04.07.12
Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Patents at 9:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Apple and Microsoft whine that Motorola is stepping on their toes
Summary: A glimpse at patents that affect Linux at present and the situation Microsoft strives for
THE file system patents from Microsoft may be on the verge of collapse. Nonetheless, companies like this one called Paragon — not just Tuxera — help spread those patents to Linux. Equipment running Linux gets a Microsoft tax penalty this way. Former Microsoft staff adds a tax to FOSS through licence compliance placebo — openwashed proprietary software from a company with “Open” in its name. We just know the trick (c/f OpenLogic).
Microsoft is still trying to penalise Android through Motorola, which is now becoming more like Google. But Microsoft tells a story that’s a complete contradiction and reversal of reality. Microsoft dares to complain about patent abuse from Motorola. Yes, the hypocrisy is astounding and this whole charade acts as a distraction from Microsoft’s anti-competitive behaviour, an “extortion” one might say.
The European Commission’s anti-competition division has opened two formal investigations into Motorola Mobility after complaints from Apple and Microsoft about how it uses its patents against them.
As Pogson puts it:
Apple and M$, two of the biggest monopolists in IT (personal computing certainly, and branching out), are accusing Motorola of doing what they do… The irony makes me chuckle. M$ and Apple have been suing the world and don’t want to be sued and injuncted in return. Bullies hate it when someone has the nerve to stand up to them. It makes being a bully difficult when the herd stands and fights.
Over at Groklaw, another anti-Android fight is stalked [1, 2] and in the corporate press we see the head of Google blasting this whole patent nonsense:
Google’s Larry Page Blasts the Patent Wars
[...]
It’s worth remembering that before Google decided to make its largest ever bid for a technology company in the Motorola Mobility play, it had just lost in an effort to buy the patent portfolio of beleagured telecom company Nortel. That patent portfolio went to a consortium of companies that included Apple and Microsoft–both of them companies that are very seasoned in fighting intellectual property battles.
When Page announced the Motorola Mobility acquisition, he was quite clear that it was a patent play. “Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.” It’s worth noting that he singled out two of the companies that had just outbid Google for mobile patents.
Here we are 5.5 years after this site was conceived and we are dealing with the patents issue more than ever before. Now that software freedom spreads, all that the old guard can do is pull software patents to strike back. Some companies just learned to accept change, instead. █
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Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google at 9:27 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Hardware issues at Apple are ignored and the evidence is being buried
THE news may be busy speaking about Apple/Mac “Trojans” (blame proprietary software for this), saying that it has reached far and wide, but the real news is Apple’s problem on the hardware side. Apple strives to quickly get rid of the evidence by removing defects from the market:
Information provided by Cupertino to support staff and Apple Store employees across the US, snapped by a worker and send to 9to5Mac, shows the company is now replacing iPad 3s brought in by customers who claim to have found the device’s wireless networking facilities wanting.
Would Apple have done that if nothing was amiss? And how can replacing one unit with a unit of the same kind actually resolve anything (unless there are manufacturing defects and poor quality control)?
Meanwhile, notes this one article, there is a group out there that truly believes that Apple products are the best of their kind. To quote the opening:
iPhone users are elitists. It’s one of those things that we’ve always suspected — including iPhone users themselves — but to maintain the status quo and to prevent high tech culture devolving into all out war, we dance around the issue by using euphemistic terms like hipster. The fact is, many iPhone users consider themselves a cut above the rest. They sneer at unresponsive Android devices, laugh derisively at crippled BlackBerrys, and guffaw at Windows Phone 7′s lack of apps. When they buy an iPhone, they’re buying into a way of life and an elevated, entitled echelon of society — the upper class of the technorati, if you will.
I have personally met some of those so-called “elitists”. I once dated one. What’s common to all of them is that they buy iStuff for the brand, not because they think it’s necessarily the best (in technical terms). They expect people to think highly of them because of affiliation with the brand. That’s a really bad reason to choose one product over another.
The Register has this good new article that blasts hypePad 3. To quote:
The iPad 3 sucks big time. It sucks big stonking ones. It sucks flaccid ones. It sucks so much, it has to buy Listerine by the gallon.
Linux is kicking Apple out of the tablets market. It’s just technically better, not just cheaper. █
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04.02.12
Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Oracle, Patents at 10:47 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: News updates on the patent cases against Android, the platform which quickly conquers the mobile phones and tablets space
PATENTS are a thorn on the side of Android’s success. Now that Android and Linux are more tightly joined by the hip, defending one helps defend the other.
Not so long ago, Oracle and Google were urged to negotiate, resulting in a proposition that failed. This continues to be reported on [1, 2].
All those patent fights are proving to be costly and as one article put it last month: “Two upcoming cases in the United States – one against Motorola and the other against Samsung – have the potential to strike deeper blows on either side. The trials involve the legal rights to the core technology behind smartphones and tablet computers and whoever loses could face large damages and increased costs. That could raise prices for consumers.”
Of course, as always, it is good for lawyers, for billionaires who run giant corporations, and it all comes at the expense of everyone else.
Around the same day Reuters published an article on a similar subject and fortunately enough Apple is not getting its way. While it accumulates more controversial patents it is failing to stop Android using them. The Indian press takes the side of Android, To quote this new article titled “touch is forbidden”:
Many are trying, thanks to software patents. Patents have become a bane to the very essence of innovation. They are arsenals, ostensibly meant to defend but more often used to offend. Yahoo’s lawsuit against Facebook over 10 patents further proves that weaponizing software patents is the last gasp of a dying business.
Which brings me to the news that Twitter is trying to patent one of the most instinctive gestures on the iPhone, what they call User Interface Mechanics. Anyone who has used a Twitter client on their phone knows to refresh the page: You “pull” it down and release. Others use this as well, like Google’s Gmail mobile site.
But as Techcrunch noticed, this functionality isn’t built into every core app on the iPhone (like the Mail app), and the reason is probably because it’s potential lawsuit bait.
The Oracle case carries on and Groklaw keeps track of everything. Professor Webbink writes:
Not a lot of activity in the case yesterday. Only a couple of administrative filings. In the first (841 [PDF; Text]) the Court addresses what it expects to be somewhat crowded conditions in the public seating area of the courtroom at the beginning of the trial. In part this is due to the large size of the jury pool. So the Court has asked the respective parties to limit the size of their entourages.
Pamela Jones later adds:
Remember when there were all those scary headlines about Oracle suing Google for $6 billion for alleged patent infringement? Did that preposterous fantasy come true?
Instead, Google, without even any counterclaims of patent infringement to fire back, got almost all of Oracle’s asserted patents tossed out as invalid by the USPTO in reexaminations. There’s one left standing and another that might be valid if Oracle can successfully appeal a preliminary finding of invalidity by the USPTO, with a grand total of damages estimates from the court’s independent adviser being less than a million, after adjustments, if Oracle can prove infringement, a very, very big IF.
Congratulations, Oracle, for shooting yourself in the foot.
Now there are some new scary headlines, like this one, “Why Google Might Be Going to $0″ this morning about how much money Google will have to pay because Google is being sued by Vringo, Vringo calling itself I/P Engine in the litigation, with predictions that Google will surely settle to avoid being valued at zero by the time Vringo is done with it.
The dispute is likely to continue for a while because neither side is backing off:
In the papers, Google argued that the trial could be shortened from its currently scheduled duration of eight weeks and sought to appear before US District Judge William Alsup instead of a jury. Oracle doesn’t believe the trial schedule should be revised nor is it willing to waive its right to a jury trial.
Google estimates it will have to pay about $2.8 million if it’s determined that Android infringes on two Java patents that are being reviewed in the case. The company, which is based in Mountain View, California, told Alsup that it’s also prepared to pay 0.5 percent of Android’s future revenue for one Java patent expiring at the end of this year and 0.015 percent of Android’s future revenue for the other patent, which expires in April 2018.
The court papers don’t explain how Android’s revenue would be calculated. Google doesn’t charge for Android, but makes some money from mobile advertising occurring on the software and third-party applications sold to run on the operating systems.
It is important to keep Android tax-free. When Free software is subjected to patent tax everything gets very tricky; primarily, redistribution is restricted. █
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03.31.12
Posted in Apple, Oracle at 7:03 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this” –Steve Jobs
“Steve Jobs is my best friend, and I love him dearly” –Larry Ellison
Jobs image licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (version 1.2 or any later versions); Ellison patch By Thomas Hawk
Summary: Several new articles of interest about the lawsuit over Android
THE case of Oracle versus Google proceeds without settling. As one article from ZDNet puts it:
Oracle reportedly refused the offer on the basis that it was too low. The company had previously been claiming infringement across seven different patents, but was told by Judge William Alsup to slim down the claims.
If a settlement cannot be reached, the trial is scheduled to begin on 16 April.
Oracle declined to provide comment in response to a ZDNet UK request. Google had not responded at the time of writing.
Pogson says that Oracle’s position is worse than he thought, having followed this legal battle through well-researched articles from Groklaw. The H concurs with ZDNet:
After Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal had ordered Oracle and Google to hold another round of talks before the start of their trial, Google has now offered settlement terms that were promptly rejected by Oracle. The company is suing Google for allegedly violating some of its Java-related patents and copyrights on the Java API in the Dalvik virtual machine that is part of Android.
Google had offered Oracle 0.5% of Android revenues until the end of 2012 – at which point Oracle’s patent RE38104 expires – and going forward 0.015% of revenues until April of 2018 (based on patent 6,061,520). This deal would have been subject to the fact that Oracle could actually prove violations of these two patents. Oracle, however, turned the offer down as too low.
The latest from Groklaw says this:
The parties have responded to the Court’s request for supplemental briefs on certain copyright issues. The Google brief addresses the issue of whether Apache Harmony, and its incorporated APIs, are subject to a field-of-use restriction imposed by Sun. (831 [PDF; Text]) Oracle’s brief addresses the applicability of Baker v. Selden. (833 [PDF; Text])
Google asserts that Sun’s field-of-use restriction only arose if you licensed the Java technology development kit (TDK) to assure compatibility between your version of Java and the standard version produced by Sun, and if you took that license and assured compatibility, you were then licensed to use Sun’s Java trademark to reference your compatible version. The Apache Foundation was never willing to license the TDK under those conditions, never did so, and refrained from calling or referencing Harmony as Java. As a consequence, Harmony has never been subject to the TDK field-of-use restrictions, and Sun never attempted to enforce those restrictions against Apache. Assuming the API implementations used by Google are those found in Apache, and given that Google does not refer to Android as Java or Java-compatible, this would appear to be a compelling argument.
Oracle, a GNU/Linux user, has oddly enough been trashing its reputation with this case. Who benefits? Apple. █
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Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google at 6:52 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A glimpse at Apple defects and market trends
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03.28.12
Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Kernel at 4:45 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The spiritual leader of Apple is accused of trying to “kill” Linux development (money with strings attached)
ONE OF our participants, Oiaohm, says that OSDL (now merged into the Linux Foundation) pays Linus Torvalds because he received some outrageous job offers that put in jeopardy the development (or coordination of development) of Linux. Steve Jobs, the man behind the vicious attack on Android, turns out to have been behind another blow against Linux:
Apple Tried to Hire Linus Torvalds, Kill Linux
The founder of Linux was invited to Apple HQ in Cupertino by Steve Jobs at the turn of the millennium, where is was invited to join Apple and work on (what would become) OS X.
The lure? ‘Unix for the biggest user base’.
The catch? That he would have to stop development on Linux, a condition that led Torvalds to flatly refuse the offer.
Imagine: no Linux would have meant no Ubuntu, no ChromeOS, and no Android; the entire ecosystem of technology could have been dramatically changed by acceptance of this one job offer.
Thanks to the reader who brought this to our attention. █
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03.26.12
Posted in Apple at 10:21 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The latest example of Apple ‘quality’
LAST week my best friend purchased an android phone which is technically better than the latest iPhone. I watched it in action, too. At present, those who want what’s best in the market choose Linux, not Apple.
Apple increasingly seems suitable for those who settle for less than the best and tablets too show this trend. It’s not just overheating anymore:
Batterygate? Apple’s iPad “Fibbing” battery charger
Dr. Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate, the world’s leading display and display tuning company, is best known for his graphics expertise, but he also knows his way around electrical engineering and physics. During his extensive testing of the iPad 3’s display Soneira also found “that the batteries do not actually reach full charge when 100% is shown and need up to an extra hour before the charging actually stops. So what’s up with that?
Another product rushed out the door? Lawsuits an embargoes don’t pass muster fast enough? █
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03.24.12
Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, KDE, Microsoft, Oracle, Patents at 7:37 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Original by Swampyank, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.
Summary: News about the mobile market, and about Android
THE DAYS of Microsoft moles like Belluzo are long gone, but this doesn’t mean that new moles no longer emerge from the ground. One of several new examples is the current CEO of Nokia, whose job seems to be to jab. Microsoft’s machinations are not victimless because a lot of people lose their job and innovation is held back. One of our readers remarked on the effect on Qt, which is crucial for KDE:
One reason I had for awhile considered cmake so strongly in GNU Telephony is that I choose to experiment with using Qt to build applications, and at the time I thought it rather difficult to build QT applications under autconf/automake. A week ago I revisited this question on my own, and found I was actually wrong about this.
My interest in using Qt actually was from the period immediately prior to when Elop joined Nokia as CEO and then, much like Belluzo did to SGI, proceeded defraud the shareholders, employees, and customers of Nokia for the exclusive benefit of Microsoft and one presumes for his own personal gain. However, whatever his personal, and what I do happen to believe as being purely sociopathic, motives may be, it is very clear that Qt itself, with the help of the KDE foundation, and even MeeGO which I am less interested in, but even that, with the help of many others, would and do continue to survive and even thrive, and it matters not whether Nokia continues as part of that process or not in the future. This is just one real tangible benefit of freedom, that tools which you learn and use cannot be then taken away by either arbitrary or criminal actions. There are of course many other benefits to true software freedom as well.
There is actually quite a big debate right now about the future of KDE, in part due to Canonical’s decision to no longer pay some KDE developers like those who worked on Kubuntu (disclosure: my main workstations run Kubuntu, secondary run Debian). In Nokia’s case, similar question were raised with regards to Qt, which I worked with as a developer. Through Nokia, Microsoft not only gets a marketing/delivery arm; it also gets a patent troll-feeding operation (see MOSAID) and a vector through which to harm GNU/Linux, especially MeeGo and KDE.
As we showed some days ago, Nokia is descending into obscurity along with Microsoft. It didn’t have to go down this way; Nokia could choose another path, but its CEO is a mole. The decisions are ideaological, not technical. It’s a bit like Apple. It is worth mentioning that Apple annoys Motorola, Nokia, and RIM right now because it ignores standards again. This time it’s SIM:
Giesecke & Devrient’s nano-SIM design is fueling quite the standards battle over in Europe, with Apple sitting in one corner, and the troika of Motorola, Nokia and RIM looming in the other. That’s according to the Financial Times, which reports today that Cupertino is leading a charge to push its own nano-SIM proposal through Europe’s standards body, ETSI, much to the chagrin of its competitors. According to FT’s sources,
Apple is trying to distinguish itself because having copied ideas from many companies, all it has is an overpriced version of what’s already out there with Android. Apple counts on companies like Oracle making Android expensive, but it has not worked so far. Here is SJVN’s good breakdown of Oracle’s case (or lack thereof):
Instead of extracting billions from Google for violating its Java software patents in Android, Oracle will be lucky to get over a $100-million from its intellectual property (IP) lawsuit. That’s chump change by mega-company standards. Taking into consideration the legal costs, Oracle could have made more money if it had just offered Google an open-ended Java license in the first place. Larry Ellison, Oracle’s God-King and CEO, will have to wait another year before buying the sharks with lasers on their heads to guard his mega-yacht.
Remember that Steve Jobs was Ellison’s best friend. We said this right after the lawsuit was oddly enough announced, shocking a lot of people. Now we know that Jobs wanted a "thermonuclear" war on Android.
The embargoland of Apple is hoping that Android will just vanish, but it’s not going to happen. Apple finds that the law is not on its side after all:
In a ruling yesterday, US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner ordered that Apple should not be allowed to see the papers it had requested.
“The motion is vague and overbroad and Motorola’s objections are persuasive,” Bloomberg quoted Posner as stating. The mobile phone maker’s opposition to Apple’s March 16 demand was filed under seal.
As new polls show, half the people prefer an Android tablet, people who “buy everything Apple makes” are in the single-digit (percentage-wise) region, and many people choose to just joke about Apple. My father too is sick of Apple. He calls it a “new religion”.
In the device space, Linux is king. Nokia too is coming back to Linux, having realised that Microsoft is “death”:
A former Nokia executive is calling the Finnish cell phone maker’s Windows Phone strategy “a certain road to death,” according to his analysis of 18 months of UK market share data.
Tomi Ahonen, a very prominent voice in the mobile ecosystem, and former Segmentation Manager with Nokia, posted a scathing article decrying the Nokia and Microsoft partnership falling far short of expectations.
Eventually, open, Linux-based platforms are likely to command the lion’s share of this market. █
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