09.15.11
Posted in America, Cablegate, Microsoft at 6:03 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A collection of almost a dozen cables showing how sanctions and lists of shame are being used to help plant seeds for Microsoft et al. all around the world
TODAY we are going to go through a lot of material and summarise everything of relevance upfront. We will start with Turkey's sanction siege, which was intended to make it more West-esque so as to benefit multinationals (mostly US-based companies). Turkey is not alone and today we’ll deal with 4 countries as examples of interest from all around the world.
Turkey is being put on shame lists, where laws need to be changed n order to get the country off those lists. Think along the lines of sex offenders list, terrorists watchlist, “wanted” mug shots at the police station, server/IP blacklist, etc.
In the first cable, under ¶7, Turkey is mentioned in relation to the BSA. To quote:
As noted in ref A points, the GOT requires that all software
used on government computers be licensed. However, Turkey’s chapter
of BSA has heard anecdotally that the estimated piracy rate on
government computers is approximately 50 percent. They emphasized
to us, however, that they believe that the government is acting in
good faith and trying to eliminate pirated software use by
government officials. Comment: The head of the Turkey office of a
major U.S. software producer told us that he doubts the utility of
such proclamations in relatively more-developed countries like
Turkey and agreed that the Government is working to reduce internal
piracy. He also said that an agreement had more symbolic than
practical value, given that there is no centralized point for
government software procurement. In 2006, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates
visited Turkey and announced his plans to support a techno-park in
Istanbul and invest more in Turkey, which he characterized as a
regional technological base. Microsoft and other companies, like
Cisco, have close cooperative relationships with the government of
Turkey.
Later on we find examples from Serbia and Montenegro, staring with a cable in which ¶11 says:
On February 1, 2006, Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo
Djukanovic together with Bill Gates signed a three-year
contract, providing software licenses to Montenegrin
educational and scientific institutions. In September 2005,
the GoM and Microsoft concluded a USD 2.36 million contract,
creating a strategic partnership between the GoM and
Microsoft for legalization of all the Microsoft software
being used by state institutions. By mid-March, Microsoft
and local governments in Montenegro will have completed the
licensing of software used by the municipalities.
In the next cable, under ¶5 which has the heading “Microsoft Engages in Montenegro”, it says:
(U) Microsoft is working with the GoM and with private
business to increase the use of licensed software in
Montenegro. After meeting with PM Djukanovic, Bill Gates
announced Microsoft would provide software on favorable
terms to Montenegro’s educational and scientific sector. In
the private sector, Microsoft will team with NGO Montenegro
Business Alliance to educate business about intellectual
property rights.
The Business Alliance is Microsoft’s thug. Microsoft uses it to distance itself from enforcement (imprisonment, fining, etc.) and bad PR.
Moving on to a cable from Indonesia , in ¶7 we find that
On January 13, the Ministry of Information and
Communications Technology and Microsoft signed an MOU on
legalizing all GOI Microsoft software. President Yudhoyono,
on his own initiative, personally led the effort to sign the
MOU, following his 2005 meeting with Microsoft Chairman Bill
Gates. It is estimated that 90 percent of GOI computers use
pirated versions of Microsoft operating systems and
software.
Bill Gates sure gets around, does he not?
Another Cablegate cable, this one also about the “SPECIAL 301 INITIATIVE RESPONSE,” comes from Slovakia and in ¶9 it says:
According to industry experts, software piracy has
noticeably decreased in Slovakia. Microsoft’s Bill Gates
said during his visit to the country in January 2004, “We
have registered a decline in software piracy in Slovakia.”
Based on the Microsoft’s Enterprise Agreement with the GOS
signed in 2002, all copyrights of Microsoft software being
used in the state administration have been purchased by
Slovak authorities for a total of USD 13 million
(representing a 65 percent discount on the regular price).
In 2001, a similar agreement was signed between Microsoft
and the Slovak Chamber of Physicians and in 2004, Slovakia
joined Microsoft’s worldwide project “Partners in
education.”
Got to love Mr. Gates and his ‘charity’, changing laws around the world, for power and profit. Here are the cables in question. From Turkey:
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Posted in America, Cablegate, Microsoft, Open XML at 5:32 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The largest population in America is characterised as having an anti-American government
Wikipedia describes the Monroe Doctrine as follows: “The Monroe Doctrine is a policy of the United States introduced on December 2, 1823. It stated that further efforts by European countries to colonize land or interfere with states in the Americas would be viewed as acts of aggression requiring U.S. intervention (however, the wording referred to the entire Western Hemisphere, which actually includes much of Europe and Africa). The doctrine was introduced by President Monroe when he was enraged at the actions being executed around him.[1] The Monroe Doctrine asserted that the Americas were not to be further colonized by European countries but that the United States would neither interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal concerns of European countries. The Doctrine was issued at a time when many Latin American countries were on the verge of becoming independent from the Spanish Empire. The United States, reflecting concerns raised by Great Britain, ultimately hoped to avoid having any European power take over Spain’s colonies.”
In due time, the American nation came to be almost synonymous with the United States, whose citizens were also referred to as “Americans”. This popularised the perception that to be American is to inherit rules exclusively from the US. This has not been an exceptionally popular idea in South America and we still see colonialist corporations like Microsoft labelling some South American countries as "anti-American" when it suits them (e.g. when they reject OOXML as in this case). Yes, Microsoft has been trying to characterise ODF, which is backed almost exclusively by large US-based businesses, as a matter of “anti-Americanism”. We covered cables about that. Today we expand on this by showing the ethanol push inside Brazil. American billionaires drive some of that controversial idea (turning food into fuel) and we loved the end of the first cable, which quotes economic columnist Alberto Tamer as saying that “the future for agribusiness and Brazil is near. We must know how to act and not make mistakes again, as we have always done – especially under this government obstinate in its anti-American ideology.”
What’s with this phrase? Is this a code word for “against imperialist multinational”? Banana Republic anyone? These slurs that Microsoft uses to daemonise Microsoft sceptics/critics are reminiscent of the “Free software” as “communism” insult, which we found in some other Cablegate cables. In any case, here is what we have today:
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Posted in Africa, Bill Gates, Cablegate, Microsoft at 4:58 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A good demonstration of how Microsoft and Gates manage to manage governments by proxy
According to the following Cablegate cable, the Ministry of Investment (MOI) in Egypt is not quite working on its own. “On behalf of MOI,” says ¶6, “Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates launched a website, www.investment.gov.eg in January 2005, to serve as Egypt’s investment portal.”
Since when does Bill govern Egypt or run its economy? There is a lot of other interesting stuff in the cables below, but it is probably of most interest to Egyptians who wish to understand how Mubarak’s regime has harmed them by giving control to imperialists who export weapons (at taxpayers’ expense).
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, IBM, Patents at 11:31 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Brutal nature of patents
Summary: The upsides, downsides and the nature of Google’s defensive strategy which now includes more patent aggregation
WE seem to lack consensus on the subject of Google’s newly-acquired patents. We’ll therefore present a diversity of angles which are potentially contradictory.
Bloomberg‘s report on Google’s latest ‘purchase’ of IBM patents (just reassignment) states:
Google Inc. (GOOG) bought 1,023 patents from International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) as the Internet search and advertising company bolsters its strategy of defending against smartphone lawsuits.
Transfers recorded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s website yesterday show Google acquired the patents Aug. 17. Jim Prosser, a spokesman for the Mountain View, California- based company, confirmed the transaction today without providing details or financial terms. Chris Andrews, a spokesman for Armonk, New York-based IBM, declined to comment.
Secrecy. Got to love that, eh? So what does that whole thing mean. We discussed this in IRC throughout the morning and afternoon. Google will does not indemnify other Linux-based platforms and its move helps legitimise software patents. Those are probably the main drawbacks. Google also makes it harder to portray itself as a poor victim.
As a little bit of new background consider this news article:
In July, a consortium led by Microsoft, Apple and wireless industry players such as Research in Motion paid $4.5 billion for 6,000 patents from the now liquidated networking company Nortel. Last month, Google purchased Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, in part to gain access to the company’s 17,000 patents. And Eastman Kodak, a company struggling to navigate the digital era, has multiple parties bidding to buy its patent portfolio.
Oh, no. Not another one. The costs are being passed to customers.
“These two seem to have a little coverage of what the specific patents were,” writes to us a reader. He provides links to this article:
The patents cover a wide range of topics from server architecture to wireless devices. Bill Slawski of SEO by the Sea has taken a look at the patents involved and picked out a few that stood out to him. The ones that will probably be of most interest to Google are the ones related to cellular and mobile devices:
* Coordination Of Cellular Telephones In A Residential Area To Obviate Need For Wired Residential Service
* Method And System For Efficient And Reliable Mac-Layer Multicast Wireless Transmissions
* System And Method Of Making Location Updating Management On A Mobile Station, Mobile Station And Mobile Network
* Telephone Information Service System
Here is another article our reader recommends (there are many articles out there, some more useful and informative than others).
Just before 8 AM (GMT) Chips B. Malroy noted that “they bought another 1000+ patents from IBM…”
After I had expressed scepticism he said: “you [are] correct that software patents should be abolished [...] but maybe even Google does not have the pull with the US gov to do that [...] so in the meantime they buy patents [...]I lost the link, but in another story Apple asked to delay their lawsuit against Motorola [...] since they claim that since Google bought Motorola, that Motorola has no standing legally…”
“Perhaps Google exspensive plan to buy all these patents is starting to pay off in court for them and others using Androiders [...] The question is when MS will lose its gravy train of taxing (extorting) android OEM’s in court. [...] Maybe Google does not have to indemmify others, as long as they help them and show up in court, give a few patents like they have in the HTC case with Apple…”
“I am thinking that the days of MS and Apple trolling Android OEM’s is coming to an end.”
–Chips B. MalroyAnother person in IRC noted: “That’s what MS doest — tax OEMs.”
“I am thinking that the days of MS and Apple trolling Android OEM’s is coming to an end,” noted Malroy,
“It would take large action on the part of Google for the harassment of Android sellers to end,” remarked another anonymous person.
Malroy shared the link to the report about Apple stepping away. Is this working? Is Google’s strategy effective after all?
“It’s not the best solution for Google Android or FOSS,” stressed Malroy. “But with the way the US gov is these days, maybe its the best thing short term, as there is just too much money for our politicians to be made here from the lobbyists to keep the patent system” (a point with which i personally agree).
“Patents are out of control and hinder innovation,” writes Air VPN. This is probably something that everyone can agree with. █
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Posted in Marketing, Microsoft at 11:15 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Advertising violations
Summary: Repeated periods of downtime lead to concerns of false advertising and subsequent complaints
XBOX 360 became well known for the many class action lawsuits. It was a very defective product.
Now we see that that ASA, which we mentioned many times before [1, 2], is getting involved in the Office 365 (minus downtime) false advertising, right after another major downtime.
From The Register:
The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) is checking out a complaint about claims from Microsoft that it can guarantee 99.9 per cent uptime on its cloud services.
The Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) has been prone to outages. And even its successor, Office 365, has gone down twice since its launch in late June, leading some customers to dub it “Office 364″.
On its promotional material, Redmond says of Office 365: “You can count on Microsoft, an industry leader in productivity, for reliability. Microsoft provides a financially-backed 99.9 per cent uptime guarantee.”
The ASA confirmed to The Reg it was “investigating” a complaint over “marketing communication on Microsoft’s website”.
One reader has told us that some journalists may have been bribed to blame DNS and potentially save Microsoft billions. Their articles can be used by Microsoft lawyers as a cover-up. How despicable if true. █
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Posted in Microsoft, Mono at 10:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Remnant of the Microsoft/Novell marriage
Summary: Another clueful reminder of who Xamarin associates itself with
WE are always amused to see how Miguel and his Xamarin minions no longer see the need to hide their ties with Microsoft. Miguel’s Microsoft MVP award aside, just watch where they present. “Continuing our tradition of getting together with Mono users at Microsoft conferences,” Miguel reassures us. Well, we appreciate the reminder. █
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Posted in News Roundup at 6:13 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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Kernel Space
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Applications
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Instructionals/Technical
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Games
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Desktop Environments
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The last few years of development on the free desktop have been instructive. First, KDE stumbled and recovered with the KDE 4 series. Then, this year, GNOME and Ubuntu introduced radically new desktops. In each case, user complaints immediately poured in. Although both GNOME and Ubuntu seem determined to ignore these complaints and continue on their course, I keep wondering: could the disastrous receptions have been avoided?
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When I installed LXDE from the Debian repository, it started right up, and its Start Menu had the usual default categories (Accessories, Games, Internet, Office, and so on). And most of my applications were in the correct categories. But a few were missing, such as Claws (my email client), and I wanted to create some new categories. No problem; I expect to do this with any new system.
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GNOME Desktop
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Gnome 3.2 is going to get:
* A matching GDM welcome screen.
* Integrated chat- no need to launch Empathy.
* More natural workspace switcher behaviour.
* Device hot plugging work nicely with the shell.
* More obvious waiting messages.
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New Releases
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Dyne:bolic is one of the ever increasing list of GNU/Linux distributions we recommend because of their strong commitment to user freedom. After five years of development, a new release is available.
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Red Hat Family
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Debian Family
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Derivatives
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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Canonical recently released the first beta of Ubuntu 11.10, Code named Oneiric Ocelot. Ubuntu has ditched Gnome Shell completely and stepped up its committment to the Unity Desktop. As the final release approaches, just one month from today, we spin up this beta and take a first look at the distro that Mark Shuttleworh called, “part daydream, part discipline.”
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With more and more of one’s personal and professional lives being on the computer, encrypting and properly securing those computers — particularly mobile devices — is incredibly important. Sadly, it’s not often thought about until it’s too late. It has become relatively easy to protect your personal data on Ubuntu Linux with home directory encryption support being just a checkbox-away within the installer or even full-disk LVM encryption when using Ubuntu’s alternate installer. Previous tests of Ubuntu disk encryption performance have shown there is some penalty in disk-centric workloads, but the benefits are certainly worth it. In this article is a look at the Ubuntu home encryption performance under Ubuntu 11.10 with both old and new laptops.
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“Our goal with Unity is unprecedented ease of use, visual style and performance on the Linux desktop,” Canonical and Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth wrote in his blog last month.
That statement can also stand as a summary of the goals for Ubuntu 11.10 (better known as Oneiric Ocelot). Judging from the beta released last week, Ocelot promises to be a release that, so far as users are concerned, is less about innovation than about perfecting interfaces — mainly the Unity desktop, but also one or two other applications.
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Flavours and Variants
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Imagine that you are in a store. You have two new netbook/tablet convertibles in front of you. One of them is $250.00 and runs Ubuntu Linux. The other is $350.00. They are both dual core ARM systems with 2GB of DDR3 RAM, and 64GB SSDs. On top of that, they can both run Metro applications, and have cloud synchronization features that are free of charge for starter storage amounts and pay to expand. Besides price, the Ubuntu machine has two other things that it can offer. It has a different interface, and it has an extra application store with thousands of free and libre applications. This is a very real possibility in the future.
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Phones
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Events
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Expanding Linux Venues In the South (or ELVIS): A FOSS event fit for The King, this one would be held in Memphis, as close to Graceland as possible. Everyone would be required to wear blue suede shoes. We could have Elvis impersonators demonstrating various Linux distros and FOSS programs. Shoot, we could have Linus impersonators doing the same thing. And Stallman impersonators doing the same thing. And Jon ‘maddog’ Hall impersonators . . . you get the idea. This is definitely something worth planning, and I’m so far from Memphis. Is someone closer that could take the reins?
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CMS
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I never really “trusted” Facebook or Google+. That is to say, I never expected them to respect my privacy or keep my secrets. I’m not too secretive online anyway, and what I do have to hide, I just don’t post. But it is very clear that there is a great deal of corruption inherent in a business model which is based on concentrating the personal data from millions of users and selling that data to advertisers. At the very least, there must be a free alternative. But for that alternative to be viable, we need to use it. Identica has been around for some time now (and I use it — I’m “digitante”), and Diaspora is (after a long hard start) finally getting some wind under its wings. I’ve used it, and it’s Good Enough. In fact, you’ll find it’s pretty similar to what Facebook or Google+ offers, although there are still some rough spots.
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To mark the one year anniversary of the creation of OpenIndiana, there’s a new OpenIndiana release. OpenIndiana 151a is this new release that is timed one year after this OpenSolaris fork arrived following the fallout from Oracle killing off OpenSolaris and Solaris development in the open.
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Finance
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In his first interview since being released from jail, Rudolf Elmer stated to India Today that:
- the investigation against him is still ongoing, and that he could not make any detailed statements because he would be arrested again.
- the CDs he handed over to Julian Assange in the Frontline Club were empty. He also said that it was only a symbolic handover, because it was a public place, and because the police could have intervened. He also said that Assange would not have come, had there not been information.
- that he would not have been released from prison had any data been published.
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Let’s start with the stated budget hole of $775 million. Even that figure is iffy. The fact is, we know that a multi-hundred-million-dollar structural year-end surplus is built into the budget left over from David Miller’s cost containment, the well-performing property market and prudent financial management by unelected city managers.
This money, about $300 million, is not included in the $775 million and obviously dramatically shrinks the budget hole.
It’s true that Toronto has some fiscal challenges, but they’re not due to excessive spending, which has increased by 3 to 4 per cent over the last decade, less than that of the provincial and federal budgets over the same period. It’s also in line with population growth of 2 to 3 per cent, which drives the need for more services.
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Intellectual Monopolies
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Copyrights
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Copyright assignment is a topic that has received a fair bit of publicity ever since the head of Canonical, Mark Shuttleworth, started pushing the idea of developers surrendering their rights to his company when they contributed code.
Shuttleworth argues that without the freedom to do what he likes with the code – and that includes the possibility of locking it up and making it proprietary – he will be unable to make progress on Ubuntu, the GNU/Linux distribution that has soared to the top of the distro charts.
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