Summary: Attachmate’s CEO acknowledges that Novell lost much of its lustre when it was acquired

Techrights deliberately avoids Novell these days, with few exceptions. Daily links never contain anything about Novell and SUSE (which descended to obscurity anyway as many contributors walked away from SUSE, either to other distros or personalised alternatives).

Bison slayer (Mr. Hawn) provides no specific details when asked about Novell’s business, except his claim that the brand (which hardly exists anymore) is no longer declining:

Two years after it acquired Novell and took the company private, the Attachmate Group says its decline has been arrested. It anticipates being able to hold that line next year.

Jeff Hawn, president and chief executive of the group, told iTWire on Wednesday that the Novell brand had lost its lustre by the time Attachmate acquired it.

Boycott Novell must have played a small role in this. It does not pay off to sell out to Microsoft, selling one’s patents to Microsoft, leaving one's distro to be funded and thus remotely run (for self gain) by Microsoft. █

Summary: Remnants of Novell have moved to other companies; is it time to let the “Boycott Novell” project be declared over?

THERE IS not much left to say about Novell. The company more or less vanished, so for Boycott Novell to be an active project would be hard. Novell did not reform itself (it got worse over time), but the alternative goal was achieved. We hoped to make Novell change its ways, ideally, and withdraw from the Microsoft deal due to public pressure, otherwise to just fail and give way to ethical companies.

After spending hours researching for this post, we are left wondering if this is good use of time. Even Microsoft is an issue we mostly neglected with the exception of patent stories because a patent parasite is all we expect Microsoft to be within a few years.

Based on what we found about Novell, not much of its core is even passed to Attachmate. Instead, the new management is almost purely Attchmate’s. We’ll show and reiterate through some new evidence in a moment. Alka Agrawal departed from Novell based on this new article from the Indian press which says:

The panel comprised well known names in the Industry and included Sucharita Eashwar – Senior Director, NASSCOM; Vinita Ananth – CEO & Founder, Vangal; Alka Agrawal – former VP & Head of India Development Centre, Novell Inc and Pragjyoti Nair – Director, Program Management and Business Operations, Yahoo!.

Two more executives once employed by Novell have moved on and here we see that Novell’s Hale was in Microsoft and not just Novell. This is an interesting observation which is highlighted by Joe the VAR Guy. He says: “Hale — a veteran of Microsoft, Novell and F5 Networks — joined Sophos shortly after the Astaro acquisition was announced. In a recent interview, Hale told The VAR Guy that Astaro would remain channel-led under Sophos ownership. Bob Darabant, VP of Americas at Astaro, echoed those thoughts in a phone call with The VAR Guy earlier this week.”

There are some more examples of Novell management with Microsoft background. John Donovanhas moved from Novell to VMware, which is run by many former executives from Microsoft (high Microsoft roots density at the top management). Evidence can be seen here: “It was one of the things I wanted to do when I joined,” says John Donovan, who moved from Novell to become VMware’s ANZ channel director in November 2010. “I wanted to re-connect with a lot of our partners in a much more dynamic face-to-face fashion.”

The new VP of engineering at another company turns out to have also left Novell (it is not clear when, however):

Previously, Gacek held engineering management positions at Novell, VeriFone, Canon and VITALINK.

Here is another departure which we mentioned before and clear evidence that those who manage Novell’s residue are from Attachmate [1, 2, 3]. Some of these were mentioned before, but evidence reappears in the news. Mono got dumped, so there is just about nothing left in Attachmate which is FOSS.

Novell is sort of over. Can we leave it aside now and concentrate on other issue a little more? Dear readers, your feedback is needed. █

Summary: Clarifications about our goals, which never really changed at all

“BOYCOTT NOVELL” is the most significant part of the Techrights Web site. It is also the genesis of the site. Now that Novell is dead we are going to follow parts of Novell that are impacted by the patent deal with Microsoft. Needless to say, since Microsoft and Novell signed their patent deal the plague of patents has spread further, largely thanks to Novell’s approach. But this means that we merely continue to track the very same problem. It just takes a different corporate identity (or several). The problem was all along software patents, since the very first day this was site was erected and then advocated. It is not enough to have good software which is free/libre if companies design the law such that this software becomes non-free or illegal. █

Summary: A look back at the “good Novell” and the “bad Novell”

The company called Novell used to be one of the leaders against — not with — Microsoft. Not only did Novell take Microsoft to battle over antitrust abuses but it also provided alternatives to some of Microsoft’s pillars of lock-in. Back in 2005 Novell was one of my favourite companies. It advertised “Linux’, it manages the release of S.u.S.E., and it fought against SCO at a crucial time. But that was the old Novell. Sooner or later it became clear that Novell was having serious difficulties and the same COO who had complained about Microsoft’s abuses suddenly became the company’s CEO and then shook Steve Ballmer’s hand. Novell did what some professionals do to advance their career by stepping out of the crowd. Novell decided that its alliance with Microsoft would somehow be perceived as a selling point and not the opposite; but boy, were they wrong!

The signing of the Microsoft deal came at a time when Novell had a leading GNU/Linux distribution, even on desktops. There was fierce competition back then. But Novell’s impatience, particularly among the executives and their short-term goals (they work from quarter to quarter, so long hauls are unaccounted for) led a money-grabbing move. In the short term, Microsoft’s cash injections paid off (for both parties). But the damage they did was enormous. To this date, Novell is not seen as a GNU/Linux champion. It is seen as a defector, a betraying company. And that is how it dies — without respect. Ximian dies along with Novell, for the most part. █

Summary: An explanation of the relationship between the names “Techrights” and “Boycott Novell”

THERE IS a common misconception spread mostly by detractors of this site and there is also a famous saying that if lies are repeated unchallenged, they will eventually stick, so Techrights should state for the record yet again that Techrights is not a rename of Boycott Novell. It is a new name, but not a rename. Essentially, one is an ‘umbrella’ to the latter, intended to make the name better suit the expanded scope of the site (including the daily links). █

Summary: Quick roundup of where Techrights has been and where it is going

IN 2006 we were focused almost solely on Novell.

In 2007 Microsoft started using the Novell deal to issue patent threats against GNu/Linux, so we focused a great deal on the subject.

2008 was year so full of Microsoft scandals (notably OOXML), so we put great emphasis on it, in addition to the above.

In 2009 we began digging up Comes vs Microsoft exhibits again, putting out there leaks of confidential items of interest. In addition, we began looking a lot more closely at Microsoft news (since around October 2008).

“2008 was year so full of Microsoft scandals (notably OOXML), so we put great emphasis on it, in addition to the above.”2010 no longer dealt with Comes vs Microsoft exhibits but instead it focused on Novell’s sale, Microsoft’s misconduct, Microsoft’s ongoing demise, and a variety of Free software matters with the usual emphasis on software patents, which are considered by some to be the #1 issue. Microsoft is gradually losing news presence; instead, it has court presence. Rather than new products it has new patents (or patent trolls).

Towards the beginning of 2011 it becomes clear that Apple got bigger (in some sense) than Microsoft, Android inherits the mobile market (but impedes freedom in various ways), and there are patent lawsuits from the likes of Apple and Oracle, both targeting Free software. The plan is therefore to concentrate more on the patent issue (including AttachMSFT, a post-Novell incarnation). In addition, as real digital rights (privacy, neutrality, free speech, etc.) are being taken away and computer users are therefore increasingly repressed, Techrights will spend more time debating the issues. The threats to freedom never ever went away (it’s a perpetual struggle against centralisation and abuse of power), but one can adjust to them for a response to be better targeted. Our focus on Wikileaks as of late is not a distraction. It has so much to do with people’s (tech) rights on the Web and in general, even offline. “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” said George Santayana and “[v]alue your freedom or you will lose it, teaches history,” stressed Richard Stallman. A few months ago he said, “I often get tired, but I don’t stop.” Neither should any of us; the loss of one’s freedom is a lot more agonising. █

Summary: Techrights climbs closer to the 15,000-post milestone with nearly 50,000 indexed pages

This is the 12,000^th blog post in Techrights. We have come a long way in just over 4 years and the initiative known as “Boycott Novell” is now complete as Novell got sold (as expected, it’s not the end of it but only the beginning of a somewhat Microsoft-owned Novell).

Google currently says that it has 49,200 pages indexed for techrights.org^*. The domain comprises single-page blog posts but also additional pages in the Wiki and other parts of the site, even years of IRC logs. We take pride in a good discussion which happens in real time rather in blog comments, which were reduced by about 90% since we required registration. Disruption to this Web site (DDOS attacks, trolling, etc.) has been reduced dramatically and we receive a lot of respect from newspaper journalists, television channels, and yesterday I had an online engagement with Sir Tim Berners-Lee (regarding software patents).

“The domain comprises single-page blog posts but also additional pages in the Wiki and other parts of the site, even years of IRC logs.”We recently started an audiocast dubbed TechBytes, which will resume shortly, hopefully to be published at the pace of a show once in a couple of days. The number of requests for the show has increased dramatically over the first 3 weeks of the show, so we will definitely carry on with it. Delivering ‘content’ (stories and discussion) more quickly is one of the merits of this medium.

Thanks for the continued support and to our many readers from the United States — please enjoy the rest of thanksgiving weekend. █
____
^* It’s no secret that I’ve always put quantity before quality because without quantity it’s simply hard to keep track of everything. A typo here and there is rarely a crucial problem and it has worked well for me as an overachiever at school and university. If you spot an error, please point it out so that it can be corrected and never repeated.

Summary: Lack of news about Microsoft not an indication of nothing worth saying about its current affairs/actions

WE ARE WELL behind when it comes to Microsoft news (vacations take their toll). Truth be told, we have not kept track of Microsoft for almost 3 weeks now and we ought to make up for it by catching up at these important times. We still have a pile of news about Microsoft (including financial news), but this task takes a really long time as it involves a lot of reading, with up to 2,000 headlines at the moment. It will maybe take another week to go through it all and properly research the material.

“Wall Street has already spoken and Microsoft’s stock declined right after the latest financial results.”One urgent matter is Microsoft’s financial report. Wall Street has already spoken and Microsoft’s stock declined right after the latest financial results. Days ago we explained very quickly why the press misreports the results, just as Microsoft’s PR intended. Remember that Microsoft announced more layoffs just weeks beforehand [1, 2]. It wasn’t because Microsoft performed “too well to keep its staff”; the reality of the matter is that Microsoft has serious issues, especially with foresight. Some terrible early reviews of Vista Phone 7 [sic] indicate that Microsoft is dying in the mobile space, still [1, 2]. Mozilla won’t even bother with the damn thing, which tossed away all older applications (loss of backward compatibility). From the news:

Mozilla on Windows Phone 7 – “We’re not going to bother.“

Christopher Blizzard, Director of Developer Relations and Open Source Evangelist at Mozilla spoke to Gizmodo about the future of their browser in the new order, where they are facing competition from Google on the desktop and mobile, and are also seemingly excluded from many mobile platforms, such as the iPhone and Windows Phone 7.

Readers can help us keep up with Microsoft news by submitting articles which we will happily publish, as usual. Positive GNU/Linux news is still a higher priority and our most popular posts are the daily links that we now post more often than before. We also try to catch up with older news that was missed — positive news for a change. █

Summary: How Microsoft continues to pursue elevation of the cost of GNU/Linux (preferably with the added expense going to Microsoft’s coffers) and why it’s time for OpenSUSE to escape this mistreatment

THE WEB SITE “BOYCOTT NOVELL” was created almost four years ago in order to protest and to stop Microsoft’s long attempt to impose “IP” royalties on Linux. It was mainly a campaign of sorts.

Techrights still covers the Novell deal, which is a two-company deal. One of those companies is Microsoft, which signed Novell-like deals with other companies such as Samsung. According to this article, from Samsung’s Wave alone Microsoft has already earned money (royalties) extracted from over one million Linux phones. Yes, Microsoft makes money when people buy specific Linux phones. To repeat an old argument, there are two problems here: (1) Microsoft gets stronger when people buy Linux (Ballnux) and (2) Linux is becoming more expensive (relative to Windows). Suffice to say, no patents were ever named, so Microsoft is just ‘pulling a SCO’ here.

“OpenSUSE has an opportunity to escape the Microsoft deal by simply rebranding and disengaging from Novell.”Prior to Novell’s approach towards Microsoft, the monopolist from Microsoft had invested a lot of money in the SCO lawsuit, which sought to collect Linux “IP” royalties based on copyrights, not patents.

Groklaw concludes the most recent part of the SCO trial [1, 2] and finally has this complete overview/roundup.

To repeat the names of Ballnux offerings that are still alive, there’s Xandros, Novell, Samsung, LG, HTC, Amazon (server or Kindle), Kyocera Mita, Brother, I-O Data, Melco/Buffalo, and few more (which still seem to have Linux-based products in the market). In addition, The Novell deal left OpenSUSE in a position where its users are sensitive to lawsuits once they make some profitable business with it. Now that OpenSUSE 11.3 is out (covered in [1, 2, 3]) and Novell more or less neglects it (volunteers carry on and mostly remain big fans), it is time for OpenSUSE to dissociate itself from the “Ballnux” bunch. OpenSUSE has an opportunity to escape the Microsoft deal by simply rebranding and disengaging from Novell. Other people too suggest that this should be done. █

Summary: Security news that applies only to Microsoft products

• Microsoft investigating new Windows flaw

Microsoft said on Tuesday that it is looking into reports of a new Windows flaw that could compromise the security of machines running older versions of the operating system.

• McAfee provides anti-virus to secure USB devices

INSECURITY SOFTWARE VENDOR McAfee has announced that its anti-virus software will be used on most USB devices thanks to partner programmes with the major orignal equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

• Microsoft patches Freetard-by-design bug

• Windows Trojan Kills Antivirus

Researchers at Websense have uncovered a new Trojan that poses as a Windows Input Method Editor, or IME, and infects a system.

IME is a Windows component that allows users to input characters or symbols on their keyboard from other alphabets.

• Failure isn’t an option, it’s integrated into the new Hotmail

If you are like me and use POP3 to get your email in your own client, congratulations, Microsoft has officially broke your secure login options.

So now I guess that in addition to sending all the emails from my bank and Amazon and other perfectly legitimate sites to the Junk folder while hosing down my inbox with obvious Nigerian scams, I can’t use TLS/SSL/STARTLS to log in either. I now have to send my password as plain text over a non-encrypted connection. I wonder if the NSA or the Russian KGB/FSB helped them engineer Hotmail like they lent a hand with Windows 7…

• Disgruntled security researchers take aim at Microsoft

The Microsoft-Spurned Researcher Collective welcomes other researchers to join, though Microsoft employees are not welcome: it notes that it has a “vetting process” to weed them out.

Summary: The company which cost Microsoft half a billion dollars to acquire produces nothing but products that increase Microsoft’s losses; we take a look at the past week’s news about these

LAST WEEK we wrote about the end of "KIN", which was soon accompanied by a major blow to Sidekick. It was only days beforehand that Verizon quietly cut the prices of “KIN” (probably to clear the inventory) and another publication spoke about a next-generation “KIN” or a new offer.

Anyway, here is the troubling news coming from a Microsoft proponents and claims that Microsoft is “taking stock of redundancies”:

At the recent D8 conference, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer questioned Google’s dual strategy of building Android and Chrome OS. Two operating systems doesn’t make sense, he said.

Microsoft is apparently listening to Ballmer’s advice, killing off its 2-month-old Kin line of social-networking phones. The company recently confirmed to Cnet that it is not going forward with a European release of Kin and is instead folding the Kin team into its Windows Phone 7 unit.

Zune might die next. There were no headlines about “Zune” last week. “Microsoft Fails to Impress,” argues one blogger who takes stock of Microsoft’s latest failures:

Once again, Microsoft has a product that failed miserably. The Microsoft phone “KIN” has already been pulled from the US market, and will not be making its European launch as had been planned. The reality here is that Microsoft’s only money maker is Office. Windows sells well only because of its being pre-installed on most PCs. Linux would likely do just as well were MS Office available for it. Likewise, if people did some research and found out that iWork and MS Office were available on Macintosh machines, I am willing to bet that Mac sales would escalate even higher. This isn’t the first Microsoft product to fall flat on its face (the KIN sold, by some reports, only 500 devices).

KIN, Vista, ME, Bob, Zune, CE (never garnered more than 5% of the market), XP Tablet Edition

One caption reads “Microsoft’s Robbie Bach showed off the Kin phone on launch day”; he left in disgrace along with Allard [1, 2, 3]. Here is some news coverage:

• Microsoft Kin phones stopped After Great Downfall in the Sales.
• Light a Candle for Microsoft Kin Through Online Memorial Website
• Microsoft pulls plug on Kin phone
• Tech Tweets of the Week: Microsoft Kin, We Hardly Knew Ye

Here are 10 Reasons Why “Microsoft’s Mobile Strategy Is a Mess” and a call for more focus, not fragmentation [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].

The news about Sidekick gets covered in:

• T-Mobile Discontinues Sidekick Following KIN Phaseout
• First Kin, then Sidekick — Is the Danger Division Well-Named?
• Goodbye Kin, Sidekick and ‘Social Phones’
• T-Mobile Stops Sales of Microsoft’s Sidekick Phone

T-Mobile has announced that it will stop offering its youth-oriented Sidekick phone from Microsoft. The news comes as Microsoft and Verizon Wireless discontinued the Kin social phones. Microsoft says it is moving resources from Kin and presumably Sidekick to focus on the Windows Phone 7 series. T-Mobile promised “exciting updates” to come.

Joe Wilcox asks rhetorically, “What does it mean that KIN, Sidekick and Symbian-Guru went R.I.P. within about 24 hours?”

After just 48 days “KIN” was called off. It speaks volumes about Microsoft’s situation, which Microsoft boosters sometimes attempt to embellish:

• Adios, Kin. We hardly knew you
• Microsoft kills off Kin line of social phones
• Microsoft’s mobile biz in freefall: T-Mobile halts Sidekick sales
• Microsoft Discontinues Kin
• T-Mobile to halt Sidekick sales
• Microsoft’s Kin gets tribute site
• What Does Kin’s Fate Say for Windows Phone 7?

That last one is part of a pattern we’ve noticed. Microsoft boosters/sympathisers divert attention to something else. How about Nokia?

• Opinion: Kin’s demise a warning for Nokia
• Friday Poll: Microsoft’s biggest product misstep?

Mary Jo Foley blames Verizon and her friend/colleague Gavin shifts the subject to Vista [sic] Phone 7. Shane O'Neill does the same thing:

• What Does Kin’s Fate Say for Windows Phone 7?
• Why Carriers Still Hold the Key to Handset Sales

Other boosters of Microsoft publish an analysis of Danger assets:

The now-dead KIN was not a bad idea (read our hands-on with the platform). Microsoft’s ambitions with the KIN were sound. As much as the iPhone and, lately, Android handsets garner all the press attention, smartphones represent only a minority of phone sales—a growing minority, but a minority all the same. There are many, many people who don’t have a smartphone, and don’t even particularly want one, and they easily outnumber smartphone users.

Adrian, despite his pro-Microsoft bias, is being rude about it and he also takes shots at the hypePhone:

“What if Microsoft bought out a product where you had to spend $30 on an accessory to make it work right and stop is from breaking?”

That’s a question I received from a reader earlier today.

My reply: “I think people would go stark raving ballistic on Microsoft – and rightly so.”

“Let the Kin comedy begin,” says TechFlash and The Inquirer is being very funny about it. Microsoft sympathisers may treat it as just a lesson/experiment, as if it wasn’t all just work in vain. As usual, Microsoft partners get burned [1, 2].

Finnish electronics company Elcoteq (ELQAV.HE) said it expected its operating profit to turn positive in the second half despite Microsoft’s decision to scrap the sale of “Kin” smartphones in Europe.

Shares in Elcoteq fell sharply on Thursday and closed 14.6 percent down at 1.40 euros, compared with a 1.9 percent weaker Helsinki bourse general index .

One writer explains “Why Microsoft’s Kin Phones Were Destined to Fail” and in Twitter someone of authority says “I’ve seen Microsoft abandon a lot of products (including some that were pretty good). I’m floored by this Kin killing.”

Here is a new article titled “Microsoft Flops: A Look Back”; it comes from a financial news site:

The Kin is gone. Add it to a long list of less-than-stellar product launches from Microsoft (MSFT).

The tech giant’s two-month-old phone was discontinued this week, and the team responsible for developing it has been dispatched to work on Windows Phone 7, the company says. While the Kin was never expected to be a major contributor to Microsoft’s bottom line, the failure of the device in the market is more about “hurting their pride,” says Carolina Milanesi, vice president of research in mobile devices at Gartner. (A Microsoft spokesman says it will incorporate “ideas and technologies” from Kin into future Windows Phone releases.)

Another financial news site posts “Microsoft Needs Wake-Up Call: Outrage”:

Courier, your tablet idea, died on the drawing board while Apple’s(AAPL) iPad rocketed. Your mobile phones don’t stack up to Apple’s iPhone or Google’s(GOOG) Androids. And now your stalled travel business just got rear-ended.

As we showed last night, hypePhone too is having growing pains. Android, which is based on Linux, is going to take advantage of that. MeeGo is also a very strong contender. █

WE rarely use question marks in headlines, but this one almost begs for it. In fact, the news came to our attention by this good blog whose headline asks, “Miguel de Icaza: Secret Desire To Head Windows 8?” To quote the crux of the argument regarding this ego trip:

Miguel De Icaza is a known Microsoft supporter. He is often criticized for his endorsement of Microsoft product — he was heavily criticized for endorsing Microsoft’s controversial OOXML standarad.

Many call him a traitor as he leads the Mono project to implement Microsoft’s new .NET development platform on Linux and Unix-like platforms. Now, Icaza returns, suggesting what Microsoft should do to improve the next version of Windows, rumored as Windows 8.

He goes at length taking pains and suggesting what Microsoft should do to improve. Wow! No wonder its coming from Icaza, the long time supporter of Microsoft.

This whole vapourware routine around Vista 8 is a subject we wrote about twice at the beginning of this week [1, 2]. It’s funny that after all those years, Microsoft MVP de Icaza is still fascinated with everything from Microsoft. “At Microsoft I learned the truth about ActiveX and COM and I got very interested in it inmediately [sic],” he wrote about a decade ago and nowadays he drools over Silverlight (de Icaza is also pushing some more Apple stuff this week). Several days ago IDG published this article:

Novell’s de Icaza: ‘People are scared of installing software on Windows’

[...]

While de Icaza may be right that developers and users harbor concerns about Windows, it’s unlikely the developer community would reject the App Store concept entirely. Microsoft’s .NET Framework is popular with developers, and Windows’ mammoth market share will likely lure in developers, even those concerned about making applications run properly on Windows.

Why is he so concerned about Microsoft’s monopoly prevailing (his work on Mono and Moonlight contributes to that)? Why is he still trying to help Microsoft? We don’t wish to end with a question, so instead we’ll suggest that de Icaza views Microsoft as an ally, not a competitor, despite all that we know. █

“I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense — I deserve it.”

–Be’s CEO Jean-Louis Gassée

Summary: Internet Explorer 9 (IE 9) is not as fast as Microsoft wishes people to believe, according to independent tests

MICROSOFT loves to compare competitors’ real products to products that it has not even released yet (and therefore cannot be benchmarked reliably). Microsoft uses draconian terms in the EULA to prevent parties from conducting and publishing benchmarks. False performance claims are currently being spread around by Microsoft, touting the speed of a product which is not even out in the market.

Ryan Farmer has performed some tests and he concludes that “IE 9 Preview 3 is still really slow…”

That was the answer to your question. “Is it really fair to be bagging on something that’s not even released?”. Yes and no. Normally no, but when Microsoft is already lying about it being faster than the speed of light on a day that God did a line of coke, I’d say they made the damned thing fair game already.

In one of our IRC channels, Ryan said that “IE 9 is as fast as a browser can get without breaking the laws of physics. Lie mode cancel. How does Microsoft manage to make up benchmarks that anyone can download their browser and debunk?”

“There are ways to cheat,” Oiaohm responded to him. LifeHacker has its own benchmarks too. Microsoft is not a winner there, either. █

Summary: With just a few cash cows remaining, Microsoft is advised to cut back radically and give up on wasteful diversity

MICROSOFT IS having a hard time for reasons that SJVN put very succinctly in his latest post about Ballmer and Gates. This post has made some waves but not as many waves as the claim that an ex-exec of Microsoft says Microsoft should cut 30,000-40,000 employees (mini-Microsoft suggested just about the same). That’s a lot less than the 50,000 who Cringely suggested laying off last year (it is rumoured that Microsoft is still laying off quietly these days, not just moving existing jobs to Asia).

As for the headcount issue, our source says there’s probably 30,000 to 40,000 more employees than needed at Microsoft. There’s a lot of overlapping roles, and employees at the company are focused on solving internal issues, rather than fighting external competitors.

Here is the article from Electronista:

Ex-exec says Microsoft should cut up to 40,000 jobs

A former Microsoft executive today argued that Microsoft could easily cut 30,000 to 40,000 employees. The unnamed worker claimed that CEO Steve Ballmer organizes every division identically. While it keeps the company simple, it also creates unnecessary overhead and isn’t as effective as it could be, the executive told SAI.

Chips B. Malroy adds: “I think those cuts will sadly be forecoming at MS if this trend of non-performance continues.”

Given some recent failures that are major, larger-scale layoffs are likely to be considered at Microsoft. Microsoft’s demise does not imply victory for software freedom though, as there are other companies that increasingly behave in a similar fashion. █

Summary: Advocacy of freedom seen as “negative” by so-called ‘pragmatists’ who chose to serve Novell

The former community manager of OpenSUSE (who left Novell some months ago) continues an old tradition. Sometimes he lies about the FSF and sometimes he only daemonises. There are other Novell employees who do this, including Microsoft MVPs who still work for the company.

“Joe Brockmeier Has a Bad Day,” argues Pogson in response to this new piece.

He declares the campaigning of the Free Software Foundation for Free Software is negative and must change.

Talk about a narrow point of view. The FSF must advocate for Free Software. That is its purpose. There is nothing negative about requiring software to be able to be run, examined, modified and distributed under a global and popular licence. There is a battle raging with the forces who would take freedom away. It is necessary to have sentries guarding the boundaries. It is necessary to have leaders rally the troops.

Brockmeier would have us believe that open source is good enough, or something. It is not clear what he wants. I see FLOSS as widely accepted and growing constantly in share of usage. What does he see? Negativity!

Need criticism be forbidden? It was only a week ago that we last wrote about this subject, having written about it extensively in 2009 [1, 2].

Here are two more responses to Brockmeier’s piece:

i. Shooting The Messenger

There’s been another round of criticism on various blogs of the FSF’s media campaigns to draw people’s attention to the harm that not respecting software users freedom does. But the FSF’s campaigns explaining why Microsoft and Apple’s failure to respect users freedom is harmful have been successful in getting out the message that alternatives are needed. In the mainstream press as well as in the tech and tech culture media.

The FSF’s critics are ignoring the fact that most of the FSF’s work consists not only of the positive promotion of the idea of free software, but in practically supporting and protecting its creation and use.

ii. More Anti-Free Software Spin

Secondly, the lead anti-FSF person is – surprise, surprise – Joe “Zonker” Brockmeier, who not only is consistently confused[1] about the FSF, he’s also amusingly fond of distorting FSF claims to try to make them appear like they support his position.

Mr. Brockmeier’s writings on the FSF reveal a misunderstanding so deep and profound of the FSF and its mission that I have a hard time accepting it is honest. It starts at the very first sentence, where Mr. Brockmeier falsely implies the FSF has no “positive way to push for software freedom” and continues to the very end, where Mr. Brockmeier idiotically implies that the FSF is not at the “center” of “folks concerned with protecting software freedom”.

Another example: Mr. Brockmeier’s ignorance (or maliciousness, take your pick) is revealed when he insinuates that RMS is “taking the FSF out of the game” by telling users not to use Saas, without mentioning that the FSF is in fact developing alteratives like GNU Social and LibrePlanet.

We won’t address the article from Brockmeier simply because 3 other people have done this already. There is no need for more rebuttals and some people would characterise this as a “personal attack”.

In more important news, “FSF Starts Anti-ACTA Campaign,” says Slashdot. We have included more references about it in our daily links.

My presentation will not be a very technical one but instead will be an analysis of where we are and where we are going. I will start by speaking of the economic and political context in which ACTA is being discussed. Then, I will give an overview of elements of EU IP enforcement legislation that is related to the ACTA text and that is at the centre of EU legislative debate. Finally, and most importantly, I will reflect upon the movement critical of ACTA and similar measures of IP enforcement the strategic options, coalition building, contradictions, strongpoints and pitfalls.

Florian Müller drew our attention to his comment about it. He speaks about the impact of ACTA on software patents. “Just thought I’d mention because the thing about EU responsibility for patents being included may be an angle of interest to you next time you write about ACTA,” he told us. From his comment:

My concern about ACTA is not related to copyright law but to its effect on patents. Copyright law is practically always infringed by intent, while patent infringement in the field of software is in most cases inadvertent (that’s the most fundamental problem I have with software patents). It would be desirable to introduce into patent law, at least in connection with software, an independent invention defense. However, ACTA in the version I saw might do quite the opposite, treating a patent infringer as a “pirate” once he is made aware of an infringement (for an example, by a cease-and-desist letter). That’s unreasonable and unjust in my view.

Here is the feedback from Pogson and from a former MEP. Nobody except Hollywood and other monopolists seems to like ACTA. In fact, everyone hates it. It’s part of the class war. There are loads of links here for those who wish to read further about the subject.

One reader drew our attention to this insulting article from The Register. It calls the FSF “freetards” (right in the headline) and our reader mailed us the following screenshot from the article to show how they are being daemonised where Microsoft is glorified.

Here is a better article about the FSF’s action:

Richard Stallman and the Free Software Federation have issued a call to arms for the free software movement to mobilise against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) currently being negotiated.

In an extended posting on the FSF web site Stallman [pictured] called on people around the world to sign a declaration calling for severe limits on the powers being proposed in ACTA, or better yet the scrapping of the entire treaty currently being hammered out by politicians and industry.

“Those politicians serve the big music and movie companies,” he wrote.

The Inquirer says that the “Free Software Foundation calls for ACTA fight”

In a statement, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) said that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) treaty is designed to attack the rights of computer users in some 40-odd countries.

“ACTA threatens, in a disguised way, to punish Internet users with disconnection if they are accused of sharing, and requires countries to prohibit software that can break DRM,” the FSF statement said.

The FSF clearly fights for people’s rights. So why the hostility from those whose rights the FSF is defending? It’s rather absurd. █

Summary: Among the vulnerabilities that Microsoft actually chooses to tell the public about there is a zero-day XP vulnerability and critical ones involving Internet Explorer (the “secure” Web browser)

• Google researcher gives Microsoft 5 days to fix XP zero-day bug

A Google engineer today published attack code that exploits a zero-day vulnerability in Windows XP, giving hackers a new way to hijack and infect systems with malware.

But other security experts objected to the way the engineer disclosed the bug — just five days after it was reported to Microsoft — and said the move is more evidence of the ongoing, and increasingly public, war between the two giants.

• Microsoft Warns of Windows Bug Found by Google Engineer

• Olympus Stylus Tough camera carries malware infection

The first thing to point out is that the camera itself is not at risk – the autorun worm being carried on its internal memory can not activate on the Stylus Tough camera, but can attempt to infect your Windows PC.

• Microsoft Patches Critical IE, Windows Vulnerabilities (let’s remember silent patches which Microsoft will never disclose)

• Not Paranoid Enough

Summary: Proposed solutions, impending cases, and another new case where patents go so terribly wrong that even people needlessly die

TODAY we look at 3 types of news from the past 3 days or so. Software patents are being covered too, but everyone is still waiting for In Re Bilski to be concluded.

USPTO and Patent Conundrums

Today (May 26^th), the USPTO has this workshop which is intended to “explore the intersection of patent policy and competition policy”. How about tackling the problem of patent pools, which make up thickets and abusive cartels?

Three separate companies are steadily recruiting intellectual property holders into patent pools for LTE (Long-Term Evolution) technology, initiatives intended to get more manufacturers building gear for the fast network.

Patent pools are only suitable for large companies — those that exclude new entrants. The only small entities to benefit from this system are the NPEs (trolls). Samsung and LG, the two Korean giants which pay Microsoft for Linux, are complaining about patent trolls right now.

Representatives say South Korean electronics makers are becoming targets from “patent trolls” as increased competition between manufacturers makes room to seek more money in legal suits.

Did Microsoft, which Salesforce’s CEO Benioff compares to a patent troll, sign those Linux patent deals with Samsung and LG only after threats of litigation? We might never know.

In Re Bilski

Brad Feld writes about “innovating against software patents” and receives support from Groklaw.

Last week, Microsoft sued Salesforce.com claiming infringement of 9 software patents. This comes shortly after Nokia sued Apple who sued Nokia over software patents, and after Apple sued HTC who sued Apple over software patents.

As an example of the ridiculous nature of software patents, Microsoft’s claims cover user interface features, including a “system and method for providing and displaying a Web page having an embedded menu” and a “method and system for stacking toolbars in a computer display.”

This explosion of litigation based on the patenting of software cannot be brushed-off as large corporations doing what they do, as almost every start-up software company is at some point being shaken down by software patent holders. It’s a massive tax on and retardant of innovation.

From Pamela Jones:

I have a request from End Software Patents’ Ciarán O’Riordan. He’d like your help.

He says VC good guy Brad Feld is interested in in mailing out copies of the film Patent Absurdity (Full title: Patent Absurdity: How software patents broke the system) to 200 people — politicians, influential people in companies, policy setters at standards groups, and whoever will be influential in the debate the breaks out post-Bilski — and he’d like to have some help from you coming up with a list of who best to send to.

This system in the United States (USPTO) needs a change and it needs it urgently. Glyn Moody writes about the German ruling on software patents [1, 2, 3, 4] and points out that “some argue there were similar ones in early 90s” (so maybe it’s not as bad as some people imagined). It is mostly the USPTO which ‘exports’ those bad laws to the rest of the world. The problem ought to be squashed in the US and in Japan.

Patents on Life

Red Hat’s new Web site writes about how the GPL can inspire a solution to the increasingly-serious injustice which is patenting of living things [1, 2].

The Economist is right on top of the story of the first fully synthetic life-form. For those of you who may have missed the announcement last week, Craig Venter and Hamilton Smith, the two American biologists who unravelled the first DNA sequence of a living organism (a bacterium) in 1995, have pushed the envelope again, demonstrating the first successful boot-up of a synthetic bacterium. Editors at the Economist argue that the only sensible way to protect ourselves from such creations is to require that the DNA sequences be open source. It is a profound insight.

[...]

But now he’s back, and he’s built the one thing that sits as an exception to the Gene Patent exclusions: a wholly synthetic lifeform. Does Ventner really want to advance science (which he has done), or is he searching, like Charles Muntz, villain of the PIXAR movie UP, for his ultimate, exclusive patent on life?

What happens when patent law kills patients? [via]

When a child dies of brain disease at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, Philip H. Schwartz meets with the parents, explains his research and asks them to donate their child’s brain to his quest for a cure.

“These are not easy conversations to have,” he said. “There are expectations by parents that if they allow us to do that to their child, it will serve a useful purpose.”

But for three years, the cells derived from many of those children’s brains have been suspended in limbo, frozen in Thermos bottles. The nonprofit Southern California hospital has shut down the research, intimidated by a patent claim from the Palo Alto biotech company StemCells. The company’s co-founder is esteemed Stanford stem cell scientist Dr. Irving Weissman, one of the world’s most passionate advocates for giving scientists access to a field entangled by politics, ethics — and now money.

Against Monopoly asks, “Who Owns You?” █

Summary: Despite recovery in some areas of the industry, Microsoft continues to lose parts of itself, Response Point being the latest example

MICROSOFT’S increasingly-extensive line of dead products has just grown even more extensive. Microsoft is officially killing Response Point, as expected.

Microsoft this week revealed its intention to discontinue its Response Point, its small business VoIP system for companies with up to 50 employees.

While not unexpected, the move is significant because Response Point was once a promising product in which Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates took a particular interest.

The same author notes that “Microsoft Reverses Course On SBSC (Small Business Specialist Community) Program” as well. Nobody gets fired for avoiding Microsoft. It’s just too risky a choice. █

Summary: Novell markets Microsoft software along with its own and Novell’s CMO talks about experimentation with viral marketing

Grant Ho, Novell’s Director of Solutions and Product Marketing, was seen promoting Vista 7 in Novell’s PR blog some months ago. We have some other examples of Novell’s promotion of Vista 7 in semi-official channels like corporate blogs [1, 2].

Here is the latest example from Ho:

Last fall, Microsoft unveiled Windows 7 and caused a gasp across the IT departments in many an enterprise. It wasn’t that the new product had issues. On the contrary, the release was one of the most well thought out and developed software in years.

Really? Based on evidence that we gathered, Vista 7 is the most well thought out AstroTurf/marketing campaign in years because it’s another Vista and it still has many of the same problems. Windows XP SP2 support is expiring, so Novell’s endorsement couldn’t come at a better time (for Microsoft).

“Here we have Novell sponsoring help migrating TO Windows 7.”
      –Jason, The SourceLater on (after already spotting the above) we found the same observation in The Source. In Jason’s words, “Here we have Novell sponsoring help migrating TO Windows 7. Don’t worry, though, because it’s business and not cheerleading” (there are some other good picks over there in The Source, which is a site we recommend).

At the bottom, says Jason, “Novell: Will Eat Bugs For Money.” (obviously a reference to what Jeremy Allison said about Microsoft’s deal with Novell after he had quit the company. By the way, check out the Web site overhaul in Samba)

“Microsoft will never stop trying to tax Linux,” writes Jason in reference to the news about Office Web Apps (also covered here and in The Register).

Novell’s marketing tricks can be rather distasteful sometimes. For instance, Novell turned the SCO case into a PR case for itself. Novell’s fight to defend its UNIX asset is valuable to Linux too, so Novell’s selfish case against SCO (good for Novell shareholders) is seen by many as Novell acting in good faith only to defend GNU/Linux.

Novell responds to SCO’s motion for judgment in SCO’s favor as a matter of law or for a new trial.

Yes, Novell wants UNIX. When Novell gets sold (which it will), who is going to end up possessing UNIX?

Here in Techrights we distrust Novell not just because of reasonable skepticism; it’s because of Novell’s history of telling lies to the public. Just watch John Dragoon’s blog this week. He is Novell’s Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and here he is talking about the controversial subject of viral marketing, which is notorious for reasons we explained many times before.

3. You Can’t Manufacture “Viral,” but You Can Experiment Endlessly

When marketers first turned their attention to social media, we were all looking for that big viral hit where you spend next to nothing but get a ton of exposure. Sadly, it doesn’t work that way.

You can have good intentions, you can try to create something that will go viral, but at the end of the day, it’s not going to be you who determines whether it’s going to succeed or not. You just can’t make it so or wish it so.

Novell’s use of YouTube for viral marketing is a subject that we’ve already covered with many examples [1, 2, 3, 4].

Not so long ago, Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier was hired by Novell to become a PR appendage (he resigned the following year and got back to journalism). Now he explains parts of his duties for Novell.

The first year I worked for Novell, the effect of having an openSUSE booth at events was noticeable, because the project had been entirely absent at most of the events.

Having a presence at events is sort of de rigueur for major projects. If nobody turns up, people often wonder why project X decided to skip the event. And you’ll find a handful of folks who turn up just to ask question about a project (“how the hell do I get my wireless to work on 11.0?”) and look for swag. But having spent quite a few hours doing booth duty, I wonder if it’s absolutely necessary or effective compared to what volunteers could be doing.

Brockmeier left Novell shortly after Novell’s PR people sent him to tell some lies to journalists (maybe he sincerely believed in those lies, but Professor Eben Moglen set the record straight). █

Summary: As part of our “Boycott Novell” action, here is a succinct overview covering some of Novell’s latest deeds and short-term plans

THIS post summarises some bits and pieces about Novell, based on the past week’s news.

Last year we wrote about Siki Giunta leaving Novell (where she served as Vice President of Strategic Business) and according to new reports [1, 2], she is in CSC now, serving again as a Vice President.

Some weeks ago we wrote about Itanium and later mentioned SUSE. Well, here is a relevant new report:

Being a fairly low-volume server player, once the old Silicon Graphics tossed away its own MIPS chips and Irix Unix variant in favor of Intel’s Itanium processors and Novell’s SUSE Linux, the company tightly aligned itself with Intel.

Novell is going to be a LinuxCon 2010 sponsor.

This year’s event is being sponsored by HP, IBM, Intel and Novell.

Novell’s “OpenSUSE Boosters” will also attend LinuxExpo 2010 (Novell has been trying some marketing gimmicks recently).

For those who didn’t know, last week there was an event called LinuxExpo in Prague. And we off course went there with the Czech part of openSUSE Boosters team to talk about openSUSE. Other colleagues also helped with running openSUSE booth. And some of our community members we standing around talking to people as well.

There is another event in Europe, namely the BrainShare in Amsterdam. It’s a case of contracting.

Novell has appointed Event IT to run a series of meetings in Amsterdam this month.

There is a new montage based on BrainShare 2010. Microsoft and Novell appear in what seems like Russian TV and Novell’s booth from Interop 2010 is shown in this new video (someone has also uploaded embarrassingly kitschy Novell videos from Interop 1991 [1, 2]). █