[diskussion] Microsoft sues TomTom over FAT patents

[Jeremiah Foster]

On Mar 15, 2009, at 1:02 PM, Daniel Stenberg wrote:

> On Sun, 15 Mar 2009, Jens Odsvall wrote:
>
>> Fakta så här långt, tyder på att de försöker bli av med en  
>> besvärlig komkurrent, genom att skrämma bort kunder och utvecklare.
>
> Och Tomtom är alltså "en besvärlig konkurrent" till Microsoft? Inom  
> vilken marknad eller branch då menar du?

They are "besvärlig" in the sense they will not be blackmailed into  
paying for patent protection that is not required by the GPL.

> Jag tror precis som flera andra att de hittat ett patent som Tomtom  
> bryter mot, och då har de letat upp varenda ytterligare patent som  
> de kan tänkas OCKSÅ bryta mot och slänger hela högen på Tomtom på en  
> gång.

Definitely. This case is specifically about the GPL, for example here  
is a quote by Jeremy Allison of Samba;

"What people are missing about this is the either/or choice that  
Microsoft is giving Tom Tom.

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*.

Microsoft has been going around and doing these patent cross licensing  
deals with companies under NDA's so they never come to light for  
*years*.

That was the whole point of the Novell deal - Microsoft lawyers  
finally thought they'd found a way to *publicly* do these cross  
licensing deals and get around the GPLv2, but the GPLv3 put paid to  
that.

Tom Tom are the first company to publicly refuse to engage in this  
ugly little protection racket, and so they got sued. Had Tom Tom  
silently agreed to violate the GPL, as so many others have, then we'd  
only hear about a vague "patent cross licensing deal" just like the  
ones Microsoft announces with other companies.

Make no mistake, this is intended to force Tom Tom to violate the GPL,  
or change to Microsoft embedded software."

When will people understand that Microsoft has its monopoly position  
through ruthless and illegal business practices and not innovation?

Jeremiah