“Nokia is a DRM partner of Microsoft, among other initiatives where these two have partnered quite recently.”HTML 5, whose draft was unleashed about a week ago, does not contain Ogg primarily due to protest and rejection by Apple and Nokia. Apple supports DRM (do not believe the publicity stunt from Steve Jobs) and it's closer to Microsoft than you are led to believe (despite hostility in this everlasting love-hate relationship). Nokia is a DRM partner of Microsoft, among other initiatives where these two have partnered quite recently. Nokia also wrote a detailed report whose purpose was very clearly to intercept Ogg. This format a great threat to Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight once it can be embedded in Web pages.
Mind you, KDE 4 -- just like Qt4 -- is coming to Windows. But let's not worry about this -- for now. We wish to have you reminded of the old story about Miguel de Icaza, who started working on GNOME just after his job interview at Microsoft [1, 2]. Ever since, GNOME has gained a greater market share than KDE (mostly at KDE's expense). This statement is based on the Desktop Linux survey from 2007.
Novell sort of dropped KDE (as the default desktop environment for businesses) in favour of GNOME some time after it had acquired Ximian and before signing the patent deal with Microsoft. This happened despite the fact that SuSE had had a long-standing tradition surrounding KDE. Even the current project manager of OpenSUSE is in fact a well-known KDE figure. Remember that a top Novell manager described the Ximian acquisition as a "red carpet" in what turned out to be a controversial statement.
We recently saw how Microsoft bought (by proxy) a company that competes against it. It's unlikely to be a coincidence given the compelling amount of evidence we have already amassed. Microsoft probably grabbed XenSource (via Citrix) just to eliminate disruptive competition from VMWare, Xen and Red Hat, which still has KVM and some other alternatives cooking. Red Hat and others won't be left 'naked' with other just-in-cases still out and about.
Again, however, let's not forget Mono and GNOME getting tighter [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, On Beagle's Increasing Mono-ization and Novell's Role] and be slightly worried about this Novell project (Mono is all about Novell) making its way into Ubuntu and other GNOME-based GNU/Linux distributions. With OOXML 'translators' and Moonlight, it seems more than apparent that a trap could be deliberately created which forces many people to use Mono, due to market inertia. Moments ago we posted an item stressing yet again the great dangers of Mono and also the broken promise (with solid proof of this in the written deal signed by Novell).
Our reader inquires: "Are the QT libraries ALREADY protected under he GPLv3 licence as was projected?"
I thought about this as well. My initial reaction, which I pointed out in a couple of places initially and later on elsewhere on the Web is that Nokia is now handling GPLv3-licensed software. Another thought that I had was all about Maemo and GTK. It's bizarre, isn't it? Why reinvent the wheel? You don't mix steak and strawberries although both taste wonderfully, but only if digested separately.
He continues: "How will this affect patent-wise the KDE desktop environment (specially the newer KDE4 which uses the newer QT libraries supposed to be licensed under the GPLv3) and all the Linux distros that use it? Will the free software movement become a victim of its own success and of established giants' corporate greed?"
Perhaps we ought to worry that it may be falling into the wrong hands. Acquisitions alone are not sinister by nature. I used to trust Nokia a great deal because of those Internet tablets, but several recent deals that they signed with Microsoft, followed by the Ogg fiasco, the Symbian moves which work in Symbian's favour (Linux applications ported to Symbian more trivially), the good financial results which boast proprietary software... you get the picture, right?
Our reader took a look at some early feedback and considered various other perspectives. "If you have a look to the comments the OSNews report, there seems to be a grim perspective over the buyout of Trolltech by Nokia," he says. See for yourself.
He quotes but one commenter (slightly modified):
First remember that recent bit from Ars Technica (Nokia wants W3C to remove Ogg from upcoming HTML5 standard).
Plus the fact that Nokia is strongly supporting software patentability. http://eupat.ffii.org/gasnu/nokia/index.en.html
Plus the fact that Nokia recently shut down the Bochum factory after having received abnormally high state subsidies: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/function/0,2145,12215_cid_3091297,00.html
That was the starters.
Now consider that Nokia has very little to bring to Trolltech...
Trolltech is already doing well financially and manages to pay enough engineers to develop Qt very fast. It is not at all like Trolltech has an urgent need for an acquirer. You could say more money never hurts, but actually it can, first because each company needs to grow at its own pace and not faster than that, and second because that money comes at the price of independence.
The other huge issue is that Nokia is already deeply involved with GTK and GNOME (and Maemo is based on that). So I am not sure what they are doing. I think they should announce clearly their intentions to the community. Are they ditching Maemo in favor of Qtopia, or are they trying to shut down Qtopia? The first is already bad as it reduces diversity; the second would of course be even much worse. Either way, it's bad news. Unfortunately I can't think of a better third option, but perhaps I'm missing something?
I don't know what the Trolltech management is doing but I think it's a terrible mistake. (For what it's worth I have been a fan of Trolltech and contribute a bit to KDE).
Nokia in turn became a member of the Linux Foundation - an organisation promoting the use of Linux and Open source founded by Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) and the Free Standards Group - last April. The source code of Nokia's mobile browser engine, for example, was already published under BSD license in mid 2006.
Comments
SubSonica
2008-01-28 16:11:47
Roy Schestowitz
2008-01-28 16:20:13
Like you, I really do hope that I'm wrong (see my comments in Groklaw and elsewhere), so I'll continue to watch the analyses.
SubSonica
2008-01-28 16:42:50
"Companies the size of Nokia get run by accountants and lawyers."
Roy Schestowitz
2008-01-28 17:05:17
It might take a while to digest all of this. The open letter seems like some kind of 'damage mitigation/control', but maybe that's just paranoia. We shall see...
Roy Schestowitz
2008-01-28 16:54:00
Heck, didn't Nokia sort of demote Linux on phones (tablets aside)? I'm going by memory here. Phones are the crown jewels of Nokia. The Finnish roots don't mean all that much. Linus lives like a celebrity in CA anyway, but he loves KDE and I imagine he likes Nokia. His opinion on this would be invaluable.
SubSonica
2008-01-28 17:13:13
Have a good read at this comment on the same site by Datschge:
That was a major WTF news to me. Ages ago I read the majority of Trolltech shares were owned by current and former employees, so I'm surprised at the reported easiness Nokia was able to get the majority of Trolltech's shares. Nokia has a long history of heavy pro software patent lobbying. The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) lists several worrying points related to Nokia at http://www.swpat.ffii.org/gasnu/kamni/index.en.html
-Software Patents in Finnland: Between 1998 and 2003 the Finnish Patent Office (FiPO/FiPRH) did not follow the European Patent Office's (EPO) decisions to grant literal claims to information objects such as "computer program product, characterised by ...". In 2003 the FiPO suddenly rushed to grant such claims, although both the European Commission and the European Parliament had proposed not to allow them and the existing laws clearly forbid them. (...) Nokia owns about 70-80% of the finnish software patents at the EPO and is said to wield overwhelming influence on Finnland's politics. Nokia's patent department has been intensively lobbying for software patentability in Helsinki, Brussels and Strasburg.
-Nokia und Software-Patente: Tim Frain, head of Nokia's patent department, is a "permanent resident" of the European parliament and has used every opportunity to ask politicians in Brussels and in Finland to support the European Commission's software patentability directive. He is present at conferences everywhere. He argues that small companies badly need software patents because otherwise their ideas might be stolen by large companies.
-International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and Software Patents: ICC's "Intellectual Property Committee", consisting of 240 corporate "IP professionals" from around the world, headed by Urho Ilmonen, Vice-President Legal of Nokia Mobile Phones Ltd, has vigorously defended the interests of the patent community in Europe. Their letters and statements are characterised by "strong belief" in the beneficiality of patents and disregard for the opinions not only of most ICC member companies but also of national member organisations such as the German Chamber of Commerce, which has pronounced itself against software patents and against the directive proposal.
Trolltech putting all version of Qt under GPL v3 is a good sign, but I sure hope they are aware of Nokia's activity in the patent area and put in their merger contract that such activity no longer happens at Nokia (likely wishful thinking, especially considering Trolltech doesn't bother to mention the issue of software patent once in their numerous merger related articles/letters/FAQs linked).
Roy Schestowitz
2008-01-28 18:05:24
Yuhong Bao
2008-01-28 19:57:46
Vexorian
2008-01-28 20:04:20
Vexorian
2008-01-28 20:06:38
Yuhong Bao
2008-01-28 20:11:01
Roy Schestowitz
2008-01-29 01:50:53
Microsoft: We Like DRM
,----[ Quote ] | Steve Jobs wants the music business to drop restrictions for digital | tunes. But Microsoft, which began competing head to head with Apple | in the digital music business last fall, is happy with the way things | are, says media exec Robbie Bach. `----
http://www.forbes.com/2007/02/08/zune-drm-itunes-tech-media-cx_df_0208bach.html?partner=yahootix
Microsoft Tells Apple To Stop Complaining About DRM
http://www.podcastingnews.com/2007/04/13/microsoft-apple-drm/
Golden Rant : Microsoft DRM's gone too far
,----[ Quote ] | Microsoft appears to have hit the wrong button on its critical | Windows XP download service late last month, pretty well forcing | every XP user to upgrade to Windows Media Player (WiMP) 11 if | they (like me and many others) have the automatic download/install | option enabled for critical updates. `----
http://securityblog.itproportal.com/?p=712
The Longest Suicide Note in History
,----[ Quote ] | Gutmann: The genie's out of the bottle before the operating system has even | been released! But that doesn't mean Vista users in particular - and | the computer community at large - won't end up paying for Microsoft's | DRM folly. At the risk of repeating myself repeating myself, yet | another reason to move to Linux. `----
http://blogs.pcworld.co.nz/pcworld/tux-love/2007/01/the_longest_suicide_note_in_hi.html
Avoid the Vista badge, it means DRM inside
,----[ Quote ] | The root of this crappy DRM infection is Microsoft. It is the driving | force here. This has nothing to do with protecting content, as we | keep pointing out, there has never been a single thing that has had | a DRM infection applied that didn't end up cracked on the net in | hours. DRM is about walled gardens and control. | | He who controls the DRM infection controls the market. DRM is | about preventing you from doing anything with the devices | without paying the gatekeeper a fee. This is what MS wants, | nothing less than a slice of everything watched, listened to | or discussed from now on. DRM prevents others from playing | there, thanks to the DMCA and other anti-consumer laws. | | Make no mistake, MS is pushing the DRM malware as hard as | it can so it can rake in money hand over fist with no | competition. It is really good at lock-in, in fact, the firm | based its entire business model on harming the user so they | have to comply and spend more. `----
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38926
DRM in Windows Vista
,----[ Quote ] | Windows Vista includes an array of "features" that you don't want. | These features will make your computer less reliable and less secure. | They'll make your computer less stable and run slower. They will | cause technical support problems. They may even require you to | upgrade some of your peripheral hardware and existing software. | And these features won't do anything useful. In fact, they're | working against you. They're digital rights management (DRM) | features built into Vista at the behest of the entertainment | industry. | | And you don't get to refuse them. `----
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/drm_in_windows.html
Macrovision update plugs zero-day DRM exploit
,----[ Quote | The flaw, though Symantec wasn't specific on this, involves a privilege | elevation bug in Macrovision secdrv.sys driver that comes bundled with | Windows XP and 2003 (though not Windows Vista). `----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/06/macrovision_drm_update/
DRM – a big win for Microsoft
,----[ Quote ] | Recently I came to conclusion that Microsoft is the company, which profits | most from the Digital Rights Management. | I don't know the numbers, but I guess that DRM is little or no success for | the recording industry. To say it stopped pirating films and music would be a | joke. | Microsoft people must have known that the protection would be broken very | soon. So why they are implementing it after all? `----
http://technocrat.net/d/2008/1/2/32809
Béranger
2008-01-29 08:41:52
Roy Schestowitz
2008-01-29 09:07:51