11.02.11
Posted in Mono, Ubuntu at 6:11 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft is drilling a legal loophole into Ubuntu GNU/Linux and apathy still serves Microsoft’s plan
ONE important bug that Canonical no longer tries to squash is the Mono bug. It adds a liability which everyone is well aware of, including the company's outgoing CTO (Canonical reorganised following some important departures at the top)..
The host of TechBytes, Tim, is usually very moderate, but he too is still concerned about Mono inside Ubuntu. The other day he wrote in Diaspora: “I’ve much love for Ubuntu and whilst it’s not my desktop choice now, it’s certainly the one I will recommend to others. The community is great, the distro is great.
“It does though always sadden me when we see Canonical’s insistence to stick with Banshee and ergo Mono. Why?
“Of course removing Mono is not the problem, I just merely wish they would get over this particular dependency that I cannot see has any benefits (even if you don’t buy into a patent trap scenario)”
One of our contributors has already added a wiki page about removing Mono from the latest Ubuntu and Phoronix writes about Mono and Banshee in a new article which Tim called “a rather interesting read.”
Later he wrote: “I commented on TechBytes some time ago about its sluggishness and it’s interesting to see that its still being commented on now. Patent trap or not, we have already seen how aggressively Microsoft is hitting Android with “licenses” and I’d say it would be wise to minimize as much risk as possible and remove Mono completely, for me and what I’ve seen of it, it offers no advantages that even come close to risking another avenue of attack for Microsoft on non-MS products.”
Exactly. And Phoronix ignores the main problem people are having with Mono and Banshee which Microsoft says it reserves the right to sue over. It’s not just about performance and technical merit (or lack thereof). We increasingly hear about Mono in the context of Wine, too. Here is the article in question. It says:
Concerns over this Mono and GTK#-using application were raised since Banshee has had some problems on ARM (the application freezing with a white screen) and Mono issues on ARM in general.
But why not mention the other issues? We have a wiki page dedicated to these. █
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Posted in Kernel, Microsoft, Security, Windows at 6:06 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A couple of new posts/articles about Microsoft Windows and what they teach us about this platform’s viability
THE PLATFORM which made “computer viruses” analogous and often synonymous with Windows viruses just keeps delivering and disappointing every time. According to this, the Windows kernel has unpatched flaws with exploits out there. To quote:
The Duqu malware used to steal sensitive data from manufacturers of industrial systems exploits at least one previously unknown vulnerability in the kernel of Microsoft Windows, Hungarian researchers said.
It is without great shock that we also learn why Windows can never be used reliably on a server, which — if compromised — makes is hard to diagnose the cause. To quote a new post:
Imagine if there were 50 PCs, 100, or more. I would be scared to look and see what other errors are occurring on other Windows 7 PCs in the company. Administrators have better things to do, than comb through useless log files. Way to go Microsoft, a quality operating system here with Windows 7. It’s no wonder Windows isn’t used for mission critical appliances, and GNU/Linux is instead. I’m not saying that GNU/Linux logs are the best, but they are pretty good and usually have information that I can use, to help pinpoint the error a little bit. GNU/Linux does not, and I repeat, does not have this amount of useless garbage in its logs like Windows does.
How long before Microsoft Jack appears at the scene to produce some promotional Microsoft comments in ZDNet UK? Usually it does not take long for Microsoft zealots like Jack to do this in that site.
A reader sent us some more links, one about the decline of Microsoft’s Web browser and another titled “Microsoft unlikely to patch Duqu kernel bug next week” (evidently).
“Time [for the] world to choose Linux,” concluded our reader. █
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Posted in Action, Antitrust, Patents, Petitions at 3:19 am by Guest Editorial Team
The Obama administration issued a feeble response to a previous petition against software patents signed by more than 14,000 people. Please sign the new one which requires more than 20,000 signatures to merit a response.
WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
Pursue Software Patent Abolition.
We hold the belief that software patents, in nature and practice, hinder true innovation and grant unjust monopolies.
The Obama Administration’s response to a previous petition shamefully attempted to absolve the President of responsibility and placate us with the toothless America Invents Act. We summarily reject his response and demand immediate action.
Rapid growth in the software industry during economic malaise demonstrates the importance and power of this market. The President must use his full power and influence to fight harmful forces from entrenched incumbents and non-producing entities.
There are no possible reforms to be made to the USPTO that will enable it to keep pace with innovation in the software industry. Those who truly understand software are creating it.
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11.01.11
Posted in Apple, Microsoft, Oracle at 3:54 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Photo from Oracle Corporate Communications
Summary: There is no going back for Linux/Android domination, but Apple and Microsoft try to collude against it now, with patents, patent trolls, and Larry Ellison (who calls Steve Jobs his “best friend” and idol”)
THE ANTICS of Microsoft have pushed it further away from “patent troll” realms and more into the realms of organised crime. Racketeering is, after all, a crime. But provided one is big (as in rich) enough and sufficiently connected in governments and/or media, the laws do not get enforced properly or even regularly. The media can ensure the public opinion gets slanted and politicians need not take action to please the population. We see a lot of this in Occupy Wall Street.
“The media can ensure the public opinion gets slanted and politicians need not take action to please the population.”As we explained on numerous occasions last month, Microsoft has a bunch of lobbyists and corruptible ‘journalists’ whom it uses to spin what it is doing as “acceptable” and a matter of enforcing the law rather than breaking the law. Caution is required in the face of Microsoft lobbyists’ spin that seeks to portray Google as a patent aggressor. It is very far-fetched and it is clear that they try to paint Google, the victim, as a company deserving Microsoft’s extortion. As the SCOracle trial takes a break the Microsoft FUD resumes in a noticeable way. Those who cannot become competitive turn litigious and even extort companies. Why actually make stuff and compete when you can pay some lawyers to attack the competition and rip it off using legal instruments and illegal tactics that are a breach of the RICO Act? A company that copied other people’s work and then used illegal tactics to stomp on them falsely claims (owing to a Chronicle columnist who ended up helping Microsoft with a propaganda piece) that Android “stands on Microsoft’s shoulders”.
Yes, Microsoft is trying to claim that it owns Android and people need to go to Microsoft to “license” Android, Microsoft’s competition. How it that different from what protection rackets always were? It is not different. “It reads to me as though the MS lawyer is saying “It’s an Operating System, and we own Operating Systems”,” writes one person in USENET.
This type of nonsense helps ‘normalise’ extortion using a PR campaign which deceives even self-proclaimed FOSS proponents (who don’t even use Linux). For shame. This is how public opinion gets distorted.
“Yes, Microsoft is trying to claim that it owns Android and people need to go to Microsoft to “license” Android, Microsoft’s competition.”The MSBBC, as usual, bats for that same side and we cannot help wondering if Katherine Noyes actually wrote this headline (probably the editor’s choice). Racketeering is not a joke and Microsoft is not a “fan” of Android. Microsoft is attacking Android and someone in regulatory agencies should take action. “Software patents are legalised extortion” says this new headline from an opposer of software patents, who writes:
By refusing to kowtow to the US software patent racket, Europe could experience a new golden age of technology, says Mike Lee.
From its theoretical description, a patent system for software seems like a great idea.
Rather than keeping their best code to themselves, software engineers can register their creations with the government, creating a marketplace of functionality. Anyone creating new products can save time and money by licensing, rather than reinventing.
If the patent system actually worked anything like that, software patents would be a no-brainer, but it doesn’t, and they’re not.
In fact, quite the opposite. Instead, the patent office contains vaguely worded descriptions written and held by lawyers, not for accelerating innovation, but for taxing it.
Many proponents of software patents are parasites like watchtroll, who already has his own words of little or no value. Patent lawyers cannot speak on behalf of people who make the software that patent lawyers are trying to tax; generally speaking, people who never practised software do not deserve a voice on the matter unless they become producing parties rather than bullies (for hire) who help subvert competition and tax everyone. Timothy B. Lee put it well in the following new article which he posted in Forbes:
People Should Listen to Computer Programmers about Software Patents
[...]
So too with software. The people complaining loudest about software patents are the very people whose efforts software patents are allegedly designed to encourage. If most of them think they’d be better off without that “protection,” that should give policymakers cause for soul-searching.
I doubt it’s a coincidence that this Sullivan reader is a patent law professor. While software patents don’t benefit the average computer programmer or software firm, they’re tremendously beneficial to the lawyers who make a living prosecuting and litigating software patents, and the law professors who make a living training the next generation of patent lawyers.
In Microsoft’s case, much of the lobbying comes from patent lawyers and managers, not developers. And there are no patents mentioned because they know they can achieve more by empty threats than by truthful means that are not dubious and even borderline criminal. Microsoft’s friends at Blackboard also leveraged patent FUD and got a lot of flak for it. Here is a little update about that:
The last time Techdirt wrote about the learning company, Blackboard, was in the context of its attempt to enforce a ridiculously broad patent on the field. Even before the patent was thrown out completely, Blackboard made an unusual move: it offered to exempt open source projects and those who contributed to them from its patent attacks:
As part of the Pledge, Blackboard promises never to pursue patent actions against anyone using such systems including professors contributing to open source projects, open source initiatives, commercially developed open source add-on applications to proprietary products and vendors hosting and supporting open source applications. Blackboard is also extending its pledge to many specifically identified open source initiatives within the course management system space whether or not they may include proprietary elements within their applications, such as Sakai, Moodle, ATutor, Elgg and Bodington.
Commitments to limit potential patent protection are uncommon, particularly for enterprise software companies. The Patent Pledge — in terms of its sweeping scope, strong commitment and public nature — is unprecedented for a product company such as Blackboard.
A proper action to take would be throwing away this patent altogether. Such patents, broad software patents to be more specific, should not exist. Some companies are bragging about these because the USPTO allows this to happen. We need to also strike at this root, the institutional failure, in order to prevent companies like Microsoft from fraudulently claiming ownership of Linux. Speaking of which, Microsoft’s partner Tuxera is still enabling Microsoft to tax Linux through file systems. Companies like Tuxera and Novell too are part of the problem we ought to tackle.
It’s not just Microsoft though. Its allies from Apple are attacking too. All that Apple can do now is sue, sue, sue. It has failed for over a year. So has Jobs’ “best friend” Larry Ellison. Samsung is tired of playing defence, so it “demands Iphone 4S source code” as things get more abrasive:
KOREAN ELECTRONICS GIANT Samsung is demanding the source code for the Iphone 4S firmware in its latest spat with Apple over patents.
Incidentally, Red Hat’s Open Source site had a new blog post about “Patent reform and patent totalitarianism”. To quote:
Touted as the most extensive revision of the patent law since 1952, the America Invents Act of 2011 was signed by the President on September 16. You might think in light of the celebration and rhetoric, that the Act was tackling the big problems such as patent trolls, broad and abstract patents, the billions squandered in the smartphone wars, or opportunistic litigation against users. You might think that. But you would be wrong.
It is not just about smartphones, either. But the smartphones market has become a good symptom of a broken system. █
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Posted in Google, Microsoft at 3:19 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: UEFI spin occupies part of the media as attempts are being made to describe GNU/Linux users — not Microsoft — as the offending party
THE SUBJECT of UEFI was covered here before [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] and we provided antitrust material to show that, based on history, Microsoft does many such things deliberately in order to impede competition (while planning to market everything to the public as a “feature”, even DRM). Over the past few weeks, Microsoft boosters (with a proven history of sheer bias) have been trying to daemonise those who complain about UEFI and here is an example of a site that took the bait although it also wrote: “On that reading, Microsoft is spitting in the eye of their own customer base and it occurs to me that Microsoft’s secure boot would also prevent Windows users from using recovery and diagnostic software too (though frankly, I can’t muster much sympathy for people who pay for the privilege of being persistently shafted. They’re being digitally bitch slapped.) Even people who do not use GNU/Linux (or even proselytize for it) will have spotted straight away that European anti-trust laws forbids abuse of market dominance in one area to obtain it elsewhere. Already Linux Australia is considering petitioning the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on the basis that it is anti-competitive. OEMs will be in the picture too if they lock down secure booting (even if under duress from Microsoft). Cartels aren’t popular. Or legal. It has even be mooted, that “hacking” the UEFI may even breach the DMCA.”
We also saw Ubuntu Forums trying to keep quiet in the face of people who raise concerns about this problem. A reader sent us links to show this. When people who argue in favour of GNU/Linux are supporting this “jail boot” scheme, they effectively argue for locked-down Linux and a major loss for software freedom, which is just what Microsoft might want (unintended achievement).
Over at Christine’s good site there is one among several claims that UEFI is already here:
Secure Boot Problems for Linux Users Are Here Already
More disturbing news on the UEFI/Secure Boot situation. Evidently, we don’t have to wait until the release of Windows 8 to find GRUB locked out of the boot sector on new computers. On Monday, Benjamin Kerensa reported on his blog that he’d received the following email regarded a failed attempt to install Linux on an HP PC:
“Recent articles regarding UEFI and Windows 8 suggest the problem of the former blocking Linux bootloader installation is a matter that will appear at the introduction of the latter. That is not the case. It is on Win 7 machines and blocking GRUB installation now.
“My friend recently got an HP s5-1110 with Win 7 installed. UEFI has prevented the installation of GRUB on this machine. I could find no way in the BIOS to disable the feature and so far, as I work my way up the HP tech support ladder, I have found no HP techs who have a clue what I’m talking about.”
Kerensa says that he’s looked further into this issue and has found that UEFI is already in use on some Dell and HP laptops. Evidently the folks over at Ubuntu are already aware of this problem and have posted some possible workarounds.
We need to make a lot of noise about this issue to convince the OEMs it would be to their advantage to take a position on this that doesn’t only benefit Microsoft.
We saw similar claims elsewhere, e.g. In Google+ (sent to us by readers). Microsoft boosters spin this in Ars Technica and in IDG (no links as that would feed them, but good ol' Microsoft Ed is one of them) while using the classic Microsoft talking points, also many quotes from Microsoft itself. This helps wash aside more balanced articles on the subject. Trying to live by Microsoft’s rules in the GNU/Linux world is not the solution, as we easily learn from past abuses with the MBR (we see Microsoft deliberately vandalising it, then speaking about it internally). Microsoft is again being allowed to get away with anti-competitive moves that it spins as “features”, just as it managed to get away with crimes related to Web browsers by agreeing to let other browsers be installed alongside its own (not instead of it). Here is a new article about this:
Microsoft abuse of dominant position
[...]
Certainly the software giant from Redmond, Washington, has invested huge capitals in research and development of desktop software, but it is quite arguable that that alone could justify such a prominence in the market. Network effects can lead a company to dominate over its competitors, especially when there is a time advantage in reaching a market (for instance, see [17]). However it is well documented that Microsoft Windows gained at least part of its overwhelming market share through unlawful practices.
Microsoft has been accused of abusing its dominant position multiple times, both in Europe and elsewhere, resulting in some of the highest fines ever handed out by any court[18]. In 1993-1994, following a complaint by Novell Inc., Microsoft was found guilty of anti-competitive behaviour by requiring manufacturers to pay a Windows license for each computer sold, regardless of whether or not it carried Windows on board[1]. In 1998 Sun Microsystems argued that Microsoft was not disclosing key information needed to achieve interoperability of Windows NT with concurrent systems and programs. Following this complaint, the EU further investigated the way in which streaming technologies were being integrated in Windows[14].
In 2003 the European Union ordered Microsoft to offer a version of Windows without Windows Media Player bundled to it, so as to open the market to competing media player software. In 2004 the European Commission stated that Microsoft’s practise “constitutes by its nature a very serious infringement” of European Treaties and added a fine for €497.2 million[6]. Additional sentences followed this decision due to Microsoft appeals and to its limited compliance to the 2004 sentence. These led the EC to fine Microsoft for €280.5 million in 2006[7] and €899 million in 2008[12].
The article as a whole misses some of the key points which we covered a couple of years ago and that’s a shame. Free Software Magazine actually disappoints with some of these latest articles, but it is possible that the PR efforts from Microsoft had it deceived. There is too much junk posted on the Web as “news” and also a PR campaign going for extortion of Android, but that will be the subject of the next post. █
“Never wrestle with a pig—you get dirty and the pig likes it”
–Sometimes attributed to Abraham Lincoln
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Posted in Site News at 12:45 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
We have not had a chance to record TechBytes in a while, but today we officially turn one and in the next episode we are going to discuss this. Happy birthday to TechBytes.
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