Gates Asked for IP Royalties for OpenOffice from Sun Microsystems

[Ric_NYC]

Sometime between 2003 and 2006, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer and Co-founder and chairman Bill Gates visited Sun Microsystems. It wasn’t a courtesy visit, according to Jonathan Ian Schwartz, Former CEO of Sun Microsystems. The Microsoft duo were on a mission to convince Scott McNealy, Sun’s then CEO, to enter into a patent licensing agreement with the Redmond company. Moreover, Gates wanted compensation for the patents that Sun Microsystems was allegedly violating with OpenOffice, a rival product of Microsoft’s own Office productivity suite. Sun resisted.

Gates and Ballmer met with McNealy, Greg Papadopoulos (Sun’s CTO) and Schwartz. On March 9th, 2010, Schwartz, who is no longer Chief Executive Officer after Sun Microsystems was acquired by Oracle, recalled the meeting.

...

Sun Microsystems did not ink a patent covenant agreement with Microsoft. According to Schwartz, Sun used its own patent portfolio as leverage in convincing Gates and Ballmer to back away. The former Sun CEO noted that they were expecting the Microsoft duo to put a patent agreement on the table, and that they were prepared to reject it. Schwartz notes that Microsoft found inspiration in Java when it built .NET.

“‘We’ve looked at .NET, and you’re trampling all over a huge number of Java patents. So what will you pay us for every copy of Windows?’ Bill explained the software business was all about building variable revenue streams from a fixed engineering cost base, so royalties didn’t fit with their model… which is to say, it was a short meeting,” Schwartz added.


...


http://news.softpedia.com/news/Gates-Asked-for-IP-Royalties-for-OpenOffice-from-Sun-Microsystems-137090.shtml

[dragos240]

They won't buy openoffice from sun, you know why? Because they'll try to buy it from oracle, sun is gone.

[LowSky]

They won't buy openoffice from sun, you know why? Because they'll try to buy it from oracle, sun is gone.

LOL

OpenOffice will stay with Oracle (nee Sun), and Windows is thinking of its own web based (free) Office Suite to compete with Google/Oracle.

http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/07/13/microsoft-office-to-go-online-for-free/

[phrostbyte]

Yeah Microsoft has been trying to legally subvert FOSS for quite awhile. But somehow FOSS has some pretty powerful friends and they haven't really been successful. :)

[samjh]

...

[phrostbyte]

it cannot control Sun at the operational

Sure they can. They own Sun.

Oracle is not well known for being a "hands off" company when it comes to their acquisitions either.

[samjh]

You're right. Not sure why I thought that.

[Psumi]

LOL

OpenOffice will stay with Oracle (nee Sun), and Windows is thinking of its own web based (free) Office Suite to compete with Google/Oracle.

http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/07/13/microsoft-office-to-go-online-for-free/

I'm not willing to keep my documents online, sorry.

[ssj6akshat]

Even if they buy OpenOffice from Oracle and Discontinue it.Users have the source code and they will start their own project.Binaries Die but Source code never dies.

[madnessjack]

To be fair to Microsoft- just look at it. OpenOffice looks like MS Office from 10 years ago. It's heavily inspired. (Likewise .NET is from Java)

Use your eyes.

[handy]

I'm not willing to keep my documents online, sorry.

+ lots of numbers.

Those vimitty varment spies are everywhere.

It's like uninvited telepathic online eavesdropping.

Very rude & disrespectful in my opinion.

[samjh]

Even if they buy OpenOffice from Oracle and Discontinue it.Users have the source code and they will start their own project.Binaries Die but Source code never dies.

There are already forks of OpenOffice.org, the most prominent of them being Go-oo by Novell (relabelled as "OpenOffice.org" in Ubuntu and other distros), StarOffice by Sun, and Lotus Symphony by IBM (not strictly a OOo derivative, as OOo code is fitted into an existing code base rather than forming the code base itself).

[prodigy_]

To be fair to Microsoft- just look at it. OpenOffice looks like MS Office from 10 years ago. It's heavily inspired. (Likewise .NET is from Java)

Use your eyes.
To be fair - just look at Microsoft Windows. The first version was released in 1985 and looked like MacOS and X Window System from 1984. It was heavily inspired.

So if we continue with M$ logic, some compensation to Apple and MIT is due, isn't it?

[madnessjack]

To be fair - just look at Microsoft Windows. The first version was released in 1985 and looked like MacOS and X Window System from 1984. It was heavily inspired.

So if we continue with M$ logic, some compensation to Apple and MIT is due, isn't it?
You could go on forever like this.

Truth is everything is inspired by everything before it. Thing is about Windows is it got to the big-time first- be it from doing a better job, good marketing or they just got lucky (that and it's a damn good product).

[xpod]

ignore

[samjh]

So if we continue with M$ logic, some compensation to Apple and MIT is due, isn't it?

Hence the reason why MS can't just go around suing everybody. Almost every major software company (hardware too, for that matter) has a patent portfolio. In the case of Sun, Oracle, IBM, etc., their patent portfolios would easily rival MS. MS knows this, and plays their game very carefully.

One of the benefits of associating Linux and various major FOSS projects with commercial partners, is that the patent portfolios of those commercial partners provide indirect but strong protection against patent threats from the likes of MS.

[Michl]

There are already forks of OpenOffice.org, the most prominent of them being Go-oo by Novell (relabelled as "OpenOffice.org" in Ubuntu and other distros)

I don;t understand. openoffice.org in ubuntu comes now
with the oracle logo.

[michaeldt]

Thing is about Windows is it got to the big-time first- be it from doing a better job, good marketing or they just got lucky (that and it's a damn good product).

Or anti-competitive practices?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_competition_case
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft

[Kai69]

It just makes me wonder why microsoft are trying to sue everyone over patents ? Are they going bankruped or something ??

[LowSky]

It just makes me wonder why microsoft are trying to sue everyone over patents ? Are they going bankruped or something ??

When you lose control of a patent you lose control over a potential monopoly. Microsoft sues to make sure other organizations stay away. One lawsuit to a small company can mean bankruptcy. Even if MS doesn't win the case the competition is too broke to continue its work.

[zekopeko]

It just makes me wonder why microsoft are trying to sue everyone over patents ? Are they going bankruped or something ??

I know only of TomTom from recent history. That is hardly everyone.

One thing I'm really glad is that the OP finally acknowledged that Mono is a patent safe technology.

[madhi19]

An old story but still it show the importance of the Open Invention Network's. The Linux community got their own stockpile of atomics and I believe this is the main reason MS is weary of making a bigger play than intimidating small fish into buying "protection"!

[Kai69]

[QUOTE=zekopeko;9160230]I know only of TomTom from recent history. That is hardly everyone

http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/enterprise-linux/microsoft-includes-linux-patents-in-licensing-deal-with-amazon/

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=3373

These are just 2 I found in 5 minutes there are others if they dont sue they try to blackmail these companys ,I still think they may be going bust LOL

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/feb09/02-04msbrotherpr.mspx

[zekopeko]

I know only of TomTom from recent history. That is hardly everyone

http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/enterprise-linux/microsoft-includes-linux-patents-in-licensing-deal-with-amazon/

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=3373

These are just 2 I found in 5 minutes there are others if they dont sue they try to blackmail these companys ,I still think they may be going bust LOL

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/feb09/02-04msbrotherpr.mspx

Perhaps you could show to me which one of those is a lawsuit.

[Kai69]

ok not a lawsuit but still backhanded and wrong.
Im not against windows os I just dont like the way microsoft is trying to bully these companys who are using or making products for Linux
BTW just had a new wireless router fitted today D-Link in the box was a GPL code statement, I think this is the reason microsoft are getting upset because the router program was not written using microsoft code so they lose out and a lot more products are being made using the GPL/ GNU code.

[samjh]

I don;t understand. openoffice.org in ubuntu comes now
with the oracle logo.

As I said, "relabelled".

[zekopeko]

ok not a lawsuit but still backhanded and wrong.
Im not against windows os I just dont like the way microsoft is trying to bully these companys who are using or making products for Linux
BTW just had a new wireless router fitted today D-Link in the box was a GPL code statement, I think this is the reason microsoft are getting upset because the router program was not written using microsoft code so they lose out and a lot more products are being made using the GPL/ GNU code.


D-Link never used MS code AFAIK for their routers. They have in house solutions for that. You got GPL in the box because D-Link has been using GPL software for some time now.

[Ibidem]

There are already forks of OpenOffice.org, the most prominent of them being Go-oo by Novell (relabelled as "OpenOffice.org" in Ubuntu and other distros), StarOffice by Sun, and Lotus Symphony by IBM (not strictly a OOo derivative, as OOo code is fitted into an existing code base rather than forming the code base itself).
Go-OO is a patchset, not a fork.

[chappajar]

Gates Asked for IP Royalties for OpenOffice from Sun Microsystems


http://news.softpedia.com/news/Gates-Asked-for-IP-Royalties-for-OpenOffice-from-Sun-Microsystems-137090.shtml

...and in reply Sun asked for Java royalties for .NET from MS. They came to an agreement that involved MS paying Sun.

[Ric_NYC]

This part of the article is very interesting:



In 2007, Microsoft indicated that open-source software violated no less than 235 of its patents, with the Linux kernel infringing on 42, the Linux UI and design on an additional 65, and OpenOffice on 45, with open source programs violating a further 83 patents. Microsoft has never mentioned the exact patents it was referring to, and also never started legal action against companies that ran Linux and open source software. However, the Redmond company did sign a vast and increasing number of patent covenant deals, one of the most prominent of the latest with Amazon.com over its use of Linux.