By Elizabeth Millard
www.LinuxInsider.com,
Part of the ECT News Network
09/16/04 11:45 AM PT
Microsoft Reserves Right To Sue OpenOffice Users
Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Latest News about Microsoft settlement
with Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW) Latest News about Sun
Microsystems has sparked attention in the open-source community,
since it contains a provision giving Microsoft the right to sue
developers and users of OpenOffice.org.
The agreement with Sun was inked in April, but its details were
made public only this week as part of Sun's annual U.S. Securities
and Exchange Commission filing.
In the document, it is stated that Microsoft agrees not to sue Sun
for commercial distribution of StarOffice, which is based on
OpenOffice.org, but that Microsoft can still seek damages from
OpenOffice users or distributors for any copy installed after April
1, 2004.
Although the provision has some open-source users wondering whether
a lawsuit is imminent, many believe that the wording is more of an
insurance Latest News about insurance policy than an opening salvo.
Michael Schneider, an intellectual property lawyer in the Seattle
office of Gary Cary Ware & Freidenrich, told LinuxInsider:
"They're just keeping their options open, in case they want to go
in that direction in the future."
Agreeing to Agree
The April agreement between Sun and Microsoft resolved several
legal issues that called for the companies to work together over
the next 10 years.
Sun had filed suit against Microsoft twice before being offered a
settlement that included Microsoft agreeing to support its Java
Latest News about Java Virtual Machine, as well as garner payments
of US$700 million to resolve antitrust Latest News about antitrust
issues.
As part of the extensive agreement, Microsoft and Sun agreed not to
sue each other for patent infringements that occurred before April,
as well as 10 years into the future. For Sun, that includes its
StarOffice desktop suite.
Although OpenOffice.org is not covered under that agreement,
Schneider doubts that Microsoft will use the agreement to launch a
full-scale attack.
"I don't think the open source Relevant Products/Services from
Sybase ASE Linux Express Edition FREE Latest News about open
source community should be concerned about immediate lawsuits," he
said. "Some are seeing this as a statement of intention to go after
OpenOffice users and developers, but it's just a door that they've
kept opened."
Schneider added that such agreements between large companies,
defining what lawsuits can be undertaken and which cannot, are very
common.
"In light of the push to move Linux to the desktop, Microsoft is
just making sure that it can strategically combat that if it needs
to," said Schneider.
No Worries
Although some news reports have stated that Microsoft also is
looking for ways to work more closely with OpenOffice.org
developers, the project's community manager, Louis Suarez-Potts,
told LinuxInsider that he has heard nothing from Microsoft to
indicate that strategy.
He also emphasized that OpenOffice.org is not worried about
lawsuits, or a change in Sun's involvement with the open-source
project.
"Sun has been steadfast behind OpenOffice.org since its inception,
and, as far as I know, will continue to be so."
He added that the agreement was not considered to be a cause for
anxiety. "The agreement is a complex settlement between two
megafauna," he said. "It was settled in spring of this year.
Nothing has changed."
Slippery Issue
Suarez-Potts also noted that OpenOffice.org, unlike StarOffice, is
not a very "productized" offering. That means that while Sun has a
solid product, OpenOffice.org is a true open-source project that
can be reconfigured by a variety of users.
In patent cases, Microsoft might have a difficult time in going
after developers and users because it would have to track what was
added or changed in each iteration.
Even the wording proves tricky. The agreement with Sun specifies
that Microsoft can seek damage from "Open Office users" and
"OpenOffice users," but does not clarify that OpenOffice.org users
can be sued. Although this seems like a precious linguistic
exercise, in a courtroom it is possible that such distinctions
would have some weight.
Also, what is called OpenOffice to one user might not be, in
actuality, an OpenOffice.org application being used by another
user.
For these reasons, a lawsuit from Microsoft would have to address
issues about open-source patents that the company seems unwilling
to tackle at the moment. But that does not mean it will refrain
from doing so in the future.
"Microsoft had the right to sue OpenOffice users in the past," said
Schneider. "This agreement only shows that it doesn't want to give
up that right."