06.14.14
Posted in Europe, Law, Patents at 5:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The US is not even trying to truly reform patent policy and Europe is preparing to ‘import’ (through globalisation/treaties/etc.) this atrocious policy, based on new reports in the British press
WE shall slowly return to covering patent issues, for they are certainly becoming a huge subject again, especially in light of renewed Apple lawsuits/aggression, corruption in the courtrooms (blindly favouring al patents), and distraction by the media (we covered all three just two days ago), not to mention software patents (and patent trolls) in Europe becoming a huge issue because EU patents may soon follow US criteria for acceptance. “New EU rules have been created which allow the judgments of new unified patent courts (UPCs) to have legal effect from early 2015,” says The Register. This is great news for trolls and also for patent lawyers who wish to see patent scope expanding.
Mr. Mark Bohannon (Red Hat lobbyist) has written a couple of articles in the past week. In them, Bohannon focuses on trolls (not the real issue) and also expresses little or no hope for imminent change in the US patent system. To quote: “Late last month, as you’ve likely read by now, the US Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC) abruptly pulled consideration of a legislative patent reform package from consideration. For this year, at least, the prospect of addressing abusive patent litigation through Congressional action is on ice.
“The move by the Committee disappointed, even outraged, a broad coalition working for legislative reform.
“Reaction came not just from many in the technology and Internet innovation sector, which have been at the forefront of reform efforts. Consumer and civil society groups (EFF, Engine Advocacy, Public Knowledge) voiced deep concern.
“Reflecting the wide swath of the US economy that is affected by abusive patent litigation, the view of many in the mainstream of American business was that the SJC “chose special interests over jobs on main street.” Retailers noted that “withdrawing the patent reform bill is a victory for patent trolls.” They were joined by restaurant owners, home builders, credit unions, hotels and lodges, the gaming industry, and the online travel industry, just to name a few.”
The problem, however, is not “abusive patent litigation”, it is patent scope. It sure seems like even if a patent reform was passed in the US, it would be beneficial to large corporations but hardly help the public. In other words, not only is there no sign of improvement in the US; even if the said reforms were to pass, not much would have changed. The real solutions are totally off the table. This system is inherently rigged, probably beyond repair, which is why we started focusing on limiting its reach (e.g. to Europe) rather than fixing it before it spreads. █
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Posted in Asia, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 5:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: China’s move to GNU/Linux is now being extended to the private sector (not just public sector) and there is nothing Microsoft can do to stop it this time
CHINA is abandoning Microsoft not for financial reasons but for security-related reasons. Bill Gates already tried dumping ‘free’ (gratis) software on China whilst arrogantly accusing the Chinese of ‘piracy’. Gates and his fellow criminals also bribed Chinese officials. Well, these days of Microsoft crimes may be over. It won’t work.
Aspirations for Chinese independence and growth seem to make the Windows ban irreversible. It’s not just in government anymore; state TV encourages the public to follow suit and in corporate press like CNN it is now common to see the Chinese smeared over the decision to ban spyware with back doors. See this article in ECT, showing that the anti-China rhetoric (insulting their intelligence) reached even FOSS sites, quite oddly in fact.
From a purely economic perspective, never mind security and technical advantages of GNU/Linux over Windows, Microsoft is unable to compete. As Pogson pointed out the other day: “M$ charges as little as $15 in the low-end notebook space. This is only the second or third time in PC-history that M$ has had to compete on price with */Linux (and their own installed base).”
Still, Microsoft can no longer compete so well with Android and Chrome OS. All it is trying to do right now is extort companies that distribute devices with Linux on them, establishing a new form of control or Microsoft tax (through patent racketeering).
The press in Korea shows what it labels “A tablet running the China Operating System, based on Linux.” The press in China continues to explain how a Windows ban “encourages domestic developers” (which is true actually). To quote the article:
Instead, the Chinese government is calling for the increased purchase and development of domestically developed operating systems, specifically those created on Linux. Although the ban of Windows 8 does not directly affect the general public, Sina News reports that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is pushing for domestic users to gravitate from Windows XP to domestic operating systems too. It’s not too far fetched an idea, either–China has a long history of successfully developing domestic software. The messaging software QQ, for example, is more popular than the foreign-developed MSN, since it was specifically developed to cater to Chinese people’s sensibilities.
Here is another such article that says: “Windows 8 Business use has been banned from Chinese government computers. This leaves an open door policy for OS makers to come into a huge personal computing market. Since China has the world’s largest population, it is safe to assume it may have the biggest logistics, Government records and computers to keep track of this information.”
China has not one Linux-based operating system. It has several. It would be funny if China was to actively encourage diversity in operation systems, more so than in the West (where Windows dominates desktops) because we are commonly taught that ‘true’ capitalism encourages many players (competition) rather than monopoly and even state-imposed monopoly (which is exactly what China is moving away from). Perhaps Free software is going to bring China a lot of healthy competition among domestic players, instead of a monopoly maintained by a foreign player that facilitates espionage against companies like Huawei. █
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Posted in Free/Libre Software, HP, Microsoft at 4:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“On the same day that CA blasted SCO, Open Source evangelist Eric Raymond revealed a leaked email from SCO’s strategic consultant Mike Anderer to their management. The email details how, surprise surprise, Microsoft has arranged virtually all of SCO’s financing, hiding behind intermediaries like Baystar Capital.”
–Bruce Perens (years back)
Summary: Thoughts and analysis of HP, which despite pretending to have embraced Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) is very much a Microsoft ally, managed to a large degree by people from Microsoft
HP is a scam when it comes to “open source” support. While their hardware is quite Linux-friendly (my wife uses an HP laptop), their extreme/radical policy of self interest in the server room and on the desktop continues to show. Their recent openwashing campaign, which I have campaigned against (they are claiming to invest in FOSS only for marketing purposes, just like IBM), should not impress too easily. What comes to mind is HP’s negative lobbying against FOSS and stories we have heard from Perens (former HP manager for FOSS). It’s all just a charade, intended for the most part to increase sales but also to attract talented staff (recruitment).
HP’s history has been quite well documented in this site for nearly 8 years of its existence. HP is an ally of Microsoft and many of its managers these days are people who worked for Microsoft. In order to keep selling GNU/Linux servers (hardware with GNU/Linux sells better) HP is trying to maintain an image that would appeal to geeks. However, it’s all fake, it’s a façade. Perens proves it now in part by repeating what he wrote some years ago [1]. The stuff Perens says about SCO and HP is dynamite, revealing a huge extent of collusion against GNU/Linux. HP was well aware of it.
Years ago in Slashdot Perens explained how HP offered him AstroTurfing help, i.e. it offered to spawn agents of propaganda if he needed it. To quote Will Hill (from last night): “Yes, I was just thinking about that the other day. He said this in 2008…”
…just about every PR firm offers to help “manage the perception of your company in online communities” these days. What do you think that means? Astroturfing Slashdot, Youtube, etc. In my various manangement positions it’s been offered to me. Indeed, some of the companies offer to create negative publicity for your competition that way – HP had a publicity firm for its Linux activities that told us it would do that when we wanted. I never asked them to do so and hope nobody else did either. This stuff is just standard these days. You’ve got to expect it.
As Hill adds: “There’s a grim similarity between that and government astroturf programs revealed by Snowden. Greenwald recaps well that in “No Place to Hide” by showing us that government hires teams of psychologists and has made a science of disrupting online discussions and deception. The point of it all is “strategic influence disruption.” The targets not terrorists but “hactivists” like Anonymous, environmental groups and people who might compete with the plutocracy. We should not be too surprised by the similarity because both programs are run by the same people – 75% of the spy complex money goes to private contractors and HP is probably one of them.”
There are some new examples of what seems like AstroTurfing by Microsoft. Some Microsoft lies (a placement) got posted in “CFO World”. It is an evidence-free denial of Microsoft collusion against public. This is how propaganda works.
Meanwhile, returning to the subject which is HP, watch Microsoft booster Julie Bort going into propaganda mode, claiming that HP has “Plans To Destroy Microsoft Windows” (we countered a similar bit of propaganda some months ago) and then calls HP CEO “gutsy” for inviting Microsoft’s CEO. This is utter deception, a sort of PR which seeks to portray Microsoft has burying the hatchet and smoking the pipe of peace with rivals. Here is a portion: “Moments after HP announced its grand new plans to compete with the Microsoft Windows operating system, Whitman was thanking Microsoft for being a major sponsor of the conference and inviting the company’s new CEO, Satya Nadella, on stage.”
This very much shows whose bed HP is in. The company, despite trying top appear as a backer of FOSS, is very much serving Microsoft’s agenda, still. HP is pretending. Yes, HP only pretends to be a friend of GNU/Linux in order to drive server sales to geeks. We know this also because not too long ago HP lobbied against GNU/Linux in Europe (amid national migrations), saying it would be more expensive than Windows. We covered this several times back then and also showed in over a dozen posts that around the same time HP was appointing Microsoft executives to executive positions at HP. The same happened in Amazon, but that’s another story.
There are other interesting bits in the new interview with Perens, including his take on dual-licensing, but most relevant to us was the following bit:
Perens: At some point I accumulated enough credit for achievements that it became unnecessary to fight over it 
. But I am hardly without flaws. Most visible might be that I want to get things done and don’t mind trampling others if that’s what it takes. I try to keep my ego down enough so that I get through those narrow doors.
The worst problems I saw at HP had little to do with Open Source. What I remember most was the sadness. There were and are many smart people there, and so many of us were conscious that the company was in a sort of death spiral and that we couldn’t do anything about it. The “pretexting” scandal was to the discredit of the board, the general counsel actually took the 5th in front of Congress on national television! Carly (the CEO) asked all of the employees to take a voluntary pay cut in the same month that she and other Board officers sold tens of Millions of dollars of HP stock. I remember my boss (a Section Manager, now the CTO) announcing at a meeting that an employee had gotten a “Reinvention Memo”. That meant lay-off, a sarcastic re-framing of HP’s “Reinvent” motto that showed how even upper managers like him were in despair. There was a series of ill-advised acquisitions of second-best or declining companies that HP failed to turn around, and then sold for cents on the dollar two years after acquiring them. The Compaq merger put the company at the very top of a business with vanishingly-small margins.
There was one really bad day that I guess is safe to talk about now, more than 10 years later, because the information is already in the public and thus no longer subject to NDA: Microsoft showed HP their plans to sue the Open Source projects for the Linux Kernel, Samba, Sendmail, and a list of other projects. Someone immediately shot me an HP VP’s memo recounting that meeting and concluding that we should back off of Open Source before the lawsuits started. When I passed it to my boss, I was told to keep it quiet. But I was hired to be an Open Source community leader first, and an HP officer second, and keeping quiet about that meant betraying the Open Source developer community. I just hated that and it poisoned my involvement with HP.
Microsoft eventually used SCO as a proxy to achieve what it disclosed to HP that day. I’d been warned long before that happened, and could do nothing until SCO announced their damaging but ultimately unsuccessful jihad against Linux.
What I think is worth remembering about HP is that it was once the great tech company that people wanted to work for, as Apple or Google might be for many today. I think a lot of what made it great left with Agilent. The Test and Measurement business was a low-volume, high-margin business that required lots of too-highly-paid old smart people who worked in expensive labs in Palo Alto, California. That became the most costly place to do anything largely due to HP’s own success. But Test and Measurement was also the brain-trust of the company, and lent its creativity to all of HP’s other aspects. So we lost a lot, I think, when Agilent was spun off of HP.
HP’s problem regarding Open Source and Linux was that systems running Linux competed with other HP lines running HP-UX or Microsoft, and HP was structured as Organizational Silos. Each line had its own sales-people, and different lines competed with each other for the same customer. HP-9000 folks were always complaining because Linux undercut HP-UX and thus HP-9000, as were folks who sold Microsoft Windows systems based on x86. If I said anything in the press about Open Source or Linux, a customer would ask one of those single-line sales-people about it, and it would come back to my boss as a complaint rather than a sales opportunity.
HP was always to some extent in Microsoft’s pocket, although they were also aware that Microsoft had screwed them and would continue to do so. HP de-emphasized further development of the HP 9000 hardware because Microsoft had told them in the late 80′s that they were soon to have an enterprise-quality NT. HP believed it, but MS failed to deliver for a decade. That lost HP Billions while Sun Microsystems took the engineering workstation market from HP. The HP officer who made that decision of course went on to be a Microsoft executive.
What we did achieve at HP was a good process for deciding what to do with Open Source when individual opportunities came up. If you wanted to incorporate Open Source in a product, or you had a business reason to Open Source something, we resolved the legal issues, the community issues, we even handled some security aspects and achieved a reasonable level of reuse. That could all be achieved by middle managers. So, everybody in the company knew that it was OK to use Open Source, but there was a process you had to go through. It wasn’t particularly expensive, it did sometimes sink multiple days of some engineer in doing paperwork, but that’s just due diligence and we ended up on a better legal footing when we used Open Source than otherwise.
There were things we decided not to Open Source because there was no good business reason for doing so. We weren’t UNICEF, so there had to be a business reason for everything. There were times when legacy customers would have gained benefit if we brought one of HP’s nine legacy operating systems to Open Source, but untangling the proprietary software that originated with third parties from the rest was too difficult. There were a few times when it was decided not to Open Source a legacy product because we were afraid that IBM might use it to sell their hardware against ours. Once that happened with a system that had only 5000 existing customers, and it would have been better for the customers for HP to open it but the decision – not mine – was not to do so.
I’ve since helped other companies start their own internal Open Source Process, and still do so today.
What we never achieved within HP, what I never had the power to do, was: to get HP to completely stand behind any innovative product regardless of what that meant for old-line products, to make innovation the #1 job of the company, and to grow a brand-new company from the old one every year that they were in business. They needed to embrace disruptive technologies as a pioneer rather than have the disruption done to HP by competitors. I think they tried to kill the Silo organizational structure after I left, I don’t know how successful that was.
Let this remind us that neither HP nor Microsoft has changed. In fact, many people from Microsoft moved to HP and there is now Microsoft agenda at HP. Microsoft’s FOSS moles too are now working for HP, in very senior positions in fact. Both companies deserve to be treated as a pair and the same goes for Dell; these are historically (in recent history) Microsoft hardware companies. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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Microsoft eventually used SCO as a proxy to achieve what it disclosed to HP that day. I’d been warned long before that happened, and could do nothing until SCO announced their damaging but ultimately unsuccessful jihad against Linux.
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Posted in Deception, Microsoft, Servers at 4:13 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The Register misleads readers into thinking that Microsoft is gaining market share on the Web
Simon Sharwood from The Register released a propaganda piece we are unable to ignore. It’s a familiar talking point. We covered this numerous times before. Sharwood’s propaganda is titled “Microsoft poised to take Web server crown from Apache” (implying growth) although the very opposite is true.
Microsoft is actually losing share (as it has been losing for years) and in servers that really count it has less than ten percent market share.
Fortunately, some readers of The Register are not dumb enough. They reply in the comments section. One insightful comment says: “Apparently MS has been throwing money or other arm-twisting tricks to persuade large hosters of parked pages to switch to IIS. AFAICS the only benefit of this is incomplete articles in the press about how IIS is set to become (/will become) the most popular web server, which is a useless metric. As mentioned, the picture for Active sites is very different, and the Top Million even more so .. which somehow does not get mentioned in the news reports.”
Sadly, very few people read comments, so the vast majority will be left with the impression that Microsoft is doing well on the Web. That’s some very powerful propaganda. All Microsoft had to do was bribe some people to game numbers, then find gullible or corruptible journalists (“useful idiots” or liars) to drop out there some misleading claims at Microsoft’s behest.
Ever since Microsoft paid The Register the publication has not been the same. Microsoft likes not only to bribe hosts (selectively) but also governments and media companies. It helps distort public perceptions. The Register is definitely part of the problem now. This example of one of many. █
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Posted in Free/Libre Software, FUD, Security at 3:57 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Attempts to belittle the “eyeballs on the code” motto
Summary: Another week brings another set of bugfixes, which some choose to characterise as a very big deal despite evidence to the contrary
WHEN one has an agenda one can accentuate a particular side by covering it excessively. To be frank, not only FOSS-hostile circles are to be blamed for security hype; even some FOSS-friendly sites are releasing articles like “Linux Malware And Antivirus” or cover every security fix as though it’s major news. Consider just the past few days in Softpedia: A Steam OS bugfix is news and the same goes for Ubuntu because these projects make attractive headlines, especially after the whole “Heartbleed” hype [1, 2, 3]. Guess who was behind it: the firm of Microsoft’s ‘Former’ Security Chief. GnuTLS was subjected to the same treatment by the same Microsoft-connected firm because like any project it has bugfixes [1, 2], never mind the real security issues (back doors in proprietary software like Windows).
Amid some of the latest reports from Microsoft-friendly sources and FOSS-friendly sources like SJVN (we cited two of these articles before) we should keep in mind that not all bugs are created equal and if we let every bugfix in a project like Linux or OpenSSL become major news, then we will lose sight of the real issue, which is proprietary software having bugs by design, to facilitate intrusion.
Kevin Poulsen, who did some Wikileaks-hostile coverage back in the days, correctly points out that “After Heartbleed, We’re Overreacting to Bugs That Aren’t a Big Deal”. Here is how his article begins:
Here’s something else to blame on last April’s Heartbleed security bug: It smeared the line between security holes that users can do something about, and those we can’t. Getting that distinction right is going to be crucial as we weather a storm of vulnerabilities and hacks that shows no sign of abating.
Last week the OpenSSL Foundation announced it was patching six newly discovered vulnerabilities in the same software that Heartbleed lived in. The first reaction from many of us was a groan–here we go again. Heartbleed triggered what was probably the single largest mass-password change in history: In response to the bug, some 86 million internet users in the U.S. alone changed at least one password or deleted an internet account. The thought of a repeat was (and is) shudder-inducing.
Be aware that there’s a disturbing trend right now, where so-called ‘security’ firms (opportunists/attention whores) or media companies try to exploit general security paranoia (or privacy concerns) to ‘sell’ us stories about ‘gaping holes’; the reality is usually just some routine bugfixes, wrapped up by those who have agenda. Dan Goodin and the Microsoft-connected firm (which even branded a bug) are some of the worst in this regard. █
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