Summary: More research shows what we are always seeing — that software patents are of negative contribution and there is yet more evidence now that Apple increases its extortion pressure on Android (Linux)
This report examines changes in the patenting behavior of the software industry since the 1990s. It finds that most software firms still do not patent, most software patents are obtained by a few large firms in the software industry or in other industries, and the risk of litigation from software patents continues to increase dramatically. Given these findings, it is hard to conclude that software patents have provided a net social benefit in the software industry.
It can also be found here and elsewhere. Carlo Piana says:
Bessen: study on #swpats shows benefit for deep pockets & lawyers, not SWindustry or society.
Of course we need no study to observe how #swpats are unhelpful & #evil. But it’s reassuring having evidence & numbers backing it
Piana actually said that the only solution is to abolish software patents. He is seemingly associated with the FSFE and he represented Samba in their case against Microsoft, which abused patents in this area (it still does).
“Boston University’s James Bessen has published a landmark study [abstract; full paper available at the link, free of charge] on a generation of software patents. Looking at almost 20 years of software patents, he finds ‘that most software firms still do not patent, most software patents are obtained by a few large firms in the software industry or in other industries, and the risk of litigation from software patents continues to increase dramatically. Given these findings, it is hard to conclude that software patents have provided a net social benefit in the software industry.’ Not that this surprises anyone actually innovating in software.”
The current head of the FFII quotes the author as saying that “it is hard to conclude that software patents have provided a net social benefit in the software industry”
The Cupertino Bully Apple has filed a patent lawsuit against Samsung in South Korea.
Not only Microsoft is in a position of trying to destroy Linux. It’s too good a platform to build an operating system upon (WebOS, Android, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, et cetera). Apple and Microsoft cannot compete. █
Posted in Site News at 11:34 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Bogus benchmarks again
Summary: Microsoft’s partner Tuxera (Microsoft tax on Linux) uses misleading, inadequate benchmarks to claim that Linux filesystems are slow
IN OUR wiki page about Tuxera we provide background about a Finnish company (not Nokia) which decided to sell its Microsoft-taxed Linux software. According to this provocative headline from Phoronix one might think that Linux filesystems lag behind Microsoft’s, but upon closer inspection, there are holes in Tuxera’s argument. To quote Michael from Phoronix:
Coincidently there’s some more file-system news after just writing about the EXT4 and Btrfs file-systems with the Linux 3.0 kernel. A Phoronix reader has pointed out that a developer at Tuxera is claiming their proprietary NTFS Linux kernel driver makes the Microsoft file-system the fastest choice under Linux. Reportedly this kernel driver that implements Microsoft NTFS support is about twice as fast as EXT4, the main Linux file-system of choice right now.
Anton Altaparmakov, a key developer at Tuxera and long-time Linux NTFS developer along with formerly spearheading Mac OS X NTFS support at Apple, has made some rather bold claims. Anton says that their proprietary NTFS kernel driver is much faster than EXT3/EXT4, and by the margins reported of 2x, it would also make it faster than any other file-system like Btrfs and XFS.
As Oiaohm points out, “[p]roblem is the reason its true is that NTFS under Linux is not processing permissions. If you used it as your default install filesystem” it would be a security issue, he noted. “Of course now that Tuxera has done this question is how long before some of the embed filesystems speed up [...]: the art when someone is saying something is faster is making sure you compare to something equal. i.e. NTFS without permissions should not be benched against ext with permissions.” █
As Slated.org put it: “Not “Free Software”, then?” To quote OS News (mostly a supporter of Microsoft and Mono): “Miguel and his team will now continue to work on Mono, their first commercial product to be an iPhone (and then Android) .NET development stack…”
“The new versions of .NET for the iPhone and Android will be source compatible with MonoTouch and Mono for Android. Like those versions, they will be commercial products, built on top of the open core Mono.”
Oiaohm brought to our attention some important news (via IRC). He says regarding Windows 8: “I am expecting the screaming from the time of Windows 95 on DOS programmers.”
He elaborates: “Reason I expect Windows 8 to be extreme is MS has lost control and will attempt another Windows 95 like event to get control back. Before Windows 95, MS was also getting massively cloned and competed with.”
“Before Windows 95, MS was also getting massively cloned and competed with.” –Oiaohm“More proof MS is killing .NET on the client,” called it one person in USENET. “The development platform and tools strategy at Microsoft is getting increasingly complex,” explained Mary Jo Foley. Seeing the pattern yet?
“.NET will not go away on the server, but killing off the XAML team is another indication that .NET is being culled for client stuff,” wrote one person. “Everything’s moving towards HTML5 / Javascript. If developers don’t like this idea and start leaving in droves, Redmond’s downfall will be swift.”
Here is another take on it. “Now let’s see how mono copes,” concludes Oiaohm. Mono will be the subject of our next post. It’s a bad time to be a C# developer. █
Summary: Rusty, Tim, and Roy get together for a discussion about the latest news, in particular about GNU/Linux
THE LATEST show spoke about a range of subjects, mostly distributions, desktop environments, and the situation Ubuntu is in. Update: the show notes are up.
The show’s tracks are “Rise Up”, “Free Software Song” by Jono Bacon, and “Solo Un Poco Mas” by Debayres. We hope you will join us for future shows and consider subscribing to the show via the RSS feed. You can also visit our archives for past shows. If you have an Identi.ca account, consider subscribing to TechBytes in order to keep up to date. █
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