11.27.07
Posted in Site News at 6:36 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The abusive character/s known as ‘eet’ (and dozens of variations of this name) is/are trying hard to get its/their personal attacks through and into this Web site. What’s curious is the wide variety of IP addresses that ‘eet’ is/are able to pull, even just minutes apart.
Recent examples (from the past hour alone):
- 200.144.17.34 (smtp.jales.sp.gov.br)
Yes, that’s ‘eet’ posting from the government of Brasil.
- 210.87.251.43 (tmhaos04.imsbiz.com)
Care to join ‘eet’ from Honk Kong?
- 78.54.161.141 (f054161141.adsl.alicedsl.de)
That’s a German ISP.
- 85.116.205.64 (64-205-116-85.dsl.manitu.net)
Another one.
‘eet’ seems to be getting around a little too much. Either it’s not one person, or that person has an extraordinary reach to many computer resources around the world, including the Brasilian government (maybe it’s a zombie PC). The more you find out about this ‘eet’ phenomenon, the more amazed you become. Someone who can post 40 comments in just one day (especially in a site that which asked it to go away) truly raises suspicion.
We’ll continue our attempts to intercept abusive trolling, but it seems to be getting harder. Perhaps the high levels of site traffic have given someone reason for concern. █
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Posted in FUD, Microsoft, Novell, Red Hat, Ron Hovsepian, SCO, SLES/SLED at 4:09 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Blasting insight from the past
In an attempt to find an old post about Novell (covering Novell’s pulling of Windows-antagonising adverts from its Web site), the following old USENET post emerged. It was never filed here and perhaps it should. It was posted just 2 days after the Novell/Microsoft had been signed.
Message-ID: [pan.2006.11.04.19.28.22.579976@invalid.com]
From: casual observer [no_one@invalid.com]
Subject: Novell: From hero to zero in sixty seconds…
Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2006 12:28:22 -0700
Novell as HERO: SCO vs. Novell
At the beginning of the week, Novell appeared to be a big hero in the
GNU/Linux community. They have been a hero by standing up to
the big bully, SCO Group. Their actions have been key factors and are now
legend because these cases have dragged on for so long. Their request for
summary judgment that will force SCO cough up Novell’s 95% share of their
Microsoft/Sun “license” fees. This ruling will most likely be ordered by
the court shortly. This will effectively erase the very existece of SCO as
a viable business entity. Novell’s actions in this arena created a stock
of community good will which soared to great heights. Here-to-fore Novell
would not be bullied by their next door neighbor.
Novell as HERO: Owner of the respected Suse Linux distribution
Also, at the beginning of the week, Novell was the respected
owner of one of the leading GNU/Linux distributions. Novell obtained
instant “street credibility” by acquiring Suse Linux. This showed that
Novell thought GNU/Linux was now ready for “prime time” and could be used
to replace their aging Netware offering. Suse Linux made Novell a
player in the desktop software market as companies began looking for a
more secure, virus and spyware free OS.
They also seemed to have a viable business strategy to make free software
pay. Their business model which relies on a revenue stream from paid-only,
end-user support contract is easily understood. No one expects free
support, even when the GPL itself guarantees free software. The bonus is
that this model gives a bottom line that Wall Street understands, too:
more support contracts equals higher company profits. The model is not
unique- RedHat, Oracle, IBM, and others all “get” that the biggest
“value added” component is through the direct support they provide.
Novell as ZERO: Announces “collabrative” deal with Microsoft.
All of their positive actions are erased. They are taken off the board in
one fell swoop. Ray Noorda must be rolling over in his grave. The deal
with Bill “pearly” Gates and Steve “The Embalmer” Ballmer came close
enough to Halloween that it should have evoked memories of Halloweens
past, or possibly “Halloween Memos” past. It is a sure bet that something
unholy is going down whenever you make a deal with the devil. Even their
“corporate memory” seemed to be conveniently offline in the last
week. They apparently forgot that NT supplanted Netware and MS Word
supplanted WordPerfect, erasing vast sums from Novell’s bottom line. They
think they can trust MS this time. Lucy will let Charlie Brown kick the
ball this time, too.
Novell as ZERO: Novell the new FUD puppet
Microsoft needed a new shill now, especially now that SCO is winding
down, without the result that Microsoft intended. Oddly, Novell
appears happy to replace SCO as Microsoft’s new chief puppet. Hovespin
shouldn’t complain when Steve pulls the marionette strings.
”Microsoft needed a new shill now, especially now that SCO is winding
down, without the result that Microsoft intended.“Ballmer’s promise not to sue Suse users, smells of the vaporware MS is
famous for. If patents are being infringed, then MS should state their
case and objections with specificity. SCO has had years to do so, and has
shown nothing. Clearly, all this is all vapor and the latest FUD offering
from MS with no legal basis. You can bet that if there was any way to
lock out Samba, it would have done been done long before now. It could
be that some of restraints placed on convicted monopolists are partly
effective in tying the offenders hands. It’s too late now. The statute of
limitation control, if nothing else. The large legal staff at MS has
informed Steve that FUD is the only card that can be played. MS gets a
bonus that they can use with the European commission,
Baller to EU: “Don’t fine us. We’re cooperating with Linux.”
[Holds up Novell contract.]
Novell as ZERO: Loss of community good will.
Hovespin should have sat down with the CEO of EV1servers.net if the
GNU/Linux community is capable of generating a backlash. If you need paid
support, and your internal support offerings are inadequate for your
needs, then look at the offerings from RedHat! Personally, I wouldn’t
touch Novell’s offerings with the proverbial ten foot pole. Wall Street
eventually will notice there has been a significant loss of good will
toward the company when their bottom line plummets.
Final Word:
The GPL gives users freedoms which cannot be revoked, or traded away.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt
Not much has changed since then. It was also quite prophetic. █
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Posted in GNOME, Novell, Office Suites, OpenOffice at 1:28 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
[Thanks to a reader for the headsup]
IIt is rather hard to ignore the fact that, at the time of writing, each and every commit as shown in this dynamic page comes from someone @ Novell (or SuSE). Jeff Waugh claimed that Novell’s intervention in GNOME is not exceptional, but with OOXML involved in this debate (e.g. Kohei adding OOXML-related patches), one cannot help wondering.
When it comes to GNOME’s build of OpenOffice.org Novell’s branch of OpenOffice.org [Correction: see more details below], Novell keeps very busy. Maybe it’s a good thing, but maybe it’s also a cause for concern [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. █
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Posted in Africa, America, Europe, Formats, ISO, Microsoft, Protocol, Samba at 3:15 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Money battles sanity
Here is a nice new article that covers the quick adoption of OpenDocument format. It is a global-scale transition, which surely can benefit from the network effect monopolists are so intimately familiar with.
South Africa, Netherlands and Korea striding toward ODF
[...]
France is making the strongest move to ODF and its native office suite, OpenOffice. Nearly half a million government employees are being switched to OpenOffice.
France also happens to be moving to GNU/Linux more quickly than a lot of nations.
It has always been interesting to see what happens with OOXML outside English-speaking countries, where Microsoft’s (and America’s) influence is not so incredibly high. The following new article from Linux Format talks about Jeremey Allison’s take on CIFS and OOXML. It’s related to a recent debate about cloning, which also involved Mono. Of particular interest are bits like this one:
Over the past few weeks, some strange and rather irregular national positions have come to light. My favourites were Cuba voting “Yes” to the fast-tracking of OOXML, even though Microsoft is prohibited by the US Government from selling any software on the island that might even be able to read and write the new format, and Azerbaijan’s “Yes” vote, even though OOXML as defined isn’t able to express a Web URL address in Azeri, their official language.
Speaking of Cuba, its submission to ISO was pretty much rejected and had to be sent by mail. Why? Because the ridiculous ISO only accepted submissions in the form of Microsoft Office (Word) format, i.e. .doc. That is the very same proprietary (and anti-standards) format on which the ISO is trying to make a decision.
It would be natural to guess that anyone supporting OOXML is either badly misinformed or has personal gains (money, power, fame etc.) to reap from its acceptance.
Related articles:
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11.26.07
Posted in Free/Libre Software, FUD, Intellectual Monopoly, Microsoft, Patents at 11:58 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Microsoft loves talking and bragging about its “intellectual property”. Sadly for Microsoft (and SCO), there is no such thing. Independently, I said this a long time ago, before I even knew about Richard Stallman's views. Here is what Glyn Moody has to say in Linux Journal.
For readers of Linux Journal, “IP” almost certainly refers to the Internet Protocol, part of the TCP/IP suite that underpins the Internet. But to most people, if it means anything, “IP” refers to something known as “intellectual property”. This widespread recognition is rather curious, because “intellectual property” does not exist.
[...]
The more of us that use the term “intellectual monopoly”, the more widely this concept will become understood, and the more likely it is that lawmakers around the world will begin to understand the distortions of the copyright and patent systems they have been tricked into introducing over the last years, thanks to intensive lobbying by industry groups. Once that happens, we can even begin to contemplate reducing copyright terms, and narrowing the range of what is patentable to rational levels – both of which will help protect open source and open content from attacks based on alleged infringements of copyright and patents.
None of this is new, but Glyn puts is very nicely in his new article. █
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Posted in Free/Libre Software, GNOME, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Novell, OSI at 11:45 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Microsoft keeps its enemies closer so that it can crush them later. Corel, Netscape, (NetWare era) Novell, and many more companies would serve as decent examples. It should all be a case of learning from history. Getting inside the ‘fort’ is the best Microsoft can do to fracture and destroy communities. As we stated dozens of times before, it is not this Web site that divides; this Web site spots the attempted division (by Microsoft) and warns about its nature, using soft and hard evidence that piles up until it becomes too compelling.
”Several years from now Microsoft will have the last laugh, until/unless more people wake up.“Microsoft will continue it’s divide-and-conquer strategy. That’s what Port 25, for example, is all about. It’s a Trojan horse that got Microsoft inside the OSI, already fooled Kroes and her Commission (software patents), introduced GPL poison, added ‘patent tax’ to some Linuxes, and ushered proprietary formats (OOXML) which Microsoft needs to be recognised as standards.
If only everyone could actually see this by learning from history…
The evidence we have collected speaks for itself, but we’ve neglected hyperlinks this time (there’s room for almost a hundred in the few paragraphs above). Several years from now Microsoft will have the last laugh, until/unless more people wake up.
One person wisely tell me that that if OOXML is approved, Microsoft wins. If not, the GNOME community is splintered (and so is the FOSS community). The way this is set up, there can be only one winner — Microsoft.
To use an analogy I was sent by E-mail, “Microsoft always tries to butter the toast on both sides so no matter which way it falls, it sticks. We just want to make sure our they get very little butter on our side.” █
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Posted in GNOME, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Open XML at 10:33 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
FUD is an acronym which stands for fear, uncertainty, and doubt. You probably know this already. The term FUD is typically used when one instills fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the minds of people using lies, i.e. using false information. We do not believe that FUD is being spread here, not by the de facto definition of the term.
”We don’t write down speculations as though they are facts.“When solid proof is absent, we make decent proposals, speculations, or reach out for feedback. We don’t write down speculations as though they are facts. Rather, we present things which we do not feel comfortable with and make a clear distinction. We present things that seem a little suspicious, or even too ‘coincidental’. We use these as evidence that may or may not support our hypotheses.
Jeff has written a good blog item to clarify things about Novell and GNOME. We never stated (but only wondered) that there is a tighter-than-necessary connection between GNOME and Novell. NOOOXML wondered the same thing and posed this as a question about the relationship.
You are encouraged to read Jeff’s detailed and honest writing on this issue. It alleviates many doubts. I can only spot two facts which strike a nerve and I wish to quote them for future reference (somewhat of a mental note). The first is this:
Interestingly, Miguel was actually the President of the GNOME Foundation until only a few weeks ago, but we have been asking him for years to send a resignation letter, and recently nailed down a plan to finally get his resignation and appoint the President and Vice-President from the directors. As of the last Foundation Board meeting, that process is complete.
It’s important to point out that during this time, the Foundation Chairman was capably performing the role of President, and Miguel was not participating or interacting in GNOME Foundation activities or administration at all.
This is news to me and I cannot help but think of Miguel’s remarks on OOXML (“superb standard”) and the timing (the lack of confidence inside GNOME began a few weeks ago also). Jeff assured us that Miguel was somewhat of a passive president at this stage, so we must assume that he had absolutely no involvement in policies pertaining to OOXML in the GNOME Foundation.
Moving on, there is another bit which seemed a tad interesting.
I sat down with Nat Friedman at GUADEC in order to talk about a few things that were on my mind regarding Novell and GNOME. I had a very clear three-point agenda that I wanted to go through:
1. The relationship and agreement with Microsoft.
2. Novell’s approach to feature development and ‘code dumping’.
3. GNOME and Mono.
We didn’t end up talking about the first two points, because Nat was extremely focused on the Mono issue, and whichever way I tried to lead him through my thought narrative, it would quickly come back to Mono.
I cannot help wondering why point 1 was not discussed at all. Maybe it’s just my paranoia instincts. Nevertheless, it’s something to keep in mind, especially because Nat Friedman used to discredit us and he also defended the pact with Microsoft.
Finally, one thing worth adding is that if any FUD is being spread, then one ought to look at:
- Novell, which uses FUD against its Linux competitors
- Various parties including Novell, who question the credibility of this site using vague or empty accusations
Remember that there are (at least) two sides in every argument. We too are victims of FUD sometimes (or “muck-raking”, as Jeff calls it) . █
Update: we have only just received valuable feedback from Repre Hendor. If you were to ask me, I would honestly say that it does not look good. Here is the comment (left in our Web site), which I will quote in full:
Roy said:
“[Miguel] actively supports OOXML and he is still very influential in GNOME (no matter how hard you try to deny this).”
Jeff said:
“Miguel is not influential in GNOME. I deny it because it’s the truth [....] If anything, these days, Miguel is seen as an irrelevant embarrassment among the majority of GNOME developers. But he is still respected as our founder.”
According to the minutes of the Gnome Foundation Board meeting happeing on 15th of November 2007 (and published a week later, that was: last Thursday), for topic ’4)’ it is noted:
GNOME President
Miguel has officially resigned as the GNOME President.
Uh huh. So up until a week ago, Miguel officially was the GNOME President?
Looks like Jeff himself thinks Miguel is an irrelevant embarrassment to GNOME, so that he even avoids mentioning this ‘hot news’ which reached the public eye only 4 days ago (even though it could have served to strengthen his point).
Why did Miguel resign? Was he put under pressure to do so? Was it because of the continuous negative wave of publicity he is causing for Gnome (see his infamous “OOXML is a superb standard” stance…)?
Update #2: I’ve just received a headsup that informs me of another rebuttal to Jeff’s latest blog post. The strong reaction is summarised as follows:
Well, toute compte fait, I don’t see in which way or to which extent of the imagination is the cited blog post supposed to end the so-called FUD with regards to GNOME, Novell and Mono.
It’s nothing more but a clumsy PR attempt.
I’ve also been sent this one, which is equally harsh.
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Posted in Australia, Boycott Novell, Formats, Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument, Standard at 7:43 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Under normal circumstances, the following would not arouse my curiosity because the more we discuss OOXML, the more we help people realise that it is broken, proprietary, and absolutely not suitable for standardisation. However, I could not help noticing that even Microsoft is invited to an event that Pia Waugh helps coordinate.
I am helping coordinate the first ever Australian event to really delve into the technical and legal practical feasibility of OOXML. It will be on December 14th, and will include experts from Australia and around the world. The schedule is currently up, however all the speakers names will be published in the coming week. There will also be participation from Microsoft, so if you have outstanding technical or legal questions about OOXML, you should come along and participate! The attendees will be a combination of the general public, academia, standards people and our course domain experts.
Okay, so one might say that it’s better to attend and slam OOXML than not attend at all. Others might wonder if Linux-affiliated people are better off attending ODF events, rather than stand aloneside OOXML (let alone coordinating an event) , as we already saw in ECMA (the GNOME Foundation’s presence is perceived as support). Speaking of which, the mainstream press is getting filled at the moment with coverage that is damaging to ODF and quite supportive of OOXML. Ironically enough, the statement from the GNOME Foundation is being used against the “one standard to rule them all” principle (ODF).
The following statement now appears all over the place:
The [GNOME Foundation] group also argues that neither OOXML nor ODF will serve all needs, and that the development of standards overall could be in jeopardy: “We are deeply concerned that abuse of the standards process is eroding public trust in the value and independence of international standards. Both ODF and OOXML are very heavily influenced by their implementation heritage, neither are likely to deliver the “one true office format,” and both communities have — in their own way — played a role in this erosion of trust.
Oh, great. So the GNOME Foundation is now echoed to jutify a need for multiple standards, i.e. fragmentation that helps an abusive monopoly. Why keep denying the fact that this has done more damage to ODF than it ever did damage to OOXML’s prospects in the ISO? █
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