Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft's Handbook: Work With the System, Use OEMs and Your Legal Team

"I’m thinking of hitting the OEMs harder than in the past with anti-Linux. [...] they should do a delicate dance"

--Joachim Kempin, Microsoft OEM Chief



Summary: Microsoft's tactics against GNU/Linux have not changed much in two decades, they're just framed differently

A LOT of people have been led to believe the "new Microsoft" mythology. A public relations success story? How about "Microsoft loves Linux"? How much money has Microsoft spent spreading this particular lie? Microsoft knows that this lie offends and aggravates geeks, but the target audience isn't geeks but managers who might choose Azure for hosting GNU/Linux (for supposed "legal peace of mind"), managers who might also think that Vista 10 is now "also Linux" because of WeaSeL (WSL). Who wants to wrestle with UEFI 'secure boot' anyway? With those words, here comes Chapter 2.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Cover and quick Introduction [PDF]

Chapter 1: Know your enemies-- Act like a friend [PDF]

Chapter 2: Work with the system-- Use OEMs and your legal team [PDF]

Chapter 3: Playing the victim-- Show the world that too much freedom hurts development

Chapter 4: You get what you pay for-- Getting skeptics to work for you

Chapter 5: Open Source Judo-- How to bribe the moderates to your side

Chapter 6: Damning with faint praise-- Take the right examples of free software and exploit them for everything

Chapter 7: Patent War-- Use low-quality patents to prove that all software rips off your company

Chapter 8: A foot in the door-- how to train sympathetic developers and infiltrate other projects

Chapter 9: Ownership through Branding-- Change the names, and change the world

Chapter 10: Moving forward-- Getting the best results from Open source with your monopoly




Chapter 2



Work with the system-- Use OEMs and your legal team

The Free Software Movement wants to change all the rules. Don't forget, it's companies like yours that made the rules!

By working with hardware manufacturers and lawyers, you can help reinforce and update the rules that keep the world operating in a way that works for you-- not a bunch of neck-bearded basement dwellers.

Hardware and firmware keep gaining features. In 2019 we actually need to run firmware updates to keep our CPU chips from being insecure. While monopolies have added unwanted features for their platforms in the past, hardware and firmware make it possible to add unwanted features that the vast majority of free software users won't be able to simply uninstall and replace.

Mark Shuttleworth of Canonical refers to proprietary firmware such as ACPI as a “Trojan horse” and security risk. The only security risk is to the user-- while your company can be the Trojan army.

For more than a decade, Microsoft has enjoyed an extra intimidating step or two-- the user having to disable an important-sounding feature called “Secure Boot” just to install many versions of the free software operating system “Linux.” People are afraid to turn off features that sound as if they add security-- won't that make them less secure? Aha, Gotcha! A gift from the OEMs to the monopolies.

Hardware OEMs are rarely on the side of these software communists. They exist to make money, and assisting the free software crowd with the full specifications needed to write high-quality drivers for every on-board feature would reveal too much about the designs to competing manufacturers. So without “free hardware” (and we know that won't ever happen) the free software people are stuck reverse-engineering hardware and guessing how to write drivers based on trial-and-error. What the drivers gain in stability and maintenance, they often lose in features and performance.

So for one, you want to always stress that to get the most of your hardware, you need industry software-- not cottage or basement software. The free software people have no retort for this, because they know they often can't get the full specs. Meanwhile, the OEMs just keep making new designs-- which often means that free software can't even support the latest hardware.

When you have a monopoly, you don't just have to wait and hope that other vendors do your bidding. Not only are you in a position to ask for features that favor your company and very few others, but you can actually demand them (or work out deals to get your way.)

Most people expect their computer to come with software already installed. One thing Microsoft was able to do for years, was drop their prices for pre-installed copies of their operating system on new desktops and laptops-- but only if the manufacturer agreed not to offer any machines with their competitors' software--such as “Linux.”

In one fell swoop, Microsoft made use of their monopoly power to stop most people from getting a computer with “Linux” pre-installed.

That's how you stay on top-- work with people you know you can rely on to give you an advantage.

It's worth noting that not all of these manufacturers actually wanted to do business exclusively with Microsoft. Microsoft pushed them to be exclusive, by forcing them to choose between a higher price and a variety of software options. Because OEMs care about the bottom line (and what good business doesn't?) They made the smart decision-- and simply went along with Microsoft's wishes.

Together with Intel, Toshiba, HP, Phoenix and even recent black sheep Huawei, Microsoft participated in the establishment of the ACPI power management system. We just explained that with enough features that aren't fully or properly documented, free software struggles to keep up with hardware specs. By participating in and extending hardware specifications, Microsoft and other vendors have an opportunity to maintain their influence over not only software development, but also the machines that people will try to put free software on later.

Of course, this won't stop the free software authors from trying. Like the Whos in Whoville, if you co-opt all their whatsits, the free software crowd will just keep coding. But new standards that take 10 years to properly implement (or even poorly and inconsistently, but gradually implement) will often take years for the free software community to support. This is not good business between the manufacturers and the free software community-- but they know which side butters their bread, and not to forget it.

So long as you have relationships with OEMs you can exploit, you have the upper hand any time the free software devs want to run their software on popular consumer hardware. That translates to their reduced marketshare, wasted time for free software developers, and ultimately-- a well-guarded software monopoly. The point isn't to keep them out entirely. It's to be sure it takes them so long to get in, that by the time they've supported the hardware it is already obsolete.

Free software may demand a ride in your car these days, but remember that you're in the driver's seat!

OEMs aren't your sole ally in the fight against free software; you also have lawyers. Lawyers should always come to mind when you're figuring out how to get away with murder, whether they're your defensive strategy or your offensive line.

The best-trained lawyers will help you navigate the thin margins between a strategic lawsuit that will come back to bite you, and one that accomplishes your goal: making it too much trouble for a smaller company or developer to continue their efforts to compete with your monopoly.

Unless you are a service-oriented company like Red Hat, leasing the use of your company's intellectual property is the core of your software business-- you need to protect that property to maintain control of your customer base. If some upstart comes along and offers a Solitaire game that works like your own, it doesn't necessarily matter that the game isn't part of your core portfolio-- the best thing to do (as long as it's in your legal budget) is blow the competition out of the water.

In the past, companies like Microsoft and Apple have had mixed results using patents to achieve this goal. While pro-piracy efforts such as PTAB (the Patent Trial and Appeal Board) in the United States have closed off this avenue for the most part, and software patents are gradually becoming a losing option for pursing directly (via the courts) in Europe, there are two options still worth exploring and exploiting:

First, we have the patent agreements. Legal action from a large corporation isn't about legal justice or fairness-- it's about maintaining ground and instilling fear in smaller companies. If you are a smaller company, you can still have the upper hand in these actions if you place yourself under the “protection” of a very large company.

Earlier in the chapter it was mentioned that OEMs don't always want to do business exclusively with a software company-- but they can be pushed into deals they don't always want to be part of. The intellectual property landscape adds an entire playing field for such deals, because no matter what the arena looks like today, nobody knows for certain what tomorrow holds.

Fear of the future is your best ally in this landscape, because you have (or your enterprise partners have) the best lawyers, and they could sue the competition for just about anything.

So don't worry too much if the patent landscape is evolving-- if one door closes, another will soon open. Since nobody can be sure what the future holds, there is success to be had in patent agreements. Here is how that works:

First, a large group of people create a work that violates your software patents. It doesn't always matter if your patents would be thrown out as bogus in court, the purpose of them is to get people to settle so they don't have to fight.

Originally, the way to do that was to threaten to sue over an enormous patent portfolio. But in the first chapter, we said to act like a friend first. By all means sue when appropriate-- but when possible, be a friend!

Patent agreements are an olive branch we extend to companies, who simply agree that what they are using is our intellectual property. We don't threaten to sue when that's unlikely to bear fruit-- instead we say “Hi, we don't want to sue you-- we just want credit for your use of our property. If you will simply admit that what you're using is ours, we agree not to fight it.”

What's great about this is that there's no fight-- these companies (who often didn't even write the software-- it was often written by others, such as the Linux kernel) simply roll over and hand us the verdict we couldn't get in a courtroom.

They admit that what they wrote is really our property!

And while we can't achieve this in court or with a C&D, we can achieve this as friends. We can't stop them from using our IP-- because the patent offices that would let us do that are too weak. So what they can't accomplish, we have to do ourselves, with strategy and diplomacy.

They get to continue development, but something important has changed in the landscape-- instead of fighting to prove that something is ours, we have it in writing-- so when we stop bothering with their licenses and terms and co-opt the software in whatever way we choose, how are they going to stop us? We have an agreement! Even the largest Linux-based companies said this is ours! Who's going to argue then-- the little student coders that work for them?

Second, every big software company is getting into hardware. While software patents are dwindling, hardware gives us a new opportunity to exploit the patent landscape as a means of seeking royalties.

In the meantime, we can enjoy the royalties coming in from every USB stick and Android device.

And patents aren't the only IP we can throw at them, either. A move towards our own Open Source licenses could let us use license terms to go after companies we want to force into other agreements.

No matter what though, the purpose of your legal team isn't to ensure that other companies are doing the right thing-- the purpose of your legal team is to ensure that other companies are doing what you want them to do. They who have the best lawyers, win!

And if somehow the lawyers have nothing else to do-- you can always lobby to make new laws, for your legal team to exploit. The future is nothing to fear-- but your legal team certainly is.

Relevant quotes from the Halloween documents:

“The effect of patents and copyright in combatting Linux remains to be investigated.”

“This memorandum also suggests that Linux could be attacked through patent lawsuits.”

From https://antitrust.slated.org/halloween/halloween2.html

“It plants the idea that any MIS manager so foolish as to use Linux will find his operating system yanked out from under him by a future patent lawsuit -- perhaps one initiated by (whisper it) Microsoft itself.”

From https://antitrust.slated.org/halloween/halloween3.html

“The risk that Microsoft will go on a patent-lawsuit rampage, designed more to scare potential open-source users than to actually shut down developers, is substantial.”

“Seventy-four percent (74%) of Americans and 82% of Swedes stated that the risk of being sued over Linux patent violations made them feel less favorable towards Linux.”

From https://antitrust.slated.org/halloween/halloween7.html

“SCO holds no Unix patents; the state and disposition of the Unix copyrights is unclear and presently disputed between SCO and Novell”

“Novell retained the Unix patents, and gave the Unix trademark to somebody else.”

“These sorts of factors complicate the release of every piece of Open Source software I've consulted on at HP so far, no matter what division it comes from.”

“if OpenMail is released as Open Source, we will have to first sanitise it: remove software that is connected with non-disclosure agreements that we entered, patents that we licensed, proprietary code that we bought but can't relicense, and so on... We don't know how big this sanitisation project is yet, if it's bad, it could cost Millions.”

“Even relatively small proprietary projects, like the open-source release of Borland's Inprise database require the codebase to be extensively scrutinized to remove licensed third party intellectual property.”

“We don't know if there are any patent infringements [in this code] with somebody we don't know. We don't want to take the risk of being sued for a patent infringement.”

“Patent infringement is much more difficult to detect than other kinds of intellectual property infringement, because it's possible to infringe a patent you've never heard of: you can never be sure there isn't some patent somewhere that you're infringing among the millions of patents granted annually.”

“large software corporations patent everything they can and then cross-license their entire patent portfolio with other companies.”

“SCO has no patents, they don't own the trademark, copyright won't serve them and the only contract they have with the Linux community is the General Public License, which SCO is the one violating. So they fall back on trade secrets, which aren't secret anymore”

From https://antitrust.slated.org/halloween/halloween9.html

Recent Techrights' Posts

We Are Safe in a Modern "Tech" Society, Right?
People are safer if they control their own computing
The Way Things Are Going, They May Soon Stop Saying "Web Address" and Instead Say "Chrome Address"
The Web isn't built or based around open Web standards anymore. It's centered around user-agent.
Microsoft as a Golden Cage
"I was laid off by Microsoft and can't find a job. I'm weeks away from giving up my apartment and moving across the country to live with family."
Weekend Discussion About How IBM's Bluewashing of Red Hat Will Cause "Enshittification" for Users
"I worked at a software company that was acquired by IBM so I knew it was game over for RedHat the day they were acquired"
Brett Wilson LLP Getting Sued by Its Very Own Clients, a Legal Story That Has Made the Mainstream News (Law360)
Law360 or Law.com are about as mainstream as one can get in that "sector" (litigation 'industry')
Lucas Nussbaum & Debian pregnancy cluster
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
 
The Same People Who Attacked Richard Stallman (RMS) Are Attacking Daniel Pocock to Discourage People From Listening to His Information
Pocock is being demonised for the same reasons and by the same people who attack RMS
Your Typical Anti-Richard Stallman (RMS) Cancellist
"About the RMS cancellation"
Richard Stallman (RMS) Has Announced His Talk in Rome Less Than 20 Hours in Advance (and on a Sunday)
Why did he wait until the night before?
GNU Tools Cauldron Event in Portugal: Videos Now Available via Invidious
Go have a look
Slopwatch: GNU/Linux Sites That Became Slopfarms and Spamfarms
The Web is a mess and "Linux" or "Ubuntu" sites became part of the problem
Richard Stallman's Talk 25 Hours Away, Aula Magna Palazzo del Rettorato (CU001), Sapienza Università di Roma (Piazzale Aldo Moro, 5)
The talk is 25 hours away and we see some QR code for it
Gemini Links 12/10/2025: Watches, the Depression of 2026, Gamboling with Odds
Links for the day
Links 12/10/2025: 'False' DMCA Claims and Slop Facing Perils Again (the Hype Wears Off)
Links for the day
Microsoft Has Just Lost Privacy Case in Austria and Its Latest Moves Make a Complete Ban Seem Imperative
Microsoft is not a software company, it's a spying agency that uses software to collect data
The Register MS: Microsoft is the Security Expert, Not the Prime Culprit, So Buy More Microsoft
This front page feature is devoid of any actual substance, it's just Microsoft copypasta
Paris 'Love Nest' & Debian Outreachy: from Lycée Lakanal to ENS Cachan, Cr@ns, nepotism
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Stefano Zacchiroli (Zack) & Debian pregnancy cluster
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 12/10/2025: "Palm Computering", Further Exploration of Slide Rules, and Key Takeaways from The Well-Grounded Rubyist
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 11, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 11, 2025
Tomorrow: Founder of the Free Software Foundation and of GNU/Linux, Richard Stallman, Speaks in Roma (Rome), Italy at 4PM
GNU/Linux is more important than ever in this dystopian world
Microsoft and Apple Are Rare Topics in Geminispace
in Geminispace it's rather safe to assume everyone is into BSD, GNU/Linux, and sometimes retro
Qualcomm and Manchester United Appear to Have Dumped Microsoft (Qualcomm Now Invests More in Linux, Apparently)
It's a relief to no longer see Microsoft logos and brands on a local football club's gear (I'm not a Manchester United fan, but not a foe either)
As Guest of Honour in Rome, Founder of the Free Software Foundation to Speak ("Distinguished Lecture") After Introduction by Leonardo Querzoni
Happy hacking...
All Things Open is Proprietary
The OSI has become a front group of proprietary software openwashers, led and sponsored by proprietary giants
When Microsoft Lays Off Lots of Workers They Say It "Invests in AI" (a Lie), Now It's "Reshuffles" or "Microsoft Tightens"
Microsoft "news" by bots
"I saw Richard Stallman give a talk in the mid 80s, which began my fear and loathing of software patents" and "Richard Stallman was always right."
"By betraying the legacy of our ancestors, we’ve set ourselves on a path toward self-destruction — moral, intellectual, economic, and ultimately biological."
There Were Several Waves of Microsoft Shanghai Layoffs in 2025, Western Media Continues to Turn a Blind Eye to Chinese Layoffs of an Epic Scale
Sometimes select Taiwanese news sites (published in English) or automated translations are all we have
Brett Wilson LLP Spreads Trumpism to the United Kingdom, Looking to Profit From 'Legal Colonialism' (Overriding Sovereignty)
There's growing recognition of this conundrum worldwide
The Demise of Shopping in Person
In a world like this, how valued is the customer?
This Past Friday, "Nearly 700 People Came to Listen to RMS!" (Richard Stallman)
"Nearly 700 people came to listen to RMS!"
Distinguished Lecture by Richard Stallman This Coming Monday in Rome
After "Free software, Crucial for Freedom in a Digital World"
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT Churning Out Plagiarism and the Slopfarm LinuxSecurity Turns to Pseudonyms
Our hunch is, UbuntuPIT will sooner or later realise that this toxic approach is just harming UbuntuPIT and tainting the reputation of past articles
The Lawsuit by Clients of Brett Wilson LLP Against Brett Wilson LLP is Officially On, It is Progressing, The 'Experts' Pick Outside Law Firms (RPC and Mills & Reeve) to Spare Them From Litigants in Person
So it is probably quite potent
Gemini Links 11/10/2025: Nyctography, Gerrymandering, and Lurking
Links for the day
The 'Culture Wars' in Free Software Have Gone Out of Control
Social control media amplifies such utterly infantile discourse
Teaser: To Compensate for the Fact Our Clients Are Terrible Human Beings Who Strangle Women (While on Microsoft's Payroll) and We Get Paid by Mystery Parties We Bombard You and Your Wife With Almost 10 Kilograms of Legal Papers
If you can't win an argument, then drown the other side with papers?
Links 11/10/2025: World Mental Health Day 2025, Another European Legal Defeat for Microsoft 360
Links for the day
MIT Technology Review is Part-Time SPAMfarm of Billionaires and Mega-Corporations
Does MIT operate its own "b2b" SPAMfarm?
Open Source Initiative Executive Director Leaves, Replacement Sought by Monopolists, Not the Community or OSI Members
Serves to show who runs this show...
Links 11/10/2025: China-US Tensions Grow Again, "Hey Hi" More Widely Recognised as Bubble Made of Capital That Doesn't Exist
Links for the day
Now Confirmed in Western Media: Microsoft Azure Layoffs This Month
Affirmed by more sources moments ago
Peter O'Callaghan QC represented grandparents, Westernport Hotel, at Liquor Royal Commission
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Either The Register MS Divests From FOSS Coverage or Liam Proven is on Long Holiday
Publishers perish when their audience loses trust in them
Microsoft Cancelling Another Datacentre is a Sign of Financial Trouble and Lack of Growth
The debt continues to grow
Gemini Links 11/10/2025: An Evening at the Fair and Fast Fourier Friday
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 10, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 10, 2025
Geminispace is Very Large
The word continues to spread and the number of participants grows
Another Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, This Time During National Day Holiday
This time it's China again
10 Out of 10: RMS Attracts Massive Audience in Göteborg, Sweden (All Seats Occupied, Some People Standing)
a 55-second clip of his talk
Staying Happy in Times of Crackdowns on Civil Society
Optimism in this sort of "new reality" or "new normal" seems like something for the irrational person
"Nobel" Exploited Posthumously for "AI" Hype, Now They Do the Same With "Quantum"
ere have been many jokes about "Nobel" for peace (often granted to pro-war people) and a fake one for "Economics" (establishment propaganda)
Slopwatch: Plagiarism and "Linux" Articles by Bots
Sites that do this won't survive; many of them rely on slop services (suppliers) that will cease to exist after the bubble bursts
Links 10/10/2025: Putin Admits Russia Downed Azerbaijan Airlines Jet, More New Heat Records
Links for the day
Noteworthy Claim That IBM is Firing a Lot of Lawyers This Week (RAs in the Legal Department)
A lot of what they do is patent 'trolling' or lawyering up against their own staff (e.g. HR disputes)
Links 10/10/2025: US Judge Bars Attacks by ICE On Journalists and Protesters; “We Took The Freedom of Speech Away” Says the President
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025