10.02.11

Links 2/10/2011: More Android Tablets, Protesters — Not Bankers — Arrested at Occupy Wall Street

Posted in News Roundup at 11:44 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Permalink Leave Your Comment      Send this to a friend

American Duopoly (Apple and Microsoft) Fights Korea With Patents

Posted in Apple, Asia, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Patents at 11:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Seoul besieged again

Summary: A look at Apple’s and Microsoft’s relationship with Samsung (one of the two major Korean companies in this area) and what we can learn from it

SAMSUNG is a hardware giant located at a nation that thrives in production of goods. Samsung is about an order of magnitude larger than Apple, at least in terms of workforce. Not so long ago Samsung surpassed Apple in terms of certain sales and became the largest distributors of Android (even if taxed by Microsoft), amongst other things. It painted a large target on Samsung’s behind, so Microsoft wanted more “royalties” and Apple sought embargoes one country at a time (fortunately there is no global patent system, at least not yet). The strategy has not been particularly useful to Apple; ever since it started suing Android companies using patents (starting with HTC) there has been a great deal of blowback, even from US-based carriers. Apple started alienating too many existing and potential partners, which would be harmful in the long term. At the end of last month we saw Apple taking a small step back (withdrawing patent claims) and now it is complaining about Samsung’s patents. Apple got a little scared and removed patent allegations, so now it seems to be more afraid of Samsung’s own patents. Just remember who started all this confrontation. Apple started it, whereupon pundits said that Apple must have been out of its mind. Some days ago it was reported that Apple significantly reduced its iPad orders; maybe Samsung just won’t help make these. By suing its own producers, Apple made a foolish decision. Microsoft took a different approach with its longtime partner Samsung and to cite Muktware, it did not try to get ridiculous trademarks or manufacture fake 'evidence' to block Samsung’s products. Instead Microsoft tried turning Android/Samsung devices into its own. Here is an article to be aware of:

Apple has been misuing its deep pockets and abusing the legal system to weaken competition. There is good news for competitors, the USPTO has rejected Apple’s trademark claims over ‘multi-touch’. Apple applied for the trademark in 2007 when it launched its iPhone. The USPTO rejected the trademark on the basis that the term is too generic or broad. Apple also holds a trademark on AppStore, a term used for app stores. There is an ongoing legal battle between Apple and Amazon over the use of this genetic term.

Apple is not much of a producing company. It’s a design, marketing, and branding company. This is why it tries so hard to restrict use of vocabulary, product appearance, etc. Apple even hired Viagra experts for this task. The manufacturers of “Apple”-branded products could just do it equally well themselves, a lot more economically too.

“The scenario makes is rather obvious that software patents are a major danger to coders.”Then there is Microsoft, which used to be a monopoly expert (removing choice from the market by crime and underhanded tactics) and has recently become more of a patents aggressor because people fought for choice (more on that in an earlier post). Microsoft is still trying to figure out how to make a profit from other people’s work and in the process it resorts to racketeering, collusion, secret deals, and old partners like Samsung (interesting take), which are all just a convenient way to get around having to face Google. This whole situation is fascinating because, assuming Microsoft can turn patents into its major cash cow, the market for software development will just die a little more. It will become a market of patents, just as Microsoft’s patent troll once envisioned it. Rather than write software (code) people will write words and then extort everyone who writes code implementing an abstract description of it. The scenario makes is rather obvious that software patents are a major danger to coders.

In a truly bizarre article whose headline resembles old propaganda for software patents (“Software Developers Must Be Properly Rewarded”) the case is being made based on the Samsung-Microsoft ‘deal’. If this illustrated anything at all, it is that software patents have absolutely zero value to Korea. It is only secret trade agreements that can somehow make Korea fall on its sword and fall for software patents.

Samsung is now paying Microsoft for something it never made, not even in code, passing the cost to customers, who will in turn reward Microsoft rather than Google. How does that encourage software development? The developers are not being paid.

To use the words of one blogger:

Microsoft has a large advantage in its quest to go after and collect royalties from those that it deems necessary as a direct threat. Microsoft has risen up with full force against Android, just after Windows Phone 7 started to appear. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Most recently it was announced that Microsoft had an “agreement” with Samsung, yet another manufacturer of Android devices. This agreement? It’s been rumoured that Samsung will need to pay close to $5 to Microsoft for each Android phone manufactured and sold. And so this is one side of the blade that Microsoft is swinging all around. Microsoft is using its vast array of patents to frighten phone manufacturers into paying royalties, in order to avoid being sued. Ingenious? Yes, because there’s another side of the blade that didn’t occur to me until recently. Samsung, being a manufacturer of Android devices, could manufacture devices for other operating systems as well, including Windows. Why not? If Microsoft is going to charge Samsung a set fee for each Android phone, yet allow Samsung to manufacture and sell Windows phones with no fees, what incentive would there be for Samsung to continue manufacturing Android devices? Not too many at the rate things are going. The only thing keeping Samsung interested in Android is the market demand for devices that run the Android OS. So Microsoft has two sides to their blade, they swing it to either side and they win. And Google? They seem to be defenseless at the moment while vendors of its software are being bullied by Microsoft.

This is an observation we made over 4 years ago, just after the signing of the Novell deal. The patent deal between Samsung and Microsoft is also over 4 years ago. This is helping non-practising ‘industries’, making developers devalued while “Increas[ing] in demand for Trained Patent Professionals” as this new article puts it:

In India, software is protected under the Copyright Act and not the Patent Act (as in many western countries). However, Indian IT companies have filed patent applications for their software in other parts of the world and these companies continue to seek non-software patents in India. Many of them have also filed business method patents in U.S. As Indian IT companies restructure their operations for high value service offerings, they are focused on innovation and intellectual property generation and protection in India and abroad.

The passage of jobs from engineers to lawyers (who serve a protectionist agenda) is a sad reminder of a society where the rich get richer and smart, honest people get thrown aside. The rise of terms like “Intellectual Property” in the news tells us that there is a strong push to indoctrinate the public all across the world to “respect IP”. Cablegate is full of examples that demonstrate it (we shall dive into more of that later this year). █

Permalink 3 Comments      Send this to a friend

Microsoft to Struggle to Force People to Buy Windows

Posted in Europe, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 10:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Poor puppies!

Summary: Action in France shows Microsoft’s grip on OEMs eroding, leaving room for GNU/Linux instead

JUST over a week after Microsoft got caught trying to use the boot sequence to boot the competition out of the way (eliminating the ‘curse’ of competing, e.g. with excuses and lies), there is still coverage about it and possibly legal action. Microsoft is extremely unlikely to get away with it, which is why we didn’t feel the need to cover it all that much. Several years ago we wrote about French OEM-related actions — public protests striving to stop the forced sales of Microsoft Windows along with new computers. Although not much happened since these actions were reported some years ago (we covered the issue in early site posts about OEMs), it was clear that Microsoft already struggled to sell the story about lack of choice being of benefit to the customer.

AFUL and the FFII took further action some months ago and brought the issue to EU politicians who did express some interest in taking real action. Whether related to this or not, there is a breakthrough in France.

“France getting ready to eliminate forced purchase of OS,” writes someone in USENET about this new report which says: “Amendments to France’s draft law on ‘reinforcing consumers’ rights, protection and information’ have been proposed with the purpose of putting an end to bundled hardware/software sales, the French advocacy organisation for free software and open standards APRIL announced on 27 September 2011.

“AFUL and the FFII took further action some months ago and brought the issue to EU politicians who did express some interest in taking real action.”“Bundled hardware/software sales, APRIL explained, consists of an anti-competitive commercial practice that prevents consumers from purchasing a computer without having to pay for pre-installed software. The public discussions on the draft law at the National Assembly (the lower house of Parliament) started on Wednesday 28 September 2011.

The poster cites Cablegate and asks: “What is Microsoft, a third rate software company, to do but contact the US embassy and complain so that the US embassy can go trolling the French on behalf illegal Microsoft industrial support.

“Nothing is too sacred for Microsoft including interfering in the self determination of the French nation through use of US diplomatic services.”

“Best news I’ve read in a while, but then this Bill still has to pass, and you can be guaranteed Sweaty [Ballmer] is filling his grease gun and violin case as we speak,” writes Homer. “Assuming France can resist Microsoft’s inevitable “lobbying”, this is good news for the whole of Europe, not just France, since even if the rest of Europe doesn’t adopt the same policy then we can all just buy our PCs from France – Windows Tax-free.

“If the PCs landed in France first, then it can be shipped to anywhere in EU by a third party and make a heck of a saving when sold in markets and and small shops,” wrote the original poster again. “The thing that is most worrying that could scupper this legislation is still what the US diplomats are doing behind everyone’s back acting on the orders of Microsoft to interfere in French self determination.” █

Permalink Leave Your Comment      Send this to a friend

Bristol Council Claims it Chose Microsoft for ‘Security’

Posted in Europe, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 10:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The laughing stock of the security world is said to have been favoured because it bought some expensive certifications

A FEW months ago we wrote about a bizarre dodge from Free software [1, 2], which happened after everything seemed finalised. No proper explanation was given and those involved were questioned about the sudden change of heart (with the suspicion that something nefarious had happened). Only months later, under persistent pressure from the public and from investigative journalists, we finally see this apparent excuse, which goes like this: “It has been considering a number of open source email solutions, but Bristol City Council confirmed to eWEEK Europe UK that none of them have the necessary government security accreditation to enable the council to use them.”

Is this the same reasoning which they gave to those companies? Is this an afterthought? An excuse? Being blessed by some expensive process (that carries no liability either) does not actually make the software more secure. It is not as though when Microsoft software gets cracked the certificate plays any role and somehow gives another target to point the finger at. This smells like dishonesty and since the White Houses uses Drupal and GNU/Linux, this claim holds no water, either.

There are many new examples of insecure proprietary software, one of which came last week from Novell on Windows. To quote:

“Unfortunately, a problem has been discovered with this file, which can potentially result in a system crash in certain circumstances.

The problem has been fixed, and the Client software has been re-released as Novell Client 2 SP1 for Windows (IR9a), available at:

http://download.novell.com/Download?buildid=rSUN_TTVSf0~

Please remove the (IR9) build, and use the (IR9a) version instead. We regret the inconvenience.

Thank you.”

How would certification have resolved such an issue? It wouldn’t have. In practice, Microsoft software and proprietary software are not secure, they are just more secretive and expensive.

The tale of Bristol has been followed quite closely by Mark Ballard, who writes about excuses such as the above (excluding all Free software in one fell swoop, pretending that Microsoft is the only secure option) in the following text:

Bristol City Council’s open source push has suffered another series of set-backs that point a finger of blame at CESG, the cyber security arm of government intelligence unit GCHQ.

Leaders at the local authority claim that the need for CESG security certification of e-mail systems effectively means the council has no choice but to buy Microsoft.

Senior Cabinet Office IT leaders have been asked to help as Bristol’s faltering open source strategy, still showing little progress after a year, highlighted problems besetting the coalition government’s own open source policy.

What a sham. As many other governments use Free software quite happily, this concern has little or no validity. It is a good excuse though — like one an employer uses to reject a candidate for reasons that are not technical/skills-related but qualifications-related.

In other news of interest, “U.K. Liberal Democrats urge open source,” but given the story of Bristol it seems like lip service. From the article:

The British government should ensure it owns all software code it pays for and should share that code for free within the public sector, says a policy paper adopted Sept. 20 by the Liberal Democrats party, the minority partner of the two-party ruling coalition forming the United Kingdom’s government.

In addition, the paper urges the British government to embrace collaborative software development along the lines of models on display at GitHub, an open source software project hosting website.

Someone should tell the Lib Dems that Bristol rejects British firms that offer Free software in favour of proprietary software from a foreign company with criminal history — software that the British public overpays for and has no control over. █

Permalink A Single Comment      Send this to a friend

Australia at Software Patents Risk

Posted in Australia, Patents at 10:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The battle against software developers in Australia rages on, most recently with debates over software patents

THERE IS an important new development in the continent of Australia, which has been a key location/battleground involving the patentability of software [1, 2, 3] while trilateral elites seek to take the patent system global, imposing their patent monopoly on every single human on this small planet.

Many patents in the US impede free thought and expression, not creation. The restrictions typically have a 20-year lifespan. According to this new article, “Australia reviews tier-two software patents” and to be more specific:

The Federal Government may consider excluding software from its second-tier patent system to better align Australian patents with those of trading partners like Japan and Korea.

In February, Innovation Minister Kim Carr asked the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property (ACIP) to review the innovation patent system, which replaced the petty patent system almost eleven years ago.

Innovation patents required a lower degree of inventiveness than standard patents but were granted for a maximum of eight years, instead of the standard 20.

In an issues paper released last month (pdf), ACIP raised concerns that the innovation patent system may be incongruous with the intentions of the Government’s ‘Raising The Bar’ reforms.

.
We wrote about Korea’s patent situation earlier on and we also showed how Japan pressures China to become a slave of Western (or Japanese) patent monopolies. There is clearly a war of dominance going on and it is waged in the back rooms by people in suits (they are not scientists). We shall write more about Korea in the next post. █

Permalink Leave Your Comment      Send this to a friend