Summary: Microsoft resorts to dirty tactics and aggression as more of its products fall flat on their faces
INTERESTING things are happening for Microsoft, which means that my week (or two) off was badly timed. In order to prevent this site from being too quiet while I’m on dodgy cellular networks (leading people to baseless theories), it is probably better to provide some quick updates, such as the headsup from OpenBytes about the failing of Xbox 360:
It is reported that Sony’s PS3 shipped 2.2m more units than the 360 in 2010. The reasons for this could be numerous, disaffection with Microsoft, no BluRay on the 360 or the RROD. The approximate numbers being reported as sold are: WII – 17million, PS3 – 14.4million and 360 on 12.2million. Oh dear. Maybe the Kinect (like I said at the time) wasn’t the major draw to the console that some claimed and maybe only set to appease existing 360 users and people who wanted to use the Kinect on a different platform altogether.
A brace of “fatal errors” is hampering Windows 7-based computers that have been updated with Microsoft’s first service pack for its current operating system.
In fact, since Windows 7 SP1 was released late last month, many users have been grumbling on forums about problems with the install of the update package.
Now whilst some Microsoft advocates are always quick to allege that Windows “just works” and is “easy to use” (whilst claiming Linux is a a complex hobbyist system) it appears that Windows SP1 installs are not going very smoothly
Read the full details at the original sources (hard to verify while on a throttled connection). Last but not least, Zune is officially dead, but we already said that, did we not?
CONSUMER ELECTRONICS ALSO-RAN Microsoft has finally put its Zune music player out of its misery, with reports that the company will no longer develop products for the Zune.
Microsoft launched its Zune music player back in 2006 to compete with Apple’s Ipod. At the time CEO Steve Ballmer said that Microsoft could beat Apple at its own game, a statement that seemed fanciful at the time and has now proven to have been simply laughably wrong. Bloomberg reports that Microsoft will stop updating its Zune player, concentrating on putting the software onto other devices.
Why worry about Microsoft? It just enters any market which might smell like money; currently it tries becoming a patents parasite feeding on other companies, not with much success though (it’s more of a distraction than a promising direction). For many years now (since the 1990s) Microsoft has been planning market distortion using government-granted monopolies such as patents. We have already provided many details about Elliot’s (Paul Singer) role in distorting markets and planning to tear Novell to pieces long before making the bid, which ultimately resulted in Microsoft taking over everything it needs from Novell. Groklaw looks at the mysterious and probably corrupt unXis case. It finds connections to Microsoft, Canopy, Carlyle, Elliott Associates, and Koch Industries:
On January 5th, it was announced that Koch Industries had sued a Utah web host, Bluehost, seeking names of pranksters who had put out a spoof press release and then posted it on a website made to look like Koch’s. Koch is asserting trademark infringement, unfair competition, breach of contract, and cyberpiracy under state and federal law, including a claim using the incredibly popular and oppressively flexible Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. It’s the dernier cri in litigation, ya know. The New York Times provides some background on the case, which involved Koch Industries unmasking some anonymous defendants and trying to make them pay for making fun of them. Bluehost totally caved, by the way.
The case caught my eye originally because it was assigned to the Hon. Dale Kimball, the judge who originally presided over both SCO v. IBM and SCO v. Novell in US District Court in Utah. So it piqued my curiosity, and I took a look. And then the weirdest thing happened.
As I read the filings, particularly Public Citizens’ Memorandum in Support of Motion to Quash, Issue Protective Order, and Dismiss Complaint [here's the Motion it supports, both PDFs], I was struck by two things: 1) the allegations seemed over the top in the SCO-esque sense and 2) Koch Industries is represented by Parsons Behle, the same law firm that represented Canopy Group in its litigation against Ralph Yarro, ousting him from his position with the company in 2004 and totally in 2005. He remained with SCO Group as chairman of the board, until the company filed for bankruptcy in 2007. But looking at the subpoena [PDF] Yarro’s lawyers served on Parsons Behle in that litigation, I saw that the firm had represented Canopy Group from 1998 onward, meaning that for some time, they represented Canopy when Yarro was heading it up.
Woah. Is there a Yarro-Koch connection? A unXis connection? After all, unXis seems to have some connections to energy interests, and that’s Koch’s field. And always, over the years, in reporting on the SCO saga, who do we find peeking out from behind the curtain? Microsoft.
It is like some kind of mafia looking for the benefits of very few rich members of the public. They work together a lot of the time. It helps them at the expense of everybody outside that cabal. Incidentally, be sceptical of “CIA” figures about the Internet (that’s how it was described). IE9 is a case of too little, too late. The Microsoft-sponsored ‘Web statistics’ already produce warped numbers to give the illusion of an Internet Explorer comeback. Everything for hype, eh? █
Posted in Site News at 4:46 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A little bit of site news and an explanation about the long delay
PLEASE allow us to eliminate false rumours about Techrights being “dead” or “under attack” or “silenced”. The site is very much active in the IRC channels, but the editor (yours truly) is stuck with no wired connection because BT is slow to enable lines* when one relocates.
While I’m on mobile broadband (essentially a cellular network) I just spend more time coding, but I wanted to share some thoughts on the operation of this site and reach out for advice. Activities behind the scenes are all publicly logged and even when I’m offline, someone else logs them for publication at a later date (yes, all the IRC logs will be posted when I review and split the files next week). Components of Techrights are primarily the community which sustains it, including the kind host, Tracy, who has supported the site marvelously well since a major DDOS attack forced us offline for days. The site itself has several parts such as:
1. Blog (with translations)
2. Wiki
3. IRC
4. Audiocast
(5. Citations in press, forums)
Communication channels (real-time at FreeNode) are:
1. Techrights
2. BN
3. BN social
4. TechBytes
Syndication is done with:
1. Full RSS feeds
2. Identica
3. Twitter
4. Digg
Angles we can split the covered issues into:
1. TechRights
2. TechWrongs
3. TechChoices
Focus in negative context:
1. Novell
2. Microsoft
3. Apple
Focus in positive context
Freedom-respecting companies and some organisations such as the EFF, FSF, and Wikileaks.
Post types are:
1. Articles (including offbeat announcements like this one)
2. Daily links
3. IRC logs
4. Audiocast
Domain names (through which the server is accessible):
Since some time in October 2010 we’ve pondered the option of using IRC with identi.ca syndication as the main — is not only — source of site input. Prior to my departure our IRC logs weighed almost 1 MB per days, so they took a long time to pass through and they contained a lot of real-time information from many sources. Although the plan is to resume as usual when the wired connection is back, perhaps it is time to experiment with substitutes or surrogates for RSS feeds (E-mails are mostly slow to manage and sometimes unreliable). This might also enable us to compose more posts per day, maybe at the expense of the daily links (which many people still seem to find useful, despite the immense size/volume). Any thoughts on how Techrights can make the most of it all would be appreciated, so please leave a comment or join us to discuss this in IRC.
____ * And has bad service and is expensive… yes, thanks to ‘benevolent’ monopolies.
Summary: This belated post is a roundup of Novell news from the first week of March, ranging from its exploitation of Red Hat to the curse of Novell’s Microsoft-esque program, Banshee
Novell and Microsoft behave alike. Even though some journalists paint Novell as a “Linux company”, the platform which Novell promotes a lot is actually .NET and Novell also markets this stuff using the “open” banner which is not deserved. As revealed at the beginning of this month, Microsoft’s proprietary stack is promoted with ‘OSS’ and it fools some people. It sure does.
Novell uses SUSE to pretend that its proprietary server products are somehow “open” and Microsoft uses Novell (or Mono) to pretend that the patent trap .NET is “open” and “cross-platform” (it’s neither of those things). More recently we found Novell employees screaming at Ubuntu for falling into the Banshee trap [1, 2]. That’s Mono. How about a Novell employee on PDF Mod Update this month? They are reaching out to PDF for their Mono kingdom. Microsoft has a “.NET everywhere” vision and Novell serves this fantasy with the aid of Mono while other Mono boosters cause problems and show their share of this damage.
From a financial perspective, 2011 is not starting off particularly well for enterprise software vendor Novell. The company released its first quarter fiscal 2011 financial results this week, reporting a decline in revenues and a net loss for the quarter.
Novell mostly talks about proprietary software and a little bit of SLES, which is like a joint Microsoft venture now that Novell shares such ‘Linux’ revenue with Microsoft. Additionally, Novell’s Mono software causes friction in the GNU/Linux world; the most recent example of this is Banshee. gnufreex asks, “Will Novell pay up to Spacewalk project http://ur1.ca/3dqdq cc: @jwildeboer @fontana @jonobacon [...] will novell share some of revenue with Red Hat? No, they will steal instead http://ur1.ca/3do2t #banshee #Hypocrites [...] Great chance to expose Novell’s hypocrisy wrt Banshee”
Here is Novell’s press release hailing its latest ‘ripoff’ of Red Hat. Timothy Prickett Morgan says that Novell paints Red Hat Linux manager green. “The quickest way to build a commercial Linux business is to clone whatever Red Hat does,” he explains.
The quickest way to build a commercial Linux business is to clone whatever Red Hat does. That’s what Oracle and CentOS do with their Enterprise Linux redistributions and accompanying paid-for support offerings, and it is now what Novell is doing with a “new” product called SUSE Manager.
With SUSE Manager, announced today, Novell is trying to not only provide a better tool for managing its SUSE Linux Enterprise server than its existing Yast and ZENworks products, but is also trying to branch out into managing Red Hat Enterprise Linux as well as its own distro for servers.
Sam Dean wonders, “Does Novell Still Have a Chance in the Enterprise Market?”
The long-standing deal between Novell and Microsoft surrounding Novell’s Linux business led to many of Novell’s previous contracts with enterprises. Under Attachmate, and with a Microsoft-led consortium inheriting many of Novell’s key patents, that enterprise deal-making engine is undermined, and Red Hat just keeps marching on in the enterprise market.
SUSE Manager is based on an open source project called Spacewalk, and Novell is arguing that it can help “reduce the operational costs of [enterprise] Linux servers while improving compliance and service quality.” In terms of its feature set, that may be true, but Novell has to craft a whole new approach to dealing with the enterprise market now that is not independent. Attachmate has to come up with some kind of corollary to the enterprise deal making that Microsoft did on Novell’s behalf for years. It remains to be seen how well any of this will work.
Luc de Louw’s blog notes that “SUSE Manager [is] based on Fedora Spacewalk”:
SUSE announced the availability of SUSE manager. Having a closer look to it, one recognizes it is based on Fedora Spacewalk. It is a clone of the Red Hat Satellite.
A few weeks ago I was puzzled to see a post on the spacewalk-devel mailing list. SUSE was contributing some code. What the heck? Now it is clear, they are using Spacewalk as there source for its own product. Spacewalk is no longer just the upstream of RHN Satellite, but also a major tool for managing SLES systems.
So, they will surely now direct their PR machine against themselves and blast themselves as hard as they did to Canonical. Or maybe they will pay up? And oinking sounds will spread trough skies.
Sean Michael Kerner explains that “Novell Tries to Beat Red Hat with Red Hat’s Own Tech”:
Novell is using open source technology from the Spacewalk project that rival Linux vendor Red Hat started, in order to help Red Hat users migrate to SUSE Linux.
The new SUSE Manager is a Linux systems management solution that will enable administrators to manage and update SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) as well as Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) installations. SUSE Manager replaces the Zenworks Linux Management solution that Novell has had in the market since 2004, which evolved from the Ximian Red Carpet Linux management product suite.
The Domino KDE style was an emergent and versatile style theme. It had the ability to be customized much like what Qt Curve or Bespin does. However, Domino had the ability to be customized and be previewed instantly has you made the changes. The configuration widow had all sorts of simple modifiers that could truly give some personality to your KDE 3.
Anyway, Techrights is well behind in terms of OpenSUSE news and there is this previous summary from OpenSUSE for those who are interested. We must also catch up with SCO’s case against Novell and find out the details about the Novell buyout getting delayed (BT says my wired connection will go up no sooner than next Tuesday).
I have our first report from the courtroom in today’s SCO bankruptcy hearing in Delaware regarding whether or not SCO can sell essentially all its assets.
It sounds absolutely awful, frankly, but the judge has taken it under advisement, with Novell indicating it will appeal if it does not prevail. We’ll be updating this article as more reports arrive. We had two reporters there today.
For the time being, that’s about all from Novell. It’s on the fringes of the Microsoft camp, still. It’s a patent parasite, but at least it does not exploit the disaster in Japan for self-promotion (unlike you-know-who, as usual). █
Summary: Tim, Gordon, and Roy catch up with news about phones and patents
THIS episode was recorded in a rush and is short because it was recorded over a mobile broadband network (it took a whole night to upload). We touch some important subjects and prepare for possible changes in shows to come.
Summary: Bits of recent news (from last week and beforehand) about mobile platforms and platform security
IN THE LAST post on this subject (before moving to a new house) it was clarified that Linux had more or less won the mobile wars. Android is unstoppable, but Microsoft and Apple resort to dirty tactics which include patent lawsuits. There’s that lack of a sense of ethics in the proprietary software camp and it really shows.
It may take several days to catch up with the past week’s news, but looking a week back, there are certain unmissable incidents that ought to be filed here. First of all, Microsoft continues to be utter rubbish at security (and at mobile too) not because some of its software is ubiquitous but because Microsoft’s patching habits are poor. As The Register put it, “March Patch Tuesday leaves IE unpatched for Pwn2Own hackers”:
Microsoft – unlike its browser rivals – will not be patching Internet Explorer before the upcoming Pwn2Own hacking contest next week.
A March Patch Tuesday pre-alert, published on Thursday, reveals that Redmond will be issuing three security bulletins next week, one of which affects a critical flaw in Windows and none of which relates to IE. The critical update affects Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 while the two lesser risk (“important”) bulletins cover a separate flaw in Windows and an update for the Office Groove 2007 software.
IE will not be fully patched in time for Pwn2Own next week. Let’s see. Hundreds of millions of PCs run IE and all the malware artists in the world will have IE’s downfall demonstrated in public… It boggles my mind that people run that software and M$ cares so little about the security of a necessarily-networked application.
Moving on to phones, nobody can get past the amazement at the NoWin deal (Nokia-Windows) [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], which made no sense for Nokia. None whatsoever. Someone whom I know at BT (a manager) called it “100% corrupt” and was surprised that it was allowed to get past regulators. Anyway, as one of our readers pointed out a couple of days ago:
Confirmation of Nokia’s role comes from PJ’s examination of Nokia’s SEC filing. She quotes the relevant parts in her news picks.
- Definitive agreements with Microsoft for the proposed partnership may not be entered into in a timely manner, or at all, or on terms beneficial to us.
- New sources of revenue expected to be generated from the Microsoft partnership, such as increased monetization opportunities for us in services and intellectual property rights, may not materialize as expected, or at all.
[PJ: So, they haven't signed on the dotted line yet, this is saying. And I gather they hope to sue people or threaten to do so to get royalties on patents. Blech. Can't Microsoft ever do anything *not* evil?] – Nokia’s Form 20F, SEC
I think she hit the nail on the head. We can conclude that all of the damage to Nokia is real but Microsoft’s promises are vapor. Perhaps there is resistance in the company beyond the thousands of engineers who walked off the job in protest.
It’s not entirely shocking because we predicated this and Elop has made comments which insinuated this right after signing the deal with Microsoft, in which he had a lot of his money invested at the time. Microsoft and its minions are also grooming Android (and MeeGo) for lawsuits/extortion, meaning that Microsoft will try to get a share of the profits, if not by extortion, then by lawsuits that speed up the act of surrendering. Microsoft is more like a racketeering operation and with Elop it got Nokia joining its mob army. Microsoft MVP de Icaza is promoting the MonoDroid poison pill [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15] while a fellow Mono/.NET booster from Seattle (near Microsoft) stirs the broth: “The signed Honeycomb update from Moto/Google contains libmono.so and libunity.so. @migueldeicaza @unity3d” [thanks to G. Forbes for the headsup]
Watch out, Android. Companies like Acer and Motorola are not paying Microsoft for Android and Microsoft would love to change that. Microsoft’s own mobile platform is a massive failure given the massive advertising budget and the bad patches which brick phones that run Vista Phony 7 are just a sign of this. Well, the spin came shortly afterwards (blaming the connection because, of course, Microsoft would love people to believe that updates should not necessarily be resilient in case of intermittent mobile connectivity, which is common by the way) and it didn’t take long before phones ‘blew’ or got bricked again. How typical:
“Microsoft blows Windows Phone update, again
[...]
Samsung users who held off updating after hearing about the problems last time are being told to hold off again as the fixed fix isn’t really fixed at all.
This time it seems that owners of the Samsung Omnia 7 are OK as long as they’ve got 4GB of memory free, but any less than that and the updating process chokes with an error numbered “800705B4″, but at least no one is reporting bricked handsets this time.
At OpenBytes, Tim opines: “Of course non of this comes as any surprise to me and what really beggars belief is that after WinMob, Kin, Zune and a whole host of luke warm products (and that’s being nice) there are a few people still parting with cash for “Windows” products. Take the time to look at the Windows Phone 7 twitter account and read the plethora of problems being reported to them. Issues with Windows Phone 7 don’t seem limited to Samsung phones and the latest update, there’s a multitude of other issues presented to them aswell.”
Security at Microsoft is pants.
Mobile at Microsoft is pants.
Put the two together and it’s wet socks.
Not to worry though. The MSBBC has come up with propaganda which daemonises Android security for no apparent reason. The BBC Android FUD was covered here just before I moved to the new house (and no, this site is not “dead” as some people who mailed me started thinking). Basically, after I wrote that post about MSBBC’s Android FUD Glyn Moody did an article about it and there was a long discussion in Twitter/Identi.ca, including stuff like this (with others agreeing by chiming in):
@schestowitz I fail to see how BBC is writing for Microsoft. The exploit shows !Android market needs polishing and better security measures.
That’s not quite it, but Microsoft’s shameless booster Peter Bright saw it as an opportunity to spread FUD, stepping outside his “Microsoft Contributor” role at Ars. Moody says that the “#BBC [is] quick to fault #android & #openness – http://bbc.in/dLjLUz yet practically never names #windows in years of malware (v @schestowitz)”
One response says: “@glynmoody @schestowitz A big exaggerated. Check http://bbc.in/dXfNky #BBC #android #security”
Moody replies as follows: “@bortzmeyer @schestowitz not at all exaggerated. check this: http://bbc.in/hKmJuT *far more* stories that don’t mention #Windows at all”
And then: “@glynmoody @bortzmeyer @schestowitz just a little more of this logic and you’ll be able to show that Windows is under 5% market share”
From Moody again: “@pbeyssac @bortzmeyer @schestowitz certainly seems to be what the BBC is suggesting…so small it’s not worth mentioning…”
In fact, I have several – including the fact that I really want it to be the best broadcasting organisation in the world, as it once was. But my other bee/Beeb is that its journalistic standards in the few areas where I can claim some knowledge are pretty woeful.
This is seen nowhere more clearly than in its coverage of malware.
To read the reports on the BBC website (I don’t watch UK television, so I’ve no idea what happens there, but suspect it’s just as bad), you’d think that malware were some universal affliction, an unavoidable ill like death and taxes. Rarely does the BBC trouble its readers’ pretty little heads with the tiresome fact that the overwhelming majority of viruses and trojans affect one operating system, and one operating system only: Microsoft Windows.
To see this, try the following experiment. Search on the BBC news site for “microsoft windows virus” or “microsoft windows trojan” or “microsoft windows malware”, and you’ll get a few dozen hits, not all of which refer to Microsoft malware.
But try the same searches without the words “microsoft windows”, and you will get many more hits every year (try “computer malware”, for example), very few of which mention that such malware is almost exclusively for Microsoft’s platform.
That sin of omission has now been matched by an equally telling sin of commission. For hot on the heels of the first serious Android viruses, we have a report on BBC news spelling out the terrible facts
And again we come to Microsoft apologism such as thisone which says: “@schestowitz Android’s security model is about equal to Windows Vista. S60 has a better model. Why the double standard?”
To rebut this quickly, the Android FUD was about cases where the user installs — willingly — malicious software. In the case of Windows, intervention from the user is rarely required; in some case, just visiting a page is a problem and a risk; why? ActiveX for starters. It’s a Windows issue, not an “Internet issue”; the very serious omissions in the corporate press are partly to blame for it all “and still no mention of the taboo “W” word…” wrote Moody regarding this new example. It’s like calling Toyota’s brake issue just a “car braking issue”. Imagine the outcry that sort of talking point would cause. █
Resumen: El grupo de cabeza de Microsoft, la nefasta Alianza Empresarial de Software BSA, se apoya en el gobierno británico para revertir las políticas que favorecen la libertad del software a través de estándares abiertos.
LA BSA[http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Business_Software_Alliance] ataca de nuevo. Mark Taylor escribe: “Al parecer, la BSA han comenzado a quejarse de la nueva política de la Oficina del Gabinete en estándares abiertos … ahora hay una gran sorpresa” (no!).
Bueno, él escribió en Twitter de todos modos (la revelación: Yo trabajo para Sirius, su compañía). Glyn Moody encontrado este artículo de acompañamiento[http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/intellectual-property/2011/03/01/bsa-open-standards-will-increase-e-government-costs-40091981/] sobre este tema, señalando: “gran bofetada de FUD (Miedo Incertidumbre y Duda) de la irreflexiva BSA” (y por debajo de algunas citas de expansión para futuras referencias).
A los departamentos gubernamentales se les dijo en una nota de la política de la Oficina del Gabinete (PDF) con fecha 31 de enero que “debe siempre que sea posible implementar los estándares abiertos en las especificaciones de sus contratos”. En su nota, que define los estándares abiertos en los que están “a disposición del público en cero o de bajo costo” y que “han hecho de manera irrevocable la propiedad intelectual disponible en una base sin derechos de autor”.
El martes, la Business Software Alliance (BSA) arremetió contra la política, que pone a las empresas de software con normas propietarias en desventaja.
[...]
Sin embargo, los defensores del código abierto, tales como la Free Software Foundation Europa (FSFE) se quejaron de que el EIFv2, en comparación con la primera versión, mostró que la Comisión había abandonado la idea de ordenar los estándares abiertos como un “elemento clave para la interoperabilidad”.
Mark Taylor, director ejecutivo de los sistemas de código abierto Sirio integración empresa, dijo que la respuesta de la BSA a la nota política del gobierno era “basura” y “absolutamente previsible”.
“Una gran cantidad de tiempo y esfuerzo dedicado por los intereses particulares de grupos de presión en Bruselas,” dijo Taylor a ZDNet Reino Unido. “EIFv2 fue definitivamente un paso atrás en EIFv1″.
La BSA dice que la EIFv2 creado una “igualdad de condiciones” para todos los tipos de software, incluidos los de código abierto, para competir en la prestación del sector público con las soluciones interoperables. Según Taylor, esta declaración es “no es verdad” y la nueva recomendación europea es “discriminatoria en contra de código abierto”.
“Afortunadamente, el gobierno del Reino Unido es uno de los gobiernos que habían identificado eso”, dijo Taylor. “Si EIFv2 no había sido un paso atrás, no habría necesidad de que gobiernos como el gobierno del Reino Unido a salir con estas políticas.”
Über-abogado Carlo Piana comillas: “BSA apoya los estándares abiertos, si estamos de acuerdo en lo” abierto “significa …”
En respuesta, escribe Piana, “por ejemplo, h.264 sí, WebM ¿no? es decir, una farsa!”
La BSA es tratar de caracterizar lo propietario y el monopolio como “abierto” y “elección”. Es la misma que mentira Microsoft utiliza continuamente. █
Resumen: Algunos elementos de las noticias que muestran cómo las patentes son utilizadas por los “sospechosos habituales” para sofocar el compartir, redefinir los estándares abiertos, la abolición de la libertad, la distorsión de la competencia, y limitar el acceso a la salud.
BSA
Andy Updegrove es el último en responder a las mentiras de la Alianza Empresarial de Software BSA[http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20110304122357355], acerca de los derechos de autor en los estándares libres en el Reino Unido [1[http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20110304122357355], 2[http://techrights.org/2011/03/03/lies-machine-vs-foss-policy/], 3[http://techrights.org/2011/03/04/federal-government-vs-mpeg-la/]]. Él escribe:
La posición de la BSA fue ridiculizada como FUD (es decir, un intento de extender “miedo, incertidumbre y duda”) por los defensores de la apertura, incluyendo Glyn Moody, quien hábilmente evalúa el impacto esperado por la política del Reino Unido en lo que respecta software libre y de código abierto versus el software propietario.
Pero lo de la rídicula demanda de la BSA que las normas libres y abiertas, en comparación con el software libre y de código abierto (FOSS), “reducirá la elección, obstaculizará la innovación y el aumento de los costos en la administración electrónica?
De hecho, este argumento es mucho más difícil de sustentar en el caso de las normas que en el caso del software libre. Las razones son varias.
En primer lugar, si bien hay excepciones, las normas generalmente no describen los productos, pero elementos del producto, funciones o características. En el caso de la información y las comunicaciones (TIC), el grupo más importante de las normas ha sido desarrollado para permitir la interoperabilidad. En segundo lugar, donde las normas son más fundamentales, por lo general existen en un nivel inferior de la pila de la tecnología.
Desde una perspectiva de defensa de la competencia, lo que esto significa es que las normas suelen bloquear sólo en la medida de un diseño de producto, o las características del servicio, que sea necesario para lograr la interoperabilidad. Esto deja mucho espacio para los vendedores y proveedores de servicios innoven y compitan por encima de la capa de la normalización, proporcionando funcionalidad de valor agregado, servicios adicionales y otras características de diferenciación.
MPEG-LA
El cartel de MPEG está bajo investigación como hemos mencionado antes[http://techrights.org/2011/03/04/federal-government-vs-mpeg-la/] y el Register tiene algunos detalles más sobre esto[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/04/doj_investgates_mpeg_la_over_vp8_attack/] (vean la discusión Slashdot también[http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/03/04/1358236/DOJ-Anti-trust-Investigation-of-MPEG-LA]).
El Departamento de Justicia de EE.UU. está investigando a la MPEG-LA – la organización común de patentes respaldado por Apple, Microsoft, y otros – sobre el esfuerzo de la organización para socavar el códec libre de regalías V8 de Google, presentado el año pasado, según un informe que citó a personas familiarizadas con la materia.
Por cierto, la agresión de patentes puede dar lugar al embargo[http://gigaom.com/2011/03/04/europe-bans-ps3-imports-but-who-wins-in-patent-wars/], como esta nueva situación:
El caso sin embargo, resulta en el impacto a corto plazo de esta prohibición podría ser grave. En este momento, la mayoría de los minoristas aún tienen una semana o dos de las unidades de PS3 en las tiendas. Si la prohibición dura más allá de eso, sin embargo, las acciones podrían comenzar a escasear. Eso va a afectarlos.
La Fundación Gates
Mientras que la Fundación Gates[http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Gates_Foundation_Critique] sigue promoviendo más los monopolios de patentes, el cabildeo de Bill Gates de patentes (con fines de lucro) es cada vez más visto como lo que realmente es. Desde una página antigua[http://harry.sufehmi.com/archives/2006-01-30-1105/] nos enteramos de que:
Esto es lo que he encontrado hasta ahora:
1. Claro, Bill “dona” grandemente. Pero, ¿te das cuenta que la mayoría de ellas -donaciones- están relacionados con los medicamentos/vacunas? He aquí una de ella. Y, ¿te das cuenta de que ha invertido mucho en las empresas médicas?
¿Se puede dibujar una línea que conecta estos?
* Proyecto de Ley vende MSFT, toma Prozac
* Bill y las grandes empresas farmacéuticas: Bill ahora posee propias acciones en muchas compañías farmacéuticas.
2. Un periodismo de investigación en las donaciones de Bill y su agenda. Básicamente, las donaciones que le traerán aún más dinero de las drogas, mediante el bloqueo de medicamentos baratos, por lo tanto potencialmente matar a más de los que salva.
3. Al igual que con Microsoft, Bill firme apoyo incondicional de la protección de la propiedad intelectual de los medicamentos en los países pobres. Argumentan que esto es necesario, para que puedan recuperar los costos de investigación y desarrollo. Sin embargo, resultó que el costo de marketing de grandes empresas farmacéuticas son de 2.5 sobre sus costes de Investigación y Desarrollo.
Este se encontró un par de días atrás, cuando alguien citó Techrights. Nuestra investigación acerca la Fundación Gates es referida por muchos, incluso hemos notado en programas de radio.
Algún tiempo después, en el transcurso del año vamos a escribir acerca del más reciente daño de las maniobras de Gates que exime a él (y Warren) de impuestos y aumenta significativamente su poder sobre la sociedad. Aquellos que cabildean para patentar, esencialmente lobby por monopolios. █
Uno de los aspectos más extraños del software de código abierto es que a diferencia de cualquier campo de la computación comparable que conozco, ha sido acosada durante años por una bestia extraña, insustancial conocida por el nombre del FUD (Miedo Incertidumbre y Duda). Ya en 2006, escribí una breve historia del tema[http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/57261/index.html], pero en los cinco años transcurridos desde entonces hemos visto surgir mucho más.
Escribí acerca de ello[http://techrights.org/2011/01/22/fud-antiguo-por-glyn-moody/] un ejemplo en enero. Y esta semana hemos tenido el privilegio de ver esta pieza bastante divertido de FUD sobre la Oficina del Gabinete definiendo los estándares abiertos acerca de lo que hablé[http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2011/02/true-open-standards-open-source-next/index.htm] el lunes:
“La Alianza Empresarial de Software BSA apoya fuertemente los estándares abiertos como motor de la interoperabilidad, pero estamos profundamente preocupados de que al tratar de definir la apertura de una manera que exige a la industria a renunciar a su propiedad intelectual, la nueva política del gobierno del Reino Unido inadvertidamente reducirá elección, obstaculizará la innovación y aumentará la los costes del gobierno electrónico “, dijo el grupo de presión, que representa a muchos grupos de software propietario.”
Visto como FUD, yo diría que fue bastante patético, ya que la idea de que las normas verdaderamente abierto “reducirá la elección, obstaculizará la innovación y aumentará de los costos del gobierno electrónico” es una tontería: la lista es precisamente lo contrario de lo que los estándares abiertos ya han producido en diversos sectores (basta pensar en la Internet y la Web.)
Pero me encontré con un ejemplo una antigua fuente de anti-código abierto FUD[http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/5725] que es bastante más interesante, ya que arroja una curva completa que tiene por lo menos el mérito de su originalidad. Este es el argumento central:
La existencia del código CSS aumenta la salida de OSS y viceversa. Para ver por qué, considere un mundo todos los sistemas operativos-en el que cada empresa ofrece a los consumidores exactamente el mismo código compartido como cualquier otra empresa. Por definición, ninguna empresa puede competir por escribir más código OSS que sus rivales. Esta falta de competencia suprime la producción de código por la misma razón que los carteles suprimen la producción.
Vaya, por un momento, pensé que los autores sugerían que el código abierto crea un cartel – ¡oh, pero espere:
Ya hemos señalado que el OSS funciona como un cártel de facto. Normalmente, esto hará que las empresas de software libre más rentables que un número equivalente de empresas CSS. Como resultado, esperamos que la mayoría de los mercados acojan más empresas de software libre que los políticos quisieran.
“El código abierto funciona como un cártel de facto” – ahora que realmente es un poco espléndida pieza de FUD que merece un examen más detallado.
Esta conclusión extraordinaria parece fluir desde el anterior análisis defectuoso de lo que ocurre cuando hay empresas de código abierto que operan en un mercado. De hecho, hay varias fallas muy diferentes allí.
La primera es “considerar un mundo todos los sistemas operativos-en el que cada empresa ofrece a los consumidores exactamente el mismo código compartido como cualquier otra empresa”: pero eso no es cómo los mercados de código abierto operan. Por lo general, hay muchas bases de código diferente para un sector determinado: GNU/Linux y BSD para los sistemas operativos, Firefox, Konqueror y el cromo para los navegadores, Thunderbird y Evolution para correo electrónico, etc. Esto significa que en realidad es muy fácil para las empresas nuevas que usan código abierto entren en esos sectores.
De hecho, el rápido crecimiento de Chrome/Chromiun de Google es un puro ejemplo contrario a ésta declaración errónea de arriba. Entró en el sector de navegadores y procedió bastante bien, probablemente deteniendo el crecimiento de Firefox, así como quitándole cuota de mercado a Internet Explorer. Sí, ese mercado no consisten enteramente de los navegadores de código abierto, pero dado su éxito frente a Firefox, parece claro que podría haber entrado a ese mercado y floreció debido a sus méritos evidentes.
Pero por el bien del argumento, vamos a aceptar la posibilidad de que haya mercados en los que todas las empresas basadas en código abierto utilizar la misma base de código. El argumento es entonces “ninguna empresa puede competir por escribir más código OSS que sus rivales”, con el resultado de que “esta falta de competencia suprime la producción de código.”
Dejando de lado el hecho de que desarrolladores escriben código por todo tipo de razones que no tienen nada que ver con la competencia, utilizando la métrica de cuánto código abierto pierde el punto: por definición, por lo general es 100% – que fue la premisa. Y no es la cantidad lo que cuenta, sino la calidad del producto lo que importa. Y aquí es donde entra en juego la diferenciación.
Como la base del código abierto, las empresas pueden – y lo hacen – desde el inicio modificarlo para que sea “mejor” – donde la métrica de la mejora puede variar de empresa a empresa. Para algunos puede ser la velocidad, para la seguridad de los demás, para aún más podría ser una pequeña huella y así sucesivamente.
Estas diferentes versiones van a competir en el mercado y la selección darwiniana permite que la “mejor” versión sobreviva y prospere. Esto se muestra más claramente en el mundo de GNU/Linux, que de hecho parten de la base de código misma parte principal, pero luego se separan en cientos de maneras diferentes – esta increíble diversidad es parte de la enorme fuerza del ecosistema de código abierto.
Así que la idea de que un “cartel” se crea es desmentida por los hechos del mundo del software libre. En realidad, es mucho más fácil entrar en los mercados donde ya existen productos de código abierto – por ejemplo, usted puede tomar el código y modificarlo si lo desea (aunque tenga en cuenta que si una empresa tiene todos los derechos de autor del código puede tener ciertas ventajas comerciales.)
En cualquier caso, ya que los programas de código abierto casi siempre usan estándares abiertos – a diferencia de muchos productos proprietarios – es mucho más fácil crear nuevas bases de código que soporten los estándares de lo que sería si las normas propiedad privada dominaran. Una vez más, esto significa que es generalmente más fácil para entrar en un mercado donde el código abierto y estándares abiertos ya están presentes, en comparación con mercados en los que el software propietario establece la norma (privada).
En resumen, una de las principales ventajas de fomentar el crecimiento del código abierto en un sector en particular es menoscabar los carteles de la propiedad mediante el apoyo a estándares abiertos y por lo tanto la apertura de ese mercado a nuevos operadores. Los gobiernos que están preocupados por estos carteles deben dar al código abierto su apoyo de todo corazón como una de las mejores maneras y más eficaces de lucha contra ellos – que no buscan una mítico y contraproducente “equilibrio” con código cerrado y sus consecuencias perjudiciales. █
The show ends with “Skydiving” by Jonay and Jasmine Kara. We hope you will join us for future shows and 
