Summary: Abusive behaviour from Microsoft and what vigilant people are saying
THE editors at IDG finally grew a pair and decided to approve a headline which calls out Microsoft for “bribe” in Europe — a sophisticated form of bribe (like EDGI) which ensures Free software won’t enter the government:
Microsoft is offering home-use licenses for Microsoft Office, Project (project management software) and Visio (a diagramming tool) through the Parliament’s administration office. Such offers are not unusual in Microsoft’s contracts with large organizations, but, said FSFE’s Karsten Gerloff, “political institutions like the European Parliament are bound to higher standards.”
The offer is for Parliament staffers only and will probably not be extended to elected members. However, “staffers are the ones who make the wheels turn. They’re the ones who do all the legwork, and they control access to the MEPs,” pointed out Gerloff.
“Competition and procurement issues aside, it doesn’t seem proper that the people making the rules for the European market should accept gifts from the very companies they’re regulating,” he continued.
In March 2011, the European Commission was accused of favoritism as it decided to move internal IT systems in the European Institutions to Microsoft Windows 7 without holding a public tender. The move flies in the face of the Commission’s own advice to avoid public procurement lock-in. FSFE is now concerned that the offer by Microsoft constitutes a bribe to increase further lock-in.
In other news, Ryan from our IRC channels has some thoughts on what Microsoft hopes to achieve with restricted boot:
securely boot a PC, and that corporations are salivating at the prospect of using it to lock end users into their operating system software, to keep the user trapped with whatever their computer happened to come with. The headlines designed to smear Linux are just paid for by Microsoft. The “bootloader attacks” that Secure Boot is supposedly meant to deal with are mostly attacks on the Windows Activation system that rely on bootloader exploits to make Windows believe it is an OEM copy that came with the PC so that the user may use a copy of Windows without paying for it.
Microsoft isn’t interested in stopping the malware of the week from stealing your identity or subverting your system and using it to display (sometimes pornographic) advertisements, which are just two of the things that Windows is known well for. They are interested in stopping the user from being able to run their own software on their private property and from getting away with using a less crippled version of Windows than what came with their computer without forking over more money through the Anytime Upgrade scam.
Where are the antitrust regulators when one needs them? We wrote about this subject before [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] and in the next post we’ll show just how radical Microsoft really is about eliminating the competition’s right to exist. █
Posted in Europe, Patents at 11:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Business interests take over Europe and European politicians play along with negative patents agenda
TECHRIGHTS has been utterly disappointed with the policies set in place by the European Commission in recent years. Not only policies disappoint but also procurement irregularities and misinformation that comes from people like Barroso, who parrot some other lawyers’ propaganda. Barroso is a laywer, just like many of his peers in politics, and he repeats the patent lawyers’ disinformation which piggybacks SMEs just like Microsoft’s front group Association for Competitive Technology.
Research and innovation hold the key to Europe’s future competitiveness. This is another area where acting now will pay rich dividends in the future. We have tabled important proposals to help SMEs to access finance and to support innovative companies, for example through a European venture capital regime. And I need not repeat how important a swift agreement on a European patent is – after a thirty year wait, it is time to deliver.
Utter nonesense. They are using language diversity as an excuse to expand the scope and number of patents or, as the FFII’s president put it, “The patent system does not care about language diversity” as shown in this new video desribed as follows:
It costs €2,000 in the US, and up to €40,000 in Europe. The single EU patent should make things simpler and cheaper, but its implementation is complicated.
Now, consider another case of unnecessary discrimination. The FFII’s president asks a reputed MEP: “European citizens depends on Microsoft codec to watch what is going on in the European Parliament?”
There are other reasons to be upset at the European authorities. To quote this new example from EDRI, thre is still failure even on standards:
The European standardisation system is being revamped. In the European Parliament, the Consumer Committee (IMCO) under its rapporteur Lara Comi (EPP, Italy) is deliberating a proposal from the European Commission. Parliament members face tricky regulatory decisions on the standardisation of services and participation of small enterprises.
These issues overshadow a ground-breaking novelty: an official “recognition” for specifications from private sector consortia in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT). Those “recognised ICT specifications” are not “standards” (developed by standards organisations) but still could be legally referenced by tenders for public procurement.
European policy is being polluted by businss interests. Lobbying is very widespread in Europe, not just in the US (notoriously so). Let’s inform fellow citizens of Europe so that decision-making is not done solely by corporatate leaders who pass gentle bribes to politicians. ACTA’s failure to pass in many European nations was due to protests, i.e. the public rising up. █
How Microsoft Pays Big Money To Smear Google In European Parliament
I spent this week in the European Parliament in Brussels. One of the seminars I attended was advertised as being a seminar on privacy, big data, profiling, and online identities. As interesting as it sounded, it was anything but.
[...]
The seminar was arranged by ICOMP, a nonsense thirteen-a-dozen-spun name like “Initiative for a Competitive Digital Market Blah Blah Meaning Give Us Money Please”. Your eyes glaze over and turn elsewhere at these silly spins after a while once you see them daily. But never mind the name, they come a dime a dozen. The seminar still had an interesting topic and a free lunch to boot, which would attract good people to network with on our topics.
[...]
It went on and on. This was not a seminar on privacy at all. This was Microsoft-funded Google-smearing, plain and simple, and I felt my blood starting to boil. No free lunch was worth sitting down and taking this kind of language designed to smear a competitor for profit. I would not be a part of this. My name does not get to be associated with this kind of drivel.
So I made the strongest act of disapproval conceivable in the European Parliament.
I walked out on a free luxury lunch.
[...]
Seeing the only Member of European Parliament in the audience walked out of the seminar in that strong a disapproval, one of their head lobbyists rushed out after us trying to get us in a better mood. I was furious, and since we no longer needed to politely observe silence in the seminar room, I believe I made my impressions perfectly clear to him at the time – that I considered it audacious that Microsoft, a convicted monopolist, paid big money using a covert name to carpet bomb allegations of monopolistic behavior against a competitor in this manner – that the seminar had been thoroughly falsely advertised, and that I would not have my name associated with any part of it.
In response to our blog post from yesterday one reader wrote:
Sadly (IMO) Slashdot.org seems to contributing to MS’s smear campaign. Slashdot is constantly posting non-stories like this:
The story was spun to make it seem like Google wanted to take over the world’s currencies. Actually it was Google *considering* having it’s own script, credit system. In other words, the same thing as WoW, 2nd life, Facebook, and – I think – even MS.
The discussions are dominated by anonymous posters who aggressively bash anybody who try to defend Google. Such posts were not always anonymous. It was discovered that such posts used to come from one poster who had, at least, 20 different logins. Once that was exposed, all the bashing posts became anonymous.
Slashdot typically runs about two such non-stories every week. It’s shameful, IMO.
Groklaw was quoted by this reader as saying: “500 sites, plus Facebook, a partner of Microsoft, and Google. Yet Microsoft wrote only about Google. This is what FUD looks like — it’s partly true or almost so or selectively so as far as it goes or it’s not even relevant to real life, blown out of proportion, etc.”
Another reader linked to what he called the “false seminar that Falkvinge was lured into partially attending” and added that this “[i]s nothing new. 16 Mar 2010 sponsored by Ixonos, Microsoft had a
false “Linux” seminar which had a handful of legitimate speakers and the rest were Microsoft partners and shills spouting their talking points: http://www.ixonos.com/en/linux_seminar I stayed to the end to watch it. They even did the classic stacked panel.” Just like the so-called "open source think tank"? █
Summary: Google fuels the EPO with its tools that can help usher software patents into Europe
HEY, Google, what on Earth are you doing again? Leaving aside your latest new patents [1, 2] that you applied for, where is the call for reform? Real reform.
Patent information can now be translated into English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Swedish via a ‘patent translate’ tool on the EPO website after the patent registry joined forces with internet giant Google to develop existing automated translation software.
The EPO said that it had provided Google with “several hundred thousand high quality translations of patents” in the seven languages which Google had used to “train” its translate system. The president of the EPO hailed the launch of the new service as a “landmark” in removing language barriers from patent documents.
Summary: Protests in Slovakia drive Microsoft away, at least for the time being
LAST month we saw protests across Europe shooting down ACTA. According to this (English translation) Microsoft gets similar treatment and to quote a reader of ours, the “Slovak government postponed 53 mil. EUR deal with Microsoft after public protests… [...] only google translate link if it helps [...] it’s very bad translation tho[ugh]” (remember that Slovakia is pro-ODF).
Posted in Europe, Patents at 10:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Patent news from Europe, courtesy of FFII for the most part
THE European authorities have turned rather FOSS-hostile as we showed over the past year or two. The people at the top put unhelpful policies in place (compared to their predecessors) and many in FOSS circles are in denial over it. This new workshop is no exception. “In particular,” says the page, “the workshop will help to identify advantages and disadvantages of patent pools in relation to ICT standardisation and to subsequently identify how patent pools could best function in order to avoid antitrust concerns.”
If they altogether ban software patents, then workshops like this might become obsolete. But patent lawyers in Europe keep working hard to spread patents in Europe. Here is the latest they have to say about the Unitary Patent:
Wednesday afternoons and unitary patent reform are beginning to be an all too common event for the patent lawyers amongst us, and especially for Baroness Wilcox (Minister of State, Department of Business, Innovation & Skills). Yesterday afternoon she was before the House of Lords EU Sub-Committee E on Justice and Institutions on the on-going saga of the proposed unitary patent reform. The latest of the hearings followed the earlier and somewhat fraught session before the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee a couple of weeks ago (see previous reports here and here), which itself followed the expert witness session held in January (see reports here and here).
As the FFII’s president puts it, the “Patent mafia is composing the Committee for the Rules of Procedure for the Unitary patent court” — something which is shown here. More promotion of more patents in Europe:
All of this naturally means that, while politicians negotiate on the substantive provisions and court locations, there is a degree of waiting around for those us inhabiting the less rarefied air of European patent politics. Readers may think they can now sink comfortably into their office chairs, switch off and await further news. “Maybe”, says the AmeriKat, “But not for long …”
Separately, says the FFII’s president in a tweet, “Mrs Kroes voted for FRAND and EU patent court, that’s not really defending software freedom” (we showed a lot of evidence of this).
The FFII also reminds us of the blackmail in Spain when it mentions the pressure on Italy (which along with Spain opposes the Unitary Patent). “Yes,” the FFII says, the Unitary Patent “is a real issue. Also the attempts of Italy to blackmail the EU to accept Milan lays no good foundation for a Court.” Here are some questions on the subject and a mention from Spiegal regarding the “European RAND attack on the web innovation model”. The European Union needs to ban RAND, FRAND, and software patents in general, including euphemisms related to these; otherwise it plays into the hands of multinationals, not Europeans. █
Summary: Additional details about Microsoft’s propaganda campaign for flat fees on Free software
IN HIS many remarks on the subject, the president of the FFII continues to express concerns about FRAND — an issue we’ll spend more time covering, especially now that Microsoft pays scum like Florian Müller to promote it. This is perhaps the #1 barrier to FOSS, which some charlatan who goes by the name “FOSS patents” is trying to promote in order to suppress or kill FOSS. Talk about importance of names…
“IMCO is the leading committee,” writes the FFII’s presidet, “there are no amendments to remove FRAND, so it will probably go through [...] Too late. Greens even tabled AM260 which supports FRAND. Crazzy when you think Greens should be against swpats.”
They are perhaps being deceived, in part by Microsoft lobbying (though proxies like BSA as well).
Having watched this very closely for years, later on he wrote: “FRAND will become EU law, unless there is a mobilisation against it.” And moreover:
AM260: Greens supporting the undefined FRAND term in EU law on standards, the anti-free weapon
Summary: Patent updates from Europe in particular, including commentary from sound figures of authority
TECHRIGHTS writes a great deal about the “Fraude das Patentes de Software” because this issue was identified as the #1 barrier to FOSS some time in 2006 when Novell went to Microsoft in order to use its software patents against Red Hat et al. Being mere monopolies, software patents impede competition in the software field.
“Software patents without a debate” is the title of the recent presentation slides from the FFII’s president. He chose this title because right now there are private (behind closed doors) discussions and the FFII’s president alleges that “RAND will become will EU law soon thanks to BSA.” The BSA is a Microsoft front group.
Andy Updegrove, whom Microsoft hired some time in the past (it helps pay critics and thereby gag them), has this new piece about FRAND and to quote his Q&A:
A: I think so. What the events of the last few weeks indicate is that perhaps it’s no longer necessary to define what “FRAND” means. Like open source software, more and more people recognize the value and importance of open standards. And just like open source software, you don’t necessarily have to have a narrow definition of what FRAND means. You simply know it when you see it, not by its individual characteristics, but by whether or not it offends the community.
And just like open source, if you take action against one user of open standards, you will increasingly be seen as taking an action against all users of open standards – in other words, against all users of technology. If you decide to do so nevertheless, then you’d better be prepared to answer to that wider audience as well.
If you think about it, you might say that’s not only fair, but reasonable, too.
Microsoft’s disgraced FRAND lobbyists like Florian Müller (whose output is just anti-Google propaganda for his client, Microsoft) take no day of rest. They are doing this on the payroll and cite one another. FRAND policies are for the monopolists, not for the people. Some people might pretend to work for the people or even call themselves “FOSS” something, but they work against the people, for their own bank account.
“The majority of FOSS enthusiasts seem to be unaware or ignoring FRAND” –Marti van LinMarti van Lin correctly points out that “[t]he majority of #FOSS enthusiasts seem to be unaware or ignoring #FRAND ? is.gd/jqyfRc or perhaps I’ve misinterpreted it!”
He is right. And moreover, there is a lot of FRAND propaganda going on. A lot of it is Microsoft-funded.
The “European Parliament To Exclude Free Software With FRAND” says this new headline from Slashdot. Quoting the submission in full:
First time submitter jan.van.gent writes “The European Parliament is on the verge of adopting a directive reforming standards, reform which would introduce FRAND patent licensing terms, an undefined term which has been seen as a direct attack on the fundamental principles of Free and Open Source software. The Business Software Alliance has been very active trying to get FRAND terms into the directive.”
Here is what the FFII’s press release says: “The European Parliament Consumer Committee is on the verge to reform the standardisation process in Europe. The reform recognises patented interface specifications which discriminate Free Software implementations. Royalties over standards create an unavoidable barrier of entry in the market for small software companies and independent developers.”
The Israeli patent registrar have reverted previous ruling regarding patents on software and published a draft for the procedures to accept such patents. The procedures are open to public comments for the next 30 days.
Later he added: “FFII should open a US branch, EFF is incapable of campaigning against software patents” (FFII comprises many engineers, unlike the EFF. Groklaw, which is typically people who are in the field of law and not engineering, takes a similar approach).
As shown here, “EFF still believes in software patents” based on phrases that it uses. Pieter Hintjens writes: “When someone pretentiously talks of “IP violations” I ask, “Patent? Trademark? Copyright? Ship hull design? Plant variety rights?”
“When someone pretentiously talks of “IP violations” I ask, “Patent? Trademark? Copyright? Ship hull design? Plant variety rights?” –Pieter HintjensHe is then told: “You are also missing semiconductor topography rights, design rights. Maybe “trade secrets” as well, M$ likens secrets == IP.”
One might argue that forbidding the sharing of ideas is, in general, a bad thing. That’s more like the FSF approach.
It ought to be mentioned that some of the backlash against Google patents is a PR campaign from Microsoft and its lobbyists, who call the kettle black and hammer on politicians to ensure that Ballmer and his gang can carry on with extortion (under the façade that others are doing it too). █
