Friday, February 21, 2003

M$ SQL Customers Face License Fees? -- 9:29 am CST, Update by The Master

There's a story up over on The Register discussing the possibility of royalty payments from Microsoft customers using Microsoft SQL Server to a company that Microsoft licensed patents from. Here's an ugly case of patent law rearing it's ugly head.

So, when are all of these stupid software patent laws going to finally get shot down?

J.t.Qbe comments: About the same time all the stupid tort laws get shot down. It's getting ridiculous. In my book, SCO's tinking with the idea of trying to enforce patents on Unix is about a ridiculous as it gets. So far. Do patent claims finally have to kill the computer industry completely before something is changed?

The Master comments: Most of the stuff surrounding the SCO issue has to do with people putting OpenServer libraries on Linux so they can run OpenServer software. I can see the complaint in that. But I have heard they're talking about other parts of their patent portfolio, which makes for a completely different story. On patents (quoting Michael Abrash): "The idea of software patents is precisely that eventually eveyone will own parts of our communal knowledge base, and that programming will become in large part a process of properly identifying and compensating each and every owner of the techniques you use. All I can say is that if we do go down that path, I guarentee that it will be a poorer profession for all of us--except the patent attorneys, I guess."

A.T. Hun comments: Actually, M$ knew what they were getting into. Either a) somebody screwed up royally, or b) they lied through their teeth. I suppose people could always move to MySQL :). At any rate, this case will be moot. Microsoft will either tie this up in court forever or use some of their vast supplies of cash to buy the company outright.

News for 02/21/2003

The Haus is powered by:

All original information on this website is copyright © TheHaus.Net, 1999-2005. The use of original images, text, and/or code from this website without expressed written consent is prohibited. The authors of this site cannot be held responsible for any damage, real or imagined, which comes from the use of information presented on this site. All trademarks used are the properties of their respective owners. This site is not to be used as a floatation device (but if you try, I want a video tape of it).