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____/ Homer on Saturday 03 Sep 2011 06:56 : \____
> Verily I say unto thee that Roy Schestowitz spake thusly:
>> ____/ Homer on Saturday 03 Sep 2011 03:21 : \____
>
>> Tridge wrote a patch for that within weeks. I think it's a
>> backward-compat. thing now, even for TomTom (they depart from FAT,
>> IIRC).
>
> So if there's a non-infringing implementation then why aren't companies
> using it? Does any Linux distributor still have to pay Microsoft for FAT
> patents or not? If not, then what /are/ they (e.g. HTC) paying for?
I reckon it might be ActiveSync. But I'm not sure. Microsoft didn't say,
either. It's intentional.
>>> I thought the EU Commission ruled Microsoft had to open the SMB spec
>>> and allow royalty-free implementations:
>>>
>>> http://fsfe.org/projects/ms-vs-eu/ms-vs-eu.en.html
>>>
>>> Is Microsoft violating that ruling?
>>
>> See
>> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=&q=mcpp+site:techrights.org&btnG=Search
>
> That's just a bunch of four year-old links to the Novell sellout. It
> doesn't really address SMB, or recent EC rulings, or explain whether or
> not any company actually pays Microsoft for SMB licenses in violation of
> those rulings.
>
> So again, does any Linux distributor currently pay Microsoft for SMB
> licensing or not, and if not then what /are/ they paying for? It's not
> SMB, it's not FAT, so what is it?
The TomTom case says FAT, the Motorola case says a little more (but Motorola
did not lose the case), and we generally don't quite know for sure. There
was some article around 2007 about Microsoft Licensing (external) and some
entity they set up to manage SMB "licences". Jeremy Allison complained
about it, IIRC. Maybe that prelates the Samba EU decision, but I think
not. It was in December of that year. I think Easter of that year is
when Novell submitted the redacted deal document, which then exposed
some of what Novell had done.
> It's a big mystery. HTC pays Microsoft $15 per handset for "patents"
> Linux "violates", but nobody seems to know what "patents" they are, and
> nobody wants to talk about it. Indeed, for some equally mysterious
> reason, they seem to need to sign NDAs before making those agreements,
> even though patents are required by law to be a matter of public record.
> So why would Microsoft need companies to sign NDAs if these are
> perfectly legitimate deals, and what /are/ those deals, exactly? If
> companies are not paying for FAT patents, as they clearly no longer need
> to, and they're not paying for SMB patents, since Microsoft is
> prohibited from charging royalties for it, then what exactly are they
> paying for, and why does it need to be a big secret?
B&N did not sign the NDA and in fact it leaked evidence of the extortion.
Groklaw published or republished the PDF, but I don't think it
named patent numbers.
> An even more important question is, why do governments tolerate this
> blatantly obvious racketeering? Surely the Microsoft deceptions exposed
> by Barnes and Noble should have been enough to alert antitrust
> investigators to this corruption. So what is being done about it?
The government -- although taxpayers fund it -- is an extension of Microsoft.
Right now I'm going through Cablagate and publishing relevant
cables that shownthe government acting as merely a lobbyist
and marketer for Microsoft. Only if people stand up and demand action
will something be done about Microsoft. See how the SEC systematically
ignored bankers' crimes (Taibi wrote articles about it) and
a whistleblower explained that the SEC also destroyed evidence. That
was last month. Microsoft and FTC/US DOJ are similar. The latter
did not even investigate the CPTN debacle before
it received many formal complaints. Government kowtowing is not
unique to Microsoft, but that is irrelevant. It's a systemic problem.
>>> Screw ActiveSync. Let Office users sync through Google's Cloud like
>>> everyone else. Surely it should be up to Microsoft to provide that at
>>> the application level, and sell it on Apple's app store / Android
>>> Market, not make boiler-room deals with smartphone manufacturers.
>>
>> Exactly, that's what I thought.
>
> It's bizarre. Android handset distributors are basically paying
> Microsoft for the "privilege" of bundling something that Microsoft could
> simply provide itself after-market, and would most likely do so for free
> anyway, for those few who actually need it. It'd be like paying
> Microsoft to bundle Internet Explorer. It's just incredibly strange.
I think it's for those "business customers" (silly term, I know).
> Somebody needs to write a long, detailed exposà of this whole "Microsoft
> licensing" mystery, and I get the feeling the OIN knows more about it
> than most. Most importantly, we need to establish whether or not
> anything that's being "paid" for genuinely has anything to do with
> Linux, because from what I've seen so far it certainly doesn't. Mostly
> though, I'd like to get to the bottom of why Microsoft refuses to tell
> anyone what patents they're actually charging "license fess" for. Why
> won't they talk about it, and what do bodies like the FTC think about
> Microsoft's refusal to talk about it? Am I the only person who thinks
> this is gangster-like behaviour?
It is. That's why Boycott Novell has posts nearly 14,000 blog posts
now. Not enough people paid attention to the elephant in the room.
- --
~~ Best of wishes
Dr. Roy S. Schestowitz (Ph.D. Medical Biophysics), Imaging Researcher
http://Schestowitz.com | GNU/Linux administration | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
Editor @ http://techrights.org & Broadcaster @ http://bytesmedia.co.uk/
GPL-licensed 3-D Othello @ http://othellomaster.com
Non-profit search engine proposal @ http://iuron.com
Contact E-mail address (direct): s at schestowitz dot com
Contact Internet phone (SIP): schestowitz@xxxxxxxxx (24/7)
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