11.04.08
Posted in Courtroom, Finance, Microsoft, Novell at 9:18 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
THIS post is more of a history lesson, as opposed to actual commentary about any specific news. Novell’s legacy of payoffs from Microsoft is not so distant because only 2 years before the patent deal involving GNU/Linux got signed, there was this.
U.S. software giants Microsoft and Novell settled one of two lawsuits Monday, but Novell said it would file another lawsuit against Microsoft this week.
Here is another report about it. Microsoft paid Novell to settle after a “$3 billion-plus campaign.”
Microsoft (MSFT ) has taken another huge step in what has become a $3 billion-plus campaign to rid itself of the legal fallout of its 2002 settlement of an antitrust case brought by the U.S. government. Gates & Co. agreed on Nov. 11 to pay Novell (NOVL ) $536 million to resolve claims regarding Novell’s NetWare networking software.
Also from the same year, here is an article where Novell and Microsoft show their similarities, both expressing affinity for a mixed-source corporate identity [1, 2, 3, 4].
Microsoft, Novell share common belief
Although Waltham, Mass.-based Novell anticipates a mixed-software universe, not everything lends itself to open source, so there will be an evolution of products that run in mixed environments, Patrick said. “This may ultimately shift,” he said.
The more things change, the more they stay the same [1, 2]. These two companies reject software freedom, choosing a hybrid- and lock-in-based approach instead.█
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Posted in America, Courtroom, Law, Patents at 8:43 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Case closed, now what does this mean?
ONE question that has been asked regularly since the ruling was announced is: what impact — if any — does this have on software patents? According to extensive reading, it seems more or less agreed upon that software patents are affected too, but only to an extent.
For future reference, in addition to our older posts about the re Bilski decision [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], here are many more: [mostly via Digital Majority, which is an excellent resource]
1. In regards to In re Bilski
On the key question of when information becomes a machine, the ruling does provide some clues: “First, [...] the use of a specific machine or transformation of an article must impose meaningful limits on the claim’s scope to impart patent-eligibility. [...] Second, the involvement of the machine or transformation in the claimed process must not merely be insignificant extra-solution activity.” For more on extra-solution activity, have a look at my law review article (PDF) that focuses heavily on the idea.
2. Reactions to the Bilski decision begin to roll in
Not being a US patent attorney and not possessing any expertise in US patent law, I am not in a position to comment on the CAFC’s Bilski decision handed down yesterday. However, I do know a few people who are, so I have been in touch with them to get their reactions. Below is what I have had so far. I will continue to add to these until the beginning of next week (3rd/4th November will be the cut-off).
3. US court narrows scope for business method patents
“While looking for ‘a useful, concrete and tangible result’ may in many instances provide useful indications of whether a claim is drawn to a fundamental principle or a practical application of such a principle, that inquiry is insufficient to determine whether a claim is patent-eligible,” it said.
4. Bilski: Almost the Big One
The big question is what effect, if any, this decision will have on the current referral of a “point of law” concerning software patents by the President of the European Patent Office (EPO) to the EPO “Enlarged Board of Appeal”, something I wrote about earlier this week. It would be ironic if, at a time when the US courts begin to move away from patenting software “as such”, the EPO started allowing precisely that through a relaxation of its own rules.
5. So are software patents dead or not?
My opinion is that it’s going to get harder and harder to patent anything. Of course there will be a big push back from business, so this won’t happen over night, but I think the concept of patents will eventually disappear entirely.
6. US Court Throws Out Most Software Patents
The IT Examiner also observes that “Microsoft has a problem” and that “Much of the patent portfolio of some of the world’s biggest software companies has become worthless overnight, thanks to a ruling yesterday by the US patent court.”
7. Court Reshapes Patent Reform Debate
In a ruling with huge implications for the technology sector, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said Oct. 30 pure software or business method patents that are neither tied to a specific machine nor change something into a different state are not patentable.
8. In Huge Shift, Court Ruling Effectively Denies Software-Only Patent Rights
The case originally centered on a patent for “a method of managing the risk of bad weather through commodities trading”—which falls more under the “business process” bucket, but the same ruling effectively makes patenting a specific software process impossible. The previous ruling allowed such patents, so long as computers were involved and the process produced a “useful, concrete, and tangible result.” This ruling rejects that premise, favoring instead an older test that only allows patents for things involving an actual machine or a transformation of a tangible object into a different state.
9. Professor Collins: In re Bilski: Tangibility Gone “Meta”
Although they are both legitimate questions, this short comment addresses neither whether there is a legitimate statutory basis for this test nor whether Supreme Court precedent should be interpreted so as to mandate (or even support) this test. Rather, it focuses solely on the criteria that the court offers to draw the line between patentable and unpatentable transformations. The Federal Circuit has added a new twist to the tangibility test that has for many years played a role in determining patent-eligibility: the tangibility test has gone “meta.” The tangibility of the formal data that is actually transformed by a method of processing information is not relevant to patent-eligibility, but the tangibility of the things that the data is about—the tangibility of the informational content of the data or the things to which the data refers—now appears to be dispositive.
10. Bilski: What It Means, Part 1 — Red Hat on What It Means for FOSS
means to everyone: You can’t get patents any more on a pure mental process. You can no longer patent a process that you can think through all in your mind. In other words, abstract ideas are not patentable. There has to be either a particular machine or a transformation in the process. So pure “ideas” or “mental processes” are over. That means most business methods patents are no longer valid because they are outside the parameters of what is eligible for patenting. In simple terms, it means this:
The End for the stupidest of the stupid patents.
Yay! It means that the tide is turning. There could still be an appeal of Bilski, and even without one, there are ways to chip away at this decision’s new standard for patentability, to try to get over the new turnstile, so to speak, and strategies on how to do that have begun already. I’ve spent the days since the decision issued researching for you, so I can explain Bilski to you. There is too much material for just one article. So, I’ll break it up into parts. My purpose is to make sure you understand fully, so you can be helpful with your ideas and so you can explain this issue to others, so they understand what is involved for FOSS. If there are parts you don’t understand, ask. If I don’t know the answer, I can ask someone.
11. US patent ruling bodes well for tech
The case in question was rejected because the patent at issue was a process not tied to a “machine”, which is one standard for patentability.
[...]
“The standard articulated in this case should limit the outrageous business method and software patents that we have recently seen, without undermining the incentive to innovate in these areas.”
12. In re Bilski and the future of business method patents
Duffy stressed that the patent at issue in State Street, the 1998 decision that gave the OK to software and business method patents, would be fine and dandy under the new test—it’s just the test itself that changed. The court maintained the “core holding” of State Street, said Duffy, merely changing the “verbal formulation” required. (And the number of BM patents that will still be strong?—Many! Most! Almost all!)
13. CLE: How to Draft Software Claims under Bilski
Going forward, I do not believe that these limitations will have a significant impact on a skilled practitioner’s ability to patent software innovations.
14. Patent Court: You Can No Longer Patent Thin Air
In essence, the ruling means that business ideas in and of themselves aren’t patentable. In addition to Amazon’s “one-click” patent, which is the concept of purchasing something via credit card by just clicking a single website link, Friendster’s patents on social networking also come to mind as being unpatentable based on this judgement. That patent covers a “system, method and apparatus for connecting users in an online computer system based on their relationships within social networks” and a “method of inducing content uploads in a social network,” amongst other claims.
15. Federal Circuit Enforces Limit on Business Method Patents
The result: While the court did not categorically exclude business method patents, it held fast the idea that any method, whether business-related or not, must be tethered to a machine or some sort of physical transformation, says Stephen Maebius, a partner at Foley & Lardner.
16. Court limits ‘business method’ patents
The Stop Software Patents initiative has found a new video from the German television where the subject of sofwtare patents is covered.
German television 3sat has a reportage about software patents. A german programmer highlights that software patents ruin investment in software development.
Here is another new item which discusses both BM patents and SW patents, the context being patents relating to a marriage portal. █
“The best way to prepare to be a programmer is to write programs and to study great programs that other people have written.”
–Bill Gates, Free software advocate???
“Thanks to Mr. Gates, we now know that an open Internet with protocols anyone can implement is communism; it was set up by that famous communist agent, the US Department of Defense.”
–Richard Stallman
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Posted in DRM, Fraud, Law, Patents at 8:23 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“DRM is nearly always the result of a conspiracy of companies to restrict the technology available to the public. Such conspiracy should be a crime, and the executives responsible for it should be sentenced to prison.”
–Richard Stallman
ACTA is the worst thing since DMCA and it is, for a fact, far more severe than it. We covered this in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]. Behind the ACTA stands the “copyrights cartel,” as Dan Gillmor refers to it. It’s obvious what the problem is (or is not). What’s lesser known, however, is the impact which these abominable laws can have on patent trolls and their victims.
Here is an argument that ACTA may be fuel for patent trolls.
ACTA, a multi-lateral treaty currently being discussed secretly behind closed doors, might export the dangerous IPRED1 directive to the United States, which allow patent trolls in Europe to preventively freeze bank accounts of a company in case of “suspicion of infringement”.
Under this post, ACTA is called “cheap guns for patent trolls.”
According to a leaked document authored by the European Commission DG Trade, the secret ACTA treaty will reopen the debate on the liabilities of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) over content, as well as trying to achieve criminal sanctions in the EU under the French Presidency Sarkozy. France has already criminal sanctions for file sharers, and a law project on file sharing and “graduated response” has been recently passed the Senate. ACTA might also export the dangerous IPRED1 directive to the United States, which allow patent trolls in Europe to preventively freeze bank accounts of a company in case of “suspicion of infringement”.
Michael Geist has already written in protest of these inhumane laws, which are discussed with no consultation whatsoever with those who are affected and those who elected decision-making ‘elites’.
Earlier this year, many Canadians were taken aback by reports of a secret trade agreement that conjured up images of iPod-searching border guards and tough new penalties for every day activities. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, currently being negotiated by Canada, the United States, Japan, the European Union, and a handful other countries, generated sufficient public concern such that then-Industry Minister Jim Prentice specifically denied any links between the treaty and proposed new legislation.
While the ACTA debate has largely disappeared from the public radar screen, the negotiations continue. Over the summer, I reported about attempts to establish a private consultation committee composed of industry groups that excluded public interest organizations. The status of the consultation committee remains unknown, but my latest technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) reports on newly obtained documents [13 MB] under the Access to Information Act that provide additional insights into the secretive nature of the negotiations as well as the results of a limited public consultation conducted by the Department of Foreign Affairs in the spring
FFII has written to demand copies of these documents.
The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) has requested 12 secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) documents from the EU Council. Behind closed doors, the EU, US, Japan and other countries are negotiating ACTA. The negotiating parties plan on making the ACTA text public only after the parties have agreed to it.
This is a democracy? Surely it’s a farce where media companies privately conspire to take citizen’s dignity away. Fight the ACTA before it fights you. █
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Posted in Google, Microsoft, Search at 7:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Pitfalls in recruitment or suicidal tendencies?
AS THE Yahoo! saga continues (last summarised here), it’s beginning to see as though Microsoft’s presence inside the struggling Internet giant is almost being forced upon it.
Here is the latest addition, which Kara covered here.
About a month ago, BoomTown reported that MSN executive producer and general manager Jeff Dossett (pictured here) was contemplating joining Yahoo.
Microsoft (MSFT) released a statement that day saying Dossett was indeed stepping down from his MSN duties, as I had posted, but noted that he was staying put at the software giant.
Whilst Yahoo! seniors leave or get ejected (two new examples yesterday), it truly seems like the ones taken on board include Microsoft employees, which is a problem. It sure seems like they already ‘pollute’ Yahoo! with decision makers that are Microsoft people at heart. Would they join hand with Google or happily allow a takeover by their former employer?
Either way, according to the Wall Street Journal, the Yahoo/Google deal is not kaput, contrary to prior, premature reports. Despite Microsoft’s shameless attempts to single-handedly intercept the deal [1, 2, 3, 4], negotiations continue.
But now it seems that Google and Yahoo! have come back with another. Anything to avoid government oversight, it seems.
IDG has more details about that original report, which requires registration to access.
Yahoo and Google have revised the terms of their search advertising deal to ease concerns that have stalled its approval by the U.S. Department of Justice, according to a report on the Wall Street Journal’s Web site on Monday.
Under an agreement reached in June, Yahoo would run Google search ads on its own sites and the companies would split the revenue from them. It would bring Yahoo much-needed revenue as the company struggles to keep up in the advertising business. The companies voluntarily submitted the deal to the DOJ and delayed implementing it to wait for DOJ approval, which they haven’t yet received.
Here are some videos for more background on this. █
Swallowing Microsoft ‘poison pills’
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Novell, Windows, Xandros at 7:23 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Sitting on a free, K-I-S-S-I-N-G
A few days ago we pointed out Xandros' appearance at a Spanish show organised by Microsoft. They work alongside Microsoft now, at the exclusion of others. Here is the latest press release (appended at the bottom in full).
Microsoft TechEd — Xandros, the leader in making Windows and Linux work together, today announced an extended line of BridgeWays Management Packs that enable system administrators to monitor and manage 13 enterprise applications on Windows, Linux and UNIX from a single console.
Although it sounds extremely unlikely, one reader told us a few hour hours ago: “I just heard that Novell is designing the OS for Windows 7. I live in Provo Utah and heard it from an insider that Novell is designing it w/ a flavor of Linux. I guess that M$ even admits that NT is loaded w/ security and stability issues.” █
Xandros Announces Broad Series of Cross-Platform Management Packs at Microsoft TechEd Show
BARCELONA, SPAIN — 11/03/08 — Microsoft TechEd — Xandros, the leader in making Windows and Linux work together, today announced an extended line of BridgeWays Management Packs that enable system administrators to monitor and manage 13 enterprise applications on Windows, Linux and UNIX from a single console. BridgeWays Management Packs are designed to help extend the cross platform monitoring capabilities of the Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 to heterogeneous environments. Xandros today released a beta Management Pack for Oracle Database Server, together with updates to previous betas for Apache and MySQL. Developed under the broad collaboration agreement between Microsoft and Xandros, more cross-platform management packs will follow shortly, including IBM DB2 Database Server, Oracle Application Server, IBM WebSphere, JBoss, Tomcat, BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Sendmail, Postgres Database Server, Postfix, and VMWare ESX. The entire series of BridgeWays Management Packs for the Red Hat Enterprise server, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, UNIX, and Windows, will be released in sync with the general availability of the System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 release.
“Customers’ environments are often comprised of a variety of operating systems and applications, but they want a single solution for managing and monitoring across their Windows, UNIX and Linux infrastructures, such as is delivered by the beta of System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2,” said Larry Orecklin, General Manager, System Center and Virtualization Marketing at Microsoft. “By working closely with us and applying their expertise in open source, Xandros is playing a key role in extending the management benefits of System Center to heterogeneous environments and applications such as Apache, MySQL and now Oracle Database Server running on these various platforms.”
“Our initial cross-platform BridgeWays Management Packs received an overwhelming response from hundreds of enterprises, with requests to extend our services to most mission-critical services. We are proud to announce a broad-and-deep extension of our BridgeWays line to enable system administrators to centrally manage 13 key enterprise applications on heterogeneous platforms,” said Andreas Typaldos, CEO of Xandros. “Thanks to the cross platform monitoring capabilities in System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2, we are able to quickly go to market with management packs for a diversity of applications and platforms tailored to our knowledge of real-world customer experiences, gained during extensive beta tests.”
Showcased at Microsoft TechEd EMEA
The Management Packs betas for Oracle Database Server, Apache and MySQL, along with a preview of BridgeWays for VMWare ESX, are showcased at the Xandros stand, no. 6, in the Microsoft Systems Center Partner Pavilion at the Microsoft TechEd EMEA IT Professionals Conference in Barcelona, Spain, November 3-7. The beta software is also available as a free download for testing and review from the Xandros web site at https://shop.xandros.com/beta/bmp/index.php.
About Xandros
Xandros is the leader in enabling Linux and Windows to work together. The company’s enterprise products leverage an organization’s existing skill sets by providing seamless Windows-Linux interoperability. Scalix delivers award-winning Linux-based email, calendaring and messaging. BridgeWays management packs simplify managing mixed Windows, Linux and UNIX environments from one console. Custom, integrated netbook and application store solutions allow OEMs to get to market quickly with an end-to-end user experience. The company is headquartered in New York, with R&D offices in Ottawa, Frankfurt, Bracknell, and Mumbai, and sales and support offices worldwide. For more information, please visit www.xandros.com.
Xandros® is a registered trademark of Xandros, Inc. All other trademarks and/or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Xandros Media Contact:
Xenia von Wedel
Terpin Communications for Xandros
+1-415-595-2030
Email Contact
Customer service: +1-613-842-3494
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Posted in Africa, America, Finance, GNU/Linux, Hardware, Microsoft, OLPC at 7:05 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Sometimes attributed to Mahatma Gandhi
THEY have tried almost everything. Yes, Microsoft has already begun flinging away a 7-year-old operating system for a mere pittance, it offered its crown jewel software for just $3 in selected countries and some say that they already give Windows away for free. Dumping is how it started, with this example from South Africa, and later it descended to bribery of officials.
The practice is akin to Intel’s breaking of the law in order to destroy competition (kickbacks and collusion being just part of a broader issue), but this is not sustainable. It’s possible to suppress hardware companies, but Free software lives on and flourishes regardless.
Korea has been talking about (and also implementing) migrations to GNU/Linux for quite some time, but according to reports, Microsoft is now offering them benefits and money in exchange for commitment to Microsoft software.
Microsoft Against Free Software… But In Favor Of Paying Nations To Use Its Software?
With more and more countries aggressively moving to embrace free and open source software, it appears that Microsoft is using its own money to its advantage, such as with this agreement to hand over $60 million to South Korea to get it to use its software, rather than the alternatives.
Korea got a little ‘too’ GNU/Linux friendly, so Microsoft needed to respond. Korea is likely to put itself back in the same lock-in traps it’s desperate to avoid and escape (c/f references at the bottom).
There is an even bigger problem here. The cost of lock-in is not taken into consideration and Freedom (or independence) is neglected altogether, despite being an important factor . It was only days ago that Richard Stallman explained in his article–“Not Free at Any Price”–why permitting children to sell their freedom for a price (or discounts) is misguided. He even uses colourful analogies.
Teaching children to use Windows is like teaching them to smoke tobacco—in a world where only one company sells tobacco.
Microsoft has a strategy that relies on separation between technical and non-technical people, thus capitalising on selfishness and ignorance. Maybe they can corrupt some more Korean officials. They did, after all, sign a patent deal inclusive of Linux with a corrupt company [1, 2]. █
References
[1] South Korea, OSS License Guide Announced
The Guide explains how to strategically manage and utilize open source SW as well as what the open source SW is and how to use it. Explanation for GPL, an open source SW, published in June, 2007, is included in the Guide as well.
[2] Korean software firm sues Microsoft
According to Korean newspaper Chosun, the US software mammoth has been accused of causing a loss in sales revenue estimated at W30bn (US$1=W918) because the firm’s Windows operating system comes pre-loaded with a media player and instant messaging.
Seoul Central District Court confirmed yesterday that Digito was suing Microsoft in the US and Korea, claiming that the software giant had violated the Fair Trade Act since 2000.
[3] Motorola selling Razr2 phone in S.Korea
Motorola accounted for 11.5 percent of the Korean handset market as of the end of April. Samsung Electronics Co. held 55 percent and LG Electronics Inc. had 19 percent, according to Korea-based ATLAS Research Group.
[4] Korean court rebuffs Microsoft in patents case
Microsoft has taken another slap from the authorities in Korea, after a court decision in a patent dispure raised the prospect of Office being taken off the shelves in the country.
Microsoft said it was continuing to dispute the patent’s validity.
[5] Consumers in No Hurry for Vista Upgrade
In a survey of 4,144 members of Danawa.com, a price comparison site, only 14 percent of respondents said that they will immediately upgrade to the Vista platform when Microsoft releases it on January 30.
[6] Haansoft Teams Up with Redgate, Targets Linux Market in Asia
Haansoft said on Wednesday that it had teamed up with domestic security firm Redgate to reinforce security for ‘Asianux.’
[7] First phase of Korea’s open-source city is high success
Following the trend of open source adaptation in major cities worldwide, one of the major Korean cities, Gwangju Metropolitan City, successfully jumped onto the open source transition, receiving spotlight from related industry.
[8] South Korea’s ETRI develops advanced Linux desktop search system, puts end to erroneous results
On 21st, South Korean R&D firm ETRI announced that they have developed new Linux desktop search system, ‘antbear’. The antbear can analyze and run advanced text searches, producing more accurate results by precisely analyzing the search words.
[9] An open source development project ‘Winter of Code’ just got launched!
Soonseon Kwon, who runs KLDP (Korean Linux Documentation Project) said, “This is the first ever open source event in Korea and I hope it will serve as a good opportunity to promote the open source to Korean students. I also hope that both the students and resulting projects can put a positive effect on the open source community.”
[10] ‘Genome Project’ Led by Open Source HPC
The BLAST tool module is highly compatible to run on Linux platform with advantage of considerably faster result compared to running on other platform.
[11] RP, Asia give open source the space to expand wings
For instance, the South Korean government bought 120,000 copies of Hancom Linux Deluxe as early as 2002 in an effort to switch approximately 23 percent of its Microsoftbased desktops to open source.
[12] Korea’s HaanSoft to promote Asianux in RP
Asianux, a version of the Linux operating system, was developed by China’s Red Flag Software and has since been locally deployed and distributed by Japan’s Miracle Linux and HaanSoft, forming a regional open-source consortium.
[13] Koreans to showcase open source experience in Cebu summit
KIPA has been actively pushing open source use in government. One of its projects resulted in a local version of Linux (called Buyeo) now used in nearly 200 schools in South Korea.
KIPA is likewise working to make Linux more readily available to companies in Korea. It has publicly stated its goal to run 40 percent of servers in the country on open source.
[...]
Hansoft, meanwhile, will also be sending speakers to the conference. The company is one of Korea’s biggest software firms and has active participation in various open source projects, including Asianux, a Linux version targeted at Asian markets.
[14] South Korea to Fine Intel $25.4 Million for Trade Violations
South Korea’s antitrust regulator said Thursday it would order the Intel Corporation to pay 26 billion won ($25.4 million) for violating fair trade rules.
[15] Korean Government Writes Digital Textbook on Linux
The government-led Korean digital textbook project will adopt Linux. The Ministry of Knowledge Economy and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology of Korea announced their decision to choose the open software for digital textbook, the key project for the government’s digital education policy.
[16] Linux Foundation Opens Korean Office
The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that it is opening an office in Seoul, Korea. Kwangjei “Daniel” Cho, former senior director of Haansoft, Inc., will be the Linux Foundation director of Korea.
[17] A discouraging news for Korean open web movement
Open Web, a Korean web forum led by professor Kichang Kim of Korea University is best known for its fight against rampant use of Active X in Korea, lost a lawsuit against the KFTC (Korea Financial Telecommunication and Clearings Comittee). Professor Kim accused that the Korean government’s mandate on the use of Active X programs for the internet banking and other public web services should be lifted, as it is against fair trade and “overly favors technology from a single company (that is, Microsoft)”.
Professor Kim has also asserted that as many Korean netizens somehow grew to think that Active X is something they have to download anyway, many of them are exposed to security vulnerabilities. Also, as so many entities including virtually all financial institutes in the nation depend on Microsoft technology in Korea, whenever Microsoft announces an update, the whole nation has to upgrade its internet infrastructure, and this leads to various losses on a national scale – Kim asserted.
But Professor Kim’s year-long accusation fell short of convincing the court that the government mandate on the Active X is against fair trade and therefore is illegal.
[18] Haansoft to donate Linux based Hangul program to Daejeon City
The company provided 780 copies of the Linux-based Hangul 2005 to centers that house infants and small children through Childcare Center Association of Daejeon city.
[19] North, South Korea Unite Over Linux
The bitter political foes will team with China on the project, tentatively named “Hana Linux”
[20] Two Koreas Join Forces to Develop Linux
South and North Korea team up to develop a version of ‘Hana Linux (tentatively named)’ and set standards.
[21] ODF a National Standard in Korea
The proposal for ODF to be accepted as a Malaysian Standard by SIRIM, Department of Standards Malaysia and ultimately the Minister of Science, Technology & Innovation is dormant for more than a year now. Four months after the Malaysian proposal went to sleep, Italy made ODF a National Standard. Eight months after that, Korea has followed suit. With this Korean news, perhaps the Malaysian proposal will be awakened.
[22] Korea, No with comments to OOXML
Korean government concluded that OOXML is incomplete for ISO standards right now and suggested some of complements for that.
[23] The cost of monoculture
Korea will only get beyond this problem by 1) applying Korean laws on open standards to the certificate authorities, 2) reassigning new certificates which work with open web standards to all Koreans, 3) reprogramming all Korean websites to support 128 bit SSL which will allow for a heterogeneous marketplace of operating systems and web browsers. This is a herculean task and thus Korea stays hostage to Redmond.
Fascinating history. Unintended consequences and de-facto monopolies create costs too high to calculate and must be borne without question.
[24] Is MS Overcharging Koreans for Vistas?
Microsoft?s Windows Vista program is selling in South Korea at prices up to 70 percent higher than in the United States or Japan, with Microsoft blaming Korea’s immature market for the price difference.
[25] Korean government warns against Vista upgrade
The Ministry of Information and Communication said that it wished it could tell a private company like Microsoft to postpone the release of Vista, but it can’t. The best thing, an official said, was not to install Vista before you know what you’re getting into.
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