11.07.19
Posted in GNOME, GNU/Linux, IBM, Microsoft, OIN, Red Hat at 4:56 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Fighting patents one by one will never eliminate the danger of software patents, any more than swatting mosquitoes will eliminate malaria.”
–Richard Stallman
Summary: The anti-Stallman club known as ‘GNOME Foundation’ is not interested in tackling software patents as a whole. What does that tell us about the situation we’re in?
THE short series about the defamation of Richard Stallman (RMS) isn’t over yet. The media defamed him repeatedly for about a month (yet again earlier this week) and Stallman was in contact with us. Whether he wants to make further comment/s on the subject will depend on him.
“We’re not bashing McGovern, but we worry about his predecessors at this prestigious position; they’re are from SFC (also anti-RMS), Peters (now Microsoft), and de Icaza (also Microsoft).”One thing we continue to research is the controversial announcement or media statement from GNOME Foundation, signed by Neil McGovern, who has called himself “Politico and geek, GNOME Executive Director, Cambridge CAMRA press officer, Ex-Debian Project Leader. Views are own etc.” (His personal Web site is nowhere as active.)
We’re not bashing McGovern, but we worry about his predecessors at this prestigious position; they’re are from SFC (also anti-RMS), Peters (now Microsoft), and de Icaza (also Microsoft). Neil McGovern, known better for his anti-RMS rant, is a credible person, but the context he’s in requires him to adopt particular positions.
His media statement, which is two months old (and put a lot of pressure on RMS), has caused a bit of controversy within GNOME itself. Some GNOME people have distanced themselves from it, even in the open. There are blog posts to that effect. Even in GNOME’s own Web site!
As we recently noted (in relation to OIN and IBM), there's an element in this 'community' that does not want software patents to go away. Instead it wants pertinent patents to be challenged based on something like prior art. A reader has just pointed out to us “Free software [sic] is under attack. How you can help. (w/ Neil McGovern) from @TheLinuxGamer on LBRY.tv” (a new video interview).
Our reader adds that it’s about “software patents versus Shotwell, though they are mistakenly referred to only as “patents” there; strategy might be a bit misguided since it is not going after software patents in general but instead choosing to play whac-a-mole against one single troll at a time; they also naively plan to recover costs from the troll, which is probably just a shell company anyway; perhaps you could correspond with them…”
I personally will not bother, but I invite readers to do so. I’ve criticised the ‘GNOME Foundation’ in the distant past, so its chief is not likely to talk to me. Well, seeing what he wrote and with predecessors like these, McGovern merely continues a decade-long pattern of trying to overthrow or at least discredit RMS. His employment history in the UK and his work for Debian isn’t something to be mocked or belittled. He’s not a bad person. But his employer and the people who now surround him may be bad influence. The Foundation isn’t so credible; we wrote many articles about this back in 2009. They’re even close to Microsoft (and they will never point out the troll’s connections to Microsoft [1, 2, 3]). The Foundation raises other concerns. It is also deeply connected to IBM through Red Hat (many GNOME developers are salaried by Red Hat), probably the foremost influence source — one which as we noted before wishes 35 U.S.C. § 101/Alice to go away, and for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to issue IBM with tens of thousands of software patents, not to be overturned and invalidated in Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) inter partes reviews (IPRs) with Federal Circuit affirmation of these invalidations. This is the biggest downside of IBM’s acquisition/takeover and it has been our main concern regarding Red Hat (the reasonable patent policy being cast aside).
This approach from the GNOME Foundation must be pleasing not just for IBM but also Microsoft, now an OIN member. Days ago Microsoft Tim belatedly expressed satisfaction about OIN getting involved. OIN is in the ‘business’ of teaching FOSS people to tolerate rather than eliminate software patents and days ago it added another high-profile Japanese member (in our Daily Links). █
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10.26.19
Posted in Europe, IBM, Law, Patents, Red Hat at 6:31 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
It’s as if court outcomes too can be bought (caselaw up 'for sale' or setup)
Summary: The largest panel of judges at the European Patent Office (EPO) isn’t listening to actual scientists and technologists; instead it takes instructions from a nontechnical tyrant (who can punish them) along with law firms and legal departments of international monopolists that overwhelm submissions because they can afford it
THE absence of justice at the EPO is largely the fault of the dictatorship at the Office — a ruthless dictatorship that’s being defended by the Council too (the Organisation). How can there be a patent office where the very basic concept of justice does not prevail? Where judges are collectively punished by being sent to exile (Battistelli pretended this attack would ‘improve’ their independence) and when legally questioned over it the question itself gets squashed and buried? It’s like the lawlessness itself has become illegal to debate.
“How can there be a patent office where the very basic concept of justice does not prevail?”Simon Davies, Consultant and Patent Attorney at D Young & Co LLP, has just mentioned the upcoming case regarding — inter alia — software patents in Europe. He may be missing the point that this court or board or tribunal is pressured (already, as we’ve covered here before) by EPO President António Campinos to allow such abstract patents (which aren’t legal or constitutional; neither is his intervention!). In his employer’s site he wrote about it using the usual buzzwords and euphemisms, e.g. “CIIs”:
For the first time in the history of the EPO, the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) has been asked for a decision relating to the patentability of computer-implemented inventions (CIIs) .
The present case, G1/19, stems from a referral by an EPO Board of Appeal in the case T489/14 and concerns the patentability of a computer-implemented simulation as described in EP 03793825.5, derived from WO2004023347: “MOVEMENT OF AN AUTONOMOUS ENTITY THROUGH AN ENVIRONMENT”. The web-site of the PCT applicant refers to the development of “a phenomenological model tuned to reproduce the movement of individuals in public venues hosting large crowds”. This topic has been the subject of academic study; for example, the application itself cites “Simulating dynamical features of escape panic“ by Dirk Helbing, Illis Farakas and Tamas Vicsek, Nature, volume 407, pages 487 to 490 (2000).
Benjamin Henrion has just reviewed the submissions, which can take a long time to prepare (lots of money in the event of using/hiring law firms to do this or even in-house legal departments with massive salaries), not just to read. “Watch all those large corporations pushing for software patents, where is the opposition? Time for a new directive,” he said. It has been a long time since 2005.
“It’s like the lawlessness itself has become illegal to debate.”“The “opposition” does not make billions of dollars per quarter,” I told him, “hence no dedicated legal department to lobby (write documents to) the corrupt EPO where judges are terrorised by EPO [P]resident, working for litigation zealots…”
Had the EFF given a damn about Europe and the EPO (it consciously ignores all this), there would be far more submissions from actual developers. That’s what happened after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) had asked for feedback on 35 U.S.C. § 101 guidelines. Yesterday the EFF published two articles about the USPTO (see [1,2] below), but it never ever said anything about the EPO!
Henrion went on to providing some examples, which include “Amicus Curiae Brief for case G1/19 before the EPO Enlarged Board of Appeal” by Dr. Reinier B. Bakels (September 2019).
Bakels is quoted [1, 2] as arguing: “The EPO attempted to resolve this paradox by 65 requiring a “further technical effect” for “computer-implemented inventions” [...] As Enlarged Board of Appeal, you are at a turning point. Building on existing case law is normally desirable, but then the current fundamental problems remain: [...] 3.the lack of democratic legitimacy of particular EPO interpretations…”
“Benjamin Henrion has just reviewed the submissions, which can take a long time to prepare (lots of money in the event of using/hiring law firms to do this or even in-house legal departments with massive salaries), not just to read.”I quickly opened the entire document [PDF]. It’s long. Not many people will read it. I once submitted one of my own.
It should be noted that as recently as Friday the EPO tweeted: “Want to know more about patenting computer-implemented #inventions? Check this out…”
They’re still using misleading terms that help hide the illegal practice; they give tips for getting illegal, bunk patents — patents that European courts would throw out. This isn’t “the EPO’s problem,” according to management composed of patent maximalists, to whom the only thing that matters is money.
Henrion then said: “EFPIA (Big Pharma) is now lobbying for software patents … Leave business to big business.”
This is the document [PDF]
“They’re still using misleading terms that help hide the illegal practice; they give tips for getting illegal, bunk patents — patents that European courts would throw out.”Here’s the one from Philips [PDF] — a submission from which Henrion quoted “a technical solution for a technical problem,” remarking that it “sounds like it loops back to itself” (technical effect, solution, problem… something “technical” — whatever that means!).
Wake up, Red Hat employees. Your employer is lobbying for software patents in Europe yet again! About a decade ago it said that Open Source innovation was only possible ‘thanks’ to software patents — patently a lie that enraged many of us. Henrion pulled this document from IBM [PDF], remarking that “IBM still lobbying for software patents in G1/19…”
“Wake up, Red Hat employees. Your employer is lobbying for software patents in Europe yet again!”Suffice to say, G1/19 is expected to be more of the same, i.e. a case to be decided as the President pleases. G1/19 will likely give the EPO more excuses to grant illegal software patents while ignoring caselaw of European courts, instructions from Parliament, the EPC and so on. Actual software developers and their interests obviously don’t matter here. They’re treated as passive observers.
D Young & Co LLP’s Stephanie Wroe (collague of the above) has meanwhile promoted her article about another case, G1/18. To quote:
In view of conflicting decisions concerning the refund of Appeal fees, the Enlarged Board of Appeal considered in G1/18 the distinction between (i) an appeal deemed not to have been filed (and thus the fee is refunded) and (ii) an inadmissible appeal (in which the fee cannot be refunded).
The Enlarged Board concluded that an appeal is deemed not to have been filed if the notice of appeal is filed after the two-month limit and/or the appeal fee is paid after the two-month limit. Thus, the appeal fee will be reimbursed.
In a welcome development, the Enlarged Board indicated that this also applies to similar situations such as opposition proceedings.
There’s another new article being pushed, this time by Iain Robertson (Haseltine Lake Kempner LLP) who comments on T 0235/13. He would have won bonus points had he mentioned the EPO Boards of Appeal lack independence and any decision issued in Haar is legally invalid as per the EPC — a subject that the EPO refuses to even entertain.
“Unless or until this issue is properly tackled — i.e. without the Office President meddling in the outcome — everything will be buried instead of tackled.”“Two recent decisions from the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office have highlighted the difficulties applicants and opponents can face when trying to reply on new experimental data to support their arguments,” Robertson wrote. “In T 0235/13, the appellant tried to rely on post-published evidence to support the inventiveness of their application.”
Here’s more:
In T 2469/17, an appellant-opponent tried to rely on experimental evidence to show that a patent lacked novelty over D1, D2 and D5.
The appellant-opponent re-produced a sample from an example in D1. The re-produced sample had a different bulk density and a different viscosity to those reported in D1. Although claim 1 in this case did not define the claimed product by its bulk density or viscosity, the differences in these properties were enough for the Board of Appeal to conclude that the sample re-produced by the appellant-opponent was not, in fact, the same as that disclosed by D1, and so the re-produced sample was irrelevant to the novelty of the claims in this case.
D2 did not disclose all the information necessary to exactly re-produce the examples disclosed by D2, and so the appellant-opponent had to make some assumptions when trying to re-produce the examples from D2. They argued that these assumptions were based on an evaluation of what the skilled person would have done. However, the Board of Appeal decided that there simply was not enough information in D2 to re-produce the examples of D2, and so the Board decided that the sample produced by the appellant-opponent was not directly and unambiguously disclosed by D2. Consequently, the sample did not affect the novelty of the claims in this case.
All these other cases serve as somewhat of a distraction from what we’ve long focused on. That’s patent scope. The reason the EPO is said to have increased so-called ‘production’ (monopoly protection) is the lowering of the bar and granting of illegal patents. Unless or until this issue is properly tackled — i.e. without the Office President meddling in the outcome — everything will be buried instead of tackled. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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The Stronger Patents Act, S. 2082, won’t give us a stronger patent system—just the opposite, in fact. It is a deliberate attempt to dismantle one of the few effective forums for challenging wrongly-issued patents. The bill would put dramatic and unwarranted changes into effect that would make the U.S. Patent Office’s system of inter partes review, or IPR, much less effective. That means the Stronger Patents Act will weaken the quality of issued patents and the patent system as a whole.
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Patents give their owners the power to stop people (and companies) from doing whatever the patent claims as an “invention” for twenty years. But that power doesn’t come for free: it’s a trade. In exchange for the right to sue others to stop using the invention, patent applicants have to disclose enough information about their invention to allow others in the field to make and use it. Encouraging people to share information so that others can use it to make further advances is the whole point of the patent system.
The public can read the information in a patent from the moment it’s published. But for the twenty years of a patent’s term, the owner can sue anyone who uses their invention without their permission. To get permission, members of the public need to know who owns the patent and therefore has the power to control and demand payment for its use. Unfortunately, essential information about patent ownership is often out of the public’s reach. In particular, patent trolls—individuals or companies that make money by threatening to sue instead of developing or commercializing technology—often divide up patent rights between different entities in ways that make it practically impossible to identify the legal owner of a patent. A 2012 study found that notorious patent troll Intellectual Ventures divides its portfolio among over 1000 different shell companies. There are a number of reasons why patent owners might want to keep ownership information secret. For example, doing so might limit fee awards for bad litigation conduct to an entity with no assets, shielding its parent company from the full price of overly aggressive patent enforcement.
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10.25.19
Posted in GNOME, GNU/Linux, IBM, Microsoft, OIN, Patents, Red Hat at 6:40 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
OIN (IBM roots) has already admitted that it has no solution to trolls (it's run by them) and it refuses to oppose software patents
Summary: The people who claim to be tackling the patent woes of GNU/Linux are actually in bed with Microsoft and don’t oppose software patents; they try to wed the Free software community and such patents — even if that means a shotgun wedding
THERE IS a serious problem in the Free software world which few of us talk about (or want to talk about). It’s not convenient. Our so-called ‘flag bearers’ and sometimes sponsors work against our interests. They do this in a number of dimensions, but this post will focus on patents. We’ll try to keep this non-legal (as in no legalese) and non-technical — to the point or the degree possible. We won’t, for instance, explain 35 U.S.C. § 101 caselaw in the USPTO or the illegal granting of European software patents by the European Patent Office (EPO). It really doesn’t matter so much in this context. All that matters is that software patents are inherently bad, developers don’t want these (no matter if Free software developers or non-free software developers), and courts increasingly reject these patents.
“All that matters is that software patents are inherently bad, developers don’t want these (no matter if Free software developers or non-free software developers), and courts increasingly reject these patents.”So here we are in 2019, with IBM as the likely biggest “contributor” (in the coding sense) to GNU/Linux because of the Red Hat acquisition. One could choose other criteria such as number of instances/installations serviced/hosted. But that’s not the point. The point is, whether we like it or not, we’re sort of ‘stuck’ with IBM as a major ‘flag bearer’; yes, it dominates development of many components in a GNU/Linux system, including the kernel and systemd. Many are happy about IBM’s (or Red Hat’s) kernel contributions, more so than the latter. IBM does a lot of important — and sometimes good — things. It also does bad things. Pretty common when dealing with very large companies…
We now come to the ‘beef’ of this post if not this borderline rant. Earlier this week Benjamin Henrion (FFII President) complained about the “EPO sponsoring yet another software patent conference on Internet Of Things (IOT) http://www.iam-events.com/events/iot-ip-2019/agenda-6e588d27158140d98ee1f35b75c3e976.aspx …”
“IBM does a lot of important — and sometimes good — things. It also does bad things.”For those who don’t know, at the EPO “IOT” (or “IoT”) is nowadays one of several buzzwords that they use to disguise software patents. Henrion might be wrong here because the EPO is not listed among sponsors but OIN is. Yes, OIN. This wouldn’t be the first time OIN shows up in pro-software patents events of the EPO and IAM, which is a patent front of the EPO et al. IAM is funded in part by patent trolls. Sometimes it’s supported and funded by the EPO and its PR agencies. When they’re pushing for software patents it isn’t motivated by logic, just money, greed and self-interest. “Closing keynote address” in this event is Grant Philpott, a Microsoft-friendly proponent of software patents (we wrote about him many times in the past). This whole event is a farce and OIN’s role in these IAM events is to give the illusion that “Open Source” too is participating. That’s just a reminder that OIN is an enemy of Software Freedom and friend of software patents (like IBM is).
These EPO events or OIN-attended events aren’t a new problem; they’re part of a pattern we’ve been covering here for at least a year. They tend to push software patents without mentioning that term or that phrase. Here’s another new example from an EPO tweet that said: “EPOPIC 2019 starts in less than a week. We look forward to welcoming you for three days of thought-provoking exchanges with patent information specialists from all over the world.”
Notice who’s speaking there. Andrei Iancu with “Intellectual property and the next Industrial Revolution” (another weasel term for software patents, akin to “4IR”) and Alexander Klenner-Bajaja from the EPO with “Artificial intelligence and patent classification” (the usual “AI” hype).
“These EPO events or OIN-attended events aren’t a new problem; they’re part of a pattern we’ve been covering here for at least a year. They tend to push software patents without mentioning that term or that phrase.”The EPO’s social media team then retweeted this tweet that said: “The @Derwent experts are on hand next week at #EPOPIC Attend our workshop on the new enhanced Derwent Innovation and hear how the latest patent research tool is going to transform the way you search for data.”
This thing is being advertised by EPO staff. Why? Shouldn’t the EPO be impartial? But let’s leave the EPO aside for a moment; it’s no secret that it’s lobbying for illegal software patents.
Going back to OIN and Henrion (FFII), there’s a discussion about the high-profile lawsuit against GNU/Linux; we wrote 3 articles about it [1, 2, 3] and over at Tux Machines we carefully filed every article and blog post on this subject (we always try to exhaustively archive topics for reference, both present and future reference).
“Will you use Alice as defence?”
So asked Henrion, who continued: “Using prior art is not helpful to get rid of software patents, Alice is. You should clarify in your fundraising message if you gonna use it or not. If that’s the case, http://FFII.org and its thousands of supporters database can be called.”
“The GNOME Foundation still refuses to even acknowledge rather obvious Microsoft connections (their biggest troll armed this smaller troll)…”He continued separately: “Will the Gnome Foundation use Alice to kick software patents out in the US? as RMS said “fighting patents one by one will never eliminate the danger of software patents, any more than swatting mosquitos will eliminate malaria” https://www.gnome.org/news/2019/10/gnome-files-defense-against-patent-troll/ … read https://lwn.net/Articles/802819/ …”
He made a similar point about a week ago.
The GNOME Foundation still refuses to even acknowledge rather obvious Microsoft connections (their biggest troll armed this smaller troll) and if they rely on IBM front groups such as OIN (proponents of software patents to whom patent trolls aren’t really a problem but a cost of IBM doing ‘business’… i.e. blackmailing companies with a trove of lousy old patents) you end up having a rather lousy defense strategy, potentially a costly one too.
“I have asked the Gnome foundation to clarify if they gonna use Alice as defense,” Henrion noted, citing this message of his:
Hi,
I wanted to ask the Gnome foundation a crucial question before calling
on FFII supporters to donate.
Will you use Alice as defence (patentable subject matter)?
Using prior art is not helpful to get rid of software
patents,patentable subject matter is way more important.
You should clarify in your fundraising message if you gonna use it or not.
If that's the case, FFII.org and its thousands of supporters database
will be called to donate.
You should also call on donators to contact their senators to oppose
the STRONGER patent act which aims to restore software patents in the US:
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/strengthen-free-software-by-telling-congress-to-reject-the-stronger-patents-act
We keep seeing blog posts from GNOME people and Debian people (sometimes also tweets). Oddly enough, Red Hat employees and Fedora developers have hardly said a thing! Maybe with the exception of Richard Hughes (LVFS/fwupd developer).
These must be rather awkward times to be at Red Hat; on the one hand they’re developing and supporting GNOME and on the other hand, while at the same time working for IBM (remember that IBM lobbies for those software patents — the type of patents that IBM lobbies hardest for) they’re confronting these ruinous lawsuits. Can they speak out against patent trolls while IBM, their employer, keeps shaking down companies like a troll? Maybe they prefer not to say anything.
“These must be rather awkward times to be at Red Hat; on the one hand they’re developing and supporting GNOME and on the other hand, while at the same time working for IBM (remember that IBM lobbies for those software patents — the type of patents that IBM lobbies hardest for) they’re confronting these ruinous lawsuits.”Stefano Zacchiroli (“Free Software activist” by his own description, with past connections to OSI where he was a technical member) wrote: “Please donate to the #GNOME Patent Troll Defense Fund here: https://secure.givelively.org/donate/gnome-foundation-inc/gnome-patent-troll-defense-fund … Software patents are a disgrace and we should defend FOSS from them. Learn more in the blog post below. https://twitter.com/gnome/status/1186412835083042817 …”
Zacchiroli is a very good person whose geek credentials and track record speak for themselves. But where are the Red Hat (IBM) employees? Why are they so quiet on matters pertaining to patents? The sad reality is that GNOME’s key sponsors/stewards, Red Hat included (now IBM), are big proponents of software patents (and IBM is naturally and perhaps factually the biggest). We need to talk about this…
“Red Hat was quick to comment on (celebrate with diplomatic restraint) the ousting of Richard Stallman, but as far as we can tell no comment has been made — at least not yet — about a troll armed by a Microsoft proxy suing GNU/Linux.”Henrion, commenting on the FOSDEM conference near him, has noticed that the sponsors’ page has just been updated.
“Remember that the 3 sponsors of FOSDEM routinely file software patents,” he wrote. “And sue using these patents,” I continued his thoughts, “especially IBM (so Red Hat basically).”
Red Hat was quick to comment on (celebrate with diplomatic restraint) the ousting of Richard Stallman, but as far as we can tell no comment has been made — at least not yet — about a troll armed by a Microsoft proxy suing GNU/Linux. Odd that… █
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09.30.19
Posted in IBM, Microsoft, Patents, Red Hat at 4:05 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Coming soon: Red Hat Forum, sponsored (the most) by Microsoft
Summary: Red Hat in 2019 is very different from the company it was two and a half decades ago or even one decade ago
EARLIER this year we stressed that Red Hat considered Microsoft as a buyer and is nowadays running events with Microsoft, mostly funded by Microsoft. Red Hat also hired quite a few managers from Microsoft and it habitually promotes Microsoft .NET, Azure, MSVS and so on. This is beyond baffling to those of us who were led to believe Red Hat was our ‘flag bearer’. To be fair to Red Hat, however, its partnership with Microsoft goes 10 years back; it started with virtualisation. It has been progressing since — sometimes to the point of outright absurdity. We’re still trying to wrap our collective heads around the IBM takeover and what it will mean for Red Hat. We last mentioned this yesterday at around noon. Then, posted at 1AM on Sunday afternoon (1PM) was this hint that Red Hat had become more like IBM (not the other way around) when it comes to patent policy, much as we predicted.
“…Red Hat had become more like IBM (not the other way around) when it comes to patent policy, much as we predicted.”“In an exclusive interview,” IAM wrote, “Red Hat’s IP [sic] head reveals that in the run-up to its acquisition by IBM the company went shopping for patents at a range of sellers including AT&T, Huawei and Panasonic.” (behind paywall)
Well, the IAM paywall helps prevent their critics from scrutinising the text like we used to. They tend to spread many falsehoods and use intentionally-misleading terminology. But that’s not the point here; the point is that Red Hat is hungry for patents, including software patents, just like IBM. It’s no secret that systemd develops have also applied for (and received) patents. It’s also no secret that IBM is a patent bully and its shakedown/lawsuits against companies were reported (also by IAM) as recently as weeks ago. Zillow is among the latest targets.
“We alluded to some of these patents in passing in the more distant past.”Red Hat as a company (or unit) has no say on directions such as these; it’s rather worrying as more “Red Hat technologies” (e.g. stuff in Linux that only Red Hat actively develops) are patented. That includes systemd patents, which we know exist (at the very least based on the applicants’ names and assignee, Red Hat), but any patent on something inside systemd would not mention the software by name. We alluded to some of these patents in passing in the more distant past.
Over the past few days both good [1] and bad [2] things were said about systemd. Some have dubbed it “Open Source Proprietary Software” (OSPS) — a catchy phrase — and Laurent Bigonville responded to me some minutes ago to say: “If you look at the copyright claims in #systemd project, it gives me 9 lines for Red Hat et 4 lines for IBM, so much for an attempt to make it “proprietary”…” (there’s a screenshot there). Bigonville is always very defensive and protective of systemd.
“A few within the BSD crowd seem so gleeful about taking RMS down, and finding creative ways to rationalize it, because then their hero Bill Gates stays out of the public eye despite his actual association with Epstein.”
–Techrights associateSuffice to say, systemd does have its merits (see below), mostly technical merits, arguably at freedom’s expense (not to mention choice). What upset me personally earlier this month was seeing some senior Red Hat staff cheering the removal of Richard Stallman (RMS). Cui bono?
“Even (or especially) those tools that smugly applaud the removal of RMS based on behavior should especially object to the means by which he has been removed,” an associate of ours wrote this morning. “Ends never justify the means. When it comes down to it they are supporting online lynching.
“A few within the BSD crowd seem so gleeful about taking RMS down, and finding creative ways to rationalize it, because then their hero Bill Gates stays out of the public eye despite his actual association with Epstein. It is rather disgusting that they spend so much effort attacking RMS to cover for Bill. Again, when it comes down to it, they are supporting online lynching and trying to legitimize it.” █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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One of the things I think has generally worked well about “Linux” and the ecosystem on top of it has been the variety of userspace. There’s obviously some pointless things, but also some genuine innovation. It works well when upstream projects are structured in a way that they can be mixed and matched.
For Fedora CoreOS we are combining two technologies; Ignition and rpm-ostree. Previously they were used independently (Ignition with a ChomeOS style A/B updater) and rpm-ostree with the traditional Fedora-and-derivatives setup of Kickstart for bare metal, and cloud-init for clouds.
Putting the two together has been working well so far, but I’ve recently been working on support for root filesystem reprovisioning which is where the two projects intersect strongly. This has meant a lot of time writing code in the initramfs.
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) incorporated systemd as their default and only init system in 2014. Soon after, perhaps with some persuasion from Red Hat and its allies, Debian adopted systemd as its default init system, and many Debian Derived distros, including all the Ubuntus, followed suit. Starting in 2014, this caused extensive protest from many in the Linux community, for reasons such as: [...]
I’ll be glad to serve as a central information point for this letter writing campaign. If you find other contacts, please feel free to write to them and please email me with those contacts and contact information.
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09.29.19
Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, GPL, IBM, Microsoft, Patents, Red Hat at 7:56 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
If they cannot control it, they will try to destroy it (and the people who made it)
Summary: Typical and lousy corporate screed, along with corporate media, incites the public against Stallman (based on deliberate misrepresentation), potentially forcing him into temporary ‘homelessness’ (the above is a new Web page from Stallman) while corporations that incorporate GNU into their products rake in billions of dollars each month
HALF A DOZEN of us are still trying to figure out, mostly in IRC, who’s responsible for defacing Stallman’s site (it’s definitely a defacement based on a video link, as we noted in our previous post). It’s definitely not a joke and the goal is to make Stallman look bad. The goal is to embarrass him and cause maximal damage to his image.
We’ve seen a bunch of names mentioned. Generally speaking, it’s just the latest of a long series of events, which already caused Stallman to be removed from MIT (his ‘home’), then removed from FSF. He’s now looking for a place to live and it’s starting to resemble that long voyage of Julian Assange, who was demonised and defamed in the media for nearly a decade. He lived a frugal, repressed life in an embassy’s room.
“Generally speaking, it’s just the latest of a long series of events, which already caused Stallman to be removed from MIT (his ‘home’), then removed from FSF.”There seem to be powerful forces looking to ruin Stallman’s life, not just his work and his reputation. Some people blame Microsoft, others blame Red Hat/IBM (typically citing its short and controversial press release about diversity in the wake of Stallman’s resignation). It’s not pretty and many accusations are largely hypothetical and based on conjectures.
An associate of ours has meanwhile relayed this seemingly new (albeit undated) post from Steve Litt, who recently wrote some long rants about systemd (because it’s expanding to yet more corners if not centres of Linux). “Write a Letter to Redhat About systemd” is the title and it says this:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) incorporated systemd as their default and only init system in 2014. Soon after, perhaps with some persuasion from Red Hat and its allies, Debian adopted systemd as its default init system, and many Debian Derived distros, including all the Ubuntus, followed suit. Starting in 2014, this caused extensive protest from many in the Linux community, for reasons such as: [...]
I’ll be glad to serve as a central information point for this letter writing campaign. If you find other contacts, please feel free to write to them and please email me with those contacts and contact information.
For a number of years I personally chose not to comment/say much about systemd because I don’t understand it as well as some core developers. But seeing how large it has gotten, the fact it’s Microsoft-hosted and the fact it’s IBM-owned (proprietary software company that adores lock-in), I am increasingly worried about it. Corporations do not have feelings or ideology. They don’t care about UNIX principles, either. Corporations are run by very few people seeking to maximise short-term profits and Red Hat is no exception to the rule (only slightly different because of public image), more so under IBM. Frequent releases of systemd help leave rivals of Red Hat perpetually behind, always chasing Red Hat for bug fixes and never capable of offering the same levels of support and customisation. systemd is gradually devouring much of the system or codebase that’s not stale. I am also growingly suspicious of Red Hat because of the IBM agenda that’s inherited by ownership (I’ve been critical of IBM for about 5-7 years); it’s like they have an alliance of convenience with Microsoft and there's ample evidence. I’ve been watching these things closely for a very long time. Red Hat even considered/entertained Microsoft as a buyer. IBM betrayed “Linux” about a decade ago after it had done some good work, including ODF advocacy. Many of us will always remember their back room agreement with Microsoft around 2008 (it was about OOXML). We were all furious. They sold us out. Soon enough they also stopped contributing to OpenOffice and related projects.
“IBM betrayed “Linux” about a decade ago after it had done some good work, including ODF advocacy. Many of us will always remember their back room agreement with Microsoft around 2008 (it was about OOXML).”That’s not to say IBM is evil; we never said such a thing. Our main issue with IBM is its patent policy, which includes lobbying aggressively for software patents.
IBM is somehow left out from GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft). The same goes for Intel, Oracle and several other companies. Are they all foes of GNU/Linux? No. In our view, for reasons we explained before, Microsoft is the only company that stands to gain a lot from the destruction/failure of GNU/Linux, both in servers and desktops/appliances (the same cannot be said about Apple as its range of products/services is a lot more limited).
Amazon, for instance, isn’t a big concern to us, albeit it’s dangerous to Software Freedom, mostly because of ‘cloud’ loopholes, centralisation, surveillance and licensing matters that impact FOSS economics. Be wary of Mac Asay. “Asay [is] back,” one reader said this morning about this article. “However based on past posts, I haven’t read his full post this time.”
“…Microsoft is the only company that stands to gain a lot from the destruction/failure of GNU/Linux, both in servers and desktops/appliances (the same cannot be said about Apple as its range of products/services is a lot more limited).”Mac Asay has been against copyleft for quite some time now (he’s an Amazon AWS employee now, serving Bezos and by extension the CIA/US Army); opposition to ethics is very much expected from him. He has worked for a number of proprietary software companies in recent years and he had also applied for a job at Microsoft. He’s one of those people who attack Software Freedom while pretending to care about it. Writing about “open source” while promoting pure exploitation/abuse of it…
Going back to Red Hat, it habitually promotes .NET, sometimes Azure too. It took former Microsoft employees even into management ranks and OpenSource.com often posts pro-Microsoft nonsense. How about this latest post, “Microsoft open sourcing its C++ library, Cloudera’s open source data platform, new tools to remove leaked passwords on GitHub and combat ransomware, and more open source news”?
As we put it in our last Daily Links bundle, “”Microsoft open sourcing its C++ library” means proprietary software MSVS is “open” and “new tools to remove leaked passwords on GitHub and combat ransomware” means NSA PRISM is “security”…”
“Writing about “open source” while promoting pure exploitation/abuse of it…”We also included this new article, calling it “more Microsoft openwashing whose net goal is to sell Microsoft proprietary software for developers to become ‘serfs’ of Windows, Azure etc.”
This morning we saw “Chromium-based Microsoft Edge could hit Linux” and days ago we explained that nobody wants it or asked for it.
GNU/Linux is being changed. It’s being made more proprietary. One might say it’s being hijacked with help from the likes of the Linux Foundation. █
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09.28.19
Posted in FSF, GNU/Linux, GPL, IBM, Microsoft, Red Hat at 3:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The corporate slogans and lies that are tossed about by corporate media remain as unconvincing as ever (no matter their repetition’s frequency); GNU/Linux is being raided
I HAVE BEEN USING GNU/Linux since I was a teenager. The last Windows version I had was Windows 98. When I ‘joined’ the ‘Linux’ community and developed software with GTK it was a job to me. The software was GPL-licensed. It was made available to all on my Web site and on SourceForge. 18 years later there’s hardly a SourceForge (it’s a shadow of its former self), a lot of Free software is controlled by Microsoft because it bought the largest Git repository, and as we noted in the previous post about the Linux Foundation (LF), Microsoft and IBM “Linux” is gradually becoming something else. The FSF is no longer RMS (albeit RMS insists he’s still in charge of the GNU project) and Torvalds doesn’t seem to be in charge of Linux.
“To put it simply if not bluntly, Linux is now owned and controlled by few large corporations.”What on Earth is going on? My job is still technical and some clients compel us to put code under a Microsoft site (GitHub). All their systems use systemd, which from a technical point of view appears to offer little or no advantage (except Red Hat IBM control over copyrights and development).
To put it simply if not bluntly, Linux is now owned and controlled by few large corporations. The fight to do the same to GNU is still ongoing. So what have we all worked and campaigned for? Is our work being ‘stolen’ by billionaires, who try to strip off or weaken the GPL?
We sure live in confusing times. █
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Posted in Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, IBM, Kernel, Marketing, Microsoft, OSDL, Red Hat at 3:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The Linux Foundation (LF) business model, which revolves around marketing and openwashing, is draining the life out of Linux
Summary: Lack of devotion to Linux, the very thing that the LF is named after, is putting the project at peril; Linux is meanwhile, under the auspices of the LF and Microsoft GitHub, becoming IBM™ systemd®
HESITATION to publish this article can be attributed solely to largely speculative remarks about how Linus Torvalds thinks and feels. He has not spoken to me for a long time, though I don’t choose to interpret that as snobbery. I just don’t think he’s free to say as much as he did in the past (we corresponded even before the Linux Foundation existed).
Some time earlier this month (depending on one’s subscription/paywall status) I saw a photograph of Torvalds at LWN. I don’t see many photographs of him anymore even though I read Linux news all day long; he keeps a relatively low profile and he doesn’t make many public appearances any longer. The ‘face of Linux’ has changed. So anyway, earlier this month LWN published an article with the following photograph of Torvalds, who is only in his forties. I don’t want to ‘creep up’ and talk about his personal life, but this made me wonder if Torvalds even leaves the house much (he says he works in a bathrobe; he apparently exercises at home only, or so I’m led to assume because there’s a treadmill there); he looks older than he is in this photo. He looks/seems to have aged faster in recent years. Readers can judge for themselves. This is 2019:
5 years ago (famous picture, mirrored for comparative purposes):
Read the comments in LWN. “Is that really a photo of Torvalds on the left? Jesus, he looks like he has aged like, 20 years since 2012,” says the first comment.
“He’s not wearing glasses, looks like a very different person without them” was the unconvincing first reply. I saw him without eyeglasses many times before.
The next comment said, “bad photograph, perhaps, i saw him in 2018, he looked much younger” and immediately after that: “Was that before he took the politeness training break?”
This refers to the famous incident we’ll come to in a moment.
Out of 8 comments in total only a single comment (the one by Paul McKenney) isn’t about that photograph of Torvalds (and what it says about aging). So people were certainly taken aback.
I personally have a lot of respect for Torvalds. He’s a geek and he’s a hard-working person. Very hard-working. He typically releases Linux and its release candidates on a Sunday, sometimes even late at night or whilst on holiday. That’s dedication. It’s a 30-year (nearly 30) devotion.
Torvalds is in it for Linux.
Zemlin is in it for the money.
Microsoft is in it for sabotage.
“Zemlin is in it for the money.”The Linux Foundation is a facilitator of corporations’ power (including Microsoft’s). It may have outlived its usefulness (long ago). There’s also the IBM factor, which can give room for concern. In the 1980s we had RMS, FSF and his GNU project/manifesto. The 1990s saw media shifting all attention to Torvalds, the ‘new wunderkind’ (child prodigy) on the scene. IBM was happy to boost him as a poster child after he had made a kernel that went well with GNU (he said Linux was nothing professional like GNU). In the 2000s GNU was already ignored; “What’s that,” people might respond. “Oh….. You mean Linux!”
In the 2010s Red Hat was propping up systemd after the ‘Pulseaudio experiment’. It was introduced initially as just an init system (process number one or zero); from “nothing professional like Linux” it’s quickly turning into a replacement to most of Linux. The 2020s, in IBM’s vision (now that it owns Red Hat), might be an IBM-controlled system with very frequent releases of systemd to keep the competition always behind, always chasing IBM.
The LF has had virtually nothing to say about technical aspects and competitive aspects of the above. Nothing. It’s too busy doing what it does best: outsourcing projects to Microsoft (GitHub, where systemd too is hosted).
“Torvalds might not be in real control of the project he started almost 3 decades ago. Maybe he should consider picking his trademark and relocating elsewhere, as he did back in 2007.”Maybe it’s time to begrudgingly reach the conclusion that LF became another OSDL. A lot of people don’t know or don’t remember it, but OSDL was disbanded after it had been mostly abandoned by key Linux people. This is a matter of suppressed public record. They hated the OSDL and thought it went all wrong. It used terms like “IP” to sell services (article by John Oates), it wanted its own ‘GitHub’ (article by Ingrid Marson), it wanted Microsoft Office, and it was generally getting close to Microsoft. Sounds familiar? To quote Slashdot: “Martin Taylor, Microsoft’s general manager of platform strategy, declined to comment on the specifics of what was discussed when he met with OSDL’s CEO Stuart Cohen, only to say that they met.”
Readers have long told us that Torvalds went sort of silent or at least quiet after serving some time in the ‘penalty box’ one year ago (due to a media lynch akin to that which ousted Richard Stallman; he’s being pressured to be more 'corporate' (a 'socially-engineered' Torvalds), never use strong words, or else risk ousting). Judging by the photo above (it’s public), he might not be all that happy either. Torvalds might not be in real control of the project he started almost 3 decades ago. Maybe he should consider picking his trademark and relocating elsewhere, as he did back in 2007. Jim Zemlin and his corporate friends can carry on running their PR agency under a different name. Maybe they’ll even be asked, belatedly, to pay their taxes (if the IRS reassesses their status). “Not under my name…” █
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09.23.19
Posted in Bill Gates, Free/Libre Software, FSF, GNU/Linux, IBM, Microsoft at 11:28 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Department of War (now known as Department of Defense)
Summary: Richard Stallman (RMS) is down but not out; if we pick up the pieces and chronicle the media campaign that led to his resignation we find a leaker to the media who chose a dishonest site funded by a close friend of Bill Gates
WE PROMISED OURSELVES to not touch this topic anymore, instead shelving all updates in Tux Machines, which has an almost-complete list of coverage about the RMS saga, in chronological order. As the names in the comments help show, my wife and I found nearly 100 unique blog posts and articles about it. Sometimes these were official statements, e.g. Stallman’s apology, call for his ousting, then his resignation, then further defamation (deliberate distortion of what he had actually said).
“As the names in the comments help show, my wife and I found nearly 100 unique blog posts and articles about it.”Like we said before, it’s better to move on and not dwell/obsess over it. It’s not going to help. There are minor points, however, that ought to made before we “move on”. These are points we did not make in the past. Our detailed list of coverage helps reveal the ‘anatomy’ of what some dubbed “witch hunt” or “lynch mob”. The whole thing started when a person connected to the Department of War (it renamed to Department of Defense after the Second World War) decided to work with the media to “remove Stallman”; the choice of media in itself was rather curious. We’ve been hearing this whisper/murmur campaign for a while, but it’s better to wait for actual proof. One reader told us that Vice had been sponsored by Rupert Murdoch; a quick fact-check reveals this to be correct. There’s also a link to IBM (days ago we explained why IBM is no friend of Software Freedom). We mentioned IBM in our previous post because of its controversial response — through Red Hat — to Stallman’s departure. It would be better if IBM/Red Hat had said nothing at all. They say Stallman would be wise to say nothing at all (about his deceased friend being accused posthumously), but the same can be said about IBM/Red Hat. The IBM/Red Hat statement has been blasted by a lot of people, especially for the ending sentence about diversity.
“Our detailed list of coverage helps reveal the ‘anatomy’ of what some dubbed “witch hunt” or “lynch mob”.”IBM is, in general, a dangerous company. It works closely with oppressive elements of the public sector, including police and military. It’s hardly a secret. IBM itself is a very aggressive company. IBM has not changed since buying Red Hat. Still a Blue Bully.
Zillow is the latest target of IBM’s patent extortion. It’s software patents again and IAM wrote about it a few days ago (behind paywall). IAM’s status has seemingly collapsed; it’s hardly mentioned by anybody any longer, but this one pick was interesting. Meanwhile we’ve learned that Iancu shows his real face again, just like the USPTO Director before his predecessor (he had come from IBM). Now that James Nurton (the Battistelli ‘softball questions’ guy) works for Watchtroll he’s citing a propaganda piece for Iancu — a piece from his former employer, Managing IP (another patent zealots’ site). It helps show a lot of what’s going wrong — something that IBM has long lobbied for, sometimes in guest articles at Watchtroll. IBM cannot possibly like RMS and his message. We saw high-profile Red Hat employees calling for action against RMS, but they piggybacked someone else’s call.
“Zillow the latest target of IBM’s patent extortion.”Anyway, about the removal of Stallman, we’re trying hard not to mention the person in question or risk being accused of ‘stalking’ (or something similar). Let’s just say that the person who called to “remove Stallman” and leaked correspondence to Murdoch-connected media (Vice is sponsored by Murdoch, Bill Gates’ friend) to achieve this by deliberate distortion of facts works for a weapons company that reportedly makes killer robots, according to some comments. These are no friends of software ethics. Stallman is a threat to their business model and their public image. The image above (source here) shows IBM listed. Marcel Ventosa added: “And the most vociferous twitter detractor claims to be the chief consultant at a company that lists the department of defense as one of its 5 trusted clients. Others can be seen to work for Microsoft or other rival organizations on their profiles. Software ethics or ethics period…”
One can see the screenshot there (we reproduced it above).
The person who demanded removing/removal of Stallman took the personal site offline. But the Internet Archive does not forget the projects. Robotics with connections to the military, IBM, and more…
“Now with RMS removed ‘they’ (the likes of IBM) just want/need to remove Torvalds and put in power ‘fresh blood’ that large corporations hold by the groin.”“I currently work as a mechanical engineer at XYZ Robotics, a robotic sorting and logistics startup that was born out of the MIT MCube Lab,” the person wrote. Apparently for aggressive purposes; these are not toys.
Days ago, for the second time in almost a fortnight, Stallman told me he would publish an article about his trip to Microsoft (or the reason for it). This has not happened yet. Perhaps there are other things preying on his mind at this time.
It’s going to be hard to replace Stallman because when Stallman does seemingly ‘extreme’ things (like always paying with cash) people say, “that’s Stallman being Stallman,” whereas an alternative would either use “smart” crap or be called “extreme” for doing exactly what RMS did. The status of RMS is key here. There’s only one RMS, one project founder of GNU. Now with RMS removed ‘they’ (the likes of IBM) just want/need to remove Torvalds and put in power ‘fresh blood’ that large corporations hold by the groin. █
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