Bonum Certa Men Certa

Time to Refocus on Microsoft's Attacks -- Including by Proxy -- on Free Android

Aubergines



Summary: Why software patents and the freedom of Android are becoming most relevant to this Web site

THE coverage of the Oracle vs. Google case is still out there, but it's becoming old news and more of a subject of debate. Here in this site we've focused on Novell's seminal taxation of GNU/Linux, then moved on to more on OOXML (patent trap and lock-in), had a deep look at Comes vs. Microsoft, and then broadened our scope of coverage regarding patents. Microsoft is still a very major factor. We try not to cover the same type of stories for too long as it becomes repetitive, so in recent years we looked more and more at Android. It's probably one of the fastest-growing OSes ever, if not the fastest-growing indeed. It spreads Linux like fire.

The Motorola case is a reactionary case to defend against Microsoft Aggression (Microsoft essentially bribed B&N to stop fighting). The case is very important right now and one reporter correctly says:

With Microsoft there is no such justice or fairness.

Microsoft has solicited every major Android vendor and claimed that there is alleged patent infringement in Android that violates Microsoft IP. Microsoft has never brought its claims to trial, there has never been a fair fight. Microsoft's route is far more insidious, taking money from Android without ever actually proving a claim.

Now that Oracle has been defeated once, Microsoft should be plenty worried. Then again, Microsoft doesn't settle in courtrooms.

Still, wouldn't it be great if Google could get Microsoft into a court of law to force them to prove their allegations? That would serve the Android (and open source) ecosystem well as the FUD that Microsoft continues to allege could finally be put to rest.


The inventor of Java is unhappy with the outcome of the Java trial and as noted by Wired the other day, Microsoft and Apple already prepare more patent attacks on Android, via proxies. As TechDirt puts it:

You may recall last summer that Apple, Microsoft, EMC, RIM, Ericsson and Sony all teamed up to buy Nortel's patents for $4.5 billion. They beat out a team of Google and Intel who bid a bit less. While there was some antitrust scrutiny over the deal, it was dropped and the purchase went through. Apparently, the new owners picked off a bunch of patents to transfer to themselves... and then all (minus EMC, who, one hopes, was horrified by the plans) decided to support a massive new patent troll armed with the remaining 4,000 patents. The company is called Rockstar Consortium, and it's run by the folks who used to run Nortel's patent licensing program anyway -- but now employs people whose job it is to just find other companies to threaten...


A new article by a TechDirt contributor, Glyn Moody, says that this monopoly madness is good for nobody. To quote:

Monopolies, whether created by the state or created by the market, can be problematic for open source, and as technology moves forward, new spaces to monopolise are always appearing.


Moody then adds this link to those observe the situation of software patents in the EU:

The next Competitiveness Council will be held on May 30th and 31st 2012. François Hollande's government will be attending it for the first time1. April calls upon the French president to take this opportunity to act against software patents and to bring up the flaws and the issues of the current unitary patent project.


There is opposition in the Danish parliament to EU unitary patent and ‪software patents, so there is hope that people -- not corporations -- will vote on the subject. For the time being:

The government does not have the necessary 5/6 majority for the single EU patent court.


As long as Microsoft's patent assaults lack legitimacy in the majority of the Western world, Android may have an easier way out of this extortion. We are going to spend more and more time looking at the Motorola (Google) case because it may as well end the threat to the cost (patent penalty) and freedom of Android. Google is not going to settle; it has to much to lose.

Recent Techrights' Posts

People's Understanding of the History of GNU/Linux is Changing
RMS is not a radical, he's just clever enough to see and foresee what's going on
Microsofters Were Scheming to Take Over This Entire Web Site (in Their Own Words!)
Money gets spent censoring/deplatforming people who speak about real issues; no money gets spent actually tackling those underlying issues
Bicycles for the Minds and the Story Harrison Bergeron
"The goal of having people in charge of the tools they use and that the tools should amplify ability" has long been abandoned
[Video] Cory Doctorow Explains DMCA: DRM in the Browser (or Webapp) Will "Make It a Felony to Protect Your Privacy While You Use It."
Pycon US Keynote Speaker Cory Doctorow
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 29, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 29, 2025
Links 29/05/2025: Chinese Cracking Against EU Institutions (Prague), More Assaults on Media and Its Funding Sources
Links for the day
EPO Workers Caution That the Officials Are Still Illegally Trying to Replace Staff With Slop (to Lower Quality and Validity of European Patents)
Nobody in Europe voted for any of this
Links 29/05/2025: US Health Deficit and Malware Disguised as Slop Generator
Links for the day
Links 29/05/2025: Turtle Roadkill, Modern 'Tech' as a Sting
Links for the day
Thanks for All the Fish, Linux Format
people who once wrote for it (or for other magazines) comment on the importance of this news
Links 29/05/2025: YouTube Problem and Giant Privacy Hole in Microsoft OneDrive
Links for the day
United States Courts With Sworn Testimonies Are on Our Side, We'll Present the Same Here
Chronicling what happened is a moral imperative
Serial Sloppers Ruin and Lessen the Incentive to Cover "Linux"
The Serial Sloppers (SSs) ought to be named and shamed, but almost nobody does this
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 28, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 28, 2025
Links 28/05/2025: 'Emulation Layers' (Measurements and Linguistics), Libraries, and Discomfort
Links for the day
Links 28/05/2025: More Arrests for Bitcoin-Connected Torture and Prosecutions for Dieselgate-Linked Executives
Links for the day
Even Microsoft (MSN) Covers Richard Stallman's Public Talk in Milan 2 Days Ago
He spoke in Spanish earlier this month (Alicante)
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Techo-authoritarianism With Slop Plagiarism and "No Online June" (Going Offline)
Links for the day
Links 28/05/2025: GitHub MCP Exploited and MathWorks Discovers Huge Windows TCO
Links for the day
Very High Attendance Level at Richard Stallman's Talk Shows People Can Relate to His Message
Smear campaigns have their limits
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Celsius-Fahrenheit, Endless Scrolling/Infinite Scrolling, and Trapping LLM Slop Bots
Links for the day
Prison gate backdrop to baptism by Fr Sean O'Connell, St Paul's, Coburg
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
More Photos From This Week's Milan Talk by Richard Stallman
The posts are in Italian, not English
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 27, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 27, 2025