12.28.20
Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, IBM, OIN, Patents, Red Hat at 7:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Video download link
With due credit to original jokers
Summary: IBM still has a long, long ‘naughty list’ (a growing list of companies it’s looking to blackmail for money — or tax — using loads of software patents), just like Microsoft’s ‘naughty list’ (Microsoft’s patent blackmail has not stopped; media’s attention to that has stopped, e.g. last year's shakedowns against Linux/Android/ChromeOS)
WEEKS after IBM sealed a terrible (pandemic, Trump etc.) year with a big “F U!” to all CentOS users around the world (individuals and businesses/executives who must now migrate under difficult conditions or shell out money they don’t even have) it reminds us that its OIN PR charade is just that — a charade. It doesn’t protect Free software from software patents, it’s just misleading the Free software community (a real community) about software patents.
Red Hat operatives still try to mislead us all about CentOS and the motivations behind what happened to it (those attempts are shallow or deeply self-contradictory; they’re truly and profoundly disingenuous, so they do more harm than good); one of the persons who proposed this now works at a senior position for Microsoft. A side perk of IBM choosing to pretend to have not abandoned CentOS (just “Stream”) is that they subvert justifications for giving up the trademark in the same way Oracle/Apache did OpenOffice (this limited the appeal of LibreOffice, causing frustration).
Promises to Red Hat are out the window and Red Hat’s software patents (with their so-called ‘promise’) are now in IBM’s war chest (patent portfolio as cash cow).
IBM — like Microsoft — thinks like a government-connected/sanctioned monopoly and does not wish to really innovate, just amass an endless pile of worthless software patents instead, with help from the legal department (even the same people, e.g. Marshall Phelps), then sue and extort those who actually innovate and make products people actually want.
We don’t want to say a lot about the whole history/track record which we covered here before, but IBM is no ally of Free software (or not anymore). It’s just milking volunteers for corporate profits, monopolised using complexity (e.g. systemd), vendor lock-in (Wayland etc.) and software patents. Watch what slipped under the radar on Christmas Eve! (Below we’ve put a screenshot)
Even after buying Red Hat (years ago) IBM continues to act a lot like a patent troll, shaking down every company imaginable. Settlement announced when nobody will notice (PR reasons likely)? █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
11.25.20
Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, OIN, OSI, Patents at 6:52 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Well, maybe ironically he posted this in a Microsoft site. Microsoft now gets the majority of the OSI's work/budget, basically to help cement its monopoly. OSI has just advertised a job opening for its leadership because at the moment it lacks any.
Summary: Richard Stallman was right about the OSI and the fake ‘movement’ that claims to have ‘coined’ the term “Open Source” (it wasn’t a new term at all; it had been used in another context and the Free software community spoke of things like “Open Hardware” years earlier)
THE “OPEN SOURCE” so-called ‘movement’ (see Perens using that term, “movement”) turned out to be a sham. It banned its own co-founder and Perens, the second co-founder, resigned in protest earlier this year. Ever since then he occasionally explains what went wrong. Richard Stallman speaks to him about it (he told me so).
“I frequently urge people to stop saying “Open Source”. We need to speak about Software Freedom (or Free/libre software) instead.”In 2020, for the first time in more than 15 years, I abandoned news about “Open Source” completely, seeing that the majority of them were just openwashing and promotion of proprietary prisons such as GitHub (Microsoft surveillance and censorship). To me, personally, “Open Source” is dead. It’ll never come back. The label or the term “Open Source” is also increasingly meaningless. Many software licences that are called “Open Source” are not Free software-compliant. They’re an openwashing slant to help sell proprietary software and/or mass surveillance in Clown Computing.
I frequently urge people to stop saying “Open Source”. We need to speak about Software Freedom (or Free/libre software) instead. Any time we (still) say “Open Source” we help those who hijacked the term to push a toxic agenda, in effect helping a new-age monopoly by mass deception.
It’s kind of sad in a way. It’s difficult. For many years I did in fact use the term “Open Source”; so seeing what happened to it is frustrating. But it’s too late to change that now. That’s why Perens quit the OSI. That’s why ESR went on the mailing list and fought back, only to be banned by the very organisation that he had helped found.
“Open Source” has always been a sham, but many assumed it to be well-meaning; Stallman was right about it. “I had an idea though about OSI and their push on their OSI-approved licenses,” one reader told us earlier this week. She has been around this scene since the 1990s and she knows what really happened. And “still,” she says, “when clearly they are long done… since Perens did say there were licenses that never should have been approved (and I never saw any effort to improve that situation after he said it…) and since he said there were loopholes – I will evaluate a few and write up an analysis.”
In the meantime she left us with a bunch of relevant screenshots we cannot see (without a Microsoft account or spying by Microsoft). Notice these openwashers and people who speak of “virus” (in relation to a software licence, see image on the right). Those people are active in a Microsoft site (proprietary and surveillance) while claiming to do “Open Source”.
Our reader thinks the whole thing is mostly a scam. Charlatans make money from the scam.
“Meeting people in real life was an eye opener! 
At SCaLE 15x in 2017,” she recalls, “I attended the law track, where I met a Lawyer claiming to be a Free and Open Source Lawyer… who didn’t know the difference. We did explain the difference to him during happy hour.
“Although IANAL, I knew more than the lawyers present who did not have the basic understanding of copyright – Example, they were arguing a moot point because they did not have basic knowledge of functional v speech.”
Here are some more comments regarding OSI on Linkedin:
Richard Stallman once said:
“When I do this, some people think that it’s because I want my ego to be fed, right? Of course, I’m not asking you to call it “Stallmanix”!”
We’d like to see Torvalds’ reaction to people saying that he’s releasing “GNU” each time he releases a new version of Linux (kernel). He’d be more pissed off than RMS ever was…
We’re still looking for additional loopholes regarding the OSI scam and the creation of parallel ‘movements’ (like calling GNU “Linux” and Free software “Open Source” — only to be taken over by the likes of Microsoft at the Linux Foundation and OSI). To be continued… █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
11.17.20
Posted in Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, OIN, Patents at 8:39 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Not too shockingly, the toothless (barks only) OIN isn’t developers and isn’t for coders; it’s just diplomats and lawyers in “Linux” clothing (they don’t even use Linux)
Summary: The ‘suits’ running the Open Invention Network (OIN) have done nothing for software freedom and programmers’ safety; 15 years down the line they have almost no accomplishments to show, just a massive patent pool that hardly protects anyone, only the status quo
WE recently wrote about — albeit without mentioning names (in order to avoid negative impact on an ongoing dispute) — GNU/Linux distros being shaken down by patent trolls.
“As we recently noted, without naming distros or the patent trolls that attack those distros, there’s a campaign of patent extortion underway.”We heard from a well-known community member about this matter. It’s a real problem.
Hours ago the Open Invention Network (OIN) released another lousy press release merely celebrating its existence. The headline is a lie. OIN is not protecting us, it is protecting software patents from our scrutiny. It uses terms like “Open Source” (which are themselves inherently dishonest) and so far nobody covered it except ZDNet‘s OIN parrots, who wrote about this non-news. It’s just some lousy anniversary of a corporate front group (for corporations with massive troves of patents). The thing we must remember about the so-called ‘Open’ Invention Network is what Bruce Perens keeps remining us. They protect IBM et al (software patents proponents) but not the community or community-centric distros… just as was intended all along. Patents are instruments of monopolisation and the ‘Open’ Invention Network helps monopolies (including Microsoft now, just like the so-called ‘Linux’ Foundation). It’s not new that ZDNet is a megaphone of Open Invention Network and LOT propaganda (those two groups have overlaps) — in essence promoting the software patents agenda. Snakeoil vending for monopolies…
For the rest us? Nothing.
As we recently noted, without naming distros or the patent trolls that attack those distros, there’s a campaign of patent extortion underway. The developers reach out to us, but they don’t want us to say too much. “Did OIN offer any help with this?” I asked one of them. “If not, I’d like to write something about that…”
It has been a fortnight now and no reply.
“I would appreciate any advice that you have,” one of them said. “I am not responding presently [to the patent trolls] and if it comes to it, I intend to fight this. It is making me very anxious however and I suspect this is their intention. Settling is another problem: if I do so, I have effectively admitted that their patents are valid and this queues me up for a long line of encounters with [redacted], other [redacted] codecs etc.”
Yes, it’s about codecs, i.e. software patents.
“I’ve contacted Jean Baptiste-Kempf (VideoLan) president and Ben Henrion,” (FFII) the developer added. “Both have told me that the patents are not legal.”
What has OIN done to help? Nothing. “I’ve been a member of OIN for years,” the developer noted when asked about it, “but haven’t contacted them yet. I plan to do so later this week.”
It has been over a month. “I was wondering if it’s worth getting in touch with United Patents,” said the next suggestion (for Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) inter partes reviews (IPRs), “although they seem primarily focused in the US.”
They started tackling software patents in Europe as well not too long ago. EPO-granted patents…
A month ago I said: “This will be interesting to follow. It will be very important to see if OIN even lifts a finger to help.”
It has not. I’ve kept this in my notes for a while. And OIN has done nothing to help. So when the ZDNet propaganda says (hours ago) that OIN is our friend it’s pretty clear that it bothered talking to nobody outside OIN and its circles. It’s just parroting press releases and PR, quite frankly as usual. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
10.30.20
Posted in Free/Libre Software, GNOME, GNU/Linux, IBM, Microsoft, OIN, Patents at 5:39 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
They used to be called “patent sharks”
Summary: We’re asked to believe that a sort of “patch” (suggested by companies or monopolies with endless patent portfolios) means that Free software and software patents can co-exist; behind the scenes, however, “community distros” (not developed and controlled by monopolies) are coming under patent attacks which they cannot publicly speak about
THERE is a real and growing need to abolish software patents for good. As we noted quite recently, GNU/Linux distros are under attack. We hope to be able to make more public the pertinent details (that partly depends on OIN).
“The Free software community (the real community, not fake ones like IBM’s “Fedora”) is under attack.”In our latest Daily Links we included this new post about an ongoing Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) inter partes review (IPR). “On October 28, 2020,” it says, “the Central Reexamination Unit of the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted Unified Patents’ request for ex parte reexamination, finding substantial questions of patentability for all claims of U.S. Patent 7,594,168, owned and asserted by Express Mobile, Inc., a well-known NPE. The ’168 patent generally relates to website building software. Express Mobile has asserted this patent over 90 times in district court against companies employing both proprietary website-building platforms and open-source platforms like WordPress and Magento.”
Yes, WordPress and Magento, which are used by millions (us included). The Federal Circuit has repeatedly rejected those sorts of patents, citing 35 U.S.C. § 101 (SCOTUS on Alice), but the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) keeps granting those bogus patents, which are being leveraged (as above) by patent trolls who make nothing at all, let alone a CMS or “website building software.” The existing GNOME Foundation (with deep ties to IBM and Microsoft, responsible in part for settling with trolls) wants us to think that this is a new problem even though nothing could be further from the truth. While OIN is working overtime to reinforce the status quo — reaffirming software patents — the rest of us who don’t have like 100,000 US patents need to get work done and write code without fear of litigation.
The Free software community (the real community, not fake ones like IBM’s “Fedora”) is under attack. OIN is not helping, it’s only pretending to. We’ll say a lot more about that some time soon. OIN has an opportunity to prove us wrong, but it’s never doing that…
We need to carry on working towards the end of all software patents, not just here in Europe (incidentally, the distros under attacks are European and they’re targeted using already-expired software patents in a fashion reminiscent of the YouTube-DL takedown in GitHub).
3Com CEO Eric Benhamou once said:
“Anyone who doesn’t fear Microsoft is a fool.”
Remember that the troll which attacked GNOME had been working closely and getting patents from Microsoft’s ‘proxy’ Intellectual Ventures. GNOME Foundation, an anti-RMS outpost, doesn’t like to talk about this fact. Last week its head even praised Microsoft. His predecessors work for Microsoft. Infiltration has gone much further than the Linux Foundation and recently the OSI as well. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
10.19.20
Posted in Europe, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, OIN, Patents at 8:07 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
OIN is MIA, as usual (it exists to protect monopolies, not GNU/Linux)
Summary: GNU/Linux distros attacked by software patents, even in Europe where no such patents are supposed to exist (or have any legal bearing)
JUST over a month ago Techrights became aware of a serious issue, which had been going on for months prior. The public was never made aware and the message we received was private. This article will name neither the distributions nor the aggressors, as naming either might reveal the nature of an ongoing dispute and have a negative impact on the outcome.
“Are they trying or at least hoping to make it sufficiently uncomfortable if not stressful for small (community-based) distros of GNU/Linux to the point were they shyly shut down, going offline without explaining the real reason (for fear of being sued as means of retribution, akin to NDAs)?”As a little recap, the EPO under the corrupt management of Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos has been gleefully granting software patents in Europe. Not many people are aware of the negative consequences (or truly care). Those have a highly detrimental effect on software developers and packagers across Europe. The impact is very negative when it comes to Free software and proprietary software alike. It harms European competitiveness and harms the profession (programming) globally. Who benefits? A bunch of parasites who cannot code and never coded anything.
To quote a message that we received, a patent troll “started harassing me and stating that I must license their [redacted] patents. But these are software patents and I am based in [redacted]. We are a small, open source project, so I don’t know what their game is. They’re asking for a couple of million dollars, based on fees from every download, including [redacted] downloads which we release at no charge.”
It is a GNU/Linux distro used by a lot of people. A lot of people.
“My worry,” said the person on the receiving end of threats, “is that we may look like an easy target or they’re trying to set a precedent. Despite these software patents not being valid as pure software patents, I can see that they are enjoying success in German courts such as Mannheim and Düsseldorf.”
Are patent trolls and their legal representatives getting so bored and unoccupied during the pandemic that they’re started a Cold War against GNU/Linux?
On the nature of the threats received: “What worries me is that they’re emailing me, and not serving me by paper. German courts have considered this to be sufficient and they’ve already stated that I am obligated to reply and that they’ve made me a FRAND offer. But some of these patents have expired and I do not understand how this can be FRAND if they are forcing me to license expired patents. Further — I can’t see how this can be FRAND when they’re not consistently enforcing any level of compliance across other companies and open source projects. I’d not wish this on my worst enemy, but it is surprising that Canonical / Ubuntu are skirting legal issues but we (a small project) are in such a predicament.”
OIN membership has apparently not prevented this. Not at all. We’ll hopefully have an update on this some time soon. As a reminder, Canonical / Ubuntu went as far as licensing lousy codecs (software patents) from Microsoft more than a decade ago. Canonical / Ubuntu isn’t what it seems on the surface and it never really helped the battle against software patents.
Are they trying or at least hoping to make it sufficiently uncomfortable if not stressful for small (community-based) distros of GNU/Linux to the point were they shyly shut down, going offline without explaining the real reason (for fear of being sued as means of retribution, akin to NDAs)? If so, this would not be unprecedented in relation to Free software projects. We covered many examples in the distant past.
Can the leadership of the aggressor shed a light/clue regarding motivations? Is this a proxy battle in a bigger war? What’s the endgame here?
Stay tuned. We cannot say much more at this point (not safely anyway, without potentially causing harm by escalation). █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
10.13.20
Posted in Deception, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, OIN, Patents at 4:18 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
As if 35 U.S.C. § 101/Alice does not exist (6.5 years after the SCOTUS ruling, which has been repeatedly secured many dozens of times)…
Summary: The crazy idea that Linux should adapt to Microsoft and should embrace Microsoft’s non-standards is promoted in ZDNet this morning, in yet another OIN puff piece that overlooks Microsoft patent lawsuits over Linux
THAT ZDNet is a mouthpiece for OIN and LOT (there are overlaps) isn't exactly news. These people see nothing wrong with software patents. They are, after all, Microsoft apologists as well. It’s a corporate site which exists to serve monopolists (its biggest clients). Many of the articles there are puff pieces for the Linux Foundation, i.e. monopolists looking for openwashing.
“It was never about Linux (kernel) in the first place, or hasn’t been the case for well over a decade. So that statement is patently false.”It’s hardly surprising that a few hours ago Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (SJVN) was acting almost like a spokesperson for OIN. He’s still in denial about ongoing Microsoft patent extortion, which even happened recently against Linux (he justified this for Microsoft by attacking the victim, as if it’s OK for Microsoft to sue Foxconn because SJVN dislikes Foxconn). I asked him about it and it turned out he was totally in denial about simple facts (instead he cited this totally irrelevant and unrelated affair to me), which were right there in the docket. His latest piece has this summary: “Open source’s main patent protection organization is expanding its reach far beyond just Linux.” It was never about Linux (kernel) in the first place, or hasn’t been the case for well over a decade. So that statement is patently false. Maybe clickbait too…
More from this article:
For years, the Open Invention Network (OIN), the largest patent non-aggression ever, has protected Linux from patent attacks and patent trolls. Now, on October 13, 2020, it expanded its scope from core Linux programs and adjacent open-source code by expanding its Linux System Definition. In particular, that means patents relating to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) 10 and the Extended File Allocation Table exFAT file system are now protected.
That’s important because for those of you with long memories Microsoft used to make billions from Android and exFAT-related patent licenses. Those days are long over, and this buries them for good.
[...]
Today, exFAT remains an important file system and, thanks to the OIN and Microsoft’s efforts, it’s now royalty-free for OIN members. With over 3,000 members, that means essentially anyone who wants to can now legally use exFAT for free.
Bruce Perens (OSI co-founder) recently spoke about the problem with OIN (around 10 minutes from the start of the video below). SJVN is acting like little but a PR agent of OIN (run by former patent trolls and patent cartel people), getting companies to join this software patents-approving cartel of companies like IBM. It’s helping to spread Microsoft stuff instead of better solutions. It’s about making things adapt to Microsoft rather than the other way around. We said the same thing when Microsoft brought exFAT to Linux, comparing it to OOXML. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
08.11.20
Posted in Europe, Microsoft, OIN, Patents at 4:59 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: It has become increasingly if not abundantly evident that European Patent Office President Campinos is no better than Battistelli as he’s still a ‘darling’ of patent litigation trolls and their front groups/lawyers
THE European Patent Office (EPO) is run by a bad person, whose own staff rejects him (only 3% of those surveyed trust him). The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), thanks to a corrupt appointment made by Donald Trump, is also run by a bad person. They’re all about litigation/lawsuits; this isn’t what patent offices were made for. This is sometimes called “vendor capture” (the vendors being firms that pursue as much litigation as possible, not science or innovation).
Iancu vainly sidesteps 35 U.S.C. § 101 in order to mass-grant illegal software patents (without a chance in court; judges would toss these out) and artificially inflate meaningless numbers; so does Campinos, who openly and shamelessly promotes software patents in Europe and sometimes pressures judges to let him do this. IAM certainly pushes very hard in that direction…
“IAM and the EPO aren’t separate; there’s a business relationship, which we wrote about before.”Later these liars have the audacity to speak about patent “quality” (they mean speed or volume, not objective quality) and the EPO always cites a bunch of lies from IAM to ‘support’ the lie. They last did this a few months ago. IAM and the EPO aren’t separate; there’s a business relationship, which we wrote about before. IAM also has business relationships with Microsoft and its various patent trolls, including Intellectual Ventures. According to this new page “Intellectual Ventures COO Arvin Patel” will be an IAM ‘VIP’ soon, alongside Campinos and Iancu. What does that say about IAM? What does that say about the EPO? They’re both boosters of patent trolls because of the money; they’ve become a megaphone of blackmail and extortion artists funded by Microsoft. There’s a “virtual fireside chat” (careful not to get burned) coming:
António Campinos and Andrei Iancu are among the confirmed speakers participating in IAM’s ground-breaking IPBC Connect, being held over the course of next month.
The USPTO Director and the President of the EPO will be taking part in a virtual fireside chat on 15th September with IAM editor-in-chief Joff Wild, during which a wide range of subjects will be addressed. These will include, no doubt, how both agencies have responded to the challenges posed by the covid-19 pandemic and the longer-term implications for IP practice that the current crisis creates.
If one goes to the sponsors page one finds Intellectual Ventures in there. Is that what they pay for? That literally means that money is flowing from Intellectual Ventures (the world’s biggest patent troll) to IAM. Other sponsors include Sisvel (troll), Avanci (troll) and even OIN (yes, OIN the sellout, which works to reinforce software patents). Quite a bunch right there! We’ve highlighted/underlined them below (screenshot from the site).
OIN is sponsoring all sorts of patent trolls-infested events while calling some trolls "charities". This isn’t the OIN that we supported more than a decade ago. OIN is nowadays literally run by people who came from notorious patent trolls. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
07.14.20
Posted in OIN, Patents at 5:58 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The way things stand, OIN is really not interested in solving the patent problem the Free software way; rather, it’s looking to impose its own way on the Free software community
Permalink
Send this to a friend
« Previous Page — « Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries » — Next Page »
Content is available under CC-BY-SA