Redmond, Washington — It appears like the Redmond Vole has achieved a significant victory in its ongoing campaign to exert its claims over some of the key intellectual property in the Linux open source operating system. Late on Monday, Microsoft announced that it has entered into a patent cross-licensing agreement with Amazon.com Inc. that gives each company access to the other’s patent portfolio and covers a wide range of products and technologies, Microsoft said in a statement.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, including what technology Amazon would get, but the online retailer will pay Microsoft an undisclosed amount of money as part of the transaction.
Under the terms of agreement, which is spreads over both Amazon’s Kindle product and among other things, this will extend the e-commerce company’s use of Linux in its servers. Microsoft has asserted that many implementations of Linux infringe on its patents and has signed numerous licensing deals that cover Linux with both companies that sell Linux-based software and those that use the operating system in their hardware.
The statement from Microsoft indicated that Kindle uses both open-source and proprietary software components made by Amazon.
Open-source programs empowers users to view and change their “source code,” or fundamental instructions. Linux and other programs that are created with the technique have been among the most effective competitors against Microsoft products.
The licensing deal was regarded with suspicion by open-source advocates, who thinks Microsoft has sought to stir legal uncertainty about the technology for competitive reasons.
Microsoft, which began an intellectual property licensing push in late 2003, has entered into agreements with scores of companies ranging from Novell to Samsung and Fuji Xerox. The software giant has for years said its broad portfolio of intellectual property includes patents that are violated by elements of Linux and other forms of open source software.
“We are pleased to have entered into this patent license agreement with Amazon.com,” Microsoft deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez said in a statement. “Microsoft’s patent portfolio is the largest and strongest in the software industry, and this agreement demonstrates our mutual respect for intellectual property as well as our ability to reach pragmatic solutions to IP issues regardless of whether proprietary or open source software is involved.”
That is a great deal: given Amazon’s desire to become one of the biggest operators of public computing “clouds,” this amounts to a major endorsement of Microsoft’s claims over some of the core IP in Linux. Some big Asian tech companies — including Samsung and LG Electronics — have already endorsed similar deals to license the Microsoft patents, which the software company claims cover IP that has been copied in Linux. But the Amazon arrangement looks far more significant given Amazon’s massive data-centres.
Companies that integrate open-source software in their products from mobile devices to corporate applications could, theoretically, face legal challenges from Microsoft, though Microsoft must tread carefully because so many of its customers and business partners use open source technologies.
“If the strategy is not to create uncertainty around Linux, it is hard to say what it is,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, a non-profit Linux organization.
Early last year Microsoft took a more aggressive stance with a lawsuit it filed against TomTom NV, a maker of in-car navigation systems, for allegedly violating eight of its patents, including three related to TomTom’s implementation of Linux. TomTom counter-sued Microsoft for alleged patent violations, and the two companies later settled their disputes for undisclosed terms.
Microsoft added that its licensing program is intended to give other companies entree to its research and development activities and its flourishing portfolio of patents. It has entered into more than 600 licensing deals since 2002, it said.