05.27.09
Posted in America, Europe, IBM, Law at 4:03 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A look at some new articles about software patents in the United States
THERE ARE some new comparisons out there which show the difference between the European and United States-based patent systems. Great risk remains however because these two might be combined in a sense [1, 2]; that’s the plan of proponents of software patents anyway. From Science Business: [via Digital Majority]
One of the fears – particularly in the software community – is that globalization of patents will mean dumbing down to the system in the US, where the bar for what can be patented is set lower than in Europe.
In the EU the system not only sets tougher standards for applicants, it’s also much more expensive to litigate here than stateside, partly because you have to fight it out in several different national patent courts, rather than in just one in the US.
IAM Magazine, which is pro-patents and litigation, shows that the US system is more patent-happy and trigger-happy when it comes to litigation (that’s where lawyers like the IAM crowd make money). Here is why, based on the experience of SAS:
Even in Europe’s most expensive jurisdiction, the UK, it is very unlikely to cost more than £1 million ($1.5 million) to litigate a case. In Germany, France and Italy you are looking at perhaps $200,000 to $300,000 at the most. In the US, the latest I saw was that on average getting a first instance decision in a big case will give you little change from $5million. In other words, SAS could litigate a case in the UK, France, Germany and Italy, probably throw in the Nordic countries and the Netherlands, and still spend less than it would cost to litigate in the United States. But even were it to cost $10 million and you won, it would be money well spent if you ended up fighting off a competitor and protecting or establishing a revenue stream.
If legal action is discouraged, how it that a bad thing? Was the introduction of patents intended to spur lawyers rather than scientists?
Watch what type of redundant software patents IBM is filing for:
IBM Wants Patent For Regex SSN Validation?
“What do you get when you combine IBM contributors with the Dojo Foundation? A patent for Real-Time Validation of Text Input Fields Using Regular Expression Evaluation During Text Entry, assuming the newly-disclosed Big Blue patent application passes muster with the USPTO. IBM explains that the invention of four IBMers addresses a ‘persistent problem that plagues Web form fields’ — e.g., ‘a social security number can be entered with or without dashes.’ A non-legalese description of IBM’s patent-pending invention can be found in The Official Dojo Documentation. While IBM has formed a Strategic Partnership With the Dojo Foundation which may protect one from a patent infringement lawsuit over validating phone numbers, concerns have been voiced over an exception clause in IBM’s open source pledge.”
IBM should know better than this. It should help the ending of software patents rather than promote them.
Wired Magazine has this short new article about the genesis of software patents (some time before I was born). Here is where we stand today:
In 2007 alone, nearly 39,000 software patents were issued in the United States.
Does this promote the creation of more software? That, after all, is the original purpose of such intellectual monopolies. This whole bubble market has truly gone out of control. █
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Posted in Debian, GNOME, GNU/Linux, Mono, Novell, Ubuntu at 3:02 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Number of Gnote submitters is up sharply
G
note has already entered Ubuntu, Debian, and other GNU/Linux distributions [1, 2, 3, 4]. But it is even more interesting to see just how many people got involved. Here is a Debian graph of the number of submitters as time goes by.
Ubuntu has even more, as can be seen here.
| rank |
name |
inst |
vote |
old |
recent |
no-files |
(maintainer) |
| [...]
|
| 7362 |
gnote |
208 |
31 |
25 |
152 |
0 |
(Unknown) |
Gnote is important because it can help resolve the problems associated with Novell's Mono. █
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Search at 2:44 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
It’s the product, silly, not brands and connotations
Summary: Microsoft tries to fix a poor search algorithm and limited server capacity with rebranding
Microsoft has an irksome old habit of changing the names of failed products, hoping that new names alone would resolve issues. This was tried last year with embedded Windows, it is tried this year with Vista 7 (formerly “Mojave”), it was tried many times before with the search engine, and another notable example is Origami, which is basically Microsoft’s old concept of tablet PCs. It all failed miserably.
Microsoft understands the importance of names and it also knows that unless something changes its identity, then people will refuse to give it another try. With perceived change, Microsoft hopes that people will try the new brand or new theme (user interface in a Web site, for example) that essentially wraps around the same deficient product. Such is the case with Microsoft’s supposedly ‘new’ search engine, whose reception is very lukewarm. Even Microsoft supporters do not like it.
Microsoft can attempt to be a sumo with Kumo, have a fling with Bing, but in search Google will remain king. Ouch – sorry about that, it’s late at night here.
More interestingly, according to Glyn Moody, Microsoft plays with fire when it says that things don’t work.
You have to feel sorry for Microsoft – no, really. In the search arena, it is getting taken to the cleaners by Google so comprehensively that even I feel sorry for them. Recognising this totally inability to fight Google on its own terms, Microsoft has decided to take a bold approach: run lots of ads suggesting that search – *all* search – is broken, and that there must be a better way…
The search bribery attempt [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] has already reached its end as the company loses billions — that’s right, billions — in this crucial area. There is a lot at stake. █
“Every time you use Google, you’re using a machine running the Linux kernel.”
–Chris DiBona, Google
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Posted in Finance, GNU/Linux, Hardware, Microsoft, Vista 7, Windows at 2:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Intel and Microsoft defend their cash cows with artificial limitations
Summary: Two monopoly abusers are said to be orchestrating sets of rules that harm consumers and harm GNU/Linux
YESTERDAY we wrote about Microsoft colluding with OEMs in order to stifle GNU/Linux adoption on sub-notebooks and thus also harm consumers. Just over a week ago we saw the latest conviction of Intel for its many crimes that a lot of consumers do not pay attention to. Right now in the Inquirer we find potential evidence that Intel and Microsoft are colluding again. This would not be the first time. See for example:
Here is the latest shameless attempt to elevate profits at Intel and Microsoft
IF RUMOUR is to be believed, Intel is up to its dirty tricks again, this time by way of a pact with Microsoft to secure a 10.2 inch screen size maximum for netbooks sporting Windows 7, leaving poor old Via and its 11-inch and above segment out in the cold.
[...]
What the move means in practice is that netbooks bigger than the specified 10.2-inches won’t be eligible for the lowest Windows 7 licensing rates, meaning firms like Via – which don’t restrict vendors’ spec choices – and OEMs making 11.6-inch Atom Zxx-based netbook product lines will have to cough up more cash for a heavier version of the OS.
This, in turn, will ensure that Intel clings on to its 10-inch netbooks price advantage whilst kicking the 11-inch and above netbooks segment where it hurts. Of course, it’s also in Intel’s interest to make netbooks as small and basic as possible, with Chipzilla desperately seeking to limit any further cannibalization of the market for its faster chips that get bunged into more expensive notebooks.
Even Microsoft’s biggest fans are growing tired of apparent price-fixing practices.
Even a $100 upgrade fee would be “cheap” for Ultimate, cheaper than the $700+ price charged in Australia, but still $100 more than Ubuntu.
Then there are those alleged ASUS-Microsoft kickbacks [1, 2, 3] and new anti-Linux Web site. Is it not ironic that this Web site needed GPLv3-licensed software to be produced?
Micorsoft uses GPL V3 software to promote windows against Linux
[...]
After that, a quick visit to www.flowplayer.org will tell you that Flow Player is an Open Source GPL V3 software.
Couldn’t Microsoft be decent enough and use any other software from their “oh so great ecosystem”?
GNU/Linux-powered sub-notebooks are causing great harm to Microsoft's bottom line, which saw a huge decline in profit as a result of that. Microsoft fights back with lies [1, 2, 3], so it is worth keeping an eye on. █
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Posted in Europe, Finance, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, OLPC, Open XML, Windows at 1:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: European Commission fines allegedly returned to Microsoft via Romania
Microsoft’s OOXML ballots were a scandal in Romania [1, 2] (direct links), just like in the rest of the world.
There is active adoption of GNU/Linux in Romania (Ubuntu for example), but Microsoft fights back. A *buntu presentation, for example, got foiled/derailed by Microsoft employees in Romania last year.
It turns out that a lot more is happening in Romania. According to this post from yesterday, there may be an EU-wide Microsoft scam.
In what is perhaps a sign of desperation, Microsoft is really pushing governments around the world to sign up to el cheapo mega-deals that they think they can’t refuse. The FSFE’s Georg Greve points out to me in an email that there’s an interesting angle to this story in Romania:
It seems ironic that the European Commission has to fine Microsoft repeatedly over sustained monopoly abuse, then transfers part of that money to Romania, which enjoyed the highest level of financial support ever granted to a candidate country in the history of the European Union, and the Romanian government then decides to return part of that money to Microsoft with close to no tangible benefit for Romania.
The post then links to the following story:
The Romanian government is about to spend millions of euro on proprietary software, drawing flak from the country’s budding open source movement. “This government is out of touch with reality.”
The Romanian government announced its renewal of a framework software licence with Microsoft in the middle of May. The framework licence deal is worth 100 million euro in software licences to be used by government agencies between 2010 and 2012. Romania will also pay the software giant another 58 million euro this fall, as the final payment for the 2004 – 2009 framework licence agreement that expired last month.
We wrote about the relationship between the Romanian government and Microsoft quite a long time ago. With Bill Gates visiting and the defunct 2007 talks about OLPC it became clear that Romania’s government was a proud prisoner of Redmond. Rather than thank and promote Free software it just took pride in illegal copying that Microsoft permitted in Romania because, as Bill Gates put it a couple of years ago, “It’s easier for our software to compete with Linux when there’s piracy than when there’s not.” █
“How many crimes are committed simply because their authors could not endure being wrong.”
–Albert Camus
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Mono, Ubuntu at 1:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Turning stereo to mono, with Banshee
Summary: Tracking attempts to push Banshee into Ubuntu by default
AS THEY try to insert the Novell-owned, Mono-based media player into Ubuntu, promoters of Mono would even call it “Monobuntu” now. Here are some notes.
There is no Banshee in Karmic (for now) and there is no response yet to the concern that ECMA is not being responsive. Specifically to Jo Shields, Jose_X writes.
Jo, realize that following a standard created by a patent aggressor is a LIABILITY not an asset. Stop trumpeting mono’s adherence to the two dotnet specs as an asset. It’s the opposite.
There are some more interesting comments right here. Mono is resented for the trouble it brings. █
“There is a substantive effort in open source to bring such an implementation of .Net to market, known as Mono and being driven by Novell, and one of the attributes of the agreement we made with Novell is that the intellectual property associated with that is available to Novell customers.”
–Bob Muglia, Microsoft President
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Posted in IRC Logs at 12:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Read the log
Enter the IRC channel now
To use your own IRC client, join channel #boycottnovell in FreeNode.
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05.26.09
Posted in News Roundup at 5:37 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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If you are a local government IT official in the U.S. today, it’s likely easier for you to pick up a phone and get easy, quick answers from proprietary software vendors to find technology products to fill your needs, rather than having to manually sort through the sometimes fragmented world of open source projects to find a good fit.
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Invisible Linux would essentially do for Linux what Apple did with NeXTStep / BSD: take the open source core and wrap it in a layer that may not be open source but which is polished to a degree that makes it irresistible to end users. Such a package would consist of three things: a stable and dependable ABI/API layer for programmers; a professionally designed and use-tested interface for end users; and an organized deployment of all these things for the sake of administrators and commercial software creators.
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The system includes Linux-based operational software. Users can choose the preferred data preparation scheme.
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If you’ve run older PowerPC-based Macs in your businesses you may be wondering what to do with them now that Apple has made the transition to Intel, and the G3, G4 and G5 processors are beginning to show their age.
One possibility is to scrap OS X, and turn the machines into servers (or workstations) running Linux. Several distros run on PowerPC Macs, including familiar names like Ubuntu and OpenSUSE, as well as one that is probably less familiar: Yellow Dog Linux (YDL).
YDL is a distro based on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS core.
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As you “already know” – boss knows the best. If bosses were given to choose an operating system which would be right for their employees, that will be Linux. Here is the reasons:
1. Since Linux is free, you have no reason to ask him for part of its budget every time you install, upgrade, and get new software applications. Now instead of buying you a Windows Vista Ultimate Edition, He now has extra money to spare for a spa.
2. Because “he loves you and your job” so much, he wants you and your computer to be free from virus always. In addition, most bosses want the working place to be always clean and just hearing the words like virus, bacteria, or etc make them angry because they know that in the near future someone can absentee from the job.
[...]
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Kernel Space
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On May 22nd, 2009, Linux Unified Kernel project development team officially issued Unified Kernel 0.2.4. This version ports the file managment functions into kernel with one interface, and fixes bugs of registry managment in the previous one. With the improvement, applications will perform better on Linux Unified Kernel than on Wine. And the .rpm and .deb installation files are provided in the new release to save the installing time and storage space.
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With immediate effect there is an improved open Linux firmware available for the ICY BOX IB-NAS4220-B and IB-NAS4210-B (version no. 2.6.3.2 and no. 2.6.3.1). It is the first update since the last official release in November 2008.
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Applications
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OK…I think we can put the old wive’s tale to bed that Linux Users just don’t spend money.
2DBoy will be the first to punch a pin in that bubble.
I could have linked the same data with a personal quote from Kyle from 2DBoy in my blog but that wouldn’t have proven much. The fact that Linux Users absolutely destroyed all previous first-day sales of World Of Goo by 40% is a powerful indicator.
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K Desktop Environment
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There are a ton of features in KDE 4.3, more than I could possibly mention in one article. It seems that there are improvements all over the place.
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KDM (KDE Display Manager) is the default graphical login interface of the K Desktop Environment. Anyone who uses KDE should know that KDM is highly customizable and can be easily configured.
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It looks like Linux Mint will be making their next release, 7 or “Gloria”, in the next few days, according to the Linux Mint Blog. This is good news, because the new release is based on Ubuntu 9.04 “Jaunty Jackalope”, which means you will get OpenOffice 3, and quite a few other nice updates. Of course, there are lots of Mint-specific updates as well, many of which look very nice. I’ve been running the Release Candidate for a couple of weeks now, and it is very good.
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8. Working on virtualization must be awfully time consuming and involved. Do you enjoy it? What do you do to get away from the pressures of hacking?
Working on open source virtualization technology is a great experience because it is a really interesting and challenging field, having plenty of talented developers to work with and learn from. There is plenty of work still to be done at all levels of the stack from kernel/hypervisor right through to end user applications and not nearly enough time to do it all. I’m fortunate to be able to spread my work between upstream projects, the Fedora community and RHEL releases and maintenance.
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Ubuntu
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The following is only an idea, but it could become reality in one of the next releases of the popular Ubuntu operating system. Back in August 2005, Matthew Paul Thomas submitted, on the Ubuntu wiki page, an idea and design of a piece of software that would unify all the existing package managers in the Ubuntu distribution. At the moment, the software is called AppCenter, and it was recently brought into spotlight. If you look at the mockup below, it pretty much looks like the Add/Remove application that is already an important part of the Ubuntu OS, but… if you look closer, you can notice that it also includes the ability to retrieve security and software updates.
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As Android’s platform gains a stronger following and attracts commercial software vendors, the ability to use Android software on a conventional Linux distro could be a significant asset for users and hardware vendors. It would also boost the inherent portability of Android applications, potentially making Android a more palatable target for some third-party application developers.
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Hacking pays off. I can now run the Android stack on Ubuntu with applications and the launcher running full-screen.
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It seems every man plus dog is trying to build an AppStore to mirror Apple’s success. The latest comes from Open Source outfit Canonical which makes the user-friendly Linux OS Ubuntu. Of course the Linux fanbois claim that they had the idea first as Apple’s AppStore is very similar to their idea of Linux repositories. However there is no doubt that the AppStore does things a lot better with an awful lot of software.
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Dell have certainly been showing Ubuntu some much needed attention over the last few months, and now they have decided to offer a Linux-based operating system on their new Dell Studio XPS 13 notebook, this is one of their hottest items at the moment.
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Ubicom is shipping a OpenWRT Linux-based router platform and reference design using the company’s new Ubicom IP7100 Router Gateway Evaluation board. The Ubicom board incorporates its StreamEngine IP7100 series network RISC processor, and includes a gigabit WAN port and four gigabit LAN ports, says the company.
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Phones
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For a holiday, it’s been an eventful day in the world of HTC-Android-phone news. First came those leaked internal AT&T documents that showed, among other things, a new HTC Android device called the Lancaster that’s supposedly targeted for an August U.S. launch. Now comes word of HTC’s plans, starting next month, to sell an Android-powered smartphone in China, the world’s largest wireless market.
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Also consider this: For a few months, now, analysts have been calling for flexible open source platforms to fuel sales of smartphones, which some say will double their share of the entire cell phone market by 2013.
[...]
Officials at the international firm, whose U.S. headquarters are in Boston, say support from developers, vendors and operators is driving adoption of the open source devices.
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Great now I can run Android, right? Not yet. I came to find out that there are many things in the Android code that rely on specific hardware features. For example, is the device powered on? Of course it is on — we are a computer 
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Sub-notebooks
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Data Ltd announced a ruggedized UMPC (ultra-mobile PC) claimed to survive multiple four-foot drops onto concrete. The Linux-compatible “DLI 8400″ uses a 1.6GHz Atom processor, has hard disk or SSD (solid state disk) storage, and operates for nine hours via two hot-swappable batteries, the company says.
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Moblin, though, is different. It’s not a boiler. It’s sleek, it’s slick, it’s almost sexy.
So naturally, somebody’s going to bugger it up. Of course they will. It’s Linux!
Instead of a single version of Moblin, there’s going to be loads, and netbook firms are going to muck around with it, and we’re going to end up with the same old confusion that stops Linux from breaking through and becoming the OS your mum, dad and grandparents use.
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Many vendors are jumping on the open source bandwagon and trying to make a ‘quick buck’ out of an emerging trend. Skewed versions of the definition of open source can largely be attributed to these vendors and it is recommended that companies seek out only certified and reputable open source vendors.
Open source technology is by nature practical and pristine. Reputable vendors will not boast that their software and hardware have new and sexy features; they will not use alterable code as a selling point or claim to be absolutely “free”.
Open source can only be considered to be so if it has a strong open source community backing. Anything less is something else entirely.
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Enthusiasts have had a central role developing the Web and open-source software, often doing what they loved doing without wondering whether they would make money at it. At O’Reilly, we’ve been following enthusiasts to learn more about the technologies they’re playing with. Tim O’Reilly calls them “alpha geeks.” (See “Where Real Innovation Happens.”)
[...]
Most importantly, he saw that users benefit from their own innovations. This insight speaks to the motivation of enthusiasts: They are doing it for themselves. Innovation results from making something you want to use yourself. It’s the same idea that Eric S. Raymond described when he remarked that open-source projects were started by developers who were “scratching their own itch.”
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Browsers
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Dion Almaer is a name you will find 80,700 results for when searching on Google, so it is clear that people know how Dion Almaer is however, let’s kick this interview of with, like the shower scene in a slasher movie, the obligatory first question, who is Dion Almaer?
Haha, yeah, I guess people could find a lot about me if they wanted huh? I am a Brit who moved to the US many moons ago and now live in the bay area, California. Some may know my work at Ajaxian.com, which is a blog discussing Ajax technology. I founded that blog with my partner in crime, Ben Galbraith, and we recently had a chance to join forces at Mozilla to startup a new Developer Tools Lab together. Bespin is the first experiment out from that lab.
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It’s been a long time in coming, but with the 2.5 release, the Flock folks have pulled all of the pieces together to deliver a cohesive “Social Web Browser.” The 2.5 release of Flock, coupled with the increasing mainstream interest in social media, might just be enough to make Flock more than a niche browser for Web 2.0 junkies.
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Business
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OpenX Technologies, an open source advertising community that helps online publishers make money, has just announced a $10.4 million third round of venture funding, bringing total investment in the company to nearly $31 million since mid-2007.
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Now, it has raised $10 million in its third round of funding, which brings the total investment in OpenX to $31 million. DAG Ventures led the new investment round and was joined by existing investors Accel, Index Ventures, Mangrove Capital, First Round Capital and Jonathan Miller, chairman of OpenX and the new digital head of News Corp.
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Programming
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SourceForge, the open-source project host, has removed the pages of the rtmpdump stream-recording software from its network in response to a cease-and-desist notice from Adobe. The program uses the Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) to record not only streamed Flash media but also encrypted streams. Adobe added encryption to its proprietary protocol on introducing Flash Media Server 3 in order to prevent the recording of Flash content, and defined RTMPE (RMTP encrypted) for the purpose. Adobe takes the view that its copy protection can be circumvented by the RTMPE support incorporated in rtmpdump and, in its cease-and-desist notice, invokes the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to prevent the distribution of the software.
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Applications
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click2try(TM) (http://www.click2try.com) today announced that it has added XOOPS Dynamic Web CMS version 2.3.3 (http://www.xoops.org) to its online catalog of virtualized Open Source applications. A Community site, click2try enables users to try applications for free and use by subscription.
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But, you have folks at the NY Times who seem to think that it’s a bad thing, because the producers of the TV show aren’t making any advertising revenue from the clip being on YouTube. No, but they’ve created a huge singing sensation that is getting attention from millions of people. If they can’t figure out how to make money off of that in the long run, they don’t deserve to be in business.
Kendall Dawson, Linspire Community Liaison 04 (2005)
Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.
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