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05.27.15

Links 27/5/2015: Fedora 22 is Out, Mandriva Liquidated

Posted in News Roundup at 5:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Open Source Innovation: What’s In and What’s Out

    Open source innovation has not only revolutionized the software and biotech industries — it’s completely changed the way we think about creativity. To be derivative is now a form of being creative. That is, in order to do something new, we don’t have to build something new — we can use existing and emerging forms, made available through open access, and do something new with them. This promotes a democracy in the innovation game: with open source services, there is no discrimination against persons or groups or against fields or endeavors.

  • 4 steps to creating a thriving open source project

    Andrey Petrov spoke at a Sourcegraph open source meetup about lessons learned from his successes and failures creating open source projects.

  • Google turns its Android font Roboto into an open source project

    Designed by Christian Robinson, the Roboto font files were first released in 2011 under the Apache license. Now, the company is organizing the files and the font production toolchain into a fully realized open source project on Github.

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Downgrading to stable

      The system works fine otherwise and can be accessed via ssh, but restarting kdm doesn’t help to fix it, it just changes the pattern. Anyway, as explaining a toddler he cannot watch his favourite youtube cartoons because suddenly the computer screen has become an abstract art work is not easy I quickly decided to downgrade.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Richard Stallman Says He Created GNU, Which Is Called Often Linux

      Richard Stallman is the President of the Free Software Foundation and also the founder of GNU or GNU’s Not Unix! operating system that contains only free software. One of his constant claims is that GNU/Linux is a misnomer and that it shouldn’t be used. In fact, he’s now saying that the GNU operating system is often called Linux.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Researchers to track down obstacles to digital DIY

      An EU-funded research project wants to find regulations and other obstacles that hinder digital Do-It-Yourself companies. A consortium of universities and research institutes in Manchester, Milan, London, Thessaloniki and other cities intends to help small enterprises benefit from digital DIY, help policy makers and prepare teachers and educators.

    • Open Data

      • Open Government and geo-data infrastructures at AGIT 2015

        One of the themes at the AGIT 2015 conference will be Open Government and geo-data infrastructures. According to the organisers, the availability of standardised open government services has increased the importance of government geo-data infrastructures, taking the opportunities for using geo-information to a new level. Discussions will focus on questions like what value can be created by building a European ‘spatially-enabled society’ as part of the European knowledge society, and what are the challenges and prospects with regard to cloud computing.

      • How open data is transforming the business landscape

        Despite pledges by the G7 and G20 to boost transparency by opening up government data, fewer than 8% of countries publish data sets in open formats and under open licences on public sector budgets, spending and contracts.

    • Open Hardware

      • Hubble delivers a more affordable 3D laser cutter

        Hubble is an open source, mid-level laser cutter designed to be affordable, versatile, and hackable. Hubble was created to fill the current gap between amazing, entry-level projects, like MicroSlice, and the expensive, proprietary laser cutters on the market.

  • Programming

  • Standards/Consortia

Leftovers

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Stop Feeding the Troll: The Case for an ISIS Propaganda Blackout

      Now, there’s no actual evidence that any of this is anything more than deranged ranting, yet here we are: Millions of casual news observers who scrolled through western media this weekend came away thinking ISIS is plotting to acquire a nuclear bomb, kill the president and prostitute his wife.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Finance

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • EU dropped plans for safer pesticides after pressure from US

      EU plans to regulate hormone-damaging chemicals found in pesticides have been dropped because of threats from the US that this would adversely affect negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), according to a report in The Guardian. Draft EU regulations would have banned 31 pesticides containing endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) that have been linked to testicular cancer and male infertility.

      Just after the official launch of the TTIP negotiations on 13 June 2013, a US business delegation visited EU officials to demand that the proposed regulations governing EDCs should be thrown out in favour of a further “impact study.” Minutes of the meeting on June 26 show Commission officials saying that “although they want the TTIP to be successful, they would not like to be seen as lowering the EU standards.” Nonetheless, the European Commission capitulated shortly afterwards.

  • Privacy

    • Glenn Greenwald, I’m sorry: Why I changed my mind on Edward Snowden

      I was wrong. So was most of the media

    • New surveillance laws must have full public debate, say top UK academics

      A group of 35 top academics have published an open letter calling on the UK government to ensure “the Rule of Law and the democratic process is respected as UK surveillance law is revised.” This comes in response to the UK government previously turning to draft “Codes of Practice” and “clarifying amendments” to extend its surveillance powers, rather than using primary legislation that is subject to full parliamentary and public debate. Interestingly, the letter includes signatories both for and against such extensions, working in the fields of law, media, policy, and technology.

  • Civil Rights

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Last chance for MEPs to save Net Neutrality?

      The negotiations on Net Neutrality comes to the end in June with next and probably final trialogue expected on 2nd of June. Until now, the different documents received from the negotiations1 have shown a very weak position of the Members of European Parliament (MEPs), abandoning the improvement on Net Neutrality that had been brought by the previous legislature. If the MEPs do not take this last chance to save Net Neutrality, it would have a critical impact on the way Internet is functioning, on the citizens’ fundamental rights and on further regulations adopted within the so-called Digital Single Market.

    • How people power took on big business in the fight for net neutrality in India

      At the 2014 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Jan Koum, chief executive of WhatsApp, made an announcement that would cause much unease 4,000 miles away in New Delhi. “We want to make sure people always have the ability to stay in touch with their friends and loved ones really affordably,” he said. “We’re going to introduce voice on WhatsApp in the second quarter of this year.”

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Court Order Forbids ‘Poor Pirate’ To Use BitTorrent

        A federal court in Oregon has signed off on a highly peculiar judgment against a Dallas Buyers Club pirate. Citing “financial hardship,” the woman doesn’t have to pay the $7,500 in costs and fees as long as she promises not to download any infringing material in the future, and removes any and all BitTorrent clients.

      • Rightscorp Offered Internet Provider a Cut of Piracy Settlements

        Rightscorp, the piracy monetization company that works with Warner Bros. and other prominent copyright holders, goes to great lengths to reach allegedly pirating subscribers. The company offered Cox Communications a cut of the piracy settlements if they agreed to forward their notices, the ISP revealed in court.

05.26.15

Patent Scope at the EPO is Totally Out of Control, UPC Will Make Things Worse

Posted in Europe, Patents at 5:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“Staff at the European Patent Office went on strike accusing the organization of corruption: specifically, stretching the standards for patents in order to make more money.

“One of the ways that the EPO has done this is by issuing software patents in defiance of the treaty that set it up.”

–Richard Stallman

Summary: A look at the practical issues with the EPO, where patent scope and litigation scope have been vastly extended so as to benefit multinational corporations and possibly patent trolls

TECHRIGHTS has spent almost a decade criticising the EPO for practices that in no way benefit Europeans. Submissions to officials, ombudsman etc. have been prepared as well, usually to no avail because people in power are nearly unstoppable. Sooner or later they get what they want, unless there is some kind of a huge scandal or a revolution.

Dr. Glyn Moody, who focuses on multinationals’ trade agreements these days, spotted this alert about Monsanto expecting to receive 30 European patents on food plants, whereupon he wrote that the EPO had already gone the wrong way again (expansion for the sake of expansion, despite being a public institution, funded by taxpayers). Clearly that’s the case, as just about anyone can see, but here we see not only software patents but also genetics being patented for the sake of monopoly (from abroad) on food, hence taxation of foods consisting of certain basic ingredients. “Last month,” Moody noted, “we wrote about the strange case of unpatentable plants becoming patentable in Europe thanks to a decision from the European Patent Office’s Enlarged Board of Appeal.”

“That cleared the way for companies to obtain such patents, and according to this post on the “no patents on seeds” site — I think you can probably work out where its biases lie — that’s about to happen,” Glyn Moody wrote.

“This can be some products from entering Europe as a whole (continental embargo).”Things are about to get significantly worse when the EPO gains even more power, let alone gets the power to enforce patents through a Europe-wide court which limits the impact of nations’ sovereign law and appeals systems, never mind the interests of individual citizens in each nation (the nations are economically different, so their interests with regards to patents vary a great deal).

Based on some recent bunch of posts from IP Kat, with opposition to the UPC growing weak (e.g. Italy's opposition falling) there are changes underway in the appeals system and the EPO goes ahead pushing for the UPC [1, 2, 3]. It is already presumed inevitable, the only unknowns now are some pertinent details, such as: “will it be more expensive than current litigation before national courts or does it represent value for money?”

“Passage of power to fewer hands (those handling the patent system) is going to facilitate a transfer of power to fewer globalists who are using such systems for protectionism.”The issue with the Unitary Patent is often misunderstood. This isn’t a stance against union or harmony. This isn’t a stance against the European Union. Currently, different member states have their own laws for specific reasons, some being historical or pertaining to the local industry and its interests, based on import/export. The UK, for example, has got UK-IPO. The Unitary Patent Court would take a lot of this away. It would enable litigation to be done Europe-wide, assisting the likes of Samsung and LG from Korea, Apple and Microsoft from the US, Siemens from Germany and Philips from Holland. This can be some products from entering Europe as a whole (continental embargo). Cui bono? Small companies are not going to be able to afford or bear the rising costs of patents and the totality of patents — areas of work where implementation is verboten or subjected to taxation — will only grow. This means that just like globalisation, which cheapens the vast majority for the benefit of the rich minority worldwide, a centralised system would invite abusers, who shall extort more companies in more nations, using just one patent and one single ruling. The myths about innovations and globalisation intersect (or collide); when people wrongly assume the patent system to be about resources rather than monopoly (or restriction on action, resources, etc.) it is too easy to be fooled by rhetoric. Passage of power to fewer hands (those handling the patent system) is going to facilitate a transfer of power to fewer globalists who are using such systems for protectionism. Monsanto is just one of many. █

Links 26/5/2015: Reviews of Kubuntu 15.04, Linux 4.1 RC5

Posted in News Roundup at 5:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Linux and Windows Are Heading Towards a War That Microsoft Will Lose

    The “battle” between Windows and Linux is more of a fictional one, and it has been raging on for the past couple of decades. It wasn’t really a battle, despite what each side was saying, but that will undoubtedly change when Linux clearly becomes a force to be reckoned with.

  • A Linux proud history – 15 years ago and the Brazilian ATM

    The history i want to share with you is how that “marble Tux” happens. Yes, it was a production machine that you see in the picture and was running in every place in Brazil for at least 10 years.

    So, a 25 years old boy, in this case me, the guy typing now, who was working in a ILOG graphical toolkit partner suddenly decide to look for Linux jobs, it was out of university for 1 year, but was already infected for the open source and Linux for more than 3 years, and thought it can be done.

  • Nitpicking Linux

    If you present someone to the Linux world as GNU/Linux, you spend the next fifteen minutes trying to explain GNU. It’s difficult to explain in just a few minutes, it’s difficult to pronounce and it confuses the new Linux user. However, I make it a practice to bookmark websites that explain what GNU is and why it’s critical to Linux, and I tell people why it’s important to read about the subject when they have time.

  • The CompuLab Fitlet Is A Neat Little Linux PC With AMD SoC

    Earlier this year CompuLab announced the Fitlet PC as a tiny, fanless, Linux-friendly PC. The Fitlets are finally starting to ship at scale and recently I received one of the AMD-powered Fitlets that’s preloaded with Linux Mint. Here’s a quick look at the Fitlet.

  • CoreOS becomes available in OpenStack App Marketplace: Linux Wrap
  • CoreOS Linux is in the OpenStack App Marketplace

    Today at the OpenStack Summit in Vancouver, we are pleased to announce that CoreOS Linux – the lightweight operating system that provides stable, reliable updates to all machines connected to the update service – is included in the OpenStack Community App Catalog.

  • Desktop

    • Xolo Chromebook: Handy device for enterprises

      Google Chrome OS has been developed on the Chrome browser which has become hugely popular and successful. Google, which has also made the OS capable of running Android apps and games, recently launched three Chromebooks (laptops that run on the Chrome OS) made by three different manufacturers in India targeted at different segments of consumers with attractive price tags. Here’s a peek under the hood of Xolo Chromebook, priced at Rs. 12,999.

  • Server

    • Contain(er-ize) yourself, it’s Intel Clear Linux

      Intel explains that its aim was NOT to make ‘yet another general-purpose Linux distribution’; and so, as such, while it has included ‘many’ software components from the OpenStack Foundation, but it chose (among other decisions to cull) not to include a GUI or printing support.

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • Xfce’s Power Manager Is Finally Ported To GTK3

      The xfce4-power-manager 1.5.0 update is a big release! Xfce4-power-manager 1.5.0 is ported over to using the GTK3 tool-kit rather than GTK2, has also been ported to using GDBUS, has dropped its LXDE panel plug-in with upstream focusing upon LXQt, and there’s also various other improvements with this new Xfce power manager release.

    • xfce4-power-manager updated to 1.5.0

      Xfce4-power-manager version 1.5.0 was released today and I have updated that for rawhide and F22. Apart from bug fixes, there are one or two nice UI changes (shown in the screenshots).

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Interview with Griatch

        I’ve known about Krita for a long time, I might have first heard about it around the time I started to complement my GIMP work with MyPaint for painting. Since I exclusively draw in Linux, the open-source painting world is something I try to keep in touch with.

      • Hitting the ground running

        Today is officially the first day of coding for this year’s Google Summer of Code. For the next three months I will be working on bringing animation to Krita. There’s a lot of work ahead, but I have a solid plan to work with.

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Distributions

    • Why a Rolling Release Model is the Way to Go for Any OS

      In the last year or so, I’ve noticed that rolling-release distributions are becoming more and more popular among Linux users, and even big names like Ubuntu are considering the switch to a rolling update development model, but I think all operating systems should use the rolling release model.

    • New Releases

    • Red Hat Family

    • Debian Family

      • Plex Home Theater 1.4.1 for Debian Jessie and Sid

        Recently Plex Plex Home Theater was updated to 1.4.1 with fixes for some errors, in particular concerning the new music handling introduced in 1.4.0. As with 1.4.0, I have compiled PHT for both jessie and sid, both for amd64 and i386.

      • Debian/TeX Live 2015 preparations

        I have uploaded a preliminary version of the texlive-bin based on the 2015 sources (plus the first fixes) to the Debian archive, targeting experimental. As there are four new packages built from the sources (libtexlua52, -dev, libtexluajit2, -dev) the packages have to go through the NEW queue, which at the moment is an impressive 500+ entries long (nearly top in total history). But ftp-masters are currently very active and I hope they continue for some time.

      • Reproducible builds: week 4 in Stretch cycle

        Lunar rebased our custom dpkg on the new release, removing a now undeed patch identified by Guillem Jover. An extra sort in the buildinfo generator prevented a stable order and was quickly fixed once identified.

      • Derivatives

        • Parsix GNU/Linux 7.0 Will Reach End of Life on June 14 to Make Room for Parsix 8.0

          The Parsix Project has recently announced that their Parsix GNU/Linux 7.0 (Nestor) distribution will reach the end of its life support in the coming weeks, urging users to upgrade to Parsix GNU/Linux 7.5 (Rinaldo) as soon as possible.

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu Touch to Get Improved Desktop Mode with Next Update

            Canonical is preparing a major new update for Ubuntu Touch, but it will take a while until it’s going to be ready. From the looks of it, the devs are preparing some interesting improvements and updates.

          • Ubuntu Powers Self-Driving Tesla Model S Modified by Bosch

            Ubuntu can be used for almost any task you can imagine and that includes powering a Boss-modified Tesla Model S so that it can run autonomously.

          • Dell Now Has Ubuntu Installation Tutorial on Its Website

            Dell is one of the biggest companies that sell PCs preinstalled with Ubuntu, and now they are also featuring a tutorial on how to install Ubuntu on your Dell machines.

          • GPS Navigation Coming to Ubuntu Touch

            One of the apps still missing from Ubuntu Touch is one that provides GPS navigation. Well, if you are an Ubuntu user that really needs this functionality, then you will be glad to know that an app called GPS Navigation is currently being developed.

          • Apport Exploits Closed in All Supported Ubuntu OSes

            A couple of Apport vulnerabilities have been found and fixed in Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

          • Canonical on the cusp of becoming a public traded company

            Since 2004, when Ubuntu was launched, Mark Shuttleworth, its founder, has been paying privately to keep Canonical (Ubuntu’s parent company) alive. While Canonical as a whole has been unprofitable, its OpenStack cloud division has become profitable. Based on this Shuttleworth has been contemplating whether Canonical should become publicly traded.

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Review: Kubuntu 15.04 “Vivid Vervet”

              This month has been quite busy for me with classes. Now that the semester is finally over, I have a little more time, and that means I have enough time to do a review. It has been a few years since I’ve reviewed Kubuntu, the officially-supported variant of Ubuntu that uses KDE. Moreover, Kubuntu now features KDE 5 (I know the KDE naming and numbering system has become a lot more complicated, so this is, as a physicist might say, an intentional abuse of notation) as stable for the first time, so I figured I should try this version. I tried it as a live USB made with UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see what it’s like. (It should become progressively clearer through this review why there are no pictures.)

            • Exploring Kubuntu 15.04

              Kubuntu Kubuntu is an official Ubuntu community project which releases new versions in step with the rest of the Ubuntu community. Kubuntu ships with KDE’s Plasma desktop by default, offering users the latest technology to come out of the KDE project. Kubuntu’s most recent release, version 15.04, is the first to ship with Plasma 5 and this is also the first version of the distribution to ship with systemd as the default init technology. The distribution’s release announcement states, “Plasma 5, the next generation of KDE’s desktop, has been rewritten to make it smoother to use while retaining the familiar setup. The second set of updates to Plasma 5 are now stable enough for everyday use and is the default in this version of Kubuntu.”

            • elementary OS “Freya” Finally Gets Custom Keyboard Shortcuts

              elementary OS “Freya” has been out for some time now, but developers are still adding features to it despite the fact that it has been dubbed stable. Now, users have the option to define custom keyboard shortcuts, which was a very sought after feature.

            • Elementary OS 0.3 Freya Has Received A New Option, Permitting The Users To Create Custom Keyboard Shortcuts

              Elementary OS 0.3 Freya has received a new option that permits the users to define their custom keyboard shortcuts, a feature which has been long awaited by the community.

            • Pre-order Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela
            • How to turn your old PC into a modern media center with Kodibuntu

              We will be using Kodibuntu, a Linux based operating system with sole purpose of giving you a modern HTPC features and interface. The goal of this tutorial is to help you in building a standalone, multi purpose media center which you can control from your smartphone, tablet or PC.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Introducing Tessel 2, a $35 Open-Source IoT Development Board That Runs Linux

      After having introduced you to the Lemon Pi single computer board, today we are happy to present Tessel 2, a development platform created by Technical Machine and designed from the ground up to be embedded in a product.

    • FPGA add-on boards support Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black

      Newark Element14’s new ValentFX Logi-Pi and Logi-Bone FPGA add-on boards for the Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone Black feature Arduino and PMOD hooks.

      We first covered the Logi-Pi and Logi-Bone Logi-Boards back in Sept. 2013 when ValentFX showed off prototypes at the New York Maker Faire. The Logi-Boards, which integrate Xilinx SPARTAN-6 XC6SLX9 FPGAs, and plug into the Linux-based Raspberry Pi or BeagleBone Black hacker boards, respectively, have now reached market, thanks to a partnership with Newark Element14. ValentFX and Newark have also launched a $45.48 Logi-Edu educational board add-on that purports to teach everyday hackers the mysteries of FPGA.

    • Phones

      • Smartphone Bloodbath Q1 of 2015 same ole, same ole

        Nokia’s own MeeGo OS (used in Nokia N9) was regularly rated better than iOS…

      • Android

        • Google Makes Chrome For Android Open Source

          Google has announced that Chrome for Android is now open source, the news was announced by Android software engineer Aurimas Liuyikas on Reddit.

        • Screenshots of Google’s new Photos app for Android leak

          We’ve heard rumors since at least August 2014 that Google+’s image functions may be spun out into a standalone photo service. In March, Sundar Pichai, senior vice president for products at Google, said the company is going to put a renewed focus on photos. “Photos are a big use case,” Pichai said. “So we are going to say this is the stream now.”

        • Android’s stand-alone Photos app will give you more creative control

          Android Police has peeked at a leaked copy of a reworked Photos app, and it’s clear that Google is using the service split as an incentive to shake things up. The highlight may be Assistant (below), an effective substitute for Auto Awesome that gives you more creative power — you can produce more content yourself (such as Stories) instead of waiting for it to show up.

        • Android Factory Resets Are Flawed, Allow User Data to Be Recovered: Study
        • Factory data reset for Android leaves encrypted data and login keys intact

          Researchers at Cambridge University discovered they were able to recover data on a vast array of Android powered devices that had undergone the factory data reset process.

        • Android 5.1 Lollipop Update Coming To The NVIDIA Shield Tablet

          The update would improve performance and stability, and bring a Shield controller update that makes pairing easier. Among many other features, the LTE model includes improvement in camera, audio, and performance of the modem.

        • Android 5.1.1 Lollipop For Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini GT-I9190: How To Install It Using CM12.1 Nightly Custom ROM

          Users of the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini with the model number GT-I9190 can have the latest Lollipop experience on their smartphones with the help of a new custom ROM. The new CyanogenMod 12.1 (CM12.1) Nightly custom ROM is based on stock Android user interface with additional features and options.

        • Android Payments Could Be Key Item News From Google I/O: Merrill Lynch

          In the research report published on Friday, Merrill Lynch analysts gave their input on 2015 Google I/O developer conference that will take place on May 28- 29 in San Francisco, California. Since competition in the payments industry is on the horizon, the research firm expects Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) to launch an upgraded payment platform for the Android users.

        • Android M: This is Google’s new Photos app

          Google is expected to announce a bunch of new software initiatives later this week, one of them being Android M. Some leaks have already provided early information on what the upcoming operating system will have to offer, and a new report sheds light on what could be one of the most important new apps for Android M (and other Android versions) that Google is expected to announce at I/O 2015.

        • Best new Android widgets (May 2015) #2

          If you’re a dedicated Android fan and not making full use of widgets, then you’re totally not using the full potential of Google’s platform. See, if we take away widgets out of the feature bag, we are easily stripping it from one of its defining features.

        • Boffins silently track train commuters without tripping Android checks

          Nanjing University boffins Jingyu Hua, Zhenyu Shen, and Sheng Zhong have tracked commuter train trips with 92 percent accuracy using stolen phone accelerometer data.

        • ZTE unveils Q519T smartphone in China: 4000mAh battery, Android 5.0 Lollipop

          Chinese smartphone maker ZTE has unveiled the successor to the Q509T, dubbed Q519T, a new affordable smartphone which is priced at 599 Yuan (approximately Rs 6,100) in China. There is no information provided as to when the device will be available in India.

        • Android M and Nexus updates: The good, the bad and the ugly

          Android M is expected to be unveiled later this week at Google I/O, and it will bring several new features to Google’s mobile platform according to various reports, including a brand new device update guarantee for Nexus devices.

        • 10 Best Android Apps & Games This Week

          A week has passed, which means we’re back with our usual roundup with some of the best new Android apps and games that have made their way into the Play Store. This time we’ve got a good collection of games, so if you were looking to add some new ones on your Android smartphone or tablet, now is the right time to do it. Also, do check out our previous roundup, as well as this week’s sister list with the newest and greatest iOS apps, as well.

        • Asus ZenFone 5 Android 5.0 Lollipop Update to Release in ‘Next 3-4 Months’

          The Android 5.0 Lollipop update for Asus ZenFone 5 has been delayed by 3-4 months, reveals the Taiwanese company.

        • [Android Auto Watch] 2015 Hyundai Sonata Android Auto Upgrade Now Available At Some Dealers, Others Soon
        • AT&T to begin selling LG G Pad F 8.0 Android tablet on May 29

          After releasing its own branded 8-inch Android tablet a mere two weeks ago, AT&T is giving itself some fresh competition. The mobile carrier has announced that it’s bringing the LG G Pad F 8.0 to its customers starting on May 29.
          What’s Hot on ZDNet

          The new model should not be confused with the LG G Pad 8.3, which, while being an older tablet, offers a slightly larger, higher-resolution screen and a faster processor. Rather, it’s more of a bigger sibling to the LG G Pad 7.0 that was released late last year, coming with the same 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor (compared to the 1.7GHz Snapdragon 600 inside the G Pad 8.3).

        • ZTE Q519T With 4000mAh Battery, Android 5.0 Lollipop Launched

          ZTE, soon after launching the Nubia Z9 smartphone in China, has now unveiled yet another smartphone, the Q519T. Unveiled in China, the ZTE Q519T has been priced at equivalent of $95 (approximately Rs. 6,000).

          The highlight of the ZTE Q519T smartphone is that it features a massive battery capacity of 4000mAh, which is claimed to deliver up to 35 days of standby time. The new ZTE Q519T smartphone will be available in Blue, Gold, and White colours.

        • LG Watch Urbane Review: Wonderful Hardware But Android Wear Is Still Frustrating

          When I wear the LG Watch Urbane people almost never ask me about it. Why? Because it looks like a watch. Other smart watches, like the original Samsung Gear and the Sony Smartwatch 3 attracted more questions from people, perhaps because they’re more obviously not watches.

          The shape helps, like the G Watch R, the Urbane is circular and has a prominent button on the side. If you have the right watch face installed it’s actually nearly impossible to tell it’s not a standard, but chunky, watch. That is surely a good thing from a design perspective, although watch elitists will still tell you the smartwatch thing is nonsense, and a fad. The truth is that even big names in traditional watchmaking are thinking about how they can offer smart features in their watches.

        • Roman Nurik’s FORM Android Wear Watch Face Is Now Available, Includes Cool Muzei Integration

          Roman Nurik works for Google, but he also develops really cool (and free) Android apps from time to time. He’s the man behind Dash Clock, Muzei, and now the FORM Watch Face for Android Wear. You can grab it right now and enjoy it all on its own, or you can take advantage of the sweet Muzei functionality.

        • Roman Nurik’s latest FORM Watch Face demonstrates the power of Android

          If the name Roman Nurik doesn’t ring a bell, he’s a design advocate for Google, and every time he decides to publish an Android app it seems to turn out a winner. His two previous apps that created quite a stir in the Android community are DashClock Widget and Muzei Live Wallpaper. Both are awesome, so you shouldn’t expect the next to be less so. While not immediately useful to non-Android Wear users, Roman’s new FORM Watch Face demonstrates the power of Android as a mobile platform.

Free Software/Open Source

  • Is your open source security software less secure?

    “Your secure software is open source; doesn’t that make it less secure?”

    This is a recurring question that we get at Benetech about Martus, our free, strongly encrypted tool for secure collection and management of sensitive information built and provided by the Benetech Human Rights Program. It’s an important question for us and for all of our peers developing secure software in today’s post-Snowden environment of fear and worry about surveillance. We strongly believe not only that open source is compatible with digital security, but that it’s also essential for it.

  • Open HUB: How to find the best open source projects

    Let’s say you want to identify something like a Kanban system for your software project management and you’ve looked at various commercial products but for one reason or another nothing quite fits your requirements. Perhaps they’re not organized in a way you’d like or they come with a load of other features at a price that doesn’t make sense for you or they can’t be integrated into your workflow so you’re going to bite the bullet. You’re going to look for an open source Kanban system and adapt it to meet your needs. But how do you find such a beast?

  • Events

  • Databases

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Software Commons vs. Product

      One regular reader of this blog contacted me a few days ago to share a few suggestions and some concerns about the LibreOffice project. I did not agree with many of the points he was making, but a few of them made sense. I’d like to discuss the main one, because I think there is no clear cut answer about it even inside the LibreOffice project.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Data

      • Open source data integration with Karma

        I recently attended a half-day workshop on Karma with Pedro Szekely, our instructor. He started by warning us that he knows very little about libraries, but a ton about data. The files we needed for the workshop were on GitHub, if you’re interested in checking it out. You can follow the tutorial steps on the Wiki, and, of course, you can find Karma itself on GitHub.

    • Open Hardware

      • LayerOne Hardware Hacking Village

        Go to DEFCON and you’ll stand in line for five hours to get a fancy electronic badge you’ll be showing to your grandchildren some day. Yes, at DEFCON, you buy your hacker cred. LayerOne is not so kind to the technically inept. At LayerOne, you are given a PCB, bag of parts, and are told to earn your hacker cred by soldering tiny QFP and SOT-23 chips by hand. The Hardware Hacking Village at LayerOne was packed with people eagerly assembling their badge, or badges depending on how cool they are.

  • Programming

Leftovers

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Failure of the US coup d’État in Macedonia

      Macedonia has just neutralised an armed group whose sponsors had been under surveillance for at least eight months…

    • The War Commemoration Racket

      Memorial Day commemorates soldiers killed in war. We are told that the war dead died for us and our freedom. US Marine General Smedley Butler challenged this view. He said that our soldiers died for the profits of the bankers, Wall Street, Standard Oil, and the United Fruit Company.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Holy Shit! Almonds Require a Ton of Bees

      Growing 80 percent of the globe’s almonds in California doesn’t just require massive amounts of water. It also takes a whole bunch of honeybees for pollination—roughly two hives’ worth for every acre of almonds trees, around 1.7 million hives altogether. That’s at least 80 percent of all available commercial hives in the United States, Gene Brandi, a California beekeeper who serves as vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation, recently told NPR.

  • Finance

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Right-Wing Pundits’ Anti-Memorial Day

      With all this talk about epistemology and the messiness of history, it’s easy to forget that what Bush was being asked to do was not travel through time but to say whether or not he agreed with a decision, made by the last president from his party (who also happens to be his brother), that was based on lies and resulted in the deaths of half a million people. Would his brother have made that same choice? It’s an important question whose answer is obviously not obvious.

  • Privacy

    • Encryption is good for the economy, even if the Tories say otherwise

      Digital privacy has been a growing concern for businesses and general web users ever since Edward Snowden leaked PRISM documents to the press, and for good reason.

      The documents revealed a digital surveillance operation that was larger and more efficient than even the most zealous tinfoil hat wearer could have imagined.

      They detailed operations that collected vast streams of data from big name companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Yahoo, that had been approved in dark, back-room, secret courts away from the eyes of privacy advocates and digital watchdogs.

    • Why Mitch McConnell Cannot Be Allowed to Decide the Fate of the Patriot Act

      Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made it clear this week that, while the Senate is rapidly approaching recess, the Senate “will stay in [session] until a deal is struck to extend” the Patriot Act. McConnell has also introduced legislation for both long-term and short-term reauthorization of the Patriot Act’s expiring provisions. It seems that McConnell is trying to bully the entire Senate into passing short-term reauthorization, giving him more time to further weaken reform efforts.

    • Philip Zimmermann: king of encryption reveals his fears for privacy

      Zimmermann and Snowden are 30 years apart in age, but their actions have framed the privacy debate. Zimmermann switched his focus from campaigning against nuclear weapons to pushing back on state snooping in 1991, when he released PGP for free over the internet in an act of political defiance. His protest helped prevent legislation which would have forced software companies to insert “backdoors” in their products, allowing the government to read encrypted messages.

      The user manual for PGP, written by Zimmermann in 1991 and updated seven years later, is a startling prediction of the mass surveillance methods that were eventually adopted by the NSA after 9/11.

    • Senate Fails To Pass Both USA Freedom And PATRIOT Act Extension, Setting Up Possible Expiration Of Section 215

      Well, well. Here’s a quick (rare) Saturday post just to get folks up to speed on what happened late last night. After going back and forth for a while, the Senate voted on… and failed to approve both a version of the USA Freedom Act and a short “clean extension” of the clauses of the PATRIOT Act that were set to expire — mainly Section 215 which some (falsely) believe enables the NSA to collect bulk metadata from telcos (and potentially others). What this means is that it is much more likely that Section 215 expires entirely. The Senate has since left town, though it plans to come back next Sunday, May 31st to see if it can hammer out some sort of agreement. Though, beware of false compromises, such as those being pushed by Senate Intelligence Committee (and big time NSA supporter), Richard Burr. His “hastily introduced” bill pretends to try to “bridge the gap” but in actuality is much worse than basically anything else on the table.

    • Paper Says Public Doesn’t Know How To Keep Score In Privacy Discussion While Glossing Over Government Surveillance

      Lawfare — a blog primarily devoted defending the practices of spy agencies — has released a paper authored by Benjamin Wittes and Jodie Liu that theorizes that the public’s concern over privacy encroachments are — if not overblown — then failing to properly factor in the privacy “gains” they’ve obtained over the past several years.

      The theory is solid, but the paper fails to differentiate between what sort of privacy losses people find acceptable and which ones they don’t — mainly by leaving privacy invasions by government entities almost completely undiscussed. It opens by quoting a scene from an old Woody Allen film in which the protagonist attempts to “hide” his purchase of porn at a magazine stand by purchasing several unrelated (and presumably uninteresting) magazines at the same time. This leads to the conclusion that people’s ability to enjoy porn in private has risen with the advent of the internet, while simultaneously opening them up to data harvesters and internet companies less interested in personal privacy than selling users to advertisers.

  • Civil Rights

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • A Licence With Limited Value: Copyright Board Delivers Devastating Defeat to Access Copyright

        The Copyright Board of Canada delivered a devastating defeat to Access Copyright on Friday, releasing its decision on a tariff for copying by employees of provincial governments. Access Copyright had initially sought $15 per employee for the period from 2005 – 2009 and $24 per employee for the period from 2010 – 2014. It later reduced its demands to $5.56 and $8.45. The board conducted a detailed review of the copying within government and the applicability of the Access Copyright licence. Its final decision gives Access Copyright pennies rather than dollars: 11.56 cents for 2005-2009 and 49.71 cents for 2010-2014.

      • Pirate Bay Founder Appeals Domain Seizure Decision

        The court order to transfer ownership of two Pirate Bay-related domains to the Swedish state will not be a straightforward process. Site co-founder Fredrik Neij, a party in the two-year long case, has just announced he will appeal the ruling. Neij isn’t interested in the domains though, he has much more serious things to consider.

05.25.15

Süddeutsche Zeitung Says Talking Helps While EPO Management Back-stabs Other Side of the Table

Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:53 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Süddeutsche Zeitung headline

Summary: German media gives the impression that there is peace and harmony now that Benoît Battistelli and his circle of power speaks to staff, but nothing is said about simultaneous (albeit covert) attacks against that staff

NOW THAT the EPO hires private spies (waste of money) to intimidate its own staff it wants us to believe that it approaches reconciliation. That’s an insulting illusion. As Merpel put it the other day, “SUEPO, the Staff Union of the EPO, has announced (see news item of 21 May) that it understands that Control Risks (who describe themselves as “an independent, global risk consultancy specialising in helping organisations manage political, integrity and security risks in complex and hostile environments”) has been commissioned by the EPO to investigate staff members who are elected representatives of the Staff Committee and/or Staff Union. Merpel considers that this completely undermines any attempt at social dialogue, or moves towards union recognition. How are EPO employees to be expected to serve on the Central Staff Committee, or to represent the EPO unions, if at the same time they are to be harassed and investigated, apparently for performing this very service?”

Also, “in the meantime,” she wrote, “most of the reforms to which the EPO staff objected were being pushed through, and it began to appear as though, even if union recognition was achieved, it would be too late to achieve any of the modifications that were needed to the reforms.”

What kind of reform and negotiation is this? Benefit of the doubt given to Benoît Battistelli? Why? Control freak is what he is and there is hardly an effort to deny it, either. Is this going to be the legacy of the European Union? Autocrats who waste taxpayers’ money?

Around the same time of a report from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung there was this Süddeutsche Zeitung article from a month ago [PDF]. It said “Talking Helps”, but helps who? So far it has mostly gagged EPO critics.

Here is the article in full:

Talking Helps

For months a massive dispute has been brewing at the European Patent Office. The staff regard their basic rights as being eroded by the President. Now the opposing camps have met for the first time.

Top executives at the Patent Office are starting to worry about its reputation – and the ability to do its job

By Katja Riedel

This week something almost impossible happened at the European Patent Office – or at least that’s the way it looked to the always well-informed bloggers on IPKat. This and similar Internet forums are where the people get together who are interested in intellectual property. And over the past few months the patent scene worldwide has been watching Munich with as much excitement as concern, and the darkened windows of the headquarters of the European Patent Office (EPO) on the bank of the River Isar. It is there, for all to see, that a dispute which is as bizarre as it is bitter has been brewing between parts of the staff, supported by the union Suepo, and the President, Benoît Battistelli.

This week something has happened which even Battistelli’s most trusted lieutenants would hardly have thought feasible: It seems that a rapprochement is at least on the cards. On Wednesday the President, along with high ranking delegates from his supervisory body, the Administrative Council, met with union representatives. The Danish Chairman of the Administrative Council, Jesper Kongstad, was there, together with the German and Croatian EPO Vice-Presidents, and representatives from the unions Suepo and FFPE. The aim was to re-establish social harmony, on the Isar and in the entire international organization, with its well on 7000 staff members. This is regarded as having absolute priority for the entire organization, according to the Administrative Council.

What sounds like something obvious has up now been unthinkable. The unions and the President weren’t even getting close – they were worlds apart. Step by step, Battistelli has been implementing a major programme of reform. He wants to streamline the Office, which is actually said to be the most expensive in the world, and that means doing away with some of the perks. For example, he has changed the promotion system to a more rigid performance-related points system. Staff at the European Patent Office actually earn an average of 7600 Euro, their income is not subject to tax, their children attend an international school free of charge, and there are a lot of other benefits as well. But they are also highly specialized scientists. And they emphasize that the issue is not one of money, but of basic rights, which in the world of the EPO, with its own set of rules, do not apply, but under German labour law and that of most of the 38 individual states which are represented at the EPO are a matter of course. The right to unionize, for example. Or, if someone falls ill, not having to have an unannounced visit from a company doctor at their home. A court at The Hague, one of the EPO locations, even recently ruled that the Office was infringing basic human rights. This is a criticism which Battistelli has rejected in a public bulletin: “There is a strange rumour going around in Europe, in media, political circles, and even at national courts: That we infringe basic rights. What an accusation!”

For a long time the representative of the Member States have let the President have a free hand, among other reasons because at its heart they were in favour of the reform. The Office is preparing for the introduction of the European Unitary Patent, which will make Munich one of the most important places in the world when it comes to intellectual property. It will also be the seat of an outpost of the European Patent Court, which will decide on the fate of billions of Euros. Top ranking EPO representatives have recently become extremely concerned that the tumult surrounding Battistelli is damaging the reputation of the Office, and is taking up too much of the effort which is needed for bringing about the reforms at the EPO. And even the patent examiners, highly specialized scientists, are saying that they are concerned – about the quality of the patents. In future, more patents will have to be given the once-over, less critically, so as to be able to hold their own in worldwide competition with glittering statistics and high earnings from fees.

At the most recent meeting of the Administrative Council at the end of March, Battistelli’s back-covering finally gave way, even on the part of the German delegation. The inner circle closeted itself with Battistelli, and made it penetratingly clear to him that he needed to give up the confrontation approach, and take a step in the direction of the staff, in the interests of his own reform programme, which he is aiming to complete by the end of his term of office in 2018.

For four hours they sat together on Wednesday, and word had it afterwards from the people concerned that there were no harsh words or emotional outbursts at all. And that says a lot,
after a year with 22 days of strikes, with demonstrations at consulates on the one hand and threats of disciplinary procedures and measures against personnel who were too loud in their criticism on the other. A working group has been set up. The top-ranking gathering will reconvene at the end of May. “It wasn’t an easy meeting, but actually sitting at the same table was an important first step, and the beginning of a constructive process”, said the Chairman of the Administrative Council Kongstad, in a joint communiqué with Battistelli. The President too praised the open atmosphere. Suepo did express regret that the question of a fixed role of the unions in the EPO regulatory procedure appeared to be the sole specific point of negotiation. There was the feeling, however, that the delegates from the Administrative Council had at least understood the views of the employees. Caption:

Strike: In the past few months, the staff have repeatedly been making their voices heard at the consulates of the Member States in Munich

The EPO’s management is no negotiations partner until or unless it stops intimidating the staff of the EPO. This ought to be clear to anyone who has watched what Battistelli has done over the past couple of years. █

“The European Patent Office is a Corrupt, Malicious Organisation Which Should Not Exist”

–Richard Stallman

Large Corporations Call the Shots in US Patent Reform

Posted in Bill Gates, Microsoft, Patents at 9:29 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Clinton family
Monarchs funded by industry

Summary: A reminder of where we stand on the issue of patent ‘reform’ in the US and who is controlling or shaping it

REMEMBER when Nokia was giving patents to Android-hostile trolls like MOSAID (with Microsoft’s confirmed involvement in the transaction)? Well, Florian Müller (funded by Microsoft) entirely omits Microsoft’s role. Some trolls are serving the agenda of much larger companies (they act as proxies), so clearly enough (to a prudent observer), it’s not only trolls who are the problem. It’s an institutional problem.

Nevertheless, the PATENT Act which we wrote about before is still hailed by legal and corporate media as the solution, despite its inability to deal with or tackle big trolls (like Microsoft). Some GOP-leaning sites even protect the small trolls (see “Small inventors step up fight to block patent overhaul law”) although it’s correctly stated that the “legislation only helps big companies”.

They are now trying the “startup” angle to shoot down the PATENT Act and its sibling, the Innovation Act. One article from David Pridham (posted also in The Hill) says: “The proposed Innovation Act (HR 9) is supposed to target only patent trolls. But as the National Venture Capital Association and 144 major universities warn, the bill’s poorly drafted provisions actually will undermine the startups and small businesses responsible for nearly all breakthrough innovation and job growth in the United States.”

“It is not true that startups would be hurt, unless they built their business on a house of cards (or patent applications).”It’s true that these changes “target only patent trolls.” It is not true that startups would be hurt, unless they built their business on a house of cards (or patent applications).

lawyers from IAM used the same kind of angle to discredit any reform, claiming that the system is “stacked [...] against the small inventor” (or stacked in favour of large corporation).

See the article “A devastating blow to Wisconsin’s innovators”. It’s that same talking point again.

“Most notably,” it says, “the law will install extensive new documentation requirements for patent lawsuits. Lawmakers want to increase the burden of bringing a case to court in order to discourage frivolous suits. But the law won’t only raise the difficulty of filing an unfounded suit, it also will make it harder for legitimate patent holders to protect their intellectual property in court. Inventors will be required to file hundreds of pages of technical paperwork just to start a lawsuit.”

“It was reported some years ago that Gates and his mate Nathan Myhrvold (the world’s biggest patent troll) had both been lobbying the government regarding patent law.”That’s just overrated. Small companies (except trolls) cannot use patents against large companies because they simply don’t have enough patents; they can be sued in retaliation by the large companies. When we saw the words “Partying for Innovation” in this new press release about “Happy Patent Day” we were reminder of this old myth that patents are supposed to help the “small guy” or the “poor inventor”. It ought to be evident by now that the real goal of today’s patents (and the law which accompanies them) is to protect large corporations, including those which use trolls as their assault drones/attack dogs. Why is law being tilted so profoundly in favour of large corporations? Look no further than prominent politicians like the Clintons. As Timothy B. Lee showed the other day, “Both sides of the patent reform debate have been showering Hillary Clinton with cash” (because they can afford to bribe politicians).

“On Friday night,” wrote Lee, “Hillary Clinton revealed the names of the various companies and trade groups that have collectively given her millions of dollars in speaking fees since the beginning of 2014. Looking through the list, one thing that stood out to me was how many of the payments came from companies with a strong interest in the patent reform debate.”

The corrupt patent system is a result of a corruptible political system. It’s not pleasant to hear, but anyone still believing that arguments will be judged based on merit rather than based on payments is clearly not paying attention. Bill Gates himself is exceptionally close to the Clintons — to the extent of having staff intersections at the highest of levels. Profits are paramount, no matter the means. A book about Microsoft’s genesis (Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, a book composed by the daughter of Microsoft’s PR mogul) explained that Bill Gates “had told Eller on a number of occasions that he longed to do a deal with the Russians because they were well educated and their labor was cheap.” That was before Gates lobbied the government (where he has enormous influence/control) for cheaper labour to come from abroad. It was reported some years ago that Gates and his mate Nathan Myhrvold (the world’s biggest patent troll) had both been lobbying the government regarding patent law. Millions were spent. Gates himself makes a huge fortune out of patents. It’s not speculation but a fact we habitually cover.

“It’s much ‘safer’ to blame the “trolls”, using them as a scapegoat that distracts patent debates from much bigger culprits.”Plutocrats’ control of politics is key here and as the plutocrats’ paper, Forbes (regular glorifier of Gates), told us the other day: “Of great concern is the issue of patent trolls. Every year, companies that don’t actually make or sell any products bring frivolous lawsuits against companies ranging from Google and Pfizer to the smallest of startups—alleging patent infringement. Despite the fact that these cases are nearly always dismissed when the patent holders fight back, defending against them can be prohibitively expensive. And as a result, they also distract from innovation.”

Actually, of even greater concern are large corporations and the plutocrats who run them, but don’t expect Forbes to speak negatively about them. Corporate media doesn’t view itself as ‘authorised’ to do that. It’s much ‘safer’ to blame the “trolls”, using them as a scapegoat that distracts patent debates from much bigger culprits. █

Microsoft Puts Proprietary Windows and Hyper-V Inside the Free Software-Centric OpenStack

Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 8:38 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

OpenStack logo

Summary: OpenStack, which celebrates rapid growth in this month’s event in Canada, is facing a proprietarisation threat from Microsoft

FOR A NUMBER of years now Microsoft has been trying to subvert OpenStack, making it proprietary and Windows-leaning. It never quite succeeded, but with help from Canonical and Cloudbase Microsoft is getting closer. To quote this report, “Canonical has just announced a new partnership with Cloudbase Solutions, a company that develops Windows components in OpenStack, which will allow customers to run KVM and Hyper-V environments side by side in the same cloud.”

“When Microsoft releases something as “Open Source” it is merely marketing or an intrusion attempt.”OpenStack is Apache-licensed, Python-based, and it generally strives to integrate only free components. Why would it allow Microsoft anywhere near it? Hyper-V is proprietary, it requires Windows (with back doors), and it has no place in an “open” stack like OpenStack.

Microsoft has nothing at all to do with Free/Open Source software (FOSS). Microsoft is attacking FOSS. When Microsoft releases something as “Open Source” it is merely marketing or an intrusion attempt. Earlier this month, as we noted last week, Microsoft released some useless code as “Open Source” (to misleadingly associate Windows with "Open Source") and Microsoft apologists like Paul Krill covered it at the time, noting that “Analysts see Windows Communication Foundation as a last-generation technology, which limits its usefulness” (as usual).

Remember when Microsoft was throwing some DOS code (not as Open Source) out there to create a publicity party/PR stunt? That was one year ago. █

Microsoft’s Secret Lobbying, Bullying, and the Long History of Blackmailing Politicians Around the World

Posted in Microsoft at 8:05 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Viewing itself as above the law

Police car

Summary: British media covers Microsoft’s abuse in the UK, but there are many similar incidents, and not just in the UK

GIVEN Microsoft’s pattern of retribution against individuals and organisations, what was revealed in UK-based media (and Bloomberg in the US) some days ago was hardly surprising.

A reader of ours reminded us of this older report about “Rohan Silva, who was a senior advisor to David Cameron on digital policy from May 2010 to June 2013, and a former economic advisor to George Osborne” because he “revealed the threats made by Microsoft during a speech at an event in London.”

In his own words: “A day or two before we were going to give the speech, a couple of backbench MPs called the office – they said Microsoft had called them saying if we went ahead with the speech on open standards, open architecture and open source, they would cut spending or maybe close research and development centres in the constituencies of the MPs they had called.”

“Microsoft is bamboozling politicians using corruptible media, not just through lobbyists who issue threats.”This is what he told delegates at the Chief Digital Officer Summit, so Microsoft’s bullying against British politicians is not exactly new. It sounds similar to the story told by Steve Hilton. There is a pattern here. We now see over a dozen news sites covering the Microsoft-led assault on British politicians [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. The British public will see the real face of Microsoft, but the public should not assume that this is an isolated incident involving some ‘rotten apples’. It’s not done only in Britain, either (here are examples from the US [1, 2]). This is how Microsoft does ‘business’, and not just in the UK. Softpedia, a Romanian site, spoke about Microsoft “Blackmailing UK Officials” and Robert Pogson, a Canadian, said we should “Put The Job-cuts Where They Belong, In Redmond”. Microsoft “used to bully key people everywhere to give their software the inside track in IT-decisions,” he wrote, referring to a phenomenon we often cover here: entryism, moles, revolving doors, etc. Microsoft plays dirty. There is a factual basis for disdain of Microsoft.

Microsoft is bamboozling politicians using corruptible media, not just through lobbyists who issue threats. Its boosters (in ‘news’ sites) attack the competition. We have named and shamed many of those who are/were actively involved in it. Sometimes Microsoft even hires people from the media in order to manipulate the media. Recall media mole Peter Galli, who repeatedly attacked ODF in the media until Microsoft hired him. He has since then been promoted at Microsoft to “Director of Executive Communications at Microsoft International”. So, from Microsoft promotion in the media (he used to be fake ‘journalist’ whose main goal was to promote Microsoft agenda) Peter Galli moved on to corrupting the press on behalf of Microsoft, as per his job title.

Again, this is just how Microsoft does ‘business’. It’s a deeply corrupt company and it keeps reminding us of that. █

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Benoît Battistelli and Four EPO Suicides

Posted in Europe, Patents at 4:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) article

Summary: German press article from April 2015 (with translations)

WHILE the EPO hires spies to attack journalists (not just staff), this one article (see these translations [PDF]) frames Battistelli as a peacemaker, which is wrong:

Truce at the Tax Haven of the European Patent Office

The autocratic President, Battistelli, is not a popular person. One union is even holding him responsible for suicides. Now discussions are under way.

kön. MUNICH, 24 April. Benoît Battistelli represents the French School par excellence. His autocratic management style is entirely in the tradition of the cradle of France’s elite, the Paris Institute of Political Science and School of Management for Executive State Service (ENA), where he embraced hierarchical and authoritarian thinking, with little dialogue and a lot of top-down delegation. A style like that does not always sit well, and even less so in an international organization such as the European Patent Office (EPO), with headquarters in Munich and The Hague, and with 38 European countries as members.

Battistelli, a 64-year-old Frenchman, being in office since 2010, has been dubbed the “Sun King” within the Office. The title fits: The EPO enjoys extra-territorial status with immunity, and is therefore not subject to national legislation. “Monsieur le Président” even has diplomatic status. But this authoritarian approach runs into trouble if it threatens to bring in reforms that erode privileges at the EPO, founded in 1973. The 7000 or so staff, from 30 countries, earn an average of 120,000 Euro a year, among them some 4300 highly qualified engineers, for a 40-hour working week and up to three months of holidays, a tax rate of 6 percent, and the EPO paying for medical care and children’s education.

Battistelli is out to exert more control. As of this month, he is demanding a doctor’s certificate in the event of illness and inability to work after three days, something which otherwise goes without saying in Germany. Illness numbers and time off are noticeably high. Since the start of the year, new criteria apply for assessing the performance of the staff. In this context, trouble has been brewing for more thanyear between the union SUEPO and the President, who does not recognize them as discussion partners. This has resulted in an attack on Battistelli, accusing him of joint responsibility in the suicide of staff members, among other reasons due to mobbing tactics. The aim is to drive the President from office, accompanied by strikes and demonstrations.

Last Wednesday, the reasonable approach won through. Battistelli, the Chairman of the Administrative Council Jesper Kongstad, and the two unions SUEPO and the somewhat more moderate FFPE, which represents the staff at The Hague, sat down at the same table. They talked for three hours, which is regarded as a great success. It is seen as the first step towards a “social dialogue”. According to the EPO, the ultimate aim of the Round Table is to lead to the formal recognition of the unions. The next meeting between the opposing parties is scheduled for 28 May. The SUEPO views it as positive that it has come to an “open exchange”. More is going to need to happen than simply the recognition of the unions, however; they are demanding to be integrated into the reform process.

The President has come to this understanding, with some pressure from the Administrative Council. Word has it that the Council has recognized the necessity of peace talks, and in the process has encountered an amazingly forthcoming Battistelli. It has become clear to him too that at the beginning of April a line was crossed. An article about the crisis at the EPO appeared in the French newspaper “Le Monde”. Four cases of suicide of Office employees were analyzed in almost minute detail, which occurred in three years and are said to have been attributable to depression. In March, a German employee in Munich took his own life. The SUEPO was quoted in the article as saying that they held Battistelli responsible for the circumstances, and that he was abusing the principle enshrined in the Statutes of judicial immunity. The President stated in the same article that he was “shocked” at the attempts to exploit the tragic incidents as an instrument, and to lay the suicides at his door.

The SUEPO already took up arms about the situation at the EPO last year. Reforms in personnel management and working conditions were said to have been introduced without having been examined by an independent body with regard to compatibility with fundamental rights and generally accepted principles of law. Staff can only lodge complaints about rights by way of an arbitration tribunal of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva, not via national labour courts. The lack of transparency in management was criticized. Divergent opinions have been suppressed. “In structural terms, the President appears in all matters as accuser, examiner, judge, and final arbiter” is how the SUEPO describes the autocratic management style. In November 2014 Battistelli threw the union out of the EPO premises, and in February he threatened strikers with disciplinary measures.

All the more startling, then, the change just a few weeks later: In “Le Monde” “Monsieur Le Président”, whose contract was extended last year by three years, until 2018, was perfectly open about his salary of 250,000 Euro, which up to now has been one of the most closely guarded secrets. The newspaper report appears to have unleashed a shockwave. The case of France Télécom may have sounded warning bells with the President and the Administrative Council. In 2010, CEO Didier Lombard stood down after a series of suicides by several dozen employees shook the concern. And the fact also sank in that the reforms can be moved ahead in co-operation with the unions, and not at war with them. Battistelli took office with the task of putting into effect plans for renewal of the authority which had already run into difficulties. Unrest or even escalation under public gaze in an institution which acts discreetly such as the EPO could affect the success record of the President. He has in fact already scored a number of successes, and has strengthened the EPO in relation to the competing patent organizations in the United States and in Asia during his time in office. In 2014 there were 274,000 patent applications, while only 64,600 patents were actually granted, which is an indicator of the high demands involved. The more careful the examinations and screening procedures, the fewer the number of patents which can be challenged.

With a budget of 2 billion Euros, the Office finances itself from the expensive patent earnings, from which money is also distributed among the 38 Member States. Each of these has one vote, regardless of their significance, whether it be Albania or Germany, from which the most applications come. This congenital defect has contributed to the evolution of the autocratic structures. The President has always been able to bring small states into the balance, just as the controversial and power- obsessed Sepp Blatter is prone to do, President of the largest sports organization in the world, the World Football Association Fifa. The big difference with regard to Blatter is that Battistelli is able to learn – and he’s perceptive.

If Battistelli wants to make things right, he should resign, ensure the removal of his cronies (especially that gangster Željko Topić), and bring back people who were illegally fired/suspended, including regulatory staff. Restoring order and justice at the EPO would be a long process; it hasn’t even begun. █

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