Microsoft Licensing Deal Grants Access To Linux Printers

Quoting:The agreement, which includes compensation paid to Microsoft by Brother, gives Brother access to Microsoft's patents for Brother's current and future products, including multifunction products and "certain Linux-based embedded devices." Microsoft in turn gains access to Brother's patents for Microsoft's current and future products, including Windows and Office and a number of other unspecified IT products.

Quoting:Many of these companies offer printers based on embedded Linux technology. Microsoft officials say they've been active in pursuing licensing agreements with these companies because of the growing popularity of Linux for networked, high-speed office printers.

And yet we still have not seen a single one of these supposed Linux-covering patents that Microsoft has... And what's with each of them having patents that cover the other company's products?

Quoting:And yet we still have not seen a single one of these supposed Linux-covering patents that Microsoft has...

That's basically what Linus said: "put up or shut up."

Brother's stupid. They should have joined OIN. Probably this way they gain more money I assume.

Quoting:Probably this way they gain more money I assume.

Probably not stupid then.

Did they sell their soul to Microsoft? No, they actually paid Microsoft to take it.

I leave it to the reader to decide if that's stupid.

Quoting:Probably not stupid then.

Only if the article is not correct and they receive more money than they pay. If not, yes, they're stupid.

Brother still makes printers? Last Brother printer I saw was a dot matrix.

Yeah, and they're not too bad...except for the aweful headache inducing hoops you have to jump through to get them working in Linux/with cups properly. My sister currently has a Brother MFC-5440CN that I have on the network here.

Quoting:except for the aweful headache inducing hoops you have to jump through to get them working in Linux/with cups properly.

Utter rubbish. We've got a Brother MFC7420 Copier/Scanner/Printer/Fax, and it was a doddle to set up. on our Mandriva 2007.1 File/Print Server

We do Printing and Scanning no worries, using Cups and XSane.

> ...except for the aweful headache inducing hoops you have to jump through to get them working in Linux/with cups properly.

We have an HL-1440 here and it seems to work fine. There were some problems with Slackware 11, if I recall correctly, but that seems to have been a problem with the usb/cups drivers, not the printer. For all but that one release of Slackware it's worked fine.

I guess Brother is stupid like Novell was stupid, except that Brother didn't have enough to offer Microsoft to get an immediate payback.

It's clear that Brother saw some advantage in cross-licensing technology with Microsoft. Wise or not depends on how much it helps or hurts their business, not on whether they did or did not pay money to Microsoft.

Quoting:And what's with each of them having patents that cover the other company's products?

It's a "patent pool", and it means you don't have to innovate: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1308997

If Brother had joined OIN, OIN would have helped them for free (and countersue, or explain Microsoft they have no case etc.) in case there embedded Linux technology was attacked by patent-rubbish from Microsoft lawyers. So not buying Microsoft licenses and joining the OIN would probably not have hurt their business. Although, that's what OIN claimed yesterday at their FOSDEM presentation.

> It's clear that Brother saw some advantage in cross-licensing technology with Microsoft.

Probably that they can guarantee their embedded Linux based devices continue to work with newer versions of Windows. Everyone knows how Microsoft loves to break non-Microsoft technologies with each new release.

Yeah, that would indeed by the only sensible explanation I can think of. If Brother can choose cross-licensing or following the path Opera S.A. did, this is probably the most sensible & quick one.

Guess you guys got easier models. When I setup ours I had to do all sorts of odd downloading/tweaking/setup in roundabout ways to get it working with cups. Guess it varies by model. Or maybe things improved since I set that one up. *shrug*