02.05.12
Posted in GNU/Linux, GPL, Microsoft, Mono, Oracle, Patents at 10:27 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Building an “open” stack with proprietary Microsoft?
Summary: Another look at the OpenStack situation, why Microsoft should not be allowed to enter, and more about patent and copyright complications
SOME days ago we wrote about OpenStack's situation when it comes to Microsoft. Later we showed what Microsoft boosters were doing to spin it as good news. Well, according to this new article:
OpenStack is supposed to be a vendor agnostic open community for building an open source cloud stack. And it is, unless you don’t pull your own weight- or if you’re Microsoft.
I know there is plenty of vitriol in the open source world towards Microsoft and certainly some of that has now surfaced in the OpenStack community.
OpenStack is now removing the Hyper-V capabilities from its stack, after Microsoft didn’t maintain the code. That happens in projects all the time, just think about the Linux kernel where Microsoft has had similar challenges and hey for that matter so has Google.
The hostility towards Microsoft has a lot to do with this monopolist’s continued attacks on Open Source projects. We need not whitewash Microsoft here or claim the above to be an irrational move of irrational hatred. Never mind the fact that Hyper-V is proprietary and not open. Microsoft continues to attack Linux with all sorts of proxies like SCO as well as patent trolls. There are those who wish to just abolish it all, especially patents. Realising the idiocy of many patents, there are some who speak about the harms of patents as a whole, not just software patents. To quote:
“Is this Patent full of crap?”
[...]
The ideas are those of patent lawyer Andrew Schulman, but the story is full of insight on a patent lawyer’s thinking and offers real clues into why the patent system is such a mess–complexity compounded, full of precedents that ordinary humans will find puzzling at best.
Earlier we wrote about many patents becoming just junk. Even Oracle seems to be moving further away from patents and is now trying to use copyrights against Android. Quoting Groklaw:
Today is the due date for Dr. Cockburn’s third attempt at a damages report on behalf of Oracle, and just to make sure Oracle knows what needs to be submitted, Judge Alsup has issue a reminder order. (709 [PDF; Text]) The judge wants to see not only the report but also all of the related reports and studies that support it.
Let’s remember that Microsoft has put code with its copyrights inside Linux and the same goes for Mono. They try to make those things more adaptable to Microsoft’s proprietary software. In the case of Mono, there is lawsuit risk too. Anything with Microsoft in it tends to be tainted. Just see what happened with FAT. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
01.10.12
Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, GPL, Microsoft at 11:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Pretending to be the bazaar, too
Summary: The alter-ego of Microsoft Corporation as seen in the news and in new “official” reports
THERE is a set of companies we sort of specialise in here at Techrights because they have a commonality. While pretending to serve FOSS they usually do the opposite.
Black Duck, a firm with Microsoft roots, gradually becomes the ‘expert’ in GPL (telling us it is declining) while joined by OpenLogic, a company with management from Microsoft, which reinforces the same message. If they control information, they will control minds. In this case, they can capture and control perception that FOSS developers have. GPL FUD is just on example and OpenLogic, the firm that reinforces the same message as Black Duck, now seeks to become the authority in what FOSS to use and what not to. As one article puts it:
The report ranks hot open-source projects in three key categories: Web and application servers; application frameworks; and databases and big data.
Too bad the source of the report is a company founded and control by a former Microsoft guy, eh? They always neglect to say this. Ohloh is another one (now owned by Black Duck).
Speaking of Microsoft talking heads/points, Ed Bott is at it again with his PR lies. Pogson responds by writings:
Ed knows better. He wrote, “Windows 7 has shipped a half-billion copies” since October 2009, 9 quarters, 55 million a quarter. IDC reports 80-90 million PCs per quarter produced. M$ is no longer getting a free ride, Ed. Get used to it. There are businesses that do give M$ a free ride but there are many governments, organizations and businesses that have seen the light and choose to avoid monopoly. Shopping around is the right way to do IT.
This lie goes back to Microsoft’s PR people and is echoed by their shills/MVPs. We need to be careful in the face of Microsoft’s Big Lies that it spreads via its allies. They are all just a matter of “perception management” as Microsoft calls it. We tackled those lies before. █
“Mind Control: To control mental output you have to control mental input. Take control of the channels by which developers receive information, then they can only think about the things you tell them. Thus, you control mindshare!”
–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]
Permalink
Send this to a friend
Posted in GNU/Linux, GPL, Kernel at 11:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Tuxera makes the news again, even in light of potential GPL violations, not just taxing Linux and Android on behalf of Microsoft (like SUSE does)
THE OpenSUSE project is relatively quiet these days, but some people are still on vacation. We’ll touch on that separately quite soon.
In order to keep abreast of things, Phoronix notes some Plymouth developments:
While Plymouth is now quite mature and didn’t see too much new activity in 2011, it may be finding its way into another Linux distribution. The openSUSE developers are debating to use Plymouth as a replacement to bootsplash.
OpenSUSE is behind some of the competition here. There’s no good reason to choose OpenSUSE these days. Phoronix proceeds from the little OpenSUSE news that exists [1, 2] and criticises Microsoft’s exFAT, which other than SUSE is one of Microsoft’s main patent extortion cash cows (another is Android “licensing”). Michael writes:
Microsoft’s exFAT Is Still Crap On Linux
[...]
For those very serious about exFAT on Linux, Tuxera — the same company that claims NTFS is the fastest Linux file-system — does have exFAT Embedded (product page). This is a legal implementation of exFAT on Linux with Tuxera having gone through the proper licensing channels to receive the file-system documentation and construct this Linux kernel module. Tuxera also offers exFAT for Android devices.
The debate resulting from this article is quite large and Tuxera is at the centre of it all. Ryan spoke quite a lot about it in IRC (even last night). And recently he also approached some developers. Among the things he wrote (see recent IRC logs, especially from yesterday and the day before that): “I also believe the Microsoft Gold Partner Tuxera is a GPL violator that has stolen GPL licensed source code for XFS for Linux and made it into a proprietary IFS for Windows (both violate the GPL. I doubt they used the FreeBSD implementation since it is not only crap, it is read only. The only version of XFS with any maturity and completeness that has any source code available is under the GPL, and Tuxera won’t answer my email when I ask them where they got “Tuxera XFS” from. I have notified several of the copyright holders on XFS of Tuxera’s activity. They can pursue legal remedies if it does turn out to be the case that Tuxera XFS violates the GPL, which is more likely than not.
“Microsoft sits back and lets Tuxera violate the GPL on their behalf”
–Ryan“Alex Elder has told me that he is suspicious that they have stolen GPL licensed XFS code from SGI’s git repository, due to the reason I brought up about the GPL version being the only usable and full featured public implementation with any maturity… he said that he is unaware of SGI licensing XFS to them, and if they did, it would not cover anything that has been added to XFS for Linux, which has spanned the last 12 years, for which SGI doesn’t require copyright assignment, so if SGI were to license the code, it would be the code from IRIX, not the considerably more advanced version from Linux [...] the version from IRIX hasn’t seen any major development since around 2000. IRIX itself has been in End Of Life extended support since 2006, which is due to end within the next couple of years [...] an IFS for Windows implementing XFS out of GPL licensed source code would be a GPL violation on two fronts: 1. Since it is under a proprietary license from Tuxera, which is not allowed under the GPL. 2. When added as an IFS, it runs inside the Windows kernel, which violates the linking requirements of the GPL, unless Microsoft was to relicense Windows under the GPL [...] Microsoft sits back and lets Tuxera violate the GPL on their behalf [...]that way they can claim compatibility with Linux file systems without being sued for it [...] if it blows up on anyone, it will be Tuxera.”
iophk responds with: “That’s usual. They mostly work through proxies”
This gives them GPL FUD to be used later, too. They get device makers stuck with Microsoft tax and also GPL violations, assuming the above conviction is true.
“[T]he only Ext2 IFS for Windows which is proprietary freeware and doesn’t violate the GPL,” writes Ryan, “is a from scratch implementation that used no GPL source codewhich was written by a college student as part of a thesis.”
The discussion was very long and on it goes in IRC. This is still work in progress for us. We may write about it again when conclusions are reached. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
12.20.11
Posted in Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, GPL, Microsoft at 11:29 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Another roundup of dubious incursions inside the FOSS community/ies
Friends of Microsoft, such as the 'Microsoft press', are still trashing Free/open source licences and firms that are headed by former Microsoft managers are making new announcements about ‘fogification’ (cloud) of software and the relevance of licences. We are talking about OpenLogic, which just like Black Duck is a proprietary software company whose products are pimped under “open source” banner in the news. The main business model is getting rich by trashing FOSS licences or creating a scare around FOSS. Here is the press release [1, 2] which openwashes this product. Microsoft is trying to buy itself a voice inside the “Open Source” community also by pushing press releases that are said to be giving us a survey. So, Microsoft is now conducting Open Source surveys too? On whose behalf? This is the recipe for controlling one’s opposition. Mind the latest extortion from Acacia, which is also manned by former Microsoft staff (see our wiki page about Acacia).
It was only days ago that we warned about GPL FUD coming from Microsoft circles. Watch out and stay alert. Black Duck is placeboware — something to check a box with and spend money on for alleged fear of “non compliance” (excepting code search for other FUD like common security issues). As Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza put it a few weeks ago:
Koders is part of Black Duck, and searching for the term renders a bunch of matches. Not a single one of the results displayed actually contain a single use of the kSecReturnData constant. And not a single one of the snippets actually show the kSecReturnData constant. It is as useful as configuring your browser to use StumbleUpon as your search engine
We urge people to be suspicious of firms that were created by former Microsoft marketing managers. They know how to make money by deceiving people. It’s what they are professionally trained to do with a straight face. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
12.19.11
Posted in Bill Gates, FUD, GPL, Microsoft at 3:19 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The latest badmouthing of the GPL and where it is really coming from
SLASHDOT is lending some space to the latest FUD from Black Duck. For the uninitiated, Black Duck came from Microsoft.
The 451 Group seeks to validate the claims from Black Duck, but upon a close look at comments it is possible to see the flaws.
NB: I am relying on the current set of figures published by Black Duck Software for this post, combined with our previous posts on the topic. I am aware that some people are distrustful of Black Duck’s figures given the lack of transparency on the methodology for collecting them. Since I previously went to a lot of effort to analyze data collected and published by FLOSSmole to find that it confirmed the trend suggested by Black Duck’s figures, I am confident that the trends are an accurate reflection of the situation.
There are already rebuttals to this, so we won’t make more. Another similar company that came from Microsoft, called OpenLogic, is spreading some more FOSS FUD to sell its products. Remember that the company is run by a former Microsoft guy. These are the companies that push nonsense like “Intellectual Property” in the FOSS world (like the GPL-hostile CDDL*), which smells a bit like this thing too:
Today I presented about the complicated relationship between FLOSS and Intellectual Property at the Technical University of Berlin. The presentation was part of a lecture about Intellectual Property management, targeting students in an international master’s program in business administration. This setup guaranteed for a kind of culture clash, since the motivation for students to attend this lecture is to learn about how to increase the value of their companies by building IP assets. Openness, sharing and collaborative development is usually not the focus.
Clarification (5/1/2012): the above turns out to actually be a talk from a FOSS proponent who educates people on the subject. He does not really promote “Intellectual Property” as a concept.
Watch out for another of Microsoft’s proxies for ‘open source’ infiltration. It is “squar[ing] off against the GPL” as one would expect:
I am consistently amazed by the lengths people will go to to try to succeed in the marketplace.
Actually, that’s not true. Having been around fellow humans for 45 years, I would have to say that such destructive behavior doesn’t really surprise me. What does surprise me, though, is the repeated use of the same, tired memes when it’s been proven time and again that they don’t work.
So it was with sad dismay that I read a DotNetNuke blog entry this morning that took unabashed aim at the GNU Public License (GPL) used by DotNetNuke’s (DNN) primary (and more successful) competing content management systems, WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal.
Microsoft’s front group CodePlex/OuterCurve is accommodated by this company. Surprise, surprise. Loyalty. █
___
* Quoting Wikipedia, “In the words of Danese Cooper, who is no longer with Sun, one of the reasons for basing the CDDL on the Mozilla license was that the Mozilla license is GPL-incompatible.” Cooper now works for Bill Gates based on her LinkedIn page.
Permalink
Send this to a friend
11.28.11
Posted in Free/Libre Software, GPL, Microsoft at 4:18 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“You want to infiltrate those. Again, there’s two categories. There’s those that are controlled by vendors; like MSJ; we control that. And there’s those that are independent. [...] So that’s how you use journals that we control. The ones that third parties control, like the WinTech Journal, you want to infiltrate.”
–Microsoft's chief evangelist
Summary: How Microsoft infiltrates its rivals and a new example from Yahoo! and others
“INTEL INSIDE” was a famous slogan a few computer generations ago. “Windows inside” was just assumed because Microsoft signed dubious deals that later had Microsoft sued. But what happens when Microsoft — not Windows — embeds itself in other companies?
Ryan, citing and quoting this report, says that “Microsoft has to partner with vulture funds to stay under the antitrust radar, but it controls the vultures it “partners” with”
“DOJ,” he jokes, would say something along the lines of: “Oh, you’re back with sockpuppets? Alright then!”
This is about Microsoft’s malicious hijack of Yahoo, which saw former Microsoft executives being put in charge (e.g. the CTO) after the antagonists got chased away. According to this, Microsoft seeks the same type of secrecy is it needs for patent extortion in order to do its possibly illegal activities (or antitrust violations). To quote:
The two giants are rumoured to have signed a deal, allowing Microsoft to look into the state of Yahoo’s business.
Appalling. How is that allowed when both are public companies? Just look what happened to Nokia and its shareholders.
A few years ago we saw Microsoft sockpuppets spreading AGPL and GPLv3 FUD. It was all just a PR campaign as we demonstrated at the time. “The source code and instructions for installation are available for download on Github under a GNU AGPL license,” says this new example of AGPL adoption and there are many more. The GPL has been constant attack by Microsoft front groups and friends, even though it was embraced by many. The third version of the licence was another excuse or a back door for Microsoft FUD. Microsoft even had its former marketing manager create a company that now commands information on GPLv3 adoption. We are talking about Black Duck.
Other companies with Microsoft roots are Likewise, which does something similar to the stuff described in this new release from Centrify. They spread the Microsoft APIs. It is important to stay aware of the elusive presence of Microsoft inside its opposition’s territories. Failing to do so would lead to erosion of elements like the FSF and other Microsoft resistors. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
11.14.11
Posted in Free/Libre Software, FUD, GPL, Microsoft at 11:17 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A quick status update about FUD firms that piggyback FOSS concerns to sell proprietary software (unsurprising they have their roots in Microsoft)
EVERY now and then, the more notable firms which spread GPL FUD appear in the press again, either with a press release or a placement. Here is the latest example from PR person Kim Weins, who spreads some licence FUD on behalf of her boss from Microsoft, who created and runs this company called OpenLogic, just like Black Duck was created by a Microsoft marketing guy and serves a similar purpose now. We were somewhat baffled to see this announcement which says:
The partnership will help deliver complete code inventory and licensing reports to facilitate the adoption of open source Linux-based systems among automotive OEMs and Tier1 companies.
How is the spreading of GPL FUD with proprietary software and software patents “facilitat[ing] the adoption of open source Linux-based systems”? █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
11.04.11
Posted in GNU/Linux, GPL, Microsoft, Samba at 4:07 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: How and why Microsoft is ‘embracing’ Samba
“O
n 10 October 2011,” writes The H, “a Microsoft developer contributed a GPL licensed patch to the Samba project. The patch, which was part of a proof of concept for extended protection for NTLM and presented by Stephen A. Zarko of Microsoft’s Open Source Technology Center, has now been noted as the passing of a milestone by Chris Hertel of the Samba team. Samba provides tools and servers which enable interoperability with Windows’ SMB and CIFS networking on Linux and Unix based systems.”
The reactions to this move were mixed. Proponents of the monopolist (who advertise with Microsoft) make it look wonderful (identical headline from SJVN), but members of Techrights are a lot more cautious.
“I’m not sure what the real role of the Microsoft team working with Samba is,” noted one person, “but the developers should not lose sight of the whole picture that is Microsoft. Just because one small department is helpful for one group, for right now does not mean that the greater threat has diminished or gone away. In some ways it the threat is greater because it gets the Samba team and others to let their guard down.
“It’s not unlike a vendor buying them a meal or beer for them, or providing swag. It’s not done for their benefit.
“This is a little more advanced than simply buying someone off with swag or free beer, but it’s the same principle. One rogue department doesn’t set policy for the whole beast.”
Microsoft also gave code to Mono (MS-PL-licensed). At the same time Microsoft asserted that it can sue over it.
“It’s working,” noted one of us. “One problem with Allison’s statement is that he is blind to how Microsoft makes its money. It does not make it’s money from Windows and Office, that’s just a tiny fraction of the money. The big money comes from the monopoly rents on both products.
“Microsoft was trying to leverage that monopoly to get into the server room when Samba took on M$ and defeated it in court. Microsoft is still going to protect its core money-makers, the two monopolies even if Samba does now get thrown a bone.”
Microsoft has already got its former employees from Likewise paying Microsoft for patents on Samba-like functionality (with Samba code). This is not good.
Sam Varghese points out that “Samba is one of the free software projects that has moved in toto to the GPL version 3.” Muktware’s take is that: “As Linux is gaining popularity Microsoft seems to have increased its contribution to ensure their products will work well with Linux. The recent patch submission to the Linux kernel was an indicator.”
What do readers think? █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
« Previous entries Next Page » Next Page »
