Bonum Certa Men Certa

IDG Spin: Microsoft a Victim in Patent Racketeering, Loves Open Source

Summary: More pro-Microsoft reality distortion from IDG, which has Microsoft as a client

The "OOXML Paoli" story has generated a great deal of response from the public [1, 2, 3]. Almost nobody defends Microsoft's position. It all originates in the Microsoft-funded IDG, which helped Microsoft claim that it had changes its attitude for the better. As one sceptic put it (IDG playing "good cop, bad cop"):



Yet, according to Paoli, that's all changed now.

The company made the mistake of equating all open source technology with Linux "very early on," he said. "We understand our mistake."

Isn't that nice?

One can't help but wonder, however, how much of a mistake the company would think it was if it weren't for Linux and open source's growing market credentials.


For those who do not remember, Paoli ought to know better than anyone that Microsoft has not changed for the better. The OOXML corruption is something he had a lot to do with and given his high position in this abusive monopolist he must also know about his colleagues' patent extortion, which qualifies as racketeering against Open Source [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] (and also proprietary software). Jeremy from Linux Questions responded as follows:

First, the article is correct: we all do remember the “Linux is a cancer” comments made oh so long ago. Unfortunately for Microsoft though, they have much to atone for. It’s not just the vituperative comments made in 2001, but the continued incursions since: the 235 Linux patent violations, the OOXML debacle, the HTC and TomTom licensing issues – the list goes on and on. Does that mean that Microsoft can’t change its ways? Of course not, but it does mean that many in the Open Source ecosystem are going to be a bit circumspect. I continue to believe that the odds of Microsoft truly changing while Ballmer is still CEO are minuscule, but I could be wrong.


Now, watch IDG spinning again. Microsoft is known to be battling over 50 patent cases and here we have Julie Bort describing Microsoft as a victim, despite all the context. Bort writes for the Microsoft Subnet and the Fauxopen Source sections at IDG. Now she passes even more Microsoft apologists' talking points by suggesting that "Microsoft's own patent lawsuits [are] merely covering its costs". For perspective:

In recent years, Microsoft has earned the reputation of being the aggressor in patent infringement lawsuits. I think this is overstated, stemming from a lot of loud mouth claims by its top executives, the uproar over the Tom Tom case in 2009 and that its other suits have been fairly high profile. But they have also been relatively sparse.

In 2010, so far, we have had the much ballyhooed Microsoft case against Salesforce.com (in which both parties settled, with Salesforce agreeing to pay Microsoft an undisclosed sum). But mostly, Microsoft announced cross licensing agreements, such as one from HTC for Android. We had a similar one from Panasonic for exFAT and one with Amazon for Kindle. A less flashy deal was a licensing agreement with Tuxera, the Finnish company that created an open source driver for Microsoft NTFS (the NTFS-3G) for exFAT. The Tuxera deal likely won't generate tons of cash, but it stems from the fact that Microsoft managed to get exFAT embedded as part of the new SDXC specification. The Redmond company will collect royalties (perhaps a few cents each) on all SDXC memory sticks, and that could add up.

Even so, when it comes to patent infringement, Microsoft is more likely to be the victim than the bully -- at least in terms of the number of lawsuits per year.


Watch how she is trying to justify it, as though the extortion is acceptable when Microsoft names not a single patent and pressures Linux vendors to pass their money to Microsoft (based on no evidence). How can one defend the indefensible? Well, it's IDG, so truth does not matter [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. That's why they also publish headlines suggesting that Microsoft "loves" open source. It's deceiving, it's trolling.

Bort asks: "Other than calling payouts "a cost of doing business" what other option does Microsoft have but to try to collect on intellectual property on the one hand, while paying damages with the other?"

“Other than calling payouts "a cost of doing business" what other option does Microsoft have but to try to collect on intellectual property on the one hand, while paying damages with the other?”
      --Julie Bort, IDG
How about working to abolish software patents? As it stands, Microsoft is an active lobbyist for for very same thing it pretends to decry (crocodile tears).

"And if that's the case," concludes Bort, "will we see a Microsoft that becomes more aggressive to collect on intellectual property? I fear so."

She fears so? Didn't she use this whole article to sympathise and defend Microsoft's extortion of "open source" (patent tax)? IDG makes little more sense than Fox 'News'. Fox/Murdoch wants people to believe that Obama is the "anti-Christ", Wikipedia is run by pedophiles, and Wikileaks' founder is a sex offender; IDG wants people to believe that Microsoft's extortion is acceptable and that Microsoft is a friend of "Open Source".

Rupert Murdoch - WEF Davos, 2007
Image from Wikipedia



Recent Techrights' Posts

Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VII: Washing Their Hands After Corruption and Abuse
"Tragedy or comedy?"
Culling Bad RSS Feeds of Bad Sites
Not throwing out the baby with the bathwater
Live as You Preach
technology is fast becoming dysphoric
Computers Got Smaller, So GNU/Linux Got Bigger
Many people here recognise the lack of urgency (or need) to get expensive new laptops
 
Links 10/06/2025: Jaws at 50 and US Democracy Crushed Very Rapidly (Martial Law Seems Imminent)
Links for the day
If 'Microsoft v Techrights' is Dealt With by a 'Microsoft Court' (or a Court Outsourced to Microsoft)
More on that later
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 09, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 09, 2025
Gemini Protocol Turns Six in 10 Days From Now
If you haven't tried it yet, then give it a go today
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Addition Addiction and Nitride
Links for the day
Links 09/06/2025: Science, Hardware Projects, and Democracy Receding
Links for the day
BetaNews is a Plagiarism and LLM Slop Hub, the Chief Editor Isn't Addressing This Problem Anymore
SS Fagioli is basically a parasite leeching off or exploiting other people's work
Links 09/06/2025: Chaos in Los Angeles and Hurricane Season
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Grows at Windows' Expense and Microsoft Trolls Infest and Maliciously Target Articles About It
Microsoft is - and has long been - organised crime
They Say I'm Mr. Bombastic
They didn't take good lawyers
Links 09/06/2025: Windows TCO and Many Data Breaches
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VI: Political Stunts by Former President Edyta Demby-Siwek and the Connection to Profound Corruption at EUIPO
it's like a money-laundering operation where one politician rewards another at taxpayers' expense
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Pipelines and Splitgate
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 08, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 08, 2025
Links 08/06/2025: Tiananmen Carnage Censorship Persists, North Korean Goes Offline
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/06/2025: Love as an Ethnographic Method and Monitorix Gemini-Frontend v0.1
Links for the day
Links 08/06/2025: Exposure of More GAFAM Surveillance and Social Security Records Compromised
Links for the day
Linux Foundation is a Mediator for Microsoft et al, Not for Small Companies That Support Rather Than Attack the GPL
Many people still wrongly assume that because it is called "Linux Foundation", then it is pro-Linux and represents the same mindset
This Past Friday, Confirming What We Said All Along About Brett Wilson LLP: It's Shrinking, Has Considerable Debt, Loss of Net Assets Despite the Microsoft SLAPP Money
The documents only became publicly available less than 2 days ago
Some of the Many Reasons We Sued Microsofters for Harassment
perpetrators of harassment
For 20 Years Many People Were Sharecropping for Canonical's Oligarch, Now He's Deleting All Their Contributions
"Ubuntu has erased instead of archiving the trove of material at Ubuntu Forums"
There Was Always Too Much 'Crazy Stuff' Going on Around Freenode
What many IRC users lost sight of
Exposing Crime is Not a Crime (It Never Was)
In the eyes of rich and powerful people, those who speak about their crimes are the "criminals"
GNU/Linux Distros Abandoning Microsoft GitHub
Will curl be next to leave Microsoft GitHub?
Expect More XBox Mass Layoffs Soon If the Rumours Are True
From a Microsoft media operative
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 07, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, June 07, 2025
Europe Needs to Move Away From GAFAM; The Sooner, the Better
Europe - not just the EU - must abandon GAFAM as soon as possible
The Issue Isn't GNOME's Promotion of Diversity But GNOME Corruption, Abuse, Censorship, and Worse
So-called "Conservative" (republican, pro-Trump, bigoted) people want you to think the problem with GNOME is politics
When the News Sources Become Scarce and Increasingly Full of Polluted/Contaminated 'Content' (With LLM Slop and Slop Images)
Integrity matters
"Linux" Sites That Spew Out LLM Slop
We're lacking enough material for another "Slopwatch"
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part V: Breaking the Law, Just Like EPO
We'll hopefully cover some of the pertinent details later this year