09.10.09

IRC: #boycottnovell @ FreeNode: September 10th, 2009

Posted in IRC Logs at 8:56 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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Links 10/09/2009: RHEL 6 Videos, More Linux Phones

Posted in News Roundup at 8:49 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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Miguel de Icaza Joins Microsoft

Posted in Free/Libre Software, Microsoft, Mono, Novell at 12:17 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

via Wikipedia

Summary: Novell’s Miguel de Icaza becomes board member in a new Microsoft group

MICROSOFT’S EMBRACE and extend of “Open Source” makes another step further now that another “interop” announcement is near. “Is it official,” asks one reader. “Has now Miguel fulfilled his lifelong dream of being an official Microsoft employee?” He links to this report which bears a deceiving headline. Here is the relevant part:

Other interim board members of the new foundation are primarily from Microsoft, at this point. They include Bill Staples, head of Microsoft’s Internet Information Services team; Stephanie Boesch, a Microsoft Program Manager for the .Net Framework; Miguel de Icaza, Vice President of Developer Platform at Novell; Britt Johnston, a Microsoft Product Unit Manager for Data and Modeling; and Shaun Walker, Co-founder and Chief Architect of DotNetNuke.

Meanwhile in his blog, de Icaza reports about progress on bringing FOSS developers to Windows [1, 2, 3] and advancing/eschewing .NET. Microsoft would surely be proud. As the Mono-Nono site puts it:

MonoDevelop is going to be the “Eclipse of the .NET community“, Mr. De Icaza tells us. Putting aside the obvious jokes, I think this is another good illustration of how the entire focus of Team Mono is – and must be – on conforming to .NET.

Here’s one of the highlights on the new MonoDevelop release: “MonoDevelop can be used to develop ASP.NET MVC applications on OSX and Linux and Silverlight applications on OSX and Linux.”

That’s just what I was saying Linux needed the other day: more Silverlight applications. In fact, I was discussing how promoting Silverlight development in no way whatsoever helps Microsoft lock-in, and quite the contrary actually encourages the spread of software freedom under every definition known to mankind. Because it is Microsoft that is internationally recognized for leverging its considerable power to promote user freedom and interoperability through its file formats and development technologies we absolutely need more of that being produced in the Linux world, which tends to use proprietary and obscured formats and languages

So MonoDevelop is a big win there. Congratulations.

Yes. Congratulations to Novell. It’s almost officially part of Microsoft. █

“[The partnership with Microsoft is] going very well insofar as we originally agreed to co-operate on three distinct projects and now we’re working on nine projects and there’s a good list of 19 other projects that we plan to co-operate on.”

–Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO

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Red Hat: Microsoft Marketed Its Patents for Trolls to Attack Free Software

Posted in Free/Libre Software, FUD, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Patents, Red Hat at 7:02 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Red Hat reveals details about Microsoft’s marketing of anti-FOSS patents; other patent news summarised

RED Hat has already asked Microsoft to stop the patent racketeering, but Microsoft carries on with the usual FUD-based aggression while smiling and sending out PR drones like Sam Ramji [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12] and Robert Duffner. “Smiling” as in, “We need to smile at Novell while we pull the trigger,” to quote Microsoft’s Platform Group Vice President, Jim Allchin.

“…Microsoft may be passing some patents for them to attack Linux without it appearing too suspicious and without Microsoft seeming like an involved party.”Microsoft has some big patent trolls at its disposal and as we argued yesterday, Microsoft may be passing some patents for them to attack Linux without it appearing too suspicious and without Microsoft seeming like an involved party. It was the same with SCO. Larry Goldfarb, a key investor in SCO, said that “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.” He also said (under oath even) that Microsoft’s “Mr. Emerson and I discussed a variety of investment structures wherein Microsoft would ‘backstop,’ or guarantee in some way, BayStar’s investment…. Microsoft assured me that it would in some way guarantee BayStar’s investment in SCO.”

Red Hat has just published some interesting details that are packed together right here:

Red Hat accuses Microsoft of patent FUD

[...]

Red Hat blogged that the patents acquired by OIN were being marketed by Microsoft to patent trolls.

“It also used marketing materials that highlighted offensive uses of the patents against open source software, including a number of the most popular open source packages,” Red Hat blogged. “This looked to us like a classic FUD effort. To unleash FUD, you assemble a lot of patents of uncertain value, annotate them with a roadmap for the companies and products to be targeted with the patents, put the lot in the hands of trolls schooled in patent aggression, and then stand back and wait for the FUD to spread with its chilling effect.”

Darryl Taft, who is sometimes sympathetic towards Microsoft, wrote about OIN’s reaction. In general, there is so much interest in this from the Microsoft crowd. For example, here is Microsoft’s de facto PR person (Fried) trying to set the tone and Mary Jo Foley doing likewise. Her colleague, the pro-Microsoft Gavin Clarke, opens up with the deceiving line which says: “Microsoft has placed a clutch of Silicon Graphics patents in the hands of those trying to defend Linux and open-source against trolls.”

It sure makes it sound like Microsoft does something nice, doesn’t it?

In the mailing lists that oppose software patents (and support their abolition), one person opined that “it just means that the patents are not worth much more than this PR stunt is for OIN…”

As a reminder from the news:

The Open Invention Network includes IBM, Cisco and HP. The group’s web site states that its mission is to work for a “positive, fertile ecosystem for Linux, which in turn drives innovation and choice in the global marketplace”.

Another person, whom we shall quote anonymously, argues:

Companies like IBM, RedHat, Canonical, etc. are acquiring as many patents as they can, either directly or with initiatives like OIN. From e.g. Nokia we know that what is at the beginning a defensive strategy can become an aggressive one at any time.

Maybe sooner than later the OIN members start asking ‘politely’ to provide free software throw them, but not independently. That would be the beginning of the end of the free software movement, and maybe what MS is looking for.

What will be better against FLOSS than to convince to as many FLOSS-players as possible that software patents are very profitable?

Will governments use Debian instead of RedHat if software patents are an issue?

Here is the original report in full and some more coverage of interest:

Microsoft Corp ( MSFT – news – people ) has suggested in recent years that companies using the Linux computer-operating system might be violating Microsoft patents. Now, in an effort to avert any legal threat that might discourage the adoption of Linux, a group of Microsoft rivals is about to acquire a set of patents formerly owned by the software giant.

More here:

# Pro-Linux group closes in on MSFT patents. The Open Invention Network, a group which supports open-source software and includes such giants as IBM (IBM) and Sony (SNE), is nearing an agreement to acquire 22 of Microsoft’s (MSFT) patents in an effort to avoid any legal threats that could discourage the adoption of Linux. Microsoft has suggested in the past that the Linux operating system may violate some of its patents. The patents are currently held by Allied Security Trust, which bought the patents from Microsoft earlier this year.

Other coverage did not add much to what was already known and the secrecy surrounding the OIN helps not at all.

Why did open source group buy Microsoft patents?

[...]

As well, since Microsoft licenses some of its patents to Novell (under their patent covenant agreement), those are the patents that I see as being key. It is unlikely that Microsoft has sold any of those core patents as it would invalidate the need for part of the Novell deal.

OIN, whose members include IBM, Red Hat and other key Linux vendors is all about making royalty-free patents available to open source developers.

Whenever the OIN decides to open up and actually be OPEN and talk to more media than just the WSJ, I’m sure the full story will come out (and I’ll update appropriately). Either way, this is a win for open source as it removes the risk from 22 patents to developers and users.

The risk will be properly removed (and perhaps permanently mitigated) when mathematics cannot be owned by people and companies. OIN is still legitimising software patents by taking this approach which it always takes. Maybe it’s better than nothing, but the companies behind OIN have sufficient influence to challenge the very legality of such patents; unlike the FFII, they typically choose not to do this.

The truth is that some of these companies exploit software patents and use them to their own advantage because they can afford it. As the i4i case [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11] neatly shows, big companies like Microsoft can also ignore software patents whenever it suits them. They are in control of this self-serving system. Here is the latest from i4i: “Plaintiff in Word case says that Microsoft destroyed its business”

It adds later that i4i now operates “almost entirely in the specialized niche market of the pharmaceutical industry,” but notes that some of those companies have been unwilling to purchase its product because they can get the functionality within the Microsoft word-processing program.

Oracle’s CEO Larry Ellison has already said that Microsoft’s business strategy is to “copy the product that others innovate, put them into Windows so they can’t be unplugged, and then give it away for free.”

In other patent news, Glyn Moody emphasises that “intellectual monopolies [are] not [the] same as innovation,” linking to this article from EurActiv. At EurActiv, they often cite the wrong people when it comes to SMBs; for instance, Jonathan Zuck (Association for Competitive Technology) fakes being a speaker for their (SMBs’) interests; he is a Microsoft lobbyist.

Intel is another company that’s known for its aggression with patents, but even Intel’s Andy Grove can be seen once again criticising the patent system/practices. Mike Masnick points it out as follows:

Earlier this year, we wrote about a rather thoughtful analysis of the problems of the patent system by Intel founder and former CEO Andy Grove. His view was that patents separate the important part (the actual innovation) from the “asset” (the patent), and that allows for bad behavior. He compared it to mortgage-backed securities, where the underlying mortgages were completely separated from the “asset,” and bad behavior ensued.

Here is another story of a company that arguably revolves around a software patent.

Aviv Refuah, the young CEO of the public Israeli company Netex Corporation, has managed to score a US patent on an internet search option developed by the company he founded that could well force major Internet search players like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to cough up royalties for future use of the technology.

Refuah, who started the company 12 years ago when he was barely 17 years old, is careful not to overestimate the awarding of the patent and the possible outcome for now, but that didn’t stop the company’s stock from soaring yesterday.

Is licensing — as opposed to production and servicing — really valuable output? How about the novelty? What are the economic impacts and the effect on science and technology? These questions are rarely being asked. █

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Microsoft’s Anti-GNU/Linux Training Comes to Office Depot, Not Just Best Buy and Staples

Posted in Apple, FUD, GNU/Linux, Marketing, Microsoft, Security, Vista, Vista 7, Windows at 5:34 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Anti-GNU/Linux indoctrination said to have reached many more stores and Macs ridiculed too

A REASONABLE QUESTION has begun to arise: “just how many large retailers have had their staff pushed/forced to dislike GNU/Linux?” Does this encompass only US-based retailers? We already know that Microsoft has done this in multiple large chains of stores [1, 2, 3] and OStatic covers this too. How about Wal-Mart [1, 2]? According to this report from The Register, Office Depot is also among those who train staff on behalf of Microsoft.

One booklet shared with our Office Depot salesman includes a page that looks like this…

Look carefully at those images. They paint Linux is red (as in fire, blood, red lights, a red card, and communism) and Vista 7 always appears surrounded by green background, which implies approval. It would have looked and be perceived differently had Linux been embedded within green-coloured backgrounds, but they are busy playing psychological marketing games. The arguments too are false. SJVN
writes:

Microsoft’s latest Linux lies

[...]

“If you can’t beat ‘em, cheat” has long been Microsoft’s philosophy, which has lead to the Department of Justice and the European Union swatting them with restrictions and hundreds of millions of dollars in fines over the years. But that hasn’t stopped them. In our latest example, an anonymous blogger who goes by GodofGrunts at OverClock.net, a site for people who want the fastest possible PCs, reports on his Microsoft ExpertZone training at Best Buy. What he ‘learned’ from Microsoft isn’t ‘exactly’ true.

[...]

Microsoft also claims you can’t use video chat on desktop Linux. Yet I use Ekiga and Skype for video chat on Linux all the time.

Then there are the “Get the FUD” — er, “Get the Facts Straight” slides, which serve as a reminder that Microsoft’s Get the Facts anti-Linux campaign (2004-2007) actually lives on.

More on factual mistakes:

It goes on to list tables with “Camera, iPod, and MP3 compatibility” and “Printers and scanners compatibility” being described as “many” for Windows and “few” for Linux. It also lists an ambiguous “Authorized Support” which it claims Linux is lacking, ignoring the fact that many Linux distributions do have support teams. It also mentions that Linux users can’t play games like “World of Warcraft”, which Windows users can. Ironically, Linux users can in fact use WoW within the free WINE.

It turns out that Microsoft not only targets GNU/Linux but Macs too. See for example:

1. Microsoft bribes Best Buy staff to slam Mac and Linux
2. Microsoft Targets Linux (and Macs) with Latest Chart-Based Propaganda

“What next,” asks Tony Manco, “FreeBSD or Amiga?”

Ars Technica first published the following: “Microsoft teaches Best Buy employees how to troll Linux users”

Microsoft training material for Best Buy employees—which not only makes Linux look bad, but is also full of inaccuracies—has leaked to the Web. Screenshots and commentary inside.

It was anti-Macs too, as Ars Technica added slightly later: “Microsoft helps Best Buy employees troll Mac users, too”

We’ve got our hands on Microsoft training material for Best Buy employees. It not only makes Macs look bad, but is also full of inaccuracies. Screenshots and commentary inside.

That immediately drew Mac proponents into this debate. Roughly Drafted Magazine wrote about this too and the Microsoft crowd at Neowin sees nothing wrong with Microsoft’s behaviour, unlike Dave Rosenberg for instance. He calls it mis-education.

Regarding security, Harish Pillay writes:

MSFT’s analysis of security

[...]

If we are to look at any software product’s development methodology (open source or closed source), every study (see David Wheeler’s page), shows that by being open, you are assured that if there are vulnerabilities and defects, IT WILL BE FOUND AND FIXED. Earlier last month, an eight-year-old vulnerability in the Linux kernel was discovered and fixed. Try that for ANY MSFT product. I am not begrudging their business model. What I am begrudging is the smooth “lies” that they constantly put out – including the cleverly crafted report referenced above.

Nevermind the past. Let’s move forward and look at what is looming on the horizon. Vista will be dead soon when MSFT releases their Windows 7 sometime this year. And how do they intend to bring it to the market? How about with blatant lies? I did pose the question earlier today and hoping that someone from MSFT will respond. It is HIGHLY unlikely anyone will (right @osrin and @tonynewling?). Now I read that the same lies are done with Mac as well.

Why can’t MSFT do an honest job in selling their product? Why do they have to resort to outright lies and misrepresentations? The whole MSFT business is an intellectual vacuum and morally corrupt.

Microsoft would say nothing in these reports about its "secret" patches. The reality behind one year of Vista reveals many "critical" flaws and accompanying lies. Now there is a serious flaw that permits remote BSoDs. It turns out to be an “ancient flaw” which Vista 7 is somehow susceptible to.

SOFTWARE ALCHEMIST Microsoft has admitted that its Vista operating systems is shipping with a bug that was first discovered in Windows machines in 1999.

More here regarding the severity:

A security researcher has said there is a zero-day vulnerability affecting Windows 7 and Vista.

And… there is another brand-new vulnerability:

Microsoft, Cisco issue patches for newfangled DoS exploit

[...]

On Tuesday, Microsoft responded with MS09-048, a security advisory that fixes a variety of networking vulnerabilities in Windows operating systems, including those discovered by Louis and Lee. The update implements a new feature called memory pressure protection, which automatically drops existing TCP connections and SYN requests when attacks are detected.

Remote BSoD flaws open a window of possibilities.

The BSoD at the Olympics is making a sort of a comeback this week: (see photo)

It’s not the first time this kind of embarrassing stuff has happened; Microsoft had another glitch at the Beijing Olympics last year. But hey, it could happen to anybody, right?

The Microsoft/Seattle blogs covered this as well. Who is Microsoft kidding? █

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More Anti-Red Hat Whitepapers from Novell, More Mono/.NET Convergence

Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Red Hat, Servers at 4:30 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: More waste of paper from Novell (attempts to grab just existing GNU/Linux users) and increasing intersection with Microsoft in the form of Mono

FOR the past few months Novell has been publishing quite a lot of papers whose purpose is to help poach Red Hat customers. Novell really ought to focus more on poaching UNIX and Windows clientèle, but all of its latest whitepapers that appear in the news feeds mention Red Hat, Red Hat, Red Hat. It is typical and predictable given the nature of the Microsoft deal, which many perceive as an “anti-Red Hat deal.” Last week in Linux Planet an article was published that’s titled “Is Novell Selling FUD or Linux?”

Over at CNET, Matt Asay — being a former Novell employee — argues that Red Hat too used FUD against Novell. He writes:

But for me, it was Red Hat’s swipes at its competitors that are possibly more momentous. It’s not that Red Hat never criticizes competitors: in 2006, for example, Red Hat declared the imminent death (wrongly, as it turns out) of Novell.

Novell was apparently close to death indeed, but then it became somewhat of a Microsoft subsidiary, selling itself to someone else’s interests. In the ‘Microsoft press’ we found this just a couple of days ago:

Windows: Coming to a Mainframe Near You

[...]

Industry veteran Wayne Kernochan, a principal with consultancy Infostructure Associates, highlights Mono, an open source project first conceived by the former Ximian Inc., to create a version of Microsoft’s .NET framework capable of running atop Linux, several flavors of BSD, Mac OS and Windows itself. Six years ago, Novell acquired Ximian and became Mono’s steward; then, just months later, Novell acquired German Linux pioneer SuSE.

That chain of events paved the way for the Mono of today, which runs in z/Linux.

More precisely, Kernochan explained, Novell markets a Mono Extension for its SuSE Linux Enterprise Edition (SLES) 11, which runs on System z. This combination — namely, of SLES 11 and Novell’s Mono Extension — makes it possible for SuSE shops to run .NET applications on top of System z. And that, Kernochan maintains, makes for an intriguing proposition.

Novell helps Windows come to the mainframes, which is why things ought to change. As a quick reminder, Microsoft loves Mono. It is about making UNIX and Linux assimilated to Microsoft. Mary Jo Foley has just made this post, giving a lot of publicity to Microsoft’s ally Novell/de Icaza.

Novell’s Miguel de Icaza is at it again. His latest project is Mono Tools for Visual Studio, which is now in a closed Beta 1 release. “There are some common stumbling blocks that keep .NET applications from being able to run on Mono. These can be due to using parts of the .NET framework that Mono does not implement or implements differently, or reliance on native platform code like user32,” according to the new site for the tools. The tools allow developers to scan their apps for Mono compatibility, test them on Windows and Linux and package them up to run on Linux.

Here is the page in question. Novell is in some ways augmenting Microsoft’s Visual Studio. Novell truly helps Windows [1, 2, 3]. It even holds events together with Microsoft or Microsoft MVPs, hosting jointly .NET and Mono. Miguel has just advertised this in his blog and other Mono developers on Novell’s payroll do so too.

Embracing Novell is almost like embracing Microsoft. █

“Our partnership with Microsoft continues to expand.”

–Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO

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Former/Existing Microsoft Front Group (CAGW) Still Paid by Companies to Derail Rivals

Posted in Deception, FUD, GNU/Linux, Kernel, Microsoft at 3:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: CAGW (made infamous for Microsoft’s “letters from dead people” gig) still occupied with the same type of practices

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), which we wrote about [1, 2] while covering Microsoft front groups, is a highly unethical body masquerading as something beneficial to society. PR Watch has this headsup about an article covering the latest mischiefs of CAGW.

For America’s No. 1 taxpayer watchdog, as Citizens Against Government Waste calls itself, the jet engines seem easy prey.

The federal government is already spending billions for Pratt & Whitney to develop engines for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Why spend billions more for General Electric to do the same?

Learn to see who paid CAGW to do this. Previously, Microsoft paid CAGW to write fake letters (on behalf of dead souls) denouncing regulation.

Since Microsoft also loves paying think tanks, e.g. to attack Linux [1, 2], it is worth adding that PR Watch also links to this new report, which seemingly indicates erosion of trust in think tanks.

Progressive think tanks gained in media prominence over 2008, despite overall think tank citations declining for the fourth year in a row.

The 25 most-cited think tanks in major U.S. media received 13,149 citations in 2008, a 6 percent decline from 2007 levels. The decline primarily hit conservative or right-leaning think tanks, whose share of citations in corporate media fell from 36 percent to 31 percent in 2008 , while progressive or left-leaning think tanks–the only group to actually see an increase in their total citations–went from 17 percent to 21 percent. Centrist think tanks saw little change, still beating both ends of the spectrum with 48 percent of total citations, versus 47 percent in 2007.

Corruption that’s routinely identified in think tanks may have caused this decline in reputability. And that’s a step in the right direction. █

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Eye on Apple: Lack of GNU/Linux Support, Stagnation

Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux at 3:25 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Some news picks regarding Apple

• iTunes, iPods, And Linux

So far though, there are no hints that Apple intends to release iTunes for Linux. And my many emails to Steve Jobs (no I’m not kidding, I really have emailed him) have gone unanswered. Will tomorrow’s big Apple music event have any good news for Linux users? I sure hope so, but somehow I doubt it.

• Is Snow Leopard Apple’s most underwhelming OS yet?

There’s just not much new and shiny to play with, but to Apple’s credit, they’ve not oversold their product.

• Skype 1.2 for iPhone ‘unusable’ say bloggers

Skype’s version 1.2 for the iPhone, released Friday, has been deemed “no good” by a number of users, with reports online that it crashes immediately after dialing.

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