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03.26.13

European Commission Finally Receives Complaint About Microsoft’s UEFI Restricted Boot Scheme

Posted in Antitrust, GNU/Linux at 5:40 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The ludicrous notion of “Windows 8 PCs” to be peeled off like a sticker

Wall

Summary: UEFI antitrust action is on its way if a group gets its way

The Web abuses of Microsoft got Microsoft fined in Europe very recently. In fact, a Microsoft fan site tells us that Microsoft’s Web abuses are causing trouble to Microsoft itself and Mr. Pogson says that Microsoft hacks the Web again. Internet Explorer pretends to be Firefox now, so Pogson writes:

I think this is tantamount to false advertising or besmirching the brands of the competition. It’s just another dirty trick of M$, the purveyor of the worst malware on Earth.

Internet Explorer, which Microsoft illegally embedded in Windows, is malware on top of malware. And now there is another layer of malware being put at the bottom of Windows, specifically Vista 8 with perpetually garbage interface that nobody needs, wants, or likes (the Microsoft boosters try to do it PR). The latest malware is Restricted Boot. It kicks in when a machine is powered on.

Short of the possibility of banning Restricted Boot in Europe or the requirement that it must always be switched off by default (hence enabled only by those who drink the Microsoft Kool-Aid) OEMs may be required to explicitly state the existence of Vista 8 malware on the hardware (Microsoft control) or provide clear instructions on a leaflet to show how this can be disabled (an option they would have to facilitate and test).

Here is then latest news about action against what Microsoft is doing:

Spanish Linux group Hispalinux has filed a competition complaint with the European Commission over the implementation of UEFI Secure Boot for Windows 8.

IDG, with its promotional, pro-UEFI tone all along, continues to describe Restricted Boot UEFI as a feature, even in Linux (Torvalds would beg to differ). “Hackers can easily ‘brick’ computers with malicious firmware. UEFI effectively blocks that attack vector and costs nothing,” Roger A. Grimes writes. That’s overrated. Germany banned this in government because it is actually a national security threat. At IDG, Microsoft’s more shameless boosters come out from the woodwork (evoking ridiculous notions such as “Windows 8 PCs” as if the hardware is part of the software). IDG also gave a platform to UEFI officials. For shame.

Here what seems to be the original report. Here is another report about the latest news:

A Spanish association representing open-source software users has filed a complaint against Microsoft Corp to the European Commission, in a new challenge to the Windows developer following a hefty fine earlier this month.

The 8,000 member-strong Hispalinux, which represents users and developers of the Linux operating system in Spain, said Microsoft had made it difficult for users of computers sold with its Windows 8 platform to switch to Linux and other operating systems.

This looks serious; they have got lawyers and everything, as stated here:

A Spanish association representing open-source software users has filed a complaint against Microsoft Corp to the European Commission, in a new challenge to the Windows developer following a hefty fine earlier this month.

The 8,000 member-strong Hispalinux, which represents users and developers of the Linux operating system in Spain, said Microsoft had made it difficult for users of computers sold with its Windows 8 platform to switch to Linux and other operating systems.

Lawyer and Hispalinux head Jose Maria Lancho said he delivered the complaint to the Madrid office of the European Commission at 0900 GMT on Tuesday.

Red Hat and Canonical with their cowardly complicity will stand in the way of this action and potential lawsuit. SUSE. which is more or less just a Microsoft-funded proxy now, clearly played a role too, including a role of implementation (former Novell staff). █

Microsoft Terminates Free/Open Source Software in South Africa, Tries to Portray Itself as “Open” in Poor Countries

Posted in Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 4:58 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

House

Summary: Microsoft is insulting the intelligence of people who live near the equator and are inarguably vulnerable or disenfranchised due to former colonialism

THERE is almost nothing nastier than exploitation of the innocence of people. It is commonly done for money or at least power. Occupied lands were casually greeted by people who held gifts in one hand and a whip (or equivalent) in the other. Software companies and their ringleaders work similarly, especially those to whom lock-in with proprietary software is the core business model. Monsanto does this in agriculture using patents and marketing organisations like the Gates Foundation and Rockefeller.

Microsoft has some Orwellian marketing whitewash at the top of this corporate site/blog (see head banner), passing off a criminal company as some kind of charity. Mr. Pogson called Microsoft “cancer” over it and it says quite blatantly in the article: “However, this solution with little education relevance (all 20 student laptops as well as the teacher one) was a complete Linex solution at the time of launch. Working together with Reza Bardien, our Education Lead, we managed to turn this into an end to end Windows solution by the end of the week, including the PIL Learning Suite and the Windows-based NETOP Classroom Management solution.”

Pogson’s response to this greenwashing and whitewashing piece does not cite EDGI tactics but instead chastises Microsoft’s partner, Samsung. The EDGI strategy came under fire from European regulators. It is like a bribe essentially. We saw a lot of this done by Microsoft in the Philippines, where under some ‘Openness Night’ PR the monopolist is now trying to openwash itself in the most despicable way. Here is just a portion from the puff piece in the Manila Standard:

Local open source communities, together with Microsoft Philippines, recently held their first monthly meet up to facilitate discussions on emerging technologies with the end goal of giving back to the public. Dubbed as Openness Nights, the regular forum aims to push for the development of local projects on Microsoft plus open source technologies, enabling developers to contribute back to their communities.

Who are those so-called ‘open source communities’? Microsoft boosters masquerading as FOSS? The article does not say, but many times before we saw Microsoft bribing to infiltrate FOSS events where it then whitewashed/openwashed itself to the press. Microsoft even hired some journalists to achieve this deceptive propaganda (after yet more ODF FUD). The article above is just repeating Microsoft talking points to deceive the population in one of the nation’s most read newspapers. FOSS is clearly still facing a long battle against a propaganda machine. And it loses this battle when it stays silent. █

03.25.13

Links 25/3/2013: GNU/Linux Migration in Boston Education, KDE in Outreach Program for Women

Posted in News Roundup at 12:27 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Hardware

    • Thinking aloud: The Price of Hardware Quality

      Some years ago, we had (one may say) good, classic brands of computers, and others not so good. The price of ones and others vary. An original IBM PC was very expensive (all computers were, at the beginning), but clones came cheaper.

      Quality was also quite well divided by boundaries, and followed the quality and durability of the equipment. A Toshiba, or HP, Compaq, etc., machine was considered of good (hardware) quality, and last as long as what you expected for the money you had paid. Maybe some of you still have one of those running a minimal GNU/Linux distribution today because the hardware lasted. (Image Credit: http://www.whitesettlement.lib.tx.us)

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Miracle grow: Indian farmers smash crop yield records without GMOs

      What if the agricultural revolution has already happened and we didn’t realize it? Essentially, that’s the idea in this report from the Guardian about a group of poverty-stricken Indian rice and potato farmers who harvested confirmed world-record yields of rice and potatoes. Best of all: They did it completely sans-GMOs or even chemicals of any kind.

  • Security

    • Windows Malware Takes Advantage of Weak Linux Setups
    • NSA Critiques Public Key Cryptography

      Revelation of the early public key cryptography work of James Ellis, Malcolm Williamson and Cliff Cocks at GCHQ occurred in 1997, eleven years after this secret 1986 review cites them. Whitfield Diffie, one of the inventors or PKC, commented in 1999 on the British precursors:

    • NSA INFOSEC Excitement

      Some time ago, while I was having lunch with the Director of Security of one of our NATO allies and we were discussing the rash of books on intelligence agencies such as the CIA and Britain’s MI-5 and MI-6 that were flooding bookstores, he asked, “Why aren’t there more best selling books on INFOSEC?” I replied, “It’s because the best days we have in INFOSEC are when nothing exciting happens in the outside world. When we are successful, which we are most ofthe time, the result is a non-event.”

    • CMU, NSA search for student hackers

      …participants must reverse engineer, break, hack, decrypt, or do whatever it takes to solve the challenge.

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

  • Cablegate

    • Wikileaks: Power and Consent. Raimond Gaita
    • ‘Pentagon Papers’ whistleblower defends WikiLeaks ‘hero’ Manning

      Sydney, Mar 25 (ANI): Former American military analyst and Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg has backed US Army private accused Bradley Manning for spilling secrets to website WikiLeaks.

    • Vietnam whistleblower defends WikiLeaks

      PENTAGON Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg waited decades for someone like Bradley Manning to follow in his footsteps.

      He hails the US Army private accused of spilling secrets to website WikiLeaks as a champion of truth and not a betrayer of his country.

    • In Leak Case, State Secrecy in Plain Sight
    • New York Times Understand Historical Import of Manning Trial – FINALLY
    • Only a Few Reporters Have Bothered to Truly Confront Secrecy in Bradley Manning’s Court Martial

      Just over one year ago, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) sent a letter to the military judge presiding over Pfc. Bradley Manning’s court martial that decried the “lack of openness” in proceedings. It condemned the fact that “documents and information filed in the case” were “not available to the public anywhere.” It complained about the failure to give the public proper “notice of issues to be litigated in the case.”

      The US Army did not respond appropriately to the letter. The military court at Fort Meade rebuffed an attempt by a CCR attorney to make a statement on press and public access to proceedings on April 24. The same day the military judge, Army Col. Denise Lind, issued a ruling that invoked Nixon v. Time Warner, a case involving press access to the Watergate tapes, to justify secrecy in the proceedings, and she said the Freedom of Information Act was available to the press if they wanted records. CCR filed a lawsuit in May about a month later (which I signed on to as a plaintiff).

  • Finance

    • Russian Billionaire In Exile Boris Berezovsky Commits Suicide – The First Cyprus Casualty?

      Just your ordinary run of the mill Russian billionaire oligarch in exile who had so much money he was terminally depressed… or just the opposite, and the first tragic casualty of the Cyprus capital controls which are about to eviscerate a whole lot of Russian wealth (and ultraluxury Manhattan real estate prices)?

    • The Cyprus Cartoon Catalog
    • The future of the NHS—irreversible privatisation?

      JILL MOUNTFORD: Lucy, can you explain to us what is going on right now? The Health and Social Care Act has been law now for almost a year, and we thought surely that’s all going to go ahead. All of a sudden there is a lot of movement, a lot of anxiety and a lot of agitation around something that’s happening in parliament that’s going to have a big effect on the National Health Service. What is it and why?

    • Will Goldman Sachs Celebrate Its Latest Victory at a Strip Club?

      Goldman Sachs won a huge victory yesterday. A federal court ruled that Lisa Parisi, a former managing director, must take her gender-discrimination lawsuit against the firm to arbitration.

      With the ruling, Parisi — who had sued Goldman in 2010, along with two other women — can kiss her chances of victory goodbye. Arbitration is where plaintiffs’ dreams go to die, which is probably why it was in her Goldman Sachs employment contract.

      These plaintiffs aren’t renegade feminists. They’re mainstream financial types who played by the rules and hoped to reap the rewards. The men who fought them are simply corporate types who prefer to keep Wall Street an old boys’ club.

      Some of the allegations in the suit are straight out of “Mad Men.” During their work at Goldman Sachs, the women were subject to sexual banter, which is what passes for conversation among traders, as well as to come-ons and sexual assaults. They were passed over for promotions and bonuses, excluded from some male outings and included in others designed to embarrass them. A celebration for new managing directors was held at a topless bar. Afterwards, a married male colleague pinned one of the plaintiffs to a wall and sexually assaulted her.

    • Goldman gets go-ahead for ‘banking factory’

      Goldman Sachs has been granted approval to build a new “banking factory” in the City, ending a protracted bid to develop the site that was held up by protected murals on the existing building.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • On corporate persons

      And like other giant corporations it already has personhood.

      What makes Google so all-powerful? So Visible? So very Google?

      Are various administrations and Yes, I’m thinking Obama’s, simply afraid of it and the people who run it?

      Is it grandiose?

      Is it a part of the Gobal Elite?

      If Google was Good …

      Google could be everything it touts itself as being — a good company providing genuine services, constantly trying to improve the ‘user experience’.

      It could revolutionise the world of business by being completely transparent in all respects, completely open in its dealings with the people it depends on — you and I — and completely up-front about what it does and how it does it.

      It certainly has enough in the way of hard cash and other reso

    • O’Reilly Demands Respect for the Pagan Goddess Eostre

      Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly (O’Reilly Factor, 3/21/13), claiming victory in the “War on Christmas,” declares that the new battle is the “War on Easter.”

  • Censorship

    • Groups unite to condemn Leveson law

      The Leveson Inquiry was set up to address “the culture, practices and ethics of the press, including contacts between the press and politicians and the press and the police”. Our views diverge on whether the outcome of the Leveson process — and the plans for a new regulator — are the best way forward. But where we all agree is that current attempts at regulating blogs and other small independent news websites are critically flawed.

  • Privacy

  • Civil Rights

    • “Gaming” can be avoided: bloggers can be protected from the Crime and Courts Bill

      We’re told that politicians are concerned, exempting small and medium size businesses from the Bill could lead to “gaming”. That is, a large publisher could create small subsidiaries to avoid the Leveson sticks applying to them. We believe this can be avoided. The Companies Act anticipates “gaming”, and includes protections against it.

    • Constable wants tougher stance on US defense act

      The American Civil Liberties Union describe the 2012 NDAA as “codifying indefinite military detention without charge or trial into law for the first time in American history. The NDAA’s dangerous detention provisions would authorize the president – and all future presidents – to order the military to pick up and indefinitely imprison people captured anywhere in the world, far from any battlefield,” it continues. “The ACLU will fight worldwide detention authority wherever we can, be it in court, in Congress, or internationally.”

      Quiggle made it a written policy last May that he would not cooperate with this portion of the NDAA in his position as constable.

    • Letter: An affront to freedom

      Even the U.S. secretary of defense has expressed misgivings about the NDAA.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Trademarks

      • Google sued for trademark infringement by ‘Android’ watchmaker company

        It seems suing for trademark infringement is really a prevalent game in the business world. Oko International, the maker of a wide range of watches and timepieces sold under the brand name ‘Android,’ is suing the giant Google for trademark infringement.

        A recent rumor in many tech sites is that Google is reportedly building a smartwatch to compete with Apple and Samsung.

    • Copyrights

      • Spanish Government Bows Down To US Pressures Again, Pushes SOPA-Like Law To Appease Hollywood

        While Spain actually has a fairly vibrant culture and entertainment industry, Hollywood has really had it in for the country for some time, in part because Spanish courts had a more evolved recognition of secondary liability protections, such that they ruled that linking is not infringement, and that neither was basic file sharing. Hollywood flipped out, said all sorts of nasty things about Spain, and US diplomats basically handed the Spanish government a new copyright law. The first few attempts to pass the bill failed, after the public spoke out, economists explained how it would hurt the economy rather than help and even the head of the Spanish Film Academy noted that the American movie industry seemed to be fighting the internet and the public.

Systemic Corruption, Secrecy, and Discrimination in Patent Systems

Posted in Patents at 9:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Patents as sector-centric monopoly instrument

Monopoly

Summary: Patent stories of interest show systemic flaws that harm everyone for the benefit of few

ABOUT a decade ago I became cynical about the patent system that I was previously apathetic towards as I had never learned its true nature, except from corporate media which likes to glorify patents, making them synonymous with innovation, progress, genius, and national pride. Today it is easier to find the media expressing dissatisfaction with patents — more so than when this Web site was first popular (2007) or when it was launched (2006). We need to amplify opposition to the status quo if we are ever to achieve progress.

This post has a collection of last week’s articles, all critical of the framework of litigation which enforces patents and reduces competition. The patent systems around the world are connected but separable. Their power is derived from multinational corporations. Apple and Microsoft, for instance, use patent stacking to suppress a rival, Linux/Android. The Philips-backed Intermedia is meanwhile suing Apple (Philips competes with Apple in media devices), which itself is suing Android and wants secrecy. This secrecy is being fought against:

Abraham Lincoln advised lawyers that the best thing they could do for a client was to keep him out of litigation. Steve Jobs should have listened to that excellent advice, from one genius to another, so to speak. But he didn’t, and he decided to start thermonuclear war to try to destroy Android, using litigation as the weapon of choice.

After Steve Jobs died, I read an article that quoted his widow as saying something to the effect that just because someone is a genius in one area, it didn’t mean he was a genius in all areas. I found that a charmingly honest statement that all wives for sure would understand, with all its overtones and undertones reverberating in the air. One thing that watching Jobs’ plan to destroy Android play out in courtrooms has made obvious: he was not a genius at the law. Unquestionably, the Apple brand has been damaged by the litigation against Samsung.

And it may be about to get worse. Here’s what is threatening to happen next: The parties were in agreement that the district court was unsealing too many company secrets and both are appealing to the Federal Circuit to keep things sealed. They agreed that they don’t want to stand naked before the world, with all their trade secrets exposed. Unfortunately for them, they happened to draw two judges who believe litigants have to endure more of a spotlight than they might enjoy if they choose to litigate, because the public has rights too. Who knew that would happen? Clearly not Apple, a company that is known for its secretiveness. And the appeals court has just ruled that an eager band of journalists will be allowed to argue against sealing of the parties’ relevant documents at the upcoming oral argument on the point on March 26.

Here is a news report about it:

A coalition of media advocacy groups and news organizations will be allowed to argue at an upcoming federal appeals court hearing over document secrecy in Apple Inc’s high-stakes patent litigation against Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.

Samsung is no angel either. It pays Microsoft for Linux and it is said to be going after a company which, while using Android in its devices, also sues Android players using patents. To quote some patent lawyers, “Samsung not only accuses Ericsson of breaching its FRAND obligations (an accusation it has previously made), but also asserts additional patents against Ericsson — including patents already being asserted in the ITC.”

The ITC does nothing for customers. For the most part it has been used by Microsoft and Apple to block competition. Europe is becoming increasingly worried about Apple’s behaviour:

Apple put under Europe’s microscope after iPhone antitrust complaints

There’s no formal investigation yet, but Europe’s competition watchdog is looking at Apple’s iPhone deals with the continent’s mobile carriers.

CAFC, another legal instrument with pro-patents bias, is rapidly losing respect:

Federal judges “get no respect” in patent appeals—but that may change

No court has more power over patent laws than the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which handles all patent appeals. In an order released Friday, that court stated its intention to revisit one of the most controversial legal principles in patent law: the “de novo” review of all claim construction decisions.

As Adrienne Kendrick notes another examples of patents costing a fortune Steve Forbes slams the USPTO et al. by writing the following about the Microsoft- and Apple-backed MPEG-LA in particular:

America’s patent system is all wrong for today’s high-tech world

It’s no secret that the Obama administration is looking for excuses to regulate and intervene in the free market, whether it is telecommunications, energy, homeland security or everything else.

And unfortunately, there are “bad actors” in the technology community that are inviting increased scrutiny of their business practices and abuses. Patent pooling – or agreements between two or more companies to collectively license patents for specific technologies – is a fairly common practice among device companies.

These for-profit pools are formed only following a business review by the Department of Justice, which agrees not to initiate antitrust enforcement against them if they operate fairly and adhere to a set of mutually agreed upon terms for operation. When structured and operated in accordance to the guidelines under which pools were formed, these organizations reduce the amount of intellectual property investment by the companies who use them, benefiting consumers with lower prices and helping to spur innovation.

[...]

These are companies you’ve never heard of – companies like MPEG LA and Mobile Media – which license technologies to innovators in the form of patent pools. Technologies like the MPEG 2 video format – which is likely used in the very device you have in your back pocket – should be offered at a fair and reasonable fee.

Yet, these unscrupulous patent pools lock in licensors for extraordinarily long terms at rates which don’t reflect their near-valueless expired patents. MPEG LA has absolute power over the MPEG 2 technology, and innovators are forced to accept MPEG LA’s license fees and terms regardless of actual patent value.

Think of it this way: The Motorola RAZR has evolved from a simple flip phone to a dynamic touch screen smart phone in the last decade. While the technologies that made this evolution possible certainly build off each other, consumers would no longer pay the same price for a Motorola RAZR V3 today as they would have when it was first released. But this is what MPEG LA is asking of companies – to pay full price for patents that are expiring, rather than reflecting the current marketplace.

These license fees erect barriers to entry for small and medium sized tech startup companies, and these companies cannot afford to sink millions in IP like many larger corporations.
This is especially harmful to those small business startups that are most reliant on gaining access to patent pool technologies, the very startups that create jobs and fuel innovation here in America. MPEG LA’s manipulative price structures are not only standing in the way of consumers being afforded access to these new innovations, they are also driving up prices on devices that are currently available.

[...]

If companies like MPEG LA and Mobile Media do not amend these unscrupulous business practices, the Department of Justice will have no choice but to intervene, inevitably slowing down innovation and creating even more barriers for a fast-moving marketplace.

We are encouraged to see more mainstream publications, even right-wing propaganda sites like Fox, publicly criticising patent systems and pools. █

03.24.13

IRC Proceedings: March 17th, 2013-March 23rd, 2013

Posted in IRC Logs at 11:40 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

IRC Proceedings: March 17th, 2013

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IRC Proceedings: March 18th, 2013

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IRC Proceedings: March 19th, 2013

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IRC Proceedings: March 20th, 2013

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IRC Proceedings: March 21st, 2013

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IRC Proceedings: March 22nd, 2013

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IRC Proceedings: March 23rd, 2013

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Enter the IRC channels now

Software Patents and Thickets in Asia, Europe

Posted in Asia, Europe, RAND at 11:10 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Globe

Summary: Negotiations over laws which can spread patent policy to more continents (other than America and to a lesser degree Australia)

We have been tracking the globalisation of the patent system for quite some time (this subject was covered here many times before) and also discussed in a high level of detail what was being done in Europe. Perhaps being a European-centric site is the outcome of yours truly being European, but in any event, the problem is global.

The USPTO, an instrument of US corporations of large size, wishes to expand its scope of monopolies not just in terms of how abstract a patent can be but also what geographical locations (scope) the patent becomes applicable in.

There is a lot of OS news from China these days, notably Microsoft bribery and a Ubuntu-based national operating system. But recently we wrote about China following the wrong path on patents and this page says that China is now talking about patents in standards, i.e. something like FRAND. To quote:

On March 7th, USITO and representatives of local and foreign trade organizations and companies attended a meeting co-organized by the Standardization Administration of China (SAC) and the China National Institute of Standardization (CNIS) to discuss comment submissions on the Regulatory Measures on National Standards Involving Patents (Measures).

Standards should involve no patents. It is as simple as that. To require patents to merely implement standards is to be anticompetitive. FRAND-type policies also tend to serve as opportunity for software patenting where such patents are not legal. There are other such loopholes, the unitary patent in Europe for instance. Glyn Moody wrote about it just the other day, complaining about lack of proper analysis of the impact on Europe.

In other words, despite all the grand talk about how wonderful the Unitary Patent would be for Europe, that’s only potentially true if most patents are issued to European companies. As the latest EPO report makes clear, it’s companies outside the EU that are increasingly being granted patents here. That means the EU has just created a powerful new rod for its own back that will allow US and Asian multinationals to gain patents more cheaply and sue local companies more easily. And given the US experience, we can be sure they will.

But those at the EPO needn’t worry: they’ll probably still get their patent inflation bonuses next year, regardless of the knock-on consequences for European businesses. Whether that will be much comfort if your company gets sued under the Unitary Patent scheme in the years to come is another matter….

The pursuit of software parents everywhere (through FRAND and other means of globalising patent tax) is definitely noteworthy. A lot of money flows in the direction of very few people and new, small companies are not permitted to compete in the market unless they can overcome patent thickets. █

OOXML in Norway and Sarkozy-Gates Corruption Over OOXML Return to Discussion Amid Bribery Stories

Posted in Bill Gates, Europe, Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument, Standard at 10:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

ooxml_demo_4.jpg

Summary: Recalling the older corruption of Microsoft and Bill Gates, especially in light of some news from Europe

A

n anonymous Scandinavian reader wrote to tell us that Microsoft “has gotten inside the Norwegian public sector.” For context he gives these two links [1, 2] and reminds us that; “In 2007, Norway required that editable documents be in ODF within the state agencies. Now they’re following the “Microsoft too” tactic and “also” permitting OOXML and removing the requirement for ODF. Apparently the head of Microsoft Norway has had a series of closed meetings with the state council(?) (statsråden).

“”statsråden” is minister, but I don’t know which one. It would be good to hear from NUUG because they are the main opposition to the change.

“Apparently the king helped slam it through. Your country has royalty still. How does that complicate matters or does it affect things at all?

“Google Translate does an ok job.”

We wrote about OOXML-related abuses in Norway in posts such as this one. Citing the new article titled “DoJ, SEC investigating Microsoft over bribery claims” Pamela Jones writes: “While they are at it, I wish they’d look into the French about-face on OOXML.”

Nicolas Sarkozy and OOXML scandals in France were covered here before. Here are some of the more notable posts about it:

  1. More on France and Microsoft’s OOXML; ODF Still a Leader
  2. White-Collar Crime Pays Off, Shows Microsoft OOXML
  3. Hewlett-Packard Does Microsoft’s Dirty Job Again, Lobbies for the Monopoly
  4. Guilty Parties in OOXML Fiasco in France Gets Exposed (Updated)

Separately, adds Jones: “The first thing I thought of was France doing a 180 on OOXML, after reports of a phone call from Bill Gates to Sarkozy and the AFNOR letter from Microsoft France mentioning telephone contacts, the letter sent the day before the OOXML vote deadline. By the way, notice in that last link how Microsoft behaved at meetings of AFNOR, according to Frederick:

Q: Last August there were some reports that the AFNOR commission meetings were heated. Can you tell us anything about that?
Couchet: On August 29th 2007 the AFNOR standardization commission meeting took place with the objective of establishing the position of the commission and therefore consequently France’s position. The exchanges were stormy at some points since Marc Mosse, head of Legal and Public Affairs at Microsoft France, did everything, I thought, he could to sabotage the meeting. Marc Mossé, judging from appearances, seemed to have the very clear assignment to obtain AFNOR’s abstention. Absolutely not constructive, not very polite either, in particular with the representatives of the French administration, Marc Mosse seemed to have decided to ruin the meeting and heighten the pressure — well-known tactic to block the arrival at a consensus. But he did too much, way too much. The end was pitiful enough, notably when he accused one of the State’s representatives of serving a “banana republic”. He claimed by the way to be representing local administrations against the central administration. The resume of Marc Mosse is online but strangely, his stint at the BSA, the Business Software Alliance, is not mentioned in it. The meeting of March 25th 2008 was much more calm and cordial, perhaps because of the absence of Marc Mosse.
Does that not remind you of the behavior this month of those who seemed determined to disrupt Google’s presentations regarding Vp8 so as to avoid consensus, including the one on IPR?” (we just wrote about this in the previous post).

That last part we may cover in a separate post. Why is the English-speaking press not covering these scandals?

At ZDNet this month, Microsoft employee Jason Perlow has been actively bashing Android and promoting Microsoft products under the guise of ‘journalism’ (no links given, on purpose). This is a farce. Corruption is allowed to carry on because real journalism is left for sites like Groklaw to do while Perlow smears those real journalists. █

Boycott Nokia for Attacking Free Software, FFII’s President Suggests

Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Patents at 10:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Attacking Free (as in freedom) codecs, Free software, Free operating systems like Android, etc.

Benjamin Henrion

Summary: Nokia’s patent attacks on free/open source software, especially after the virtual Microsoft takeover, make it prime for a “good boycott”

In an earlier post we mentioned how Google got not only extorted but also interrupted and disrupted when it presented a patent-free codec. “If you think Google is the enemy, go watch the attacks on their IETF presentations about MTI codec choice for WebRTC,” writes Simon Phipps on Twitter. Here is the recording. “Watch how the MPEG LA H.264 people rudely interrupt Google’s presentation until the moderator intervenes and tells them to wait to the end,” wrote Pamela Jones. “They are rude at the end too. Same thing happened, the rudeness, with the first slide talk, VP8-MTI. The Google representative says that the sublicense will be ready soon, and it will be royalty-free, thanks to the recent agreement Google entered into with MPEG LA on March 6. Notice how pleasant Google’s guys are. Nokia stands up, declares it’s not part of any agreement and seems to be claiming to have patents that VP8 would infringe. Cf. here. How hideous Nokia has become, now that it’s Microsoft’s little brother. Here are some documents Google made available just before the day of the talks, after the proprietary side began asking for a postponement of any MTI video codec discussion.”

“Nokia is attacking Android directly, not just indirectly.”Nokia is also named in this good Slashdot post. “Nokia patents creates [sic] barriers for a free video codec for the web, Nokia needs to a good boycott,” wrote the FFII’s president.

Nokia is now a pawn of Microsoft, so forget about the old Nokia in order to avoid confusion. The brand is the same, the people in charge are different (several Microsoft executives). Watch what Nokia is doing. There are people who had worked for Microsoft before they came to Nokia and fought against non-patented codecs in HTML. “Nokia discloses their patents on VP8/WebM” is how one reader described the situation to us, having also fought against Ogg. Nokia is attacking Android directly, not just indirectly. On Android, for example, my SIP clients use VP8, so this is important.

Here is another update on Nokia’s anti-Android lawsuit in Germany. We saw that coming as soon as the Nokia-Microsoft deal was announced. █

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