Bonum Certa Men Certa

Ubuntu Removes Codec Patent Trap, But What About Mono?

Towed away



Summary: The AAC encoder is taken off Ubuntu repositories, but other, more troubling software stays, despite clear warnings from Microsoft

CANONICAL has begun cleaning up a bit around its repositories, but what about Mono and Moonlight? They pose similar problems. Jeremy Allison has suggested that Ubuntu should put Mono in the "restricted" repositories [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. Here is what Ubuntu does with the AAC encoder.



Problems with the licensing of the faac library could lead to it having to be removed from Ubuntu's distribution or moved to the "restricted" repositories where license encumbered codecs are kept. Libfaac is used to encode audio into the AAC format, which is used alongside a range of video formats to provide a soundtrack.


We previously explained how Apple and Microsoft were promoting the use of proprietary codecs with a lot of software patents in them.

In other news that ought to matter, OOXML continues to suffer from software patents, with McKool Smith taking a leading role, sometimes as a front for patent trolls [1, 2, 3, 4].

The folks at Microsoft Corp. have to be more than a little ticked at Mike McKool and his law firm.

In the last year, McKool Smith PC has won nearly $400 million in two patent infringement victories against the Redmond, Wash., software giant. It just filed a third suit, hoping for more of the same.


Last week we wrote about Microsoft losing its chance to appeal in the i4i case [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]. This is now being covered in many news sites, such as the following:



It is worth adding that Microsoft's Marshall Phelps, who was among the engineers of the patent war against GNU/Linux and Free software, is joining the board of ipCapital Group, which seems like some form of a company that derives revenue from taxing the industry with intellectual monopolies and lawyer fees.

ipCapital Group, Inc. (ipcg.com), one of the nation's leading intellectual property (IP) strategy consulting and licensing firms, is proud to announce that Marshall C. Phelps, Jr., former Corporate Vice President, Deputy General Counsel for Intellectual Property and Licensing at Microsoft, has joined the firm as a member of the Board of Directors. Mr. Phelps is a leading figure in the field of intellectual property management and execution and pioneered many of its foremost strategies to unprecedented results while leading IP business and related activities at IBM and Microsoft.


We wrote about the subject of Marshall Phelps in [1, 2, 3]. He wrote an entire book to defend Microsoft's attack on GNU/Linux using software patents. To use a new example, here is how ridiculous the US patent system has become:

Redden told jurors that at first examiners rejected Ballard's patent application, both on initial examination and at reexam, citing check-scanning technology dating back as far as 1981.

"So Mr. Ballard amended his application to add the idea of encryption, and he got his patent," Redden said. Ballard's patent survived the reexam, Redden added, because it had one additional feature—encrypting a two-digit ID number on the back of a check.


Apple is now suing Android/Linux [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] with Microsoft's support [1, 2]. What about all the ideas Apple is taking from other companies?

Today I was at Williams Coffee Pub, eating a delicous bagel with garlic flavoured cream cheese and enjoying my coffee. I happened to stumble upon some interesting news around Apple and OpenPandora. The issue is over something called the "iControlPad" which was an add-on for the iPhone which made it easier to play games on the device. Apple decided it was a worthy enough invention that it decided to put a patent on it. That's correct folks, Apple stole someone else's invention (iControlPad.com). This isn't news if you know about Xerox though ;)


Typical Apple. And Apple -- like Microsoft -- is now bullying its #1 competitor using software patents.

"We've always been shameless about stealing great ideas."

--Steve Jobs, Apple



“As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours.”

--Bill Gates

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Compromised by NVIDIA Proprietary Library
Meanwhile in Boston there are "[r]oundtable talk with FSF volunteers (both in-person and online)"
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
 
Watch the FSF Party Live (via Livestream)
It's in WebM format, which is widely supported by now
Advocacy of Software Freedom Changed, LUGs Became Less Relevant
The way we see it, support groups like LUGs sort of outlived their usefulness when it became easier to install GNU/Linux
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
When Microsoft "Integrates" Something With "AI" It Means It's Losing Money and Is Generally Hopeless
how did Bing fare after 36 months of LLM slop being hyped up as "replacement" for search?
Most Certificates Don't Improve Security, They Mostly Increase Downtime (for No Good Reason)
The 'Gemini sites' (capsules) are a growing force
The statCounter Site Has Data Integrity Problems
Maybe we'll get back to statCounter when its data becomes more "stable" again
10 Ways to Combat Software Patents
software patents are loathed also by proprietary software developers
"Just a Little Bit of Meat..."
Free software "absolutism" is not a radical stance, more so if the only "radical" belief the user possesses is that he or she must be in control of his or her software, and by extension his or her computer
Red Hat is Ignoring the Free Software Community, It's a "Fortune 1000" Vendor
Red Hat's blog also participates a lot in promoting of Wall Street's latest pump-and-dump "AI" scheme
Free Software Foundation Party Has Begun
We shall be focusing a lot on software patents today
Former Head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Lina Khan Knows Whatever Microsoft Touches Will Die
Just like Skype (as recently as months ago) [...] When Microsoft grabs things, or when it buys things, it almost never ends well
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About LibreOffice in Austria and Wine 10.16
very short
Links 04/10/2025: "attempted Coup" Noted in Facebook, Russia Kills Journalists via Drones
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Anesthesia and Baudpunk
Links for the day
Links 04/10/2025: "Privacy Harm Is Harm", Criticism Outlawed in US
Links for the day
Garmin Uses Linux for Some of the Garmin Products, Now It's Sued by Strava Using Software Patents
Software patents should never have been granted in the first place
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day