Summary: Special episode discussing Novell’s sale and Microsoft’s patent play, including a discussion about hardware products
THIS is the show where, without preparation, the three of us discuss Novell’s sale. Tim’s site, OpenBytes, has already published some show notes. We’ve had some audio issues throughout the show, so pardon occasional background noises/echo.
Posted in Microsoft at 5:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Large Web sites with a Microsoft stake in them give away people’s rights of privacy, in order for Microsoft to get richer
Facebook is not a friendly company, it’s an aggressor (see Legalpad [1, 2]). Recently we witnessed trademark bullying by Facebook (and patents too), as well as many favours done to Microsoft, which owns part of Facebook. It is known by now that Facebook gives its data to Microsoft, but then again, so does MSNBC, which can only ever pretend not to have this dependence. “Websites Rein In Tracking Tools” says Murdoch’s paper and there is the following bit about Microsoft:
MSNBC.com, jointly owned by Microsoft Corp. and NBC Universal, has intensified monitoring of software being installed on visitors’ computers. “The sheer volume of activity was greater than we thought,” said Kyoo Kim, vice president of sales for the company’s digital network. There were “a lot of things happening without our knowledge.”
Mr. Kim said MSNBC is reviewing its privacy policies and marketing partners, but declined to discuss specifics.
It is safe to assume and to say that Microsoft also gets access to Facebook data, which includes data from all across the Web because there is expansion of scope. Facebook knows which pages people are visiting because of the “Like” button. As Dan Gillmor put it last week:
We should all be uncomfortable about moving more and more of our cyber-activities into the embrace of a single company — and I don’t care if it’s Google (one reason I rarely use Gmail) or Facebook or anyone else. Facebook has federated its “Like” button all over the Internet, so it’s not trying to entirely capture your browsing and communications, but in the process it’s turning its service into a glue — replete with extremely granular data about what you do online — that should make everyone cautious about putting so much power into a single enterprise’s control. Easy to use, which Facebook certainly is, does not equate with good for you in the end.
“And if you don’t trust a combination of Facebook and Microsoft guarding your privacy, you know what to do,” said Pamela Jones from Groklaw regarding an article from BusinessInsider. Microsoft does not honour people’s privacy [1, 2, 3, 4] (as explained in the latter links, Microsoft now considers using cameras inside people’s own houses for surveillance they claim would be useful to marketers). Facebook/Microsoft can lead to other serious privacy issues, even accidental intrusion and leaks that lead to warnings from the US Air Force. To quote The Independent: “The US Air Force is warning its troops to be careful when using Facebook and other popular networking sites because some new features could show the enemy exactly where US forces are located in war zones.” People must stop assuming that only Facebook knows what they do on Facebook. NoScript is a decent extension for privacy and there are many others available. █
Summary: Microsoft’s destructive practices as of late and why it’s reasonable to suspect that Microsoft is behind newer problems at the London Stock Exchange, its poster child for “get the facts” campaign
MICROSOFT is a company that destroys, it does not create. Microsoft is also a company that distorts (look no further than how it manipulates Novell), it does not compete fairly. Over the past 2.5 years we have shown Microsoft’s hijack of Yahoo!, which was all about distortion and distraction (AstroTurfing, proxy fights, entryism, and so on). “Major Yahoo Layoffs Reportedly On The Way” says this report that helps show just what Microsoft can do to a company which it decides to destroy or take over (without ever having to pay to buy the whole company).
Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz said last fall that the company—which has had three major rounds of layoffs since 2008—was “done” with layoffs, but that may not be entirely accurate. The company is reportedly planning another big round of job cuts next month. TechCrunch says the company will cut 20 percent of its workforce, or as many as 2,500 employees; Yahoo is calling that report “misleading and inaccurate” but it does say “it’s always evaluating expenses to align with the company’s financial goals” and Kara Swisher at AllThingsD says the company will likely cut about 10 percent of its workforce next month.
Microsoft has done to Novell what it has done to Yahoo. It broke Novell from the inside and then had the company sold to AttachMSFT (with all the patents going into a Microsoft shell). Microsoft hardly had to pay for this and it got so much done at Novell’s expense (Mono and Moonlight for example).
It seems possible that Microsoft is trying to regain control of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in some nefarious ways. When LSE dumped Windows some Microsoft minions lost their jobs and regarding the news that “London Stock Exchange hires 81 C++ developers for delayed Linux system” Pamela Jones from Groklaw quotes reports of apparent sabotage and adds: “Is there a hint in this story that someone deliberately tried to undermine the switch from Microsoft .Net to Linux?”
“Microsoft has a long history of “technical sabotage” as one lawyer called it.”In a prior comment about a different report (about migration delays incurred by suspicious interference), Jones wrote: “I can certainly think of some folk in this world that do not enjoy the thought of Linux being a success. And now The London Stock exchange is claiming they need more time to get more speed from their new system and so are delaying. That is despite what the article highlighted says: “However other exchanges are fast developing systems that can rival the LSE’s speed and capacity. Last week, NASDAQ in New York said it had a scalable Linux system delivering trades at under 100 microseconds, 25 microseconds faster than the LSE.” Something doesn’t smell right in this picture.”
Jones wrote this in response to the many British reports about people (or person) apparently messing about with the new system, trying to make it fail. Disgruntled employee/s or Microsoft sabotage? It can be both. Microsoft has a long history of “technical sabotage” as one lawyer called it. █
“[Y]eah, and the [Microsoft] engineers were told to fuck with Samba.” -Jeremy Allison (Samba), FLOSS weekly podcast
Summary: Analyses of the impact of Novell’s patents, which are now under Microsoft’s grip
ONE of the common responses we got when raising concerns about Novell’s software patents (which it kept collecting more of) is that they were harmless. We insisted that they can later be used by opponents of GNU/Linux. The trolls and the Novell employees/apologists who commented here were quick to use OIN as Novell’s excuse for using developers’ valuable time just writing patent applications. Well, guess what? Those developers only helped create some ammunition for Microsoft to threaten or attack GNU/Linux with. It’s rather ironic, isn’t it? As our reader gnufreex puts it, “Microsoft a[c]quires 882 patents from Novell” and there are no exceptions:
Microsoft acquired all Novell’s patents, through a proxy called CPTN Holdings LLC. From there, patents will probably end up with some Microsoft-loyal trolls like Paul Allen or Nathan Myhrvold, but this is just a guess. What is certain, $450m in cash buys Microsoft a patent gun to scare and extort companies using GNU/Linux. That is their only option, since Windows is fallen far behind and is beyond repair.
This is an embarrassment for OIN because it used to boast having those Novell patents, which now belong to an opponent of OIN. And to all those who love to vilify “Boycott Novell” for stating its opinion on these Novell patents, guess who got the last laugh? We were right all along, despite discouragement to those who chose comfort over reality.
Novell’s Final Betrayal: 800+ Patents to Microsoft
[...]
… almost precisely as Your Humble Host predicted back in May, Microsoft has organized a thin front organization to pick up whatever pieces they think will be useful against Linux. Novell, as has been standard practice for them since at least 2006, has once again chosen to do whatever is best for Microsoft.
[...]
Business Insider has already captured the deal’s essence in a piece entitled “Today’s Novell Deal Helps Microsoft Continue Linux Fight“:
The deal helps Microsoft in its decade-long fight against open-source operating system Linux in two ways.
First, it keeps a Microsoft competitor from buying Novell’s SUSE Linux implementation. VMWare was looking at buying SUSE so it could sell a top-to-bottom software stack that would compete directly against Microsoft’s Windows Server and its built-in virtualization technology. This was a major fear in Microsoft’s server group, according to my sources there.
Second, although the companies didn’t say exactly what patents were included, it seems likely that some of them are related to SUSE Linux. If so, these patents will give Microsoft further ammunition to sign cross-licensing deals with companies that sell other products based on Linux. And those licensing deals will continue to raise questions in the mind of potential Linux customers.
Please note Business Insider is not some “freetard” blog. This is rational, business-oriented analysis. Remember that as Team Apologista winds up the spin and attempts to downplay the traitorous nature of this odious deal: the Patent Purchase Agreement portion of this deal is 100% beneficial to Microsoft in its fight against Linux. It strengthens Microsoft’s claims that it owns so-called “Intellectual Property” that entitles Microsoft to demand licensing fees or other tribute in order for someone to run Linux.
Also note there are almost certainly other technologies and/or markets that Microsoft hopes to gain leverage in with these patents – but the essence is how much it bolsters Microsoft’s war chest against Linux. Don’t be distracted by claims that Microsoft has its eye on some other technology (ala Platespin). True as a side benefit, perhaps, but the real importance to Microsoft is – and has always been: to kill Linux, and, failing that, to hinder adoption of Linux, and, failing that, to require payment for the privilege of running Linux.
[...]
What happens to any OIN patents? My impression is that the OIN “owns” the patents, so I don’t expect any change in those patents, but it would be re-assuring to confirm that.
The rest of Jason’s analysis is also excellent, so do have a look. █
Summary: April, which promotes software freedom in France, can take its awareness campaign further and arrange a lawsuit to end Microsoft corruption of the system
FR: Advocacy groups camparing against discriminatory IT procurements
French public administrations will be educated on how to properly procure IT solutions. April, c, and the National Council of Free Software (CNLL), a group representing French providers of free and open source software services, last Thursday announced a campaign to raise awareness on illegal IT procurement.
April should consider suing, especially after the OOXML fiasco in France (we covered it in 2008). A similar action proved fruitful in Quebec where there was a lawsuit Microsoft lost [1, 2, 3]. In Switzerland too there was a lawsuit which we covered in:
This case is still going on. It is not impossible to sue one’s government for discriminatory procurements and actually win the case. The government exists to serve the people, not Microsoft. █
Posted in Antitrust, Apple at 3:36 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Apple is having a tough time because of its own behaviour which can be characterised as conceited (vanity) and abusive (not obeying the rules)
Is Apple’s design ideology really “exclusionary” in this sense? Not always, but consider, for example, the iTunes-iPod setup. The “exclusion” occurs when a consumer wants to sync a music player other than an iPod to iTunes. It doesn’t work, and arguably, Apple is “excluding” or “refusing to deal” with independent music players so as to defend its monopoly.
More specifically, Apple’s habit of “upgrading” its products to exclude competitors could be a source of trouble. In 2009, Apple modified iTunes several times to prevent the Palm Pre from syncing with iTunes. While its hard to know exactly what the upgrade did, at least some of the upgrades, like 8.2.1 seemed to have little purpose other than blocking Palm’s sync capacities. Apple, for its part, stated blandly “iTunes 8.2.1 provides a number of important bug fixes and addresses an issue with verification of Apple devices.” That turned out to be a code-word for blocked the Pre.
Rupert Murdoch, head of the media giant News Corp, and Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, are preparing to unveil a new digital “newspaper” called the Daily at the end of this month, according to reports in the US media.
We previously saw Murdoch getting closer to Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14]. This man must love proprietary software for DRM antifeatures, just as he loves monopolies in general (his networks help defend US billionaires, who use the likes of Glenn Beck to mobilise the masses in favour of less regulation over these billionaires, ironically under a “Tea Party” banner/flag).
Today’s show ends with “Heart of Medieval”. We hope you will join us for future shows and spread the word if you enjoy this show. Also consider subscribing to the show via the RSS feed. If you have an Identi.ca account, consider subscribing to TechBytes in order to keep up to date. █
