05.24.09
Posted in Free/Libre Software, Microsoft, Patents at 1:43 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft spins its patent battle against Linux as a positive thing
Microsoft’s patent propaganda textbook is making the rounds and it has just landed on another publication that spouts the Microsoft party line regarding software patents:
Microsoft changed its strategy, opted to collaborate
COLLABORATING with competitors is the way to do business in the fast-changing atmosphere of the early 21st century.
At least that’s what Microsoft Corp. decided over the past decade, according to a new book co-written by the software giant’s vice president for intellectual-property policy and strategy.
It’s not collaboration, it’s simply “racketeering” as Mark Shuttleworth put it on numerous occasions [1, 2]. The above author/reviewer spin this just like Ars Technica did some days ago. Regarding that same article from Ars Technica, Pamela Jones at Groklaw wrote: “This is the same mistake Microsoft has been making for years, thinking it can make the GPL disappear or submit to neutering surgery so it doesn’t multiply. It is what it is, the most popular FOSS license ever, and it will not be going away, so I would suggest a return to the drawing board. Microsoft doesn’t get to decide the license on other people’s work, after all, and so any interoperability strategy has to include figuring out interoperability with the GPL. There is a lot in this book that I would challenge, if I thought it mattered, but other than pointing out the recent lack of cooperation with ODF illustrating Microsoft’s true attitude toward cooperation, suffice it to say I view the book as an IP guy justifying a patent strategy he came up with that cost a lot and now probably won’t pay out, post In Re Bilski.”
There is nothing pleasant or fair about this system of monopolies and it has even led one group or person to creating the “Intellectual Property Asshole Competition.” From Friday:
Roth has launched his “Intellectual Property Asshole Competition” where he is selling, via his website, hand-painted version of both the Mannie Garcia/AP photo and Shepard Fairey’s poster… and will see who is the first to send him a cease and desist. While we never think it’s a good idea to infringe for the sake of infringement, this ought to be fun to watch.
Although it’s about copyrights in this case, patents too pose an issue in other areas. How about this new report which says that “Toshiba licenses patents essential for meeting DVD format specifications”?
How does that facilitate collaboration or competition? It’s about limiting them. █
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Posted in America, Asia, Microsoft at 1:14 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The importance of technological independence is demonstrated by Microsoft’s latest nationalist move
CUBA gradually moves to GNU/Linux and Microsoft may not like it much. But at a higher level there is also an embargo and fear, so it’s only natural to expect limited cooperation across the borders.
McCain was willing to make Steve Ballmer his ambassador in China (if elected) and Yahoo, like Microsoft, was cooperating with the Chinese government much to the dismay of some US politicians. Now there is this:
• Microsoft blocks Messenger in US-embargoed countries
This issue is a very odd one: it’s not clear that Microsoft was ordered to make this change, so what made the company decide that US-embargoed countries aren’t worthy of Messenger? Why now? To my knowledge, other Microsoft applications and websites still work (and if they don’t, it likely isn’t Microsoft doing the blocking), so what makes Messenger special? It’s actually quite disappointing that a large company as influential as Microsoft would make such a controversial move: Messenger is a medium for communication, and the citizens of these countries should not be punished from such a basic tool because the US has problems with their governments’ policies.
• Microsoft cuts IM service to five ‘hostile’ nations
Users in Cuba, Syria, Iran, Sudan and North Korea no longer have access to Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger
[...]
Microsoft wouldn’t comment on why it chose to shut down the service at this time, or how long people in those countries had been able to access Windows Live Messenger. Microsoft said it does not currently do business with those countries.
Here is the discussion in Slashdot and the Microsoft-oriented Neowin or Mary-Jo’s blog. More information can be found in:
They might pretend that it’s just a glitch, but the lack of comment from Microsoft more or less refutes this. Here is a real glitch from the news:
Microsoft Warns Of SharePoint 2007 SP2 Glitch
Microsoft has discovered a major bug in Office SharePoint Server 2007 Service Pack 2 that renders SharePoint inaccessible after 180 days, and the company says it’s working on a hotfix.
Who ever said that software has no nationalist aspects to it? That, among other reasons, is why taking control of one’s computing is important (no proprietary software, no Fog Computing). IT independence can be even more vital at times of active confrontation. Some days ago we wrote about kill switches. █
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Security at 12:55 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: SEAdmin gets hit by the Mono fever
IT MAY not be so hard to protect Linux from malicious attacks, but it becomes hard to protect it from Novell, Microsoft, and Mono. This triplet is self-beneficial and it works to the detriment of others. One of our readers warned about what he called “Mono intrusion”, pointing to this new thread. “‘SElinux GUI’ requires mono as [a] dependency,” he explains. Stefano added that “it’s just the admin panel [...] the SELinux admin GUI [is] in Mono.”
For future reference:
Hi All…
I download a package call SEAdmin (new SELinux GUI) and it seems that I required mono for running it.
Since I am very fresh to Fedora, my question is how to install/download mono
Why should Mono be required for this GUI? █
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, OLPC, Ubuntu at 12:37 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A reader’s article about Computer Aid International
SEE this registered charity, they donate ‘free’ computers to the third world. Except they charge a ‘handling’ fee of £42.00 per PC plus shipping charge of £72 per PC. That’s £19,705 for a 40ft container. This is surprising as they get the PCs for free and the refurbishment is done by people on the dole, who are paid £10.00 a day expenses. It doesn’t sound very free to me. According to this, “We charge a handling fee of £42 plus shipping per computer to recover our costs.”
So, on the day, the average worker would refurbish 5 to 10 PCs (yes), so that’s £204 worth of computers at £10 a time for the worker. It’s not as if this money is going on the workers. Most of it is going on the salaries of the 22 staff members, who never put in an appearance in the workshop.
Looking around the site, there are other important details. For example: “Computer Aid International is, however, a Microsoft Authorised Refurbisher, which allows us to install a Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP licensed operating system only at a cost of £10.00 per machine.”
“It shows up the ‘charity’ sector and what are they doing charging for Ubuntu.”Get a load of this, they charge £10 a time for installing Ubuntu GNU/Linux: “We can also provide Ubuntu Linux and Open Office open source software (operating system and applications). If supplied on CD-ROM this is free. To pre-install on hard drives we charge £10.00 per PC. Please ask if you require this service.”
It shows up the ‘charity’ sector, so what are they doing charging for Ubuntu? I have just done some Googling and they do seem to be very lukewarm on anything that isn’t Microsoft. See this report where CAI and ZDnet tested GNU/Linux on low-specifications machines and the ASUS comes out better than the OLPC. In their report [PDF] they say: “it was the slowest of all tested systems, and the operating system didn’t include software for spreadsheet or video playing.” But this is simply not true, as this article points out.
Our reader could recall them criticising the OLPC, as one of their officers said OLPC wasn’t suitable for the third world etc. And indeed, in ZDNet it said: “The One Laptop Per Child, or OLPC, plan is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the history of the IT industry, according to Tony Roberts, chief executive and founder of U.K. charity Computer Aid International.”
“It’s like he got his material directly from Redmond,” says our reader. █
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Posted in Marketing, Microsoft, Patents, Red Hat at 12:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A contributing reader’s take on what Microsoft means by “innovation”
Microsoft’s latest lesson in the harms of software patents involved a small company. Here is another article that a reader sent to us regarding it:
Privately-held i4i Inc. said that several years ago it approached the world’s largest software company with a breakthrough product in data processing, only to be spurned and to see its technology show up later in versions of Microsoft Word.
[...]
At its peak a few years ago, the firm employed 52 staff, but the poor economy has whittled that number down to 20 today
This seems like a familiar storyline that helps falsify the charade of “Microsoft Research”. Last week we showed why it is charade. Our reader thusly explains Microsoft “innovation”:
01. Enter into talks with a tech company with a view to buying/licensing their technology
02. Ask for a look see at detailed technical specs
03. Drag out the review process and then cancel the project
04. Copy their stuff into the next version of Windows
05. By which time the company has gone broke. Except it they aren’t yet broke
06. And they sue, drag it out it court, until they do go broke
07. Except if they still aren’t broke, settle out of court, under a NDA
In relation to this, our reader cites this old post from a Red Hat employee. It is titled “Dear Steve” (Ballmer).
I know you are quite concerned that Red Hat is not showing due respect for your (unidentified) patents, but it strikes me as a little rich that you or Microsoft should be lecturing anyone on the proper respect for the patents of others given all of the following parties that believe that Microsoft does not respect their patents:
[...]
By now you should be getting the picture. That isn’t to say all of these complaints have or had merit, and I’m sure some have been resolved. It’s just that someone who wants to talk so much about respecting intellectual property should do a little respecting himself, don’t you think?
Just a few days ago came this press release about two wealthy companies, H-P and Microsoft, swapping their patents again. And that’s what the patent game is really about — super-wealthy companies putting together their collective monopolies to exclude smaller competition from the market. Both Dell and H-P signed patent deals with Microsoft just before a legal assault against Linux (also whilst vending it) and around this latest announcement of cross-licensing we also find (yes, around the very same time!) this press release and some accompanying coverage:
it’s all about ‘privileged’ companies, those that are easier to collude with and harder to exploit. Who is this patent system for? █
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Posted in Courtroom, Interview, Mail, Marketing, Meeting, NetWare, Novell, SCO, UNIX, Videos at 12:03 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Pretty boring week for Novell, but for those looking for events, here is an overview
SCO
LIKE MANY recent weeks, the past week has been exceptionally quiet, but we managed to find minor news involving Novell. Groklaw was apparently the only site that has kept track of the SCO case over the past week. There are two short articles about it:
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05.23.09
Posted in GNU/Linux, Hardware, Novell, Xandros at 11:42 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A quick look at the latest news involving SLE* and Xandros
SUSE (SLES/SLED)
SUSE is incorporated into a variety of products and one of its merits is great flexibility that Novell routinely brags about. Here is an article about SUSE Studio:
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Intellectual Monopoly, Novell, OpenSUSE at 11:27 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Roundup of OpenSUSE news
IT has been a very quiet week for the OpenSUSE project. Some people wrote about their experience running it. For example:
i. openSUSE 11.1: My Personal Advantages over Ubuntu 9.04 & Fedora 10 (and a few tips!)
To sum it up, during the course of the last two days, I have been deciding between Fedora 10 & openSUSE 11.1. I tried Fedora a few times in the past and I noted that doing something simply like installing Flash was a bit too complicated over Ubuntu so I kept Ubuntu for a while.
ii. Mission Linux………..
OpenSUSE Now Running with KDE 3.5 in my system. Didn’t install KDE 4.0 as it looked a bit too much of stuff for me….
OpenSUSE got some respect from KDE for work it has done, including the recent new release that incorporates the latest KDE4. Novell employees do some good work on Kopete and other programs.
The first openSUSE Community Week took place on the 11-17 May 2009 and as an important part of the distribution, the geeko-loving KDE community were actively involved.
There were some HOWTOs out there and a short discussion about iFolder. Zonker defends trademarks (which would include OpenSUSE, being an exclusive property of his employer, Novell) and more gems can probably be found in these weekly news, the latest part of which comprises:
* Community Week
* Pascal Bleser : vnstat on openSUSE
* SUSE Linux Enterprise in the Americas: KDE: Social Desktop Starts to Arrive
* Forums: Why Are We Not Helping More in the Wiki?
* compiz-fusion.org: Beryl back from the ashes
A lot more was happening with SUSE. █
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