12.28.11
Posted in Apple, DRM, Europe at 7:31 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Bad Apple is doing bad things in HADOPI land using blackmail (allegedly claiming it “it would pull its business out of France” unless its demands were met)
According to the following Cablegate cable, Apple uses a baclkmail tactics (threatening withdrawal) to affect — for the worse of course — copyright law in France. Quoting the relevant parts: “In press statements, Apple said that the French copyright law amounted to “state-sponsored piracy” and that it would pull its business out of France. This declaration had an unfortunate impact. It heartened claims by free-software advocates and politicians who said that the opening up of DRM would benefit makers of DRM systems by enabling them to prosecute competitors as facilitating piracy. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez’s press comments saying that while he needed to take a look at the legislation, he supported protecting intellectual property rights were widely interpreted to be supportive of Apple, and French pro-interoperability groups reacted disapprovingly. The Odebi League, a citizen’s action group defending the rights of Internet users, told Apple to “mind its business and not meddle into the French legislative process” and pointed out that “if Apple wishes to do business in France, it has to respect the rights that the French enjoy.” Some senators said they regretted that Apple did not appeal to them directly and interpreted it as a lack of interest.”
Shame on Apple.
Here is the Cablegate in ite entirety:
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PARIS 003153
SIPDIS
SENSITIVE
DEPT FOR E, EB, EB/IPE, EUR/WE
DEPT PLS PASS USTR FOR JSANFORD/VESPINEL/RMEYERS
COMMERCE FOR SJACOBS, SWILSON
DOJ FOR CHARROP, FMARSHALL, RHESSE
COMMERCE PLEASE PASS USPTO
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KIPR ETRD PGOV FR
SUBJECT: FRANCE'S DIGITAL COPYRIGHT BILL: SENATE VOTES TO SOFTEN
INTEROPERABILITY BUT LOW PENALTIES REMAIN UNCHANGED
REF. PARIS 01847
¶1. This is an action request. See paragraph 13
¶2. (SBU) SUMMARY. The French Senate approved in the early hours of
May 11 the GOF draft law on digital copyright, in a format which
leaves unchanged the National Assembly's decriminalized penalty
regime, the principle (if not the requirement) of interoperability,
and the so-called "Vivendi Universal Amendment" criminalizing
peer-to-peer software publishing. The draft law adopted by the
Senate largely takes the sting out of interoperability by laying out
general guidelines -- which no longer require Digital Rights
Management (DRM) vendors to divulge industrial secrets to their
competitors -- and creating a new independent authority to decide on
the scope of interoperability and the "right to the exception for
private copy." The newly adopted text, known as the Law on Author's
Rights and Related Rights in the Information Society, generally
abbreviated as DADVSI in French is a step that would bring France in
line with the 2001 EU Digital Copyright Directive.Over the next
month, the text will likely go to a reconciliation conference at the
end of the month, and be signed into law before the summer. END
SUMMARY.
Senate Approval And Next Steps
------------------------------
¶3. (SBU) The DADVSI draft law was adopted by the French upper house
on May 11, with 164 votes in favor, 128 against, and 37 abstentions.
All the votes in favor came from representatives of the right of
center government UMP party. The text will now go before a joint
committee of both houses of the French Parliament to be reconciled,
and for final approval under the current Government "fast-track"
emergency procedure, which requires only one reading by both houses.
Upon completion of the legislative procedure, the draft bill will
be submitted to President Jacques Chirac for signature some time
before the summer. France, which had tabled implementing
legislation in November 2003, is the last country, with Spain, to
transpose the EU Copyright Directive.
Exceptions to Exclusive Copyrights:
----------------------------------
¶4. (SBU) Exceptions to exclusive copyrights, for public libraries
and archives, will now have to fulfil the "three-step test," i.e.
that they be confined to special cases, not conflict with a normal
exploitation of the work, and not unreasonably prejudice the
legitimate interests of the right holder. Education and research
have been added to the restrictive lists of exceptions in the
Senate, following the threat of a campaign of civil disobedience "in
any way they deemed useful and relevant" by over 2000 members of the
French scientific community.
¶5. (SBU) The more traditonal exception for private copy, an
essential feature of French "droit d'auteur," which allows French
residents to freely make copies of works (except software) for their
private use (and that of their family and friends) has also been
refreshed. The number of copies allowed as part of that exception
will now be decided by a new high regulatory authority, in charge of
outlining the contours of the private copy exception as well as the
new interoperability principle. The new authority will also work
hand-in-hand with the already existing Copyright Commission, which
sets the rates and conditions for the "tax on private copy" meant to
address the losses incurred by copyright holders. This tax is levied
on blank media (audio and video cassettes, CD, DVD, as well as
memory and hard drives in portable media players). While most of
this tax goes to rightholders, a quarter of it, representing some 40
million euros a year (USD 50 million), is used to finance cultural
events and festivals throughout France.
Penalties Remain Unchanged
--------------------------
¶6. (SBU) The system of "gradual sanctions", i.e. decriminalized
fines, has been confirmed by the Senate as "fair and balanced" --
despite efforts by one Senator and former Minister of Trade and
Industry, Gerard Longuet, to switch from what he described as
"organized indifference" to stiffer sentences. Culture Minister
Donnedieu de Vabres reiterated on this occasion that the purpose of
the bill was not to go after offenders but to ensure the protection
of works. As a result, non-commercial downloads are subject to the
lowest fine in France's Penal Code (38 euros), the equivalent of a
traffic ticket, instead of the original three years' imprisonment
and 300,000 euro fine proposed earlier by the GOF. These heavy
penalities in the first GOF draft bill created a major outburst in
the National Assembly, eventually leading to the adoption of the
radical "global licence." In the words of one Socialist and
technologically savvy member of the National Assembly, it would be
wrong "to describe the eight million people who have downloaded
music from the Internet as delinquents." On May 11, the Culture
Minister announced that an "index" of all protected works would be
set up to enforce the three goals of the bill: respect of copyright,
private copy and interoperability.
Softening Interoperability
--------------------------
¶7. (SBU) The Senate has proposed largely weakening the National
Assembly's radical ideas on the DRM technology. Two amendments in
the National Assembly's version had stated that providers of DRM
systems should provide the necessary technical documentation to ANY
party needing it to ensure that interoperability, including the
source code. This was interpreted as a direct attack on Apple's
iTunes platform and their iPod players.
¶8. (SBU) In press statements, Apple said that the French copyright
law amounted to "state-sponsored piracy" and that it would pull its
business out of France. This declaration had an unfortunate impact.
It heartened claims by free-software advocates and politicians who
said that the opening up of DRM would benefit makers of DRM systems
by enabling them to prosecute competitors as facilitating piracy.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez's press comments saying
that while he needed to take a look at the legislation, he supported
protecting intellectual property rights were widely interpreted to
be supportive of Apple, and French pro-interoperability groups
reacted disapprovingly. The Odebi League, a citizen's action group
defending the rights of Internet users, told Apple to "mind its
business and not meddle into the French legislative process" and
pointed out that "if Apple wishes to do business in France, it has
to respect the rights that the French enjoy." Some senators said
they regretted that Apple did not appeal to them directly and
interpreted it as a lack of interest.
Creating A New Regulatory Authority
-----------------------------------
¶9. (SBU) The Senate bill proposes a new regulatory authority to
examine the question of private copies and interoperability. This
new seven-member High Authority, modelled along the lines of
France's independent regulatory bodies in the electricity and gas
sectors (CREG), and in the telecoms and electronic commerce sector
(ARCEP), replaces the much-decried "college of mediators" initiated
by the National Assembly. Its responsibilities, much like its
guidelines, have been left as open as possible to allow for the fast
pace of technological change. At the same time, prodded by
embattled Culture Minister Donnedieu de Vabre and Villepin
administration, the Senate Cultural Affairs Committee developed a
text designed to meet as little opposition as possible from the
National Assembly once in the joint committee for conciliation.
These considerations explain the current text's willingness to pass
the difficult decisions on to the new authority.
Previous Support For Interoperability and Copying
--------------------------------------------- ----
¶10. (SBU) Public discussion of DRM and its effect on the private
copy exception have been particularly vivid in France. French
consumer associations initiated and often won court cases where DRM
restricted private copying -- a sacrosanct exception under French
copyright law.
Over the past three years, French consumer organizations have
initiated a number of court cases dealing with complaints of
consumers about CDs and DVDs that could not be copied and ripped
because of technical protection measures in place. In dealing with
the cases, French courts had developed the argument that the ability
to play a CD or a DVD on different devices constituted an essential
characteristic of a CD or DVD, and that producers of such devices
could be held liable for misleading the consumer in case of
incompatibilities. This first step towards establishing the right
to interoperability was confirmed earlier this year, when a Paris
Court of Appeals concluded that DRMs must respect the private copy
exception.
NEXT STEPS
----------
¶11. (SBU) Next steps include the drafting of implementing
regulations, which would also give the GOF (and stakeholders) an
opportunity to tweak the legislation, particularly regarding
penalties and sentencing. This is expected to take place over the
summer. The GOF will draft and implement these by decree. Other
possibilities for modification, according to lawyers, include a
constitutional challenge, which could come on any number of
articles. We understand that the Commission will eventually examine
all the EU member-states' transpositions of the directive at some
point over the next year. Finally, the GOF notes that the law has a
"review clause" of 18 months, requiring the government to provide
the Parliament with an evaluation of its efficacy.
COMMENT AND ACTION REQUEST
--------------------------
¶12. (SBU). France is one of the last countries to fulfil its
obligation to transpose this 2002 EU Directive. In making only a
minimal effort, many Senators seemed to be acknowledging how quickly
technology had moved since then 2002, and during the debates, French
Parliamentarians underscored the irony of a belated implementation
of a directive which the EU Commission is reportedly already in the
process of re-examining. In our conversations over the last weeks
where we raised our serious concerns over the quality and direction
of this controversial bill, French government officials and
observers had sought to reassure us and other stakeholders. We were
told (see reftels) that the Senate version would address many if not
most of industry's concerns. Senate legislative staff was thought
more pro-business, more technologically savvy, and less ideological.
Industry observers, many of whom where involved in a low-profile but
intense effort to reshape the bill with key amendments were
optimistic as well. Working with French industry allies, they
proposed close to 300 amendments. However, with the President and
Prime Minister under political siege, the government and the
majority party were in a hurry to get this complicated and
troublesome bill off their to-do list. By placing the bill on a
legislative fast-track, the government could be assured that the
conciliation conference would be over quickly. This political
pressure resulted in some improvements, such as interoperability,
where industry analysts are somewhat relieved at the results, but a
number of crucial elements remain unchanged, notably the lack of
deterrent penalties.
¶13. (SBU) COMMENT AND ACTION REQUEST. The next six months will
provide some limited opportunities to fine-tune the bill, notably in
the drafting of implementing regulations, which the GOF can issue by
decree. Other options would be to raise examination of the
legislation in light of other EU member state transpositions as well
as WIPO and TRIPS commitments. Post would appreciate Washington's
cleared interagency guidance, including any legal analysis regarding
the legislation's impact. End Comment.
Stapleton
If there was threat that Apple “would pull its business out of France,” let them. Better yet, boycott the company in France. █
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01.12.11
Posted in DRM, Microsoft, Windows at 5:00 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Co-authored with G. Forbes
Summary: Vista Phony 7 [sic], Microsoft’s latest platform for mobile devices, has serious new deficiencies
MICROSOFT RUSHED Vista Phone 7, its ridiculous cross-vendor response to Android, some while ago. It had also been intended to compete with the Blackberry and hypePhone, controlled solely by RIM and Apple respectively. Signs of VP7′s immaturity continue to show, with this critical bug being reported: “Someone found out the hard way what happens when you install more than 15 applications that use the push notification system in Windows Phone 7. To put it bluntly: it stops working.”
“Microsoft has quickly become a laughing stock in the area of smart phone software.”When it comes to application sales, Microsoft cannot realise just how badly they did with the tiny userbase. Pouring salt on these wounds, the Windows Phone Marketplace DRM has been cracked anyway (more here):
“WPCentral has been given a proof of concept which shows them breaking through WP7 Marketplace’s DRM. The weakness has apparently been known to developers for some time, and WPCentral has given the information to Microsoft, and are working to patch the hole.”
Microsoft has quickly become a laughing stock in the area of smart phone software. Mediocre security is indicative of substandard programming, and with this DRM proof-of-concept crack, a solution has already arrived from the outside:
Tobias, the white hat hacker who recently revealed a proof-of-concept crack for the copy protection on Windows Phone 7 apps has taken steps to develop a solution for his own hack. His FreeMarketplace code (only 65.5kb in size) took only about 6 hours to develop, but in the process demonstrated how easily the Microsoft’s app DRM copy-protection for WP7 could be stripped. The crack was not intended to harm the WP7 Marketplace, but was intended as a critique of Microsoft’s seemingly lax security. To help protect developers in the interim, while Microsoft develops its own solution, Tobias has posted code that developers can deploy in their apps to help protect them from piracy.
Nick Farrell explains that this “software exploits a flaw in raw installation packages or “XAP” files, which means they can be freely downloaded. This works because the Zune client software downloads XML files with all the package locations to enable application browsing and installation, and both the XML and XAP files are served without restriction.” Microsoft has had problems with managing operating system permissions for a long, long time. █
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Posted in DRM, GNU/Linux, Hardware, Microsoft, Windows at 3:32 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft is clinging onto ARM, having broken just about any other market segment — including processors with Microsoft software embedded in them — so as to harm and discriminate against Linux
Microsoft’s management is leaving the ship very rapidly and the CEO must show that he is doing something to turn things around. We believe that Ballmer’s time is running out. The problem with Windows on ARM is obvious and we explained this before. Yes, ARM will fail for Windows, for reasons that so many clever people like Robert Pogson and Bradford White have explained since December when CES rumours were spread. ISVs support is one of the key problems. Glyn Moody claims that “Windows turns up late, but no mention of the ARM stalwart Linux [in this article]: classy” (yes, the corporate press pays attention mostly to Apple and Microsoft — a sort of false dichotomy). Even Microsoft boosters cannot make sense of it:
Microsoft’s announcement yesterday at CES that its next version of Windows will run on the ARM chip architecture was the wrong message at the wrong place, said an industry analyst.
“I’m baffled,” said Michael Cherry, the analyst at Kirkland, Wash.-based Directions on Microsoft whose specialty is Microsoft’s operating systems. “I just don’t get what they get from this.”
Cherry was talking about the news Wednesday from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that Microsoft will support the ARM chip line, which is prominent in smartphones and most recently, Apple’s iPad tablet.
As Groklaw wrote in response to it, “[i]t’s baffling unless you stop and ask yourself: what runs on ARM already? Just like Microsoft tried, with some success, to kill Linux on netbooks when Linux got there first, it now offers a message – don’t buy Linux on ARM, because we’ll have something for you soon.” Groklaw has a point here. For background, see older posts such as:
All that Microsoft achieves here is alienation from Intel/AMD. Both x86 heavyweights are already embracing MeeGo, which was demonstrated on numerous devices at CES (we supplied many links in our daily aggregations). “Microsoft Deal With ARM Seals Divorce With Intel” is how one writer summarised it:
The announcement at CES 2011 that Microsoft would deliver a full version of Windows 8 for the ARM architecture is one of the most defining moments in CES 2011, one which could change the dynamics of the technology market forever by offering a credible alternative to x86.
Microsoft became a licensee of ARM back in July 2010, only a few months after Intel joined forces with Nokia to launch its own operating system, Meego.
One reader asked the other day, “Did you catch the DRAM price crash, Roy? It’s like Vista all over again.”
Apparently, hardware companies too are starting to realise that Microsoft and Windows are not their friends. Profit margins go to a software company whose work is inherently abundant (yet made expensive and limited because of artificial restrictions which only really apply to hardware). To quote from IDG:
DRAM chip prices reached a one-year low on Tuesday and approached their cheapest ever due to a post-holiday oversupply. The cheap memory chips are pushing PC prices lower too, a Taiwan-based trading platform said.
The reality behind Vista 7 indicates that supply will likely outpace demand. Microsoft shares fake figures about Windows, which lead to unrealistic expectations of hardware sales.
ARM’s CEO was recently interviewed at CES and here is his response to the question: “When you did start talking to Microsoft?”
East: We’ve been working with Microsoft for about 13 years. It would be ludicrous for me to sit here and deny that we’ve been trying to persuade Microsoft to do something like this for many years.
Competition between the chipmakers is especially important because it keeps them serving their customers rather than engage in price-fixing, which requires a conspiracy. As we pointed out some days ago in the daily links, Intel had begun working ever more zealously for the media conglomerates by putting unacceptable DRM in silicon. The subsequent backlash was so serious that Intel needed to come up with spin that is essentially lies, at least in part. Groklaw, for example, is no friend of Intel (partly because of the OLPC fiasco) and it caught the spin piece from Intel, wherein Intel says: “There have been stories describing Intel Insider as a ‘DRM’ technology. DRM means ‘Digital Rights Management’ and is used to control the use of digital media by controlling access, and preventing the ability to copy media such as movies.”
“Competition between the chipmakers is especially important because it keeps them serving their customers rather than engage in price-fixing, which requires a conspiracy.”Watch Intel misusing the word “pirates” when claiming: “Think of it as an armoured truck carrying the movie from the Internet to your display, it keeps the data safe from pirates, but still lets you enjoy your legally acquired movie in the best possible quality. This technology is built into the new Intel chips.”
As Groklaw put it when responding to the claim above: “So it controls access. Check. What about preventing copying? If it’s not DRM, can I make copies after I enjoy my legally acquired movie? If not, how is it not DRM again?” What a waste of silicon/transistors and what a waste of energy (the toll is passed to the user). Intel goes further than this by integrating Microsoft’s DirectX 11 in Ivy Bridge chips:
Intel will integrate DirectX 11 graphics technology in its next generation of laptop and desktop chips based on the Ivy Bridge architecture, a company executive said on Thursday.
DirectX 11 includes a set of tools that can generate more realistic images when playing games on PCs running Windows 7. Intel will integrate the technology in next-generation laptop and desktop chips, as use of the technology in applications will spread by then, said Mooly Eden, vice president and general manager of the PC Client Group at Intel, in an interview on Thursday with the IDG News Service during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
“Microsoft has pushed DirectX into Intel’s silicon,” explained to us a reader, “it is also claimed that AMD vandalized some cheapo processors that way too. [...] x86 to suck worse than ever.”
It will suck more energy at the user’s expense (power bills), for the benefit of Microsoft and the copyright cartel. That’s just why we desparately need more architectures like ARM, which would not tolerate wasteful chip designs because of its target markets (battery life is king there).
Mary Jo Foley suggests that Windows Embedded Compact may die as a result of the announcement from ARM:
But has Microsoft decided to stop touting Embedded Compact as a good operating system for tablets and slates, instead putting all of its eggs in the Windows basket? If that is the case, I’d say there’s little doubt that the possibility of a Windows Phone OS tablet is DOA. Instead, the most those of us who like the Windows Phone UI can hope is that the MoSH (modern shell) UI for Windows 8 takes a lot from the Windows Phone 7 interface.
It’s all just fluff from Mary Jo Foley and many of the above are either “DOA” (dead on arrival) or vapourware (Vista 8 for example). Microsoft’s ‘new’ mobile platform has already failed and as Jan Wildeboer put it the other day: “More important than Android passing iPhone is fact that MSFT market share actually goes down, not up!”
“MSFT said that Windows 8 ARM version will run only on Qualcom, TI an NVIDIA CPUs. No Marvell, no Samsung, no Freescale,” one of our readers added. Well, it is vapourware and even for something that does not exist (Vista Eight) it sounds underwhelming. Remember for example that Microsoft keeps talking about it without ever showing a prototype and whenever Microsoft does this it by far overplays the characteristics (as put down in a wishlist rather than specifications). Watch Mary Jo Foley promoting this vapourware. It’s her job.
In summary, Microsoft’s announcements regarding ARM and Vista 8 are probably just intended to harm competitors like Linux and not necessarily deliver anything significant any time soon, if ever. █
“The purpose of announcing early like this is to freeze the market at the OEM and ISV level. In this respect it is JUST like the original Windows announcement…
“One might worry that this will help Sun because we will just have vaporware, that people will stop buying 486 machines, that we will have endorsed RISC but not delivered… So, Scott, do you really think you can fight that avalanche?”
–Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft
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Posted in Apple, DRM at 11:29 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Co-authored with G. Forbes
Summary: Apple has failed to save the old (antiquated) newspaper industry, but Murdoch and Jobs to consider other plans
WE HAVE BEEN sceptical of the hypePad since it was first announced in 2010. We argued that die-hard fans of Apple would have shallow interest in the product. This kind of interest frequently dies out after purchase; those who choose accessories over practical value would just get bored with the hypePad.
As expected, the primary function of this DRM-laden gadget is starting to disappoint and hypePad magazine sales are slumping. It turns out that Steve Jobs is “not the saviour of journalism” that some were hoping for him to be, alleges this one report:
It verily could according to this article by WWD.com. Statistics from the Audit Bureau of Circulations reveal that by the end of 2010 – which is just two days away now – magazine sales on the iPad were seriously drooping.
Apple is good at reinventing the wheel and charging more for it, often without the level of quality expected with a higher price. As one article put it, “[e]ditorials began asking if the iPad might be the saviour of an industry in a seemingly terminal decline.” It was “just wishful thinking,” Glyn Moody explained over at Identica.
Perhaps Jobs should reconsider his upcoming liaison with Murdoch. It does not seem to be a very smart PR strategy with all the troubles mentioned above.█
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12.27.10
Posted in DRM, Microsoft at 12:59 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: As Microsoft withdraws Silverlight from the Web one of its biggest clients apparently walks away
Netflix chose Silverlight a long time ago and on various occasions we blamed it on the board, which had former Microsoft staff. Recently, Netflix made a lot of noise about its use (as in exploitation) of Free software, even though it denied access to its services from GNU/Linux- and BSD-running machines, partly due to Silverlight, which is a dead project now (one among many). “For streaming,” wrote Joab Jackson over Christmas, “Netflix mulls using DASH over HTML5 instead of Silverlight” (see our new Silverlight wiki). Here is what Netflix wrote some days ago:
In order to help achieve this goal, we are looking into a number of options. We are already actively participating in the MPEG committee for Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) to define an industry standard for adaptive streaming, together with Apple, Microsoft and a number of other companies.
The proposed DASH standard covers the first five items listed above: It defines a way to advertise a range of different streams to a player together with the information it needs to pick which ones to stream. It also defines media file formats suitable for adaptive streaming. The file formats enable efficient and seamless switching between streams, enabling a player to adapt to changing network conditions without pausing playback for re-buffering. The standard considers the differing needs of both on-demand services such as ours, and live services. And it’s all based on the use of industry standard HTTP servers.
We expect to be able to publish a draft of a Netflix profile describing a limited subset of the MPEG DASH standard early next year. It will define the requirements for premium on-demand streaming services like ours and will take advantage of hooks included in the DASH standard to integrate the DRM technologies that we need to fulfill our contractual obligations to the content providers, thus covering the sixth item on our list.
The Netflix case is important because to Microsoft it is a major case study regarding the use of Silverlight. If Silverlight as a whole dies (which inevitably it will), that won’t be good for Vista Phony 7 [sic], either. █
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11.27.10
Posted in Apple, DRM at 7:51 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Links to news about Apple
• Wipeout: When Your Company Kills Your iPhone [via] (recall the 1984 Amazon incident)
A few weeks ago, Amanda Stanton’s iPhone suddenly went black.
She had been talking on it and navigating with a GPS app during a work trip to Los Angeles. Then, without any warning or error message, the phone quit.
Everything was gone — all her contacts, photos and even the phone’s ability to make calls.
It was only after she got home to Silicon Valley that she found out that her phone had been killed by her employer, a publishing company.
• Issuu Gives Up on App Store After Three Rejections
Issuu, a popular document sharing service that may have provided some competition for Apple’s planned digital newsstand, has abandoned plans to release an iOS app after Apple rejected the company three times. The New York-based firm isn’t divulging many details, but hinted in its blog that its openness was the cause of its rejection by Apple. “Based on the latest rejection, we don’t think it’s realistic that we can get it approved,” Issuu co-founder and spokesman Martin Ferro-Thomsen told me in an interview. ”We would have to make some changes we’re not comfortable with. We would have to restrict the community more than we’d like to. It’s really a sad day for us, because we love Apple, but it’s their platform and App Store, and we just live in it.”
• The App Store model faces disruption from HTML5
Today’s Wall Street Journal features an article by Christopher Lawton that talks about the difficulty independent app stores face when competing with Apple and Google for developer and consumer attention. Paul Reddick, chief executive of third-party app store HandMark told WSJ that he couldn’t simply bet the whole company’s fate on independently distributing apps with a presence like Google to compete against.
It may not even be a prudent bet to be in the app store business at all.
SPIL Games, a Dutch company that built its audience of more than 130 million gamers on browser-based Flash games, has found that the behavior of casual gamers doesn’t translate well to the app-based distribution model.
• Apple – The Competent Danger to Free Software – Part Two
A while back I wrote an article titled Apple – The Competent Danger to Free Software. It got a lot of hits. It also caused a few people to send me emails, one of which called me a traitor to Free Software.
The problem that everyone ignores, is that if you are a musician, you haven’t really got a lot of choice. Apple’s products are the best available for musicians. Sure, there’s some software available for the Windows platform, but really it’s not all that good. There’s some software available for Linux too, but it’s limited.
“We’ve always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”
–Steve Jobs, Apple
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11.08.10
Posted in Apple, DRM, GPL at 6:58 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Source of original photo
Summary: VLC helps expose Apple’s real zeal and disdain for freedom, which Groklaw believes will pressure Apple to rethink its ways and undo the hostile EULA
“I am glad that VLC is enforcing the GPL against Apple,” Richard Stallman wrote some days ago regarding the VLC saga.
Pamela Jones from Groklaw (winner of an FSF award) cites her friend Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols and adds: “As Simon Phipps points out on identi.ca, the headline should more accurately read, “Apple’s EULA blocks distribution of all GPL software including VLC.” But you know what? It’s fine with me if there is a clear dividing line. Get an Android if you want to have it all. If you want Apple’s tightly controlled, DRM’d environment instead, you can have it. Over time, my bet is that Apple will fix this problem, because in the long run, it’s in their economic interest to do so. Plus may I point out that the GPL was around long before the Apple AppStore, so if there is a conflict, it isn’t the GPL that made it happen.”
“We increasingly cover Apple in this Web site because it’s a real problem, in some way greater than Microsoft which is imploding anyway.”Additionally, pointing to this article about Skyfire in Apple’s App Store, Jones writes: “this is why I know in due time Apple is likely to fix the GPL compatibility problem at its AppsStore. It’s all about what customers want, and if enough people want something, they usually can get it. And the opposite is also true.”
Groklaw has been quite forgiving towards Apple. In recent months, however, Groklaw was reformed this attitude and did a lot less to promote Apple’s side. We increasingly cover Apple in this Web site because it’s a real problem, in some way greater than Microsoft which is imploding anyway. As argued in yesterday's show, Apple is to choice what having two parties representing the same business interests is to politics. The real choice comes from freedom. █
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10.31.10
Posted in DRM, Europe, Microsoft, Standard at 10:25 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“DRM is the future.”
–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO
Summary: Microsoft’s insistence on ignoring international standards and limiting access is hurting adoption of its very own software rather than have the intended effect, which is to impede migration to competitors or to pressure for upgrades
THE British Government chooses to stay at risk with Internet Explorer 6, as we mentioned back in July and well into August when arguments about it began. The British public started demanding that the government no longer stays one decade behind with a rusty Web browser. The good news is that “Home Office does u-turn on Internet Explorer 6″ and the bad news is that they stay stuck with Internet Explorer:
A government department has abandoned browsing policy by deciding to upgrade its machines from Internet Explorer 6 to IE8.
The UK government has received severe criticism from many security companies for sticking to IE6 – a now non-supported Microsoft browser which is considered insecure.
A Home Office representative confirmed to TechEye today that it will upgrade to Internet Explorer 8, although the department gave no indication when the move will happen.
They should at least offer the option of Free/libre software like Firefox or as Glyn Moody put it, “great; now let’s have Firefox as an option” (remark is from Identi.ca and a fellow Identi.ca user from Romania responded by saying that it’s “strict policies and bureaucracy! Here, people would install whatever browser (or version) they want, without even asking”).
The UK is an exceptional case because the British public sector is still overwhelmingly tied to the US, just like in a lot of English-speaking nations. It is an issue that spans a wide range of institutions we covered here before (even defunct ones like BECTA). Last week it was the British Library (BL) that got another good spanking from Dr. Glyn Moody, whose memory of the BL’s services to the Microsoft monopoly (e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]) was recalled in this post about locking down knowledge that belongs to the British public.
The British Library was also heavily involved in the formalisation of Microsoft’s OOXML, providing the vice-chairman for the original TC45 Office Open XML group (that is, OOXML). The convenor of the much-contested ISO meeting that finally approved OOXML, Alex Brown, is also linked with the British Library:
Alex Brown is convenor of the ISO/IEC DIS 29500 Ballot Resolution Process, and has recently been elected to the panel to advise the British Library on how to handle digital submission of journal articles.
Interestingly, Brown now seems to view the OOXML standard in a somewhat different light:
In short, we find ourselves at a crossroads, and it seems to me that without a change of direction the entire OOXML project is now surely heading for failure.
Which makes the British Library’s support for Microsoft’s format even more problematic.
But the real problem with the British Library is not just this technical short-sightedness. There is a far deeper issue that goes to the heart of what a research library is for. This can be seen most clearly from the existence of the “Business and IP Centre” at the British Library, where we are told:
Intellectual property (IP) can help you protect your ideas and make money from them.
Our resources and workshops will guide you through the four types of intellectual property: patents, trade marks, registered designs and copyright.
Now, recall that “IP” is just a polite name for time-limited, state-enforced intellectual monopolies. These are fundamentally and inherently about limiting people’s access to various kinds of knowledge. They are diametrically opposed to the stated role of the British Library, whose exhortation to visitors to its home page is: “Explore the world’s knowledge.”
Glyn Moody later pointed out that “publishers haven’t got a clue” because of this new British article about DRM:
For libraries facing dwindling borrowers and brutal budget cuts, the ebook seems to offer an irresistible opportunity to reel in new readers and retain old ones too busy or infirm to visit during opening hours.
A third of libraries across the country have embraced the new technology, allowing members to check out electronic literature without setting foot in the building.
But following abuse of the system – with China-based readers attempting to circumnavigate copyright laws by joining British libraries and plundering their virtual collections for free – publishers have now threatened to prevent libraries from accessing ebooks. It’s a move described by one library boss as “regressive” at a time when they are trying to innovate as they fight for survival.
Cheryl McKinnon in the Red Hat-led Web site opensource.com calls it Dark Ages 2.0 when “long-term preservation, provenance, and accessibility of digital content” is simply ignored, as we already find in the BL. Cheryl concludes by writing:
I hope this recent piece in opensource.com on the importance of open standards will be an ongoing discussion theme, as open source and open standards together provide one of the few realistic solutions to this escalating problem of digital preservation. The content management technology field, where I’ve spent most of my career, needs to escalate this debate. In a space currently dominated by proprietary technologies, managing the long-term preservation, provenance, and accessibility of digital content is often downplayed or ignored.
Going back to Internet Explorer lock-in, Mr. Pogson says that “Lock-in Is Double-edged Sword” as “IE6 addiction throws monkey wrench into Windows 7 migration” and: [via Slashdot]
Enterprises addicted to Microsoft’s nine-year-old Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) browser are having a tough time migrating to Windows 7, an analyst said today.
No wonder Vista 7 is having a tough time in businesses (no matter what Microsoft says). Another blogger says that Internet Explorer 6 is “Another Case of Microsoft Shooting Itself In The Foot”. Basically, a lot of enterprise simply cannot and will not leave Windows XP because of Internet Explorer 6.
The Gartner Group says that Windows is losing market share and as Matt Asay (Canonical COO) explained this before he pinged me about it, “Microsoft is selling more Windows (desktop), but losing market share in terms of units shipped and total”:
Sure – in absolute numbers, Microsoft is clearly selling more copies of Windows as the number of PC users in the world continues to increase. But when looking at market share, Windows is losing market share. The drop in market share may seem small, but when you are talking about hundreds of millions of machines installed worldwide, every tenth of a point of market percentage drop is a large number.
IDG’s Gregg Keizer has just published “Enterprises: We’ll run Windows XP even after retirement”:
Nearly half of the companies still using the nine-year-old Windows XP plan to keep running the aged OS even after Microsoft withdraws its support in 2014, a research analyst said today.
“IT just really, really likes the XP operating system,” said Diane Hagglund, a senior analyst at Dimensional Research, which recently surveyed more than 950 IT professionals about their Windows and Microsoft Office adoption plans. “They say it’s just that good, and don’t want to mess with it.”
Then there’s this interesting new statistic: [via]
Forty-nine per cent will deploy Office 2010 on a version of Windows other than Windows 7, released a year ago by Microsoft. Users are split on whether to upgrade from Windows XP: 47 per cent said they’d upgrade to Office 2010 when Windows XP’s support is discontinued — in April 2014 — while 48 per cent said they’d soldier on using Windows XP even without support.
Here is what happens to people who buy a laptop and expect to have Windows on it:
…if I wanted the OS installed, I had to pony up $130.
Welcome to the crazy world of proprietary software. No wonder Android is getting so popular, and not just on handsets anymore.
In summary, Microsoft has attempted to lock people in by deviation from standards, but in turn it also shoots its own foot because people cannot upgrade to other versions of the same software from Microsoft (because it attempts to correct things by better conforming and complying with standards). It not only affects Internet Explorer (which continues to lose market share rather than ever gain any) but it also harms adoption of Vista 7. Microsoft got served for its own bad behaviour. █
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