06.28.10
Posted in America, Asia, Australia, Microsoft, Windows at 4:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft is attacking sellers of Windows in the UAE, the United States, and Australia
IN China, the real ‘pirates’ are Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4], so it’s always interesting when Microsoft claims to fight so-called ‘piracy’ (counterfeiting), which Microsoft also admits benefiting from.
“They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”
–Bill Gates
Over in the Middle East, Microsoft has decided that it’s time to “collect”. It’s not the first time this year that Microsoft does it in the Middle East, but the example from last week’s news says that “Microsoft intensifies action against sale of illegal software” [in the Middle East specifically]. Here is the latest news from UAE, where Microsoft uses MOUs and actions against shops that don't pay Microsoft:
Authorities in the UAE have conducted three more raids against resellers accused of selling pirated software.
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The raids were part of an ongoing campaign against software piracy in the region, led by Microsoft, which works closely with governments, industry partners and educational organisations on IPR enforcement.
This article almost conceals the role played by Microsoft. It tends to hide itself behind fronts like the BSA (an equivalent of MPAA/RIAA for companies like Sony) and it uses armed policemen and state authority to assist its business strategy and make the billionaires from Washington even richer. A critical analysis of this ought to lead to a reform. Many of those sellers are just doing what other sellers have been doing for decades and Microsoft never had a problem with their practices, as long as they ensured that all computer users in the UAE (even those who are unable to afford the software) used Windows.
Microsoft behaves in this ruthless manner also in the United States. Last week we found a lot of coverage about QuickTEQ Computers:
National software giant Microsoft is suing a Lincoln company, QuickTEQ Computers, alleging that it has been selling reproductions, copies or imitations of Microsoft’s copyrighted materials.
There is more in [1, 2, 3, 4] and in AP [1, 2].
Microsoft Corp. says a Nebraska computer store has been infringing on its copyrights for Windows software.
Quoted for the wording. From Omaha:
Microsoft says in the lawsuit that it sent a letter to QuickTeq in March 2009 warning the company that it was infringing on Microsoft’s copyrights.
At least it says “copyright infringements” and not “piracy” or “theft”. It would be nice if Microsoft was accused of endorsing copyright infringements when it better suited its goals. Microsoft’s Windows profits decline over the years, so Microsoft is killing the goose and starts “collecting” (to use Gates’ word).
There is another new case in Australia:
AN Australian eBay trader who admitted to selling Microsoft software illegally has paid $125,000 in compensation to the computer giant.
Well, usually Microsoft turns a blind eye, satisfied that someone who is unwilling to buy Windows is at least using it. But not anymore. Microsoft is having a hard time. █
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Posted in America, Asia, GNU/Linux, Marketing, Microsoft at 3:36 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Battle of Selma – Live Oak
Cemetary – Confederate Memorial Ceremony (Alabama)
Summary: Microsoft is battling for the hearts of minds of Americans using state support; Jamia Millia Islamia sells out to Microsoft
FOR SOMEWHAT of a background/introduction to “American EDGI”, see previous posts such as:
- American EDGI Comes to Missouri, Microsoft Crimes in Iowa Produce Coupons
- Microsoft Brings ‘American EDGI’ to Illinois, Virginia, and Indiana
- Microsoft’s American EDGI Proceeding to State of the Tax Dodge (Nevada), Kentucky, and More
- Microsoft’s ‘American EDGI’ Comes to Massachusetts and Nevada After New York Deal
Microsoft’s EDGI tactics are designed to ensure that people of all ages are glued to Microsoft’s monopoly; Microsoft is willing to lose money in the short term in order to ensure this. Last month we wrote about "American EDGI" in Alabama and last week we found yet more coverage about it, also from Alabama:
The state government and Microsoft are offering 15,000 vouchers for free online technology training and certification.
This is a shameful disgrace. What we have here is state-supported Microsoft indoctrination, which is also covered here:
Alabamians who need computer training can update their skills at no charge through a public/private state training program in conjunction with Microsoft’s Elevate America program.
Many other states have been subjected to similar indoctrination. It won’t be the first time that we argue the United States is likely to be last to adopt Free/libre software. Change will typically come from the outside first, notably regions like continental Europe, south America, and giant Asian countries like China and India.
Microsoft has EDGI-like programmes designed to derail migrations to GNU/Linux also outside the United States. Project Marshall (MOU) is one common trick which Microsoft has just used in Jamia Millia Islamia.
Jamia Millia Islamia has signed an MoU with Microsoft Corporation under Microsoft University Education Alliance Programme.
This is a true shame for the students and the staff. Microsoft is the antithesis of education for reasons we covered before.
Speaking of Jamia Millia Islamia, guess who’s going on a “diplomatic mission to Syria”?
Senior executives of five big U.S. technology companies including Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and Dell Inc (DELL.O) expressed their concerns to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during a five-day trip last week, two members of the delegation told Reuters.
As Microsoft Nick put it:
State Dept. sends Microsoft on diplomatic mission to Syria
In an effort to ease relations with Syria and diffuse its alliance with Iran, the U.S. State Department has sent representatives from a number of U.S. technology giants, including Microsoft, on a diplomatic and trade mission to the Middle Eastern nation.
In the next post we’ll show how Microsoft attacked Middle Eastern nations last week. How schizophrenic. █
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Posted in Microsoft, Patents at 3:07 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The latest news about Microsoft and its proactive-aggressive attitude with software patents; A look at Microsoft’s “IP Ventures”
IN RE BILSKI is slated for release today. It may derail Microsoft’s plan with patents — a plan it has been implementing by suing Linux-reliant companies such as Salesforce. Microsoft’s actions are widely denounced [1, 2] and they are a call for trouble. Here is a PDF of the complaint from Salesforce [PDF]. There is a lot of news coverage about it (we gave links to about 15 articles), but it is mostly based on this original filing. From VirnetX there is the new press release which we mentioned several days ago and here is some resultant coverage [1, 2, 3] (biased due to the authors). The short story is that Microsoft too is a serious patent violator. Everyone is. The presence of software patents criminalises programming in the same way that today’s copyright law probably makes any university presentation a copyright infringement (those with images in particular). The solution is to reform the law, not to prepare for counter action, which relies upon one’s own wealth of retaliatory monopolies.
There are quite a few articles right now about Microsoft’s patent/spinoff arm, “IP Ventures”. We wrote about it last year and last week’s coverage says that it’s half a decade old:
Today marks the fifth anniversary of IP Ventures, Microsoft’s program that opens up technologies developed internally at Microsoft to entrepreneurs and new businesses.
The “IP” stands for an umbrella of patents, not “Internet protocol”. It says a lot about Microsoft’s perception of products, unless it also refers to copyrights. Microsoft is excluding competitors, still; if not by technical sabotage then by threats and lawsuits. Microsoft is lunatic company of sorts; it spread the perception that it will act irrationally to retaliate and punish anyone who stands in its way. █
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Posted in Antitrust, Europe, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, IBM, Microsoft, OIN, Patents, Servers at 2:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Peace with IBM and OIN — not hostility — will make Free software safer
Summary: Analysis of the latest motions against OIN and against IBM, courtesy of Müller
AS the conversation with Florian Müller carries on, we are hoping to find out why he supports a Microsoft-backed fight against IBM (which has quite a monopoly on GNU/Linux in the mainframe). We are trying to show both sides of this story rather than be directly involved in the argument.
Müller has written a new post about “four alternative ways to improve the Open Invention Network’s patent license agreement” where he says that “Journalists are also puzzled”; well, actually, if they are baffled, then it’s probably because he puzzled some of them by posting the material which he mass-mails to many journalists. A lot of people may not know this, but it’s only fair to say that Müller sends many mails separately to a lot of people who write about the subject. It would at least be honest to mail one message with a list of recipients who get an identical message.
So anyway, to many journalists there is no controversy at all here (exception among Microsoft boosters like Gavin Clarke and others who are apathetic or hostile towards GNU/Linux). Müller is trying to change that and “In a new blog posting,” he told us, “I explain the biggest problem I have with the OIN’s patent license agreement in a way that programmers and other non-lawyers can understand, and then outline four alternative ways to address the problem identified.” For those who have not seen Müller’s previous rants about the OIN, start around [1, 2, 3, 4].
We too are critics of OIN, but it does not go as far as it does for Müller, to whom IBM is the worst thing since The Plague. Actually, IBM’s practices in IT have so far been rather benign, at least over the past decade. Müller paints a target on the wrong company, unless he can provide more compelling evidence.
Müller has also been writing on the issue of codecs and at times criticising WebM [1, 2, 3]. “Now the FOSS detractor [Müller] is attacking Google’s VP8/WebM,” wrote Pamela Jones in Groklaw some days ago (regarding his new post about WebM). “There’s your “freedom fighter,” boys and girls. Is there anyone or anything FOSS he *doesn’t* find fault with?”
Here is a portion of another new rant from Müller (also about OIN):
It’s easy to see why IBM wouldn’t want the list to include the Hercules open source mainframe emulator. Its patent pledge shows that it likes to redefine its commitments. But if Red Hat and Novell determined that some OIN patents might hurt a competitor of theirs like Mandriva, they could also use the OIN for that purpose.
The OIN’s definition of the “Linux System” changes all the time. Since it’s version-specific, that’s inevitable until they adopt a fair, reasonable, non-discriminatory, reliable and transparent approach instead of the current scheme.
“Maybe this is of interest with a view to future articles on Linux patent issues,” Müller told us. Well, actually this is possible to resolve with an open letter or an E-mail. We covered this subject before and OIN’s scope of coverage is not the principal issue. It is true that OIN needs to be more transparent and communicate better with the public. Instead, OIN guards its image and keeps silent on the topics which matter (so does IBM). Over a year ago the OIN approached me with an offer of an interview to publish with OIN’s CEO. I took the offer and typed up a few hard questions (but mostly easy ones), such as the OIN’s vulnerability in defending against patent trolls. Suddenly, the same OIN which wanted me to interview the CEO lost interest in this idea. They must have wanted just a one-sided story and my sceptical questions did not guarantee it. So here’s just one anecdotal story about an area where the OIN must improve.
“Florian Mueller is busy on Slashdot trying to rally the community against IBM, and getting absolutely nowhere, I notice.”
–Pamela Jones, GroklawMoving on a bit, regarding Müller's support of Microsoft's side in the mainframe case, Jones writes at Groklaw (citing IDG): “I see Maureen O’Gara is writing supportingly of NEON. And Florian Mueller is busy on Slashdot trying to rally the community against IBM, and getting absolutely nowhere, I notice. By the way the headline is wrong. There is no “Open Source” complaint, and the community doesn’t much like being used like this. The FOSS community is made up mostly of geeks. That means brains are not in short supply. And they can recognize phony issues when they see them. And they know how to research and figure out who is really behind all this. And frankly, the FOSS community supports the rights of any programmer or company to license its work and defend it from Psystar-like attacks. That may be news to Hollywood, but the GPL is a copyright license, and it is also defended when required.”
Speaking of IBM, a few days ago we wrote about the software patents situation in New Zealand. The role of IBM was mentioned by us because a lobbying front backed by IBM pushed for software patents to be legal in New Zealand. Here is a recent article about this front, which Microsoft supports too (many American multinationals are listed). From the analysis: [via Groklaw]
What influence does NZICT have on Government Ministers?
When asked whether they thought the Government would go through with the recommendation, he assured me (with a knowing smile) that “they’ll definitely reconsider their position, and reopen the issue for discussion”. When asked how this could be achieved given Simon Power’s strong statement in support of excluding software patents, the board member admitted he was surprised by that as well… and said that it would certainly make their eventual reversal more troublesome (but he didn’t doubt that the Government would reconsider their position and make the “right choice”, i.e. retaining software patents).
Their apparent access to ministers through private channels seems somewhat dubious, as does their (perhaps misguided) sense of their ability to influence government officials. This is disturbing and warrants further exploration.
In summary, recommendations ought to be made that OIN should answer the hard questions, that IBM should make a public statement about its software patents policy (if IBM lobbies for software patents as it does, then it ought to just admit this), and it will also be useful to know the role of Microsoft in the mainframe case. If people like Müller care about software freedom, then they will cease to tease IBM in this area. The criticism is misdirected and exaggerated. IBM does many good things for Free software. █
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Posted in America, Law, Patents at 1:39 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: SCOTUS is due to release its final judgment and more signs suggest that Justice Stevens is heavily involved (he is hostile towards software patents)
CHANGE is needed. The USPTO is out of control. To give a new example, here is the latest one from Slashdot:
USPTO Grants Bezos Patent On ’60s-Era Chargebacks
theodp writes “Chargebacks on computing resources are certainly nothing new, dating to the ’60s. But five decades later, the USPTO has deemed Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ invention — Dynamic Pricing of Web Services Utilization — worthy of a new patent. From the patent: ‘Utilization of a storage resource may be measured in terms of a quantity of data stored (e.g., bytes, megabytes (MB), gigabytes (GB), etc.) per unit of time (e.g., second, day, month, etc.). Similarly, communication bandwidth utilization may be measured in terms of a quantity of data transmitted per unit of time (e.g., megabits per second). Processing resource utilization may be measured as an aggregate number of units of processing effort (e.g., central processing unit (CPU) cycles, transactions, etc.) utilized, or as a rate of processing effort utilization per unit of time (e.g., CPU cycles or transactions per second).’ Sound familiar, Greyglers? Another example of why it’s not wise to grant software patents when people don’t know much about computer history.”
It’s time to cut back and annul software patents. Can Justice Stevens deliver? Based on SCOTUS blog:
This is just a reminder that Justice Stevens’ last day on the Court, after decades of service, will be Monday. Members of the bar who are in Washington should consider attending. I will be giving out free bow ties.
As Pogson correctly points out:
Tom Goldstein on SCOTUSBlog has written his best estimate of who will write the decision on Bilski:
* Justice Stevens will write it
* the scope of patents will be narrowed, probably restricting software patents
* the court will be unanimous but possibly split on the scope of the ruling…
He bases this on the history and involvement of Stevens on law of patents. He has a history of narrowing patent rights.
More from SCOTUS blog about Justice Stevens:
At oral argument in Bilski, Justice Stevens was very engaged. He asked counsel for the patentee the following telling question: “But is it correct that there’s none – none of our cases has ever approved a rule such as you advocate?” Justice Stevens also was seemingly doubtful that the involvement of a machine could render a process patentable, and furthermore that software could be patentable, which suggests a very narrow interpretation of business method patents and that the ruling could spell significant trouble for software patents.
Yes, software patents too are at risk. The decision will be out within hours and we’ll be covering it. █
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Posted in News Roundup at 6:23 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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Take Maddog for example. This man was a system administrator, like me. When he worked for Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), a too-big-to-fail mega corporation, he told everyone that UNIX was dying and “Linux is inevitable!” They laughed at him but since he did a lot of favors for people he had enough gift-economy credits to convince folks to gift a computer to some college kid in Finland. Who was this boy genius who promised to replace the UNIX operating system this DEC computer ran with free software he helped write himself? Linus Tourvalds.
Maddog could retired with the gift of that one desktop as the feather in his cap. Instead he has dedicated his career to spreading the word about free software since then. Indeed, Linux is International.
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When someone says “open source” a lot of people think about programs with open source code or Linux. Linux was started back in the 90′s by Linus Torvalds. The projected expanded a lot in the years that would follow. It became people’s best choice for the minimal and light operating system that works on nearly every machine. Wonder why the supercomputers run Linux? The main reason is security. The other reason is it’s lightness. In my opinion Linux is the best option for the users at home and work. No I’m not saying that Windows is bad, however Windows with good, really good security tweaking can be secure too.
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FUD
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FUD is often used to discourage people from using Free Software but Rex Djere turns it around. His thesis is that the purveyors of non-Free software are the ones in fear about how their control of people will slip their grasp with exposure to Free Software. Nice.
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It is a well known fact, right? Windows operating system is easy, whereas Linux is a frightening tool for geeks. Whether this is a misconception created by fear and ignorance, a culmination of many years of real life experience sprinkled with some aggressive advertisement or just a buzzword, well, it has yet to be seen – in this article.
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Operating systems are geek tools. Software is geeky. Let no one fool you. Nothing short of a revolution will change the software models. We’re still stuck in the 80s mindset of what programs ought to look like and how they should behave. A fraction of the population manages to get along and sometimes on top of this mess, but most people are floundering and drowning in the ocean of binary despair.
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Desktop
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Dell Inc., the world’s third-largest personal-computer maker, is testing Google Inc.’s Chrome operating system on some computers, a move that might give users an alternative to Microsoft Corp.’s Windows.
Trials of Chrome OS are being conducted on prototypes of netbook-style devices and tablet computers, Stephen J. Felice, Dell’s consumer and small and medium business president, said in an interview yesterday at Dell’s annual analyst meeting.
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Applications
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Last week, Barnes & Noble announced they would cut the price on their wireless Nook eReader, from $259 to $199 ($149 for a new WiFi-only edition.) Many thought this was a good opportunity for the third place contender to gain market share. But within a few hours Amazon beat Barnes & Noble’s price by $10, marking down the Kindle 2 to a mere $189.
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Geeks will love it too – it runs Linux and Parrot has provided a freely available software development kit for the device.
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Android
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As momentum surrounding the Google Android platform continues to build, Google may soon find itself in a position to seriously challenge Microsoft for the hearts and minds of developers.
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Google’s Android OS went from being just an idea to a roaring success in a very short time. It just seems like yesterday when the first Android phone was launched and people had the first taste of a Google branded operating system. Although many people expected Google to come up with a complete hardware and software package like the iPhone, the software giant was happy just making the operating system and licensing it to whoever wanted to use it on their device. This was a completely different approach from what both Apple and Microsoft had taken with their mobile platforms.
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Survey finds Google OS is most highly rated for long term outlook in US
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Rich Cannings, Android Security Lead went on a proactive charm offensive, saying his team was alerted to “two free applications built by a security researcher for research purposes” that his team then deleted from peoples’ handsets.
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Sub-notebooks
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Students at the Rochester Institute of Technology created an open, free video chat program for deaf students to use with their One Laptop Per Child computer: “A paper on OVC’s development will be presented to an audience of representatives from all around the world. OVC is also being demonstrated at a conference table throughout the event.”
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Tablets
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Microsoft may be left behind by the growth of the tablet market.
In a few years, Apple has managed to make a space for itself at the center of the smart phone market. While Google’s has joined the fray with the Android operating system more recently, their results so far are impressive and they’re on track to carve out a good market share for themselves.
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SaaS
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Yesterday at the GigaOM Structure conference here in San Francisco, I ran into Marten Mickos, the recently appointed CEO of Eucalyptus systems. Eucalyptus is one of the key ingredients in the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud that is being certified to run on Dell’s PowerEdge C systems as part of our cloud ISV program.
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CMS
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The open-source content management system WordPress turned seven years old last month. In its lifetime, it has attracted a devout following: More than 28,000 people download WordPress every day, with over 11.4 million active installations, including news outlets and corporate sites.
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Healthcare
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Fred Trotter, organizer of the annual OSHealthCon summit, has developed open source software for the health care field for many years. Most recently, he released a new national provider identifier search tool based on publicly available data.
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Programming
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What were the motivations for creating Go?
Rob Pike
Rob Pike: A couple of years ago, several of us at Google became a little frustrated with the software development process, and particularly using C++ to write large server software. We found that the binaries tended to be much too big. They took too long to compile. And the language itself, which is pretty much the main system software language in the world right now, is a very old language. A lot of the ideas and changes in hardware that have come about in the last couple of decades haven’t had a chance to influence C++. So we sat down with a clean sheet of paper and tried to design a language that would solve the problems that we have: we need to build software quickly, have it run well on modern multi-core hardware and in a network environment, and be a pleasure to use.
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Standards/Consortia
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Earlier this month, Apple unveiled a new site to showcase HTML5. On it, Apple showed off a number of impressive web demos coded using only HTML5 technologies. However, at least on the main page, these demos were restricted to working on only Apple’s Safari web browser. So now Google is countering with its own HTML5 site — called, get this, HTML5Rocks.
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HTML5 rocks, Google declared this week. The company launched a developer resource site devoted to HTML5 technologies and is calling it HTML5rocks.com
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Mozilla has joined the chorus in declaring HTML5 as the way of the future.
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ODF
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Today is day 1 of of the OdfKit Hack Week. We wrote a list of things we want to achieve this week. In order to avoid embarrassment, we’ll spare you the details and go straight through to an explanation of how you can use WebKit (or any modern browser) to visualize ODF documents. The general idea is to incorporate the ODF XML into a live HTML document.
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Google Summer of Code student Benjamin Port was amazingly productive, making Thorsten Zachmann, his mentor, very happy. Read his blog! Benjamin is working on implementing animation of objects on pages. This is a huge task, since ODF incorporates the SMIL standard for animations, and that’s a big document. Ben implemented support for SMIL duration, translations and keytimes — and fixed crash in page navigation. Another thing Ben committed was a sophisticated HTML export option for presentations.
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In the UK, The Times is rolling out its paywall and now demands that anyone intent on reading its content register an account. According to research done by the traffic metrics firm Hitwise, simply demanding registration has already cut into traffic at The Times.
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At Globe Tech HQ, we are constantly on the lookout for good-news stories. And boy have we found one.
Regular Globe Tech visitors will have noticed a story on our site today about an important court decision. A group of big banks asked a judge to force a financial news website called The Fly On The Wall (Theflyonthewall.com) to stop posting immediate updates on analyst research from several major banks. TFOTW published its updates so quickly that the big banks often didn’t have time to share the research reports with their clients first. We’re not entirely sure how this happened – do wealthy investors only communicate by carrier pigeon? – but it obviously was a big problem for the banks. Fortunately, however, a judge sided with the banks, issuing an order this March prohibiting TFOTW from issuing such updates for a set period of time following their release by the banks – essentially, the judge imposed a time-delay.
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IBM is suing Joanne Olsen – a 31-year veteran of the company who used to be general manager of its services division.
Olsen was tempted away to join Oracle by Larry Ellison after the purchase of Sun Microsystems – which put the two firms in more direct competition.
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IBM’s Systems and Technology Group finds itself at the center of controversy again, this time as it is being sued by one of its Big Blue’s partners, Devon IT, for allegedly running what the thin client maker calls “a wide-spread Ponzi scheme” over a period of five years.
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South Africa, Africa’s second largest telecommunications market, has become the latest country on the continent to deal with corruption charges regarding technology contracts, moving to cancel deals valued at more than US$552 million.
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In Nigeria, Africa’s largest telecom market, the government is trying to root out corruption in supply contracts for the country’s telecom market. Nigerian government officials are alleged to have received more than $21 million in bribes by Siemens officials for supply contracts. Siemens officials have already been slapped by a fine in Germany while former Nigerian government officials are still being investigated by the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over bribery charges.
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Many people are dismissive of Wikipedia. For example, back in 2005, as quoted in the Ideas in Action blog, Robert McHenry, a former editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia Britannica, argued: “Many revisions, corrections, and updates are badly done or false. There is a simple reason for this: Not everyone who believes he knows something about Topic X actually does; and not everyone who believes he can explain Topic X clearly, can.”
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RISC OS is alive and well and running on the fastest hardware it’s ever been on – and the kit only costs £120. But “kit” is the operative word…
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Whether they’re waiting in line Thursday for a new iPhone 4 or grabbing other recent smartphone offerings such as the Droid Incredible or Microsoft’s Kin, plenty of folks will be saying goodbye to their old phones in coming days.
But what to do with that once-trusty piece of pocket technology when it’s replaced by a sleeker, faster, fancier newcomer?
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Science
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Crayfish make surprisingly complex, cost-benefit calculations, finds a University of Maryland study — opening the door to a new line of research that may help unravel the cellular brain activity involved in human decisions.
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Security/Aggression
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Red faces all round at the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) after a posse of seriously unchristian hackers overloaded its shiny new message board with spoof messages, and the ACL blog toppled over.
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Two teenagers have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the world’s largest English-language cybercrime forum.
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Environment
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New Australian prime minister Julia Gillard, who replaced Kevin Rudd, is seen as more willing to negotiate with mining companies over the controversial tax on so-called “super profits” made by the resources companies.
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The disappearance of bees endangers the beekeeping profession and threatens agriculture and the food supply (according to French scientists from INRA and the CNRS, 35% of world production of fruits, vegetables and oilseeds depends on the activities of the pollinators). Environmentalists and beekeepers, using data gathered by many toxological studies, are fighting against big chemical companies in order to prohibit the use of some products that can be lethal for bees, such as Gaucho and Regent TS.
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Everybody needs water as much as they need air or food. So what happens when a corporation steps in and turns public water into private profit? It can spell disaster in a poor community or a place where clean water is scarce. Ten years ago, Bolivians made headlines when protests by Cochabamba’s people overturned a private water contract that made water rates catastrophically expensive. Since then, people around the world have been fighting to keep water public. From Canadian towns banning wasteful bottled water to cities across France reclaiming privatized water systems, there’s a growing global movement of citizens taking back their water. Here are some key wins.
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Even now, as the disastrous situation in the temperate waters of the Gulf of Mexico continues, oil companies are still pushing for opening up the Arctic for, oil drilling. Last month the Obama administration commendably postponed the planned exploratory oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska, pending further investigation, and a plan to dump 1,200 litres of crude oil as a “test” into Lancaster Sound in the Canadian Arctic has been shelved, following major opposition. Meanwhile, Greenland last week has announced a plan to start drilling in Baffin Bay. My Google Alerts for the word “Arctic” are suddenly full of fossil fuel industry references, much more than this time last year.
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What do oil and genetically engineered (GE) rice have in common? The ability to get multinationals in a whole lot of trouble, apparently. BP is battling the oil spill in the Gulf and desperately trying to employ some sort of brand damage control that will work – both efforts seem to be doing rather badly.
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Barack Obama’s tough stand on Gulf oil spill contrasts with lack of action on Bhopal, campaigners say
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Thousands of whales will continue to be killed each year after international negotiations to redraw whaling rules collapsed following two days of secret talks.
However, anti-whaling groups hailed the collapse as a success, as it means the ban on whaling – introduced 24 years ago but ignored by some nations – remains.
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I read a very revealing interview yesterday, with Iceland’s chief whaler. Kristjan Loftsson has merrily defied the global moratorium on commercial whaling for decades and now sits on Iceland’s government delegation to the International Whaling Commission. He is, of course, also big pals with the Japanese and Norwegian delegations.
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Finance
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When federal investigators asked Goldman Sachs for its transactions with insurance giant AIG, Goldman turned over the information — several hundred billion pages’ worth.
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PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
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Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights
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The American Civil Liberties Union has waded into the controversy over South Carolina’s bizarre Democratic primaries last week, which ended with the Senate nomination going to an unknown, unemployed candidate who won more votes than were cast in some counties.
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About 20,000 Chinese-language copies of “The Tiananmen Diary of Li Peng” had initially been scheduled to go on sale in Hong Kong on June 22, but Bao Pu, of New Century Press, stopped the presses on Friday because he did not have copyright ownership.
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Pakistan will monitor seven major websites, including Google and Yahoo, to block anti-Islamic links and content, an official said Friday. Seventeen lesser-known sites are being blocked outright for alleged blasphemous material.
The moves follow Pakistan’s temporary ban imposed on Facebook in May that drew both praise and condemnation in a country that has long struggled to figure out how strict a version of Islam it should follow.
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Yahoo called Pakistan’s actions disappointing. The company is “founded on the principle that access to information can improve people’s lives,” Yahoo spokeswoman Amber Allman said.
Microsoft and Amazon didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
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Continuing in the privacy vein, Twitter has settled with the Federal Trade Commission regarding privacy charges brought after hackers accessed the San Francisco microblogging service and were able to send phony tweets as well as view tweets that users had marked as private.
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Whistleblower website Wikileaks has made contact with the US government over claims that an American serviceman is one of its sources.
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For a website devoted to exposing secrets, WikiLeaks.org is pretty good at keeping its own.
Not much is confirmed about exactly who founded it and runs it, who donates money to allow the five or so full-time people and hundreds of volunteers to keep it going, and where it all happens.
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RED-FACED KENT COPPERS have said they are taking “remedial action” after the Information Commissioner’s Office found it in breach of the Data Protection Act.
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Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM
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The American Antitrust Institute (AAI) today submitted comments to the Federal Communications Commissions regarding the proposed joint venture between Comcast and NBCU. On December 3, 2009, Comcast and GE (parent of NBCU) agreed to pool assets in a joint venture (JV) valued at about $30 billion. Under the JV, GE will have a 49 percent ownership share and Comcast will have a 51 percent share.
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James from the New America Foundation says, “Following reports that of the FCC is holding closed door meetings for a possible Net Neutrality compromise, their blog disclosed this little tidbit: to the extent stakeholders discuss proposals with Commission staff regarding other approaches outside of the open proceedings at the Commission, the agency’s ex parte disclosure requirements are not applicable.’ How ironic that discussions on the Open Internet have become closed.”
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Copyrights
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Two researchers who previously believed that file-sharing had no impact on music sales have now changed their minds.
In a 2004 paper, Felix Oberholzer-Gee of Harvard Business School and Koleman Strumpf of UNC Chapel Hill (now at the University of Kansas) caused a stir by claiming file-sharing did not have a measurable effect on recorded music sales. In their new paper, however, they find that “no more than 20% of the recent decline in sales is due to sharing.” That happens to be roughly the same conclusion reached in a 2007 Capgemeni study commissioned by a UK music industry working group. In that study, Capgemini concluded that 18% of the value lost to the UK record industry from 2004 to 2007 was the result of digital piracy. The unbundling of the CD was found to be the main culprit behind the loss of value over that time period.
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The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers said on Monday that it had filed copyright suits against 21 bars, nightclubs and restaurants across the country, including Doug’s Burger Bar in Imperial, Mo., and The Vibe in Riverside, Calif.
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One question that needs to be asked in the wake of Google’s win over Viacom in the YouTube case is whether Google could have gotten away with doing less about copyrighted content on the video-sharing platform.
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“Having tools like filtering helps show the court you are a good actor, but clearly, from a reading of the legislation and from the court decisions, it’s not an obligation,” says Michael Elkin, a partner at Winston & Strawn, who is representing Veoh in an important case testing safe harbor for ISPs before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
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ACTA
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About 650 people, including 11 members of the European Union Parliament and about 90 intellectual property (IP) professors, have signed a document saying an international IP enforcement agreement being negotiated by the U.S. and 36 other countries “threatens numerous public interests.”
The document, released by American University’s Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property Wednesday, raises a wide range of concerns about the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which was negotiated in secret for more than two years before the countries involved released a copy of the text in April.
CLUG Talk 09 September 2008 – Making Your Own Linux Distribution (2008)
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Posted in Microsoft, Site News at 3:32 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Poll time – deciding on this site’s focus
On the right hand side (menu) we have a new, single-question poll (scroll down a bit to see it). It says: “Should Techrights reduce focus on Microsoft?”
Techrights currently looks at Microsoft very closely because Microsoft actively works against software freedom. Should Techrights instead be more focused on other threats to software freedom, at the expense (but not exclusion) of Microsoft?
Voting ought to take just 5 seconds and the majority vote really will determine this site’s direction.
As side news, last night we created an identi.ca group. If you have an identi.ca, feel free to join us. █
Update: We have a little problem with the poll because caching makes all visitors’ requests be funneled through the same IP address. The only apparent way around this was to make the poll open to registered users and registered users only. We apologise for this.
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