Comments on: Trolltech + Nokia = Bad News http://techrights.org/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/ Free Software Sentry – watching and reporting maneuvers of those threatened by software freedom Fri, 25 Nov 2016 09:41:40 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.14 By: Roy Schestowitz http://techrights.org/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/comment-page-3/#comment-5228 Tue, 29 Jan 2008 09:07:51 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/#comment-5228 That has been my perception for quite some time. The suits call it “consolidation” and Bill Gates calls it “gentler capitalism” (apparently, it’s “gentle” as in “I’ll give this crook my wallet very gently because he has a pistol”). Mind our writings about the dumping technqiues Gates et al use against Free software. This harms the BSDs also.

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By: Béranger http://techrights.org/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/comment-page-3/#comment-5227 Tue, 29 Jan 2008 08:41:52 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/#comment-5227 OK, I made it more visible now, my simple compass: “Each and every time a buyout or a merger is consumed, there is less freedom in the world, and more corporatism.”

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By: Roy Schestowitz http://techrights.org/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/comment-page-3/#comment-5206 Tue, 29 Jan 2008 01:50:53 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/#comment-5206 Apple, like Microsoft, benefits greatly from DRM. It’s another form of platform/service lock-in. Mind the following:


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

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By: Yuhong Bao http://techrights.org/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/comment-page-3/#comment-5202 Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:11:01 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/#comment-5202 In fairness, Steve Jobs may dislike DRM, but this does not mean that Apple does not support DRM.

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By: Vexorian http://techrights.org/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/comment-page-2/#comment-5201 Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:06:38 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/#comment-5201 If anything goes wrong I guess this will be proof of MS pushing us Linux users, first boycotting gnome and now KDE, thank freedom that we still have choices beneath them. But I really doubt they can’t recover from the GPLv3 here.

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By: Vexorian http://techrights.org/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/comment-page-2/#comment-5199 Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:04:20 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/#comment-5199 At least the current QT is GPLv3 and they can’t regress a license change so there’s always the option to fork it, the problem is that MS’ buddy can claim that they own patents and that kind of BS, but the GPLv3 is supposed to help against this…

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By: Yuhong Bao http://techrights.org/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/comment-page-2/#comment-5198 Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:57:46 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/#comment-5198 That kind of thing is exactly what the KDE Free Qt Foundation is supposed to deal with. In case the free software version of Qt ends development because of something like this, Qt would be released under a BSD-style license.

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By: Roy Schestowitz http://techrights.org/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/comment-page-2/#comment-5194 Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:05:24 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/#comment-5194 I’ve just heard from someone who funds KDE. Maybe I’ll be permitted to post this in public. it seems to confirm my fears,

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By: SubSonica http://techrights.org/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/comment-page-2/#comment-5193 Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:13:13 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/#comment-5193 I don´t think Linus can do too much about this particular issue beyond voicing his concern -provided that is the case-, also you have to take into account its mild attitude towards the software patents problem and towards the GPLv3. The problem is that big established tech corporations are increasingly resorting to software patentability as the only way to stop FOSS development (as a “disruptive” development model they cannot control) opening markets they used to have throatchoke control over in the form of oligo/monopoly. Another option is to buy/kill potential competitors while they are still young… I can see both strategies at play here.

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).

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By: Roy Schestowitz http://techrights.org/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/comment-page-1/#comment-5192 Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:05:17 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/#comment-5192 Update: More good insights and various links here at Radu’s blog.

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…

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By: Roy Schestowitz http://techrights.org/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/comment-page-1/#comment-5191 Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:54:00 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/#comment-5191 Winter at Groklaw has just asked me if they can fork and escape. I don’t think they should, I don’t know if it’s possible and frankly I’m still trying to find strong evidence suggesting that I’m wrong. This isn’t freaking me out (the same goes for the Sun/MySQL deal), but whatever that means, it will have a tremendous impact not only on desktop Linux, but also on mobile Linux, which is more important than the desktop when it comes to growth.

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.

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By: SubSonica http://techrights.org/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/comment-page-1/#comment-5188 Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:42:50 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/#comment-5188 I think there is a comment in the dot.kde article that sums the fundamental different between not-for-profit and small or medium-firm based FOSS development initiatives lead by hacker-geniuses and technology enthusiasts and the big corporate moguls that make it so difficult to trust the latter:

“Companies the size of Nokia get run by accountants and lawyers.”

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By: Roy Schestowitz http://techrights.org/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/comment-page-1/#comment-5186 Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:20:13 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/#comment-5186 Quite a lot of comments there, including some angry ones. This one stands out: “At the slightest sign of QT becoming a piece of shit like Symbian, we should fork QT and the hell with Nokia et all.”

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.

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By: SubSonica http://techrights.org/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/comment-page-1/#comment-5185 Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:11:47 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/28/nokia-trolltech-problem/#comment-5185 Nokia’s stance about software patents should instantly sound the alarm siren inside any Free Software developer/user/advocate’s head. Apart from that, the ugly incident of HTML5 and Ogg just shows Nokia’s true colors. Wish I am wrong, but you can see on the dot.kde.org piece of news that a lot of people has similar concerns…
http://dot.kde.org/1201517986/
Apart from that, in case of hostile maneouvers to subvert or undermine KDE/QT development and the underlying freedoms of the projects’ licences develop on the part of Nokia, hope the guys in charge of KDE can do better than Miguel did with the Microvell agreement…

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