Summary: Microsoft Watch may be dead; Google carries on rising
MICROSOFT’S ability influence minds will diminish even further. Now it’s Joe Wilcox who feels the anguish. He’s leaving Microsoft Watch, which dumped Microsoft for Red Hat (GNU/Linux) a few years ago.
With that, there is nothing left to say but goodbye—and thank you.
Microsoft Watch is a Ziff Davis publication and we happen to have evidence to show that it sold out to Microsoft [1, 2]. Could this be the end of Microsoft Watch, which used to be Mary Jo Foley’s public space? She escaped to ZDNet, but that too may be at risk of not surviving. Since they are all GNU/Linux-hostile, this is not a bad thing.
Another “Microsoft Joe” (not Wilcox), who has been covering Microsoft exclusively at the Seattle P-I, no longer covers just Microsoft and right now he writes about this:
Most-Searched Term on Microsoft’s Live Search Is … ‘Google’
Microsoft’s Live Search revamp apparently cannot come soon enough. Hitwise data shows that the most commonly searched term on Live Search over the last four weeks has been “Google,” accounting for one percent of all queries. Number two? “Yahoo.”
The phrase ‘I’ll just Google it’ has helped make the Internet search giant the world’s first $100billion dollar brand.
Beating out other household names, from Microsoft to Coca Cola and McDonald’s, the company’ value of £68.5billion puts it 25 per cent more valuable than computer software king Microsoft.
If more people rely on the broader Web which offers a decentralised diversity of sources (e.g. using Google), then Microsoft’s ability to police its image will degrade. Sadly, it can still censor blogs while the old press is dying (Newspaper Association has just gone Web-only and it’s likely that everyone will, except those who fail online like Microsoft Watch). █
“Mind Control: To control mental output you have to control mental input. Take control of the channels by which developers receive information, then they can only think about the things you tell them. Thus, you control mindshare!”
THE developer of GNote [1-6], who has worked for Novell until recently, is moving to Fedora.
I bit the bullet and installed Fedora 11-BETA on my only machine, to replace openSUSE 11.1. Let’s see how it goes. I don’t think there will be any big issue.
Summary: The latest developments in Microsoft’s subversive battle against better-priced (and simply better) competition
Red Hat and OIN
It was only a few days ago that we wrote about OIN’s press release. Its most recent effort will help a belated fight against specific Microsoft patents. There is some more coverage of this now, e.g.:
That’s the latest in a long saga which is Microsoft’s patent attack on Linux. Red Hat plays a role in this retaliation after the TomTom case; it needs to remove barriers that Microsoft deliberately creates to intimidate Linux vendors. Now watch this from ZDNet:
On the one hand, Microsoft might release patents to Red Hat as part of a partnership. On the other hand “Microsoft has an interest in protecting intellectual property.” On the other hand it won’t sue open source on patent infringements. On the other hand Microsoft has an obligation to its shareholders.
Microsoft’s Oliver Bell, who has been asking about Boycott Novell, is seemingly threatening or pressuring Red Hat in one way or another (see video at the top for comparison). Harish Pillay had this to share after ZDNet had upset him with inaccurate reporting:
Oliver then went on to say that Red Hat should be happy to take MS patents and make money out of it and in doing so, MS would want a cut. The comment was not accepted by me and I handwaved to the moderator to move on as it was not the thrust of the my question.
I was tweeting the whole event (did not use a tag, but check twitter.com/harishpillay). Interesting, Oliver tweeted back about the patent issue and I suggested that he should consider getting MS into OIN and make all of the software patents freely available to ALL open source developers (commercial or otherwise). MS can continue to do their standard royalty extract from those patents that they placed in OIN from people who use it but keep the code secret.
As we last mentioned yesterday, Microsoft declined an invitation to join OIN. When it comes to Linux, Microsoft is most likely interested in using software patents offensively, not defensively. Microsoft has always been an aggressor.
Red Hat and Europe
According to this report, Red Hat will be pushing against software patents in Europe, thus contradicting some suspicions caused by undeniable hypocrisy [1, 2, 3].
Red Hat is today expected to join others in making the case against the enforcement of patents in software across the European Union.
The company is expected to submit an 11-page report to regulators, which makes the case that patents in software damages innovation in software.
Earlier this month, Richard Stallman and the FFII protested in the streets of Germany against software patents [1, 2]. There is now a new interview from Germany and it happens to cover not only software patents and those protests; it speaks about Red Hat too
When he attended a rally in Munich this month, Richard Stallman took time out of his busy schedule to talk with our News Editor, Britta Wülfing. The conversation covered everything from Software as a Service, to patents, protests, international politics, and protecting your freedom.
[...]
Linux Pro: They offer Red Hat, what about that? Is that not 100 percent free software?
Stallman: No.
Linux Pro: They claim it to be.
Stallman: I don’t know what they say. I’d be surprised if they said anything about free software at all. We talk with the people who make Fedora. They almost removed all the non-free software, but they did not remove the non-free firmware from the Linux kernel itself.
Linux Pro: But wouldn’t that be difficult?
Stallman: It’s not difficult at all. It’s just a choice whether you do it. The reason it’s not difficult is we’ve already done the work. We have a Linux Libre where we have removed the non-free firmware. So if you want a free version GNU/Linux distro you do have to get it from us.
If the Enlarged Board of Appeal should jump over the admissibility hurdle they will find themselves confronted with demands linke ‘we want more of the same’ from the usual pro-patent stakeholders interested in more or less maintaining the status quo, as well as with flawed ‘get rid of software patents’ rethoric of well-known abolitionist groups or individuals representing that way of thinking. Mr Bakels’ approach brings in some fresh air but I am somewhat in doubt as to the EBA would dare even only to deal explicitly with such deviation from long established concepts of case law.
We’ve just found the following talk from former head of the FFII regarding software patents in Europe. It’s a little old, but it only came to YouTube a few weeks ago.
A jury denies the claim for than $100 million in damages from Sun for alleged patent infringement, breach of contract, interference with an existing contract, trade secret misappropriation and unfair competition that had been filed by Versata, formerly called Trilogy Software. Versata claimed Sun stole its technology for a product configurator designed to model a software development project throughout the entire product cycle, from requirements to marketing and sales.
Oracle has been sued for alleged patent infringement by supply chain management vendor i2 Technologies, i2 said on Wednesday.
The suit charges Oracle with infringing on 11 of i2′s patents. I2 is seeking monetary damages and royalty payments, or else an injunction to block the alleged infringement.
What does being part of a large company mean to MySQL and other big projects that are Free? █
Summary: Another look at Richard Steel’s blunder; Moskin refuses to be identified as “a shill”; Microsoft cracks down on UK shops
Newham has a real problem in its hands. Having gotten caught engaging in what can be described as “corruption” (depending on one’s mood or Moody), Newham must bury the evidence [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] or at least silence the witnesses.
A gentleman called Richard Steel got caught red-handed by The Inquirer on several occasions [1, 2, 3], so several peers and journalists are intimately familiar with his follies. He sells out the United Kingdom (or at least a portion of it) to Microsoft Corporation from Redmond, Washington. He does not even assess Free/libre alternatives where they are obviously superior (e.g. Apache, Firefox, GNU/Linux); instead he subscribes to Microsoft's Project Marshall, which is a mechanism for blocking competition (publicly known as “MOU”).
Newham’s bad behaviour is already known to many, so what can Newham do? It invites a prominent critic for some negotiation. Carlos Hawes tells the reporter who visited Newham:
Be careful Mr. Moody in visiting Richard Steel’s IT shoppe. To paraphrase Boromir in the LOTR movies, “One does not simply walk into a Windows shoppe. There is an evil there that does not sleep.”
Striking, too, were the serried ranks of LCD screens in Richard’s department – although the effect was rather spoiled by the fact that they were all running Windows, mostly XP. One interesting fact that emerged from our meeting was that future plans include skipping Windows Vista for most users, and moving straight to Windows 7 – just like most of the saner part of the Windows computing world.
Nothing in this report suggests that Newham will change its ways and actually work for the public rather than work for Microsoft.
An attorney insists he wasn’t acting as a “shill” for Microsoft in bringing the new breed of lawsuits to greater light.
[...]
During an interview with Betanews, Moskin contended that after the article with Wettan was published, he was accused by one tech publication of “being some sort of a shill” for Microsoft. “But nothing was further from my mind,” Betanews was told. Moskin said that instead, he’d simply wanted to warn users and their own lawyers about some new legal risks stemming from open source code.
Moskin was not criticised for his Microsoft connection, which does exist by the way. Groklaw has already shown serious factual errors and told off Law.com for publishing Moskin’s lies uncritically. Moreover, it’s not only such a tie and a lie which make Moskin a suspect/target; he and/or his colleagues also attacked an open source-centric reporter and this pattern of FUD almost always comes from the likes of Fortify, who have an alliance of some sort with Microsoft [1, 2].
Microsoft reaches settlements with traders caught selling illegal software
[...]
Settlements have successfully been reached with 12 resellers, who all admitted to hard disk loading and selling software illegally.
The sellers were named as: Charisma Computers of Manchester; 1Hr Computers of Denton; Boss Systems of Duns; Annecto Computers of Droylsden; Computer Warehouse of Manchester; Hi-Tec of Cheadle; Intellect Computers of Whitefield; Swift Computers of Wellington; Comp-u-Tel of Thatcham; ICN Computers of Newbury; PWRTech of Nottingham; and Unique Computers (UK) of Leicester.
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