26 ms·

Microsoft Joins the Open Invention Network

809 points by MikusR 8y ago

azhenley 8y ago
Here is the press release without ZDNet's autoplaying videos: https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/10/10/1619375/0/en/Microsoft-Joins-the-Open-Invention-Network-Community.html https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/10/10/1619375/0/...
- deleted 8y ago
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- deleted 8y ago
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- kennxfl 8y ago
  How long till ZDNet realises that autoplay model is egregious?
  - CrankyBear 8y ago
    Not soon enough.
  - 5874-4b22-a4e0 8y ago
    Why do they bother with autoplaying videos when browsers mute them?
- ChrisRR 8y ago
  Thanks. I opened the page and chrome started chugging. I closed the page without reading the article
  - gdrulia 8y ago
    Javascript OFF and zdnet link works just fine.
  - capdeck 8y ago
    <F9> in Firefox to open in "reading mode" - majestic.
- superflyguy 8y ago
  I use Firefox with ublock origin and didn't have any trouble with videos auto-playing.
  - abainbridge 8y ago
    Interesting. For me with Chrome+ublock origin I still get the auto-playing video. With Firefox+ublock origin the video appears but doesn't play. Instead it shows a red and white "I'm still loading" icon over the video, which is quite annoying but much better than auto-play. Is this what you get?
- sctb 8y ago
  Thanks! We've updated the link from https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-open-sources-its-entire-patent-portfolio/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-open-sources-its-ent..., which points to this.
ckluis 8y ago
Holy shit. I'd like to see an anti-microsoft comment on this post...
- CrankyBear 8y ago
  I'm sure one will come.
- diblasio 8y ago
  Microsoft bit my sister once.
  - CodeCube 8y ago
    heh https://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx https://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx
- yAnonymous 8y ago
  Microsoft must want free access to a particular patent from that group really badly. Does that work for you?
- geeostation 8y ago
  35 years ago, microsoft assaulted me at a beer party.
- jeremy7600 8y ago
  Are they going to give back all the royalties they've stolen from every Android phone manufacturers with their patents, which the manufacturers didn't need to develop their phones, so they just gave them money for nothing?
- Apocryphon 8y ago
  They are extending open source to extinguish it, somehow.
  - DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
brian_herman__ 8y ago
Wow nice!
MichaelMoser123 8y ago
How does Microsoft benefit from this step?
- jandrese 8y ago
  It encourages people to use Microsoft technologies without having to worry about patents or licensing issues. Ultimately Microsoft probably thinks that the extra Windows licenses will generate more revenue than their patent licenses.
- qaq 8y ago
  I am guessing they see Cloud Services as their main cash cow so they get a ton of good will and I am guessing more contributors to projects they care about?
- BoysenberryPi 8y ago
  Microsoft's cash cow is Azure which means the target market are developers so anything that generates good will among devs and puts Microsoft's past further in the back of their minds benefits them.
- UseStrict 8y ago
  Definitely a lot of goodwill between patent non-aggression, all of their work in the developer community (VSCode), listening to user feedback (most of the time anyways). Also they gain access to other patents in the OIN. Plus most of their revenue seems to be from cloud and licensing, I'm sure they are making a mint on Office, Windows, and Azure without needing any patent aggression. I keep asking myself "is this a trojan horse" and the more time goes on, the less I think it is. Maybe they have actually changed for the better.
  - guiriduro 8y ago
    Yes, this Microsoft does seem to have left much of the Gates and especially Ballmer machinations behind - at least as regards its openness and collaboration.
- yAnonymous 8y ago
polskibus 8y ago
How does that affect royalties from android phone makers?
- Grazester 8y ago
  Wasn't that a fat32 patent? Would I have had to pay for this patent if my phone didnt have an SD card slot and didnt support reading of fat32 partitions on USB OTG storage devices is what I would love to have known.
  - michaelg7x 8y ago
    How many of Microsoft's cornerstone patents are soon to emerge from patent-protection?
walterbell 8y ago
This is astonishing. Are there upcoming US/EU court cases on software patents or specific Microsoft patents? Which other large companies could now sue vendors of devices (e.g. ereaders) which use Linux? Is Oracle in OIN? Is OIN's Linux patent pool now large enough to deter other large companies? Has Microsoft published a definitive list of their Linux-related patents which were previously subject to royalty payment? Is the FAT patent covered, https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument?FT=D&date=20011212&DB=worldwide.espacenet.com&locale=en_EP&CC=EP&NR=0618540B1&KC=B1&ND=4 https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalD...
choot 8y ago
Can i get nice font of linux now? Does it include the font rebdering patent?
- athenot 8y ago
  I thought fonts were copyrighted.
  - 0-_-0 8y ago
    This is about rendering, not the font itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClearType https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClearType
    - athenot 8y ago
      Ah, thanks for the clarification!
- cyphar 8y ago
  OIN requires that members provide patent licenses for all patents that are part of a "Linux System". So unless there is a ClearType implementation being widely distributed with Linux, then I would assume this doesn't apply. But if someone writes something like that and integrates it into common Linux distributions, then maybe. I feel like this is ripe for (the right kind of) abuse.
- zamalek 8y ago
  You'd also have to get past Apple, I believe.
- another-cuppa 8y ago
  You can get it now with free software and have been able to for many years. What you won't see is a major distro including it.
zihotki 8y ago
Here is a link to the source post from MS - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-joins-open-invention-network-to-help-protect-linux-and-open-source/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-joins-open-...
lukeschlather 8y ago
> By joining the Open Invention Network, Microsoft is offering its entire patent portfolio -- with the legacy exception of its Windows and desktop application code -- to all of the open-source patent consortium's members. Is this sentence a meaningless tautology (application code is not the same thing as patents) or are there some older patents that Microsoft isn't donating? For example the VFAT patents?
- CrankyBear 8y ago
  If a MSFT patent has any relevant to open-source programs, such as VFAT, they're now open to other OIN members.
  - cyphar 8y ago
    What if someone writes some free software code to intentionally use one of their patents so it can be liberated?
    - intern4tional 8y ago
      I think that's kind of the entire idea. Microsoft is expecting people to use the IP in the patents to write code for Linux now without fear of being sued. When they donated the IP to OIN, for all intensive purposes the patents were liberated given OIN's wide coverage.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
    - zaarn 8y ago
      That's not quite how patent licenses work. Even if you got a license for a patent for yourself and wrote free software for it, if someone else gets it they might need a patent license too, regardless of your project being free software. Your FOSS/FLOSS license might include a patent clause but that means you'd first need the right to issue licenses for the patent, in case you don't, the clause is void.
aritmo 8y ago
I would like to see the definitive analysis as to whether they will continue to benefit from those licences on patents that affect open source software. How do they plan to recoup their losses? They weren't getting much anyway?
- jeremy7600 8y ago
  They were getting more from Android on licenses than they were on Windows Phone.
mmastrac 8y ago
Microsoft's Android patent shakedown was the big thing that kept me from believing the company had really changed - I think I'm ready to consider that it really has changed now.
- alimbada 8y ago
  They started changing for the better as soon as they got rid of Ballmer in my opinion. He was toxic for the company and for the industry as a whole. It's taken a few years, but I don't think there's much of the "old" MS left anymore in terms of business practices and ethics.
  - Isamu 8y ago
    Not just getting rid of Ballmer, but promoting Nadella to the job. That pick was the turning point.
    - DonHopkins 8y ago
      Interesting... I don't know much about him. Wikipedia mentions briefly that he worked at Sun. What did he do there, for how long, with whom, and how did that influence his time at Microsoft? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Nadella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Nadella
      - Isamu 8y ago
        I haven't read it but apparently he published an autobiographical book last year: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30835567-hit-refresh https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30835567-hit-refresh https://medium.com/@xaviergeerinck/my-key-take-aways-from-reading-satya-nadellas-book-hit-refresh-6c2f07893d5c https://medium.com/@xaviergeerinck/my-key-take-aways-from-re...
        fernandotakai 8y ago
        i would also recommend his interview with freakonomics podcast http://freakonomics.com/podcast/satya-nadella/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/satya-nadella/
cptskippy 8y ago
This seems like an extension of what large tech companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Google have been doing among themselves all along. Over the last two decades they amassed huge patent portfolios and then mutually agreed to only use them defensively. The difference here is that anyone who joins OIN can play along too. I feel like this a natural evolution of their policies over the last decade. https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2018/04/04/a-new-ip-strategy-for-a-new-era-of-shared-innovation/ https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2018/04/04/a-new-ip-strateg...
ISL 8y ago
Does this include hardware patents? Quantum computing? Microsoft Research? XBox?
- mdturnerphys 8y ago
  According to the OIN license agreement, it's just patents for the "technology defined as the Linux System" [0]. [0] https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/ https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/
  - ISL 8y ago
    Aha -- that makes practical sense. (and a reply from the person in whose perspective I was most interested!)
m-p-3 8y ago
I'm wondering if the portfolio include most filesystems Microsoft made (NTFS, VFAT, ExFAT, etc).
walterbell 8y ago
(2013) https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-fat-patent-loss-endangers-its-android-revenue/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-fat-patent-loss-enda... > A patent loss in a German court may lead to trouble for Microsoft's Android strategy ... one of Microsoft main Android patent weapons has been rendered harmless for now in the EU. This may sound like a minor patent. It's not. Microsoft has been using this patent since 2003 to pressure Linux and Android companies that use the popular FAT file system for compatibility with other operating systems ... combined with the recent judgment that the US version of this patent, "Common name space for long and short filenames," Patent No. 5,758,352 "invalid for obviousness," may finally blunt this patent's usefulness for Microsoft.
- _wmd 8y ago
  We could cutpaste a snippet like this for almost every major tech company on the planet, what's your point?
  - walterbell 8y ago
    Depends on whether there have been subsequent court rulings on the FAT patent. If the value of the FAT patent was reduced by court rulings, it may have factored into the donation of the patent to OIN. If the patent was upheld in recent court rulings and revenue from the patent has been increasing, that would put the OIN patent donation in a different light.
  - nickpsecurity 8y ago
    I usually use these kind of links instead: https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-earns-2-billion-per-year-from-android-patent-royalties-2013-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-earns-2-billion-pe... https://www.wired.com/2014/01/huawei/ https://www.wired.com/2014/01/huawei/ Microsoft stay's draining billions out of the Android market in particular with patent trolling for products they didn't support one bit. Their own products were big losers. Thanks to corrupt patent law, they can still suck money out of the winners. I don't trust anything Microsoft says about open-source and patents. If there's money to be made, they might weasel into something good for them and bad for others.
gmueckl 8y ago
So a patent license is granted when a) you are a member of OIN b) the infringing software is core to the Linux system Is that correct? What about other OSS projects that are unrelated to Linux?
- tomnipotent 8y ago
  I think it only highlighted Linux specifically because of the prior tug-of-war there, it mentions right afterward " and other important OSS technologies".
  - svick 8y ago
    https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/ https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/ This specifically talks about "the Linux System".
    - tomnipotent 8y ago
      Got it, didn't realize OIN was so specific to Linux.
    - aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
      I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/LInux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux.
      - tomnipotent 8y ago
        No where in the literature does it mention GNU outside of the GPL. https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/linux-system/ https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/linux-syste...
        cyphar 8y ago
        It's a Stallman copypasta, but in this case I think it's justified. The definition of "Linux System" appears to refer to a Linux distribution which would include GNU and countless other projects than just the kernel. Seems like really strange wording since it'll likely just cause confusion and lawsuits down the track.
itsreallyme 8y ago
If Microsoft is doing this selflessly, then why aren’t they simply putting their patents into the public domain? Consider the open innovation network as a kind of club, with good intentions. When a company like Microsoft joins it might seem like the pinnacle of success, but with it really means is that the club has become a mafia. It won’t be long before OIN uses its patent leverage to affect control over the behavior if its members. Think about it for a minute… Why wouldn’t such a group or simply convince corporations, like Microsoft, to put their patents into the public domain? If you have to join a club to gain access to something, but it’s not really open source and it’s not really some kind of charitable contribution. Another way of looking at this is, Microsoft has just one goal, being a publicly traded company, which is to increase the share price of its stock… Why are people so stupid always constantly fall for the same tricks, believing that such companies do anything that is actually charitable?
- ohthehugemanate 8y ago
  No one suggests they're doing it selflessly. They're doing it because they get more value out of the IP by sharing and collaborating, than they do by litigating. Like so many OSS evangelists have said for the last 20 years: open source isn't about charity; it's actually a better way to develop. I think you raise a good point about the public domain. Why wouldn't the GNU licenses just force users to put their works into the public domain? Because public domain software isn't copyleft. "Joining a club" in this case is just signing an agreement (for free) that compels open access to your entire patent portfolio. The OIN agreement is a copyleft-style patent club, similar to the GPL. You get unlimited, royalty-free access to my software, but you must agree to offer similar access to everyone, too.
  - itsreallyme 8y ago
    > ...GNU... That’s not a valid comparison. If Microsoft was licensing their patents under GNU (if that was possible), we’d be talking about something different entirely, but they’re not actually open sourcing them in any way at all... they’re entering into a contract to trade them like Pokemon cards with a consortium that will actually, eventually become a monopoly. Once they become a monopoly with enough leverage, they will inevitably agree to change their terms to be more hostile to the rest of the world. Open source software offers usage under some kind of license for essentially nothing in return, not “you can use our software if you make all of your software open sores as well”. I’m gonna leave this comment here so that I can come back and reference it in an article that all right 10 years from now when everybody is talking about how this consortium effectively took over the world of IP and how it’s too bad nobody could see that snowball when it was near the top of the hill still. Here’s another thing to consider: given the right terms, which the constituents of this consortium could agree to, this IP monopoly (read: mafia) could even use their IP to collectively sue basically everyone (the cross section of that many patents will overlap with much more IP in the world, creating an economy of scale nobody can compete with).
GiorgioG 8y ago
All the more reason to move from Oracle's Java to MS's .NET Core. They're not the big bad evil company they once were (they can't afford to be today.)
- justinclift 8y ago
  While this is a step in the right direction, MS still seem to be "all in" on telemetry. Until the telemetry and data sent by MS software can realistically be turned off completely, they shouldn't get any kind of positive treatment.
  - bradford 8y ago
    <disclaimer, MS employee> MS adheres to GDPR regulations and has applied those protections to all users. You can opt out of telemetry, you can view what they've collected on you and delete it. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/microsoft-extending-gdpr-protections-to-all-global-customers-heres-how/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/microsoft-extending-gdp...
    - walterbell 8y ago
      Does this include data collected from activity on Windows 10 endpoints? Previously, this could only be disabled on Windows 10 Enterprise. Can all on-device data collection and telemetry be disabled on Windows 10 Pro or Home, including "Customer Improvement" data collection, crash logs, keystrokes, screen grabs?
    - danarmak 8y ago
      The article you linked points to an online Microsoft Account Privacy dashboard. I have Windows 10 installed with a local login. I don't have or want an online Microsoft account. It doesn't seem to be possible to disable telemetry in this case, or at least I haven't found out an (officially supported) way to do it.
      - mbesto 8y ago
tsenkov 8y ago
Does anyone know (or have a speculation on) the annual profit loss coming out of this? Didn't they get a very significant portion of every Android sale?
- gmueckl 8y ago
  About 4 years ago there was talk if 10 to 15 Dollars per phone. I do not know how that has changed since then.
- nonfamous 8y ago
  According to Yahoo Finance, "billions": https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-may-relinquishing-billions-android-patent-royalties-141047213.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-may-relinquishing-b...
CodeSheikh 8y ago
Hopefully MS joining OIN would further discourage patent trolls.
- qaq 8y ago
  How? By their nature patent trolls don't have products so they don't care about OIN's patent portfolio size.
OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago
unsubscribe
bobcallme 8y ago
I'm still a little skeptical since this applies to "Microsoft" and not any of its holding or investment companies. A great move to earn trust is to "Open Source" almost expired or useless patents.
samfisher83 8y ago
Microsoft android revenue was already going down: https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-android-patent-licensing-revenue-falling-2016-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-android-patent-lic... I am sure most of the FAT patents must be expired at this point since patents last 20 years and FAT32 came out 22 years ago. The Chinese manufacturers didn't have much of incentive to pay Microsoft.
dschuetz 8y ago
It's a quite interesting move actually. It indicates undoubtedly that Microsoft's business model also radically shifted away from selling software to selling hardware, subscription services and user data & analytics. It's not surprising now that Microsoft doesn't plan to make money off patents. So they make that huge OIN move to promote themselves as a big OSS supporter. That's quite a PR move, I'd say, a nice one though.
- S-E-P 8y ago
  Well while I mostly agree, I think it is important to note that it seems they are going for more of a SAAS approach. With Office and Azure, etc. They are more into the service industry now than they've ever been in the past. This move was them realizing that OSS is just a really good way to improve software for cheap. I doubt this will have lasting effects as I have yet to see them actually open source anything that I would consider special.
  - mr_overalls 8y ago
    > I have yet to see them actually open source anything that I would consider special. It looks like they have open sourced a number of .NET components: CoreFX - Core foundational libraries, CoreCLR - runtime, Roslyn - compiler. As well as PowerShell, VS Code, Typescript, ASP.NET Core, MVC, Blazor, F#, Z3 Theorem Prover, etc. And that's from just the first few pages of their Open Source page: https://opensource.microsoft.com/ https://opensource.microsoft.com/
    - simooooo 8y ago
      You rekt that guy.
EastSmith 8y ago
Remember now Linux is part of Windows via Windows Subsystem for Linux (Ubuntu). This is very important for me as developer and I am using it every day. By joining ONI MS is strengthening parts of its offerings (Linux), and maybe is using (or will be using) existing ONI Linux patents to defend that part.
- executesorder66 8y ago
  Why not just use Linux directly? It's much better than using a paid OS with ads and spyware.
anhldbk 8y ago
Really like the way Satya Nadella transforms M$
josaka 8y ago
Link to terms: https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/oin-license-agreement/ https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/oin-license.... Looks like it might be revocable.
danarmak 8y ago
Here's the original press release on the OIN website: https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/pressrelease_details/?id=89 https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/pressrelease_details/?i...
berkes 8y ago
Not OP, but I think it is important to see a company as a whole. Untill Microsoft has truly changed its entire company and the culture ruling it, to be supportive of Open Source, it is safe to say "There are just some parts supporting OSS". Just like one can safely say "but there are just some parts of the company opposing FLOSS". In order to truly help OSS, joining some initiative, group or foundation is the easy thing to do. Opening the patent portfolio, is the difficult thing to do. The latter helps FLOSS a lot more.
- _wmd 8y ago
  The 90s called, they want their tired old meme back. If you want to know if Microsoft has truly changed, please take your fingers out of your ears for just 10 minutes and review some of what's been happening in the past half decade: - They're now, or soon will be, the largest supporter of free infrastructure for open source projects on the planet (GitHub) - They've open sourced a massive chunk of their (IMHO) best-in-class language runtimes and language implementations (C#, F#, VB.net) and design and develop new features in the open - They've contributed more than 1700 changes to the Linux kernel that can easily be identified with a quick 'git log --grep' - They're the first company to make a real attempt at an industrial strength alternative implementation of the Linux kernel. Linux was supposed to be about choice, remember? - They've open sourced the core chunks of the evaluation engine used in Bing (BitFunnel) - They're a platinum member of the Linux Foundation. In other words, they pay Torvalds salary - They support Linux as a first class OS on Azure and make it cheaper than Windows - They have one of the largest and most active GitHub organizations - They've joined OIN and, ignoring the actual patents involved, have thus in the process made an implicit promise never to attack any core part of the Linux infrastructure in the future What more do you want?
  - fartcannon 8y ago
    Well, for one, they could stop threatening patent infringement over the length of file names.
  - jchw 8y ago
    I suppose you think they're doing all of these things out of the goodness of their heart and not because their previous strategy with the FOSS community turned out to be a catastrophic failure.
ElijahLynn 8y ago
Want to take this opportunity to describe my positive experience with the Open Invention Network (OIN): I called the OIN many years ago to talk about what they do and how it works. I ended up speaking with Tom Tyson for a good 15-30 minutes and he was very helpful in answering my questions. My questions were around open sourcing inventions so that other companies could not claim IP on them and prevent others from using them. I am fine with companies taking the idea and making money from them, just not okay with them taking the idea, claiming it is theirs, and creating a proprietary product. So, I spoke with Tom and the gist of it that I remember is that OIN will work to create a "defensive patent" for your invention. Now, the idea doesn't actually have to be software, they may be software based but are open to all inventions (this may have changed since then). So if we have ideas (we all do right!) that we know we won't have time to implement/execute but just want the product made so we and society can use it, while having multiple companies offering it to compete and improve the idea, then OIN passes the smell test! Feel free to give Tom a call if you are curious, he was very patient with my questions.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
deknos 8y ago
So, if - microsoft de-debts every developer which got into financial trouble like perhaps with US 6041345 and - i as an independent developer who only publishes code under bsd-2-clause-license or agpl3+ or Apache or MIT-license - can reimplement - (arbitrarily big parts of) - Active Directory, VFAT, FAT, NTFS, MTP, RDP so my application can interact with it, not only from Windows, but from Linux or BSD also - and i do not have to be in the OIN club, because i have no money for it or i even do not know about it - then i will believe this move is sincere. Is there already a complete free C#-Compiler available for posix systems, which can be recompiled without non-free parts from microsoft? Will their office suite in the future really support an open data standard like ODF? because they kind of ditched their own standard. With Active Directory and Windows, they keep people from really switching to open source on the desktop. and they know it. And of course, THAT part is exempted from their OIN-Initiave. I would like to have meaningful examples what they opensourced, what they do not primarily need for cloud, but what benefits open source in general, like on the desktop or office applications. But i have to admit, i am really starting to hope, microsoft is only a normal company, not especially opensource-hating-one anymore. could be. time will tell. would be nice. Really hereIsMeHoping
- oropolo 8y ago
  > Is there already a complete free C#-Compiler available for posix systems, which can be recompiled without non-free parts from microsoft Is the Apache 2 licensed Roslyn compiler not free enough for you? https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn
  - deknos 8y ago
    cool, there really seem to be steps. further: Can i reimplement server/client functions of the caldav stack and have my own push notifications for mail?
  - deknos 8y ago
    further on, can be the z3 theorem prover built only with free software?
jhabdas 8y ago
HN this week: - Don't trust global supply chains - Apple loses trust for the MSM - Microsoft loves FLOSS, really - Google really is evil, really - Global supply chains are scary, pt II - Something about Elm - Instagram is Facebook, duh - MSM loses trust for everyone - EU licks chops, globalist fines - China buying out EU, world
oropolo 8y ago
The continued hatred of Microsoft amazes me. If Linus Torvalds, Eric Raymond, and RMS all joined Microsoft and proclaimed it safe, I suspect the accusations of selling out or being drugged would be leveled within milliseconds. I fully realize RMS would never do this; my larger point is that with a huge chunk of the population I don't think there is anything Microsoft can possibly do to convince them they aren't evil/truly friendly toward open source.
- manquer 8y ago
  While their current efforts seem genuine, the deep skepticism is not unwarranted given their behavior in the late 90s and should not be a surprise
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    And their behavior recently: - Data collection - Forced installs - Android shakedown Looks like some progress is being made, however.
    - tw04 8y ago
      >Data collection So turn it off. It has ACTUAL end-user benefits being enabled by default. You are literally asked on first boot if you want it on or off. And you can go a step further by disabling it in the registry to prevent a second user on the system enabling it. >Forced installs This one gets me more than anything. Literally every *nix admin on the planet bitching for the last 2 decades about MS having all these insecure zombies out in the wild. The fix? Enable updates by default, and make it difficult for the average home user to turn it off. More importantly make it difficult for malware to easily turn off. And you STILL find a reason to complain. Why on earth you'd want to make the internet less secure is beyond me, but that's just such a horrible thing to try to bag them for.
      - mixmastamyk 8y ago
        Privacy is not opt-in, thanks. The actual benefits must not be great as Windows is the most user hostile of the big three, and not much improvement since 7. It's clear soon after install that you'll be doing things the way MS wants. The second you misunderstood, it refers to forced installs to 10.
apotheon 8y ago
For the last half-dozen years (give or take), I've been flabbergasted that MS has taken some of the steps it has toward being a better technology neighbor. Even so, it still engages in some very sketchy (even "evil") behavior, as all publicly traded corporations do, and some of that behavior is very reminiscent of the bad old days of Microsoft (though living up to the evils of the Ballmer age is probably not even visible from where MS is now). Over the last couple years, I see people having completely ignored the fact that Microsoft still pulls a lot of bad shit. Because the change has been so drastic, people seem entirely willing to overlook the horrors still in play. Sure, Oracle seems more evil than Microsoft these days, but that's a pretty damned low bar for someone to suddenly forgive Microsoft and start singing its praises. I'm a bit more cynical than that. Show me an open source MS-DOS 5.0 at least; MS-DOS 2.0 is nothing but a mostly-pointless curiosity and PR stunt. Show me a covenant to never sue anyone for patent infringement, regardless of OIN membership, unless that other party sued MS for patent infringement first. Show me opt-in telemetry instead of opt-out; never opt-out instead of opt-in, for any software at all. We need more. I've been disappointed that people were so ready to forgive MS not only for the perfidies of the past, but the ongoing bad behavior of the present, too. I'm happy to see there are still people skeptical of Microsoft's current state of reform here on HN. Yes, I am willing to believe MS is better than it was, and is better in some respects than Google and Apple now (which are just atrocious), but that doesn't mean I'm willing to give MS any support for anything that isn't completely free and clear in its licensing. DOS 2.0? .NET Core? PowerShell? Sure, I am happy with the direction Microsoft has taken with those, but I'm not 100% sure I can legally trust them outside of a Linux context, given how the OIN somehow abandoned the pretense of just being about openness and doubled down on being about Linux specifically. What kind of insanity might creep into GitHub now? How dangerous would it still be to use Windows? No thanks, I'll put my time and trust elsewhere, same as with how I treat Apple, Facebook, Google, and Oracle. I can't trust any of them, and you shouldn't either.
- neolefty 8y ago
  > ... Microsoft still pulls a lot of bad shit. Specific examples?
  - 8y ago
cailloud 8y ago
Embrace extend extinguish I'm sorry but i just can not trust microsoft, their history is just too full with heinous behavior and so is their present behavior. I think mocrosoft embracing opwn source and linux is more unsettling then comforting.
- wnevets 8y ago
  I find seeing this post in every single MS related story to be quite boring.
  - svick 8y ago
    Even worse, they don't even attempt to justify how EEE applies to what MS is doing now. Please, at least try to make what you're saying relevant to the story.
  - peter_retief 8y ago
    boring but true
forapurpose 8y ago
I'm uncertain about OIN's membership and its benefits to the larger public. Is it just an exclusive club that benefits its members, or a means to provide everyone with IP safety regarding Linux and maybe other FOSS? One sentence in the press release suggests that only members benefit: > The OIN patent license and member cross-licenses are available royalty-free to any party that joins the OIN community. Still, their About page says membership is free:[0] > Any company, project or developer that is working on Linux, GNU, Android or any other Linux-related software is welcome to join OIN, free of charge or royalties. On the other hand, there are only ~2,600 members [1] - that sounds like a big number, but I would expect almost everyone to join. Are you protected if you are not a member? Why haven't more joined? I suspect that the answer may have something to do with the IP needs of software developers compared to those of users, and the latter don't need membership for some reason; but even then, 2,600 seems like a small portion of FOSS developers. [0] https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/about-us/ https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/about-us/ [1] https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/community-of-licensees/ https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/community-of-licensees/
- svick 8y ago
  > Why haven't more joined? My guess: 1. Most devs don't know about it. 2. Most devs don't need it, if they contribute to projects that are themselves members.
shmerl 8y ago
So no more Android patent protection racket from MS? What about using exFAT in Linux distros (especially commercial ones that need to provide support for SD cards), will that now be free?
- puzzle 8y ago
  That would be covered if exfat were in the mainline kernel, which I don't think it is yet.
  - shmerl 8y ago
    OIN doesn't cover the kernel only. So that's why I'm asking. I'm not sure what exactly is covered.
    - puzzle 8y ago
      Those are all userland packages. OIN's site does not list any packages with supplemental kernel modules.
      - shmerl 8y ago
        exfat is using FUSE I think in common distros anyway. So it is userland.
simonveith1 8y ago
http://go.affiliate.179169.digistore24.com http://go.affiliate.179169.digistore24.com
peter_retief 8y ago
Is that joined or infiltrated?
simonveith123 8y ago
http://go.affiliate.179169.digistore24.com http://go.affiliate.179169.digistore24.com
simonveith123 8y ago
http://go.simonv.179169.digistore24.com http://go.simonv.179169.digistore24.com
damon 8y ago
It's hard to let past Ballmer / Gates era sins go, and I'll probably take a lot of heat here, but moves like this continue to reinforce the Nadella era is truly serious about advancing OSS both within Microsoft and within the broader community.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- kennymeyers 8y ago
  You won't take heat from me. I think this is a very rational response to all the steps they've been taking.
- baldfat 8y ago
  I really think the Open Source Community has been to focused on Microsoft for way to long. Even during the Ballmer ERA we had very Open Source Friendly People at Microsoft. I think our focus needs to be on what is happening in the other areas. 1) Apple's Counterfeit Lawsuit for refurbished screens and Apple's Diagnostic Software requirement for basic repairs. If that mindset gets turned towards software we all will be in big trouble. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/evk4wk/dhs-seizes-iphone-screens-jessa-jones https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/evk4wk/dhs-seizes... 2) John Deer and the very idea of ownership being taken away. https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/ https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/ I think Linux has won the OS War, minus desktop. Now it is moving to the hardware that is running it.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Linux has won the server and HPC room war, there are many other kinds of deployments. On mobile there is iOS and regarding ChromeOS and Android it is only an implementation detail, lets see where it goes if Google is serious about Fuchsia. On game consoles we have a modified BSD on PS, Windows variant on XBox and Nintendo's own microkernel. Then on IoT space BSD licensed OSes like mbed, Zephyr and RTOS are on the rise. And then there is the whole mainframe and high integrity computing domains.
damon 8y ago
What's interesting to me is how serious Nadella's Microsoft is about embracing OSS. Consider his appointment as a line in the sand and look at how drastically the company has changed since that line was drawn. I realize that doesn't make the actions done prior to 2014 right. But I do feel the company has been serious about advancing OSS since Nadella took over as CEO.
- beokop 8y ago
  They’re only embracing OSS because the price of software is now zero. If your software is free there’s seldom reason for it not to be libre also.
- executesorder66 8y ago
  Yeah, I like how after 2014 they decided to push ads into their paid OS. And how they forced "upgrades" to windows10 for millions of people who didn't want it. They are truly a company that cares about openness and giving back control of the device the the people who fucking paid for it. No wait, they aren't. They are still just a bunch of assholes like always.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
partycoder 8y ago
Public donations to foundations and similar stuff are: - public relations - tax deductible So it's PR the taxpayer pays for.
kidsnow 8y ago
I have a feeling this is neither open, nor inventive, nor a network.
hardwaresofton 8y ago
If the companies in OIN really wanted to help stop misuse of software patents why not just donate the patents to the public domain? The OIN itself seems to be either a patent cartel or a distraction. > “Microsoft’s participation in OIN adds to our strong community, which through its breadth and depth has reduced patent risk in core technologies, and unequivocally signals for all companies who are using OSS but have yet to join OIN that the litmus test for authentic behavior in the OSS community includes OIN participation.” Companies are the ones creating patent risk by using the patent system to attack others. If you want to keep your secret sauce secret, then use trade secrets. They've basically signed non-agression pacts with themselves. Open Source has nothing to do with this outside of projects that dual license (which basically means that the code is not F/OSS). > “Microsoft sees open source as a key innovation engine, and for the past several years we have increased our involvement in, and contributions to, the open source community,” said Erich Andersen, Corporate Vice President and Chief IP Counsel Yeah, that sounds like "microsoft sees the value in leveraging the free time of thousands of developers as we can rope them in, now that many other companies have forged the way while directly trying not to be crushed by us". > Funded by Google, IBM, NEC, Philips, Red Hat, Sony, SUSE, and Toyota, OIN has more than 2,650 community members and owns more than 1,300 global patents and applications. Yeah, somehow none of those companies strike as companies that want patent wars to actually end. More optimistically, maybe this is a step in the right direction, a few steps before software patents are abolished all together.
- wolco 8y ago
  Let's discuss Redhat. I haven't heard of any aggressive patent position. But I do get the feeling they wouldn't shy away from a fight.
  - hardwaresofton 8y ago
    RedHat is probably the least aggressive of the group patent wise given that the primarily support/innovate on top of F/OSS -- I actually considered making a note of that but didn't, and I should have. I think they're basically along for the ride so they can be involved in anything that has to use Linux and exert their will on/network with /collaborate with others in OIN.
scruffyherder 8y ago
It's simple, the last attempts at getting Windows into the new computing spaces failed. Windows RT & Windows Phone (Windows on ARM) have all failed. Microsoft is being left behind, and their only hope is to pick up the "open-ish" platform and run with it. SQL Server has always been portable, and it running on Linux is no surprise. Expect more and more of this, culinating with a Microsoft branded Android devices. By this time Google will have abandonded Linux & Android to have moved onwards to Fushia.
- bitmapbrother 8y ago
  I agree. Let's also not forget that the majority of those patents they "donated" are either worthless, expiring soon or ridden with prior art. Here's an MCAM report based on the patents they used to extort Linux and Android OEM's. https://www.m-cam.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/patently_obvious_microsoft_android_license.pdf https://www.m-cam.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/patently_ob...
justin--sane 8y ago
Interesting how this thread reads when you replace "Microsoft" with "NASA" or "Pharma Companies" and "Windows" with "Globe Earth" or "Vaccines"...
wangyjx 8y ago
no matter MS is good enough or not, this is a good thing

809 points by MikusR 8y ago

Here is the press release without ZDNet's autoplaying videos: https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/10/10/1619375/0/en/Microsoft-Joins-the-Open-Invention-Network-Community.html https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/10/10/1619375/0/...

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
deleted 8y ago
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kennxfl 8y ago
How long till ZDNet realises that autoplay model is egregious?
- CrankyBear 8y ago
  Not soon enough.
- 5874-4b22-a4e0 8y ago
  Why do they bother with autoplaying videos when browsers mute them?
ChrisRR 8y ago
Thanks. I opened the page and chrome started chugging. I closed the page without reading the article
- gdrulia 8y ago
  Javascript OFF and zdnet link works just fine.
- capdeck 8y ago
  <F9> in Firefox to open in "reading mode" - majestic.
superflyguy 8y ago
I use Firefox with ublock origin and didn't have any trouble with videos auto-playing.
- abainbridge 8y ago
  Interesting. For me with Chrome+ublock origin I still get the auto-playing video. With Firefox+ublock origin the video appears but doesn't play. Instead it shows a red and white "I'm still loading" icon over the video, which is quite annoying but much better than auto-play. Is this what you get?
sctb 8y ago
Thanks! We've updated the link from https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-open-sources-its-entire-patent-portfolio/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-open-sources-its-ent..., which points to this.

ckluis 8y ago

Holy shit. I'd like to see an anti-microsoft comment on this post...

CrankyBear 8y ago
I'm sure one will come.
diblasio 8y ago
Microsoft bit my sister once.
- CodeCube 8y ago
  heh https://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx https://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx
yAnonymous 8y ago
Microsoft must want free access to a particular patent from that group really badly. Does that work for you?
geeostation 8y ago
35 years ago, microsoft assaulted me at a beer party.
jeremy7600 8y ago
Are they going to give back all the royalties they've stolen from every Android phone manufacturers with their patents, which the manufacturers didn't need to develop their phones, so they just gave them money for nothing?
Apocryphon 8y ago
They are extending open source to extinguish it, somehow.
- DoofusOfDeath 8y ago

brian_herman__ 8y ago

Wow nice!

MichaelMoser123 8y ago

How does Microsoft benefit from this step?

jandrese 8y ago
It encourages people to use Microsoft technologies without having to worry about patents or licensing issues. Ultimately Microsoft probably thinks that the extra Windows licenses will generate more revenue than their patent licenses.
qaq 8y ago
I am guessing they see Cloud Services as their main cash cow so they get a ton of good will and I am guessing more contributors to projects they care about?
BoysenberryPi 8y ago
Microsoft's cash cow is Azure which means the target market are developers so anything that generates good will among devs and puts Microsoft's past further in the back of their minds benefits them.
UseStrict 8y ago
Definitely a lot of goodwill between patent non-aggression, all of their work in the developer community (VSCode), listening to user feedback (most of the time anyways). Also they gain access to other patents in the OIN. Plus most of their revenue seems to be from cloud and licensing, I'm sure they are making a mint on Office, Windows, and Azure without needing any patent aggression. I keep asking myself "is this a trojan horse" and the more time goes on, the less I think it is. Maybe they have actually changed for the better.
- guiriduro 8y ago
  Yes, this Microsoft does seem to have left much of the Gates and especially Ballmer machinations behind - at least as regards its openness and collaboration.
yAnonymous 8y ago

polskibus 8y ago

How does that affect royalties from android phone makers?

Grazester 8y ago
Wasn't that a fat32 patent? Would I have had to pay for this patent if my phone didnt have an SD card slot and didnt support reading of fat32 partitions on USB OTG storage devices is what I would love to have known.
- michaelg7x 8y ago
  How many of Microsoft's cornerstone patents are soon to emerge from patent-protection?

walterbell 8y ago

This is astonishing. Are there upcoming US/EU court cases on software patents or specific Microsoft patents? Which other large companies could now sue vendors of devices (e.g. ereaders) which use Linux? Is Oracle in OIN? Is OIN's Linux patent pool now large enough to deter other large companies? Has Microsoft published a definitive list of their Linux-related patents which were previously subject to royalty payment? Is the FAT patent covered, https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument?FT=D&date=20011212&DB=worldwide.espacenet.com&locale=en_EP&CC=EP&NR=0618540B1&KC=B1&ND=4 https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalD...

choot 8y ago

Can i get nice font of linux now? Does it include the font rebdering patent?

athenot 8y ago
I thought fonts were copyrighted.
- 0-_-0 8y ago
  This is about rendering, not the font itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClearType https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClearType
  - athenot 8y ago
    Ah, thanks for the clarification!
cyphar 8y ago
OIN requires that members provide patent licenses for all patents that are part of a "Linux System". So unless there is a ClearType implementation being widely distributed with Linux, then I would assume this doesn't apply. But if someone writes something like that and integrates it into common Linux distributions, then maybe. I feel like this is ripe for (the right kind of) abuse.
zamalek 8y ago
You'd also have to get past Apple, I believe.
another-cuppa 8y ago
You can get it now with free software and have been able to for many years. What you won't see is a major distro including it.

zihotki 8y ago

Here is a link to the source post from MS - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-joins-open-invention-network-to-help-protect-linux-and-open-source/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-joins-open-...

lukeschlather 8y ago

> By joining the Open Invention Network, Microsoft is offering its entire patent portfolio -- with the legacy exception of its Windows and desktop application code -- to all of the open-source patent consortium's members. Is this sentence a meaningless tautology (application code is not the same thing as patents) or are there some older patents that Microsoft isn't donating? For example the VFAT patents?

CrankyBear 8y ago
If a MSFT patent has any relevant to open-source programs, such as VFAT, they're now open to other OIN members.
- cyphar 8y ago
  What if someone writes some free software code to intentionally use one of their patents so it can be liberated?
  - intern4tional 8y ago
    I think that's kind of the entire idea. Microsoft is expecting people to use the IP in the patents to write code for Linux now without fear of being sued. When they donated the IP to OIN, for all intensive purposes the patents were liberated given OIN's wide coverage.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - zaarn 8y ago
    That's not quite how patent licenses work. Even if you got a license for a patent for yourself and wrote free software for it, if someone else gets it they might need a patent license too, regardless of your project being free software. Your FOSS/FLOSS license might include a patent clause but that means you'd first need the right to issue licenses for the patent, in case you don't, the clause is void.

aritmo 8y ago

I would like to see the definitive analysis as to whether they will continue to benefit from those licences on patents that affect open source software. How do they plan to recoup their losses? They weren't getting much anyway?

jeremy7600 8y ago
They were getting more from Android on licenses than they were on Windows Phone.

mmastrac 8y ago

Microsoft's Android patent shakedown was the big thing that kept me from believing the company had really changed - I think I'm ready to consider that it really has changed now.

alimbada 8y ago
They started changing for the better as soon as they got rid of Ballmer in my opinion. He was toxic for the company and for the industry as a whole. It's taken a few years, but I don't think there's much of the "old" MS left anymore in terms of business practices and ethics.
- Isamu 8y ago
  Not just getting rid of Ballmer, but promoting Nadella to the job. That pick was the turning point.
  - DonHopkins 8y ago
    Interesting... I don't know much about him. Wikipedia mentions briefly that he worked at Sun. What did he do there, for how long, with whom, and how did that influence his time at Microsoft? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Nadella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Nadella
    - Isamu 8y ago
      I haven't read it but apparently he published an autobiographical book last year: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30835567-hit-refresh https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30835567-hit-refresh https://medium.com/@xaviergeerinck/my-key-take-aways-from-reading-satya-nadellas-book-hit-refresh-6c2f07893d5c https://medium.com/@xaviergeerinck/my-key-take-aways-from-re...
      - fernandotakai 8y ago
        i would also recommend his interview with freakonomics podcast http://freakonomics.com/podcast/satya-nadella/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/satya-nadella/

cptskippy 8y ago

This seems like an extension of what large tech companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Google have been doing among themselves all along. Over the last two decades they amassed huge patent portfolios and then mutually agreed to only use them defensively. The difference here is that anyone who joins OIN can play along too. I feel like this a natural evolution of their policies over the last decade. https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2018/04/04/a-new-ip-strategy-for-a-new-era-of-shared-innovation/ https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2018/04/04/a-new-ip-strateg...

ISL 8y ago

Does this include hardware patents? Quantum computing? Microsoft Research? XBox?

mdturnerphys 8y ago
According to the OIN license agreement, it's just patents for the "technology defined as the Linux System" [0]. [0] https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/ https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/
- ISL 8y ago
  Aha -- that makes practical sense. (and a reply from the person in whose perspective I was most interested!)

m-p-3 8y ago

I'm wondering if the portfolio include most filesystems Microsoft made (NTFS, VFAT, ExFAT, etc).

walterbell 8y ago

(2013) https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-fat-patent-loss-endangers-its-android-revenue/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-fat-patent-loss-enda... > A patent loss in a German court may lead to trouble for Microsoft's Android strategy ... one of Microsoft main Android patent weapons has been rendered harmless for now in the EU. This may sound like a minor patent. It's not. Microsoft has been using this patent since 2003 to pressure Linux and Android companies that use the popular FAT file system for compatibility with other operating systems ... combined with the recent judgment that the US version of this patent, "Common name space for long and short filenames," Patent No. 5,758,352 "invalid for obviousness," may finally blunt this patent's usefulness for Microsoft.

_wmd 8y ago
We could cutpaste a snippet like this for almost every major tech company on the planet, what's your point?
- walterbell 8y ago
  Depends on whether there have been subsequent court rulings on the FAT patent. If the value of the FAT patent was reduced by court rulings, it may have factored into the donation of the patent to OIN. If the patent was upheld in recent court rulings and revenue from the patent has been increasing, that would put the OIN patent donation in a different light.
- nickpsecurity 8y ago
  I usually use these kind of links instead: https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-earns-2-billion-per-year-from-android-patent-royalties-2013-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-earns-2-billion-pe... https://www.wired.com/2014/01/huawei/ https://www.wired.com/2014/01/huawei/ Microsoft stay's draining billions out of the Android market in particular with patent trolling for products they didn't support one bit. Their own products were big losers. Thanks to corrupt patent law, they can still suck money out of the winners. I don't trust anything Microsoft says about open-source and patents. If there's money to be made, they might weasel into something good for them and bad for others.

gmueckl 8y ago

So a patent license is granted when a) you are a member of OIN b) the infringing software is core to the Linux system Is that correct? What about other OSS projects that are unrelated to Linux?

tomnipotent 8y ago
I think it only highlighted Linux specifically because of the prior tug-of-war there, it mentions right afterward " and other important OSS technologies".
- svick 8y ago
  https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/ https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/ This specifically talks about "the Linux System".
  - tomnipotent 8y ago
    Got it, didn't realize OIN was so specific to Linux.
  - aaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
    I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/LInux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux.
    - tomnipotent 8y ago
      No where in the literature does it mention GNU outside of the GPL. https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/linux-system/ https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/linux-syste...
      - cyphar 8y ago
        It's a Stallman copypasta, but in this case I think it's justified. The definition of "Linux System" appears to refer to a Linux distribution which would include GNU and countless other projects than just the kernel. Seems like really strange wording since it'll likely just cause confusion and lawsuits down the track.

itsreallyme 8y ago

If Microsoft is doing this selflessly, then why aren’t they simply putting their patents into the public domain? Consider the open innovation network as a kind of club, with good intentions. When a company like Microsoft joins it might seem like the pinnacle of success, but with it really means is that the club has become a mafia. It won’t be long before OIN uses its patent leverage to affect control over the behavior if its members. Think about it for a minute… Why wouldn’t such a group or simply convince corporations, like Microsoft, to put their patents into the public domain? If you have to join a club to gain access to something, but it’s not really open source and it’s not really some kind of charitable contribution. Another way of looking at this is, Microsoft has just one goal, being a publicly traded company, which is to increase the share price of its stock… Why are people so stupid always constantly fall for the same tricks, believing that such companies do anything that is actually charitable?

ohthehugemanate 8y ago
No one suggests they're doing it selflessly. They're doing it because they get more value out of the IP by sharing and collaborating, than they do by litigating. Like so many OSS evangelists have said for the last 20 years: open source isn't about charity; it's actually a better way to develop. I think you raise a good point about the public domain. Why wouldn't the GNU licenses just force users to put their works into the public domain? Because public domain software isn't copyleft. "Joining a club" in this case is just signing an agreement (for free) that compels open access to your entire patent portfolio. The OIN agreement is a copyleft-style patent club, similar to the GPL. You get unlimited, royalty-free access to my software, but you must agree to offer similar access to everyone, too.
- itsreallyme 8y ago
  > ...GNU... That’s not a valid comparison. If Microsoft was licensing their patents under GNU (if that was possible), we’d be talking about something different entirely, but they’re not actually open sourcing them in any way at all... they’re entering into a contract to trade them like Pokemon cards with a consortium that will actually, eventually become a monopoly. Once they become a monopoly with enough leverage, they will inevitably agree to change their terms to be more hostile to the rest of the world. Open source software offers usage under some kind of license for essentially nothing in return, not “you can use our software if you make all of your software open sores as well”. I’m gonna leave this comment here so that I can come back and reference it in an article that all right 10 years from now when everybody is talking about how this consortium effectively took over the world of IP and how it’s too bad nobody could see that snowball when it was near the top of the hill still. Here’s another thing to consider: given the right terms, which the constituents of this consortium could agree to, this IP monopoly (read: mafia) could even use their IP to collectively sue basically everyone (the cross section of that many patents will overlap with much more IP in the world, creating an economy of scale nobody can compete with).

GiorgioG 8y ago

All the more reason to move from Oracle's Java to MS's .NET Core. They're not the big bad evil company they once were (they can't afford to be today.)

justinclift 8y ago
While this is a step in the right direction, MS still seem to be "all in" on telemetry. Until the telemetry and data sent by MS software can realistically be turned off completely, they shouldn't get any kind of positive treatment.
- bradford 8y ago
  <disclaimer, MS employee> MS adheres to GDPR regulations and has applied those protections to all users. You can opt out of telemetry, you can view what they've collected on you and delete it. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/microsoft-extending-gdpr-protections-to-all-global-customers-heres-how/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/microsoft-extending-gdp...
  - walterbell 8y ago
    Does this include data collected from activity on Windows 10 endpoints? Previously, this could only be disabled on Windows 10 Enterprise. Can all on-device data collection and telemetry be disabled on Windows 10 Pro or Home, including "Customer Improvement" data collection, crash logs, keystrokes, screen grabs?
  - danarmak 8y ago
    The article you linked points to an online Microsoft Account Privacy dashboard. I have Windows 10 installed with a local login. I don't have or want an online Microsoft account. It doesn't seem to be possible to disable telemetry in this case, or at least I haven't found out an (officially supported) way to do it.
    - mbesto 8y ago

tsenkov 8y ago

Does anyone know (or have a speculation on) the annual profit loss coming out of this? Didn't they get a very significant portion of every Android sale?

gmueckl 8y ago
About 4 years ago there was talk if 10 to 15 Dollars per phone. I do not know how that has changed since then.
nonfamous 8y ago
According to Yahoo Finance, "billions": https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-may-relinquishing-billions-android-patent-royalties-141047213.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-may-relinquishing-b...

CodeSheikh 8y ago

Hopefully MS joining OIN would further discourage patent trolls.

qaq 8y ago
How? By their nature patent trolls don't have products so they don't care about OIN's patent portfolio size.

OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago

unsubscribe

bobcallme 8y ago

I'm still a little skeptical since this applies to "Microsoft" and not any of its holding or investment companies. A great move to earn trust is to "Open Source" almost expired or useless patents.

samfisher83 8y ago

Microsoft android revenue was already going down: https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-android-patent-licensing-revenue-falling-2016-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-android-patent-lic... I am sure most of the FAT patents must be expired at this point since patents last 20 years and FAT32 came out 22 years ago. The Chinese manufacturers didn't have much of incentive to pay Microsoft.

dschuetz 8y ago

It's a quite interesting move actually. It indicates undoubtedly that Microsoft's business model also radically shifted away from selling software to selling hardware, subscription services and user data & analytics. It's not surprising now that Microsoft doesn't plan to make money off patents. So they make that huge OIN move to promote themselves as a big OSS supporter. That's quite a PR move, I'd say, a nice one though.

S-E-P 8y ago
Well while I mostly agree, I think it is important to note that it seems they are going for more of a SAAS approach. With Office and Azure, etc. They are more into the service industry now than they've ever been in the past. This move was them realizing that OSS is just a really good way to improve software for cheap. I doubt this will have lasting effects as I have yet to see them actually open source anything that I would consider special.
- mr_overalls 8y ago
  > I have yet to see them actually open source anything that I would consider special. It looks like they have open sourced a number of .NET components: CoreFX - Core foundational libraries, CoreCLR - runtime, Roslyn - compiler. As well as PowerShell, VS Code, Typescript, ASP.NET Core, MVC, Blazor, F#, Z3 Theorem Prover, etc. And that's from just the first few pages of their Open Source page: https://opensource.microsoft.com/ https://opensource.microsoft.com/
  - simooooo 8y ago
    You rekt that guy.

EastSmith 8y ago

Remember now Linux is part of Windows via Windows Subsystem for Linux (Ubuntu). This is very important for me as developer and I am using it every day. By joining ONI MS is strengthening parts of its offerings (Linux), and maybe is using (or will be using) existing ONI Linux patents to defend that part.

executesorder66 8y ago
Why not just use Linux directly? It's much better than using a paid OS with ads and spyware.

anhldbk 8y ago

Really like the way Satya Nadella transforms M$

josaka 8y ago

Link to terms: https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/oin-license-agreement/ https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/oin-license.... Looks like it might be revocable.

danarmak 8y ago

Here's the original press release on the OIN website: https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/pressrelease_details/?id=89 https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/pressrelease_details/?i...

berkes 8y ago

Not OP, but I think it is important to see a company as a whole. Untill Microsoft has truly changed its entire company and the culture ruling it, to be supportive of Open Source, it is safe to say "There are just some parts supporting OSS". Just like one can safely say "but there are just some parts of the company opposing FLOSS". In order to truly help OSS, joining some initiative, group or foundation is the easy thing to do. Opening the patent portfolio, is the difficult thing to do. The latter helps FLOSS a lot more.

_wmd 8y ago
The 90s called, they want their tired old meme back. If you want to know if Microsoft has truly changed, please take your fingers out of your ears for just 10 minutes and review some of what's been happening in the past half decade: - They're now, or soon will be, the largest supporter of free infrastructure for open source projects on the planet (GitHub) - They've open sourced a massive chunk of their (IMHO) best-in-class language runtimes and language implementations (C#, F#, VB.net) and design and develop new features in the open - They've contributed more than 1700 changes to the Linux kernel that can easily be identified with a quick 'git log --grep' - They're the first company to make a real attempt at an industrial strength alternative implementation of the Linux kernel. Linux was supposed to be about choice, remember? - They've open sourced the core chunks of the evaluation engine used in Bing (BitFunnel) - They're a platinum member of the Linux Foundation. In other words, they pay Torvalds salary - They support Linux as a first class OS on Azure and make it cheaper than Windows - They have one of the largest and most active GitHub organizations - They've joined OIN and, ignoring the actual patents involved, have thus in the process made an implicit promise never to attack any core part of the Linux infrastructure in the future What more do you want?
- fartcannon 8y ago
  Well, for one, they could stop threatening patent infringement over the length of file names.
- jchw 8y ago
  I suppose you think they're doing all of these things out of the goodness of their heart and not because their previous strategy with the FOSS community turned out to be a catastrophic failure.

ElijahLynn 8y ago

Want to take this opportunity to describe my positive experience with the Open Invention Network (OIN): I called the OIN many years ago to talk about what they do and how it works. I ended up speaking with Tom Tyson for a good 15-30 minutes and he was very helpful in answering my questions. My questions were around open sourcing inventions so that other companies could not claim IP on them and prevent others from using them. I am fine with companies taking the idea and making money from them, just not okay with them taking the idea, claiming it is theirs, and creating a proprietary product. So, I spoke with Tom and the gist of it that I remember is that OIN will work to create a "defensive patent" for your invention. Now, the idea doesn't actually have to be software, they may be software based but are open to all inventions (this may have changed since then). So if we have ideas (we all do right!) that we know we won't have time to implement/execute but just want the product made so we and society can use it, while having multiple companies offering it to compete and improve the idea, then OIN passes the smell test! Feel free to give Tom a call if you are curious, he was very patient with my questions.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

deknos 8y ago

So, if - microsoft de-debts every developer which got into financial trouble like perhaps with US 6041345 and - i as an independent developer who only publishes code under bsd-2-clause-license or agpl3+ or Apache or MIT-license - can reimplement - (arbitrarily big parts of) - Active Directory, VFAT, FAT, NTFS, MTP, RDP so my application can interact with it, not only from Windows, but from Linux or BSD also - and i do not have to be in the OIN club, because i have no money for it or i even do not know about it - then i will believe this move is sincere. Is there already a complete free C#-Compiler available for posix systems, which can be recompiled without non-free parts from microsoft? Will their office suite in the future really support an open data standard like ODF? because they kind of ditched their own standard. With Active Directory and Windows, they keep people from really switching to open source on the desktop. and they know it. And of course, THAT part is exempted from their OIN-Initiave. I would like to have meaningful examples what they opensourced, what they do not primarily need for cloud, but what benefits open source in general, like on the desktop or office applications. But i have to admit, i am really starting to hope, microsoft is only a normal company, not especially opensource-hating-one anymore. could be. time will tell. would be nice. Really hereIsMeHoping

oropolo 8y ago
> Is there already a complete free C#-Compiler available for posix systems, which can be recompiled without non-free parts from microsoft Is the Apache 2 licensed Roslyn compiler not free enough for you? https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn
- deknos 8y ago
  cool, there really seem to be steps. further: Can i reimplement server/client functions of the caldav stack and have my own push notifications for mail?
- deknos 8y ago
  further on, can be the z3 theorem prover built only with free software?

jhabdas 8y ago

HN this week: - Don't trust global supply chains - Apple loses trust for the MSM - Microsoft loves FLOSS, really - Google really is evil, really - Global supply chains are scary, pt II - Something about Elm - Instagram is Facebook, duh - MSM loses trust for everyone - EU licks chops, globalist fines - China buying out EU, world

oropolo 8y ago

The continued hatred of Microsoft amazes me. If Linus Torvalds, Eric Raymond, and RMS all joined Microsoft and proclaimed it safe, I suspect the accusations of selling out or being drugged would be leveled within milliseconds. I fully realize RMS would never do this; my larger point is that with a huge chunk of the population I don't think there is anything Microsoft can possibly do to convince them they aren't evil/truly friendly toward open source.

manquer 8y ago
While their current efforts seem genuine, the deep skepticism is not unwarranted given their behavior in the late 90s and should not be a surprise
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  And their behavior recently: - Data collection - Forced installs - Android shakedown Looks like some progress is being made, however.
  - tw04 8y ago
    >Data collection So turn it off. It has ACTUAL end-user benefits being enabled by default. You are literally asked on first boot if you want it on or off. And you can go a step further by disabling it in the registry to prevent a second user on the system enabling it. >Forced installs This one gets me more than anything. Literally every *nix admin on the planet bitching for the last 2 decades about MS having all these insecure zombies out in the wild. The fix? Enable updates by default, and make it difficult for the average home user to turn it off. More importantly make it difficult for malware to easily turn off. And you STILL find a reason to complain. Why on earth you'd want to make the internet less secure is beyond me, but that's just such a horrible thing to try to bag them for.
    - mixmastamyk 8y ago
      Privacy is not opt-in, thanks. The actual benefits must not be great as Windows is the most user hostile of the big three, and not much improvement since 7. It's clear soon after install that you'll be doing things the way MS wants. The second you misunderstood, it refers to forced installs to 10.

apotheon 8y ago

For the last half-dozen years (give or take), I've been flabbergasted that MS has taken some of the steps it has toward being a better technology neighbor. Even so, it still engages in some very sketchy (even "evil") behavior, as all publicly traded corporations do, and some of that behavior is very reminiscent of the bad old days of Microsoft (though living up to the evils of the Ballmer age is probably not even visible from where MS is now). Over the last couple years, I see people having completely ignored the fact that Microsoft still pulls a lot of bad shit. Because the change has been so drastic, people seem entirely willing to overlook the horrors still in play. Sure, Oracle seems more evil than Microsoft these days, but that's a pretty damned low bar for someone to suddenly forgive Microsoft and start singing its praises. I'm a bit more cynical than that. Show me an open source MS-DOS 5.0 at least; MS-DOS 2.0 is nothing but a mostly-pointless curiosity and PR stunt. Show me a covenant to never sue anyone for patent infringement, regardless of OIN membership, unless that other party sued MS for patent infringement first. Show me opt-in telemetry instead of opt-out; never opt-out instead of opt-in, for any software at all. We need more. I've been disappointed that people were so ready to forgive MS not only for the perfidies of the past, but the ongoing bad behavior of the present, too. I'm happy to see there are still people skeptical of Microsoft's current state of reform here on HN. Yes, I am willing to believe MS is better than it was, and is better in some respects than Google and Apple now (which are just atrocious), but that doesn't mean I'm willing to give MS any support for anything that isn't completely free and clear in its licensing. DOS 2.0? .NET Core? PowerShell? Sure, I am happy with the direction Microsoft has taken with those, but I'm not 100% sure I can legally trust them outside of a Linux context, given how the OIN somehow abandoned the pretense of just being about openness and doubled down on being about Linux specifically. What kind of insanity might creep into GitHub now? How dangerous would it still be to use Windows? No thanks, I'll put my time and trust elsewhere, same as with how I treat Apple, Facebook, Google, and Oracle. I can't trust any of them, and you shouldn't either.

neolefty 8y ago
> ... Microsoft still pulls a lot of bad shit. Specific examples?
- 8y ago

cailloud 8y ago

Embrace extend extinguish I'm sorry but i just can not trust microsoft, their history is just too full with heinous behavior and so is their present behavior. I think mocrosoft embracing opwn source and linux is more unsettling then comforting.

wnevets 8y ago
I find seeing this post in every single MS related story to be quite boring.
- svick 8y ago
  Even worse, they don't even attempt to justify how EEE applies to what MS is doing now. Please, at least try to make what you're saying relevant to the story.
- peter_retief 8y ago
  boring but true

forapurpose 8y ago

I'm uncertain about OIN's membership and its benefits to the larger public. Is it just an exclusive club that benefits its members, or a means to provide everyone with IP safety regarding Linux and maybe other FOSS? One sentence in the press release suggests that only members benefit: > The OIN patent license and member cross-licenses are available royalty-free to any party that joins the OIN community. Still, their About page says membership is free:[0] > Any company, project or developer that is working on Linux, GNU, Android or any other Linux-related software is welcome to join OIN, free of charge or royalties. On the other hand, there are only ~2,600 members [1] - that sounds like a big number, but I would expect almost everyone to join. Are you protected if you are not a member? Why haven't more joined? I suspect that the answer may have something to do with the IP needs of software developers compared to those of users, and the latter don't need membership for some reason; but even then, 2,600 seems like a small portion of FOSS developers. [0] https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/about-us/ https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/about-us/ [1] https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/community-of-licensees/ https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/community-of-licensees/

svick 8y ago
> Why haven't more joined? My guess: 1. Most devs don't know about it. 2. Most devs don't need it, if they contribute to projects that are themselves members.

shmerl 8y ago

So no more Android patent protection racket from MS? What about using exFAT in Linux distros (especially commercial ones that need to provide support for SD cards), will that now be free?

puzzle 8y ago
That would be covered if exfat were in the mainline kernel, which I don't think it is yet.
- shmerl 8y ago
  OIN doesn't cover the kernel only. So that's why I'm asking. I'm not sure what exactly is covered.
  - puzzle 8y ago
    Those are all userland packages. OIN's site does not list any packages with supplemental kernel modules.
    - shmerl 8y ago
      exfat is using FUSE I think in common distros anyway. So it is userland.

simonveith1 8y ago

http://go.affiliate.179169.digistore24.com http://go.affiliate.179169.digistore24.com

peter_retief 8y ago

Is that joined or infiltrated?

simonveith123 8y ago

http://go.affiliate.179169.digistore24.com http://go.affiliate.179169.digistore24.com

simonveith123 8y ago

http://go.simonv.179169.digistore24.com http://go.simonv.179169.digistore24.com

damon 8y ago

It's hard to let past Ballmer / Gates era sins go, and I'll probably take a lot of heat here, but moves like this continue to reinforce the Nadella era is truly serious about advancing OSS both within Microsoft and within the broader community.

deleted 8y ago
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kennymeyers 8y ago
You won't take heat from me. I think this is a very rational response to all the steps they've been taking.
baldfat 8y ago
I really think the Open Source Community has been to focused on Microsoft for way to long. Even during the Ballmer ERA we had very Open Source Friendly People at Microsoft. I think our focus needs to be on what is happening in the other areas. 1) Apple's Counterfeit Lawsuit for refurbished screens and Apple's Diagnostic Software requirement for basic repairs. If that mindset gets turned towards software we all will be in big trouble. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/evk4wk/dhs-seizes-iphone-screens-jessa-jones https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/evk4wk/dhs-seizes... 2) John Deer and the very idea of ownership being taken away. https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/ https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/ I think Linux has won the OS War, minus desktop. Now it is moving to the hardware that is running it.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Linux has won the server and HPC room war, there are many other kinds of deployments. On mobile there is iOS and regarding ChromeOS and Android it is only an implementation detail, lets see where it goes if Google is serious about Fuchsia. On game consoles we have a modified BSD on PS, Windows variant on XBox and Nintendo's own microkernel. Then on IoT space BSD licensed OSes like mbed, Zephyr and RTOS are on the rise. And then there is the whole mainframe and high integrity computing domains.

damon 8y ago

What's interesting to me is how serious Nadella's Microsoft is about embracing OSS. Consider his appointment as a line in the sand and look at how drastically the company has changed since that line was drawn. I realize that doesn't make the actions done prior to 2014 right. But I do feel the company has been serious about advancing OSS since Nadella took over as CEO.

beokop 8y ago
They’re only embracing OSS because the price of software is now zero. If your software is free there’s seldom reason for it not to be libre also.
executesorder66 8y ago
Yeah, I like how after 2014 they decided to push ads into their paid OS. And how they forced "upgrades" to windows10 for millions of people who didn't want it. They are truly a company that cares about openness and giving back control of the device the the people who fucking paid for it. No wait, they aren't. They are still just a bunch of assholes like always.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

partycoder 8y ago

Public donations to foundations and similar stuff are: - public relations - tax deductible So it's PR the taxpayer pays for.

kidsnow 8y ago

I have a feeling this is neither open, nor inventive, nor a network.

hardwaresofton 8y ago

If the companies in OIN really wanted to help stop misuse of software patents why not just donate the patents to the public domain? The OIN itself seems to be either a patent cartel or a distraction. > “Microsoft’s participation in OIN adds to our strong community, which through its breadth and depth has reduced patent risk in core technologies, and unequivocally signals for all companies who are using OSS but have yet to join OIN that the litmus test for authentic behavior in the OSS community includes OIN participation.” Companies are the ones creating patent risk by using the patent system to attack others. If you want to keep your secret sauce secret, then use trade secrets. They've basically signed non-agression pacts with themselves. Open Source has nothing to do with this outside of projects that dual license (which basically means that the code is not F/OSS). > “Microsoft sees open source as a key innovation engine, and for the past several years we have increased our involvement in, and contributions to, the open source community,” said Erich Andersen, Corporate Vice President and Chief IP Counsel Yeah, that sounds like "microsoft sees the value in leveraging the free time of thousands of developers as we can rope them in, now that many other companies have forged the way while directly trying not to be crushed by us". > Funded by Google, IBM, NEC, Philips, Red Hat, Sony, SUSE, and Toyota, OIN has more than 2,650 community members and owns more than 1,300 global patents and applications. Yeah, somehow none of those companies strike as companies that want patent wars to actually end. More optimistically, maybe this is a step in the right direction, a few steps before software patents are abolished all together.

wolco 8y ago
Let's discuss Redhat. I haven't heard of any aggressive patent position. But I do get the feeling they wouldn't shy away from a fight.
- hardwaresofton 8y ago
  RedHat is probably the least aggressive of the group patent wise given that the primarily support/innovate on top of F/OSS -- I actually considered making a note of that but didn't, and I should have. I think they're basically along for the ride so they can be involved in anything that has to use Linux and exert their will on/network with /collaborate with others in OIN.

scruffyherder 8y ago

It's simple, the last attempts at getting Windows into the new computing spaces failed. Windows RT & Windows Phone (Windows on ARM) have all failed. Microsoft is being left behind, and their only hope is to pick up the "open-ish" platform and run with it. SQL Server has always been portable, and it running on Linux is no surprise. Expect more and more of this, culinating with a Microsoft branded Android devices. By this time Google will have abandonded Linux & Android to have moved onwards to Fushia.

bitmapbrother 8y ago
I agree. Let's also not forget that the majority of those patents they "donated" are either worthless, expiring soon or ridden with prior art. Here's an MCAM report based on the patents they used to extort Linux and Android OEM's. https://www.m-cam.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/patently_obvious_microsoft_android_license.pdf https://www.m-cam.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/patently_ob...

justin--sane 8y ago

Interesting how this thread reads when you replace "Microsoft" with "NASA" or "Pharma Companies" and "Windows" with "Globe Earth" or "Vaccines"...

wangyjx 8y ago

no matter MS is good enough or not, this is a good thing