06.07.11

Microsoft Proponents Promote Xamarin While Microsoft is Abandoning .NET/Mono

Posted in GNU/Linux, Mono, Novell at 2:58 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Mono is being phased out of sight and out of existence despite deparate attempts from Microsoft proponents to breathe life back into it

EARLIER today we wrote about Microsoft betraying those who adhered to its APIs, including Mono/Moonlight boosters. The biggest Microsoft boosters at Novell created a poorly-funded startup called “Xamarin” [1, 2, 3]. It is almost nowhere in sight^*, except for the ‘Microsoft press’ (advertising) and other Microsoft-boosting ‘news’ sites (pushing Microsoft promotion as ‘news’). Mono is clearly beneficial to Microsoft, but it is good for nothing else. Its CEO is a former Microsoft employee, as we noted before. Part of the funding comes from a Microsoft MVP. Techrights wishes to draw attention to the following new articles:

1. The parting of Linux and Mono

   As .NET’s sun sets, its open-source counterpart Mono may be fading on Linux, too.

2. gnote performance

3. Ubuntu font family now has MONO

Let us hope that the first article’s contention is correct and that, given C++ advantages over Mono, Tomboy will be removed from Ubuntu. There is no future for Mono and even Microsoft is not rescuing Mono. █
___
^* These are just the only new articles we found about it; there is no intent to hide anything as means of fitting to a generalisation. Upon second look (just before finalising this post), Timothy Prickett Morgan did touch on the subject (more recently), albeit in a different context:

Just after Attachmate’s takeover of Novell and just before it did the breaking of that company into two divisions, SUSE selling Linux and Novell selling everything else, Attachmate told the people working on the open source Mono project they were no longer needed at the company. But it is a lot harder to kill an open source project than taking away techie paychecks, and a new project has sprung up to carry on the Mono work.

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ES: La EPO Piensa que Más Solicitudes de Patentes (Presentadas) Son una Buena Cosa, el Secretario de Comercio EE.UU. Es Consciente de que NO lo Son.

Posted in Europe, Patents at 2:54 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

(ODF | PDF | English/original)

Resumen: Hacer frente a la falacia de que un aumento en las solicitudes de patentes (monopolio) es indicativo o un éxito.

Las patentes de software son el único mecanismo que puede evitar que los sistemas de bajo costo sigan ganando terreno. China debe rechazar las patentes de software por razones de competencia, sino que sucumbe a la presión para cumplir con algunas reglas universales o sufrir represalias, es por ello que China tiene que ignorar sus propios intereses. No es un problema sólo para China, sin embargo.

Aquí en Europa tenemos muchos abogados de patentes celosos que buscan nuevas maneras de hacer dinero (o un euro). Para ellos, patentes no son algo diseñado para alentar la publicación o la innovación, para ellos, son sólo negocio. La EPO (Oficina Europea de Patentes) dice que les da más negocios[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-03/fiserv-epo-ihop-one-less-nemesis-netflix-intellectual-property.html], lo que significa que la EPO está agravando más y más productos, perjudicando a los consumidores y desarrolladores al mismo tiempo, mediante la adición de una maraña de litigios y la burocracia. Para citar un nuevo informe de Bloomberg:

Las solicitudes de patentes presentadas en la Oficina Europea de Patentes en 2010 aumentaron un 11 por ciento respecto al año anterior, según un comunicado de la EPO.

¡Que vergüenza! Esto sólo puede indicar que la barra está bajando los impuestos de patentes van en aumento. Esto no es una medida de la innovación real, porque, en todo caso, las patentes impiden innovadores.

Este problema con las patentes de software en Europa[http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Software_Patents_in_Europe] es más explorada por la FFII (Fundación para una Infraestructura de Información Libre) a la luz de los mensajes como éste[http://patlit.blogspot.com/2011/06/that-non-paper-on-unified-patent.html] sobre lo que acaba de proponerse presionado por las EMPRESAS EXTRANJERAS Y MONOPOLISTAS. Ellos quieren ser capaces de demandar a más compañías con más facilidad, o al menos aplicar la fuerza coercitiva a nivel mundial.

La EPO no necesita ir por el mismo tobogán que la USPTO (Oficina de Patentes y Marcas de los Estados Unidos), que ya está adquiriendo una gran notoriedad. Los funcionarios tratan de hacer girar la crisis como algo que no lo es por la falsa promesa de “aumentar la calidad de las patentes.” Es una admisión implícita de que las patentes son de “baja calidad”, lo que ello pueda significar. Esperamos que nos va a ayude a mostrar que la USPTO está quebrada en el próximo par de posts. █

Translation produced by Eduardo Landaveri, the esteemed administrator of the Spanish portal of Techrights.

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ES: IBM Trae la Mentalidad Semejante al OIN a Europa

Posted in GNU/Linux, IBM, OIN, Patents at 2:44 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Lo que Europa necesita no es lo mismo que los Estados Unidos necesita.

(ODF | PDF | English/original)

Resumen: Las noticias sugirien que IBM está mayormente entre los que trajeron el Intercambio de Patentes a Europa.

IBM es una empresa sobre las que tenemos sentimientos ambivalentes. Por un lado, IBM ayuda a que el fenómeno del software libre (abarcándolo más bien de atacarlo), pero por otra parte, IBM sigue siendo una empresa de software propietario en su núcleo y por lo tanto, aboga por políticas que entran en conflicto con una mentalidad/doctrina de software libre. No es ningún secreto que IBM prefiere mantener las patentes de software[http://techrights.org/2009/08/12/ibm-promoting-software-patents/] y su estrategia para defender el software libre en el proceso abarca sólo el software que IBM depende. OIN (Invención de Red Abierta) y RPX[http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/RPX], por ejemplo, no hacen más que legitimar el sistema al mismo tiempo tratar de la reforma en algunos aspectos (la disuasión demandas), especialmente en formas que son beneficiosas para IBM y sus aliados. En la superficie, esto puede parecer bien. OIN hace que el deteriorado sistema actual de un poco menos letal. Sin embargo, distrae la atención de una mejor y permanente solucion al problema en cuestión. En particular, la OIN hace casi nada para destacar los problemas fundamentales con las patentes de software. Una mirada a sus partidarios muestra por qué.

Recientemente escribimos sobre una iniciativa cuyo impacto es muy similar[http://techrights.org/2011/06/01/patent-mopolies-in-the-eu_es/]. El problema es que ahora esta iniciativa va más allá a Australia y el Reino Unido, que podría, a su vez, ayudar a validar algunas patentes allí. Para citar el presidente de la FFII (Fundación para una Infraestructura de Información Libre)[http://twitter.com/zoobab/statuses/76318976887619584]:

IBM validaría sus patentes de software a través de la Peer2Patent en el Reino Unido:

El punto de enfoque del Intercambio de Patentes está en cierto modo empeorando las cosas. Toma patentes que ya pueden ser dudosa y luego se extiende a los demás a despedir a uno o reforzarlas. Esto es lo que una publicación pro-patentes[http://www.managingip.com/Article/2840709/Managing-Patents-Archive/IBM-prominent-in-peer-to-patent-pilot.html] escribe sobre este tema:

Las primeras 20 solicitudes de patentes en la salida a bolsa del Reino Unido piloto de Intercambio de Patentes se han publicado en línea

Ahora es el momento de voluntarios para regar jardín o cosecharlas para aquellos de la talla de IBM, ¿eh? Bueno, citando este informe[http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/patent-site-broadens-public-access-to-review-process-30819], el presidente de la FFII señala[http://twitter.com/zoobab/statuses/76321802871255040] que:

Las solicitudes de patentes concedidas después de usar el sitio web de revisión intercambio de patentes será potencialmente más fuertes.

Nosotros explicamos nuestros puntos de vista[http://techrights.org/2011/05/25/peer-to-patent-in-the-uk/] sobre el tema muchas veces antes. APOYE A LA FFII, NO AL ENFOQUE de Intercambio de Patentes. La solución al problema de patentes depende de los intereses creados; para IBM, las “malas” patentes son el problema. Para Microsoft, las patentes “anti-Microsoft” son el problema. Para la gran mayoría de la gente, TODAS las patentes de software (tal vez las patentes en general, dependiendo de la zona/país) son un problema. █

Translation produced by Eduardo Landaveri, the esteemed administrator of the Spanish portal of Techrights.

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Links 7/6/2011: Linux 3.0 RC2, No KDE5

Posted in News Roundup at 7:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Clip of the Day

Charlie and the Apple Factory

Credit: TinyOgg

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FSFE Head: “US Department of Justice Finally Seeing Software Patents as Threat to Competition?”

Posted in Antitrust, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Novell, Patents at 4:14 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: In light of the Nortel patents situation, the US Department of Justice responds in a way that is similar to what it did about the CPTN/Microsoft acquisition of Novell’s patents

THE idea behind a patent (temporary monopoly) was long ago neglected and its application has been perturbed by a growing group of unethical opportunists. The comparison to nuclear weapons, however (not just a mere deterrence), is still a tad disturbing because, bar sanctions, anyone can ignore some pieces of papers claiming monopolies on mere ideas. This is why, as explained earlier, China and African should reject patents. Simply put, patents only exist to build artificial fences that keep over 90% of the world’s population in the dark. Here is a new article which uses the nuclear analogy:

Forget Google, DoJ Fears Apple Gaining Nortel’s “Stockpile Of Nuclear Weapons” — Here’s Why

Two months ago, Google disclosed that they were bidding on bankrupt Nortel’s patent portfolio. Why? They claim it’s a defensive maneuver to protect the “relatively young” company from would-be patent predators. And Google is very serious about it. They put up the $900 million “stalking-horse bid” (the initial bid) for the over 6,000 patents. Given the stakes, it should be no surprise that the U.S. Department of Justice is looking into the bidding. But interestingly, it may not be Google they’re too concerned with.

We previously compared Nortel and Novell. Novell is mentioned in this new article, the context being patents:

The lawsuit filed by Mission Abstract Media over automation technology is moving forward despite the contention of some in the radio industry that automation systems already were well established in the market when the first automation patent was applied for in 1994 and issued in 1997.

[...]

“The largest hard drive we could find at the time was 2 GB. We had 10 [hard drives] in each server for 20 GB storage. We used a Novell network with SFT3 for transparent redundancy,” Paley said.

pointing to this report, Karsten Gerloff from the FSFE says that the regulators are finally watching (well, after CPTN had some intervention from the US Department of Justice). To quote what’s not behind a paywall:

The Justice Department is scrutinizing likely bidders for a trove of patents being sold by the bankrupt Canadian telecom-equipment maker Nortel Networks Corp. amid concerns the patents could be used to unfairly hobble competition, according to people familiar with the matter.

The antitrust review has enveloped some of the U.S.’s largest technology companies, including Apple Inc. and Google Inc. It’s the latest sign the Justice Department has heightened its interest in whether patents are being used to stifle competition in high-tech industries.

Carlo Piana, a lawyer, wrote: “I anticipate problems for #Apple buying #Nortel’s patent portfolio. [nudging Google] Isn’t it time to get rid of #swpats? █

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Microsoft Uses the Broken US Patent System to Attack Linux/Android From Multiple Sources, Wants Nokia’s Patents Too

Posted in Bill Gates, GNU/Linux, Google, Hardware, Microsoft, Patents at 3:52 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Microsoft performs an MSDOS (Multi-Source Denial of Service) attack on Linux and on Android, using patent monopolies and patent trolls

FURTHER to the previous post, there is abundant evidence that the USPTO is broken as it fails to meet its goals. There is no such thing as a “quality” patent. A patent is a monopoly and all those applying to software impede the use of logic and mathematics. Here is another interpretation of the SCOTUS ruling, which we wrote about a few days ago (EN, ES). The Register reads that as follows:

In a case supported by HP, eBay, Red Hat, Yahoo!, and General Motors, the US Supreme Court has issued a ruling that may make it more difficult for a company to be sued for inducing another company to infringe a patent.

According to the ruling, a defendent accused of inducing patent infringement must be proven to have either known that it was infringing, or was “willfully blind” to that infringement. Actual knowledge of infringement can be proven through documentary evidence or sworn testimony.

That again does not address the main issues with the patent system — issues that even the Bilski case in SCOTUS failed to resolve. Let us look at some of the latest casualties based on this week’s news.

Twitter made it clear that it is against software patents and now it is being attacked by patent trolls again. Patent trolls are, statistically speaking, greatly dependent on software patents.

A patent troll called Kootol Software has put Twitter on alert. The ‘company’, which sports a corporate logo (and name) that is suspiciously reminiscent of Google’s, this morning said it has sent a caution notice to Biz Stone, Jack Dorsey and co to express “concerns” about possible intellectual property violations.

Quoting the original source (“Twirpy Patent Troll Threatens Twitter”), TechCrunch/AOL says:

The patent application in question (a patent number hasn’t been assigned yet) is titled “A Method and System for Communication, Advertising, Searching, Sharing and Dynamically Providing a Journal Feed.”

They are making it extremely complicated for software developers to develop in peace and it is only getting worse when people make money from the illness of this system. This incentivises keeping it broken. Jan Wildeboer, who is one of the most prominent among opposers of software patents in Europe, notes that some people built entire enterprises based on exploitation of the patent system’s loophole. He asks: “Is Myhrvolds Intellectual Ventures using patents CDO style to disrupt the market? Lodsys as example?”

He also asks: “Is Lodsys sign of new time? 1. License patents 2. Sell patent 3. New buyer tries licensing again? Patents == CDB business?”

Remember what the world's biggest troll (who came from Microsoft) said before he gave this patent to Lodsys. “Intellectual property is the next software,” he argued. Microsoft and him are in this together. Bill Gates is a close affiliate of this shakedown and Matt Asay challenges this by going back in time (back to the days when Gates denounced patents, as a small player):

Microsoft, once the ruler of the software universe, doesn’t even make Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt’s Gang of Four influential tech companies. It’s not that Microsoft has lost its ambition. But it may be that Microsoft’s ambition has changed, and for the worse.

Microsoft once prided itself on minting profits from licensing copies of Windows and Office. Now it seems more content with eking out $5 per unit from HTC and others it bullies over patents. That’s right: instead of selling product, it’s peddling intellectual property (IP).

We wrote about this extortion before. Not only Microsoft is extorting HTC; it seems as though Intellectual Ventures does too. Another person from Microsoft, Paul Allen of Interval the patent troll, is still attacking many parties including Android/Google for merely implementing some ideas. “People Concerned About Paul Allen’s Ridiculous Patent Claims Gets USPTO To Begin Re-Exams Of His Patents,” says TechDirt. To quote:

Last year, we covered Paul Allen’s ridiculous patent lawsuit against a ton of tech companies. He claimed that all of these companies violated four incredibly broad patents he held:

* 6,263,507: “Browser for use in navigating a body of information, with particular application to browsing information represented by audio data.”
* 6,034,652 & 6,788,314 (really the same patent, involving continuations): “Attention manager for occupying the peripheral attention of a person in the vicinity of a display device”
* 6,757,682: “Alerting users to items of current interest”

Groklaw follows this case quite closely, or at least it used to. What the Microsoft people do (even those who left the company) is what Microsoft has always done, They want to tax everything sold rather than really make anything of value. They are waging legal wars and amassing patents that they lobby for, in order to increase their value.

Right now it seems like Microsoft is hunting for Nokia’s patent so that it can tax all mobile phones. Nokia is of value to Microsoft because of its software and hardware patents; we wrote so much about it that we need not repeat the evidence of this. This is a subject that we talked about in IRC the other day. Assuming Microsoft wants to ‘pull a CPTN’ on Nokia, it will be more about use of Nokia’s patents offensively and exploitation of Nokia’s brand (like Yahoo! and Novell). By sending out moles Microsoft just improves its chances of becoming the patent receiver. Watch how Microsoft put its mole in: [via F. Cassia]

Steve Ballmer was so determined to get Nokia on board with Windows Phone 7, he sent a super-extended prom-style limo to pick up Nokia’s Stephen Elop and other execs when they visited the Seattle area.

That’s one of the revelations in Businessweek’s long profile of Elop’s first six months at the company.

Microsoft is crushing Nokia as this may help Microsoft pick it up cheaply along with its patents. Considering what has happened so far, Elop did a wonderful job (for Microsoft, of which he is a top shareholder). The deal made no sense and it was signed in a rush by the two Stephens who are former colleagues. Watch Ye Booke of Elop for a funny slant. It is clear what’s going on there, but there is nothing amusing about it. Nokia represents the latest victim in the line of corpses left by Microsoft’s abusive-aggressive behaviour. Nokia was becoming a Linux company just before Microsoft put a mole inside it. “Elop” is “Pole” backwards and Microsoft put its Pole inside Nokia, to borrow Brandon’s joke. Rather than have MeeGo and LSB in Nokia, we now have another Microsoft ally out there, threatening to use its patents and promising to deliver a ‘new’ OS some time later this year (at which point Nokia will be ripe for picking by another company). The Linux Foundation’s head was very disappointed by this and it is easy to see why. Nokia was a valuable contributor to the Linux Foundation and its site has a new comic regarding software patents. It can be found here. Somehow Microsoft turned several Linux-friendly companies like Nokia, Yahoo!, and Novell into Microsoft boosters (former Microsoft partner Bartz did nothing of value except shake Ballmer’s hand, just like Elop). Some people still foolishly question what makes Microsoft so much more malicious than other companies of a similar scale. Microsoft is very, very destructive. It just doesn’t give a damn. █

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EPO Thinks More Patent Business (Filings) is a Good Thing, US Commerce Secretary Realises it is Not

Posted in Europe, Patents at 3:13 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Addressing the fallacy that a rise in patent (monopoly) applications is indicative or success

SOFTWARE patents are the only mechanism that can prevent low-cost systems from gaining traction. China should reject patents for its own competitive reasons, but it is pressure to comply with some universal rules or suffer retaliation that has China ignore its own interests. It’s not a problem just for China though.

Here in Europe we have many zealous patent lawyers who are looking for new ways to make a buck (or a euro). To them, patents are not something designed to encourage publication or innovation; to them, it’s just business. The EPO is said to be giving them more business, which means that the EPO is taxing products more and more, harming consumers and developers at the same time by adding a thicket of litigation and bureaucracy. To quote a new report from Bloomberg:

Patent filings at the European Patent Office in 2010 increased 11 percent from the previous year, according to an EPO statement.

For shame. This may only indicate that the bar is being lowered or that patent taxation is increasing. This is not a measure of real innovation because, if anything, patents impede innovators.

This issue with software patents in Europe is further explored by the FFII in light of posts like this one about the newly-proposed hack that is lobbied for by foreign companies and monopolists. They want to be able to sue more companies more easily, or at least apply coercive force globally.

The EPO need not go down the same slide as the USPTO, which is already gaining great notoriety. The officials try to spin the crisis as something which it is not by promising to “increase the quality of patents.” It’s an implicit admission that the patents are of “low” quality, whatever that may mean. We’ll hopefully help show that the USPTO is broken in the next couple of posts. █

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Microsoft Has Internal Problems as Developers and Executives Rebel

Posted in Microsoft at 2:59 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Microsoft’s CEO is being pressured to leave after many executives headed for the door; developers who fell for Microsoft’s promises are left hanging

AS explained earlier, the digital market grows increasingly unfit for Microsoft’s cash cows and antiquated business model. “The fear of .NET developers is that Microsoft’s Windows team now regards not only Silverlight but also .NET as a legacy technology,” explains this author who is a Microsoft booster, noting that:

There is a long discussion over on the official Silverlight forum about Microsoft’s Windows 8 demo at D9 and what was said, and not said; and another over on Channel 9, Microsoft’s video-centric community site for developers.

At D9 Microsoft showed that Windows 8 has a dual personality. In one mode it has a touch-centric user interface which is an evolved version of what is on Windows Phone 7. In another mode, just a swipe away, it is the old Windows 7, plus whatever incremental improvements Microsoft may add. Let’s call it the Tiled mode and the Classic mode.

Pretty much everything that runs on Windows today will likely still run on Windows 8, in its Classic mode. However, the Tiled mode has a new development platform based on HTML and JavaScript, exploiting the rich features of HTML 5, and the fast JavaScript engine and hardware acceleration in the latest Internet Explorer.

People who swallowed Microsoft’s medicine (or poison) and went with the Microsoft APIs are now wrecked. Ask Miguel de Icaza and his team, which was recently laid off, how it worked out for them. One of our readers summarised the above as: “Developers fear .NET along with Silverlight will be abandoned with Windows 8, Microsoft’s new vaporware. Microsoft has always jerked around the developers who depend on them most.”

If the stack is not free as in freedom, then the developers is at the mercy of shareholders’ interests in another company. It’s too risky.

But the problems run deeper than that. Thanks to some pointers from Malroy we now see yet more pressure for Microsoft’s CEO to step down or be fired. To quote:

Does Microsoft’s (MSFT) Steve Ballmer ever feel bad? It was almost a year ago that we published “Microsoft’s Future Is Hopeless With Steve Ballmer” and we felt bad about having to do it. But the truth had to be said. At the time we used terms like “ham-handed antics, head-in-the-sand-stubborn and beyond repair or reform as a technology company CEO” to describe him.

It turns out that even a “Microsoft board member refuses to back Ballmer”, not just people from the outside.

Here is some more information about that. To quote: “Steve is under attack again, but this time by someone with a bigger soapbox — namely David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital.”

Chips B. Malroy dropped some good links about it — ones that help show how Microsoft’s bad state of health is being passed to Nokia too (more on that later on).

“There are nine people on the MS board,” explains Malroy, “Gates and Ballmer both have a chair, that leaves seven others.” For the time being he is likely to stay, which is probably good for GNU/Linux because he is a terrible leader. The problem is, with him at the helm we can expect more lawsuits, extortion, and FUD. Yesterday’s brief FUD roundup was incomplete. As one of our readers immediately pointed out, there are insinuations of the GPL declining from Microsoft’s buddy Black Duck (which uses secret methods and proprietary data, some of which was picked from others who gave it for free). There is also IBM FUD which is related to alleged Microsoft proxy, Neon. Will Neon use that FUD to issue antitrust complaints against IBM? █

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