06.14.11
Posted in GNU/Linux, Novell, OpenSUSE, Red Hat, Ubuntu at 12:50 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Volunteer Gardener
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. █
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05.26.11
Posted in GNU/Linux, Kernel, Mono, Novell, OpenSUSE, Red Hat at 7:24 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Co-authored with G. Forbes
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. █
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05.25.11
Posted in GNU/Linux, Mono, Red Hat at 1:42 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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. █
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05.22.11
Posted in IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Red Hat at 8:06 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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. █
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05.18.11
Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft, Red Hat at 9:40 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“My definition of Cloud Computing: “the Fine Art of Separating People from Their Software”"
–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. █
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05.16.11
Posted in Law, Novell, Patents, Red Hat, SCO at 8:15 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
[Update: Mark Webbink has asked to clarify that he is no longer associated with Red Hat]
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. █
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05.10.11
Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Red Hat at 12:54 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft’s previously hired attorney, Edward J. Naughton, finds a new platform by which to paint Android as disrespectful of copyrights while Microsoft keeps suing Android over patents and ‘Patent Hawk’ loses one
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. █
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05.08.11
Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Patents, Red Hat at 4:30 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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. █
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