03.26.09
Posted in Microsoft, Mono, Novell, OpenSUSE, SLES/SLED, Windows at 7:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Early reviewers of the latest SUSE release are not entirely satisfied
SLED and SLES 11 have been released. Selected journalists appear to have received copies of it in advance, specifically for reviewing purposes. What did they think? Let’s find out.
We wrote about the release of SLE* 11 a short while ago and therein we mentioned the review from Jason Perlow, an IBM employee who also writes for ZDNet and blogs in his private space. He used to advocate OS/2 vigorously and OpenSUSE is one of his favourite distributions, Ubuntu being another. Regarding SLED 11, he contacted us to show his review which concluded SLED 11 lacks polish. This is particularly embarrassing because what sets apart OpenSUSE and SLE* is supposed to be polish. Novell seems to have rushed this release out the door. It was not long ago that OpenSUSE 11.1, on which SLED 11 is based, got released.
Moving on to another review, we have Sam Varghese. Unlike Perlow, Varghese is a critic of the Microsoft/Novell deal and he is a vocal opposer of Moonlight and Mono. SLED 11 didn’t do it for him. In fact, it hardly even worked at first.
Novell’s latest SUSE release, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11, appears to be unable to boot from DVD on a PC on which another Linux distribution is installed. If you have Windows XP installed, the same DVD boots as it should.
I’ve just tested this out on two PCs, one running Debian Lenny and the other running MEPIS – both of which boot from a dozen other Linux and non-Linux discs without any problem – and a Windows XP PC. SLED 11 only boots from the drive on the PC with XP.
One of these Linux PCs is a single-core AMD64 and the other is a dual-core AMD64. The XP PC is a dual-core AMD64.
You, gentle reader, can draw your own conclusions. For me it looks like this is the height of interoperability!
Critics of his review say that it was unfair, so another reviewer, Jason Brooks (recipient of Vista 7 laptop), is worth taking into consideration. According to his review, SLE* lacks features. The heart of his critique can be summarised as follows:
Novell’s desktop Linux OS is too limited in the software packages it offers, especially when compared with its community-centric relative, OpenSUSE.
The comments in Linux Today were mostly harsh because readers over there dislike the Novell/Microsoft deal and therefore resent SUSE to a degree. Here is a commenter who asks, “Who would actually buy it?”
Why on earth would anyone want to run a stable, secure and lean OS like Linux on an unstable, insecure and bloated OS like Windows?
What is the attraction of Silverlight and Windows media? Flash dominates, MPlayer (and a host of other free players) plays Windows Media files and a whole host of other things just fine, and ogg will be part of HTML 5.
Who needs SLES to provide Silverlight and Windows Media in a Windows desktop replacement? What most people looking for a Windows replacement are looking for are replacements for Windows applications, and a free (as in beer) desktop OS.
In my opinion, Ubuntu is more user friendly than SLED or for that matter Windows XP.
Novell relies very heavily on Microsoft, which adopted SUSE as its patents-encumbered trap for GNU/Linux users. As Netware revenue continues to dwindle, Novell absolutely must rely on other areas and the only growth area seems to be SUSE. The big money comes from large contracts which sometimes involve negotiations with or via Microsoft. Novell therefore has some obligations to Microsoft, which it usually fulfills by advancing Microsoft technologies.
SUSE is not about GNU/Linux. It’s about making Microsoft happy because it improves chances of selling SUSE coupons/vouchers, which Microsoft openly calls patent “royalty payments.” █
“I’ve heard from Novell sales representatives that Microsoft sales executives have started calling the Suse Linux Enterprise Server coupons “royalty payments”…”
–Matt Asay, April 21st, 2008
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Posted in Marketing, Microsoft, Vista at 6:27 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: “SideShow” pretty much dies quietly and Microsoft’s identity management gets delayed for at least another year
THERE ARE MORE SIGNS of weakness at Microsoft and some readers say they appreciate knowing about them, so here is a quick roundup.
Last week we saw Microsoft shutting down yet another product/service. It is part of an ongoing process or trend (cost-cutting). It appears as though another quiet death that almost nobody noticed is Vista’s “SideShow”. Does anyone even remember SideShow?
In the run-up to Vista’s launch, industry observers and journalists expressed a great deal of interest and even excitement about the concept. But then a funny thing happened: Manufacturers didn’t add SideShow displays to their products. With rare exceptions (such as one Dell XPS desktop), they ignored it outright.
[...]
It’s not that the PC industry is resistant to change; it just doesn’t appear to want to follow Microsoft’s lead. The most significant change in the shape or function of personal computers in recent years — cheap, ultra-light “netbook” laptops — not only didn’t happen on Microsoft’s watch, it outright threatens Microsoft, since so many of these machines run the open-source Linux operating system.
Eventually, GNU/Linux sort of took over where Microsoft had failed. For example, here is a something very recent:
The device, manufactured by mini-box.com, also has Linux drives that work with LCDproc, a software package that pioneered Sideshow-like concepts by using small LCDs to display bits of information through a variety of plugins.
Going back to the news, Mary Jo Foley has identified a product that Microsoft sort of hid and failed to deliver on time.
Microsoft identity-management product running a year late
Microsoft is telling customers and partners that it has pushed back the final delivery date of its “Identity Lifecycle Manager 2 from early 2009 to the first quarter of 2010.
Why is nobody else covering this major delay?
Well, while Microsoft AstroTurfs Twitter using Waggener Edstrom and using Federated Media it pretty much controls what people think about and talk about. The Inquirer is not terribly impressed by it, either. Yesterday it published:
Twitter takes the Microsoft shilling
WIBBLESOME HOME OF SMALL UTTERANCES, TWITTER has taken Microsoft money to launch a web site called ExecTweets.com
When will Microsoft join the ranks of honourable companies that do not AstroTurf? This only shows that there is no “new” Microsoft. █
Related:
- LawMedia Group May be Another Confirmed Microsoft AstroTurfing Agency
- The Microsoft Connection with Dewey Square Group and DCI/New Media
- Microsoft ‘Bribes’ Mac Bloggers to Slam Apple, Gartner Hosts Google FUD
- Microsoft, TCS, DCI, Edelman, and Those Fake Letters About IP/SCO/Monopoly
- James Plamondon: Microsoft Guerrilla
- FullSIX and Mr. Youth LLC May Be Ruining the Web (AstroTurfing) on Microsoft’s Behalf
- Microsoft: 800 lb. Guerrilla
- Astroturfing Examples: Learning How Microsoft Tames the Internet
- Waggener Edstrom, Maureen O’Gara and Other Microsoft Shills
- Partial Index: Summary of Bribed Sites, Journalists, and Bloggers (Vista 7)
- Waggener-Edstrom Behind the 2008 Laptop Bribes, Edelman Behind 2006′s
- Manipulation, Astroturfing, and What Governments Can Do
- Beware the OOXML AstroTurfer: “The Wraith”, “multivac1”, “hAl”, Among Other Nyms
- Microsoft May Have Bribed India for OOXML Pressure
- Microsoft Has Been Rigging Votes/Polls for Ages
- Gary M. Stewart (aka “Flatfish”) About Microsoft AstroTurfing: “It’s made me A LOT of money….”
- Former Microsoft Shill Openly Confesses, Alleges Microsoft Still Does This
- Respecting AstroTurfers?
- Some New (But Very Old) Microsoft AstroTurfing Examples
- Joe Barr, Linux.com Editor – My Obituary
- Joe Barr Knew Microsoft’s Tactics All Too Well
- 66 Pages of Microsoft Evilness
- Another AstroTurf Scam Exposed?
- Quick Mention: Sony is AstroTurfing, Just Like Microsoft
- Memo to Novell: Leave YouTube Alone
- Microsoft Blast from the Past: Ads Banned for Spurring Violence
- Is YouTube’s “NovellVideo” a Novell AstroTurfer?
- Microsoft/Munchkin ‘Breaks’ the Web to Break Open Document Standards (Again)
- Rob Enderle Guarantees “Amazing Numbers”, Show E-mails to Microsoft
- Microsoft Agents from Waggener Edstrom Airbrush Wikipedia, Glorify Paymaster
- Microsoft Unleashes Proxies at Journalists to Defend Vulnerable Vista
- Microsoft’s OOXML Viral Marketing Reaches YouTube
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Posted in Microsoft, Virtualisation, VMware at 5:51 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Now that VMware’s COO and CEO positions are filled by former Softies, yet another Microsoft employee joins the management
VMWARE is an excellent example of how companies gets ‘stolen’ from the inside. The reason this is happening right now is because VMWare is pretty much an asset of EMC, which is a very close partner (and partner of the year) of Microsoft. As background to what has happened so far, see:
Todd Bishop sees this VMware-Microsoft relationship tightening and as Mary Jo Foley puts it:
At the rate it’s going, VMware is going to be Microsoft’s alumni clubhouse No. 1.
On March 24, VMware announced it had hired former Softie Richard McAniff as Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer. McAniff will be responsible for R&D for VMware’s Serer and Desktop Business Units and will report to yet another former Microsoft exec, VMware CEO Paul Maritz.
The COO too is a Softie. What was VMware thinking? Or rather — what is EMC thinking? This obviates the issue really. It’s the ‘new’ VMware, going downhill since Tucci had demoted/sacked the CEO of the company and turned it into a ‘client state’ of his close partners at Microsoft.
Once the management of VMware is filled with enough Microsoft folks, it becomes hard to reverse this. They become decision makers. It’s almost as though they tell their former colleagues: “come and join us at Microsoft’s new home, VMware.”
So, at the end of the day, the original management is permanently out. Tucci et al, boasting a strong alliance with Microsoft, have taken over the operations for the benefit of Tucci’s close ally, Steve Ballmer, along with many of his former employees/peers. Those who cannot see how obvious it is probably have not been following the news. █
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Posted in Deception, Microsoft, Vista, Vista 7, Windows at 5:18 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: History repeats itself as Gartner advises against exploration of other platforms
A Gartner analyst, Michael Silver, is in Microsoft’s pocket not because of the things he says but because of who he’s having lunch with and where his vested interests lie. We wrote about him before and provided extensive evidence. It was only months ago that he attacked ODF along with his employer, which is also in Microsoft’s pocket [1, 2]. Microsoft and Bill Gates (at a personal capacity) pay these people’s wages.
Rather than bore with these details which were outlined in dozens of prior posts, we urge readers to explore and judge the evidence independently. But in any event, Gartner is up to old and very familiar tricks right now.
Windows 7 hasn’t even hit the Release Candidate test phase, but already analysts at Gartner are advising business users they shouldn’t plan to wait for Service Pack 1 (SP1) to arrive before planning deployments.
From a March 12 research note by Gartner analyst Michael Silver (a link to which Microsoft is distributing to various press folks)…
We have already seen the Gartner Group agreeing not to bash Vista ahead of its release and Michael Silver taking an “upgrade to Vista or die” attitude — to borrow the words of The Inquirer — about a year ago. Michael Silver is a Microsoft drone with an infallible track record and it is trivial to make this claim based on very substantial findings (c/f links above).
What the latest situation shows is that Microsoft adopts the very same approach (as in Vista) to generate hype about Vista 7. Bribing bloggers is part of this spiel, too [1, 2]. █
Related:
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Posted in Europe, Law, Microsoft, Novell, Patents, Red Hat at 3:37 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Preliminary remarks on the motives of a new book and some more patent news
Stupid Book
EARLIER ON IN THE DAY we wrote about Ina Fried's little Microsoft placement, which glorified the company’s patent strategy against Free software. Now that Mary Jo Foley (who is usually more moderate and less of a Microsoft mouthpiece) has finally looked at Microsoft’s book and had time to make up her own mind, this turns out to be just what one ought to expect: a 186-leaf ‘whitepaper’.
While Microsoft may not have directly funded this book, it gave the authors access to its execs — everyone from Gates to Senior VP and General Counsel Brad Smith, to a number of Microsoft public-relations folks. Phelps still works at Microsoft as Corporate Vice President for IP Policy. So calling this book “unauthorized” is quite a stretch.
[...]
I haven’t read the full 186 pages of The Ships yet. But what I’ve skimmed so far makes me feel like I’m reading yet another Microsoft white paper or press release, not any kind of a behind-the-scenes tell-all. I’d be interested in hearing how some of the OEMs and other licensees of Microsoft’s patents feel about the way the authors characterize the IP licensing deals mentioned in the book….
Speaking of “other licensees,” Microsoft has just signed up another ActiveSync victim, just like it did with Xandros. It even mentions Xandros by name in the new press release about Gecad.
Over the past few years, Microsoft has entered into Exchange ActiveSync licensing agreements with Apple Inc., Big Bang System Corp., DataViz Inc., Google Inc., Helio LLC, IXI Mobile (R&D) Ltd., Nokia Corp., Palm Inc., Remoba Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, Symbian Software Ltd. and Xandros Inc.
Andy Updegrove wrote a good article last week. Therein, Updegrove explained how Microsoft had been stringing such patent deals together to justify them and persistently pressure the next victim until submission. This string of patent deals was kick-started by Novell and then marketed widely by both Microsoft and Novell. Soon enough, Microsoft found some new victims like Xandros, Linspire, and Turbolinux. It’s part of a bigger plan
“This string of patent deals was kick-started by Novell and then marketed widely by both Microsoft and Novell.”The book just published is therefore intended to continue the marketing campaign whilst Microsoft lobbyists sing praises of Microsoft’s mighty “IP” and how everyone must respect it despite the fact that Microsoft never respected anyone else's ideas and inventions.
We’ve learned that the publisher of “Burning The Ships” also sends SJVN a complimentary copy of the book. But why? Steven will hopefully not be brainwashed by it.
The newly-published book is likely to be filled with spin or saturated with revisionism because a truthful book would concentrate on and describe failures of Phelps to sign the patent deal Microsoft really needed -- the one with Red Hat. Peer reviewers of this book appear to be Microsoft executives — primarily those who think of terms of law and have professional background in the subject.
Lastly, the book also sells the impression that Microsoft is changing. Just think about the title of the book. It’s a serious lie to say that Microsoft has changed or evolved (or is “burning old ships”). Microsoft uses Novell to market itself and sell the false perception that it encourages interoperability (whilst suing TomTom over FAT in Linux).
Yesterday in the news we found this from a Microsoft executive who uses Novell to market Microsoft technologies and sell the bogus image Microsoft craves to deceive the public with.
[Microsoft's] Paoli: We also collaborate with our competitors — EMC, Novell, SAP and Sun, for example— to help solve the interoperability challenges of our mutual customers. Take Novell, for example. Microsoft worked with Novell to enable Moonlight, an open source implementation of Silverlight for the Linux operating system. Moonlight gives Linux-based users access to Web experiences that incorporate video, animation, interactivity and stunning user interfaces. It will be provided as an open source plug-in for the Firefox Web browser. In fact, an early version of Moonlight was used in January to stream President Obama’s inauguration ceremony.
Stupid Patents
It is reassuring to see that patent unrest is growing. IEEE Spectrum, for example, has just published “The Death of Business-Method Patents” and it mentions software patents too. [via Digital Majority]
The problem is that all software ultimately reduces to mathematical operations, yet only some software controls actual stuff, like the baking of rubber. If the rest is merely math and therefore unpatentable, does that mean we must deny patents to all software that runs nothing but itself?
Over in the South African press, the idea of patenting in general — and software in particular — is being slammed based on a famous corollary from Newton and the success of the World Wide Web, being a spectacular reference example of a democratising force.
Berners-Lee himself was motivated by the desire to be able to share and collaborate on ideas with other scientists and researchers. He worked on the notion of combining the concept of hypertext with the Internet, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The interesting thing about all of this in today’s world of digital rights and software patents is Berners-Lee let his creation loose on the world, with no intention of claiming ownership, royalties or patents. Thanks to this, others were able to build on his ideas and give us the WWW we enjoy (and profit from) today.
Had Vannevar Bush claimed “prior art” for his ideas or Berners-Lee felt a tad greedy, we might be looking at a very different technology landscape in 2009. Most technology, whether it’s a hammer with a claw attached or a nail-file-clipper combo are converged versions of several ideas. With the ongoing debate about who’s using whose code and whether or not they should be paying for it, maybe it’s time to take a step back and look at the mentality of the guys who got us here today. Driven by a desire to share learning and collaborate with others, they saw a bigger picture. Maybe we should do the same.
Stupid WIPO
Glyn Moody keeps abreast of these matters as well. He too realises that software patents are a hot topic right now (and not in a good way).
Finally, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) is also looking at the whole area of patents. Particularly significant is the explicit consideration of “Exclusions from Patentable Subject Matter and Exceptions and Limitations to the Rights”, which mentions programs as one such area that might be examined.
It’s hard to tell whether good or bad will come out of these initiatives, but it’s clear that software patents are a hot topic at the moment.
The FSFE is doing what it can to make impact on (mis)understanding of software patents inside WIPO, which considers Free software to be illegal. [via Glyn Moody]
FSFE believes that its systematic considerations should be taken into account for and put in perspective to the reports. In particular the economic rationale for the patent system should be taken into account and reflected for the considerations of document SCP/13/3, the report on exclusions from patentable subject matter and exceptions and limitations to the rights.
We wrote about WIPO many times before [1, 2, 3, 4]. It is run by companies in the sense that funding and people come from companies, so to assume there are purely ethical and logical considerations at play would simply be naïve. But that’s exactly the Geneva-based establishment which the FSFE is addressing here. Coincidentally, FSFE was conceived in Switzerland (see correction at the bottom) and so was ISO, which got corrupted by Microsoft.
Last but not least, regarding the patent 'reform' bill that's a farce, there is something happening right now which may impact and probably reinforce this broken ‘reform’. Results from the Tafas v. Doll appeal come into play.
The conflict stems from a set of rules that the USPTO tried to put into effect in 2007. These would have limited patent applications to five unique claims and 25 total claims per invention, versus the historic lack of limit. Among other things, they would also have restricted the number of requests to reconsider a decision to reject a patent application as well as the number of continuations, or chances to effectively amend a patent application already in process. (Additional continuations would have been theoretically possible, but only with special permission and filing of additional paperwork that experts say could open the patents, if granted, to additional avenues of attack from competitors.)
Stupid Future
In a perfect world, engineers — not lawyers — would choose their own destiny. But as long as many administrative roles, governments included, are mostly occupied by lawyers, it will simply be too difficult to ignore, let alone to change the rules. Remember the Golden Rule: those with the gold will make the rules. █
“Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won’t leave you alone.”
–Richard Stallman
Correction from Georg Greve (26/03/2009): “FSFE was not incorporated in Geneva or Switzerland. FSFE was initially incorporated in Hamburg, Germany – and has always been a charitable registered German association. See http://fsfeurope.org/about/legal/constitution.en.html for the legal statutes registered in Germany.
“That said, we do have an office in Zurich, Switzerland, which also constitutes the basis for our charitable status in Switzerland. This is a useful base for the Freedom Task Force, and allows me to go to Geneva with a simple train ride.
“Another reference that’s potentially useful – FSFE’s project page for the WIPO work is at http://fsfeurope.org/projects/wipo/ and contains lots of materials and references about the work we’ve been doing.”
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