomTom to reveal the details
1-2 weeks ago (OIN's CEO said so).
> There is not much public factual information on the subject, but there
> are volumes of speculation written.
I wrote factual things about it. Since you read my site daily I believe you
have read it to a greater or lesser degree.
>> Why did you snip the Scoble quote in your reply to me?
>
> Because it was irrelevant to the point I was addressing ("rallying the
> troops"). Btw, you failed to address *any* of the points related to
> the actual discussion.
I don't think the issue of choice is major to this discussion although that too
is worthy of a separate debate. You lead developers right into Microsoft's
arms. That's the company that compares Linux to cancer, you know? :-)
> The context of Scoble talking to "higher ups" was the PDC 2005 when he
> was trying to help me get a Mono BOF at the PDC. At the time
> Microsoft would not help or engage in open source in any form and it
> was at the peak of their Linux rhetoric.
Is there a 'new Microsoft'? Do you genuinely believe it?
> Most importantly, Scoble quote is irrelevant anyways. Microsoft
> claims that Linux infringes two hundred and something patents, and as
> such the same point that Scoble makes about Mono can be made about the
> other pieces in Linux that we might infringe.
He said they might sue, not just threaten. Also see what I wrote about FAT or
Mono being unique. Please make an effort to make your videos available as Ogg
by the way, I sometimes can't watch what you post.
>> Do you think Microsoft wants GNOME (and by extension GNU/Linux) to succeed?
>
> I do not think that Linux on the desktop is keeping folks at Microsoft
> awake at night.
Well, you have not been paying attention then. :-) The executives themselves
talk about it occasionally.
> Our market share is still very small, we are deeply
> fragmented and our quality control is terrible. We have competing
> projects, distributions, packages and ABIs. ISVs have a hard time
> targeting the Linux desktop due to these.
>
> Sadly, MacOS has taken the spot that I wish GNOME or KDE had taken.
If you are referring to the desktop only, which you are, then you might want to
extend the definition/scope to newer form factors. GNU/Linux on desktops is
not as scarce as they wish you to believe. Maybe you spend a lot of time
talking to people in the Microsoft ecosystem and thus drinking from the same
well.
- --
~~ Best of wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | (S)oftware (U)nd (S)ystem(E)ntwicklung
http://Schestowitz.com | GNU is Not UNIX | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
http://iuron.com - proposing a non-profit search engine
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
iEYEARECAAYFAkoJ4Q4ACgkQU4xAY3RXLo4qNQCeKaYO9wHXug/bSRFShAkwtkGS
HZsAn3gq7agxHKbiKbEIZM0bzdkn4kpX
=FnCS
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
|
|
