11.12.10

Links 11/11/2010: The Linux 2.6.37 FS Benchmarks, MPlayer Turns Ten

Posted in News Roundup at 10:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Clip of the Day

Jim Whitehurst on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

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Does Microsoft Really Have List of Patents GNU/Linux Supposedly Infringes?

Posted in GNU/Linux, IBM, Microsoft, OIN, Patents at 8:28 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Motorola is countersuing Microsoft and possibly wakes up the IBM patent beast, whose OIN pool grows larger; the chances seem slim when it comes to Microsoft in the mobile arena, so patent extortion moves forward

IN A HUGE debate which goes back to 2007, software freedom proponents confronted Microsoft after empty allegations that Linux was violating over 200 unnamed Microsoft patents. Microsoft explained that paperwork was the reason for lack of specifics, but to everyone else it seemed clearer that Microsoft was just ‘pulling a SCO’ by making empty allegations which it refused to back with evidence. This is a violation of the law in some places. Veiled threats, if tolerated as a phenomenon, can be exceptionally harmful.

Microsoft’s latest lawsuit against Linux (or a company selling Linux) picked the wrong target.

Motorola is now blasting Microsoft in response to Microsoft’s two patent-related attacks, which resulted from no provocation at all (Microsoft uses patents offensively, not defensively). Here are the details:

Motorola has countersued Microsoft, alleging infringement of sixteen patents by Microsoft’s PC and server software, Windows mobile software, and Xbox products.

On Wednesday, with a press release, Motorola said that its subsidiary, Motorola Mobility, filed suit against Microsoft in the US District Courts for the Southern District of Florida and the Western District of Wisconsin.

Yesterday in our IRC channels we talked some more about Microsoft’s foolish decision to take on Motorola. Oiaohm quietly pointed out that if one goes through IBM and Motorola press releases “You will see they work with each other closely.”

“Attacking Motorola is an indirect attack on IBM,” explained Oiaohm, “[s]omething I can expect the idiots in MS legal department of [overlooking.]”

“Yes, I know,” I replied, referring to their chips. Motorola and IBM probably share processor research, amongst other things.

“And a lot more,” Oiaohm expounded, mentioning a “joint anti patent aggression agreement.” As a reminder, IBM is the last company whose nest Microsoft would want shaken up. IBM is the dominant party behind the OIN, which has just grown a lot bigger with the parent company of SourceForce. Yes, Geeknet is joining:

Geeknet and Open Invention Network (OIN) today announced the signing of Geeknet as an OIN licensee. OIN’s mission is to enable and protect Linux. By becoming a licensee, Geeknet, the online network for the global geek community through sites such as SourceForge and Slashdot, has joined the growing list of companies that recognize the importance of participating in a substantial community of Linux supporters and leveraging the Open Invention Network to further spur open source innovation.

That’s from the new press release.

One press release of Motorola and IBM says: “IBM and Motorola are joining forces to accelerate the technology that will help automakers bring a variety of wireless and Web-based services to drivers and passengers worldwide. Announcing their strategic relationship today, the two companies will work together to provide the end-to-end resources that will help automakers offer next generation products and services to their customers.

“Motorola and IBM plan to combine their technologies, products and services for a joint approach to the auto manufacturers. By leveraging each other’s expertise and industry leadership, the two companies will establish an integrated approach to help auto manufacturers get the next generation of telematics products to market quickly and meet the growing customer demand for enhanced, in-vehicle communication/information/entertainment systems.”

“I want MS to push stupidly forwards,” wrote Oiaohm, “[a]nd trigger the Motorola-IBM agreement.”

An important observation worth making is that Microsoft is getting more vague or narrow wrt patents over time. First they alleged that SUSE GNU/Linux was violating patents (2006), with LG it was just Linux (2007), with Samsung it was Linux-related software (2007), and later it was just FAT (TomTom in 2009 and Motorola in 2010). The recent settlement deal which mentions OS patents vaguely says something about portfolio and does not mention Linux at all (2009, Salesforce).

“[T]he patent legal struggle could even lead to the iPhone being banned from sale in the US”
      –Benjamin Henrion, FFIIOver the past 4 years (since we started this site) Microsoft has been focusing on the use of software patents to stifle competition. It has also been using mobbyists to give the illusion of support from the public and/or from the industry at large. It’s just AstroTurfing and they still take Microsoft’s side, as expected (no hyperlinks needed).

Yesterday we wrote about Microsoft's struggle in the mobile market (it is failing yet again) and Charles Arthur, who last week wrote an article criticising software patents in the UK, says that “billions at stake in the smartphone patent wars,” which ought to explain all the aggression.

Billions of dollars are at stake for companies including Apple, Google, BlackBerry maker RIM, Nokia and Microsoft. The legal struggle could even lead to the iPhone being banned from sale in the US – if Nokia gets its way in one dispute that has gone to the International Trade Commission (ITC).

“More of this,” writes Benjamin Henrion from the FFII regarding the article above, “the patent legal struggle could even lead to the iPhone being banned from sale in the US” (whilst Oracle is suing to harm Android much to Apple’s convenience [1, 2, 3]).

Vista Phony 7 [sic] cannot really compete in this space, so Microsoft is looking for other ways of making money from it. Under the “Microsoft Death Watch” series Wayne carries on with the investigation that now comes to down to phones:

And here we have John Gruber saying that an insider told him that Microsoft only managed to sell 503 KIN phones. Business Insider also covered the sales numbers, with a lot of speculation on how many really sold, and coming up with numbers from 500 to 10,000, but suspecting that it was probably less than 1000. Microsoft of course, isn’t talking.

The exact number doesn’t matter. What matters is that the product didn’t sell well, and the phone Accessory Ecosystem got burned badly.

What lesson did the Accessory Ecosystem learn?

Simple. It’s more profitable to build accessories for IPhones and other Apple products than it is to build them for Microsoft phones.

Which makes me wonder how well the new Windows 7 phones are being supported with accessories? Not very well. A quick check on the website of a local Big Box retailer gives me a strong impression that the only accessories available for Windows 7 Phones are those that fit other phones (SD Cards, Bluetooth Headsets).

So what we have is a feedback loop. Since the last phone didn’t sell well, and the accessory makers got burned, they aren’t supporting the current phones, which means that sales of the current phones will suffer, because you can’t buy the accessories that you want.

We’ll end this post with the Identi.ca rant of John Drinkwater. The “lawsuit from Microsoft aimed at Motorola is maddening hypocrisy. Claims that Motorola is seeking royalties based on retail price of products (Xbox, Win7, WinPh7) rather than based on price of component software and hardware that actually relates to the patents,” he writes.

It is “exactly what Microsoft has been shaking HTC, Samsung, Motorola (et al) down for wrt Android, royalties around Free software,” John adds. “This is Microsoft showing what it does if you don’t ‘licence patents and pay fees’ around Android.” John tagged it #mafia #protectionracket and #motorola. On numerous occasions we have explained why it’s racketeering [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. Microsoft recently paid ACCESS/Acacia [1, 2, 3] and it will be interesting to see if ACCESS/Acacia attacks Linux and Android vendors in months to come. Acacia already has, reaching a settlement at best [1, 2, 3]. █

“It seems unfortunate if we do this work and get our partners to do the work and the results is that Linux works great without having to do the work. [...] maybe we could patent something related to this.”

–Bill Gates

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Microsoft XPS/Metro Appears to be Dead

Posted in Microsoft, XPS at 6:59 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: All signs indicate that Metro is just history, so XPS is no PS (PostScript) or PDF

A FEW years ago people started worrying about XPS, which was supposed to be Microsoft’s proprietary ‘PDF killer’. We opened a whole new category for XPS, only to be accommodated with 8 items as time went on, the last one going over a year back. What’s happening with XPS/Metro then? Despite looking closely at Microsoft news over the past year (close to 1,000 headlines/week) we found nothing about it. Google News currently yields nothing. It’s quite likely that it died faster than Silver Lie, but Microsoft never arranged a funeral or declared the death officially, e.g. with an announcement or a quick blog post. █

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IBM’s Rob Weir Argues TalkStandards.com is Fronting for Microsoft, Steve Mutkoski (Microsoft) to Lobby for Patented Standards at Transformational Government Workshop

Posted in Deception, IBM, Microsoft, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenDocument, OpenOffice, Patents, RAND, Red Hat, Standard at 6:25 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: As OpenOffice.org gets more independent and increasingly liberated (as LibreOffice), Microsoft is working to spread more pseudo-standards like OOXML

The Document Foundation has some announcement to make and Charles Schulz writes:

The Document Foundation has started the rewrite of OpenOffice Yes We Can!

Microsoft would love to eliminate OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice (even though it runs on Windows) and one way to harm OpenOffice.org is to use proprietary and patented ‘standards’ like OOXML. Software patents are the main thing which Microsoft has got left as rescuer of falling cash cows.

Occasionally we find Microsoft setting up Web sites that serve its agenda and sometimes Microsoft uses front groups like ACT to set up such Web sites (we gave examples before). It is part of the company’s reality distortion field, selling people the false impression that in Europe, for instance, there is demand for software patents. This is a textbook example of AstroTurfing. Now, we do not know if TalkStandards (TalkStandards.com) is indirectly Microsoft’s creation (Microsoft put writers there), but it has many pro-software patents writers posting over there so it’s like a stacked panel. They are RAND lobbyists, which we most recently wrote about in [1, 2, 3], in addition to many prior occasions.

Even Rob Weir from IBM is now giving his opinion about TalkStandards.com:

For a couple of years I’ve been trying to find a good way to share and discuss news, articles, blog posts, etc., about open standards. I’m not very pleased with the results.

[...]

Now, I suppose I could just give up and go over to TalkStandards.com and be instructed on open standards by the European counsel for the Business Software Alliance and read commentary by other members of the Microsoft claque. But if you know me, you know that won’t happen.

Red Hat’s Jan Wildeboer warns that “MSFT [is] explaining Open Standards in Washington DC. Should be fun to hear how they define Open Standards” (the page he links to is this one).

Watch the part which says “Steve Mutkoski, Microsoft”. For those who do not know, this man co-authored the Microsoft Open Specification Promise ("MOSP") which is utterly useless, e.g. for OOXML. Earlier this year we wrote that he was harming software freedom yet again because, based on LWN, “Steve Mutkoski of Microsoft [...] asserted that patented standards are entirely compatible with most open source licenses” (oh, this humour of mobbyists is the same, but they actually say it like they mean it).

In conclusion, Microsoft is still working to normalise software patents inside protocols and/or “standards”. Projects like Mono help this agenda. █

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Time for Congressional Action to Abolish Software Patents

Posted in America, Law, Patents at 3:02 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Congress should be given a compelling motive for review of software patents now that the Obama administration speaks out against patents on genetics

IN A RARE STEP, the Obama administration expressed its opposition to gene patents last month, as we last noted just days ago. Perhaps it is time to do the same by reassessing software patents from a high-authority point of view which has not any vested interests in patenting. That is a suggestion we made last week.

The 271 Patent Blog (by Peter Zura) has this interesting new post quoting: “The Court, per Justice Douglas, concluded the short opinion with a discussion of the then-raging debate on patenting computer programs. It quoted the Presidential Commission recommendation against patenting computer programs. It noted that “extending” the patent laws to cover “these programs” was a matter not for the courts but for Congress . . . Congressional action was not forthcoming. In the 38 years since Benson, Congress has not directly addressed patent eligible subject matter.”

And another recent one from the same blog has the title “Unbridled “Optimization” Term in Software Patent Claim Leads to Finding of Indefiniteness” [via Falk Metzler]. It says:

DRT sued defendants on patents directed to computer-implemented methods for retrieving information stored in databases without the need for human analysis of the source data. One of the claims in the patent recited a driver that automatically obtains information about the data structure of a data source “wherein said information about the data structure leads to optimization of a new database in which information from said first database is to be stored.”

Can anyone not see how ridiculous software patents have become? Even optimisation of code is now becoming a monopoly which is based on or can be reduced/abstracted to mathematical notions rather than implementation (copyright law already covers the latter). █

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EU Plan to Potentially Welcome Software Patents is Finally Defeated

Posted in Europe, Patents at 2:47 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: A proposal which would have opened a door to expansion of bad patent laws is now scrapped, but politicians will carry on trying other routes to make their lobbyists happy

CONTRARY to common belief, software patents are still a problem in Europe. The president of the FFII, Benjamin, is probably the best person to ask about that. He lives in Belgium, where many of the lobbyists — including Microsoft’s — roam. This includes lobbyists whose recent role was to pass something that’s called “EU Patent” (and other such terms/words, usually euphemisms). It’s the latest sheep clothing for one heck of a wolfish law.

Benjamin rarely expresses personal opinions in Twitter (he links to articles of interest instead), but here he is confessing:

As a Belgian citizen, I feel ashamed of the Belgian Presidency unable to defend language diversity in patent matters.

Benjamin must be referring to Vincent Van Quickenborne when talking about the Belgian presidency. Vincent has recently been one of the leading “useful idiots” of patents lawyers and other patents-lusting entities like Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4]. Fortunately, however, Benjamin wins this round in Belgium as the EU patent get scrapped and Vincent starts pointing fingers:

Brussels – Efforts to break a 10-year deadlock on the creation of a single European Union patent foundered Wednesday, as the bloc’s presidency declared it impossible to get all 27 EU members on board.

‘We have left no stone unturned, and although we have made progress, we have fallen short of unanimity by the smallest margin,’ Belgian Industry Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne said.

The EU presidency representative spoke after six-and-a-half-hours of inconclusive talks in Brussels.

Vincent Van Quickenborne is the person who is quoted the most in articles about this subject. EU Council Press put it succinctly like this:

“@VincentVQ: We’ve left no stone unturned. (…but) we’ve fallen short of unanimity by just a small margin” http://bit.ly/aobks6

The above links to a video which Free software users cannot even view. Well done, europa.eu. Thanks for being so inclusive.

The president of the FFII (Benjamin) proceeds to arguing that:

The patent establishment will try again to get an EU patent, but this time I will make sure we request a new software directive. Stay tuned!

Yes, they have been doing this over and over again for years. Other “useful idiots” (Vincent does not seem so malicious, he is just misguided or heavily lobbied) include Barnier [1, 2, 3] and McCreevy.

Benjamin then writes to Vincent:

Don’t blame Italy, they were just defending fundamental rights. Language discrimination is forbidden by the ECHR, patent law incl

Spain too helped block this:

Italy and Spain block EU-wide patent talks

Italy and Spain dug in their heels Wednesday (10 November), tripping up negotiations to create a single patent to protect the design of products sold in the European Union.

Our gratitude goes to Italy and Spain.

After those secret/private meetings in Europe people who were involved in pro-EU Patent agenda should be shamed of themselves. They may think that they help Europe, but they are doing the exact opposite while serving foreign nations whose lobbyists they must be made deluded by. The main pseudo-’selling point’ behind the EU Patent is language, but as Benjamin puts it:

Language discrimination is forbidden by the ECHR, patent included. Lisbon treaty is not even consistent within itself.

People should write their patents (if they really must) in their own language, not write to satisfy the USPTO, which wants English, obviously. Standardising on English is fine for many things, but in this case it is also a facilitator of colonisation (through patent monopolies).

In summary, opposers of software patents can celebrate for another month of two before the same people who have pushed for software patents in Europe for years (e.g. Microsoft pressure group ACT) try again, possibly with new gullible/corruptible politicians. Here is the response of a patent guy, Axel H. Horns [1, 2], as well something from the FFII Eurobot:

Proposal for a Council Regulation on the translation arrangements for the European Union patent – Political orientation http://bit.ly/9SIrwU

Those translations are a bridge to control by any country whose language is chosen as default one. It probably would never be Germany of France, whose economies are some of Europe’s largest. Heck, it probably would not even be a European country at all (English no longer belongs just to the English). █

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Mono is for Microsoft and Microsoft F# Loves Miguel de Icaza

Posted in Microsoft, Mono, Novell at 1:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Another way of using Mono to make Microsoft stronger is found and Miguel de Icaza brags about it

ANYONE still doubting that Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza really works for Microsoft should check out his latest blog post, which Phoronix summarises as follows:

In this blog post by Miguel he shares that F# support will now be distributed by Mono for Linux and Mac OS X. There will also likely be F# support for Google’s Android and the Nintendo Wii too, which are other platforms supported by Mono, and that there may possibly be F# support for other Mono platform targets like the Apple iPhone and Sony PlayStation 3.

He spreads Microsoft to other platforms and ignores the bad consequences. It is valuable to his career as a Microsoft booster and he gets Microsoft interviews this way. █

“In summer of 1997, he [Miguel de Icaza] was interviewed by Microsoft for a job in the Internet Explorer Unix team (to work on a SPARC port), but lacked the university degree required to obtain a work H-1B visa.” — Wikipedia

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Security Problems in iOS and Windows

Posted in Apple, Microsoft, Security, Windows at 1:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Ways in which proprietary operating systems (even with excessive restrictions) get exploited and therefore cannot be kept under control by their users

SOFTWARE that contains code which cannot be audited is less likely to be secure. Many security folks agree on this point. Well, rather than use Linux as Apple engineers were about to do (Steve Jobs reportedly vetoed), Apple chose to pick code it need not contribute back to when building iOS, one of the world’s most restrictive platforms. Just because iOS is as locked down as a nail on a coffin does not make it secure, either. Appleʼs iOS dials calls without warning, researcher asserts” and an original post says:

I feel the risk posed by how URL Schemes are handled in iOS is significant because it allows external sources to launch applications without user interaction and perform registered transactions. Third party developers, including developers who create custom applications for enterprise use, need to realize their URL handlers can be invoked by a user landing upon a malicious website and not assume that the user authorized it. Apple also needs to step up and allow the registration of URL Schemes that can instruct Safari to throw an authorization request prior to yanking the user away into the application.

Apple has not managed to make the platform secure by expelling everything from it (except the list of “apps” that Apple approves). Kevin Lynch has just alleged that Apple is lying about its reasons for blocking Adobe Trash (Flash):

Last week, critics hammered Adobe over a report showing that Flash drained the new MacBook Air’s battery life by several hours. It’s not the first time Adobe has been in fisticuffs with Apple: the companies have been duking it out ever since Steve Jobs began ridiculing Flash and touting its alleged-killer, HTML5. Today, in an interview with Fast Company, Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch answered critics who might say HTML5 is somehow more efficient than Flash.

Irrespective of whether Apple is lying or not, Adobe Trash needs to go away. It’s a sore spot and it does not belong on the Web. But the point to be made here is that Safari is not secure, with or without Trash. Apple just cannot really use “security” as an excuse for blocking potentially millions of applications (or “apps” as Apple likes to call them, as if “applications” is too big a word for its clients to memorise).

Over at Microsoft’s side of things, “Stuxnet attack unleashes a torrent of SCADA hacks”:

Intelligence agencies and private cybersecurity companies worldwide are scrambling to reinforce online defenses against a tsunami of malware directed at online industrial control systems in the wake of a successful attack on Iran’s uranium enrichment plants by the Stuxnet worm.

Demand for experienced Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition software experts in the IT security marketplace now has reached record levels, according to various sources.

The sophistication and apparent effectiveness of the Stuxnet worm served as a reminder that national intelligence agencies can deploy formidable attacks when they focus their energies on a single target and do so knowing that their assaults probably will be traced back to their source.

More links about Stuxnet can be found in the links below. █

1. Ralph Langner Says Windows Malware Possibly Designed to Derail Iran’s Nuclear Programme
2. Windows Viruses Can be Politically Motivated Sometimes
3. Who Needs Windows Back Doors When It’s So Insecure?
4. Windows Insecurity Becomes a Political Issue
5. Windows, Stuxnet, and Public Stoning
6. Stuxnet Grows Beyond Siemens-Windows Infections
7. Has BP Already Abandoned Windows?
8. Reports: Apple to Charge for (Security) Updates
9. Windows Viruses Can be Politically Motivated Sometimes
10. New Flaw in Windows Facilitates More DDOS Attacks
11. Siemens is Bad for Industry, Partly Due to Microsoft
12. Microsoft Security Issues in The British Press, Vista and Vista 7 No Panacea
13. Microsoft’s Negligence in Patching (Worst Amongst All Companies) to Blame for Stuxnet
14. Microsoft Software: a Darwin Test for Incompetence
15. Bad September for Microsoft Security, Symantec Buyout Rumours
16. Microsoft Claims Credit for Failing in Security
17. Many Windows Servers Being Abandoned; Minnesota Goes the Opposite Direction by Giving Microsoft Its Data
18. Windows Users Still Under Attack From Stuxnet, Halo, and Zeus
19. Security Propaganda From Microsoft: Villains Become Heroes

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