08.16.11

Links – More Google/Motorola/Android, Wind Power, Wealth and Political Power

Posted in Site News at 7:35 pm by Guest Editorial Team

Reader’s Picks

• An Invitation to the Apache ODF Toolkit

  More freedom to run your own cloud.

• Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Shell has a study showing that offshore wind turbines are good for birds and the marine habitat.

    They say the same things about oil rigs which have a more visible harm to the marine environment but overall this is good news.

• Finance

  • Meet the Global Financial Elites Controlling $46 Trillion In Wealth [and have gotten even richer through the crises they created.]

    In context, overall, the richest 400 people in the US have as much wealth as 154 million Americans combined, that’s 50 percent of the entire country. The top economic 1 percent of the US population now has a record 40 percent of all wealth, and have more wealth than 90 percent of the population combined. … If you think people in this income level don’t control the US political process, you are not paying attention. After they caused this economic crisis, they got the government to give them trillions of dollars in taxpayer support, and then, after taking our tax dollars, they gave themselves all-time record-breaking bonuses. 2009 was an all-time record-breaking year for Wall Street executives bringing in a total of $145 billion. And then, in 2010, they raised the bar even higher, breaking the all-time record set the year before by pulling in another $149 billion.

• Anti-Trust

  • EU Android ban not EU wide anymore

  • Rotten to the Core

    Essentially, Samsung is arguing that Apple cannot have it both ways: either it is the general tablet appearance that counts, or the details; but either way, Samsung is in the clear. … [Apple] is not just attacking Samsung in Europe: it turns out that it is also suing Motorola there over alleged infringements on its design. It’s clear, then, that Apple is seeking to stop any serious rival from making a tablet with rounded corners and a border. … This episode exposes not only Apple’s increasingly rotten core, but something even more serious: the insidious nature of the Community design.

  • WSJ/Fox News: Court Lifts Injunction on Galaxy Sales

    The Düsseldorf regional court said Tuesday it partly lifted the preliminary injunction banning Samsung Electronics Co. from selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer in most of the European Union. A court spokesman said that since it was disputable whether it is possible for a German court to ban a company headquartered in South Korea from selling goods outside Germany, the court decided to lift the injunction for countries outside Germany for now

    That did not last long but it should never have happened.

  • Google buys the Patents to End All Patents and One of the Finest Tech Companies on Earth.

  • Recall that Microsoft Sued Motorola Mobility Last Year. So did Lodsys

    Motorola counter sued and Google stands to collect a windfall if that is still on.

  • 
    The Mobile Earthquake – GPL Compliance, Google Acquisitions, etc.

    If the idea is to scare off potential Android OEM’s or purchasers of Android-powered phones, this sort of scare tactic is just rubbish. It has failed in the past, and it will fail this time.

    Groklaw calls out the latest wave of GPL compliance FUD which targets Android this time. There won’t, however, be a truce in the patent wars because Apple and Microsoft are already fighting for their existence and can’t survive free competition.

  • Guess who else wanted to buy Motorola?

    Motorola found a Google deal more digestible because Microsoft had no interest in running a hardware business and was essentially interested in Motorola’s vast collection of patents. Google moved aggressively, and at $40 a share, Google is now paying a 60 percent premium to Motorola’s recent stock price.

  • Supercharging Android: Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility

    Motorola’s total commitment to Android in mobile devices is one of many reasons that there is a natural fit between our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers everywhere. This acquisition will not change our commitment to run Android as an open platform. Motorola will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. We will run Motorola as a separate business. Many hardware partners have contributed to Android’s success and we look forward to continuing to work with all of them to deliver outstanding user experiences.

    Nokia is doomed unless they kick out the Microsoft mole.

  • Apple: Judge, It’s Rectangular…

    evidence Apple supplied the judge in Germany to prompt the issuance of an injunction against importing the Samsung Gallaxy Tab was falsified. Apple changed the aspect ratio of the image to match more closely the iPad

    So Apple and Microsoft Florian’s dream, and real damage done, of excluding Android from the EU is pure flim flam.

  • PJ Laughs at The Register’s Andrew Orlowski

    Hahaha. Andrew Orlowski with his fist in the air. Speaking of journalism and bias. Openness really bugs the guy, I guess. He thought Microsoft was going to prevail. What? You thought Google was stupid? It was going to just lay down and die? Hahaha. I thought the article was so funny, I just had to share it with you, not because I think he’s right about a single thing. …

  • Apple user Matt Assay writes about Android, Google’s Moto move spells iPhone doom

    Second, it’s critical to remember who buys Android devices versus iOS devices: kids buy Android (“It’s cheap!”) while adults largely buy iOS (“Pricey, but it makes me cool with the other soccer dads!”). … Android hasn’t won because it’s better. It has won because it’s cheaper.

    He’s negative, assuming Google will now act like Apple and ignores everything besides cell phones and tablets. Both Motorola and Android have an impressive reputation for quality, sullied to an extent by silly telco demands. The cell phone chart is worth looking at. Somehow, Asay and The Register spin Apple as a bigger villain and loser than Microsoft.

  • Motorola deal gives Google even more mobile muscle

    … the deal could also boost Google’s faltering efforts in Internet-connected TVs. Motorola is a major supplier of set-top boxes for cable-TV providers.

  • WSJ/Fox News:Verizon Says Google Deal May Stabilize Patent Fights

    Verizon Communications Inc. said Google Inc.’s $12.5 billion bid for Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. was a welcome development because it may bring “stability” to a recent slate of smartphone patent disputes, though it stopped short of totally endorsing the proposed acquisition.

• PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

  • Journalist Kicked out of ALEC Conference, Threatened With Arrest

    See also Facing South rundown of this felonious lobby group that denies it’s a lobby group.

    Al Jazeera English was also denied credentials on the grounds that ALEC was not an “international” conference … the majority of ALEC’s conference events and even speaker are sponsored by Fortune 500 firms and trade associations. Governor Bobby Jindal was sponsored by big PhRMA. Dick Armey by Visa. I am not kidding.

    These lawmakers were wined and dined by corporate giants on the cheap and perhaps poisoned with more than tobacco and alcohol. While I can heartily recommend my home town of New Orleans’ vast array of sensual delights, only a cheapskate would sponsor a conference in the heat of August. If you are going to have seafood, make sure you are rich enough to do what BP did and fly it in from out of state, but not from Texas and Florida, or stick with crawfish and fresh water catch.

• Civil Rights

  • US Citizens were tortured by the US military in Iraq.

    it’s clear that the torture of a U.S. citizen by the U.S. military shocks the conscience of the ordinary person. But I hope that the torture of a non-U.S. citizen by the U.S. military also shocks the conscience of an ordinary American and that those cases at some point will be allowed to proceed.

  • Families of accused UK rioters are being evicted is a disgusting display of “zero tollerence” group punishment.

• Internet/Net Neutrality

  • FCC Probing Wireless Blocking by San Francisco Authorities

    Imagine not being able to call an ambulance or police because some local potentate decided that disrupting a protest was more important than free communications.

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Links 16/8/2011: Linux Mint 11 LXDE, Peter Brown and Stormy Peters in Software Freedom Conservancy

Posted in News Roundup at 6:38 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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Microsoft, Like Elvis, is Everywhere.

Posted in Site News at 12:20 pm by Guest Editorial Team

The King is dead. The popular singer passed away on this day in 1977 after a horrendous decline. Yet decades later, thanks to the magic of a commercially inspired cult, Elvis is still everywhere 2. The Elvis estate has often been abusive of fans, to the point of harassing anyone who’d sell a black velvet portrait. Sill, Elvis lingers.

The Microsoft monopoly will follow the same trajectory as well as software can. It is inflicted on people who buy new computers. Small time IT people who don’t know anything else push it onto small businesses because that’s what comes out of the box. People hate it. Despite nearly universal dread of Microsoft’s intentional waste of user’s time and money, Windows lingers by ignorance and inertia. Poor sales of Vista/Windows 7 and great sales of Apple and Android conclusively prove people are tired of Windows and looking for alternatives. A sure sign of rigor mortis is that Microsoft boosters brag that they are not really dead, “So much for all those predictions that Linux would kill Windows.” As long as there’s some money in it, we can expect there to be sales and persistence in out of the way places but Windows is well on the way to vanishing. Big business, government and other “decision makers” did not take Vista and they have ignored Windows 7. Various flavors of Windows will provide a form of kitsch entertainment as it lurks in dark corners of the world, mostly controlled by botnets, blue screening and otherwise frustrating users by lack of freedom. People will be more perplexed by the success rather than the failure of Microsoft and the toy OS that never really could.

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Despite Google’s Validation of Patents, the Fight Against Software Patents Carries On

Posted in Google, Patents at 9:00 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The argument against patent monopolies continues even though Google is buying its way into the patents club

WHAT Google did by buying a part of Motorola is far from ideal. Suddenly Google can be perceived as part of the problem, which is gigantic companies that amass many patents or need to pay a lot of money to join the racket that excludes small players. Regardless of Google’s decision, it is recognised by some big sites that =”The Patent System Is The World’s Biggest Threat To Innovation Today” and to quote the opening:

At the risk of stating the obvious, I’ll say this right up front: The patent system in both Europe and the United States is the biggest threat to innovation in the world today.

Rather than competing with each other on price and features, the biggest tech companies want to fight it out in court where some Luddite judge—rather than the market—can decide who wins and loses. By claiming that another company has violated some vague patent, one vendor can use the legal system to either block rival products from the market or demand hefty kickbacks (a.k.a. licensing fees) from their makers.

Glyn Moody says, “speaking as a mathematician, I certainly concur with the view that everything is “just maths” in a certain deep sense: that is, we believe that we can, *in theory*, use maths to describe anything that exists. But in practice, some bits are trickier than others.”

Here is a ket line: “This fundamental distinction between software patents and the other kinds is reflected in all the problems that are cited with the former: the fact that they are patents on knowledge, and the fact that you often can’t invent around such patents, because that’s like trying to invent around logic.”

Exactly.

What Google does quite correctly is that it tries to squash Lodsys’ software patents [1, 2, 3], but why did it not make an attempt to squash software patents as a whole? The third link there is the coverage from Groklaw, which is likely to be most accurate. It also speaks of reexamination of Paul Allen’s patents (another patent troll who also attacks Android using software patents).

Brian Kahin has this new piece which remarks on the patent situation in relation to Android. He begins thusly:

I recently wrote about the $4.5 billion auction for Nortel’s portfolio of 6,000 patents that went to a consortium that included Apple, Microsoft, and RIM (Blackberry) — three of four smartphone platforms. In the wake of this sale, Interdigital has contemplated monetizing its portfolio of 8,500 patents, perhaps even putting the company up for sale. Google announced that it has bought over 1,000 patents from IBM for defensive purposes. Perennial investor Carl Icahn suggested that Motorola cash in on some of its immense portfolio of 18000 patents. Analysts have noted that Kodak’s patents may be worth more than Kodak itself.

The value of these patents is not in the technology. These prices are being paid for the power to block others from using technology they have developed independently. Or for the power to block others from blocking you by threatening to block them from using their technology — “assertion” and “counter-assertion.”

The IT sector has learned to live with these practices at some cost, but the patent mania and litigation around smartphones is unprecedented. Nothing like this happened as the personal computer came of age. In Silicon Valley, suing for patent infringement was not part of the culture. Knowledge spread quickly and informally. Employees of rival firms socialized and exchanged ideas — and moved from company to company. The Valley’s unique form of social capital beat out the culture of control along Boston’s Route 128 and made Silicon Valley world famous.

Julian Sanchez also has this thoughtful piece titled, “When Are Patents Obvious?”

The more highly specialized professionals are in rapid communication with each other, the more likely it becomes that you’ll see innovations that are “obvious” because they involve combining various disparate kinds of incremental prior innovative steps, but which don’t have “prior art”—meaning nobody has taken that exact step before, because it required a bunch of other pieces to be in place before it was viable. So searching for “prior art”—if that means exactly the same preexisting invention—becomes a less reliable guide to what is “obvious” in the relevant sense. But as specialization increases, it also becomes vastly more difficult for a patent examiner with broadly relevant training (engineering and electronics, say) to use his own understanding and expertise as a guide to what is truly “obvious” to someone trained in the specifically relevant domain (say, engineering mobile cellular data networks). It’s increasingly unreasonable to expect even the smartest and most diligent examiner—even assuming away all the bureaucratic and institutional incentives to err on the side of granting patents—to judge the “obviousness” of innovations across an ever-proliferating array of subspecialties.

Timothy B. Lee goes even further by asking, ‘Are software patents the “scaffolding of the tech industry”?’

Quoting Lee’s conclusions: “Of course, it’s possible that the bankrupt company failed because its more successful competitors simply ripped off its technology and undersold it. But at least in software, this is not the common case. More often, many companies independently come up with similar ideas. The company that prevails is the one that executes best, not the one who came up with the idea first. Which means that the patent system simply transfers wealth from those who are good at building useful products to those who are good at navigating the patent system.

“Mace’s post is based on a similar fallacy. He argues that patents are good because they allow a small company like his to prevent a large company like Google or Apple from copying him. Obviously that’s valuable to him, but it’s not clear that it’s good for the economy as a whole.

“Companies have other ways to protect their innovations. They can use copyrights, trade secrets, and the head start that any inventor has over copycats. Mace objects that these protections aren’t adequate to guarantee that the original inventor will win in the marketplace. But that’s the point: consumers benefit from the robust competition that results when inventors have only a limited advantage over competitors. The first company to enter some market shouldn’t be able to simply rest on its laurels. Remember, Facebook was a “me-too competitor” in the social networking space; it’s a good thing that Friendster and MySpace weren’t able to stop Mark Zuckerberg from entering its market.

“The function of the patent system isn’t to maximize the profits of inventors. Rather, it’s to provide inventors with sufficient incentives to ensure they continue innovating. In software, the protections offered by copyrights and trade secrets are already more than adequate to produce a huge amount of innovation. As a bonus, these regimes are less cumbersome and less prone to frivolous litigation than patents.”

We rest assured that Google’s move might provide a short-term fix that assures the growth of Linux in mobile phones. In the long term, Google’s newly-acquired patents too need to be eliminated, along with all the rest. It’s the only way to serve justice that’s inclusive (includes small players and new entrants). █

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Former Microsoft Lawyer and Pro-Microsoft Lobbyist Lie and Distort Android Legalities to Distract From Motorola Sale

Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Patents at 8:36 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Team Microsoft provides a distraction to take people’s attention away from the news about Android getting more solid legal basis

WELL, guess what? It seems as though we correctly predicted this sale of Motorola to Google even a day before it happened. “It’s all about the patents,” says ZDNet in the headline and it is probably true. Motorola also gives Google a chance to fight Microsoft and Apple in court, defending Android from some insidious allegations, using counter-attacks with Motorola patents (Google inherits these legal cases which were invoked separately by Microsoft and Apple). Google is buying them at above real value and Google’s CEO explains why. Here is Google’s official statement. A lot has been written about this already, so we need not say much except that it harms the efforts to fix the patent system but probably helps Linux in the short term.

Here is where it gets interesting. Apart from some dishonest ‘journalists’ who try to spin this against Google, there are some dishonest people, such as a lawyer previously employed by Microsoft (who later spread some lies about Android), who talk nonsense to distract from the above news. It is proposed by Microsoft’s buddy Naughton that Google’s Android has GPL problems. Well, just google “Naughton microsoft” and you will get “Lawyer behind Android infringement claim has Microsoft ties” (he hid his Microsoft ties by deletion and later got caught doing this). We covered this at the time while some reposted known lies. Anyway, his latest decoy spawned some headline trolling [1, 2, 3] and a storm over nothing, possibly promoted by Florian Müller's 'spamming' of journalists. He is debunked in Slashdot and other such sites (waste of space and focus), including Groklaw which writes:

Attorney Edward Naughton of Brown Rudnick has written [ Part II] more misinformation about the GPL in yet another false prediction of Android’s doom. Once again Mr. Naughton takes a non-story and blows it out of proportion, and of course, FOSSPatents does its part to blow hot air into the story as well.

If the idea is to scare off potential Android OEM’s or purchasers of Android-powered phones, this sort of scare tactic is just rubbish. It has failed in the past, and it will fail this time.

People who don’t understand the GPL probably shouldn’t write about it, including lawyers. I’ll show you the mistakes in the article, and please note that while I am a member of the board of directors of Software Freedom Law Center, which will factor into this story, I speak only for myself and Groklaw, not for SFLC in this article.

Bradley M. Kuhn too has responded to this:

Unfortunately, Edward Naughton is at it again, and everyone keeps emailing me about, including Brian Proffitt, who quoted my email response to him this morning in his article.

As I said in my response to Brian, I’ve written before on this issue and I have nothing much more to add. Naughton has not identified a GPL violation that actually occurred, at least with respect to Google’s own distribution of Android, and he has completely ignored my public call for him to make such a formal report to the copyright holders of GPL violations for which he has evidence (if any).

Here is a summary of some responses:

Even as Google announced their acquisition plans for Motorola Mobility today, vague legal accusations were re-hashed by IP attorney Edward J. Naughton that imply that all Android manufacturers are at risk of losing their rights to distribute Android because of they did not comply with the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). But the head of the Software Freedom Conservancy states there are still, despite the arm waving, no legitimate claims made on Android GPL violation.
Actually, Naughton doesn’t just imply problems for Android vendors, he just comes right out and says it: Android manufacturers have already lost their licenses to distribute GPLed code inside Android.
“Not long ago, open source advocates sued more than a dozen major consumer electronics manufacturers, claiming that the manufacturers had lost the right to use GPL’d software in their devices. It looks like the same could be said of Android: virtually every one is unlicensed,” Naughton wrote in his blog.

One of Naughton’s biggest cheerleaders, FOSSPatent author Florian Mueller, is also explicit in his own amplification of Naughton’s theories:

Nothing to see here then. Microsoft is still briefing its gang which includes lobbyists like Microsoft Florian, who occasionally communicates with Naughton as well. it’s just a coordinated attack on Android. You can only cry “Wolf!” twice. Why is anyone paying attention to those people rather than cover the real news, which is about Android gaining a patent shield against Apple’s and Microsoft’s patent cartel? █

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Apple Fabricates ‘Evidence’ to Ban Linux Devices

Posted in Apple, Deception, GNU/Linux, Google at 8:06 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Apple caught lying in a way that can get Apple — not Android makers — deep in hot water for lying to the German judge

“‘Samsung vs Apple in Europe’ for dummies” is the headline of this analysis from LXer, which disappointingly enough cites a lobbyist against Android, Microsoft Florian. “For everybody who understands less about the current Apple/ Samsung battle in EU than I do,” writes the dutch author, “here’s my attempt to share the few things I understand with you. I’ll briefly discuss the situation in both Germany and the Netherlands. The article should be especially suited for those who cannot read Dutch / German and are not up to date with what has been happening the last few days.”

“This story is a good fit because the company is based on a marketing lie, a delusion, a distortion of reality.”Meanwhile, Dutch/German sources suggest that the whole ban was based on fabrication and that this battle remains to be played (the ban might get reversed). To quote Slashdot: “The Dutch site webwereld.nl has found incorrect evidence submitted by Apple (Google translation of Dutch original) in the EU design-right case against Samsung. In the ex-parte case, a German judge recently issued a temporary injunction against the sale of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the whole EU except the Netherlands. The faulty evidence is a side-by-side picture of an iPad 2 and the Galaxy Tab. The Tab is scaled to fit the iPad2, and the aspect ratio is changed from 1.46 to 1.36, which more closely matches the iPad 2 aspect ratio of 1.3, according to webwereld.nl.”

Here is what IDG has to say. “It’s just getting worse for Apple,” remarks the person who gave the link. “Apple Offers Flawed Evidence in Lawsuit against Samsung” is the headline and “it appears that Apple has failed to provide the German judge with accurate evidence. At least one of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 pictures that Apple provided as evidence in the German case is either wrong or manipulated. Photographic evidence submitted by Apple, found on page 28 of the German complaint, shows two pictures: the iPad 2 and the alleged Galaxy Tab 10.1, accompanied by Apple’s claim that the “overall appearance” of two products is “practically identical.””

“Take a look at the pictures on the link — obviously the Galaxy picture was tampered with,” remarks the person who gave this link, “squashed down to make the Galaxy Tab 10.1 look to be shaped like an iPad2. What sleazy, lying assholes they have at Apple.” In our Wiki we have had a page titled “Apple Deception”. This story is a good fit because the company is based on a marketing lie, a delusion, a distortion of reality. █

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Microsoft’s Latest FUD Against GNU/Linux Hinged on SEC Filing, Boosted by Pretend ‘Journalists’

Posted in FUD, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 7:51 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The “Linux is just a desktop” pattern of FUD gets used by Microsoft boosters (with a new hat) to rile up and ridicule supporters of GNU/Linux, which thrives in many areas and spawns new brands (like “Android”)

A Microsoft booster from Directions on Microsoft (Matt Rosoff, who left them last year only to promote Microsoft, as a seemingly-independent writer) started to spread some more GNU/Linux FUD last week. We have already given many examples, some of which well covered in this site, where he was advancing Microsoft agenda and this is just his latest (no links given as that would only feed a provocateur). Brian Proffitt, whose defence against this is weak (he helps validate the false allegations), neglects to mention the conflict of interest from this shameless Microsoft booster who now pretends to be a journalist. The only proper responses we have found so far help show that this FUD also got echoed by other Microsoft boosters such as Ed Bott. We were going to just ignore this FUD rather than give it any visibility. However, rebuttals have already been posted (around Monday), so we might as well give links to those:

1. Microsoft’s ‘Linux Threat Level’: Down to Green or Redder Than Ever?

   Whereas said documents used to include Linux as a primary threat to Windows — alongside Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) — Redmond’s documents now reportedly don’t mention any competitive threat from desktop Linux at all, according to a recent article on Business Insider, which cites a tweet by Directions on Microsoft’s Wes Miller.

   [...]

   Of course, embedded Linux is still acknowledged as a problem in that arena — not to mention servers, of course — but author Matt Rosoff (formerly with Directions on Microsoft as well, it most certainly should be noted) comes to a very happy conclusion anyway: “So much for all those predictions that Linux would kill Windows,” he writes.

2. Linux snickers at Microsoft’s victory declaration

   Sure, on the desktop, it’s a Windows world, but guess what Sherlock; the desktop is declining in importance. The mobile, server, Web and cloud worlds are where the twenty-teens’ billionaires will come from, not the desktop. And, guess, who’s already in all those spaces large and in charge? Yes, that’s right, Linux.

In IRC, Ryan explains this morning: “They declared victory on the desktop [...] how strange that this has nothing to do with their market share [...] and comes just as the DOJ oversight is going away and they don’t need to pretend they have credible competition there anymore”

“Also,” I added, “they have tablets challenging desktops now. Tablets run Linux”

“Microsoft revived Apple back in the 90s,” Ryan elaborates, “when they nearly bankrupted themselves after a long line of stupid business decisions [...] what’s going on with Novell is the same thing, just a different market” [...] (We have competition, they even compete using our technologies) [...] not on the desktop, that has always been a misleading truth, but the money is in servers and workstations and now phones and tablets so they’re the majority holder of a platform that is not growing and in fact, is starting to recede”

“Windows revenue has declined for quarters,” I noted (since 2009). █

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IRC Proceedings: August 15th, 2011

Posted in IRC Logs at 7:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Enter the IRC channels now

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