06.18.10
Posted in Europe, Free/Libre Software, IBM, Microsoft, Patents, Standard at 5:54 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Groups in Europe fight over the definitions of “open source” and “open standards”; meanwhile, “Free/libre software” is being left out of this conversation
THE EUROPEAN Commission made some disappointing statements recently [1, 2], probably and reportedly after being lobbied by Microsoft front groups like ACT (Jonathan Zuck’s current shell). For some background, see older posts such as:
- European Open Source Software Workgroup a Total Scam: Hijacked and Subverted by Microsoft et al
- Microsoft’s AstroTurfing, Twitter, Waggener Edstrom, and Jonathan Zuck
- Does the European Commission Harbour a Destruction of Free/Open Source Software Workgroup?
- The Illusion of Transparency at the European Parliament/Commission (on Microsoft)
- 2 Months and No Disclosure from the European Parliament
- After 3 Months, Europe Lets Microsoft-Influenced EU Panel be Seen
- Formal Complaint Against European Commission for Harbouring Microsoft Lobbyists
- ‘European’ Software Strategy Published, Written by Lobbyists and Multinationals
- Microsoft Uses Inside Influence to Grab Control, Redefine “Open Source”
- With Friends Like These, Who Needs Microsoft?
According to this new report, the Commission is still being bamboozled by Microsoft lobbyists:
European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes today (19 May) unveiled her strategy to create a “virtuous and self-replicating digital economy”. The five-year plan concentrates on infrastructure for high-speed Internet and fostering a borderless market for online music and film.
[...]
Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association of Competitive Technologies, stated: “Developing European digital services and products is crucial. European SMEs are not only users but often pioneers in developing new and original services which are critical for EU employment, competitiveness and growth. If we talk about our digital future, then innovative SMEs have to be a focal point. Policies should protect users and consumers, but also promote the innovative creators behind successful technologies.”
It is sad to see that the door is left open to lobbying groups that masquerade as fronts for SMBs whilst actually promoting monopolies that fund them.
The president of the FFII points to this new document from the EU Commission [PDF], saying that the EC stands for software patents in standards by arguing “There should be no bias in favour or against royalty free standards” and using the undefined FRAND term by writing: “IPR to all third parties on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms”
According to Red Hat’s opensource.com, the term “open standard” loses its meaning (partly due to lobbying). To quote:
Debate over the definition of an “open standard” has become a contentious one. Gerloff proposes that, “For a standard to be open, it is key that it can be implemented by anyone, anywhere, without asking for permission.” This perspective was largely reflected in the European Interoperability Framework v.1 (2004), but appears to have been abandoned in a leaked second version in October, 2009. “That was a key moment, when we saw how strong the lobby on the proprietary side is in Brussels,” Gerloff said.
Peter Brown (from OASIS, not the FSF) has also just made a somewhat hostile remark about “open source”:
It will also be important in the debate on the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) to assess the real value of open source as distinct from open standards. Whereas open standards contribute very positively to the IT eco-system, I personally believe there is much misunderstanding surrounding open source: even if ‘open’, increasingly complex code, often poorly maintained and under the aegis of a singly consultancy firm, can often create greater ‘lock-in’ and dependency than reliable, well-documented, licensed and known commercial software.
OASIS, the patron of ODF, made an encouraging statement about the subject of patents (not contradicting IBM's attitude towards software patents), but it is not to be viewed as a supporter of software freedom. OASIS is not supported by companies with such interests (IBM is the first member listed). To give one very recent example, see what IBM’s Rob Weir wrote about the FSF’s “4 freedoms” and presented some days ago. Here is slide 8 of this new presentation [PDF]:
IBM keeps many of its crown jewels proprietary and it then raves about standards, obviously at the expense of software freedom. The screenshot above is part of several slides that demonstrate IBM’s attitude.
As we emphasised and showed many times before, IBM promotes the patenting of software. IBM brags about not only sending jobs to places where it’s cheaper (good for shareholders) but also amassing patents (monopolies), based on this new press release:
Since 1995, IBM employees in Massachusetts were awarded 2,950 patents.
Amongst IBM’s patents there was the attempt to have a monopoly on offshoring. The PR above is intended to send the opposite impression to the public in the US (jobs creation in Massachusetts).
Speaking of companies that drape themselves in “open source” while amassing software patents, how about Gear6? A couple of days ago we found this in The Register:
Gear6 fell on hard times, and a liquidation filing was reported in late April. Now Violin Memory has bought its technology assets, saying: “The venture funded Gear6 portfolio includes over 30 customers and multiple patents related to NFS Caching and Memcached.”
It doesn’t matter who applies for software patents. Such patents can change hands and sometimes end up being auctioned away to patent trolls [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. The only real solution is to eliminate software patents. More to come in the next post… █
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Posted in Apple, FUD, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Windows at 5:00 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Windows is very fragmented and so is Apple, based on simple evidence
SEVERAL days ago we debunked the notion that GNU/Linux suffers from fragmentation (there is only one Linux) and showed that both Apple and Microsoft are just as ‘fragmented’ as (if not more fragmented than) GNU/Linux.
The latest reminder of Apple fragmentation is this hilarious comic. Watch it. It’s wonderful.
When it comes to Microsoft’s mobile platforms, we have many posts about the fragmentation there. It doesn’t take long to realise that it’s a sordid operating systems mess, but Mary Jo Foley actually made an attempt at counting them. From a new article titled “Microsoft rolls out yet another mobile OS”:
Meanwhile, ZDNet’s Mary-Jo Foley noted that Microsoft now offered at least six different (and confusing) operating systems for mobile phones and devices.
Well, now we can use the “fragmentation” slur against Apple and against Microsoft. Wouldn’t that be a reversal? By endless repetition they associated fragmentation with “Linux”. █
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Posted in Boycott Novell, FSF, Intellectual Monopoly, Microsoft, Novell, Patents at 4:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Advocacy of freedom seen as “negative” by so-called ‘pragmatists’ who chose to serve Novell
The former community manager of OpenSUSE (who left Novell some months ago) continues an old tradition. Sometimes he lies about the FSF and sometimes he only daemonises. There are other Novell employees who do this, including Microsoft MVPs who still work for the company.
“Joe Brockmeier Has a Bad Day,” argues Pogson in response to this new piece.
He declares the campaigning of the Free Software Foundation for Free Software is negative and must change.
Talk about a narrow point of view. The FSF must advocate for Free Software. That is its purpose. There is nothing negative about requiring software to be able to be run, examined, modified and distributed under a global and popular licence. There is a battle raging with the forces who would take freedom away. It is necessary to have sentries guarding the boundaries. It is necessary to have leaders rally the troops.
Brockmeier would have us believe that open source is good enough, or something. It is not clear what he wants. I see FLOSS as widely accepted and growing constantly in share of usage. What does he see? Negativity!
Need criticism be forbidden? It was only a week ago that we last wrote about this subject, having written about it extensively in 2009 [1, 2].
Here are two more responses to Brockmeier’s piece:
i. Shooting The Messenger
There’s been another round of criticism on various blogs of the FSF’s media campaigns to draw people’s attention to the harm that not respecting software users freedom does. But the FSF’s campaigns explaining why Microsoft and Apple’s failure to respect users freedom is harmful have been successful in getting out the message that alternatives are needed. In the mainstream press as well as in the tech and tech culture media.
The FSF’s critics are ignoring the fact that most of the FSF’s work consists not only of the positive promotion of the idea of free software, but in practically supporting and protecting its creation and use.
ii. More Anti-Free Software Spin
Secondly, the lead anti-FSF person is – surprise, surprise – Joe “Zonker” Brockmeier, who not only is consistently confused[1] about the FSF, he’s also amusingly fond of distorting FSF claims to try to make them appear like they support his position.
Mr. Brockmeier’s writings on the FSF reveal a misunderstanding so deep and profound of the FSF and its mission that I have a hard time accepting it is honest. It starts at the very first sentence, where Mr. Brockmeier falsely implies the FSF has no “positive way to push for software freedom” and continues to the very end, where Mr. Brockmeier idiotically implies that the FSF is not at the “center” of “folks concerned with protecting software freedom”.
Another example: Mr. Brockmeier’s ignorance (or maliciousness, take your pick) is revealed when he insinuates that RMS is “taking the FSF out of the game” by telling users not to use Saas, without mentioning that the FSF is in fact developing alteratives like GNU Social and LibrePlanet.
We won’t address the article from Brockmeier simply because 3 other people have done this already. There is no need for more rebuttals and some people would characterise this as a “personal attack”.
In more important news, “FSF Starts Anti-ACTA Campaign,” says Slashdot. We have included more references about it in our daily links.
My presentation will not be a very technical one but instead will be an analysis of where we are and where we are going. I will start by speaking of the economic and political context in which ACTA is being discussed. Then, I will give an overview of elements of EU IP enforcement legislation that is related to the ACTA text and that is at the centre of EU legislative debate. Finally, and most importantly, I will reflect upon the movement critical of ACTA and similar measures of IP enforcement the strategic options, coalition building, contradictions, strongpoints and pitfalls.
Florian Müller drew our attention to his comment about it. He speaks about the impact of ACTA on software patents. “Just thought I’d mention because the thing about EU responsibility for patents being included may be an angle of interest to you next time you write about ACTA,” he told us. From his comment:
My concern about ACTA is not related to copyright law but to its effect on patents. Copyright law is practically always infringed by intent, while patent infringement in the field of software is in most cases inadvertent (that’s the most fundamental problem I have with software patents). It would be desirable to introduce into patent law, at least in connection with software, an independent invention defense. However, ACTA in the version I saw might do quite the opposite, treating a patent infringer as a “pirate” once he is made aware of an infringement (for an example, by a cease-and-desist letter). That’s unreasonable and unjust in my view.
Here is the feedback from Pogson and from a former MEP. Nobody except Hollywood and other monopolists seems to like ACTA. In fact, everyone hates it. It’s part of the class war. There are loads of links here for those who wish to read further about the subject.
One reader drew our attention to this insulting article from The Register. It calls the FSF “freetards” (right in the headline) and our reader mailed us the following screenshot from the article to show how they are being daemonised where Microsoft is glorified.
Here is a better article about the FSF’s action:
Richard Stallman and the Free Software Federation have issued a call to arms for the free software movement to mobilise against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) currently being negotiated.
In an extended posting on the FSF web site Stallman [pictured] called on people around the world to sign a declaration calling for severe limits on the powers being proposed in ACTA, or better yet the scrapping of the entire treaty currently being hammered out by politicians and industry.
“Those politicians serve the big music and movie companies,” he wrote.
The Inquirer says that the “Free Software Foundation calls for ACTA fight”
In a statement, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) said that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) treaty is designed to attack the rights of computer users in some 40-odd countries.
“ACTA threatens, in a disguised way, to punish Internet users with disconnection if they are accused of sharing, and requires countries to prohibit software that can break DRM,” the FSF statement said.
The FSF clearly fights for people’s rights. So why the hostility from those whose rights the FSF is defending? It’s rather absurd. █
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Posted in Microsoft, Mono, OpenSUSE at 4:07 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Infragistics adds its weight to Mono at times when Novell’s future is mostly unknown and OpenSUSE rethinks its strategy
THERE HAS BEEN almost no news from Novell in recent weeks. Well, maybe the expected sale of the company suppresses business, but it’s hard to tell for sure. Statistically speaking, OpenSUSE too has had little to tell, apart from some strategy discussions (there is lack of foresight or focus) and an announcement about the release candidate of OpenSUSE 11.3.
As we pointed out a couple of days ago, Mono and Moonlight have also gone quite silent, with the exception of MeeGo news [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].
Based on the following new press release, a company that’s mostly associated with Microsoft gives Mono a boost.
Infragistics, the experience design software company and world leader in user interface (UI) development tools, today announced that the 2010 Volume 2 version of NetAdvantage for .NET will include the ASP.NET toolkit which is fully compatible with the Mono framework from Novell. With the most powerful UI controls available for ASP.NET, Infragistics enables .NET developers to rapidly build and style high-fidelity, full-featured line of business applications and deploy in a Linux environment.
Spreading Mono is spreading the Microsoft API (never mind the issue of software patents). Bad idea. As it was put by a blogger yesterday, “Mono is a disease. Why spread it?”
In case you don’t already know about it, the whole purpose of mono for Linux (hereafter just mono) is simply to allow microsofts self serving language and sub-standard net protocols to work under Linux. This project is hosted by Novell which entered into a partnership with microsoft because they were spooked by the whole license and litigation saber rattling of a few years ago.
Now c#, which is the programing language mono supports, is what I call a claytons language. You may not know what I mean so I will explain. Claytons is a non-alcoholic drink which mimics an alcoholic drink. It’s slogan is “The drink you have when you are not having a drink”. Which is what I think about c#. It’s the programing language you have when you don’t know a programing language.
Due to this matrimony between Novell and microsoft, this mono, and its bed buddy moonlight, have been spreading throughout the Linux family. This has been causing me some dis-ease. Linux advocates, even those who purport to hate microsoft, have been running around and willingly catching mono. What they do not realise is that they are contributing to microsofts success at the expense of Linux.
[...]
In short, I think that mono is a disease which infects Linux distributions and is not much different than its biological viral namesake. For that very reason I do not have mono installed on any of my Linux distributions. I do not even look at any program or distribution which forces me to install mono. For that matter I do not even consider Novell products when thinking about Linux. However, that is just me 
It’s not just him. An unscientific poll from last year showed that 72% of GNU/Linux users say “No” to Mono. That was before the FSF added its opposition to Mono/C#. █
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Posted in Deception, Dell, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Security, Windows at 3:42 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Now you see him…
Now you don’t.
Summary: Dell repeats the mistakes of history by harbouring censorship and fearing to pass judgment about Microsoft
YESTERDAY I had a face-to-face conversation with a friend who thought that Bill Gates had invented computers. This was a reminder of the fact that PR agencies are in the awesome position of subconsciously programming people’s minds, lying to them even without making explicit lies (just insinuations and illusions).
“Microsoft didn’t even accept the Internet (thinking it was a passing fad) until long after others had embraced it.”One mythology that Microsoft has been trying to spread for a long time is that Windows is secure (note omissions) and that Windows was designed with security in mind, despite clear evidence that this was not the case (Microsoft edits Wikipedia). Microsoft didn’t even accept the Internet (thinking it was a passing fad) until long after others had embraced it.
Yesterday we posted a second update on a post about Dell. Several people who decided to insult the messengers (myself included) refused to believe that Dell changed its pitch about GNU/Linux security. There is more evidence and corroboration now. Here is the before/after screenshot:
Revisionism is what the VAR Guy calls it. It is him who originally brought up the subject that ended up in hundreds if not thousands of blogs.
The VAR Guy saw this coming. On June 10, The VAR Guy was first to report Dell considered Ubuntu Linux safer than Windows. But now, Dell has apparently updated its web site to remove/alter that statement. Linux conspiracy theorists think Microsoft pressured Dell to make the change. Is that really the case?
Frankly, The VAR Guy doesn’t know for sure. Our resident blogger has requests for comment out to Dell, Microsoft and Canonical — promoter of Ubuntu Linux.
Dell pretends that it no longer knows what is more secure and the company says: “it is not Dell’s intention to recommend one OS over another”.
That’s a funny thing to say because Dell accepts a form of bribe from Microsoft to pretend that it recommends Vista 7 . Dell puts this fake endorsement is loads of pages in order to hypnotise the public and receive kickbacks.
Speaking of Windows security, a Google engineer revealed a serious flaw in Windows shortly after Google had dumped Windows for security reasons. Google apparently knows better than Dell, which actually stated the same thing before Microsoft may have implicitly threatened to retaliate again. The flaw which was found by this Google engineer has just put Windows XP users under digital artillery.
Five days after being disclosed publicly by a Google engineer, a zero-day security vulnerability affecting Microsoft Windows XP has come under attack. The controversial bug, which remains unpatched, gave rise to a new round of debate about responsible disclosure.
If Dell maintains its spineless approach and refuses to speak out its mind because it depends on Microsoft’s bribes/incentives, what does that say about Dell? And what does that say about truth? █
Update: Here is another take on the reversal from Dell. The company ought to be challenged.
Update #2: And another.
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Posted in News Roundup at 3:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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Desktop
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This is why I like SimplyMepis. I like Linux Mint. I like PCLOS. I like Sabayon. I like Pardus.
Oh, I still like Slackware, Debian, and Gentoo too, for nostalgic reasons, but when it comes to choosing a desktop these days, I pick from the first list.
I know why the bigger commercial distros can’t include all that stuff and why some others don’t. But this is why we hope these smaller projects never give up and go home. They make life easier and these days, we can all use that.
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Stand up and be proud of what you’ve done for Linux. Yes, you’ll draw your share of ire and fire but isn’t every great fight worth it for the freedom it brings to everyone?
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Applications
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This application is most probably going to be of interest to people working in the education field, as I am, but not only.
I discovered scenari when one of the developers came for a 3 days workshop at my university.
I create resources and teach online and have been so far doing very poorly regarding online multimedia documents. Mainly out of ignorance and poor taste for multimedia techy stuff, I have given .pdf online and that was about it..
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Have you always wanted to set up your own music station to stream your latest music collection to your friends or colleagues? Have you been thinking lately of setting up an always-on music streaming server so that you can just open up your web browser and listen to your favorite tracks? A music server is great in a dormitory, laboratory or office where the file server can double up as the music server! I will show you how using Zeya.
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Millions of web users rely on PDF files every day to consume a wide variety of text and media content. To enable this, a number of plug-ins exist today which allow users to open PDF files inside their browsers.
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Games
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Linux games are many and varied. You can find pretty much anything you need, from simple arcades via racing all the way to expansive and elaborate tactical shooters. Still, one aspect of the Linux gaming scene is underplayed, this being the Real Time Strategy (RTS). For whatever reason, there’s a lack of great strategy games for Linux. You will find some, but not as many as you would hope for.
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From Microsoft Bob to Edubuntu there have been a number of attempts at making computers of various sorts easier and more useful for young people. Another participant in this space is Kiddix, “a complete operating system and software environment for children, built from the ground up with your family’s needs and safety in mind.” Kiddix is built upon Linux, and aims to present things in a very “kid friendly” way. Through the end of June, Kiddix is running a “Pay What You Want” promotion, allowing you to pay any amount to buy their OS.
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Red Hat Family
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Shares of Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT) booked a new 52 week high today by trading above $32.34, traders are definitely monitoring Red Hat’s price action to see if this move attracts further buying into the stock.
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The Red Hat and JBoss Innovation Awards finalists are recognized in four separate categories. In addition, a fifth category recognizes a finalist that is deploying a combined solution from Red Hat’s platform and middleware portfolios. Each Red Hat Innovation Awards category winner will be provided with complimentary admission to the 2010 Red Hat Summit and JBoss World, where they will be recognized at an awards ceremony in a general session for both Red Hat Summit and JBoss World attendees.
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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Is Canonical taking on Red Hat with its new commercial support service? Canonical’s move “is not as much a competition as an expansion into a growing market,” Pogson opined. “GNU/Linux has taken about all it can from Unix operating systems; now it is time to kick M$ out of servers.”
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OLPC has just been awarded an order from Plan Ceibal for 90,000 XO’s for teenagers in Uruguay. Yes, there will be a new XO specially for teenagers. Uruguay already has 380,000 of the original XOs for younger children, and now the kids can graduate to one designed for them as they mature.
It’s to be a dual boot laptop. Note not triple boot. No Microsoft in this picture at all. GNOME has leaped into the pool to help out. The press release says, “It will feature the learning-focused Sugar user interface together with the Gnome Desktop Environment to provide a dual-boot Linux operating system with office productivity tools.” I wish I were a teenager in Uruguay so I could have one. If they do the partner program, I’m in.
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I had the opportunity to talk a little bit with Dirk Riehle at LinuxTag about business models, collaboration and infrastructures, and one of the arguments was about software forges, like SourceForge or GForge. I would like to provide a little bit of overview of our discussion, along with my reasoning about the future of such forges.
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CMS
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Arm your vuvuzelas: WordPress 3.0, the thirteenth major release of WordPress and the culmination of half a year of work by 218 contributors, is now available for download (or upgrade within your dashboard). Major new features in this release include a sexy new default theme called Twenty Ten.
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Clickability, a proprietary SaaS platform for content management, has compared SaaS to Open Source. Not only is the comparison inaccurate, it omits the downsides of SaaS and frankly, they are comparing apples to oranges. Open Source is a licensing and development model, SaaS is a software delivery model. Either they are distorting things on purpose, or they don’t understand Open Source at all. In other words, time to look at some good ol’ FUD and to share my take on Open Source versus SaaS.
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Healthcare
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Brian Behlendorf, one of the founders of the Apache web server project and the CollabNet cooperative software development company, is contracting now with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on the CONNECT software project. CONNECT helps hospitals and agencies exchange medical data, which gives doctors critical information to improve patient care.
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Business
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After all, giving away your “intellectual property” for the greater good may be a nice theory in some ideal world, but it rather flies in the face of capitalism, doesn’t it?
Rubbish! In fact, I’d argue that Open Source is actually more true to capitalist principles than traditional proprietary software practices. It all comes down to the principle of efficient markets.
Proprietary software is akin to the privatisation of the railways. It pays lip-service to the perceived efficiency benefits but if you look at it closely, you realise that the fundamental motivation of competition is absent.
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Openness/Sharing
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The UK’s most senior civil servants have been wined and dined by major corporations and interest groups on more than 3,100 occasions in the last three years, the Bureau can reveal.
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Open Data
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When the British Government said at the beginning of May that they would be releasing a ‘tsunami of public data’ you had to wonder whether reality would match up to the rhetoric. Oh ye of little faith… A fortnight ago, the Government released hundreds of new datasets – including a full list of Government expenditure – and this week, Transport for London announced that they too would be releasing lots of their transport data for free to the public.
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Back in February, we were encouraging participation in the Open Government Directive conversations happening at federal agencies, since they were busy creating their open government plans, and in a uniquely responsive position.
Sunlight’s Nancy Watzman, submitted a request for the Department of Health and Human Services, calling on them to release a database on drugs, medical devices, and food recalls by manufacturers. Nancy has been writing extensively on HHS and FDA data issues, including our award-winning investigation, Heart of the Matter.
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The following guest post is from Julian Todd, who works on projects such as Public Whip, UNdemocracy, and ScraperWiki. He is also a member of the Open Knowledge Foundation’s Working Group on Open Government Data.. The post was originally published on Julian’s blog, Freesteel.
Yesterday Transport for London made a data dump of various locations and links to their traffic cameras, station locations, and so on.
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Inhibiting Open Access
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The aim is to restrict the conditions that would permit to increase the number and the range of accessible format works available. The Joint recommendation is about when “there is no appropriate commercial product on offer.” If a book exist in an audio format but not in a indexable format or searchable format, is it “on offer” to people with disabilities?
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I’ve been keeping schtum about the Accountability and Transparency Review Team (ATRT) for a while for three reasons:
1. I submitted a proposal along with a team of professional evaluators to be the review’s “independent expert”
2. I know nearly all the members of the team and I respect them all
3. They’re working to a tight timetable so you have to give some benefit of doubt
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Science
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San Francisco, a U.S. trendsetter on many social issues, voted Tuesday to require retailers to post notices on how much radiation is emitted by cellphones they sell.
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NASA-funded scientists estimate from recent research that the volume of water molecules locked inside minerals in the moon’s interior could exceed the amount of water in the Great Lakes here on Earth.
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Security/Aggression
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A police officer accused of striking a woman with a baton at a G20 protest has been cleared by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
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Environment
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The compromise between the European Parliament, the Spanish EU Presidency and the European Commission is a step towards ensuring that illegally harvested timber and wood products cannot be sold on the EU market.
It is estimated that 20-40% of global industrial wood production comes from illegal sources, with up to 20% ending up on the EU market.
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One view is that energy prices will rise, substitutes will be found, and prices will come back down again, perhaps settling at a somewhat higher equilibrium reflecting the cost of producing the substitute energy source. The economy will continue to function pretty much as before. The catch is that we aren’t finding reasonably-priced, scalable substitutes, so this isn’t happening. Oil prices are down, but not because of substitutes.
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Joe Barton says it is “a tragedy of the first proportion” that BP agreed to Obama’s request to set up a $20 billion fund to compensate Americans — and then he apologizes to BP CEO Hayward!
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As BP’s boss Tony Hayward is grilled by US Congressional Comittee the results are all too predictable. You’d think Tony Hayward was a politician, with the skills he;’s shown at evading responsibility and dodging questions. It seems however that the politicians grilling him are understandably a tad annoyed at this behaviour. The problem is this; they (the politicians) spend their ENTIRE POLITICAL CAREERS doing the very same.
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Finance
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Some 500 people have been arrested in a nationwide crackdown on mortgage fraud, and federal officials pointed to Las Vegas as one of the centers of the scams that pumped up home prices until the housing market bubble finally burst.
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Democrats accused Republicans of stalling. Republicans said Democrats were overlooking a real financial catastrophe.
As Day Two of the Wall Street reform conference debate dragged on, partisan bickering underscored just how tough it would be to finish the bill by July 4.
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A flurry of opposition from New York City-area politicians and House moderates is aimed at blunting tough new financial regulations — an 11th-hour lobbying blitz that could shift momentum once again in the Wall Street reform fight.
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A stimulus program to encourage local infrastructure spending has come under fire as supporters seek reauthorization.
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Congress’s proposed overhaul of U.S. bank regulation wouldn’t have averted the 2008 financial crisis and does too little to prevent a recurrence, two former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission said.
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Ninety-one U.S. banks and thrifts missed paying their May 17 TARP dividend payment, according to data compiled by SNL Financial.
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A central idea in the financial regulations undergoing final negotiation in the United States — and in similar initiatives in Europe — is that large banks must draw up “living wills” that should explain, in considerable detail, how they will be wound down in the event of future failure.
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According to the Financial Times, the Securities and Exchange Commission is stepping up its inquiries into another complex mortgage-backed deal done by Goldman that was not part of the civil fraud charges the agency already filed against the bank.
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The inquiry into the CDO may not lead to any additional actions against the New York-based securities firm, said the person, who declined to be identified because the investigation isn’t public. Michael DuVally, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs, declined to comment, as did SEC spokesman John Nester. The Financial Times reported the probe yesterday.
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Add to that a mismanaged clean-up effort and criticisms the company is trying to skirt the restoration bill, and BP’s 2010 is a recipe for hatred.
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Grab your pitchforks! Multinational oil company BP has reportedly hired financial advisors from Goldman Sachs to help with the “mounting liabilities” the firm is facing from the Gulf oil spill. BP has denied rumors it is going bankrupt.
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NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is considering naming Robert K. Steel as Deputy Mayor of the city, according to NyPo.
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Representatives of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and American International Group Inc. will appear before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission as the panel holds a hearing on the role of derivatives in the credit crunch.
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But it’s not, as two recent reports note. Andrew Ross Sorkin, writing for the New York Times reports that Goldman’s track record of sound advice and capable work in the capital markets have outweighed criticism against the firm.
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Whether customers are defecting from Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) is hard to quantify. As of now, it’s fair to say the firm has lost some clients. But the clients that the firm cares most about are big Fortune 500 companies, and the New York Times reports that many of them are supporting the company, at least publicly. This isn’t to say the crisis hasn’t hurt the bank. Goldman Sachs had no chance to win the GM mandate, for example.
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Working in Jersey and being infested by bedbugs: the classic double-whammy. Goldman tells ABC News that this is all just normal, nothing to see here, but bedbug experts are like, yea right, they definitely are infested. This is just one more reason for Lloyd Blankfein to thank god for the BP oil spill.
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Matt Taibbi, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine, talks with Bloomberg’s Carol Massar about the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit against Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
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PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
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The documents reveal the site bought 50 million adverts on Facebook and other social network sites. These 50 million ads resulted in an awesome 537 people completing the survey on the site. We can only hope the government was paying per click-through rather than for each view of its advert.
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Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights
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The Icelandic parliament has voted unanimously to create what are intended to be the strongest media freedom laws in the world. And Iceland intends these measures to have international impact, by creating a safe haven for publishers worldwide — and their servers.
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The U.S. Supreme Court, putting limits on the privacy rights of government workers, ruled that a California police department acted reasonably when it reviewed personal text messages on an officer’s government-issued pager.
The justices today unanimously rejected arguments by SWAT team member Jeff Quon that the city of Ontario violated his rights under the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable government searches.
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Copyrights
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In the face of increasing examples of such copyright policies doing exactly the opposite of what they intend, how is it that our elected officials continue to buy the claims from a few entrenched industries, that copyright needs to be made even more strict? How many more musicians have to have their art and creativity stifled?
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Google (NSDQ: GOOG), which had hinted for nearly a year now that it was working on building some sort of paid content system for publishers, is reportedly launching such a system in Italy, where it has had some of its ugliest confrontations with the news industry. According to a report in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Google is reaching out to publishers there to get them to participate in the program, which it is calling Newspass.
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A coalition of eight music publishers sued the file-sharing service LimeWire on Wednesday, accusing it of copyright infringement, according to the National Music Publishers’ Association, the industry group that organized the suit.
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There’s no pretending this report is light reading, but I do think it represents an important statement about the need for basing copyright law on empirical evidence. Against the background of blatant lobbying during the passage of the Digital Economy Act, that surely has to be good news for everyone – whether or not they are copyright geeks.
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It’s time for IWTBF to die because it’s become the easiest, laziest straw man for Hollywood’s authoritarian bullies to throw up as a justification for the monotonic increase of surveillance, control, and censorship in our networks and tools. I can imagine them saying: “These people only want network freedom because they believe that ‘information wants to be free’. They pretend to be concerned about freedom, but the only ‘free’ they care about is ‘free of charge.’”
But this is just wrong. “Information wants to be free” has the same relationship to the digital rights movement that “kill whitey” has to the racial equality movement: a thoughtless caricature that replaces a nuanced, principled stand with a cartoon character. Calling IWTBF the ideological basis of the movement is like characterising bra burning as the primary preoccupation of feminists (in reality, the number of bras burned by feminists in the history of the struggle for gender equality appears to be zero, or as close to it as makes no difference).
So what do digital rights activists want, if not “free information?”
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Pioneer One can be found over at VODO, a tracker site for free to download media and a worthwhile visit, since these files will not have a warning letter dropping through your letterbox for sharing them. The pilot episode apparently cost $6000 dollars to shoot and there are 7 episodes in the first series to be followed with a planed 4 more series.
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Henny Keyzer – CLUG Talk 28 April 2009 – Microcontrollers (2009)
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06.17.10
Posted in Hardware, Marketing, Microsoft at 6:00 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: News from E3 suggests that Microsoft has done nothing substantial to rescue its gaming business, which continues to disappoint
AS E3 starts, Microsoft must show the audience (including journalists) something new. Xbox 360 has been having a crisis and Microsoft’s latest peripheral/gadget for it, Kinect/Natal, is receiving some bad reviews including predictions of doom from Dvorak.
Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox 360 is Doomed to Fail
[...]
This all seems like Microsoft’s answer to the clever Wii controller, with its built-in gyroscopes and accelerometers. But when all is said and done, game consoles were invented with game controllers in mind. The Wiimote is a modernized game controller. The Kinnect is a gimmick, and as gimmicks go, its popularity will be brief, unless the most compelling game in the world arrives built around it. And I do not see that happening.
When it comes to hardware issues, Microsoft is just covering up the problem:
Microsoft fixes Xbox RROD… by removing the red light
[...]
One interesting factoid is the decision to remove the red lights from the console. Effectively making it incapable of showing the dreaded ‘red ring of death’ should your new slim Xbox 360 decide to overheat and crap out on you.
Microsoft removes the symptom, a bit like kicking it under the table or sweeping it under the rug. “Xbox 360 slim can’t red-ring by design,” says another headline:
The absolute impossibility of the red ring isn’t by virtue of the console being failure-proof–that has yet to be determined. It’s because the new console has no red LEDs at all. According to a spec sheet obtained by gaming blog Joystiq, the new console has only green LEDs in the ring on its front.
Another common complaint (leading to a lawsuit even) is the scratching of discs by Xbox 360. Microsoft ‘resolved’ this by warning users, not by actually addressing the issue. As The Register puts it in the headline, “New Xbox 360 said to ‘still scratch discs’”
The crucial point here is that the Xbox currently – and will presumably continue to – come with a sticker warning punters not to move the machine while a disc is spinning. Microsoft acknowledged the problem in 2008, but so few folk feel the need to knock their consoles around while playing games that the issue has affected a relatively small number of people.
“Of course they are not going to fix disc destruction,” Oiaohm explains, “Microsoft gets paid per disc sold.”
A few days ago we showed that Microsoft bribed journalists to increase the likelihood of positive Xbox 360 reviews. Here is spin from IDG:
Is Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Slim Press Giveaway a Bribe?
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It just seemed so very strange, watching everyone clapping, cheering, leaping out of their seats, as if we were all on Oprah, and she’d just announced that everyone in the viewing audience was getting a brand new car. Except this wasn’t Oprah, and we weren’t the “viewing audience.” We were there to absorb and critique Microsoft’s announcements and claims. Is this where we’re headed? Game shows with prize giveaways?
“With all the bribery going on,” explains Chips B Malroy, “expect the reviews of the newer slim Xbox360 to be generally favorable.”
According to AP, shows Malroy, “Microsoft fancied to unveil Kinect, the name of its new Xbox 360 motion-control system, with a lavishly bizarre invite-only Cirque du Soilel performance Sunday night that required attendees to don white satin ponchos.”
“With all the bribery going on expect the reviews of the newer slim Xbox360 to be generally favorable.”
–Chips B Malroy,As Malroy puts it, “So is that Wine and Dine, bribery, plus a show as well?”
In summary, Xbox 360 shows that Microsoft is continuing its usual bribery of journalists, who are carefully being selected based on their dispositions. That won’t save Xbox 360, which resolved none of the major issues in a revised model; the issues are being concealed rather than eliminated.
In the words of this new blog post’s headline, “Good bye Microsoft!”
It seems that Microsoft is slowly fading from its dominant position and loosing its monopoly. Only through innovation will Microsoft be able to defend its place but it seems that this is very unlikely. Microsoft has become too big and sluggish. It is time to bid Microsoft good bye and embrace the up and coming alternatives.
It is premature to say “good bye” to Microsoft, but either way, there are other dangers to people’s rights and freedoms in computing. In Techrights we perceive the ACTA, for example, as a danger that impacts more than just technology. We’ll write about it tomorrow. This site depends neither on Novell nor Microsoft as fights for freedom are perpetual, history teaches. █
“The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing.”
–Edmund Burke
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