Proprietary vs Open Source: The Fight Continues
By Anuradha Ramamirtham
Mumbai, May 25, 2007

Proprietary software provider, Microsoft is again in the news with its CEO, Steve Ballmer, accusing the Linux community of infringing 235 untested patents. The software company has raised objections against the open source software community for this infringement.

Speaking to CXOtoday.com, a Microsoft spokesperson states that the latest draft of the General Public License version 3 (GPLv3) attempts to tear down the bridge that Microsoft has built between proprietary and open source software.

GPL is a free software license written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. It grants computer program recipients with rights of free software definition. It uses copyleft to ensure that the freedom is preserved, when the work is changed or added.

"We're discussing the patent issue more directly now in an effort to call attention to the problem and emphasize the importance of a bridge in a world where many customers have mixed technology solutions," adds the spokesperson.

The spokesperson further adds, "The Free Software Foundation (FSF), a non-profit corporation that supports the free software movement and in particular the GNU project believes there is overlap between our IP portfolio and various Open source software components." He stresses this is supported by a review done by the Open Source Risk Management group (OSRM), indicating areas of IP overlap between major software vendors and open source communities.

OSRM was founded to support the continued strength and growth of free and open source software through a comprehensive offering of sophisticated risk management services.

When asked about the 235 untested patents and the plan of action to be followed, the spokesperson responds, "We prefer to have private, collaborative discussions with companies interested in using our technology on their products."

The free software community does not believe in patents for any formal language expressions like language, mathematics, or software. G. Nagarjuna, chairman of Free Software Foundation of India (FSFI) said, "US is one country that grants software patents and it's not the end of the world. The community doesn't depend on ideas that are illegally protected by others."

Nagarjuna believes that the claims are not at all concrete. According to him, Microsoft has not made public which specific patents are infringed. Therefore, the FSFI has no information on how to avoid infringement, and no opportunity to assess the validity of the patents claimed to be infringed.

The GPL v3 has some provisions where the author declares and ensures that their patents do not affect the freedom of other users.

Asheesh Raina, principal research analyst for Gartner's Software Group said, "We believe that Microsoft is strengthening its patent portfolio to rectify the exploitation of its Intellectual Property (IP) by technology providers that generate substantial revenue from OSS including Linux."

Raina states that the FSFI does not believe that Microsoft intends to pursue end-user IT organizations. Instead, it thinks that it will use the fear of legal compliance to pressurize IT providers to enter into individual IP agreements.

According to Raina, Microsoft will attempt to pressurize technology providers to come to the table and negotiate an equitable licensing or royalty arrangement in instances where Microsoft can prove its claims of infringement.

"Whether or not the real breach has happened needs to be proven in court," added Raina.

However, Novell has completely denied Microsoft's claims. The company, in November 2006 had submitted an open letter written by Ron Hovsepian, CEO of Novell. In the letter he vehemently denied Microsoft's claim that Linux uses Microsoft's IP, and said that the deal signed between the companies doesn't acknowledge open source offerings infringing Microsoft patents.

"In a world of freedom loving people, such companies should not have prospects. If they have a prospect, that must be because all of us have failed to protect our freedom to be creative," concluded Nagarjuna.