Summary: A short interview with Jim Whitehurst, who spoke to us about Red Hat’s performance

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COUPLE of days ago a company working on behalf of Red Hat contacted us, whereupon we asked for some answers from Red Hat. We are pleased to have received them from the company’s CEO, Jim Whitehurst. Here is the quick Q&A.

How has the economic climate affected Red Hat’s performance? Has it been beneficial?

Year to date through November 30, 2011 (three quarters) we have experienced rapid growth; revenue 26%, income from operations 42% and net income 50%. Historically, we have performed well in both up and down economic cycles.

There have been numerous reports recently about Red Hat’s expansion and relocations. How does Red Hat view the prospect of expanding in Europe, where software patents are less of a problem?

Red Hat is expanding globally, including in Europe, with more than 70 offices now in over 30 countries. Software patents are not a criteria in our expansion plans.

How can a community of Free/open source software enthusiasts ensure that Red Hat — a key developer of pertinent components of the GNU/Linux operating system — maintains growth?

Red Hat is responsible for Red Hat’s growth based on our own strategies and business plans. The open source community is important to us and we actively work to encourage, cultivate and grow the community, but only Red Hat can drive its growth.

Have CentOS, Scientific Linux, and Oracle had any noticeable impact on Red Hat’s ability to sell support contracts?

No. █

Summary: A Red Hat perspective on the recently-passed H.R. 1249

RED HAT was recently sued by MOSAID, a patent troll that Microsoft helped pass some patents to, by its very own admission. MOSAID is similar to Acacia, which also sued Red Hat.

According to Erick Robinson, whom we mentioned in March and in April, the lousy patent 'reform' we saw recently may in fact be helpful against patent trolls. To quote Red Hat’s OpenSource.com:

So it has finally happened: a patent reform bill has actually become law. Last Thursday, the U.S. Senate voted 89-9 to send H.R. 1249 to the White House, where it was signed into law today. While I have pointed out in the past that this bill misses out on several aspects of reform that previous bills attempted, it does include some useful aspects.

First, though, let’s discuss what the new law will NOT include. It will not include any provision tying damages in patent litigation to the specific contribution of the patent over prior technology nor will it provide any specific damages limitation. It will also not require bifurcated trials to separate liability and damages issues. It will not allow interlocutory (real-time, during the underlying case rather than post-verdict) appeal of claim constructions by courts. It will also not specifically include a provision restricting venue in patent litigation (but, as shown below, the joinder provision will have an effect on venue for some cases). Each of these provisions were included in prior versions of the legislation and would have helped fix the system.

[...]

The joinder provision included in the America Invents Act, as passed, which Red Hat actively supported, specifically states that there must be another basis for joinder beyond an allegation that the defendants have all infringed a patent. Thus, the new law should prevent the “file around the country, and add a few Texas mom and pops” tactic. In fact, the natural result of this new law should be that patent plaintiffs, especially non-practicing entities (NPEs), will generally have to file as many lawsuits as there are defendants. This will mean that each case will likely be filed either where each defendant is organized (often Delaware or Nevada) or where it has its principal place of business.

At least as important as this effective restriction on venue is the effect on NPEs of having to litigate one case per defendant. First, NPEs have been targeting multiple defendants in a single lawsuit to reduce their costs. More important, though, NPEs have been leveraging such lawsuits against defendants by forcing competitors and other unfriendly parties to either cooperate by sharing confidential documents, expenses, attorneys, and strategy or to spend even more money and resources in defending the case. The new “one defendant-one lawsuit” rule will require NPEs to try cases as many times as there are defendants. Not only is this prohibitively expensive, but it puts the validity of the patent(s) in suit in peril every time the case is tried.

Ultimately, however, patent trolls should not exist; neither should software patents. █

Summary: The role of SUSE, its “community”, and a new case study of SLES “Linux tax” at SAP

“MICROSOFT Linux” (also known as SUSE, which is partly funded by Microsoft by the way) is one of the biggest problems GNU/Linux has got on the server side at the moment. It’s mostly about SLES, as SLED is hardly relevant anymore. Microsoft basically takes part of the revenue made by putting SLES in the datacentre, which is exactly why Microsoft backs SUSE financially. It’s about combating distributions that do not pay Microsoft a penny, notably Red Hat/CentOS and Debian GNU/Linux.

SUSE organises an event for employees and volunteers, hoping to attract the latter using the “OpenSUSE” alter ego. To quote the latter article: “At the openSUSE Conference, we talked to the makers of openSUSE about the new developments for SUSE and for the community distribution.”

“Community” is code word for unpaid staff in this case. Microsoft is among those who profit from the work of this “community”.

The more major news this week is the announcement from SAP that it will carry on paying Microsoft a tax for using GNU/Linux. There is even a press release about it and this spin says:

“Our partnerships with SAP and IBM have enabled thousands of customers to gain from the exciting benefits SUSE Linux has to offer, including decreased operating costs and improved performance,” said Michael Miller, vice president of global marketing and alliances…

Shame on IBM for still allowing Microsoft to make money from GNU/Linux. Then again, IBM is not against software patents and it helped SUSE be acquired by Novell almost a decade ago. This whole thing is worth mentioning especially because only days earlier it was stressed that SAP supports Red Hat. When will SAP actually make Red Hat its platform of choice and stop choosing to pay Microsoft for something which is free? Some Microsoft allies like SAP actually want to do this. That’s where SUSE comes in. █

Summary: Software patents pressure on Red Hat and how the strategy shifted over time; a fresh report that is hostile towards patents gets published by NPR, which recently exposed Microsoft’s patent troll

THE problem with software patents is being realised by many news avenues, even the ‘Microsoft press’ which at least raises questions in a new column stating: “I’m struggling with my feelings about software patents. Although software patents might not seem directly related to your career as a SQL Server professional, software and technology are the bedrock of everything we do and that SQL Server is based on. The future direction of software and patents has the potential to have a profound affect your life and career. Every technology professional should be exploring this topic and forming your own opinions so that you can participate in shaping the future of this debate. (I encourage you to make those opinions known to your elected officials.) Aggressive use of software patents, often on questionable claims, is beginning to have a negative impact on the technology business.”

And this comes from a person who makes a living from Microsoft, which is a strong proponent of software patents not just in the US; it hires lobbyists to spread such bad policies in other countries too. People who carry water for Microsoft ought to come to grips with it. Another fairly FOSS-hostile source at least raises the question, “Are Lawyers Destroying Software?”

“The general premise was, as both companies had software patents they could work together to exclude the competition, mainly Red Hat.”It is rather apparent that Microsoft and patent lawyers are not interested in the benefit to their surroundings. It is very much the opposite in fact as they strive to gain at the expense of their surroundings. In light of this, consider what Novell chose to do when it liaised with Microsoft on software patents. The general premise was, as both companies had software patents they could work together to exclude the competition, mainly Red Hat.

Although there are still people who carry water for Novell, the company is dead (this one YouTube upload still promotes a product/project that was already killed by Attachmate) and Microsoft has found a ‘new’ Novell over in China [1, 2, 3]. It ought to be emphasised that it’s all about proprietary (taking something free and sticking blobs in it), but Adrian Bridgwater asks: “Is Microsoft trying out this much more open stance in the Chinese market where the rest of the world won’t see it happen (just in case the company doesn’t like it) perhaps?”

It is not an “open stance”. There is nothing “open” about Hyper-V.

Sean Michael Kerner does a good job explaining that Microsoft’s patent deal with Novell did not hurt Red Hat (he also rightly calls this a patent deal). To quote:

In November of 2006, Microsoft entered into a patent covenant and interoperability deal with Novell. In 2011, Microsoft has renewed and extended that deal to SUSE Linux, which was spun off from Novell as part of Attachmate’s $2.2 billion acquisition of the company.

Across the last five years, Microsoft has acquired over $300 million worth of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) subscriptions for resale and now has the option for an additional $100 million with SUSE. The Microsoft Novell deal shocked the Linux world at the time it was announced and potentially represented a risk to others in the Linux market.

As it turns out, five years later, it’s a risk that hasn’t affected SUSE Linux’s rival, Red Hat all that much, if at all.

“Patents always come up in the same way that it always comes up for any piece of proprietary software,” Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat told InternetNews.com. “I don’t think it’s any different for us than it is for any other software company.”

Whitehurst explained that Red Hat provides patent indemnification to its customers. He added that Red Hat has also defended itself in lawsuits as have others in the software industry.

“The thought that it (patents) were somehow different for open source than regular software, that has gone away,” Whitehurst said. “I don’t ever hear from customers that there is some differential and they need to be more worried because the software is open source.”

[...]

Whitehurst said that he never hears from customers that they will choose SUSE over Red Hat for interoperability issues. Going a step further, one of the Novell Microsoft partnership customer wins that the two companies announced back in 2007 was a win with Walmart.

As we explained at the time and on other occasions, Microsoft’s COO Kevin Turner (very Linux-hostile) came from Walmart and Microsoft distorted this story about the Walmart deal. The FUD against Red Hat carries on as more patent trolls (some with Microsoft connections) carry on suing the company, e.g. Acacia a year after the Microsoft-Novell deal. One of the latest is MOSAID. We covered this at the time, but Professor Webbink looks at it more closely now. To quote his early analysis:

MOSAID Technologies, Inc. filed a patent infringement complaint [PDF] against Red Hat, IBM, Adobe, Alcatel-Lucent, Juniper Networks, NetApp and VMWare on August 10. The interesting thing about the complaint is that all of the defendants, except Red Hat, are sued under one patent, while Red Hat is the only defendant under the other patent. Why the actions under these different patents should proceed as a single action is beyond me, and I will be surprised if Red Hat doesn’t look to sever the complaint and proceed alone.

MOSAID is a Canadian company and a non-producing entity (yes, go ahead and call them a troll if you would like). Its sole business is to acquire and enforce patents, although it does claim to have developed some of its own patented inventions.

The patent asserted against Red Hat is U.S. Patent No. 5,892,914, entitled “System For Accessing Distributed Data Cache At Each Network Node To Pass Requirements And Data.”

As Pogson puts it:

I trust the judge will laugh this one out of court and send the troll the bill for cluttering up the court system.

The problem is, there are cases in the past where Red Hat paid patent trolls to just go away. NPR exposed Microsoft's network of patent trolls some weeks ago (over 1,300 proxies circling IV) and it’s not quite over yet because now comes the new report “Patent Wars Could Dull Tech’s Cutting Edge”. It says:

Some call it an international patent arms race: Tech companies like Apple, Samsung, Nokia and Google are launching lawsuits over competing patent claims related to smartphones and tablets.

As NPR’s Laura Sydell tells Morning Edition co-host Renee Montagne, companies are mounting takeovers aimed at gaining control of thousands of patents.

Google recently spent $12.5 billion to buy Motorola Mobility, a cellphone manufacturer with more than 17,000 patents. And as Sydell has previously reported, “patent trolls” are on the lookout for potential infringements and the payday that a lawsuit might bring.

They are doing a good investigative job despite Bill Gates putting money on their table for self-promotion (which they give him). The most major patent attacks on Google come from Microsoft’s cartel, alleges Google. I’s not a mere theory as there is far too much evidence, including leaked strategic documents. █

Summary: Poor reporting on the subject of SUSE and Microsoft’s promotion of SUSE, which helps Microsoft turn GNU/Linux into its own cash cow

Sean Kerner has published a valuable article where he quotes SUSE as saying that they “Don’t Get the Credit [They] Deserve”. Funny, eh?

Have a look at this piece where Kerner does not neglect to mention the Microsoft ties (the incidental case of good journalism from him):

According to Clark, Attachmate didn’t buy Novell just to ‘milk’ the SUSE business, it bought it with the intention of aggressively growing the business. To that end, at the LinuxCon event, SUSE hung out a ‘we’re hiring’ sign. Clark said SUSE is hiring approximately 20 people to help staff various parts of the business.

[...]

SUSE has also recently extended its deal with Microsoft to the tune of an additional $100 million. As part of the deal, Microsoft resells SUSE Linux and works with SUSE on interoperability issues. Microsoft also provides SUSE with a patent covenant that it promises not to sue SUSE users over any alleged infringement of Microsoft’s intellectual property that might be in open source software.

Microsoft is funding SUSE to harm free distributions. Nothing has changed since 2006. Now, watch this weird new blog post from the 451 Group. Well, in an amazingly whitewashy piece, it is Jay (of all people) who neglects to see the bigger picture (Microsoft trying to injure Red Hat, for example, while turning GNU/Linux into its own cash cow). Jay lets it seem like Microsoft is the “world’s broadest supporter of Linux” (trollish headline). But to quote:

Despite the concerns about Microsoft’s control over SUSE Linux or Linux in general, the fact of the matter is Microsoft’s investment of both dollars, including its SUSE deals worth a few hundred million, and investment of of resources, such as the interoperability work with Novell/SUSE, the kernel contribution, the cross-OS and hypervisor support work with Red Hat and the support of CentOS, Microsoft is significantly supporting Linux development and use in the enterprise.

I wrote last year about the uncertainty around Novell/SUSE kernel contribution given the Attachmate acquisition.

Microsoft is still turning GNU/Linux into its own cash cow, which at the same time makes it harder for GNU/Linux to compete. It is the same strategy it uses to attack Android. How can anyone not see this?

As we pointed out yesterday, there are those who play the role of “apologist” for SUSE for purely technical reasons. There is that component called “OpenSUSE” (which organises events and contests), but its goal is to help sell Microsoft-taxed SLE* at the expense of Red Hat and Debian GNU/Linux, for example. Who benefits from this? We are not arguing that OpenSUSE is technically broken; in fact, based on this new review “[t]he only real sore point in the whole [OpenSUSE] experience was the perceived slight slowness of the system, though the numbers in the system monitor somehow did not bear that out. Otherwise, it’s stable, relatively user-friendly, quite professional, and reminds me of my favorite distribution, Linux Mint.”

But it’s not about the technical nature of the distro. Vulnerabilities too aside [1, 2], the main issue is that Microsoft is exploiting SUSE — OpenSUSE included — to make Free software a Microsoft cash cow. To give SUSE credit or to say that Microsoft is “world’s broadest supporter of Linux” is worse than stupid; it’s possibly dishonest, depending on intent. █

Summary: Paul Cormier remarks on the death of Novell and what Novell actually did before it got sold (and its patents passed to Microsoft)

OVER THE YEARS we’ve explained how Novell was migrating people to proprietary software while preserving a sort of bogus public identity of an “open source” company. In this new interview from the Massachusetts press, Paul Cormier says about Novell: “It’s a travesty. An absolute travesty. Customers were starting to want open source. So they’d come in with open source and [Novell would] try to switch them to the stuff that wasn’t open source. I think that was one of the nails in the coffin. And I also think cozying up to Microsoft. The Linux community felt sold out. It hurt their credibillity [sic] with the Linux community.”

In the next post, “Thoughts on Novell”, I will try to explain what happened to Novell over the years. I will try to do this in video because it’s quicker (too busy at work these days). █

Summary: How communities of large GNU/Linux distributions are often perceived by their patrons, even if this is not explicitly stated

ONE taboo subject in the GNU/Linux community was brought up last night in IRC. People get insulted or fearful (depending on their role) if someone points out the value of communities to the company with trademarks and control over these communities. If an unpaid volunteer perceives peers as people more worthy and better rewarded, there is backlash (see what selective monetary invectives did to Debian about 4 years ago). There are certain things that just cannot be said and certain illusions that are necessary for the status quo.

Here is an example scenario. If it is said that some volunteers help with the expectation of receiving a job that way (like placements and internships), they deny this aggressively. If a volunteer is called an employee of the company which pays a wage to run its community, then too opposition comes from many directions. It’s not that the claim is untrue, it’s just not a convent one to grasp.

“It’s not that the claim is untrue, it’s just not a convent one to grasp.”But let’s face it and be true to ourselves. Companies like Novell, Red Hat and even tiny Canonical have obligations to themselves and often to shareholders. The development communities are convenient to them because they reduce the cost of doing business (key products which are carriers to the rest of the portfolio), where the toll is the time and effort of people. As long as a company maintains full control of a community and has a clear priority when it comes to strategic direction (e.g. through paid community members) it remains an integral part of this community and also its proprietor. To merely say this is not heresy; it’s common sense. Perhaps it’s just the way one says which really counts at the end.

To be critical of the above is not the same as highlighting it and to self-censor based on what is ‘safe’ to argue is to no longer care about what’s true.

Speaking of which, “NOVELL” news is very scarce now because the company no longer exists as an independent entity, a lot of the staff was laid off, and managers mostly moved on and joined other companies. With the exception of few people like one who still organises Weekly News, we hardly see OpenSUSE activities from unpaid members. Communities collapse when the volunteers base gets to grips with the reality of exploitative companies like Novell. █

Summary: OpenSUSE is fading away as AttachMSFT is phased in

THE formerly vibrant Planet SUSE is usually very quiet these days, save for a few fun events here and there. Recently though, there have been a large amount of blurbs from Greece that have suddenly rushed in, such as this one. Thomas Thym has attempted to reassure everyone that “Strategy is alive”. There are even some releases of OpenSUSE flavours/derivatives, such as a medical one. There is also an announcement for SUSE appliances for Fog Computing. This, however, does not relate directly to OpenSUSE per se.

As we have explained in recent posts, OpenSUSE has not received much assurance of a continued existence, unlike SUSE [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. Jos Poortvliet, who has headed the project’s community following the departure of Zonker, carries on the cheerleading. Nevertheless, his attempts at morale boosting can only go so far. Based on this announcement from Jos, “OpenSUSE Build Service” is no more because the Linux Foundation has taken charge; the “OpenSUSE” part (Novell/AttachMSFT trademark) will be dropped:

“The openSUSE Build Service Team has decided to rename its cutting-edge packaging- and distribution build technology to Open Build Service,” Poortvliet explains. “The new name, while maintaining the well-known OBS acronym, signals its open and cross-distribution nature.”

It is a good time to review what OpenSUSE actually is anymore. The basic recipe is YaST from SUSE and all sorts of customisations applied to default desktop environments. Outside of that, there is also some kernel development from Greg Kroah-Hartman (who had an important role in OpenSUSE), but this portion of Novell is pretty much irrelevant to SUSE itself. Kroah-Hartman himself acts as mentor for Linux projects rather than a SUSE developer:

I’m a Google Summer of Code mentor for a project to port Linux to a specific system on a chip that happens to be in a number of older game platforms. Here’s one of these devices. I’m going to be in Taipei and Tokyo over the next few weeks, and it would be great if I could pick up one of these myself to help in the debugging effort of this project. Does anyone know of anywhere in either of those cities I might be able to get this device?

Incidentally, Sean Kerner has this new article titled “New Linux Kernel, New RHEL and New Boss for SUSE Linux”. Kroah-Hartman’s work will get applied to RHEL, among many other distributions, as well. Sean suggests some scepticism towards SUSE’s future in Free software:

The new SUSE Linux business also apparently remains fully committed to open source as well as the continuity of its existing projects.

This is not true based on the actions and inactions taken by AttachMSFT thus far. No commitment was expressed by laying off the Mono developers, and AttachMSFT has not proclaimed any commitment to “OpenSUSE” as a project. AttachMSFT is determined to remain a proprietary software company by all indications. █

Summary: Discussion about the phasing out of Mono (removal from GNU/Linux distributions) and what remains to be done

OUR dear Mr. Forbes has brought to our attention his observation that, despite the fact that Mono is dead as a Novell project and is now running on funds from Miguel de Icaza et al. (spending his own savings promoting Microsoft’s patents-encumbered APIs), Fedora still includes Mono in Rawhide. They actually removed Mono some years ago (from final releases), so it is not clear why nightlies/intermediate builds still have it. It’s not exactly news, but it is worth getting an answer to the question, why even bother with Mono at all?

Less than an hour ago one reader asked (in IRC): “When will GIMP go back into Ubuntu’s CD?”

Forbes replied: “Doesn’t seem so, though some official Ubuntu derivatives like Xubuntu still include it by default” (this can be confirmed).

The other reader noted that “room can be made by removing Mono and Mono-dependent apps” (we made this point many times before).

“Hopefully,” said Forbes, “with the BS surrounding the current state of “official” Mono development, the removal may actually happen”

“I look forward to the removal. it is more than just wasting space,” concluded the anonymous reader. ” There are better apps it is holding back” and “Mono slows down performance in other ways as well,” noted Forbes. It's true. █

Summary: A British journalist explains how, based on his sources, Novell was used by those who conspired to wage anti-competitive wars

JOURNALIST/COLUMNIST Eric Doyle has a couple of interesting posts about Novell, and about SUSE in particular. Now that AttachMSFT separates SUSE from itself, Doyle’s well-researched commentary suggests that “Novell’s bright hopes for SuSE failed to shine, but a chance encounter in a London bar may explain how the downhill run started…”

Be sure to read the part after the encounter is described. “Not quite an “apres-ski binge” but, nonetheless, an alcohol-fuelled encounter around 10pm in a London hotel bar during an Infosecurity conference” he explains. “I fell into conversation with a fellow delegate who claimed to be a pig farmer involved in RFID tests. Given my agricultural background, he had picked the wrong journalist to con and I soon blew his cover. After around four hours of elusive badinage about his real identity, he eventually cracked and confessed to being a former Novell employee.”

“After around four hours of elusive badinage about his real identity, he eventually cracked and confessed to being a former Novell employee.”
      –Eric DoyleNotice how he uses our picture of Steve Ballmer riding SUSE’s mascot. We made this picture for “Boycott Novell” and what he says about the conspiracy to unseat competition only further validates our suspicions. There is also an accompanying article from Doyle. Excellent work and a case of real journalism. It says that “Four divisions will house Attachmate’s products and those gained through its purchase of Novell” (Novell sliced down and reorganised itself about a year and a half ago).

So anyway, where does this whole mess leave the GNU/Linux component of Novell? It turns out that Teradata’s use of SUSE (more in [1, 2]) is likely to persist along with Fujitsu’s (it also runs SUSE), whereas SAP seems to be getting back into Red Hat and it’s not alone. Companies just don’t trust SUSE after Novell's collapse. Even OpenSUSE is hardly active anymore. Susan Linton — as we originally noted in our daily links — shows that OpenSUSE becomes a Ubuntu me-too and older releases of the distribution reach end of life quite quickly. If someone wants to buy the SUSE division, then it probably won’t cost much. It is quite likely to happen. █

–Fernando Cassia

Summary: Criticism of OSBC and Future of Open Source, which only help redefine the goals of F/OSS so as to be nearly meaningless

BE CAREFUL of this not-so-new trend where proprietary software companies use the words “open” and “cloud” to portray themselves as something that they are not. OSBC shows many of the symptoms we have drawn attention to before; some are trying to paint the conference “cloud” or something along those lines, completely diluting the content of the conference and turning people’s attention away from freedom. The word “business” in OSBC need not exclude freedom because freedom and business are not at all opposites. We covered all of this before, so readers can be spared the explanations.

More importantly, beware of Microsoft spin at OSBC and watch out for deception from IDG’s “Microsoft Subnet”, whose most blatant Microsoft booster (Robert Mullins, not Jon or Julie) is at it again. It was only yesterday that we wrote about IDG spinning OSBC to its own clients’ advantage. Mullins at least notes that:

Microsoft hasn’t won over everyone in the open source community given comments to Gupta’s Sunday blog post on the subject.

Well, given the money Microsoft has extorted from F/OSS using software patents, given the effect of the FUD campaigns, and given the many families and developers who lost income due to Microsoft’s brutality, Mullins oughtn’t expect Microsoft to be accepted by “everyone in the open source community”. Heck, many will not even tolerate Microsoft and some will ostracise the company. In order to issue some sort of reparations for the damage Microsoft has done to the developers (not to mention damage affecting everyone due to insecurity and elimination of choice), Microsoft would need to sell and liquidate all of its assets, including the executives’, then distribute these back to the victims. The damage Microsoft has done is well documented and those who pretend that some self-serving patch somehow makes amends are extremely unrealistic. Need it be added that Microsoft currently has multiple patent lawsuits against Linux (Motorola and B&N for starters)?

Microsoft has been pouring money not into compensating victims or helping F/OSS. Instead, Microsoft just been investing in PR and funding of F/OSS conference (like Future of Open Source), with the intention of changing the agenda of them along with so-called analysts (who are essentially funded by Microsoft in this way). The Gates Foundation uses the same tricks. Jay Lyman from the 451 Group writes about “Community Linux love from Microsoft” and notes:

It seems Microsoft understands that unlike pirated Windows, which it considers a loss, the use of free, unpaid Linux — particularly by large enterprise, government and other organizations — is a big opportunity for it.

Yes, it is an opportunity to harm GNU/Linux, by putting a cost on it in the form of proprietary software, even if the GNU/Linux part is free of charge. What a nerve Microsoft has. Well, Scientific Linux is said to have just added another developer for the cloning of RHEL. Scientific Linux receives backing from some of the world’s leading research labs, so it need not be paid to change the agenda for Microsoft or anybody else. █

Excellent appointment

Summary: Groklaw 2.0 will be managed by Professor Webbink, who is affiliated with the Software Freedom Law Center and Red Hat

Pamela Jones is retiring after 8 long years in Groklaw and we thank her for all the hard work. Here is her last post (most likely) about SCO. It shows that even after 8 years in the courtroom SCO is not dead. This objectionable company is still counting the pennies and getting some more from mysterious sources. Pamela writes:

So, let’s see. That’s fifteen, carry the one…. wow. Blank Rome says it is owed a total of $652,612.55, if my math is right, and they would like now 80% of the fees and all the expenses paid, for a total of $523,695.85. That’s not even counting the bills from Ocean Park. What does SCO still have to left to pay its bills? God only knows, but here are the last monthly operating reports SCO filed as of the end of February, where SCO Operations listed $779,827 in cash in the bank at the end of that month.

I’m thinking after SCO pays Blank Rome and Ocean Park, what will there be left over for Yarro and LeapTide or anyone else? Without all the figures, who can say, but I suspect this might explain their sudden appearance on the scene. I’m thinking this could get interesting.

Wait. You mean… Yarro and the gang did all this for nothing?

We look forward to interacting with Professor Webbink, whose role will apparently be to keep track of the patent cases and provide sound analysis. To quote Pamela’s last post:

So I thought about who would be the right person. Now that the battlefield has shifted from SCO attacking Linux to Microsoft using patents against it and from servers to mobiles, I realized that Groklaw needs a lawyer at the helm. So I asked Mark Webbink if he would take on this role, and I’m thrilled to tell you that he has accepted. He is the new editor of Groklaw as of today. Mark was General Counsel at Red Hat, as you know, and he is on the board of the Software Freedom Law Center. He is also a law professor, which as I’ll explain is a vital piece of what he has planned. Mark is a visiting professor at New York Law School where he runs the Center for Patent Innovations, oversees the Peer To Patent project run with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, has been active in seeking reform of the U.S. patent system, and teaches patent licensing. In addition, Mark is a senior lecturing fellow at Duke University School of Law where he teaches intellectual property (patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret) licensing. Mark has access to law students at those law schools and many others. In addition, Mark has remained interested and involved in free and open source software and related intellectual property issues and he is the author of the chapter on U.S. technology law included in a soon to be released book on free and open source software law.

What about SCO?

Professor Webbink is against software patents and he is no friend of Novell. With the now-deceased Novell uploading few videos and OpenSUSE flinging hardly any posts, it remains to be seen what actually will happen in the SCO/Novell case. █

A Groklaw and Techrights regular, Wayne Borean. recently became a regular contributor at Semi Accurate, which is an excellent Web site. He is still addressing the “Patent Wars” as he calls them against Google. The writers at Semi Accurate tend to favour GNU/Linux, which the Establishment — iincluding Huff & Puff [1, 2, 3] — tends to look at with suspicion and distrust. The American tabloid Huff & Puff (aka Huffington Post, now owned by America Online) keeps showing that accuracy does not matter there. It’s like Fox for liberals, all about the ratings. As Groklaw put it the other day, “Huffington Post Republishes Debunked Claims About Android”. To quote the complaint in full:

Well, this is embarrassing for Huffington Post. They have republished an article by Microsoft-linked attorney Edward J. Naughton from March, which presented claims that Google had violated the GPL with Android. This was thoroughly debunked by Brian Proffitt here. Brian asked Linus about the matter, and Linus said this:

“It seems totally bogus. We’ve always made it very clear that the kernel system call interfaces do not in any way result in a derived work as per the GPL, and the kernel details are exported through the kernel headers to all the normal glibc interfaces too….

“Of course, we do have our own ‘internal’ headers too, and we have stuff that is meant to be relevant only for the kernel. But there would be no point for Google to even use those, since they are useless outside of the kernel, so I don’t see what the whole brouhaha would be all about. Except if it’s somebody politically motivated (or motivated by some need of attention),” he continued.”

Others, including me, pointed out that Naughton seemed to be trying to hide his association with Microsoft. All in all, I’d say Huffington Post should probably hire more editors.

Google has come under many legal attacks recently — attacks that seek to portray Android as “illegal” or at least “naughty”. Google is trying to buy patents or maybe even build a pool to counter that. “BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (TSX:RIM) could enter the bidding for Nortel’s remaining wireless patents,” says The Canadian Press, “either by itself or as part of a consortium that would try to snatch the prize from Google, a patent expert said Monday.”

Here is Bloomberg‘s new portrayal of Linux companies (which it rarely covers) in an article with the charged/loaded term “Intellectual Property”. They have many articles like this which contain the term Intellectual Property in the headline. “Red Hat, Google, Adidas, PepsiCo: Intellectual Property,” it says in the headline and the relevant part says:

Red Hat Chief Says Company Sometimes Pays Instead of Fighting

Red Hat Inc. (RHT)’s Chief Executive Officer James M. Whitehurst told Network World that his Raleigh, North Carolina-based company sometimes settles with patent trolls because it’s not worth the expense to fight what may be invalid patent claims.

Whitehurst said some software patent cases brought in the Eastern District of Texas come before juries that are “not technically savvy” and are so complicated that even he, with a degree in computer science, finds them far over his head, according to Network world.

Whitehurst, an opponent of software patents, told Network World such patents prevent companies from moving into some areas of technology because they’re fearful of litigation and licensing fees.

Some patent claims the company has faced are “ridiculous,” merely covering something that shows up on common websites, Network World reported Whitehurst saying.

Whitehurst was complaining also about trolls who had connections with/to Microsoft.

‘Patent Hawk’/Odom, who used to work for Microsoft, has just had a patent of his invalidated.

Gary Odom runs his own patent search firm as well as his own patent law blog – the Patent Prospector – where he provides piquant comments on patent law and practice. Odom is also a patent holder. His Patent No. 7,363,592 is directed toward a modification of the “toolbar” and “tool groups” that are familiar aspects of most computer software displays.

Patents are a real problem for GNU and Linux and we must strive to end software patents. They should all be invalidated and put in the wastebasket. █

Summary: Why Red Hat is already harmed by Microsoft’s software patents strategy, which is a scheme that distorts the market where GNU/Linux is gradually winning everything

A FEW days ago we explained that Red Hat was still being extorted by patent trolls with links going back to Microsoft. Over at TechDirt, Mike Masnick explains that Red Hat should not pay those patent trolls. “I certainly understand the reasoning,” he writes. “And I definitely understand the short-term cost-benefit analysis. If you can pay off the patent holder for less than it’ll take to fight the case, even if you win, that seems like a good deal. Except… in the long run, this may be penny-wise and pound-foolish, because as you build up the reputation as a company who will fold as long as the settlement demands are under a certain level, then all you do is encourage more trolling behavior, leading to more new lawsuits with more patent holders demanding a handout.

“Again, I can certainly understand the basic reasoning for settling, and can’t really begrudge any company that decides to settle to avoid a lawsuit, but it is a little disappointing that this just perpetuates the problem.”

Over at TechEye, an author has this to say:

His view is that software patents shouldn’t even exist because they impede innovation. Whitehurst also thinks that the court system is not properly equipped to handle patent disputes.

Whitehurst said that most of the patent trolling happens in courts in the Eastern District of Texas, generally with a jury that has not completed college and are not technologically savvy enough to work out if a patent is valid or not.

After all, this a part of the US where opposable thumbs are considered innovation and its residents are being asked to understand stuff that a PHD can’t get, he implied.

Most of the patent suits filed against Red Hat relate to middleware, which is esoteric at the best of times. Whitehurst said.

Another method for extorting Red Hat comes more directly from Microsoft, which is receiving patent payments from some of Red Hat’s large customers. For instance, Amazon pays Microsoft for Red Hat, which in turn happily flaunts its relationship with Red Hat these days in Red Hat’s event. This whole strategy is working out for Microsoft and Microsoft Florian is currently playing the role of shameless fan for anti-Linux and anti-Android cases like Oracle’s. He is leaning on journalists to warp their coverage of these issues and normalise Microsoft’s racketeering [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7], as though it is only fair and just. Florian is a very good liar and he spends a lot of time distorting reality (or spinning) in sites such as LWN, which are learning to treat him like a troll.

“Another method for extorting Red Hat comes more directly from Microsoft, which is receiving patent payments from some of Red Hat’s large customers.”LWN warns about “victory for the trolls” in reference to one who previously worked for (and was paid by) Microsoft and now attacks Linux with software patents. People tend to forget that the world’s largest patent troll came from Microsoft and was funded by Microsoft. We are talking about abominations like Intellectual Ventures, which is sort of imitated based on this essay from a former Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. He writes about “Facebook for Patents”, which is his term for referring to this: “In what is akin to a “Facebook for Patents” — a company named Article One Partners, which received the Silicon Alley Tech Startup of the Year prize, offers compensation to researchers from 176 countries to strengthen patents, reduce the risk of infringement assertions by competitors, and improve patent quality.”

They strive to “strengthen patents,” eh? We’ve heard it all before. This whole piece from the Huff & Puff is patent propaganda.

“#BPAI decision involving the definition of GPU in #patent claim,” writes Rachael Vaughn, who links to Karen G. Hazzah’s report which she titled “BPAI criticizes Applicant’s claim term definition because the definition gave examples”

Takeaway: The Applicant in Ex parte Brunner offered evidence of the meaning of “graphics processing unit,” in the form of an IEEE article “GPU Computing.” The BPAI found that the article did not provide a definition of the term, and instead described examples of GPUs. The Board adopted the Examiner’s broader interpretation of GPU: “any processing unit that carries out graphical operations, such as outputting display data to a display device.”

The solution to this is to push for elimination of all software patents, be they related to hardware or not (that’s the loophole for spreading software patents in the EU and NZ). There is no room for monopolies on mathematics as this devastates science and technology as a whole. █

Summary: “Nokia will receive substantial payments from Microsoft for patents,” reports Reuters amid many patent lawsuits against Android; Red Hat is meanwhile acknowledging that it pays patent trolls like Acacia to go away and the OIN grows larger

“AS expected,” we argued a few days ago, Microsoft is using Nokia’s patents to hinder the adoption of Android, which is generally winning the platforms battle even in the United States. All that Google believes it can do now is gather many patents, but it is a futile exercise since Microsoft sends patent trolls to attack Linux [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] and it also sent out a mole to give Ballmer Nokia's car keys. According to this new report from Reuters (which has covered a lot of Nokia stories since 2008 at least):

Nokia will receive substantial payments from Microsoft for patents

For the uninitiated, Nokia is a European company which is partly responsible for the emergence of some software patents in Europe, as we have explained for years [1, 2, 3].

Stefano Maffulli thinks that “we won the battle against software patents”, but we do not consider it to be the case yet. Here is the core part of his new argument:

During the long march to reject the directive on ‘computer implemented inventions’ we put the issue of software patents in front of millions of Europeans, thousands of small businesses and hundreds of MEPs. We convinced the majority of MEPs to reject, for the first time ever, a Directive approved by the Council. We started a debate about the threats to innovation posed by patents and we made sure the business community knew about the risks to their activity. The issues of patents on software and math are now visible to all those affected in the business community: entrepreneurs, small-and medium-size businesses and big business.

The business community at large is the ultimate victim of software patents. With trolls constantly at work, all companies face potential damage. Companies, small and big, are now aware of the problem and the debate about how to fix it is now a fire that burns on its own. Academics publish a lot more papers and research projects demonstrating that the current patent system is broken and dysfunctional and may be harming economic development of the US.

If we won the battle against software patents, then how come Red Hat is still being extorted by Acacia? Red Hat’s CEO has just pretty much confirmed that it is happening, in an interview with a Microsoft booster:

Red Hat CEO hates patent trolls, but says sometimes you just have to pay up

With Red Hat on the verge of becoming the first billion-dollar company focused exclusively on open source software, it has attracted quite a bit of attention — from lawyers waving patents.

Red Hat doesn’t need a legal team as big as Microsoft’s, but it does spend a lot of time in court, particularly in the Eastern District of Texas, a hotbed of patent lawsuits filed by what Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst and others call “patent trolls.”

The OIN has just added another member [1, 2], but it is not entirely clear (if at all) what it can ever do about patent trolls. A few years back the OIN wanted to arrange for us to interview their CEO. When we sent the questions to be asked and these included hard questions about the futility of this strategy in the face of patent trolls the OIN simply cancelled the very same interview it had sought to set up. Now, how about that? The fight against software patents is not won until all software patents are voided or proven to be useless in court. We are not there yet. There are no “good” patents and “bad” patents. Regulators ought to step in and dismantle patent cartels. █

FOR the past 5 years or so we’ve been preaching repeatedly and stressing that software patents are a major problem and that they are likely to be Microsoft’s last resort against Linux (or derived platforms like Android). Our prediction was correct and Microsoft is currently trying to extort Android as means of ‘competing’ (and no, some RIM deal and Nokia entryism cannot suffice as enablers of market distortion).

“Our prediction was correct and Microsoft is currently trying to extort Android as means of ‘competing’…”Earlier today we wrote about Acacia suing Red Hat and apparently extorting them successfully yet again. We have already explained the ties between Microsoft and Acacia, so we won’t do that again.

According to this new announcement, Acacia carries on with the same strategy and unless patent law changes in the United States, there is going to be trouble.

This new opinion piece about software patents helps highlight some of the key problems and it starts as follows:

Recently it was announced that the U.S. Department of Justice is going to end its oversight of Microsoft since 2001, beginning on May 12, 2011. There has been some concern voiced about what will happen after that. I suspect things will carry on like normal at Microsoft, at least for the near future. Why? Because Microsoft is busy leveraging other ways to seek profits and try and undermine competition by using something else: software patents.

While patents themselves are a good thing, applying them to software can actually have an adverse effect. Patents protect physical devices from being cloned, but when dealing with software that is based on mathematical algorithms, software patents prohibit companies from competing with similar software products. And depending on how broad the patent is, it can affect multiple products that are based on the same mathematical algorithm or user interface. This allows a company to prevent the competition from designing software that can offer the consumer a choice between products. In the end, this gives the consumer only one choice on the market (in most cases), so that they must go to the vendor that holds the software patent.

Going further back we have another guy who runs a popular show about GNU/Linux where openly opposed software patents in the following episode:

Credit: TinyOgg

We need to find more material (preferably new) on this subject. More sites that promote GNU/Linux must talk about software patents’ insanity in order for GNU/Linux to thrive. Microsoft lobbied hard for laws which, by definition, make Microsoft’s main competition “illegal” or more expensive than Windows. That’s a “corruption” of the law, as Professor Lessig might call it in his insightful talks. █

Summary: Another secret settlement is reported by Acacia subsidiary and the anti-Linux patent is now expressed as simple mathematics (that one is not allowed to practice in the United States)

This press release seems a bit familiar (see 2010 settlement [1, 2, 3, 4] and prior ones), but its date was the same as the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, so it was lost in the noise. It says:

Acacia Research Corporation (Nasdaq:ACTG) announced today that its Site Update Solutions, LLC subsidiary has entered into a confidential settlement agreement with Red Hat, Inc. The agreement resolves patent litigation that was pending between the parties in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Civil Action No: 2:10-cv-00151-DF, related to U.S. Patent No. RE40,683.

Site Update Solutions, LLC?

For those who do not remember Microsoft’s links to Acacia, see this wiki page. Bedrock too recently extorted Red Hat (at Google’s datacentres) and the person responsible for it had been paid by Microsoft beforehand (Microsoft was a client). Regarding Google’s patent case, here is the the patent in question reduced to mathematical formulae. The author says:

Google has just been ordered to pay $5M for infringing patent 5,893,120 (hereafter “Patent 120″). This patent covers a very simple data structure and the algorithms for manipulating it. In fact much of the text of the patent is a pseudo-code implementation in a Pascal-like language. So I thought I would provide a practical demonstration of what has, until now, been a theoretical proposition; the reduction of a software patent to set of mathematical formulae. The result is below, and is also posted here (although I believe that the paste-bin will eventually expire).

I chose this patent partly because it is comparatively simple (there are 95 lines of Haskell source code in the file), but also because it is potentially important; Google’s “infringement” consisted of using Linux, which uses this algorithm. Hence anyone using Linux is a potential target.

We need to eliminate software patents. Exposing those who incentivise anti-Linux lawsuits may not be enough and there might be no law against that, either. █

Summary: The company which impedes cloning of SLE* spreads resentment against Red Hat for addressing the clones dilemma; Novell also puts proprietary software before Free/libre and Open Source software

EARLIER this month we showed that Novell was gunning for Red Hat customers, not Microsoft customers. We wrote about statements from Novell’s Applebaum, which are further fuelled by a press release and timely copies that say: “Support program adds more platforms, lengthens server lifecycle support time to 10 years; final service pack for SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 packages improvements and supports latest hardware” (also see notes about service pack 4 of SLED 10).

“When it comes to Open Source stuff like OpenSUSE, Novell just sticks it in some wiki somewhere, almost as though it’s something to be embarrassed of.”Novell is not targetting (to harm) Microsoft but targetting Red Hat instead. As Gareth Halfacree put it in his article “Novell reveals its tactics for taking on Red Hat”, there is veiled belittling that we never see from Novell against Microsoft (a Novell ally). Halfacree writes: “A blog post made by Novell late last month – accusing one of its largest competitors in the commercial Linux space, Red Hat, of deliberately obfuscating its code to hamper third-party support efforts – raised some eyebrows in the community, so we sat down with the post’s author, Michael Applebaum, to find out what’s what.” Guess which server distribution has many clones and which one has none? As we explained some years ago (a series of posts, e.g. this in 2007), Novell impedes access to SUSE source code, but do not let the FUDmeisters have such facts slap them on the face.

Novell never disrespects Microsoft like this. It chose a side and that side includes IE8 and promotion/videos about Windows. Posted by Novell accounts we find stuff like this and some other videos [1, 2] which make no mention of GNU/Linux. Ross from Novell started advertising videos about Vibe [1, 2, 3], which is proprietary software made out of Open Source software (Novell turns free into proprietary). Proprietary software is definitely something which Novell can put its weight behind, even with paid press releases and extremely shallow coverage [1, 2]. When it comes to Open Source stuff like OpenSUSE, Novell just sticks it in some wiki somewhere, almost as though it’s something to be embarrassed of. The same goes for Novell vulnerabilities, which one needs to pursue by reading non-Novell sites [1, 2].

Novell is a shameless parasite. People who support GNU/Linux should give their money to other companies. █

AFTER this previous post, the pro-patents crowd (the lawyers who confront us over these issues) suggested we focus more attention on the company Walker Digital. To quote the relevant parts:

The first lot, for Automatically Captured Images contained only a set of patent applications and foreign patents, yet the bidding petered out at $7,000,000. Bidding for a lot described as a Single Use Transaction Code stopped at $3,000,000. The last two lots, for Driving Directions with Visual Cues and a Certified Audio Vault reached $6,000,000 and $4,500,000, respectively. Altogether, that’s $20.5 M in exchange for the freedom for one company each to practice and manufacture the technology described in these patents. Generally, when good technology is adopted by one company, it gets copied by others, so it’s entirely likely that substantial additional value exists, not just for these patents, but Walker Digital as a whole.

But how did the covenants end up being sent to auction in the first place? Earlier this year, Walker Digital announced the hiring of a consulting firm to help create value out of its substantial patent portfolio

Black Duck, the pretending-to-be-a-Free-software-company founded by a Microsoft manager, has bought Olliance Group, the group which organises the "Open Source Think Tank". At the same, Black Duck is now accepting money from Microsoft and its close friend, Accenture. With this, proprietary software zealots can influence the “Open Source Think Tank”, and effectively speak on behalf of their competition.

The Open Source Think Tank is the most unique invitation-only event of its kind, bringing together many of the world’s top thought leaders in a challenge to solve real world situations. The event is focused on the evolution and practical implications of open source and cloud computing.

It’s invitation-only, eh? Was Microsoft invited to an “Open Source Think” or does it get automatic admission by simply paying? This whole event is organised by a familiar entity.

Black Duck in reality promotes proprietary software covered by software patents. It is yet another firm that does not see the big picture and realise the hindrance to innovation by software patents. Like the Tea Party, these closed-minded firms play a game where the bigger players (Microsoft, Apple) have the advantage and exploit the smaller players without consequence or guilt. Unfortunately, there is an increasing number of misguided software companies with a patent strategy that is not progressively oriented around immediate abolition. “Our patent-pending Adaptive Query Execution™ capability is unlike any other offering in the market,” drones Justin Borgman, co-founder of Hadapt Inc. Next there will be a patent on using the equation “y=mx+b” with cloud (Internet) spreadsheet programs (that is, if one does not exist already).

Meanwhile, even Red Hat has not proven immune to the software patent bug. It’s legal team has produced harmful statements in a recent post; they spout praise and endorsement over the “strength” of Red Hat’s patent portfolio while still maintaining that the company is a fighter for patent reform:

The ranking of Red Hat’s patent portfolio as the 50th strongest in IT represents a jump of 16 spots from The Patent Board’s previous ranking on November 5, 2010.

[...]

At the same time, Red Hat continues to fight for software patent reform.

Red Hat has made itself open for accusations of hypocrisy. This is the last thing it needs at this point, especially in the light of the source code obfuscation controversy we discussed earlier. Red Hat needs to do what is right and stand up and firmly for its beliefs and the Free software community and software it originates from and depends upon. It can not continue to act like a “wishy-washy” politician if it seeks long-term viability. █

TECHRIGHTS runs on top of CentOS, which relies on Red Hat for its updates. Earlier this week at work I was told that CentOS had not released patches since December, whereas RHEL patches are released at a pace of several per week. This may make one wonder about the new Scientific Linux, which might one day outpace CentOS and replace it as the de facto RHEL clone.

“Red Hat can improve its bottom line by sticking a cork in CentOS and preventing access to RHEL-targeted patches.”Red Hat defends its dubiously obfuscated patches by pointing the finger at Oracle, but let’s face it; it is often said that the most widely used distribution of GNU/Linux is the quiet giant, CentOS. Many Web hosts run it and they are not alone, sector-wise. Nobody knows just how many servers run CentOS, but it’s probably many millions. Red Hat can improve its bottom line by sticking a cork in CentOS and preventing access to RHEL-targeted patches. Oracle would be a convenient Goliath to blame, but is it really as dangerous as Red Hat wants us to believe while Red Hat’s financial numbers keep hitting new record highs? The subject of transparency at Red Hat was addressed here quite recently and Techrights will continue to pressure Red Hat to rectify these issues, both by explaining the Acacia settlement [1, 2, 3] and by providing GPL-friendly patches to those who require them. The GPL is designed to avoid exclusion, even if that means allowing Oracle to embrace other people’s work.

As we pointed out this morning, Novell is trying to take advantage of Red Hat’s practices, hoping to sell Microsoft-taxed SLE* at the expense of/instead of RHEL (there is also a peripheral article about it now). Who would that benefit? █