[linux-elitists] FAT is the new GIF?

[Don Marti]

begin Jason Spence quotation of Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 05:06:24PM -0800:
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 12:56:02AM +0000, Dave Crossland wrote: 
> > 2009/2/27 Jason Spence <jspence@lightconsulting.com>:
> > > the only motivation I can think of would
> > > be Microsoft demanding higher license fees for FAT implementations.
> > 
> > Maybe I've misunderstood the lawsuit, but er, isn't that what just started?
> 
> That's an infringement claim.  It's probably a tactic designed to get
> a license fee via a settlement.  The PR blurb hints that Microsoft may
> have tried to get a license fee to start with, and the litigation is a
> result of TomTom turning Microsoft down.

The other factor is that actually licensing patents
by patent number is for low-rent trolls.  What a
large company typically wants you to sign up for is
a broad agreement covering many different patents,
the numbers of which aren't included, so that you
can't put a patent expiration date on your calendar
and stop paying.

In this specific case, there's another angle: TomTom
owns TeleAtlas, which feeds data to Google.

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2008/11/13/google-maps-teleatlas-tomtom-powerful-map-update-strategy/

MSFT might have been going after a deal to do
something similar.

-- 
Don Marti                                 +1 510-332-1587 mobile
http://zgp.org/~dmarti/
dmarti@zgp.org
See you at OpenSource World: August 11-13, 2009 in San Francisco