01.30.09

IRC: #boycottnovell @ FreeNode: January 30th, 2009 – Part 2

Posted in IRC Logs at 10:43 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Enter the IRC channel now

Read the rest of this entry »

Permalink Comments off      Send this to a friend

IRC: #boycottnovell @ FreeNode: January 30th, 2009 – Part 1

Posted in IRC Logs at 10:35 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Enter the IRC channel now

Read the rest of this entry »

Permalink Comments off      Send this to a friend

Links 30/01/2009: More Support for Android; New Wine

Posted in News Roundup at 10:05 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day

John William Templeton looks at Free Open Source Software and African American culture and innovation 09 (2004)

Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.

Permalink Comments off      Send this to a friend

Quote of the Day: Richard Stallman on Mono

Posted in FSF, Mono, Patents, Quote at 4:01 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“”[...] we know that Microsoft is getting patents on some features of C#. So I think it’s dangerous to use C#, and it may be dangerous to use Mono.”

–Richard Stallman

Permalink Comments off      Send this to a friend

Microsoft on Intel’s Anti-Linux: “Please Keep Confidential. This is a Nightmare”

Posted in Antitrust, Bill Gates, GNU/Linux, Hardware, Kernel, Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, Windows at 3:10 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Microsoft retaliates against Intel in order to abolish GNU/Linux

IN previous E-mails that reveal Microsoft’s fight against Linux at Intel, Bill Gates called it a "Jihad". This is a furious battle that Microsoft secretly had going against Intel’s support for Linux. This was so secret that Microsoft executives even abstained from telling their peers about it. “Please keep confidential. this is a nightmare…,” wrote Bill Veghte for example. There was great caution there because someone could lose a job over the mischief (leak), which Brian Valentine was eventually allowed to know about.

Let’s take this one small step at a time and handle this chronologically using the 3 exhibits we have at hand (full texts appended at the bottom). We start with Exhibit px06782 (June-July 2000) [PDF].

Joachim Kempin writes to people up at the top, namely Bill Gates and David Heiner. He states that:

As I mentioned at the retreat we have a huge problem with Intel going against us with Linux.

This is said in reference to the news that Intel is investing $100,000,000 in development that involves Linux.

This issue was not brought up by Joachim Kempin (OEM chief) however. It also involved familiar names like Steve Ballmer and Bill Veghte. This exhibit, while heavily redacted (what’s so confidential that it must be hidden from the courts?), does show Bill Veghte’s nervousness where he says:

Please keep confidential. this is a nightmare…

This whole thing came through Bill Veghte who spotted a CNET article. Tom Phillips, who reported to Veghte (probably his boss) and Kim Akers from the Windows team, writes:

Yes, but we need to be incredibly sensitive with this data. It was disclosed with extreme
concern. If Mary finds out that we know, someone will loose their job at Compaq who is
very helpful to MSFT.

Who is Mary? And who is that someone from Compaq (now part of H-P) who is “very helpful to MSFT”? Does Microsoft have ‘insiders’ in other companies? Companies that are intended — at least by their very nature — to focus mostly on hardware and remain impartial with only their own goals in mind? Is Compaq trying to accomplish the same things as Microsoft? The current collusion with Intel is a crime which Microsoft might be forced to pay billions in remedy for. At a later stage, we will present detailed antitrust evidence about Compaq and Microsoft.

Anyway, why would someone “lose their job”? It sure smells like some form of violation of ethics, if not a violation of the law.

It is explained a little earlier (by Tom Phillips) that:

According to Compaq insiders, the money is targeted at Enterprise and ISP/ASP Sun systems, where Intel will provide a stipend to Compaq $20MM for the efforts necessary to insure that these are Linux based IA32 (and eventually IA64) based sales. Compaq stated that it would rather vector the business to Windows, but that was not an option with Intel.

So Intel insists against Windows (we saw this before). Microsoft feels as though it needs to respond or retaliate.

We move on in time (just days/weeks) and find Exhibit px06791 (July 2000) [PDF]. Bill Veghte writes to Bill Gates, Neil Calvin, Mike Porter, Robbie Bach, Brian Valentine, Bob McBreen, Peyton Smith, Tom Phillips, and Thomas Koll. Here is the punch:

We do have some damage control to do with them and we are going to have to work hard to change the direction they are going down particularly in sw investments around Linux.

So a whole team from Microsoft flew all the way to ensure that Linux receives no investments? Well, since Jim Allchin sees a "huge threat" in Linux and feels "scared" of it, maybe all of this is predictable.

Here is the bit about Intel and Linux:

As a sidenote, I probed hard with John on how hard Intel was pushing Linux in general. I came away pretty convinced that these are not the guys that I was hitting with our OEMs here and the Far East (Bill/Steveb: if you have not read the piece of mail BrianV sent you last week on Intel and Linux, please do so). John’s guys are focused on the networking and telecommunications space and these were not companies or groups that I have been talking with. My bet is that it is coming from Mike Fister’s org.

In this message, for the uninitiated, “Bill” is Bill Gates, “Steveb” is Steve Ballmer and “BrianV” is Brian Valentine, who is now doing his damage from inside Amazon [1, 2]. He also corrupted analysts for anti-Linux studies.

Here is another bit about Linux where Tom Phillips is assigned to handle it.

We have the model in place based on our design wins at Dell and Compaq and in my opinion, we should be just as aggressive on price as we were with Dell. The two other appliance efforts that we will engage on are small business server (I talked at a conceptual level about Central service and Intel, with the WEN product and they liked the idea) and provisioning server. They were particularly enthusiastic about the provisioning server. We should engage in dialog but this will be a lively internal debate about whether we move to an appliance solution/strategy for this. This group is where there Linux Investment Is heaviest In my opinion and can cause us the most pain. TomPh will take the lead here.

More on Linux here:

–> Network devices group: Most of their stuff is on VXWorks today. They are doing some stuff in Linux and looking at Win2k. We need to accelerate this evaluation and where appropriate get them on board if there is real business here They aren’t particularly happy with vxworks so we should also think about them on WinCE with an aggressive source license.

This whole message was sent in reply to “Intel call – Paul Ottelini”. The message is omitted from the exhibit (“Privileged”), but this was sent from Bill Gates to Neil Calvin, Mike Porter, Robbie Bach, Brian Valentine, Bill Veghte, Bob McBreen. Copies were also sent to Kate Sako, Dan Crouse, Steve Ballmer, Joachim Kempin, Paul Maritzm, Eric Rudder, Bill Neukom, and Carl Stark.

Finally, we have this third exhibit, Exhibit px03112 (August 2000) [PDF]. It’s about Intel and it was sent from Joachim Kempin to Bill Gates. It’s utterly disgusting, but then again, Joachim Kempin was arrested for illegally shooting (and killing) antelopes for leisure, so phrases like “I am thinking of putting hitting the OEM harder than in the past with anti Linux actions” are by no means surprising. One person who used to work for Joachim Kempin told me about his strong accent and very hard stance, indicating that this is an unpleasant person. Anyway, here is his message to Bill Gates, in full (exhibit as a whole in Appendix C).

I have been trying to gather some background info. The more I dig in it becomes clear that Intel is connecting with all the UNIX groups inside the large OEMs who are not MS friendly in the first place and are encouraging them to go to Linux-which they call a unified UNIX(which seems stupid even to me)
they throw promotional funds at them to develop new devices based on this OS and are encouraging Itanium work by asking the OEMs to adopt their own apps(middle ware) and encourage some of their key ISVs to do so.
Some of the money is INTEL inside money- the just go beyond the normal rates or qualify Linux adds under the same scheme.
Some OEMs are telling me that the total outlay for Intel is between 100-200M$ year-but there is no hard data for the total amount. Siemens told me they were offered 5-6M$ for this 6 months ago and I know that they funded a netdevice in NEC and made approx. 10M$ available.
I have been sending for some time mail with this info and mentioned it during our exec retreat. The hard part is the answer- in one way we are married to them on the other hand they are destroying the basis for the marriage. To play this the hard way would prob cause more damage than we need and get more attention than we need. On the OEM side I am thinking of putting hitting the OEM harder than in the past with anti Linux actions, in addition I will stop any go-to-market activities with Intel and only work with their competitors (something which is easy to do because they normally put crazy demands on us).

Is that not extortion or blackmail? They pressure Intel with some sort of an embargo — the ransom being that they drop Linux. They use companies like AMD as a bargaining card against software competitors. On it carries:

For the rest of the company this is harder. I have been complaining that we have no real Linux watch-dog group in MS, a lot of people have some ideas and actions around this but nobody is really responsible- I will establish this for OEM, may be we should do it for the company as well.

Yes, Microsoft has a “Linux watch-dog group”. Sounds like one of those “attack groups” Microsoft casually refers to [1, 2]. More recently, Microsoft has been calling these "taskforces" (against Linux).

I do not think you can do more than explaining what that Linux is bad for Intel, let’s leave it there and do as they do- work underground with the clear understanding to promote and advantage the guys with less market share without declaring our strategy.
I would further try to restrict source code deliveries where possible and be less gracious when interpreting agreements- again without being obvious about it. The last thing we need need is them shutting us down- so this will have to be a delicate dance. But openess with them and sharing our real plans should not longer be done- they are not doing it either.

Sorry, Joachim. “Sharing our real plans” is now done. It’s out there for people to see the behaviour you engage in with Bill Gates’ endorsement. █

3 appendices follow.

Appendix A: Comes vs. Microsoft – exhibit px06782, as text

Read the rest of this entry »

Permalink A Single Comment      Send this to a friend

Microsoft Puts the “P” in “Propaganda”; Windows Zombies Make More Extortions

Posted in Deception, FUD, Microsoft, Security, Windows at 11:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

How lies can lead to deaths

Jeff Jones Output Needs to be Embargoed

LIES AND LIES AND LIES just carry on coming from Microsoft's Jeff Jones. While deleting legitimate comments that he does not like (including mine) from his blog, he’s pushing — on behalf of his employer — bogus statistics that they deliberately ‘massage’ in order to daemonise Firefox and glorify Internet Explorer (with ActiveX and other competition- and security-hostile add-ons). Way to go, censorship!

Despite Microsoft’s great control in the Washington Post (also mentioned in relation to the Abramoff fiasco), one of its writers is challenging these lies from Microsoft and Jeff Jones.

In analysis published on his Technet Security Blog and at cio.com, Jeff picked apart research I conducted in 2007, which found that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser was unsafe for 284 days in 2006.

According to Jones’s analysis, Firefox users were instead more “at risk” than their IE counterparts in 2006 — albeit just by a single day — 285 days in 2006, he concludes.

What Jones neglected to mention was that in my analysis I only examined the longevity of unpatched browser vulnerabilities that by each company’s definition earned the most dangerous security ratings.

In addition to being a Big Lie, these fake numbers conveniently tend to confuse “Firefox” with “Firefox on Windows”. Many of the flaws are inherent in the platform, not the Web browser alone.

“In one piece of mail people were suggesting that Office had to work equally well with all browsers and that we shouldn’t force Office users to use our browser. This Is wrong and I wanted to correct this. [...] Another suggestion In this mail was that we can’t make our own unilateral extensions to HTML I was going to say this was wrong and correct this also.”

–Bill Gates [PDF]

Spyware-Soft?

Internet Explorer suffers from other deficiencies, general characteristics or problems that are user hostile. Internet Explorer 7 was already spying (eavesdropping) on people’s surfing habits by default and since it is installed and cannot be removed from Windows, it makes Windows nothing less than spyware, by the very conservative definition of the word. According to this report from The Register, Internet Explorer 8 makes it even worse. It compares what Microsoft is doing to deep packet inspection, which was implicitly ruled illegal by the EU Commission.

Privacy activists are crying foul over the “Suggested Sites” feature in IE8, but Microsoft insists concerns about the feature, such that it might be used to serve up targeted advertising or that it poses a security risk, are misplaced.

Speaking of Phorm, which was mentioned only among our daily links on occasions [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17], there is something truly bizarre about the British Government’s attitude towards Web surveillance (for purely commercial reasons). This is disturbing on so many levels and
The Register has the following new article about it:

Digital Britain: A tax, a quango and ISP snooping

Did anyone expect more from Stephen Carter CBE? The former Ofcom boss and No.10 strategy chief (sic) has spent his career moving between the world of advertising and public relations, quangos and party. So it’s no surprise that the “vision thing” involves a tax, a quango and a burden by private parties to snoop on the public. It’s an administrator’s answer.

This might explain why the British government is so deep in the pockets of Microsoft, as we have shown time and time again [1, 2]. They think alike.

Government and Microsoft in Bed

The Opera complaint is taking its toll, but it has no effect in the country where Microsoft operates from. People like Richard Stallman treat the US Department of Justice like it’s a joke (RMS puts scare quotes around “Justice”) and they have many valid reasons to [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. In fact, it has become rather conventional to say that the USDOJ is simply riddled with corruption, much like the FTC and even like the FCC. It is therefore not surprising that, according to this report from Dow Jones, the USDOJ is not willing to properly intervene, despite all the pressure that constantly arrives from the EU. Why can’t a national authority take appropriate action against reckless/rogue companies within its own borders but instead rely on justice that’s enforced or restored from overseas?

Federal and state antitrust regulators involved in a long-running settlement with Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) told a federal judge Wednesday that they could not yet say if they will ask for court oversight of the software giant to extend beyond this year.

Microsoft, meanwhile, assured U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, D.C., that none of its recent announced layoffs will reduce the number of employees working to satisfy the company’s antitrust obligations.

This whole case has been a farce [1, 2, 3] for many years and there’s new hope that the European Commission can resist and overcome pressure from talking points/Microsoft pressure groups.

A bad soap opera?

[...]

A trial against Microsoft on any particular point of its monopoly (and for that matter, on any corporation perverting the market because of its illegitimate monopolistic position) essentially conveys the message that regardless of the possible sanction against the company, its wrongdoings are not morally tolerable anymore. Were it only because of this last point, I still do find that that legal actions are sometimes justified.

Obama Fights Windows

Well, not the president but the worm. Yes, how privileged he must feel to already have a worm named after him.

The worm spreads via USB drive, using the Windows autorun feature to install itself automatically on any drive it connects with. Unlike most of today’s profit-driven malware, the Obama worm doesn’t steal your credit card number or turn your PC into a remote-controlled zombie system. In fact, it isn’t designed to do anything besides float a small picture of Obama at the bottom right corner of your desktop all day every Monday.

Will there be shunning of Windows? Not likely [1, 2, 3]. It might not even matter that entire nations are under attack by Windows zombies, as we noted yesterday. Today we find another new artifact of Windows botnets: extortion.

The botnet-powered assault was accompanied by blackmail demands posted on the site’s forum through compromised zombie machines. These threatening messages claimed the site was been carpetbombed with spurious traffic generated through a 9,000 strong botnet of compromised machines.

And herein we close a loop. As long as people like Jeff Jones are permitted to lie in public, they are simply allowed to spread the illusion that Windows is not more vulnerable than counterparts, so Windows botnets weighing hundreds of millions of computers carry on wreaking havoc without legislation that bars them from the Internet. That’s why the Internet becomes dangerous, its infrastructure unreliable, E-mails a SPAM-filled mess, and people die too.

It all begins with a Big Lie. That’s an issue that must be addressed because Microsoft is knowingly contradicting itself. █

“Our products just aren’t engineered for security.”

–Brian Valentine, Microsoft executive

Permalink Comments off      Send this to a friend

Microsoft Admits Novell is Its GPL Proxy

Posted in GPL, Interview, Microsoft, Novell, Quote at 9:23 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

THIS was said by journalists before, but there’s nothing better than hearing it from Microsoft itself:

“While Microsoft can support GPL-based code through its partners, as it does with Novell, the company can’t contribute directly to projects due to the GPL’s license terms and requirements, he [Ramji] explained.”

–David Worthington, last night

As Microsoft's Jim Allchin put it, “GPL is the licensing model. We think it’s very bad for — on an education, telling the world why we think it’s bad. We don’t think it’s the same as public domain. Somebody wants to put in a free DSB, we don’t have a problem with that, at least on licensing. But GPL, we think it’s very bad basically for the world, but especially for the United States.”

“Why does Microsoft vehemently hate Freedom?”This was not the only time that Allchin described the GPL as anti-American. It’s just so much easier to combat basic freedoms by describing them as demons, calling them a “threat” and — in Allchin’s case — inciting US ” policymakers” against this “threat” (GPL), to use his own words.

Why does Microsoft vehemently hate Freedom? Enough to fight it even? As we’ve demonstrated before, thanks to antitrust evidence, Microsoft employees are trained (indoctrinated) to believe that “[they're] the Good Guys!” The same techniques are routinely used to maintain war atmosphere (as in "evangelism is WAR!" or “Jihad” [1, 2, 3]) and instill aggression in troops’ minds.

Meanwhile, Novell and friends are poisoning GNU/Linux with Microsoft technologies. They use “GPL” as a moral disguise that Microsoft won’t intervene with. █

Picture by SubSonica

Related posts:

• Microsoft’s Open Source Xenophobia
• Microsoft Attacks, Then Tries to Hijack Free Software
• Use of False Promises to Attract Free Software Developers
• Microsoft Makes New Friends in Open Source World — for Windows, .NET, Silverlight
• MicroFOSS and Other Oxymorons: How Can Anyone Be So Gullible?
• At Novell, Software Development is Microsoft Cloning (MicroFOSS)
• A Quick Look at More Reactions to Microsoft’s Taxoperability
• Bill Gates Ridicules the GPL While Novell Mops Up with Software Patents
• Microsoft Latest Incursions and Subversion of Open Source
• A Quick Look at Microsoft Latest strategy Against GNU/Linux
• Microsoft Redefines “Cross-platform”: Mac + Win32
• Microsoft Introduces New Taxoperability Program

Permalink 9 Comments      Send this to a friend

Linus’ Old Employer Swept by Microsoft’s Patent Übertroll

Posted in Antitrust, Kernel, Microsoft, Patents at 8:32 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“Intellectual property is the next software.”

–Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft patent troll

GLYN Moody calls him/it “super patent troll”, whereas The Register is careful not to say the truth too directly.

Transmeta patents trolled, company dies

[...]

Intellectual Ventures (IFV), a patent troll invention company, headed by ex-Vole Nathan Myhrvold, who had tried to score some patents from Transmeta in May 2008, got a secret deal going with Novafora and Transmeta’s board.

[...]

The Transmeta board finished off its merger, quit its job (ironically as part of the deal no Transmeta board member will serve on the Novafora board) and still found time to sell off 140+ of its patents to Intellectual Ventures.

In the future, we intend to expose more of Nathan and Cameron Myhrvold’s participation in crimes inside Microsoft. There is plenty of them among antitrust evidence (we are in the process of classifying and sorting about 300 additional exhibits). Cameron Myhrvold, who is Nathan’s brother, is still keeping close to Microsoft. They both seem to be serving the company from the outside. █

Related posts:

• Patent Mess Highlighted, Remedies May Be on Their Way
• A Reader’s Perspective: Entering the Minds of the Patent Trolls
• On Intellectual Ventures, Nathan Myhrvold, and Other Patent Trolls
• Intellectual Ventures Does Not Like GNU/Linux
• Microsoft’s Possible Role in Legalising Software Patents in England
• Novell Takes Pride in Microsoft’s Taxoperability Precedence
• Software Patents, Microsoft Trolls and Intellectual Monopoly Miscellany
• Microsoft + Government + Patent Troll Push Against Free Software
• The Software Patents Situation and How It Affects Free Software
• Patents Trolls Gaining More Momentum
• Bill Gates Backs Patent Trolls, Microsoft Gets More Patents
• The Latest from Microsoft, Its Indian Partners, and Its Patent Trolls
• Microsoft is a Major Patent Troll, By Proxy
• The EPO Crisis and Microsoft’s Patent Trolls
• More Microsoft Patent Trolls, Extortions, and SCO
• ZDNet: “Microsoft Has Turned Into the Biggest Patent Troll in the World”
• They Lose… So They Try to Change the Laws
• Microsoft Storms India with Patents, by Proxy
• Patent Holders and Trolls Get More Aggressive, Vengeful
• Patents Roundup: Trolls, Acacia vs. GNU/Linux, and Software Patents at Jeopardy
• Microsoft Threatens Red Hat Again, Uses Novell as Excuse
• Horacio Gutierrez’s Latest Threat Against GNU/Linux Was Seeded by Microsoft
• Report: Bill Gates Becoming Patent Troll Like Nathan Myhrvold
• Searete a Part of Intellectual Ventures, a Patent-trolling Firm
• Patents Roundup: Microsoft, Free Software Innovations and Impending Changes to Patent Law
• Patents Roundup: Microsoft|Myhrvold Trolls Fill Up Their Patent Basket
• Latest Update on Microsoft’s Plans with Software Patents
• Bilski Case Working Against Patent Trolls and Against Software Patents — Already
• Patents Roundup: From Microsoft’s Trolls to Obama Policies
• Patents Roundup: Microsoft Employs Patent Hawks, Google’s Chrome Sued, Ambush Denounced and More
• Microsoft Spreads Intellectual Monopolies as Business Model
• Microsoft: “Never Leave an Opening for Novell or IBM”
• Microsoft’s Plot to Harm Standards, Stifle Cross-Platform
• Patents Roundup: New Studies Antagonise Intellectual Monopolies, Reform/Intervention Possible

Permalink Comments off      Send this to a friend