Bonum Certa Men Certa

Watch and Learn How Intellectual Monopoly Laws Are Passed

"Sheesh! Don't let the 'little people' see this"

An excellent little catch from Glyn Moody reveals just what is happening behind people's backs. The finding is a leak, courtesy of Wiki Leaks which found itself in trouble earlier this year for exposing 'too much' truth (see [1, 2, 3] at the bottom).

Glyn's observations, which seem to be based purely on this self-serving document, are as follows:

Politicans remain the ultimate dinosaurs in terms of openness: ideally, the rich and powerful would like to make their cosy deals - often aimed at that dangerous openness - behind closed doors.

[...]

This secret agreement, drawn up without any public discussion or oversight, would basically impose all of the worst aspects of US intellectual monopolies on everyone in sight - starting with willing stooges like the UK, and progressing to the unwilling but powerless.


Not so long ago, Microsoft was caught deceiving on copyrights using inaccurate 'propaganda documents' for a reform in Canada. But that's not all. Recall the recent (and heated) debate about whether or not the US tries to squeeze software patents into other nations from the back door, along with other draconian laws (it already bit Australia).

Of great relevance to software patents and OOXML you may also find the following new article from Reuters. It's about a former judge with professional tendencies that favour monopolisation. He just doesn't realise this yet and lobbying might play a role here too. Deception through persistence and repetition can be alarmingly effective.

Earlier, he told the conference that although he signed the Microsoft judgment in September and was bound by secrecy, he understood "some of the worries" critics have expressed.

Vesterdorf said "one should be careful" not to encroach too much on patent rights "by a too-zealous enforcement of competition law".

"It may give rise to frivolous private litigation, create legal uncertainty for holders of IP (intellectual property) rights, thereby perhaps diminishing the incentives to sometimes desirable but very expensive research and development," Vesterdorf said.


Come to consider the fact that Microsoft patented protocols which Neelie Kroes describes as too trivial to be patentable and too essential to have royalties imposed with their use, whose necessity is the result of brute market aggression.

Recall what Mark Webbink (of Red Hat at the time) said not so long ago:

"...there has been a proliferation of trivial and contestable patents triggered by a relaxation of the rules by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), which has progressively lowered the bar for patent claims."

Let the Bilski case [1, 2, 3, 4] serve as a reminder that questions now arise about the patentability of a curve ball! It becomes endlessly insane when the boundaries are improperly set to permit patentability of mathematics (algorithms at the least).

Don Knuth wrote a wonderful letter many years ago to warn about this. He is probably the world's #1 authority on the subject of algorithms, but who is he to counter multi-billion-dollar software companies with multi-million-dollar lobbying budgets?

“Don Knuth wrote a wonderful letter many years ago to warn about this.”Think about it for a second. If Microsoft spends about $10 million a year on lobbying (that which is discloses alone), this permits the company to employ more than 100 full-time people in suits -- people whose career involves walking around Washington and taking people out to lunch, making phonecalls, back-room deals, etc.

Knuth, on the other hand, with all his wisdom granted, humbly lounges in his library near the Stanford campus. Can brains trump money? Can sanity defeat greed? Ask the friends in South Africa. They have suffered a lot from insults, abuse and aggressive lobbying by Microsoft agents recently. This courageous nation fights back at the moment, not only against OOXML but also against software patents (see video).

Speaking of lousy Microsoft patents, will you have a look at this one from the news?

Microsoft has just snared a U.S. patent for proactive virus protection, which is how security software helps secure your PC when it encounters shape-shifting malware not already in its antivirus definition file. What I want to know is, what does this mean for all the other vendors -- like McAfee, Symantec, Kaspersky, and Trend Micro -- that have been selling proactive protection software for years? Do they now have to pay Microsoft protection; I mean, royalties?


Do not let Microsoft's software patents scare you. They seem to be worthless after last week's big defeat (against Alcatel-Lucent).

___ [1] WikiLeaks Under Fire

The transparency group WikiLeaks.org currently seems to be under heavy fire. The main WikiLeaks.org DNS entry is unavailable, reportedly due to a restraining order relating to a series of articles and documents released by WikiLeaks about off-shore trust structures in the Cayman Islands. The WikiLeaks whistle blower, allegedly former vice president of the Cayman Islands branch of swiss bank Julius Baer, states in the WikiLeaks documents that the bank supported tax evasion and money laundering by its clients from around the world


[2] Wikileaks Shutdown: Censorship Is Censorship

If Wikileaks were a print publication, the injunction that has shut down the site would be unthinkable. Back in 1931, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Minnesota law that allowed the closing of any "malicious, scandalous and defamatory" periodical. This court, by contrast, has not only barred future publication of the documents at issue but elected to put Wikileaks out of business.


[3] Free Speech Advocates Mount Legal Battle to Unchain Wikileaks

In Bank Julius Baer & Co., Ltd v. Wikileaks, et al, the plaintiff claims that the posting of certain documents to the Wikileaks site violated Swiss and Cayman Island bank secrecy laws.

Judge Jeffrey White ordered domain registrar Dynadot to disable Wikileaks.org in response to Julius Baer & Co.'s complaint. The groups behind the request to lift the injunction claim that it violates the First Amendment.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Linux and the Freedom Paradox
Linux is losing freedom if some external actors who only use Microsoft tools for development wrest control
Watch the FSF Party Live (via Livestream)
It's in WebM format, which is widely supported by now
Advocacy of Software Freedom Changed, LUGs Became Less Relevant
The way we see it, support groups like LUGs sort of outlived their usefulness when it became easier to install GNU/Linux
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
Compromised by NVIDIA Proprietary Library
Meanwhile in Boston there are "[r]oundtable talk with FSF volunteers (both in-person and online)"
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
 
The Free Software Foundation's Livestream Has Ended, Video/s Might be Online Next
I've asked whether they'll upload video of some of the event; I still wait for an answer
The Register MS Does Not Know the Difference Between Microsoft GitHub and GitLab
At the time of writing (October 5) the article from "Thu 2 Oct 2025" remains uncorrected
"Bullshit Generators" (What RMS Calls LLMs) and Fake Images Already Target the FSF
Why does Google News promote fake articles about the FSF while omitting all the real ones?
Software Patents as a Bubble
Don't invest resources in hype; if you detect a bubble, run away from it
Links 05/10/2025: Political Leftovers, Climate Change, and Security Incidents
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 04, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 04, 2025
When Microsoft "Integrates" Something With "AI" It Means It's Losing Money and Is Generally Hopeless
how did Bing fare after 36 months of LLM slop being hyped up as "replacement" for search?
Most Certificates Don't Improve Security, They Mostly Increase Downtime (for No Good Reason)
The 'Gemini sites' (capsules) are a growing force
The statCounter Site Has Data Integrity Problems
Maybe we'll get back to statCounter when its data becomes more "stable" again
10 Ways to Combat Software Patents
software patents are loathed also by proprietary software developers
"Just a Little Bit of Meat..."
Free software "absolutism" is not a radical stance, more so if the only "radical" belief the user possesses is that he or she must be in control of his or her software, and by extension his or her computer
Red Hat is Ignoring the Free Software Community, It's a "Fortune 1000" Vendor
Red Hat's blog also participates a lot in promoting of Wall Street's latest pump-and-dump "AI" scheme
Free Software Foundation Party Has Begun
We shall be focusing a lot on software patents today
Former Head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Lina Khan Knows Whatever Microsoft Touches Will Die
Just like Skype (as recently as months ago) [...] When Microsoft grabs things, or when it buys things, it almost never ends well
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About LibreOffice in Austria and Wine 10.16
very short
Links 04/10/2025: "attempted Coup" Noted in Facebook, Russia Kills Journalists via Drones
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Anesthesia and Baudpunk
Links for the day
Links 04/10/2025: "Privacy Harm Is Harm", Criticism Outlawed in US
Links for the day
Garmin Uses Linux for Some of the Garmin Products, Now It's Sued by Strava Using Software Patents
Software patents should never have been granted in the first place
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day