Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Continues to Hammer on Linux and Android With Copyright and Patent Proxies

"On the same day that CA blasted SCO, Open Source evangelist Eric Raymond revealed a leaked email from SCO's strategic consultant Mike Anderer to their management. The email details how, surprise surprise, Microsoft has arranged virtually all of SCO's financing, hiding behind intermediaries like Baystar Capital."

--Bruce Perens



Handyman



Summary: Far from a friend of FOSS, Microsoft continues to attack FOSS platforms by proxy, through SCO, Nokia, Intellectual Ventures, and more

Patent lawyers and patent boosters like Dennis Crouch continue to cover patents as though they deserve the same legitimacy as copyrights. Terms like IP (or Intellectual Property) are used to blur the distinction. A decade ago SCO sued Linux backers using copyright claims. And a decade later the SCO case is still not over. "The SCO Group would like the US District Court in Utah to finally give it a hearing regarding its wish to go forward in its lawsuit against IBM "and other matters", whatever that last turns out to mean," writes Pamela Jones at Groklaw this week. SCO still hasn't shown what it claims to be copyright violations. Secrecy is being used to make the trial never end, billing many companies (legal fees) at the same time.



Apple too has been using secrecy and reporters challenge this secrecy, as we noted earlier this week:

On Tuesday, March 26, Gregg Leslie, the legal director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, is scheduled to appear before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to argue in favor of unsealing court documents in the multi-billion-dollar Apple v. Samsung patent case.

The appeal is significant because the Federal Circuit, where much important patent law is made, has never had a seminal access case.

The Reporters Committee, joined by seven media organizations, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Court of Appeals in October 2012, arguing that records in the smartphone patent lawsuit – whose partial unsealing by a lower court was appealed by both Apple and Samsung – should be public.


Here is an update on this:

A federal appeals court aggressively questioned the scope of the public interest and trade secrets at a hearing on Tuesday over document secrecy in Apple Inc's patent litigation against Samsung Electronics Co Ltd .

A coalition of media advocacy groups and news organizations is asking the Federal U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold a lower court ruling that ordered the companies to unseal many financial documents filed in the high-stakes patent case


Apple secrecy goes many years back. The company has a lot to hide. It wants to control how its products are covered.

Apple is meanwhile being sued for patent infringement in China:

Apple is being taken to court in China for alleged copyright infringement on its Siri feature.

Shanghai's Zhizhen Network Technology Co claims Apple infringed its patent for the voice recognition software.

Siri is a "virtual personal assistant" which responds to voice commands and lets users do things such as send messages and search the internet.

Zhizhen says it patented its Xiao i Robot software in 2004, while Apple's Siri made its debut with the release of the iPhone 4S in 2011.


Watch Murdoch's propaganda press hypocritically slamming China for taking action against Apple:

The Chinese Communist Party's main propaganda outlet assailed Apple Inc.'s customer-service practices, the latest indication that China might move to check foreign companies' domination of the country's smartphone market.


What an ugly opening sentence. The WSJ and other News Corp outlets are no less propaganda than the Chinese equivalent. But anyway, in the US it's the corporations which control the press through direct ownership (e.g. Huffington Post is AOL which is Warner which is Comcast which is NBC which is GE). Recently we saw the 'Microsoft press' tilting stories in favour of Microsoft. Patent lawyers and CBS (also Microsoft-funded) do more of this [1, 2] regarding the XBox lawsuit which is the result of Microsoft aggression against Android (see our Motorola page for chronology). Recently, as discussed here, the Microsoft-controlled Nokia tried to block VP8 altogether. Pamela Jones too seems to be ready for a boyoctt of Nokia and she responded to the Microsoft lobbyist as follows:

I see folks are seeing right through Nokia and Microsoft's strategies. As KFCConspiracy put it: "When you see a company failing it never fails... It becomes a patent troll." And I'd like to highlight one other point, because FOSSPatents doesn't understand it [http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/nokia-comments-on-vp8-patent.html]. He got the following statement from Nokia, who of course would give it to him: "Nokia believes that open and collaborative efforts for standardization are in the best interests of consumers, innovators and the industry as a whole. We are now witnessing one company attempting to force the adoption of its proprietary technology, which offers no advantages over existing, widely deployed standards such as H.264 and infringes Nokia's intellectual property. As a result, we have taken the unusual step of declaring to the Internet Engineering Task Force that we are not prepared to license any Nokia patents which may be needed to implement its RFC6386 specification for VP8, or for derivative codecs." Remember when MPEG LA in 2011 sent out a call for anyone who could come up with a patent to block Vp8? And here comes Nokia. Remember MPEG LA's head showing up on behalf of Microsoft in the litigation in Seattle? Getting the picture? Fosspatents writes, "The way H.264 was defined definitely meets all the criteria for an open standard." No. It does not. A standard is not open if it requires paying royalties for a patent, because the GPL doesn't allow paying royalties for a patent. Linux uses the GPL. So Nokia is not offering open standards that everyone can use. This is targeting the GPL. And I believe it's been planned for a long time, that it's not just independent actors who happen to be helping each other fortuitously. The proprietary dudes want to destroy free and open, so they can make money. And they came up with a plan, one that we are watching play out. That's how it looks to me, judging from the breadcrumbs along the roadway. Android is based on the Linux kernel. There is a lot that Microsoft has done over the years to block or emasculate the GPL. SCO was part of this. Now it's Nokia stepping up to the noxious proprietary plate, and they know about the GPL, because they used to sell Linux products. And to the board: you are doing evil here. You want Nokia to be the new SCO? Why would you? No one is surprised about Microsoft trying to kill off GPL freedom, but you should be ashamed to join them. Yes. You


Slashdot has, disappointingly enough, given a platform (obviously for whitewash) to Microsoft's chief patent troll/proxy. "As a bonus on Wed. April 3, Nathan will be doing a live Q&A from 12-12:30pm PST," it says. Now watch the first comment which says: "Is the money made in patent trolling worth being that kind of scumbag?"

Rude but true. Slashdot won't actually ask that. It's just PR for Intellectual Ventures, which is the world's biggest patent troll. Sadly, large corporations like Apple (also funding Intellectual Ventures) have been joining Microsoft's attempt at patent-stacking against Android. Where are the regulators? And where is the outrage within the FOSS community? There is not enough resistance out there.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Reboots Should Never be Necessary
"BUT WHAT ABOUT SECURITY!!"
There's Still Hope for the World Wide Web
Let's hope that the trajectory of the Web won't be leading us to over-reliance on Google, nor will it reward worthless slopfarms
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Smolweb and Alhena 5.1.7
Links for the day
XBox is Rapidly Turned Into a Slopfarm by Microsoft
Slop isn't about efficiency and saving money
Microsoft's Halloween Documents and systemd, Wayland, Etc.
Maybe one day Wayland will be widespread. Or maybe not.
 
Links 15/07/2025: Press Freedom at Risk and New Facebook Blunders
Links for the day
The Danes Want GNU/Linux
David Heinemeier Hansson recently moved to GNU/Linux
Cory Doctorow Explains Why Software Freedom Matters, Whereas "Open Source" Misses the Point and Helps Monopolies
It's a very long article
BillPR (EpsteinGate-Bribed NPR) is Turning Into a Partial Slopfarm that Promotes Slop
"I went on a date with a chatbot!"
Two Weeks Passed Since Latest Large Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, More Expected Next Month
Blaming the debt on "AI" is just self-serving storytelling
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 14, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 14, 2025
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Gemini "Style Sheets" and Switching From Microsoft GitHub to Codeberg
Links for the day
Coming Soon: Another OSI Scandal, This One Implicating Molly de Blanc
OSI has been fairly quiet lately
Outreachy & Debian pregnancy cluster, Meike Reichle evidence
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Again, "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
Microsoft Lunduke is not trying to "protect" Linux
One of the Most Hilarious Things About the Microsoft SLAPPs
It's so ridiculous
Financial Support for the Free Software Foundation or the GNU Project
The FSF has extended until Friday its fund-raising campaign
Illegally Hiding (or Demanding Secrecy Around) Illegal Requests or Attempts at Extortion
unlawful communications like threats
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: BOFH Archive, Updating Old Palm PDAS, and Nginx vs Slop Bots
Links for the day
Ubuntu is Becoming GAFAM-Like
What does that say about Canonical and Ubuntu?
Slopfarms Which Take Real Articles About GNU/Linux and Turn Them Into Copycats Which Are False
Even before the LLM hype those were quite common
The Firm That Picks on Techrights is Accustomed to Working With Criminals
Techrights never did anything illegal. So why is it being picked on by people who work with criminals?
Microsoft Said the Mass Layoffs Were for "Investment" in "AI", But It's Also Laying Off the "AI" and "Copilot" Staff
Months ago we showed many so-called "AI" people were getting the boot and this time it's the same
DryDeadFish is Dead, Long Live DryDeadFish
We kept checking, hoping it can recover from some temporary technical issue
For Quite Some Time Already Microsoft Attracts Crackpots, Scams, and More
Occasionally we talk about the situation at IBM as there are many parallels
Links 14/07/2025: Chatbots Broken Again, McHire LLM Shows Limits of the Hype
Links for the day
Changing One's Name Won't Change One's Past
People who have earned a bad reputation are not magically "entitled" to reset
People Who Assault Women Are Not Victims of "Distress"
It seems like an American tradition. In a country with almost 50 presidents, not even one was a female.
Slashdot Media Turned Linux Journal Into a Slopfarm and Now Slashdot Actively Promotes Anti-Linux Slopfarms
Yes, "no-nonsense" apparently means actual nonsense
Adoption of Gemini Protocol Still Growing
Gemini Protocol is being obscured by the media - it doesn't help that Google 'hijacked' the word "Gemini" - but people still manage to find out about it, download a client, and use it
Links 14/07/2025: Arresting Photographers, Threats to Revoke US Citizenship Over Criticism
Links for the day
More EPO Leaks on the Way
We hope that Mr. Rowan will actually try to refute what we say and show, not merely point the finger at the messengers
Decommodification is a Corporate Strategy Against Communities
systemd is led by Microsoft and hosted by Microsoft
copyleft.org 'Hijacked' by the People Who Attack the Person Who Created Copyleft
So far there's nothing "tasteless" in copyleft.org, but that can change at any time in the future
Asking People to Take Down Articles and Videos Only Makes These More Popular and "Viral"
If you do something bad, one of the worst things you can possibly do it try to silence those who speak about it
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 13, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 13, 2025
Two-Thirds Towards FSF Goal, Richard Stallman to Give Talks in Europe
There are 67 left before reaching the target
Brett Wilson LLP "Takes it Personal" (Character Assassination, Not Professionalism). Everybody Can See That.
On behalf of violent men
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: Politicised Tech and "Leaving GitHub"
Links for the day
Pissing Contests and Pissing Off Everyone
people who came from Microsoft are trying to vex and divide the community
Microsoft Repeats the Mistakes Made by the EPO After We Exposed a Major Microsoft/EPO Scandal 10 Years Ago
That scandal was all over the media, not just in English
The Demise of LLMs
We've just checked BetaNews again. They've dropped all the slop and went back to human authors.
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Sonpo Museum of Art and FCEUX
Links for the day
Links 13/07/2025: UnitedHealth's Censorship Campaign, Australia Wary of China
Links for the day
Firing Away With Nonsense
Or fighting fire with fire
Links 13/07/2025: Climate Crisis, GAFAM Poisoning the Water
Links for the day
Turns Out LLMs for Code Don't Save Time and Don't Improve Quality
Neither legal nor useful
The Microsofters Will Have an Obligation to Compensate Us
This story isn't just about Microsoft. It's also about corruption, there are many women victims, there is abject "abuse of process", and many more scandals to be illuminated in years to come.
Reproducing at the EPO Instead of Producing Monopolies for Foreign Monopolies With Their Price-Fixing Cartels
Does the EPO recognise the need of well-educated Europeans to bear kids?
Valnet Inc. Dominates Real (Not LLM Slop) GNU/Linux Coverage in 2025
And likely in prior years, too
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Fund Raiser Goes on
Later this month we'll expose another OSI scandal
EPO Staff Representatives Issue a Warning About Staff's Health and Inadequate Care
Even the EPO's own stakeholders (money sources) are openly protesting against what the EPO became
Links 13/07/2025: Partly Assorted News From Deutsche Welle and CBC
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Board Games and Battle Styles
Gemini Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 12, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 12, 2025