06.11.07
Posted in America, Courtroom, Hardware, Patent Covenant, Patents at 6:00 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
We recently mentioned the patent storm (in a teacup) which had led to a ban on certain chips. It appears as though patent trolls are now uniting in their effort to manipulate certain court rulings and abuse the broken system as much as it takes in order to restore calm (as in, a “cold war” again). Here is the gist of this counter-suit claim:
Oyj, the world’s top mobile phone maker, filed a patent counter-suit against Qualcomm Inc in a Texas court seeking damages and an injunction against the U.S. chip maker.
This entire scenario could teach us that there are no winners in patent confrontations. The biggest losers are probably the trees, which are cut down to be consumed as unnecessary paperwork, without any fruits that have innovative merits. This will hopefully speed up some muchly-needed reforms.
With big piles of nearly identical patents, it is worth reminding ourselves of this recent story which involves Microsoft’s profit from unspecified patents.
Microsoft is facing a patent lawsuit over its failed Ultimate TV DVR system. The lawsuit, filed by joint venture company Intellivision (no relation to the Mattel console), accuses the company of making fraudulent and misleading claims in order to acquire intellectual property without having to make royalty payments.
Is this the future? Or is it the end of constructive and rapid scientific progress?
Want an eight-figure check in time for Christmas shopping? Sure you do. Microsoft’s vague patent threats against Linux create an opportunity to do a nifty variation on the patent trolling business model.
[...]
Naturally, Microsoft, in order to win, needs to keep the actual list of patents secret.
The rule of terror is without a shadow doubt the least productive. It distracts the inventor, it leads to hesitation, and it builds barriers. The world of science and technology can do better than this. More to the point — it deserves change.
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Posted in America, Formats, Interoperability, ISO, Microsoft, Novell, Open XML, OpenDocument, OpenOffice, Standard, Xandros at 5:40 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
One thing to keep abreast of is Novell’s role in the selection of document formats. Being as obedient as it simply must be, Novell is on Microsoft’s boat. As for Xandros — it is the latest recruit.
Earlier today, ComputerWorld published yet another article among a recent series on document standards. It puts special focus on American state legistlation. The article explores what’s underneath the surface. It talks about a debate which has become a political one, not a technical one.
To those who observe, track and watch the developments like a hawk, it has become a recurring theme; a shrewd tactic too, no doubt. The article talks about “heavy lobbying” from Microsoft and its allies. The company consistently escapes gory technical details and uses diversive strategies to get its way. Not directly in response to this, a member of the Linux Foundation, whose writings on the topic have been very influential (his expertise is standards), has more to say.
As both Peter Quinn and Louis Gutierrez both found out, trying to make responsible standards-related decisions where huge sums of vendor revenues are at stake is scarcely a career-enhancing pastime. CIOs should be entitled to stay out of harm’s way, and try their best to serve the public’s interests the best they can. Where that can’t be done, legislatures should protect them, and keep them safe from the types of unwarranted threats and attacks that Carol Sliwa reported on in a series of public-records request-based stories at ComputerWorld last December.
[...]
After the impressive lobbying assault mounted over the past six months against open document format legislation, I expect you won’t be hearing of many state IT departments taking the baton back from their legislators.
And who can blame them? If they tried, it wouldn’t be likely to be anything as harmless as an open document format that would bite them in the butt.
A certain concensus has become that lobbying may just an integral part of this ‘debate’, which should have been a purely technical one (ideally!). The result of this is fragmentation. It has even led India to headaches, if this morning’s news is anything to judge by:
Adoption of open source software platforms like Linux is on the rise despite the [Indian] government’s refusal to officially endorse the technology as other emerging markets have done. However, the government wants to make clear in its national E-governance policy that “no compulsory open source” does not mean “no unified document standards.”
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Posted in Deals, GNU/Linux, GPL, Interview, Kernel, Microsoft, Novell, Xandros at 3:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
In a couple of new items — one is an interview and another is a column — Novell and Xandros get a little piece of people’s minds. The first one comes from no-one other than Alax Cox, who is one of the most promoninet Linux kernel hackers. He is also the man who recently gave somewhat of a nod of approval to GPLv3. Here is what he has to say about Novell:
Personally I think it’s [Novell's deal with Microsoft] a bad idea and that Novell are going to get stung by the GPLv3, and rightfully so. The license is designed to keep the software free, if it fails to do this then it needs fixing, so GPLv3 hopefully will fix this flaw.
Novell has nobody to blame by itself. It should have known what it was getting into. The management entered an absurd partnership and sealed an even more absurd deal.
Xandros did not escape harsh comments, either. Have a look at this advice to the CEO, who is being encouraged to “sell potatoes”.
It’s amusing to note that a man [Xandros CEO] becomes a recognisable public figure only after he’s signed a deal that could well mean the demise of his company. Strange indeed are the ways of mega-corporations.
[...]
Incredibly, a patent cross-licensing deal was signed without once discussing patents. Now how could anyone imagine that people would talk about patents when they were signing such a deal? Silly me!
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06.10.07
Posted in Bill Gates, Microsoft, Patents at 10:08 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The New York Times has published an article which is making some big waves at the moment, even though it does not contain any new information.
Microsoft sang a very different tune in 1991. In a memo to his senior executives, Bill Gates wrote, “If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.” Mr. Gates worried that “some large company will patent some obvious thing” and use the patent to “take as much of our profits as they want.”
For your reading pleasure, here is a larger fragment of the text which the author referred to.
PATENTS: If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. I feel certain that some large company will patent some obvious thing related to interface, object orientation, algorithm, application extension or other crucial technique. If we assume this company has no need of any of our patents then the have a 17-year right to take as much of our profits as they want. The solution to this is patent exchanges with large companies and patenting as much as we can. Amazingly we havn’t done any patent exchanges tha I am aware of. Amazingly we havn’t found a way to use our licensing position to avoid having our own customers cause patent problems for us. I know these aren’t simply problems but they deserve more effort by both Legal and other groups. For example we need to do a patent exchange with HP as part of our new relationship. In many application categories straighforward thinking ahead allows you to come up with patentable ideas. A recent paper from the League for Programming Freedom (available from the Legal department) explains some problems with the way patents are applied to software.
of our profits as they want.”
Here is an older article on this issue:
[Richard Stallman:] …Thanks to Mr. Gates, we now know that an open Internet with protocols anyone can implement is communism…
…Mr. Gates’ secret is out now–he too was a “communist;” he, too, recognized that software patents were harmful-until Microsoft became one of these giants…
This is all self explanatory, is it not? Microsoft chooses as a weapon what it used to detest, denounce, and fear. Hypocrisy knows no bounds. One might argue that Microsoft has been a passive cogwheel in the evolution of the flawed USPTO. But many would beg to differ.
A report published by an EU task force on intellectual property claims that small businesses benefit from a patent system, despite lacking almost any participation by the small business community.
Instead, the report, titled IPR (intellectual property rights) for competitiveness and innovation, was written up almost entirely by large corporations and the patent industry.
[...]
The report does note objections from the likes of patentfrei.de and Sun Microsystems, which were recorded at some length in the report. But this does not appear to have impacted the conclusion of the report in any way
[...]
Jean-Pierre Laisne, of ObjectWeb, an open source software community, said that he found the report useless: participants were told that all their contributions would be recorded but at the end only those of Business Software Alliance and Microsoft were used.
So, we should now know who has become the biggest fan of spurious patents. We also know that the voices of small businesses get ignored.
In another new article from the New York Times, which was published over the weekend, Microsoft’s ties with the Bush administration (the context being antitrust) get a mention, but that is really beside the point. The main messages here is that legistlation is written by the wealthy, to server the wealthy, and to make them more wealthy.
There are other items on patents which are worth mentioning. The first one argues that software and algorithms are a form of art more than they are a science. Thus, patents of this kind are bound to give exclusive ownership to culture, creativity, and expression.
Merriam-Webster defines “art” as: “The conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects.” It defines “engineering” as: “The design and manufacture of complex products.”
Whether these patents are valid or not, one must not forget that no specifics have been disclosed. Neither do we know if patents were truly counted, nor do we know whether they have any substance at all.
Speculation runs amok, ranging from a boundless greed and loathing in the corporate culture at Microsoft (from the top down) to scaring FOSS developers and users into submission by the threat of a legal sword of Damocles hanging collectively over their heads. But this is all theory and speculation — great fodder for discussion, but nothing concrete.
A lot of hot air, no doubt.
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Novell, OpenSUSE at 12:39 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Earlier this week, I spotted the following E-mail:
* From: Andreas Jaeger [ aj@xxxxxxx ]
* Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2007 09:10:26 +0200
* Message-id: [ hoejkqlvvh.fsf@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ]
We like to know a bit more about the usage of proprietary software we ship on some versions of our openSUSE distribution. Therefore we created a 16 question survey and ask you to participate and give us feedback. The survey is online till June 12.
It would be silly to make speculations or have people jump to the wrong conclusions again, simply based on the interpretation of just one person who follows the mailing lists quite closely. However, what are Novell’s plans? Some of the components in this survey seem to refer to packages where algorithms are possibly ‘protected’ using junk patents (I’ll admit that I have limited knowledge about font patents and I have not researched this).
Judgment tells me that the survey is intended to see what so-called ‘purists’ think about inclusion of popular (yet replaceable) packages such as Acrobat Reader. This leads back to the whole ‘check and egg’ debate and the other conflicting scenarios. And yes, PDF has many patents associated with it, which relates to a news item from yesterday. It speaks about the effect of patents on innovation, among other things.
Flaws on software patents have come to light once again as industry groups and analysts renewed calls for reforms on software patent systems worldwide, saying the process should promote, rather than impede, innovation.
Just To clarify, I did not subscribe to the lists in order to eavesdrop and muddy the water. I have been on 4 opensuse mailing lists long before the Microsoft deal, back when I even contributed a little.
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06.09.07
Posted in Antitrust, Deals, GNU/Linux, GPL, Microsoft, Novell, Xandros at 11:49 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
A new blog post about the “Microsoft Linux distribution” has caught our attention. However sensationalist it may be, therein lies another explanation of Microsoft’s Grand Plan, which is not only to divide, to accuse, and to spread fear. It is also about making money from your competitor’s product. This video on antitrust has an excellent example of this strategy, taken from early 20th century history.
The New Distro is Microsoft
These companies are now paying Microsoft. Sure, Microsoft is paying them as well…but the kicker is this: These companies are paying Microsoft for Linux.
One must now rely on the new software licence, which effectively impedes Microsoft’s shrewd effort. The Xandros deal led to this article which — more than anything — appears to be taking cheap shots at the GPL. InformationWeek and some other commercialised publications are no exception. It is neither new nor surprising.
The deals must stop and the way to achieve this is to give a clear prior warning to distributors who are led into fear and confusion. We must not see companies like Linspire and Mandrakesoft take a lump money and run. If companies ever receive money for admission of guilt which they subsequently deny (see below), then this must be highlighted. In retrospect (some time in the future, if ever), attempts at market manipulation through payoffs to ‘close down shop’ can be highlighted.
And please, Novell and Xandros, don’t whine that Microsoft pulled a fast one on you, and reiterate that open source is clean. No one needed you to tell them that. Innocent until proven guilty in this country. And especially in light of all the evidence that points against such claims.
Judging by this voice, which is not the exception, the open source community (and yes, even the commercial one, i.e. industry) still appears to be dennouncing the actions of Novell and Xandros. Never think the opposite, no matter what Novell tells you.
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Posted in Antitrust, Courtroom, Europe, Formats, GNU/Linux, Interoperability, Law, Microsoft, Novell, Office Suites, Open XML, Protocol, Red Hat, Samba, Servers, Standard, SUN, Windows, Xandros at 11:27 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Embrace of open standards (or lack thereof) is a major component of the series of Microsoft deals. We have been endlessly harping about Novell’s (and now Xandros as well) impact on Microsoft’s battles in the European courts. We also talked about their ill effects on document formats. Brace yourself for the latest, which probably confirms the worst of predictions. Microsoft has yet again ‘pulled an OOXML’, but intensified it by a factor of 5.
Microsoft says ‘archaeology’ changes the way it develops products
Critics say company isn’t documenting interaction methods fast enough
Microsoft Corp. will deliver the final installment of hundreds of pounds of documentation of its products to U.S. regulators next month, a result of seemingly never-ending disputes over the company’s business practices.
That load will exceed the roughly 30,000 printed pages, or 130 pounds of documentation, already prepared by Microsoft for European regulators.
[...]
Not buying it
Microsoft’s rivals argue the company is doing too little, too late. Vinje, of ECIS, said he doesn’t believe Microsoft has faced the severe challenges the company alleges in documenting its protocols.
30,000 pages? Are you able to visualise this. This is clearly a delaying tactic and it very much resembles the issues that we have seen before. This is the same type of mockery that we found in OOXML. Consider, for instance, this older little article.
By writing 6000 pages, something else strikes many, including myself: no human can implement that. In fact, nobody aside Microsoft will be able to rightly implement it because Microsoft is the only one can deal with the previously existing formats. For these 6000 pages are thousands of man/years of confusion, users’ lock-in, con-formating of data, IP and jealously kept trade secrets. And you would expect that anybody might come up with something that works? Apple, by the way, will not. Because Microsoft Office for Mac will not be able to use Open XML for some years, as I have learned. So good for the great open file format of Microsoft. 6000 pages cannot be a standard. It is FUD. It is a scandal, and a digital wart in the industry. 6000 pages cannot be reputed conformant by anybody else than their author. And their author is Microsoft.
Also recall Microsoft’s stance on standards, judged by a fairly old antitrust exhibit [compressed PDF].
[Microsoft:] “For example, we should take the lead in establishing a common approach to UI and to interoperability (of which OLE is only a part). Our efforts to date are focussed too much on our own apps, and only incidentally on the rest of the industry. We want to own these standards, so we should not participate in standards groups. Rather, we should call ‘to me’ to the industry and set a standard that works now and is for everyone’s benefit. We are large enough that this can work.”
“What is the way to go”, you ask? Red Hat spells it nicely.
Red Hat will only sign an interoperability agreement with Microsoft if it is based entirely on open standards, the company’s executive vice president of Engineering Paul Cormier told vnunet.com.
Novell and Xandros make the use of standards seem like distant dream. Nonetheless, as far as documents are concerned, OOXML will not stand, despite all the dirty tricks, to which the American government seems extremely susceptible.
You might think the steady defeat of bills in several U.S. states to mandate the use of free interoperable file formats might dampen the spirits of IBM Corp., one of the prime supporters of the OpenDocument Format (ODF). Far from it, said IBM’s Bob Sutor, who sees the recent news as par for the course in the evolution of any open standard.
Always remember whose side Novell and Xandros have taken in this debate over standards. They might argue that they haven’t a choice, but they willingly dug and buried themselves in this hole of dependency.
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06.08.07
Posted in Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, GPL, Microsoft, Xandros at 11:34 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Red Herring described Microsoft’s Linux deals as “symbiotic”. Yes, it’s right there in the headline. However bizarre it sounds, the subheading makes it clear that they mean by “symbiotic”.
Software giant’s deal with tiny Xandros highlights strategy to conquer open source.
Isn’t that lovely (and obvious)? All those who concede the source are simply opening the gates to damage, which sometimes they get paid to tolerate. It is a case of buying the dismantling of your competitor, which is of course illegal. It’s subversion of the nature of a free market. It’s anti-capitalistic.
I must admit that I don’t understand how the Xandros deal fits GPL provisions. What about the dates, for example? All deals done after March 28th are no longer workable under the final draft of GPLv3. To put it differently, unless this deal was agreed on before March 28th and only announced now, this makes little or no sense. One source suggests that the deal has been negotiated for quite a long time. Was anything in the draft truly intercepted or sabotaged at all? I am not a lawyer and I will admit that Shane is far more familiars with and knowledgeable than me when it comes the legal stuff.
The way I see it, Xandros got penalised the most, but is there anything I fail to see?
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