12.26.11
Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Patents at 4:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Apple wants embargo on Linux devices
Summary: A roundup of more news about Apple and why it might be reasonable to pressure the company to drop its lawsuits strategy, e.g. by means of boycott
APPLE continues to trouble the Linux/Android world with lawsuits and false allegations, even doctored ‘evidence’. The cult of Mr. Jobs loves to pretend that it invented the smartphones, CrunchPad-like tablets, and all things shiny.
Apple fan sites celebrate Apple patents, too. To name the new example:
On December 23, 2011, Apple filed for the trademark and icon for “Available on the App Store” under applications 302118690 in China and 010520054 in Europe.
That’s right, Europe as well. Over here, Apple has been working hard to embargo — not just sue — the competition. Apple disregards the notion of fair competition, which takes a lot of nerve for a company that built itself on knockoffs (e.g. Xerox PARC).
Over at NASDAQ.com there is a community post which says: ‘Former Apple chief executive Steve Jobs, who died in October, ardently believed Android copied much of Apple’s patented design elements, including multi-touch, swiping and its apps arrangement, according to Walter Isaacson’s “Steve Jobs.” Jobs told Isaacson he would “spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong.”‘
“Yet More Patent Idiocy” called it a columnist at Mother Jones, who noted:
Looking for yet more reasons to feel an all-consuming contempt for software patents and the POS companies that try to enforce them? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Apple Computer’s jihad against the rest of the world’s smartphone makers…
Given the latest actions from Apple we cannot help recommending that people buy nothing from Apple. Boycott the company for being a threat to the IT landscape and also to common sense.
Apple used to be a lot more benign and I even used a Mac at work. But when Apple started the legal assaults (starting with HTC) it made it clear that it was a frantic embargo company and not a producer. Based on a very recent ruling, Apple somehow managed to get a ‘victory’ against HTC, but how much of a victory is it when you become reliant on lawsuits? Here is some more coverage of this. The Telegraph uses Christmas Eve to attack Google with Microsoft/Apple accusations and general smear campaign (the Microsoft lobbyist is cheering this on) and to quote the opening part of the aricle with an inflammatory and reckless headline:
Google’s executive chairman should know. Android, his firm’s smartphone operating system, which is up against Apple’s iOS and Microsoft’s Windows Phone, is under heavy fire from all sides. The best-selling software – along with the Samsung, HTC and Motorola hardware on which it runs – is accused in courts worldwide of plundering the original ideas of others.
There is also an interesting article in CNN and Edward J. Black writes for the Huff & Puff that “Patent Balance Needed to Help End the Smartphone Patent Wars”. To quote: “Smartphones are at the center of a new series of “patent wars,” in which technology companies are spending billions to stockpile patent arsenals. Consumers are the biggest losers in this war, as tech companies focus on costly litigation strategies instead of innovation. Some are acquiring patents to attack competitors, while others are trying to bolster their defenses.”
“The goal here is to defend, not to offend.”In this age when software patents are under constant legal scrutiny we regret to see Apple using those sorts of patents in anti-competitive ways. Apple does not always get its way and to quote the latest example: ‘Apple loses one in its iPad tablet war On ZDNet, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols gives an update on the company’s battle with Samsung. “All I really know is that while it looks like the idiotic tablet design war may be coming to an end, with patents like the one Apple got, we can count on software patents getting in the way of true programming, design and engineering innovation for decades still to come,” he writes. What’s your opinion?”‘
What are our readers’ opinions? Boycott Apple? Perhaps with an ultimatum tied to litigation? The goal here is to defend, not to offend. █
“FSF did some anti-Apple campaigns too. Personally I worry more about Apple because they have user loyalty; Microsoft doesn’t.”
–Bradley M. Kuhn (SFLC)
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Posted in Site News at 4:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: On IRC moderation and lack of moderation in comments
ALTHOUGH we never deleted comments in Techrights, we did have to kick people out of IRC channels. This was either because they spammed/flooded the channels (vandalism), viciously and vulgarly attacked another person there (attacking with threats, too), or sought to generally harm the medium and made their intent very clear.
I was often accused of being too tolerant of people who were disruptive in IRC. I was never accused of being too trigger happy. More recently, in the main IRC channel (#techrights), almost 10 operators were appointed to deal with the issue and this makes the site more community-run than ever before. Approaching 15,000 blog posts means that we post nearly 10 posts a day, on average. To concentrate on getting the stories out and not moderating or feeding trolls we do need to take at least some minimal measures to protect ourselves from saboteurs. It is regretful that we have to ban particular people from IRC, but without doing it there would probably be no IRC channels.
We will resume posting right after Christmas. Now it is time to rest and organise some stuff. Maybe we will also redo the site’s layout. A week ago I celebrated my 30th birthday (photo below). For the curious, in the darker shirt it’s Mike, my best friend. The other guy is my friend Joey. █
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12.23.11
Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Patents at 4:47 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Back to the basket for the bullies from Cupertino
Summary: A roundup of news about Apple’s patent wars (against everyone) and a bit of good news, arriving just before Christmas
AS we return to covering the patent issue we regret to say that there is mostly bad news. Being aware of the news, however, is regretfully essential.
The subject we chose to tackle last is Apple. This company is fast becoming just as much of a nuisance as Microsoft has been. The Inquirer (British tech tabloid) has a nice way of covering Apple stories and it is filled with subtle humour that cushions the blow of horrible news. Recently it covered the news about Apple getting sued for caller ID patents. Previously, a caller ID app for Android was killed this way, demonstrating the terrible state of the patent system.
“Apple’s behaviour with patents is not just harming Linux or Android users; it is harming everyone and even Opera is complaining, noting that Apple patents undermine open standards.”Apple the patent bully might learn to dislike software patents if it gets sued by them quite a lot. So in a way the above news can be classified as good news.
Apple’s behaviour with patents is not just harming Linux or Android users; it is harming everyone and even Opera is complaining, noting that Apple patents undermine open standards. Mike Masnick put it like this and “going for leadership in evil” wrote Glyn Moody (via Jérémie Zimmermann).
Let us recall Apple’s support for MPEG-LA. Apple promotes video tax in yet more ways based on this new report which says:
Royalty-free web vid spec sets sail with Apple’s help
A proposed standard to stream video online smoothly, regardless of network conditions, has been pushed forward with some rather unexpected patent-holder help.
MPEG-DASH was approved in a vote by ISO national member bodies as a way to stream media over HTTP. Publication of the standard is expected “shortly”.
MPEG-DASH could supersede a raft of proprietary and royalty-protected technologies, developed by tech companies to stream media to mobile devices in particular – which are at the mercy of varying network speeds and connectivity conditions.
To Hell with Apple for helping those patent trolls. Another person who helps them is Microsoft Florian, who has pushed their agenda since last year. Florian no longer tries to endorse Microsoft in public because people already know that Microsoft pays him. That would further discredit this deceitful lobbyist.
“Florian no longer tries to endorse Microsoft in public because people already know that Microsoft pays him.”Looking at what Apple does to Linux/Android, here we have a report on “Apple’s first major legal win against Android,” which is “no slam dunk” because despite attempts to remove Linux devices from the shelves, Apple is not quite there yet. But to quote Reuters: “Patent firm IPCom said on Tuesday it had asked top German cellphone retailers to stop selling phones of HTC, threatening them with legal action, as HTC has not complied with a court ruling on injunction of its sales.”
FOSS-hostile patent lawyers write about Apple’s embargo attempts in the US and Murdoch’s fake news claims that HTC phones are “banned from store shelves” although it’s not quite true in practice. As the FFII’s president puts it:
Laughing loud on Apple’s patent “tap on a phone number or address contained in an email to immediately call the number”
Due to this kind of stupidity “Apple May Get To Remove Obvious Features From Android”. Here are some of the details:
Apple May Get To Remove Obvious Features From Android
[...]
Copying an idea and building on it is not “stealing.” And if Apple had to build its devices without building on the ideas of others, it wouldn’t have very much today. This whole thing is a joke, and it’s rulings like this that make engineers have even less respect for the patent system.
Apple brings is bullying to Britain now, i.e. it comes to new countries where software patents are in principle not permitted. Slashdot tells us that “Apple Transfers Patents Through Shell Company To Sue All Phone Makers 422″. We covered this some days ago, but here is the summary which has a huge discussion at the end:
“A patent lawsuit (PDF) by patent licensing firm Digitude Innovations curiously targeted all mobile manufacturers except Apple. A TechCrunch story has revealed that the patents used were transferred from Apple via a shell company to DI, and appear to cover features found in virtually all smartphones. The lawsuit even extends to companies that don’t make Android phones, like Nokia and RIM, and to Android OEMs that Apple have not directly sued yet, like Sony. The business model of DI clearly implies that Apple would benefit financially from the lawsuit as a company that contributed patents to DI’s portfolio.”
Slashdot shows another ridiculous patent from Apple and notes that:
“Apple has had quite a week in patents for the iPhone, and it’s only Tuesday. First was the victory at the International Trade Commission over HTC. And now there’s a shiny new patent on switching to an app during a live phone call (#8,082,523). There may be non-infringing ways of doing something similar, but they probably will be clumsy in comparison.”
Supporters of Apple’s ways should take a moment to objectively assess what Apple is doing here.
Here is how Muktware put it: “In a nutshell its about how you can switch between call and an app. Almost every touch-based phone uses this ‘process’ and potentially infringes upon this patent. It will be a challenge for Apple competitors to find other ways to do the same thing. Yet another example of the software/process patent mess that the flawed US patent system is creating.”
Google has been getting its own share of ridiculous patents, but it has no history of using patents offensively. This ought to invalidate concerns about Google getting more patents. Bloomberg says:
European Union regulators suspended their antitrust review of plans by Google Inc. (GOOG), the biggest maker of smartphone software, to buy Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. after requesting more information about the deal.
The antitrust authority will continue the review after it has obtained “certain documents that are essential to its evaluation of the transaction,” said Amelia Torres, a spokeswoman for the Brussels-based European Commission. The commission temporarily stopped the review on Dec. 6, according to a filing on the regulator’s website today.
The patent angle need not be of concern because Google is not offensive with patents, contrary to claims from the Microsoft lobbyist (Florian). If anything, it can make Motorola more patents hostile and thus reduce altercations. According to this new article, patents are becoming more and more of an issue to Google because:
• Is the cloud the new front in the tech patent wars? A company headed by the founders of peer-to-peer networks Kazaa and Morpheus have reportedly banded together to sue Google, Amazon.com, VMWare and others, alleging patent infringement on cloud technology. The website of the plaintiff, PersonalWeb, says the company owns 13 “fundamental pending and issued patents,” and that it is “developing ground-breaking technologies and products,” including StudyPods, an online learning platform that’s in beta. But a patent-law specialist quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald points out that PersonalWeb filed the lawsuits in a Texas court that’s the “preferred venue for so-called patent trolls.” The eight patents in question include those related to “content addressable storage and/or distributed search engine technologies,” according to the SMH.
Going back to Apple, the company is trying to restrict designs based on ideas that it never came up with itself. To quote Slashdot:
“In a public legal brief (PDF), Apple offers numerous design alternatives that Samsung could have used for its smartphones and tablets to avoid infringing on Apple’s patents. Basically, as long as competitors’ smartphones and tablets bear no resemblance to smartphones and tablets, everything’s cool.”
To finish this with some good news (for a change), Apple lost a case in Germany and that rectangle with buttons on it will therefore be legitimate for sale, even without an apple-shaped logo:
Apple Lost Germany, Court May Allow Samsung To Sell Galaxy Tab
After Australia Apple has lost another ‘patent’ post, this time its Germany. A German court earlier banned the sale of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany owing to ‘controversial’ design patents. The same design patents were rejected in a Dutch court. To respect the verdict, Samsung modified the design of its Galaxy Tab (which in fact enhances the user experiences as the speakers now face the user) and called it Galaxy Tab 10.1N.
Or as SJVN put it:
Take a long look at the two versions of Samung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 on the right. One, says a German court, violated Apple’s iPad intellectual property (IP) design and thus couldn’t be sold in the European Union (EU). The other one is fine and dandy and can be sold. Can you tell the critical IP differences? Try to work it out before this story’s end.
As you may recall, Apple managed this summer to get the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 banned from being sold in the EU (European Union) because its design looked too much like an iPad. That was a dumb decision. Any tablet has to look pretty much like any other tablet. Now, though, it appears that the tide has turned against Apple. The German court has preliminarily decided that Samsung’s revised design no longer violates Apple’s iPad design.
We are probably going to hear a lot more about it next year. Until then, let us savour the taste of this small victory. █
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Posted in Site News at 4:05 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Guest post by iophk
Summary: Despite an attempt to respond to public backlash, GoDaddy is an enemy of your Internet freedom
GoDaddy has gone from supporting SOPA to a more luke warm position of not supporting it. Not supporting is not the same as actively opposing it. It might help fight SOPA to encourage users to move their domains from GoDaddy now and send them a note to help *prevent* this bill being passed. E-mail them directly.
There are many other registrars available. Listed below in no particular order are some of them, to get the ball rolling. Some are offering coupon codes related to SOPA or GoDaddy for further discounts.
+ http://internet.bs/
+ http://www.domainsite.com/
+ http://www.dynadot.com/
+ http://www.namecheap.com/ SOPASUCKS
+ http://order.1and1.com/
+ http://www.hostgator.com/ NOSOPA
+ http://dreamhost.com/ NOTOSOPA
+ http://gandi.net/
+ https://dnsimple.com/goodbye-godaddy
+ http://www.networksolutions.com/
It is possible to transfer even if recently renewed or registered. Years paid in advance for a domain will always transfer to a new registrar.
Vote with your wallet. █
NB – This site was originally registered with GoDaddy, but we dumped them last year.
Update: A contributor of Techrights has just received the following:
—–Original message—–
From: Fight For The Future info@fightforthefuture.org
Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2011 14:29:58 -0500
To: -
Subject: Boycott GoDaddy
Happy Holidays — we have some great news to share.
We’ve just won two huge battles in the fight against Internet censorship — everything you are doing is working! First off, the House of Representatives failed to move SOPA out of committee! Why? Because their offices got swamped with phone calls and overwhelmed by the snowballing opposition. Thank you for helping make that happen.
Second, in response to the boycott of GoDaddy, the web hosting company just made a public announcement that it’s dropping its support of SOPA. Amazing what you have made happen.
Yet, we can’t let GoDaddy off the hook just yet. GoDaddy supports the Senate version of SOPA, called the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). The boycott has to continue — Please click here to pledge to join it:
www.godaddyboycott.com
Please join us in holding GoDaddy accountable, until they drop any and all efforts to support not just SOPA, but also its Senate cousin, PIPA. The boycott already worked to get GoDaddy to change their position on SOPA, now we urgently need to hear from GoDaddy about PIPA too.
So what’s next?
The PIPA bill is still alive and strong in the Senate, and could be voted on in January. Like SOPA, it threatens free speech, innovation, and the basic structure of the Internet.
Keep transferring your domains from GoDaddy until they fully come out against PIPA and SOPA. They need to send a letter to Congress making their opposition to both bills clear — Click here to join the cause.
www.godaddyboycott.com
Thank you for all that you do — it is working!
Tiffiniy & Phil
Fight for the Future
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