08.28.10

Mark Ballard Shows Why British Government Must Move to ODF as Doorway to Software Freedom

Posted in Europe, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenDocument at 10:17 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Calls from within the United Kingdom to facilitate a promised migration to Free software, via international standards such as ODF

IN RECENT weeks we wrote a great deal about Free software in the UK public sector (lack thereof rather). A few days ago we showed that the government would save an enormous amount of money by moving to ODF. The following new article agrees to a certain degree and it was researched by the same person who helped expose misconduct in Newham (Microsoft moles [1, 2, 3]):

• Tory council’s open source plans stymied as government considers policy

  A leading Tory council has been delayed in its attempt to replace Microsoft with open source software because the government is yet to fulfil an election pledge to introduce open standards.

  The Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead, one of the four “vanguard” councils testing the government’s Big Society project, also came to the attention of Microsoft after its IT strategy promised in April to “move away from the Microsoft Office platform and replace it with an open source or cloud alternative”.

  The council’s IT strategy proposed open source and open standards would cut its IT costs by a third. But Liam Maxwell, councillor responsible for IT policy at the borough, said the initiative depended on central government mandating the use of open standards in office software.

  “We are trying out open source. The problem is that Open Document Format (ODF) has not been adopted by the government yet,” said Maxwell, who helped draught Conservative technology policy before the election. “Why hasn’t ODF been adopted by government?” he said, calling for it to be done.

A migration to Free software in the British government is not far fetched at all. A lot of Europe is already doing it and even Data.gov.uk makes some commendable moves. From several days ago we have:

• Data.gov.uk releases Open Source code

  As part of the government’s ongoing work around transparency, today we are releasing some of the custom software code we’ve developed – a CKAN module for Drupal. This is available for anyone to review, use, or modify. We’re excited to see how developers and colleagues across the world put this work to good use in their own applications and projects.

A short while ago we retold the story of France and OpenOffice.org, showing the role of Microsoft's office suite in stifling rapid migrations to GNU/Linux. A move to ODF is very crucial because of that. As for OOXML, it is a scam and as the i4i case helps show, it is probably not legal, either. Reuters tells the story of i4i at this moment:

“Microsoft sat in meetings with us where we explained how it works and we believed if you’ve got a patent, a patent is full disclosure and in return you guys have to respect that and that is the law,” said i4i co-founder Michel Vulpe, whose software patent was approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in 1998.

In 2004 Vulpe became suspicious that the software giant was using their technology, without permission, in its popular Word software. In 2007, when Microsoft began touting its XML capabilities, i4i got serious and launched their patent infringement lawsuit.

At the time, Vulpe said the reaction from friends was a mixture of laughter and horror.

With ‘partners’ like these, who needs rivals? █

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Canonical Should Adhere to Freedom Principles, Keep Feet on the Ground (Not ‘Cloud’)

Posted in FSF, GNU/Linux, Ubuntu at 9:58 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Under new leadership, the Debian-derived Ubuntu sees a push for Fog Computing and further disposition of Freedom values

Matt Asay, Canonical’s newly-appointed COO, continues to show lack of commitment to Free software. Instead, semi-Open Source, 'open' core, and an obsession with Fog Computing occasionally crop up. Here is a new article where Asay puts a question mark as he seemingly provokes opposers of ‘open’ core:

• Open Core naysayers celebrate…proprietary software?

  The odd thing is that the free software crowd hails this as progress. We are absolutely not veering toward an open-source future, where all software is released under an OSI-approved license. Far from it. Instead we’re simply seeing companies figure out that they don’t need to compete on distributed database management systems like Cassandra, because they have plenty of proprietary value elsewhere.

Another new example of provocation with a question mark:

• Can Open Source Be Saved From Itself?

Asay has not blogged in CNET for a long time, maybe because it caused him trouble. He does tend to say some darn things which irk Ubuntu users (or Canonical customers) at times. He also belittles some competitors, which is not appropriate in a “news” site. He can’t please everyone and anyone can accept that he wants to do the right thing. Either way, regarding that latter article (in which he’s consensually linking to Linux FUD from Microsoft MVP Jason Hiner, who has a track record of attacking Free software), one person among two in the comments section writes: “I thought you are done with your anti-free software crap already. You are wrong on so many levels that it’s not even funny anymore.”

Separately, in ZDNet there’s Canonical staff talking about a shift to Fog Computing, which the FSF is very much against (at least Canonical tries to adhere to openness, which is not necessarily the same as freedom). Published yesterday:

Canonical: The cloud shift is developer-led

Neil Levine has headed up corporate services at open source Ubuntu-backer Canonical since August 2009. Prior to that, he was the chief technology officer at Claranet, which provides managed hosting from the datacentre up to the application layer. Enthusiastic about open-source schemes within the cloud, he recently attended the launch of the OpenStack scheme, an attempt to make it easier for companies to get off the ground in cloud computing.

[...]

We’ve had a product on the market for over 1.5 years, and we were the first open source cloud option. We took the product to a lot of businesses and they talked to their operations people and infrastructure people who said: “yeah, we love this, this is great, but I can’t just deploy it with nothing to run on top. I have to have an application”. Then they talked to their application people who said: “I want to do cloud, but this is the problem I’ve got at the moment” — whether it’s analytics or big data issues.

Canonical ought to look at the goals of the Debian project and remain somewhat loyal to that doctrine. If Ubuntu became just another brand in a group of non-Free options, not much would actually be achieved. To be fair, other distributions are also attempting this Fog Computing dabbling; they too should not lose sight of the goals of GNU and Linux. █

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Apple Monogamy: How Apple Retaliated Against Partner That ‘Dared’ to Explore Linux

Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Hardware, Microsoft at 9:10 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: SurfaceInk committed the ‘sin’ of testing GNU/Linux, so Apple dumps it as a company to do business with

Y

ESTERDAY we wrote about Microsoft allegedly threatening to withdraw support for an application developer if GNU/Linux was also supported. This is reminiscent of a recent story about a game maker which Microsoft allegedly treated this way. Apple turns out to be no better than Microsoft in that regard. Check out this news:

• Apple dump SurfaceInk over potential iPad rival demo

  SurfaceInk’s 12.1-inch tablet reference design may have won them headlines when they demonstrated the Ubuntu-powered slate back in June, but it also lost them Apple as a client. CEO Eric Bauswell confirmed to the NY Times that, because of “Apple’s growing awareness of our turnkey capabilities,” the two companies had “gone separate directions.”

• Apple dumps design firm SurfaceInk due to potential tablet threat

  In June, the company showed off a 12.1-inch tablet running Ubuntu Linux that had quite a few features the iPad lacks, including a mini-HDMI connection to push video to HDTVs, and two cameras for video conferencing. It had also said that it was working on a more portable 7-inch model. The tablet was intended to show SurfaceInk’s clients the sort of capabilities it had, and didn’t seem to have any future beyond being a mere prototype.

• Apple severs ties with tablet-design firm

  SurfaceInk, which also has a turnkey business that creates and licenses products, has enjoyed success in the tech world. According to its site, the company’s clients have included Hewlett-Packard, Palm, and Belkin.

• Developer of Tablets Loses Apple as Customer

  SurfaceInk, a company founded in 1999, has done engineering design work in the past for clients — and Apple competitors — like Palm and Hewlett-Packard. The company, which has about 50 employees, also has a so-called turnkey business, which creates products and licenses them to other companies.

  It was that latest part of SurfaceInk’s business, which the company began about five years ago, that apparently unsettled Apple. While SurfaceInk had gotten clients mostly through word of mouth, in June it publicized a prototype 12.1-inch tablet during an electronics trade show.

  The device was meant to showcase SurfaceInk’s design capabilities to potential clients, Mr. Bauswell said. He said that Apple viewed those capabilities as a potential competitive threat.

• Apple fires former design partner over tablet

  Apple has severed all ties with a small Silicon Valley design firm thats its been doing business with for the past decade, the company SurfaceInk has helped with the development of many of its products.

• Apple dumps SurfaceInk over rival tablet

  I understand having to look after your company’s wellbeing but this suggests overkill on Apple’s part. Then again, is anyone surprised by such a reaction?

Apple’s hypePad is said to be popular mostly among existing customers of Apple. Apple knows that its niche product is under substantial threat from Linux, which it is already suing. █

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Links 28/8/2010: Zenwalk Linux 6.4, RabbitMQ 2.0.0

Posted in News Roundup at 8:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Clip of the Day

Lawrence Lessig talks with the Booksmith – Part III

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Microsoft a Major Breeding Ground of Patent Trolls

Posted in Bill Gates, Microsoft, Patents at 4:37 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“The genesis of this idea was when I was at Microsoft. We had a problem with patent liability. All these people were coming to sue us or demand payment. And Bill (Gates) asked me to think about if there was a solution.” —Nathan Myhrvold, WSJ: Transcript: Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures

Summary: People who are closely affiliated/associated with Microsoft have a tendency to slow down scientific progress using patent monopolies

A year and a half ago we wrote this concise timeline of Microsoft's patent strategy. Microsoft generates patent trolls, including the world’s largest troll. Is anybody surprised? Bill Gates too has a patent troll and Paul Allen has just joined the club.

How do we know that Nathan Myhrvold, Bill Gates, and Paul Allen are patent trolls? They are all using shells that lack actual products. That’s the hallmark of a patent troll, formerly known by some as a “patent shark”. Paul Allen’s patent troll even chose for itself a very troll-like name, as though it’s not even trying to masquerade as a real company:

The suit has been brought by Interval Licensing, which is controlled by Mr Allen.

Take a look at Google and try to find this company’s Web site. We have not managed to even get an address (probably some lawyers’ office). We do have the addresses which show proximity between Gates, his investment arm (including Gates Foundation), and the patent trolls which he is grooming in Kirkland, Washington. What are these people up to and what is their deep obsession with patent monopolies? In relation to Allen, Robert Pogson points out that:

You can tell a patent-troll by the number of decades of prior art that precedes their invention. 40+ years is close to the record, IMHO. I think the troll feels all the old guys who have seen this before have died or have lost interest. Of course a good troll waits until the patent is about to expire to maximize return on legal fees.

Acacia did the same thing (suing Linux with old patents nearing expiry) and it has some former Microsoft managers in it. █

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Patents Kill, So Let’s Just Kill Them

Posted in OIN, Patents at 4:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“Those who exploit copyright and patent today will be regarded in a few decades as we regard those who exploited slavery.” –Crosbie, yesterday

Summary: As patents are an inherently problematic phenomenon, they ought to be abolished rather than just tamed or cooperated with (so-called ‘pragmatism’)

THE world’s ‘death patents’, which are promoted by the Gates Foundation, are an ethical problem and we have many older posts about the subject. The patent dilemma is most pronounced when people are killed by patents or their lives held as hostage by patents. SJVN, whose career involves a great deal of UNIX and Linux (then journalism), gets around to addressing this subject. He writes about “killer patents” as he calls them.

In the computer technology business, we tend to see patents as being bad for developers and business. What we don’t realize that the problems we have with Microsoft’s bogus patent claims against Linux and Oracle’s patent-based attack against Google are nothing compared to the evils that IP patents bring to the pharmacy business.

Take, for example, the assault that the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) is now mounting on Abbot Labs. PUBPAT is formally asking the United States Patent and Trademark Office to reexamine eight Abbot patents relating to the critical HIV/AIDS drug Ritonavir, aka Norvir.

Ritonavir, a protease inhibitor, was one of the early HIV/AID antiviral drugs. Today, as HIV has grown tougher, it is now more widely used to enhance the efficacy of other protease inhibitors in AIDs drug cocktails. In this role, it’s still a critical HIV/AIDS drug.

Being a technical person, SJVN understands that he does not really need patents. Copyrights are already there and the GPL too uses copyright laws. Groklaw, on the other hand, is not sufficiently sceptical of OIN and Peer-to-Patent. Groklaw editor Pamela Jones used to be a proponent of patents, but somewhere along the way she is said to have changed her mind. Right now we see the same adherence to accepting patents as a necessary evil, also from Eben Moglen who can make money from it. Groklaw tries to defend its audience [1, 2], which comprises many lawyers, including some who engage in patent lawsuits (also defence of course):

But as Eben Moglen pointed out recently at LinuxCon, the patent crisis in general isn’t going away. So it’s best that we figure out the very best ways to deal with it. I’m told his talk will be available as video soon, and when it’s up, it will be here on the Linux Foundation website.

Linux and FOSS compete on who has the best code, not patent infringement lawsuits, speaking of vision. It’s a superior development model. Nobody competes with courtrooms. I’m not saying no one sues. The GPL lawsuits are about copyright infringement, but they are what they say they are, not wolves in granny’s cap to fool Red Riding Hood. It’s why the code keeps getting better and better.

The title of this post is “How You Can Help Patent Attorneys Help Free Software” (implying that lawyers can solve the problem, usually for a fee). This is one area where Techrights does not fully agree with Groklaw. Using patent lawyers to fight against patents is like forming an alliance with Shell to end wars.

Patents are rarely beneficial to progress, if ever. Let’s use a new example. In relation to this article, TechDirt raises the question, “Would Photography Have Been Different If It Had Been Patented Up?”

Reader Murdoch points us to one of Wired’s regular “this day in tech” history pieces about how Louis Daguerre revealed all of the “secrets” to making daguerrotypes, which was the basis for photography, in 1839. Rather than a “patent” to lock up the offering, the French government gave Daguerre and his partner, Isidore Niepce, pensions in exchange for freeing the knowledge — with each receiving the equivalent today of $30,000 per year — a decent, but hardly huge sum. And with all that information public, suddenly everyone started innovating on the idea and trying to improve it, leading to modern photography.

Companies that make print — not photography — possible are keeping the prices high, artificially in most cases. The latest among several lawsuits which prevent real competition comes from HP:

THE MAKER OF EXPENSIVE PRINTER INK, HP has is going after its cheap and cheerful rivals, claiming that they have nicked its technology.

HP has asked the US International Trade Commission (ITC) to have a look at some of the inkjet ink supplies and components that are being shipped to the Land of the Free.

Just like Lexmark last week, they turn to the ITC [1, 2, 3, 4]. How does that improve development as opposed to HP’s bottom line? A lot of patents just make no sense to society (they have always made sense to the largest corporations however). They basically elevate prices, encourages price-gouging, and lessen competition. Let’s just get rid of patents (especially software patents), not learn how to live with them. █

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SCO Cheapskates and the Growing Irrelevance of the Case

Posted in IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, SCO, UNIX at 3:31 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Novell and SCO continue to wrestle over the issue of costs/bills and IBM tightens its relationship with Novell

NOVELL has been fighting against SCO for its own interests (including the shareholders’). But Novell’s action happens to have also been beneficial to IBM and others. Will Novell see much money coming out of it? Probably not, based on this latest post from Groklaw. It does, however, seem like Novell will keep the “UNIX” asset, which raises the company’s value when it sells (maybe to VMware). It raises many questions because VMware, for instance, is run by Microsoft veterans and giving them UNIX can be deadly. From Groklaw we learn about SCO’s latest objection to Novell’s bill of costs:

What that means is that SCO would like to pay less. If Novell had lost, and they had been ordered to pay SCO’s bill of costs, SCO would have fervently argued the opposite. Last time, SCO was able to get a bit knocked off the bill, so they may again. But they’ll probably still have to pay something. But will they? In real life, I mean. Not on paper.

The SCO case remains an area that is mostly explored by this one Web site. Unless one actually attends the court hearings or downloads documents, this case is almost invisible and irrelevant by now. The SCOracle case matters a lot more [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12] and Oracle even hired SCO's and Novell's lawyers. Groklaw has diversified its scope in the sense that it expanded topics it covers to include Apple and Oracle cases.

It is worth highlighting the fact that IBM still collaborates in some senses with Novell. They even present together and we last mentioned this here. Oracle, IBM, and Novell are all involved in the SCO case — a case which was partly funded by Microsoft in order to damage GNU/Linux. █

“…Microsoft wished to promote SCO and its pending lawsuit against IBM and the Linux operating system. But Microsoft did not want to be seen as attacking IBM or Linux.”

–Larry Goldfarb, BayStar, key investor in SCO approached by Microsoft

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“Looks Like Microsoft is Doing Damage Control on Virus Attacks”

Posted in Deception, Microsoft, Security, Windows at 3:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The Internet is at risk of falling further into the hands of centralised authority as problems associated with Windows are named

“It looks like Microsoft is doing damage control on virus attacks and is looking to use their failure to exert yet more control,” wrote a reader of ours last night. “Check out the Slashdot blurb, which fails to call out Windows! They outlawed USBs when they should have dumped Windows instead.”

For those who want to see the latest cyberwar propaganda (unlike the cost assessments [1, 2]), here’s an AFP report. Who’s to blame? Well, a new IBM report names Apple and Microsoft as most vulnerable vendors:

IBM’s X-Force threat report for the first half of 2010 lists Apple, Microsoft and Adobe Systems as the makers of products with the most vulnerabilities.

These three firms champion proprietary software. What should the Pentagon deduce? Maybe this question is rhetorical. █

“The continuous and broad peer-review enabled by publicly available source code supports software reliability and security efforts through the identification and elimination of defects that might otherwise go unrecognized by a more limited core development team.”

–CIO David Wennergren, Department of Defense (October 2009)

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