07.20.12
Posted in Asia, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 11:39 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Analysts sell out – that’s their business model… But they are very concerned that they never look like they are selling out, so that makes them very prickly to work with.”
–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]
Summary: Update on the situation in Russia and the role played by Microsoft-funded ‘analysts’
THE salesmen from IDC (dressed up as “analysts”) and the Gartner Group might have to finally admit that those ‘studies’ Microsoft buys from them are a sham. In his personal blog, one Gartner chum calls Vista 8 “bad”. Yes, even the Microsoft- and Gates-funded Gartner has its analysts say about Vista 8: “In a word: Bad.” It’s not an official position, as Microsoft typically pays them to just say what Microsoft pays them to say.
This makes one wonder. Why don’t more governments and businesses move to GNU/Linux? For one thing, Microsoft’s goons from Gartner (people like Silver) discourage this, as we last showed some days ago. Well, as we also showed before, in Russia-centric wiki pages for example, there has been a lot of funny business and misconduct. While Putin said that Russia would move to GNU/Linux within several years, his colleague Medvedev was meeting Microsoft and it is alleged that Russia is dumping GNU/Linux. To quote a Russian blogger:
The winner of the tender was the company PingWin Software, owned by… Leonid Reiman. What was the distribution they offered? It was… face-lifted Mandriva! Yes, you read it right. The prototype of Russian National Software Platform, due to be used in Russian state-owned organisations and in schools, was French! At the same time, Russian teams like ALT Linux or RBK-Soft (currently Armada), were left outside. Is it just a coincidence that the investment fund NGI, which manages the money of Mr.Reinman, partially owns Mandriva too?
That was actually only half of the trouble. The fate of Russian Government, including the Ministry of Defence, could be given to foreign (French) developers. But, at least, that could be an open-source product based on open source principles.
Things actually got worse since February 2012. Many changes happened in Russian politics since that time. The most famous of them was a castling between the President and Prime Minister. Ex-president Medvedev is now a Prime Minister, and ex-President ex-Prime Minister Putin is now a President again.
Mr.Medvedev made significant changes in the Cabinet. One of the most notable was the appointment of 29-year old Nikolay Nikiforov as a new Minister of Telecommunications.
Less than a month after the appointment of the new Minister, the curator of the National Software Platform Ilya Massukh resigned. This is how he explained his resignation: Mr.Nikiforov thinks that National Software Platform is futile and has no future. Instead, Mr.Nikiforov suggests getting proper discounts for… Microsoft software! As first steps in this process, Mr.Nikiforov has already taken part in talks with Microsoft representatives during the Saint-Petersburg Economic Forum in early June.
[...]
Why does Mr.Nikiforov like Microsoft so much? The possible reason is that this is not his first acquaintance with this company. He has his photo published on the Microsoft site in one of the press-releases. Nikolay Nikiforov helped to translate Microsoft Windows 7 and Office 2010 to Tatar language while being regional Minister of Telecommunications in the Russian region of Tatarstan. Old roots are growing bigger, obviously.
ALT Linux complained about IDC helping Microsoft derail deployment of GNU/Linux in Russian schools. We never forgot this. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
07.15.12
Posted in Asia, Courtroom, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Patents at 2:59 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Monopoly (uniformity) versus openness and diversity
Summary: A mixed roundup of news and analysis affecting the growth of Linux
THE REALITY of “patent wars”, as a Microsoft-friendly site put it (especially in smartphones), is being realised by more and more people. “An infographic showing who is suing whom and who is selling patents to whom shows that patents are indeed a source of much friction and the only likely winners are the lawyers.” This is the description of this recent article which helps illustrate just how harmful patents have been, unless we take into account a patent lawyers’ perspective. In this post we’ll present some news with evidence-based material that can help support an appeal to authorities.
Over at Groklaw, the biggest lawsuit against Android is being covered only to say that: “The judge in the Oracle v. Google litigation has denied Oracle’s risible renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law under Rule 50(b), one day after Oracle filed its reply to Google’s opposition to it. No ruling in Oracle’s favor, therefore, will be forthcoming, and no new trial. Also, no hearing on the 26th. The judge didn’t need to hear them jabber on about all this in person, at further expense to both sides, before making his decision.”
“The judge in the Oracle v. Google litigation has denied Oracle’s risible renewed motion for judgment …”
–GroklawRecently, one writer questioned Larry Ellison’s motives for filing this whole bogus lawsuit. We have always suspected that his best friend Steve Jobs played some role in this decision. To quote the writer however: “IT SEEMS that Oracle’s lawsuit against Google over its use of Java in Android has fallen apart. Although the trial is still ongoing, and the judge has yet to hand down an important copyright ruling while the jury has yet to return its verdicts on patents and damages, if any – it’s already apparent that Oracle is unlikely to win billions or even millions of dollars from Google, and it’s possible that Oracle might lose entirely.
“This lawsuit is rather important, however, if only because it has raised the spectre that software APIs might be found subject to copyright. As many people have already noted, that would have dire consequences for interoperability and software freedom throughout the IT industry. It would put into play programming languages, the interfaces of software stacks and potentially even the internet itself.
“All kinds of APIs could suddenly become targets for the extraction of licensing fees and endless litigation. That could effectively destroy the entire software industry and stifle innovation for years, creating a terrible dystopia.
“While that depressing vision might not in fact develop if APIs are deemed copyrightable – and it seems unlikely that Judge Alsup will rule that they are, given that US copyright law has always considered them functional elements and not creative expression that’s deserving of copyright protection – that’s what Oracle has argued for in its lawsuit against Google.”
Oracle’s case is weak and meanwhile the main party benefiting from it is Apple. After the lawsuit against Google some said that software patents as a whole were discredited.
More recently, the judge in another case against Android explicitly questioned software patents (well done, Mr. Posner), noting in an actual column (rare for a judge) that “there are too many patents in America (that is his headline, see a printer-friendly version for future reference). “Recently,” says the judge, “while sitting as a trial judge, I dismissed a case in which Apple and Motorola had sued each other for alleged infringement of patents for components of smartphones. My decision undoubtedly will be appealed, and since the case is not yet over with it would be inappropriate for me to comment publicly on it.
“But what I am free to discuss are the general problems posed by the structure and administration of our current patent laws, a system that warrants reconsideration by our public officials.*
“U.S. patent law confers a monopoly (in the sense of a right to exclude competitors), generally for 20 years, on an invention that is patented, provided the patent is valid — that is, that it is genuinely novel, useful, and not obvious. Patents are granted by the Patent and Trademark Office and are presumed valid. But their validity can be challenged in court, normally by way of defense by a company sued by a patentee for patent infringement.
“With some exceptions, U.S. patent law does not discriminate among types of inventions or particular industries. This is, or should be, the most controversial feature of that law. The reason is that the need for patent protection in order to provide incentives for innovation varies greatly across industries.”
Over at Groklaw, another valuable reference was provided for the new work from Boston. To quote: “Jim Bessen and Mike Meurer have published their latest paper examining the impact of “patent trolls” (they politely refer to them as Non-Producing Entities or NPEs) on our national economy. Entitled The Direct Costs From NPE Disputes [PDF], the paper examines the direct costs of patent assertions by NPEs against operating companies, i.e., companies that actually make things to earn their revenues. More on the Bessen/Meurer paper in a bit.
“In the meantime, Prof. Colleen Chien of the Santa Clara University School of Law is conducting a survey on the economic impacts of patent litigation on the economy, and she could use your help. Prof. Chien is particularly interested in survey responses from start-ups and small companies. Respondents need not be patent holders or in the technology business. If you know of anyone who could provide a useful response, please encourage them to participate.
“Now, back to the Bessen/Meurer paper. Here are some of the highlights:
* The number of defendants in NPE patent suits doubled from 2009 (approximately 2,700) to 2011 (more than 5,800).
* Direct costs of patent assertions by NPEs are cost our national economy more than $29 billion dollars a year, and that tab also doubled from 2009 to 2011.
* Much of the burden of this NPE litigation falls on small and medium-sized companies. 82% of the defendants, accounting for 50% of the defenses, had median revenues of less than $12 million a year.
* They find little evidence to support the contention that NPEs promote invention. [Why am I not surprised?!]”
“They find little evidence to support the contention that NPEs promote invention.”
–GroklawSo now we have both judges (lawyers) and scholarly people (academics) telling us that the system is broken. In order to ensure this does not spread to Europe, please, our dear European readers, consider writing to politicians whom we named.
A month and a half ago we saw Kelora losing a patent for it being “obvious”, leading to the question, are “Software Patents In Danger?”. To quote: “As software patent litigation ramped up over the past few years, software patents have come under the microscope within the technical community. Many investors and technologists believe that software patents should be abolished all together, while others take the less extreme position that many software patents are obvious over known prior art (“prior art” being earlier publications that show a patent is obvious or not new). Courts are increasingly cognizant of these criticisms.
“Though it is unlikely that software patents are going away any time soon, as the recent summary judgment in eBay v PartsRiver (PartsRiver is now known as Kelora) demonstrates, courts are beginning to do a more thorough job of applying the obviousness standard to software patents.”
Right now we must work to squash software patents while at the same time ensuring we can compartmentalise and contain this virus, simply by preventing our politicians from being bamboozled. The evidence is overwhelmingly on our side. We need the voices though. As we’ll show in a later post, Microsoft lobbyists are paid to speak about patents on ‘our behalf’, at our expense, resulting in great disparity (or distortion) between public policy and public opinion. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
07.03.12
Posted in America, Asia, Australia, Patents at 9:43 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Imperialism through law
Summary: India, Australia and New Zealand lobbied by some corporations-backed US politicians to approve US patent monopolies
CABLES from Cablegate have shown us how diplomatic pressure is put on nations in order for them to embrace a US-style rule of law. Recently, the US tried doing this in Australia and/or New Zealand, bringing software patents there, amongst other things. The following article may be mixing copyrights with patents, but it does show how US pressure is applied to india’s law making:
- Patent proceedings: The United States displayed concerns over inefficient streamlining of patent opposition proceedings and ineffective system for protecting against unfair commercial use, as well as unauthorized disclosure of test or other data generated. It has urged India to take additional steps to improve coordination with enforcement officials of certain state governments within India, address its judicial inefficiencies and to strengthen criminal enforcement efforts by imposing deterrent level sentences and giving IPR prosecutions greater priority. The report added that the United States will monitor developments concerning compulsory licensing of patents in India following the broad interpretation of Indian law in a recent decision by the Controller General of Patents, while also bearing in mind the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health found in the Intellectual Property and Health Policy section of this Report.
Over in New Zealand this is happening as well and we wrote about this at the time. So did others:
In its latest 420-page National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, the USTR expresses concerns at Australia’s National Broadband Network, and government concerns at offshore storage of personal data; while New Zealand is in the crosshairs for legislation currently before parliament that would ban software patents.
They use blackmail to impose software patentability. Here is criticism of the TPP, a vehicle for wiping many existing laws in one feel swoop:
This week, San Diego is hosting the latest round of talks over the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Australia and New Zealand are at loggerheads over this secretive new trade treaty spanning the Pacific Rim. The rift between the neighbours over the Trans-Pacific Partnership was revealed after the investment chapter of the agreement was leaked to the public.
Australian Trade Minister Craig Emerson has argued that the Trans-Pacific Partnership is the first step toward a regional free trade agreement in the Asia-Pacific. But Australia, it appears, has refused to submit to the “investor-state” tribunal system in the negotiations over the agreement.
A while ago there was this Australian forum on software patents and Australia’s IDG sites asked if software patents harm innovation:
Do software patents stifle innovation?
Software patents are stifling innovation and should not be applied to computational information processing, according to a Victorian software developer.
At least they quote those whose opinion matters the most.
The lawyers got their way in Israel based on this piece from Australia:
The patentability of software and computer implemented technologies has been a veritable hotspot in patent law over recent years in many countries. The Israeli Patent Office has now, after lengthy deliberations, settled on a formal policy….
Given US influence on the nation, this is not shocking.
Over in Poland, which we mentioned before in relation to software patents, Glyn Moody claims there is something rotten going on:
Earlier this year, Poland played a crucial role in igniting street protests that pretty much stopped ACTA in its tracks. That’s not the first time it has had a major impact on European tech policy. Half a decade earlier, it derailed a proposed EU software patent directive, which had sought to make software patentable in Europe — something that Article 52 of the European Patent Convention had appeared to rule out. That led to a later vote in the European Parliament where software patents were decisively rejected.
The polish presidency did a lot of harm when it comes to software patentability [1, 2, 3, 4]. At the end of the day, it’s clear that European citizens have nothing to gain from such policies; it’s for multinational corporations, many of which are headquartered in the US. If only there was as much popular resistance to software patents as there it to ACTA… █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
06.24.12
Posted in Asia, Microsoft at 9:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Apparent EDGI deal in India, signed by LS Changsan
FROM India comes another story which smells like EDGI and a tinge of MoU [1, 2, 3], as we explained using Microsoft’s own internal documents a few years ago (Comes vs. Microsoft). To quote the latest alleged incident:
The government of Assam and Microsoft have signed a memorandum of understanding that is aimed at improving readliness of educators by integrating technology in classroom. The one year alliance will support Assam School Education System to use technology for improving quality of learning in schools. The agreement was signed by LS Changsan, Director of the Assam government’s Asom Sarba Siksha Abhijan Mission, and Ranbir Singh, Country Head (Government Engagements) of Microsoft India on Wednesday in Guwahati.
[...]
The move taken by the Assam government is surprising as the India has seen a shift towards open-source technologies in governance and education for the past few years. Technology in Education needs to be vendor independent and accessible freely to all. Arguably this is going to have an impact on students as well as their education.
Here is should be noted that Government of Kerela has taken major steps to use FOSS in education. IT@School project is a Free and Open Source initiative by the department of general education, Government of Kerala. This is a state wide FOSS-based ICT in education project which has been running successfully for the last five years. Since its inception the state has witnessed nearly 2,738 high schools operating on Free and Open Source Software.
This is anti-competitive and regulators should look into it. But thanks to companies like Canonical, it becomes less likely to happen. Congratulations to India for getting a backdoor controlled by foreign countries. Citizens ought to sue, but they probably won’t. █
“There’s no incompatibility between free software and capitalism… now Extreme Capitalism, the empire of the corporations… extreme capitalism means that in each area of life, the businesses interested in that area rule society, control the government… control policy” ~Richard Stallman
Permalink
Send this to a friend
06.05.12
Posted in Asia, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 4:18 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Poor reporting describes as commendable Microsoft’s attempts to occupy Iraq and marginalise Free software
THE cables that we got from Cablegate helped teach us what US contractors were doing in Iraq software-wise. They were deploying a good deal of Free software.
Thanks to some nice propaganda piece from Bill Gates’ mates at the Huff & Puff (and AOL, the owner) we know that Microsoft is trying to reoccupy Iraq now. The language in this report is Orwellian, e.g.:
Decades of war and UN sanctions have created technology shortages in Iraq and the government’s limited supervision has overwhelmed the market with illegal software products.
When the term “illegal software” is used what they often refer to is non-Microsoft software. We have already shown how Microsoft’s lobbyists, such as the BSA, love to pretend there is no option but to use Microsoft. Cablegate teaches us the truth on this matter. For a more sobering take on the news, see the comments attached to the report above. We should expect low-quality reporting from the Huff & Puff now that AOL is just a vassal of Microsoft.
Iraq should learn from Iran what dependence on Microsoft can cause nationally. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
03.13.12
Posted in Asia, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 4:26 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The Free Software Foundation of India fights back against anti-competitive tactics from Microsoft
IN our recent posts about Microsoft’s EDGI in Tamil Nadu we called for regulatory action. Reports tell us that the “Free Software Foundation of India, an organisation involved in the promotion of the free use of software, sent an open letter to chief minister J Jayalalithaa seeking cancellation of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with Microsoft Inc.
“The MoU was signed on Tuesday to implement an IT programme for government school teachers with the help of software giant Microsoft. The open letter raised objection to the software developed by Microsoft. “Students and teachers involved in the project will not be able to see how the software works. If it develops a problem, they will not have the right to make corrections or modifications. They will have to depend on the company entirely. They will be denied the right to share the software with others,” the letter said.”
Here is a PDF version of the letter [PDF]. Folks involved with this complaint got in touch with Techrights and attached the Open letter by the Free Software Foundation of India to Selvi Jayalaita — a letter about proposal to adopt Microsoft’s proprietary software in schools.
Some external background links were also included, namely:
1. ttp://www.tehelka.com/story_main50.asp?filename=Ws101011MICROSOFT.asp
2. http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/article2419753.ece
3. http://news.efytimes.com/e1/79976/Tamil-Nadu-Govt-Goes-AntiOpen-Source
4. http://www.thehindu.com/education/issues/article2423376.ece”
5. http://www.tn.gov.in/seithi_veliyeedu/pr06Mar12/pr060312_184.pdf
Older posts of ours about Tamil Nadu include [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. This is not over. People in India should fight back, there’s not much that can be done from here (the UK). █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
03.10.12
Posted in Asia, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 11:44 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Press coverage arrives which shows how Microsoft removed fair competition, education, and autonomy from the agenda
A FEW days ago we wrote about what Microsoft was doing to shoot down a deployment of GNU/Linux — a deployment of very large scale in Tamil Nadu [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. We saw this coming and the Indian news sites respond weakly:
Even as a neighbouring state like Kerala uses ‘Free Software’ as a medium to promote self-sufficiency and initiate learning among students, thus, gaining edge in the competitive world, the Tamil Nadu government has decided to further the use of proprietary software. The government is doing this in the name of ‘improving’ the education system.
Jean Philippe Courtois, president, Microsoft International, met the state chief minister to discuss on improving the education and IT sector of Tamil Nadu. The meeting took place yesterday at Secretariat, Chennai-9.
And where are the regulatory authorities? Where are the protests? Why are no officials fired for selling out the future of the kids? These are not easy questions to ask, but they need to be asked. Microsoft has been allowed to get away with it for far too long far away from the US. It’s colonisation. EDGI is not an acceptable business practice, not for a convicted monopolist. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
03.07.12
Posted in Asia, Bill Gates, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 1:54 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”
–Bill Gates
Summary: Bill Gates and his groupies are still pillaging and plundering India, using proprietary (secret) code and Trojan horses rather than old-age weapons
MICROSOFT is attacking GNU/Linux. One recent example comes from Tamil Nadu [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] and one reader reported to us “EDGI in Tamilnadu schools, India”
“See this Press Release,” he told me last night, linking to this EDGI example which is shrewdly disguised with euphemisms we saw before [PDF]. This is perpetrated in part by Courtois, whom we wrote about in [1, 2, 3] (he lobbies a lot for Microsoft). Previously we also saw EDGI in India courtesy of Bill Gates, who used the Gates Foundation to abolish GNU/Linux adoption, via so-called ‘gifts’. To recommend this new book about the Gates Foundation, here is how they operate:
This book looks critically at how the Gates and Bloomberg Foundations awarded millions in grants to promote tobacco control in Africa. Evaluating projects financed by philanthrocapitalists is extremely rare because nobody wants to risk offending them and the organizations they have entrusted with their generous gifts.
There is more shameless PR in India and this one comes from the Gates Foundation too. The foundation which is causing polio (and promoting tobacco) does its dealings while paying to portray itself as the fighter against polio. Appalling yet again (we covered this type of polio spin several times before). As another Gates watcher puts it (rhetorically), “Will the Gates Foundation take the blame when polio returns to India?”
Polio will probably return to India. Who will take the blame then? The same people getting the congratulations now? The Gates Foundation?
If this milepost is so important, why doesn’t the New York Times feature it? Because McNeil knows polio can come back.
Let’s get something straight here. Microsoft and Gates don’t give a damn about India; they just care how to make money from India, either through cheap labour, addiction of the young to Microsoft products, or patents and PR. India should expel the colonists and charlatans from Microsoft and the Gates Foundation. While they are at it, they should reject the corporate press (like the above) that reposts Gates’ paid-for propaganda, verbatim even. █
Permalink
Send this to a friend
« Previous Page — « Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries » — Next Page »
Content is available under CC-BY-SA