03.13.08
Posted in ISO, Microsoft, Open XML, Standard at 12:45 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Somebody needs to moderate the moderator
Here is a polite open letter to ISO, which failed quite miserably to handle Microsoft's OOXML. [via Andy Updegrove]
The fact that ISO enforces no standard for national bodies opens the standardization process for manipulation or corruption. I strongly urge ISO to adopt a strict policy for its members detailing the rules for how a national body shall determine its vote in ISO and that it enforces such policy vigorously.
On the level of ISO, criticism has been raised against the fast track process. An investigation should be called to see if EOOXML was unduly put on the ISO Fast Track.
[...]
It may be time also to reevaluate the one country one vote principle. In ISO, the Chinese vote carries the same weight as that of Cyprus. In the JTC1/SC34 the late-comers includes Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia, Côte-d’Ivoire, Cyprus, Lebanon and Malta.
As for approving standards within the field of IT, ISO would greatly benefit from adopting the IETF requirment of two independent reference implementations for passing a standard. This should increase the quality of ISO’s IT standards.
Meta-moderation of some kind is needed here. There needs to be supervision that oversees well-documented and systematic misconduct. The European Commission (EC) stepped in, but unlike ISO, it’s not an international body and this hardly suits its scope and goals. Rather than probing ISO, the EC will investigate Microsoft and the stacked technical committees.
Document Freedom Day is approaching and it will generate some proper media coverage ahead of the final decision on Microsoft’s OOXML, to be decided by Microsoft itself (by proxies). █
ISO: a wolf in sheep's clothing
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Posted in Apple, Deception, Free/Libre Software, FSF, GNU/Linux, GPL, Interoperability, Marketing, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Patent Covenant, Patents at 12:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Many affected companies and organisations have already responded to Microsoft’s ‘kind’ taxoperability offer and their angle was similar. The same goes for OOXML’s ‘kind’ promise, which ‘coincidentally’ or ‘accidentally’ excludes Microsoft's #1 threat. The SFLC finally steps up and articulates the problem in a formal announcement.
There has been much discussion in the free software community and in the press about the inadequacy of Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) as a standard, including good analysis of some of the shortcomings of Microsoft’s Open Specification Promise (OSP), a promise that is supposed to protect projects from patent risk. Nonetheless, following the close of the ISO-BRM meeting in Geneva, SFLC’s clients and colleagues have continued to express uncertainty as to whether the OSP would adequately apply to implementations licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). In response to these requests for clarification, we publicly conclude that the OSP provides no assurance to GPL developers and that it is unsafe to rely upon the OSP for any free software implementation, whether under the GPL or another free software license.
“The whole thing is orchestrated as to deceive as much as possible, earning Microsoft trust while promising the least possible.”Of course, by this stage (time of the response to the announcements), the press had already been ‘poisoned’ by various articles which praise Microsoft for ‘openness’ and fair play. This type of publicity stunt, which includes previous promises of a “big announcement” to come, are no coincidence. The whole thing is orchestrated as to deceive as much as possible, earning Microsoft trust while promising the least possible.
It becomes very clear that Microsoft, which would be in debt if it acquired Yahoo], resorts to the only weapon it has left and available — software patents. Only hours ago we showed how vile this whole arena of software suits had become. Here comes another brand-new report about Apple getting sued by a patent troll.
Apple sued over iTunes technology
[...]
Atlanta-based ZapMedia Services Inc. sued Apple in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, accusing the Cupertino-based company of violating two ZapMedia patents.
It is time to step up and:
- Fight software patents
- Call Microsoft’s ‘promises’ what they are. They are patent poison pills.
Other urgent matters might be the eradication of time bombs Microsoft and Novell are happily planting while taking cover in an undergroud shelter (patent deal). For all it seems, Novell and Microsoft are working together against common rivals and this happens to include all Linux vendors other than Novell. How long before this jilted Microsoft partner (Novell’s own description of the relationship, as seen also here and elaborated on here) truly just becomes Microsoft’s ‘Linux department’? It’s already taking orders from Redmond. █
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Kernel, Microsoft, Novell at 12:00 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Novell is with Microsoft but Novell is also with the Linux Foundation
Further to a recent comment which is directed at Mr. Walli, the position taken by the Linux Foundation is sometimes worryingly similar to that of the Open Source movement, as opposed to Free software. The kernel is still GPLv2-licensed though.
Remember that the Linux Foundation is funded by Novell, a ‘mixed source’ company by its very own admission [1, 2, 3, 4]. In turn, remember that Novell is openly describing itself as a Microsoft partner. Does that — by association — open Microsoft a door into the Linux Foundation? Remember what happened to the head of OSDL [1, 2]. This just comes to show Novell’s harmful role in Linux.
“A fairly sane discussion was summarised with a somehwat inappropriate headline…”After some recent disagreements with the Foundation's marketing and other questionable invitations to Microsoft [1, 2, 3] things have calmed down a little. But out comes Paul Krill with another moronic (yet eye-catching) headline, which is one among a long series of Microsoft-promotional headlines he has used in the past month. It’s a trend and it was noticed. This observation was not shared here nonetheless. It was discussed only in private.
A fairly sane discussion was summarised with a somehwat inappropriate headline: “Linux Foundation: We’d love to work with Microsoft”
While the statement may be true and hardly surprising, it does in fact align with the rather naive attitude that leads the Foundation right into Microsoft’s traps (which Novell must love). Here are some of the better bits from the interview:
InfoWorld: What kind of legal protection does Linux require? And has anything ever come of the Microsoft protest that there’s Linux code that they patented or something to that effect?
Zemlin: What they were talking about were patents that Microsoft holds in a range of areas. They didn’t actually disclose what those were, but in general felt that they overlapped with other technology. No, nothing ever became of it because everybody holds patents on everything out there lately in software.
InfoWorld: You have a legal defense fund. Should people have legal concerns about using Linux?
Zemlin: Just like any other major software platform, there’ll be patent trolls or opportunists who try to harm the platform. The SCO Group was a good example of that. In fact, the legal defense fund was created to assist in defense of the platform in the SCO lawsuit. And so that’s a good example.
InfoWorld: What became of that?
Zemlin: SCO lost the lawsuit, it was found that there were no copyright infringements that were there in the Linux platform, and it was proven that Novell indeed owned the copyright to the software that SCO alleged was theirs. And SCO was de-listed from Nasdaq and is now in bankruptcy proceedings.
To say more on the Linux Foundation and Microsoft, the following list of attendants for the Linux Founation’s Collaboration Summit seems innocent and benign.
Kernel developers, leading market research firm and companies such as Dell, HP, IBM, MySQL, and Oracle will debate growth opportunities for the platform
If you look further down the announcement, you will find that talks include a Microsoft friend called Al Gillen. So, Microsoft invades even an event which is all about Linux. We wrote about Al Gillen here and here. He is close to Microsoft. And again, this relates to the recent response which mentions Microsoft's intrusion into OSBC 2008. Novell enables a lot of this to happen. █
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03.12.08
Posted in Deception, Europe, Microsoft at 11:32 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Remember the story about the Finnish government selling its youngsters to fraudsters out? Well, check out what’s happening in Italy.
Here’s an extraordinary – and extraordinarily depressing – story from Stefano Maffulli about the Comune di Milano (roughly the Milan city council) pushing to its citizens some free services from Microsoft for, er, free…
When will governments finally learn their lessons about ‘free’ (gratis) Microsoft offers? They merely acts as agents of monopolisation. █
“They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”
–Bill Gates
Related posts:
- Bill Gates’ Retirement Merely a Political Lock-in Crusade
- Microsoft ‘Buys’ Dubai Away from GNU/Linux, Calls it “Charity”; Paris Also?
- OOXML Sins and “Charity” Against GNU/Linux
- It’s Not Dumping Because They Call it “Charity”
- Boosting Windows Vista Sales Using AIDS
- “Let Them Eat Vista…”
- Mysterious New Moves in the Gates Foundation
- Microsoft Carries on Dumping to Make Its Products a ‘Standard’
- The Takeaways from the Giveaways
- Microsoft Must Be Absolutely Terrified
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Posted in News Roundup at 11:10 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Posted in Courtroom, Patents at 8:24 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Here are some unfortunate stories that we have accumulated for the past couple of days.
Patent TrollTracker Gagged, Sued
The most saddening news today is about the assault of the patent trolls. The victim? A protester against them.
Just this morning we were lamenting the fact that the formerly anonymous Patent Troll Tracker had shut down his blog, but now we know why. It appears that two patent attorneys in East Texas have sued him and Cisco for defamation. One of the attorneys happens to also be the son of the judge who helped make Marshall, Texas famous as a favorite for patent holders. The details on the case suggest that this lawsuit may have been the reason that Rick Frenkel outed himself, as it was actually filed back in November and used as a way to unmask the Troll Tracker.
Web Site Patents
Remember the “JPEG on a Web site” patent (or something along those lines)? Well, be aware that you needn’t be a software developer to consider risk associated with software patents. If you have a Web site, the trolls could come after you.
GraphOn Corp. said Monday it filed a lawsuit alleging patent infringement against Yahoo Inc., Classified Ventures LLC, IAC/InterActiveCorp., Match.com, eHarmony.com and CareerBuilder LLC.
Santa Cruz-based GraphOn (OTCBB:GOJO) said the complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern Distict of Texas, claims the companies infringed its patents covering a method of maintaining an automated and network-accessible database.
The suit alleges the companies infringe the GraphOn patents on each of their Web sites, and seeks permanent injunctive relief along with unspecified damages.
Next time people ask if Amazon’s one-click shopping patent (or other similarly poor ones) might get used, consider examples such as the above. Forget about defensive patents. It’s more like an ambush.
Telecom Patents
The telecom Armageddon resumes (well, it never truly ceased). But here comes the owner of the ‘genius’ idea that is transmitting images.
Intellect Wireless Inc. has sued T-Mobile USA Inc., U.S. Cellular Corp., Virgin Mobile USA Inc. and Helio Inc. in federal court in Chicago, accusing the companies of infringing wireless image messaging patents.
Gaming Patents
Gamers hate software patents, not to mention game developers.
The vast majority of the respondents to this Question Of The Week were against the concept of software patents , and those that answered “no” answered with a great deal more fervor then those that said “yes”.
Case of point, fresh from the news: Activision’s “Guitar Hero” violates patent: Gibson
Gibson said the games, in which players press buttons on a guitar-shaped controller in time with notes on a TV screen, violates a 1999 patent for technology to simulate a musical performance.
Classic. How many past and present games are actually said to be violating (“infringing on”) some software patents (renamed “game patents” in this context)?
Software Patents Protest and Poll
In addition to the poll above and this recent other poll which can be found here, consider this testimony. [via Digital Majority]
“What’s all the more infuriating about the current patent situation is that many of today’s patents go against the original social contract surrounding patents. The original goal of the patent system was to get inventors to share their innovations for the common good. In return for a limited monopoly, you, Mr. Inventor, share your invention so that We, the public, can understand how you did it and can then innovate on top of it. Rather than stifling innovation, patents were supposed to drive it forward.
Unfortunately, many patents, even the ones that are legit, would have been created independently anyway. It’s obviously a balance, but at least in the world I live in, I see patents getting in the way rather than helping me. I have never gone and looked at old patents to get new ideas for products. The only time an independent patent, one that I’m not working on filing myself, comes to my attention, it’s because somebody is getting sued for infringing it. This tells me that we have lost the original goal that patents were supposed to foster.
Embargo on Patent Trolls
Lawyers are waking up to realise that the poor reputation of software patents is damaging and they respond accordingly. [via Groklaw]
The debate over patent trolls is dividing the IP bar.
In one of the most overt examples of choosing sides, litigation firm Howrey provocatively proclaims in a new brochure for clients that it absolutely won’t represent trolls — and criticizes firms that do.
“As a firm policy, Howrey does not litigate for ‘patent trolls,’” the page blares underneath a picture of a crossed-out cartoon troll. “Why support firms that are helping perpetuate this scourge on legitimate businesses everywhere?”
Sadly, there will always be some scummy lawyers around (howdy, Ray Niro [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]), and ones that are willing to ruin the industry for a mere buck. █
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Posted in Free/Libre Software, GNOME, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Patents at 8:01 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Image contributed by Beranger
Novell has issued this press release which proudly announces the release of something nobody should wants, except Microsoft.
Novell today announced the availability of MonoDevelop 1.0, an open source development tool for Mono(R) that supports Microsoft* Visual Studio* project formats along with C# and other programming languages. MonoDevelop enables developers to quickly write desktop and ASP.NET Web applications on Linux* and Mac OS X*. MonoDevelop will make it easier for developers to port .NET applications created with Visual Studio to Linux and Mac OS X and to maintain a single code base for all three platforms.
If you are not aware of the dangers of Mono, start here. Consider the quotes below as well. █
“I saw that internally inside Microsoft many times when I was told to stay away from supporting Mono in public. They reserve the right to sue”
–Robert Scoble, former Microsoft evangelist
“You know what Microsoft’s problem really is? They’ve lost the ability to feel ashamed.”
–PJ, Groklaw
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Posted in Deception, Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument at 7:44 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
With all due respect to Mr. Durusau, we wish to pass on various bits of information without making any direct accusations.
Over the past few years — and particularly in the past few months — we have identified a pattern where people have their minds flipped upside-down after encountering or meeting with Microsoft. The stories are sometimes complex and we covered many examples before.
“Microsoft was also seen inviting journalists.”Some of the many examples include Slashdot editors and Webmasters who are considered "Microsoft doubters". They were invited to Seattle. Microsoft was also seen inviting journalists. Yes, they were flown in to ‘brainwash sessions’ before spreading Microsoft’s twisted version of the stories in the press (e.g. [1, 2, 3]). Then you have Miguel de Icaza and open source project leaders who became partners with Microsoft. They are subsequently caught inviting others to join hands with Microsoft, sometimes making special deals (e.g. XenSource, Zend).
We know about no contact between the ODF Foundation and Microsoft, but some people have their suspicions.
And now comes Rob Weir’s report about Patrick Durusau.
From the start Patrick has remained publicly silent on the topic of OOXML. No blog posts, no press, nothing. If you asked, he would say that this was his policy. Privately, you would get an earful (all negative), but as befits the unbiased chair of the committee which is responsible for the technical recommendation for the US NB, he kept his personal opinions out of the public arena.
This public orientation changed recently. As best I can figure it, on returning from a conference in Seattle in late January, Patrick was a changed man. Patrick is now an enthusiastic OOXML supporter and is eager to inform the world of his delight in OOXML at every opportunity. He posts his “open letters” on his web site, which are linked to, often within minutes, by the various Microsoft bloggers, and then sent around by Microsoft employees to the press and the various JTC1 NB’s.
[...]
Of course, Microsoft will not be so careful to distinguish Patrick’s personal opinions from his professional affiliations. So a post from Patrick’s personal web site is retold on a Microsoft blog as “The ODF Editor says….”, and then the next day is sent in an email to NB’s with a larger set of “endorsements”: . . .
Thanks to a poster who goes by the name “linonut”, here is a relevant writing that may explain what we see here. It’s titled “Manufacturing Consent: A Propaganda Mode”.
In countries where the levers of power are in the hands of a state bureaucracy, the monopolistic control over the media, often supplemented by official censorship, makes it clear that the media serve the ends of a dominant elite. It is much more difficult to see a propaganda system at work where the media are private and formal censorship is absent. This is especially true where the media actively compete, periodically attack and expose corporate and governmental malfeasance, and aggressively portray themselves as spokesmen for free speech and the general community interest. What is not evident (and remains undiscussed in the media) is the limited nature of such critiques, as well as the huge inequality in command of resources, and its effect both on access to a private media system and on its behavior and performance.
What to make of this? Your call. The document above contains many more techniques such as the calling of something “communism” to create backlash and receive consent from the media. Memories of Microsoft's "Jihad" against its rivals return to mind (“Jihad” is Microsoft’s own word, which applies to internal E-mails from Netscape- and Java-era Microsoft). There is no gentle way to put it, but Microsoft has not changed its ways. It just got better at hiding it, and not only because of its E-mail shredding policies. █
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