Summary: Luna Mobile has just been extorted by Microsoft (using dubious software patents, as usual) for using Android/Linux, but Microsoft-influenced media carries on spreading the lie that “Microsoft loves Linux”

RED HAT’S own event has just been hijacked by Microsoft again (see articles below along with the comments) and Microsoft used Red Hat’s platform to call its proprietary (Open Core) platform “Open Source”, to say it “loves Linux” (the infamous old lie), and so on. On the other hand, Microsoft’s own booster Mary Jo Foley says that “Microsoft signs Android patent-licensing deal with Luna Mobile”. She insists that “Microsoft has signed an Android patent deal with Luna Mobile, even though its announcement of the arrangement never mentions the word ‘Android’.”

Yes, so much for love. It must love all that ‘protection money’ it is silently amassing. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Red Hat Delivers More Secure Containers with New Scanning Capability [Ed: helping Microsoft’s parasite]

2. Microsoft unveils .NET Core 1.0, extends partnership with Red Hat [Ed: Red Hat is so focused on meeting short-term profit goals that it forgot Microsoft's past]

3. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) Unveils .NET Core 1.0 Availability

4. Microsoft Releases Open Source .NET Core 1.0 For Linux, Windows, And macOS [Ed: Another reminder that’s needed here is that open core is not open source]

5. Microsoft Announces Open .NET Core 1.0 at Red Hat Summit [Ed: stealing Red Hat's thunder at its own event]

6. Microsoft releases cross-platform .NET Core 1.0 at Linux event [Ed: How Microsoft turns Linux events into its own. Microsoft love love love… if they keep saying it often enough, preferably with “Linux” in headlines, then maybe fools will believe it.]

7. Microsoft starts proving its Linux love [Ed: As big a lie as it gets; when will it stop taunting Linux with patents then?]

8. Microsoft announces open-source Language Server Protocol

9. Microsoft’s Open Source .NET Core Project Hits v1.0, Gets General Availability

10. Microsoft launches Net Core 1.0 for Linux, OS X and Windows

11. Microsoft’s open sourcing of .NET hits a major milestone

12. Microsoft Proves Its Love For Linux With Net Core Software, Open Source And Ready To Go [Ed: People don't want Microsoft love. They just want Microsoft to start obeying the law.]

13. Codenvy, Microsoft and Red Hat Collaborate on a Protocol for Sharing Programming Language Guidance

14. Microsoft further embraces open source with cross-platform version of .Net Framework

15. MapR, Microsoft make announcements at Hadoop and Red Hat summits

16. Microsoft brings .NET Core to MacOS and Linux

17. Microsoft launches its cross-platform .Net Core

18. Microsoft announces general availability of .NET Core and ASP.NET Core 1.0

19. Latest Microsoft Mechanics video shows Red Hat Linux running on Azure [Ed: Does anyone really believe (literally) Microsoft loves Linux ? All I see is Microsoft boosters and ghostwriters claiming such people exist.]

20. Microsoft announces .NET Core 1.0 for Linux, MacOS and Windows

21. Announcing .NET Core 1.0

22. Microsoft finally introduces ASP.NET Core 1.0, supported inherently by Red Hat

23. .NET Core 1.0 Released

Summary: In an effort to trip each other up and in order to become the ‘industry standard’, Canonical and Red Hat hurt each other and alienate the media (what’s left of it)

TECHRIGHTS, with the exception of the daily links, does not cover GNU/Linux matters all that often. Not anymore. There’s a reason for this and it’s not just the growing role of software patents in the destruction/elimination of software freedom.

I wouldn’t be the first person to state that the GNU/Linux world can be harsh and brutal. People have free speech, which is absolutely fine (I’m a big opposer of censorship and self-censorship). But what happens when people cross the line of common sense and begin to personally attack writers and pundits? What happens when they do this on behalf of big and wealthy corporations? A lot of the abuse I received from the Mono crowd over the years (unimaginable abuse, comparing me even to a criminal) is ever more fascinating now that those very same people are Microsoft employees.

“A lot of the abuse I received from the Mono crowd over the years (unimaginable abuse, comparing me even to a criminal) is ever more fascinating now that those very same people are Microsoft employees.”I recently encountered or was the eyewitness of truly shameful attacks on Phoronix, both from developers and from sites like Reddit, which effectively blacklisted Phoronix, calling it “blogspam”. Reddit is full of censorship for those who don’t know it yet (our daily links have many articles about its political censorship too), but it’s rather unbelievable if not cynical when they block the whole of Phoronix (recently the subject of renewed debate over there and maybe a reversal/overturning of the ban, for the first time in a very long time).

The point I am trying to get across here is that it’s not easy to cover GNU/Linux news because there’s always someone, somewhere who isn’t happy. Thick skin is required. I hardly cover GNU/Linux matters (compared to past years), though it’s not because I’m offended or put off by personal attacks; it’s because I don’t always feel appreciated for the investigative work which I do. I generally snub any PR person or company spokesperson. I don’t trust them. I try to come up with an independent point of view; so do some journalists like Sam Varghese, who have earned nothing for that other than scorn and abuse.

I am not alone in this. Not many people are willing to speak out about it, perhaps fearing backlash. Consider Canonical with their disgusting blacklists of journalists who are not sucking up to Canonical and swallowing every ounce of Kool-Aid from Canonical, as pointed out not just by yours truly but also other bloggers/journalists (both privately and publicly, with those who do so privately fearing that these blacklists would treat them even more maliciously if they dared to rant).

“I try to come up with an independent point of view; so do some journalists like Sam Varghese, who have earned nothing for that other than scorn and abuse.”Red Hat is not much better by the way. The giant Linux firm is alienating people who often/always write out of passion, not for profit (financial gain) or for glory. Red Hat has a massive PR operation now (publicly and behind the scenes) and it’s not something which is pleasant to see because it reminds me of how Microsoft games the media, often bordering the unethical. When companies hire patent lawyers they tend to bring a lot of their (the latter’s) self-serving anti-etiquette and the same thing happens when companies hire PR people. Mass-mailing people is just one of their professional ‘skills’ and — at risk of saying something politically-incorrect — these tend to be women, preferably attractive women (this gives more impact to their work, along various different aspects beyond the scope of this post).

The other day I noticed a certain flamewar brewing between Red Hat and Canonical. They try to keep it on ‘low fire’, but it’s impossible to ignore the bigger picture.

openSUSE’s Twitter account, for example, wrote: “Of course kudos also go to http://flatpak.org . But canonical at least trying to behave and collaborate deserves respect” (that’s a polite way of saying that Fedora/Red Hat does not collaborate or does not deserve respect). Prior to that openSUSE mentioned Swapnil Bhartiya and said: “Kudos to @Canonical for working with other distributions on a new method of packaging applications #linux #respect https://twitter.com/swapnilbhartiya/status/743555291535519744″

“I soon learned of Fedora employees bashing the media wherever they could because some sites wrote about Canonical’s Snap initiative being an actual competitor to their Flatpak universal binary package.”OpenSUSE is trying not to take sides. They first retweeted Swapnil’s tweet saying “Kudos to Canonical for working with other distributions.” And then they say “Also kudos to http://flatpak.org” (as if someone from Fedora got in touch). In another tweet or a bunch of them we see what indicates that there is strong rivalry between Canonical and Red Hat. It makes us bloggers/journalists feel like collateral damage (or ‘tools’), and unlike these people who push us around, we don’t receive huge salaries for our work. For me, reporting is a purely voluntary activity with no financial gain. I decided to ask around and find out what the heck was going on, having seen how Red Hat strong-armed some distributions into embracing the “Red Hat way” — to the point where Canonical had to abandon some of their own projects.

I soon learned of Fedora employees bashing the media wherever they could because some sites wrote about Canonical’s Snap initiative being an actual competitor to their Flatpak universal binary package.

As a reminder for those who are not paying close enough attention, Flatpak is loosely connected to Systemd, probably Red Hat’s most controversial ‘lock-in’ at the moment. On the other hand, Canonical is trying to push its own ‘standards’, which it can probably do given its dominant position on the desktop (and almost on the server as well).

“Red Hat was apparently so pissed off by the whole thing that one Fedora employee (i.e. Red Hat) started chastising reporters.”One interesting fact I have learned is that several days ago Canonical basically spoon-fed some sites a so-called ‘scoop’, in order to ‘generate’ some coverage for Snaps. Not so atypical or unexpected from Canonical, but there we go…

Red Hat was apparently so pissed off by the whole thing that one Fedora employee (i.e. Red Hat) started chastising reporters. That employee was James Hogarth. He baselessly started accusing Softpedia on the fedora-devel mailing list, claiming that Softpedia said, to quote, “Canonical state that they have been working with Fedora developers…” (this was not said at all). There’s this reply from Michael Catanzaro of the GNOME Project. At that time, he took James Hogarth’s words for granted, assuming that Softpedia claimed something it didn’t. Here is a later response from him:

Just for the record… the Softpedia article doesn’t actually say “Canonical state that they have been working with Fedora developers to make this the universal packaging format.” It does say they’ve been “working for some time with developers from various major GNU/Linux distributions” and that “the Snap package format is working natively on popular GNU/Linux operating systems like [...] Fedora [...],” so it’s clear why there was confusion, but it doesn’t say that they’ve been working with Fedora specifically.

Later on Hogarth cited his colleague, Adam Williamson, with a rather offensive piece (“Canonical propaganda department”), adding “AdamW responds to the Canonical Snappy PR piece.”

“But either way, accusing publications of saying something they did not say is unfair, and it reflects badly on the community as a whole.”Michael Hall from Canonical said on Reddit that they talked with some Fedora people at some point (Michael Hall’s statement here is equally informative). But either way, accusing publications of saying something they did not say is unfair, and it reflects badly on the community as a whole.

I have a personal grudge with Canonical over how they treat media, having witnessed online friends becoming victims of theirs, but I didn’t think Red Hat would stoop down to this level as well. What we are basically witnessing here is a bunch of Red Hat (‘Fedora’) employees attacking the media over Snap/Flatpak war. They want the media to take sides and get upset that the media isn’t telling the story the way they want it to.

This isn’t some kind of epic rant from me, just an observation of something that I noticed in the past. If Softpedia folks and Phoronix (Michael Larabel) can be treated like enemies because they attempt to amicably — without controversy — cover GNU/Linux news, then what hope is there for more outspoken bloggers like myself? It’s sad as it’s not just one case; the above is symptomatic of something that has been going on for years and that’s why I don’t cover Linux issues such as Systemd. It’s almost suicidal. It’s nothing but trouble. Self-censorship ensues.

“They’ll need to learn to respect the media or earn no respect in return.”Why do journalists need to be abused for attempting to cover the news, even when they cover it correctly? There’s also this on LWN (Jimbob0i0 is James Hogarth) where, again, it’s said that Softpedia claimed something it didn’t.

Red Hat needs to respect people’s views, even when these views are not correct (in this particular case these views are correct). They’ll need to learn to respect the media or earn no respect in return. They need to work better with the media or have no media at all, except that which they pay for, e.g. their opensource.com propaganda rag (it spends much of its time just peddling a book that helps pretend Red Hat is “open”, based on the CEO’s words).

The above scenario is corrosive and harmful to the relationship between Free software developers and media. Why are they all still wondering why the GNU/Linux ecosystem is not united? Why the fragmentation? Why some many hundreds of distros? That’s why. █

Summary: Founder of Free software and author of the GPL (respectively) comment on what Microsoft and Red Hat have done regarding patents

WE FINALLY GOT some feedback regarding the baffling patent agreement which seemingly affects every user of GNU/Linux. We got this feedback from Stallman and (indirectly) Moglen, two of the Free software world’s most prominent individuals, especially when it comes to the GPL (GNU Public Licence/License).

Coverage of the Red Hat-Microsoft patent agreement can be found in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]. We sought feedback from Red Hat and spoke to low(er) level people for weeks, without ever hearing back from high-level management. After weeks of trying and waiting we ended up asking legal professionals to examine whatever legal contracts — even if under NDA or some other secrecy clauses that legally-binding deals may have — were involved. We first wrote to the FSF as follows:

Dear FSF licensing folks,

As discussed earlier in IRC (freenode), I have been pursuing answers from Red Hat regarding an urgent matter. I previously interviewed their CEO regarding patents and last week I spoke to a fairly senior person from Red Hat (unnamed for his own protection), for the third time this month. I wrote about 10 articles on this subject and it led to others writing about it as well, including some prominent bloggers.

“We need to understand what Red Hat agreed on with Microsoft on as Microsoft can use this behind closed doors against other companies, for pressure/leverage.”To put it concisely, Red Hat signed a deal with Microsoft which not only involved technical work but also what they call patent “standstill”. Who is this “standstill” for? Apparently Red Hat and its customers. I strongly doubt, especially in light of Alice v. CLS Bank, that a “standstill” should be needed. Red Hat does not threaten to sue Microsoft, whereas Microsoft did in the past threaten Red Hat (even publicly). This leaves those outside Red Hat in an awkward position and ever since this deal I have taken note of at least two companies being coerced by Microsoft using patents (over “Android” or “Linux” [sic]) or sued by one of its patent trolls, e.g. Intellectual Ventures. This isn’t really a “standstill”. It’s more like the notorious “peace of mind” that Novell was after back in 2006.

Red Hat has also admitted to me that it is still pursuing some software patents in the USPTO — a fact that does not surprising me, especially given the soaring market cap of RHT and the growing budget. This serves to contradict what people like Rob Tiller say to the courts; it shows double standards and no principled lead by example.

“The analysis and the voice of the FSF may be needed at this stage.”I have asked the FSF’s Joshua if it had looked into the patent agreement between Red Hat and Microsoft. Their lawyers in this case, Mr. Piana and Mr. Tiller (probably amongst others whom we don’t know about yet), would probably claim and even insist that it’s GPL-compatible, but the wording in the FAQ make it look exclusionary and there’s no transparency, so one cannot verify these claims.

We need to understand what Red Hat agreed on with Microsoft on as Microsoft can use this behind closed doors against other companies, for pressure/leverage. I am genuinely worried and fellow journalists who focus on GNU/Linux (Sean Michael Kerner for instance) tell me that they are too.

The analysis and the voice of the FSF may be needed at this stage. I have politely urged Red Hat for a number of weeks to become more transparent, whereupon some in the company said they had escalated these requests, but evidently nothing is being done, hence I feel the need to turn to the FSF.

I would gladly provide additional information that I have upon request.

With kind regards,

“In concrete terms,” Stallman responded, “what did they agree to do?”

“It is effectively a technical collaboration,” I told him, “which also involves a ceasefire regarding patents.”

“It is impossible to discuss whether it is good or bad,” he said, “until we know what it is.”

“We know too little about the patent aspects,” I explained.

Referring to Red Hat’s FAQ, Stallman said that I “seem[ed] to be talking about text I [Stallman] have not seen.”

To quote the relevant part for readers:

4. Does the new partnership address patents?

Red Hat and Microsoft have agreed to a limited patent arrangement in connection with the commercial partnership for the benefit of mutual customers.

The heart of the arrangement is a patent standstill that provides that neither company will pursue a patent lawsuit or claim against the other or its customers, while we are partnering. Neither company acknowledged the validity or enforceability of the other’s intellectual property; it is not a patent license or a covenant not to sue and no payment was made or will be made for intellectual property.

The partnership is between commercial companies related to their common customer offerings, spurred by customer demand. Both parties carefully designed for FOSS licensing compliance in building the arrangement and each party’s relationship to the FOSS community stands on its own.

“Covering only customers and not downstream users,” Stallman said, “it is not a good thing, but it may not do a lot of harm.”

“Covering only customers and not downstream users is not a good thing, but it may not do a lot of harm.”
      –Richard StallmanI responded by saying “I hope that a thorough look into it will help remove uncertainty and get some hard answers. Right now it’s too vague or me and some fellow developers to conclude anything from.”

Days ago I asked whether “there been any progress on this case” because “I just want[ed] to be sure that licensing is looking for answers regarding the matter.”

Stallman, by that stage, seemed to have already spoken to a colleague and friend. “Eben Moglen,” he explained, “told me it doesn’t violate GPLv3. Other than getting that information, I don’t know what progress we could hope for.”

Well, as GPLv3 co-authors, their take on this sure counts. We therefore got an answer without taking a look at the contract itself (they had made access to it highly privileged information).

Assuming the case won’t go any further than this, we believe it helps set the record straight on the Microsoft-Red Hat situation. █

Summary: The reaction of patent profiteers to scope/boundary restrictions, the FRAND lobby by Microsoft’s longtime front group, FRAND matters in Korea (affecting Android), Google’s response to patent threats, and Red Hat still keeping quiet about its patent agreement with Microsoft

THERE is nothing exceptionally surprising in the news today, so we are going to focus on the EPO, which is in a very poor state right now. The management is so frail that the only language it understand is aggression. We shall write several articles about it this afternoon. Before we start, however, here is a potpourri of updates about the patent situation and how it relates to Free/Open Source software (FOSS).

“When they say “patent world” they mean the corners of the world where people pursue patents — those who try to profit from patents without necessarily creating anything.”Patent lawyers’ Web sites are still bemoaning the death of many software patents in the United States (death by Alice). One of the better known ones says that “many software patent holders must feel ─ like they were walking along merrily through the woods when they fell suddenly into a blinding, winding rabbit hole. Where once their patents stood bold and tall, they have now shrunk to a seemingly indefensible size. Whether they can defend their so-called “abstract” patents in court is now as unclear as the Mad Hatter’s riddles. The famed Alice decision has certainly left many in the patent world wondering.”

When they say “patent world” they mean the corners of the world where people pursue patents — those who try to profit from patents without necessarily creating anything.

Remember FRAND lobbying in Europe back in the days (nearly a decade ago)? Well, ACT‘s new face just got mentioned by another who was paid by Microsoft, and also regularly pushes along the FRAND front (against FOSS, relying on Korea at the moment). “ACT | The App Association,” he explained, “has announced a new web resource for innovators, policy-makers, and academics. It’s called All Things FRAND and supported by significant players including Cisco, Intel, and Microsoft. ACT is headquartered in the U.S. but also quite active abroad.”

Well, historically ACT had been little more than a Microsoft lobbyist. Then there is CCIA, which seemingly changed its position after being paid a lot of money by Microsoft. CCIA‘s Matt Levy, who now runs an anti-trolls site, has just released this new video. Don’t expect Levy to criticise CCIA’s funders, which include Microsoft. This monopolist, Microsoft, is acting in ways that resemble patent trolls.

“Well, right now many of the “bad guys” also use FRAND against Android, which Google distributes as Free/Open Source software.”Google, in the mean time, claims to be against patent trolls. As IEEE Spectrum put it some weeks ago: “Google’s Patent Purchase Promotion, which the company says received “thousands” of submissions during a three-week window, may prompt similar experiments in keeping patents out of the hands of what it considers the bad guys of intellectual property.”

Well, right now many of the “bad guys” also use FRAND against Android, which Google distributes as Free/Open Source software.

In other news, we are still pressuring Red Hat to reveal what it did with Microsoft regarding patents. We haven’t forgotten about this and we are not going to give up. The Free/Open Source software world deserves some answers. █

Summary: Quick progress report about the effort to convince Red Hat to explain its patent standstill — whatever that practically means — with Microsoft

IN THE political spheres or most political media it is widely recognised that in order to discourage certain policies and certain types of behaviour one might need to shame those who propose or exercise any such policy or action, respectively. This, for example, is why we criticise proponents of software patents and even Red Hat’s patent agreement with Microsoft. The example they give to others is dangerous and without public challenge it can carry on and even expand.

“The example they give to others is dangerous and without public challenge it can carry on and even expand.”Red Hat should be based in Raleigh, not Red Mond [sic], where Red Hat now sends its engineers to work under Microsoft leadership while receiving salaries from Red Hat. We had a long chat about this with someone from Red Hat last night. We still hope that Red Hat will decide to do the right thing. Like Novell’s Cambridge lab, which it used along with Microsoft to promote Microsoft’s agenda, now we have Red Hat staff sharing space with Microsoft staff. Microsoft is a proponent of software patents and still insists that Linux players should pay Microsoft for patents. So how can one reconcile or compromise? In our Open Letter to Red Hat’s new CEO (Jim Whitehurst) 8 years ago we told him that it is “hard to name companies that have benefited from a Microsoft pact” (this is still true).

We will continue to wait and give Red Hat an opportunity to explain what was done with Microsoft regarding patents. We encourage others to ask Red Hat those questions as well. If public pressure is sufficient to influence Red Hat’s PR/marketing experts, Red Hat will decide to open up. For a company steered by shareholders it all boils down to money and reputation. █

“What we [Novell and Microsoft] agreed, which is true, is we’ll continue to try to grow Windows share at the expense of Linux. That’s kind of our job. But to the degree that people are going to deploy Linux, we want Suse Linux to have the highest percent share of that, because only a customer who has Suse Linux actually has paid properly for the use of intellectual property from Microsoft. And we took a quota, you could say, to help them sell so much Suse Linux. That’s part of the deal. We are willing to do the same deal with Red Hat and other Linux distributors, it’s not an exclusive thing. But after a few years of working on this problem, Novell actually saw the business opportunity, because there’s so many customers who say, ‘Hey look, we don’t want problems. We don’t want any intellectual property problem or anything else. There’s just a variety of workloads where we, today, feel like we want to run Linux. Please help us Microsoft and please work with the distributors to solve this
problem, don’t come try to license this individually.’ So customer push drove us to where we got.”

–Steve Ballmer

Credit: unknown (Twitter)

Summary: Red Hat’s current management, which technically liaises (more deeply over time) with Microsoft, agrees on patents, works with the NSA, and increasingly deviates from the UNIX way (while becoming more secretive, except the openwashing), inevitably reminds us of Novell

Microsoft and the board- or shareholders-driven Red Hat now seem more and more like Microsoft and Novell, based on some of the latest reports and even press releases like this one [PDF].

“The Microsoft/Red Hat partnership calls for a Red Hat engineering team to actually move to Redmond,” to quote a new report. [1]

“And don’t forget the patent agreement that they still refuse to tell us more about.”Mirroring the Microsoft-Novell ‘special relationship’, there is a lot of technical integration too. The men in suit “said that in the coming months Red Hat Enterprise Linux images will be enabled for on-demand billing directly in its marketplace.” Billing by who? Microsoft? Red Hat? It’s complicated. And don’t forget the patent agreement that they still refuse to tell us more about [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10].

Jono Bacon, from GitHub and Red Hat’s “Open Organization” [sic] marketing campaign, defends the companies’ new relationship (as he would defend his former employer, Canonical, as well). Citing a sort of Microsoft proxy and a new Red Hat partner (Black Duck), he frames this relationship as necessary and recalls that “Microsoft went a step further with then-CEO Steve Ballmer describing the poster-child of the open source revolution, Linux, as “a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.”

“Red Hat is living in a dream if it genuinely believes that a deal with Microsoft will leave them better off than Linspire or Novell.”Well, based on Nadella’s actions against Samsung, Kyocera, and Dell (there are more examples), he too views Linux as “a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.” Nadella insists on still using patents against Linux, and against Android in particular (using patents pertaining to the kernel, Linux).

Under Nadella’s management, Microsoft is even trying to delete Android from phones (we first took note of this at the beginning of this year and later on) or even absorb its software into Windows — a strategy which Microsoft reportedly did in fact consider [2]. It’s like a derivative of the famous “embrace, extend, extinguish” strategy. Under Nadella there was also further lockdown of UEFI, impeding or making impossible installation of GNU/Linux on PCs that come with Microsoft’s unpopular spyware.

Red Hat is living in a dream if it genuinely believes that a deal with Microsoft will leave them better off than Linspire or Novell. Or maybe it can leave Red Hat just better off than everyone else in the GNU/Linux world. Red Hat’s patent agreement with Microsoft, concurrent with Microsoft attacking Android (with software patents), is truly problematic and we will escalate if Red Hat does not respond to us or becomes transparent by the end of this month. A lot of people want answers. The “Open Organization” [sic] ignores these people. It’s inherently antithetical to players in a community of developers. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. For Red Hat and Microsoft Together, the Cloud Beckons

   The Microsoft/Red Hat partnership calls for a Red Hat engineering team to actually move to Redmond to provide joint technical support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux workloads running in the Microsoft Azure public cloud and on its hybrid cloud offerings. That ensures that the companies will have closely tied cloud computing goals.

2. Microsoft shelves ‘suicidal’ Android-on-Windows plan

   Microsoft has sidelined its plan to allow Windows 10 devices to run Android apps before it could do any serious damage, according to a report.

   Daniel Rubino at the Windows Central blog gathered some convincing evidence that Microsoft’s Project Astoria has been wound down, while the runtime allowing the Android-on-Win10 magic to work has disappeared.

“Inventive people [at Novell] write more software patents per capita than anywhere else.”

–Jeff Jaffe, Novell’s CTO before these patents got passed to CPTN (Linux foes)

Summary: The use of a patent portfolio in the Free software world for divisive and discriminatory purposes, as demonstrated by Red Hat in servers and BlackBerry in phones

IN OUR previous articles which mentioned Microsoft’s patent agreement with Red Hat [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9] we noted that:

1. The patent “standstill” (implies temporary and falsely insinuates there was a two-way war) applies only to Red Hat and its customers, unless Red Hat can prove otherwise;
2. The deal does not shield Red Hat and and its customers from satellites of Microsoft.

“We both know we have very different positions on software patents. We weren’t expecting each other to compromise.”
      –Paul Cormier, Red HatWell, we are still waiting for Red Hat’s lawyers to speak out (Tiller and Piana were involved in this) or for Red Hat’s management to get back to us (if it decides to). They need to go “open” (like an “Open Organization” [sic]), or at least clarify in some other way what exactly Red Hat did with Microsoft regarding patents. The FAQ is far too vague and it raises more questions than it answers. If we don’t hear some time later this month, we shall assume that Red Hat is hiding something and we’ll rally Free software people (urging them to comment on this subject), set up a public petition, etc. Transparency is extremely important here. This new article quotes Paul Cormier, Red Hat’s president for products and technologies, as saying: “We both know we have very different positions on software patents. We weren’t expecting each other to compromise.”

Well, both are applying for software patents, so it’s not clear what he meant by that. Also, they compromised only among themselves; what about other entities that use the same software as Red Hat does? Are they too enjoying a patent “standstill”? Probably not. Only says ago Microsoft extorted — using patents — yet another company that was using Linux (Android was mentioned in the announcement).

“Nothing prevents Intellectual Ventures from going after Red Hat just like Acacia repeatedly did, so it’s a fool’s settlement.”What has Red Hat really achieved here? It was a selfish deal and the inclusion of patents in it was totally spurious; it does a lot more harm than good. Ian Bruce, Novell’s PR Director, once said that the Novell/Microsoft package “provides IP peace of mind for organizations operating in mixed source environments.”

Meanwhile, the Microsoft-friendly media gives a platform to the world’s biggest patent troll, Intellectual Ventures, without even calling it “patent troll”. This troll recently sued a lot of companies that distributed Linux. Nothing prevents Intellectual Ventures from going after Red Hat just like Acacia repeatedly did, so it’s a fool’s settlement.

“Remember that BlackBerry habitually speaks about using patents for revenue and for market advantage.”Speaking of potential patent dangers to Linux, recall that BlackBerry pays Microsoft for patents (including FAT, which relates to TomTom/Linux) and recall our articles about BlackBerry potentially becoming a troll [1, 2, 3, 4]. Some people’s loyalty to this Canadian brand and its newfound support for Android can blind them to the risk which BlackBerry remains, especially because of its patents stockpile.

This new article [1, 2] serves to remind us that BlackBerry still has “Software And Patent Monetization” in mind (we covered this some weeks ago, quoting the CEO). This means that, failing the strategy with Priv and Venice (BlackBerry’s Android devices and Linux-centric strategy), it could end up like Sony-Ericsson, suing Android players whilst also selling their own (unsuccessful) Android handsets.

“BlackBerry is proprietary to the core.”Remember that BlackBerry habitually speaks about using patents for revenue and for market advantage. Also remember that BlackBerry is not — at least not yet — an Android company. BlackBerry is proprietary to the core. “The QNX division could also face higher competition from open source software such as Linux,” wrote a financial site, “which many customers find more flexible and economical, limiting its potential in the burgeoning IoT and connected device market. For instance, Tesla reportedly uses Linux for its Model S sedan.”

Don’t be too shocked if BlackBerry eventually sells its patents to hostile actors, asserts them against competitors that use Android, or uses aggressive lawyers to compel various OEMs to remove features from their Android devices (both hardware and software features). █

“I’ve heard from Novell sales representatives that Microsoft sales executives have started calling the Suse Linux Enterprise Server coupons “royalty payments”…”

–Matt Asay, April 21^st, 2008

Summary: Red Hat’s mysterious and seemingly very selfish patent deal with Microsoft continues to float (or reverberate) because of the fate of companies in a similar position

IT has been nearly a week since Red Hat’s poor clarification (FAQ) regarding its patent agreement with Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Only a few days later Microsoft extorted yet another company for using Linux and since our detailed media survey there have been yet more articles about it. There are examples from earlier today [1-3], yesterday [4], two days ago [5], and prior days (more articles are still surfacing from that time, e.g. [6-9)). As we pointed out earlier today, we are still waiting to hear back from Red Hat (this afternoon we were told it had been escalated to management). We hope that this kind of patent approach won’t spread to entities like Mozilla because Red Hat has pretty much become part of the problem. It is now filing patent applications for software (any claims of opposition to software patents would be hypocritical) and it is signing what seems like exclusionary patent deals with Microsoft (it’s still kept secret, so it’s hard if not impossible for Red Hat to prove otherwise).

“It’s not the same as it was back in the days of the FireStar settlement.”After the patent deal with Microsoft Red Hat is still exposed to patent trolls like the Microsoft-connected Acacia. Red Hat has already been sued by it several times before (Novell too was sued by Acacia after it had signed the Microsoft patent deal). Red Hat also made secret deals (it agreed to pay Acacia), whereupon we lost hope and trust in Red Hat's misguided patent strategy. It’s not the same as it was back in the days of the FireStar settlement [1, 2, 3]. Red Hat is growing up and just like Google (with Android) it is increasingly being run by lawyers, who probably advise it to hoard patents of its own and sign patent deals where it’s financially beneficial to Red Hat’s shareholders (regardless of the impact on the Free software community).

“If Red Hat genuinely believes that Red Hat and its customers now have patent “standstill”, then it obviously didn’t do its homework regarding Microsoft’s satellites.”Now, recall Canon’s recent patent deal with Microsoft. Also remember that both companies pressured the EPO to treat large corporations differently when it comes to patent examination. Did Canon really think that it would have patent peace after signing a deal with Microsoft? Based on this latest docket report, Intellectual Ventures attacked Canon and its “Image Scanning Patent [is] Not Invalid Under 35 U.S.C. § 101″ (Alice). To quote the docket report, Intellectual Ventures I LLC et al v. Canon Inc. et al, 1-13-cv-00473 (DED November 9, 2015, Order) (Robinson, J.): “The court denied defendant’s motion for summary judgment that plaintiffs’ image scanning patent was invalid for lack of patentable subject matter and found that the claims were not directed toward a patent-ineligible concept.”

If Red Hat genuinely believes that Red Hat and its customers now have patent “standstill”, then it obviously didn’t do its homework regarding Microsoft’s satellites. It didn’t even bother thinking about satellites like Acacia, which sued not only Red Hat but also Novell, only months after Novell had boasted patent “peace of mind” with Microsoft. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Red Hat launches Cloud Access on Microsoft Azure

2. Microsoft, Red Hat join forces for hybrid cloud

3. Wikibon calls Microsoft-Red Hat partnership a win for both parties

4. Microsoft and Red Hat to deliver new standard for enterprise cloud experiences

5. Microsoft and Red Hat partnership: Flexibility for enterprise hybrid cloud solutions

6. Enterprise Tech Vendors Explore Strategies To Fight Disruption

7. Microsoft, Red Hat announce partnership on enterprise cloud

8. Microsoft and Red Hat Partner on Massive Hybrid Cloud Deal

9. Microsoft and Red Hat announce a Partnership

Summary: Microsoft is now going after Star Micronics, using threats (with patents) to give Star Micronics paid ‘permission’ to use Linux-based operating systems in its products

It should be obvious by now that the “new Microsoft” — whatever that means — is a Microsoft that uses patents to pressure, to blackmail and to manipulate companies that use Linux, Android, Chrome OS and so on. Recall this year’s examples alone. These include Samsung, Kyocera, ASUS, and Dell. Microsoft used patents to compel them to do to Android and/or Chrome OS what Microsoft had insisted on. It’s basically a tool of extortion. It is not impossible that Microsoft also threatened to sue Red Hat using patents (even innuendo) to pressure Red Hat into a bad deal that harms Free software as a whole. Since Red Hat is so secretive about it, who knows? We contacted the lawyers who were involved in making the agreement on patents (Carlo Piana and Rob Tiller), but still no response. It has been days now.

“Red Hat helped Microsoft openwashing, reputation laundering, and at the same time it bolstered Microsoft’s patents, which it uses all the time to compel companies (especially those that use Linux) to beg Microsoft for mercy and sometimes pay up for something Microsoft only attacks and in no way created.”Red Hat staff should pay attention to today’s (just announced by Microsoft) patent blackmail deal. When Red Hat staff (salaried engineers for the most part) claim that the deal with Microsoft is a “win” they delude themselves in the same way SUSE staff did at the time of the Novell-Microsoft deal. According to this article: “As for the Red Hat partnership that Microsoft has struck, it looks far reaching. The partnership calls for a Red Hat engineering team to move to Redmond to provide joint technical support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux workloads running in the Microsoft Azure public cloud and on its hybrid cloud offerings.”

If there’s a deja vu here, it’s because of Novell. Microsoft must be enjoying the boost Red Hat gave to its patents, by essentially agreeing on a patent “standstill” (for Red Hat only for all we know and based on today’s news). The Microsoft media really loves this deal and it’s easy to see why. Red Hat helped Microsoft openwashing, reputation laundering, and at the same time it bolstered Microsoft’s patents, which it uses all the time to compel companies (especially those that use Linux) to beg Microsoft for mercy and sometimes pay up for something Microsoft only attacks and in no way created. This is an injustice of the highest order.

We already wrote 5 articles about the Red Hat deal, namely:

1. Media Coverage of the Red Hat-Microsoft Deal Includes Microsoft Talking Points and Moles, No Discussion About Patent Aspects
2. Red Hat’s Deal With Microsoft Resurrects Fears of Software Patents Against GNU/Linux and Introduces ‘Triple-Dipping’ of Fees
3. More Information Emerges About the Microsoft-Red Hat Patent Agreement
4. Red Hat Sells Out With a Microsoft Patent Deal
5. Summary of the Red Hat-Microsoft Patent Agreement of 2015

Red Hat wants us to believe that there is a “gentle” Microsoft led by Nadella, but if that’s really the case, then why is Microsoft blackmailing yet another company using patents? It’s specifically to do with Linux/Android, based on the announcements. To quote one of them: “Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC today announced their patent licensing agreement with Star Micronics that provides broad coverage under Microsoft’s patent portfolio for Star Micronics’ Android-based commercial printers and computing devices.”

Yes, Android. And it’s not a small company, it employs about 2,500 people.

In the mean time, as reported by Sam Varghese [1], Microsoft is unwilling to comment on extension of the SUSE deal. It runs out in less than 2 months. Is this divide and rule in the making? Did Red Hat step into a trap? We shall know more soon…

I had a very long conversation with Red Hat staff and I hope that their CEO will eventually decide to be transparent about the patent agreement with Microsoft. Even Novell was more transparent than that (at the time). █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Microsoft unwilling to comment on extension of SUSE deal

   Microsoft has refused to say openly whether it will be extending the patent-licensing deal that it signed with Novell back in 2006. At that time, SUSE Linux was a part of Novell.

   Novell has since been acquired by the Attachmate Group which, in turn, was bought by the British mainframe company Micro Focus.

   In July 2011, Microsoft announced that the agreement with SUSE would be extended until January 1, 2016.

   iTWire asked Microsoft about the SUSE agreement after Red Hat and Microsoft announced a deal a few days back on cloud installations, wherein Microsoft said it would be making Red Hat the preferred enterprise Linux distribution for installing on its Azure cloud offering.

Context: 1972 Nixon visit to China [1, 2]

Summary: Criticism of Red Hat’s approach to dealing with Microsoft spreads to more sites, especially those that understand the impact of patents in this area

WE REALLY wanted to avoid further commentary on the Microsoft-Red Hat deal, but another shallow article has just come out, this time from Linux Insider (not necessarily a Linux-friendly site). The authur says nothing about patents, which is often what’s missing from all the puff pieces about this subject.

“Well, Richard Nixon was at least opening up to trade. In the case of Red Hat, it opens up other companies to potential patent lawsuits from Microsoft.”Over at FOSS Force, a pro-FOSS site, Larry Cafiero wrote: “Red Hat and Microsoft on Wednesday announced a partnership that will allow businesses to deploy Red Hat’s open source software on the Microsoft Azure cloud. From news reports, the deal makes Red Hat the “preferred choice” on Microsoft Azure, Redmond’s infrastructure-as-a-service platform. Make what you will of this. Me? If you know my distaste for what’s nebulously called “the cloud,” I’m just walking away from it, though the one comment I read in one story comparing this to Nixon going to China is probably the best comparison.”

Well, Richard Nixon was at least opening up to trade. In the case of Red Hat, it opens up other companies to potential patent lawsuits from Microsoft. We have already explained this in 5 articles, namely:

• Media Coverage of the Red Hat-Microsoft Deal Includes Microsoft Talking Points and Moles, No Discussion About Patent Aspects
• Red Hat’s Deal With Microsoft Resurrects Fears of Software Patents Against GNU/Linux and Introduces ‘Triple-Dipping’ of Fees
• More Information Emerges About the Microsoft-Red Hat Patent Agreement
• Red Hat Sells Out With a Microsoft Patent Deal
• Summary of the Red Hat-Microsoft Patent Agreement of 2015

Florian Müller, who had worked as a patents spinner for Microsoft (for a while), was very hard on Red Hat. He wrote that “Red Hat hopes to leverage patents to cement its Linux market leadership [with the] Microsoft deal” and makes a claim similar to claims we have been making here for over half a decade. “I’ve been saying for years,” he wrote, “that Red Hat is utterly hypocritical when it comes to patents. It has a history of feeding patent trolls and fooling the open source community. There is, to put it mildly, no assurance that all of its related dealings actually comply with the GPL.”

This is exactly our concern and unless there is transparency from the “Open Organisation”, we don’t know for sure. The patent “standstill” does not extend to companies other than Red Hat, so where does that leave even CentOS users (Techrights uses CentOS)? “Red Hat now wants to tell Linux users,” Müller explains, “that the way to be protected with respect to patents is to use Red Hat Linux. “Reduce your exposure, buy from us.” That is a way of seeking to benefit from software patents.”

That’s similar to what Novell did, but secrecy makes it harder to know what really goes on here.

“If you know my distaste for what’s nebulously called “the cloud,” I’m just walking away from it, though the one comment I read in one story comparing this to Nixon going to China is probably the best comparison.”
      –Larry Cafiero“I want to give Simon Phipps credit,” Müller wrote, “for distinguishing between the positive and not so positive ramifications of this partnership from an open source point of view. The Open Source Initiative is an organization on whose board Simon Phipps serves with, among others, a Red Hat lawyer.

“Without the Red Hat connection, Simon Phipps would presumably have criticized Red Hat clearly as opposed to just making it sound like Microsoft should do more. He says Microsoft should relinquish its patent rights because that’s how he defines “love” for Linux. However, he doesn’t talk about what Red Hat could have done. Red Hat could have challenged any Microsoft patents that allegedly infringe Linux: in court (declaratory judgment actions) and through reexamination requests. That course of action would have done free and open source software a greater service than a deal.”

In Twitter, Müller goes on and chastises the FSF, SFLC etc. for not criticising Red Hat (because of financial ties). This very much reminds us of the reluctance to criticise systemd, which is mostly Red Hat’s own creation. Red Hat’s clout in the community almost makes it immune to criticism.

“Google-Moto defended Linux against MSFT’s patent infringement allegations in court and won,” Müller wrote in Twitter, whereas “Red Hat decided to benefit from them.”

He said that “GPL enforcers like Harald Welte should sue Red Hat for alleged breach of the GPLv2 patent clause, arguing a covenant not to sue is a license” (we don’t know if there is such a covenant because the “Open Organisation” is still quite secretive about it).

“Android,” he says, “not Red Hat, is the #1 Linux distribution. Google, not Red Hat, is the #1 defender of Linux against Microsoft’s patents.”

As we said at the very start (hours after the Microsoft-Red Hat deal had been announced), Red Hat’s actions are defeatist and dangerous. They come at a time when, at least in the US, software patents rapidly lose their teeth anyway.

“”It’s one thing to be a Linux parasite. It’s another to be a Trojan horse. And the worst option is to be both at the same time.”
      –Florian MüllerAccording to Patent Buddy, citing the Bilski Blog, “Sue L Robinson, the Patent Killer Judge, Has Not Held a Single Patent Valid under 101/Alice” and even at the capital of patent trolls, “E. Dist. Of TX has Alice / 101 Invalidity Rate of 34.8%” (that’s pretty high for such a corrupt district).

To quote the Bilski Blog: “There have been 34 district court decisions in the past two months, but the percentage of invalidity decision is holding constant at 70.5%. The number of patent claims invalidated is now over 11,000, but also holding steady at around 71%.

“There have been no new Federal Circuit Section 101 decisions, but we’re going to see a flurry of activity in the next couple of months, as the court has recently heard oral argument in a number of patent eligibility cases, and more are on calendar for November.

“Motions on the pleadings have soared, with 23 in the past two months alone, and the success rate is up a tick from 70.1% to 71.4%.

“PTAB is a bit mixed: the CBM institution rate is down from 86.2% 83.7%, but the final decision rate is still 100%, with 6 decisions in the past two months invalidating the patents in suit.”

Red Hat could make use of what Bilski Blog called #AliceStorm (referring to the avalanche of software patents) to basically invalidate a lot of Microsoft’s software patents. Instead, Red Hat reached a patent agreement with Microsoft.

Müller’s analysis ends with strong words that we don’t agree with but are worth quoting nonetheless: “It’s one thing to be a Linux parasite. It’s another to be a Trojan horse. And the worst option is to be both at the same time.” █

Summary: A detailed record of what Red Hat has just done with Microsoft, as explained by Techrights and as (poorly) explained by unsuspecting corporate media

TECHRIGHTS has, over the past couple of days, prepared a comprehensive media survey (60+ article) about the Microsoft-Red Hat deal and their successful spin/cover-up (regarding patents). This was previously covered here in the following posts:

1. Media Coverage of the Red Hat-Microsoft Deal Includes Microsoft Talking Points and Moles, No Discussion About Patent Aspects
2. Red Hat’s Deal With Microsoft Resurrects Fears of Software Patents Against GNU/Linux and Introduces ‘Triple-Dipping’ of Fees
3. More Information Emerges About the Microsoft-Red Hat Patent Agreement
4. Red Hat Sells Out With a Microsoft Patent Deal

There are many links in there, along with some more links in the comments.

Red Hat’s latest deal with Microsoft definitely included a patent agreement, so this goes further than the 2009 virtualisation deal which was covered here in the following articles:

1. Summary of the Red Hat-Microsoft Story
2. Novell the Biggest Loser in New Red Hat-Microsoft Virtual Agreement
3. Red Hat-Microsoft Agreement Not Malicious, But Was It Smart?
4. Red Hat-Microsoft: Take III

Below is a complete list of what we were able to find in the media [2-64] yet haven’t cited (not until now anyway). None of it mentioned the patent aspects (unless it’s just hidden away in some distant sentence or paragraph), not because such aspects don’t exist but because Red Hat did a fine job hiding it (way to go, “Open Organisation”), or at least downplaying it. The criticism from Sam Varghese and yours truly got mentioned in [1] earlier today.

“The media framed this the same way it was told by Red Hat and Microsoft.”Journalism is supposed to involve independent analysis or an audit of events, not repetition of official narratives from companies that have so much to gain financially (that’s what the deal was all about, even at the expense of patent security in the Free software world). The media framed this the same way it was told by Red Hat and Microsoft. Almost nobody went further or delved any deeper. Red Hat’s culture of secrecy can also be seen when it comes to the company's patent settlements and special relationship with the NSA (they cooperate on code and the NSA is a huge client of Red Hat). We about this back in 2013 [1, 2, 3, 4], then saw the story resurfacing this year (because it turned out that illegal and unconstitutional mass surveillance is done using RHEL).

It is going to be interesting to see what happens to SUSE at the end of this year because its coupons/patent deal expires on January 1st (the press release said that “both vendors are also resolving intellectual property concerns”). █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Underneath the Red Hat Microsoft Deal, Bodhi is Five

   However, Dr. Roy Schestowitz isn’t celebrating. In fact, he said the deal could very well put many distributions out of business (so to speak) and Red Hat users at risk. He said the deal involves patent agreements and data collection. It’s all about money according to Schestowitz who said, “At Red Hat money now matters more than freedom and ethics.” For Microsoft it’s about double and triple taxing users in addition to collecting and selling their data. Red Hat isn’t interested in defending GNU/Linux against patent trolls and instead pays out to settle cases and now signs a patent deal according to Schestowitz and his quoted and linked sources. Microsoft has and is continuing to pursue lawsuits against Open Source entities. Nasdaq.com said on the subject Microsoft is known for “aggressively seeking royalties from its software patents” then quoted Red Hat’s Paul Cormier saying, “We both know we have very different positions on software patents. We weren’t expecting each other to compromise.”We weren’t expecting each other to compromise.” So, at least one other site covered the patent situation, even if not in depth. Red Hat stock closed at $82.75 after the announcement Wednesday and finshed up today, Thursday, at 81.57.

   Sam Varghese today asked, “With two companies — Microsoft and Red Hat — from opposite ends of the software spectrum linking arms in a deal overnight, the big question that remains is: what happens to the SUSE-Microsoft deal?” He suggests SUSE might not get the same level of assistance it once did now. But then again, he also speculated that the deal is “unlikely to earn any criticism from the open source community” as it SUSE did. I guess he hasn’t read Schestowitz lately.

2. Microsoft and Red Hat Reach Linux Deal

3. Microsoft, Red Hat Finally Make It Official

4. Microsoft brings Red Hat Enterprise Linux to Azure

5. Red Hat and Microsoft become partners in the cloud

6. Red Hat Enterprise Linux lands on Microsoft Azure cloud – no, we’re not pulling your leg

7. Microsoft partners with Red Hat for hybrid cloud solutions

8. Microsoft (MSFT), Red Hat (RHT) Enter Azure-Related Partnership

9. Red Hat OS on Microsoft Azure: Now It’s Easy

10. Microsoft Joins Hands With Red Hat To Bring Enterprise Linux To Azure Cloud Platform

11. Microsoft, Red Hat Partner For Linux On Azure

12. Microsoft and Red Hat announce cloud partnership, show .NET a few love

13. Shocker: Microsoft and Red Hat Team-up

14. Red Hat-Microsoft partnership means a ‘co-location’ of engineers

15. Nadella delivers another shocker as Microsoft embraces Red Hat in cloud alliance

16. Microsoft and Red Hat join forces to help ease enterprises into hybrid cloud

17. Red Hat Enterprise Linux to become officially supported on Azure (at last)

18. Microsoft improves enterprise cloud by making Azure available on Red Hat Linux

19. Major Red Hat & Microsoft Partnership Around Cloud and .NET on Linux

20. Major Red Hat & Microsoft Partnership Around Cloud and .NET on Linux

21. Microsoft partners with Red Hat on hybrid cloud computing

22. Microsoft and Red Hat announce partnership

23. Microsoft, Red Hat Strike Broad Cloud Alliance

24. Microsoft signs cloud deal with Red Hat

25. Microsoft Plays Nice With Open Source Rival Red Hat

26. Microsoft and Red Hat Make Cloud Pact

27. Microsoft, Red Hat in deal to boost hybrid cloud computing

28. Microsoft, Red Hat Collaborate To Put Linux on Azure

29. Microsoft Corporation, Red Hat Bury The Hatchet, Offer New Enterprise Cloud Standard

30. Red Hat, Microsoft Partner on Open Source Solutions for Azure Cloud

31. Microsoft and Red Hat form cloud partnership

32. Microsoft joins with Red Hat to make hybrid cloud adoption easier

33. Microsoft to offer Red Hat Linux on Azure cloud

34. Finally, Red Hat and Microsoft join hands to bring Linux on Azure

35. Microsoft teams up with Red Hat for enterprise cloud solutions

36. What’s behind the odd couple Microsoft-Red Hat partnership

37. Red Hat Enterprise Linux to be Available on Microsoft Azure Cloud Service

38. Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT) Struck Up A Major New Alliance For Cloud Computing- CDW Corporation (NASDAQ:CDW), MaxLinear, Inc. (NYSE:MXL)

39. Microsoft and Red Hat join hands for Linux on Azure

40. Analyst: Red Hat, Microsoft deal could lead to Amazon partnership

41. Microsoft Corporation Partners With Red Hat Inc For Its Cloud Service

42. Microsoft Partners with Red Hat; MariaDB Released on Azure

43. Why Did Microsoft Corporation Paint Its Cloud Red?

44. Red Hat Teams With Microsoft To Create Improved Cloud Experience

45. Microsoft and Red Hat Take Over Cloud Market

46. Red Hat and Microsoft strike historic Linux-Azure union

47. Microsoft and Red Hat partner up for enterprise hybrid cloud

48. Microsoft and Red Hat announce enterprise cloud partnership

49. Microsoft And Red Hat To Bring .NET To Linux

50. Red Hat, Microsoft Deal Keeps Customers, Stock Aloft

51. Microsoft announces partnership with Red Hat

52. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) Joined Forces with Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) To Improve Cloud Computing Service- Cognizant Technology Solutions (NASDAQ:CTSH), Qlik Technologies (NASDAQ:QLIK)

53. Armistice Signed: Red Hat, Microsoft Change the Landscape

54. Microsoft and Red Hat Partner on Massive Hybrid Cloud Deal

55. Microsoft and Red Hat to deliver new standard for enterprise cloud experiences

56. Microsoft just buried the hatchet with another huge and bitter rival, Red Hat

57. Red Hat Linux Enterprise is Reference Platform for .NET Core on Linux

58. Microsoft partners with Red Hat to deliver native cloud solutions

59. Microsoft Azure Adds Red Hat Support

60. Microsoft Partners with Red Hat On Enterprise Linux for Azure

61. Microsoft, Red Hat ink Azure/Linux cloud deal (updated)

62. Microsoft to make Red Hat Linux available on Azure

63. At Last! Microsoft and Red Hat Sign Cloud Pact

64. Bromance Between Microsoft And Linux Will Take Place In The Cloud

WE are very frustrated to have found very poor coverage about the Microsoft-Red Hat deal. It’s disappointing to go one article after another and find almost nothing new. It’s just echoing (or parroting) what the companies are saying. There is no real effort to do journalism, reporting, in-depth investigation. Media coverage about the EPO tends to be the same in the English-speaking media.

Katherine Noyes, who used to work for the Linux Foundation, wrote that “Microsoft finally ties the knot with Red Hat for Linux on Azure” (maybe this headline is the editor’s, not hers).

Microsoft finally ties the knot with Red Hat? Come on, what is this, a wedding? It’s hardly even a shotgun wedding. In an effort to go lyrical they’re turning this into a sham and a mockery. The article itself does not really add anything new. It says nothing about the patents [1, 2, 3] because it’s a soft piece, not investigative journalism. This article is complete with quotes from Microsoft mouthpieces like the Gartner Group and IDC (part of the employer of the writer, IDG).

“Red Hat, despite asserting they don’t believe Microsoft has any patents that read on their products, included a standstill agreement in the deal. Sources tell me it is carefully phrased to comply with the GPL. If Red Hat felt they had to do that with their new partner, there’s no doubt everyone else remains at risk.”
      –Simon PhippsWe have been having a bit of a deja vu today (and yesterday) because a lot of what’s said about the Microsoft-Red Hat deal deal is pure marketing. Shallow and inaccurate, with very few exceptions (usually not in the mainstream media).

Simon Phipps wrote some hours ago that he had “updated [his blog post] to include the patent standstill” (a crucial addition). To quote the amended text: “Red Hat, despite asserting they don’t believe Microsoft has any patents that read on their products, included a standstill agreement in the deal. Sources tell me it is carefully phrased to comply with the GPL. If Red Hat felt they had to do that with their new partner, there’s no doubt everyone else remains at risk.”

Yes, exactly. Red Hat has just sold us all out, just because it can help Red Hat attract some customers. This is selfish and even — if one dare say it — malicious.

Florian Müller, who used to work for Microsoft (for a while) after he had campaigned against software patents, wrote: “One could argue that challenging all those patents allegedly infringed by Linux in court would have done FOSS a greater service than a deal.”

He also wrote: “One *can* be more demanding than @webmink: Red Hat could have brought declaratory judgment actions against MSFT patents on that Chinese list [...] Simon Phipps applies a high standard to “MSFT loves Linux”: love should include giving up all related patent rights” (source).

Müller is actually right in this case and this agrees with what we wrote about Red Hat about half a decade ago. For those who forgot, here are some reminders:

• Novell, Red Hat, and Software Patents: Strike II
• Red Hat Fights Fire with Fire
• Patents Roundup: Red Hat, Former USPTO Commissioner on Patent Demise, and WIPO Notes
• Patents Roundup: Red Hat Again; EPO and USPTO Debated
• The Other Side of Red Hat: Pieter Hintjens on AMQP and Patents
• How Red Hat Dodged a Novell-Like Microsoft Deal Despite Lobbying for Software Patents
• Red Hat, Microsoft, EU Lobbyists, and Software Patents
• A Glimpse Back at Red Hat’s and Novell’s Stance on Software Patents in 2005
• Red Hat and Software Patents (Video)
• Patents Roundup: Identifying Real Patent Foes and Conflicts of Interests
• Red Hat Should Eliminate All of Its Patents, or At Least Attach Self-Destructive Clauses to Them

The corporate media is full of complete nonsense (no depth at all) about this deal. Watch the coverage in the financial press, calling it “”Co-Location” Partnership” or a “Microsoft Tie-Up”. It’s more like a sellout.

A lot of such propaganda we have been seeing today while making a partial record of it. Why are the people who cover these issues not familiar with Free software and patents for instance? They’re clueless because their critical skills require some knowledge of the topics covered. They’re just so easy for marketers to bamboozle. These people should be told by their editor: If you don’t grasp it, don’t write about it. Just repeating what PR spokespeople and press releases (from notorious liars like Microsoft) say isn’t journalism. Sadly, a lot of people who do just that call themselves reporters.

Klint Finley, writing for a large publication, uses words like “Frenemy” and says this: “As recently as 2007, Microsoft was threatening to sue Linux users for patent infringement, though it soon backed down.”

With all due respect, this is nonsense. It’s revisionism and it’s a lie. Microsoft didn’t back down, it sued TomTom for instance and it still uses patents for extortion, even under the current leadership. Examples include Samsung, Kyocera, ASUS, and Dell.

Adrian Bridgwater, sometimes a Microsoft apologist (with the openwashing and all), chooses to go with “Microsoft Loves Linux” in his headline (also with an image at the top along those lines, just like Katherine Noyes). This isn’t journalism, it’s more like Microsoft marketing; why are these people helping Microsoft lie to the public? Do they think it’s just fun or funny? It’s very irresponsible ‘journalism’. Just like Noyes, Bridgwater quotes IDC, but to make matters worse, he quotes “IDC software analyst Al Hilwa”. Does he even know who Hilwa is? Did he check? Hilwa used to work for Microsoft, but there is no disclosure of this obvious conflict of interests and he habitually comments on Microsoft as an "analyst" without explaining that he actually came from Microsoft. Bridgwater’s article is shallow and nothing about patents gets mentioned. What is the reader supposed to conclude from it? The headline says “Microsoft Loves Linux”, the image at the top says “Microsoft Loves Linux”, and the article quotes as an ‘expert’ a person from Microsoft who pretends to be independent. What a coup!

One of the better articles we have found on this subject came from Sam Varghese and was titled “With Microsoft and Red Hat in bed, what happens to SUSE?”

To quote Varghese: “The Microsoft-Novell deal — SUSE was then a part of Novell — was initially signed in 2006 and, after its initial five-year term, was renewed in July 2011 for a further five years until the end of 2015. It has hardly two months left to run.

“There has been no word from either SUSE or Microsoft on what happens next. SUSE’s leaders are currently in Amsterdam attending the company’s annual national conference.”

It is a good article and it makes some valid points. It is rather reassuring to know that some real journalists still exist out there. They may not be loved by all (far from it), but therein lies a yardstick for success. Journalists who never piss anyone off are probably just cowards who don’t do the job they’re supposed to do, which is unearthing new information, not repeating talking points packaged and delivered in bite sizes for so-called ambitious ‘journalists’ to paste into a Microsoft Word document, then dispatch to a self-censoring editor (censorship based on the publisher’s sponsors’ expected reaction). Real journalism can hurt people’s feelings; ‘safe’ ‘journalism’ (puff pieces to appease or invite advertisers) does not.

Finally, as well as the important/enlightening quote below, we wish to remind readers that patent ‘peace’ with a company like Microsoft does not protect any entity from satellites of this company, e.g. patent trolls. Remember that shortly after Novell had signed its patent deal with Microsoft both itself and Red Hat got sued by the Microsoft-connected Acacia for patent infringement. It wasn’t the last time, not even from this one single satellite (there were settlements down the line even as recently as 2 years ago). █

“In a world where there are $500 million dollar patent infringement lawsuits imposed on OS companies (although this is not completely settled yet), how would somebody like Red Hat compete when 6 months ago they only had $80-$90 million in cash? At that point they could not even afford to settle a fraction of a single judgment without devastating their shareholders. I suspect Microsoft may have 50 or more of these lawsuits in the queue. All of them are not asking for hundreds of millions, but most would be large enough to ruin anything but the largest companies. Red Hat did recently raise several hundred million which certainly gives them more staying power. Ultimately, I do not think any company except a few of the largest companies can offer any reasonable insulation to their customers from these types of judgments. You would need a market cap of more than a couple billion to just survive in the OS space.”

–SCO’s Strategic Consultant Mike Anderer

Summary: Informed (GNU/Linux-centric) journalists who looked beyond the misleading press releases and the distracting marketing campaign have managed to find out and highlight the patent issues associated with the Red Hat-Microsoft deal

AS WE noted in our previous coverage, Red Hat does not want anyone to speak about — let alone know — the patent aspects of its deal with Microsoft. Most articles, following a dry (on facts, not on marketing) press release, say nothing about it. Here is one puff piece that plays along with the “Microsoft Loves Linux” narrative, which is extremely misleading (lulling us into dangerous optimism). The author writes: “It’s a long way from the days when the former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer described Linux as a “cancer.” Last year his successor, Satya Nadella, proclaimed that “Microsoft Loves Linux” mainly because of its importance in the cloud.” No, Nadella is still attacking Linux and Android using patents. Consider the deals with Samsung, Kyocera, ASUS and Dell. Patent extortion in action!

“Microsoft Loves Linux” hype… is just not true… covertly spread open-source-related FUD…”
      –Simon PhippsWe quite liked Simon Phipps’ take on this (without IDG’s editorial shadow). He is the former head of the OSI, so this matters a lot. He wrote:

All the same, let’s be clear that all the “Microsoft Loves Linux” hype I saw at SUSECon in Amsterdam yesterday and at other events earlier this year is just not true. Microsoft Azure loves Linux, there is no doubt; it is a basic requirement for them to become relevant on a cloud market dominated by AWS and Linux. They have been out in force at every commercially-oriented open source I have attended this year and have a full-scale charm offensive in place.

But the rest of the company still does not. They still seem to covertly spread open-source-related FUD about LibreOffice here in Europe. They haven’t foresworn making embedded Linux vendors pay for patent licenses of dubious necessity. The Azure business unit is certainly embracing the ecosystem the same as many before them have done so in their steps towards open source. But the Windows and Office business units show no signs of “loving” Linux and only modest signs of co-existing with open source.

[...]

If they want to signal the end of hostilities, step one is to sign the Mozilla Open Software Patent License Agreement or join OIN. Until one of those happens, I remain sceptical of Microsoft’s love for Linux.

“Microsoft” and “Love” don’t belong in the same sentence. These sociopaths, as I only recently found out, tried to get me fired from my job. Microsoft hardly even behaves like a normal company. It’s more like an informant (of the NSA among others) and a cult, led by a fake ‘philanthropist’ egoistic thug.

Writing for IDG, Phipps softened his words somewhat and wrote: “Software patents have also been a sticking point. Red Hat made clear that it does not acknowledge the validity or enforceability of Microsoft’s patents, but all the same has demanded a stand-still agreement guaranteeing neither company will pursue patent claims against the other or its customers. There’s no indication whether this extends to partner ecosystems.

“As opposed to the Novell SUSE patent covenant, the Red Hat Microsoft partnership now provides for what Red Hat is referring to as a patent standstill in the FAQ.”
      –Sean Michael Kerner“That is a key issue for the open source community. While its Azure business unit has been professing love for Linux and smothering everything in penguins, the rest of Microsoft has carried on attacking the Linux ecosystem with patent claims and showing little accommodation for open source in its cash cow Windows and Office endeavors. Azure may be desperate for validation in a tough an competitive market, but the rest of Microsoft still needs to change more than going silent on its antipathy for open source.”

Writing for another big publisher (but not IDG), Sean Michael Kerner shed some light on the patent situation:

The path to the Microsoft Red Hat partnership has followed a long and winding road over a decade of mistrust and competition. In 2007, Microsoft alleged that open-source software infringes on more than 200 of its patents. Previous Microsoft partnerships with Linux vendors, including SUSE (formerly part of Novell), involved a patent covenant to deal with intellectual property issues. At the time of the Novell deal, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was very clear on his views about Linux patents; he noted that Microsoft’s deal was only with Novell SUSE Linux, and others still have an issue with infringing on Microsoft’s intellectual property.

In an FAQ posted by Red Hat, the company states, “Red Hat and Microsoft have agreed to a limited patent arrangement in connection with the commercial partnership for the benefit of mutual customers.” As opposed to the Novell SUSE patent covenant, the Red Hat Microsoft partnership now provides for what Red Hat is referring to as a patent standstill in the FAQ.

In response to a question from eWEEK, Cormier strongly emphasized that Red Hat remains true to its core open-source principles and is not compromising on them in the Microsoft partnership.

“Red Hat and Microsoft did not acknowledge the validity or value of each other’s patents,” Cormier said. “This is a commercial deal spurred by strong customer demand for our solutions to work together.”

“In order for the deal to work, Scott [Guthrie] and I agreed early on that it would only work if neither of us compromised our core business principles, and we did not,” Cormier said.

Senior Red Hat employees who have spoken to me about this have done effectively nothing to refute what I wrote. One of them falsely claimed that I compared this to the Novell deal (I didn’t, it would make no sense).

Not many people have noticed the part about patents because Red Hat did a fine job hiding it. Phoronix just said that “Microsoft and Red Hat have jointly announced a partnership today to “deliver more flexibility and choice” in the cloud.”

That sounds a little bit like Novell and Microsoft trying to characterise their patent deal (colluding against GNU/Linux vendors other than Novell) as “collaboration”, “interoperability”, and so on. Tim Anderson, a Microsoft booster from The Register, did not mention anything about patents.

“Due to layoffs there are limited resources and Microsoft is now counting on patents as a strategy against GNU/Linux. “As other articles from The Register serve to remind us, Vista 10 has been a catastrophe (The Register, to its credit, wrote a great deal about this). Its latest article makes is apparent that OEMs too — not just useds [sic] — will be force-fed Vista 10 pretty soon. As it was put two days ago, “Satya Nadella’s firm has quietly let slip that October 31, 2016, will be the final day for PC makers to buy copies of the operating system for pre-install.”

Microsoft cannot maintain Windows like it did back in the days of Windows XP. Due to layoffs there are limited resources and Microsoft is now counting on patents as a strategy against GNU/Linux. It promotes people accordingly. Let’s not forget other assaults on GNU/Linux, such as UEFI restricted boot, which complicates and at times makes impossible installation of GNU/Linux on whiteboxes. █

Summary: Microsoft can charge GNU/Linux for alleged patent violations, for server resources (per CPU or per day), and additionally make money from spying on users’ data and passing it around

RED HAT’S terrible deal with Microsoft ruins what started as a quiet and relatively happy day. It also poses a threat to every GNU/Linux vendor other than Red Hat (and maybe SUSE too, as it signed a Microsoft patent deal a very long time ago). Microsoft Peter does not mention the part about the patents, nor do the puff pieces and press releases. There is also nothing about the severe privacy implications.

This is how the Wall Street Journal covered the deal, merely stating that “Red Hat’s version of the Linux operating system to be available to users of Microsoft Azure cloud service” (for Microsoft to spy on and to tax using patents). Inside Microsoft’s Azure, RHEL has something even worse than back doors. It has built-in file-by-file surveillance, so any claims of security are simply not applicable. Remember that Microsoft already admits (quite openly) that in its so-called ‘cloud’ every single file is being scanned. Pedophilia is a common pretext for doing this. This isn’t hosting but spying. Where does that leave software freedom?

Microsoft is quickly finding that there’s no money in proprietary software like Windows (see Vista 10 pricing and force-feeding), so it sells people’s private data and now adds infuriating charges to that (breaking a promise). As pointed out here before — and even earlier today — it all comes down to patents (also recall the two articles from the day beforehand, i.e. yesterday) and paid-for surveillance. It’s an attack on general-purpose computing, on privacy, and many other things. It’s an abomination.

Even a Microsoft booster, Tim Anderson, admits that there’s trouble ahead and says: “Most people have at least 30GB of free OneDrive storage: 15GB as standard, and an additional 15GB bonus easily obtained by setting the camera roll on a mobile device to use OneDrive for image backup. An additional 100GB was available for $1.99 per month.”

“In this age when software patents are a dying breed in the US we now have the largest GNU/Linux vendor basically giving Microsoft’s patent war on GNU/Linux legitimacy.”Microsoft now wishes to tax GNU/Linux twofold. It will charge patent fees and at the same time charge GNU/Linux for server space and capacity. On top of it, Microsoft will subject these GNU/Linux instances to the usual surveillance, which Microsoft can of course monetise, as it already does (we covered this on several occasions before).

Since our site is primarily focused on the impact of patents on Free software, what bothers us is that Red Hat, despite the Alice case, is agreeing to a software patents deal with Microsoft. This is inexcusable and it doesn’t take an absolutist on this matter to see what’s wrong with that. Steve Ballmer once said that “people that use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us.” Ballmer’s wishes may have just come true. The Alice case has already served to prove that software patents hold little weight in the US, yet Red Hat goes right into this trap. Incidentally, Web sites of patent lawyers continue to only ever write about software patents and Alice in the rare occasion of them surviving (the exception, not the form). Here is the latest example which concludes with: “Unfortunately, the court did not expand on its reasoning for finding the invention to be patent eligible. The two sentences above show the court presumably agreed with the arguments presented by Versata, but that hardly means any invention that solves a problem is eligible for patent protection. Versata stressed the technical components of the invention – that it was directed to a “technical objective” within “the more limited display screen of a mobile phone, pager, PDA, or similar mobile device.” It is therefore possible that the court was persuaded that the invention was drawn to a more technical, and less abstract, invention.”

In this age when software patents are a dying breed in the US we now have the largest GNU/Linux vendor basically giving Microsoft’s patent war on GNU/Linux legitimacy. Only time will tell the magnitude of this mistake and its impact on other players such as Debian. █

Summary: OpenShift deviates to patents-laden APIs of a patent aggressor, Microsoft, and Red Hat signs a patent deal with Microsoft

THERE is some disturbing news coming out of Red Hat this afternoon, only a day after announcing the release of Fedora 23.

Half a decade ago we complained about Red Hat’s dubious affair with software patents. The company isn’t serious about fighting them anymore. We have already covered it in articles such as:

• Novell, Red Hat, and Software Patents: Strike II
• Red Hat Fights Fire with Fire
• Patents Roundup: Red Hat, Former USPTO Commissioner on Patent Demise, and WIPO Notes
• Patents Roundup: Red Hat Again; EPO and USPTO Debated
• The Other Side of Red Hat: Pieter Hintjens on AMQP and Patents
• How Red Hat Dodged a Novell-Like Microsoft Deal Despite Lobbying for Software Patents
• Red Hat, Microsoft, EU Lobbyists, and Software Patents
• A Glimpse Back at Red Hat’s and Novell’s Stance on Software Patents in 2005
• Red Hat and Software Patents (Video)
• Patents Roundup: Identifying Real Patent Foes and Conflicts of Interests
• Red Hat Should Eliminate All of Its Patents, or At Least Attach Self-Destructive Clauses to Them

“Half a decade ago we complained about Red Hat’s dubious affair with software patents.”Things are getting worse and today, based on Sean Kerner, there is a patent deal signed between Microsoft and Red Hat (the companies try hard to hide this, even the self-acclaimed ‘open’ organisation prefers not to talk about it). Why was this done? Maybe because at Red Hat money now matters more than freedom and ethics? Here is how they try to spin it: “Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq “MSFT”) and Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT) on Wednesday announced a partnership that will help customers embrace hybrid cloud computing by providing greater choice and flexibility deploying Red Hat solutions on Microsoft Azure. As a key component of today’s announcement, Microsoft is offering Red Hat Enterprise Linux as the preferred choice for enterprise Linux workloads on Microsoft Azure. In addition, Microsoft and Red Hat are also working together to address common enterprise, ISV and developer needs for building, deploying and managing applications on Red Hat software across private and public clouds.” OpenShift is even helping .NET, which is a patent trap. But don’t worry, one might say, there is now a patent deal. Now you can use RHEL while you’re being spied on by the PRISM industry leader (first company in PRISM) and enjoy patent “peace of mind”, to use the ludicrous language previously used by Novell.

Sean Kerner covered this pretty fast and he is already quite vocal about it. In Twitter he said that the “patent part is … strange & very surprising IMHO [...] Here’s my original story from 2007 http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3677506/Microsoft+Open+Source+Infringes+on+235+Patents.htm … <- back then @RedHatNews told me they’d never do a patent deal with Microsoft [...] In 2007 @Microsoft alleged that Open Source software infringed on 235 patent / 8 yrs later @RedHatNews now has a patent agreement with them [...] ‘Red Hat a& Microsoft have agreed to a limited patent arrangement in connection..’ <- never thought i’d see the day.”

“Maybe the management has been softened by the hiring of managers from Microsoft (as we covered at the time of it happening).”Responding to OpenShift and another person he wrote, “you do know that @Microsoft *still* claims that open-source software infringes on its patents right?”

For two NSA allies (NSA is a huge client of both) to join forces might make financial sense, but where does that leave Free/libre software? Red Hat is being quite a traitor here and @RedHatNews (Red Hat’s Twitter account) sounds rather excited about it, with tweets like: “Just in! Microsoft and #RedHat to deliver new standard for enterprise #cloud experiences http://red.ht/1HqRZrv”

Surely we are going to revisit this in the coming days, but in the mean time, shame on Red Hat. Maybe the management has been softened by the hiring of managers from Microsoft (as we covered at the time of it happening). Only weeks ago Red Hat liaised with somewhat of a Microsoft satellite and not too long ago it paid Microsoft patent trolls (secretly, again). █

Yours truly feeding the ducks
near home earlier this year (summer)

Summary: Red Hat’s cooperation with Black Duck serves to legitimise a terrible business model, wherein fear of FOSS is being accentuated and proprietary software ‘solutions’ are being offered

YESTERDAY we became aware of Red Hat turning to Microsoft’s friend, Black Duck. It happened with little prior warning and announced with the press release calling it a “[c]ollaboration to help developers, customers and partners build and run trusted, secure applications with Red Hat container technologies” (as if these are inherently less secure than some proprietary software).

What the articles fail to mention is that Black Duck’s former top manager is from Red Hat and he came back to Red Hat after his stint at this FUD firm (see the old press release titled “Black Duck Software CEO Tim Yeaton Rejoins Red Hat to Lead Newly-Formed Infrastructure Group”). Well, the doors basically revolved, twice even. Maybe that’s why Red Hat came to Black Duck, legitimising what is effectively a parasite inside the FOSS world.

“What the articles fail to mention is that Black Duck’s former top manager is from Red Hat and he came back to Red Hat after his stint at this FUD firm…”We have already found some puff pieces about, saying little more than the press release. One of them says that “Red Hat has collaborated with Black Duck Software to establish a secure and trusted model for containerized application delivery by providing verification that application containers are free from known vulnerabilities and include only certified content. This validation is a major step forward in enabling enterprise-ready application containers, and builds upon the strengths of each company – Red Hat’s position in container technologies and solutions, including its platform and certification strategy, and Black Duck’s position as the provider of comprehensive identification and earliest notification technologies of open source vulnerabilities.”

In its marketing, Black Duck would have us believe that FOSS is terrible at security, even though proprietary software has back doors ‘baked in’ intentionally. NSA et al don’t ‘break into’ Windows any more than Microsoft does; they’re allowed access, by design, intent, and agenda. Days ago we showed how marketers from Black Duck had claimed that it can cost $25,000 to fix a bug in FOSS.

As of early this morning, this new relationship received press coverage from Serdar Yegulalp (writing for IDG), Sean Michael Kerner for QuinStreet and Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols for CBS. The way Vaughan-Nichols put it, “Red Hat and Black Duck want to make sure that when you run a container, it’s really the container you want to run and not a rogue package.”

“In many ways, Black Duck is successful as a marketing company, much like polygraph merchants (among other popular scams like homeopathy).”It sounds good on the surface, but is a proprietary dependence healthy in the long term? Based on Vaughan-Nichols, this isn’t a short-term engagement. “In the long run,” he explains (writing from Red Hat’s town), “the companies plan to include Black Duck technologies as a component of Red Hat’s container certification.”

There are some lazy publications that ended up throwing the self-promotional promotional press release around. The Indian English-speaking press sort of rewrote the press release to make it look more original. Where are the sceptics? Where is the genuine reporting? All we see are puff pieces that relay claims made in a press release.

In many ways, Black Duck is successful as a marketing company, much like polygraph merchants (among other popular scams like homeopathy). █

Summary: The return of XKEYSCORE to some media outlets (not news anymore) brings us back to debating Red Hat’s role (also not really news)

QUITE a few sites (see [1-3] below) seem to be talking about Red Hat’s special (but no longer secret) relationship with the NSA, which is not at all news. The NSA uses a lot of RHEL (and also Fedora) on some malicious spying equipment, based on various NSA leaks. We already wrote a great deal about this back in 2013 [1, 2, 3, 4]. The only new thing we learn from the latest articles is that Red Hat continues to refuse to remark on the subject, even when asked by journalists (see the first article below). █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. NSA runs its spying activities on Red Hat Linux

   A little over two years ago, the first disclosures about the massive surveillance operation being carried out by the NSA were made in the Guardian, thanks to an intrepid contractor named Edward Snowden.

   Now comes the rather disturbing information that the NSA runs its XKEYSCORE program — an application that the Intercept, the website run by journalist Glenn Greenwald, describes as NSA’s Google for private communications — for the most part on Red Hat Linux servers.

2. Evil NSA runs on saintly Linux, Apache, MySQL

   If report is correct, Red Hat’s marketing department has a very tricky customer reference

3. Red Hat Used by NSA Spies, SELinux Possibly Bypassed

   SELinux is a product of the NSA and some worried when it was added to Red Hat, Fedora, and later many other distributions. Even before Snowden revealed the massive government spying, having the NSA anywhere near Linux activated certain Spidey-senses. Now we learn that SELinux may have had an exploit for bypassing the security enforcements. Italian software company Hacking Team, who admits to providing “technology to the worldwide law enforcement and intelligence communities,” has been selling technology to governments (most with bad human rights records) to assist in gathering surveillance data on citizens, groups, journalists, and other governments. Recently Hacking Team was hacked and their information has been leaked onto the Internet. Besides the SELinux exploit, it’s been reported that the FBI, U.S. Army, and the Drug Enforcement Agency are or were customers of Hacking Team’s services.

Summary: Old news is ‘new’ again, as Microsoft-friendly media decides to keep knocking hard on the reputation of Free software, using words rather than substance

A YEAR ago there was a curious (first of its kind for Free/Open Source software) “branding” of a 2-year-old FOSS bug by a Microsoft-linked firm that did not even find the bug. An engineer from Google had found it and sought to responsibly disclose it so as to patch it properly before the Microsoft-linked opportunists blew off the lid and called it “Heartbleed”, set up a Web site to ‘celebrate’ the bug, and even made a professionally-prepared logo for it. This whole “Heartbleed” nonsense — however serious it may have been for a day — was blown out of all proportions in the media and tarnished the name of Free software because it was so ‘successfully’ marketed, even to non-technical people. It was a branding ‘success’ which many firms would later attempt to emulate, though never with the same degree of ‘success’ (where success means bamboozling the public, especially non-technical decision-making people).

“Microsoft must be laughing quite hard seeing all that media manipulation.”“Dear journalists,” I said earlier today in social media (Diapora), “bugs don’t have birthdays. Stop finding excuses to bring “Heartbleed” BS (MS name for old bug) to headlines.” I spoke to one author about it and challenged him for floating these “Heartbleed” logos and brands yet again. To us it seems quite evident that Microsoft keeps attacking Free software and GNU/Linux like no time before; it’s just more subtle and hidden in more sophisticated ways. The person who heads the incognito firm that’s known only for the “Heartbleed” brand (they control the brand) came from Microsoft (he was head of security there) and also from the FBI, whose stance on encryption is widely known by now; they actively seek to break security of software, so knowing about the 2-year-old OpenSSL bug would make sense. Some reputable media reports said that the NSA had known about this bug for about a year before it was known to the public and the NSA cooperates with the FBI on breaking software security, sharing personal (illegally intercepted) data, etc.

Anyway, the same publication (as above) also floated the “Heartbleed” nonsense in another article today. Would they do just about anything to keep it in headlines? Even a year later? They are now citing some firm called Venafi (never heard of it before), which basically relies on misleading misuse of statistics. It’s FUD from a company that tries to make money from perceived dangers and accentuates these dangers in an effort to acquire clients. What kind of ‘journalism’ is this? incidentally, Black Duck is now joining the list of such parasitic companies, with new hires and multiple press releases, so clearly it’s a growth area and the Microsoft link is easy to see. It is FUD season again this spring as more publications now float this whole nonsense. This is hardly journalism, it’s just throwback.

Thankfully enough, Red Hat demonstrates what “branding” of FOSS bugs practically means, even using the image above. There is no correlation between the naming of bugs and their severity, but press coverage sure loves a good brand. This is an important (albeit belated) response from Red Hat to “branding” of a FOSS bug by Microsoft-linked firms like the one behind “Heartbleed”.

“It’s been almost a year since the OpenSSL Heartbleed vulnerability,” says Red Hat, “a flaw which started a trend of the branded vulnerability, changing the way security vulnerabilities affecting open-source software are being reported and perceived. Vulnerabilities are found and fixed all the time, and just because a vulnerability gets a name and a fancy logo doesn’t mean it is of real risk to users.”

Well, Microsoft folks sure squeezed everything they could from this bug, seeking to discredit not just OpenSSL but the whole development process of Free software (due to just one small bug, or a few lines of code). And Microsoft still pretends that it is warming up to Open Source? Who are these frauds kidding?

There’s a lot of companies which continue to use platforms with back doors, such as Windows, but the Wintel-oriented media would rather we just obsess over this one bug from one year ago (which was patched as soon as it became publicly-known).

We are rather disappointed to see a decent journalist like Sean Michael Kerner, along with colleagues at eWEEK, swallowing the bait and serving to promote the misleading claims to advertise this company that controls the “Heartbleed” brand, among other opportunists (like fish swimming around a shark for some leftovers). Microsoft must be laughing quite hard seeing all that media manipulation. █

Summary: Responding to the media blitz which paints GNU/Linux as insecure despite the fact that bugs were evidently found and fixed

THERE IS something to be said about the “top” news regarding GNU/Linux. It’s not really news. The so-called “GHOST” publicity stunt needn’t be repeated by FOSS sites. It is about a bug which was patched two years ago, but some sites overlook this important fact and stick lots of spooky logos, playing right into the hands of Qualys, an insecurity firm (making money from lack of security or perception of insecurity).

We have watches the ‘news’ unfolding over the past day and a half and now is a good time to explain what we deal with. The so-called “GHOST” (all capital letters!) bug is old. Qualys is going two years ago into bugfixes, giving a name to the bugfixes, then making plenty of noise (all over the news right now). Qualys does not look like a proxy of Microsoft or other GNU/Linux foes, but it is self-serving. Insecurity firms like Qualys probably learned that giving a name to a bug in GNU (SJVN mistakenly calls it “Linux”, but so do many others) would give more publicity and people will pay attention to brands and logos rather than to substance. Just before Christmas an insecurity firm tried to do that with "Grinch" and it turned out to be a farce. SJVN says that this old “vulnerability enables hackers to remotely take control of systems without even knowing any system IDs or passwords.”

Well, it was patched back in 2013. Use of names for marketing is what makes it “news”; the opportunists even prepared a PRESS RELEASE and pushed it into ‘big’ sites like CNN. It has marketing written all over it, just like “Heartbleed” that had strong Microsoft connections behind the disclosure. It is sad that Linux sites fall for this. Phoronix copies the press release as though it’s reliable rather than self-promotional. Michael Larabel writes: “The latest high-profile security vulnerability affecting Linux systems us within Glibc, the GNU C Library.”

It is not “latest”, it is 2 years old. Larabel says that “Qualys found that the bug had actually been patched with a minor bug fix released on May 21, 2013 between the releases of glibc-2.17 and glibc-2.18.”

OK, so it’s not news. FOSS Force cites SJVN to amplify the scare and other FOSS sites are playing along as though this is top news. It oughtn’t be. It is already widely patched (maybe requiring a reboot), so let’s patch and move on (unless it was already patched upstream/downstream years ago). IDG has already published at least three articles about it [1, 2], including one from Swapnil Bhartiya, who is not too alarmist to his credit. He noted that “there was a patch released back on May 21, 2013, between the releases of glibc-2.17 and glibc-2.18. However it was not considered to be a security risk and thus major Linux distributions that offer long term support and get security updates remained vulnerable, including Debian 7 (wheezy), Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 & 7, CentOS 6 & 7 and Ubuntu 12.04.”

It affects very specific versions, mostly long-term support releases that already have reliable patches available. It should be clear that some headlines such as this or that clarify the limited scope of impact (not bad reporting) unlike the alarmist trolls.

What Techrights generally found was that early coverage came from so-called ‘security’ sites or blogs of insecurity firms that try to sell their services (e.g. [1, 2, 3]). These set the tone for many.

The response to this bug is proportional to the perceived danger (e.g. due to media hype), not the severity of the bug. Some security news sites [1, 2] focus on names and logos while facts remain only a side issue. This so-called “ghost” nonsense (some lines of code basically) was fixed 2 years ago and as the blog post “long term support considered harmful” explains it: “In theory, somebody at glibc should have noticed that fixing a buffer flow in a function that parses network data has security implications. That doesn’t always happen, however, for many reasons. Sometimes the assessment isn’t made; sometimes the assessment fails to consider all possible exploit strategies. Security bugs are “silently” fixed frequently enough (without evil intentions) that we should consider them a fact of life and deal with them accordingly.”

Some of the worst kind of coverage we found came from The Register with its flamebait headlines (scary headlines for maximum effect) and the troll Brian Fagioli. They are only some among many who are using the name to come up with puns and FUD. Jim Finkle is back to his GNU/Linux-hostile ‘reporting’, bringing this to the corporate media (there is some in the UK also) and LWN quickly cited the GNU/Linux-hostile Dan Goodin. He called “Highly critical” a bug that was patched two years ago.

Debunking some of the latest security FUD we had Fedora Magazine which stated “don’t be [worried], on supported Fedora versions.”

For unsupported version there is a lot more than this one bug that one needs to worry about.

Apple fans were quick to take advantage of the news, despite the fact that Apple is leaving systems vulnerable for many months, knowingly (like Microsoft does, until Google steps in).

See, with proprietary systems one knows for a fact that there is no security. With GNU/Linux is an open question and it depends on what measures one takes to keep it secure. For Apple and Microsoft security is not at all the goal; back doors and unpatched flaws are not really as “interesting” and important for them to patch as helping spying agencies. Google is not at fault here, Google just saw that Apple and Microsoft had no plans to plug serious holes — a patch evidently wasn’t going to be made ready before the public finds out about it, owing to Google. Apple chooses to blame Google; same as Microsoft. They should only blame themselves both for the bugs and for negligence after the bugs were highlighted to them. There is no room here for properly comparing GNU/Linux (Free/libre) to OS X or Windows (proprietary) because evidence clearly shows that the latter are not interested in security and not pursuing security when it is trivially possible.

What we find curious amid the latest FUD campaign is that Apple back/bug doors are not as widely publicised as a GNU bug that was patched 2 years ago and mostly affects LTS systems (which already have patches available). “Nothing I can think of,” said a reader of ours about this media hype, “but the LTS model followed by RHEL and Ubuntu have different goals and purposes than the short, fast development cycle like OpenBSD.”

Nobody is forced to use an LTS release and those who choose it must be aware of the potential risk.

Regarding the other FUD that flooded the press in recent weeks, targeting for the most part Google and Android, our reader XFaCE wrote the following:

I assume you want to write about that new Android vulnerability. Basically I can see the narrative being pushed through three points

- Microsoft supported Windows XP/7/etc. for years, why doesn’t Google support old Android versions

- Google told Microsoft about a very old bug in their software, so they are hypocritical

- Heartbleed bug was fixed way back for 4.1.1

For the last point, it’s a bullshit comparison because

a) 4.1.1 was one point release where upgrading to 4.1.2 fixed the issue (it was already fixed back when 4.1.2 was released)

b) The fix was one file, as evident by XDA members patched it themselves on phones manufacturers refused to upgrade to 4.1.2 SOURCE: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2712916

c) As shown by the link, a lot of manufacturers DIDN’T update certain 4.1.1 devices to 4.1.2, hence proving Google’s point. The fix there was SIMPLE, but the OEMs didn’t bother to do it

With Webview, not only is webview involved, but so is the webkit rendering engine, so the fix for all those previously releases is much more complicated

As for the second point, Google did catch it, with KitKat, and furthermore made KitKat supported on more low-end devices so theoretically older 512mb or less devices could be updated

For example, HTC said (when Jelly Bean 4.1 came out) that they would not update any device with 512 mb of RAM (SOURCE: http://www.cnet.com/news/htc-one-v-and-desire-c-will-never-get-jelly-bean/ ), so naturally when KitKat came out, they updated those devices because the OS officially was designed for such low ram devices

oh wait

http://www.androidpit.com/android-4-4-kitkat-update-plans

“Later this year, the entry-level smartphone the HTC Desire 500, should also be seeing the KitKat update. However, the One X, One X+, One S, and One V will be left in the dust and will be receiving no more official updates from HTC.”

So the OEMs are at fault for not upgrading the devices, not Google, which leads to point 1 – Google doesn’t control the Android OEMs like Microsoft does OEM pay Microsoft for the support whereby Microsoft controls all updates, Google doesn’t get paid or have the agreemeent in that way

OEMs like HTC could easily fix this by porting Kitkat to those devices, but they won’t cause they want you to buy a new HTC phone or whatever phone brand

Techrights did not cover that (except in daily links) because it should be self-evident that free-of-charge Android upgrades make it inhernetly different from proprietary software and keeping up to data typically ensures security. A lot of the analogies (Android and Windows) were inherently flawed and the FUD rather shallow. █

Summary: Microsoft’s partner Alert Logic is trying to label a feature of Linux a security flaw and even makes marketing buzz for it

IF A reporter or two can be bamboozled into printing a lie (digitally distributing it), this can lend some credibility/legitimacy to the lie and then it is possible that the lie will spread and be echoed in other reports. Hence the importance of this matter.

“They are trying to change perceptions around Free software security.”Several journalists have already rebutted something that I debunked some days ago when I first saw some nonsense about “Grinch” with a suitable “marketing” image. Here is one rebuttal among a few:

The Grinch flaw was reported by Stephen Cody, chief security evangelist at Alert Logic. Cody alleges that the Grinch flaw enables users on a local machine to escalate privileges. Leading Linux vendor Red Hat, however, disagrees that the Grinch issue is even a bug and instead notes in a Red Hat knowledge base article that the Grinch report “incorrectly classifies expected behavior as a security issue.”

The original security researcher that reported the Grinch found that if a user logs into a Linux system as the local administrator, the user could run a certain command that would enable the user to install a package, explained Josh Bressers, lead of the Red Hat Product Security Team.

“Local administrators are trusted users,” Bressers told eWEEK. “This isn’t something you hand out to everybody.”

We believe it was Joab Jackson (IDG) who first gave a platform to the Microsoft partner (Alert Logic) that used marketing buzz and a lie against Linux, soon to be rebutted by Red Hat. I had contacted Mr. Jackson, who later told me that he posted a follow-up (or correction).

Jackson’s correction may have come too late as we saw the lie spreading to a few other news sites later on (thankfully not too many sites). Here is one example of garbage ‘reporting’ (FUD and lies), generated by the FUD firm with with a catchy name, sort of logo etc. (generated by a Microsoft partner we might add). Apart from Jackson’s piece we saw at least 3 more such articles (which came afterwards). How many are going to post a correction? How many articles will be withdrawn? How many follow-ups will be published? Tumbleweed. Silence.

It is usually Windows that has zero-days during Christmas, not GNU or Linux. There was recently other nonsense with a name, claiming to be a flaw when it was actually some other malware (potentially developed by the Russian government) that users actually have to install (not from repositories) to be infected by. It was akin to a phishing attack, but it was widely used in the press (even in IDG, Jackson’s employer) to characterise GNU/Linux as insecure.

Remember what the Microsoft-connected firm did with "Heartbleed" (the name it made up with a promotional logo). It’s all about marketing and hype. They are trying to change perceptions around Free software security. What matters is what people remember, not the truth. This is all about discouraging users or buyers.

A reader has alerted us about this article from Armenia . “Note the job title of the ‘softer,” he said. Here is the relevant portion:

Armenia’s Minister of Defense Seyran Ohanyan received Microsoft Corporation’s Regional Director for Public Safety/National Security/Defense Robert Kosla.

Joke or real? It sounds like a joke, but they are definitely not joking. Armenia talks to the NSA’s biggest partner and back doors-loving company about ‘security’, so seeing the job title from Microsoft is truly hilarious! Microsoft is good at insecurity and lies, not security. █

“Our products just aren’t engineered for security.”

–Brian Valentine, Microsoft executive