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10.11.15

Leaked: EPO Prioritises Work for Large Foreign Corporations, Discrimination Not Accidental But Centrally Planned

Posted in Europe, Patents at 8:22 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

NASCAR sponsorsCorporate fast lane, like NASCAR sponsors

Summary: Canon, Philips, Microsoft, Qualcomm, BASF, Bayer, Samsung, Huawei, Siemens, Ericsson and Fujitsu receive V.I.P. treatment from the EPO, despite most of them not even being European

HOW can an outsider tell that the EPO operates like a business rather than a public service (to Europeans)? It’s simple. Just watch how, as a matter of policy (i.e. coming from above), the EPO is tossing aside patent applications of small European companies and instead researching, under pressure and in a rush (hence unlikely to find adequate prior art) for large foreign corporations, probably resulting in the granting of poor patents, due to notoriously overzealous bossing and work-induced pressure (examiners rewarded based on the wrong yardsticks) and secret corporate partnerships. It’s just wrong and it creates a toxic work environment with false goals. As the EPO is supposed to be transparent (considering the consent allegedly given by the public), we believe that the information below must be in the public domain. It compromises nobody except entities that selfishly collude.

Watch the following leaked memo. Is this the spirit of science or of business?

Memo: Closer Contact with Major Applicants

J.Scott

16/02/2015

Why is closer contact with major applicants desirable?

Both The President and VP1 have expressed the opinion that there needs to be closer contact between examiners and their applicants. We should foster a better esprit de service, not least to ensure that we do not lose workload market share to other major offices.

History

Historically, DG1 has had frequent contacts with applicants but no systematic way of approaching them or feeding back business intelligence obtained from them. Moreover, DG1 has not always passed on consistent messages to them.

Microsoft, Canon, Siemens

The ICT cluster has had close contact with both Canon and Microsoft recently and their experience has prompted the proposal for this pilot. Microsoft had 450 files which they regarded as “stalled” within the EPO. Under the auspices of Grant Philpott, Francesco Zacca and the PA KAM, together, they have found a mutually acceptable way to treat these files. Similarly Canon had a list of files which they considered excessively delayed. However, again with Grant Philpott supervising, Franco Cordera and PA KAM have started working on the first list of around 170 files. In JC EET, Jeremy Scott has initialised general and specific lectures from Siemens, their global patent strategy and specific training to examiners working in the fields of Sub-sea Connectors and Wind Turbines. At the same time, informal checks were made about what Siemens thought of the EPO way of handling their files. These are concrete ways in which the EPO’s major applicants are being facilitated through issues due to concrete contact with DG1 PDs and directors.

Proposed Pilot

It is proposed to start a pilot for ten major applicants, worldwide, lasting one year (1.4.2015-1.4.2016). The applicants will be selected by DG1 but taking into consideration input from PA, PDQM and DG5. This will be based around strong existing contacts. 5 liaison directors will be selected to deal with two major applicants each. They will be in regular contact with these applicants and will have at least one face to face meeting during the year of the pilot.

Liaison with DG2 and DG5

Patent Administration will be an integral player in this pilot project and close links to the Key Account Managers will be needed. To facilitate this PD PA will be kept fully in the loop. DG5 has been approached and informed. They will be present in the kick off meeting for the contact directors.

Benefits for DG1

This pilot will bring significant benefits to DG1:
- more efficient use of missions
- technical training
- predicting incoming workload
- targeting recruitment to the right areas
- dealing with file requests such as PACE/late files
- esprit de service
- production

Optimising Missions

Historically missions were organised on a directorate and cluster level with little coordination beyond that. Moreover, they did not always target he largest applicants, but more often the “nicer” locations. With the deployment of the Coordination Tool for External Contacts and with more directional input from the PDs, along with the experience from the liaison directors it is guaranteed that DG1 missions will be more focussed on our major applicants and delivering a better service to them.

The Coordination Tool for External Contacts

The coordination tool can provide a good starting point for coordinating this pilot. For example there can be a link with the highlighted companies so that anyone wishing to visit should first contact the liaison director to a). see if the visit can go ahead; b). check what messages should be passed or if the applicant has specific issues; c). provide a place to feedback any business intelligence gathered on the mission.

Organisational Structure

It is envisaged that there will be 5 DG1 directors, each in contact with 2 major applicants. These directors will also work closely with the appropriate KAMs. The ERG should nominate someone to oversee the whole structure, to help with harmonisation of what is done, sharing of knowledge and best practice, and to make sure everything runs smoothly. Currently it is proposed that Jeremy Scott takes on this role. He would additionally sit on the ICT group, set up by Grant Philpott in this role.

Selected Directors and Companies

Canon (22) F.Cordera
Philips (3) F.Cordera
Microsoft (28) C.Platzer
Qualcomm (9) F.Zacca
BASF (5) M.Weaver
Bayer (16) M.Weaver
Samsung (1) under discussion
Huawei (11) under discussion
Siemens (2) J.Scott
Ericsson (10) F.Zacca
Fujitsu (20)

As can be seen, the applicants selected are major ones (their ranking in terms of applications filed in 2013 is parenthesised). The lowest applicant selected, Microsoft, filed 600 applications. All in the top 12 file over 1000 and Samsung filed 2833 applications in 2013. These applicants come from different technical areas and different geographical locations to maximise the learning potential of the pilot. It can be explored as to what the EPO can do for them and vice versa. Many of these applicants have been chosen because of the strength of existing contacts, which will facilitate the speedy implementation of the pilot.

Upscaling the Pilot

If the pilot is deemed successful, the idea would be to upscale the pilot to more companies in the second half 2016. The speed at which this would be done is determined mainly by the manpower PA requires to deal with the requests.

Further Contacts/Approval

To carry out this pilot, approval is sought from VP1.

If this whole spiel sounds too familiar, perhaps it should. We wrote about this before and commented on it, explaining why this is inherently corrupt. Microsoft, as it turns out, is one among several such partners — something which Florian Müller, who had worked for Microsoft, publicly told us about.

Don’t let the EPO’s reputation be tarnished by managers who treat it like a monopolies ‘meat market’, where ‘meat’ is sold to the highest bidder.

Stay tuned as we have a lot more to come this week. We are going to assemble pieces of some other puzzles which help show just how rotten the EPO became under Battistelli’s merciless reign. Demonstrations (to be staged by staff of the EPO, as the European public is still largely uninformed) are only days away and we have more stuff to share than we can publish in just a couple of days. If any of our readers possesses additional material that they can share, please send it anonymously. In our 9-year history we never compromised a single source. █

Links 11/10/2015: Kate/KDevelop Sprint, Blender 2.76

Posted in News Roundup at 11:28 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Report: Twitter prepping for “company-wide layoffs” next week

    Following the news that Twitter interim CEO Jack Dorsey was fully hired to the post on Monday, the company has been linked to a series of what Re/code has described as “company-wide layoffs” next week.

    A Friday report from Re/code cited “multiple sources” in saying that most of Twitter’s departments will be hit with layoffs starting next week. Those sources did not specify numbers or percentages of staff, but they did point to Twitter’s plans to “restructure” its engineering staff, which may affect how the alleged firings play out in all. When asked to comment on the report, a Twitter representative told Ars that “we’re not commenting on rumor and speculation.”

  • Hardware

    • Smartmobe brain maker Qualcomm teases 64-bit ARM server chip secrets

      Qualcomm, the maker of processors for Nexus smartphones and other mobes and tablets, has revealed early specifications for its upcoming server chips.

      The California company is best known for designing the brains in handheld devices, networking kit, and other embedded gear.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Monsanto’s Stock Is Tanking. Is the Company’s Own Excitement About GMOs Backfiring?

      Pity Monsanto, the genetically modified seed and agrichemical giant. Its share price has plunged 25 percent since the spring. Market prices for corn and soybeans are in the dumps, meaning Monsanto’s main customers—farmers who specialize in those crops—have less money to spend on its pricey seeds and flagship herbicide (which recently got named a “probable carcinogen” by the World Health organization, spurring lawsuits).

    • Study: Fracking Industry Wells Associated With Premature Birth

      Expectant mothers who live near active natural gas wells operated by the fracking industry in Pennsylvania are at an increased risk of giving birth prematurely and for having high-risk pregnancies, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research suggests.

      The findings, published online last week in the journal Epidemiology, shed light on some of the possible adverse health outcomes associated with the fracking industry, which has been booming in the decade since the first wells were drilled. Health officials have been concerned about the effect of this type of drilling on air and water quality, as well as the stress of living near a well where just developing the site of the well can require 1,000 truck trips on once-quiet roads.

  • Security

    • Amazon, Google Boost Cloud Security Efforts

      Not to be outdone, Google introduced its Google Cloud Security Scanner the same day of the Amazon Inspector announcement. Unlike Inspector, Google’s product is already generally available.

    • CryptoLocker Ransomware Springs on Scandinavians [Ed: Windows]

      The screenshot, as gained by Heimdal Security, shows the link within the email that, when clicked, will redirect unsuspecting users to a website that will download the file ‘forsendelse.zip’, containing the executable file, forsendelse.exe.

    • iOS 9 Lock-Screen Bug Grants Access to Contacts, Photos

      A clever iPhone user uncovered a new exploit in iOS 9 (and 9.0.1) that allows a person—presumably with a list of handwritten steps—to bypass the device’s passcode and get into the Contacts and Photos apps.

      So unless you have a bunch of selfies you don’t want anyone to see, or you use an alphanumeric instead of a four-digit passcode, you probably don’t have much to worry about. You can also cripple the exploit by disabling Siri on your lock screen, though you’ll lose convenience in the process.

    • Malware that hit Apple similar to that developed by CIA: report

      The techniques used by XcodeGhost, the infected version of Apple’s Xcode compiler that has caused an eruption of malware on the Apple China app store, are similar to those developed and demonstrated by America’s Central Intelligence Agency.

      A report in The Intercept, a website run by Glenn Greenwald who is well-known for having been the first to report on the NSA spying disclosures made by the former US defence contractor Edward Snowden, claims the CIA detailed the techniques at its annual top-secret Jamboree conference in 2012.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Media Reports ISIS Nuclear Plot That Never Actually Involved ISIS

      There was only one problem: At no point do the multiple iterations of the AP‘s reporting show that anyone involved in the FBI sting were members of or have any connection to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (aka ISIL or Daesh). While one of several smuggling attempts discussed in AP‘s reporting involved an actual potential buyer–an otherwise unknown Sudanese doctor who four years ago “suggested that he was interested” in obtaining uranium–the “terrorists” otherwise involved in the cases were FBI and other law enforcement agents posing as such.

    • Phyllis Bennis on US Bombing of Afghan Hospital

      This week on CounterSpin: The Pentagon has declared the bombing of a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, a “mistake.” But it will investigate itself to determine how US bombs came to destroy the Doctors Without Borders facility, killing at least 22 people. Doctors Without Borders is calling for an independent investigation—and you would think journalists would, too, since who knows better than they the administration’s history of changing its story?

    • Self-censorship

      It is well enough to condemn the US for bombing a hospital and killing Muslims in Kunduz but what about the Muslim members of a wedding party who were bombed into extinction in a formerly friendly country by the air force of an extremely friendly country?

    • Turkish police use tear gas to stop mourners laying carnations at the site of bombings in Ankara that killed 97 people as officials say ‘initial signs point to ISIS responsibility’

      Turkish police fired tear gas to disperse mourners who were laying flowers at the site of Turkey’s deadliest ever terror attack this morning.

      Two Turkish security sources said ‘initial signs’ suggest ISIS were behind the two explosions which killed at least 97 and wounded 247 more at a peace rally in Ankara yesterday.

      Protesters clashed with riot police in Istanbul last night as they took to the streets to denounce the attacks. And today, police clashed with demonstrators and pro-Kurdish officials at the scene of the disaster near Ankara’s main train station.

      They held back the mourners, including the pro-Kurdish party’s leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, insisting that investigators were still working at the site.

    • The day I met the other victims of extremism: boys brainwashed to kill

      In the mountains of Pakistan I met young men who would have killed me. They would have slit my throat, put a bullet in my brain, caved in my skull with a rock. After I was dead they would have severed my head from my body and displayed it as a warning to all.

  • Transparency Reporting

    • Wikileaks Releases Final Intellectual Property Chapter Of TPP Before Official Release

      Last weekend, negotiators finally completed negotiations on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. However, as we noted, there was no timetable for the release of the text (though some are now saying it may come out next week). Once again, it was ridiculous that the negotiating positions of the various countries was secret all along, and that the whole thing had been done behind closed doors. And to have them not be ready to release the text after completion of the negotiations was even more of a travesty. Wikileaks, however, got hold of the Intellectual Property Chapter and has released it online.

    • The Final Leaked TPP Text is All That We Feared

      Today’s release by Wikileaks of what is believed to be the current and essentially final version of the intellectual property (IP) chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) confirms our worst fears about the agreement, and dashes the few hopes that we held out that its most onerous provisions wouldn’t survive to the end of the negotiations.

      Since we now have the agreed text, we’ll be including some paragraph references that you can cross-reference for yourself—but be aware that some of them contain placeholders like “x” that may change in the cleaned-up text. Also, our analysis here is limited to the copyright and Internet-related provisions of the chapter, but analyses of the impacts of other parts of the chapter have been published by Wikileaks and others.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Elon Musk Says Climate Change Will Bring Even Worse Refugee Crisis

      Tech visionary warns that countries must do more to combat climate change

      Climate change could create a refugee crisis far worse than the one currently unfolding in Europe, Elon Musk warned Thursday.

      The Tesla CEO gave a speech in Berlin in which he said changes in Earth’s temperature could lead to depleted water and food supplies, thus forcing millions of people to leave their homes in search of resources, the Huffington Post reports.

    • ‘Polluter Interests Have Been Spending Millions on Disinformation Campaigns’

      Janine Jackson: “New Regulations on Smog Remain as Divisive as Ever.” That was the headline on a September 30 New York Times story which balanced what it called “concerns of lung doctors” that smog, or ozone, is a public health threat with industry claims that installing new equipment, in the reporter’s words, “could kneecap American manufacturing and threaten jobs across the country.” Three different industry sources were counterposed with a single representative of the American Lung Association.

      But if the topic is harmful pollution, is the public really served by coverage that centers the views of the polluters? What’s a different way to talk about it? David Baron is managing attorney in the DC office of the group Earthjustice. His article “Smog Kills” appeared recently in Politico. He joins us now by phone from Washington, DC; welcome to CounterSpin, David Baron.

    • On Climate Change, Listen to Pope Francis, Not Jeb Bush

      The politician says we should disregard the pope because “he’s not a scientist.” But the pope’s background is in chemistry and his counselors are top scientists.

    • The collapse of Saudi Arabia is inevitable

      On Tuesday 22 September, Middle East Eye broke the story of a senior member of the Saudi royal family calling for a “change” in leadership to fend off the kingdom’s collapse.

      In a letter circulated among Saudi princes, its author, a grandson of the late King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, blamed incumbent King Salman for creating unprecedented problems that endangered the monarchy’s continued survival.

      “We will not be able to stop the draining of money, the political adolescence, and the military risks unless we change the methods of decision making, even if that implied changing the king himself,” warned the letter.

      Whether or not an internal royal coup is round the corner – and informed observers think such a prospect “fanciful” – the letter’s analysis of Saudi Arabia’s dire predicament is startlingly accurate.

      Like many countries in the region before it, Saudi Arabia is on the brink of a perfect storm of interconnected challenges that, if history is anything to judge by, will be the monarchy’s undoing well within the next decade.

    • Report: VW was warned about cheating emissions in 2007

      The Volkswagen scandal—selling 11 million diesel-engined cars designed to fool US emissions regulations—is moving into the “who knew what, and when” phase. Newspapers in Germany are reporting that Bosch (the company that supplies electronics to the auto industry) warned VW only to use the cheat mode internally back in 2007, and that a These findings both emerged from an internal audit at VW in response to the scandal.

  • Finance

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Major Papers Reject the Opt-Out Option

      All three papers offered arguments that closely align with the rhetoric of corporate education reform, focusing on the plight of low-income students of color while ignoring the realities of how testing affects such populations.

    • New Yorker Calls Corbyn ‘Childlike’–but Who Are They Kidding?

      The landslide victory of left-wing candidate Jeremy Corbyn for Labour Party leader in the United Kingdom has many establishment types bent out of shape. The Blair wing of the party was literally obliterated, with Corbyn drawing more than four times the votes of his nearest competitor. After giving the country the war in Iraq, and the housing bubble whose collapse led to the 2008-2009 recession and financial crisis, the discontent of the Labour Party’s rank and file is understandable.

    • CBS Analyst Pushes Paul Ryan For Speaker Without Disclosing Ryan Paid Him Over $100K

      CBS News analyst Frank Luntz pushed Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) for House Speaker, claiming “he’s got a brain for policy, which is what we need in Washington right now,” adding, “if Paul Ryan says no, God help us.” CBS News and Luntz did not disclose that Ryan has paid Luntz’s company over $100,000 in consulting fees in recent years.

    • CNN is basically begging Joe Biden to join its Democratic debate

      This is quite unlike the rules CNN set for its Republican presidential debate earlier this month. In addition to reaching a poll threshold, candidates had to officially file with the FEC and say they were running three weeks before the debate. They also had to have a paid campaign aide working in at least two of the four early voting states (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada). And they had to have visited two of those states at least once.

      Those Republican rules were designed to keep many candidates in the large field offstage. But CNN’s starkly different Democratic rules have seemingly been deliberately designed in hopes of coaxing one potential candidate in particular — Biden — onstage.

    • Noam Chomsky: Bernie Sanders can’t save America

      Throughout his illustrious career, one of Noam Chomsky’s chief preoccupations has been questioning — and urging us to question — the assumptions and norms that govern our society.

      Following a talk on power, ideology, and US foreign policy last weekend at the New School in New York City, freelance Italian journalist Tommaso Segantini sat down with the eighty-six-year-old to discuss some of the same themes, including how they relate to processes of social change.

      For radicals, progress requires puncturing the bubble of inevitability: austerity, for instance, “is a policy decision undertaken by the designers for their own purposes.” It is not implemented, Chomsky says, “because of any economic laws.” American capitalism also benefits from ideological obfuscation: despite its association with free markets, capitalism is shot through with subsidies for some of the most powerful private actors. This bubble needs popping too.

    • Fox News Doc Defends Ben Carson By Criticizing German Jews For Failing To Resist The Nazis

      Fox News contributor Dr. Keith Ablow is defending Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson’s controversial remarks that fewer people would have been killed in the Holocaust had they been armed by criticizing German Jews for not having “more actively resisted” the Nazis.

      Carson sparked an outcry after he claimed the outcome of the Holocaust “would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed.” Carson has stood by his comments. The Anti-Defamation League called Carson’s remarks “historically inaccurate.”

      In an October 9 FoxNews.com piece, Ablow defended Carson’s comments by asserting, “If Jews in Germany had more actively resisted the Nazi party or the Nazi regime and had diagnosed it as a malignant and deadly cancer from the start, there would, indeed, have been a chance for the people of that country and the world to be moved to action by their bold refusal to be enslaved.”

  • Censorship

  • Privacy

    • Snooper Charter Strikes Back event success

      Earlier in the week we had the pleasure of entraining Jim Killock, ORG’s executive director, ahead of a workshop on talking you MP about intrusive surveillance.

      Jim bought us entertainingly up to date with the current thinking around the still-under-wraps government plans for wide-ranging updates to their subservience powers. Happy to take questions, Jim elaborated a number of points with us, including explaining a bit about what ORG’s plans are, which led neatly into the other half of the evening, but not before everyone had a well deserved tea break.

    • Everything You Need to Know About AOL’s Zombie Apocalypse

      America Online (AOL) will be resurrecting Verizon’s zombie cookies because they are fabulous data-trackers that cannot be “killed”.

    • Obama administration opts not to force firms to decrypt data — for now

      After months of deliberation, the Obama administration has made a long-awaited decision on the thorny issue of how to deal with encrypted communications: It will not — for now — call for legislation requiring companies to decode messages for law enforcement.

    • Turnbull: Don’t assume government email is more secure than private email

      Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull responded to concerns over the use of his own private email server by saying politicians use insecure communication all the time.

    • Chinese Credit Scoring System Smacks Of Censorship

      Rogier Creemers, a China-specialist with Oxford University, told ComputerWorld, “With the help of the latest internet technologies the government wants to exercise individual surveillance. Government and big internet companies in China can exploit ‘Big Data’ together in a way that is unimaginable in the West.”

    • China’s new credit reports are the government’s latest censorship tool

      Chinese Internet users now have one more reason to look over their digital shoulders at the government’s nearly inescapable surveillance and censorship regime.

    • ACLU: Orwellian Citizen Score, China’s credit score system, is a warning for Americans

      Gamer? Strike. Bad-mouthed the government in comments on social media? Strike. Even if you don’t buy video games and you don’t post political comments online “without prior permission,” but any of your online friends do….strike. The strikes are actually more like dings, dings to your falling credit score that is.

      Thanks to a new terrifying use of big data, a credit score can be adversely affected by your hobbies, shopping habits, lifestyles, what you read online, what you post online, your political opinions as well as what your social connections do, say, read, buy or post. While you might never imagine such a credit-rating system in America, it is happening in China and the ACLU said it serves as a warning for Americans.

    • White House Takes The Cowardly Option: Refuses To Say No To Encryption Backdoors, Will Quietly Ask Companies

      Last month, we wrote about a document leaked to the Washington Post that showed the three “options” that the White House was considering for responding to the debate about backdooring encryption. The document made it clear that the White House knew that there was zero chance that any legislation mandating encryption backdoors would pass. But the question then was what to do about it: take a strong stand on the importance of freedom and privacy, and make it clear that the US would not mandate backdoors… or take the sleazy way out and say “no new legislation for now.” As we said at the time, option 1 was the only real option. You take a stand. You talk about the importance of encryption in protecting the public.

    • European Supreme Court: Because of NSA, U.S. Corporations Have No Self-Agency To Agree To Privacy Obligations

      This week, the European Court of Justice – the highest court in the European Union – declared that US companies may not transmit private sensitive personal data out of Europe to the United States for processing as they have up until now. It was a cancellation of the so-called Safe Harbor agreement, where U.S. companies self-declare that they meet certain European privacy standards. But the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) reason for declaring Safe Harbor null and void goes far beyond the cancellation as such – it says that U.S. companies don’t have agency to make any such promises of any kind in the first place, contractual or unilateral, not now, not ever, as long as the NSA operates.

    • Tech companies like Facebook not above the law, says Max Schrems

      The EU’s safe harbour ruling is a “puzzle piece in the fight against mass surveillance, and a huge blow to tech companies who think they can act in total ignorance of the law,” says Max Schrems, the man who brought the case.

      “US companies are realising that European laws are getting more and more enforced. But still, people don’t believe that a court would order Google or Facebook to do something – they wouldn’t dare. Well, yes, they fucking would,” he said, speaking in Vienna.

    • How much money do you make for Facebook?

      How much do you estimate you’re worth to Facebook? If you live in America, it’s a lot more than if you’re a resident of the UK or other countries.

      US Facebook users generate the site on average four times more advertising revenue than users outside of the country, making around $48.76 per year per user as opposed to $7.71, according to market research firm eMarketer.

      The firm predicts revenue is set to rise to $61.06 in 2016 before reaching $73.29 the following year. Non-US users meanwhile, are expected to rise to $9.26 and $10.79 respectively.

    • The node pole: inside Facebook’s Swedish hub near the Arctic Circle

      From the outside, it looks like an enormous grey warehouse. Inside, there is a hint of the movie Bladerunner: long cavernous corridors, spinning computer servers with flashing blue lights and the hum of giant fans. There is also a long perimeter fence. Is its job to thwart corporate spies? No – it keeps out the moose.

    • EU-US Safe Harbour For Personal Data Eliminated

      The European Court of Justice (CJEU) handed down a decision declaring EU-US safe harbour for personal data invalid this morning. It has far-reaching implications for cloud services in particular and may presage increased opportunity for open source solutions from non-US suppliers. Looks like a real gift to companies like Kolab.

    • Facebook: I want out

      Two weeks ago, on my birthday, I decided to check Facebook for birthday wishes because I was having a crappy birthday. It became much worse when Facebook did two things. First, it informed me it had removed an image posted to my timeline based on violating its nudity/obscenity policy — though I had not posted an image, only a link to a post in which I wrote about a new documentary on identity and the gender binary (my link was posted with an NSFW warning). No image. I’ve been around the internet a long time, and I’ve been censored — mostly under inaccurate circumstances — by everyone from the government of Libya to Flickr, feminists and Christian conservatives alike, and Facebook too, when a religious organization campaigned to (successfully) get one of my pages removed on false pretenses.

    • Marketers thought the Web would allow perfectly targeted ads. Hasn’t worked out that way.

      Fake traffic has become a commodity. There’s malware for generating it and brokers who sell it. Some companies pay for it intentionally, some accidentally, and some prefer not to ask where their traffic comes from. It’s given rise to an industry of countermeasures, which inspire counter-countermeasures. “It’s like a game of whack-a-mole,” says Fernando Arriola, vice president for media and integration at ConAgra Foods. Consumers, meanwhile, to the extent they pay attention to targeted ads at all, hate them: The top paid iPhone app on Apple’s App Store is an ad blocker.

    • Stealing fingerprints

      The news from the Office of Personnel Management hack keeps getting worse. In addition to the personal records of over 20 million US government employees, we’ve now learned that the hackers stole fingerprint files for 5.6 million of them.

    • GCHQ tried to track Web visits of “every visible user on Internet”
    • GCHQ’s Karma Police: Tracking And Profiling Every Web User, Every Website

      As of 2012, GCHQ was storing about 50 billion metadata records about online communications and Web browsing activity every day, with plans in place to boost capacity to 100 billion daily by the end of that year. The agency, under cover of secrecy, was working to create what it said would soon be the biggest government surveillance system anywhere in the world.

      That’s around 36 trillion metadata records gathered in 2012 alone — and it’s probably even higher now. As Techdirt has covered previously, intelligence agencies like to say this is “just” metadata — skating over the fact that metadata is actually much more revealing than traditional content because it is much easier to combine and analyze. An important document released by The Intercept with this story tells us exactly what GCHQ considers to be metadata, and what it says is content. It’s called the “Content-Metadata Matrix,” and reveals that as far as GCHQ is concerned, “authentication data to a communcations service: login ID, userid, password” are all considered to be metadata, which means GCHQ believes it can legally swipe and store them. Of course, intercepting your login credentials is a good example of why GCHQ’s line that it’s “only metadata” is ridiculous: doing so gives them access to everything you have and do on that service.

    • Facebook Ads Are All-Knowing, Unblockable, and in Everyone’s Phone

      Sheryl Sandberg’s top concern as she prepares for New York’s largest annual gathering of advertising and media executives this week has nothing to do with ad-blocking software or click fraud. Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, can brag to Advertising Week attendees about how the world’s largest social network is largely immune to forces that have sent Internet and publishing companies into a panic. But Sandberg is losing her voice, so her pitch will need to be succinct.

      Between sips of strawberry water at the company’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, Sandberg explains how Facebook has avoided controversies around online advertising with its emphasis on a single account tied to a user’s real-world identity and subtle ads that can be easily scrolled past if the user isn’t interested. What advertisers want, according to a raspy-voiced Sandberg, is “to reach people in a way that feels good, that’s not intrusive.” The argument ignores that Facebook trackers are just about everywhere on the Internet. But because most of Facebook’s 1.49 billion users routinely access the service through an app, the ads cannot be hidden using one of the many blocker tools now topping the download charts on Apple’s App Store.

    • CityNews investigation: Prison cellphone surveillance may have hit nearby homes

      A CityNews investigation reveals Correctional Services Canada (CSC) introduced super surveillance technology in at least one federal institution this winter; capturing calls and texts made from inside the jail, the visitor parking lot and, potentially, passing drivers and residents who live in close proximity to the institution.

      “We understand and believe there’s really been a breach of privacy. These were personal cell phones and personal calls. We’re looking at it from a legal aspect,” the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers’ Jason Godin told CityNews.

      A confidential Sept. 17, 2015 email sent by Warkworth Institution’s warden Scott Thompson to staff at the Campbellford-area prison, and obtained by CityNews, details how the technology captures these conversations.

    • How I hacked my IP camera, and found this backdoor account

      The time has come. I bought my second IoT device – in the form of a cheap IP camera. As it was the cheapest among all others, my expectations regarding security was low. But this camera was still able to surprise me.

      Maybe I will disclose the camera model used in my hack in this blog later, but first I will try to contact someone regarding these issues. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of different cameras have this problem, because they share being developed on the same SDK. Again, my expectations are low on this.

    • “Snowden Treaty” proposed to curtail mass surveillance and protect whistleblowers

      A “Snowden Treaty” designed to counter mass surveillance and protect whistleblowers around the world has been proposed by Edward Snowden, and three of the people most closely associated with his leaks: the documentary film-maker Laura Poitras; David Miranda, who was detained at Heathrow airport, and is the Brazilian coordinator of the campaign to give asylum to Snowden in Brazil; and his partner, the journalist Glenn Greenwald. The “International Treaty on the Right to Privacy, Protection Against Improper Surveillance and Protection of Whistleblowers,” to give it its full title, was launched yesterday in New York by Miranda, with Snowden and Greenwald speaking via video.

  • Civil Rights

    • NRA’s Ted Nugent Calls Unarmed Victims Of Gun Violence “Losers”

      National Rifle Association board member Ted Nugent said “losers” who don’t carry a gun “get cut down by murderous maniacs like blind sheep to slaughter” in a column for WND, becoming the latest public conservative figure to blame victims of gun violence who are unarmed.

    • Locked Out Of The Sixth Amendment By Proprietary Forensic Software

      Everything tied to securing convictions seems to suffer from pervasive flaws compounded by confirmation bias. For four decades, the DOJ presented hair analysis as an unique identifier on par with fingerprints or DNA when it wasn’t. A 2014 Inspector General’s report found the FBI still hadn’t gotten around to correcting forensic lab issues it had pointed out nearly 20 years earlier. This contributed to two decades of “experts” providing testimony that greatly overstated the results of hair analysis. All of this happened in the FBI’s closed system, a place outsiders aren’t allowed to examine firsthand.

      That’s the IRL version. The software version is just as suspect. Computers aren’t infallible and the people running them definitely aren’t. If the software cannot be inspected, the statements of expert witnesses should be considered highly dubious. After all, most expert witnesses representing the government have a vested interest in portraying forensic evidence as bulletproof. Without access to forensic software code, no one will ever be able to prove them wrong.

    • Saudi Arabia’s troubling death sentence

      On September 14, local media reported that an appeals court and Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Court had upheld the death sentence of Ali al-Nimr for participating in protests four years ago. He was 16 at the time. Today, he awaits the execution of his sentence, which stipulates that al-Nimr should be beheaded and that his headless body should be strung up for public display.

    • Saudi employer chops off Indian woman’s hand, Delhi seeks action

      Kasturi, 50, is currently undergoing treatment at a hospital in Riyadh, her sister Vijayakumari told The Indian Express from their home in Vellore district.

    • India woman’s arm ‘cut off by employer’ in Saudi Arabia

      India’s foreign ministry has complained to the Saudi Arabian authorities following an alleged “brutal” attack on a 58-year-old Indian woman in Riyadh.

      Kasturi Munirathinam’s right arm was chopped off, allegedly by her employer, when she tried to escape from their house last week, reports say.

    • UK and Saudi Arabia ‘in secret deal’ over human rights council place

      Leaked documents suggest vote-trading deal was conducted to enable nations to secure a seat at UN’s influential body

    • ‘UK did secret Saudi deal on human rights’: Cables allege Britain approached Gulf State about vote trade to support each other’s election to UN council

      Britain has been accused of backing Saudi Arabia’s election to the United Nations top human right’s body as part of a vote trading deal – despite the Gulf State’s appalling abuse record.

      Secret cables reportedly show that Britain approached Saudi Arabia about the trade ahead of the 2013 election for membership of the Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

      The Saudi regime has shameful record on human rights and has executed 135 people since January on charges ranging from murder to witchcraft.

    • Matthew Keys’ Hacking Conviction May Not Survive an Appeal

      The conviction of former Reuters employee Matthew Keys on hacking charges this week has renewed focus on a controversial federal law that many say prosecutors are using incorrectly and too broadly to inflate cases and trump up charges.

      The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or CFAA, is a federal law that was designed to target malicious hackers who obtain unauthorized access to protected computers. But judges have used it in a number of controversial cases to, for example, prosecute and convict a woman for violating MySpace’s user agreement, and to convict a former Korn/Ferry International employee for violating his employer’s computer use policy. It was also used to indict internet activist Aaron Swartz for downloading scholarly articles that he was authorized to access.

    • In The Post-Ferguson World, Cops Are Now Victims And It’s The Public That’s Going To Pay The Price

      There’s a new narrative out there — one that’s being repeated by campaigning politicians and buttressed by fearful news reports. Apparently, the public has declared war on law enforcement. Each shooting of a police officer is presented as evidence that it’s open season on cops. Officers aren’t simply killed. They’re “targeted.” The problem is, the stats don’t back this up.

    • 71% Of Americans Oppose Civil Asset Forfeiture. Too Bad Their Representatives Don’t Care.

      Most Americans haven’t even heard of civil asset forfeiture. This is why the programs have run unchallenged for so many years. An uninformed electorate isn’t a vehicle for change. This issue is still a long way away from critical mass.

      Without critical mass, there’s little chance those who profit from it will lose their power over state and federal legislatures. Forfeiture programs are under more scrutiny these days, but attempts to roll back these powers, or introduce conviction requirements, have been met with resistance from law enforcement agencies and police unions — entities whose opinions are generally respected far more than the public’s.

      California’s attempt to institute a conviction requirement met with pushback from a unified front of law enforcement groups. Despite nearly unanimous support by legislators, the bill didn’t survive the law enforcement lobby’s last-minute blitz. They also had assistance from the Department of Justice, which pointed out how much money agencies would be giving up by effectively cutting off their connection with federal agencies if the bill was passed.

    • H&M features its first Muslim model in a hijab

      Twenty-three year old Mariah Idrissi is the first Muslim woman in a hijab to be featured by world’s second largest fashion store

    • America’s most secretive court invites its first outsider

      A well-known Washington, DC lawyer has been appointed to be the first of a total of five amici curae—friends of the court—who will act as a sort of ombudsman or public advocate at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).

      The move was one of the provisions in the USA Freedom Act, which passed in June 2015 as a package of modest reforms to the national security system.

      The attorney, Preston Burton, was named to the post by the FISC earlier this month, which was not widely reported until The Intercept noticed it on Friday.

      Burton was likely selected because he has dealt with many security-related cases in the past, including former CIA intelligence agent Aldrich H. Ames, and former FBI Special Agent Robert Hanssen. In addition, according to his own biography, he “has held a Top Secret/SCI level security clearance at numerous points in his career,” which he will likely need again.

    • Facebook ‘unfriending’ can constitute workplace bullying, Australian tribunal finds

      Australia’s workplace tribunal ruled that a woman was bullied after she was unfriended on Facebook following work dispute

    • Absolutely Egregious: Man Jailed For Unpaid Traffic Ticket Gets Ignored Until He Dies In Custody

      This is so terrible. The guy — from a Detroit area suburb — is off his addiction-treatment meds and in withdrawal, and, at one point, lies under his bed, clawing up at it. What kind of person looks at a human being in this condition and just leaves them in their cage?

      During his 17 days in jail, in the final days the horror of his withdrawal, he laid there on the floor for 48 hours, waiting to die — in a cell that was supposed to be specially monitored.

      This guy was not a violent criminal. He lost 50 pounds in 17 days while jailed for an unpaid ticket.

    • Selling Out and the Death of Hacker Culture

      We’ve sold each other for profit and lost what makes us happy.

    • The Jocks of Computer Code Do It for the Job Offers

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Tennessee Voraciously Defends Its Right To Let AT&T Write Awful State Broadband Laws

      After fifteen years in an apparent coma, earlier this year the FCC woke up to the fact that ISPs were effectively paying states to pass laws focused entirely on protecting uncompetitive, regional broadband duopolies. More specifically, they’ve been pushing legislation that prohibits towns and cities from improving their own broadband infrastructure — or in some cases partnering with utilities or private companies — even in areas local incumbents refused to upgrade. It’s pure protectionism, and roughly twenty states have passed such ISP-written laws nationwide.

    • Facebook Hopes Renaming Internet.org App Will Shut Net Neutrality Critics Up

      Facebook is trying its best to defuse worries that the company is trying to impose a bizarre, walled-garden vision of the Internet upon the developing world. As we’ve been discussing, Facebook’s Internet.org initiative has been under fire of late in India, where the government has been trying to not only define net neutrality, but craft useful rules. Early policy guidelines have declared Internet.org to be little more than glorified collusion, since while it does offer limited access to some free services, it involves Facebook determining which services users will be able to access (and encrypted content wasn’t on the Facebook approval list).

    • Mark Zuckerberg tells the UN: ‘the internet belongs to everyone’

      Zuck was presenting a document signed by himself as well as Bill and Melinda Gates, stating: “The internet belongs to everyone. It should be accessible by everyone.”

      [...]

      Google too has been involved in looking for ways to improve coverage in remote areas. The firm’s Project Loon works to provide internet access using weather balloons. Bill Gates slammed this project stating that it won’t uplift the poor. Something has clearly changed his mind.

    • Facebook founder calls for universal Internet to help cure global ills

      Signing on to the connectivity campaign were U2 star Bono, co-founder of One, a group that fights extreme poverty; actress Charlize Theron, founder of Africa Outreach Project; philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates; British entrepreneur Richard Branson; Huffington Post editor Arianna Huffington; Colombian singer Shakira, actor and activist George Takei and Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales.

    • Where the candidates stand on Net neutrality

      What is it about Net neutrality that invites such political posturing over a principal that enjoys huge bipartisan support among voters? While 85 percent of Republican voters oppose the creation of Internet fast lanes, presidential candidate Jeb Bush made headlines this week saying that if elected he would roll back Net neutrality rules passed under the Obama administration.

      The Open Internet regulations still face legal challenges, but the biggest threat could come in 2016. President Obama has been a firm supporter of Net neutrality rules enacted by the FCC and a sure vetoer of any attempts by Congress to undo them. But what happens with the next president — and the next FCC? The agency is directed by five commissioners appointed to five-year terms by the president, but only three commissioners may be from the same political party. The FCC approved the current rules along party lines, with a 3-2 vote, but in 2017 the next president will be in a position to appoint a new commissioner who could reverse that vote.

  • DRM

    • Librarian of Congress who made phone unlocking illegal retires today

      The Librarian of Congress wields a surprising amount of power over the mobile devices we use every day. Once every three years, the head of the US Library of Congress is responsible for handing out exemptions to the anti-circumvention provisions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

    • How the DMCA may have let carmakers cheat clean air standards

      It was by sheer chance that the software “defeat device” that allowed Volkswagen to thwart emission tests on its diesel vehicles was discovered last year. The discovery came after a few university researchers tested a group of European cars made for the U.S. market.

      The West Virginia University researchers drove the vehicles for thousands of miles, testing the emissions as they went along. They weren’t expecting to discover what they did: Nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions rates 20 times the baseline set by the Environment Protection Agency (EPA).

      The university researchers reported their findings to the California Air Resources Board, which then further investigated. That ultimately led to the charges by the EPA.

    • RIAA chief says DMCA is “largely useless” to combat music piracy

      Cary Sherman, the chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, has some choice words about the current state of US copyright law. He says that under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, rightsholders must play a game of whack-a-mole with Internet companies to get them to remove infringing content.

      But that “never-ending game” has allowed piracy to run amok and has cheapened the legal demand for music. Sure, many Internet companies remove links under the DMCA’s “notice-and-takedown” regime. But the DMCA grants these companies, such as Google, a so-called “safe harbor”—meaning companies only have to remove infringing content upon notice from rightsholders.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Do you need permission to link? Here’s my table attempting a summary of recent CJEU case law

      Earlier this week this blog reported on the latest reference for a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on hyperlinking and copyright.

    • Copyrights

      • Norway’s Pirate Bay Block Rendered Useless by ‘Mistake’

        Copyright holders celebrated a landmark victory early September when a Norwegian court ordered local ISPs to block the Pirate Bay. A breakthrough verdict perhaps, but one with a major flaw as the rightsholder forgot to list one of the site’s main domain names.

      • Pirate Party Runs Privacy Campaign Ads on YouPorn

        The Austrian Pirate Party is running a rather unusual advertising campaign on one of the largest Internet porn sites. Using an image of the Minister of the Interior the Pirates warn unsuspecting visitors that they might soon be being watched, a reference to a new mass surveillance proposal in Austria.

      • Piracy Isn’t Worth The Risk of Prison, Freed Cammer Says

        That urge to be first was what put Danks on the radars of FACT and then the police. After his arrest and subsequent conviction Danks was initially sent to HMP Hewell, a Category B prison in Worcestershire, later being transferred to the low-to-medium risk HMP Oakwood. But despite committing only white-collar crime, Danks was placed alongside those with a thirst for violence.

        “I was locked up with all sorts of people, including murderers, bank robbers etc. I remember one guy who I worked with in the kitchens who had been sentenced to 18 years for killing someone. He got out and within six hours was arrested again for killing his victim’s friend,” Danks explains.

      • Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg—aka Anakata—exits prison

        Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg was released from a Swedish prison Saturday, three years after he began serving time for a Danish hacking conspiracy and for Swedish copyright offenses connected to the file-sharing site, The Pirate Bay.

        Warg hasn’t made any public comments following his release from Skanninge Prison in Sweden.

        But his mother chimed in on Twitter. “Yes, #anakata is free now. No more need to call for #freeanakata. Thank you everyone for your important support during these three years!”

      • Aurous Dev Fires Back at “Fearmongering, Babbling” Rightscorp

        Aurous, the music equivalent of Popcorn Time, is just two weeks away from alpha release but anti-piracy outfit Rightscorp is already touting a ‘solution’ to deal with the software. Biting back, Aurous’ developer Andrew Sampson says that Rightscorp has no idea how his technology works and accuses the company of fear mongering in an attempt to get more clients.

      • Rightscorp Retains Dallas Buyers Club Copyright Troll Lawyer

        Anti-piracy monetization firm Rightscorp says it has retained a lawyer known for his work with infamous copyright troll Dallas Buyers Club. Carl Crowell, who recently claimed that it’s impossible to be anonymous using BitTorrent, will help “educate” people about the effects of piracy while suing “persistent and egregious infringers.”

      • MPAA and RIAA’s Megaupload Lawsuits Delayed Until 2016

        Megaupload has asked a federal court in Virginia to postpone its legal battles with the MPAA and RIAA while the criminal proceedings remain pending. The movie studios and recording labels haven’t objected to the request which means that it will take at least six more months before the civil cases begin.

European Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda Says TPP Will Bring Software Patents to Europe and Other Continents/Countries

Posted in Europe, Patents at 3:52 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Class warfare codified in law

Benoît Battistelli

Summary: The Wikileaks “TPP Leak,” says Julia Reda, suggests that, based on the patentable subject matter section, signatories must add software patents

THE TPP Intellectual Property Chapter (a secret collusion between wealthy stakeholders) may be yet another reason for EPO staff to stage a protest later this week [1, 2, 3]. An EPO without oversight (it was intentionally destroyed) will no doubt be delighted over TPP passage, for it means potential profit at the expense of the public (and the EPO is no longer a public service anyway).

Julia Reda Helpfully enough, the widely-regarded (especially in the area of copyrights in Europe) Julia Reda looked at the TPP leaks and concluded: “TPP Leak: Patentable subject matter section reads as though signatories must Software Patents” (US policy exported en masse).

This doesn’t seem too shocking at all and now that the text is accessible by the public (because of leaks, not willful transparency) critics cannot be accused of “paranoia” or anything like that. The rabbit is out of the hat “and yet #NZ [New Zealand] is claiming that’s not the case,” Dr. Glyn Moody wrote, alluding to the latest developments pertaining to software patents in New Zealand.

In New Zealand and Europe there are already similar loopholes for granting of software patents. Software patents in Europe are not, however, formally legal. After Brimelow’s “as such” loophole one has to jump through hoops to acquire (i.e. be granted) software patent monopolies in the EU, no matter the country or the applicant. What Reda (shown to the right) found out ought to be a wakeup call.

This is not a new issue and it didn’t start with Benoît Battistelli. Elizabeth Hardon from SUEPO has worked in the patent office since 1988 and over at Nature, back in 2006 (almost a whole decade ago), she is mentioned as follows: “Quality will be sacrificed for quantity if the system is introduced, says Elizabeth Hardon, chair of the EPO staff union.”

“What Hardon had warned about clearly became a reality, namely the sacrifice of quality (science) for quantity (money).”Battistelli has clearly accelerated this trend and if TPP makes it possible for any company to easily patent software in Europe, then the floodgates will open and abusers will enter.

Quoting the Nature article again: “Now the EPO is planning to introduce a new system of assessing their work, which the examiners claim will force them to get through even more files, and push them beyond the point at which they can guarantee consistently good work.”

If this sounds familiar, it probably should. What Hardon had warned about clearly became a reality, namely the sacrifice of quality (science) for quantity (money).

The FFII’s President wrote the other day that “EUCodeWeek will ask people to write code, while they are pushing for software patents and the unitary patent” (UPC).

“OIN is basically just an aggregation of many software patents and a non-aggression pact, sending out the message that there is nothing inherently problematic with stockpiling of software patents.”The UPC, together with the TPP, is definitely loved by giant corporations. IBM lobbied for software patents in both Europe and New Zealand (we covered examples of both in past years) and nowadays it is hoping to popularise software patents even in the FOSS community, using OIN whose latest publicity stunt (a so-called birthday or anniversary) reached this site. To quote the puff piece: “When a group of major corporations within the same industry get together and agree not to target each other legally, it’s usually cause for alarm. The government–and consumers, if we’re being honest–starts to raise its collective eyebrows over fears of price fixing, monopoly, and more. But in the case of the Open Invention Network, or OIN, the goal of such a group is far more noble.”

OIN is not an assurance as such; watch how Oracle sued Google, for example, over Android (Linux-based) to make matters worse. OIN is basically just an aggregation of many software patents and a non-aggression pact, sending out the message that there is nothing inherently problematic with stockpiling of software patents. The corporate media almost never cites of quotes sceptics/critics of OIN, just as it hardly cites critics of TPP, the UPC and the EPO (although when it comes to the EPO the consensus is rapidly changing, especially in European press). █

Don’t Look at Linux For Sexism, Look at Microsoft (Although Microsoft Hides the Newest Lawsuits)

Posted in Courtroom, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 2:58 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Characterising societal issues as a ‘Linux problem’ because of transparency

Manchester station

Summary: A look at the broader scale of discrimination against women and how widespread a phenomenon it is inside Microsoft, the arch rival of Linux

REMEMBER how Microsoft pushed “boobs” into Linux [1, 2, 3] (much to the detriment of Linux) and later “apologised” because it got caught? Many people don’t remember that (or simply didn’t pay attention at the time). This helped remind us that Microsoft is very hard to beat when it comes to chauvinism. Over the years we have covered many examples of sexism at Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. This kind of sexism goes all the way up to the CEO himself and let’s not even mention Microsoft homophobia [1, 2, 3] because that is a separate (albeit related) topic.

Several weeks ago “Microsoft [got] Hit With Gender Discrimination Lawsuit”. To quote a progressive site: “Microsoft is staring at a potential class-action gender discrimination lawsuit filed by a former technician alleging the company denied her promotions and raises.

“Katherine Moussouris filed a complaint against the Seattle-based company claiming her supervisors didn’t like her “manner of style” and gave the promotions she was up for to her less-qualified male counterparts, Reuters reported. She also reportedly received lower bonuses as retaliation for making sexual harassment complaints. According to the complaint, Microsoft’s female employees in Redmond, Washington frequently received lower performance ratings and were often based on subjective observations.

“Microsoft has been criticized in the past for being cavalier towards gender discrimination in its ranks. Last October, CEO Satya Nadella apologized after telling a roomful of women technicians at the Grace Hopper Conference that they shouldn’t ask for a raise, but instead have “faith that the system will give you the right raise.” Nadella backtracked his comments soon thereafter via a mass email to employees: “If you think you deserve a raise, you should just ask.”

“Moussouris is encouraging women who worked for Microsoft in the past six years to come forward, which could help the case gain class action certification. Wednesday’s lawsuit is the first gender discrimination allegation against a major tech company in the wake of the conclusion of former Reddit interim CEO Ellen Pao’s infamous suit against her former law firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. Pao lost her case, in which her claims were similar in tone to Moussouris, and recently dropped her appeal.”

Will Hill at the Join Diaspora Web site wrote (he personally brought it to my attention while I was away on vacation):

Sexism Lawsuit Against Microsoft

A class action lawsuit has been filed by a former Microsoft employee over rampant sexual discrimination at Microsoft. Katherine Moussouris claims that women are underpaid, passed over for promotions, and face retaliation if they complain. She worked for the company for seven years.

This does not surprise us because we saw and covered similar reports in the past. Microsoft tries to suppress publication of such matters and it is easier because of the culture of secrecy.

By contrast, in Free software communities everything is visible to the public, including to the already-hostile press. One might expect the observer to take this transparency into account and therefore use some judgment. Some people care more about Linux gossip than about Linux news, however, so when something similar happens in the Linux world it can hijack the news feeds for about a week if not longer than that. A lot has been said about Linux in relation to women’s rights, especially this past week (because of Sharp). There are still some new articles about it [1-16], with plenty of discussion in each (it has become quite an Internet storm).

At Microsoft, based on evidence that does not receive much media coverage, females sue the company for millions over discrimination; in Linux one can just make a mess, start flamewars. We can quite safely guess that many Linux developers (especially in top positions) have been wasting time checking what people say about them online rather than write code. A week-long saga, never-ending and self-feeding, is still raging. Even on Friday we still saw at least 3 articles about this drama against Linux culture. Coders are distracted by these flamewars, hence productivity is significantly down.

One of the curious comments I have come across talks about socially-engineering the community. Remember that Intel helped create OSDL and later played a key role in the Linux Foundation, so it cannot be treated as an outsider to Linux development.

To quote one comment, “Conspiracy theory: Would one of those multi-billion-dollar corporations (with NSA connections) spend a few million bucks to social engineer the Linux community?” It’s not as though Intel itself respects women’s rights (not inside the company anyway).

“I’ve asked Sarah Sharp some questions about how she reconciles her attitude towards the free software community and her work with Intel,” Hill wrote. “I have not seen any serious answers to those questions yet.”

Will Hill said, “I have asked Sarah Sharp on Google Plus some questions about working for Intel.” Here is the text of the questions: “Thanks for all the interesting ideas, and prior usb and graphics work, but how do you square these thoughts with working for Intel (1)? Intel is known for nasty things like killing the OLPC project through dumping (2), and partnership with Microsoft, a company that’s everything you complain about and more. Even when Intel is cooperating, the seem to hold back and treat the free software world as second class (2) Intel’s Management Engine and other firmware are direct threats to people’s software freedom, privacy, and ownership of their machines. Is Intel somehow getting internal culture right while doing so many bad things to everyone outside the company? Was your kernel work an official part of your job? How have they responded to your decision to quit that work?”

There are more articles about all this below (we shared almost 20 more in the previous reply), but we don’t really want to feed the cycle of endless discussions.

The lack of women in Computer Science or S.T.E.M. disciplines in general (there are explanations of causes for that, but it’s beyond the scope of this post) is not the fault of FOSS, however it’s fashionable to blame it all on FOSS when one looks for a good, effective smear. This is also done a lot in the political sphere, where it’s fashionable to mistreat or invade one’s neighbours (or very distant nations) using concern for women’s rights. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. Matthew Garrett Quits Kernel to Do His Own

    Matthew Garrett, noted developers and self-proclaimed social justice warrior, today announced solidarity with Sarah Sharp’s resignation in protest of rude behavior and the “way [Linus Torvalds] behaves” by providing a Linux kernel with changes rejected by Torvalds. Elsewhere, Jack M. Germain said Slackel offers advantages over Slackware but it’s still not for new users and DarkDuck found most Linux users still use Windows or Mac as well.

  2. Linux Game of Thrones begins

    A Game of Thrones style war has broken out amongst the weirdie beardies of Open Source Land which has now split the Linux kingdom just as “Winter is a Coming.”

  3. The Linux Kernel and Politeness
  4. Looking at the facts: Sarah Sharp’s crusade

    Everyone is free to have his own opinion (sorry, his/her), and I am free to form my own opinion on Sarah Sharp by just simply reading the facts. I am more than happy that one more SJW has left Linux development, as the proliferation of cleaning of speech from any personality has taken too far a grip.

  5. It’s Time to End the War On Stupid People

    On the other hand, it’s little mystery at all: Sarah was the first female kernel contributor I’d ever heard of, and the only one I can readily name now. It’s an uncomfortable answer, because when someone breaks into a space that doesn’t often include their gender or background, we feel we avoid culpability by being nonchalant. No exclusion here, nosiree. Didn’t even notice you were a woman. It’s comforting and dishonest; when someone breaks a boundary of cultural exclusion, regardless of how your reaction may later be judged, the fact is you notice.

    Although apparently nobody noticed when Sarah quietly disappeared over the past year, finally coming out to cite now-familiar complaints about the toxic and hostile atmosphere on LKML and in the kernel community in general.

  6. Pining for the good ol’ days

    Once again, he’s complaining about how the fun from Debian has been lost because making sexist jokes, or treating other people like shit is not allowed any more. He seems to think the LKML is the ideal environment and that Debian should be more like it.

  7. Linux kernel development suffering from the “internet of hate”

    Another Linux kernel developer has left, citing a toxic environment. Jack Wallen proposes the type of motivation used by the kernel devs could unmake a very precious commodity.

  8. On Norbert Preining, Sarah Sharp, and Debian
  9. Linux: Sarah Sharp defines what makes a good community
  10. Is Microsoft Wooing Canonical & Important Departures…

    Well, here’s the third, though it’s completely unrelated to Sharp and Garrett: The call went out in September for nominations for the Ubuntu Community Council elections, and they were returned with a glaring omission: Elizabeth Krumbach Joseph, who will not be running for re-election. She explains in her blog her motivations for moving on, and it’s well worth a read. Perhaps this is understatement, but her absence leaves a notable void in the “adult-in-the-room” department, since Elizabeth was often the voice of reason and sanity — and of course a voice for doing the right thing even when it was unpleasant or difficult for Canonical/Ubuntu — in a UCC group too full of yes-boys and Ubuntu Apocalypse zombies. Her leadership will definitely be missed.

  11. James Bottomley: The Linux Kernel Mailing List Behavior Isn’t All That Bad

    Bottomley, maintainer of the kernel’s SCSI subsystem and other code, argues that things on the Linux kernel mailing list aren’t all that it’s talked up to be.

  12. ​Matthew Garrett is not forking Linux

    When Matthew Garrett, well-known Linux kernel developer and ‎CoreOS principal security engineer, announced he was releasing a [Linux] kernel tree with patches that implement a BSD-style securelevel interface, I predicted people would say Garrett was forking Linux. I was right. They have. But, that’s not what Garrett is doing.

  13. Thick Skin (within Free/Open Source communities)

    The definition of “thick-skinned” in different dictionaries ranges from “not easily offended” to “largely unaffected by the needs and feelings of other people; insensitive”, going through “able to ignore personal criticism”, “ability to withstand criticism and show no signs of any criticism you may receive getting to you”, “an insensitive nature” or “impervious to criticism”. It essentially describes an emotionally detached attitude regarding one’s social environment, the capacity or ignoring or minimizing the effects of others’ criticism and the priorization of the protection of one’s current state over the capacity of empathizing and taking into account what others may say that don’t conform to one’s current way of thinking. It is essentially setting up barriers against whatever others may do that might provoke any kind of crisis or change in you.

  14. Linux Discussion Continues, Fedora Welcomes Chromium

    Folks are still discussing the resignation of Sarah Sharp and Matthew Garrett from Linux kernel development. Jack Wallen said Sharp (and Garrett) are cases of more developers being “turned away, simply because developers had no patience for personal respect.” He said Linux rules with a “sharp and iron tongue” with “foul and abusive language.” He agreed with Dr. Roy Schestowitz in that all this is a “PR nightmare” threatening the “flagship of the open-source movement.” He placed part of the blame on what he calls the “Internet of hate” and said if Linux is to compete with Microsoft and Apple its developers need to “start treating the legions of programmers, who are working tirelessly to deliver, as well as they treat the code itself. Open source is about community. A community with a toxic foundation will eventually crumble.”

  15. Linus Torvalds needs to fix the communication bug that is hurting his project
  16. Respect and the Linux Kernel Mailing Lists

10.10.15

Links 10/10/2015: IBM’s Linux-based LC Family, KDE Frameworks 5.15

Posted in News Roundup at 11:31 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Using open source principles to build better engineering teams

    We become better software developers by observing how some of the best software in the world is being written. Open source has changed and will continue to change the way the world builds software, not only by creating high-quality reusable components, but by giving us a model for how to produce better software. Open source gives us complete transparency into that process.

  • Examining the KNIME open source data analytics platform

    KNIME is an open source data analytics, reporting and integration platform developed and supported by KNIME.com AG. Through the use of a graphical interface, KNIME enables users to create data flows, execute selected analysis steps and review the results, models and interactive views.

  • Events

    • What to expect from PentahoWorld 2015

      This time last year the Computer Weekly Open Source Insider blog reported on the inaugural PentahoWorld 2014 conference and exhibition.

    • Day 1 of PyCon India 2015

      Day one is the first day of main event. I was late to wake up, but somehow managed to reach the venue around 8:30am. Had a quick breakfast, and then moved into the Red Hat booth. Sankarshan, Alfred, Soni were already there. I don’t know the exact reason, but the booth managed to grab the attention of all the people in the venue. It was over crowded :) While the students were much more interested in stickers, and other goodies, many came forward to ask about internship options, and future job opportunities. Alfred did an excellent job in explaining the details to the participants. The crowd was in booth even though the keynote of day one had started. I missed most of keynote as many people kept coming in the booth, and they had various questions.

  • Web Browsers

    • Subresource Integrity Support Ready For Firefox 43, Chrome 45

      With the upcoming releases of the Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome web-browsers is support for the W3C Subresource Integrity (SRI) specification.

      The Subresource Integrity feature allows web developers to ensure that externally-loaded scripts/assets from third-party sources (e.g. a CDN) haven’t been altered. The SRI specification adds a new “integrity” HTML attribute when loading such assets where you can specify a hash of the file source expected — the loaded resource must then match the hash for it to be loaded.

    • Windows 10: Microsoft’s new browser is a FAILURE – find out why

      Microsoft tried to move users from its infamous Internet Explorer browser to a minimalist new web browser dubbed Edge following the launch of Windows 10.

      But new data has revealed that Windows 10 users are reluctant to make the transition.

    • Chrome

      • Google open source project aims to speed up web
      • Google Seeks to Speed Up Mobile Web Browsing

        Google has announced a new project that could make a difference for mobile browsing. The company has launched the Accelerated Mobile Pages project (AMP), a fully open source initiative, with the underlying code available on GitHub.

      • Google wants to speed up the mobile web with AMP project

        Google has a plan to speed up mobile Web browsing. The recently unveiled AMP—Accelerated Mobile Pages—project is an open source initiative that restricts certain elements of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to produce leaner Web pages “that are optimised to load instantly on mobile devices.” How much quicker is “instantly”? According to Google, early testing with with a simulated 3G connection and a simulated Nexus 5 showed improvements of between 15 to 85 percent.

    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla Continues Moving Away From NPAPI Plugins

        Firefox continues making progress on loosening web developers’ and users’ dependence on NPAPI plug-ins with a goal still in place to remove support for most NPAPI plugins by the end of 2016.

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • At the Heart of OpenStack Evolution

      As it matures, OpenStack’s parallel to Linux is clearer. Linux emerged 20 years ago as a somewhat exotic challenger to proprietary operating systems. Today, it is one of the most popular and widely used OSes. However, Linux still exists in a market of mixed use. It’s likely that OpenStack will be subject to the same effect, becoming a viable option among a number of cloud infrastructures.

  • CMS

    • What’s New This October in Open Source CMS

      A little love, please, for Miami-based dotCMS, maker of Java open source content management system (CMS) software. Just yesterday, it was chosen as one of the 20 Most Promising Open Source Software Solution Providers by CIO Review.

  • Business

  • BSD

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • GnuCash 2.6.9 Free Accounting Software Patches Serious Bug on Windows OSes

      The GnuCash Project has announced the immediate availability for download of the ninth point release for all supported operating systems, including GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows.

    • CC BY-SA 4.0 now one-way compatible with GPLv3

      Put simply this means you now have permission to adapt another licensor’s work under CC BY-SA 4.0 and release your contributions to the adaptation under GPLv3 (while the adaptation relies on both licenses, a reuser of the combined and remixed work need only look to the conditions of GPLv3 to satisfy the attribution and ShareAlike conditions of BY-SA 4.0).

    • The party is over… but the fight for freedom is ready for another thirty years

      Last Saturday, we celebrated the Free Software Foundation’s thirtieth birthday with a party to remember.

    • FSF’s Nerdy 30
    • VimSpellcheckery

      While I was mass editing the transcripts I used to create the FSF30 wordclouds, I realized I was doing too much manual movery to get to the next misspelled word. In a moment of clarity, I was like “hey, I bet vim has a way to properly do this!” And of course it did!

    • Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 declared one-way compatible with GNU GPL version 3

      Compatibility means that a person can now take a work they received under the terms of CC BY-SA 4.0 and then distribute adaptations of that work under the terms of GPLv3.

    • Guix-Tox talk at PyConFR, October 17th

      Guix-Tox is a young variant of the Tox “virtualenv” management tool for Python that uses guix environment as its back-end. In essence, while Tox restricts itself to building pure Python environments, Guix-Tox takes advantages of Guix to build complete environments, including dependencies that are outside Tox’s control, thereby improving environment reproducibility. Cyril will demonstrate practical use cases with OpenStack.

  • Project Releases

    • New Version Of JPEG-Turbo Quietly Released

      While the Internet has been buzzing recently about the new FLIF image format, libjpeg-turbo developers released a new version of their JPEG library.

      Libjpeg-turbo 1.4.2 is the new release and it quietly made it out at the end of September. Libjpeg-Turbo 1.4.2 features at least five known bug fixes resulting in crashes and other problems.

  • Public Services/Government

    • U.S. report highlights positive elements of government open source adoption

      The report released by DHS is definitely worth a read. While focused on real problems and challenges facing use of OSS by the USG, it has very useful insights for governments around the world. It confirms my growing view, as I’ve written previously, that we are past some of the old debates about OSS. Instead, many governments are today increasingly focused on the “how tos” of open source choices; not “whether” to use it.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Data

      • Open data Incubator: ODINE selected its first round of start-ups

        Seven start-ups from UK, Italy, France, Estonia and Austria were selected to be part of the first round of companies benefiting from the Open Data Incubator for Europe (ODINE). This two-year programme awarded EUR 650 000 in total to the companies, which can receive up to EUR 100 000 each.

    • Open Hardware

      • Eleven Open Source 3D Printer Hits Kickstarter (video)

        ISG3D has taken to Kickstarter this month to raise $11,000 to help take their open source 3D printer design into production.

        The Eleven 3D printer has been specifically designed to provide users with an affordable machine but offers an impressive 22 x 40 x 40 cm build area and is completely open source allowing for modifications and enhancements to be created.

  • Programming

    • Perl 6 is coming soon: What it will bring

      Perl 6, a long-awaited upgrade to the well-known scripting language, has gone into beta, with the general release planned for Christmastime.

      The upgrade went to beta late last month, Perl designer Larry Wall told InfoWorld on Wednesday, and the October monthly release will feature the first of two beta releases of the Rakudo Perl 6 compiler. There been having monthly compiler releases for years, but the language definition has now stabilized. Wall added, “At this point we’re optimizing, fixing bugs, and documenting, and I feel comfortable saying we can take a snapshot of whatever we have in December and call it the first production release.”

    • PEAR 1.10 Released With PHP 7 Support
    • Couchbase Server 4.0 introduces SQL-based query language N1QL (Nickel)

      Couchbase Server 4.0 is designed to give software application development pros a route to building more apps on Couchbase.

Leftovers

10.09.15

Benoît Battistelli’s Office Accused of Institutional Harassment Against EPO Staff in New Letter to the Administrative Council, Calling for External Investigation

Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:36 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: A probe by an external and independent entity is sought with the aim of looking into systematic harassment against EPO employees who simply ‘dare’ to point out gross violations by their managers; staff protests at EPO headquarters in the Netherlands and Germany are scheduled

Solicitors, who are expensive and usually non-technical, appear to have entered the zone now that Battistelli’s repressive leadership resorts to union-busting, SLAPP, censorship, and even illegal terminations of staff which is outside the sphere of control of the EPO. To think that people who do this are allowed to walk free (with private bodyguards) into publicly-funded offices in Europe is to basically accept that Europe is no better than China or Russia when it comes to human rights.

The EPO's internal investigation was a sham (the oversight is in bed with the subject of oversight), so outsiders need to objectively assess the situation and rationalise corrective action, however difficult this can be, at least politically.

Attacks (in the form of grilling/interrogations) against Elizabeth Hardon from SUEPO turned out to have had an enormous personal toll (not just financially but health too). It was gone for a very long time in an effort to silence/censor her using threats (not just termination but also legal action/s). We are now learning that Hardon is making a complaint of harassment against Benoît Battistelli et al, on behalf of or aided by her representatives. Here is what we have so far (no plain text yet, but it should be self-explanatory we hope):

Harassment letter

Harassment letter

Harassment letter

Harassment letter

Harassment letter

Harassment letter

Harassment letter

Harassment letter

SUEPO has meanwhile come out with a more formal plan for staff demonstrations next week, stating at some stage on Friday (at the public site of SUEPO) the following (along with a schedule):

During the coming meeting of the Administrative Council (13/14 October) staff of the European Patent Office will demonstrate in The Netherlands and Germany.

In The Netherlands EPO staff will demonstrate on Tuesday 13 October at 12.00h in front of the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs in The Hague (Parnassusplein 5, next to the Central Station).

We request an urgent labour inspection of the EPO by the Dutch Arbeidsinpectie in conformity with the Article 20 of the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities (PPI) of the EPOrg.

In Germany EPO staff will demonstrate on Wednesday 14 October at 13.00h in front of the EPO Isar building in Munich (Bob-van-Benthem-Platz 1).

According to SUEPO, the EPO has been transformed into a totalitarian state where the rights of staff and of those who defend the rights of staff – or simply adhere to common sense – are being crushed to the benefit of a few, mainly French, who are making rocket careers.
The EPO is a civil service organisation and not a self-service organisation.

We wish to remind the Council delegates and the governments of the Member States that they are responsible for the European Patent Organisation, its mission and its staff.

“Merpel is curious to know why the @EPOorg President is apparently so anxious to send the Boards of Appeal into exile,” IP Kat wrote, whereas the President of the FFII said: “Let’s crowdfund legal support of poor Examiners against the rich EPO” (linking to Techrights).

Maybe it’s worth considering a fund-raiser for Hardon’s defence. A war on her rights should be treated as a war on the rights of all European citizens. It is a race to the bottom at the EPO these days, and it’s already at gutter level. █

Responses to Software Patents in India Though Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions

Posted in Asia, Patents at 4:42 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

India's famous site

Summary: India’s famous skills, which revolve around software services and software development, are under attack by new laws which strive to grant foreign corporations de facto monopolies on software, even inside India

GROUPS in India continue to fight back against what’s correctly perceived as distortion of law and betrayal of Indians. It’s regarding India’s patent policy, which has come under attack from foreign multinationals for as long as Techrights existed. India moves closer to officially endorsing software patents, despite the US cracking down on many of them (Alice/§101 [1, 2]), and the media-shaping IBM is happy about it. Microsoft patents software in India even when it's not legal.

The Indian media did not always give space (and a voice) to large foreign corporations. See for example this article titled “How the Patent Office is Intent on Killing Innovation in India?”

“Newsclick interviews Venkatesh Hariharan,” says the author, “Outreach lead for the Open Invention Network and a member of the Ispirits expert group on software patents, to discuss the issue of software patenting, the effects this can have on society, as well as the specific guidelines issues by the IPO.”

Well, the Open Invention Network (OIN) is not against software patents, so it’s baffling that they chose to speak to OIN, a de facto front group of IBM et al..

“Software Patents Refuse to Die” was a better article from the same publication (Newsclick). It said that “Software patents are like the “living dead” in the zombie film genre that Hollywood has made popular. They just refuse to die. As many time you kill them, they revive again and keep coming back. In India, we thought we had killed and buried software patents with the Amended Patent Act in 2005, and again in the Patents Manual, 2011, both of which effectively deny software patents. The recent Guidelines on Computer Related Invention (CRI) issued by the Indian Patents Office last month, has brought them back again, with an interpretation that not only violates the Act, but also the English language.”

Perhaps the best response that we found in recent weeks is this joint letter to the PMO. Here are some quotes from this letter:

This concerns the “Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions (CRIs)” issued on August 21, 2015 by the Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks. We, the undersigned, wish to share with you some of our concerns over this document, particularly in context of its potential repercussions on Indian industry and innovation. The Guidelines in their current form, by providing for patenting of software, could place the Indian software industry, especially software product companies and startups, at the mercy of Multinational Corporations and patent holding entities who have amassed many patents in the area and continue to do so. The Guidelines by allowing for software patents will make writing code and innovating in the area of software a dangerous proposition due to the chance of infringing on the patents held by big corporations.

The stated intent of the document is to provide guidelines for the examination of patent applications relating to CRIs by the Patent Office so as to further foster uniformity and consistency in their examination. However, we submit that the Guidelines in their current form run counter to the object of Section 3(k) of the Patents Act, 1970, which is to unconditionally exclude mathematical and business methods, computer programs per se, and algorithms from patentable subject matter.

Well, more actions may be needed in order to stop the plutocrats because their lobbyists have a lot of influence in India, which has notoriety for political corruption. The conglomerates in India (not even Indian) are conspiring against software developers, including Indians, trying to essentially destroy any chances of software independence in the country where programmers are renowned for their skills and sheer number. To keep Indian software companies marginalised (unable to effectively compete with Western software corporations) one needs to threaten and occasionally sue, e.g. with software patents.

Sadhana Chathurvedula wrote an article in a few places — an article that proponents of software patents (like IBM) like to cite. “Revised guidelines say software that demonstrates a technical application or improves hardware may also be patented, widening the scope of patents,” the article says.

It seems likely that unless some very major backlash disrupts the political system, foreign corporations will cement their occupation of India (in the software sense), bolstered by monopolies on algorithms. Activism is sorely needed now. █

Mobile Linux (e.g. Android) Still a Victim of Software Patents, No Peace in Sight

Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Patents at 4:13 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Retarding innovation in the name of profit

Manchester Piccadilly

Summary: A look at recent developments in the fight against mobile Linux (notably Android these days) and whoever is behind the patent attacks (not always as obvious as people are led to believe)

THERE IS A lot to be said about the impact of software patents on Free (as in freedom) software, such as Linux or Android. Yet another OIN ‘ad’ (among others) has just been published because the OIN turned 10 and decided to start a publicity campaign, approaching journalists and yanking out press releases in a lot of Web sites. The OIN is, in simple terms, a conglomerate of software patent holders, led by lobbyists for software patents (notably IBM). It is trying to make software patents and Free software look mutually compatible, reconciling or ignoring the fact that the two are inherently in conflict. SJVN wrote that “One reason why Linux weathered patent attacks and trolls to become today’s dominant server and cloud operating system is because the Open Invention Network united its supporters into a strong patent consortium.”

No, that’s not the reason. OIN might try to take credit for it, but that’s utter nonsense. Free software and GNU/Linux succeeded despite OIN and software patents. In many ways, Free software and GNU/Linux continue to suffer from software patents and this will be the subject of today’s post.

IBM is not the only company that supports GNU/Linux and software patents at the same time. As patent maximalists remind us right now, other large companies, even in China, are doing this. Consider Xiaomi’s story. “Responding to a question about recent high-profile executive hires,” writes IAM, “Lei said: “Former Qualcomm global senior vice president Wang Xiang joined Xiaomi in July. He’s in charge of our IP. We should be able to make progress in this. Xiaomi pays great attention to innovation. Last year we applied for 2,700 patents. This year’s goal is 4,000.””

This won’t protect them. The matter of fact is, those overall (aggregate) numbers are low compared to the likes of Microsoft, which uses patents to extort GNU/Linux and Android backers like Xiaomi (it’s allegedly, based on numerous recent reports, working on a GNU/Linux laptop, not just Android devices).

Microsoft Versus Android

Microsoft continues to attack Free software using patents. Ewan Spence wrote about this the other day. He is syndicated in some large sites and most prominent was probably this article from Forbes, titled “Microsoft’s Slow Yet Successful Infection Of Android”. Spence is right to claim that “Once more Microsoft has announced an updated patent licensing deal around smartphone technology, and once more a Microsoft deal includes the pre-loading of Microsoft’s productivity software on a smartphone. As more partners come on board, Microsoft’s cloud-based services and applications are becoming more prevalent within the Android platform.”

As we explained at the time, this is not a “patent licensing deal” but an extortion which targets a company from Taiwan, PRC. Microsoft is using blackmail (with patents) to get its way. Spence continued: “The more occasions that users encounter the software, the better the sign-up rate will be for Microsoft. Look back over the last year at Microsoft’s deals and you will find that many of the major manufacturers in the Android space have deals that include bundling Microsoft apps, with Sony, LG, Dell, and a number of other smaller manufacturers all signed up.”

This is a large-scale campaign of extortion and it continues to widen. If it wasn’t for software patents, this probably wouldn’t be possible. China’s government is trying to counter this (e.g. by publishing a secret list of Microsoft patents asserted against Linux/Android), but will this really help shield Chinese giants like Xiaomi and Huawei? It has not protected ZTE.

Speaking of patent attacks on Android, how about patent trolls? How about Microsoft’s troll, Intellectual Ventures? It has been attacking Android backers over their use of Android this year. Such patent bullies obviously help Microsoft against Android while Microsoft says it opposes these (Microsoft is clearly supporting them, even arming them, or at least those that are working for Microsoft or attacking Google, e.g. MOSAID and Vringo).

There is a silent war on Android and Google going on, paralleling Microsoft’s war on privacy.

Apple Versus Android

Several weeks ago the appeals court granted an injunction to Apple, banning some features from Samsung‘s Android phones, which are the world’s best sellers. Here is another take on it, aptly titled “Appeals Court: It Is In The Public’s Interest That Samsung Not Be Allowed To ‘Slide To Unlock’ Devices” (software patents).

To quote TechDirt: “The patent fight between Apple and Samsung has been going on for many years now with Samsung being told to pay a lot of money to Apple. But on one point Apple has been unsuccessful: getting an injunction barring Samsung from offering products for sale that include the “infringing” inventions — such as the concept of “slide to unlock.” I still have trouble understanding how “slide to unlock” could possibly be patentable, but there it is: US Patent 8,046,721 on “unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image.””

It’s a very simple concept, much like opening a gate that keeps cattle confined. The CAFC (Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit) is once again helping software patents and Android antagonists like Florian Müller are visibly jubilant [1, 2, 3], even though this lobbyist with history of doing activism against Android (for money) seemingly flip-flops at times and occasionally criticises Apple, though not yet Oracle.

Just remember that Apple uses software patents against Linux. Here is an article titled “Samsung Infringed Apple Software Patent”. It was very big news at the time. Even the BBC covered it, but poorly (too shallow). Britain’s leading technology news site chose the clever headline “Apple VICTORY: Old Samsung phones not sold any more can’t be sold any more”.

What Apple did to Linux with patents in this case is more or less the same as patent trolling, except the size of the plaintiff is a lot larger and there are phones with the “Apple” name/logo on them (even though it’s not Apple that makes them, Apple is not an Asian company and it has no factories of its own).

Watch this space for followups as this legal fight is far from over. Apple won this round [1, 2, 3], but Samsung continues to outsell Apple.

Bogus ‘Peace’

At the end of last month some people were left with the false impression that Google and Microsoft had reached some kind of peace. See this analysis titled “Microsoft: Sacrificing Android Patents Licensing In Favor Of Platform-Agnostic Growth”.

Well, Microsoft is not “Sacrificing Android Patents Licensing”, it still attacks (with software patents) many companies. The Microsoft-Google deal is only applicable to the Motorola litigation; every other company that uses Android is still attacked, sometimes by proxy.

FOSS Force wrote that “[a]lthough it’s certain that some money is exchanging hands in the process — an appeals court in July ruled against Motorola in a case Google was defending — no terms of the agreement have been released.”

This kind of patent ‘peace’ between Microsoft and Google means that Microsoft proxies will do more suing. Android OEMs (not Google) will take the burden of extortion.

There were many articles about this, e.g. [1, 2, 3] and Müller, whom Microsoft had paid for Android FUD, wrote: “There’s nothing in it that would suggest Microsoft made any headway in five years of suing. This one is structurally reminiscent of the second-class settlement Google reached with Apple last year from a position of mutual weakness: neither do Android’s enemies hold patents that would represent a serious threat to the world’s most widely-distributed mobile operating system nor are the patents for which Google bought Motorola powerful enough to force Apple or Microsoft into a cross-license covering the entire Android ecosystem.”

The part that we didn’t like to see reappearing is this: “Microsoft has the industry’s best IP licensing team and is generating billions of dollars per year in Android patent licenses.”

This is not true; nobody has evidence to that Microsoft earns anything this way. It’s a leverage card for extortion and FUD.

BlackBerry Edging Towards Patent Trolling

BlackBerry is moving to Android these days (it won’t admit that its own proprietary operating system is on its death throes yet), but it doesn’t mean that it won’t be using patents to attack competitors who use Android (like Sony does for instance). It is still possible that BlackBerry will become a patent troll based on some recent reports [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8], the most principal of which came from Reuters and was titled “BlackBerry CEO sees company patents as key to turnaround strategy”.

BlackBerry’s CEO has spoken of other things too [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. It may be premature to judge BlackBerry’s future direction, but either way, just like Nokia, it has the potential to do a lot of harm with its patents arm.

What we sorely need right now is a universal (global) end to software patents. Our next post will focus on India’s patent policy and US patent policy we shall cover some time in the coming days. █

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