03.10.13
Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Patents, RAND at 11:20 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Rules of imperialism
Summary: Microsoft continues to distort the market by sending trolls, lawyers and politicians to impede Google’s business
Patent trolls using standards bodies to assault businesses with real products is what some people fear more than the occasional troll lawsuit. The cost of products depends heavily on innovation coming about in peaceful environments without patent tolls and filing of patents. Some companies feel like it’s fair to change the way the industry operates naturally and they fund entities that achieve this. Patent pools are one type of cartel which offers peace to members and extortion for the rest. MPEG cartel members are willing to get aggressive, too and they have just taken a shot at VP8:
In recent years, MPEG LA has been accused of inhibiting the innovation that it was designed to foster. Notably, the company’s practice of charging high licensing fees for patents that are near or past expiration has led critics to assert that the firm has placed profit above its core mission of cheap and accessible licensing of digital video patents. Technology market players have also alleged that MPEG LA has violated the terms of its original agreement with DOJ by failing to invite oversight of its licensing practices by independent experts, and neglecting to adhere to FRAND guidelines. A firm that was once a model (at least in theory) of the potential benefits from collaboration has morphed into one of the industry’s most notorious and most harmful players….
Notice the role of FRAND there. MPEG-LA is a patent troll in disguise (led by the troll Larry Horn) and it extorts WebM. Microsoft booster Peter Bright, who was spreading FUD against WebM for a while, whitewashes an extortion by Horn while Pamela Jones shows how close Horn is to Microsoft:
Cf. Mr. Horn’s involvement on behalf of Microsoft and once again against Motorola/Google in Microsoft v. Motorola in Seattle.
The news is not VP8 getting devoured but WebM getting extorted. Here is one report on the matter:
With the clearing of the patent issues that have cast a shadow over VP8′s acceptability to open standards organisations as a open, royalty-free video codec, it is likely that its next major stop is becoming an MPEG standard. According to Rob Glidden, video patent analyst, Google proposed VP8 as the codec for MPEG’s IVC in January. IVC is the name of one of the tracks that the ISO/IEC MPEG working group was exploring in its search for a royalty-free codec for web video and other uses. It had been looking at technologies where the patents were expiring.
What we see here is a law-bending move designed to derail patents-free standards. It is similar to what happened in the OOXML saga, where ISO too got used as a Trojan horse for patent-encumbered so-called standards. It is a vicious and corrupt battle where clueless politicians are often just used as tools for corporate profits and power. Not too long ago we saw Microsoft Facebook lobbying politicians to incite them against Google. Microsoft has far more lobbyists than everyone else in Europe (in the technology sector) and 17 lobbyists of Microsoft are identified in this article, lumping some of them together:
The biggest makers of Spyware are not Hackers… They are Companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft that make billions selling your personal likes, dislikes and opinions to an enormous glut of advertisers and social programmers. They would rather fight piracy on their collective own than have the Government regulate their blatant invasion of the public’s privacy.
Microsoft, the hypocrite, has for a long time been trying to use “privacy” against Google and it is using lawmakers to selfishly render their competition “illegal” again in Massachusetts. See this new report (the “think about the children!” strategy):
Microsoft is after Google again with a school privacy bill that could wipe out Google’s cloud-computing services for students.
Microsoft is backing a bill that targets Google’s Apps for Education, saying that these cloud-computing services are collecting data from schoolchildren for the purpose of creating better advertising or other commercial means.
“We believe that student data should not be used for commercial purposes; that cloud-service providers should be transparent in how they use student data; and that service providers should obtain clear consent for the way they use data,” said Mike Houlihan, a Microsoft spokesman. “We expect that students, parents and educators will judge any proposed legislation on its merits.”
The bill was unveiled in January, and is currently being considered by Massachusetts’s lawmakers. Microsoft has been very direct with the fact that it is behind this bill, and that Google is the target.
This is classic Microsoft, using lawmakers to help where Microsoft is losing. It is one form of corruption among several similar ones. █
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03.08.13
Posted in Google, Patents at 11:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The latest attack by proxy on free platforms comes from the patents proxy of several proprietary software vendors and software patents proponents
The attack on Android is not always visible; some patent trolls are equipped with ammunition whose purpose it to tax everything. This helps raise the price of products, harming in particular everything which was free and thus permissive in the distribution sense. Microsoft, more than any other company, has been fighting hard against Linux and GNU.
Eric Brown, writing about storage systems the other weeks, pointed out that:
NAS vendors are drawn to Linux for its stability, security, and low cost. Linux rarely requires patching, is relatively immune to virus attacks, and can usually run in flash memory for even greater security. Lack of licensing fees is also a draw of course, although at least one NAS vendor — Buffalo — pays Microsoft via a patent covenant for the privilege of using Linux.
Pamela Jones responded with: “Microsoft is doing with patents what SCO tried but failed to do with copyrights, to Microsoft’s shame. So if you buy from them, this is the behavior you are enabling. And when you read about Microsoft “donating” to Open Source blah blah, remember what they are doing with patents, please.”
Over at a lawyers’ blog that Jones likes to cite [1, 2], some FRAND battles over Android and codec patents are described. Here is what Jones learned about the MPEG-LA assault:
In the Seattle litigation between Microsoft and Motorola over how much Microsoft should pay for Motorola’s FRAND patents, the presiding judge, Hon. James L. Robart, asked the parties to file short letter briefs by March 1st on how to interpret one section of the Google-MPEG LA license agreement, and they have now done so. As you will see, things have changed since Motorola revealed the terms of the Google-MPEG LA license. The judge now has questions about the language, after the January 28th hearing.
Does it cover Motorola as an affiliate of Google? Are all affiliates covered? Or only those specified by a licensee? And is the royalty cap provision in one section a stand-alone provision? Is there, in other words, a cap on how much Microsoft has to pay?
His request is related to his decision to reopen the trial that ended in November, now that Motorola has presented new evidence that didn’t present at that trial. It didn’t have to, by the way. The trial was to be held in parts, and November was part one. Now that the new arguments are on the table in connection with the next phase about exactly what the rate should be, however, the judge sees a need to go back and take another look, and I think you’ll agree with him that what Motorola has presented changes the picture, and not in a way that favors Microsoft as much as before, which was trying for a low-ball figure. And that is now in question.
MPEG-LA is a patent troll spearheaded by Larry Horn and backed by the likes of Microsoft, Nokia, and of course Apple. It seems like this troll took a bite just now. It’s a somewhat Google-hostile article:
Google enters into licensing agreement with MPEG LA to protect the WebM video format
When the WebM project was announced back in 2010, one its selling points was that it was open and free of the licensing needs imposed by competitors like H.264. That may have been slightly overstated, however, as Google and MPEG LA have just entered into a licensing agreement covering the video codec at the heart of the format. The codec is known as VP8, and while no financial figures are disclosed the agreement covers various patents from 11 different parties. Google also gains the ability to sublicense those technologies out to VP8 users, clearing the way for the company to push adoption of VP8 — and by extension, WebM — with impunity. “This is a significant milestone in Google’s efforts to establish VP8 as a widely-deployed web video format,” said Allen Lo, Google’s deputy general counsel for patents.
Here is another take on it. It is a Google-friendly article, unlike the previous one:
Google has agreed to pay a licence fee to MPEG LA, LLC for techniques which they say may be essential to VP8 and earlier-generation VPx video compression technologies under patents owned by 11 patent holders.
This is a shame, but we don’t know what happened behind the scenes, possibly threats of massive litigation. The solution is to abolish software patents.
Watch who else is hounding Google over patents:
There are more comments filed with the FTC in response to its request for input on the proposed agreement in In the Matter of Motorola Mobility LLC, a limited liability company, and Google Inc., a corporation; FTC File No. 121 0120. As I mentioned earlier, not everyone is jumping on the currently fashionable bandwagon holding that if you donate a patent to a standards body, you give up all rights to injunctions. In fact, it’s easier to find opposition than support.
Notice Sony in there. Recently enough (for many of us to remember it) Sony attacked other Android players using patents, so here again we see Sony as a malicious antagonist of those whose work it relies on. █
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03.06.13
Posted in Europe, Google, Microsoft at 9:23 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft is robbing Europe, depriving the population of tax money that needs to be paid while diverting public attention to petty issues
More and more people wake up to the fact that law is written by corporations, for corporations. This is why Google and Microsoft both enjoy the loophole of tax havens. Their managers get loaded at the expense of everyone else. It is class looting disguised as helping so-called job creators. Protests erupt throughout Europe because more people find out how the current political and economic systems work. These are interchangeable. There is an attempt to suppress popular actions like ‘UK Uncut’, which pose a threat to those who control our politicians.
The war on masculinity (promoting the image of feminine men, consumerism, etc.) and incitations between cultures — playing communities off against one another — weaken opposition to ruling power and help stir things up among lower classes (identity wars and ethnic wars). We need to set aside popular culture distractions and prepare to deal with the big issues.
According to this new report, Microsoft has just stolen a billion dollars from the small population of Denmark:
SOFTWARE DEVELOPER Microsoft reportedly is being asked to pay $1bn in back taxes to the Danish government.
Microsoft purchased Danish software outfit Navision in 2002 for $1.88bn. Danish Radio station DR claims that Denmark’s tax authorities are now in talks with Microsoft over unpaid taxes. According to the radio station, the Danish tax authorities want Microsoft to pay $1bn in backdated taxes from the transaction.
DR reports that Microsoft sold the rights to Navision’s business planning software under market value to a subsidiary in Ireland, which now operates as Dynamics NAV. The radio station further reports that the Danish tax authorities are claiming $1bn in back taxes and interest from sales made by Dynamics NAV.
Ireland is assisting an evasion here. Denmark should fight over it. We wrote about Microsoft’s tax evasion through Ireland several times before, but Microsoft is not alone though. Google does this too. Hypocritical battles between big brands are not to be overlooked (these are distracting, like Apple/Mac vs. “PC”, or patent war lines that evade the core issue, software patents). Microsoft tries to accuse Google of financial/privacy/other problems that Microsoft itself is guilty of. There is no sign of retracting the hypocritical smears:
Reports that the software giant’s persistent assault on Google is winding down aren’t correct. “Scroogled will go on as long as Google keeps Scroogling people,” Microsoft says.
If Google is screwing people in some way, so does Microsoft. The key point to make here, let us mind privacy and not get too distracted by brands. Microsoft is unique in the sense that it attacks Linux a lot and also breaks the law, as the European politicians helped establish today. But the tax loopholes/havens must be shut down. The sooner, the better. █
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03.05.13
Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Patents at 1:38 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: New smears against Android come from an Oracle- and Microsoft-funded lobbyist; Oracle and Microsoft now openly collaborate in the fight against Android while Apple, longtime friend of Oracle and Microsoft, fails to stop Android’s momentum
The antics of Microsoft Florian, better known as Florian Müller or (anti-)FOSS Patents, are well known by now and his history of deception should leave no informed journalist in a position/decision to cite him. But groomed by Microsoft’s PR and the MSBBC he is doing some more of his personal attacks. It’s almost as though the PR agents ‘serve’ him with smears to publish (which according to my communications with him is likely, hence making him a communications proxy). To quote the latest from the BBC:
Sir Robin – who is also a law professor at University College London (UCL) – is now acting as a consultant to a law firm helping Samsung defend itself against a patent infringement complaint filed in the US by network equipment provider Ericsson.
After news of this spread his clerk, John Call, issued a statement.
“Sir Robin had not discussed any role as an expert, or any related matter, with Samsung or any of its representatives either directly or indirectly before 9 January 2013, when he was approached through his clerk by Bristows in the normal way to enquire as to his availability to give an expert opinion,” it said.
“Sir Robin accepted those instructions on 21 January 2013.
“Sir Robin’s role is entirely unrelated to his judgment in the Court of Appeal given on 18 October 2012 in the case of Samsung Electronics (UK) Ltd and Apple Inc. The instruction does not relate to any UK litigation or advice of any kind. Sir Robin is being remunerated for providing his expert opinion at his usual rates.”
As Open Source Consortium (UK) put it the other day:
#swpats and reputations – good article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21613152 … note anonymous sniping at Prof Jacob reminiscent of #odf and Peter Quinn
BBC is Android-hostile and has been like this for quite some time. It did not point out Microsoft’s ties to Florian, only Oracle’s. Here is a rebuttal:
FOSS Patents is a blog run by Florian Mueller who gets paid by Microsoft (and Oracle) and writes anti-Android stories in wholesale. He then feeds them to lazy bloggers who prefer copy+paste over doing their own research. He has again weaved an anti-Android story. This time he has questioned the integrity of the UK judge Sir Robin Jacob by writing a blog titled “UK judge who issued extreme ruling for Samsung against Apple hired by… Samsung!”
I am not saying that he gets paid by Microsoft and Oracle to write anti-Android stories and spread FUD against Android, but looking at the amount of time he spends on long boring posts, I wonder when does he get time to do anything else. Nilay Patel of The Verge once wrote, “Mueller’s enormous volume of output on FOSS Patents fairly raises the question of when he finds the time to do any serious consulting work for Oracle in between his diligently granular tracking of several international patent lawsuits, his frequent media appearances, and his additional work as a paid consultant to Microsoft.”
Another Linux foe actually takes a shot at Apple after promoting SCO for years. Oracle’s case (SCO 2) is back in the court and to quote this one report: “Oracle tries to undo Google’s successful defense of Android by claiming that software code is no different than literary text in matters of copyright.”
Florian has spread a lot of copyright-themed lies about Android, including some for Oracle’s case, which is actually supported by Microsoft. Check out this BSA event. “Of course,” Pamela Jones pointed out, “Microsoft General Counsel and Executive VP Brad Smith will be there, as will Oracle SVP, General Counsel, and Secretary Dorian Daley, and IBM Software Group VP and Assistant General Counsel Neil Abrams.”
The Business Software Alliance (BSA) shows Microsoft and Oracle standing shoulder to shoulder. Microsoft is behind Oracle in it and Jones has the details which are based on the original documents. She says: “That is, of course, exactly what SCO was asking for, before it flamed out and fell into oblivion. SCO used the same law firm as Oracle, Boies Schiller, so perhaps it’s not astounding that they raised that same theory of copyright for SCO, an adventure Microsoft and Sun (now part of Oracle) funded, and here it is again, this time in Microsoft’s mouth. I’d like to correct several misleading elements in this amicus brief. And we now have all the amicus briefs as PDFs.”
Apple and Oracle are closely connected by their leaders as well and Jones has this update on Apple’s foremost case:
I told you that the jury’s damages award in Apple v. Samsung would not stand. And this isn’t even the end, but Judge Lucy Koh has just ruled on both Apple and Samsung’s motions on damages. The jury’s award, she says, was excessive, being based on wrong theories. In some cases, she can’t even figure out what they did, and so she has ordered a new trial on damages for certain products and has reduced the award on those she could figure out herself to $598,908,892:
Apple is truly desperate to stop Samsung:
“To say that the Samsung momentum is an issue for Apple is an understatement,” said Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes.
Apple has got the most to lose here; Oracle and Microsoft mostly clear the path to Apple, perhaps fearing that Free/open source platform will become a de facto standard (Oracle and Microsoft have de facto proprietary monopoly in desktop and databases). This is case of patent stacking and conspiracy to sue.
Samsung stole Apple’s thunder and it shows. All that Apple can do now it take public knowledge that was funded by the public (later purchased by Apple to deprive others from having it) and then use patents around it to hound Android/Samsung. As a pro-Microsoft site, put it:
“Here’s a great example of this R&D ecosystem at work: Apple’s iPad. It’s amazing – a device that perhaps only Apple could have designed. But every distinctive aspect of this device – the multi-touch user interface, the sensors, the processor – has its origins in federally sponsored research,” said Lazowska in his written testimony.
That’s about all we have to say about the war on Android for now. It’s more complicated that an outsider may realise. There is a cartel at work. █
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02.19.13
Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft at 4:06 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Tax stories that elucidate absurdities and injustice
THE other day while researching NDAA I was reminded of Microsoft’s legalised tax fraud (legalised because Microsoft has former execs inside the government). A site called Washington Liberals bears the tagline:
Legislators can’t pay for education, give a billion dollars every year to Microsoft.
What’s curious about it is that Microsoft, while not paying tax, wishes to tax us, taxpayers. To do this it even relies on biased Seattle courts, as Pamela Jones continues to show:
The November trial in Microsoft v. Motorola has been reopened, so Motorola can introduce new evidence. Apparently, Motorola and Microsoft were on the phone with the judge presiding in the Seattle litigation, Judge James L. Robart, in connection with a new Motorola request to reopen the trial so it can submit additional evidence, and he has just granted [PDF] Motorola’s request, despite Microsoft’s opposition. This is unusual, to say the least.
Well, as noted the other day, other large companies wants an Android tax to feed them. Their greed is without boundaries. █
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02.18.13
Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Patents, RAND at 6:25 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
May BT go to Hell…
Summary: Microsoft’s partner BT got sued after it had attacked Android; Microsoft has got malicious plans against Android
T
HE duopoly, Microsoft and Apple, has been trying to make Android expensive through patent stacking, FRAND, and lawsuits, some by trolls the duopolists arm. In the mean time Microsoft tries against Android the same tactics it used against Linux servers; it tries to port applications from FOSS platforms to Windows. One
pundit says:
Could Android–a mobile operating system from Microsoft’s arch rival Google–actually be the key to solving Microsoft’s mobile problems? I suggested as much in early January in a post called “Why Microsoft’s Surface Team Should Warm Up to Android.” In that post, I suggested that Microsoft’s new Surface tablets could resolve problems with the dearth of apps available from Microsoft by beginning to run Android apps through BlueStacks App Player.
BlueStacks App Player has been available for some time for Windows users who want to run Android apps on PCs, and it’s available for Mac users. And now, sure enough, BlueStacks has released a free version that is optimized for Microsoft’s Surface Pro.
With control of Linux through UEFI Microsoft may be planning to make life harder for Android, not just GNU and Linux. To quote Pamela Jones: “This isn’t precisely news, in that Microsoft announced in January of 2012 that BlueStacks would be built into Windows 8. This is Steve Ballmer’s dream: that FOSS applications run on Microsoft’s kernel instead of on Linux. So, let me get this straight: first Microsoft insists vendors build in UEFI, so folks have a major struggle to dual boot or to install Linux instead of Windows, if they can at all, and now this. Coincidence? The article pretends this is about “freedom” but trust me, that is the very last thing this is about. Nor did the community produce BlueStacks.”
BT, the company which does not value customers (I’ve had a lot of problems with them over the past month), has been suing Android along with the duopoly and other allies of theirs. Google fights back now:
BT’s plan to make millions of dollars from licensing its patent portfolio by suing web giants including Google has run into a problem: Google and its phone subsidiary Motorola Mobility are countersuing it for patent infringement, calling the lawsuit filed in 2011 by BT “meritless” and accusing it of using shell companies to file other suits.
Shell companies as in trolls. Microsoft does that, with MOSAID as an obvious example Google already complained about. █
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Search, Security at 6:07 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft is searching for new fear-mongering ideas as it loses online (services and servers)
The decline of Bing has been rapid and I now see it accounting for no more than 5% of search engine referrals in my sites (I manage about a dozen). Bing is dying, so Microsoft resorts to pathetic FUD. It resorts to FUD such as this Scroogled [1, 2] nonsense we covered here before while it is also lying and cheating with secret belated patches to daemonise Google’s server platform of choice. We still see Microsoft's partner Trustwave seeding Red Hat and Linux FUD, not noting that Microsoft even admits not disclosing patches. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichol has just written about this too:
Linux, Windows, and security FUD
It’s 2013. but the Linux FUD just keeps coming. In the most recent example, security firm Trustwave claimed that Linux kernel vulnerabilities went unpatched more than twice as long as it took to fix unpatched flaws in Windows. This assertion would be a lot more believable if it wasn’t coming from a Microsoft partner.
[...]
What no one seems to have bothered to do when they reported that Linux was far more lax about taking care of so-called zero-day flaws was to see where Trustwave was coming from. Had they bothered with even a simple Google search they would have found that the company had partnered with Microsoft to bring their application firewall to Internet Information Server (IIS). In particular, Trustwave made a point of boasting how they’d collaborated with the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC).
[...]
In the meantime, Linux, which I freely admit isn’t completely secure—no operating system on the planet ever will be—continues to be be trusted by the world’s biggest Web sites, such as Google, Facebook, and Wikipedia and by such mission-critical sites as the New York Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange. Now, as it has been for decades, Linux remains more secure than Windows, and no FUD can refute this.
Watch out for Microsoft spin because a lot of it exists right now and we haven’t the capacity to track all of it anymore. Full-time job and family limit my ability to do this like I used to. █
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02.15.13
Posted in Deception, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft at 7:44 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: IDC and Trustwave two of the latest spinmeisters whose ties to Microsoft are well documented
THE DAYS of mobile FUD from the Gartner Group may be behind us, but IDG publishes something for its offspring entity, IDC, and it sounds like the familiar spin from Gartner, which denies that Android uses Linux.
More interesting, however, is this bit about Red Hat patches. It comes from Trustwave, which is not naming its partners in the site but invites companies to join. The analysis of patching from Microsoft is typically flawed because Microsoft famously cheats and admits it. Many sources are complicit as they do not talk about it. It ought to be noted that Trustwave is a Microsoft friend. In recent months alone we see press releases like this and that. Recently, a former Microsoft employee also used the "malware"-themed smear against Android. We need to watch out for this kind of stuff. On many occasions before that we have highlighted cases of former Microsoft staff developing firms whose sole purpose is to produce Microsoft spin (through seemingly “independent” sources). Here is just one memorable example. █
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