Microsoft Promises Not To Sue Moonlight 2.0 Users 233
darthcamaro writes "Moonlight 2.0, Novell's open source implementation of the Microsoft media framework, is now available and comes with a new patent promise from Microsoft. Any Linux user can use it now without worrying about being sued: '"A really important change in how the community and individuals will see and use Moonlight is a change and extension to the patent covenant that Microsoft provides to Novell and its end users," Brian Goldfarb, director of Web and user experience platforms at Microsoft, told InternetNews.com. "We're now increasing the reach of the agreement — Microsoft's commitment not to sue Novell or Novell's customers now extends to redistributors."'"
Wonderful Marketing (Score:2, Insightful)
Please use our format, even if we didn't sell you anything to view it, we promise we won't sue!
Now that's marketing in action.
Doesn't anybody proof read? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's Great! (Score:3, Funny)
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And I promise not to cross the street and pee on him if he's on fire.
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Yes, but like TFA contract, there are plenty of loopholes if you think hard enough. For example, that doesn't exclude throwing his head at a chair.
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...or paying someone else to throw it.
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Marketing Message? (Score:5, Funny)
Guess it's time to try a little test...
I promise not to sue anyone who buys my iphone apps [incredicode.com].
There. We'll see how that works out for me.
*ducks under the desk for cover from the coming flames*
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If you're going to (somewhat cleverly) slip an ad for your stuff in here, you may want to make sure the URL doesn't 404. Here you go [incredicode.com]
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*ducks under the desk for cover from the coming chair*
There, fixed that for you.
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Now if your application included scoring, support for multiple players (pass the iPhone, or a web-based lobby system), and a zoom out feature, it would be awesome. What would make me PAY money for the thing (if I had an iPhone) would be the ability to submit my own images. Of course, you'd only ever get images of genitalia and poop, and you'd never get the damn thing approved for the app store.
A new version with scoring is pending review in the app store right now. I love the idea of the "pass the phone" concept for multi-player - I'll consider adding it. Zoom out could be very cool as well, if implemented well.
As for adding your own images - This was one of the first ideas I had, but shot it down nearly immediately for the same reasons you suggest.
Thanks for the feedback!
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Nope, their promise only extends to opensource and noncommercial. A clone of his app would almost certainly be commercial and not opensource.
IT'S A TRAP! (Score:4, Insightful)
Without the DRM pack it is totally worthless. Plus it is far behind silverlight.
IT'S A TRAP!
Re:IT'S A TRAP! (Score:4, Insightful)
We promise not to sue you, but we won't promise not to put in something proprietary and usage encumbering later.
Sod Off Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sod Off Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
nobody is interested. It isn't compatible with major apps that have been forced to use silverlight (as those use the latest version - not this moonlight 2.0), so from a user side there's 0 reason to use the stuff. Additionally, there's still a lack of other licensing and silverlight is a bunch of shit in general, and thankfully when HTML5 adoption comes around all of this garbage will be gone.
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when HTML5 adoption comes around all of this garbage will be gone.
I'm curious as to what makes you so sure that's going to happen in a meaningful way.
I'm not saying that Flash will be the dominant tech of its kind forever, but I wouldn't bet that it won't still be in five years.
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when HTML5 adoption comes around all of this garbage will be gone.
I have my doubts about html5. They'll just bury it the way they've successfully buried SVG by refusing to support it in IE.
Re:Sod Off Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
Users are becoming savvy enough to know that there are other browser options out there, so if people start using HTML5 and IE doesn't support it, IE will lose users. For that reason, MS can't afford to ignore HTML5.
I predict that IE will implement enough HTML5 to be able to claim support for it, but the implementation will start out incomplete or not sufficiently robust to offer a good HTML5 experience. This will slow the uptake of HTML5 much like it did with CSS, but since MS no longer has the dominant position they had then, I don't think it'll matter much. If Google offers an improved youtube experience in HTML5, then people will switch to whatever browser supports it.
The way I see it, MS is no longer trying to win the browser war. They're just trying to stay relevant.
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as someone said below, this might have been an option when IE mattered exclusively, but as it is currently, it matters less what IE does. it's just simply like choosing one less feature to support. Or a car that only supports gas only when every other car supports multiple types(car analogy).
This would be like a browser refusing to support HTML4. Or do you not remember the reasons for IE to make IE7/8?
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Did it work? I'm still unclear on whether you have to be logged in to undo moderation, or if it is IP based.
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It sure could exist without DRM, if they actually had commonsense. If I wanted to copy the movies why would I not just copy the dvds?
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please. there is no reason other than licensing restrictions that are stopping netflix from releasing their movies online. To say that they weren't willing to make the leap without DRM is a false statement. DRm doesn't enable any form of business, it only limits what customers can do.
Re:Sod Off Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)
Yep. I was mildly interested in trying moonlight, because MS has put the famous Feynman lectures on physics [microsoft.com] online for free, in silverlight format. So when I saw the slashdot article today, I thought, OK, I'll try installing moonlight on my ubuntu box and see if it lets me watch the lectures. First off, I do an apt-get install moonlight-plugin-mozilla. Go to the MS web site. "Sorry, Silverlight for your browser is not officially supported. The full list of compatible browsers you [sic] can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/get-started/install/default.aspx [microsoft.com]. Click on the link. "If you are using a Linux, FreeBSD or SolarisOS operating system, please press the Click to Install button to get the appropriate installation package for Silverlight." Okay, I click on the button and it sends me to go-mono.com [go-mono.com]. Download and install it. Restart my browser. Go back to the site for the Feynman lectures. "Sorry, Silverlight for your browser is not officially supported."
So here's this thing that almost no web site actually uses, and it doesn't actually work. And it's proprietary. And they promise not to sue me for using it. Woo hoo.
Re:Great File Upload (Score:5, Informative)
No the best way to do it is to not do every fucking thing over port 80. Try FTP or SFTP, the browser is not the only damn thing a computer can be used for and there are more ports than just 80.
Damn kids these days.
Flash (Score:2)
Re:Flash (Score:5, Insightful)
That's nice -- why don't Microsoft just release a version of Silverlight for Linux, themselves? Why depend upon some other group? Sure doesn't make me confident in Silverlight/Moonlight's future prospects for maintenance on Linux, that's for sure.
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And what do you think will happen if/when MS succeeds in pushing Flash out of the marketplace?
Just how much peace/love/flowers/self-restraint Microsoft's legal department will have once they no longer need to woo users away from Flash?
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And what do you think will happen if/when MS succeeds in pushing Flash out of the marketplace?
If Microsoft succeeds in making Silverlight match Flash feature-for-feature, people who want to make cartoons on Newgrounds won't have to pay $700, go back to school to qualify for academic pricing, or commit copyright infringement to get a copy of Flash anymore.
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And newgrounds will only work on windows PCs.
Far better would be if those folks used open source solutions for making cartoons.
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And newgrounds will only work on windows PCs.
Silverlight works on Windows and Mac OS X, and Moonlight works on Linux.
Far better would be if those folks used open source solutions for making cartoons.
Do you know of any?
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Silverlight DRM does not work on Linux nor do Silverlight 3 functions. The Mac version will die once SIlverlight gets real market share. See IE for Mac as previous evidence.
2D
http://www.synfig.com/ [synfig.com]
http://ktoon.toonka.com/ [toonka.com]
http://www.pencil-animation.org/ [pencil-animation.org]
3D
http://www.blender.org/ [blender.org]
Probably more as well, but those are the first ones I found. synfig seems like the best candidate.
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And what do you think will happen if/when MS succeeds in pushing Flash out of the marketplace?
What exactly does flash or silverlight offer that isn't included in HTML5?
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Without the latest features and the DRM pack, moonlight is useless. This is just EEE.
Microsoft Marketing (Score:2)
That's Microsoft Marketing at its best, isn't it? "Use stuff compatible with ours, we promise we won't sue you."
Weird world we live in (Score:2)
That we have a (rather legitimate) concern of being sued for the arrangement of bits we have access to.
Not a prob (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is not being sued.
The problem is that we don't necessarily want this MS-driven environment to become popular among devs.
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Because it does not work on linix, try moonlight it is too far behind and no DRM support, and Mac silverlight will die when Silverlight gets real marketshare. See IE on Mac as evidence.
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DRM support does not exist in moonlight, for evidence go try netflix. Or heck go look at the moonlight webpage and read all about playready.
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Which means it still does not work on the major sites people care about. But MS can claim interoperability.
Does it cover users of other FOSS OSes? (Score:5, Interesting)
As a result of today's expansion of that deal, Moonlight users will enjoy protection under the patent covenant regardless of whether they're using Novell's (NASDAQ: NOVL) Linux distro or another distributor's.
"A really important change in how the community and individuals will see and use Moonlight is a change and extension to the patent covenant that Microsoft provides to Novell and its end users," Brian Goldfarb, director of Web and user experience platforms at Microsoft, told InternetNews.com. "We're now increasing the reach of the agreement -- Microsoft's commitment not to sue Novell or Novell customers now extends to redistributors."
The first sentence is the author's so reflects their interpretation. The second is a Microsoft person who uses the phrase "not to sue Novell or Novell customers now extends to redistributors". So who does that actually cover?
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Look at this from another perspective... (Score:5, Interesting)
If somebody starts screaming "NO! I'M NOT GOING TO KILL YOU" what should you do? I don't know about you, but I'm running as fast as hell away from that person.
I don't know what to beleive (Score:5, Insightful)
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perhaps... (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps Linux users would feel better if Microsoft was actually hosting the downloads, etc? Maybe pay for a token part time developer?
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So now you want MS to fund an OSS developer for their competition with no value worth mentioning in return?
Jesus you fan boys are like teenagers, there will never be a point when you say 'okay, they are making an attempt to be a good community player'. I'm not saying they are, or that they are even really trying, but when you come out and say something that roughly translates too 'they should pay for employees to work for the competition' then you've just gone off the deep end into la la land.
There is no
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For their competition?
They are the ones who want silverlight to be used, not us.
A GPL client for silverlight would makes lots of folks happy, hell even a closed one made by MS and kept up to date. Moonlight is not truly GPL as the patent promise is not something a GPL app can rely on and be compliant as the promise does not extend to commercial use.
MS's history is full of EEE, if you fail to see that you are blind. When silverlight gains real marketshare the Mac client will fall behind and moonlight will be
Lies, damn lies, statistics, & Microsoft promi (Score:2)
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There's an Apple ad [apple.com] for that!
Redistributors only or forks too? (Score:5, Interesting)
What happens to developers? Just in case, we fork out Novell's moonlight tree because they got bought by someone (*cough* mysql, *cough*), will the conventant apply to us? Or does it only apply to code written by Novell & redistributed by others? Does this indirectly kill the freedom to modify & redistribute? like that firefox logo thing?
Alright, I admit it, I do have an axe to grind against silverlight (and flash too, I guess). But this covenant just goes on to establish precedent in terms of patent coverage ... (yes, note my domain, I've been through this before).
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If 'that firefox logo thing' was bad for you, nothing MS does will ever make you happy. I'm going to wager you are rarely ever happy anyway if thats all it takes to bother you.
What about corporate developers or commercial use? (Score:5, Informative)
Hmmm....
As was (once again) pointed out on Groklaw recently, this sort of language is a restriction that is incompatible with the GPL [groklaw.net]. (GPLv2 section 6, much more explicit about patents in GPLv3 section 11.)
Far safer to avoid Microsoft patented technology than to rely on such a promise.
Re:What about corporate developers or commercial u (Score:2)
Good thing the copyright holders, the ones that applied the GPL to the code, aren't making the statement.
I can license code all day long and follow the GPL to the letter and spirit perfectly, and someone else can still come along and sue you because the code violates one of its patents.
I can't GPL some code and that instantly protects anyone who uses it from being sued by another unrelated party.
Basically what it comes down to is that you as an end user won't use the software because you are worried about b
doesn't matter? (Score:2)
A promise is not legally binding, right? TFA doesn't provide much detail but I'm a bit skeptical that the Moonlight EULA says anywhere in it, "we will not sue you for using this software."
Perhaps a legal-type person can shine some light (pun!) on the situation.
Tremendous! (Score:2)
Because no one else would sign... (Score:2)
Microsoft's commitment not to sue Novell or Novell customers now extends to redistributors.
Hmm...may be its the technology? Perhaps no in else is interested in it?
is this what it's come to? (Score:2)
"You can use this software and not worry about us suing you."
You just can't look at that sentence and not think the whole industry needs to be torn down and rebuilt on new principles. Whether it's the fact that Microsoft and Novell are glad to make such a proclamation, or the fact that someone can be sued for using software to begin with, or the fact that I can get sued by company Y for using company X's product or even if that isn't possible the fact that anyone might think it might be possible.
What kind o
Can I watch Sunday Night Football yet? (Score:2)
That is the only site that I care about that uses Silverlight. If I can, great. But I tried it last Sunday, with the latest update from the Ubuntu repositories, and I was instructed to install Silverlight. I feel much better that they won't sue me for using their bitch-slap technology to be prevented from watching content, though. I had been losing sleep over that.
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Nope. MS refuses to give the moonlight folks the DRM pack. This will never happen, they want to claim interoperability but they don't want it to actually occur.
The Mac client will be left out in the cold soon enough. All MS software exists first and foremost to protect and ensure the windows desktop monopoly.
Includes Microsoft codec license (Score:4, Interesting)
This element stood out for me:
"Moonlight includes the Microsoft Media Pack, which is a set of proprietary codecs that Microsoft has licensed from their own patent holders and makes available to Moonlight users, free of charge."
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Also note that Novell will not distribute moonlight with the ffmpeg libs being used instead. They are too in bed with MS for them to allow the user to use truly free software.
In otter news... (Score:2)
A document was found, that showed that Hitler promised not to attack other countries and leave the Jews alone.
Also the pope just revealed that he had a phone call with the devil, who promised not to take away your soul, if you sold it to him.
And now for something completely different... THE LARCH! ... a gourmet tree, and fine dam material.
Thank you for watching otter news!
P.S.: And you thought it was a typo... Ha! ^^
mangled first sentence. Copy editors needed? (Score:2)
Moonlight 2.0, that's Novell's open source implementation of the Microsoft media framework in now available and with comes a new patent promise from Microsoft.
It reads like it's three sentences jammed together, it's missing a comma, and I assume "in" is supposed to be "is" and it's still an awkward sentence.
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Seriously. Read before you post people!
Sounds real friendly. (Score:2)
"Hey, here's this technology... we won't try and ruin your life if you use it."
So, uh, what's the good part?
Embrace, extend, extinguish (Score:3, Interesting)
A good reason not to use (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the main reasons I got into open source software is because I didn't like the idea that newer versions of software could cost anything.
Why invest time in learning Photoshop when this version costs $600 but the next version may cost $3,000.
Some might say, just keep using the version you already bought. What happens when you can't buy a computer that comes with an OS that your version is compatible with?
Microsoft saying, "We won't sue users of Moonlight 2.0", is saying what about 2.0.1, or 2.5, or 4.0.
I'm sure there's nothing to worry about (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but no deal. (Score:3, Insightful)
I am no fanboy. My machine has an NVIDIA card and tuns of closed-source games on it.
That said, I am not stupid. I know that if Silverlight ever becomes a dominant force in the realm of content delivery, MS will stab me in the back by either deliberately slowing development on the Linux version, or making it incompatible with the latest version that runs on Windows.
We should stick with Flash. It may suck, but at least it isn't controlled by a monopoly OS vendor who lacks any kind of ethics.
Re:We won't sue you... (Score:5, Informative)
Estoppel?
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And by this point, maybe laches as well.
Re:We won't sue you... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then why make a promise in the first place, just make it free. There's a reason behind this "promise."
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Make what free, exactly?
Are you saying "why don't they jsut relinquish the patent in question"? Well, because they're not saying they will never sue anyone over this patent; they're saying that this particular use will not be the basis for such a suit.
In any case, GP is correct; they cannot say "we won't sue anyone who violates the patent in this particular way", wait for people to do so, and then sue them. Once people rely on the promise to put themselves in a worse position (e.g. by violating the patent
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As to MS customers, like Joe Idiot Public will even notice, much less care, what MS does to f*ck over Linux. For the most part JIP doesn't even know there is ANYTHING besides Windows. Seriously, I once read a post on anot
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Nothing
Re:We won't sue you... (Score:4, Insightful)
Estoppel. Seriously. It would really help the tone of this endlessly recurring argument if people would just look this one up.
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We don't have time to RTFA and you expect us to look up something because you didn't bother to add a link [wikipedia.org]?
Re:We won't sue you... (Score:4, Informative)
Here, looked that up for you on m-w.com:
estoppel
One entry found.
Main Entry: estoppel
Pronunciation: \e-stä-pl\
Function: noun
Etymology: probably alteration of Anglo-French estopere stopping, from estoper
Date: 1531
: a legal bar to alleging or denying a fact because of one's own previous actions or words to the contrary
define:estoppel (Score:3, Informative)
Estoppel. [...] look this one up.
It would probably help even more if you told us what it meant.
Let me Google that for you [lmgtfy.com].
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In this case, Microsoft would not be able to recover for patent infringement. It is less clear what happens when they revoke the promise, but certainly nothing done prior to revocation would create liability.
Note that this promise was only made for Moonlight users. Thus, if Apple
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They may be fine for getting someone to mow your lawn but for anything else, especially anything involving a MegaCorp, if its not in writing its not binding.
Re:We won't sue you... (Score:5, Funny)
Really, what's to prevent them from waiting until the tech is firmly embraced, then changing the deal?
Lando Calrissian?
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"Really, what's to prevent them from waiting until the tech is firmly embraced, then changing the deal?"
A broad-reaching statement that they wouldn't sue?
I'm sure someone would bring it up in court if they did sue.
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Okay, but you'll have to wait until they come out of RIAA court.
Re:We won't sue you... (Score:4, Informative)
If RMS was never born then there would be no GNU. There would be no Linux. There would be no Apache. There would be no mainstream, payable internet at that time. There would be no netbooks. There would be no 3G modems in laptops. There would be no Android. The Intel atom would have never been created. There would be no Firefox. There would be no... well... want me to go on?
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No. Moonlight does not currently support DRM.
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Windows Update.
So, yeah, no much.
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If they use the built in drm moonlight will not ever work, MS refuses to give them the drm pack.
They don't want working support for linux, just the ability to claim cross platform support.
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I believe the maps component of Bing uses it as well.
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So what if the Linux bazaar acts globally? Betcha didn't any further than the length of your own nose...
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Then you should worry about the B52's .
But... the love shack...
Re:What if... (Score:4, Informative)
This is an important question.
Microsoft has already tried selling patents [linuxfoundation.org] that could undermine Linux to patent trolls. If they have embeded patented methods in Mono/Moonlight, they could spring the trap at any time by selling the patent or transferring it to a proxy (like SCO).
Interestingly too, the promise very specifically only covers Moonlight.
"This patent covenant only applies to Moonlight and the version of Mono that ships with Moonlight," Goldfarb said.
The failure to extend the promise to Mono would suggest Microsoft would still like to retain the option of preventing any non-Novell Linux distro from including the full Mono at some point in the future.