07.16.08
Posted in Deception, ISO, Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument at 3:22 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
A
month or so ago, Microsoft argued that ODF had won. It tried to escape this comment later, but Erwin thought (he wrote so in his last blog post at Sun Microsystems) that it was part of Microsoft's plan to get closer to ODF (and maybe poison it more successfully from the inside). That too is something that got Microsoft’s management pointing at Boycott Novell. They were concerned enough about our arguments to rebut, not to ignore.
Anyway, there’s a bit of a deja vu now that the Microsoft-faithful Alex Brown [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21] publicly announces that ODF is in the lead.
OOXML will take second place following Microsoft’s announcement to support ODF, says Dr Alex Brown
[...]
NOTES TO EDITORS
About Dr Alex Brown
Alex Brown was convenor of the ISO/IEC DIS 29500 (OOXML) Ballot Resolution Process, and is convenor of the group overseeing its maintenance processes. He has recently been nominated to represent the publishing industry on the panel advising the British Library on handling digital submission of journal articles.
Why would he issue such a press release? Why bother? Why go out of his way?
Could he be trying to get people off his back? He got lots of flak, that’s for sure. At least one person called for his resignation following involvement in the BSI fiasco. For information about the BSI, see previous posts such as:
Either way, whatever Alex Brown’s motive was with his new press release, it’s akin to that “ODF has clearly won” remark from Microsoft. It makes an illusion of apathy and reduces scrutiny. It’s a dangerous apathy that neutralises hostility. Microsoft does this a lot when invading "Open Source" (if you reject their posturing they call you a “Microsoft hater” or use some other insulting labels that paint you as a fringe lunatic).
From a technical standpoint, think along the lines of embracing (and extending or crippling) HTML5 while having XAML devour the real standard, (X)HTML and JavaScript, including Ajax.
You also have to wonder why Brown still recommends that the British Library should use Microsoft’s OOXML. It was pointed out earlier today.
It is rather funny to see ISO officials denying wrong deeds and irregularities because Even Alex Brown argued that ISO directives had failed. He recently wrote:
Unlike ODF and OOXML, however, I am beginning to believe the Directives have got to a state where they cannot be redeemed by evolution and amendment. It may be time to start again from scratch.
Brown was not alone:
Let’s face it. OOXML is been a farce from start to finish. As The Inquirer put it a couple of days ago: The customer counts for nothing.
And as far as compatibility is concerned, you need not look further than Microsoft. It has been investing billions in its new wannabe-open format, which is actually a poxy pile of unstable zipped XML files – various bugs have been reported, especially concerning Excel. We should also mention that the document describing the standard is a six thousand-page monstrosity, which compares quite sadly to the less than one thousand pages description paper for the OpenDocument format.
It is important never to forget the truth about OOXML. █
“Microsoft corrupted many members of ISO in order to win approval for its phony ‘open’ document format, OOXML. This was so governments that keep their documents in a Microsoft-only format can pretend that they are using ‘open standards.’ The government of South Africa has filed an appeal against the decision, citing the irregularities in the process.”
–Richard Stallman, June 2008
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Posted in Europe, GNOME, GNU/Linux, Law, Microsoft, Patents at 7:13 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Of agents of intellectual monopolies
For those who are new to this, Mccreevy is actually seen as a troublemaker for his attempt — whether deliberate and informed or not — to bring software patents to Europe. Sadly, this commissioner appears to be wreaking havoc also on the copyrights front. We rarely discuss these issue in this Web site (sometimes we do [1, 2, 3, 4, 5), but a few others like Larry Lessig and Glyn Moody definitely know how much political manipulation is involved here. Bribery isn't unusual, either. In response to the latest push, Moody writes:
Copyright is supposed to provide an *incentive* to create, not a *reward* for having created. Increasing the term of copyright protection will not suddenly make ageing rockers more creative. Moreover, the prospect of an extra 45 years’ protection is highly unlikely to make young rockers rush out and create more. So this is a pure loss for the public domain. Thanks for nothing, Charlie.
At this worrisome pace, DMCA will take over every single country. Software patents are another serious issue that not only threatens Europe. Another ugly thing to consider is government snooping, often justified using alarming words like “terrorism” and “paedophiles”. Here is a report from Germany:
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed suit against the US government to protest the new Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) recently passed by Congress. The civil rights organisation believes that the far-reaching authority granted by the Act, which has now been signed by George W. Bush, is unconstitutional.
Nevertheless, the same broken laws are brought over to the United Kingdom. The government wants to archive all E-mails and phonecalls. Leaks, careless spendings, and misuse are — as usual — only to be expected.
A central database holding details of everyone’s phone calls and emails could be a “step too far for the British way of life”, ministers have been warned.
Going back to copyrights again, this one article about copyrights versus preservation is worth a look.
Although digital works are ubiquitous and easily duplicated, they also are ephemeral and are at risk of disappearing unless preservation efforts begin soon after they are created, according to a study by the Library of Congress and three international partners.
[...]
Libraries, archives and other institutions currently are hampered in preserving these materials by copyright laws geared toward more persistent, physical works. The study recommended that laws permit preservation institutions to preserve works according to international best practices, which includes making copies for administrative and technical purposes, migrating works to different formats as technology changes, and maintaining backup copies in multiple institutions to protect against catastrophic loss.
So herein the Library of Congress shepherds a study where others too are complaining about data loss and preservation.
Over in the United States, the Library of Congress has already been ‘violated’ by Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]. In the United Kingdom, the story is similar. Alex Brown is still ‘selling’ the British Library some OOXML lock-inware [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].
Contrariwise, the Canadian Library Association seem to 'get' it. It chooses ODF. Here is another new example of ODF support. [via Bob Sutor]
This addresses a pretty big speed-bump that people were hitting while trying to share documents in Buzzword. Finally, we added support in this release for exporting documents in Open Document Format (ODF). We’re not done with this format, though! ODF import is coming.
It remains to be seen what GNOME is going to do. It must support ODF, but Miguel de Icaza, a fan of Microsoft’s .NET and OOXML, is still evidently involved in GNOME’s direction. █
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Posted in GNU/Linux, IBM, Law, Microsoft, Novell, Patents, Red Hat, SCO, SUN at 6:40 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Transparency is needed at all levels
Yesterday we wrote very quickly about Red Hat's settlement and why it was a bad idea in retrospect. The argument made by Béranger is that they fed the trolls — the patent trolls. Further, he writes: “Now, I don’t think Red Hat was paid by those patent trolls. Going forward to invalidate the patents would still have entitled Red Hat to ask for damages, and the public image of Red Hat would have been even better: hey, software patents can be invalidated, and here’s Red Hat doing it! But, IF Red Hat was indeed paid to shut up, THEN this is even criminal! It’s like making profits on the expenses of other operating systems (the BSDs, Solaris, whatever) not covered by this settlement!”
“The word “settlement” is often an embellishment, a euphemism.”This surely brings back some memories of Novell, but a comparison would be totally invalid. Either way, it serves as an example and precedence to entice more patent trolls and give them just what they want. Settlement = extortion. The word “settlement” is often an embellishment, a euphemism.
SCO too had Microsoft and Sun license UNIX from them (it later turned out to be in vain) just after they had sued IBM and others. All can be done purely for legitimacy. Both Sun and Microsoft could benefit from it. In the case of Microsoft, it was not only an opportunity to inject money; Microsoft went further and arranged a BayStar investment in SCO.
It’s the same with Trend Micro, which cross-licensed quite recently... with IBM. Ironically enough, in response to this, Barracuda then had to buy patents from IBM, which probably cost a lot. Trend Micro used IBM for legitimacy, so in that sense, IBM was part of this messy business. Had they never dealt with software patents, perhaps none of this would come abound. Here is what Barracuda’s CEO, Dean Drako, said quite recently:
“I would much rather spend my time and money and energy finding ways to make the Internet safer and better than bickering over patents.”
The claims made above about Red Hat exposing Solaris and BSD seems to be contradicted by Groklaw:
Most of the agreement is typical language, but Tiller explains the parts that are specific to this agreement, which is groundbreaking. It’s living proof that the GPL can function as intended, and without compromise, while still dealing with US patent law.
[...]
Even such code distributed by Novell and Sun Microsystem is covered. Is that not refreshing? Note also that “Red Hat Product” includes “predecessor versions” of any Red Hat Products, including versions Red Hat or its employees had no involvement in developing. When you think about the Novell-Microsoft patent deal, what a contrast! That covered only Novell’s paying customers, and deliberately excluded the rest of the community. Red Hat, with a deeper understanding of the GPL and the community’s interests, in contrast responds with a very creative, GPL-compatible agreement that reflects how the community has always worked — competition on merit, not on exclusion or proprietary moves.
The press release contains this ugly bit.
Payment
Section 3 of the agreement is entitled “Payment,” but the material on this issue has been redacted here. This is because the parties agreed that this term must remain confidential.
What is this? BECTA and Microsoft? The equivalent of a Memorandum of Understanding [1, 2, 3, 4]? Novell too redacted the hell out of its formal agreement with Microsoft.
More analysis of this comes from Lisa Hoover, whose report ends with:
The 22-page document [PDF] contains affadavits and documents that outline the terms of the agreement, however specifics on any payments that changed hands have been redacted because “the parties agreed that this term must remain confidential.”
Sean Michael Kerner found some bits of this deal discomforting as well.
How can you be transparent about a settlement without discussing money? How much is a patent worth today? I certainly would want to know and I’d bet millions of others would too.
[...]
This is a fantastic thing. Now if Novell had been as community minded when it struck its patent covenant deal with Microsoft the biggest patent threat hovering over the Linux community as a whole IMHO would just go away.
From user ‘sandholm’ at Tux Machines:
Isn’t this moot?
Submitted by sandholm on Tue, 07/15/2008 – 11:17.
This is an interesting way for RedHat to try and “save some face”, after their “secret” payoff to Firestar on a patent that was dubious from the start.
Now that Sun has requested the Firestar patent be invalidated, and considering the response from the PTO:
http://lwn.net/Articles/289747/
I guess this is the only way that Redmond…Er…RedHat has figured to try and save some respect.
Linux Journal rightly gives credit to Sun.
Just over a month ago, we brought you the news that Red Hat had washed its hands of long-term patent litigation with Firestar Software over object-oriented software and relational databases. We now learn the deal came just a month too early, as last week the Patent and Trademark Office invalidated the patent in question — the result of a “brother-in-arms” effort by Red Hat competitor Sun Microsystems.
[...]
As for Sun and the Open Source community, it’s a victory for striking down one more prohibitive proprietary roadblock, as well as a protection for all from similar prosecution.
Jonathan Corbet has a good and comprehensive summary too.
Red Hat’s initial press release claimed that this settlement demonstrated the company’s commitment to standing up for the community in the face of patent trolls, and stated that it would discourage any future such cases. At this point it seems fairly evident that Sun has made a better show of standing up for the community and discouraging future cases. What Red Hat has done, though, is to show us how future patent problems could be resolved in the absence of obvious prior art. If one must pay the troll, one would do well to come out with an agreement like this one and, at least, keep the troll away from the rest of the community. Whether patent holders who actually have a legal leg to stand on will be willing to agree to such a settlement remains to be seen; the nature of the game is such that, unfortunately, we are likely to get an answer to that question sooner or later.
There are no easy answers here. For sure, what Sun managed to achieve was more valuable than what Red Hat had done. What Novell did was just selfish in every way.
It surely cost Sun some time and effort. Imperfect solutions seem necessary as long as the payment system is absolutely broken. The next post will discuss further perversion of the law by intellectual monopolies. █
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Posted in Boycott Novell at 5:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
GNU/Linux
Openfiler 2.3, GNUSTEP 1.9 and BLAG 90000 have been released.
- KDE 4.1 RC1 Release Announcement
- IBM Sells 60 Teraflops Power6-Linux Super in Holland
Server maker IBM has spent more than a decade taking on the supercomputer market, and has become one of the big dogs, if not the big dog, when it comes to building different styles of high performance computer clusters. Last week, the company announced its first big Power6-based Power 575 supercomputer running Linux, nicknamed Huygens after the famous Dutch scientist, which was sold to SARA Computing and Networking, the national supercomputing network built and managed by the national government in The Netherlands.
- Persistent Configuration Options For X.Org Drivers
When it comes to proprietary drivers, AMD has almost completely eliminated their dependence on the xorg.conf and NVIDIA too is eliminating their need of this method for configuring the X server. With the fglrx Linux driver, ATI/AMD has developed the AMDPCSDB, or the AMD Persistent Configuration Store Data-Base.
- Run a Business Network on Linux: Remote Help Desks
- Google’s Android to kickstart mobile Linux
Google’s Android project could kickstart location-aware advertising by enabling the benefits of mobile Linux, experts predict.
- For Linux security, principle of least privilege prevails, says Red Hat security expert
- Linux can save us
In case you haven’t noticed, the economy is collapsing.
[...]
What does this have to do with Linux? Everything.
With both people and companies having to squeeze a nickel’s worth of good out of every penny, how long do you think people will be paying Microsoft for its imperfect operating systems and office suites?
- Event aims to bring Lindependence to one California town
What is going well? Starks reports there will be some national coverage, including a possible National Public Radio feature and partial coverage from Fox News. Also, there are rumblings of other towns that may wish to try the same kind of event. Both Starks and Cafiero have already been asked by others if they could replicate this event.
- [Tongue in Cheek] Windows Now Open Source
- Benchmarking hardware RAID vs. Linux kernel software RAID
My tests showed that the choice of filesystem makes a huge impact on performance, with XFS being substantially quicker for output on parity RAIDs, though in some configurations, such as 256KB-chunk RAID-10 block input, XFS can be slower than ext3.
Linux
Laptops
- Evidence mounts for August Eee PC carnage with $299 Dell E launch
For that price, assuming everything we’ve heard so far is correct, you’ll get an instant-on Linux distro running atop Intel’s 1.6GHz Atom processor, a 1,024 x 600 display, 3x USB, a wee SSD, integrated webcam, WiFi, and more in a 0.82-1.22-inch thick sled weighing about 2.2-pounds.
- Dell said to be planning launch of low-cost notebook in August
- CyberLink Sees Opportunities in Netbooks, Linux
Multimedia software maker CyberLink sees a lot of opportunities in the fast-growing netbook segment of the computer market, from online access to files stored on home PCs to multimedia software made for Linux OSs.
Some of the most popular netbooks, or mini-laptops, being launched come with options for far less storage space than mainstream laptops, such as Asustek’s Eee PC 1000, Eee PC 901and Acer’s Aspire one.
Many of them also run on a Linux OS, such as Linpus Linux Lite on the Aspire one and Linux OS by Xandros on the Eee PC. These netbooks can also come with Windows XP instead.
F/OSS
Microsoft, Google
Apple
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07.15.08
Posted in Africa, America, ISO, Microsoft, Open XML, Standard at 3:41 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“It’s a Simple Matter of [Microsoft’s] Commercial Interests!”
–Microsoft’s Doug Mahugh about OOXML in Malaysia
Ever since ISO had collapsed and left room for Microsoft to do its mischiefs, ISO’s behaviour has been as suspicious as Microsoft’s. At the moment, Groklaw is putting up the texts of the appeals, which make an appalling sight at the ISO process. Here’s just one example.
NB/MB COmment VE-0002 – BRM Question Number 142 – Covered in BRM? No – Appropriately addressed? NO. The use of BLOBs (Binary Large Objects) is maintained, without specifying mechanisms for retrieving/displaying them and also leaving the implementation up to the developer without any specification.
That’s geek for “No one can use OOXML at the moment but Microsoft, because only it knows how to retrieve/display the proprietary parts.” Is it a standard if only one proprietary company can implement it fully, because only they have the key to all the doors, so to speak? Isn’t equal access and full specification kind of the point of a standard?
Speaking of keys to doors, nothing is said there about serious security implications. And wait, there’s more.
Among the articles about what ISO refuses to confirm, there’s this.
“We respect the expertise of ISO’s and IEC’s staff with regard to their procedures and processes, and we hope that the appeals will be resolved soon,” a company spokesperson told InternetNews.com in an e-mailed statement.
Is that the same ISO whose rules were changed by a Microsoft lobbyist? Whose “expertise” does Microsoft “respect”, as it puts it in this statement? Is it really ISO’s?
How much of this process has already been gamed? How many people has Microsoft reportedly ‘tinkered’ with by now? We already know that Microsoft had some American diplomats, the French president and the Mexican president involved. That’s nothing to sneeze at. ISO’s leadership is small potatoes compared to leaders of countries that size.
Another post about South Africa’s appeal raises some important points. It can be summarised thusly:
South Africa also believes that the process from beginning to end “has harmed the reputations of both ISO and the IEC” which in turn has also harmed the reputations of all member bodies. That is the saddest part, to me. ISO always had a fine reputation, and it has so many excellent people involved in standards work who have toiled for years tirelessly and competently. But it’s a new day.
Some people still have some faith in ISO, but ISO will never be the same. Microsoft touched it. █
Photo from the public domain
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Posted in IBM, Microsoft, NetWare, Patents, Ron Hovsepian at 3:13 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
That’s what partners are for
Novell’s business is in a sad situation. Its legacy component gets devoured more quickly than the minuscule new components grow. Like many other companies, Novell appears to be cutting down its workforce or moving overseas by announcing layoffs, to be followed by recruitment somewhere cheaper.
Almost the only person who benefits seems to be the CEO. Is it a reward for failing to reverse the trend? Darl McBride too received a pay rise after he had filed for bankruptcy (and possibly yet to face criminal charges).
One of the culprits in Novell’s demise is, ironically enough, also its exploitative partner. It’s a one-way relationship and here is the latest example.
National operations technology manager Ian Kirby says Novell’s GroupWise didn’t offer the necessary integration with the company’s document management software.
“When you’ve got an explosion in the volume of email, it’s a lot easier and quicker to drag and drop emails into a matter-centric folder, so each client is represented by a folder in the document management system and each matter is a sub-folder of that,” Kirby says.
So they move to Microsoft.
“IBM, like Microsoft, is a believer in intellectual monopolies and holder of even more.”To put things in perspective, whenever Novell is ‘permitted’ to deploy SUSE Linux for a customer, it must pay Microsoft for the privilege. When Microsoft grabs Novell territories, Novell receives not even a dime. It’s an abusive relationship that Ron Hovsepian entered willfully.
While on this subject of patent relationships, it’s worth bringing up another article from the news. Hovsepian’s ‘mother ship’, IBM, which may or may not have been a backer and pusher for the deal with Microsoft, continues to deploy the Microsoft-taxed SUSE in its mainframes.
Cognos, which IBM bought for $4.9 billion last November, bypassed three IBM operating systems (z/OS, z/VM and z/VSE) and instead chose IBM System z for Linux and Novell’s SUSE for its entrée into the mainframe market. An IBM mainframe version for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is also in the works.
We previously wrote about the situation with Red Hat [1, 2]. It seems possible that the Novell/IBM relationship runs deeper. IBM, like Microsoft, is a believer in intellectual monopolies and holder of even more.
Had IBM rejected Microsoft’s ludicrous claims against GNU/Linux, then it would also steer away from Novell, which feeds its predatory rival (giving it both money and legal ammunition). █
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Posted in News Roundup at 1:47 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
GNU/Linux
- Linux Kernel Development Stats from Greg Kroah Hartman
- Modularity Gets Down to Business
- The strength of Linux is in it’s flexibility
- Too many Linux distributions?
In the end, there isn’t any advantage to having only one dominant Linux distribution either. Yes, new users wouldn’t be confused and there would be only one way to install software, making it easier for package maintainers. But what would be the point? To lure in new users? To take on Windows and OS X? Why? There’s this feeling among some people that Linux HAS to grow, that it HAS to become the dominant OS, because it’s (arguably) so much better. I don’t agree. It would be nice if some people knew that the answer to their virus-ridden problems is freely available, but that’s all. Otherwise, let people use what they’re happy with.
- Linux guru? then switch to Arch Linux!
- Dang, Darn, Damn Small Linux!
- Installing Gentoo 2008.0 Live CD
It certainly doesn’t require much specific knowledge of Gentoo or how it works, but neither is it for the faint hearted.
A significant body of previous Linux experience is expected, as you’ll be on your own with respect to key concepts, such as partitioning, packages and users.
Ubuntu
KDE
F/OSS
Applications
Devices
- NEC launches embedded Linux
Similar to the Splashtop embedded Linux OS developed by Asus but with a security-oriented thrust, the hypervisor – known as HyperCore – will be able to take advantage of virtualisation extensions built in to the latest generation of Intel chips in order to run at full speed without impacting the performance of the main operating system.
- Linux Edges One Step Closer to Total World Domination
Microsoft told the world which desktop OS to use, and the business world listened. The innocent little Linux-based smartphone may change all that. As consumers become comfortable with Linux on handheld devices, they will likely influence decisions at their places of employment. This could be the beginning of the end of the Windows world as we know it, suggests LinuxInsider columnist Jeremiah T. Gray.
- MontaVista Linux Carrier Grade Edition First to Comply with Three Key Specifications for Telecom Industry
Rights
Microsoft
Windows Botnets
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Posted in News Roundup at 5:40 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
GNU/Linux
Qt/KDE
- Chinese educational handhelds get Qt
- KDE Commit Digest: Issue 114
Global keyboard shortcuts for applets, and an Amarok and “python expression” runner in Plasma. A Java test applet and various interaction improvements in Plasma. Simple network and CPU monitors in the system-monitor Plasmoid. Initial import of PeachyDock, a Plasma-based alternative panel.
F/OSS
OpenOffice.org
SaaS
Abuse of Rights
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