Posted in Europe, Free/Libre Software, KDE, Law, Microsoft, Patents at 3:21 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Microsoft Fights Freedom, Uses Software Patents
Mentioned a day ago was Microsoft’s 'bleeping' patent. Further coverage of this continues to emerge, along with warnings about its impact on freedom, and not just freedom of speech (censorship). It may seem like a premature battle, but who knows? Here are some posts and articles of relevance:
1. Microsoft patents speech censoring
Microsoft has been awarded patent number 7,437,290 in which an input audio data stream comprising speech is processed by an automatic censoring filter in either a real-time mode, or a batch mode.
2. Microsoft Patents Technology to Limit Your Freedoms
To those who are fans of Net Neutrality, and surrounding issues, such as DRM and the limiting of our rights, it may come as no surprise that Microsoft continues to champion against our rights of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Press.
3. Holy f**k, Microsoft covers up ‘undesired’ words
It’s not entirely clear where Microsoft’s interest in this technology lies. But such a move could be looked upon favourably by the Chinese government, which consistently attempts to censor much of the web.
4. Microsoft’s New ‘What the @#%$*’ Censorship Patent
You can thank prudent network censors that we don’t hear any of George Carlin’s so-called “Seven Dirty Words” on broadcast television. But live television broadcasts can sometimes foil even the best of censors. They only have a seven-second delay to bleep words. But thanks to Microsoft, censors may soon be getting a new tech tool to bleep blunders and zap foul language.
5. Microsoft Patents Live Audio Censoring
6. Microsoft gets bleeping patent
Nokia/Symbian Spreads Software Patents
The Symbian assault on reasonable English law is still being discussed. Heise serves this reminder of the proprietor.
The Symbian group – which has since been completely taken over by Nokia – appealed against the decision to the High Court, which supported the appeal in March. The court then opined that on the basis of the EPC there was no reason to refuse computer programs in general the legal protection of commercial rights.
This is covered in lots of different publications, even many days after this actual disaster. It’s a legal catastrophe.
This is definitely another reason to avoid Symbian. which pretends to be open source (probably just a marketing ploy and an attempt to attract free labour). Symbian is better off avoided as a matter of principle, particularly due to its views on (and lobbying for) software patents.
“Nokia’s seniors foresee a future of DRM and software patents.”Nokia is till causing legal damage in Europe, but it’s hard to treat Nokia — Symbian’s ‘umbrella’ — in quite the same way because it also owns Qt and Maemo (Debian GNU/Linux with GTK).
Nokia is making a lot of noise about Symbian at the moment. It tries to generate buzz. It’s said to be “seek[ing] world dominance” and, according to this article from Reuters, its path to that sought dominance is ‘open source’, but there is no mention of GNU/Linux.
Ari started a little confrontation with the GNU/Linux community over 3 months ago, around the same time Nokia kept flirting with that community. This was also before Nokia bought the whole of Symbian just to relicense it. Nokia’s seniors foresee a future of DRM and software patents. Well, according to their not-so-bright vision, it’s about lock-in and monopolies. A sad sham really.
Nokia, one of the most notorious lobbyists for software patents in Europe, is also porting Qt to a patents-encumbered and DRM-laded (Windows DRM) product known as Symbian. There are several articles containing the message of the press release and here is just one of them.
Nokia-owned Qt Software has accomplished a “pre-release” of the Qt GUI toolkit for S60 phones. The free download means that theoretically, device developers can for the first time enjoy Qt’s “cross-platform” promise: building binaries for all the most popular device OSes from a single source tree.
As we said at the time of the Trolltech acquisition, Qt is not in better hands under Nokia.
‘Community’ Patent
Charlie McCreevy [1, 2, 3], one of the worst of dangers to European law at the moment, seems to be pushing further — albeit in subtle ways — for a back door to software patents.
That the commissioner still feels he has to make this point seems to me to be a further confirmation that the hoped for breakthrough under the French presidency which people were talking about earlier this year is in real danger of not taking place. And if it does not happen with France in charge of the European Council, then the likelihood of it ever happening must be pretty remote.
Here is the speech from McCreevy and here is some more related coverage that may present biased (one-sided) figures.
Commenting on the general outcome of the event, EUROCHAMBRES President Pierre Simon said: “The views of an individual business, especially a small or medium-sized one, are easy to ignore, but these 750 plus entrepreneurs convey the concerns of 23 million businesses across Europe, so their cumulative impact is enormous. Policy makers, starting with the European Council tomorrow, must take notice of their concerns and work with them closely in finding solutions that will enable Europe to come out of recession and compete globally.”
At times so saturated with such insanities, the following new insight from Glyn Moody is worth quoting:
After one of the worst economic crises in recent history, caused by pyramids of non-existent wealth being constructed on totally fictitious financial instruments, they now want to use “intellectual property” as “collateral” in commerce – that is, more totally ficitious financial istruments to create another pyramid of non-existent wealth.
How can we be so foolish and choose to live in a worlds of imaginary wealth and imaginary property? Edison would be awfully disappointed. █
“I think that “innovation” is a four-letter word in the industry. It should never be used in polite company. It’s become a PR thing to sell new versions with.”
“It was Edison who said “1% inspiration, 99% perspiration”. That may have been true a hundred years ago. These days it’s “0.01% inspiration, 99.99% perspiration”, and the inspiration is the easy part. As a project manager, I have never had trouble finding people with crazy ideas. I have trouble finding people who can execute. IOW, “innovation” is way oversold. And it sure as hell shouldn’t be applied to products like MS Word or Open office.”
–Linus Torvald
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Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, FUD, GNU/Linux, GPL, Law, Microsoft, Novell, OSI, Patents, Red Hat at 11:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Microsoft executives had previously told Computer Business Review that the company had not carried out a detailed patent assessment before reaching its patent covenant agreement with Novell.
“We did not do a drains-up inventory,” said Microsoft’s UK server director, Bruce Lynn in February..”
–CBR
Picture contributed by a reader
“Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft vice president of intellectual property and licensing, said that although Microsoft won’t discuss specific patents publicly, it has discussed them in private with companies like Novell Inc.”
–IDG
Liar liar, hat’s on fire!
Picture contributed by a reader
Following Microsoft's latest threats, as implicitly issued against Red Hat, Matt Asay tries to embellish things by pretending there is zero danger. He is already being refuted in LinuxToday, but more importantly, being careless and pathetic does not necessarily make one safe(r). In his new posts, “The dying embers of Microsoft’s IP claims against open source,” he tries to turn the table.
Indeed, I’d argue that one primary reason for shacking up with Novell wasn’t Microsoft’s patent portfolio, but rather Novell’s: Novell had key IP that goes to the heart of Microsoft’s Office business. The Linux patent covenant was a way for Microsoft to clean up its own patent violations. Funny, that. When I was at Novell my team in the CTO’s office never worried about a patent lawsuit from Microsoft.
But that’s just the way the modern software world works: it’s such a thicket of conflicting IP claims that the only rational (and workable) solution is to overlook competing claims.
Novell’s impressive patent portfolio was mentioned as a possibility before, but it resolves no issues for companies other than Novell, so the deal remains selfish and malicious (exploiting loopholes in GPLv2). Having searched the Web for a while, Asay also nets this old finding and stresses the danger by reiterating what his former employer, Novell, is trying to achieve together with Microsoft:
This is the same Microsoft that aggressively went after Red Hat in 2006 through a patent agreement with Novell, and subsequently dumped over $350 million into Novell in 2007 to fuel its attempt to kill Red Hat.
Yes, it is an anti-Red Hat deal, “Red Hat” being representative of virtually any large distributor that has not signed a software patents deal. Red Hat possesses more wealth and installed base than most, so it makes it more of a target.
There is a new article over at Silicon.com and it discusses the Novell/Microsoft deal in the context of GPLv3. One part of it reads:
The 2006 agreement between Microsoft and Novell was struck ostensibly to make Linux and Windows work better together. But it also created an uneasy truce; indeed, commentators argue that Microsoft has recently started telling people it will not sue open source software users for patent infringement provided the users purchased software from a vendor that is paying Microsoft for the privilege of using its patented technology.
We increasingly find Microsoft trying to pressure other companies into treasonous patent deals. The press, including IDC, is helping Microsoft and Novell. We warned about IDG’s Paul Krill before [1, 2, 3, 4], saying that he was too close or sympathetic towards the convicted monopolist. Well, here he is giving the podium to one of Microsoft’s worst sources of FUD: Horacio Gutierrez. Below is the opening part which, as usual, puts forth Novell as Microsoft’s ‘ammunition’:
Microsoft has been making moves on the licensing front and accommodations with open source, such as its controversial 2006 agreement with Novell pertaining to Suse Linux. Looking to elaborate on Microsoft’s activities, Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft vice president and deputy general counsel for Intellectual Property and Licensing, met last week with InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill at InfoWorld offices in San Francisco.
This is the second Gutierrez ‘public appearance’ in less than one week. Who is pursuing whom for publicity? It’s almost like a new Microsoft campaign to intimidate and to turn the heat up on GNU/Linux competitors. Those editors let Microsoft spew out lots more FUD in the press, almost unchallenged.
It’s only to be expected from the likes of Ina Fried [1, 2], Maureen O’Gara [1, 2], and Paul Krill. Further down, inside the actual interview, Microsoft’s Gutierrez says: “Microsoft publishes every patent that Microsoft gets issued and we have had deeper, detailed discussions in the context of private licensing conversations, which by the way is the practice that every technology company follows. So to answer your question, yes, we have divulged them. We have talked about them with a number of companies that have shown interest in having a good faith licensing discussion with Microsoft.”
“Horacio Gutierrez is likely to be lying.”Groklaw caught that bit and added: “Note that IIRC Novell claimed it did not get a list. Later in the interview, he also seems to almost, maybe say something about the GPL. I hesitate to characterize it, and I don’t want to overquote either, but do take a look.”
Pamela Jones is right as we spotted this contradiction over a year ago. Horacio Gutierrez is likely to be lying.
Regardless of all this, Microsoft has its own patent trolls to resort to aggressive action. Microsoft created and still funds the world's largest patent troll, which is already expanding to countries where there is resistance to them. Additionally, Acacia, which accommodates former Microsoft seniors [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11], is still busy patent-trolling the whole world.
If a company’s sole business is licensing and litigating patents, plus it’s run by lawyers, what isn’t protected by privilege?
That’s the question being asked in a discovery fight between Diagnostic Systems Corp., which is a subsidiary of patent-holding company Acacia Research Corp., and a multitude of software companies it sued for patent infringement in the Central District of California.
Acacia has already targeted two Linux vendors, but not Free software projects. Microsoft’s FOSS embrace and extend attempts [1, 2], as well as open source scams [1, 2, 3], appear to carry on uninterrupted.
All of these developments are merely things to keep an eye on because Microsoft is gradually falling, and being the vicious company which it is, Groklaw supposes it’ll devolve and become the next SCO Group. █
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Hardware, Mandriva, Microsoft, Novell, Turbolinux at 9:43 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Hardware monopolist with bribery and charity abuse under in its
belt (recent past) openly accepts GPL abusers
ALTHOUGH it is hard to crticise Intel when the context is GNU/Linux, the company’s crimes are known to many and even recognised in several continents. For those who are new to Intel’s antitrust situation and kickbacks, we provide some links at the top.
As a little bit of background, Intel recently rejected — or in other words thrown away — Ubuntu in favour of Fedora inside Moblin (Intel’s mobile Linux stack). Here is some exemplary coverage.
Dirk Hohndel, Intel’s director of Linux and open-source strategy, told The Reg there was no falling out with Ubuntu, but the move to Fedora was a technical decision based on the desire to adopt RPM for package management.
It turns out now that Intel has just welcomed the Microsoft-tied Novell and Microsoft-tied Turbolinux (both use RPM). This translates to an approach towards Microsoft ‘patent tax’. Here is the announcement about Novell.
Novell to offer Linux-based solutions optimized for Intel* Atom* Processor-based netbooks; will deliver the best user experience yet through Moblin
[...]
Moblin.org is an open source community for sharing software technologies to create an untethered computing experience across Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), netbooks, and embedded devices using computing hardware based on Intel* Atom* Processor Technology. Novell’s focus is on effectively meeting the requirements of hardware vendors choosing the Intel Atom processor technology for their netbooks to deliver solutions with greatly accelerated boot performance, longer battery life and an optimized experience for netbook users.
“The Moblin open source project brings a fused group of partners together to create the most optimized netbook and nettop solution yet,” said Roger Levy, vice president open platform solutions at Novell.
That’s the very same guy who brags about intellectual property "peace of mind", i.e. payments to Microsoft for imaginary software patents. So here we have a combination of two close Microsoft partners, which engage in exclusionary and collusive conduct with a monopolist. This spoils the fun at a software level and hardware level alike. And according to OStatic, it’s the same with Turbolinux, which is part of Microsoft’s pro-OOXML crusade and software patents campaign [1, 2] (against Free software). OStatic also reports on the Manbo (Mandriva-Turbolinux) situation.
Mandriva and Turbolinux Join Moblin, Create Manbo Labs
[...]
What’s particularly interesting about this announcement is once the Manbo engineers create these core components, they are delivered to the two sponsoring projects for further development, add-ons, and customizations. Mandriva and Turbolinux have hinted that more partnerships in Manbo Labs are on the horizon.
I warmly recommend Mandriva, but knowing the dangers of swapping code with Microsoft partners, Mandriva hopefully knows what it’s doing. Sharing code with Turbolinux, as opposed to just RPMs, would not be a good idea, but Mandriva reassured to us that there is no problem here [1, 2, 3, 4]. █
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