11.27.12
Posted in Debian, GNU/Linux, Vista 8, Windows at 6:37 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: UEFI tricks creep in now that Microsoft’s common carrier (Windows) is botched and people explore alternatives that are free and superior
According to this model cited by Forbes, Microsoft may be on the “verge of a sudden collapse” as the company is already unable to hide operating losses, it has debt, and its chiefs leave in droves.
The departure of Steve Sinofsky so soon after the launch of Windows 8 was not a vote of confidence by the maker of the world’s largest operating system. But is it a sign of Microsoft‘s imminent collapse?
Last week, usability expert Jakob Nielsen wrote a devastating critique of Windows 8 on his Alertbox blog. He writes, “One of the worst aspects of Windows 8 for power users is that the product’s very name has become a misnomer. ‘Windows’ no longer supports multiple windows on the screen.… When users can’t view several windows simultaneously, they must keep information from one window in short-term memory while they activate another window. This is problematic for two reasons. First, human short-term memory is notoriously weak, and second, the very task of having to manipulate a window—instead of simply glancing at one that’s already open—further taxes the user’s cognitive resources.”
We wrote about this assessment at the time. It shows that Windows got botched. To make matters even worse, its gets saddled with crapware: [via]
Crapware. Windows laptop and desktop PC buyers are used to all that extraneous preloaded software, but you’d think after all this time and negative press about crapware, we’d see the end of it with new Windows 8 PCs. Wrong. InformationWeek asked several PC makers (Dell, HP, Toshiba, Samsung, Acer, and Lenovo) to list the software that comes preloaded on their new Windows 8 systems, and crapware is still alive and well.
Some types of preloaded software is essential (e.g., hardware drivers) and other perhaps at least sensible (e.g., pen input management tools). Trial software and other third-party software, however, plainly are not only unnecessary but oftentimes problematic. Internet security suites and “system performance boosting tools” can really drag down a system. Windows 8 already comes with anti-malware built-in with Windows Defender, so packing in trial versions of Norton Internet Security or McAfee Internet Security Suite is pretty offensive (you can’t or at least shouldn’t run a third-party suite and Windows Defender at the same time.)
Well, barring third-party money for crapware (which helps lower the cost of a Windows licence), the lies from Microsoft begin as the PR machine struggles to say something positive. As a journalist and online friend showed me a short while ago, “Near the bottom of t[he] story, @Reuters tells t[he] truth ab[out] #Windows8 “sales figures” aka “channel stuffing” pages.” The headline, alas, says: “Microsoft sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses in month: executive” (attributed to Microsoft, taken with a grain of salt).
Those are unused licences and free giveaways that they count as “sales”. Microsoft uses these dirty tricks (or lies) every time Windows is (re)released. The general method is to issue ‘copies’ (whatever that means when it’s all just bytes) and then claim them to have been “licensed” and thus count them. Microsoft is now trying to just dump Vista 8 on the market (it is the common carrier for cash cows like Office), but Vista 8 is just technically inferior and less familiar to users than some free operating systems such as Linux Mint 14. Using UEFI, Microsoft is now hoping to block (from booting) most such operating systems (including old versions), or make it complicated for average users to run them.
A contributor of ours sent us this mail an hour ago: “Over the last weeks, reports like this have been trickling in on the Debian and Ubuntu lists/forums
“I think it will be a big problem come the holidays, when people get their new computers.”
To quote the incident he cites: “I got a new Lenovo T530, I added a SSD as second disk, and now have a win7, UEFI boot on MBR partitionned sdb disk.
“I tried latest beta installer for wheezy (beta4), but it could not boot in UEFI mode”
Yes, perfectly fine binaries are refused the right to run. This begs one to ask, whose computer is it anyway? Here is another new example which says:
There are no physical to virtual disk converters for Restricted Boot, even from non free, Microsoft people like VMWare. Why am I not surprised? http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthread.php?61188-Dual-Boot-12-10-or-migrate-OEM-Windows-8-to-a-VM-on-same-laptop-in-Linux It would be better to forget about Windows than fool around with dual booting.
Watch how complicated it can get: “So after reading up on the issues with UEFI and enabling/disabling Secure Boot I’m wondering which is the most bombproof way to approach this? If the Dual Boot scenario with Kubuntu 12.10 and Windows 8 /UEFI does not behave (as it has in the past with BIOS and Grub Loader on the MBR) can I do a migration of this OEM installed Windows 8 to a VM in Kubuntu on the same laptop??
“In other words, nuke-n-pave the existing OEM Windows 8 hard drive, install Kubuntu 12.10 on clean HDD, then migrate that OEM Windows 8 image to a VM running on 12.10.”
Will Hill writes: “Turning off restricted boot is a huge, undocumented pain in the neck. A six step process, with two steps found by trial and error, is detailed.
“… these steps are performed without documentation, with no hints and with big warning pop-ups letting the user know what a bad idea disabling Secure Boot is. This is not something the average user is going to know how to do, nor will they likely want to follow through if they read the on-screen messages. … I went back to the merchant’s website and discovered something. There is no mention of Secure Boot, UEFI or Windows 8 certification anywhere on the page.
“Restricted boot is a significant barrier to gnu/linux use and a threat to software freedom. You can boot hardware before you buy it, but even then you can’t be sure. This is what Microsoft has always done with BIOS but this time Microsoft has reserved the ability to deny the user completely. UEFI is non free software with enough networking capability to contact Microsoft or OEMs without the user knowing and it can modify itself. People need free software from the metal up.” [http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20121126#qa via, https://plus.google.com/u/0/112860174577325685245/posts/MFXB2syddZy]
Răzvan Sandu quotes SJVN as writing, “Windows 8 is a one way street for consumer PC users…”
“Or, better,” says Sandu, “DON’T buy Windows at all!”
More importantly perhaps, encourage GNU/Linux distributors to fight UEFI, e.g. with an antitrust complaint — that is — rather than play along with it; secondly, do not allow journalists to quote fake Microsoft numbers that are Vista 8 PR, not without a challenge anyway. Expect Microsoft’s PR agents to be banging on publications to write down those fake numbers in the coming days, creating only an illusion of success. The only “success” Microsoft has had is that this Xmas season many people are unable to install/boot GNU/Linux on the PCs they bought or received as a gift. It’s the gift of corrupt motherboards, fried by Microsoft executives who knew exactly what they were doing. █
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Posted in Europe, Microsoft, Security, Windows at 5:28 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Summary: France is up in “Flame” where software freedom is still not embraced
A while back when we wrote about Stuxnet we showed a corporate victim. What happens when Windows Update Cracked, a relative of Stuxnet, hits a Western government? Well, France is paying the high price. Here:
The news is sensational, according the French magazine L’Express the offices of France’s former president Sarkozy were victim of a cyber attack, but what is even more remarkable is that for the offensive was used the famous malware Flame.
On the origin of the malware still persist a mystery, many security experts attribute it to joint work of Israel and US development team.
Let’s remind that according the analysis on Flame source code conducted by Kaspersky the malware is linked to Stuxnet, a version of the famous virus shared a module with the spy toolkit.
A contributor of ours wrote: “I imagine this is one of the reasons France is moving away from Windows.”
Articles including the above article fail to call out Windows. As our contributor put it: “This article fails to mention Microsoft or Windows or France’s move away from both. Non free software like Windows is better able to violate people’s privacy than any malware author.”
Which government is next then? Perhaps now they know that using blobs made in other countries — blobs that can auto-update (i.e. hijack the machine) — is a threat to national security. It’s no speculation but a fact. █
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Posted in Patents at 4:31 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A lot of evidence which shows who USPTO really serves and at whose expense
THE head of the cartel‘s office, the USPTO, has been defending a practice which decades ago the SCOTUS deemed unacceptable. He got flak for rather insensitive remarks:
Patents on software are “every bit as well deserved” as patents on air flight, the electric bulb, and innovations that enabled the industrial revolution, Patent and Trademark Office Director David J. Kappos said in a Nov. 20 speech in Washington, D.C.
Aiming his remarks specifically at “those reporting and commenting on the smartphone system patent wars as if to suggest that the [patent] system is broken,” Kappos said, “let’s move beyond the flippant rhetoric and instead engage in thoughtful discussion.”
That is what we were all trying to have, but Wired is stacked by law professors rather than software professionals and this is no exception. The voice of practising professional is being taken away. In nanotechnology, we recently saw more professionals speaking out:
Software patents have long been contentious things, but patents in other areas of science are also becoming frequent subjects of editorials and court cases, with biotech and genomics making it to the US Supreme Court. Now, if an editorial in Nature is to be believed, nanotechnology is set to become the latest patent battleground.
Joshua Pearce is a professor at Michigan Technological University, and he very explicitly argues for taking an open-source and open-access approach to nanotechnology research. But he also goes well beyond that, calling for a patent moratorium and a gutting of the law that governs tech transfers from government-funded university research. At stake, he argues, is the growth of a field that could be generating trillions of dollars of economic activity within a few years.
So who is it that supports Kappos’ position? Lobbyists for large software companies, i.e. lawyers’ groups like the Business Software Alliance (BSA), as seen here, and patent lawyers. This is good for the cartel of patent stackers and bad for everyone else. Intel, which is part of this cartel and is a proponent of software patents, has just bought some more patents:
It’s been announced this morning that Intel is acquiring ZiiLabs, the subsidiary of Creative Labs that previously was 3DLabs. Intel is gaining “certain engineering resources and assets” plus licensing rights to certain ZiiLabs patents and other technologies surrounding the GPU.
Intel has been having problems recently (Android plays a role) and its head, who stood behind the company’s criminal behaviour, is said to have been sacked for it (not effective immediately). Maybe Intel is planning to tax some more those who do manage to actually sell a lot of chips. That’s where patents come in.
The USPTO is becoming a joke in more people’s eyes. Here is a look at patents on turkey (animal):
Here in Canada, we gave our proverbial thanks over a month ago, and since all the Americans at Techdirt have taken off for the weekend, I thought I’d take a moment to put together some advice on preparing a great Thanksgiving turkey—with a little help from the USPTO.
If you’re tired of the traditional roast, maybe it’s time to try a more creative preparation—just be careful you don’t run afoul of any patents. Here’s an idea: with some skilled knife-work, you can slice a turkey into pieces that resemble various cuts of steak—and that method will only be under patent for another five years!
Here is a corresponding response to Kappos. Now he is part of the problem, so his inane propaganda is being addressed:
Note the giant and very questionable assumptions in the middle of that one: that it’s “innovators” seeking to “protect” “breakthroughs.” I’d argue that none of the three things in quotes is accurate. Quite frequently it’s lawyers who haven’t actually innovated at all looking to shakedown actual innovators for broadly worded patents that never should have been granted, and which are being interpreted to cover things they don’t really have anything to do with. That’s not innovation. It’s extortion… backed up by the US government. It’s a travesty.
Even worse, Kappos is still relying on the absolutely ridiculous “study” that the USPTO put out earlier this year, despite the fact that its methodology has been widely debunked for including grocery store baggers as “IP innovators.” Sorry. And, if you look at what their actual report shows, it suggests that patent-intensive businesses aren’t doing so well. Somehow he ignores that. Of course, perhaps that’s why his office rejected a promised interview with me earlier this year, and could only defend the patent claims by arguing the most bizarre correlation argument in the world, that because Steve Jobs was innovative and had patents, therefore, patents worked.
Some lawyers’ Web sites obviously support Kappos. We know whose side he is on. More people need to speak about this bias in the whole system. It was subjected to a coup and the infiltrators won. As one pro-software patents site put it, Kappos revealed himself as part of this camp.
Last week, Director of the USPTO David Kappos delivered a keynote address to the Center for American Progress that focused on software patents and the smartphone “patent wars.” The speech is noteworthy for the Director’s strong defense of software patents.
Watch what Stallman had to cope with the other day:
The conference was a one-day conference, which started at 8:50 am and ended at 5:20 pm with a a reception afterwards from 5:30 to 6:30. There was a lunch break from 12:15 to 1. The schedule can be found at the conference website. It was adhered to closely.
The morning program consisted of three panels. The first was the Keynote and was titled “What is the Problem?” The second was “Panel #1: Legal Reform, Part 1.” Then after a coffee break we had “Panel #2: Agency Reform.”
The afternoon panels were called “Keynote #2: Views from the Trenches” and then “Panel #3: Legal Reform, Part 2.” After this an afternoon coffee break, then “Panel #4: Self Help” and at the end “Keynote #3.”
Some of you who were not in attendance were able to view the sessions live, except for the talk of Richard Stallman who refused to have his talk streamed on the ground that Silverlight used. Since I was actually present, I do not have the live streaming to look at, and thus my presentation of what happened is based upon my notes, which in what follows might be embellished by memory and thus not word-for-word correct.
This event too got stacked by lawyers, the leeches in this whole system. It is time to reclaim the patent system or just bury it. It’s for lawyers and plutocrats, not science and technology. Not anymore anyway.
Here is a technical person explaining why we should end software patenting. There is a good image inside this article showing how the cartel works and how it uses lawyers to keep challenges (to quality and also price) out of reach. To quote the introduction: “Patents make sense in some industries. When it costs a billion dollars to develop a new pharmaceutical, a company needs protection during that process to make it worth the risk of trying.
“But software doesn’t have that overhead. Too often, software patents just end up making the incumbents complacent and discourage brave, disruptive experiments.”
“This video by Marginal Revolution writer and economics professor Alex Tabarrok makes a clear argument against software patents.”
Mike Masnick expressed his views on why the USPTO is a lost cause for those of us who pursue reform from within:
While the US Patent Office has officially declared its desire to put its head in the sand concerning the problem of patent trolls, it appears that other parts of the government aren’t necessarily going to ignore the problem. The FTC and the DOJ are planning explore the issue with patent trolls at a public workshop next month (they use the currently popular term “patent assertion entities” rather than “patent trolls” but it’s clear what they mean). And the indications are that they may be looking to use their power to crackdown on bad behavior, potentially even using antitrust tools…
After the world’s largest patent troll got monopolies on three-dimensional printing we observe spurious lawsuits as covered by Masnick’s Web site:
We’ve been pointing out for a while that one of the reasons why advancements in 3D printing have been relatively slow is because of patents holding back the market. However, a bunch of key patents have started expiring, leading to new opportunities. One, in particular, that has received a fair bit of attention was the Formlabs 3D printer, which raised nearly $3 million on Kickstarter earlier this year. It got a ton of well-deserved attention for being one of the first “low end” (sub ~$3,000) 3D printers with very impressive quality levels.
This progress is not stopped by patents. So much for encouraging innovation… █
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