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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