04.30.10
Posted in Apple, Asia, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Google, Security at 6:22 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
A bit of a stretch from AndroidGuys, but an interesting analogy nonetheless
Andy Rubin, photo by Yoichiro Akiyama (Tokyo, Japan)
Summary: Apple is going too far in its fight against fair competition and freedom, so more people and organisations begin to publicly denounce Apple
SOMETIMES, when a company feels invincible, Hubris takes over. Apple’s legal case against Android/Linux is yet another sign that Apple has given up on being reasonable. Apple has become a rather blatantly freedom-hostile company which is now even threatening Ogg. In addition, Apple has returned to threatening bloggers whose only sin is that they derailed Apple’s hype machine.
CNET has some more updates about a blogger’s case:
• Journalist shield law may not halt iPhone probe
• Prosecutors defend Gizmodo search in iPhone probe
Stephen Wagstaffe, chief deputy district attorney, told CNET on Tuesday evening that prosecutors had considered whether reporter shield laws applied to the search and seizure aimed at the gadget blog–and decided to proceed after carefully reviewing the rules.
“My prosecutor who is handling it considered this issue right off the bat when it was being brought into him and had some good reasons why he and the judge felt the warrant was properly issued,” Wagstaffe said.
Not only the prosecutors defend Gizmodo; the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) has come up with yet another post on the subject:
Last week’s police raid on Gizmodo blogger Jason Chen’s house, in response to a request from Apple Inc., has led many to wonder why government resources are being spent on a spat between Apple and Gizmodo.
But here at EFF, we are also wondering if we’ve just seen the future of copyright enforcement. Although the Gizmodo seizure doesn’t appear to be rooted in copyright, having cops kicking in doors over what seems like a private dispute reminded us of recent efforts by the big content industries to get law enforcement to go after “copyright thieves.”
We also wrote about this Gizmodo story in posts such as:
According to this report, Android’s founder/leader “likens Apple to North Korea”:
The NY Times has a great little interview with Google VP Andy Rubin where he talks about Android’s future among other things. When asked his thoughts on the recent Steve Jobs comments about Android offering porn, Andy says he doesn’t quite get where Jobs was coming from. “I don’t really have a rationale for that,” he said. “It’s a different style of interacting with the public and the media.”
Does that make Steve Jobs and Kim Il-sung long-lost twins? Probably not, but anyway, Rubin’s words are taken slightly out of context.
We covered this particular incident in [1, 2]. In the South African press, a journalist now labels Apple “a threat to innovation and freedom.”
Things need to change and Apple needs to be seen for what it really is: a threat to innovation and freedom.
For as long as anyone can remember Microsoft has been seen as the primary enemy of free and open source software (FOSS). Free software advocates over the years have held Microsoft up as the pre-eminent example of how software should not be produced and distributed; an example of how they did not want it to be.
It wasn’t without good reason that Microsoft was seen as enemy number 1. The company has done everything in its power over the years to undermine Linux and free software. CEO Steve Ballmer has even gone so far as to label free software anti-American and he never misses an opportunity to take a swipe at Linux.
[...]
There was a time when Microsoft was seen as the enemy of software freedom and Apple, by virtue of being seen as the “underdog”, was given far more leniency. Things need to change and Apple needs to be seen for what it really is: a threat to innovation and freedom.
Apple will probably receive increased attention from Techrights simply because the company is detrimental to technology (for instance, it prevents rivals from implementing particular features, due to patents) and careless when it comes to people’s freedoms and rights.
One particularly amusing item that we found in yesterday’s news is McAfee’s attempt to sell “anti-malware” software for Android using snake oil marketing. It’s a tad insulting because McAfee is hostile towards the GPL (or Free software in general) and it breaks operating systems rather than secure them. Android users don’t need McAfee. █
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Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Ubuntu, Windows at 3:56 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Reminder of Mono’s promotion of proprietary software and attempts at Android inclusion; Klausner takes his trolling tour to HTC
UBUNTU 10.04 has been out for about a day now and reviews of this GNU/Linux distribution have been mostly positive so far. For those who wish to keep Mono out of it, there are new instructions too.
Over at Novell’s de Icaza’s blog, it’s all about Microsoft and Apple this week. This Microsoft MVP announced the use of “Mono’s C# Compiler as a Service on Windows.”
It’s great, isn’t it?
Mono is enriching Windows. That’s partly what it’s intended to achieve [1, 2]. With MonoTouch, which Apple is now blocking [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8], Mono also promotes .NET, but Apple won’t let it be. Novell’s de Icaza writes about that very same issue a little more (no change in policy at Apple) and The Source has posted this strongly-worded response:
That’s how I feel about Mono: don’t give me that shit about Microsoft being selective in enforcing ECMA or non-ECMA coverved parts. Or that as long I get the software from a pre-approved source I’m covered by a “covenant”, as long as I am careful to stay within the lines of the covenant of course.
The bottom line is you have to be insanse to risk large amounts of time and effort that Microsoft won’t choose to enforce its “IP” if your project competes with them. No sane developer would voluntarily add risk to an already risky proposition if they can at all avoid it.
The FSF has already explained why C# is not safe. Microsoft’s patent racket is reaching Android and it doesn’t help that Novell pushes to include C# in Android [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9].
As we mentioned in previous coverage about Microsoft vs Android, there seems to have been some connection between Apple and Microsoft all along. They do compete against one another, but they also share a common enemy that they see in Free/libre software. The big funders of the world’s biggest patent troll are Microsoft, Apple, and Bill Gates (who loves patents in almost every area of life).
Dana Blankenhorn puts forth this baffling analysis:
There are three ways to speculate about Microsoft’s latest Linux patent cross-license, this time with HTC:
1. Microsoft is pushing its weight around (again).
2. Microsoft is aligning with Google against Apple.
3. Microsoft is making peace with everyone.
2 and 3 are ludicrous spin. They are probably not worth commenting on. Blankenhorn asks about Microsoft’s claims: “But what patents? How much? What’s in the fine print? This we are never told. The game has been going on for over three years now — since the first deal with Novell — and the public is still being kept in the dark.”
It all started with Novell (and Novell initiated this) and the latest victim is HTC.
The sad news is that HTC has just been sued again, possibly for its Android handsets. The plaintiff is Klausner, who is somewhat of a patent troll whom we wrote about in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] (more links in TechDirt).
Inventor Judah Klausner added HTC Corp to the list of big phone makers against which he has filed lawsuits alleging infringement of technology patents related to visual voicemail.
LG is also a victim of Klausner and LG — like HTC — pays Microsoft for Linux. Klausner is a patent troll that we wrote about many times before and it is possible that Android will suffer some more from such trolls (e.g. caller ID being removed due to intimidation from a software patent holder), including from those giants who sometimes fund them, namely Microsoft and Apple, which also sued HTC. █
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Posted in Apple, Europe, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft, Patents, Standard at 2:55 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Apple no longer a patent pussy, now a provocative tiger
Summary: Apple’s threat not only to Free/libre software but also to standards everyone can use is made more apparent because of new mail
APPLE’S legal attacks against Android and Linux go quite a way back when Apple used legal threats and sabotaged APIs to prevent access to its platform/s; Last month Apple took it up a notch and actually launched a legal attack. Hugo Roy from the FSFE has contacted Steve Jobs and received a nauseating response which he posted in full with maximal proof of authenticity
.
From: Steve Jobs
To: Hugo Roy
Subject: Re: Open letter to Steve Jobs: Thoughts on Flash
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 06:21:17 -0700
All video codecs are covered by patents. A patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other “open source” codecs now. Unfortunately, just because something is open source, it doesn’t mean or guarantee that it doesn’t infringe on others patents. An open standard is different from being royalty free or open source.
Sent from my iPad
Based on some other messages from him, it sure seems like his style (the signature for example). What Jobs has sent from his hypePad seems to suggest that he knows something that others do not. Apple already invests in the world’s biggest patent troll and Apple is a key opposer when it comes to Ogg Theora as part of HTML5. Perhaps that explains it. Apple was also accused of ‘poisoning’ HTML with some patents it refused to relinquish control of.
Florian Müller’s interpretation of the letter from Jobs (which he mailed us a short while ago) was as follows:
According to an email of today, Steve Jobs wrote that a patent pool is being assembled to go after Ogg Theory and other open-source video codecs (codec = encoder/decoder software, such as a video player program).
While I can’t ascertain the authenticity of Steve Jobs’ email published on http://hugoroy.eu/jobs-os.php , the person who published it (along with the email delivery record) is a credible source. He’s a core activist of the Free Software Foundation Europe and received Steve Jobs’ email in reply to this open letter he had published on the web and sent to him by email: http://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2010/04/open-letter-to-steve-jobs/comment-page-1/#comment-72
As the founder of the European NoSoftwarePatents campaign and author of the “FOSS Patents” blog (FOSS = Free and Open Source Software), I hope you will find my following comments useful in your analysis of this matter:
1) Steve Jobs’ email doesn’t say who the patent holders are who will contribute to the patent pool that is going to be used against those codecs. Therefore it’s unclear whether Apple would contribute any patent(s) to that pool or not.
2) In connection with Microsoft’s patent licensing deal with HTC, a maker of mobile phones running Google’s Android open source (Linux-based) operating system, I believe there hasn’t been enough attention to an important fact: While Microsoft doesn’t try to force any Android phone vendor out of the market, Apple uses some of its own patents very aggressively in order to prevent such companies as HTC from providing certain functionality at all. I’s important to see the difference from the perspective of competitors and consumers: the worst thing that can happen with patents is if vendors, especially leading ones, use their patents for exclusionary purposes.
Should Apple be a contributor to the patent pool Steve Jobs mentioned, that would be very bad news because then the objective may very well be to prevent any commercial use and distribution of Ogg Theora and other open-source video codecs.
3) Multimedia codecs are one of the worst patent minefields out there, enforcement is aggressive and there’s no such thing as a video standard 100% unencumbered by patents. There are too many software patents out there to perform reliable clearance and patent offices often grant new patents on old ideas.
I wrote about these issues 10 days ago on my FOSS Patents blog:
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2010/04/no-such-thing-as-multimedia-data-format.html
That blog post starts with the story that Google might release its VP8 codec (which it acquired as part of On2 Technologies) on open-source terms. My blog post argues that even Google with all its knowledge and resources won’t be able to guarantee that any such codec software is 100% unencumbered by patents. The post discusses the impossibility of reliable patent clerance and also talks about the aggressive enforcement of such patents (the confiscation of MP3/MP4 product samples is part of the annual routine at the CeBIT trade show).
4) This is not the first incident this month of patents threatening open source. IBM’s threat letter to TurboHercules, which I published and discussed on my blog ( http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2010/04/ibm-breaks-taboo-and-betrays-its.html ), shows that even a vendor claiming to be a friend and protector of open source (something that Apple never claimed) is determined to assert patents in order to protect a lucrative turf.
Florian’s words deserve a level of skepticism not because of IBM’s position (which we never supported anyway) but because of him standing up for the company that sidles with Microsoft. His history of fighting against software patents in Europe and also standing up against Microsoft lobbyists makes his analysis worthy of attention though.
Earlier today we showed more evidence connecting Apple’s attack on Android/Linux to Microsoft (more on that later today). Several months ago, former Microsoft evangelist Michael Gartenberg claimed that Apple was moving towards Microsoft, but Gartenberg too should be treated with extreme skepticism for reasons we gave in, e.g.:
Other Patent News from Europe
The president of the FFII, Benjamin Henrion, highlights this new page about UPLS (United Patent Litigation System). This comes from an FSF-backed project. Henrion tracks the UPLS as it may serve as a back door to software patenting in Europe (and Microsoft front groups already lobby for it). The following new ruling that he points to shows a software patent being revoked in France (around the same time Germany does the opposite). A site called Tangible IP (it’s like saying “solid solidity” about water) writes:
One of our interests on Tangible IP is the never ending story of software patents. Just to recap: the European Patent Office is currently considering the degree to which computer-implemented inventions are patentable. On the other side of the Atlantic the US Supreme Court has head arguments in the re Bilski case and we’re waiting for a decision.
[...]
The EPO Examiner initially rejected the patent on the grounds that it was not possible to determine the technical problem which was to be solved by the invention. The Applicant’s attorneys responded that the technical problem has been clearly described in the description and that this problem was solved by the claims. The EPO granted the patent.
“French Court TGI rejects search engine software patent EP1182581 based on subject matter exclusion (art52 EPC),” claims Henrion (information in French) who also found evidence [PDF] of what he claims to be “5.000.000 EUR for violation of a software patent.” Aren’t software patents already illegal in Europe? Well, there are loopholes that are being exploited. █
“[The EPO] can’t distinguish between hardware and software so the patents get issued anyway”, —Marshall Phelps, IAM: Microsoft to have 50,000 patents within two years, Phelps reveals
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Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Kernel, Microsoft, Patents at 2:30 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: What Mary-Jo Foley and Rob Enderle have to say about Microsoft’s extortion of the Linux-based Android platform
Mary-Jo Foley, who enjoys access to employees inside Microsoft, has commented on Microsoft’s extortion [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] of HTC [1, 2] and a possible connection to Apple’s case against HTC.
Well, as pointed out the other day, Microsoft was not passive and it verbally participated in Apple’s legal action against Android/Linux through HTC. This leads only to the suspicion that Apple and Microsoft may have spoken about their common enemy, Android/Linux.
Here is part of what Mary-Jo Foley wrote:
Apple sued HTC in early March for alleged IP infringement in the mobile phone space. Apple is claiming HTC is infringing 20 Apple patents related to the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware.
When Apple sued HTC, I asked Microsoft for comment, thinking Microsoft execs might be willing to come to HTC’s defense — to some extent, at least — given HTC sells Windows Mobile phones, as well as Android-based ones. But Microsoft officials wouldn’t provide a statement of any kind.
A statement I received from a Microsoft spokesperson makes a not-so-thinly-veiled reference to the Apple case (at least the way I read it):
“As you may be aware, many technology companies active in the growing smartphone space have been taking increasing steps to protect their inventions. As the two companies have a long history of technical and commercial collaboration, Microsoft views this agreement as an effective example of how industry leaders can reach commercially reasonable arrangements that address intellectual property concerns.”
Microsoft’s friend Rob Enderle [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] trivialises Microsoft’s aggression (and it’s tilted in Microsoft’s favour). He typically writes about Linux only when Microsoft attacks Linux with intellectual monopolies (TomTom, SCO, et cetera). His SCO crusade against Linux was exposed and dissected quite nicely by Pamela Jones, who has just been named “Most Influential Women in Technology 2010″. [via]
Groklaw, set up in 2003 at the beginning of the SCO-Linux controversies, quickly became a go-to resource for tracking legal issues surrounding open source and the Web. “Groklaw is an attempt to get geeks and lawyers together, so they can help each other understand the other’s world, with the goal of ideally getting better court results based on technical realities,” Jones wrote me a few emails later, when there was “a lull in the action.” In theory, the case should come to a close soon, but Jones doesn’t have her hopes up about what’s next. “Next? Is there a next with SCO?” she asks. “They are like Night of the Living Dead as far as persistence is concerned.”
SCO’s racketeering — like Microsoft’s racketeering [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] — is to a large extent Microsoft backed and funded. █
“…Microsoft wished to promote SCO and its pending lawsuit against IBM and the Linux operating system. But Microsoft did not want to be seen as attacking IBM or Linux.”
–Larry Goldfarb, BayStar, key investor in SCO approached by Microsoft
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04.29.10
Posted in Apple, FUD, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft at 2:57 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft is once again on a special tour wherein it pressures popular Web sites to include patent FUD against Android; Apple’s bullying of bloggers leads to dissent
YESTERDAY we wrote about HTC selling out to Microsoft. While there is not much to add (yet) to what we wrote, there are other opinions worth sharing here. Brian Proffitt writes about the impact of the Bilski case on Microsoft’s many software patents, arguing in part that:
I have often argued that the diversification of Linux has always been one of its big strengths: the richer the distribution ecosystem is, the richer the application set, and so forth.
Today we saw another example of why the decentralized nature of Linux is such a plus, when Microsoft revealed it believes Android infringes on its patents–a stick Microsoft was willing to use when it offered Taiwanese phone maker HTC the carrot of a yet another cross-licensing agreement.
[...]
I, for one, would be happy as a clam to see software patent portfolios get blown out of the water and let software companies compete in terms of the things that matter, rather than vague threats and insinuations.
As can be expected, there is a lot of coverage about the HTC deal in the mainstream press. Slashdot links to the press release from Microsoft and this report from IDG. People who bought Android phones from HTC are not happy, to say the least. One of our readers who bought such a phone earlier this year writes:
On a recommendation of a friend I tried Android, specifically with the HTC Hero. I was very impressed, not only at how much I could do, but how quickly I could do it.
So now we see a world where Microsoft does not need to deploy a phone or an OS. They can simply wait and then play a patent card in the hope they can cream royalties of the top of someone else’s success (and I think its agreed that HTC/Android combo is a great product)
Theres a great message to innovators out there: Dont create anything too popular or functional as you may find a hungry pair of Microsoft eyes watching you…..
Microsoft’s chief bully is still spreading FUD by contacting even more publications, not just his drones at CNET (Ina Fried). Here is an example from Engadget
Update: Microsoft deputy general counsel of intellectual property Horacio Gutierrez just sent us a statement saying that the company’s been “talking to several device manufacturers to address our concerns relative to the Android mobile platform.” We’re taking that to mean the same as above: Microsoft isn’t too interested in suing any of its Windows Mobile / Windows Phone partners, so it’s trying to work out patent license deals with those companies in advance of any nastiness. It’s an interesting strategy: patents forbid anyone from making, using, or selling your invention, so Redmond can protect its partners while still leaving open the possibility of a lawsuit with Google itself down the line. In fact, we’d almost say it seems like Microsoft’s agreement with HTC is as much of a threat to Google as Apple’s lawsuit — Redmond’s basically saying you can’t sell an Android device without paying a license fee, and we’d bet those fees are real close to the Windows Phone 7 license fee. Clever, clever — we’ll see how this one plays out. Here’s Horacio’s full statement:
Microsoft has a decades-long record of investment in software platforms. As a result, we have built a significant patent portfolio in this field, and we have a responsibility to our customers, partners, and shareholders to ensure that competitors do not free ride on our innovations. We have also consistently taken a proactive approach to licensing to resolve IP infringement by other companies, and have been talking with several device manufacturers to address our concerns relative to the Android mobile platform.
Why would Microsoft take the initiative to ask publications to add more FUD like that? It’s very telling. They are trying to terrorise and thus to suppress adoption of Android by manufacturers. That’s a racket. We’ve seen Gutierrez doing this before.
“They are trying to terrorise and thus to suppress adoption of Android by manufacturers.”Let’s not forget that Apple is part of the attack on Android through HTC. Apple is quickly becoming more of a bully; we wrote about what it did to Gizmodo in posts such as:
There is a lot of media coverage about it [1, 2] and even a Dilbert cartoon. Pogson, who has been somewhat defensive of Apple so far, had his mind changed by this particular incident and he now considers Apple to be “evil”.
We should not ignore Apple any longer as the enemy of our enemy. Apple is not our friend. Three years ago, I enlightened my brother about the merits of GNU/Linux as compared to MacOS. For schools, there is not much comparison. Apple’s products cost much more than free software and hardware. They do not really work any better either. Schools do not need software whose supplier has made a deal with the devil to be allowed to run on Apple’s hardware.
Apple has just been sued by Elan Microelectronics (new article but possibly an older lawsuit [1, 2]).
The sale of Apple’s iPhone and iPad in the US is under threat after the US International Trade Commission initiated a formal investigation into the company for allegedly infringing a patent covering multi-touch technology.
The ITC, which has the power to ban the import and sale of products, said it was responding to a request from the Taiwanese touchscreen maker Elan Microelectronics, which has a patent for technology that detects the simultaneous presence of two or more fingers on a touchscreen or touchpad.
Apple violates many patents and so does Microsoft, which faces over 50 patent lawsuits (as of several months ago). Contrary to what they may say, Apple and Microsoft are not against patent trolls because they invest in the world's biggest patent troll. █
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04.28.10
Posted in Apple, Bill Gates at 4:05 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Lock your doors and hide your children. The Apple Hype Police is coming.
Summary: Apple’s Hype Police is shown to be connected to the raiding of a blogger who ‘dared’ to show the next hypePhone
APPLE has gotten itself into one heck of a PR disaster, which so far we’ve covered in:
According to this article sent to us by Brandon, Apple does have role in the task force investigating the iPhone case.
The idea was to bring a variety of business interests and police agencies together to help combat identity theft, computer fraud, and the like. The team’s website explains that “high tech companies … provide specialized training, liaison personnel and internal support for task force investigations.”
What’s curious is that one of those high-tech companies providing training, personnel, and support to the task force is Apple Inc., the alleged victim in the Gizmodo case. According to this May 2009 story from the San Jose Business Journal, Apple is one of the 25 companies that sit on REACT’s “steering committee.” Which raises the question as to whether Apple, which was outraged enough about Gizmodo’s $5,000 purchase of the lost iPhone for CEO Steve Jobs to reportedly call Gawker Media owner Nick Denton to demand its return, sicked its high-tech cops on Chen.
Even the EFF is stepping in now. It is “Dissecting the Gizmodo Warrant” thusly:
Federal and California law both protect reporters against police searches aimed at uncovering confidential sources or seizing other information developed during newsgathering activities. Yet on Friday, agents with the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team (REACT) executed a search warrant at Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s home, searching for evidence related to Gizmodo’s scoop on what appears to be a pre-release version of Apple’s next iPhone model. The warrant does not reveal whether Chen himself is considered a criminal suspect, or what alleged crime the police are investigating, but Chen was not arrested. All of his computers and hard drives (among other materials) were seized for further search and analysis.
There is some other negative PR for Apple this week, including for example:
i. Apple Bans Online Sales In Japan
The comments in the Japanese business newspapers suggest that Apple believes online shopping confers an aura of ‘cheapness’ on their products; but surely killing the Apple store’s competition must have entered into the calculation.
ii. Apple Just Says Yes to iPhone Game for Smokers
Blogs and message boards have been lighting up with the buzz about Apple’s family-friendly App Store policy, which bans soft porn and satire — but a game that glorifies smoking somehow got the green light.
So Apple protects its perceived value by banning low-cost Apple purchases while allowing glorification of tobacco (which in turn voids the guarantee/warranty of Apple’s computers). Apple says “no” to politics [1, 2] but “yes” to smoking. Bill Gates just says “yes” to both [1, 2] and it’s not a good thing. █
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Posted in Apple, Deception, Marketing at 4:55 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Desperate attempts by Apple to control coverage of its products (by getting the police forces involved) leads to backlash and has the opposite effect of what was originally intended
APPLE continues to rely on a smoke screen to generate fake hype and police its image. Over the years, Apple has been shutting down rumour sites and as we pointed out the other day, Apple is even sending the police when the hype machine falters.
Gizmodo previously leaked some images of Apple’s next hypePhone, only to be raided by cops for ‘daring’ to do so.
Gizmodo editor Jason Chen has been raided by Silicon Valley’s computer crime force in hot pursuit of the case of the missing iPhone prototype. According to a bulletin published by Gizmodo today, they broke down the front door to gain entry, and departed some hours later with a truck containing Chen’s computer equipment.
According to Gizmodo, one of their writers had his computers confiscated at the behest of Apple.
Last Friday night, California’s Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team entered editor Jason Chen’s home without him present, seizing four computers and two servers. They did so using a warrant by Judge of Superior Court of San Mateo. According to Gaby Darbyshire, COO of Gawker Media LLC, the search warrant to remove these computers was invalid under section 1524(g) of the California Penal Code.
Gizmodo has also leaked this borderline nastygram from Apple. Apple should really leave this guy alone, based on a new legal case which says he does not quality as a “journalist” and therefore he did nothing wrong.
While lots of attention was paid to the claims that the confiscation of Gizmodo reporter Jason Chen’s computer’s would “settle” whether bloggers are considered journalists, the details in that case suggest otherwise. However, a much more important case on that particular question was decided late last week. It’s the case of Shellee Hale, which we’ve covered in the past. Basically, Hale posted some information claiming a security breach at another company. She revealed this information as a comment on another site — and when she was sued, the company demanded she reveal where she got that information from. She claimed that her sources were protected, as she was a journalist.
What Apple decided to do after details about the phone had already been leaked only increased interest in the leak and therefore had the very opposite effect to that of censorship. Additionally, with new images like this one (labeling Apple and its customers “snobs”), it is clear that this whole police affair is becoming a PR disaster for Apple. Roughly Drafted, which is written by an Apple enthusiast (who attends confidential Apple meetings), is doing Apple’s ‘damage control’ [1, 2].
Apple has become dangerously obsessive if this is how far it is willing to go to control coverage of its products (the hypePhone could be developed in a transparent process like some other phones). Speaking of controlling coverage, Microsoft and NBC recently took control of EveryBlock, which still makes the news on occasions. It is more common to control the news by becoming an advertiser, which both Microsoft and Apple do. An example of an Apple advertiser and booster would have to be IDG, which ironically enough Roughly Drafted accused of being an Apple basher. Roughly Drafted can never, ever criticise Apple. █
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04.26.10
Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Kernel at 4:08 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Android is too restricted and closed and therein lies Palm’s potential to make a comeback, by essentially learning from OpenMoko
IN A market where it is so hard to find Free (as in “freedom”) phones, Palm has a real opportunity to make an impact. And no, not even Android is free or open, despite all that marketing. The thing which Palm and Google have in common is that they both use Linux in their operating system (Google’s bastardisation of Linux withstanding).
The black sheep in the world where Linux phones are becoming the standard are probably Blackberry, Symbian (which is now claiming to have “opened up”), and Apple’s mobile OS which hardly even supports multitasking. Microsoft’s is a dying OS which does not even support “cut/copy and paste” or has any applications, as we already explained in the morning.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple's primitive OS is causing trouble to networks, so it is already banned in some US colleges. [via]
The tablet, lauded by many as the next wave in education technology, has already been rejected by two top universities, George Washington University and Princeton University, because of network stability issues. Cornell University also says it is seeing connectivity problems with the device and is concerned about bandwidth overload.
The hypePad was also banned in Israel for a while (the US models anyway, until very recently) because of compatibility issues associated with networks. If this sounds familiar, it should. Administrators experienced the same problem with Windows Vista on some networks; since the code is secret, it is not simple to resolve, either.
But here comes the shocker from Apple, a company that thrives in deception. Apple is actually calling Adobe Flash “closed and proprietary” as a reason for banning it [1, 2, 3]:
On Wednesday, Apple PR sent a – gasp! – statement to CNET regarding the ongoing Adobe kerfuffle, and the irony is that it called Flash “closed and proprietary”.
What a bunch of hypocrites. Apple’s proprietary software, with DRM and remote kill switches and who knows what else, is just about as “closed and proprietary” as anything can get. Did Apple actually approve the above message before it was spouted out?
“Palm should market itself as being the opposite of Apple.”Here is where Palm comes into this. Palm has already filed a complaint against Apple after Apple played dirty games and also intimidated Palm (Apple later attacked Android too and it gets even worse than that [1, 2]). Palm should market itself as being the opposite of Apple.
Palm has promoted its proprietary software for ages, but it never censored applications like Apple does, for example. It also arrived at the scene at a time when all mobile/PDA platforms (or most of them) were completely indifferent when it comes to Free software, so maybe there is an excuse here (Foleo was already being developed with Linux).
Diego argues about the differences between Apple and Linux at the lower level; both are considered UNIX compliant, but only one of them is free in the GPL sense. Therein lies Palm’s advantage and there are tens of millions of desktop GNU/Linux users who are potential Palm customers, assuming that Palm plays gracefully with them (it currently does not). Back in the days, Palm supported Windows and Mac OS, but it did not support GNU/Linux. That’s quite a spit in the face. Palm relied on hackers to develop their own Free/libre applications for GNU/Linux (or maybe use Wine). A couple of days ago someone wrote this post on how to use a Palm Pilot with GNU/Linux. It is not very simple and support is not 100% complete (e.g. for third-party applications).
Palm Pilots can work with Ubuntu. Learn which program you will need and how to use this to install software to your device.
If you are using Ubuntu, there are times where you can’t use older hardware since it was never ever made for Linux. One older popular piece of hardware is the Palm Pilot. While you might not expect something like this to work, it will with your Ubuntu installation.
Personally, I’ve used gpilot and kpilot over the years, but now I use jpilot, which is great. I have been a Palm user for almost a decade (there were hardly hackable devices at the time I started). Palm OS accepts any software one wishes to install on the devices, unlike Apple for example. This is the right thing to allow and Palm should consider doing it again. It already has to an extent. Here is a new post about running Linux applications in WebOS. Why did it take so long for Palm to allow this? Hubris? Desire for total control (usually excused by ‘security’)? Last year’s Pre surveillance scandal was a sign of unnecessary arrogance.
WebOS is a pretty versatile Mobile Operating System and the folks at WebOS Internals have managed to run some Linux applications including OpenOffice on a Palm Pre!! It appears you can run X11 on the Palm Pre and this opens up many possibilities for WebOS users.
This is a nice start, but it does not go far enough. WebOS is still proprietary and this gives the wrong impression. Palm may have embraced Linux, but it never ever embraced Free software. Palm ought to do something similar to OpenMoko but with a lot more capital (Palm has about half a billion dollars in the bank, based on its most recent claims).
Time for change, right?
Palm’s first stage was adopting Linux, but it was far too closed above that layer (the kernel). Palm ought to market it like Sharp did with the Zaurus. It should be free to control, it should be hackable, it should be marketed as the “phone of liberty” (a place for developers not to be oppressed by a software/hardware vendor). As it stands at the moment, Palm in the marketplace is a 5th wheel and there is no compelling reason to head over to Palm’s shelf.
According to this, Palm intends to remove the hardware barrier, which would be a good start. But it does not go far enough.
Rubinstein said that Palm would look at letting other mobile manufacturers use its smartphone operating system in a bid to make a bit of cash.
According to The Register, Palm denies that it’s up for sale.
Jon Rubinstein, the CEO concerned, has told the Financial Times that he “believe[s] Palm can survive as an independent company” and that the company has “a plan that gets us to profitability”.
The Register is pessimistic just because Palm’s current plans offer no radical change. If Palm really wants to stun the market, then it should ‘pull an OpenMoko’ and openly offer its platform which is far more mature than OpenMoko. Palm claims that it is opening up to more platforms, which is good. The decision to let any application run on the platform is also good, but what good is it when WebOS remains proprietary? A big splash requires a bold big push and Palm can make it happen by announcing to the world that WebOS is the world’s Free/libre platform of choice for phones (OpenMoko was the first and Android is nowhere near that status). █
Posted by an 8-year Palm customer, who contributed to the company on a voluntary basis
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