So, how much do you trust what Microsoft is saying?

[TWPonKubuntu]

A discussion of the new "lovefest" between Microsoft and LInux...

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018...60000-patents/

Let me be the first to state that my "spider Sense" and my inner Luddite are Extremely skeptical...

I hope Linux Torvalds comes back from his retreat with some pithy comments on this.

[GreyGeek]

I agree with your "spider sense" and offer as proof the affects of Microsoft buying several businesses/technologies:
http://pixeltux.com/read/?id=1528092000

As far as Linus is concerned, he was ousted for not being PC, so I don't expect him to ever come back to the helm of the Linux kernel. How long the team and methods he pioneered will continue to pull the Linux kernel along at its high level of development without becoming a kludge created by battles between some corporation or conglomerates remains to be seen. Linus gave NVidia the middle finger on stage, photographed and reported for all to see, and now NVidia runs great on my GT 650M because NVidia was shamed into submitting kernel code that made it compatible. I don't see Kroah-Hartmant standing up against corporate inaction or aggression that fearlessly.

Wild speculation: is Linus's departure related to Meltdown and his anger about it?
https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-...security-bugs/

[TWPonKubuntu]

RE Kroah-Hartman, he has the technical ability to manage the kernel, but I am concerned about his politics and social leanings. Those later traits make him vulnerable to being influenced by the "liberal" side of the community, which I oppose.

Linus would, as you noted, throw it in their faces and force movement in a direction which he, Linus, felt was best for Linux, the OS.

It's too soon to tell where this will go, but I've already tossed out Microsoft because of politics. If Linux becomes Windows-light, I can move without too much pain. But right now, I don't see an alternative because it is too early in this round of the game to see or understand what is happening.

Life...

[pemartins]

If Microsoft has good intentions is probably because they will be trying to acquire Canonical soon.

[TWPonKubuntu]

"good intentions" is not something I attribute to Microsoft.

I do see the possibility of M$ trying to litigate Linux into something which is bound by copyrights and can be 'milked" as a cash cow income stream. It is what M$ does. I look at Azure and see a set of shackles which put a pay wall around the "free" Linux kernel. Nobody is required to use Azure, but there are a lot of users who want the "look and feel" of Windows and who have become accustomed to letting M$ lead them down the garden path... ooohhh! Look at all the pretty flowers! But why is there a toll booth at the gate?

I'm not drinking their coolaid.

Of course I could be totally wrong... but I don't think I am.

[Beerislife]

An ex long time OS/2 user here. Trust MS?

[TWPonKubuntu]

OS/2 !! Yes! Too bad IBM lost the OS wars to M$. On the other hand, Linux remains free and OS/2 was not free.

[jglen490]

I trust them to an exactly zero degree.

Their goal is a complete and absolute monopoly of computer OS space, and computer application space. They will do this by opposition, acquisition, consumption, and deceit.

If they are being generous with any of their patents, it is to establish dominion over any entity using those patents - Linux not excepted. And shame on anyone who gives M$ any quarter in this matter.

[TWPonKubuntu]

Another take on this situation (and also a low opinion on M$):

http://techrights.org/2018/10/10/lot...t-and-now-oin/

Full title:
"Open Invention Network is a Proponent of Software Patents — Just Like Microsoft — and Microsoft Keeps Patents It Uses to Blackmail Linux Vendors"

[nlsthzn]

Another take on this situation (and also a low opinion on M$):

http://techrights.org/2018/10/10/lot...t-and-now-oin/

Full title:
"Open Invention Network is a Proponent of Software Patents — Just Like Microsoft — and Microsoft Keeps Patents It Uses to Blackmail Linux Vendors"

In today's online world everyone is an expert and it is easy to find someone saying what you want to hear. I think it is foolish for anyone to think anything MS is doing is for the benefit of anyone but MS.

[MoonRise]

I trust M$ as much as I trust the fact the moon is made of cheese.

Hope that doesn't bring up people who believe the moon is made of cheese.

[GreyGeek]

+1 for jglen490's post.

Microsoft is "helping" Linux by putting 60,000 patents in OIN? An article by a pro-Microsoft advocate:
https://www.cio.com/article/3045799/...nt-claims.html
If you buy products from companies that pay Microsoft's extortion then:

... joining OIN doesn’t guarantee that a company won't use patents as a weapon. Both Oracle and Google are OIN members and they have locked horns in one of the fieriest battles in the open source world. IBM is one of the founders of OIN and it has also sued companies (like Groupon) over various patents.

If you are a company selling a box with Linux or Android in it, Microsoft may want to sign a patent deal with you. This is likely cheaper than going to court, and that’s why most companies choose to sign a deal. These companies don’t bear the cost of the patent; they shift the cost to customers. They may think of patent fees as the equivalent of the cost of another hardware component going into their devices. It is an easier cost to bear than the uncertain costs of a legal battle, especially against a company with deep pockets.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/310-mi...y-chinese-gov/

The patents, which are found on the Chinese language version of the website, include 73 standard-essential patents generally used in mobile technology, as well as 127 Android-implemented patents -- both developed by Microsoft and acquired by participating in the Rockstar Consortium. In addition, a number of non standard-essential patents were examined by Chinese regulators, including 68 patent applications and 42 issued patents.

A list detailing all 310 patents can be found here (.DOCX).

One patent in Microsoft's "arsenal" is the US5587715A patent which claims to have invented a "Method and apparatus for tracking a moving object", i.e., the GPS.

This invention relates to a method and apparatus for tracking the location in terms of latitude and longitude of an object with a high degree of accuracy. This invention is designed for use with a wide range of vehicles including those adapted to be used on land, on water and in the air and, in particular, with automobiles and trucks, to track their location. In the event of unauthorized entry and/or theft, this invention provides a warning signal along with the present location of that vehicle to a command center. This invention in its preferred, illustrative embodiment combines in a new and nonobvious manner well known technologies such as the available Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and the cellular telephone systems.

If that sounds strangely identical to the GPS system developed between 1972-1978 then you understand why such a patent, filed in 1993, would have to be applied under threat of financial duress, with an NDA, so that the victim cannot warn others after they've signed the bottom line and then realized that they've been duped. That patent's listed inventor, Peter T. Lewis, isn't among the three honored for the invention of the GPS.

Microsoft earns over $1B/year in license fees for Samsung's Android phone. That's one company. It doesn't take too much imagination to estimate that when the license fees from all the victims of Microsoft's legal leg breakers are totaled up it would probably now be between $7-$10B.

The good news is that Microsoft has been successful in ONLY 4.5% of its lawsuit attempts. 31.8% were dropped and 63.6% failed in court. Probably the single biggest reason for that was when Microsoft goofed and failed to get an NDA from Barnes & Nobel, who immediately called them out in public on their scam, revealing the presence of the NDA requirement and announcing the five patents that MS attempted to use against them. Eventually, Microsoft bought their silence by giving them a huge pile of cash.

How does that play against the claim the Microsoft is "helping to protect" Linux? Despite the barrage of "news" articles (this is the age of fake news!) supporting Microsoft's version, where the only edit the editor has to do is take Microsoft's PR logo off of the news release, the fact remains that Microsoft has embraced Ubuntu Linux and is now in the process of extending it to fit into Window's ecosphere in such a way as to be dependent on Microsoft's subsystems. A Penguin on a leash, if you will, not free to roam the seas and eat fish. A lure to entrap others.

IMO, it is not a matter of WHEN the third E will be dropped, but when ... and how. The first major step was the inclusion of Ubuntu as a walled garden in Win10. The second major step was the purchase of GitHub, the focal point of FOSS creation and maintenance. The third major step has already been done as well, right before your very eyes, the removal of Linus Torvalds as the sometimes not so benevolent dictator of the Linux kernel, but who was brave enough to give corporations the middle finger and point them out for how badly they treated Linux while profiting from it.

Greg Kroah-Hartman works for the Linux Foundation, as did Linus, and not for some corporation. Microsoft will have to address that next, since Greg replaced Linus. Greg doesn't have the pull, power or presence of Linus, and he didn't invent the Linux kernel from scratch so I doubt he has the passion to fight for it the way Linus did. The next thing to do is introduce "hooks" into the Linux kernel which depend on the presence patented functions of the Windows OS in order to be functional, much the way Apple did with Darwin. Slowly, at first, by offering WSL, which is just the Ubuntu CLI. Later some version of a desktop will be ground through their mill until it is thoroughly walled off as a windows subsystem. A penguin in a cage, if you will. People will be led to the conclusion that anything the Penguin in the cage can do the user can do easier and quicker, and with "less risk" using WinX. Then, after Shuttlesworth has taken his millions, to recoup part of what he's invested in Ubuntu, he'll leave the scene. Microsoft will "own" Ubuntu, which will, IMO, become the actual WinX desktop, surrounded by paywalls and protected by patents, which its legal leg breakers will enforce. Have you forgotten the BSA?

[MoonRise]

I think that nails it to how I see it.

[TWPonKubuntu]

GG; Thanks for that cogent analysis. Now we watch...

[GreyGeek]

So, how much do you trust what Microsoft is saying?

One side observation: IF Android is made from mostly Microsoft's intellectual property, then why can't Microsoft make a smartphone OS that is at least as good as the ones the Android makers make? IF MS "invented" them then they should know them better than anyone else. A minor investigation will reveal that most of Microsoft's "intellectual" patents were purchased from folks who submitted them as submarine patents. Although *mostly* illegal today, the GPS patent, for example, was filed in 1993, on a technology that was invented by three other people between 1972-1978. A submarine patent is one in which a person applies for a patent "pending", and loosely describes the patent. As other make progress the submariner amends his patents to add the vague descriptions of the progress made, and then completes the patent process on a technological achievement that he doesn't really understand but just used a technical word salad to smother existing trends.

The USTPO doesn't care because they charge $10,000 per patent application and generally approves most patents, even conflicting ones, letting the applicants fight it out in court. The one with the deepest pockets a/o most unscrupulous lawyers usually wins.