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. █
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
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.”
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.comcalls 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.
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.
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.”
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.
…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. █
Summary: New exploit takes advantage of Microsoft DRM (remotely-exploitable vulnerabilities), Engadget reviles DRM
Exploit-db.com has this new entry titled “Microsoft DRM Technology (msnetobj.dll) ActiveX Multiple Remote Vulnerabilities”
“Sort of what the FSF was saying back in the day MS released Vista with its flood of DRM embedded in it,” remarked Chips B. Malroy on it. Here is what boingboing.net had to say about it:
Microsoft’s DRM makes your computer vulnerable to attack
The msnetobj.dll library is an ActiveX control used by Microsoft’s DRM; it is intended to prevent the owner of a computer from saving or viewing certain files except under limited circumstances, and to prevent the computer’s owner from disabling it or interfering with it.
“DRM Library From Microsoft Opens Your Computer to Attacks,” said IDG a few days later, citing boingboing.net.
“The msnetobj.dll library, an ActiveX Network Object, is no exception: according to BoingBoing, msnetobj.dll “is intended to prevent the owner of a computer from saving or viewing certain files except under limited circumstances, and to prevent the computer’s owner from disabling” the library.
“Aside from mandating what sort of files you can and can’t open on your computer, msnetobj.dll is susceptible to three different types of attacks: denial of service, buffer overflow, and integer overflow. Exploit Database notes that “this issue is triggered when an attacker convinces a victim user to visit a malicious website” and that a hacker could then exploit these holes to run malicious code on your system.”
An Engadget editor goes against DRM (very publicly in fact) some time during the weekend. Who can possibly blame him?
It’s been said so many times, but I just got stung hard by the DRM bug, and since there’s a “Senior Associate Editor” next to my name somewhere I get to complain about it. Now, if you’re a regular consumer with a modicum of common sense, nothing I’m going to say here will come as a surprise or revelation. You’re welcome to come along for the ride, but I’m pointing my quivering pen today at the media execs and their willing technologist accomplices that have the nerve in 2010 to enforce HDCP and other completely inane DRM and copy protection schemes to “protect” their content from theft…
Summary: Microsoft has its partners build its castle of dominance and examples are given from the news to explain how that works
Microsoft is not just Microsoft, it’s an ideology embraced and fought for by a large group of companies that work to benefit one another and especially the ‘queen termite’, Microsoft. Just like with AMD and Intel, there is a great deal of benefits/kickbacks to partners (crudest forms of bribery would be too risky) and vendors are playing favourites, meaning that just like a bunch of schoolmates or siblings they compete for affinity from the teacher or parent. This is done for self gain.
“Microsoft holds Partner Conference and Award Ceremony,” says this headline and to put this in crude terms, these are the events where Microsoft decides who to bribe best based on the dirty work done for Microsoft by the recipients. “Dirty work” can be changes to government policies, sabotage of a GNU/Linux migration, many sales of Microsoft software (with commissions), and so on.
“It’s the glue that keeps many parts of society stuck with Windows.”It is always curious to see and to keep track of names of companies once they get labeled “Gold Partner”, Microsoft partner, or something along those lines. They even turn out to have something called “innovation alliance”. Just like Microsoft “MVP”, it’s a reputation one must live up to by sucking up to Microsoft and maybe even voting against sanity (for interests rather) in some OOXML ballot. While we routinely and quite comprehensively mention Novell partners when they get named, we do not do the same for Microsoft because there are just too many of them. It’s the glue that keeps many parts of society stuck with Windows.
It does not take much to see that Microsoft continues to distribute awards to buy companies’ loyalty and this includes promotion of Microsoft DRM, which Samsung and Nokia DRM deals, for example, ensure gets used more widely. Here is a newer example:
Microsoft PlayReady is the latest DRM technology that Verimatrix is supporting through its MultiRights strategy.
The same is being done in other areas like IPTV, but since these are private businesses rather than public institutions, nothing too unethical is being done here. One can dismiss what they do here for DRM and IPTV (a lot of what they say in general) as just marketing (or “Slog”), teaches us history. They fight against the rest of industry by promoting the One Microsoft Way.
Here is a new article which says that “Microsoft might have liked perks” (it’s the headline), using it for blackmail on tax issues, having states compete between one another at taxpayers’ expense. Microsoft should be dealt with not like any normal company. It works as a group of many companies and mapping their influence is the tricky task. Techrights will continue to explain the more important partnerships that harm society at large. The rest will be ignored due to time contraints. █
Monopolists championing proprietary software (proprietary giants) go hand in hand with patent monopolies and patent trolling
Summary: Wozniak helps prove that also departing co-establishers of proprietary predators defend patent trolling
APPLE and Microsoft are both patent aggressors and both have sued Linux (vendors) using software patents. Paul Allen is the latest patent troll to join the club and as Microsoft’s co-founder he helps demonstrate Microsoft’s continued legacy as a agitator that fights against software development. It turns out that Apple’s co-founder too complements his Free software-hostile rhetoric and now defends patent trolling:
Say It Ain’t So, Woz: Steve Wozniak Says Patent Trolls Are Okay
Via Joe Mullin, we learn the rather unfortunate news that, when asked about Paul Allen’s decision to sue lots of big tech companies over questionable patents, Wozniak comes out in favor of “patent trolls” and patent holders suing companies who actually innovate. For someone so beloved by the tech community, these statements seem really unfortunate. He starts out by repeating the myth that patents somehow help out the small guy (ignoring that we’re talking about Paul Allen, one of the richest guys on the planet):
I think this lawsuit represents the idea that hey, patents, individual inventors, they don’t have the funds to go up against big companies. So he’s sorta representing some original investors. And I’m not at all against the idea of patent trolls.
The interviewer, from Bloomberg TV, pushes back pretty quickly, pointing out that Paul Allen is not the inventor and there’s no indication that the inventors on these patents would actually get any of the money should Allen succeed.
The FSF has just launched a campaign against “Apple’s latest DRM patent”. It’s doubly malicious because it combines an attack on the user with a patent monopoly. From the FSF’s page:
Apple has a long history of imposing innovative restrictions on its users. The Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) used in the iPhone to prevent users from installing what they want or tinkering with their devices are well-known examples.
Yet not so many people expected their latest move in that direction — Apple’s recent patent application on a new spying technology revealed their plan to dedicate users’ devices to their unlimited control.
They say that they want to protect the devices from “unauthorized usage” (i.e. theft). For that reason, your device will take a photo of the person who uses it and the surrounding place, it will record his or her voice and it will record his or her heartbeats. Once it suspects something, it will send the information to Apple which will talk to the “responsible party.”
But given the notoriety of the case and the scope of its claims (the Journal, or at least its headline writer, has declared an all-out “patent war”), it seems like a good opportunity to dispel some common myths about the patent system and its discontents.
And then I want to offer one completely unfounded theory about what is really going on that no one yet has suggested. Which is: Paul Allen is out to become the greatest champion that patent reform will ever know.
Brad Feld thenasks: “Have We Reached The Software Patent Tipping Point?”
As I was reading through some of the Paul Allen commentary this morning, it occurred to me that this might finally be a tipping point. Last week, Microsoft asked the supreme court to hear their appeal of the I4i patent suit. I hope Google steps up and really takes a stand here given that they are on the receiving end of both the Oracle and Allen suits.
There is increased consensus in the technology press that software patents need to go away
Software patent wars are killing innovation
The software industry is rapidly tying itself up in red tape as claim meets counterclaim in patent suits blossoming all over the US.
The latest example is Microsoft’s co-founder, Paul Allen, who has launched into litigation against Apple, Google, eBay, Facebook, Yahoo, YouTube and five other companies. Apple has already had more than its fair share of court actions especially with Nokia and HTC. Oracle is gunning for Google. Every day brings some new accusation.
In almost every case, it is software nuances at the root of the problem. In some of the Apple cases, it seems that hand gestures are involved.
Amazon is actually the best counterexample to all of Interval’s claims. It was provably doing all the things that Interval claims it “invented”, and long before patents were even applied for. Against that background, suing Amazon would, of course, have been suicidal from a legal point of view.
But that still raises the larger question of why on earth Allen is doing this to anyone? As is well known, he is not short of a bob or two, so it can’t simply be for the money. Similarly, why did he wait for over a decade before blasting away at most of the top Internet players?
This is where I think the Ellison connection comes in. Allen’s action is part of the collective insanity which has gripped senior management at most computer companies. As more and more of these crazy software patent actions are announced and wind their way through the courts (or are quietly settled after much public tub-thumping), so the pressure on managers to join the feeding frenzy grows. It’s that old feeling that many of us get when some new fad takes off – that we might be missing out on something big, and that whether we think it’s really a good idea or not, we had better pile in now before it’s too late.
The 15-page document, filed Friday in United States District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle, lists the four patents and their titles, and accuses each of the 11 defendants of infringing on one or more of them. But it doesn’t point to specific programs, products, or websites that violate Interval’s intellectual property.
Groklaw has that whole thing as text and it adds that “Microsoft is asking the US Supreme Court to overturn the huge loss it sustained in i4i v. Microsoft. It’s the largest patent infringement verdict ever to be sustained on appeal.”
Thursday TWX, a member of our forums, brought to our attention a patent that was filed back on June 19th, 2008 and owned by XM Satellite Radio. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the basis of this patent is as follows:
“The present invention relates to a system and method for providing a broadcast radio service listener with the ability to generate a personalized radio channel play-list on a radio receiver from broadcast content as it is received. More specifically, the present invention relates to a system and method for buffering content from a set of channels selected from among the broadcast channels of a source stream(s) as they are received, and for generating a playback stream using the buffered content that provides a multichannel listening experience to the user with preview, reverse, fast forward and other navigation functions for the buffered content.”
– United States Patent Application #20090320075
Here is some background information from a lawyers’ source. It helps show how software patents came about and how they relate to business methods.
Even ten years ago, software patents were highly controversial. They were hotly debated in such forums as the U.S. Patent Office’s software patent public hearings of 1994. A number of courts, including the United States Supreme Court, struggled with whether software innovations could be protected and whether the proper mechanism should be patent or copyright law. Ultimately, the courts defined enough guidelines to judge what types of software innovations could be the subject of a patent.
The jurisprudence that developed through the software patent controversy paved the way for the ultimate acceptance of patenting innovations in business methods. As a result of the software patent controversy, courts assessed whether an invention could be the subject of a patent in a more abstract and general way. With courts growing more comfortable with software patents and their inherently abstract nature, the stage was set to apply that higher level of thinking in the context of a business method patent.
Both business methods and software patents are a area of dispute. █
Summary: Microsoft dependencies, Ballnux in Korea, and the ill effects of software patents there
Korea claims to be trying to get rid of Microsoft monopoly that’s reinforced by ActiveX in government and banking Web sites. This is an important issue, which the nation has complained about for years (and Microsoft was also found guilty by the courts there several times). Another problem Korea is having may have something to do with Samsung and LG, the Korean giants which not only pay Microsoft for Linux but also help spread Windows DRM. We believe that Samsung and LG pay Microsoft for Linux also because the law in Korea allows patenting of mathematics, which puts software companies at greater risk.
Yesterday we found the following news about Samsung and LG. It helps show how Ballnux — not Linux — spreads through Korea (allowing Microsoft to get rich at the expense of Linux/Android) and the last link shows that Samsung is still in Microsoft’s pocket.
Samsung Electronics this week confirmed that it has shipped more than 1 million of its Galaxy S smartphones since the line debuted in mid-July, an impressive debut that indicates Android-based devices pose a serious threat to both Apple and Research In Motion in the hotly contested and extremely profitable smartphone market.
KT released the first Korean Android Tablet. The Identity Pad.
The “Identity TAB” is ,according to KT, the Korean first real Android Tablet. Powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, the Identity TAB comes with a 7” Multitouch screen, 8GB only of internal memory, DMB TV Tuner, Gyro-Sensor, 3Mpix Camera Module, Wi-Fi, and SD Card reader.
We did it again, same as we were the first ones of obtaining the official pictures of the Samsung Vibrant, now we give you the first official pictures of the T-Mobile G2.
Fourth, What a LOAD OF RUBBISH is on this poor netbook! The first and most obvious thing was the Norton Internet Security, which wanted me to activate whatever “Free Trial Period” was available. Abort that, and then uninstall it. Unfortunately that doesn’t get rid of Norton Online Backup, so that has to be uninstalled separately. Then the Google Toolbar, and at least half a dozen Windows Live packages and “helpers”, and Skype, including the Skype Toolbar. Then came the biggest gripe of all…
Fifth, there should be a special place in HELL reserved for whoever decided to put Phoenix FailSafe on this thing. It’s bad enough to put a ton of crap on it, most of which is “limited trial” versions (FailSafe is a 30-day trial), but in this case it appears to be impossible to uninstall it. I’ve looked in the Control Panel / Uninstall a Program, I’ve looked in the Start menu, I’ve even looked directly in the FailSafe folder under Program Files. No uninstall. I’ve searched the web, and found that the only way to remove it seems to be to go to the FailSafe web site and REGISTER, and then ask to download the uninstaller. REGISTER, just to be able to uninstall it? I hope you all burn in HELL…
Last, but not least, it also came with Microsoft Office 2010 Starter preinstalled. Although this is also complete rubbish, I find it rather fitting that a brain-dead version of Windows 7 comes with a brain-dead version of Office. Nothing but Word and Excel, apparently limited in the amount of screen space it can use, and with adverts running on the screen all the time. The only good thing about it is that there is an uninstall program…
How much does Samsung want to betray Linux? A lot of people would point out that there is Linux in these devices (tablets and phones) but not that it’s Microsoft cashing in and setting bad precedence. █
Summary: The bribing chipmaker scoops up a firm that is hostile towards Linux and the GPL, which may also mean that future chips from Intel will be more OS-specific and DRM/TC-laden
An unpatched problem with Windows applications is much worse than first thought, with hundreds of programs, not just 40, vulnerable to attack, a Slovenian security company said today.
As moreover stated in relation to this separate article, “It turns out this is a fundamental flaw in the way almost all apps for that other OS work and how that other OS [Windows] loads programmes, looking in the current working directory first. Oops. The bad guys put some malware in the current working directory and give it a familiar name and voila! the system is owned by the bad guys.”
According to McAfee’s 2010 Q2 Threat Report, the most widely detected threat was the Genericlatr Trojan, AutoRun malware found on nearly 9 percent of machines scanned by the company worldwide. Then there is Stuxnet, Conficker and other malicious threats that have taken advantage of lax policies toward removable devices.
The news is in about Intel buying McAfee, which probably means lock-down or DRM in more future hardware.
Profit is the number one motive for malware these days with espionage close behind. Intel is in the process of buying McAfee for $7.68 billion. You can image what the whole anti-malware industry is worth if McAfee alone is worth that much. Intel is looking at tie-ins to hardware for this industry. Can you spell DRM? Expect locked-down motherboards and filters on top of Ethernet and USB ports and storage devices.
This type of prediction is further validated here:
Paving the way for embedded devices to include more built-in security features, Intel announced it will acquire McAfee for $7.68 billion in cash. Separately, Odyssey Software and Wavelink Corporation both released upgrades to their management frameworks for mobile devices.
There are other ideas about the purpose of the takeover. Either way, however, Intel taking aboard more Linux-hostile DNA is clearly bad news. █
