[Sussex] Some more thoughts on the Microsoft/Novel deal

[Nico Kadel-Garcia]

This is a bit long: if it's off-topic or inappropriate, I'll take it 
offline.


Steven Dobson wrote:
> Nico
>
> On Sat, 2006-11-18 at 19:48 +0000, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
>   
>> Microsoft also has a long, long history of intellectual property
>> theft, such as DOS, the Windows interface, and David Cutler and his
>> software team at DEC, hired away to create NT and leading to some
>> fascinating out of court settlements. An agreement not to sue about
>> such violations is of much more benefit to Microsoft. 
>>     
>
> From the history I remember:
>
> 1). Microsoft didn't steal DOS they got a software license from the
> author of QDOS [Quick and Dirty Operating System] for $50,000, made a
> few simple changes and then sold it to IBM for their new PC.  The fact
> that Gates retained the rights to sell the same OS to clone manufactures
> is just very good business.
>   
It was a bit more complicated, as I understand it, but I'll grant that 
it's hard to find basic references this much later and with all the 
invective overlaying it.

> 2). A GUI (Windows) interface was first developed by Xerox as R&D and
> they were showing that research to all.  Both Gates and Jobs visited
> Palo Alto.  Sure Jobs gave Gates a preview of the new Apple GUI
> interface while it was still being developed.  I'm not sure the dates of
> those visits but I'm pretty sure that Gates did not steal any code from
> Apple.
>   
I didn't say anything about Apple, I referred to the Xerox PARC 
software. Mind you, the interface for early Windows was pretty obviously 
based on Apple's current efforts, and we saw a lot of overall similarity 
to MacOS when Win9x came out later..

Don't get me started on the TCP stack in early Windows: my friends at 
FTP Software had to deal with that mess, and saw their work ruined as 
Microsoft illegally "tied" them right out of profitability.

> 3). Cutler and his team were unhappy at DEC - that is way Microsoft was
> able to hire them away.  The fact that there was some court action is
> more to do with some draconian US labour laws than it is from anything
> we would consider wrong here in the EU.
>   
No, it had to do with basic copyright (due to wholesale duplication of 
software), patent (using patents Cutler and his peers made at DEC), and 
trade secret (they used company technologies developed at DEC and not 
released without a license agreement with DEC). David Cutler and his 
peers probably did violate their employee non-compete agreements, but 
the wholesale transfer of VMS internals to NT is quite noticeable.

It's easier to find references to this: I've spoken with former DEC 
employees (several of my peers at a recent workplace were former DEC, 
including my supervisor, the machine shop head who used to do systems 
work at DEC, and the company's best patent creator). That patent holder 
was livid about the wholesale theft: coupled with the theft of Alpha 
technologies for the Pentium, it gutted some of DEC's best product lines.

> I would agree to you that Microsoft has shown little original
> creativity;  but I don't like the term "intellectual property theft".
> It implies that you agree with the concept of owning an idea.  I think
> that one should own (via copyright) a given realisation of an idea but
> not the idea itself.
>   
I see your point. But both copyright and patent law are founded on the 
idea of owning and controlling the use of an idea: you can't just use 
such laws when it's to your benefit, and ignore them when it's not. And 
since they pursue such uses aggressively, it's clear that they consider 
it theft by anyone else. I'd be delighted to see software patents go 
away in the US, and never be taken up elsewhere. But between copyright 
and trade secret, there are still plenty of cases of Microsoft stealing.

Such difficulties are why I *love* the GPL. It's clear, it's 
understandable, and it really helps grant freedom to do development and 
improve the tools.

> With out the ability to take an idea, improve it, modify it and come up
> with something new is fundamental to the development of mankind.
> Alexander Graham Bell did not invent either the microphone, speaker or
> the electrical patch panel, but the telephone is probably the most
> important use those devices have ever be put to.
>
> Steve
>   
Well, yes. Software patents are evil this way, because it's very 
difficult to assemble new tools from entirely new components. In many 
ways, they go against the very idea of patent law encouraging creativity 
by rewarding the creator, by making it very difficult to ensure that any 
new software does not violate an existing software patent, or even 
dozens of such patents. And patent law is *capricious*: some absolutely 
ridiculous patents are granted, but they're very difficult to challenge 
due to the court costs.