09.10.11
Posted in America, Microsoft, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenDocument at 8:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Photo by Espen Moe
Summary: The impact of leaked diplomatic cables on current affairs and perceptions people have about companies, government, and elected officials
OVER the past day or two we have been receiving a record number of links to this site, mostly pointing to Cablegate posts. People from all over the world share with their friends what they previously suspected but could not prove.
One person from Brazil is pulling skeletons out of Microsoft’s closet and embarrassing the cowardly, supine government at the same time. Following some blog posts about American diplomats lobbying for OOXML (including our own post), we are notified about this very detailed post which provides further background to the leak from someone who was nearby:
Let me make clear here that I don’t believe that this meeting between Microsoft and the major representative from the American Government in Brazil has been a personal initiative of Mr. Michel Levy, but for me it was an corporative initiative. Even being a Microsoft employee, Mr. Michel Levy is a Brazilian, and I prefer not to believe that he has, on its own initiative, decided to start an initiative to put the American Government against the Brazilian Government, thus violating our sovereignty and our national technical merit.
The first question that I leave here is on how many other countries that voted NO to OpenXML the same kind of initiative also happened, and how much of these countries “have accepted” an eventual intervention by the U.S. government.
Yes, the intervention may have occurred, because if you notice the general line of argumentation used here in Brazil, the national technical decision is presented as being an initiative against the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), and one of the things that cause retaliation in free trade agreements with the United States are eventual IPR violations. I have my own collection of rumors from the times of OpenXML, where possible sanctions motivated by IPR violations were brought to the negotiation table to get the governmental votes in some countries (if your country has changed the vote after the voting in September 2007, please investigate and you will probably find a ‘key’ governmental role on that vote changing). Maybe one day, WikiLeaks could help us to investigate that too!
[...]
Finally, they try to insinuate that the ODF is an anti-American standard. I confess that I would like to know what IBM, Oracle, Google and Red Hat (and other North American companies) think about the that, since they work hard on the past years on its development and worldwide adoption. Actually I prefer that these companies explain directly to the American Government if the ODF is anti-American, and I still hope they ask clarification from the American Government about Microsoft’s similar initiatives in other countries during the 2007 and 2008 years.
For those who did not follow the whole story, the ODF was adopted in Brazil, OpenXML rejected here and just didn’t had a major role on the international scene, because we were silenced on the last day of the BRM, just when we would submit a proposal that could change the end of this history. I’ve already told this story here.
Special thanks to WikiLeaks, for helping us get the skeletons out of the closet. For those who want to understand how Microsoft deals and negotiates with governments that have pro-FLSOO policies, it’s worth reading this other cable here.
Well, now there is proof too.
Several days ago we found out what American government officials were saying about Neelie Kroes. We published this yesterday and Jan Wildeboer notes that there is plenty more where that came from. Sooner or later we shall get around to it. This promises to change the way Microsoft and its lobbying practices are widely perceived. █
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07.05.11
Posted in Microsoft, Office Suites at 7:51 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Por El Centro Legal Por La Libertad de Software | 29 de junio 2011
(ODF | PDF | Original en softwarefreedom.org)
El Microsoft tan exageradamente promovido reemplazo de sus $ 20 billones por año [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/technology/business-computing/28soft.html] de negocios de Microsoft Office basado en la “nube”, viene con nuevas características como la de tiempo real multi-usuario de colaboración, la mensajería instantánea, video conferencia, reuniones en línea y mucho más [http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/plans/small-business/im-online-meetings.aspx]. Lo que Microsoft no te dice en su comunicado de prensa es que cuando usted, su negocio o sus amigos, se inscribe en ella, usted podría estar recibiendo una característica que no se anuncia así: ESPIONAJE GRATIS.
Una solicitud de patentes [http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=20110153809&OS=20110153809&RS=20110153809] publicada por la USPTO (Oficina de Patentes y Marcas de los Estados Unidos) el jueves pasado revela que Microsoft ha estado investigando, ya desde antes de diciembre de 2009, la forma de redirigir las llamadas VoIP para interceptar/redirigir a los dispositivos a los agentes de la ley. El método descrito por la solicitud de patente es tortuoso, subvertir los protocolos de enrutamiento para que los paquetes enviados por cualquier persona marcados por una solicitud de control se dirigirán a través de un agente de grabación. La solicitud describe los “sistemas de juego, los protocolos de mensajería instantánea que transmiten las aplicaciones de audio. Skype y aplicaciones como Skype, de reuniones, software de video conferencia, y similares”, así como tecnologías que pueden utilizar estos métodos. En otras palabras, Microsoft tiene razones para creer que su método de intercepción se puede aplicar a la recién adquirida Skype (recientemente desplegada en el Congreso [http://blogs.skype.com/en/2011/06/skype_is_in_da_house.html]), Xbox 360, y las características de video conferencia en la Oficina 365.
La publicación de la presente solicitud, junto con el anuncio del nuevo servicio de Microsoft destaca la necesidad de adopción de soluciones de software libre y de código abierto. Cuando las mismas empresas hacen las herramientas que necesitamos para mantenernos conectados están investigando las formas de espiar a sus clientes, ¿por qué deberíamos confiar en ellos y por qué no habríamos que buscar algo mejor? En SFLC que utilizar un servidor Asterisk [http://www.asterisk.org/] y el softphone Twinkle [http://mfnboer.home.xs4all.nl/twinkle/index.html] para proporcionar una comunicación libre, voz encriptada en cualquier lugar donde cualquiera de nosotros tenga una conexión de red. Nuestro sistema de software libre proporciona comunicaciones seguras y nos ahorra dinero. Cada pequeña empresa, así como todos los grandes van a tener grandes ganancias mediante el uso de VoIP, pero no habrá ganancias empresariales por la pérdida de su privacidad. Microsoft está ofreciendo “comunicaciones unificadas” con unificado espionaje probablemente construido dentro de su software. El Software Libre trabaja para su negocio, no para la gente que piensa que su negocio es negocio de ellos.
A no ser que sea indicado de otra manera, todo contenido es licenciado bajo el CC-BY-SA 3.0.[http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/legalcode] █
Traducción hecha por Eduardo Landaveri, Administrator of the Spanish portal of Techrights.
Translation produced by Eduardo Landaveri, the administrator of the Spanish portal of Techrights.
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06.07.11
Posted in Antitrust, Courtroom, Mail, Microsoft, Novell, Office Suites at 3:17 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Customers continue to replace GroupWise and Techrights wonders what Attachmate will do about the WordPerfect case
Attachmate, a Microsoft partner, has bought Novell while leaving Mono out in the cold and letting Microsoft take the patents. The thing is, Attachmate has hardly said anything about GroupWise. A tricky situation for sure as the product keeps bleeding. EAT is the latest large user to dump it. From the news: “The chain rolled out the cloud-based Apps productivity suite seven months ago to help meet its goal of doubling the size of its business. It replaced a 10-year-old Novell GroupWise system.”
There is more about it here and here:
The migration involved a move away from Novell Groupwise.
Cesar Ramanauskas, systems engineer at EAT, says in a blog post, “In preparation for our goal of doubling in size, EAT migrated to Google Apps for Business, after more than a decade of using Novell GroupWise.”
Inaction from Attachmate cannot help much, can it? But the elephants in the room are actually SUSE, the SCO case, and the Microsoft case. Will Attachmate dump the case against its partner, Microsoft? We are not sure what might happen with the antitrust case because Attachmate never mentions it and the Microsoft booster portrays it as just a “headache” when he argues:
But Microsoft’s antitrust problems aren’t ending just yet. Another old case involving WordPerfect, the once widely used word prcoessor, has been resurrected by a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling overturning a previous judgment in favor of Microsoft and allowing the case being pursued by Novell to proceed. Novell, now owned by Attachmate, owned WordPerfect for a couple of years in the mid-1990s before selling it to current owner Corel.
Some of us think that Microsoft toys around with Skype and Nvidia simply because of loose/lenient oversight. █
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06.03.11
Posted in Bill Gates, IBM, Microsoft, Office Suites, OpenOffice, Patents at 3:25 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
(ODF | PDF | English/original)
Resumen: Un repaso a cómo Microsoft distorsiona el mercado de suites de oficina y una propuesta sincera para IBM para sacar a luz los problemas reales, no los detalles de menor importancia.
EL “DESPIADADO[http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/153351/20110527/microsoft-apple-bill-gates-david-einhorn-steve-ballmer-stand-down-fire-fired-question-ceo.htm]” Bill Gates está hoy en día comprando periódicos para llamarse a sí mismo otra cosa[http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Gates_Foundation_Critique] y distraer la atención de su lado malo, la reescritura de la historia en la medida suficiente para que la gente se olvide de su tóxico legado al mundo que lo sufre hasta la fecha. Se llama lavado de reputación. Hoy nos gustaría volver atrás y mostrarles el verdadero Bill Gates. A finales de este mes, esperamos obtener una mano de otro editor que pueden ayudarnos a mostrar algunos de los delitos actuales de Gates (pero que va a ser dejado de lado por ahora, ya que no es en parte del tema).
“En otra ocasión, Gates mostró no sólo su odio de las normas y la interoperabilidad, sino también su amor por las patentes.”Así que ayer escribimos acerca de cómo IBM se convierte en un jugador clave en ODF[http://techrights.org/2011/06/01/ibm-takes-odf-to-another-level/]. IBM y Microsoft son rivales tanto como Apple y Microsoft son rivales. De hecho colaboran en algunas áreas en las que es beneficioso para ambas empresas (no necesariamente a las externalidades). Microsoft, que está a cargo de sociópatas, tiene una historia bastante de copiar y también de arruinar a Lotus. Hemos demostrado esto usando las exposiciones del tribunal de Comes vs. Microsoft[http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Comes_vs_Microsoft]. Un informante de Techrights nos acaba de recordar que, en Comes vs Microsoft, “PXE 3078 ha Lotus trabajo para la interoperabilidad y los Microsoft trabajando en contra de ella.” Cubrimos esto hace varios años. Bill Gates dijo que la administración de los formatos de Office 2000 a los competidores parece una locura[http://techrights.org/2007/04/13/office-formats-disclosure/] y este tipo de observación se produjo más tarde también[http://techrights.org/2009/08/17/bill-gates-vs-open-file-formats/]. En otra ocasión, Gates mostró no sólo su odio de las normas y la interoperabilidad, sino también su amor por las patentes. En varias ocasiones trató de utilizar las patentes de software en contra de OpenOffice.org[http://techrights.org/2009/02/10/bill-gates-patents-vs-free-office/], recurriendo incluso al chantaje de patentes contra Sun[http://techrights.org/2010/03/10/bill-gates-racketeering-revealed/]. Una gran cantidad de publicaciones hablan de las noticias de OpenOffice.org en el contexto que exceptúa y excluye las patentes (ver ejemplos en la parte inferior de este post). Esto es un error. Para dar sólo un ejemplo de una interpretación típica[http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/open-source-insider/2011/06/ibm-to-contribute-to-openofficeorg.html] de este anuncio[http://www.newsjunkyjournal.com/ibm-nyse-ibm-announces-support-of-new-openoffice-org-project/2511304/]:
Continuando con lo que describe como su “compromiso de larga plazo con el Código Abierto,” IBM ha confirmado esta semana que ahora tendrá un papel activo en la base de código nuevo OpenOffice.org presentado a la Incubadora de Apache Software Foundation.
IBM y de código abierto que usted dice? En caso de que sea excepcional?
Esto no cuenta toda la historia. Recuerde lo que escribimos acerca de la licencia de Apache hace unas semanas[http://techrights.org/2011/05/19/openlogic-on-licensing/] (lo que condujo a FUD[http://techrights.org/2011/05/19/openlogic-on-licensing/]). Recuerde a quienes le gusta este tipo de licencia, que los proponentes Microsoft halagan muchas veces (y ahora Microsoft da dinero a la ASF -Apache Software Foundation- también). Como dijimos ayer, mucho se ha escrito acerca de la noticia y deseamos no aburrir con la repetición. Pero, vamos a decir que Microsoft se opone con vehemencia a la interoperabilidad (el problema está en el centro, entre ellos Bill Gates), por lo que debemos defender ODF, incluso si esto significa tolerar IBM. Pero IBM no deben ser tratado como nuestro amigo (ni debe la Fundación Documento, que tiene algunos residuos de Novell). Después de muchas observaciones que se están realizando en nuestros canales de IRC, hemos llegado a la conclusión de que algunos de nosotros aceptamos. Es posible que IBM, que intercambia materia de licencias (las patentes de software) con Microsoft, ahora puede tomar su versión propietaria de OpenOffice.org (Lotus Symphony) y además extenderla legalmente sin contribuir de nuevo sus cambios. Eso es lo que una licencia de Apache hará en el supuesto de que el paso de los derechos de autor a las obras de Apache como IBM espera. Todo esto muestra los peligros de los acuerdos de cesión de derechos (¡presta atención, Canonical!) y si la LGPLv3 (Licencia Pública General Menor v3) se abandona como Bradley de la FSF (Fundación de Software Libre) sospecha [3], entonces será posible para IBM haga Simphony las única protegida de patentes de derivada de OpenOffice.org (indemnización por ejemplo). Los grandes vendedores están en juegos malos para aumentar su propio poder y ODF se acuña en algún punto intermedio. IBM podría haber unido sus manos con LibreOffice y su organización de cubierta. No lo ha hecho todavía. Hubo incluso sarcásticos comentarios de IBM. Una persona que pidió ser más relevantes al vicepresidente de IBM en este área afirmó que ésta no ha aprobado su comentario, aunque después de un debate y un e-mail de este vicepresidente nos enteramos de que estaba demasiado ocupado (que probablemente sea cierto y no una excusa/idea de último momento). De todos modos, IBM tiene que aclarar dos cosas ahora: 1) se sumarán LibreOffice? 2) ¿Cúal es su posición en el tema de la licencias o derechos de autor y las patentes? IBM es una empresa en general silenciosa después de sus complicaciones en defensa de la competencia, por lo que tiene problemas de comunicación[http://techrights.org/2011/06/01/ibm-pr-fails/] (incluso cuando se comunica está tratando de ocultar la comunicación). █
Referencias:
1. Declaración Acerca del Movimiento de Oracle para Donar OpenOffice.org a la Fundación Apache[http://blog.documentfoundation.org/2011/06/01/statement-about-oracles-move-to-donate-openoffice-org-assets-to-the-apache-foundation/]
La Fundación Documento acogería con satisfacción la reunificación de la OpenOffice.org y el proyecto LibreOffice en una sola comunidad de iguales en la raíz de la salida de Oracle. El paso de Oracle ha tomado hoy fue sin duda tomadas de buena fe, pero no parece alcanzar directamente este objetivo. La comunidad Apache, que respetamos enormemente, tiene expectativas muy diferentes y las normas – miembro de concesión de licencias, y mucho más – a los proyectos existentes OpenOffice.org y LibreOffice. Lamentamos la oportunidad perdida, pero estamos comprometidos a trabajar con todos los miembros activos de la comunidad para diseñar el mejor futuro posible para LibreOffice y OpenOffice.org.
2. Oracle Entrega OpenOffice a Apache[http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/oracle-gives-openoffice-to-apache/9035]
Kevin IBM Cavanaugh, vicepresidente de soluciones de colaboración., Que presionó para Oracle para deshacerce de OpenOffice después que se hizo claro que Oracle no iria a a poner mucho más recursos en en OpenOffice, dijo en un comunicado, “IBM da la bienvenida a la contribución de Oracle de OpenOffice software a la Apache Software Foundation. Esperamos poder colaborar con otros miembros de la comunidad para avanzar en la tecnología a partir de nuestro firme apoyo del proceso de incubación de OpenOffice en Apache. ”
3. ¿Recurre a Copyleft para competir con un Substituto?[http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2011/06/01/open-office.html]
Me molestó hoy a leer que Oracle intentará relicenciar todo el código de OpenOffice bajo la licencia Apache 2.0 y OpenOffice pase a la Apache Software Foundation.
He escrito recientemente acerca de cómo entre las licencias permisivas, mi favorito es sin duda la licencia Apache 2.0. Sin embargo, creo que uno debe pasar de una licencia copyleft a una permisiva uno sólo en circunstancias excepcionales y con el mayor cuidado.
Obviamente, en este caso, me opongo a relicenciar de Oracle de OpenOffice.org bajo licencia Apache 2.0. Probablemente es obvio por qué me siento así, pero voy a explicar, sin embargo, por si acaso. Voy a pasar por alto sobre todo los motivos para hacerlo, que creo que son obvias: Oracle (e IBM, que se citan en apoyo de este movimiento) por sus propias razones no les gusta el “fork” de la Fundación Documento (LibreOffice) de OpenOffice.org. Se trata de un último esfuerzo por parte de IBM y Oracle para frustrar el progreso de LibreOffice, que ha sido reportado como muy exitosa y muchas distribuciones han comenzado a adoptar LibreOffice. (Incluso los no-software de sitios sitios como Metafilter en que los usuarios discuten el cambio a LibreOffice.)
4. Oracle propone OpenOffice.org para Apache Incubator[http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/oracle-proposes-openofficeorg-apache-incubato]
5. El Problema de Llevar Armonía a la Asignación de Derechos de Autor[http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/news/the-issue-of-bringing-harmony-to-copyright-assignment/]
Hay una clase completamente diferente de CAA en el que el desarrollador da a una compañía pleno derecho a su código, sin embargo. Sun (y más tarde Oracle) exigierón esto de las contribuciones a OpenOffice.org. Ellos lo necesitan para poder incorporar las aportaciones en las diferentes versiones que no son libres de OpenOffice como StarOffice o la Lotus Suite de IBM. Así pues, en esencia, tiene que darles el derecho de vender versiones no libres de su código o no puedes contribuir. En lo que a mí respecta, ¡este no es un buen uso de las CAA!
6. Oracle da a OpenOffice a la Fundación Apache – debemos preocuparnos?[http://blogs.dailynews.com/click/2011/06/oracle-gives-openoffice-to-the.html]
Creo que Oracle pensaba lo mismo. No hicieron caso de OpenOffice y sus colaboradores después de comprar Sun. Claro que primero mató a OpenSolaris. Era sólo cuestión de tiempo antes de que OpenOffice fuese deshechada.
Translation produced by Eduardo Landaveri, the esteemed administrator of the Spanish portal of Techrights.
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06.02.11
Posted in Bill Gates, IBM, Microsoft, Office Suites, OpenDocument, OpenOffice, Patents at 1:54 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A look back at how Microsoft distorted the market of office suites and a candid suggestion for IBM to open up on the real issues, not the minor details
THE “RUTHLESS” Bill Gates is nowadays buying newspapers to call himself something else and distract from his evil side, rewriting history to a sufficient extent so that people will forget his poisonous legacy that everyone suffers from, to this date. It is called reputation laundering. Today we would like to go back and show people the real Bill Gates. Later this month we hope to get a helping hand from another editor who can help show some of today’s offences from Gates (but that’ll be left aside for now as it is partly off topic).
“On another occasion Gates showed not only his hatred of standards and interoperability but also his love of patents.”So yesterday we wrote about how IBM becomes a key player in ODF. IBM and Microsoft are rivals as much as Apple and Microsoft are rivals. They actually collaborate in some areas where it is beneficial to both companies (not necessarily to the externalities). Microsoft, which is is run by sociopaths, has quite a history of copying and also breaking Lotus. We showed this using Comes vs Microsoft court exhibits. A Techrights informant has just reminded us that, in Comes vs Microsoft, “PXE 3078 has Lotus working for interoperability and MS working against it.” We covered this several years ago. Bill Gates said that giving out the Office 2000 formats to competitors seems crazy and this type of remark occurred later too. On another occasion Gates showed not only his hatred of standards and interoperability but also his love of patents. On several occasions he tried to use software patents against OpenOffice.org, even resorting to patent blackmail against Sun. A lot of publications speak of the OpenOffice.org news in the context which excepts and excludes patents (see examples at the bottom of this post). This is a mistake. To give just one example of a typical interpretation of this announcement:
Continuing what it likes to describe as its “long-standing commitment to open source,” IBM has this week confirmed that it will now take an active role in the new OpenOffice.org code base submitted to The Apache Software Foundation Incubator.
IBM and open source you say? Should that be unusual?
This does not tell the whole story. Remember what we wrote about the Apache licence some weeks ago (this led to FUD). Remember who likes this type of licence, which Microsoft proponents sometimes champion (and Microsoft now gives money to the ASF too). As we stated yesterday, too much would have been written about the news and we wish not to bore with repetition. But what we shall say is that Microsoft is vehemently opposing interoperability (the problem is at the core, including Bill Gates), so we must defend ODF, even if it means tolerating IBM. But IBM should not be treated as our friend here (nor should The Document Foundation, which has some residues from Novell). After many observations were being made in our IRC channels we have reached the conclusion which some of us accept. It is possible that IBM, which cross-licenses (software patents) with Microsoft, can now take its proprietary version of OpenOffice.org (Lotus Symphony) and further extend it legally without contributing back the changes. That’s what an Apache licence will do assuming that the passage of copyrights to Apache works as IBM hoped. This whole thing shows the dangers of copyright assignment agreements (pay attention, Canonical) and if the LGPLv3 is abandoned as Bradley from the FSF suspects [3], then it will be possible for IBM to make Symphony the only patents-’covered’ derivative of OpenOffice.org (indemnification for example). The big vendors are playing evil games to increase their own power and ODF gets wedged somewhere in the middle. IBM could have joined hands with LibreOffice and its umbrella organisation. It hasn’t done so yet. There were even snide remarks from IBM. One person who urged IBM’s most relevant Vice President in this area claimed that the latter has not approved his comment, although after some discussion and an E-mail from this vice president we learned that he was too busy (which is probably true and not an excuse/afterthought). Anyway, IBM needs to clarify two things now: 1) will it join LibreOffice? 2) Where does it stand on the subject of licensing/copyrights and patents? IBM is generally a silent company after the antitrust complications, so it has communications problems (even when it communicates it is trying to hide the communication). █
References:
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The Document Foundation would welcome the reuniting of the OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice projects into a single community of equals in the wake of the departure of Oracle. The step Oracle has taken today was no doubt taken in good faith, but does not appear to directly achieve this goal. The Apache community, which we respect enormously, has very different expectations and norms – licensing, membership and more – to the existing OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice projects. We regret the missed opportunity but are committed to working with all active community members to devise the best possible future for LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org.
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IBM’s Kevin Cavanaugh, VP of Collaboration Solutions., which lobbied for Oracle to spin OpenOffice off after it became clear that Oracle wasn’t going to put much, if any, resources into OpenOffice, said in a statement, “IBM welcomes Oracle’s contribution of OpenOffice software to the Apache Software Foundation. We look forward to engaging with other community members to advance the technology beginning with our strong support of the incubation process for OpenOffice at Apache.”
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I was disturbed today to read that Oracle will seek to relicense all OpenOffice code under the Apache-2.0 license and move OpenOffice into the Apache Software Foundation.
I’ve written recently about how among the permissive licenses, my favorite is clearly the Apache License 2.0. However, I think that one should switch from a copyleft license to a permissive one only in rare circumstances and with the greatest of care.
Obviously, in this case, I oppose Oracle’s relicense of OpenOffice.org under Apache-License-2.0. It is probably obvious why I feel that way, but I shall explain nonetheless, just in case. I’m going to mostly ignore the motives for doing so, which I think are obvious: Oracle (and IBM, who are quoted in support of this move) for their own reasons don’t like The Document Foundation fork (LibreOffice) of OpenOffice.org. This is a last-ditch effort by IBM and Oracle to thwart the progress of that fork, which has been reported as quite successful and many distributions have begun to adopt LibreOffice. (Even non-software sites sites like Metafilter have users discussing changing to LibreOffice .)
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There is an entirely different class of CAAs where you give a company full right to your code, however. Sun (and later Oracle) demanded this for contributions to OpenOffice.org. They need this to be able to incorporate the contributions into non-free versions of OpenOffice like StarOffice or IBM’s Lotus Suite. So in essence, you have to give them the right to sell non-free versions of your code or you can’t contribute. As far as I’m concerned, this is clearly not a good use of CAAs!
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I guess Oracle thought the same thing. They ignored OpenOffice and its contributors after buying Sun. Sure they killed OpenSolaris first. It was only a matter of time before they ankled OpenOffice.
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03.01.11
Posted in Finance, Microsoft, Office Suites, Windows at 4:17 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Windows and Office margins are eroding, which puts Microsoft’s cash cows in jeopardy
A reader of ours (in IRC) has just posted a couple of links from financial news sites. While these sites tend to take Microsoft’s claims at face value even when the numbers don’t add up, the latter story says that “Windows has 75% PC market share” and also speaks about the erosion of margins, which competition with GNU/Linux inevitably leads to:
Microsoft OS’ operating margins have declined from around 79% in 2007 to around 66% in 2010, and we expect it to continue to decline to around 59% by the end of Trefis forecast period. The margins have declined as average OS license pricing has suffered given the company’s expansion into emerging markets and due to lower priced netbooks for which Microsoft sells a cheaper OS license. We expect these trends to continue in the future in addition to the growth in mobile devices like smartphones and tablets which could also weigh on margins in the future.
[...]
Microsoft Office operating margins have declined from around 67% in 2007 to around 61% in 2010, and these could continue to decline to around 54% by the end of Trefis forecast period. Last year, Microsoft released Office web apps, a cloud-based software, to compete with Google Apps, and we discussed some of the challenges in for this product in a note entitled Microsoft’s Stock Could Lose $2 if Office Margins Decline to Google App Levels.
Just as we mentioned earlier today, there is this tendency to ignore the real competition which is Free software. Google Apps is not Microsoft’s #1 problem and the estimate of office suites market share in the article above is incorrect based on surveys that exist. But it’s the trend we care about and it confirms what we occasionally write about. █
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01.29.11
Posted in Microsoft, Novell, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenDocument, OpenOffice at 11:59 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The ‘umbrella’ of LibreOffice, The Document Foundation, explains that Novell’s deal with Microsoft does not apply to it
THIS Web site, Techrights, was one of the sites which broke the news about LibreOffice (to ensure no misunderstandings we were contacted weeks in advance). There has been criticism of this project, however, notably because of OOXML exporting [1, 2]. In order to clarify this situation, The Document Foundation has just released a LibreOffice FAQ relating only to OOXML doubts. Among the parts:
Ah! So Novell is bringing in odd software bits from Microsoft to betray Free Software!
That’s not really a question, but there are some things that are quite clear to the Document Foundation:
* Novell and the Document Foundation are not the same entities, nor does Novell own the Document Foundation. Novell is one contributor, among several others, to the Document Foundation.
* The patches related to the Microsoft Office formats support coming from Novell are the indirect result of the a specific agreement between Novell and Microsoft. We use the word “indirect” here, as the agreement covers the software known as “OpenOffice Novell Edition”, and that’s not the same as LibreOffice.
* To the best of the knowledge of the Document Foundation, there is no specific agreement between Novell and Microsoft about LibreOffice. (But then again, we are not Novell nor do we represent the company in any way).
“Excuse me,” wrote Groklaw in response to this, “but this is a little too smooth, because if LibreOffice includes those OpenOffice patches, and apparently it does, what in the world would require a specific contract regarding LibreOffice? If the patches are patent-encumbered, for example, would LibreOffice get a pass from the courts because the patch was designed for OpenOffice? Obviously not. If there is any chance of that, then why not make the patches optional by default, and the wiki says you can ship LibreOffice without those patches? That way those of us in countries with wacky patent laws can avoid difficulties.”
Techrights has covered this subject since 2007 and Groklaw woke up to it only a few weeks ago. Separately, Groklaw wrote: “If you do technical work for Microsoft to help it be more interoperable, then, are you helping or hurting FOSS in this context? Something to think about.” █
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01.07.11
Posted in Google, Microsoft, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenDocument at 3:14 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft’s #1 cash cow still suffers on/from the Web, so Microsoft rebrands and also uses help from Facebook, which it partly owns
“Microsoft [is] trademarking ‘Be What’s Next’ slogan,” which comes as no surprise as the company craves an image makeover (there is a new Web site coming). A lot of people associate Microsoft with being “uncool” and the monopolist is aware of this. Even BPOS (which has the acronym “POS” in it) may be in the process of phase-out following many downtimes and failures that we covered here last year. “Microsoft Office 365″ is a new identity Microsoft introduces as part of a rename that’s necessary for competing with Google in online office suites. As the previous post showed, Microsoft uses many other methods against Google. It’s just abusive. Boys will be boys and Microsoft will be… well, Microsoft.
“Microsoft recently lost its Office president (he became the CEO of Nokia) and its ‘Web’ president left around the same time.”Even Goldman Sachs recognises Microsoft's imminent demise and the slow decline of cash cows is indicative of it. This whole B-POS business is not something which Microsoft can monetise like it’s used to and just slapping a different label on it (insinuating a 365-day uptime despite the many downtimes B-POS has had) is a case of evading bad reputation, not innovating anything. Microsoft is playing catch-up here, even in the office suites space. Who would have thought this could happen by transitioning from the operating system to the server room (SaaS) for workloads. Microsoft recently lost its Office president (he became the CEO of Nokia) and its ‘Web’ president left around the same time. Yes, that would be Ozzie, who expressed deep concerns after he had left and then started blogging atop GNU/Linux with Free software (WordPress).
Let’s put this more briefly again: for Microsoft to rebrand Office “Office 365″ amid shifts to the Web (Fog Computing or SaaS) is to imply uptime that cannot really be delivered using Windows and the rest of Microsoft’s underlying stack (ask Microsoft’s poster child the LSE about this stack). This is not going to work and the exodus of presidents indicates that they too are giving up. Before anyone yells, “but hey! There’s still Microsoft Office 2010,” well… read this new report which says that “Microsoft Office 2010 Migrations [Are] Delayed”:
Concerns around the complexity of migrating to the new productivity software in Microsoft Office 2010 will delay broad deployment until 2011, according to a global survey of 953 IT professionals conducted by market research firm Dimensional Research and sponsored by Dell’s Kace division.
Microsoft’s booster Preston Gralla says that he finds Microsoft Office 365 beta “occasionally frustrating” [1, 2] and these rants are being noticed. Yet again we see Microsoft’s biggest cheerleaders ranting about Microsoft’s offerings.
Earlier this year we showed that the malicious site Facebook (partly owned by Microsoft) came to Microsoft Office’s rescue, promoting OOXML in the process. “Microsoft May Be Using Facebook as a Trojan Horse for Office” says one new headline:
The answer may have more to do with Microsoft’s priorities than Facebook’s. Outside of its Facebook collaboration, Microsoft has been experimenting with Docs.com, which has been a kind of proving grounds for its cloud-based Office suite, Office365. Docs.com is now piloting its own Facebook integration, but only with Facebook Groups. The idea is that a group of friends can collaborate upon a single cloud-based document, just as on Google Docs. (The Docs.com/Facebook Groups collaboration is a separate but parallel project to the Facebook Messages/Office365 support. Confusing, yes.)
Also see the very recent reports titled “Microsoft enhances Facebook partnership”; “Facebook opens up your data to Microsoft”; “Microsoft infuses Facebook data in Bing search”; “Docs.com Now Supports Facebook Groups”; Microsoft bolsters online document-sharing for Facebook” and “Microsoft’s Docs Now Supports Facebook Groups”.
“Facebook already shares its data with Microsoft.”Watch out as Facebook is not much different from Microsoft. A Microsoft executive recently confirmed that Microsoft tried to buy Facebook for $15 billion and some people still think that Microsoft should buy Facebook, which in some sense means acquiring many profiles of very many people. It would essentially make Microsoft more of a Big Brother than it already is. In reality, Microsoft doesn’t need to buy companies; it only needs to tilt them into Microsoft’s agenda (e.g. .NET, OOXML); see Yahoo!/Novell for recent examples. Older examples include Corel. Facebook already shares its data with Microsoft.
Over at Forbes, Microsoft’s agenda has been promoted quite a lot recently. One post said that “Facebook And Bing Threaten To Throttle Google’s Growth” and Quentin Hardy — a shameless Microsoft booster and Wikileaks basher on the face of it — promotes Bong [sic], advances/welcomes Microsoft’s case against Google, and bashes Chrome OS. It’s a consistent Microsoft booster on the face of it, but Forbes blogs are a fairly new addition, so the sample size is too small for judgment at this stage.
For those who argue there is legitimacy in Microsoft’s case for Google antitrust, bear in mind that “Microsoft has been funding anti-Google group since 2007″ while Google responds by arguing exactly that. IBM too says that Microsoft's “satellite proxies” are the cause of antitrust actions (yes, IBM used those exact words). Mind the sensationalism in “Google’s monopolisation of the internet” and the article posted by Google Watch in a couple of eWEEK sites (US and Europe):
Europe’s Antitrust Hunt of Google Smells Like Microsoft
Search engine experts are exasperated by the European Commission’s pending witchhunt of Google for alleged anticompetitive behavior.
As Microsoft might put it, why compete when one can cheat and use lawyers instead? Appalling.
“It’s very bad when people’s social platform is subjected to censorship by unknown people. It limits people thoughts and expressions among peers (or ‘friends’).”Back we go to Facebook, which is said to have just “remove[d] Gmail from “Friend Find” List”. That’s quite telling, isn’t it? Facebook is picking sides. It’s not as though Gmail can be ignored. Many people use it. Is Facebook engaging in a form of censorship to please its owner (in part), Microsoft? More and more people also use Google’s Web browser, which capitalises on the fact that Microsoft is asleep at the wheel and too incompetent to keep up (it insists on developing a rendering engine alone, the proprietary way).
Why is Facebook censoring Google? Some sites say that Facebook plays hard to get in order to rub Microsoft and Google off against each other and thus retrieve the best deal available on the table. There is this recent article titled “Should Amazon Censor? Should Apple? Facebook? Microsoft?”
Everybody censors these days, as it seems to have become worryingly fashionable. All large companies do this. Then again, Facebook censorship is a standard and frequent practice (Apple censorship, new Microsoft censorship, and Amazon censorship aside). It’s very bad when people’s social platform is subjected to censorship by unknown people. It limits people thoughts and expressions among peers (or ‘friends’). The whole idea behind Facebook is revolting and we wrote many posts to warn about the dangers.
For those who have not heard yet, the deeply corrupt and Bill Gates-funded Goldman Sachs comes under US probe after investment in Facebook. Here is an article that provides background:
Far from turning up the heat for Facebook to go public, Goldman Sachs’ $450 million investment, along with Digital Sky’s $50 million more, may actually delay the social-networking giant’s IPO, says David Kirkpatrick.
Francine McKenna from Forbes says that “Goldman Sachs Wants You To Invest In Facebook” (headline is almost instructive):
Facebook wants the public’s money – and their trust – with none of the disclosure and none of the regulatory scrutiny of a public company. Goldman Sachs strategy to raise $1.5 billion for Facebook from “sophisticated investors” and invest another $450 million of their own money is an example of wanton disregard for accountability to the securities markets.
P2PNet’s headline is “Facebook, Goldman, Sucks”:
Fa$ebook has “raised $500m from Goldman Sachs and Digital Sky Technologies, the Russian investment firm, in a deal that values the social networking site at $50bn, according to people familiar with the deal”, said p2pnet in the January 3 headline roundup, quoting the Financial Times.
p2pnet hasn’t raised a dime but it, too, is worth $50 billion, according to me. And my valuation has as much validity as that of the Goldman Sachs / Digital Sky Technologies Facebook.
If you’re Goldman Sachs, come up with a figure – any figure — and it’s quoted just as though it’s really real.
Fortune/CNN has published “Five reasons why I’m not buying Facebook” and The New York Times asks, “Why Are Taxpayers Subsidizing Facebook, and the Next Bubble?”
Remember that Goldman Sachs is now a bank-holding company – a status it received in September 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, in order to avoid collapse (see Andrew Ross Sorkin’s blow-by-blow account in “Too Big to Fail” for the details.)
This means that it has essentially unfettered access to the Federal Reserve’s discount window – that is, it can borrow against all kinds of assets in its portfolio, effectively ensuring it has government-provided liquidity at any time.
Any financial institution with such access to such government support is likely to take on excessive risk – this is the heart of what is commonly referred to as the problem of “moral hazard.” If you are fully insured against adverse events, you will be less careful.
Goldman Sachs is undoubtedly too big to fail – in the sense that if it were on the brink of failure now or in the near future, it would receive extraordinary government support and its creditors (at the very least) would be fully protected.
Techrights covers several companies that disregard people and Facebook increasingly becomes one of these. It’s not because of its scale but because of its practices and their rather far-reaching effects. █
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