'Loving' Linux a little too much?

Summary: Microsoft and Intellectual Ventures are suing Android companies using software patents while some Android vendors settle by becoming slaves of Microsoft

MICROSOFT hates GNU/Linux with a very great passion. Its actions speak volumes and it's easy to see the motivation given that no operating system threatens Microsoft's very existence like GNU/Linux does. Microsoft needs a ubiquitous Windows as the common carrier, so it responds to the threat of GNU/Linux not by making better products but by undermining GNU/Linux by means of bullying, extortion, bribes, spurious litigation etc. Therein lies the issue.

Weeks ago we wrote that Microsoft was reportedly using patent blackmail to pressure Samsung into becoming a Microsoft peon and later we updated our article to state that Mary Jo Foley had been distorting or making up 'facts' about Microsoft's patent attacks on Android/Linux. Well, Mary Jo Foley (Microsoft's mouth) now reveals that it's true that Microsoft blackmailed Samsung into a "Microsoft Android" sort of programme (Android base which runs Microsoft apps and gives users' data to Microsoft). Mary Jo Foley's headline, however, is marketing nonsense (for Microsoft). Her headline should say "Samsung Galaxy S6 offers more proof Microsoft is a blackmail and extortion company". There are other Microsoft-friendly sources (like Mary Jo Foley) confirming this. But wait, it gets worse!

As the Microsoft-paid lobbyist and patent propagandist shows in his latest Android-hostile posts, Microsoft is now suing yet another company for using Android. Microsoft even pursues a ban on Android devices:

Microsoft has asked a court in Seattle to ban Kyocera's DuraForce, Hydro and Brigadier lines of cellular phones in the U.S., alleging that they infringed seven Microsoft patents.

The software giant has in its complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington charged that some Kyocera phone features that come from its use of the Android operating system infringe its patents.

Wow. Microsoft sure loves Linux, eh?

Those two companies made a patent deal several years ago (with impact on Android), so this is how Microsoft treats its 'partners'.

One article stated that "Microsoft may be taking some steps to make nice with the Android world, but the company is still willing to pick fights when its royalty payments are at stake. The Windows maker has sued Kyocera in the US over claims that Android phones like the Brigadier and Hydro series violate seven patents on features like location tracking and messaging."

Only Microsoft boosters would foolishly state that Microsoft is being "nice" towards Android. Trying to abduct and derail it is bad; there's nothing nice about it. In the Microsoft lawsuit against Kyocera notice that these are software patents, not hardware patents. Hence, Microsoft is still a corrupt bullies' den, where Horacio and fellow patent aggressors get promoted while others get demoted or ousted. This is where Microsoft is heading strategically! Will settle if Kyocera notice convert to "Microsoft Android" as Samsung did? Well, one sure thing is that Microsoft is still an extortion company. It sues Linux users through vendors, passing liabilities to users. Will it settle if the users are forcibly converted to "Microsoft Android"? How is that not extortion?

The Kyocera news (lawsuit and effort to ban) ought to wake up all the fools (but not corruptible 'journalists') who say that Microsoft loves Linux.

An additional report by Joe Mullin, who tends to focus on patent trolls (for more than half a decade now), says that "Microsoft claims Kyocera infringes its patents with three of Kyocera's lower-cost Android phones. The accused models include the Duraforce, Hydro, and Brigadier."

Microsoft is still operating more or less like a patent troll. Watch how it behaves. Watch the strategy. No difference, except the size/scale of the troll.

Turning back again to the Microsoft booster from The Register (Microsoft Gavin, formerly a colleague of Mary Jo Foley), we sure see that Microsoft continues blackmail and extortion against GNU/Linux using software patents. This is based on a conversation with the OIN's CEO, dated March third (shortly before the Kyocera news). The article titled "Microsoft to Android OEMs: 'Show me the money'" says:

Microsoft has reserved the right to nail firms making Android devices running its Office suit for possible Windows patent infringements.

The giant has decided against signing a licence with Open Invention Network (OIN), a group of 1,300 companies dedicated to defending Linux against patent suits.

Signing an OIN licence could have stopped the practice of Microsoft accusing Android and other Linux makers of infringing on its Windows patents and signing them up to IP licensing deals.

The decision followed a meeting with OIN in December, where the subject of Microsoft signing an OIN licence was apparently discussed.

OIN veteran chief executive Keith Bergelt met Microsoft’s then-new chief of patent licensing and intellectual property, Eric Andersen.

Bergelt told The Reg Monday his meeting had been a courtesy call to discuss differences and that he’d also held such a meeting with Andersen’s predecessor, Horacio Gutierrez.

Proceedings were “constructive”, Bergelt said, but any hopes that Andersen’s appointment heralded a shift in the giant’s shakedown of Linux device makers and software firms were dashed shortly after, when the OIN chief followed up.

This ought to remind us how Microsoft views Linux and Android. There is no love there at all. Here is how Microsoft's longtime mouthpiece Todd Bishop framed extortion against Linux. Very shallow. Other popular sites offered equally shallow commentary. It's virtually useless. They just parrot two PR departments and call that "journalism".

Perhaps Microsoft loves Linux too much. That's why Microsoft is suing Linux so often. Perhaps. Make believe!

Making matters even worse, Microsoft can be seen as suing Android also by proxy. Joe Mullin reveals that the Bill Gates- and Microsoft-funded troll, the world's biggest patent troll, is now attacking Android/Linux at the core (Motorola/Google) with software patents, yet again (it's not the first time).

As Mullin put it: "Patent-holding giant Intellectual Ventures (IV) began enforcing some of its massive stash of patents with lawsuits in 2010. But its first case, against Motorola Mobility, ended in a mistrial last year when a jury couldn't agree on the outcome."

Patent Troll Tracker mentioned this troll a week and a half ago, asking: "Do you mean to tell me that the life sciences industry sees Intellectual Ventures and IPNav as patent trolls? Will wonders never cease."

Intellectual Ventures is not just another patent troll, it is tool of Microsoft and Bill Gates. They are almost inseparable and they are all exceptionally abusive.

Perhaps we're just wrong though. Perhaps Microsoft just can't help 'loving' Linux -- so much that this month alone it attacks it with software from multiple angles. Or perhaps Microsoft's Mr. "loves Linux" Nadella is a PR fraud whose role is to play dumb while Bill, Steve, Horacio and their patent trolls attack Linux (he pretends to have nothing to do with it, that's the likely arrangement). ⬆