Summary: Google is paying the very same people who helped Microsoft’s OOXML crimes, having also started using OOXML by default

TECHRIGHTS spent a lot of time showing that ECMA is seriously corrupt (we still have an “ECMA” category filled with stories about this laughable organisation). It basically is the moral of equivalent of a regulator who receives a bribe to not only turn a blind eye but also to publicly go to other regulators and glorify the one who bribes. So why would Google, a former ODF promoter (not anymore), pay ECMA money?

One has to recall what ECMA did back in the OOXML days — the time when Microsoft was going around the world bribing just about everyone in the process (business and governments) in order to rig votes, shame the opposition, etc. Microsoft showed a deeply criminal nature at that time. Now we’re left with FRAND-laden ‘standards’ which are basically not compatible with FOSS, as Andy Updegrove (Linux Foundation) explained the other day [1]. It is clear why we need standards that everyone can implement [2] (it is good for manufacturers and purchasers, not for monopolists) and ODF is one such standard that still makes some headlines [3] and finds selective support from governments (even here in the Microsoft-centric UK [4]).

Google should really be promoting ODF, but it doesn't. This is one of the areas where Google disappoints in a very major way and adding insult to injury, Google pays ECMA right now [5]. What has happened to the Google we knew until about 5 years ago? Except many hirings from Microsoft Google has hired many patent lawyers and done other dubious things. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. When FRAND meets FOSS: Bottom Up or Top Down?

   Fourth in a series of public-private exchanges jointly convened by the EC and EPO on the topic of ICT standardization and Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), the “main highlights” are of particular note.

2. One charger to power nearly every laptop coming from standards group

3. OpenDocument ODF Support Coming To The Web

   WebODF is a new open-source projet that allows ODF document files to be displayed within a web-browser. WebODF is used by the new OwnCloud release for its collaborative, web-based ODF file editing.

   WebODF is similar to PDF.js, the JavaScript library for rendering PDF files natively in the web-browser, but this project is of course all about supporting the Open Document Format.

4. Christmas comes early for the Open Document Faithful (ODF)

   Jingle Bells. The UK government has spruced its open document policy up for Christmas.

   The Cabinet Office began a public consultation on open document formats this week, three and a half years after it came to power promising they would be one of the first things it delivered.

   The consultation might signify the government has renewed its commitment to the policy. It had struggled so much since the coalition’s first failed attempt to introduce it in 2011 that it seemed it would never deliver at all.

5. ECMA Is Working On Standardizing Google’s Dart

   ECMA International has formed a technical committee to work on a standard specification for the Dart web programming language that’s developed by Google as an alternative to JavaScript.

Summary: Microsoft Florian resorts to name-calling (Moglen compared to “Fidel Castro”) and demotes standards and Free software while claiming to do the opposite

HERE WE GO again. Since people are being cursed and the FFII is being smeared, it becomes less than reasonable to merely ignore Microsoft Florian, a troublemaking .NET developer and proponent of RAND (incompatible with Free software) who has begun promoting .NET in Twitter (he develops exclusively in .NET) and actively dividing FOSS communities. Pretence time is over perhaps. It just didn’t take long before he started passing around Miguel’s pro-Mono/.NET messages. Under pressure he also elaborated on his career (paid-for campaigning) and his usual defence is that he believes in the cause he is paid to support. If Microsoft paid him to campaign, then surely it would fit this description. He did the same for a football team until recently. In his defence he said: “I supported them in the stadium in Munich against Bayern on several occasions, and later in Brussels in one strategic context.”

Whether Microsoft pays him or not right now (he says that the lobbying “register is not only about affiliation. I haven’t done any non-exempt work in more than three years. If/when, I’ll register.”), some of his strategy is particularly distasteful. He constantly compares Professor Eben Moglen to Fidel Castro, e.g. with the following Twitter tweets:

- “Fidel most recently said the Cuban system doesn’t work. Such wisdom sets him apart from someone defending the OIN over and over.”
- “In Q&A at LinuxCon Fidel Moglen called IBM a “continuing friend”. Why didn’t he just tell the real nature of the relationship?”
- “Fidel Moglen called GPLv3 largely successful http://bit.ly/adH7TX If this is success, I’d like to see what he deems failure.”
- “IBM Foundation released video of Fidel Moglen’s speech praising OIN the week before Oracle sued Google http://bit.ly/adH7TX “
- “One way *not* to defeat software patents is with Fidel Castro-like speeches such as http://tinyvid.tv/show/2xrglw9dap138 “

We are not especially surprised by this because Microsoft Florian did such things before, implying that Moglen was a communist in Techrights comments.

He is also attacking the FFII right now, trying a divide-and-conquer approach (causing infighting, in vain) by mass-mailing people like he always does. Real classy. Over at LWN (a site of Linux proponents, not .NET developers), Microsoft Florian incites people against the FSF.

“Florian Müller seems like the type of person who would pretend to support the very opposite policy which he actively works to achieve.”Is there any group at all in the GNU/Linux world that Florian has not smeared yet? He also smears the Linux Foundation by the way. The only company he ever defends is Microsoft, whose extortions he describes as “cooperative”.

“Don’t blame your own weaknesses on others, then you’d enjoy your life more and make good friends,” the FFII told him. He not only lobbies against Free software but also against open standards on the face of it. “Thanks for unmasking that you lobby against open standards,” the FFII told him at a later stage, “EIFv2 is not released yet and not about excluding RAND standards.” Here is the response.

“Bowing in to lobbyists of your kind,” the FFII explained, “the Commission would refrain to define it. Last year the ministers didn’t accept it.”

Florian Müller seems like the type of person who would pretend to support the very opposite policy which he actively works to achieve. His track record in that regard is extremely poor and well documented.

“For the past decade FFII has been defending “open standards” against lobby attempts to redefine the professional term” the FFII said. Yes, we have all seen this as Microsoft lobbyists pretend to support openness and standards whilst actually doing the exact opposite. It is important to guard definitions and expose imposters.

As an exercise in logic, the FFII asked, “What’s the difference between open standard re-definitions of @fosspatents and Hugo Lueders”? (see [1, 2, 3, 4] for background about Lueders)

“A: Müller claims not to represent industry” █

Summary: Microsoft does not keep its promises regarding “Open Source” in .NET and its MVP Miguel de Icaza is trying to ram .NET into Web browsers

“Running Mono directly into the browser” is what our reader called this disturbing idea from Microsoft MVP de Icaza. Another reader explained that “Miguel de icaza wants .NET CLI to be embedded in browsers *Not really going through w3c*“

Is anyone surprised?

This is the type of thing that makes de Icaza a Microsoft MVP. It’s only becoming clearer over time who he’s really serving, no matter his denials regarding the question.

Which browser will be the first victim? Firefox or Chrome? Moonlight is already messing up with Firefox. Microsoft also shoved .NET into Firefox (for Windows) without permission, only to cause great distress and trouble.

Elsewhere in the news (notably Slashdot [1, 2]) we find that Microsoft is faking “Open Source” when it comes to .NET (who didn’t see that coming?).

figleaf writes “Three years ago, with much fanfare Microsoft announced it will make some the .Net libraries open source using their Microsoft Reference License. Since then Microsoft has reneged on its promise. The reference code site is dead, the blog is no longer updated and no one from Microsoft responds to any questions on the forum.”

To Microsoft, this whole “Open Source” idea seems nonsensical or “cancer” and “communism”; it’s just for marketing purposes and this is not the first time Microsoft is caught lying about parts of its code being “Open Source” (Sandcastle comes to mind [1, 2, 3, 4]).

The news above only comes to show Novell’s participation in Microsoft’s agenda, which is harmful to the Web as a whole.

Watch what Novell keeps doing to OpenOffice.org using its fork [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Novell advertises its OpenOffice.org fork as just a Windows office suite with OOXML and Visual Basic. Here is what Novell’s PR team wrote some days ago:

The answer is OpenOffice.org Novell Edition for Windows. We’ve recently released the 3.2 version, which contains bug fixes as well as many improvements over both the previous and community versions.

If you aren’t already familiar with this offering, OpenOffice.org Novell Edition for Windows is an open source office suite that is the best choice for interoperability with Microsoft Office. In addition to excellent performance and integrated extensions, the newest version allows users to access and edit Google Docs documents. It also includes enhanced spreadsheet capabilities such as more rows, better VBA macros and improved support for OpenXML files, the default format in the recent Microsoft Office versions.

Meanwhile, promoters of .NET/Mono (de Icaza included) carry on advertising for a Novell colleague who wants an image editor for GNU/Linux to be .NET-based [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9] and thus promote Pinta , despite the known problems.

Novell is also trying to put MonoTouch in Android [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9], regardless of or because of Apple’s actions [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. This is problematic since Microsoft already uses patent threats against Android and this extortion sometimes works.

There’s a disturbance in the gadget force everyone. You probably aren’t aware of it because most you are Mac or Windows users, but those who’ve been using Linux on the desktop or on servers have known for some time that Microsoft has been bullying Linux software vendors with threats of lawsuits for infringing on their intellectual property (IP). Remedy: sign our “patent agreement” and share your technology in exchange for immunity.

Microsoft claims that most parts of what makes up the GNU/Linux OS infringes on Microsoft’s closed-source patent war-chest. To put it in simple terms, they claim that they came up with X process or X functionality first and they have a patent on that feature. I’m not a IP or patent lawyer, so I can’t get into specifics, but I can tell you that the Free Open Source Software (FOSS) movement prides itself on being open and sharing code with others to be used how one sees fit. And, if you make an improvement, to share that improvement back with the community. FOSS developers like to look at a proprietary app and say, we can make that… and not only can we make it, we’ll make it better through the inspection of thousands of users who will voluntarily test the code, kill bugs, improve upon the feature-set, and so on and so on.

This whole mess started with Novell, which is currently injecting actual patent traps into everything that uses Linux. █

Summary: The Microsoft PR effort to marginalise or illegalise Free software overseas carries on quietly (using proxies, as usual)

A

FEW days ago we wrote about Microsoft people engaging with and entering "Open Source", possibly in order to change its agenda (although it could innocently be just a side effect). This is known as entryism and if there is no shielding against it, then the outcome can be fatal. One has to be careful of the sort of 'monopoly' on Free/open source licence statistics from a Microsoft-sourced company called Black Duck for instance. (Dis)Information is power and this power tends to be misused when put in the wrong hands. Deception and advertising is how those entities make a living. Likewise, to let former Microsoft employees decide whose voice counts in “Open Source” is rather risky. Last year we showed that Microsoft lobbyists (notably Zuck from Association for Competitive Technology) managed to infiltrate an “Open Source” panel where they subverted collective opinion to affect policies. We took it up to the European Commission and wrote about this in:

1. European Open Source Software Workgroup a Total Scam: Hijacked and Subverted by Microsoft et al
2. Microsoft’s AstroTurfing, Twitter, Waggener Edstrom, and Jonathan Zuck
3. Does the European Commission Harbour a Destruction of Free/Open Source Software Workgroup?
4. The Illusion of Transparency at the European Parliament/Commission (on Microsoft)
5. 2 Months and No Disclosure from the European Parliament
6. After 3 Months, Europe Lets Microsoft-Influenced EU Panel be Seen
7. Formal Complaint Against European Commission for Harbouring Microsoft Lobbyists
8. ‘European’ Software Strategy Published, Written by Lobbyists and Multinationals
9. Microsoft Uses Inside Influence to Grab Control, Redefine “Open Source”

The Web site called European Voice is currently promoting Microsoft’s lobbying event for software patents in Europe. At first we suspected that this Web site was something like OpenMainframe.org (Microsoft attack site against GNU/Linux), but upon closer inspection of previous articles we found just a mix of views, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

Nevertheless, why would such a site promote Microsoft’s agenda? It’s a Windows site and strangely enough, it is registered by The Economist:

Registrars.Registrant:                                          
 The Economist Newspaper Limited                                
 25 St James's Street                                           
 London,  SW1A 1HG                                              
 GB                                                             

 Domain name: EUROPEANVOICE.COM


 Administrative Contact:
    Manager, Domain  economistdomains@comlaude.com
    25 St James's Street                          
    London,  SW1A 1HG                             
    GB                                            
    +44.2078360070    Fax: +44.8700118187         

 Technical Contact:
    Administrator, DNS  dnsadmin@economist.com
    26 Red Lion Square                        
    London,  WC1R 4HQ                         
    GB                                        
    +44.2078360070    Fax: +44.8700118187     



 Registration Service Provider:
    Nom IQ Ltd (trading as Com Laude), admin@comlaude.com
    44-20-78360070                                       
    Address for Legal Service: Nom IQ Ltd (trading as Com Laude), 116 Long
    Acre, London, WC2E 9SU.  Com Laude is responsible for the registration,
    maintenance and management of this domain name.                        


 Registrar of Record: TUCOWS, INC.
 Record last updated on 12-Jan-2010.
 Record expires on 21-Jul-2012.     
 Record created on 21-Jul-1999.     

 Registrar Domain Name Help Center:

http://tucowsdomains.com/help/

 Domain servers in listed order:
    NSGBR.COMLAUDE.CO.UK
    NSUSA.COMLAUDE.NET
    NSSUI.COMLAUDE.CH


 Domain status: clientTransferProhibited
                clientUpdateProhibited

The event it is organising is supported by ACT (the Microsoft front group). The president of the FFII, Benjamin Henrion, publicly warns that “ACT continues to push for software patents in Europe, Innovation Summit at the end of the month in Brussels.” ACT is clearly a front for Microsoft and rather than deny this with counter arguments, Zuck and his colleagues repeatedly defame my character in their Web site. This attitude is telling and it is also used by Microsoft technical evangelists (sometimes a euphemism for AstroTurfers on the payroll). Defamation is what one gets for exposing Microsoft’s nature and modus operandi. Groklaw received similar treatment from SCO.

“ACT continues to push for software patents in Europe…”
      –Benjamin Henrion, FFIINot only ACT supports this event though. Microsoft’s “eskills” project is there too. Here is some background (more in another page with proof that it’s a Microsoft project in this document/leaflet [PDF]), which ties the project to “Jan Muehlfeit, chairman of Microsoft Europe and co-chair of the European”. We wrote about him in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] because of his lobbying in Europe. He is allegedly a former communist [1, 2], but that’s not the key point.

It is abundantly clear that Microsoft is actively working towards the goal of legalising software patents in Europe so that it can pursue Free software exclusion (taxing it or making it illegal).

The president of the FFII points to this new post and argues that “Neelie Kroes pushing for software patents in standards, Digital Commissioner Kroes proposes new EU policy of open standards” (she was lobbied by Microsoft).

From the introduction:

AN IMPORTANT POLICY PAPER, A Digital Agenda for Europe –
A policy for smart growth and innovation in a digital society, HAS BEEN LEAKED OF WHICH AN EXCERPT IS BELOW. DIGITAL AGENDA COMMISSIONER KROES HAS PROPOSED A SERIOUS MOVE OF THE EU TOWARD OPEN STANDARDS AND INTEROPERABILITY. THESE PROPOSALS ARE ALREADY BEING ATTACKED BY HER COLLEAGUES IN THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION WHO REPRESENT ENTERPRISE, COMMERCE AND INTERNAL MARKET. NEVERTHELESS, THESE PROPOSALS DESERVE CONSUMER AND CITIZEN SUPPORT.

Neelie Kroes has been making many mistakes regarding software patents as of late [1, 2]. We also learn that “DG Enterprise is pro software patents, and hostile to real open standards. They defend patent holders such as Philips and BSA.” In the following new post we are reminded that in the UK at least, software patents are already forcing their way into the system.

In simplified terms the UK Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO) on the other hand follows law and practice in the UK instead where a patent for software can be granted only where the software has a technical effect.

In summary, Microsoft has not given up on changing EU laws to discriminate against Free software. This is a major issue that a lot of GNU/Linux-oriented Web sites continue to ignore. Sometimes, those who point this out are accused of sensationalism or FUD; such accusations are only proof of gullibility and they are counter productive. █

“[The EPO] can’t distinguish between hardware and software so the patents get issued anyway”, —Marshall Phelps, IAM: Microsoft to have 50,000 patents within two years, Phelps reveals

–Mark Shuttleworth

Summary: The European Commission is either unwilling or unable to understand how Microsoft uses software patents against Free software, even in Europe where such patents are illegal

ACCORDING to Charlie McCreevy's (shown above) vision of Europe, one unified patent law might soon become a reality that incorporates software patents. The European Commission is being either totally bamboozled or simply lobbied to death. It’s already manned by the wrong people. André Rebentisch has this little update about McCreevy’s folly (he is no longer one among candidate Commission heads whom André is watching):

Issue 56 features the outgoing Commissioner Charlie McCreevy. McCreevy’s pet project financial market deregulation was cratered last year together with the Irish model and won’t come back in the new portfolio. He assumes an ideological mission to defend the single market for his successor:

The job of the next Commission, I believe would be to stand against those who, for a variety of political reasons, some of them may be ideological or philosophical, whatever they’d be, block the Single Market. To not allow the Single Market, the European markets to be interfered with.

Indeed, there are such forces, for instance those who prefer protection of geographical indications or the member states patent offices which obstruct the creation of a community patent for the single market.

Microsoft front group ACT is lobbying for this as it enables Microsoft to bypass the law. It is more or less the same with EIF, which we mentioned in:

1. European Interoperability Framework (EIF) Corrupted by Microsoft et al, Its Lobbyists
2. Orwellian EIF, Fake Open Source, and Security Implications
3. No Sense of Shame Left at Microsoft
4. Lobbying Leads to Protest — the FFII and the FSFE Rise in Opposition to Subverted EIF
5. IBM and Open Forum Europe Address European Interoperability Framework (EIF) Fiasco
6. EIF Scrutinised, ODF Evolves, and Microsoft’s OOXML “Lies” Lead to Backlash from Danish Standards Committee
7. Complaints About Perverted EIF Continue to Pile Up
8. More Complaints About EIFv2 Abuse and Free Software FUD from General Electric (GE)

Microsoft is meanwhile patenting everything under the sun. Yesterday in Slashdot there was another new example:

“A newly disclosed Microsoft patent application — Avatar Individualized by Physical Characteristic — takes aim at fat people, proposing to generate fat avatars in gaming environments for individuals whose health records indicate they’re overweight, limiting their game play, and even banning them. From the patent application: ‘An undesirable body weight could be reflected in an overweight or underweight appearance for the avatar. Only requisite health levels are allowed to compete in a certain competition level. A dedicated gamer could exercise for a period of time until his health indicator gadget shows a sufficiently high health/health credit in order to allow reentering the avatar environment.’ Linking one’s gaming avatar to one’s physique, explains Microsoft, will produce healthy and virtuous behaviors in individuals. Microsoft also proposes shaping gaming experiences by using ‘psychological and demographic information such as education level, geographic location, age, sex, intelligence quotient, socioeconomic class, occupation, marital/relationship status, religious belief, political affiliation, etc.’”

We have already shown that using a new deal with the EU Commission Microsoft is trying to ban commercial use of Free software. The ‘Microsoft press’ is working to distract or to hide it, but Simon Phipps, whom we mentioned in the previous post, writes the following words about the Microsoft-sponsored blogger who was speaking to Brad Smith for the Microsoft spin: “Well worth reading to understand Microsoft’s world-view. Sadly Smith wasn’t asked about the “patent promise” I mention below, but this interview helps us understand why Microsoft believed IE was important (developer APIs) and why they love “interoperability” (because it was the keyword for release from 12 years of investigation).”

“[T]he Microsoft “patent promise” is roughly useless for open source communities as it only gives protection for non-commercial uses…”
      –Simon PhippsIn reference to the FSFE’s complaint, Phipps writes: “The long war is finally over, without really correcting any of the injustices but with a few small concessions from a Microsoft that wants us to think it is contrite and changed. But the FSFE is right – the Microsoft “patent promise” is roughly useless for open source communities as it only gives protection for non-commercial uses; the very essence of open source is the alignment of fragments of (usually commercial) interest by many community participants. This should be the first thing Microsoft’s new head of open source addresses on appointment, but to do it will be tough since it will take air-cover at the highest levels to address.”

It’s not about the browser ballot screen (which is no justice, either), it’s about Free software. Some reporters like Paula Rooney wrongly describe the Web browser case as though it is related to Free software, even though Opera (case originator) is proprietary. In fact, too few publications wrote about the stunt Microsoft has just pulled on the “interoperability” front. █

Summary: Fedora 12 includes Microsoft/Novell software that falls outside the ECMA standard, despite the fact that such code is problematic

MICROSOFT APOLOGISM is a subject that we wrote about yesterday and will revisit later today. Regarding Matt Asay’s “Apache: ‘No jerks allowed’,” a reader tells us: “Matt seems to have a self-contradictory summary. Which is it? Microsoft is part of Apache or no jerks allowed in Apache?“

As a reminder about Microsoft and Apache, see [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18].

“The tail bit of the article seems to neglect the Apache perspective. It is, or at least was, about the Apache Foundation and its projects. What about the quality of Apache? What about the sustainability of Apache? Those are important.

“Microsoft’s Novell’s Greg Kroah-Hartman works with the Linux kernel and got caught with his mouth open. Microsoft did a hit and run on him, with his own help.”
      –Anonymous“To look to another project, the Linux kernel, we see what can go wrong if a project lets naive people let jerks walk all over them. Microsoft’s Novell’s Greg Kroah-Hartman works with the Linux kernel and got caught with his mouth open.”

“Microsoft did a hit and run on him,” argues our reader, “with his own help.” We wrote about this right here.

Our anonymous reader concludes as follows: “The assertion that code should matter, if taken at face value, should also then take into consideration the history of coding and engineering quality coming out of Redmond. Or should it? Maybe there is only One Microsoft Way for all projects and code quality should be a thing of the past.”

The bottom line is that Microsoft code cannot be trusted because it only serves Microsoft shareholders, to whom GNU/Linux and Free software are not acceptable, as they are antithetical. Red Hat is making a mistake right now because it follows the footsteps of OpenSUSE 11.2 by becoming dependent on Winforms. As the following new post emphasises:

The Fedora 12 Constantine GNOME Live CD is Mono free, but installing GNOME from the DVD pulls in not only Mono itself, but also support for Windows.Forms (mono-winforms), which is outside the ECMA standard (and not covered under Microsoft’s horribly inadequate Community Promise).

While Constantine no longer includes Tomboy, it does still include F-Spot which is a .NET application.

Mono was removed from the Live CD of Cambridge, but is it not time to apply the same policy to a full install? F-Spot can be replaced by Solang, for example. █

Summary: OpenSUSE 11.2 (GNOME) has Mono installed by default, including non-ECMA parts like Winforms

OPENSUSE users ought to become licensed customers of Novell, too.

According to this, the Winforms problem [1, 2, 3] goes deeper under the skin of OpenSUSE.

What is interesting, is that by default openSUSE ships the Mono implementation of Windows.Forms from .NET, which is outside the ECMA standard (and not covered under Microsoft’s horribly inadequate Community Promise).

Furthermore, all of the afore mentioned applications rely on Windows.Forms (package “mono-winforms“) and want to pull it in as a dependency.

At some point, Novell intends to split the Mono package between free and non-free components, but that doesn’t appear to have happened yet.

Last month Jeremy Allison suggested moving Mono and Mono applications outside the repositories [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] because of issues such as this. █

Summary: Microsoft is looking to repossess documents by harming ODF, PDF, and HTML, using patents, FUD, RAND, and Silverlight

FOR explanation and background preceding this post, see:

• Signs That Microsoft Might Prepare for ‘Patent Terror’ Against Rival Office Suites
• Microsoft’s OOXML Patents, Apple’s Endorsement, and the Rise of OpenOffice.org
• Microsoft Keeps Trying to Inject Software Patents Into ODF and Other Standards
• Microsoft ‘Patents’ ODF Whilst Also Harming It
• Patents Roundup: OASIS Takes Stance Against Software Patents, Microsoft Loses Again
• XML Patents, Microsoft Aggression, and ODF Hostility
• Microsoft’s ‘ODF Patent’ as Vacuous as Its Promise of Interoperability
• Reader’s Article: The Microsoft Patent Threat to ODF
• On Microsoft’s Software Patents and ODF Fragmentation

As The Inquirer points out right now, this may also affect Microsoft's ongoing attempts to pass XPS as a 'standard'. Microsoft wants patents inside formats and protocols that people use because it discriminates against Free software.

For a few years the Vole had been trying to create open standards derived from its own XML-based file formats, such as XPS and Office XML. True, much of its work was seen as an attempt to stop competing formats, such as the Open Document Format. However Microsoft did get some support for its cunning plan.

As one person put it, “Microsoft granted patent “..document stored in a single XML..” [http://is.gd/2a8y1]. ODF uses several xml files .. so are we in safe??”

Another individual writes: “Not “new usage” for patents: #Microsoft #patents #fud against #ODF: http://is.gd/29nmu”

There is a fairly new video at YouTube where Jon ‘Maddog’ Hall talks about OOXML and ODF. Have a look.

Direct link

Although we are seeing more ODF software, Microsoft carries on with OOXML and in the process of putting an office suite on-line, Microsoft proves that it is hostile not only towards competition but also towards Web standards. Yesterday from The Register:

Microsoft’s web Office: No love for Chrome, Opera

[...]

Apparently, Microsoft isn’t familiar with Google Chrome or Opera, or, for that matter, Internet Explorer 6 or the Windows version of Apple’s Safari. They’re not on the official list of supported browsers included in a recent blog posting by the Office Web Apps Team – a posting, ironically enough, entitled “The Office Web Apps Love Your Browser.”

Official support for the Office Web Apps limits that love to Internet Explorer 7 and 8; Firefox 3.5 on Windows, Mac, and Linux; and Safari 4 on Mac. And that’s it.

According to Mary-Jo Foley, Silver Lie (XAML) is making its way into this as well. This harms GNU/Linux users no matter which Web browser they use. It is time for regulators to impose open standards on Microsoft, and not proprietary formats that Microsoft pretends (and bribes) to be called “standards”. Microsoft’s ODF implementation is still deficient and harmful [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. █

Summary: ECMA is done with Microsoft XPS, time to shove it down ISO’s throat

LAST YEAR we warned that Microsoft would attempt to repeat something like the OOXML fiasco, this time for a static document format. This was also alluded to in [1, 2, 3].

“It is Microsoft’s proprietary, inferior duplicate of PDF — just another proprietary format in Microsoft’s control.”Now that ECMA, a body that stamps virtually anything provided sufficient payments, is done with XPS (press release from this week), it is expected that Microsoft will try to ram it down ISO’s throat. It is Microsoft’s proprietary, inferior duplicate of PDF — just another proprietary format in Microsoft’s control. As David Gerard puts it, “Microsoft tries to push completely superfluous garbage through ECMA in preparation for ISO.”

Over at Wikipedia, the Microsoft proponents are pushing opinions of Microsoft as facts (see edit: “opinion was stated as fact”) and there are more corrections that annul the latest deeds of Ghettoblaster et al. It is worth keeping an eye on Microsoft's intervention in Wikipedia because of whisper campaigns. █

From the Campaign for Document Freedom

…or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Look at the Wookie.

Misdirection is a curious thing, and in the hands of Microsoft “evangelists” (such as Miguel de Icaza), it’s positively dangerous.

Apparently, de Icaza is slavering [1] over Microsoft’s recent announcement [2] that they “will be applying the Community
Promise [3] to the ECMA 334 and ECMA 335 specs”.

That’s nice.

So now the pro-MONOpolists have three things to cheer about:

1. Poisoning Free Software with Microsoft’s IP (and paradigm)
2. The ECMA RAND /price/ guarantee
3. Microsoft’s misleading “covenant”

Let’s look at these in more detail.

First, if we naively assume there are in fact zero “IP” risks involved in implementing C#/CLI, that still leaves the question of why should the Free Software community help spread Microsoft’s standards, regardless of how “safe” any of those standards might be?

After all, Microsoft is the self-declared enemy of Free Software, they think it’s “a cancer”, and that GNU/Linux is “Microsoft’s number one competitor”. Their criminal and unethical behaviour alone, over the last three decades, should be sufficient reason to not want to help them, but given the very obvious conflicts of interest here, I’d say it’s patently obvious there must be a catch. Microsoft is not the sort of company that helps its competitors … ever, not unless it can work some nefarious angle (embrace, extend, and extinguish).

Historically, and still to this day (OOXML), Microsoft uses its proprietary, reinvented “standards” to try to squash all competition, by tying those “standards” to software that’s bundled with nearly all PCs, by OEMs, under financial coercion [4] [5].

Bear in mind that this devious “standards” tactic is the key weapon Microsoft uses to protect its monopoly.

Is this something we should be helping them with?

“Microsoft is not the sort of company that helps its competitors … ever, not unless it can work some nefarious angle (embrace, extend, and extinguish).”The second point, and I’ll make it brief since there’s very little to discuss about it, is that the ECMA RAND is only a guarantee of fair price (parity). It has nothing whatsoever to do with Microsoft’s rights to sue you for patent violation. A classic misdirection used by the pro-MONOpolists.

The final, and most pertinent point, is that Microsoft’s so-called “Community Promise” is just another misdirection, because its “truths” are incomplete, in some cases questionable, and in yet other cases wholly irrelevant (essentially non sequitur).

Here’s a simple analysis:

The “covenant” (and the RAND) do not apply to large portions of .NET (e.g. ASP.NET, ADO.NET and Winforms). This is significant because it means .NET programs which utilise these components will not be (legally) interoperable with systems running Mono. This means there will be great disparity between C# programs on Windows and their ports on GNU/Linux, and this fact will be abused by Microsoft to promote Windows as the “better” system. It will also have the effect of attracting Mono developers over to Windows, who may subsequently abandon GNU/Linux. It may even represent an actual “IP” risk, if de Icaza and friends are not entirely vigilant (or possibly if they’re complicit with Microsoft’s anti-Free Software agenda. At this point, anything’s possible).

The “covenant” conveniently ignores these essential details.

Microsoft also makes a big deal out of its claim that this “covenant” is “legally binding”. Well, is it? Not really. It’s not legally binding in the sense that an actual patent grant is, since that is an explicit contract with a named party. It may become legally binding … if used as a challenge in court. But of course it does actually need to be tested in court /first/. If you were, for example, Red Hat, would you want to be the guinea pig? Oh how Microsoft would love the opportunity to squash that piggy.

In fact, it’s debatable whether they’d even be covered by this “covenant” at all, since (in Microsoft’s own words) “The CP applies only if the implementation conforms fully to required portions of the specification. Partial implementations are not covered” … and “The Community Promise applies to all existing versions of the specifications”. So this raises the questions what is covered, and exactly how feasible is it to implement this “full specification” under Mono (or DotGNU, or any other unlicensed implementation)? Even more importantly, what will not be covered in the future, as and when the specifications change?

Oh yes, Microsoft also make a big deal about their claim that these rights are “irrevocable”, but they fail to clarify that these
“irrevocable rights” only apply to the standard as it stands today. And we all know how Microsoft loves to “extend” things, don’t we?

So in summary, Microsoft’s “promise” is worthless, irrelevant, and entirely misleading. I’m sure it’ll bring a brief moment of euphoria to the pro-MONOpolists, who will now believe they have a new argument to support their aspirations to poison Free Software with Microsoft’s toxin, but in the long term it amounts to nothing. Nothing but trouble, at least. █
____
[1] http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2009/Jul-06.html
[2] http://port25.technet.com/archive/2009/07/06/the…
[3] http://www.microsoft.com/interop/cp/default.mspx
[4] http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200…
[5] http://www.birdhouse.org/beos/byte/30-boot…

Analysis by Slated

“The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act, as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails today among human creatures.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

Summary: Mono suffers from an issue of trust — one must trust Microsoft just like TomTom trusted them

NOVELL, like Mono, is impossible to trust. Would anyone trust a company whose CEO rakes in millions in bonuses despite abysmal performance? Yes, Novell fires GNU/Linux developers (supposedly its business focus) while giving Ron Hovsepian a $6 million bonus. Novell fails to beat its own goals and it had been taking loans while its CEO was essentially robbing the company for personal benefit. Why do so many good reporters fail to see this?

“Whose agenda is actually served by Mono? Microsoft’s of course.”As the treasonous deal with Microsoft demonstrated, Novell is a morally deprived company, with the possibility of imminent financial bankruptcy too, or at least the splitting for sake of survival. Whose agenda is actually served by Mono? Microsoft’s of course. And the more times goes on, the more obvious it becomes. In fact, Novell has begun development which puts Windows in a position of advantage even for Mono [1, 2, 3]. What more compelling proof do proponents of Mono require before the Eureka moment? Some of those Mono proponents are former Microsoft employees and at least one person from the Mono team is working for Microsoft at present.

And with this blunt introduction off my chest, I hand it over to Slated, who equally bluntly wrote the following about what makes Mono so dangerous:

This single, vague yet far reaching example, is as much as I personally have been able to discover.

The ECMA declaration is indeed just a statement of intent.

However, the substantive point is that .NET is Microsoft technology, and as such you can be sure they have it patented up to the hilt, and one way or another Microsoft will use those patents as a weapon against its enemies. It would be extremely naive (in fact dangerous) to assume otherwise, because Microsoft have a violent history of aggression in their crusade to protect their racketeering operation.

“The best case scenario might be that Mono developers find themselves having to abandon whole projects, or at least significant parts of them, in order to “work around” the problem.”The problem is that, outside of Redmond HQ (and presumably UPSTO), nobody has the faintest clue as to what these patents might be, if any, and of course Microsoft have so far remained silent on the issue (much like the infamous “Linux violates 235 Microsoft patents” scandal, except this time the intent is initially somewhat more subtle and subversive, rather than being a more obvious and aggressive FUD attack). This also begs the question of how de Icaza and friends intend to “work around” non-ECMA covered patents, if he doesn’t have the first clue as to what
exactly is, or is not, patented, and by the time he eventually finds out, it may be too late (assuming he isn’t already privy to Microsoft’s darkest secrets).

The best case scenario might be that Mono developers find themselves having to abandon whole projects, or at least significant parts of them, in order to “work around” the problem. The worst case scenario is that Microsoft begins an all-out frontal attack (just like they did with TomTom).

Naturally Microsoft finds this situation very useful, since it enables them to poison Free Software in a subversive fashion, and with little resistance, especially as they have pacified certain key developers with “RAND” assurances. The problem is that the ECMA RAND only pertains to certain parts of the .NET framework, and moreover the “RAND” itself only refers to price (i.e. a fair and reasonable price). This doesn’t actually prevent Microsoft from suing those who implement that technology without a license, and the private (i.e. unofficial) assurances they’ve given regarding “royalty free” are, at this stage, nothing more than hot air (i.e. dependent on implicit trust, rather than being legally binding). To be legally binding, every GNU/Linux distro would require an explicit patent grant from Microsoft, which is not what either the ECMA RAND nor the so-called “covenant” are. Novell presumably has such a grant, as part of their agreement, others don’t. Exactly what sinister implications entering into such an agreement entails, is anyone’s guess, since they are (like everything else Microsoft does) yet another dark secret (Memorandum of Understanding), but you can be sure it isn’t good, or at least it is very good for Microsoft, which means it will inevitably be very bad for everyone else.

IOW it’s all a big mystery, and deliberately so (patent pending).

Then again, maybe not.

After all, this is Microsoft we’re talking about, and there’s very little mystery about their motives, is there? So do we actually even need to know the details? We should all know more than enough about the history of these gangsters, to steer well clear of anything tainted by them.

Here’s a shortlist of things we can safely assume Microsoft considers to be their “enemy”:

. Competing operating systems
. Interoperability (i.e. anything which enables operation on the above)
. Open Standards (ditto)
. Free Software (ditto)
. Any company which distributes or primarily utilises any of the above

And here’s a few key facts about Microsoft:

. They have a global software monopoly
. They abuse that monopoly to suppress competition
. They use highly unethical, and often illegal, tactics in the above
. They are only motivated by power and greed, to attain domination
. They essentially operate like gangsters

Now study those two lists, then give me one good reason why anyone should implicitly trust Microsoft to:

a) Do anything that helps GNU/Linux
b) Keep their legally non-binding “royalty free” promise
c) Keep their “covenant to not sue” promise (hint: TomTom)
d) Not launch a submarine patent attack against Mono projects
e) Not abuse the confusion over Mono as leverage for cross-licensing “deals”, to pervert the GNU/Linux distro landscape into an extension of Microsoft’s portfolio of rotting carcasses

Seems pretty simple to me, but then I am allegedly rather “monochromatic”.

Ultimately, one only needs to ask oneself this single question, to determine whether or not they should have anything to do with Mono, either as users or developers:

Do you trust, and therefore wish to help, the self-declared enemy of Free Software, Microsoft, a company which inhibits all competition using immoral and criminal methods, similar to gangsters running a racketeering operation?

My answer: No.

I really don’t need to know any more.

Case closed. █

“Our partnership with Microsoft continues to expand.”

–Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO

“[The partnership with Microsoft is] going very well insofar as we originally agreed to co-operate on three distinct projects and now we’re working on nine projects and there’s a good list of 19 other projects that we plan to co-operate on.”

–Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO

Summary: Banshee brings Winforms with it after all (not part of ECMA reference)

ONE of our contributors mailed us regarding this post where we were vilified for suggesting that Banshee needed Winforms. Well, our contributor says that “it’s true that Ubuntu’s implementation of Banshee does not depend on Winforms, but on Fedora 11 it does. So does Tomboy. At least, when I try and install tomboy or banshee, they both want to pull in winforms.

“Whether it is actually needed by either application I’m not sure, but even though Red Hat is shipping Fedora 11 without Tomboy installing it will pull in Windows forms by default when users install it. Whether this is actually a problem or not, I can’t say.”

Those examples we were given (as above) can be proven as follows.

For Bashee:

Loaded plugins: downloadonly, refresh-packagekit
Setting up Install Process
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package banshee.i586 0:1.4.3-3.fc11 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: mono(gdk-sharp) = 2.12.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(notify-sharp) = 0.4.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(NDesk.DBus.GLib) = 1.0.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(Mono.Cairo) = 2.0.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(Mono.Addins.Setup) = 0.4.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(Boo.Lang.Compiler) = 2.0.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(mscorlib) = 2.0.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(Mono.Addins.Gui) = 0.4.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(pango-sharp) = 2.12.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(MusicBrainz) = 1.4.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(Mono.Data.SqliteClient) = 2.0.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(gconf-sharp) = 2.24.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(System.Xml) = 2.0.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(glib-sharp) = 2.12.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(System) = 2.0.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(System.Web) = 2.0.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(Mono.Addins) = 0.4.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(Mono.Posix) = 2.0.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(gtk-sharp) = 2.12.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib) = 2.84.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(System.Data) = 2.0.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(glade-sharp) = 2.12.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(Mono.Zeroconf) = 2.0.0.76 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(NDesk.DBus) = 1.0.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(gnome-sharp) = 2.24.0.0 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: banshee-musicbrainz = 1.4.3-3.fc11 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono(taglib-sharp) = 2.0.3.2 for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: podsleuth for package: banshee
--> Processing Dependency: mono-addins for package: banshee
--> Running transaction check
---> Package banshee-musicbrainz.i586 0:1.4.3-3.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package boo.i586 0:0.8.1.2865-6.fc11 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: mono(NAnt.DotNetTasks) = 0.85.2478.0 for package: boo
--> Processing Dependency: mono(NAnt.Core) = 0.85.2478.0 for package: boo
---> Package gnome-sharp.i586 0:2.24.0-3.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package gtk-sharp2.i586 0:2.12.7-4.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package mono-addins.i586 0:0.4-6.20091702svn127062.1.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package mono-core.i586 0:2.4-19.fc11 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: mono(monodoc) = 1.0.0.0 for package: mono-core
--> Processing Dependency: mono(System.Configuration.Install) = 1.0.5000.0 for package: mono-core
---> Package mono-data.i586 0:2.4-19.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package mono-data-sqlite.i586 0:2.4-19.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package mono-web.i586 0:2.4-19.fc11 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: mono(System.Design) = 2.0.0.0 for package: mono-web
---> Package mono-zeroconf.i586 0:0.7.6-8.fc11 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: mono(avahi-sharp) = 1.0.0.0 for package: mono-zeroconf
---> Package ndesk-dbus.i586 0:0.6.1a-4.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package ndesk-dbus-glib.i586 0:0.4.1-4.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package notify-sharp.i586 0:0.4.0-0.6.20080912svn.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package podsleuth.i586 0:0.6.3-2.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package taglib-sharp.i586 0:2.0.3.2-2.fc11 set to be updated
--> Running transaction check
---> Package avahi-sharp.i586 0:0.6.25-1.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package mono-extras.i586 0:2.4-19.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package mono-winforms.i586 0:2.4-19.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package monodoc.i586 0:2.4-19.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package nant.i586 1:0.85-27.fc11 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: mono(nunit.util) = 2.2.10.0 for package: nant
--> Processing Dependency: mono(ICSharpCode.SharpCvsLib) = 0.35.3721.507 for package: nant
--> Processing Dependency: mono(nunit.core) = 2.2.10.0 for package: nant
--> Processing Dependency: mono(log4net) = 1.2.10.0 for package: nant
--> Processing Dependency: mono(NDoc.Core) = 1.3.3344.0 for package: nant
--> Running transaction check
---> Package log4net.i586 0:1.2.10-5.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package mono-ndoc.i586 0:1.3.1-4.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package mono-nunit22.i586 1:2.2.10-9.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package mono-sharpcvslib.i586 0:0.35-9.fc11 set to be updated
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

================================================================================
 Package               Arch   Version                            Repository
                                                                           Size
================================================================================
Installing:
 banshee               i586   1.4.3-3.fc11                       fedora   3.0 M
Installing for dependencies:
 avahi-sharp           i586   0.6.25-1.fc11                      fedora    35 k
 banshee-musicbrainz   i586   1.4.3-3.fc11                       fedora    40 k
 boo                   i586   0.8.1.2865-6.fc11                  fedora   810 k
 gnome-sharp           i586   2.24.0-3.fc11                      fedora   327 k
 gtk-sharp2            i586   2.12.7-4.fc11                      fedora   819 k
 log4net               i586   1.2.10-5.fc11                      fedora    96 k
 mono-addins           i586   0.4-6.20091702svn127062.1.fc11     fedora   484 k
 mono-core             i586   2.4-19.fc11                        fedora    12 M
 mono-data             i586   2.4-19.fc11                        fedora   1.5 M
 mono-data-sqlite      i586   2.4-19.fc11                        fedora   158 k
 mono-extras           i586   2.4-19.fc11                        fedora   1.5 M
 mono-ndoc             i586   1.3.1-4.fc11                       fedora   304 k
 mono-nunit22          i586   1:2.2.10-9.fc11                    fedora   148 k
 mono-sharpcvslib      i586   0.35-9.fc11                        fedora   502 k
 mono-web              i586   2.4-19.fc11                        fedora   3.1 M
 mono-winforms         i586   2.4-19.fc11                        fedora   3.0 M
 mono-zeroconf         i586   0.7.6-8.fc11                       fedora    60 k
 monodoc               i586   2.4-19.fc11                        fedora   7.3 M
 nant                  i586   1:0.85-27.fc11                     fedora   637 k
 ndesk-dbus            i586   0.6.1a-4.fc11                      fedora    52 k
 ndesk-dbus-glib       i586   0.4.1-4.fc11                       fedora    11 k
 notify-sharp          i586   0.4.0-0.6.20080912svn.fc11         fedora    14 k
 podsleuth             i586   0.6.3-2.fc11                       fedora    48 k
 taglib-sharp          i586   2.0.3.2-2.fc11                     fedora   188 k

Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install     25 Package(s)         
Update       0 Package(s)         
Remove       0 Package(s)         

Total download size: 36 M
Is this ok [y/N]: Exiting on user Command
Complete!

For Tomboy:

Loaded plugins: downloadonly, refresh-packagekit
Setting up Install Process
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package tomboy.i586 0:0.14.1-2.fc11 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: mono(gdk-sharp) = 2.12.0.0 for package: tomboy
--> Processing Dependency: mono(Mono.Addins) = 0.4.0.0 for package: tomboy
--> Processing Dependency: mono(mscorlib) = 2.0.0.0 for package: tomboy
--> Processing Dependency: mono(Mono.Posix) = 2.0.0.0 for package: tomboy
--> Processing Dependency: mono(gtk-sharp) = 2.12.0.0 for package: tomboy
--> Processing Dependency: mono(Mono.Addins.Gui) = 0.4.0.0 for package: tomboy
--> Processing Dependency: mono(NDesk.DBus) = 1.0.0.0 for package: tomboy
--> Processing Dependency: mono(gnome-sharp) = 2.24.0.0 for package: tomboy
--> Processing Dependency: mono(pango-sharp) = 2.12.0.0 for package: tomboy
--> Processing Dependency: mono(gconf-sharp) = 2.24.0.0 for package: tomboy
--> Processing Dependency: mono(NDesk.DBus.GLib) = 1.0.0.0 for package: tomboy
--> Processing Dependency: mono(System.Xml) = 2.0.0.0 for package: tomboy
--> Processing Dependency: mono(Mono.Cairo) = 2.0.0.0 for package: tomboy
--> Processing Dependency: mono(gconf-sharp-peditors) = 2.24.0.0 for package: tomboy
--> Processing Dependency: mono(glib-sharp) = 2.12.0.0 for package: tomboy
--> Processing Dependency: mono(Mono.Addins.Setup) = 0.4.0.0 for package: tomboy
--> Processing Dependency: mono(System) = 2.0.0.0 for package: tomboy
--> Processing Dependency: mono(gnome-panel-sharp) = 2.24.0.0 for package: tomboy
--> Running transaction check
---> Package gnome-desktop-sharp.i586 0:2.26.0-1.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package gnome-sharp.i586 0:2.24.0-3.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package gtk-sharp2.i586 0:2.12.7-4.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package mono-addins.i586 0:0.4-6.20091702svn127062.1.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package mono-core.i586 0:2.4-19.fc11 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: mono(System.Web) = 2.0.0.0 for package: mono-core
--> Processing Dependency: mono(monodoc) = 1.0.0.0 for package: mono-core
--> Processing Dependency: mono(System.Configuration.Install) = 1.0.5000.0 for package: mono-core
---> Package ndesk-dbus.i586 0:0.6.1a-4.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package ndesk-dbus-glib.i586 0:0.4.1-4.fc11 set to be updated
--> Running transaction check
---> Package mono-extras.i586 0:2.4-19.fc11 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: mono(System.Windows.Forms) = 2.0.0.0 for package: mono-extras
--> Processing Dependency: mono(System.Transactions) = 2.0.0.0 for package: mono-extras
--> Processing Dependency: mono(System.Windows.Forms) = 1.0.5000.0 for package: mono-extras
---> Package mono-web.i586 0:2.4-19.fc11 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: mono(Mono.Data.Sqlite) = 2.0.0.0 for package: mono-web
---> Package monodoc.i586 0:2.4-19.fc11 set to be updated
--> Running transaction check
---> Package mono-data.i586 0:2.4-19.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package mono-data-sqlite.i586 0:2.4-19.fc11 set to be updated
---> Package mono-winforms.i586 0:2.4-19.fc11 set to be updated
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

================================================================================
 Package               Arch   Version                            Repository
                                                                           Size
================================================================================
Installing:
 tomboy                i586   0.14.1-2.fc11                      fedora   4.6 M
Installing for dependencies:
 gnome-desktop-sharp   i586   2.26.0-1.fc11                      fedora   211 k
 gnome-sharp           i586   2.24.0-3.fc11                      fedora   327 k
 gtk-sharp2            i586   2.12.7-4.fc11                      fedora   819 k
 mono-addins           i586   0.4-6.20091702svn127062.1.fc11     fedora   484 k
 mono-core             i586   2.4-19.fc11                        fedora    12 M
 mono-data             i586   2.4-19.fc11                        fedora   1.5 M
 mono-data-sqlite      i586   2.4-19.fc11                        fedora   158 k
 mono-extras           i586   2.4-19.fc11                        fedora   1.5 M
 mono-web              i586   2.4-19.fc11                        fedora   3.1 M
 mono-winforms         i586   2.4-19.fc11                        fedora   3.0 M
 monodoc               i586   2.4-19.fc11                        fedora   7.3 M
 ndesk-dbus            i586   0.6.1a-4.fc11                      fedora    52 k
 ndesk-dbus-glib       i586   0.4.1-4.fc11                       fedora    11 k

Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install     14 Package(s)         
Update       0 Package(s)         
Remove       0 Package(s)         

Total download size: 35 M
Is this ok [y/N]: Exiting on user Command
Complete!

Some months ago we saw that in OpenSUSE, Evolution depended on Mono. Whether this dependency was a mistake or not is almost irrelevant to the fact that Mono becomes less separable from some GTK applications and Winforms is an even bigger issue.█

Microsoft mono Embrace extend extinguish

Summary: Boycott Novell contributors explain why Mono and Moonlight are real risks

Microsoft is trying to embrace, extend, and extinguish GNU/Linux, largely with the help of Novell. Moonlight is already called "Microsoft Moonlight" in the Novell/Microsoft Web site and one reader wrote to say: “Here is one more proof than Microsoft is backing Moonlight. Go to http://silverlight.live.com/. If you connect from Linux O/S, it will offer you to install Silverlight, click install, you will be redirected to Moonlight page.”

“Mono fans are meanwhile censoring opposers of Mono over in Ubuntu.”Mono fans are meanwhile censoring opposers of Mono over in Ubuntu. Sometimes it's Novell employees and some of those who are responsible (not Novell employees) are writing about proprietary computer games (yes, Windows) at the moment. Those very same people are also pushing hard to put Novell's own Banshee inside Ubuntu, by default, at the expense of other media players.

DaemonFC writes: “If Ubuntu uses Banshee by default, they’ll have to ship Windows Forms/System Forms, so unless they have a Microsoft deal in the works, I don’t know how they’d pull this off. Up til now Ubuntu only ships the ECMA standard parts of Mono. Windows Forms is not part of the standard, so only Novell has permission to distribute that. [...] Well, like I said, if they signed an agreement with Microsoft like Novell has, it would be legal, otherwise they’re opening themselves up to be sued. Microsoft doesn’t want to sue, they want to keep pointing at things like this and saying “Nyaaaah!” when companies are considering Linux.” █

Summary: ECMA is seemingly unable to offer answers regarding Microsoft Moonlight and Mono

OVER AT iTWire, Sam Varghese has just published a detailed story about his attempt to acquire a licence for (or information about) Microsoft Moonlight, Mono, and Microsoft patents. It is no surprise that ECMA, which was corrupted by Microsoft throughout (or before) the OOXML scandals, is unable to supply answers.

How difficult or easy is it to obtain one of the much-touted “royalty-free, reasonable and non-discriminatory” licences for Microsoft patents that are part of a technology like Mono?

[...]

He replied two days later, pointing out, “Ecma does not have anything to do with possible licensing of .NET. But Microsoft is one of our members, so I have asked them whom to contact there – if anything is needed, what I just do not know.”

Dr Sebestyn added: “My contact at Microsoft said that you should contact Peggy Moloney there, who would be able to help you.”

I wrote to Ms Moloney on April 28, asking for the same information: “I understand that the terms of the licences to the patents which Microsoft holds on the .NET development platform permit people to obtain a royalty-free, reasonable and non-discriminatory licence to use them. I would be grateful if you let me know exactly how one obtains such a licence.”

I also asked her about the variance in the terms for the licensing of Moonlight, a clone of Microsoft’s Silverlight, using which the company hopes to capture the market that is dominated by Adobe’s Flash. De Icaza is behind this project as well.

[...]

There’s a been a deafening silence since then. There the matter stands after nearly a month. You would think that’s a decent period for anyone to think things through and respond – if the intention of doing so exists.

To me, it looks this licence is as real as the unicorn. Or maybe Santa Claus. I think Mono fans need to think of a fresh defence when people talk about the dangers of patent suits arising over this technology. The licence talk has worn more than a little thin.

When we asked Microsoft for a Mono licence Microsoft was willing to sell one. But what kind of a procedure is this? This is not Free software. To use a term that Slated once coined, it’s “Poisonware” — meaning it’s a patent trap disguised as “open source”.

According to our reader, ushimitsudoki, Microsoft “has changed the Moonlight covenant on their web site. [...] right now the only thing I have noticed is that it mentions Moonlight version 1.0 and 2. Before it was 1.0 and 1.1 and this was a point I had been making in a few places around the web [...] Miguel (or someone claiming to be him) said they were trying to get it changed from 1.1 -> 2.0 in response to me on Ars Technica, so I am not surprised at the change.” █

“I saw that internally inside Microsoft many times when I was told to stay away from supporting Mono in public. They reserve the right to sue”

–Robert Scoble, former Microsoft evangelist

SOME months ago we mentioned Microsoft’s Martin Bean, who turns out to be also involved in CompTIA, a Microsoft lobbying gun [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Among many other things, CompTIA played a role in the OOXML corruptions and there may be overlap with the BSA, which is also tied to Bill Gates' father.

Probably without awareness of all the above, one reader alerted us that “CompTIA manager buys house.” The article actually says “Microsoft manager” because it’s one of those cases where lobbyists wear multiple hats. For example, Jan van den Beld [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] was working at ECMA while also playing ball for CompTIA (and Microsoft of course).

Anyway, here is part of the new article about Martin Bean:

He has also presented to the U.S. Senate on behalf of the Technology Workforce Coalition, and moderated a town hall meeting for former President George W. Bush. In addition, he was also a board member of Jobs for America’s Graduates, the chair of the CompTIA Public Policy Committee and the president of AIESEC International.

For a Microsoft employee, he sure does a lot of political things. No conflicts of interests there?

Mr. Bean has already invaded the Open University, which sort of vilified Free software shortly afterwards. This appointment may be part of Microsoft's crusade for influence inside education (getting children "addicted" while they are young, even at no cost). Martin Bean is connected to BECTA too because he is mentioned in related documents.

Another Microsoft manager who chalked Free software off the national education agenda recently quit the company. Amid all this, let’s refer back to last month’s post which asks and addresses the question, is Microsoft a "political movement"?

In other news of this kind, <No>OOXML has found out that Fraunhofer Fokus, which is funded by German taxpayers, may in fact be connected to Microsoft; for a fact, it sure serves Microsoft’s corporate interests. The conclusion of the detailed analysis is:

The question is who will trust the research results of Fraunhofer Fokus? And why does the German tax payer invest in a research institution that sells out to companies across the Atlantic regardless of our national public interest in interoperability? For instance Fraunhofer Fokus applauded(!) the ISO adoption of Open XML.

For those who may be interested, we wrote about misbehaviour at the German Institute for Standardization (DIN) in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. ECT has not exactly forgotten the OOXML fiasco and it is being recited in LinuxInsider right now, even though they it tone down a little too much.

Looking ahead, standards organizations “need to sit down and admit there is a problem, and then decide if they want to help or hinder industry progress,” Mack said.

“I’m hoping the ISO recovers from this,” he added. “They have been publicly humiliated by the debacle but refuse to admit anything went wrong. Monty Python’s ‘Black Knight’ imitation would actually be amusing if the stakes weren’t so high.”

ECT is not gutsy enough to say the truth. Contrariwise, another Microsoft lobbying arm, ACT [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8], is now being accused by Sun’s Simon Phipps, who says that “ACT are pretty active advocates of all that makes FOSS difficult or impossible.” Phipps packs it up with the usual IBM-hostile venom.█

“Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.”

–Napoleon Bonaparte

Microsoft excludes competitors with OOXML patent license?

ECMA has just published two documents related to the patent licensing of ECMA376v1 and ECMA376v2. Microsoft promises to give a patent license under so called “reasonable terms”. Reasonable for whom?

[...]

We have requested a commercial patent license in July, but radio silence since then on the Microsoft side. Yet another proof that the patent system does not work.

Is anybody surprised? Of course not. It’s easier to tell the truth now that’s too late. As Tim Bray put it, “What Microsoft really wanted was that ISO stamp of approval to use as a marketing tool. And just like your mother told you, when they get what they want and have their way with you, they’re probably not gonna call you in the morning.” █

SOME readers have sent a few pointers to us, so it’s probably time to comment on Microsoft’s latest step in a long, brutal pursuit where it threw people out of their jobs, bullied them, replaced them, bribed quite a few ballot-stuffers, blackmailed nations and even — on the face — bribed charities. To say that Microsoft engaged in criminal behaviour due to its strong ambitions of making Microsoft ‘the standard’ would be the understatement of this century (which heralds the beginning of another crackdown on massive corruption).

Microsoft doesn’t stop there. Ruining ISO was not enough because nations began ignoring ISO [1, 2, 3, 4]. Microsoft is finding new things to stomp on, as though it has some God-given right to restore its revenues at all costs, no matter the victims involved. Microsoft fought ODF like fire and now it’s pretending to be its friend. It wants to leverage its nightmare to its own advantage.

“Let’s Embrace ODF”

One Microsoft press release and an accompanying blog post turned old news into something that’s seemingly newsworthy. Microsoft funnels crime into embellishing prose like “foster” (in the headline of the press release). This Orwellian attitude must make George flip in his grave.

We covered this series of developments before:

• Beware the Vapourware (Microsoft to Save ODF Bunnies, End Global Warning)
• Taking Stock of Microsoft’s Vapourware Announcement
• What People Say About That Mythical Microsoft Service Pack
• Groklaw: Microsoft’s ODF Moves Vapourware, Possible Trojan Horse for Software Patents
• Old FUD Pattern Makes Epic Comeback
• Office and OOXML Under Pressure, So Microsoft Retaliates with ODF
• Document Formats Roundup: Why Microsoft Should Worry
• OOXML/ODF Roundup: ODF is Winning, BECTA Runs Back to Microsoft’s Bed

Someone has already composed a detailed response to Microsoft’s latest PR move, which is — by all means — a PR move. Oh! And a brand-new Web site (documentation is here). Starting at a few dollars for hosting, Microsoft loves creating these new domains to give the illusion of scale and grassroots support with 'independence' from Microsoft (e.g. VoicesForInnovation.org, which is owned by Microsoft).

Some Web site called “Rush PR News” (yes, PR) has already published an interview with Microsoft’s Doug Mahugh. It showed up among the ODF news immediately after the announcement, as though it had been prepared or arranged in advance. The reality if far from this PR (public relations) stunt:

Now you have Microsoft’s bellydancing and basically declaring that they, who sell the “best office suite on the market” (I don’t make that claim) will offer poor support on ODF because of product limitations. Am I the only one here feeling that Redmond is trying -again-to play games? Any additional information would be welcome at this stage, of course, but the market should pay close attention to this issue.

I have hailed and declared myself positively satisfied the inclusion of Microsoft in the ODF committees at the OASIS consortium. I have read the contributions of its employees and they were useful and constructive. This being said, Doug’s blog leaves me with an odd taste in my mouth.

To be frank, I feel that Doug has been looking for a way to tell us that Microsoft’s support of ODF will be crappy and that it was intended to be that way. I realize I have no substantial evidence of what I’m asserting here, but since when does Microsoft speak of the new features of MS Office with a sorry tone?

From The Register:

Even the European Commission questioned Microsoft’s intentions. After all, it had been dogged by less-than-pretty grumbles from a range of opponents about the software giant’s campaign to get its contentious Office Open XML (OOXML) document format approved as an international standard at the second time of trying.

EC regulators said they would investigate whether that announcement really did mean “better interoperability”, allowing customers “to process and exchange their documents with the software product of their choice”.

This latter article also mentions Doug Mahugh without mentioning the disgraceful things he did. These things should not be surprising because he’s coming from the same company that committed white-collar crimes in its pursuits for an ISO rubber stamp. It’s part of a much longer history of crimes and they probably learned not to be ashamed of it. Many people forget the past and the OOXML fiasco too — they reckon and hope — will be a crime that seemingly ‘expired’ due to age. Revisionism began a long time ago.

“Let’s Extend OOXML”

Charles-H. Schulz wrote this humorous post which compares Microsoft's illegal occupation of ISO to the Iraqi invasion (watch the picture). No shoes were being thrown, but some people reportedly lost their jobs.

Those accomplices from ECMA are still raising a toast to celebrate the corruption they were involved in [1, 2, 3, 4]. They do this in a new press release about OOXML. Talk about mixed messages and double standards…

Who covered this thing? Well, we recently found some court documents where Microsoft’s special arrangements with InformationWeek were vividly depicted (Vista advertising back in 2006). As such, we’re never surprised to find this publication peddling Microsoft’s not-so-news, which this time is being pushed forward by J. Nicholas Hoover. In the same set of court documents we find the ugly truth about Microsoft and Rob Enderle, who writes for or contributes to TGDaily sometimes. Well, TGDaily was among those who covered this unimportant ‘news’ as well. The only surprising coverage that we found actually came from Heise, which is a German publication. Since the country as a whole is embracing ODF they went on with the more apprehensive headline, which is “Microsoft details their ODF 1.1 implementation.”

Let’s be very clear here. This whole charade is geared towards one single goal:

To sell more Microsoft Office based on some label that says “ODF” and helps the Microsoft lobbyists/boosters pressure governments against/away from Free software

There are many office suites that support ODF right now and they are hardly proprietary. Lotus Symphony is based on OpenOffice.org and it turns out that another office suite, called PlusOffice, is coming to Apple Macs.

PlusOffice Mac is open-source software, and it shares code with OpenOffice.org.

It features the same applications included with OpenOffice.org – Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base and Math.

Over at his personal blog, Bob Sutor (of IBM) is taking a shot at the “interoperability” nonsense which we wrote about before.

I often find it amusing when people pull out a very significant sounding, obviously committee-written definition of “interoperability.” If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that the definition was written and then delivered on a stone tablet. Is this necessary, or is interoperability one of those things that you know when you see it?

[...]

With cloud computing becoming more and more important, people are correctly asking questions about standards. My sense is that virtually none of the cloud environments are interchangeable and that interoperability among them is sketchy, at best. Unless one provider ends up being overwhelmingly dominant, interoperability will need to be improved.

The timing of this blog post is probably no coincidence. So IBM is not entirely happy with Microsoft’s move, either; it’s just careful in the way it approaches the subject.

Lastly, speaking of Novell and its followers, they seem not to care about ODF. Those inside OpenSUSE seem to say almost nothing about it because if one works for Novell (as many people of OpenSUSE do), then one can get fired for being too blunt. Microsoft is top partner of Novell now and as was last shown yesterday, Novell had been helping OOXML.

“ISO Extinguished, Next Target Please”

Microsoft did the damage which has helped it so much since. And having ruined ISO (with a eulogy for those who are more cynical about it), they are still working on ruining OSI (ISO in reverse) and ‘extending’ Python with .NET. They move on from raping/changing standards and apply the same tactics to “open source”. We saw more signs of such things only a fortnight ago.

A change in licence to the Microsoft Public Licence moves IronPython out of the Shared Source Initiative and under the remit of an Open Source Initiative approved licence.

Microsoft embraces Python like a python embraces a gazelle and here is another recent explanation. They hope that people will rely on their short memories and they are well aware of people’s weakness for witty use of words.

Meanwhile, the Gartner-Intel-Microsoft axis is pumping up ‘whitepapers’ onto popular Web sites. It would be ‘dangerous’ if people discovered the truth, as opposed to some marketing exercise called a ‘whitepaper’. Whitepapers are notorious as tools for rationalising poor decisions. █

Additional, new & related links of interest:

• The Address Labels and CD / DVD Labels
• 2009 Yearly Calendar Collection
• OOo Conference Videos (2008)
• This Town is ‘OPEN SOURCE’ con

When we last looked at the demise of ISO, as expressed by blogs and evidenced through the mainstream press, there was not sufficient feedback from ISO itself. None of this has truly changed and the near-silence is deafening.

The word about ISO is being spread very quickly at the moment, mainly thanks to diplomacy at Norway, which tolerated the corruption less than anybody else (or any other country for that matter). There is a good roundup of the situation over at ComputerWorld (Boycott Novell is referenced as well) and in InformationWeek’s Microsoft blog, which is understandably apologetic about it.

Last week, 13 of 23 members of Norway’s International Standards Organization (ISO) committee resigned. They were resigning in protest to Norway’s official decision to favor Microsoft’s OOXML document format as an ISO standard, despite a “no” vote by 21 of 23 committee members. (Microsoft and Statoil were the Norway committee’s only two “yes” votes.)

A week earlier, IBM voiced dissatisfaction with the OOXML approval process, and threatened to leave ISO if the organization didn’t protect its decisions from “undue influence.” Now there is some concern that Microsoft is trying to take over the Open Document Format (ODF) process in an attempt to control or destroy its document-format competitor.

As always, the bad news for ISO and for OOXML is coupled by further progress for ODF. OpenOffice.org 3 is set to be released next week (October 14^th) and tomorrow Sun will release the fourth release candidate. In addition, SoftMaker supports ODF now.

Not only does it happily read or write Microsoft Office documents in all formats up to Office 2003/ XP (even password-protected Word files), but the suite also reads OpenOffice SXW and OpenDocument ODT files for maximum compatibility with other suites.

ODF awards will be coming soon. ODF is mostly in the hands of OASIS at the moment, so ISO’s (and ECMA’s) gutter-level reputation should have little or no influence — for now. █

“This was horrible, egregious, process abuse and ISO should hang their heads in shame for allowing it to happen. Their reputation, in my eyes, is in tatters. My opinion of ECMA was already very negative; this hasn’t improved it, and if ISO doesn’t figure out away to detach this toxic leech, this kind of abuse is going to happen again and again.”

–Tim Bray

To some people, the authority of a publication is important for indication of credibility (not that it's necessarily justified). It’s therefore worth mentioning that covered in Heise right now is an important new story. It’s about Microsoft seeking to gain greater control of ODF.

After a recent meeting of the SC 34 committee, the ISO/IEC group responsible for OOXML, Groklaw are reporting that they believe Microsoft are trying to take control of the Open Document Format (ODF), the uncontroversial open document format standard.

This has gone on for a long time, but Pamela Jones lined up the evidence very nicely. █

Guess what the SC 34 committee, the ISO/IEC committee responsible for OOXML, is up to now? I call it a takeover attempt of ODF, according to my reading of the published notes of the most recent meeting held yesterday, October 1st, and starring a document titled “Request to JTC 1 for alignment of OASIS and JTC 1 Maintenance Procedures.” Uh oh. That sounds polite, but it is what it is. An attempted coup. They have already sent a “Liaison Statement” to OASIS. Surrender or else, what? SC 34 asks JTC 1 “to establish with OASIS a synchronised mechanism for maintenance of ISO/IEC 26300 and to inform SC 34 of the outcome.” I gather they think they can do a better job of maintaining ODF than OASIS. What will JTC 1 do, do you think? You doubt they will hop on to this wonderful plan?

I gather the hope is, if the takeover were to succeed, that SC 34 would get to maintain ODF as well as Microsoft’s competing parody “standard,” OOXML. How totally smooth and shark-like. Under the guise of “synchronised maintenance”, without which they claim SC 34 can’t fulfill its responsibilities, they get control of everything. So utterly Microsoft. Microsoft yearns for interoperability, it seems. More like yearning for ODF’s air supply to be … well, you know.

[...]

Why do I say Microsoft, when this is SC 34? Look at this, will you? It has a list of participants in the July meeting in Japan of the SC 34 committee. The committee membership is so tilted by Microsoft employees and such, if it were a boat, it would capsize. In fact, I’d say it already has. Of the 19 attendees, 8 are outright Microsoft employees or consultants, and 2 of them are Ecma TC45 members. So 10 out of 19 are directly controlled by Microsoft/Ecma.

[...]

Mr. Durusau, Mr. Brown, and all you guys, listen up, please. That isn’t the goal. Microsoft being “more open” isn’t the appropriate end goal. If it’s your goal, you have utterly failed. The goal is a standard that anyone can use equally, a truly open standard, available to both proprietary folks and FOSS. Microsoft being “more open” but not really fully interoperable and always a little bit ahead of everyone else in its ability to use a “standard” is by no means enough. We’ve lived in that kind of Microsoft world a long time now. We don’t need “standards” that replicate it.