Summary: Words of value from someone who was relatively close to regulators and a word about SCO against Linux

Simon Phipps, formerly an executive of Sun Microsystems, has this to say about the seemingly Microsoft-funded legal attacks on Google [1, 2, 3, 4]:

The conspiracy theories Pamela espouses are well-based. At the start of last year as I was working on other technology policy issues with colleagues in Brussels, there were constant stories of indirectly-but-identifiably Microsoft-sponsored lobbyists and lawyers forming groups to initiate a variety of cases against Google over there, on the premise that “anti-trust has changed us and now Google are the new monopoly”. I heard the same from colleagues in DC too. So, as Pamela says: “Is this perhaps more abuse of the legal and administrative systems for anticompetitive purposes? If so, could somebody investigate *that*?”

Microsoft has already admitted being behind legal complaints against Google in Europe.

In other news from Groklaw, the Microsoft-funded lawsuit against Linux still refuses to die.

A new trial. Of course. There can never be too many trials for SCO, as it would like to actually win one and would prefer to keep trying until it does so. Apparently money is no object to a company that is in bankruptcy, has paid none of its creditors, and is now trying to sell off essentially all its assets but the litigation on which it long ago set all its hopes and dreams. And you can’t say it’s impossible to get an empathetic hearing from this court of appeals. It bent over backwards for SCO last time, granting it this 2nd trial that SCO then lost. So who knows? My grandchildren may someday be writing about the next SCO v. Novell retrial, as this crazed monomania seems to have no closing chapter.

Where/who does SCO continue to get money from? █

“…Microsoft wished to promote SCO and its pending lawsuit against IBM and the Linux operating system. But Microsoft did not want to be seen as attacking IBM or Linux.”

–Larry Goldfarb, BayStar, key investor in SCO approached by Microsoft

“Children are often taught “computer skills” that are really “Microsoft Windows skills” – how to use Microsoft’s operating system and its Office suite (its two monopolies) – rather than the possibilities of making computers do what you want. As such, children are being equipped to be uncreative office workers, just as those at the end of the 19th century were equipped for the routine of adding up huge lists of numbers in the accounts departments of big companies.”

–The Guardian

Summary: Carlo Piana is also among the critics of Peer To Patent

Earlier today we explained yet again why Peer To Patent is not the best solution to the problem Free software is having. Carlo Piana, the Samba lawyer who says that “the *only* solution is abolition NOW” has also just said: “#peerpatent, however deserving high praise, is a colossal waste of time when examines #swpats, which shouldn’t exist”

Even Florian Müller echoed his remarks. “Sadly,” I explained to the messenger, “what Peer To Patent seems to be doing is in some ways making software patents stronger.” OIN is not an optimal solution, either; far from it, but that debate is different. If companies like Oracle, IBM and Google could align with the pushers to end software patents, this goal would be achievable. █

Protests in India used Boycott Novell banners

Summary: The leaked story of how Bill Gates fought GNU/Linux migrations in India evokes accusations against the Gates Foundation

WE occasionally point out that the Gates Foundation helps make Microsoft stronger, sometimes by blatantly blocking GNU/Linux adoption in libraries and schools. This meddling by the Gates Foundation in education has made this foundation some prominent foes/critics [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] and in reference to leaked memos regarding EDGI (where Gates on behalf of his foundation steps in to interrupt GNU/Linux migrations across India), Barney wrote this comment titled “Gates Foundation still giving Windows away for free”:

How interesting it is that Gates was all for giving Microsoft software away for free in 2002 and they set up programs inside of Microsoft to help do this. We’ve heard that Bill will be giving his billions away and we learned he created a foundation for his family to run and act as a place for him to….wait for it….give his money away. Guess what he also has done there? Yup, he’s given out Microsoft software to educational institutions.

It is actually self promoting. You see, if Microsoft gets knocked from their lofty perch, the name Bill Gates and Microsoft end up quite faded. But, by Bill heading off Open Source Software and software freedom in the educational sector, he looks like a hero, slowly spends his monopoly money, and he keeps Microsoft brand value high. He also hooks children into the Microsoft software cycle of renting bad software and paying for the next fix which is advertised as being better.

I wonder if he wrote about this in his book, “The Road Ahead” since it seems he’s been thinking about this for a very long time. It is a rather convenient plan since he’s to way more than anyone could spend on his own needs. By spending that money on Microsoft software then giving that away, he preserves the market value of Microsoft software and heads off the open source software from gaining in the education sector and growing from there. And his name still seems important in the world of computers.

To which another person replied with:

I think it’s worse than that. I seem to recall that a condition of dealing with the Bill and Melinda Foundation was that you couldn’t use Linux.

And this
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/Pages/terms-o f-use.aspx#system
seems to confirm it. (Though I seem to remember it was for computers they donated as well)

And that doesn’t even get involved in some of the other things that the Foundation’s been up to.
Seems the foundation was investing in companies that were doing bad things. And in a rather bizarre turn of events, some of the foundation’s efforts were to try to ameliorate the conditions caused by the companies they had invested in.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la- na-gatesx07jan07,0,6827615.story
And when this was found out, their effective response was that it was too much work to try to stop investing in such companies.

The term philanthrocapitalism contains the word “capital” in it; it’s about making good things happen while earning money (or power). As we wrote last week, Bill Gates still works for Microsoft. █

–Richard Stallman

Summary: Microsoft-Novell slave trade in the words of Simon Phipps

TODAY’s words of wisdom come from Simon Phipps (formerly of Sun). Simon says:

While this is slick (if predictable) marketing there’s a smarter solution than switching away from the software in which you’ve already invested to something else from Novell (or anyone else) and becoming the slave of proprietary software.

Since most of the software Sun produced is open source, current users can just stick with it and buy the service they need from a new supplier, such as ForgeRock. That’s investment protection and technology continuity both provided by the liberties open source unlocks.

All Novell are offering here is a chance to be a slave to a new master, and they are offering it to customers who have already broken free – if they choose to be.

We don’t recommend the Sun/Oracle stack, but the point worth making is that Novell is not a Free software company. It’s a proprietary/Fog Computing company which maintains lock-in. █

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

–George Santayana

–Steve Jobs

[relevant to Apple's recent help to Microsoft's monopoly, parent ventures, and fight against software freedom]

IDG in Australia says:

It’s been about a year since Conficker/Downadup hit in 2009, and although the threat didn’t turn out to be as grave as it had the potential to be, the 6.5 million PCs that remain infected today represent what Symantec Corp. calls a “loaded gun, waiting to be fired.”

It has been almost 2 years and Microsoft’s blunder with Conficker still has these damaging proportions that cost everyone a lot of money. █

Old posts about Conficker (starting with 2008, oldest at at bottom)

• Why Conficker is a Blessing to GNU/Linux
• Microsoft’s Blame-Shifting Strategy Precedes More Trouble
• Leave Microsoft Alone
• Never Blame Microsoft, Blame Users and Exploits
• Botnets and Bounties Versus Real Security
• Is Windows to Blame for Cracking of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)?
• Windows Problems Take Down Airplanes, JFK Airport, Houston Municipal Courts
• Turkey, France, United Stated Under Attack by Microsoft Windows Insecurities
• Microsoft Adopts Malware Techniques to Advance .NET
• Windows Botnets Go Out of Control, Obama Web Site Delivers Windows Malware
• One Windows Worm, One Week, and Possibly 250,000,000+ New Windows Zombies
• Death by Microsoft Windows
• UNIX/Linux Offer More Security Than Windows: Evidence
• US Army Becomes Zombies Army; London Hospitals Still Ill (Windows Viruses)
• Eye on Microsoft: Another Messy Week for Security

Summary: “Up to 88% of Fortune 500 companies” are said to have been affected by the Zeus trojan alone, so questions about Microsoft’s liability arise again

WE PREVIOUSLY showed that about one in two PCs that run Microsoft Windows is a zombie PC.

An argument regarding an earlier post brought up the following response that cites an item from the news:

Microsoft is to blame for spam. Almost all businesses that use Windows have a Botnet problem.

Up to 88% of Fortune 500 companies may have been affected by the Zeus trojan, according to research by RSA’s FraudAction Anti-Trojan division, part of EMC. The trojan installs keystroke loggers to steal login credentials to banking, social networking, and e-mail accounts. [...] Smaller companies (those with fewer than 75,000 employees) appeared to have a higher proportion of infected employees.

My bet is that 100% of computer networks with Windows are infected and that the missing 12% are so well captured that those watching are unable to tell.

Blame for this universal failure can only be laid at Microsoft’s feet. Either the whole world administers Windows incompetently, or Windows is hopelessly insecure. If it were possible to secure Windows, the majority of Fortune 500 companies would not have a problem. No other software has this kind of problem.

As I argued yesterday, “systemic neglect is Microsoft’s fault [1, 2, 3]. Microsoft does not patch known holes until the attacks begin. We wrote a lot of posts about this in January [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12] since a known Internet Explorer hole that Microsoft had ignored for 5 months caused enormous damage to many businesses, Google included.”

Last year, when researchers showed that it was simple to take control of Vista 7, Vipin Kumar was quoted as saying that “There’s no fix for this. It cannot be fixed. It’s a design problem.” █

“Our products just aren’t engineered for security.”

–Brian Valentine, Microsoft executive

Summary: Witty quote from a reader of ours and some new Wiki structure which covers Microsoft issues

Credit goes to our reader FurnaceBoy (Twitter account), who made the statement above. Our Wiki, which we are rebuilding these days, currently contains the following basic indexing pages:

• Comes vs Microsoft
• OOXML Abuse Index
• Microsoft Reality Log
• Microsoft PR Agencies
• Microsoft Technical Evangelists
• Patent Trolls Connected to Microsoft
• Microsoft influence in the United States government
• Microsoft influence in the Indian government
• Microsoft influence in Europe
• Microsoft influence in Asia
• Microsoft – Windows
• Microsoft – Office
• Microsoft – Consumer Hardware
• Microsoft – Dead Divisions or Products
• Microsoft – Layoffs
• Microsoft – Major Departure
• Microsoft – Financials
• Microsoft – Legal

Please help contribute to the Wiki by creating an account and extending the content. █

Summary: What India is teaching us about the impact of patents that increase wealth (in the West) rather than reduce mortality as a matter of priority

IT HAS been a long time since we last explained the fundamental problem with pharmaceutical patents [1, 2]. The following item from the news (some context here) led to the following remark from Mike Masnick:

However, Jamie Love points us to the news of a new report that found that the Indian patent office has gone against this law and issued such patents quite frequently and, no surprise, the main recipients are among the world’s largest pharma companies, including Pfizer, Novartis and Eli Lilly. Is it any wonder that they’ve all been pushing to dump sections 3(d) and (e) all along? Remember, pharma patents are not about drug discovery, but about jacking up the prices on drugs.

When it comes to pharmaceutical patents, life is at stake (there is Novartis for example [1, 2, 3, 4]). A lot of disinformation is being spread to teach the public that there is no better way. █

–Nick Farrell, 8th of April, 2010

Summary: Quotes from one of the first Microsoft developers, who quit Microsoft in 1980

“I don’t want to work for a toy computer company [Microsoft], I’ve got real iron here at Yale. [...at Microsoft] We don’t have a manager who cares about what we’re doing [...] We don’t really have a clue as to what we’re doing from a strategic standpoint. [...] This is shitty. If you guys want to do something with a windowing package like Vision’s, then you need somebody running the group who knows about it.”

–Steve Wood, early Microsoft developer

“Every line of code that is written to our standards is a small victory; every line of code that is written to any other standard, is a small defeat.”

–James Plamondon, Microsoft Technical Evangelist. From Exhibit 3096; Comes v. Microsoft litigation [PDF]

–Bill Gates

“Like almost everyone who uses e-mail, I receive a ton of spam every day. Much of it offers to help me get out of debt or get rich quick. It would be funny if it weren’t so irritating.”

–Bill Gates

Summary: A look back at nonsensical predictions and lack of foresight from Microsoft’s Nostradamus

“Since this is from the BBC,” says a reader of ours, “there’s no need for a URL, a better citation can be found instead. It’s another quote for the Bill Gates as Visionary file: “Although Bill Gates announced the tablet concept at Comdex in November 2001, saying that “within five years I predict it will be the most popular form of PC sold in America.” Instead the format flopped, constituting less than 1% of sales in 2009.”

“It’s right up there with the open letter to computer hobbyists rant and the end of spam prediction,” says our reader. In 2004, Bill Gates said that “spam will be a thing of the past in two years’ time.” To a large degree, spam is the fault of Microsoft. In 1993, Bill Gates said: “The Internet? We are not interested in it.” And yet, the BBC — with its infinite shamelessness — portrays Gates as though he's among the fathers of the Web. Microsoft is good at lying and getting the press to lie along.

Our reader Marti has just shown us this new tablet that combines Windows and Linux.

X2 Technology has capitalised on Apple’s decision not to call its tablet the iTablet. Its X2 iTablet will run Windows or Linux and support Flash.

It’s not the first Windows-Linux tablet of this kind. iPad is hardly the product to beat not just because it's customer-hostile but also because it’s technically inferior. There’s still doubt about the future of this form factor, which lacks a proper keyboard to begin with. █

Summary: A little glimpse at how Microsoft operates within its management ranks

THE NOW-DEFUNCT Seattle P-I features this essay about the Seahawks, an establishment which has Paul Allen ownership just like many others including CNET. Here’s a punchline:

What Tool Do You Use To Screw Out a Mora Bolt? Apparently it’s a Microsoft Wrench.

[...]

But what MOST former Microsoft former employees have said is that MS is eaten up with middle-to-upper management cliques. They have Dueling Groupthink run rampant there, all the time. So, Allen puts First & Goal in place as his umbrella organization for the stadium and team. So far, so good.

The comments are interesting too. Worth remembering is the following old story about Paul Allen (written by Robert X. Cringely in 2006). It shows what type of people are running Microsoft today, as the very top of the company is still the same.

There are hundreds of Microsoft millionaires (and even a few Microsoft billionaires) in the suburbs of Seattle. For the most part, these are people who no longer work for Microsoft, but still own company shares. They worked very hard for years and are now reaping the rewards of that work combined with their good luck. Most of them are proud of their careers, but a few are secretly ashamed. Climb high enough in the organization, and it becomes clear that Microsoft’s success has not always been based on legal or ethical behavior. The company is, after all, a convicted monopolist, and the exercise of those monopoly powers wasn’t just through a Gates or a Ballmer, but also through dozens of top managers, at least some of whom had to have known that what they were doing was wrong. These are smart people, but also people trapped by their own success. Some are in denial, some are just quiet. Nobody wants to risk what they have accumulated by talking about it. You would think great wealth would be freeing, but it isn’t always. Sometimes it is a trap.

[...]

During one of those last long nights working to deliver DOS 2.0 in early 1983, I am told that Paul Allen heard Gates and Ballmer discussing his health and talking about how to get his Microsoft shares back if Allen were to die.

Maybe that’s just the sort of fiduciary discussion board members have to have, but it didn?t go over well with Paul Allen, who never returned to Microsoft, and over the next eight years, made huge efforts to secure his wealth from the fate of Microsoft.

Here is a friend of Ballmer and Gates potentially dying and what do they do about it? Discuss who gets his money. The management at Microsoft is very inhumane/sociopath to this date. █

“I’m going to f—ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I’m going to f—ing kill Google.”

–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO

–Richard Stallman

[For the socially-deficient, it's called humour. Webster defines sat·ire as "a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn"]

–Government official

Summary: A look back at an outrageous quote whose authenticity we are trying to confirm

CAN anyone help find the original source where the following statement was made?

Bill Gates is quoted as saying: “The U.S. couldn’t even get rid of Saddam Hussein. And we all know that the EU is just a passing fad. They’ll be killing each other again in less than a year. I’m sick to death of all these fascist lawsuits.”

“By that definition, Microsoft would be a manifestation of fascism.”Is this a legitimate, real quote? In the next post we will show how Microsoft's cronies in the EU Commission are turning the tide.

Is it not funny that the US, along with Asian countries, have filed similar lawsuits and found Microsoft guilty of violating the law? It’s not an “EU” thing and it it not a “passing fad”. Just what is it that makes “fascism”? According to a US president, that’s when business controls the government or is inherently the government (former staff moving back and forth). By that definition, Microsoft would be a manifestation of fascism. How hypocritical a statement from Gates. █

Direct link to deposition video | Full set of the deposition videos (including Ogg Theora versions)