04.15.09
Posted in Hardware, Microsoft at 5:12 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft finally confirms serious hardware issues that may lead to billions more in losses
S
EVERAL MONTHS ago, Microsoft fired its employee who had said the truth about the Xbox 360 being seriously defective. Microsoft is now confirming that it’s still true.
Microsoft admits Xbox hardware problems
MICROSOFT has finally admitted that there is a problem with the hardware on its Xbox 360 console which causes it to crash and show a multi-language kill screen.
The E74 failure is getting so bad that Microsoft has amended its three-year warranty to cover the problem.
The Register has more details:
The Xbox 360 “E74 error” has become enough of a problem that Microsoft is now covering it under the console’s extended three-year warranty reserved for RRoD failures. Redmond is also retroactively covering the issue, reimbursing customers who’ve already paid for E74-related repairs.
Isn’t it unfortunate that truthful Microsoft employees lose their job and those who let XBox360 burn down houses are those who stay? No wonder so only unethical people tend to stay in this company. It’s a reverse-Darwinian selection. █
“Do you feel like you’re screwing a porcupine and you’re one prick against thousands?” the OSCON audience member asked Ramji. Ramji politely replied: “It takes time to change and I knew that I’d be unpopular when I took this job…”
–Microsoft: Not worried about open source patents
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Posted in News Roundup at 4:47 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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It’s more than a bit ironic that the Linux Foundation, an organisation that drips with bizspeak, has chosen as the winner of its Linux promotional campaign an ad that espouses the virtues of freedom.
The Foundation – which describes itself “a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux” – hardly makes any reference to the freedom aspect of Linux when it issues statements.
And this same Foundation has such a great devotion to freedom that it keeps journalists away from its conferences!
But the seeds of this whole movement were planted by Richard Stallman and his ideas won’t die easily.
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I read with interest your opposition to upgrading to Vista and instead favor an upgrade to Windows 7.
My name is Ken Starks and I am one of the most active Free Software advocates in the United States. Senator, the state of Texas is paying tens of millions of dollars a year to Microsoft when they have a free, virus-free and stable alternative at their fingertips, literally. Sir, let me pose a question. Why does the state of Texas insist on purchasing a product that proves to be more expensive to maintain than it does to purchase? Anti-virus software, defrag and registry fixers, malware protection…why? Why are we paying for software that demands we purchase other software in order for it to work? That is a question that I would honestly like answered.
I will tip my hat to the obvious influence of the powerful Microsoft Lobby. They have been there and gone, and their impact on State software purchases is obvious. I am curious to know if the dollar amounts we taxpayers spend on Microsoft software is available for public consumption. Again, Microsoft has lobbied you successfully. Entire nations, states and municipalities across the globe have switched to GNU/Linux and Free Software, yet the US remains the last bastion of Microsoft strength.
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Ubuntu is emerging as an unlikely alternative to deploying Windows 7 or Vista on enterprise desktops as many IT managers express concerns over the upgrade path to the new Windows operating system.
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Dimensional Research was right to call out the Macintosh number, But I see Ubuntu gains as being more significant. Mac is down from 28 percent in 2008, while Ubuntu is up from 21 percent last year and 17 percent in 2007.
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EZblue Software Corp., a leading provider of Linux software products, today announced the release of its EZblue Linux Server software version 3.9 with a built in iTunes compatible streaming server module.
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Acer said that the Acer Travelmate 4530 notebook will be available under this offer. The notebook features an AMD Turion RM70 processor, a 2GB DDR II RAM, a 160GB HDD, and a 14.1″ wide screen TFT. It also has a DVD writer, a 5-in-1 card reader, Bluetooth, and runs on Linux-based OS. It also has a gigabit LAN and Disk Antishock Protection (DASP) Technology with Backpack. The Acer Travelmate 4530 comes with a one-year warranty for Rs. 30,385, plus taxes.
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Dell, which sells servers that run open-source Linux on Intel CPU chips, is taking aim at Sun’s existing customers for its own servers, which run Sun’s non-open-source Solaris operating system on Sun’s Sparc processors.
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Linux has come a long way in terms of hardware compatibility, but you don’t want to be troubleshooting three different network adaptors if you can help it. And it’s the network adaptors that are likely to be the weakest link. Cluster computing is dependent on each machine having access to the same data, and that means that data needs to be shuffled between each of the machines on the network cluster continually.
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Wine is maturing in the bottle: the current version 1.1.19 again offers a multitude of enhancements.
In the official announcement, Wine growers reveal a slew of enhancements for 1.1.19. These include improved Direct3D support and Esound driver. Winemaker, which makes Windows programs Wine-compatible, now also supports Visual C++ projects.
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0. Mental migration: It’s an old computer geek joke to start a numbered list with zero, but it serves to symbolize the different mindset required for Linux compared to Windows.
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Kernel Space
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The Linux Foundation (LF)’s Collaboration Summit last week in San Francisco featured a variety of announcements ranging from the LF’s new role in hosting Moblin to new collaboration tools to the latest kernel changes. Meanwhile, the LF announced the winners of its “We’re Linux” video contest.
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If you are into compilers and have not already tried out the latest bits from GCC 4.4, you may want to give the GCC 4.4.0 Release Candidate 1 a whirl. GCC 4.4.0 RC1 was tar’ed up yesterday and is now ready for testing.
GCC 4.4 has a number of benefits over GCC 4.3 in all areas. One of the GCC 4.4 features that excite us is the merging of the Graphite framework, which will ultimately provide automatic parallelization support. Also on the multi-threaded front, GCC 4.4 supports version 3.0 of OpenMP. While still experimental, in this GNU Compiler Collection update there is also better support for the C++0x language.
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New ‘microblaze’ architecture, a somewhat late ‘input’ layer merge, a new intel virtual networking driver and some firmware loading updates. And mn10300 and frv moved their header files from include/asm to arch. That accounts for the bulk, but shouldn’t affect anybody.
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Applications
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Linux only: Back In Time, a Linux backup app inspired by Macs’ Time Machine and offering the same kind of no-worry, space-saving snapshot protection, is worth adding to your must-install list.
Why? First off, the user interface and documentation at its home page beat out similarly Time-Machine-inspired backup apps like previously mentioned Flyback, at least for my money. Second, it’s smart about being friendly with non-developer Linux users—it rewrites all the rules of the underlying rsync command in plain English in its settings, installs a “root” launching shortcut for when you want to back up your core system files, and adds itself to your cron automation engine automatically at the intervals you set it to, no crontab -e or other terminal jobs required.
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I’ve compiled a list of some of the most useful Audio applications you can download totally free of charge for Linux.
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Sabayon Linux is a very full featured DVD sized distribution that is really catching on in the Linux community as of late. The most recent release, Sabayon 4.1 Gnome, includes some very impressive features, and applications. I installed Sabayon 4.1 Gnome this morning and found some great stuff, I really have nothing but good things to say about this up and coming Linux distro. You can buy Sabayon on DVD inside our shopping cart. A portion of each Sabayon DVD sale is donated to the Sabayon project.
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This release features the return of 3D acceleration — as free software.
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A Bulgarian open source project has released a Live CD compilation of five popular boot-and-run Linux distributions. Just released in version 3.0, “Ultilex” can be booted from CD/DVD and USB flash devices, and offers Slax, Puppy Linux, Clonezilla, Parted Magic, and the System Rescue CD, says the Ultilex project.
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In this interview we talk with Ricky. In specific, we talk about:
* Identity of the Fedora community and its relationship with Red Hat
* Relationship between Fedora and other distributions
* Upstream projects as they relate to Fedora
* Public opinion about the Fedora project
* Open source involvement in the software industry and university sphere
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Mandriva
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With the second Release Candidate out and only two weeks until the big launch, we thought it would be a good idea to give you an overall look at what you should expect from Mandriva Linux 2009.1 (Spring). First of all, Mandriva 2009 Spring will boot much faster, through several fixes (including udev), implementation of a new SpeedBoot mode and support for the powerful EXT4 filesystem. What Speedboot basically does is prioritizing boot processes in order to load the graphical system first and then continue with starting the rest of the processes. As for EXT4, though many users are still kind of wary about this new filesystem, its superior performance cannot be contested. Here at Softpedia we’ve been using it on most of our Linux machines and we’ve yet to encounter any problems.
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So far I am very pleased with this release and think I have switched back to Pclinuxos full time. Good work guys!
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In the past few days, I was lucky to be able to test drive two wonderful Linux distributions that both promises to work “out of the box” — PCLinuxOS 2009.1 and LinuxMint KDE Community Edition 6.
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Debian/Ubuntu
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So, where’s Canonical? Admittedly, the company has its hands full developing Ubuntu 9.04, Ubuntu 9.10 and Landscape updates. But stay patient. Based on some educated guesses, I think Canonical will show more channel progress by mid-2009. In the meantime, Canonical should take a close look at Red Hat and the Open Source Channel Alliance to see how go-to-market partner strategies are evolving.
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In a few days, you will see a new version of the popular Linux distribution, Ubuntu. Ubuntu version 9.04, or fondly called by developers as “Jaunty Jackalope,” is already in beta release and will soon see it bumped to “release candidate” status, before we get the full version before the end of the month.
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1. You can integrate Ubuntu server edition easily into your existing networks.
2. Ubuntu server edition gives you low total cost of ownership, which is very crucial to companies and organizations.
[...]
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The Debian project developers have announced the release of the first update to Debian 5.0 (codename Lenny), initially released in February.
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Meet Mint 6 Felicia, the community “Fluxbox” remake. The Fluxbox is a window manager that replaces Gnome’s default window manager. It is lightweight, customizable, and fast.
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A Linux SDK and support from MontaVista and Wind River
The Octeon II Software Development Kit (SDK) is an enhanced version of the existing Octeon SDK, says Cavium. It includes a Linux SMP, GNU Toolchain, and a “Simple Executive” for fast path applications. Other SDK features are said to include performance tools, a simulator, examples, and APIs for hardware acceleration Cavium also offers additional software toolkits and multi-core software architecture and design consulting services.
Previously the Octeon SDKs have been based on SMP Linux 2.6 distributions from MontaVista or Wind River. Today, both companies announced support for the Octeon II family with their Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) 4.0-compliant MontaVista Linux and Wind River Linux 3.0 distributions, respectively.
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Android, as just another Linux distribution, will be attractive to all sorts of companies. That doesn’t mean those devices will be accessing the Android Marketplace, but it will serve to increase the number of experienced Android developers.
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Phones
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While netbooks are becoming more powerful—and are in the throes of evolution, some say—ABI asserts that the more important changes have been at the lower end of the market, and that to create more inexpensive devices, designers are turning to Linux and the Google Android operating system.
Research firm Strategy Analytics expects to see the Android mobile operating system take 12 percent of global smartphone shipment market share by 2012, as well as show growth in other device segments, which is already in evidence this year.
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Android, as just another Linux distribution, will be attractive to all sorts of companies. That doesn’t mean those devices will be accessing the Android Marketplace, but it will serve to increase the number of experienced Android developers.
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Sub-notebooks
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With cost-cutting pressures expected to continue into the post-recessionary phase, ABI Research predicts that Linux will benefit from the entry into the market of lower-cost netbooks that run ARM-based processors.
The research firm also predicted that by 2012 Linux and “alternative operating systems” (OSes) will overtake Microsoft’s Windows XP in netbook sales. Apart from low-end netbooks, ABI cited the arrival of mobile stacks such as the Linux-based Android that are suited for these platforms as the main reason.
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Pupeee 4.2 is released. This Eee PC optimized Netbook distro is based on Puppy Linux. Puppy Linux (and the Puppeee distro) was written from scratch with 2 goals in mind: speed & ease of use.
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So in the end, yes, FOSS is destroying the traditional programming model. But what is growing up in its place makes what it’s replacing look silly and foolish, a practice and a product that should have been shed ages ago.
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The open source Globus Project is planning for the future — and is looking to users for help in determining the grid computing group’s direction.
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So they turned to Knowmad Technologies, known for their expertise in Open Source solutions. Knowmad developed and implemented a solution based on Open Source software. Forums, blogs, a wiki and a single sign-on solution were used to make the Web site interactive for its users.
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Fortunately, open-source alternatives have matured to the point where they deliver the value and return on investment that customers are demanding. Channel partners who have not investigated and embraced open-source solutions need to.
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Now is the time to branch into open source. That was the assertion from Maria Pardee, managing director of global integration for BT in her keynote address Tuesday at the Billing & OSS World Conference & Expo.
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The report, entitled, “Open Source: Understanding its Application in the Voting Industry” reveals the need for policymakers to continue treating proprietary and open source products as separate and distinct.
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When Balfour Beatty Construction needed data integration software to connect its ERP and project management systems, the company considered many of the usual commercial data integration vendors.
But, thanks to advice from colleagues at General Growth, decision makers at the Dallas-based construction firm also included open source data integration vendor Jitterbit in its evaluations.
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Some definitions of open source explicitly require that open source software be freely available without any limitation or cost (free beer). However, others aren’t as concerned about the “free beer” aspect as they are about the “free speech” aspect of open source. Although most products that are advertised as open source do seem to be available for no cost, this should not be assumed without careful reading of the product’s license.
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Mozilla
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Mozilla will release Firefox 3.0.9 as a regular maintenance update for the browser next week, but the company will also roll out the fourth beta version of a much more enhanced version, which will include the TraceMonkey Javascript engine. Previously developed under the Firefox 3.1 name, version 3.5 b4 will be made available in the coming week as well.
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In this issue…
* Help about:mozilla with a simple click
* Firefox Support: Writing concise documents
* Mozilla Labs: On rating mechanisms
* Mozilla in Brazil update
* Experimental add-ons and logins
* Firefox.next: Tabs on the side?
* Munich Mozilla meetup in May
* Taskfox prototype: Ubiquity in Firefox
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Video
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Christian Einfeldt is producing a documentary movie called the Digital Tipping Point about how free software is changing global culture. He is releasing all of his footage under a free license, and is inviting participants to grab the video and use it to tell stories about how free software has changed their lives. He also wants the film to be produced using only free software tools.
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This eye-catching, remarkably vivid demo video shows off a Linux SL viewer built by renowned coder Opensource Obscure, using the “render-pipeline” from Linden Lab’s code branch. It was so impressive, I got in touch with Obscure, for more details.
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Server
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The archetypal MySQL database chugs along in the server room of a Web 2.0 start-up, powering a small but promising Web site. In fact, a quarter of the 12 million MySQL installations are data warehouses doing business intelligence and analytics for companies.
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Traditional business intelligence solutions can’t scale to the degree necessary in today’s data environment. One solution getting a lot of attention recently: Hadoop, an open-source product inspired by Google’s search architecture. Twenty years ago, most companies’ data came from fundamental transaction systems: Payroll, ERP, and so on.
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Yahoo!’s M45 cluster runs Hadoop, an open source distributed file system and parallel execution environment that enables its users to process massive amounts of data. Apache Hadoop is an open source project of the Apache Software Foundation, to which Yahoo! engineers have been the primary contributors to date.
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CMS
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Concrete CMS today announced the general availability of its easy-to-use open source CMS product, Concrete5. The new release builds on Concrete’s foundation offering of a CMS that is as easy to configure as a blog, with the flexibility of a full web development platform. Improvements in Concrete5 include an updated file manager, embedded Picnik image editor, new help system and more. Concrete’s main competitors in the CMS space are Drupal and Joomla, but Silicon Florist says Concrete5 “crushes them in terms of ease-of-use.”
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If you were to believe all the hype surrounding concrete5, an open source Web content management system, then a remarkable new system has just gone on General Availability (GA).
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With its open source CMS — Hippo CMS 7.0 — recently out of the door, Hippo (news, site) has found a partner in the U.S. to help implement the revamped product. CorraTech is an open source software services and consulting shop. The two will work together to deliver web content management solutions to mid-market and enterprise customers.
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Business
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Zenoss Inc., a value leader in enterprise network and systems management, today announced that it is a founding member of the Open Source Channel Alliance. Led by Red Hat, the alliance program includes leading commercial open source software vendors including; Alfresco, Enterprise DB, Ingres, Jaspersoft, Likewise, Pentaho, Zmanda, and Zenoss. Through the alliance Zenoss has signed a distribution agreement with SYNNEX Corporation (NYSE: SNX) to distribute and market Zenoss’ portfolio of cost-effective, enterprise-proven network and systems monitoring solutions.
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The Citadel project has released version 7.5 of its GPL3-licensed groupware server. The release improves the web interface and countless other details.
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Herring cites the example of using proprietary products from BEA Systems/Oracle, which are far more expensive to acquire than open-source alternatives and don’t even offer enterprise developers the flexibility to customize to fit their particular business’s changing needs. The strength of the open source community pays off when more than just a few employees of a particular vendor are at work on a solution but rather an entire community. Rollout time is reduced dramatically, Herring notes.
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That’s been the promise of open source storage vendor Cleversafe, which this week is unveiling new technology to further streamline delivery — and potentially improving the process of making content available at massive scale.
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Appcelerator, founded in 2006, uses an open-source platform designed to help developers more quickly create Web apps.
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Funding
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Venture capitalists have poured $3.2 billion into open-source companies since 1997, according to a new report from The 451 Group. It’s about time we started delivering a return on that investment.
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Good news: Open source companies are alive and well.
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The Open Source model for business is challenging – but publishing platform developer Ez Systems of Norway has proved that it’s a model that can turn in profits – provided you get the product right.
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So-called open core software is essentially a subset of open source — a vendor gives away a free version under traditional open license and sells a commercial version with advanced features. Some open source purists see this as undermining the purpose of open source, but open core proponents say it’s the key to a new business model.
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Security
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Coverity, Inc. announced two new tools for software development today: Coverity Build Analysis and the Coverity Integrity Center. These products are helpful for any type of development, but include features specially designed for companies using open source software in their commercial offerings.
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The developers of the open source virus scanner ClamAV have released version 0.95.1, denoting is as simply a “bugfix release” with no security warnings. However, security service providers such as Secunia and the French Vupen (formerly FrIST) classify it as a critical safety update.
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Government
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In August 2008 the IT agency CNTI said that nearly 60% of Venezuela’s government offices had switched from proprietary software to open source, compared with its target of 100% migration by yearend 2008. Some ministries stood out for their progress. Venezuela’s Social Development Ministry had reportedly already migrated 93% of its PCs and all of its servers to open source, having started the migration in 2007.
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OneWorld South Asia (OWSA), the south Asian centre of OneWorld International Foundation, works to facilitate human rights and sustainable development in the region by leveraging a range of media and Information Communication Technologies (ICTs). For its IT projects, this international NGO, rely intensively on Plone, an open source Content Management System (CMS) and Zope an open source application server.
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Licensing
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Richard Stallman: I am disappointed that Linux has not moved to GPLv3, since that means the added protections for users’ freedom do not apply to this important component of the GNU/Linux system. I was also somewhat alarmed to discover that Microsoft has procured the continued use of GPLv2 by certain projects by giving them money.
Nonetheless, GPLv3 is used by many free software projects, and has even convinced some developers to liberate previously proprietary software packages. Overall, I think it is accomplishing its mission.
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Standards/Consortia
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The COSS lifecycle defines a specification as a contract between designers, implementers, and users. The weight of the contract depends on where the specification is, in its lifecycle: from raw, to draft, to stable, legacy, and through to retired. COSS editor Pieter Hintjens concludes, this model allows for experimentation, and standardization, which are normally opposed to each other.
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That raises all sorts of questions… MSNBC reporting on the videos is almost certainly fair use of NOM’s videos. But, it was someone else who uploaded the MSNBC clip to YouTube. MSNBC is still running the clip on its own site — but, if anyone had any sort of DMCA claim on the video, one would think it would be MSNBC… not NOM. So, then, is NOM abusing the DMCA takedown process, in demanding an entire video (most of which is not its content) be taken down? Seems like you (or, say, the EFF) could make a pretty strong case for that…
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Should Boston College Linux users be looking over their shoulders?
In his application, the investigating officer asked that he be permitted to seize the student’s computers and other personal effects because they might yield evidence of the crimes of “Obtaining computer services by Fraud or Misrepresentation” and “Unauthorized access to a computer system.” Aside from the remarkable overreach by campus and state police in trying to paint a student as suspicious in part because he can navigate a non-Windows computer environment, nothing cited in the warrant application could possibly constitute the cited criminal offenses. There are no assertions that a commercial (i.e. for pay) commercial service was defrauded, a necessary element of any “Obtaining computer services by Fraud or Misrepresentation” allegation. Similarly, the investigating officer doesn’t explain how sending an e-mail to a campus mailing list might constitute “unauthorized access to a computer system.”
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Did you buy extra ammunition after Barack Obama was elected President, and are you still concerned that he might ban your guns? Are you concerned that the economic crisis could devolve into a depression, or worse? Do you think the federal government has overstepped its authority under the Constitution? If so, the government thinks you’re a right-wing extremist and a potential terrorist threat.
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Censorship/Web Abuse
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Beasts Associated were suitably unimpressed by this action and issued a statement (pdf) saying: “As a result of Mr. Reppe behaving in a manner that contravened the terms of the contract, notice of termination of his contract was issued as long ago as the start of December 2008, with the contract due to end on 30 March 2009, once the period of notice expired.
“No objection was submitted in respect of the termination, and no legal action is pending against the termination.”
They also warned Reppe that he should move his domains to another registrar as his domains would be placed “in transit” after March 31.
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“Now is not the time… to engage in a debate about the need for net neutrality obligations,” Time Warner Cable tells the FCC. But why not, other than the fact that TWC is taking a beating over bandwidth caps?
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Amazon has said it will not allow online advertising system Phorm to scan its web pages to produce targeted ads.
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The Commission yesterday began infringement proceedings against the UK over the lack of a regulatory response to BT and Phorm’s secret trials of internet interception and profiling technology in 2006 and 2007. The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) is coordinating the government’s response, which if unsatisfactory could lead to heavy fines from the European Court of Justice.
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Fears that Britain is slipping into a surveillance society have been heightened by Brussels initiating legal action after declaring that UK laws guaranteeing data protection were “structurally flawed” and well below the European standard.
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Copyrights
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Does the CRIA actually think anyone believes that P2P file sharing is the reason for this? I don’t do any file sharing at all, but haven’t set foot in a physical “record store” in years — because I buy all my CDs online (and, yes, I still buy CDs). To claim that the end of physical retailing can be blamed on file sharing is simply ridiculous.
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Obama is whistling the music industry’s tune
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No copyright content is hosted on The Pirate Bay’s web servers; instead the site hosts “torrent” links to TV, film and music files held on its users’ computers.
The file-sharing program BitTorrent, which is a legal piece of file-sharing software, uses the torrent links to manage the transfer of files online between those who have parts of the data and those who need parts of the data.
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Yesterday I wrote about how the media industries abuse language in order to justify their broken business models; today I’d like to complement this by looking at their misuse of numbers.
One of the weapons in the intellectual monopolists’ armoury is citing the economic damage that sharing puportedly causes. What’s remarkable is that the numbers usually quoted – around $250 billion – have been touted for decades, creating a kind of self-referential justification.
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The Author’s Guild v Google suit recently produced a settlement agreement. The agreement has been lauded widely, but what hasn’t gotten as much press is what the agreement says about orphan works — copyrighted works whose author cannot be found, or where it is not clear if the copyright is valid.
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I sympathize with the feeling behind these protests, but they are directed at the wrong target.
The protestors rightly condemn the Authors Guild for demanding the removal of the screen reader feature, but the way they are doing it makes Amazon look like a victim. Actually it is the main perpetrator.
Nelson Pavlosky, Co-founder of Free Culture.org 09 (2005)
Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.
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Posted in Google, Mandriva, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Patents, Red Hat, SLES/SLED at 9:52 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Clarification: If opposition to paying for unspecified software patents per GNU/Linux installation (even in countries that forbid software patents) is an ideal/purity, then The Register still misuses terminology
Scott Gilbertson from The Register has just published a review of SLED 11, but he is mixing together terms and ideas, presumably so as to characterise the Novell problem as one of “purity” or “ideals”. Whether it’s deliberate or not, Gilbertson forgets that very few distributions are considered “pure” in the sense that they comprise truly Free software; the FSF lists less than a dozen such distributions in fact. With Novell, the problem has almost nothing to do with binary versus Free software; it’s mostly about patents, formats, and letting Microsoft inherit (share) partial control of its competition.
Here is the bottom line from Gilbertson’s short review:
The bottom line? We definitely do not recommend SLED for the casual home user or the free-software purists.
The headline states “SLED 11: a distro for businesses, not idealists.”
Adam Williamson (formerly of Mandriva, now of Red Hat) has already corrected Gilbertson in the comments attached to this article. He does not write it on behalf of his employer.
It’s not about idealism. That’s not the point. The idealists run obscure distros because RMS believes the stock kernel is being evil by including binary firmware or whatever the hell he’s on about this week.
The Microsoft / Novell patent deal is fundamentally dangerous to all free software development, because it lends legitimacy to Microsoft’s “we own patents on all this stuff and you can’t touch it” stance. That has nothing whatsoever to do with idealism.
Please get it right.
Yes, it’s about patents. Just a day or so ago, the Utah press announced that Novell had obtained yet another software patent.
Method and apparatus for presenting, searching and viewing directories , patent No. 7,519,575, invented by Michel Shane Simpson and Brett Dee Garrett of Orem, Nathan Blaine Jensen of Spanish Fork and William Donald Peterson III of Provo, assigned to Novell Inc. of Provo.
This is just part of an endless series of software patents which Novell is collecting. Any promises Novell makes with regard to patents are utterly worthless because Novell is likely to be acquired by someone further down the line and its management can change too. Promises are not legal contracts.
Just look how SUSE is being promoted by the Microsoft crowd. Here’s part of a series of posts from Goblin:
In the meantime, he’s blocked Goblin, and I think thats another dubious poster exposed! Ill end on a slightly humorous note, we all know and love Andre Da Costa, another user who decided to block when he couldnt answer questions? It appears even he has had trouble with the Neowin site and its reporters:
“My case was deleted by a Moderator, I have moved on anyway, its in the past. But NeoWin needs to be open to criticism.”
There is a reference there to Andre Da Costa, whom Microsoft bribed with a free laptop because he’s promoting the company all around the Web.
As a side note, and speaking of Microsoft promotion, Miguel de Icaza admires Windows, according to one of our readers (maybe he dual-boots). Also, as we noted before, he created some software that runs on Windows only. “90% of what he shares in his Google Reader thing [is] related to Microsoft technologies,” says our informant whilst we keep seeing articles about Mono that only serve as marketing material for .NET. Mono is also promoting and spreading ASP now.
I know not everything in ASP.Net 2.0 is working in Mono, but its really satisfying to see that the team working on it have implemented the parts that are most interesting to everyday web developers. I’m looking forward to seeing what cool bits the next release of Mono will bring.
Going back to the comments from Gilbertson’s article, we find:
Here’re a few hints:
- GNOME was originally developed by Miguel de Icaza
- Miguel de Icaza then turned into a Microsoft fanboi
- Miguel de Icaza started and spearheaded the MONO project
- The MONO project is sponsored in large part by Novell
And as a bonus:
- Miguel de Icaza worked (at least for a while) at Microsoft.
You put it together. The circle is complete.
As far as we know, Miguel de Icaza never ever worked directly for Microsoft, but his colleague Nat Friedman did, and not just “for a while”. Miguel really wanted to work for Microsoft (he was not able to, but he tried) and he is a fan and acquaintant of LinuxHater. █
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Java, Mono, Novell, SUN at 6:31 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Sun can’t buy Novell; a former Novell engineer fights Mono
It’s hard to take CNET seriously. Megatrolls from CNET tend to include people like Don Reisinger, who generate outrageous headlines just to flame and receive attention. It’s sad to see similar nonsense from Matt Asay. His suggestion is so absurd that it’s hardly worth repeating and Savio Rodrigues has already swept it aside. But it’s the same Savio Rodrigues who said that Microsoft should buy Red Hat. Is this an exercise in thinking or an exercise in trolling?
Why would anyone even conceive a Sun acquisition of Novell? Novell competes against Java, competes against Solaris, and competes even against OpenOffice.org with its fork which seemed to just help Microsoft and OOXML [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7].
In other news, Gnote, which was previously mentioned in [1, 2, 3], has just received some more publicity. The project can assist the eradication of Mono in GNOME.
Ex-Novell developer releases port of Tomboy
A software developer who was sacked by Novell in the first quarter of this year has begun porting Tomboy, one of two Mono-dependent applications which is part of the GNOME desktop, to C++/Gtkmm.
Hubert Figuiere , who is based in Canada, says this has nothing to do with Mono at all, though he is admittedly not a fan of the .NET clone which has been developed by Novell vice-president Miguel de Icaza.
The port of Tomboy is called Gnote.
If widespread adoption of Gnote is a success, this may become a sign of changing tide. █
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Posted in Antitrust, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Oracle, Patents, SUN at 5:47 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Newly-leaked internal document shows how Microsoft makes money from GNU/Linux (software patents)
THIS IS PART of a very long series (seemingly endless) about Comes vs Microsoft. Today’s exhibit, Exhibit px07062 (2002/2003) [PDF], is a detailed explanation from Gary Schare of the Windows Digital Media Division about the fight against GNU/Linux in content delivery networks. This follows a review that involved Jim Allchin, who was at the time convinced that Microsoft was losing to GNU/Linux [1, 2].
From Mr. Schare, here is the summary of Microsoft’s problem:
If Microsoft does not address the enterprise need for content delivery networks, it will:
* See large scale deployment of Linux-based caching appliances and servers that will also pull through or attach to Linux/Solaris-based content management, storage and Oracle database solutions.
* Risk losing our 69% Windows Media usage share in the enterprise to MPEG-4. CDN product vendors who now pay a royalty to Microsoft to license the Windows Media protocol on non-Windows platforms (our only revenue in the value chain.)
* Leave a significant portion of the eCDN value chain to other software vendors Even if all eCDN vendors move to Windows servers today, it is the management/distribution application layer that commands the premium in the overall cost of the solution. Microsoft is not on a path to participate in this portion of the value chain.
From the formal proposal:
By having no strategy, Microsoft abrogates server operating system market share to Linux and relinquishes incremental software revenue to vendors delivering the management intelligence software that is the premium in the CDN value chain. We also may lose our digital media format leadership if CDN vendors move to standard formats (such as MPEG-4)to avoid paying Microsoft a protocol royalty to serve Windows Media content from non-Windows platforms.
Microsoft is using codec tax (Microsoft-encumbered codecs like those found in Silverlight) to elevate the cost of GNU/Linux, essentially through software patents. As TomTom showed, Microsoft uses FAT to market or advance embedded Windows and to tax those who use Linux. It’s something to bear in mind when culling Mono out.
Moreover, says this document from Microsoft:
* eCDN/CDN/caching product vendors running on non-Windows platforms, such as Cisco (Linux) & NetApp (proprietary), currently pay Microsoft a royalty for licensing Windows Media protocols, allowing them to stream WM content in dedicated caching appliances (DCA) This royalty is roughly equivalent to the cost of Windows 2000 Server. Inktomi solutions run on Solaris and Linux, although they’re preparing to roll out a Windows-based solution.
* The only Windows-based solution comes from infolibria, a small company in which Microsoft recently made a small strategic investment, Infolibria, has little market share or momentum as they have no influence with IT decision makers and little if any market differentiation..
* eCDN/CDN/caching product vendors are producing sophisticated management software that not only pushes content to the edge, but also provides policy management, data repair, comprehensive logging and reporting, and integration with billing and ecommerce applications. This software is commanding a premium in the CDN value chain. For example, a feature-laden edge server commands $15k to $30k of which MS received about $1k in either server OS revenue or protocol license royalty.
* CDN service providers such as Akamai, Digital Island and iBeam are also (and for the same reasons as the product vendors) shifting their focus to include the enterprise intranet/extranet offerings. Many are developing solutions deployable inside the firewall in addition to their Internet hosting solutions Virtually all of the 20,000 servers used by Internet CDN’s (including 16,000 by Akamai alone) are Linux or Solaris based (Only about 1000 are Windows-based Windows Media servers.)
More about codec tax:
Microsoft can stave off major competitive threats to Microsoft strategic initiatives and generate significant incremental revenue by delivering a software platform for intelligently managing content delivery across the network (public or private). Delivering an eCDN solution will ensure Windows server and Windows Media format adoption while at the same time preempting large scale deployment of Linux and MPEG-4 in the enterprise.
Notice the fear of GNU/Linux:
Strategic Threat
If Microsoft does not address the enterprise needs for content delivery networks, it will:
* See large scale deployment of Linux-based caching appliances and servers that will also pull through or attach to Linux/Solaris-based content management, storage and Oracle database solutions.
* Risk losing our 69% Windows Media usage share in the enterprise5 to MPEG-4 CDN product vendors who now pay a royalty to Microsoft to license the Windows Media protocol on non-Windows platforms (our only revenue in the value chain.) If this becomes too costly for vendors and enterprise customers–who by the way are dumping Real Networks on the Intranet due to cost6–they could simply dump us in favor of the inferior but maturing MPEG-4 standard. (The issue of an enterprise-deployable MPEG-4 player will be solved in the short term, probably by RN.)
* Leave a significant portion of the eCDN value chain to other software vendors.Even if all eCDN vendors move to Windows servers today, it is the management/distribution application layer that commands the premium in the overall cost of the solution. Microsoft is not on a path to participate in this portion of the value chain.
* Fail to participate in a potentially large market, estimated to include 80% of enterprises by 20067.
Revenue
The forecast CAGR (2005) of the combined worldwide eCDN market is $1.3 B, consisting of:
* $1.079 B for eCDN products, including hardware and software
* $239 M for eCDN services on the Intranet and Extranet
Examples of Enterprise customers deploying eCDN solutions include Sears (600 Inktomi/Linux servers), Merck (170 Cisco/Linux servers), Allstate (Between 4 and 15K NetApp appliances depending on final architecture), and AT&T (900 InfolibriaJWin2k or Inktomi/Linux).
The exhibit in full — as text — can be read below. █
Appendix: Comes vs. Microsoft – exhibit px07062, as text
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Courtroom, Free/Libre Software, Law, Microsoft, OSI at 3:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A quick look at stories that may impact Free software at a lesser technical level
GLYN Moody and the OSI spoke about patents very recently. A context in which their arguments ought to be seen is this post from Carlo Piana. The short story is that the OSI needs to develop principles of strong resistance to software patents, or else it might accommodate open source licences that are poisonous and mutually hostile.
Fortunately, as other news is suggesting, patent filings decline.
The first chart below shows a time series for the percentage of continuation applications and RCE filings as compared to the total UPR filings (Utility, Plant, and Re-Issue applications). Remember here, that for most PTO statistics, RCE filings are counted as a utility application. According to this data, 27.6% of all of the UPR filings thus far in FY09 are RCEs – continuing a steady trend of of rising RCE filings. (Note – the RCE data also includes historical data for CPA and R129 filings).
[...]
In the title of this post, I link the economic downturn with the downturn in patent filings. Some may also link the drop in patent filings with other recent events that may drop the allure of a patent application – namely, KSR v. Teleflex; eBay v. MercExchange; Bilski; Seagate; the prospect of further patent reform; the Second Pair of Eyes review; 750,000 backlog of unexamined patents; and the 26 month average pendency before the first OA.
A decline in the acquisition of patents does not necessarily mean decline in litigation and patent trolls.
Even Microsoft may manage to escape the wrath of software patents in the Alcatel-Lucent case [1, 2, 3, 4], but it’s hardly hesitant to sue other companies using software patents (including Linux). Here is one new report.
Microsoft scored a win in its long-running patent dispute with Alcatel-Lucent on Monday, when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled that Alcatel-Lucent’s claims on a disputed patent were invalid. A year ago, a jury awarded Alcatel-Lucent $358 million on the finding that Microsoft had infringed the patent, which deals with touch-screen form entry. Microsoft appealed.
Todd Bishop covered this as well. On a somewhat related note, as we showed before, the BSA has some personal roots (maybe genesis) in Bill Gates' dad, at least in part, in terms of connections. Watch this latest private outrage caused by the BSA, which is hostile towards Free software [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]:
[C]onsider this email with the subject line “BSA Launches Faces of Piracy Campaign” (BSA = Business Software Alliance), reproduced on this blog post:
We’ve all been following the events of the past week of the pirates off the Horn of Africa. Piracy takes many forms, some more violent than others. I wanted to let you know that the Business Software Alliance is launching a new campaign today “Faces of Internet Piracy” that shows the real-life impact of software piracy–from hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines to jail time.
This callous linking of life-threatening events off the coast of Africa, with digital copyright infringement, which doesn’t even involve the loss of material objects, since perfect copies can be produced without affecting the original, is cynical in the extreme. It shows to what depths the BSA has sunk if it is able to equate the two.
It was also covered by Mike Masnick.
SA Tries To Exploit Somali Piracy News In PR Campaign Against Software Sharing
[...]
We already wrote about how ridiculous it is to compare Somali high seas pirates with music, movie and software fans downloading an unauthorized copy of something off the internet — and even the press is starting to question the wisdom of calling unauthorized file sharing “piracy.” Yet, that hasn’t stopped the BSA, masters of misleading through questionable stats from ramping up a marketing campaign that purposely tries to compare software file sharers with Somali pirates.
This is said in reference to Somalia, but over in Kenya, Microsoft seems to be calling GNU/Linux "piracy". █
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Posted in Microsoft, Security, Windows at 3:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
• One in ten PCs still vulnerable to Conficker exploit
Data from enterprise users of Sophos’s Endpoint Assessment Test, which checks the state of Windows PC patching and anti-virus protection, suggest 11 per cent of users have failed to install the MS08-067 patch that guards against the vulnerability exploited by Conficker. The figures come from scans run since the start of the year.
• Forget Conficker, there’s a new threat driving past your computer!
Security warnings about the impending Conficker worm attacks on computers around the globe have been with us for a while now, and as iTWire reported just a few days ago, while the predicted apocalypse didn’t engulf the world after all, the worm’s still out there. But, be warned, we’re now in the midst of a new security threat of large-scale proportions, according to Kapersky!
• Cyber Wars: Turn out the lights, the party’s over
Is the power grid under cyberattack? U.S. spooks say yes. Better hunker down before Russia or China pulls the plug.
This relates to a recent post about the power grid. There is also Mikeyy, which is covered here.
Twitter was hit with at least three different worm attacks that started Saturday and continued into Sunday, the micro-blogging service acknowledged as it promised users it would review its coding practices.
Michael “Mikeyy” Mooney, the 17-year-old creator of the StalkDaily Twitter-copycat site, has admitted creating the worms.
More information can be found in:
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