Microsoft’s Android licensing program ----Foxconn signs up

Xbitlabs ^ | 04/16/2013 11:55 PM | Anton Shilov

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Foxconn Signs License Agreement with Microsoft to Make Google Android- and Chrome-Based Devices.

Microsoft and Foxconn Sign Patent Agreement For Android and Chrome Devices

Microsoft Corp. and Hon Hai, the parent company of Foxconn, the world’s largest contract maker of electronics, signed a worldwide patent licensing agreement that provides broad coverage under Microsoft’s patent portfolio for devices running the Android and Chrome OS, including smartphones, tablets and televisions.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Why does Microsoft think they are entitled for anything from Android?

[cicero2k]

Leave it to Microsoft to layer something on to an open OS and sell it as their own.

When Gates sold MS-DOS to IBM in 1980 (so IBM could enter the personal computer business), MS-DOS was their version of an OS called CPM which was basically free.

[KarlInOhio]

I know Microsoft claimed a while ago that some of the algorithms in Linux had been patented by them before they were in Linux.

Unlike copyrights, patents cover inventions even if they are developed independently. If I have a dozen monkeys typing over a weekend and they duplicate some of Maya Angelou's poetry her copyright doesn't protect her (or at least didn't last time I looked. IP laws change based on the direction of the wind and how the money is flowing through Congress).

[ShadowAce]

[martin_fierro]

If I have a dozen monkeys typing over a weekend and they duplicate some of Maya Angelou's poetry

I doubt it'd take the whole weekend.

[uncommonsense]

"MS-DOS was their version of an OS called CPM which was basically free."

From Wikipdeia, but I was working on my CompSci degree at this time and it's accurate according to my memory:

MS-DOS grew from a 1981 request by IBM for an operating system for its IBM PC range of personal computers. Microsoft quickly bought the rights to QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System), also known as 86-DOS,[3] from Seattle Computer Products, and began work on modifying it to meet IBM's specification. The first edition, MS-DOS 1.0, was launched in August 1981.[2] The version shipped with IBM's PCs was called PC DOS. Although MS-DOS and PC DOS were initially developed in parallel by Microsoft and IBM, the two products eventually went their separate ways

Also, don't forget, Steve Jobs got their GUI from Xerox PARC. This area of software patents is in need of a BIG-TIME overhaul.

[beef]

I read somewhere that iOS is BSD under the hood. Everyone does this stuff.

[uncommonsense]

"I read somewhere that iOS is BSD under the hood. Everyone does this stuff."

iOS came from NeXT when they brought Jobs back to Apple and NeXT OS was a derivative of Unix with a better GUI. So yes, they all do this. Microsoft learned everything they know about multitasking / multiuser / networked OS kernals from IBM. They had a joint venture to develop OS/2 and MS pulled out, then launched NT from their IP they got from OS/2. IBM had the largest global multiuser systems in the world and top scientists for both software and hardware. Microsoft had DOS, a single user, single CPU, 640K limited, character-based OS. IBM made Microsoft successful - first with DOS, then Windows and NT (Windows' core was first DOS, then switched to NT with the XP version, their 1st real multitasking version of Win).