07.18.08
Posted in Microsoft, GNU/Linux, SCO, Novell, UNIX, Courtroom, SUN at 3:00 am by Roy Schestowitz
For those in need of a simple synopsis
The SCO/Novell case sure has gotten a little crazy and yesterday we wrote about the very latest. It was shallow and preliminary, but now that the press has had time to digest, there is some more conclusive overage.
SCO’s cheerleaders and wannabes appear to have disappeared into the darkness. The SCO boosters are either spinning the court’s decision (so does SCO) or hide under a rock. Here is how Groklaw puts it:
Remember when SCO began its media blitz? Stories everywhere. The world thought it was exciting to imagine Linux on the ropes. Now, when SCO is told it behaved improperly and must pay millions, only a few even note it. No one cares about SCO in failure, except for some who feel disgust, like Matt Asay.
What a strange ride it’s been. You’d think the folks that wrote all those stories about SCO eating Linux’s lunch would at least place a notice on their Corrections Page: “Um. About that lunch stuff, we were totally duped by SCO. They haven’t won anything. The best they can do is not lose as big as they could have.”
[…]
But someone sent me Maureen O’Gara’s latest, a very hilarious snip. She of course is warning that Linux end users are at risk, because SCO can now sue them for infringing UnixWare. Heh heh. Folks, they could have sued for post-APA UnixWare five years ago. In fact, that is part of what SCOsource was allegedly about. Remember? That’s the story. So it’s nothing new that SCO can sue over UnixWare. And yet, they never did. If you look at the IBM case, not one line of infringed code from UnixWare was listed by SCO. Would that be for a reason? Like there isn’t any? You think?
Other SCO allies like Rob Enderle and Paul Murphy show no signs of life, either.
And after all has been (almost) said and done I’m left wondering: Where are the Rob Enderles and Paul Murphies of this world that were willing to bet their souls on SCO winning the case? Was it Rob that said that he had seen “very compelling evidence” of copyright infringement under an NDA?
I wonder SCO losing won’t show up on their “missed predictions” section of their resume… oh, and Steve Ballmer… you better sell that bottle of champaigne you were saving for the time SCO won the case… it must be worth a little more money after all the time that passed by.
Coverage from the local press has arrived by now:
1. SCO ordered to pay $2.55M to Novell
The SCO Group, which had angered many in the open-source community when it launched a campaign in 2003 to obtain license fees from Linux users of Unix software code, is ordered today to pay to Novell $2.55 million in royalty payments on Unix licenses collected from Sun Microsystems.
2. SCO to pay Novell $2.5M owed for Unix royalties
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that The SCO Group must pay more than $2.5 million in royalties to Novell Inc. for licensing the Unix computer operating system software to Sun Microsystems.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball in Salt Lake City came in the long-running dispute between Novell of Provo and SCO.
Outside of Utah, plenty of coverage soon appeared too. Here is just some of it:
Ars Technica: Ruling: SCO owes Novell $2.54 million from SCO-Sun SVRX deal
Today’s ruling comes after a three-day bench trial in late April and early May to determine how much money SCO was supposed to pay Novell. In theory, that would be 95 percent of the royalties for SVRX, the original UNIX intellectual property. The challenge for the court was to distinguish how much of the SCOSource licensing revenue was for SVRX and how much was for SCO’s own UnixWare intellectual property.
Judge Kimball evaluated Microsoft’s agreement with SCO and found that it primarily covered UnixWare. The only SVRX rights granted to Microsoft under the terms of the agreement were for intellectual property that was part of UnixWare. This means that SCO doesn’t have to give Novell any of the money it collected from Microsof
CNET Blogs: Justice is served: SCO ordered to pay Novell millions
It’s true that we haven’t been forced to put up with SCO for a year or two, but I will admit to still feeling annoyed by the festering cesspool of greed that leaked from SCO’s boardroom into the software industry for several years. These guys deserve to pay.
The Register: SCO ordered to pay Novell $2.5m Unix royalties
“The court concludes that SCO was entitled to enter into the 2003 Microsoft Agreement and the other SCO source Licenses, but was not authorized to enter into the 2003 Sun Agreement based on its amendment of the provisions concerning Sun’s SVRX confidentiality requirements under the 1994 Agreement,” said Kimball.
Groklaw reader and Inquirer reporter Egan has published this short article.
SCO, of course, is trying to spin Judge Kimball’s ruling as a win. As though being ordered to pay Novell over $2.5 million, plus interest and attorneys’ fees, really counts as a win.
But then SCO, being SCO, plans to appeal. Yet the appeals court could decide to reverse Judge Kimball’s ruling that SCO doesn’t owe Novell for the licencing fees it received from Microsoft and its SCOsource licencees.
Todd Weiss has another Computer World report, which reached IDG’s LinuxWorld (association with the Microsoft-backed IDC comes to mind). It seems as though there’s some media collaboration which could lead to change in biases. Anyway, Weiss writes:
At the beginning of its massive legal fight against Linux in 2003, The SCO Group imagined a day when companies like IBM, Novell and others would pay it large amounts of cash for alleged infringements on SCO-owned Unix code.
Instead, even as those legal fights meander through US courts, the tables were turned and SCO Wednesday was ordered to pay US$2.55 million to Novell for collecting Unix licensing revenue from Sun Microsystems that it wasn’t entitled to collect.
Henry Kingman posted a good summary of old stories at the bottom of this page.
Meanwhile, readers insatiable for backstory are encouraged to plunder to their gullets’ content on the Related Stories below. Enjoy . . . !
These are mainly old articles from SJVN, who yesterday had this to say:
The SCO legal horror show probably isn’t completely over yet. Some idiot always wants to do a sequel, but this is the end of the main saga. Novell owns Unix. SCO doesn’t. SCO is in bankruptcy. This is the end of the story. Oh, and for the spinoff, we have the possibility of Novell vs. Sun since, according to the judge; SCO never owned the IP rights to the Unix that it sold to Sun, which Sun then turned into part of OpenSolaris.
His zombie analogy got the attention of his old employers at Ziff Davis (eWeek).
Both parties may be able to appeal the decision, suggesting that the long, overdrawn case could continue to hobble along even longer than it already has. To quote Steven Vaughan-Nichols, “Like the 11th chapter of a bad horror movie, the SCO zombie keeps stumbling forward moaning “Linux,” instead of “brains.”
It seems like good riddance to SCO. Groklaw opines that Microsoft is next. Expect MSFT to fall sharply in Friday’s trading. Microsoft has just disappointed the market. Will aggression ensue? █
“We believe every Linux customer basically has an undisclosed balance-sheet liability.”
–Steve Ballmer
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07.17.08
Posted in Law, Microsoft, Finance, GNU/Linux, SCO, UNIX, Courtroom at 4:31 am by Roy Schestowitz
SCO has already received its decent share of money from Microsoft and from BayStar (at the very least), through which Microsoft ensured SCO is funded to continue its legal battles against Linux. The decision on Novell/SCO is now in and a preliminary look suggests that Novell, which may be acquired by Microsoft one day, is set to inherit some of SCO’s assets and money.
OK. I’ve read it now once through, and the big picture is this: Judge Kimball did not change anything in his August 10th order, which I was afraid might happen. He could have, had he heard anything that he didn’t know when he made that order. So, SCO breached its fiduciary duty to Novell, converted funds, and so it has to pay. That is ironic, in that this case started with SCO accusing Novell of slander of title, and asking for millions in damages. Instead it has to *pay* Novell millions.
From all of these UNIX/Linux wars, one party among several that benefit is Microsoft. Groklaw opines that Microsoft is the next SCO. █
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07.15.08
Posted in Red Hat, Microsoft, Novell, Mono, KDE, Courtroom, SUN at 4:57 am by Roy Schestowitz
Thou shalt not know
Y
esterday it was shown that Red Hat had paid in vain for software patents that would not be valid anyway. At the time, Red Hat was seen as a courageous patent swatter, but not everyone is happy. Here is quite a legitimate new criticism. (strong language warning)
It’s not that Sun has better lawyers than Red Hat. It’s that Sun has better top management than Red Hat! The #1 Linux company gave the wrong message to the community, going for petty deals and thinking “wow, we’re great because we did better than Novell!”. Red Hat is a shame, period. They were simply feeding the trolls — it’s the same as when you simply pay the protection tax to the Mafia instead of calling the police and trying to fight with the evildoers.
Here is another software patent that potentially goes on death row, which only comes to prove that such patents are pointless and spineless once properly challenged.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office agreed to re-examine online-gaming patent 6,264,560 after the Electronic Frontier Foundation challenged it on the grounds that the technology covered by the patent had been used extensively before it was issued.
Looking back, Stallman’s claim that “fighting patents one by one will never eliminate the danger of software patents, any more than swatting mosquitoes will eliminate malaria” still makes perfect sense.
An important thing to keep in mind is not where patents exist, but also who holds them and is willing to litigate without success only to create fear (think along the lines of SCO). That’s why we constantly warn about Mono (last done so yesterday).
We mentioned Mono bindings in KDE about a year ago and now comes this about Plasma (KDE4) applets in C# and Ruby (thanks to Al Roberts for the tip).
The Ruby and C# ScriptEngines application apis are pretty much identical to the C++ one, and both bindings have that wrapped too in case you need to use it. For instance, you can’t write Plasma containments in ScriptEngine based applets, but for 95% of use cases it should be just fine. In the C++ based apis the main class is Plasma.Applet for C# or Plasma::Applet for Ruby, whereas the main classes in the ScriptEngine bindings are PlasmaScripting.Applet and PlasmaScripting::Applet respectively. So you just make your applet a subclass of one of those, add some slightly different entries in it .desktop file and use the standard directory structure for Plasmoids for where you put the source code, C# .dll and other resources. Everything else is the same.
It’s hugely important to keep Microsoft’s intellectual monopolies away from the Free Desktop. An ‘intellectual’ dependency is just what Novell and Microsoft want to achieve in order to increase their power and ownership of it.
Other New Items of Interest
Digital Majority has collected a bunch of new stories.
The first one is a complaint about the patent system as a whole. It comes from none other than the Wall Street Journal and it concludes with:
Our patent system for most innovations has become patently absurd. It’s a disincentive at a time when we expect software and other technology companies to be the growth engine of the economy. Imagine how much more productive our information-driven economy would be if the patent system lived up to the intention of the Founders, by encouraging progress instead of suppressing it.
The issue of software patents is soon to be discussed because it is so controversial.
Over the last several years, the Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit have taken a number of steps suggesting that the law governing software patents is still very much in flux.
Somewhat of an odd sibling of software patents, BM patents, are still hinged on the question about patentability of non-physical (amorous or perceptual) things. Can thought alone be a violation? Can you force someone to ‘unknow’ a part of science or demand payment for it? Can patents be violated using pen and paper? It’s an interesting debate that can help defeat software patents.
This claim is interesting because like Wasynczuk, it involves a system claim that is not patentable subject matter.
Only in a world with Gates and Windows can people be forbidden from peering outside, looking for simple ideas. It’s a world where research and exploration — let alone thought — can be a crime.
At the end of the day, the only criminals are those pushing for such laws. █
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07.12.08
Posted in Microsoft, Deception, Patents, Courtroom, FOSS at 4:30 am by Roy Schestowitz
Microsoft Poisons Free Software from the Inside
SourceForge seems determined to find out just how ‘risky’ Free software is.
Welcome Microsoft, which has been getting cosy with SourceForge lately [1, 2]. Some months ago we warned about it. The old analysis still stands and the The Register took note.
Co-incidentally, or not, Microsoft - who has a schizophrenic relationship with open source when it comes to the subject of intellectual property in free and open source software - is sponsoring the poll.
[…]
One wonders what diamond-level sponsor Microsoft might feel about this, given its own sense of software manifest destiny and, ahem, “concerns” over IP in open source software.
Microsoft is still trying to broadcast the message that users of Free software (e.g. from SourceForge) are at risk. It’s about as bad as those anti-GNU/Linux advertisements Microsoft puts in NewsForge. Is it really sponsorship or a licence to ruin?
“Using the language of money, they try to get FOSS to publicly acknowledge guilt and repel prospective customers.”What an evil yet elegant way of spreading FUD. Instead of coming from the outside to accuse Free software of not honouring intellectual monopolies, Microsoft pays some money for an open source Web site to shoot itself in the foot with FUD directed against itself. Using the language of money, they try to get FOSS to publicly acknowledge guilt and repel prospective customers.
We shall return to this in the future.
More Software Patents
We have already discussed one of the greatest insults to the USPTO. It’s known as the “JPEG on a Web page” patent [1, 2] It’s not just GIF that requires PNG (PNG is Not GIF) and perhaps it’s dangerous to even put a picture — any picture — on a Web page these days. Either way, watch what has happened with this JPEG patent owner.
Owner Of Infamous JPEG Patent Tries To Line Jump The Re-Exam Process
[…]
You may recall the infamous “JPEG patent” we’ve talked about recently. It’s the one that patent attorney Ray Niro, about whom the phrase “patent troll” was initially coined, has used to sue all sorts of critics or companies he doesn’t appear to like.
We wrote about Ray Niro before [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 8, 9, 10]. He should really be kept behind bars, along with the likes of Carl Icahn. Sadly, the current law is dysfunctional, so these people not behind bars.
Another obscure company called WordLogic decided to attack with a patent that it hadn’t even received. What would make a better target than a wealthy and luxurious Mercedes-Benz?
WLGC: Files Patent Infringement Lawsuit Against Mercedes-Benz USA
[…]
The company through its wholly owned subsidiary 602531 British Columbia Ltd., which holds the Company’s patent and patent pending portfolio, will be seeking damages for patent infringement for use of their car navigation system in certain 2007, 2008, and 2009 Mercedes-Benz models under US Patent No. 7293231 titled “DATA ENTRY FOR PERSONAL COMPUTING DEVICES”. WordLogic believes that this infringement was willful.
“Wholly owned subsidiary”… does that ring a bell [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]? Anyway, let’s move on.
Remember game patents? They are back. It’s Konami yet again [1, 2].
News: Konami sues Viacom over Rock Band
[…]
This jockeying took another step forward this week when Konami, makers of the upcoming Rock Revolution® musical group rhythm game, filed suit against Harmonix, makers of the popular Rock Band® musical group rhythm game, accusing Harmonix of infringing three of Konami’s patents.
The Qualcomm saga that we mentioned here before [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28] has not ended. it’s about video compression patents, which is a classic case of mathematical ownership through software patents. Have a look at this article from Law.com.
The Qualcomm discovery fiasco dealt a blow to the lawyers involved at Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder. As the question of sanctions lingers in the courts, another big one remains: How badly will it hurt the highly respected patent litigation boutique?
[…]
The discovery issue arose during the January 2007 trial over video compression patents. A Qualcomm witness disclosed the existence of e-mails that turned out to be highly relevant to the case. In April 2007, Qualcomm’s then-General Counsel Louis Lupin and Batchelder apologized for neglecting to turn over the e-mails to Broadcom but argued that Qualcomm’s trial team had never acted in bad faith.
What a total waste of time and money. Just ask professor Stiglitz, a Nobel Laureate. █
“Fighting patents one by one will never eliminate the danger of software patents, any more than swatting mosquitoes will eliminate malaria.”
–Richard Stallman
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07.09.08
Posted in Microsoft, Intellectual Property, Patents, Courtroom at 2:22 pm by Roy Schestowitz
T
his will be far from the first time that we mention the ACTA, which is a wish list from Hollywood et al to be passed as law [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. According to this update from Glyn Moody, they are indeed above the law and this is troubling for so many reasons.
The extremely pernicious Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) continues to move forward. Here’s what the anachronistic back-slapping club known as the G8 has to say on the subject:
We encourage the acceleration of negotiations to establish a new international legal framework, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), and seek to complete the negotiation by the end of this year.
Remember, this is an agreement that has been drawn up behind closed doors, with input from the industries that depend on intellectual monopolies, and zero input from the rest of us. Democracy? Who needs it?
The effect on software patents is very much related to the scrupulous process seen above. Alcatel-Lucent/Microsoft are still crossing swords over this issue. The case involves the legitimacy of software patents as a whole [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7].
Alcatel-Lucent appeals loss of $1.5 billion award
Appeals court arguments in a battle over MP3 digital music patents between Alcatel-Lucent (ALUA.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) focused Monday on a joint development pact struck nearly two decade earlier.
What’s at stake here is rather significant. With ACTA passing through as though diplomats are well-greased tubes, there’s little or no chance of defeating the monopolies at a litigious level. The system is broken, sadly enough.
Be sure to read the ACTA [PDF] if you haven’t. It’s a dreadful document that only reached the public diue to a leak (WikiLeaks). █
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07.01.08
Posted in Patents, Courtroom, SUN, FOSS, Database at 5:52 am by Roy Schestowitz
There is a heap of software patents news at the moment. Here is one thing we can do against them.
Since David Axmark and I started to work on MySQL we also took a strong stand against software patents. MySQL AB have been sponsoring several efforts to prevent software patents in Europa.
Now David and I are continuing to do this outside of MySQL AB.
[…]
If you are a philanthropist and if you care about open source software and don’t have a love for the current patent system, I encourage you to join us in sponsoring Patent Lens. You can also try to get your company to sponsor.
Interestingly enough, as Digital Majority wishes to point out, software patents can also be used as a FUD tactic, not just for actual lawsuits. That’s precisely what Microsoft is doing at the moment. Dillon wrote:
Developers are curious whether NetApp will be successful in hindering even greater adoption of Sun’s ZFS open source technology.
Therein lies the conflict between companies with encyclopedias of patents (portfolio) and Free software. Sun must adapt to the stance of MySQL, as opposed to the other way around. Sun’s and MySQL’s new relationship continues to act as a problem to the work of MySQL’s founders. █
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06.30.08
Posted in Law, Patents, Courtroom, OIN at 6:13 am by Roy Schestowitz
As many people are probably aware, OIN is an interesting-but-not-so-effective solution to the plague which is intellectual monopolies on software. In particular, OIN is unable to defend businesses or programmers who use software programs in the face of patent trolls. That being the case, it was odd to find this new initiative which seems like another OIN, plus a very hefty payment that leaves small businesses and free software developers out in the cold. They endorse rather than battle the problem.
Tech giants form group to buy patents
To join the group, each company will pay about $250,000 put about $5 million into escrow for future patent purchases, the newspaper reported, citing people familiar with the matter
This seems like a very partial solution which is self-serving to some giants, but what about the rest? Are they acquiring the privilege to be exempt from a broken law that they seem unable (or insufficiently willing) to fix? The same short article proceeds:
A sweeping patent law rewrite backed by seemingly every prominent hardware and software maker was part of that effort, but it stalled in the Senate last month. The so-called Patent Reform Act of 2007 would have curbed the ability of patent holders to obtain what the companies consider disproportionate damage awards, spurring the rise of so-called patent trolls who exist only to extort large payments out of deep-pocketed companies.
The giants just seek convenience here, as opposed to a cure.
In other news, another struggling company has just decided to sue all the giants from which it hopes to extract money.
Struggling in-flight entertainment house e.Digital is challenging some of the world’s biggest gadget companies with claims that it owns vital patents for using removable flash memory in portable devices.
It’s targeting brands such as Casio, LG Electronics, Olympus, Samsung and Sanyo in a legal scrap filed last March. But e.Digital says there’s a far larger pool of companies currently infringing its patents, and has “identified annual U.S. revenues of more than $20 billion,” from products using its technology.
This is business? This is development? An upsurge for the market? For lawyers, maybe. █
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06.24.08
Posted in Microsoft, SCO, Novell, Patents, Courtroom, FOSS at 4:25 am by Roy Schestowitz
Revenge against the patent trolls and harassers
The last time we wrote about Trend Micro (see previous post for contextual references and background) it was shown that the company was clueless when it comes to Free software. At the very least, this characterisation neatly applies to the company’s leader, who is also a software patent holder. Watch what’s contained in this new interview at The Register.
Trend Micro’s CEO threw down the gauntlet to her competitors last week, proclaiming that hackers are ahead of the game and that the anti-virus industry “sucks”.
[…]
Changes in the malware landscape have led to the creation of multiple variants of different malware strains and targeted attacks. Traditional top down command structures for antivirus distribution are struggling to cope. Trend Micro had little choice but to invest in the new technology. However Chen, who has five patents to her name, admitted that investors nervously questioned her risky decision.
According to this, unless it’s misinterpreted, the combination of a new technical strategy and milking of competitors using junk patents was Trend Micro’s new business plan. In other words, Trend Micro, realising that its product was no longer effective (’snake oil’), decided to adopt an SCO-like licensing strategy. It also raves about some cross-licensing with IBM, as its it’s a form of legitimacy.
To make matters worse for Trend Micro, prior art is cropping in, so patents could soon be invalidated and a blunder ensue. Think of this as the equivalent of Novell stepping in to claim UNIX ownership.
Goran Fransson, a Swedish developer and entrepreneur, has given a deposition in the Barracuda-Trend Micro case that appears to seriously undermine Trend Micro’s patent on gateway virus scanning.
As Linux.com reported in January, Trend Micro is suing Barracuda Networks before the American International Trade Commission (ITC). Trend Micro’s claim is that, by distributing Clam Antivirus (ClamAV), the free software security application, Barracuda is violating Trend Micro’s patent 5623600, which was filed on 26 September, 1995, and has since been used against such companies as Symantec and McAfee. The case is being heard by the ITC apparently because of Trend Micro’s claim that, because ClamAV is developed by programmers around the world, it is imported software in the United States.
Trend Micro is not the only company to have suffered a setback for an Intellectual Monopoly business approach. Some days ago we wrote about a particular Acacia debacle (Acacia accommodates some Microsoft folks and litigiously attacks GNU/Linux [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]) and now comes this:
Cognex Invalidates Acacia Patent ‘524; Next? Suing for Business Defamation
[…]
Do you remember back in 2005 a company called Cognex took on Lemelson Partnership and won, invalidating 14 of Lemelson’s patents? Well, it turns out that after that, they took on Acacia Research, and they just beat them too. Acacia is now minus one of its patents. Here’s the order [PDF]. Cognex is now aggressively going after Acacia for defamation, attorneys fees, and damages, including, or so they hope, according to a motion to amend their complaint, special and punitive damages.
Whereas SCO is burning any ounce of cash that’s left in its coffers, this Acacia patent troll might have to pay. If defamation suits were to succeed, then the business model behind the likes of Nathan Myhrvold would be at risk. The suits become a two-edged sword. █
“Copying all or parts of a program is as natural to a programmer as breathing, and as productive. It ought to be as free.”
–Richard Stallman
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« Previous entries ·
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.