Software Patents - the Great American Export
Jo: Do you feel Skype has stolen thunder from your own open-protocol SIPPhone stuff? It's been pretty well publicised recently, do you think it's stolen your limelight?Michael: I don't think we ever had the thunder; SIPPhone's a very small company. I think Skype have done a terrific job, their software is very easy to use and is very reliable. It works in a lot of harsh conditions, where most of the SIP software doesn't work if it's behind a harshly configured router or firewall. Skype's done a terrific job, but it's still early, it's still the first innings. That's a baseball analogy, it may not work so well in the UK. What's a cricket time period?
David: Innings?
Michael: They have innings in cricket? Okay, maybe it still will work. Anyway, I think ultimately the open standards will win, if consumers have the choice. Yes, Skype have a terrific lead today, but so did Real with RealAudio. Ultimately, when the whole world starts moving behind the open standards, it has a way of catching up and moving past very quickly. I think Skype's done a great job, but I wouldn't rule out SIP yet.
David: The trouble is, if you look at the industry, there's the failed makers for early adopters. Take Empeg with their MP3 car radios. They sold 3,000 of them - Rio bought them, they went bust. Yet now you see big companies like Pioneer launching MP3 players for your car. The whole industry, fundamentally, relies on timing, and releasing at the right time.
Michael: No question about it, that's the trickiest part for technology companies, it's timing. How many PDA companies failed before Palm? Dozens and dozens! Great products, great management, etcetera. Palm was the right feature set at the right time, and survived. You look at companies like Empeg, what a great idea, digital music in your car, your library in your car, that's great. It'll happen, but they were a little too early.
Jo: And last on the list, we have at the moment the European Union trying to push through US-style software patents, some people are strongly opposing it. What impact do you think it will have on the global software economy, if they come through – and what do you think should be done to stop them or do you feel we should be embracing them?
Michael: I think American-style software patents is one export I hope we don't give to you guys. I think it's awful that patents are used as a weapon to thwart competition, and not to encourage innovation. That's what they should be used for. I'm fundamentally against software patents, I feel most of them are feeble attempts to avoid having to compete in the marketplace. I hope the EU doesn't embrace them. If they do it's just going to make it more difficult for competition on the desktop software world where I operate.
David: Do you own any patents yourself?
Michael: No, I don't.
David: Do any of your companies own any patents? Obviously, it's a chase to get the patent, so perhaps a better route is to get the patent, then open it, no license, anyone can use it if they want. Rather than big bad Microsoft getting the patent and saying "Yeah, well you've all been doing it for a year, but we have the patent so we don't care".
Michael: I wouldn't be against one of my companies applying for patents purely on a defensive manoeuvre. That's what they're now here for, a company goes and gets a bunch of patents, they have some ammunition so some company says "hey, you're violating my patents", then "screw you, you're violating MY patents", and they end up cross-licensing and being friends. That's unfortunately what it's deteriorated to in the US, where you have an old boys' club or people that have patent libraries, and will cross-license them so that all the new companies can't possibly cross-license - even if they have a patent library, it's going to be a handful of patents, compared to hundreds of thousands that Apple have or Microsoft, IBM or whatever.
David: IBM are still getting royalties for the PS/2 port. Look at Intel's latest socket, the LGA775. $5 from every motherboard goes to Foxconn. $5!!
Michael: That's crazy.
David: When you compare the software prices, that's what it comes down to. If you make something that someone will adopt, you can be a millionaire off a patent. It's the same with music, if I sing a song that's popular, in 20 years' time, royalties are still going to be coming in.
Jo: You can't sing, Dave.
David: I know
Michael: I think the two biggest threats to Linux are DRM, and patents. DRM, meaning that if Linux users are locked out of HDTV, if they're locked out of mainstream music, DVDs, that makes it an inferior second-class product. The consumer's not going to want it. So, I think DRM and patents are the two biggest threats to Linux
At this point, my inferior analogue dictation machine ran out of tape, so we don't have a record of Michael's rather dismissive feelings about SCO.
We'd like to repeat our thanks to Michael for giving us a good chunk of his time. And lunch. And review copies of Linspire 5.
Lunch or no lunch, though, watch this space for a warts-and-all Linspire 5 review in the not too distant future!
