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04.12.16

European Patent Lawyers Who Conveniently Promote Software Patents in Spite of the Rules and the EPC

Posted in Europe, Patents at 11:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Marks & Clerk

Summary: A look at the actors in Europe who are pushing for more patents in more domains (patent maximalism or overpatenting) because it serves their bottom line at the expense of everybody else

SOFTWARE patents, as we pointed out in our previous post, are a dying breed in the US, even if the USPTO continues to grant them (only to see them invalidated in the courts or at PTAB [1, 2]). What good is a patent if it’s unenforceable in a court of law? It’s just a waste of time, money, and effort. Why even bother with software patent applications? Incidentally, the Jerusalem Post now notes that people question China’s patent system (it too is a waste of time/money, unless one asks the author who is from a “Strategic Patent Department”, i.e. non-producing parasite) because just like the USPTO, it has virtually no quality control. The same goes for invalid/ated (by the European courts) software patents in the EPO. Who would still promote software patents in Europe? Surely the non-producing parasites that are based in Europe. Marks & Clerk, as we noted here before, is one of the boosters of the UPC alongside other greedy opportunists who don't care about innovation, only about lawsuits (money to them, irrespective of the outcome). Unsurprisingly, they also promote software patents, which the UPC helps bolster. Last night we noticed/found new promotion of software patents in British media (despite software patents being patent-ineligible here). Who wrote it? “Graham McGlashan is a chartered and European patent attorney at Marks & Clerk” (well, that explains it, doesn’t it?). Imagine the British media giving the microphone/platform (exclusive columns without response/balance) to a British drone engines company regarding reconnaissance and political assassinations abroad. It makes no sense, or does it? It really says a lot about the media.

“Imagine the British media giving the microphone/platform (exclusive columns without response/balance) to a British drone engines company regarding reconnaissance and political assassinations abroad.”Marks & Clerk seems to be unaware of the effective ban on software patents in Europe and appeals to loopholes. It says: “Patents can provide useful protection for technical concepts. Many computer implemented inventions have been patented in the US, UK and Europe. Confusion arises because the criteria for patentability of computer implemented inventions vary between jurisdictions.

“The European Patent Office (EPO) has a test in which claimed subject matter that is novel and inventive is potentially patentable if it has a technical character. A computer program itself can potentially be patented at the EPO if it is capable of bringing about, when running on a computer, a further technical effect going beyond the “normal” physical interactions between the program and the computer on which it is run.”

That’s the “as such” loophole created by a Brit, Alison Brimelow. What’s perhaps most ludicrous about this piece from Marks & Clerk is the headline. It says: “When you write great software, don’t forget patenting” (patenting software? In Europe?!)

“Marks & Clerk doesn’t care about what’s true and what’s good for the EU (or the UK); it just cares about winning cases and doing whatever helps its own bottom line.”Well, remember that one’s “great software” can then get one sued by other companies with software patents. It’s the M.A.D. mentality, which purports that lots of countries having nuclear weapons somehow makes us all safer.

What we find disturbing about Marks & Clerk is that it keeps funding UPC propaganda events and various events that promote software patents. It’s basically an echo chamber of patent profiteers. As one tweet put it this week in relation to TTIP: “The European Business Summit : where Businessmen (paying 600€ entrance fee) meet policymakers to shape your future” (staging a coup over politics and law while denying opponents of the coup any access). It’s more or less the same with UPC events (which are often even a lot more expensive to attend). If we continue to allow the likes of Bristows and Marks & Clerk decide on European law, we’ll all suffer in the long run. Marks & Clerk doesn’t care about what’s true and what’s good for the EU (or the UK); it just cares about winning cases and doing whatever helps its own bottom line. This is bad advice regarding software patents, but it’s good advice for Marks & Clerk’s own accounting. It’s just a British company with a Microsoft-powered Web site (which is rare nowadays) and what it does negatively affects software developers in Britain and abroad. █

Software Patents Hoarders Going Down in the United States

Posted in GNU/Linux, IBM, Microsoft, Patents, Samsung at 10:58 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Going down

Summary: Nearly two years after the historic Alice decision companies that rely a great deal on software patents (and patent royalties) are losing their prominence in the US patent system

According this new IAM report, Samsung is now number 1 in US patents (total). IBM is falling down the ladder rather quickly amid layoffs and it is worth mentioning that IBM is now a patent aggressor. It attacks legitimate companies, with software patents as a weapon [1, 2] (typical patent strategy of failing companies). Speaking of failing companies, Microsoft is at number 4 in its home country, having lost momentum not only as a company (now mostly a leech and patent parasite) but also as a patent applicant.

The good news about all this is that traditionally, as many sites correctly point out, Korean companies are not aggressive with patents. Samsung is no exception to this. Morever, Samsung is a producing company (hardware), so not so many of its patents pertain to software. Samsung uses a lot of Linux in its systems; in some cases it develops its own operating systems such as Bada or Tizen, rather than blindly rely on Android.

Another IAM report admits that it was wrong. It previously claimed that the patent troll of Ericsson was being renamed/reshaped again, but this turns out to be false. IAM then says that some people in Taiwan consider doing the same thing (creating a troll of their own, like Microsoft Licensing or Unwired Planet in the case of Ericsson), but it mostly quotes people who profit from litigation, not technologists. Well, that’s just IAM…

Looking at some more credible patents-centric sites, we quickly learn of more bubble-bursting in this area of patenting. “The decision by Judge Dyk and joined by Chief Judge Prost and Judge Taranto affirms a lower court’s dismissal on-the-pleadings of GTG’s patent infringement claim,” says Patently-O. “The holding is that the claimed method for analyzing DNA for linkage disequilibrium is ineligible for as effectively claiming a law of nature. The basic idea stems from the inventors discovery that coding regions (exons) typically correlate with “linked” certain non-coding regions (introns). [...] GTG is an Australian company that had previously sued a few dozen companies for infringing the ‘179 patent. The claims have been reexamined (at Merial’s request) and patentability confirmed.”

Nowadays, software patents aren’t quite as potent as before (in US courts/PTAB) and it shows. We hope that the coming few years’ decisions will send out the signal that there’s little incentive to software patenting, irrespective of USPTO lenience. █

FUD Against Free Software Adoption in the Government and in Businesses Comes From Firms Connected to Microsoft

Posted in Free/Libre Software, FUD, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 10:34 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The ‘new’ Microsoft does not attack Free software directly, or not as visibly as before

Many arms

Summary: Free software (FOSS) is still under constant attacks from Microsoft, even if these attacks are shrewdly masqueraded so as to not jeopardise the “Microsoft loves Linux” fantasy

THE E.E.E. strategy of Microsoft (destroying Linux from the inside) is progressing while Microsoft is still trying to actively derail GNU/Linux adoption (usually via proxies). The company also sponsors events that promote software patents (which are antithetical to software freedom), as we showed several times so far this month and it sues (or threatens to sue) Android OEMs unless they hand over crates of cash, or in some cases agree to preload Android with lots of Microsoft spyware.

“The company also sponsors events that promote software patents (which are antithetical to software freedom), as we showed several times so far this month…”Remember that Microsoft does not need to attack Linux/FOSS/Android directly in order to get its way. A lot of people from Microsoft have over the years created spinoffs that are more like Microsoft proxies, still loyal to Microsoft but peripheral to it. Remember, for instance, who bankrolled Xamarin before it got rolled into Microsoft (as expected). Also remember that it’s a unit called Microsoft Licensing (essentially a patent troll) that claims to ‘own’ Android and other Linux-based systems, then systematically goes knocking on OEMs’ doors and demanding money for the use/distribution of Linux.

Tim Greene at IDG props up SourceClear and Black Duck for FOSS FUD; these are two firms that came from Microsoft in order to smear FOSS and make money in the process. The headline says “Open source code is common, potentially dangerous, in enterprise apps” (Ballmer would still say “cancer” as if it’s a fatal disease and Microsoft calls it “Linux infestations" as if it’s a cockroach that must be squashed).

“Also remember that it’s a unit called Microsoft Licensing (essentially a patent troll) that claims to ‘own’ Android and other Linux-based systems, then systematically goes knocking on OEMs’ doors and demanding money for the use/distribution of Linux.”Not only did we spot this one some time yesterday; even readers told us about it today; they too are increasingly noticing that anti-FOSS articles are still featuring those parasites that are Microsoft-connected. Greene’s colleague, Korolov, did this just over a fortnight ago. Remember that both are Microsoft-connected firms, as we noted here before, and towards the end there’s a mention of White Source, which is no friend of FOSS.

Those so-called ‘reporters’ just keep speaking to firms which profit from this FUD and aren’t FOSS at all. It’s like an article about global warming which invites for quotes (expert advice) various ‘experts’ from oil companies. The latest example doesn’t speak about the many equivalent (or worse) proprietary software issues, instead speaking of the “Patch Tuesday” of Microsoft, which leaves back doors in tact for the NSA. That’s irresponsible journalism; it’s more like lobbying (by omission). And remember how much money flows from Microsoft to IDG…

“That’s irresponsible journalism; it’s more like lobbying.”Microsoft thinks that somehow associating its proprietary software with “Linux” will be enough to promote the perception that it’s “open” and thus eligible for government use worldwide (proprietary lock-in). At the same time Microsoft keeps attacking Linux. █

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

–Be’s CEO Jean-Louis Gassée

Microsoft is ‘Embracing’ Linux (or GNU and Android) to Death, Already Proceeding to ‘Extend’ in Some Cases

Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 9:58 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Embrace and Extend
Credit: unknown (Twitter)

Summary: Microsoft continues its effort to dominate and control the competitor which is winning the battle — a tactic so familiar that it takes amnesia not to recognise it

Young people (post-antitrust days) or willfully naive people wish to believe that Microsoft has really changed and that the company is willing to see GNU/Linux succeed. It’s a fairy tale for the wishful and the gullible. This is the company which refers to GNU/Linux success stories as “Linux infestations". It now increasingly brings GNU/Linux under its own control. It can also control the experience and make GNU/Linux look bad, as it has done in the past to other rivals which it “embraced” (lots of examples here).

“This is the company which refers to GNU/Linux success stories as “Linux infestations”.”Microsoft booster Matt Weinberger spreads some of the latest “loves Linux” Microsoft-led propaganda and grooms Nadella in the process. This is a continuation of other such puff pieces, whose main purpose it to fool (or lull) us into the idea that Microsoft is our friend.

The E.E.E. which portrays “Linux” (Bash or Ubuntu) as just a Windows ‘app’ (see the article “Ubuntu for Windows”) or a ‘feature’ with lots of artificial limitations (making GNU/Linux look bad, difficult, and as boring as a command line) is noteworthy so far this month. A lot of articles right now try to frame GNU/Linux as just some kind of ‘add-on’ for Vista 10 [1, 2], an extensive pieces of mass surveillance software. If one checks the owner of Linux (kernel, e.g. uname -a) in this setup, it says “Microsoft”. The strategy of Microsoft cannot be understood only by the willfully blind.

“This is a continuation of other such puff pieces, whose main purpose it to fool (or lull) us into the idea that Microsoft is our friend.”Consider this new article by Jack Wallen with a provocative image (Microsoft owning Linux) and bizarre headline (maybe the editor’s choice rather than Wallen’s). It is titled “The truth comes out: Microsoft needs Linux”. Well “Microsoft needs [to kill] Linux,” but it must get close to Linux in order to extinguish (kill) it; this kind of modus operandi always starts with “embrace” (the first E in E.E.E.).

“Those who do not learn from the past,” one person told me, “are doomed to..? Microsoft learned.

“But has the OSS community? Don’t trust Microsoft.”

“It doesn’t take a “Free software zealot” to develop distrust/hatred for Microsoft — all it requires is for one to be properly informed of what Microsoft really does.”Based on this other new article, Microsoft E.E.E. with Vista 10 and mass surveillance (trying to associate Vista 10 with GNU/Linux, Bash, and Ubuntu to increase adoption/sales) is progressing to “extend” and Microsoft is now trying to convert Android devices into Microsoft listening devices. How long before Microsoft can just dump Android (with users who depends on Microsoft ‘apps’ and Microsoft servers that hold their data) and make it through to “extinguish”? My wife, who sent me this article that angered her, says that Microsoft is “evil” and “desperate”, just trying to “hijack Android”. It doesn’t take a “Free software zealot” to develop distrust/hatred for Microsoft — all it requires is for one to be properly informed of what Microsoft really does. █

La Iglesia de EPO: ¿Como el Equipo de Battistelli Arregló El Despido de la Gente No lo Suficiéntemente Leales a Ellos?– Parte II

Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

English/Original

Article as ODF

Publicadoen Europa, Patentes at 3:51 pm Por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Tanto abuso gerencial que las cortes estan simplemente abrumadas

International Labour Organisation on EPO

Reportaje completo aqui

Sumario: Como el torrente de quejas contra la EPO en la Organización Internacional del Trabajo (ILO) básicamente ahoga al tribunal y asegura que los empleados de la EPO no esperen justicia, al menos no por muchos años por venir
CUANDO el monarca en jefe de la EPO, Sr. Battistelli, despide a los representantes de los empleados (porque piensa que le gusta) pretende que tienen un proceso (jurídico) en que basarse, incluso si la ILO toma muchos años en tomar casos (la gente debe buscar empleo alternativo en el interim) y los resultados son desánimadoramente decepciónantes.

En la primera parte nos fijamos en algunos de los mecanismos que el propio Battistelli creó para los despidos, utilizando todo tipo de criterios vagos (como ser percibido como desleales o no lo suficientemente educado para cada miembro del personal). texto reciente que nos alcanzó explica por qué la ILO es incapaz de controlar a la monarquía fuera-de-control de Battistelli:

¿Desestimará la ILO a la EPO?
Los desarrollos actuales en la ILO-AT son otra amenaza a la inmunidad de la OEP. La gran mayoría de las quejas presentadas por el personal en contra de su empleador se pierden. Tal vez esto no debería ser una sorpresa, dado que los jueces del Tribunal se pagan sobre una base de caso por caso por la organización demandada. Parecería que la ILO-AT y la OEP son un matrimonio hecho en el cielo. Curiosamente, sin embargo, el Tribunal no parece estar contento con la EPO. Se ha publicado recientemente un documento en el que el Tribunal culpa a la EPO por sus retrasos cada vez mayores. Está claro que los mecanismos de resolución de conflictos internos de la EPO se han vuelto cada vez más disfuncional, véase, por ejemplo CA / 21/15, que señala 13-15 y 59-64 que muestran una extremadamente pequeña tasa de éxito. Sin embargo, al hacerlo, el Tribunal pasa en silencio sobre los cambios en su jurisprudencia que contribuyen fuertemente a su cartera de pedidos como exigiendo que cada miembro del personal que se ve afectada negativamente por una decisión general presentar su propia queja individual en lugar de aceptar una queja para todos. La falta de consistencia y una tendencia a descartar los casos en cuestiones de procedimiento en lugar de decidir sobre la sustancia más crear más inseguridad jurídica y contribuir a un aumento en el número de recursos. En una propuesta de modificación de sus Estatutos, que se presentará al Consejo de Administración de la ILO en junio, el Tribunal ahora planea retirar su aceptación para las organizaciones cuando encuentra que su

mecanismos internos de resolución de conflictos son insuficientes. No sólo eso: también tiene previsto que cree la autoridad para expulsar a las organizaciones existentes “cliente” que no cumplen sus condiciones. Parece claro que la EPO es primero en la fila. Si es así, la EPO será la primera organización en ser expulsada del Tribunal. Esto sería una gran vergüenza. La Organización se vería obligado a ofrecer una alternativa rápida, a menos que quiere ver a su inmunidad levantada por los tribunales nacionales para las que sería muy claro que el personal de la EPO ya no tienen acceso a la justicia. Dado que el acceso a la ILO-AT se fija en el EPC (artículo 13 del CPE), un cambio de este tipo requeriría una conferencia diplomática ..

En sumario lo de arriba sugiere que hay ataduras financieras entre la ILO y la EPO y no hay voluntad de justiica, simplemente la percepción. Y empeora:

Injusticia Sumaria

La EPO fue noticia al negarse a aceptar el fallo de un tribunal holandés de segunda instancia y anunciando – a través de un vicepresidente – que sería incluso ignorar el fallo del Tribunal Supremo holandés, que debe fallo no sea a su favor. Un desprecio similar se muestra por la OIT-AT en su sentencia de 3563, relativa a una solicitud de revisión de la anterior Sentencia 3297 (despido por acusación de fraude). El Tribunal confirmó el despido. Después de la sentencia anterior el autor fue absuelto de las mismas acusaciones por un tribunal penal holandés. Se pidió a la OIT-AT (un tribunal administrativo que se limita a los procedimientos escritos, sin una investigación y sin audiencias) que reconsidere su fallo a la luz de los hallazgos de la corte holandesa especializada (penal) que es mucho más profundo en su funcionamiento . El Tribunal consideró que las conclusiones de la corte holandesa eran irrelevantes y se negaron reconsiderar su posición. La solicitud de revisión fue sumariamente (sic) desestimó.

¿Cómo es esto justicia y cómo puede el Consejo administrativo esperar la percepción de justicia? El núcleo del asunto es, la gerencia de la EPO despide a la gente de manera injustificada, luego pretende que ellos pueden encontrar justicia en la ILO — algo que ellos claramente no pueden (abogados de la SUEPOreciéntemente hicieron constructivas sugestiones a Guy Ryder, Director General de la ILO), creciéntemente por el altísimo número de quejas. Mientras más abusivo los chacales de Battistelli se convierten, lo más encumbrados la ILO lo es y menos probable que los miembros despedidos encuéntren justicia alli. Algunos tirarán la toalla. Desesperanza y sensación de abandono se hán convertido en herramiénta de dominación y opresión. La atmósfera de temor tiene un efecto paralizante cuando no hay recursos a los principios naturales de justicia.

FOSS en Riesgo a Causa de las Patentes de Software, Las que Todavía Siguen Siendo Promovidas por Bristows, IAM, IBM, y Steve Lundberg (Los Villanos Usuales)

Posted in America, Europe, Patents at 7:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

English/Original

Article as ODF

Publicado en America, Europe, Patentes at 7:27 am por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Flipping pages

Sumario: Las patentes on triviáles/o abstractas ideas implementadas en código todavía son una barrera mayor para la adopción de Free/libre software (FOSS) y miramos quienes las están promoviéndo, conjuntamente con la UPC en elcaso de Europa
VARIAS oficinas de patentes, la EPO y la USPTO por ejemplo, tratán duramente de otorgar patentes de software, incluso bajo FOSS Fuerza tiene esta nueva interesante artículo, que necesitamos más. No hay muchos sitios de software libre se molestan discutiendo las patentes de software más (Groklaw ha estado inactivo durante años) y todavía lo consideran el # 1 sujeto cuando se trata de la dominación de software libre (no todo el mundo está de acuerdo con el nosotros), por lo tanto, lo cubrimos con tanta frecuencia.oposición de las cortes. Que les importa mientrase ellas sigan recibiéndo dinero y dejen que los acusados se las arreglén con el caos y sus honorarios legales (¿una externalidad a las oficinas de patentes?) El Presidente de la EPO no tiéne idea acerca de ello y el antiguo Director de la USPTO es ahora un cabildero por las patentes de sofware, las que son verboten en Europa. Que podrido estado de cosas. El problema principal es que los desarrolladores de Free/libre (más que desarrolladores de software propietario) tienen sus projectos cerrados (extinguídos) por las patentes de software. Esto sucede de una manera silenciosa frecuéntemente, por prospectivas demandas que las silencian o porque hay temor de retalación de parte del acusador (a veces un troll de patente s, otras una compañía real como Shazam [1, 2, 3]).

“El problema principal es que los desarrolladores de Free/libre (más que desarrolladores de software propietario) tienen sus projectos cerrados (extinguídos) por las patentes de software.”

FOSS Force tiene esta nuevo interesante artículo, del que necesitamos más. No muchos sitios de software libre se molestan más discutiendo las patentes de software (Groklaw ha estado inactivo durante años) y todavía se consideran el # 1 en la materia cuando se trata de la dominación de software libre (no todo el mundo está de acuerdo con el nosotros), por ello, lo cubrimos con tanta frecuencia.

“Noventa y nueve por ciento de los votos emitidos hasta ahora indica que nuestros lectores piensan que las patentes de software siguen siendo un problema serio, incluso si la situación ha mejorado duránte los últimos años.”      – FOSS Force

“No hay duda,” FOSS Force escribió, “que ha habido muchos avances en el frente de patentes que han sido beneficiosos desde el punto de vista técnico gratuito. Hubo la sentencia del Tribunal Supremo del 2014 en Alice Corp. vs. CLS Bank, lo que hizo de inmediato una serie de patentes imposibles de cumplir. Esta decisión invalidó las denominadas patentes de software “abstracto”, que básicamente buscaban la protección de patentes por simplemente moviendo procedimientos establecidos anteriormente manualmente, a un ordenador (es decir, de contabilidad “a un ordenador”). Otros avances incluyen la decisión en le caso del vendedor online Newegg para tomar todas las reclamaciones de infracción de patentes de años atrás en disputa a la corte en lugar de ´arreglar´. Aunque los resultados de esta decisión han dado lugar a una mezcla de resultados, con notables victorias y derrotas, es, sin duda, hizo que los trolls lo piensen dos veces antes de amenazar la compañía.”
Aquí están los números basados en una nueva encuesta: “Pusimos la encuesta en nuestra página principal la mañana del Jueves.Noventa y nueve por ciento de los votos emitidos hasta ahora indica que nuestros lectores piensan que las patentes de software siguen siendo un problema serio, incluso si la situación ha mejorado duránte los últimos años.
Hay alguna percepción de que las cosas estan mejorando, pero ¿dónde? Talvez en los EE.UU., debido a Alice. Pero ¿qué acerca de Europa? Bristows LLP se encuentra actualmente promoviéndo a la UPC (y por extensión patentes de software) y uno de sus empleados, quién habitualmente las defiende, acaba de publicar un artículo acerca del proyecto de ley de los EE.UU. Que aboga ir contra los trolles de patentes (o la sede de los juicios de patentes), en lugar de la esfera de patentes, he aquí una distracción del problema principal.who habitually defends software patents, has just published an article about the US bill which advocates going after patent trolls (or patent lawsuit venue) instead of patent scope, hence somewhat of a distraction from the core problem. Para citar una porción:

Actualmente, titular de una patente puede iniciar una acción por violación de patente en cualquier distrito donde el demandado reside o hace negocios (es decir, donde están disponibles sus productos o servicios) (véase la decisión del Circuito Federal de 1994 en Beverly Hills Fan Company v Royal Sovereign) y VE Sosteniendo v Johnson gas (Fed Cir 1990). Las reglas han hecho posible que el Distrito Este de Texas, por ejemplo, para convertirse en tan popular (para una entretenida de 11 minutos, ver de John Oliver semana pasada Noche de Patentes). El objetivo de la Ley de VENUE es limitar la capacidad de los titulares de patentes a abusivamente tienda de foro (que puede ser interpretado como detener los trolls de patentes de la focalización de jueces amigables al titular de la patente). Una legislación similar fue introducida en la Ley de Innovación (H. R. 9 – véase también aquí), pero que se ha estancado (al igual que la Ley de Patentes compañero (S.1137) antes de que el Senado). Algunos comentaristas consideran que la Ley de VENUE es un intento de obtener algún tipo de reforma de las patentes a través del Congreso número 114 antes de todo el mundo pierde interés para la elección. Por dedicarse a un solo tema, en lugar de varios, esto puede aumentar sus posibilidades de éxito.

Esto pueda obstaculizar a los trolles (no completamente detener/aplastar sus extorsiónes/chantájes), peor aun no hace nada contra la esfera de patentes. Mientras tanto, temprano hoy IAM dijo “NPE” en vez de troll de patentes (si, de nuevo) en relación con el lejano Oriente. Para citar: “En Taiwan, las compañías están observando el ambiente en los EE.UU. Tan cerca que puedan – algunos de ellos han sido objetivos frecuentes de litigación de parte de los NPEs (leáse TROLLES). Ahora hay una cauta creencia que eso ya pasó y que la continua aserción de las NPEs continuará declinando. Hay evidencia que algunas compañías Taiwanesas perciben el riesgo de moverse a Europa, con entidades de la isla aumentando sus aplicaciones por patentes Europeas por un 12 % el año pasado. Muchos otros, sin embargo toman el aproche de espera-y-ve, por lo menos por el costo considerable envuelto en las aplicaciones Europeas. Con le tratado UPC en la balanza, esa precaución es buena.
Como recordatorio, he aquí el por qué no pueden decir “troll” y en lugar dicen NPE (eleditor en jefe niega el problema ya que los trolls son sus financistas). Seguro que parece a las empresas Asiáticas también están preocupados por los trolls de patentes de los Estados Unidos. Observe la parte al final acerca de la UPC, lo que abriría Europa para una gran cantidad de litigios por parte de los trolls de patentes (incluso desde el extranjero). No parece ser una causa de alarma entre los abogados de patentes, que simplemente ganarán con ello. Steve Lundberg, un fuerte defensor de las patentes de software desde hace muchos años, está feliz de ser bendecidos por IAM (otra voz alta de los proponentes de las patentes de software, vea la columna derecha de esta nueva entrada) y ahora acícala a Schecter de IBM (ahora un agresor con las patentes de software, como varias demandas recientes muestran), que esta evidentemente satisfecho con eso. Todos los grupos de presión, grupos de expertos, los expertos de patentes, etc., que muestran sin esfuerzo su fuerte sesgo en el tema no deben ser ignorados, ya que se benefician de ello y tratan de cambiar la percepción/consenso público. IAM es pagado por los agresores y los trolls (incluso los más grandes y notorios como MOSAID); que promueve una patentes de software en el tema deste mes de la revista. Lo mismo ocurre con la EPO (véase por ejemplo la propaganda UPC en la página 4 de esta publicación EPO anunciado recientemente); ¿cuándo la EPO dejará de actuar como un grupo de presión de la UPC, lo que ha hecho durante muchos años?
Avergonzar a aquellos que promueven las patentes de software sin haber escrito una sola línea de código en toda su vida no es ser confrontaciónal o grosero. Es necesario porque hay un golpe en marcha y menos que los desarrolladores de software (no necesariamente sólo FOSS) se levánten y luchen de nuevo se tendrá que pagar el precio en el largo plazo. Su dinero fluirá a los abogados de patentes, los trolls de patentes y monopolios de software.

GNU/kWindows

Posted in GNU/Linux, Vista 10 at 7:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Article as ODF

2016-04-06

Mike Gerwitz <mtg@gnu.org>

Ha estado habiendo much charla alrededor de una combinación única: GNU—elel completamente free/libresistema operativo —y Microsoft Windows—el sistema de vigilancia másivo que NIEGA la libertad , controla al usuario. También ha habido una gran cantidad de información engañosa. Me gustaría compartir mis pensamientos.
Antes de que podamos discutir esta materia, necesitamos clarificar la terminología: Tenemos un free/libre sistema operativo llamado GNU. Usualmente, usado con la Linux kernel, y es en su conjunto llamado GNU/Linux (or GNU+Linux) sistema operativo. Pero eso no siempre fué el caso. Por ejemplo, GNU puede ejecutárse en su propia kernel (núcleo), El GNU Hurd (GNU/Hurd). Puede ser ejecutado en un sistema con una BSD kernel (e.g. GNU/kFreeBSD). Pero ahora, tenemos una situación en la que tomamos a GNU/Linux, removemos Linux, y añadimos en su lugar una Windows kernel. Esta combinación es referida como GNU/kWindows (GNU con la Windows kernel añadida).i
GNU valora las libertades del usuario. Windows hace exáctamente lo contrario.

Cuando los usuarios hablan del sistema operativo “Linux”, lo que a ellos se refiéren es a el sistema operativo GNUcon la kernel Linux añadida. Si usted esta usando el sistema operativo GNU de alguna forma, muchos de los programas con los que eres familiar en la línea de comando son GNU programas: bash, (g)awk, grep, ls, cat, bc, tr, gcc, emacs, and so on. Pero GNU es un remplazo completofree/libre Unix, n simplemente una colección de programas GNU. Linux es la kernel que apoya lo que el sistema operativo esta tratando de hacer; provee lo que las llamadas del sistema dirige a la kernel a realizar ciertas acciones, como fork nuevos procesos o asignar memoria. Esta es una distinción importante —no sólo llamar a todo este software “Linux” es incorrecto, pero desácredita al proyecto que ha creado un completo remplazo free/libre a Unix -GNU.
Este problema del nombre esta tan difundido que la mayoríá de usuarios no reconocerán lo que GNU realmente es, incluso si ellos estan usando sistem operativo GNU/Linux. Reciéntemente leí un artículo en el que se referíá a GNU Bash como “Linux’s Bash”; esto simplemente es una cachetada en la cara a todos los hackers que por más de 26 años han estado escribiéndo lo que es una de las más ampliamente usados shells en sistemas similares a Unix (incluyendo a Apple’s proprietario Mac OSX), y todas las GNU hackers.

Microsoft and Canonical aparentemente han estado trabajando juntos para escribir un subsistema que traduzca Linux system calls en algo que Windows entienda — una capa de compatibilidad. Así, software compilado para ejecutarse en un sistema con la Linux kernel trabajará en Windows a traves de una llamada de sistema traducido. Muchs artículos están llamando a esto “Linux en Windows”. !Esto es una falacia, la kernel Linux no tiene nada que ver con esto!De lo que aquí somos testigos es el sistema operativo GNUejecutándose en un kernel Windows en vez de Linux.
Esta es sin duda una ventaja técnica para Microsoft – Los usuarios de Windows quieren hacer su computación en un ambiente superior con el que pudieran estar familiarizados, el GNU/Linux u otros sistemas operativos basados en Unix, comoel Mac OS X de Apple que niega la libertad a sus usuarios. Pero pensar de esta manera pierde un concepto esencial:
Cuando los usuarios hablan de “Linux” como el nombre del sistema operativo, evitan hablar de GNU. Y al evitar mencionar a GNU, ellos también están evitando una discusión de los principios ¨core¨, básicos en los que GNU esta fundado—e principio/creencia que los usuarios merecen software que otorgue las cuatro libertades esenciales: La libertad de usar el programa con cualquier propósito; La libertad de estudiar el programa y modificarlo para adaptarlo a sus necesidades (o que alguien lo haga en su nombre); la libertad de compartir el programa con los demás; y la libertad para compartir sus cambios con los demás. Llamamos a ese software que respeta estas cuatro libertades free/libre software.
Free software es absolutamente esencial: asegura que los usuarios, quienes son los más vulnerables, estén en control de sus computación no los desarrolladores de software o corporaciones. Cualquier programa que niega los usuarios de cualquiera de suscuatro libertadesno es libre (opropietario)—eso es, software que niega las libertades. Esto significa que cualquier non-free software (software proprietario), no importa sus características o rendimiénto, será siempre inferior al software libreque realize las mismas tareas.

A no todos les gusta hablar acerca de la libertad o de lafilosofía del free sofware. Este desacuerdo resultó en lametodología de desarrollo de “open source”, lq que existe para vender los beneficios del free software a negocios evitandodiscutir estas esenciales consideraciónes idelógicas. Bajo lafilosofíá de “open source”, si un programa propietario provee mejores carácteristicas o rendimiénto, entonces seguramente debe ser “mejor”, porque ellos han sobrepasado a la metodologíá de desarrollo de “open source”; non-free software no siempre es considerado ser una cosa mala.

Así que ¿por qué los usuarios quieren usar GNU/kWindows? Bueno, probablemente por la misma razón por la que quieren herramientas de GNU en Mac OS X: quieren utilizar el software que desean utilizar, pero también quieren las ventajas técnicas de GNU que les gusten. Lo que tenemos aquí es la filosofía de”open source”, pero si el usuario realmente valora su libertad, entonces usaría un sistema operativo totalmente libre como GNU/Linux. Si un usuario está usando de Windows (es decir, antes de considerar GNU/kWindows), entonces ella ganar un poco de libertad mediante la instalación de GNU: ella tiene más programas en su sistema que respeten sus libertades, y su situación es mejor gracias a eso.

Pero ¿qué si tu ya esta usando GNU/Linux hoy? En ese caso, es un mayor downgrade/retrocesocambiárse a un sistema GNU/kWindows; al hacerlo, tu estásentregando tus libertades a Microsoft. No importa cuán brillántes características Microsoft pueda introducir a su sistema de vigilancia que niega las básicas libertades; unsistema operativo que respete tus libertadessiempre será una elección superior. Haríamos todo lo posible para disuadir a los usuarios para cambiar a un sistema GNU/kWindows por los beneficios técnicos que GNU provee.

Así que tenemos un par de diferentes problemas—algunos objetivos, otro filosóficos:

Primeramente, por favor, no se refieren a GNU/kWindows como “Linux en Windows”, o cualquier variante de lo misma; haciendo esto simplemente propaga la información errónea que sólo confunde a la situación, y al mismo tiempo desacredita los miles de hackers que trabajan en el sistema operativo GNU. También sería mejor evitar el calificativo de “Ubuntu en Windows”; no es una declaración errónea-está ejecutando la distribución Ubuntu de GNU pero se evita mencionar el Proyecto GNU. Si desea dar crédito Ubuntu por trabajar con Microsoft, por favor llamelo “Ubuntu GNU/kWindows” en lugar de “Ubuntu”. Al mencionar GNU, los usuarios podrán hacer preguntas sobre el proyecto, y pueden investigar a fondo por su cuenta. Leerán acerca de la filosofía del software libre, y empezarán a entender estos temas, temas que podrían haber sido no conscientes al empezar.
Secundariamente, cuando veas a alguien usando un sistema GNU/kWindows, cortesmente pregúntales el porque. Explicales que hay un sistema operativo mejor en existencia—el sistema operativo GNU/Linux—que no sólo provee esas carácteristicas, pero también la más importante libertad! Explicales lo que el free software es, y trata de relacionárlo a ellos, para que así entiéndan porque es importante, e incluso práctico.

Es bueno mirar a la gente beneficiándose de GNU; pero no podemos ser felices cuando está siendo vendido como medios de atracción a un contrario sistema proprietario de vigilancia, sin tanto mencionar nuestro nombre, o de lo que representamos.

iEste nombre proviene de Richard Stallman, fundador de el GNU Project.

Links 12/4/2016: MythTV 0.28 Released, ZFS Jar of Worms Opened

Posted in News Roundup at 6:28 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Desktop

  • Server

    • 5 reasons to use Docker for productivity software installation

      When Docker brought new life to Linux containers at the beginning of 2013, the technology quickly gained popularity among software developers. Today Docker has millions of container downloads, thousands of community contributors, and countless third party projects who are using it. What explains this extraordinary popularity?

  • Kernel Space

    • The linux-stable security tree project

      Hi all,

      I’d like to announce the linux-stable security tree project. The purpose
      is to create a derivative tree from the regular stable tree that would
      contain only commits that fix security vulnerabilities.

    • Linux Foundation’s Role, Combining Linux ZFS, Mint News

      Today in Linux news Richard Stallman posted a Free Software Foundation statement on ZFS in a GPL2 Linux and Software Freedom Conservancy is pleased with his conclusions. Elsewhere, Eben Moglen discussed the Linux Foundation’s role in the Linux community. Sam Varghese today said that Ubuntu may be everywhere, but Canonical is still operating in the red and Clement Lefebvre introduced some of the changes coming in Mint 18. The Fedora 24 supplemental wallpaper selection is in the voting phase and a new Pisi video has Megatotoro scratching his head.

    • How Should the Free Software Movement View the Linux Foundation?

      The opinions offered here are my own. I am not expressing the views of any SFLC clients, the Free Software Foundation, or Richard M. Stallman.

      There has been much recent controversy concerning the relationship between the Linux Foundation and “community,” or non-commercial organizations in the world of free software. I’ve been somewhat confused by the dynamics of that conversation, which has spilled out from private mailing lists into the public eye occasionally, and I have found it useful in clarifying my own views to state my thoughts on the subject, which I’ve now decided to share.

    • The mind behind Linux

      A video uploaded on Ted.com this month features a question-and-answer session with Linux creator Linus Torvalds recorded in February at TED 2016 in Vancouver.

      In the interview with TED curator Chris Anderson, Torvalds talked openly about the personality traits that prompted his unique philosophy of work, engineering and life.

      Some highlights from the chat, edited for brevity:

    • Linus Torvalds: The mind behind Linux

      Linus Torvalds transformed technology twice — first with the Linux kernel, which helps power the Internet, and again with Git, the source code management system used by developers worldwide. In a rare interview with TED Curator Chris Anderson, Torvalds discusses with remarkable openness the personality traits that prompted his unique philosophy of work, engineering and life. “I am not a visionary, I’m an engineer,” Torvalds says. “I’m perfectly happy with all the people who are walking around and just staring at the clouds … but I’m looking at the ground, and I want to fix the pothole that’s right in front of me before I fall in.”

    • Linus hasn’t given up on the year of the Linux desktop

      Much has been written, over and over again, about the fabled (and some would say mythic) year of the Linux desktop. But Linux creator Linus Torvalds has not given up on the idea. Linus thinks that someday Linux could come to dominate desktop computing.

    • Linux 4.6-rc3
    • Live Kernel Patching Microconference Accepted into 2016 Linux Plumbers Conference

      Live kernel patching was accepted into the Linux kernel in v4.0 in February 2015, so we can declare the 2014 LPC Live Kernel Patching Microconference to have been a roaring success! However, as was noted at the time, this is just the beginning of the real work. In short, the v4.0 work makes live kernel patching possible, but more work is required to make it more reliable and more routine.

      Additional issues include stacktrace reliability, patch-safety criteria for kernel threads, thread consistency models, porting to non-x86 architectures, handling of loadable modules, compiler optimizations, userspace tooling, patching of data, automated regression testing, and patch-creation guidelines.

    • Linux-Stable-Security Kernel Tree Announced

      Sasha Levin of Oracle has announced the formation of the Linux-Stable Security Tree.

      This new tree will be based off the mainline Linux stable tree but focus on just carrying fixes for security vulnerabilities. Other changes normally found in stable Linux point releases wouldn’t be integrated.

    • Graphics Stack

      • Intel Has New DRM Linux Driver Code Ready For Testing: More Atomic Goodness

        Daniel Vetter of Intel OTC has sent out an announcement about another round of i915 DRM kernel driver code that’s ready for testing by developers and the community.

        The latest drm-intel-testing work continues with more atomic-related driver work. One of the more prominent atomic changes in this latest Git branch is making the Intel color manager support fully atomic. Some race conditions were also fixed up in their driver, many small improvements to the GEM memory management code, GuC firmware loading fixes, PLL clean-ups for Cherryview and Valleyview, reworked DisplayPort detection, and various other improvements.

    • Benchmarks

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

  • Distributions

    • A Pisi Video!

      This is an animated short video featuring some known characters from Pisi Linux.

    • Reviews

      • Isolating processes with Qubes OS 3.1

        There are several approaches to computer security. One method is to try to make every component work as correctly and error-free as possible. This is called security through correctness. Another approach is called security by obscurity and it involves hiding secrets or flaws. A third approach to security is isolation, which is sometimes called security by compartmentalization. This third method keeps important pieces separate so if one component is compromised, the other components can continue to work, unaffected.

        These different styles of security might make more sense if we look at an example from the non-digital world. Imagine we have some valuables we want to keep locked away and we decide to buy a safe to store our precious documents, jewels and money. If we buy a high quality safe that is hard to force open, that is security through correctness. If we hide our safe behind a picture or in a secret room, that is security through obscurity. Buying two safes and placing half of our valuables in each so if one is robbed then we still have half of our items is an example of security by compartmentalization.

    • New Releases

      • HandyLinux 2.4 Is Based on Debian GNU/Linux 8.4, Iceweasel Replaced with Firefox

        The developers of the Debian-based HandyLinux distribution have announced the immediate availability for download of HandyLinux 2.4, a maintenance release in the 2.x stable series of the OS.

        HandyLinux 2.4 comes only ten days after the release of the Debian GNU/Linux 8.4 “Jessie” operating system, on which the French distro is now based, offering users new installation mediums that include the latest security patches and software updates pushed upstream.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat, QCT Partner On OpenStack Hardware System

        Quanta Cloud Technology is teaming with Red Hat to produce a ready-to-plug-in package of OpenStack, Linux, and Ceph storage loaded on Quanta servers, storage, and switches.

      • Red Hat Linux Developer Suite

        Red Hat Enterprise Linux is now available for free to developers who are members of the Red Hat Developers Program.

        The idea is to make it easier for developers to carry out serious Linux development for Enterprise Linux. The new non-production developer subscription is unsupported, but gives you a strong development environment for programming enterprise applications.

        When you register for the subscription, you get Red Hat Enterprise Linux (as part of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Developer Suite) along with the entire Red Hat JBoss Middleware portfolio and the Red Hat Container Development Kit (CDK). You also get a number of open source compilers, dynamic languages, development tools, databases, web servers and other middleware. Available software is grouped into software repositories that are used to segregate packages by type, source, or support life cycle.

      • Finance

      • Fedora

        • Moving Down the Hall

          I’m moving! Today is my first day on the Release Engineering Development team (RED team) of the PnT DevOps organization at Red Hat. After I get my bearings, I’ll be working on “Factory 2.0″ which, while still quite a nebulous and undefined thing, boils down to focusing on the next-generation build and release pipeline for RHEL and other Red Hat products. What’s cool about this is that, since it’s future-facing work, I get to focus on how to knit the effort with what’s been going on in Fedora releng. We’ll have lots to talk about and hack on, I’m sure.

        • Fedora 24 Wallpapers: Vote now!

          Nearly two months ago, the submission phase for the Fedora 24 Supplemental Wallpapers were opened. Now, the submission phase is closed and the voting phase is now open. If you have a FAS account and are CLA+1 status, you can cast your vote in Nuancier.

        • Fedora nightly image finder

          Finding nightly Fedora builds has always been a bit of a pain. For quite a while we had this page, which just linked to a couple of canned Koji searches. It kinda worked, but it was terribly slow and the results weren’t the nicest thing to look at; it also couldn’t find you installer images, as they don’t come out of Koji. It doesn’t work any more, as the Koji tasks it searches for are no longer correct; it could easily be ‘fixed’ but it’d still be a bad experience.

        • BrickHack 2016 and Fedora: Event Report

          As an event sponsor, the Fedora Ambassadors of North America had a table for the event. The Ambassadors offered mentorship and assistance to BrickHack 2016 programmers, gave away some free Fedora swag, and offered an introduction to Linux, open source, and the community. This report is a recollection of some highlights from the event and also focuses on the impact we made as an event sponsor.

    • Debian Family

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

  • The Best Things in Life are Free

    On the other hand, software is still scarce — which is a problem because without software a computer is basically a paper weight. Yes, distributing software is nearly costless. However unlike hardware which involves costly manufacturing processes, the cost of making software consists almost completely of finding intelligent people to write it — and intelligent people are just as scarce as they’ve always been. Luckily, there’s a solution to this dilemma: open source. This idea isn’t new, but I think it’s really important so I wanted to write about it.

    Open source software is software that is distributed freely. Now, this may sound like a terrible idea. People are altruistic — but only to a certain point. Why would people contribute to software for no reward? The key is that open source software is not only free, the process behind making it is transparent. You can change it. Open source projects start when people share code they wrote for their individual needs. Many times making this software publicly available is more cost effective than selling it. Since the source code is publically available, people can adapt the code, and fix problems as they arise.

  • Chatty Puppets on Atlassian HipChat

    HipChat is a team communications platform that provides ‘persistent’ one-on-one chat, group chat, video chat, file sharing and integrations.

  • Open Source Audio Video Apps: 36 Top Apps

    In the media-saturated world we live in, having an array of top-notch audio-video tools really comes in handy. Trim a file, edit a video, maximize your audio – we all need to feed our social media streams, and companies always need audio-video content to best communicate with users.

    This list of audio video apps is potentially a major cost saver. The following open source apps replace expensive commercial AV apps, often with very similar functionality.

    If you have addition AV apps you’d like to recommend, please use the Comments section below. Happy downloading!

  • Using behavioral patterns to build awesome communities

    Human beings are complicated animals. We are packed with ambitions, fears, desires, anxieties, and other nuggets of the human condition. Of course, the extent and manifestation of these different elements varies from person to person, across cultures, and in different environments.

    This makes building human systems—such as communities or companies—complicated. To some (typically bureaucrats), it can be tempting to ignore what makes us human and instead create seemingly logical processes, despite the processes not matching our human attributes well, and then convince people to use them. If you want to build engaging communities, don’t try to model people in spreadsheets; rarely does it work well.

  • Is your open team fully awesome, or too cool for school?

  • Events

    • 2016 EuroLLVM Videos Now Available
    • Community Leadership Summit 2016

      On 14th – 15th May 2016 in Austin, Texas the Community Leadership Summit 2016 will be taking place. For the 8th year now, community leaders and managers from a range of different industries, professions, and backgrounds will meet together to share ideas and best practice. See our incredible registered attendee list that is shaping up for this year’s event.

      This year we also have many incredible keynotes that will cover topics such as building developer communities, tackling imposter syndrome, gamification, governance, and more. Of course CLS will incorporate the popular unconference format where the audience determine the sessions in the schedule.

    • Chariot Solutions Partners with Open Source Hazelcast

      The software development specialist Chariot adds open source Hazelcast 3.6 to its enterprise portfolio as the two companies announce partnership at the Philly ETE 2016 conference.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla Firefox 45.0.2 Released for Linux, Windows & Mac OS X with More Bugfixes

        Today, April 11, 2016, Mozilla has announced the general availability of the second point release of the Mozilla Firefox 45.0 web browser for all supported platforms, including GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows.

      • Welcome Sean White, Vice President of Technology Strategy

        Dr. Sean White joins the Mozilla leadership team this week as a Vice President of Technology Strategy.

      • firefox vs rthreads

        Firefox is too slow. OpenBSD is too slow. The combination is too too slow. This situation was known for some time, but resolution was also slow for quite some reasons.

        Many Firefox on OpenBSD users, particularly developers, only use OpenBSD so the extent of the performance gap between platforms went unnoticed. Web browsing would grow ever slower, but the only page that matters would continue to load as quickly as ever, once the slumbering lizard had awoken. Clearly the reason it takes me thirty seconds to view a single tweet was idiot kids and their infernal javascript frameworks.

  • SaaS/Back End

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • 16 Most Used Microsoft Office Alternatives for Linux

      Productivity on any operating system is without doubt one of the most important things that can make or break a platform however, execution is the key – if done right, enterprise adaptation would be shortly underway.

      Linux today is most certainly an ultimate viable alternative to Windows – both in the general consumer and business market.

  • BSD

    • FreeBsd Vs OpenBsd

      There are a number of Unix-like operating systems based on or descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) series of Unix variants. The three most notable descendants in current use are FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD, which are all derived from 386BSD and 4.4BSD-Lite, by various routes. Both NetBSD and FreeBSD started life in 1993, initially derived from 386BSD, but in 1994 migrating to a 4.4BSD-Lite code base. OpenBSD was forked in 1995 from NetBSD. Other notable derivatives include DragonFly BSD, which was forked from FreeBSD 4.8, and Apple Inc.’s iOS and OS X, with its Darwin base including a large amount of code derived from FreeBSD.

    • Linux Top 3: CoreOS 1010.1.0, FreeBSD and PC-BSD 10.3

      Yes of course, we *know* that FreeBSD isn’t Linux, but aside from using a different kernel (a big aside of course), there are a lot of common areas between modern BSD and Linux.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Public Services/Government

    • White House misses big opportunity with open source push

      To me — as a lawyer, a software developer, and a former government technologist — the question of open source versus closed source when it comes to government software shouldn’t even be a question. With a few obvious exceptions for things like national or operational security, if taxpayers fund the creation of software, they should have the right to access that software. This is increasingly true as government agencies automate the traditionally human-based process they use to regulate industry and deliver citizen services each day. When such processes begin to be shielded behind commercial copyright or self-induced bureaucratic necessity, our government quickly becomes a black box.

    • Storming the government castle

      Open source software seems like a perfect fit for government IT projects. Developers can take advantage of existing code bases and, it’s hoped, mold that code to their needs quickly and at less cost than developing code from scratch. Over the last few years, governments in the U.S. and abroad have been more closely embracing open source. However, agencies at all levels of U.S. government are still wary of open source and can be reluctant to adopt it. It’s still not easy for government projects to use open source or for developers employed in the public sector to contribute their work to open source project.

    • Urgent – Help until 10 April to influence how 750 millions will be spent

      We were notified of a very interesting consultation by the European Commission. The European Commission is about to allocate 750 million Euro over the next years on the “future internet”, but the really important subjects (like: everything we learned from Edward Snowden) are not on their radar – yet.

      However, if we bundle our efforts that is something that is definitely within reach. At the moment we are told there are only a couple of dozens of submissions from mostly the usual suspects, so your response would (at least on paper) count for influencing a few million Euro of this budget. It really makes a difference if you submit something, even if it is really short.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • A French paperback edition of the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig is now available

      I’m happy to report that the French paperback edition of my project to translate the Free Culture book by Lawrence Lessig is now available for sale on Lulu.com. Once I have formally verified my proof reading copy, which should be in the mail, the paperback edition should be available in book stores like Amazon and Barnes & Noble too.

      This French edition, Culture Libre, is the work of the dblatex developer Benoît Guillon, who created the PO file from the initial translation available from the Wikilivres wiki pages and completed and corrected the translation to match the original docbook edition my project is using, as well as coordinated the proof reading of the final result. I believe the end result look great, but I am biased and do not read French. In addition to the paperback edition, the book is available in PDF, EPUB and Mobi format from the github project page linked to above.

    • Open Data

      • Open Government integral part of Smart Cities

        Open Government initiatives should be an integral part of Smart Sustainable Cities. They ensure access to government data, stimulate citizen participation, and facilitate innovation. This is one of the recommendations made in the ‘Smart Sustainable Cities — Reconnaissance Study’ published last month by the Operating Unit on Policy-Driven Electronic Governance at United Nations University (UNU-EGOV).

      • Updated Austrian Manual for Data Managers available

        Last month, Austria published an updated ‘Handbuch für Dateneinsteller’ (Manual for Data Managers). It provides the country’s public administration with all the information needed by agencies to get started using the national Open Government Data portal www.data.gv.at.

        The manual explains the OGD Austria initiative, the open data principles, the why, how, and by whom of publishing open data, followed by all the legal, procedural, organisational and technical details.

        The ‘Handbuch für Dateneinsteller’ is written in German and is freely available from the OGD Austria website.

  • Programming/Development

    • Give your Git Repository an Open Source Web Interface

      Git is a very popular open source version control system. Many developers use Git on a desktop machine and push their updates to a central server running on a service like GitHub or GitLab. Although such services are great, this may lead some to think of Git as a client-server model with local checkout of code and updates that are always being pushed back to the single central server.

    • pypy: suprisingly good

      That’s better than I expected for the JIT technology.

Leftovers

  • Security

  • Defence/Aggression

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Obama: The Word ‘Classified’ Means Whatever We Need It To Mean

      How do we know whether information is classified? Well, because the government tells us it is. But what does that mean? It turns out it means whatever the government wants it to mean, subject to time, place, personnel involved, etc.

      Classified material handed over to movie producers by Leon Panetta? Probably not a big deal. Classified material handed over to journalists by whistleblowers? That’s a prosecutin’.

      No one explains this slippery approach to classification better than President Obama, who was gamely trying to answer questions about an ongoing investigation (Hillary Clinton and her famous emails) during an interview with Fox News.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • From DC’s Deficit Panic to Flint’s Poisoned Water

      We know that the Washington Post editors really hate Bernie Sanders and rarely miss an opportunity to show it. Dana Milbank got in the act big time today as he once again denounced Sanders (along with Donald Trump and Ted Cruz) in his column.

    • Water Woes Divide California into Haves, Have Nots

      People have long predicted that California could eventually collapse into the ocean following a mega earthquake. Now, an eerily similar true-life scenario is playing out — but it’s thanks to the weather.

      The Gold Rush State has sunk more than 45 feet since 1935 – something the U.S. government calls the “largest human alteration of the earth’s surface.” But earthquakes aren’t the cause. It’s happening because of excessive groundwater mining brought on by drought, and geologists say all the rain in the world won’t reverse cave-ins of dirt and rock in underground aquifers.

    • National Weather Service will stop using all caps in its forecasts

      New forecast software is allowing the agency to break out of the days when weather reports were sent by “the wire” over teleprinters, which were basically typewriters hooked up to telephone lines. Teleprinters only allowed the use of upper case letters, and while the hardware and software used for weather forecasting has advanced over the last century, this holdover was carried into modern times since some customers still used the old equipment.

  • Finance

    • Rothschild says Ukraine president’s trust up to international standards

      The wealth management arm of Rothschild Group set up a trust it handles for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in line with international standards for the treatment of assets of politicians in office, the company said on Thursday.

      Poroshenko has had to defend himself repeatedly against accusations he tried to evade tax after the “Panama Papers” data leak on Sunday showed he had placed his Roshen confectionary business assets in an offshore account.

      Rothschild said Poroshenko had appointed it as a trustee of a blind trust to hold his shares in Roshen.

      “The trust has been modelled on international standards for politicians requiring trusts to hold their assets while they are in office,” it said in emailed comments.

    • Dennis Skinner: Why I called the Prime Minister ‘Dodgy Dave’ – and would do it again

      I, like most people in the country, view tax havens as dodgy.

      Cameron looked after himself by maxing out the taxpayers’ credit card to pay a mortgage on expenses in Oxfordshire and even claimed to cut the wisteria off his chimney.

      So I, like most people in the country, think it dodgy he now earns a small fortune renting out a house in Notting Hill while living in Downing Street and Chequers.

    • All PFI Contracts Should Be Cancelled and the Assets Nationalised

      The Private Finance Initiative was always a scam. It was yet another way to divert money from ordinary tax-payers to the super rich. Instead of schools and hospitals being built and paid for by the taxpayer, they were built and paid for by the bankers, hedge fund managers and other “financial services” sharks, giving state guaranteed returns averaging 7% from the taxpayer, when we now have negative interest rates. It is such a massive scam that every man, woman and child in the UK owes £3,000 to PFI financiers. Like so many far right Tory ideas, its most fervent practitioners were Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.

    • Poor People Should Just Go Die

      Imagine that — in one of the world’s richest countries, people die simply because we can’t find a way to provide them good healthcare as does the rest of the civilized world.

    • Starvation in Australia: Utopia’s dirty secret

      I had a call from Rosalie Kunoth-Monks the other day. Rosalie is an elder of the Arrernte-Alyawarra people, who lives in Utopia, a vast and remote region in the “red heart” of Australia. The nearest town is Alice Springs, more than 200 miles across an ancient landscape of spinifex and swirling skeins of red dust. The first Europeans who came here, perhaps demented by the heat, imagined a white utopia that was not theirs to imagine; for this is a sacred place, the homeland of the oldest, most continuous human presence on earth.

      Rosalie was distressed, defiant and eloquent. Her distinction as one unafraid to speak up in a society so often deaf to the cries and anguish of its first people, its singular uniqueness, is well earned. She appears in my 2013 film, Utopia, with a searing description of a discarded people: “We are not wanted in our own country.” She has described the legacies of a genocide: a word political Australia loathes and fears.

    • Menace To Tax Dodgers David Cameron Has His Own Tax Dodging Exposed By The Panama Leaks

      One of the more darkly entertaining aspects of the massive Panama Leaks has been watching exposed politicians attempting to reconcile past promises to get tougher on financial wrongdoers with their own tax-dodging efforts.

      UK Prime Minister David Cameron has spent several years in crackdown mode, as the New York Times notes. Going all the way back to 2012, Cameron has made a habit of promising better regulation, stricter enforcement and harsher penalties for tax-dodging corporations while selling himself to voters and small businesses. He also singled out individuals, like comedian Jimmy Carr, for his use of “dodgy tax-avoiding schemes.” He also promised to close a loophole that allowed wealthy UK residents to avoid paying taxes and suggested those that did should face prison time.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • The Empire Strikes Back

      Several people have argued with my reference to “corporate media”, as the consortium includes state organisations such as the BBC. My response to that is that the BBC has become in the last few years a mouthpiece for state propaganda with no effective independence of government, and that the politicians are very much in the pocket of the corporations who fund them. The BBC therefore promotes corporate interests just as much as those outlets directly owned by corporate interests. It is simply a question of direct or indirect control.

    • The GOP’s worst kept secret: More people voting hurts Republicans — so they’re openly trying to prevent it

      By now it should be more than obvious. Republicans continue to push for new voter ID laws, which, of course, they publicly insist are all about weeding out rampant voter fraud, even though the likelihood of significant voter is virtually nil.

      Over the last four years, however, one GOP operative after another has proved the adage that you can’t keep a secret among a large group of people. Indeed, they continue to blab about the true motive behind voter ID laws — that it’s all about disenfranchising Democratic voters and keeping turnout low. The fewer Democratic voters, and, yes, the lower the overall turnout, the better Republicans fare.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Aggies preform highly in NSA Codebreaker Challenge [Ed: puff piece/marketing]

      Cybersecurity is one of this century’s newest and most complex challenges. Data is becoming more and more difficult to protect, but an National Security Administration challenge aims to train the next generation of computer engineers to be able to handle the task.

      The NSA Codebreaker challenge gave students around the country a chance to put their coding skills to use in a difficult context with a variety of interesting applications.

    • US Gov’t Wants to Use NSA Spy Data to Prosecute Citizens – Advocacy Group

      The US government is developing a policy that would allow the Justice Department to prosecute criminals based on evidence acquired secretly by the National Security Agency (NSA), Human Rights Watch said in a press release.

    • WATCH: Exclusive Interview by Glenn Greenwald with Former Brazilian President Lula da Silva
    • Is The Government Getting Stingier With Cyber Threat Data?

      In late February, the University of California, Berkeley, announced a hack into a school financial system that compromised the Social Security or bank account numbers of about 80,000 students, alumni and vendors.

      For more than two years, suspected Chinese and other nation-state hackers nestled inside computers at Penn State’s engineering school, which happens to develop sensitive technology for the Navy, Bloomberg reported in May 2015.

    • University Says Government’s Pretty Terrible At Sharing Cyberthreat Information

      Multiple government agencies have gone all-in on cybersecurity. CISA was pushed through late last year — dumped into the back pages of a “must pass” omnibus spending bill. Just like that, the government expanded its surveillance power and cleared its cyberthreat inboxes to make way for all the information non-governmental entities might want to share with it. It promised to share right back — making this all equitable — but no one really believed the government would give as much as it would take.

    • Congress’s New Encryption Bill Just Leaked, And It’s As Bad As Experts Imagined

      In the aftermath of Apple and the FBI’s high-profile battle over an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooter suspects, observers on Capitol Hill have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of new Congressional bill that would force tech companies to provide assistance to police in accessing their customers’ data, even if it means building software tools to circumvent their own security measures.

    • Burr And Feinstein Plan One Sided Briefing For Law Enforcement To Bitch About ‘Going Dark’

      With the world mocking the sheer ignorance of their anti-encryption bill, Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein are doubling down by planning a staff “briefing” on the issue of “going dark” with a panel that is made up entirely of law enforcement folks. As far as we can tell, it hasn’t been announced publicly, but an emailed announcement was forwarded to us, in which they announce the “briefing” (notably not a “hearing”) on “barriers to law enforcement’s ability to lawfully access the electronic evidence they need to identify suspects, solve crimes, exonerate the innocent and protect communities from further crime.” The idea here is to convince others in Congress to support their ridiculous bill by gathering a bunch of staffers and scaring them with bogeyman stories of “encryption caused a crime wave!” As such, it’s no surprise that the panelists aren’t just weighted heavily in one direction, they’re practically flipping the boat. Everyone on the panel comes from the same perspective, and will lay out of the argument for “encryption bad!”

    • The right to delete your own data

      We have more protection for your credit card data than the information someone can use to set up a fake credit card in your name.

      If you do anything online, your data is at risk. Always. Every time you open an account somewhere, you provide a bunch of personal information. Some sites don’t ask for much more than an email address and a password. Other sites require more data about you. And other sites don’t require many details to get started, but you add more anyway.

    • MIT Tech Review Tries To Blame Apple Encryption For Wrongful Arrest
    • FBI, DEA Taking Two Different Approaches To Pending All Writs Orders Directed At Apple

      Some of the other iPhones the FBI tried to pretend weren’t going to be the beneficiaries of a precedential All Writs order are apparently not even the beneficiaries of the agency’s Break Into an iPhone Using This One Simple Trick! anticlimax in the San Bernardino case.

      Director James Comey noted there were still more windmills to tilt at after discovering the still-secret exploit only works on a smallish subset of Apple’s offerings. In two other cases, the agency has explored its available options. In one case in Massachusetts, it appears to be on the verge of abandoning its quest to force Apple to break into a phone for it, as Motherboard reports.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Sheriff And Deputy Somehow Manage To Screw Up Forfeiture Badly Enough To Be Indicted On Extortion Charges

      The situation is not unlike hundreds of others that have occurred over the years. Colbert and Gragg stopped a motorist, found cash and drug paraphernalia, seized the cash and then proceeded to not file criminal charges against the driver.

    • Grand jury indicts Wagoner County sheriff, calls for his removal

      Indicted Wagoner County Sheriff Bob Colbert will fight an accusation that he took a $10,000 bribe after a traffic stop, his attorneys said Thursday.

      “This money was earmarked for fighting drug trafficking to help protect the citizens,” his attorney, Michon Hughes, said. “The accusations remain politically motivated. We are so sad for the sheriff.”

      The state’s multicounty grand jury on Thursday indicted Colbert, 60, and Capt. Jeff Gragg, 48, on three felony counts. The grand jury also called for Colbert’s immediate suspension and eventual removal from public office on misconduct grounds.

    • Supreme Court Says Government Can’t Take Your Money And Lock You Out Of Your Choice In Representation

      This decision was handed down by the Supreme Court more than a week ago, but it’s worth reporting. Late last year, the Court decided to take a look at an issue related to asset forfeiture and the implications it has for the Sixth Amendment.

      In this case, the defendant, Sila Luis, argued that the government’s seizure of her assets — pre-conviction — denied her the right to defend herself fully against its charges. She could still use an attorney, but it would have to be one appointed to her or one willing to work for deferred compensation (in the hopes that assets would eventually be returned).

      The problem here isn’t a small one. The government has the power to seize assets pre-conviction using nothing more than a grand jury’s indictment as the basis. This is done to provide some sort of assurance that the accused can compensate those wronged (as well as pay any fines, fees, etc. associated with the conviction) when the trial is concluded.

    • A Pirate’s First Month in Government

      In the mean time, tomorrow I am due to give a talk at Bath University on all things Pirate Party UK and how our first “Pirate in Power” is doing.

      All in all, I’d say we Pirates have had a pretty successful month. We’re already pushed back against the AMs bad call on the environment and immediately represented the constituents while making connections with the investing parties, unions and charites.

    • Some of Globe’s ‘Predictions’ for Trump’s America Have Already Come True

      On Sunday, the Boston Globe published a mock front page, filled with ominous headlines and half-joking prognostications, to “warn” the GOP against nominating Donald Trump. A accompanying editorial proclaimed that Trump’s “vision for the future of our nation is as deeply disturbing as it is profoundly un-American.”

      But what’s strange about this “satire” is how most of the things it’s warning about are already underway, or have long existed. Indeed, Trump’s vision isn’t un-American; it’s America on steroids.

    • Leaflets calling for Ahmadi Muslims to be killed if they do not convert found in south London mosque

      Leaflets calling for the killing of members of the Ahmadi sect of Islam have been found in a south London mosque.

      A pile of the flyers, which were found in Stockwell Green Mosque, seem to endorse the killing of Ahmadis if they do not convert to mainstream Islam.

      It has been speculated that they were printed by Khatme Naubwwat – a group which says on its official website that its “sole aim has been and is to unite all the Muslims of the world to safeguard the sanctity of Prophethood and the finality of Prophethood and to refute the repudiators of the belief in the finality of Prophethood of the Holy Prophet Hazrat Muhammad”.

    • Cybersecurity Expert Caught in FBI Mass Hack Gets Two Days Jail Time

      The Department of Justice has charged at least 137 people in the US with child pornography related crimes, after the FBI used a hacking tool to identify visitors of a large site on the so-called dark web. Many of those people are facing years in prison.

      One person caught has avoided any serious jail time altogether though: Brian Haller, a former cybersecurity employee at Booz Allen Hamilton who himself has ties to the government. Haller was sentenced on Friday to time served—two days and one night, according to court documents and local media reports.

      Haller pleaded guilty to one count of possession of child pornography, court documents state. Haller was also sentenced to 10 years of supervised release, in which his computer will undergo constant monitoring (except devices that are used as part of his employment), and he was ordered to pay a fine of $1,000.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Comcast doesn’t like its customers using their own routers, and it’s fighting back

      It’s rare that you hear a positive story about the business practices of American mass media corporation Comcast, and the latest news item doing the rounds doesn’t break from that tradition. Customers are reporting that the company is injecting its own ads into their Web browsers.

      On the surface, this might seem like just another addition to the list of frustrations Comcast users are expected to endure on a daily basis. However, the product being advertised and the strategy underpinning this campaign are noxious enough to set this apart from the now-standard tales of the company’s disregard for its customers.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Trademarks

      • Dov Seidman Now Suing His Agent Over The Use Of The Word ‘How’ By Third Party Ad Agency

        You may recall a story from a few years back involving self-proclaimed “corporate virtue advisor” Dov Seidman and his quest to sue Chobani for using the phrase “How food is made matters” and the social media hashtag #howmatters. Seidman’s problem with all of this? He had a trademark registered for the word “how.” Yeah, seriously. Seidman claimed that his super-awesome transformational use of “how” as a noun instead of a verb had been trademarked and that this somehow meant that a company that sells yogurt couldn’t use the word in any way similar.

      • USPTO proposes first TTAB changes for nine years

        The USPTO has suggested 29 pages-worth of changes to Trademark Trial and Appeal Board practice, including to electronic filing, service and electronic communication, streamlining discovery and pre-trial procedures, and making trials more efficient.

    • Copyrights

      • MPA: We’ve Reached a Turning Point on Piracy

        The president of the MPAA’s European operation says he believes a turning point has been reached on piracy, with service providers and search engines beginning to understand they all have a role to play. However, it’s also clear that Hollywood is fearful of opening up content across Europe, which in itself could contribute to piracy.

      • U.S. ISPs Refuse to Disconnect Persistent Pirates

        The U.S. broadband association USTelecom, a trade association representing many ISPs, is taking a stand against abusive takedown notices and a recent push to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers. They argue that ISPs are not required to pass on takedown notices and stress that their subscribers shouldn’t lose Internet access based solely on copyright holder complaints.

      • Appeals Court Says Google Must Take Further Abuse From AG Jim Hood Before It Can Challenge Hood’s Abusive Behavior

        Towards the end of 2014, Google filed for an injunction against Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, whose close ties with the MPAA had led to a sustained campaign of harassment over Google’s supposed lack of interest in policing the entire internet for infringing material.

        Early in 2015, the district court granted Google’s requested injunction against Hood’s 79-page subpoena, which the court noted was a “burdensome fishing expedition” that went beyond the bounds of what a state AG could actually demand. Not only that, but the court noted that many of Hood’s actions were blocked by Section 230 of the CDA because the content in question had been uploaded by third parties.

        Unfortunately for Google, the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court has reversed the lower court’s decision and vacated the injunction. It’s being portrayed as a victory for the MPAA and its kept man, Jim Hood, but those actually reading the decision will find the reversal is just procedural. TL; DR: Google must face additional legal harassment from Jim Hood before it can challenge said legal harassment in a federal court.

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