Does Jolla pay royalty to Microsoft ?

asked 2016-12-12 21:29:16 +0300

yorambh
1416 ●12 ●19 ●19

updated 2016-12-13 10:39:49 +0300

jiit

2678 ●32 ●58 ●59

admin

Microsoft income from royalty payments in last year, payed by vendors of devices running Linux kernel, is estimated by some in 2 billion dollars. Microsoft charges this money by threatening to sue over violation of patents, allegedly done in Linux kernel, patents that they fail to describe...

So the question is : is Jolla one of the companies who pay this protection money ?

this is important for me, and probably others, given that the most important motivation (for me) to buy Jolla Phone was the fact that it runs Gnu/Linux. for that motivation, I compromised the value of free software (SailfishOS is not fully free), so, at least, we are entitled to know how buying Jolla effect Linux kernel and the patent allegations (which are basically blackmail) regarding it.

edit retag flag offensive close delete

Comments

wasn't that about Android, though? I mean there's hardware vendors selling linux notebooks, and I haven't heard about them having to pay MS.

ArmsOfSorrow ( 2016-12-12 21:57:03 +0300 )edit

Do you have a source?

Federico ( 2016-12-12 22:01:09 +0300 )edit

Some people thinks not paying MS is important, some thinks tablet refund is important.

I dont think jolla is paying MS, but if they do it would almost nothing since its just a few thousand devices.

Read here: https://together.jolla.com/question/67122/request-please-dont-use-crowdfunded-money-to-pay-for-extra-patent-licenses/

Dave999 ( 2016-12-12 22:23:18 +0300 )edit

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2475440/android/microsoft-gets--2-billion-a-year-in-android-patent-fees--really-.html

yorambh ( 2016-12-12 23:01:39 +0300 )edit

You need to note that Microsoft does not charge for anything "they have patented" in Linux kernel

They collect revenue from filesystem licencs, Exchange licenses, codec licences and so on.

juiceme ( 2016-12-13 00:52:04 +0300 )edit

Comments

I do believe im not getting the point here. What's the issue even if they do?

tortoisedoc ( 2016-12-20 15:05:02 +0300 )edit

The issue is : 1. patent trolling an legitimating it 2. paying a company that works against Linux and against freedom.

yorambh ( 2016-12-20 15:48:51 +0300 )edit

mmh, patent trolling, well it is a fact of life, unless patent laws are changed drastically (which I believe is not going to vappen that soon) so just learn to live with it.

OTOH, I am not so sure MS can be definitely called a patent troll; Patent Trolls just hoard up patents created by others to extort money but MS actually has a load of own R&D that they leverage in patenting.

And for the unfriendliness of MS towards linux; that is also pretty much past behaviour. Just check what's the amount of MS-originating commits in the kernel tree nowdays :)

juiceme ( 2016-12-20 16:00:47 +0300 )edit

As for facts of life, me choosing (when possible) not to take part in actions that I'm against, is also a fact of life.

as for MS contribution to the kernel, looking in the git log, I found one contributor with MS mail address, with lot of commits to one (maybe two) components. this, by itself, does not signify any new policy about Linux.

yorambh ( 2016-12-20 17:00:10 +0300 )edit

Yes, granted that the commits are mostly for windows/linux interoperability with virtualizing but still that is significant.

Also I hear that the new updates to win10 contain some kind of interoperability layer that allows one to run linux software on windoze.

The OS is not any longer so important to MS, they are focusing on services.

juiceme ( 2016-12-20 19:23:25 +0300 )edit

Does Jolla pay royalty to Microsoft ?

Comments

1 Answer

Comments

Question tools

Stats

Related questions

Does Jolla pay royalty to Microsoft ?

Comments

1 Answer

Comments

Question tools

Public thread

Stats

Related questions