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Trend Micro Draws Boycott Over AV Patent Case
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Feb 11, 2008 06:17 PM
from the going-the-way-of-the-scosco dept.
from the going-the-way-of-the-scosco dept.
Linux.com is reporting that in addition to the bad press, Trend Micro's patent case against Barracuda Networks' use of ClamAV has drawn an apparent boycott of Trend Micro. "Dutch free knowledge and culture advocacy group ScriptumLibre called for 'a worldwide boycott on Trend Micro products.' In its news release, ScriptumLibre summarizes the case, with its chairman, Wiebe van der Worp, describing Trend Micro's actions as 'well beyond the borders of decency.' The ScriptumLibre site includes link to free graphics that supporters can add to their Web pages to show their support and a call for IT professionals that provides a links to help people to educate themselves about the case and suggests a series of actions that people can take in the boycott." Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by SourceForge Inc.
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Your Rights Online: Trend Micro Sues Barracuda Over Open Source Anti-Virus 200 comments
Anti-virus firm Trend Micro is suing Barracuda Networks over their use of the open source anti-virus product ClamAV. The issue is Trend Micro's patent on 'anti-virus detection on an SMTP or FTP gateway'. Companies like Symantec and McAfee are already paying licensing fees to Trend Micro. Groklaw carries the word from Barracuda that they intend to fight this case, and are seeking information on prior art to bring to trial. Commentary on the O'Reilly site notes (in strident terms) the strange reality of patents gone bad, while a post to the C|Net site explores the potential ramifications for open source security projects. "Barracuda has been able to leverage open source to bring down the cost of security. Early on Barracuda was blocking spam and viruses at roughly 1/10 the price of the nearest proprietary competitor (that was only selling an antivirus solution). Barracuda has helped to bring down prices across the board, and it has been able to do so because of open source. More open source equals less spam and more security. Trend Micro is effectively trying to raise the price of security." Slashdot and Linux.com are both owned by SourceForge.
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So when you say "draws boycott" (Score:5, Funny)
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Look up the meaning as a transitive verb. As a kind gesture I even used one of them colonial dictionaries that I assume represents your cultural persuasion. Some guys representing nobody in particular saying "Oh hay guys, maybe we shouldn't use Trend" is hardly an example of mass agreement from the throngs.
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Look no further than SCO (Score:5, Insightful)
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It was all about the money. Isn't it always? We could buy cheap PC hardware and run SCO, and even though I hated it, it was much cheaper than buying an expensive Sun machine and a support license.
Even if
Boycott all commercial antivirus programs? (Score:5, Informative)
The business model for most of these companies is nothing more than extortion (ie. pay up on your Norton subscription or we'll trash your Windows install).
Many OEM computers come with AV programs out of the box that are only good for several months. My aunt's computer was like this (a Dell). She's not very technical, so she didn't realize that she had to pay to keep something working that came free with her computer. After the "free trial" was up, Norton silently died leaving her computer vulnerable to all sorts of nasties (no firewall, on AOL dialup, yuck). The Norton uninstall program often does not work, leaving many of Nortons "hooks" still installed in the OS.
I've said it many times, all you need is a router and some common sense (not using Internet Explorer helps). If you really can't help clicking on "free ipod" ads, then fine use an antivirus program, but for god's sake don't use Norton, Trend Micro, or any of the subscription based crap that's out there.
And yes, I realize this article is not about Norton, but Norton and Trend Micro are in the same boat IMO.
The only good thing Trend Micro has ever made is their "House Call" virus scanner in Java. It's a nice way to clean up trashed pc's without having to install software (most PC's have Java already installed nowadays).
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Re:Boycott all commercial antivirus programs? (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, a lot of people don't have "common sense." "Common sense" is quite uncommon among people who haven't grown up with computers. My mom, if it were not for me, would have no clue how to prevent viruses, adware, spyware, etc.
Of course, I remove Norton almost automatically when fixing computers, because it slows it down almost as much as a virus, in my experience.
Parent
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Common sense is often uncommon among many people who _have_ grown up around computers. Just last week a 22 yr old came to me quiet concerned about a hoax virus email until I pointed out that 1. The AFP (Australian Federal Police) would not email them, 2. Spam is illegal so the AFP would not tell them to email everyone they knew (which they had already done) and 3. If it was so bad why hadn't this been on the news?
This pers
Re:Boycott all commercial antivirus programs? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Boycott all commercial antivirus programs? (Score:5, Informative)
You do realize that one of the major reasons you can pick up your cheapo dell/hp etc computer is the "Trialware" software on those boxes. They receive money to carry the software and in some cases receive more money to not carry someone else's software.
Parent
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I can attest to this. Not only does the uninstaller do this on occasion (especially if you're installing the last of several Norton products) but there are many viruses that target Norton specifically, disabling its AV functionality without uninstalling it. Either way, the next time you try to install another vendor's program the installer usually stops you in your tracks, proclaiming that Norton
Boycott all commercial AV software? No ! (Score:4, Insightful)
However, much as I like Open Source Software in general, I consider it perfectly OK if people decide to use commercial, closed-source, anti-virus software. I would urge them to (re)consider using such software in favour of OSS, but if they wish, for whatever reason, to spend their money on closed-source anti-virus software, then best of luck to them (and the producers of closed-source AV software).
What galls me in this case is the unfair way in which Trend Micro uses a blindingly obvious patent they somehow got their hands on to squeeze an OSS competitor out of the market. The patent, basically the idea of having a virus scanner on gateway servers to a network that scans incoming files as they are being transmitted, is of course trivial.
Why?
The idea that in order to prevent infected files from entering a network, you can do the checks "at the border", i.e. in the gateway server, is about as obvious as the idea of keeping a place dry by having a roof and 4 walls. Since the incoming files aren't stored on the gateway server but immediately forwarded, the only thing you can do is to stream the incoming file through an AV scanner. Patenting an "invention" like that is of course only possible in the US.
Unfortunately the law says that even such patents have force, so an unscrupulous commercial AV vendor (Trend Micro) can use it to sue people for doing this.
That's why I'd support a boycott of Trend Micro. Not because they're closed-source vendors, but because they behave like thugs.
Parent
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I thought Norton automatically trashed your Windows install as soon as you install it...
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I would think that ClamAV would be sortof the defacto standard that you have to be better than to get someone to spend money. Oh, well we all know the reasons for it, but it sort of sucks anyways.
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Re:Boycott all commercial antivirus programs? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
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I wish I was kidding, but after having seen the logic bombs Symantec calls antivirus software expect any machine running them to develop random issues like complete freezing of all NICs. Although, to be honest, crap like the taskbar disappearing is usually only caused by their unins
When you fail to stop innovating... (Score:3)
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Is this uh disturbing fad, or uh (Score:3, Funny)
Alternatives (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Alternatives (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
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I've been using Trend's products for years but have recently been swayed by ESET's NOD32 product. I've got it installed in two of my small business clients and so far it's very nice. Small footprint, nice interface, good centralized control. The only thing I'm not jazzed about yet is their Exchange product, which is fairly rudimentary.
Oddly, I've begun moving away from Trend not because of these lawsuits, but because of the growing bloat of the client program, something Trend used to be quite good at com
Patents are anti-competitive (Score:5, Interesting)
Software patents are the easiest to code around but can be the hardest to judge when they go to court.
Re:Patents are anti-competitive (Score:4, Insightful)
First of all, patents have always been the domain of big business. One of the reasons many of the "founding fathers" were so suspicious of the patent system was that patents granted by the King were government granted monopolies given to particular large corporations, usually as a political favor. Whoever had the "patent" on the tea kettle became the only tea kettle maker in England until someone convinced the King otherwise. Thus, the U.S. Constitution was written to specifically limited to allow patents only "for a limited time" (Art. I, section 8, cl. 8). This was the answer to the uneasy tension between giving an incentive to create while not granting perpetual monopolies. Thomas Jefferson, himself an inventor, recognized that patents are a necessary incentive to invent, which enriches society.
The antithesis of patents is trade secrets. If I have a trade secret (e.g., the mythical recipe of Coca-Cola), I don't have to tell any one else how to make it, and as long as I am really good at keeping the secret the world will never find out -- hence, there will always be only one "Coke" even though there might be other "colas".
By having a patent system, the entire world gets to learn about your new invention, possibly improve on or build on your idea, and after a period of time they get to copy it themselves (or, they can license it and avoid the wait).
Moreover, today's technology is such that, in many fields, it is simply unrealistic to think that real progress could be made by individuals working alone. For example, no person puttering in their basement is going to come up with a new process for fabbing microchips, or a new drug that is proven safe in humans -- those things require lots and lots of resources that only corporations or other institutions (e.g., Universities) can afford. Even Thomas Edison, the prototypical "inventor" had an army of technicians and assistants working for him by the end of his life.
Patents are not "evil," nor are corporations that participate in the patent system. There are, however, a lot of bad patents out there right now (for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of this post). However, a company that has a "bad" patent cannot be faulted for trying to enforce it -- they are simply trying to protect their business interests (yes, business is cut-throat; get over it). Theoretically, the courts are supposed to take care of the bad patents. The fact that the courts may be failing is not the fault of the businesses that are seeking to protect their own interests.
Parent
Re:Patents are anti-competitive (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely you must be aware of these issues.
Bruce
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I agree that many modern patents are poorly written, and that the current state of the patent law provides every incentive to write them badly. I am a litigator (no
Re:Patents are anti-competitive (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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He's commenting about a software patent. That's what the article is about. There are compelling arguments that software patents are a mistake.
The first paragraph of the parent was not specific to software patents. The fact that it begins "Patents" while the second paragraph specifies "Software patents" makes it clear that the author believes that all patents only "work" for the small inventor and so-called "start-ups." My response was on-point and not limited by a "software" only view of the universe. I agree that there are "compelling arguments" why software patents (at least in their present form) are a bad thing. However, I am not prepa
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You are asking for too much precision from a correspondent who is not used to arguing in a courtroom. The discussion here regarding patents is usually specific to software, and this discussion is specific to software.
I have a telephone lecture entitled you don't want me to write my report, and
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You are asking for too much precision from a correspondent who is not used to arguing in a courtroom. The discussion here regarding patents is usually specific to software, and this discussion is specific to software.
I don't think it has anything to do with arguing in a courtroom -- precision matters in any context; viz., the complaints about how patents are currently written. While I certainly appreciate that software is the main topic, I do think the original poster meant to comment on the entire patent system -- I just don't see how else to read his post (particularly his reference to "inventor" instead of "developer").
I have a telephone lecture entitled you don't want me to write my report, and you don't want to ask why that I use for customers whose case my finding does not support. They appreciate hearing it that way, thank me, and pay my bill.
Sure, I have heard similar lectures (although I usually try to get a sense of whether that wil
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Your conspiracy theories about bribing the PTO and/or the f
So will there ever be a legitimate patent to you? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So will there ever be a legitimate patent to yo (Score:5, Insightful)
As I understand it, the patent involves filtering viruses before they make it to end user computers; eg. at the router/mail relay etc. The reason for the hate is that this is an obvious way to prevent viruses from entering your network. The hate is not so much aimed at Trend Micro as it is at the broken patent. However, the fact that Trend Micro is suing their competition using a broken patent as ammo is not going to earn Trend Micro any kudos.
Parent
Re:So will there ever be a legitimate patent to yo (Score:3, Insightful)
They didn't "patent a process", they have patented an entire category of applications, and one that they did not invent.
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Who did invent the category?
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Re:So will there ever be a legitimate patent to yo (Score:2)
I would boycott Trend Micro, except... (Score:3, Insightful)
"The Press" are allowed to report "News" (Score:2)
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Gee, what planet are you from? Obviously one without a constitution.
Bruce
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