03.17.10
Posted in Apple, Courtroom, FOSS, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, OLPC, Videos at 4:18 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Patent defence for free software by Andrew Tridgell”
Dr. Andrew Tridgell’s talk from the LCA 2010 conference
Summary: Microsoft’s top “IP” bullies commend Apple’s legal action and Microsoft owes VirnetX $105.75 million for patent violation
BACK in January we wrote about Tridgell’s talk, which is finally available for the public to watch (FFII made a copy). We covered his talk in a post about "Apple's Patent Threat to Linux". We partly predicted Apple’s lawsuit against GNU/Linux, using software patents in fact [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Now we know that experts allege that Microsoft may have played role in Apple's lawsuit. Microsoft endorses this action publicly (in a Smith's talk) and now Microsoft endorses this in its lobbying blog too. One of Microsoft’s chief racketeers, Horacio Gutierrez, wrote: “Apple v. HTC: A Step Along the Path of Addressing IP Rights in Smartphones”
One of our readers quotes the following portions: “There is a long history of IP litigation in the mobile phone market, and innovation has continued apace [...] as the IP situation settles in this space and licensing takes off, we will see the patent royalties applicable to the smartphone software stack settle at a level that reflects the increasing importance software has as a portion of the overall value of the device.”
“Is this Microsoft-codespeak for, we expect people to start paying us a hardware tax.”
–Anonymous readerThe simple translation is that Microsoft wants tax on Linux phones. Microsoft wants us to pretend that mobile Linux too is Microsoft’s own property (the software layer). Our reader says: “Is this Microsoft-codespeak for, we expect people to start paying us a hardware tax. Something like they suggested to the OLPC developers? It’s in the Comes documents, in references to either ‘investing’ in the OLCP or getting them to stump up a Linux tax, can’t remember the exact words.”
With Apple’s lawsuit against GNU/Linux (via HTC/Android), the impact of Microsoft becomes increasingly suspect. Did Microsoft speak to Apple prior to this action? Either way, Apple is clearly a foe of software freedom and GNU/Linux users should cease viewing Apple as benign just because it competes against (or with) Microsoft.
Apple is clearly having a hard time competing against GNU/Linux. The iPad seems like a train wreck that even former Apple executives are negative about [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]. It appears as though the iPad’s target market is dyed-in-the-wool Apple followers. And surely enough, according to the following numbers, just fans are eventually buying it. [via Glyn Moody]
Orders for the Apple iPad fell sharply over the weekend, indicating that most of the real obsessives bought one on Friday.
As Ghabuntu reminds us this week, iPad is just a “toy” (Apple is irrelevant in places like Africa).
I just keep asking myself, what is it that makes Apple toys so special even if they come at a *huge* cost, both economically and philosophically?
SJVN writes about the iPad and resorts to discussing tablets that are better and run GNU/Linux.
After that, why not a wearable Mac or Linux PC? We’ve already had wearable Linux and Windows PCs, but those early models had all the problems I listed earlier. In 2010, it’s a different story. We may not have flying cars, but we can certainly have wearable computers.
We already know that Asus is looking into running Google’s Linux-based Chrome OS on wearable PCs. Who knows: in 2020, we may look back and see that iPads and tablet computers were only a brief rest stop on the way to wearable entertainment devices and computers.
Dell too is planning to release tablets that run Linux (maybe with GNU). Many of the ARM-based tablets look exceptionally promising.
The myth says that GNU/Linux is trying to catch up with the “Mac” and the “PC”, but when it comes to devices, the very opposite is true. Apple and Microsoft are just taking legal actions (intimidation or rackets) to tax devices such as the Kindle for example [1, 2, 3], which leads to articles like this new one from South Africa (where software patents are illegal but Microsoft vainly breaks the patent law):
Microsoft licensing Linux
[..]
Proprietary giant is licensing open source to its partners. What is going on?
Over the past few weeks Microsoft has been licensing Linux to a number of its partners, most notably Amazon. Although the idea of Microsoft, a company steeped in proprietary software, licensing open source software is ludicrous it’s not completely unexpected. It’s also not the first time Microsoft has played the Linux patent game and we can expect to see more deals in the future. So what’s going on?
[...]
Then in February Microsoft announced a deal with Amazon which it described as covering a “broad range” of products, including Amazon’s Kindle and Amazon’s use of Linux-based servers. Effectively Microsoft is licensing Linux to Amazon on the understanding that it won’t sue the company for infringing on its alleged Linux-related patents.
This is not unlike the agreement struck between Novell and Microsoft in 2006 in which Microsoft agreed to indemnify Suse Linux users against potential patent suits. That deal too attracted significant ire from the open source community.
The most recent Linux patent deal from Microsoft is a deal with Japanese hardware maker I-O Data. Although the specifics of the agreement are not known the two companies said that the the deal “will provide I-O Data’s customers with patent coverage for their use of I-O Data’s products running Linux and other related open source software.” Again, Microsoft is providing an assurance that it won’t file a patent suit against I-O Data for its use of Linux.
This is not the first time that a company has tried to claim Linux patent ownership and used that against other businesses. SCO is the most obvious example and they even went so far as claim that they owned Unix. SCO, fortunately, was never that successful at winning its claim over Linux and Unix. Microsoft on the other hand is a potentially different case.
[...]
Suing a Linux vendor directly over patent claims would be a shortcut to ending up in court. And being hauled into court would force Microsoft to open its books and explain what it is that it claims to own.
For now Microsoft is prepared to rely on compliant partners to create uncertainty around Linux ownership.
It’s a clever strategy by Microsoft and one hard to counteract.
It’s not a “clever strategy”, it’s racketeering and it’s illegal [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. It should be reported by vendors like Red Hat as it probably violates laws introduced with the RICO Act. The racketeering from Gates and Jobs goes quite a long way back. It’s just another SCO-like strategy, going back to around the same time as the SCO lawsuit (2003).
Speaking of SCO, a few days ago it turned out that SCO itself was behind the attacks on Groklaw. SCO was using Sys-Con as its attack dog and Sys-Con is now spreading lies about an important Free software project, leading to this reaction:
O’Gara Cloud Computing Article Off Base
[...]
This is just about the most naïve explanation for whether a product will or will not be stable that I’ve ever read. If Maureen had bothered to email or call any one of the core Drizzle developers, they’d have been happy to tell her what is and is not stable about Drizzle, and why. Drizzle has not changed the underlying storage engines, so the InnoDB storage engine in Drizzle is the same plugin as available in MySQL (version 1.0.6).
Watch the first comment which says: “There’s no reason to be nice to MoG. She’s the same hitwoman who wrote a bunch of pro SCO, anti GPL FUD during that whole trial (while being paid by them, while claiming to be impartial), including publishing a bunch of personal info about the previously anonymous blogger behind Groklaw.”
Few more comments like this follow, but a lot more about the SCO/Sys-Con attack on Groklaw can be found in this new Slashdot discussion.
In other important news, the Virnetx case is over and Microsoft lost. We previously covered this in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] and here is the news from Microsoft Nick:
A Texas jury has sided with VirnetX in its patent-infringement lawsuit against Microsoft, recommending an award of $105.75 million.
TechDirt already responds with some witty remarks:
In the last few years, Microsoft has become a bigger and bigger supporter of patents, which is a bit ironic, given that Bill Gates once pointed out that the software industry never would have developed if there had been software patents back in the early days. But, proving that new companies innovate, while older companies litigate, Microsoft has become a big patent hoarder in recent years. But, to date, while it’s used those patents to threaten lots of companies, it seems like Microsoft’s decision to live by patents, is actually costing it quite a bit of money.
Sadly, Microsoft uses patent trolls like Virnetx only to justify its own patent attacks against rivals. Microsoft’s #1 rival is Free software of course (although its embodiment can be companies like Google, IBM, Red Hat, and so on). █
“I’d put the Linux phenomenon really as threat No. 1.”
–Steve Ballmer, 2001
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03.16.10
Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Kernel, Microsoft, Patents at 5:59 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Mobile Linux proceeds from one victory to another while Apple and Microsoft pointlessly attack with software patents
EARLIER TODAY we wrote about news reports which suggested that Microsoft played some role in Apple's lawsuit against GNU/Linux (via Google/Android). Just like in the TomTom case, Apple and its supporters insisted that people should not perceive this as a case against Linux (Microsoft used the same lie to save face while doing the damage).
There is support for Apple’s action coming from Microsoft (Apple’s patent buddy since a long time ago), based on the following new report where Microsoft’s Brad Smith is quoted as saying about the HTC-Apple lawsuit: “the fact that there’s litigation in this area is not necessarily a bad thing.”
Here it is with some more context:
With several Windows Mobile devices named in Apple’s patent suit against HTC, you’d be forgiven for expecting Microsoft to have a few words of quiet support for their hardware partners. However it seems Microsoft are quite looking forward to a general battle; speaking at an IP convention last week, Brad Smith, the company’s general counsel and senior vice president told amassed lawyers that ”the fact that there’s litigation in this area is not necessarily a bad thing.”
Microsoft seems rather eager when it comes to Apple introducing software patents as game changers in phones, as means of harming Linux as a free platform.
Let’s recall the Apple-Nokia lawsuit (it is a two-way battle now [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]) which involved two — not one — proponents of software patents, one of which uses Symbian and Linux (Maemo/MeeGo). Apple accuses Nokia of using “legal alchemy” to hide infringements. IDG covers this, but it wrongly uses words like “IP” (it actually means to say patents) and “theft” (infringement does not constitute taking away from the original) right in the headline.
Nokia last week asked a federal judge to toss out Apple’s antitrust claims, saying the iPhone maker indulged in “legal alchemy” when it tried to divert attention from its “free-riding” of Nokia’s intellectual property.
The filing last Thursday was the latest salvo in a battle that began in October 2009 when Finnish handset maker Nokia sued Apple, saying the iPhone infringed on 10 of its patents and that the U.S. company was trying “to get a free ride on the back of Nokia’s innovation.” Nokia demanded royalties on all iPhones sold since Apple introduced the smartphone in June 2007.
Earlier today we also reiterated the fact that developers for platforms like Mac OS X and iPhone are merely being exploited [1, 2]. This is discussed further by Dana Blankenhorn right now:
“If Apple wants to be a real leader, it should be fostering innovation and competition, rather than acting as a jealous and arbitrary feudal lord.”
Is that a quote from Richard Stallman? From Steve Ballmer? Some dirty hippie blogger like myself?
Nope, it’s Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Fred von Lohmann (right), responding to his own “get,” a copy of the iPhone Developer License Agreement, now posted on the EFF Web site.
Tim Bray, who used to be buying a lot of Apple gear, is now comparing Apple to “Evil” (that’s a strong word with somewhat religious connotation) as he joins the Android team [1, 2] (we mentioned this last night). Here is what he wrote:
The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet’s future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It’s a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord’s pleasure and fear his anger.
Bray would be a good asset to Linux/Android/Google. He is the co-inventor of XML (which didn’t really need much ‘invention’). Bray is an opponent of software patents, so hopefully he’ll wake Google up.
The inventor of the cellphone has also just dumped the iPhone and moved to Android (Linux):
It turns out that Martin Cooper, the man who invented the cell phone, is the proud owner of a Motorola Droid! In a story which aired on C-SPAN, Martin discussed the politics of cellphones, as well as his current device.
According to some preliminary figures, Droid alone (that’s just one phone running Android) is beating iPhone’s record:
Did you know that it took the iPhone only 74 days to reach 1 million units sold? Oh you’ve heard that, huh? Well, did you know that the Motorola Droid moved more units in the same time frame? Yeah, you probably didn’t expect that. Frankly, neither did we. The latest report from Flurry shows the Droid pushing 1.05 million handsets in the first 74 days of release, eclipsing the number set by Apple.
No wonder Apple is so nervous. Microsoft is going nowhere too. Matt Asay, formerly a huge Apple fan, has just said the following things about Linux versus Apple (when asked whether “Linux [can] compete with Apple”):
Asay: I’m not sure this is the right question, as Linux already competes with and beats Apple in a huge array of devices. Linux spans everything from HPC to embedded devices and everything in between. Apple cannot compete with that. Could you build a supercomputer using Mac hardware? Sure, but you’d be mortgaging your house to do so and even then, the Mac would likely lose.
Of course, Apple doesn’t want to compete in such markets. It’s famously focused and opts to do a few things very well, like its iPhone and laptops.
Can Linux compete in these markets? Yes. Of course it can. Look at Android as perhaps the best example of effectively competing with Apple in mobile. Apparently Apple agrees with me, as its patent infringement suit against HTC is almost certainly a shot over Google’s bow, as The New York Times recently suggested. Apple is worried. And it should be.
The Source commends Asay for some of his remarks which he made since had joined Canonical.
As a side note, although I expressed strong reservations when Mr. Asay was named Canonical COO, I haven’t heard anything from him yet that I find objectionable.
To summarise, Apple’s action against GNU/Linux is supported by Microsoft while several notable people move away from Apple and directly to Linux. Among them: co-inventor of XML, inventor of the cellphone, and former Apple enthusiast and blogger Matt Asay. █
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”
–(Usually attributed to) Mahatma Gandhi
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Posted in Apple, BSD, FOSS, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 7:00 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Reporters wonder if Vivek Kundra (national CIO) can resist the temptation to just hand over government operations to private companies, some of which are abusive and dangerous to sovereignty
THE United States government should ideally deploy Free software, just as it used Drupal and LAMP to redo the official White House Web site. This gives the government full control of the software that it uses, which is crucial. Favouritism to some overpaid people who are hiding behind some company names is not an acceptable practice, especially given that the money comes from taxpayers and the government is often funded by those same companies that it returns favours to (Microsoft funded the Obama campaign for example).
According to this report, “Obama’s $79 Billion Tech Plan May Favor Web Programs”
Watch which companies are being listed:
Microsoft, Google and Amazon.com Inc. are all offering more databases and programs online, allowing customers to curb storage costs. Sharing software and data that way would shrink U.S. storage needs, helping to cut expenses after previous governments spent more than $500 billion on data centers and other technology initiatives in the past decade, Kundra said.
The government is able to employ its own IT staff that will build and maintain systems that are based on Free software. There is no need for a Microsoft or a Google or an Amazon.com. If businesses choose to do trade with them, that’s fine. It’s their choice. But governments are different, they are inherently obliged not to become just an extension of commerce for reasons we won’t go into.
“Steve Ballmer visits the White House a little too much given that he is not a politician (or isn’t supposed to act as one because he was never elected).”As we have already shown, Steve Ballmer visits the White House a little too much [1, 2] given that he is not a politician (or isn’t supposed to act as one because he was never elected). Ballmer and Obama’s CIO may have met at a university recently and Investor Spot now asks: “Will Steve Ballmer’s Microsoft & Obama’s Administration Share A Cloud?”
This would be a total farce if it became true. Likewise, as Apple/Mac developers find out that they are merely being exploited, one person finds it worthwhile to say (in IDG): “It’s time to end government-funded iPhone apps (and curb Apple’s control-freak tendencies)”
Now we’ve got Apple’s Developer License Agreement with terms so controlling that developers must seek prior approval from Apple before even commenting on the license itself. We only know this because the Electronic Frontier Foundation snared a copy from NASA via a Freedom of Information Act request (view PDF on the EFF site. Apparently, federal law still trumps Apple’s corporate attempts at secrecy. At least for now.
NASA also appears to have been intruded by Microsoft boosters [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], who in turn use NASA to block/turn away GNU/Linux and BSD users. █
“Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer [...] I can’t imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business. I’m an American; I believe in the American way, I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don’t think we’ve done enough education of policymakers to understand the threat.”
–Jim Allchin, President of Platforms & Services Division at Microsoft
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Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, SCO at 2:42 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Some news sites have begun suggesting that since Microsoft would benefit from Apple’s aggression, then Microsoft could also be involved in it
Microsoft is copying ideas from Apple in its attempt to breathe life into Windows Mobile. Microsoft even admits copying the iPhone, but for neither Microsoft nor Apple does the closed-source approach help all that much. According to Microsoft’s business partner ComScore [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10], the biggest winner right now is Linux/Android, which Apple tries to defeat by suing with software patents [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].
Here is why Apple and Microsoft are so nervous about Linux:
These figures are from a company that works with Microsoft, so if any bias exists, it is in Microsoft’s favour. According to the ‘Microsoft press’, Microsoft plans to pollute the mobile Web with standards-hostile pages that only work well as long as Microsoft gets paid. How convenient.
The Mad Hatter writes about Apple’s lawsuit with some historical background:
Unix System Laboratories v. BSD Incorporated and the University of California – in many ways this was one of the seminal cases which changed the attitude of IT towards companies that use the legal system against their competitors. It ended in a sealed settlement. A settlement that left the community unsure, and very unhappy. Ten years later using California’s Public Records Law, a Groklaw member called dburns obtained a copy of the settlement, which Groklaw dissected, to the delight of the community. Tis case may have directly been responsible for the success of Linux, in that people who might have worked on the BSD kernel worked on the Linux kernel instead due to the legal uncertainty.
SCO Group v. International Business Machines, Inc. – the actions of the SCO Group (previously known as Caldera International) were regarded by most of the community as a direct attack on the community, even though IBM was the legal target. SCO claimed that IBM had copied millions of lines of source code directly from the Unix Operating System into GNU/Linux. When SCO turned down the community’s offer to re-write the supposedly infringing parts of GNU/Linux, the initial confusion in the community was replaced by a dogged determination to strike back. The community quickly determined that SCO’s claims were bogus by checking every claim that SCO made against the source code files in the Linux kernel. The fact that SCO (when it was still called Caldera) had open sourced an earlier version of the Unix Operating System helped. Groklaw was one of the nodes of resistance that formed, and the line by line dissection of the various filings by Pamela helped confirm that SCO was lying . One of the things that really got IT upset was how the two major players, Ralph Yarro and Darl McBride attempted to use the ‘religion’ card (both claimed to be devout Mormons – claimed – their lies prove that they weren’t).
Gordon v. Microsoft and Comes v. Microsoft – two of the Anti-Trust cases brought against Microsoft, the public filings made very interesting reading, and showed that Microsoft was no friend of the IT community, regarding them as little more than sheep to be fleeced.
[...]
And now we’ve got Apple. Apple had generally been regarded as an OK company. It makes code contributions to the community, uses Free and Open Source Software in it’s core products (OSX is based on FreeBSD, Safari is based on Webkit, etc). Apple has been somewhat litigious, but the lawsuit against HTC is the ’straw that broke the camel’s back.’ Whether the lawsuit has any legal or technical merits doesn’t matter. What matters is that Apple has taken an action that the IT Community doesn’t approve of.
Legally Apple’s suit may have merits (another article will deal with this). That doesn’t matter. Apple has, by launching this suit, proven a disdain for the IT Community’s mores. The community has had to deal with a lot of issues, especially over the last ten years, and as The SCO Group found out, if you piss off the community, the community will come after you.
But now we get to the interesting part. We have found this theory that Apple attacked Android (Linux) in order to help Microsoft. Here is one article that discusses this:
Companies Targeted by Apple’s Lawsuits Might Receive Help from Microsoft, Report Speculates
The rattle created by Apple is now leading to other OEMs to reconsider their plans with the Android, and this might indirectly help Microsoft gain more partners for its latest Windows Phone 7 Series.
Also, in CRN, we have “Report: Microsoft May Help Apple Lawsuit Targets”.
Microsoft Nick says that “Microsoft Could Be Affected by Apple, HTC Lawsuit”. Brier Dudley, a Microsoft booster from the Seattle Times (which hardly ever covers anything negative about Microsoft), says that “Apple [and] Microsoft [are] warming up to each other”. Dudley also writes that “Seeing is believing when Microsoft talks nice about former foe Apple”. He refers to the following incident:
Speaking of such stores, CMS Wire says that “Google’s Marketplace Spells Trouble for Microsoft” and a blogger from ZDNet says:
Given all those Googly warm fuzzies, it seemed like Microsoft should be at least a little bit nervous, especially for the much sought-after SMB market.
Microsoft has already begun imitating this model too.
Could Microsoft be helping Apple or vice versa? One might suggest that this is complemented rather than contradicted by news reports like this one from the Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft Corp. employees are passionate users of the latest tech toys. But there is one gadget love that many at the company dare not name: the iPhone.
Mike Magee and others [1, 2, 3] wrote about 10,000 Microsoft employees using iPhones (that’s more than 10% of the staff). Are Apple and Microsoft really growing closer? Some months ago there were rumours about them bonding against Google, namely by Apple redirecting users to Microsoft’s illusion of “search engine”, where the results are still Linux- and Apple-hostile. █
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03.15.10
Posted in Apple, Microsoft, Vista, Vista 7, Windows at 7:07 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Lacking any progress for Windows or Microsoft in general, the company seems to be disclosing some more fake “leaks” of something that does not exist
THE PAST week has been a particularly weak one for Microsoft, at least based on the news. In the next few days we’ll produce proof of this.
First of all, versions of Windows are being retired and this is the only article that we found about “Vista” in the past week. That’s unusual. Secondly, we also found just four clusters of headlines about “Windows 7″ (Vista 7), which is very little. News for “Microsoft” has generally been low in volume over the past week, for no apparent reason. There is almost nothing of substance that we haven’t covered yet and we mentioned Courier last week for being Microsoft's catch-up and also vapourware. Someone wrote this article about it.
Microsoft is a well known brand, but why do they always seem to be adding products right after another, *cough* Apple *cough*, company has already released something new? As reported in PC World, the Microsoft Courier doesn’t really seem to be anything that is actually in the making, BUT Engadget reports on some key points that sure as heck seem like a real product.
Microsoft claims that details were “leaked”, but this lying company is the boy who cried “Wolf!” when it comes to leaks [1, 2]. Just like Apple, Microsoft routinely fakes “leaks” in order to create hype and the nature of the “leaked” images suggests that they are too professionals to be of that nature. It’s more like OLPC’s mockups. █
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Posted in Apple, Bill Gates, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Patents at 3:36 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Why so angry, Steve?!
Original photo by Matthew Yohe, modified by Boycott Novell
Summary: A great number of new articles about the effects of Apple, Microsoft, and Intellectual Ventures (funded by Apple, Microsoft, and Bill Gates) on Free software
Apple’s attack on GNU/Linux [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] has led Dana Blankenhorn to suggesting that Apple could be the next SCO.
Apple’s suit against HTC could end one of two ways.
Either Apple becomes the next SCO, which ran itself aground claiming rights to Linux, or it becomes the next Microsoft, which is prospering while claiming to own Linux.
The answer depends on how hard Apple presses its case.
According to this new article from the New York Times, Steve Jobs is being anti-competitive.
“We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business,” Mr. Jobs told Apple employees during an all-hands meeting shortly after the public introduction of the iPad in January, according to two employees who were there and heard the presentation. “Make no mistake: Google wants to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them.”
“Why Apple is paranoid about Android,” wonders an IDG blogger, who plays with words of a Radiohead track.
What was surprising was that the theme that Business Insider chose to talk about – RIM holding on to its dominance from the Apple iPhone – was not what caught my eye. What struck me was the Google Android share and the sharp recent increase, suggesting that it’s heading ever upwards. In fact, when I go back to the original figure from ComScore, the market share is 7.1 percent – a whopping increase from the 2.8 percent of the previous quarter – that’s a little over 150 percent increase in three months. And that market share was achieved very quickly, Android only released its first phone in September 2008, a doubly impressive performance.
As a reminder, Apple also sues Nokia, but Nokia is the company that sued first [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. This case could take years, according to:
1. U.S. Judge Suspends Apple-Nokia Case
The judge stayed litigation in the case pending the outcome of the International Trade Commission investigations that each company requested against the other. The investigation into Apple was announced by the ITC in late January, while the responding investigation into Nokia was launched late last month. After Nokia’s first lawsuit, launched in October of last year, Apple filed a counterclaim in the Delaware district court, also accusing Nokia of patent infringement. Nokia subsequently launched a second suit, aiming to block importation of Apple hardware into the U.S.
2. Nokia, Apple seek patent trial in 2 years
Top phone makers Nokia and Apple will seek a U.S. court hearing in a key patent battle in mid-2012, a court filing showed, raising the specter of a prolonged legal struggle.
Here is a note about prior art and LWN with a list of the patents and a discussion. IDG has this list of top smartphone lawsuits.
Over the past decades, the software patent has become a weapon of choice in tech circles.
One writer argues that “Apple’s patent offensive sends message to rivals”. It’s a bully’s technique, like “Shock and Awe” or “crazy dictator” (always be aware of the lawsuit-loving, trigger-happy one).
Apple’s patent infringement case against HTC is part of a larger effort to give rival smart phone manufacturers pause as they pursue iPhone-like features in their devices, according to a research note from Oppenheimer analyst Yair Reiner.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt of Brainstorm Tech relates the note, which recounts the way Apple is working behind the scenes to stop what it calls the rip off of its intellectual property. It also suggests that Apple’s IP battle could deal a blow to Google’s Android operating system and manufacturers relying on it.
Apple and Microsoft are actually both in it, having previously bullied companies like Sun over the use and support of Free software [1, 2]. They keep the abusive behaviour secret for the most part.
This also brings us back to Amazon’s patent deal with Microsoft [1, 2, 3]. “Microsoft’s Amazon deal was all about Linux,” says this one article.
However, buried in the small print of the press release about the deal was a set of technologies covered by the agreement including the Kindle, which employs open source software, and Amazon’s use of Linux-based servers.
What this could mean is that Microsoft is popping around to some of the bigger Linux based technology outfits and saying: “Look you have some stuff we want to use, give us the rights to use it and we will not make you the first person we sue over Linux”.
[...]
What surprises us is that the Open Source community has not kicked up more of a stink about it.
Jim Zemlin, of the Linux Foundation, wrote of the deal that most technology companies have invested heavily in patents and that a cross-licensing agreement is a non-news event. The fact that two entities with expensive stockpiles of outdated weapons felt the need to negotiate détente is not surprising.
We have already complained about apathy from Zemlin and a few others [1, 2]. There is a poor approach from the Linux Foundation, which is not opposing software patents (its funding sources don’t). Instead, the foundation plays along with the dirty games of lobbying. “Software freedom has a posse – in Washington DC,” says Phipps from the OSI, who adds that:
You’ll recall I posted a long analysis of the sick position the IIPA took urging the US Trade Representative (USTR) to discriminate against countries around the world if they have a preference for software freedom. That analysis become an input for the excellent position statement, written collaboratively by the OSI Board and posted by OSI President Michael Tiemann, calling for action by national groups.
Here is OSFA’s announcement and some resultant press coverage. OSFA should have spent energy lobbying to abolish software patents once and for all, but then again, some of the companies it represents are fake friends of Free software who actually like software patents (companies like Google and IBM, for example).
One issue that we mentioned before is that Google had gotten sued by some obscure company [1, 2] and Microsoft did too [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] (there are $242,000,000 at stake, a similar amount to that of the i4i case [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]).
One would think that Google and Microsoft can abolishing software patents, but the benefits they receive from these monopolies are greater than the occasional damages. According to this new report from IP Watch, Microsoft is now joined by it patent troll Nathan Myhrvold, who helped the company hack the patent system.
Indian Civil Society Raises Concerns Over US Industry-Sponsored IP Summits
[...]
Public interest groups in India are raising questions over annual summits involving Indian judges and policymakers that are being funded by major western industry groups, in particular pharmaceutical companies. At this year’s summit, held recently, a section of India’s patent law which prevents the extension of monopoly power for incremental innovations came under attack, the groups have said.
[...]
Companies with a “vested interest in software patents” such as Intellectual Ventures, Microsoft, and Qualcomm also have been involved, although such patents are not currently allowed in the country, it added.
Why is Intellectual Ventures even involved in this? It has no products and it contributed nothing to society or industry. It’s just a leech that spends over a million dollars per year lobbying while bullying a variety of companies, which lose their income to this leech.
Change is needed and it involves abolishing software patents, not working one’s way around them. OSFA ought to work towards that goal and identify Apple, Microsoft, or even their shells that they fund as foes not worth working with. █
“Intellectual property is the next software.”
–Nathan Myhrvold, funded by Apple, Microsoft, and Bill Gates
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03.14.10
Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Google at 6:19 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Jealous Jobs
Steve Ballmer’s presentation slide
from 2009 shows GNU/Linux as bigger than Apple on the desktop
Summary: News about Apple’s primitive products (from a technical perspective) trying to catch up with their Linux-powered counterparts
Given Apple’s patent lawsuits against GNU/Linux [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], it’s hard to see why any Free software developer would choose to develop for Apple, let alone buy anything from the company. One of the latest products from this company is being mentioned far too much by the technology press. It’s a disappointment even in the eyes of some avid followers of Apple [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] and just like Palm OS, iPad and iPhone have no multitasking. No multitasking! It’s not a joke. Now there are rumours about no camera support, either.
Can Apple catch up with Linux and actually implement multitasking? Some people think so [1, 2]. Those folks at Apple are ’stealing’ from Linux again (just as they did from BSD when they made OS X)? Does it make them “great artists”?
Multitasking, or the lack thereof, has been one of the most prevalent complaints about the iPhone as a serious business smartphone–although I am not sure it is iPhone users who are doing the complaining. The lack of iPhone multitasking was a prime target of Verizon’s “Droid Does” marketing campaign for the Android-based Motorola Droid.
The iPad has no multitasking ability, either. These devices are toys and they are also built by children, based on this news report.
That iPhone you adore may have been built by a child.
Nearly a dozen underage teens were working for Apple-contracted facilities in 2009, the company has revealed. The news was posted to Apple’s Web site under a section labeled “Supplier Responsibility.”
To make things worse for Apple, they have lost the right to own the small “i”. [via]
Apple has been dealt a severe blow having been told that it no longer has a monopoly on the letter “i2″ as part of the name for its products.
A trademarks tribunal has knocked back Apple’s bid to stop a small company from trademarking the name DOPi for use on its laptop bags and cases for Apple products.
Apple argued that the DOPi name – which is iPod spelt backwards – was too similar to its own popular portable music player, which has sold in excess of 100 million units worldwide.
Apple is a control freak. More on that later, in a much longer post about Apple’s bullying. █
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Posted in Apple, Bill Gates, FOSS, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Patents, Ubuntu, Windows at 3:29 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Assorted new reports about how Microsoft abuses “open source” to gain control of it, change its direction and goals, or even to misuse the label to promote proprietary software that harms standards and promotes patenting of software
The following new post caught our attention because it attempts to portray Microsoft as one that’s engaging with the Free/open source software community; it plays right into the hands of Microsoft’s PR campaign, which strives for a fusion whereby Microsoft controls both sides of the competition and then derails the side which is less favourable to Microsoft. Microsoft has done that over and over again for many years and victims include giants like IBM and Apple.
Here is just part of this post which we disagree with:
However, it looks like Microsoft is slowly accepting that Linux and open source in general is both here to stay and a force to be reckoned with. Since 2006, Microsoft has been focusing its efforts toward interoperability rather than confrontation, for example via its collaboration with Novell.
No, it was a software patents deal; it’s an attack on GNU/Linux. Microsoft’s PR line used to be that Microsoft was ‘embracing’ Linux; yes, it was, like a python embraces a gazelle.
Microsoft hasn’t actually changed its tune, it’s still actively attacking Free software [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] and trying to abolish GNU/Linux while promoting Windows and other proprietary software as though they are complementary to Free software, which they are not (history teaches). It’s PR nonsense and Microsoft is good at PR.
Just as another new example, two weeks ago we wrote about Microsoft's fake “choice” campaign, reminding ourselves that Microsoft is still lying about the meaning of choice. Dana Blankenhorn has just written about it too.
Microsoft offers a Sophie’s Choice
[...]
Open source is completely orthogonal to the choice discussion, Kazun writes, pointing to Microsoft’s Open Government Data Initiative as proof.
But here’s my problem with that, and here is why open source is not orthogonal at all, but part of the same dimension.
You get one choice. You buy Microsoft and you’re locked into Microsoft. You can’t go back.
In Microsoft’s world its formats and open source are the two children, and you get to make one choice. Then you have to move on.
Microsoft is only stripping choice from products that it buys, such as Photosynth and FAST, which abandoned their GNU/Linux roots after Microsoft had bought them.
To top it all off, the programming scam around Silver Lie is back. Microsoft is yet again trying to associate Silverlight with “open source” [1, 2] (Novell helps Microsoft in that regard), even though it’s a patent menace, a lock-in on several levels, and attack on web standards.
“Ubuntu too is suffering from this problem because Canonical hires from Microsoft and Novell.”Last week we wrote about SourceForge/Geeknet falling into the hands of former Microsoft employees who are using SourceForge to promote Windows. Microsoft booster Marius Oiaga makes use of that new case of entryism while others mostly choose to ignore or forget (SYS-CON warning) that Microsoft is taking over from the inside, by changing employees and thus changing the agenda, too. This is a defeat, not a victory.
It’s not just a problem that SourceForge is having by the way. Ubuntu too is suffering from this problem because Canonical hires from Microsoft and Novell. One reader showed us last night that Canonical’s David Siegel wrote: “If I could only follow one person on all of twitter, without hesitation it would be @migueldeicaza”
“I hope this isn’t a trend with canonical employees,” said our reader.
Miguel de Icaza is not just a Novell employee; he is a Microsoft MVP whose focus is promotion of Microsoft everything. We now learn that Novell will go to OSBC, which Microsoft sponsors and uses to promote itself (and redefine “open source”). Here is another new gem from a SUSE developer:
Commercial open source
…sponsored by Microsoft, tommorow at 18h. I decided to take a look, so there will be some fun 
. [And I guess I can always run away when it gets too bad.]
Microsoft loves injecting the word "commercial" and then demand acceptance of software patents. That’s just malicious, but not as malicious as SYS-CON [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], which smears opponents of Microsoft. Speaking of SYS-CON, Novell will also speak at an event that it sponsors, even though it’s SYS-CON (Novell is paying SYS-CON, which in turn smears Groklaw). How tactless. If Free software (or “open source”) does not expel champions of proprietary software that obviously want to impose software patents and Windows upon others, then it will simply allow itself to be manipulated to death.
To Microsoft, source code just means something to lift and to exploit. If this is true, then Microsoft may have just ‘pulled a Plurk’ [1, 2, 3, 4] again.
So what has Microsoft done this time? Are we in for a repeat of the Plurk incident? Well nearly, you see Microsoft is alleged to have been lifting code again. This time though at least the lifting of code wasn’t alleged unauthorised or unlawful.
Since its early days, Microsoft has used source code of others in order to build its products, without giving anything back. █
“The best way to prepare is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating systems.”
–Bill Gates
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