Returning to our series of posts which highlight the problem with poor patents, here are some news.
Slashdot has identified a rather disturbing patent from IBM. This patent has prior art written all over it and if only you could count the number of applications that use checkboxes, would you realise the scope of impact.
What do you call it when you drag a pointer over a checkbox to select or deselect it depending on its original state? Answer: US Patent 7,278,116. On Tuesday, the USPTO awarded IBM a patent for Mode Switching for Ad Hoc Checkbox Selection, aka Making an ‘X’.
The European Commission launched on Monday formal antitrust proceedings against U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm after complaints that its patent licensing for third-generation mobile telephones broke competition rules.
Another case that we recently mentioned used WLAN as an example of cases where patents hurt progress. Fortunately, that issue may have just been resolved.
A roadblock that reportedly could have held up a key wireless LAN standard seems to have been cleared now that an Australian research group has responded to the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) standards body.
Is is worth keeping an eye on Europe where Microsoft recently lost its appeal and was requested to disclose proprietary protocols — broken bridges which it had maintained in order to stifle competition. The latest word from Europe indicates that there is a chance of Microsoft procrastinating by letting the judgment go on forever in the courts.
The Sept. 17 ruling by the EU’s Court of First Instance means “there is a clear set of guidance for us, and we move on in that environment,” he [for Microsoft] told lawmakers.
The Clifford Chance partner who acted in support of the EC’s ruling that Microsoft had abused its dominance
Microsoft has not yet responded to requests for documentation (or at least so it seems). Unless this returns to the courtroom, all Linux distributors will be able to receive the benefits that Novell paid for, but for free. This would render parts of Novell’s deal moot.
The Register points out a funny mistake in Novell’s Web site. It’s an amusing article that ends with:
“Of course, open source conspiracy theorists (and shockingly, they do exist) will cry that this is a direct result of Novell’s recently enacted policy of appeasement towards the Beast of Redmond.”
Here we go. An idea that we have been kicking around for quite some time (since last year, in fact) has been officially made a reality. Novell is taking its own direction with OpenOffice.org.
“Novell is making OpenOffice.org incompatible with itself.”Remind yourselves of Novell’s ‘special’ edition of OpenOffice.org, which only works in Windows and has some different legal implications. Also recall what we said back in March: Novell is making OpenOffice.org incompatible with itself.
So, here we are less than a year later. Novell keeps takingits own route. It will be interesting to see where this work is going and how it develops. How does IBM fit into this picture with Symphony?
Some time ago, in a post that concentrates on Cisco, we provided many examples of cases where Microsoft betrays its business partners. We urge you to read this if you haven’t. Here is the latest example:
According to the email Microsoft was interfering with various aspects of Bungie’s business. It claims Voles were fiddling in everything Bungie did, from marketing to public relations. According to the email, Microsoft was also “stingy” with profits.
You people aren’t acquainted with Novell. It is one of the worst-managed companies ever–employees who have tried to to innovate usually find instant defeat. If anyone from Novell is patrolling blogs it is certainly not a company-managed effort. In fact, most employees are stressed about the upcoming October layoffs.
Can anyone confirm this? Having just searched the Web, the 2005 layoffs are all that comes up [1, 2, 3]. There was certainly nothing about new layoffs in the press (not recently anyway) and Bruce Lowry fought against our arguments that Novell is losing staff, despite the fact that we recorded evidence of layoffs in this site (some of them this year).
If the above is true, then Bruce will have to eat humble pie. I can’t say that we’ll have “the last laugh” because unemployment is nothing to joke about and the misery of Novell developers, as opposed to management that sold out, is not something which I would — personally — take any pleasure in. I’ve said it before (probably elsewhere) and I’ll say it again: Ron Hovsepian deserves to be sacked for not realising the consequences of that terrible deal with Microsoft. He should have listened more closely to Jeremey Allison and some of the other prominent developers. He received warnings about this deal.
What should Novell ideally do? The company seems to be trapped now, but maybe it can apologise and escape this irrevocable deal somehow. It’s unrealistic, surely, and it would take a long time to recover, but Novell will probably drop into oblivion if it believes that a ‘second-class Windows’ (OOXML translator is not OOXML, Mono is not .NET, Moonlight is not Silverlight) will be appreciated by clients.
Novell seems to be lacking leadership and inspiration. Even Novell’s key evangelist, Reverend Ted, is clearly irreplaceable (Novell sought a replacement days ago) and he has moved on to podcasting elsewhere. Good luck to Ted!
If staffing reduction is anything to go by and if the above rumour is true, then Novell might bethe next SCO. Earlier today I notices that Sam Hiser had created a new category in his blog, aptly named “SCOVell”.
Occasionally, comments can be more informative than articles in the press or even press releases. One example would be last night’s comment from a Finnish reader of our Web site. He or she (anonymous by choice) pointed to a news article from Finland talked about a suspicious layoff in Finland, which may indicate that the Microsoft Money Machine(R) is once again pulling strings and getting people fired for not sympathising with monopoly abuse (c/f the corruption that is OOXML). We have definitely seen this before, so there is precedence.
The poster gave a lot more information in the past [1, 2, 3, 4]. Here is the subsequent news about Finland intending to abstain rather than reject, among other news and mentionings, e.g. [1, 2].
It is worth adding that FFII has just awarded with Microsoft a ‘prestigious prize’ for fighting OOXML (yes, fighting!). Sounds bizzare, no? Well, according to FFII:
By pushing so hard to get OOXML endorsed, even to the point of loading the standards boards in Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy, and beyond, Microsoft showed to the world how poor their format is. Good standards just don’t need that kind of pressure.
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