07.20.08
Posted in Red Hat, Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Patents, FOSS, Interview at 4:57 am by Roy Schestowitz
Microsoft and Software Patents
There have been some interesting developments in the past day or so. First and foremost, Microsoft is being sued again and this time it’s due to encryption.
Microsoft Corp. is being sued by a closely held company for allegedly infringing two encryption patents in the Windows operating system.
Maz Technologies, based in Wilmington, Del., “suffered damages as a result of the infringing,” according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in Tyler, Texas. Maz seeks an injunction against Microsoft and unspecified damages.
It is a Texan court, as usual. That’s where all the patent trolls go. This suit goes on top of a pile that includes the recently-disclosed lawsuit over the competition- and Web-hostile Silverlight (mentioned previously in [1, 2]).
GNU/Linux and Software Patents
Mark Radcliffe finally explains the Red Hat settlement, which is important because he is a top gun for the OSI. This settlement was previously discussed in [1, 2, 3, 4].
Some months ago, Torvalds expressed his concern about patents and he is doing it again in this fragment from a new interview.
RM ‘Do you think software patents are a good idea?’
LT [Linus Torvalds]: ‘Heh - definitely not. They’re a disaster. The whole point (and the original idea) behind patents in the US legal sense was to encourage innovation. If you actually look at the state of patents in the US today, they do no such thing. Certainly not in software, and very arguably not in many other areas either.
Quite the reverse - patents are very much used to stop competition, which is undeniably the most powerful way to encourage innovation. Anybody who argues for patents is basically arguing against open markets and competition, but they never put it in those terms.
So the very original basis for the patents is certainly not being fulfilled today, which should already tell you something. And that’s probably true in pretty much any area.
But the reason patents are especially bad for software is that software isn’t some single invention where you can point to a single new idea. Not at all. All relevant software is a hugely complex set of very detailed rules, and there are millions of small and mostly trivial ideas rather than some single clever idea that can be patented. The worth of the software is not in any of those single small decisions, but in the whole. It’s also distressing to see that people patent ‘ideas’. It’s not even a working “thing”; it’s just a small way of doing things that you try to patent, just to have a weapon in an economic fight. Sad. Patents have lost all redeeming value, if they ever had any. ‘
By the way, be cautious when it comes to Linus forgers. There are people out there on the Web pretending to be him and I received an E-mail from Linus a few days ago confirming that his identity is being stolen. The legitimacy of comments in particular must always be questioned. Linus hardly ever comments in blogs.
Patent Riot in the Making?
Peer-to-Patent was mentioned here a couple of days ago and the day before that. It has just received some recognition from the USPTO, which published the press release that’s appended at the bottom. Also, mind this bit about the Wall Street Journal pushing for a patent reform for years. [via Digital Majority]
Ironically, and humorously, the post is in the department titled we-could-have-told-you-and-did dept.. One of the many issues in patent reform has arisen from the unwillingness of some in the IT area to write down what they have done, and, more importantly, to read what others have written down. The kdawson post seriously neglects the PAST positions of the WSJ on patent reform, and thus becomes another piece of evidence of the unwillingness of some in the IT community to understand what has already happened.
The Fight Against RAND
IP-Watch has a couple of new articles that discuss the issue of RAND (in standards in particular) and how it is — ironically enough given its name — used to discriminate against competitors. Here is the first article.
The inclusion of intellectual property rights in standards also is creating an anti-competitive effect, said panellists at the 30 June seminar in Geneva, hosted by the South Centre.
Recall the BSA’s role in lobbying. The BSA is funded by Microsoft. Along with IDC, ACT and other servants of Microsoft, they pretend to be assisting small businesses (the ‘little guy’) rather than the monopolies.
The Commission promised to consider how the EU patent fee structure could be designed for easier access by small and mid-sized firms, and to try to provide IPR support services for small companies in their countries.
Nothing in intellectual monopolies can support “small and mid-sized firms.” Their goal should be the elimination of such a system. For details on how patents affect the small ‘inventor’, patiently watch this good talk from Richard Stallman. The story about the ’small guy’ in need of ‘protection’ is little more than just a fairly tail that’s used to protect a pyramid scheme of human knowledge. █
USPTO Extends and Expands Peer Review Pilot
Initiative to test impact of public input on improving patent quality opens to automated business
data processing technologies (business methods)
Washington, D.C. – The Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today announced it will extend the duration, increase the maximum number of applications, and expand the scope of applications eligible to participate in the Peer Review Pilot. The pilot, launched in June 2007, encourages the public to review volunteered published patent applications and submit technical references and comments on what they believe to be the best prior art to consider during the examination. The expansion and extension of the pilot is effective today.
The pilot was initially restricted to patent applications in the computer-related arts (those classified in Technology Center 2100). The scope of the program is now expanded to include applications in the automated business data processing technologies, or business methods, class 705. Technical experts in the computer and business methods-related arts registering with the peertopatent.org Web site will review and submit information for up to 400 published patent applications, up from 250 as originally announced. No more than 25 separate applications will be allowed from any one person or organization, up from 15 in the original announcement.
“The USPTO continues to support the Peer Review Pilot to help it fulfill its promise as a way to help get the best prior art expeditiously before the examiner,” noted Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO Jon Dudas. “Extending and expanding the pilot to include business method patent applications will add more participants to the pilot and help us and the public better assess the effectiveness of Peer Review.”
The pilot is being conducted in cooperation with the Peer-to-Patent Project, organized by the New York Law School’s Institute for Information Law and Policy. The pilot is extended for an additional 12 months and will end on June 15, 2009.
To date, companies participating in the Peer Review Pilot have included IBM, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Intel, GE, Red Hat, Cisco, Yahoo!, and others. With the expansion of the pilot, Goldman Sachs has volunteered to join as a participant.
“We support the Peer Review Pilot and commend the USPTO’s decision to expand the program to include financial sector innovation, which has been one of the most difficult areas to locate relevant prior art.” remarked John Squires, chief intellectual property counsel at Goldman Sachs. “Expansion of the pilot into class 705 will allow the Office to access considerable industry expertise and holds promise for improving patent quality and the shortening of long pendency times.”
Existing law allows the USPTO to accept prior art from the public, but it doesn’t allow the public to submit any commentary related to the art without the approval of the applicant. Thus, consent will be obtained from all applicants whose applications are volunteered and selected for the pilot. Applicants agree to have their patent applications posted for up to four months (but no less than three months) on the www.peertopatent.org Web site. Expert volunteers from the public then discuss the applications and submit prior art they think might be relevant to determining if an invention is new and non-obvious. The prior art submission is limited to 10 references.
So far, the pilot’s first 31 applications have been examined. More than half of the examiners who examined an application in the Peer Review Pilot so far thought the prior art submitted by the peers was helpful during examination. More than one-third of the examiners used peer-supplied prior art in the first action on the merits. Nearly 75 percent of the participating examiners said they believed the program would be useful if it were incorporated into regular Office practice.
For this pilot, applications are assigned to an examiner for examination as soon as a submission is received from the peertopatent.org Web site. This shortens considerably the time it normally takes from filing an application to a first action on the merits in the areas where the pilot is occurring.
For further information on the program and to review the Official Gazette notice, visit http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/peerpriorartpilot/.
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07.18.08
Posted in Red Hat, Microsoft, Deception, Patents, Security, Europe, FOSS at 1:58 pm by Roy Schestowitz
Meet Microsoft, a High-brow Software Patents infringer
T
he lawsuit over Silverlight was mentioned a fortnight ago, along with other new evidence of an out-of-control system. People in Microsoft Watch and elsewhere seemed very curious about the status of this case. Between the Lines offers some details.
Silverlight suit: Microsoft’s conduct is “unlawful” and “willful”
[…]
In its complaint, filed July 2, Gotuit alleges that Silverlight, Microsoft’s rival to Adobe’s Flash for Video and the technology powering the online video coverage of the games, infringes on Gotuit patents that allow “for the enhancement, personalization and monetization of video and other media.”
You can explore further the ridiculousness of this. Microsoft now drinks from the same well which it poisoned.
Begging for RAND and Intellectual Monopolies
It has only been a week since IDC, Microsoft and the BSA (all are financially linked) pulled their usual stunts in Europe in attempt to legalise software patents, make RAND the standard in standards, and push forward the proprietary software agenda with propaganda terms like “piracy”. Well, it’s happening again, according to The Register.
BSA: Software piracy’s ‘tragic’ impact on US society
[…]
The BSA-sponsored IDC study, available here (pdf), pinpointed eight US states in the report. It found significant variations from the national piracy figure of 20 per cent.
Be sure to learn what Microsoft and the BSA have been doing recently [1, 2, 3]. It barely receives media attention, so it tends to progress under people’s noses. It doesn’t meet the sheer resistance it truly deserves.
It was only weeks ago that the BSA (and maybe its hired associates like IDC) were pushing for RAND on behalf of Microsoft et al (the funding sources). Meanwhile, and probably independent from this, the EU is also strengthening intellectual monopoly laws.
Following the April 2007 initiative on “Enhancing the patent system”, the European Commission has now published a communication on a European industrial property rights strategy (PDF). It hopes this will improve access to the patent system and to trademark protection for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The Commission has also announced that it intends to work harder on ensuring the quality of patents granted and the promotion of innovation associated with it.
European Commission sounds new patent offensive
Following the April 2007 initiative on “Enhancing the patent system”, the European Commission has now published a communication on a European industrial property rights strategy (PDF). It hopes this will improve access to the patent system and to trademark protection for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The Commission has also announced that it intends to work harder on ensuring the quality of patents granted and the promotion of innovation associated with it.
Patent Busting
We wrote about the Peer-To-Patent project only yesterday. There are some more details about it in Mark Webbink’s blog.
In my last blog I talked about the PeerToPatent project and how it is attempting to improve the U.S. patent system one patent at a time. As you may see in the press today, my interest in PeerToPatent is not benign. Starting back on June 1 I have joined New York Law School as a visiting professor and as executive director of the new Center for Patent Innovations, home of PeerToPatent.
The need for patent busting is evident and fruits of this project imminent. There is already this new report about a major claim getting binned because of a patent’s obviousness (it got invalidated).
Finisar, which makes high-speed data transmission equipment, accused Comcast of infringing with its digital cable systems. Alsup invalidated the only claim asserted by Finisar because of obviousness. Morgan & Finnegan represented Finisar.
Trend Micro Begs for FOSS Forgiveness
Trend Micro shot the wrong target using the wrong weapon
It’s feeling the heat as a result. Perhaps.
Trend Micro, potentially terrified due to the boycott (on top of poor business health at the moment), bothers to repeat Chen’s claim via another executive. In CBR he insists that the software patent lawsuit is not about Free software (well, it sure is in practice). Maybe they have regrets now. It’s a tad amusing to see the ‘damage control’ that they do. Interestingly enough, in this article from Jason Stamper they also sneak in the sentence: ‘Dean Drako, president and CEO of Barracuda Networks, said: “Innovation will lead to a safer Internet, litigation will not.”’ He said this elsewhere too. █
“I would much rather spend my time and money and energy finding ways to make the Internet safer and better than bickering over patents.”
–Dean Drako, Barracuda’s CEO
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Posted in Red Hat, Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Mono, GNOME, Patents, SUN, FOSS at 3:54 am by Roy Schestowitz
A Firestar Falls
Based on previous and very recent posts about Red Hat, Sun and Firestar [1, 2] (c/f older analysis in [1, 2, 3]), it could be concluded that the main loser was software patents. The world learned that:
- Paying for software patents (licensing) may be all in vain
- Software patents can be challenged in court and potentially trashed through a reexamination process
- The GNU GPL permits coverage of all users of the software, endowed by by a single entity
- Patents are not inherently antithetical w.r.t. Free (libre) software
There is some more new coverage of the Red Hat/Firestar/Sun situation in OStatic and The Register. Ars Technica, on the other side of this, makes the incorrect assertion that the patent in question has already been invalidated.
The Linux vendor has been receiving plaudits and its legal team patting themselves on the back for defusing a ticking time bomb of claims against its JBoss middleware partners and customers.
If Sun Microsystems has got its way, though, Red Hat could have become just another victim of patent poker in the US and left customers, partners and itself open to future claims.
Sun has succeeded in overturning the Firestar patent in question - “Object model mapping and runtime engine for employing relational database with object oriented software” - after it approached the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), claiming the existence of prior art. Firestar had brought the claim against JBoss but this passed to Red Hat once it acquired the open source middleware provider in 2006.
At the end of the day, it’s mainly a question of who you upset with patents. Who is to benefit from frivolous lawsuits — or worse — from saber-rattling? That’s why people are encouraged never to depend on Mono (Microsoft’s restrictive and monopolistic .NET atop GNU/Linux).
Remember that it’s about the holder of the patents, not just those without-a-merit software patents, which may seem innocent due to the chaos they have become and the difficulty of having them upheld in court.
Here is a blunt new comment on this subject.
The thing I like most about Mono is how easy I can delete it and anything associated with it from my system. Every time I do an install, it is the very FIRST thing that I remove even before doing package updates.
I cannot justify having anything remotely connected to Microsoft on my machine no matter what Mr. DeCaza says.
Want to sleep with the enemy, fine but don’t complain when you get thrown on the rubbish heap when you are of no further use to MS.
This little rant came in response to Miguel de Icaza’s latest intervention in the direction of GNOME. Didn’t Jeff Waugh insist that Miguel has no influence on GNOME’s direction anymore?
Patent Opposition Grows
Addressing the issue of patents, Glyn Moody has just published a good summary of recent events/developments. In their light he explains why software patents haver become an absurdity.
Again, much kudos to Sun for (a) finding some prior art to invalidate the patent and (b) nobly sharing it with its rival, Red Hat, in a spirit of solidarity. But what this does reveal is that here we have not one but *two* companies being forced waste much effort and much money to get somebody’s claimed intellectual monopoly struck down for the good of the free software (and non-free software) world. Wouldn’t it have been better if the patent had never been awarded in the first place?
[…]
What’s particularly heartening is that those words appeared in the Wall Street Journal, hardly a bunch of sandal-wearing hippies. And the number of respected voices joining in is starting to increase. Here’s what Professor Joseph Stiglitz, a 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics, had to say on the subject:
Patent monopolies are believed to drive innovation but they actually impede the pace of science and innovation, Stiglitz said. The current “patent thicket,” in which anyone who writes a successful software programme is sued for alleged patent infringement, highlights the current IP system’s failure to encourage innovation, he said.
The same type of opposition comes in the form of an entire book, aptly titled “Patent Failure”.
Bessen and Meurer propose requiring that applications for software patents be required to describe their inventions in greater detail (known as “enablement” in patent jargon). They express sympathy for a formal prohibition on software patents, but ultimately do not endorse that reform out of fears that defining software patents would prove too difficult.
Reading Patent Failure makes two things clear. First, the patent system is in desperate need of reform. Second, it is extremely complicated, and it is therefore difficult to predict the results of any given reform.
Crooked System
We previously wrote about the outrageously poor appointments of judges [1, 2], which enable companies with vested interests to affect the outcome of trials. This serious problem has finally gotten the attention of the US Congress.
Sure enough, a legislative fix is now on the way, in the form of H.R. 6362, sponsored by the chairman of the House IP committee, Howard Berman, D-CA. The bill will require the Secretary of Commerce to make these appointments in the future, together with the Director of the USPTO. It also creates a retroactive defense to any challenges of the 40-odd judges who were appointed “illegally,” IPO Daily News reported on Friday.
For more examples of this problem, see this older article.
A US law professor has uncovered a constitutional flaw in appointing judges who decide patent appeals and disputes, which could undo thousands of patent decisions concerning claims worth billions of dollars.
The basic point John F. Duffy, who teaches at the George Washington University Law School, has raised does not appear to be in dispute. Since 2000, patent judges have been appointed by a government official without the constitutional power to do so.
“I actually ran it by a number of colleagues who teach administrative law and constitutional law,” Duffy said, recalling his own surprise at finding such a fundamental and important flaw. He thought he must be missing something. “No one thought it was a close question.”
The RIAA does this too, so there a similarity between obstruction of justice in patents and in copyrights. Here are a couple of fairly recent examples:
1. RIAA Hopes New Judge will Nab Sharers
Rather that directing the lawsuit at the same defendants as before, the RIAA directed it at John Doe (a defendant to be identified later), therefore obtaining a new judge … who may not be so strict about the “making available” clauses.
Nice move, RIAA.
2. Chief RIAA Litigator Named Colorado Judge — UPDATE
The Pirate Party of the United States took a different position. “Being the lead counsel in a multi-year campaign of extortion, pretexting, and sham litigation should not be rewarded with a seat in any court, except perhaps as a defendant,” said the party’s chairman, Andrew Norton.
None of this is too exceptional. Just watch what McCreevy did for Hollywood the other day. Let’s face the fact that even the legal system can be quite corrupt. Can it be taken to court or would that be recursive? █
“Did you know that there are more than 34,750 registered lobbyists in Washington, D.C., for just 435 representatives and 100 senators? That’s 64 lobbyists for each congressperson.”
–CIO.com
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Posted in Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Novell, Virtualization, FOSS, Xen at 5:17 am by Roy Schestowitz
It seems safe to suspect that Microsoft is trying to make VMWare a prisoner of Redmond and exclude competitors this way. VMWare, unlike GNU/Linux can be of used to promote Windows and demote Free software if manipulated properly. Consider, for instance, companies like Novell and Xandros that pay Microsoft for unspecified claims.
This has already happened to XenSource after a Microsoft General Manager had entered the company. Later came a similar move through a newly-crowned Partner of the Year, EMC. We saw it coming months ago.
EMC: Microsoft’s Partner of the Year, Chauvinistic Too?
The riddance of Diane Greene in favour of ‘Microsofthead’ Paul Maritz was appalling because of Diane’s role in bringing the company from nothing into something… in nowhere other than Wall Street! There may be more to the story than just Microsoft obedience. It’s arguably about sexism, too.
EMC accused of stifling discrimination claims while battling class-action
EMC ignored internal discrimination claims from female employees whilst fighting a class action lawsuit filed by other female employees.
That is the claim made by ex-EMC VP Paul Goetz in papers filed with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It strikes a chord with the recent ousting of VMware CEO Diane Greene, EMC’s highest-ranked female executive.
How to Kill Hypervisor Innovation on the Desktop
This is actually the more interesting part.
Remember what we shared yesterday about a VMWare executive predicting the death of the operating system (as we know it) due to hypervisors. For more information, see the following new article:
Will hypervisors make Ubuntu and other Linux operating systems obsolete?
I think this is feasible. After all, consider successful projects like WINE – which allows a wide range of Microsoft Windows applications to execute on top of Linux. The way this is achieved is by providing Linux equivalents for the Windows operating system functions that the software applications call.
In the same way, the virtual environments of the future will provide their own equivalents for the major functions that an operating system performs, particularly where related to hardware. The virtual environment is already providing a layer whereby it exposes its fictional set of devices to the virtual computer, and translates any calls to these into appropriate calls to the genuine hardware. Why bother having an operating system sit between this layer and the applications on the virtual computer? Why not just let the virtual machine take the application request in the first instance?
Here are some more articles and snippets of interest (roughly reverse chronological, so you might want to start at the bottom for the series of developments to be read in turn):
1. Windows will be killed by virtual appliances: VMware exec
Large commercial operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, will no longer exist within five to ten years, according to a senior VMware executive. Instead there will only be very thin open source operating systems supporting virtual appliances.
2. Evidence mounts for August Eee PC carnage with $299 Dell E launch
For that price, assuming everything we’ve heard so far is correct, you’ll get an instant-on Linux distro…
3. SplashTop Linux On HP, Dell Notebooks?
In addition to the instant-on Linux excitement this week for the HP Envy 133, Dell is apparently working on a similar Linux solution. Engadget has shared details surrounding the Dell E and E Slim.
4. Dell Creating Consumer PCs Complete with Virtualization
And in a similar fashion to what Parallels and VMware Fusion did for the Intel-based Mac community, this could give the Linux operating system a boost from consumers who want to use the open source software but don’t want to lose out on what Microsoft’s Windows platforms offer.
5. Dell considers bundling virtualization on motherboards
It’s one of those ideas that you read and say to yourself, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
6. Linux and virtualisation are ideal partners: Dell
Virtual machines are easier to build if you are running Linux, according to Dell’s chief technical officer Kevin Kettler.
7. VMware Predicts Death To Operating Systems
Mendel Rosenblum envisions a world run by virtualization appliances where software makers wouldn’t need a bulky or complex OS.
8. Dell Hoping Hypervisor Will Open Up Desktop Linux Market
Plenty of vendors are jumping into the virtualization marketplace, so it will be interesting if Dell is able to garner a following with this approach, especially if the sole purpose is to help break open the enterprise Linux market.
9. Dual Booting Windows-Linux: The Dell Option
Generally when a company is considering an upgrade to new workstations or notebook computers, they will elect to use Microsoft Windows. Not out of love for the operating system, rather out of understanding for the importance of familiarity and compatibility with the existing office ecosystem. Sounds like a good approach, until the ecosystem breaks down with a security breach targeting the OS used almost exclusively by the business in question.
10. Microsoft Says No Windows Virtualization on Top of Linux
Microsoft will not allow Windows Vista or Windows XP to be virtualized on top of Linux, Sam Ramji, the director of Microsoft’s open-source software lab, said at the annual LinuxWorld Conference and Expo here Aug. 7.
11. Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says
For example, a number of companies have moved back to Windows XP after deploying Vista, Crawford said, before quoting Scott Granneman, an author, entrepreneur and adjunct professor at Washington University in St. Louis, as saying, “To mess up a Linux box, you need to work at it; to mess up your Windows box, you just have to work on it.”
12. Dell to stuff hypervisors in flash memory
Dell CTO Kevin Kettler today confirmed these plans during a speech here at LinuxWorld, saying the company expects to see major performance and power-saving improvements by dumping a hypervisor in flash. Customers will basically “boot to a virtual machine-ready” state, he said.
13. Dell plans virtualization-oriented server
Any new x86 server can run virtualization software, but Dell plans to release a model that’s geared specifically to those drawn to the newly mainstream computing trend, CNET News.com has learned.
14. Virtualization: Linux’s killer app
Think about it. Even Microsoft supports running Linux on its Virtual Server product. Why would it do that? Wouldn’t an OS partitioning technology, such as that used by OpenVz or Sun Solaris, be more in keeping with the kind of homogeneous environments that Microsoft would like to see? Why would Microsoft invest its resources to support a virtual machine technology that can only open the door to Linux in the datacenter?
There are some other tactics Microsoft has tried to battle this, until antitrust allegations forced Microsoft to step back. There is clearly a lot of manipulation and market distortion on Microsoft’s behalf.
Xen Revisited
Xen, as an open source project, seems kaput.
It’s all about proprietary software, including the transition of Xen from OSS to proprietary, courtesy of Microsoft’s Partner of the Year 2008. Microsoft used Citrix as its proxy to hijack Xen away from developers and onto a Windows-only agenda, thus fighting both the GPL and antitrust regulators. We argued this a year ago and our predictions now materialise.
Xen has almost nothing to do with OSS anymore. It has yet to announce some collaborations with Microsoft, if Crosby’s recent interviews/announcement are anything to go by.
Moving on a little, that brings us to Novell too. According to Ron Hovsepian, part of Microsoft’s agreement with Novell was that GNU/Linux should be a guest on a Windows host. It’s all about control to Microsoft. GNU/Linux is treated just like some application on the Big Irons. It’s servitude on Windows servers.
A few days ago, Rex Ballard had posted an analysis that concurs. It is posted below in full.
Message-ID: <02a79375-771f-4d8b-9320-17935bdd8292@p25g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>
From: Rex Ballard <rex.ballard@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linux Champions Virtualisation, So Microsoft/Citrix Ruin Xen
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:30:08 -0700 (PDT)
References: <5118696.5gaNpKjB77@schestowitz.com>
On Jul 14, 9:44 am, Roy Schestowitz <newsgro…@schestowitz.com>
wrote:
> Linux based virtualization – the way to save money and go green
> http://www.itwire.com/content/view/19418/1143/
Server virtualization has been around since the 1960s, and many
companies have known it as VM/CMS. Even when the production server/
mainframes were running in “Native” mode, most companies preferred to
use VM to help manage development environments, test environments, and
staging invironments, so that by the time an application went into
production, administrators could be pretty sure that a new
application, bug fix, or upgrade would work well and not create new
problems in the production environment.
When IBM ported it’s AIX operating system to the ES/9000 mainframe,
they decided to use VM rather than try to create drivers for “bare
metal”.
The critical element is that the underlying “Core” system had to be
designed to optimize memory management, I/O bandwidth, and still
maintain security, performance, reliability, availability,
serviceability. There was also a desire to support load balancing,
resource optimization, and disaster recovery.
> Sun seems to still rely on Xen (despite VirtualBox’ takeover):
>
> Sun xVM hypervisor opens TACC supercomputer to developers
> http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/news/article/0,28914…
One of the nice things about OSS projects is that when they are
abandoned by their original sponsors, they take on a life of their
own.
Most of you don’t remember WAIS. It was a “search engine” that could
search other servers as well as it’s own repository. The original
WAIS server was released under a GNU type license, but the original
authors eventually created customized and commercialized versions
which were licensed to companies like Dow Jones. Eventually, WAIS Inc
was purchased by AOL for 10 million dollars, which might have led most
people to think that the OSS search engines were dead.
The problem was that the OSS version was still out there, and quickly
evolved into better and better search engine technology, including
features like Digg, WebCrawlers, and commercial variants such as
Verity. Various spin-offs of WAIS and it’s related standards such as
Z.39.50 lead to search engines for companies like Yahoo, Lycos,
InfoSeek, and of course Google.
Ironically, Google was actually based on the original concepts of
Brewster Kahle when he was still working at Thinking Machines Inc.
The original concept was that the engines would index millions of
pages across hundreds or even thousands of low-cost servers, and the
machines would be searched in parallel. Google scaled it to Billions
of documents on thousands of machines.
What made Google more successful than the others was that they made
sure that the only advertizing content being shown with a search was
content that was directly related to the search criteria. For
example, if you wanted to search for information about HDTV, you would
also get links to stores who were able to sell you an HDTV system, but
you wouldn’t get links to beer commercials, 4×4 trucks, and other
searches that might force an advertiser to pay for the display of the
link, even though it was rarely followed. The problem is that all of
those unrelated links reduced the space available to the relevant
information.
Google’s approach led to more links being FOLLOWED, which meant that
Google was the referer, and the result was also much higher number of
actual sales per million hits.
> With Microsoft’s virtual control of Xen (it’s now owned by its Partner of the
> Year), one has to wonder…
>
> Citrix/Microsoft seems to have turned XenSource into assholes.
> http://www.internetnews.com/software/article.php/3758606/Citrix+Virtu…
One of the big problems with the Citrix/Microsoft deal is that Citrix
has pretty much stopped supporting Linux as they primary “Host” OS,
and seems committed to making sure that only Microsoft can be used as
the host desktop OS.
Citrix seems to have completely abandoned the idea of actual
virtualization of desktop systems, which is a key element of the
success of companies like VMWare. The problem is that you have to be
network connected to the server to have access to the Citrix Virtual
Server/Virtual desktop.
Essentially, Citrix is ignoring the very drivers and motivators behind
desktop and server virtualization, and trying to fit Xen into their
old business model.
It’s a bit like when Citrix tried to use ICA and GoToMyPC as a means
to kill off VNC and Linux X11 virtual desktops and graphic displays to
desktop. The strategy “sorta worked” because people did use the
service, but they also had problems with security, connectivity, and
corporate compliance.
Many corporate customers have gone with more secure solutions that
combine ssl, ipsec, LDAP, and e-meetings, which include IRC and VNC
components. The point is that there are better competitors who can
provide better products at lower cost.
> Recent:
> KVM and Xen cofounders engage in war of words
> http://blogs.zdnet.com/virtualization/?p=415
Many people feel that Citrix has illegally abused the Xen OSS licensed
software. Thousands of people contributed software, bug fixes,
enhancements, testing, and risk management to assure the success of
XEN, but they had their own issues. Novell wanted Xen to make Linux
the primary OS, with Windows running as a virtual client. Red Hat
held back because there was so much mischief around Xen and it’s
licenses, especially around Microsoft.
The irony is that Citrix is trying to “kill off” Xen.org and force Xen
customers to use their commercial hypervisor, adopt their patents, and
submit to their license terms. Ultimately, they are trying to kill
off all of the other XEN developers, forcing them either out of the
market, or into their control.
All of this seems to have the hands of Microsoft guiding it.
Remember, Citrix got a huge boost back in 1997 when corporations
started using VNC on Windows 95 to access Windows NT 4.0 desktops.
Later, Microsoft expressly forbid the use of any PC running anything
other than Windows XP to access a remote XP desktop. Furthermore, the
license actually mandates that you use Microsoft’s application (kinda
messed with Citrix there).
> Citrix opens Xen for business, still Linux shy
> ,—-[ Quote ]
> | Xen may have become the de facto virtualization platform for Linux, but,
> | ironically, don’t expect to see Citrix applications running natively on Linux
> | any time soon.
Of course. Microsoft didn’t put $millions into the deal to have Linux
running as the primary OS for XEN. Microsoft wants to control the
desktop completely, and as much of the server as they can possibly do.
The irony is that many corporate customers are out to REDUCE
Microsoft’s control of servers and desktops. They want Linux as the
primary OS with Windows as the client, and even that is only for the
handful of applications that can’t be supported on Linux.
> | “It’s market driven and we never got the uptake on Linux,” Willis said. “Our
> | focus for XenApp (formerly Presentation Server) is as a Windows application
> | which we recommend customers run on bare metal for performance reasons.”
Which means they didn’t find anyone willing to fork over the $millions
that Microsoft was offering to put Linux on the desktop as the primary
Operating system. The irony is that Windows performs better when
Linux is the primary OS, because Disk, I/O, Network, and memory are
more efficiently managed, while Windows tends to suffer from memory
churn, garbage collection pauses, disk drive delays, inefficient disk
accesses, poor disk caching, and other problems which tend to cause
huge pauses, hangs, and waiting.
Remember when Microsoft bragged about how XP would give you a
“Desktop” very quickly rather than having to wait for everything to be
ready? We have learned that this meant that you would see a static
desktop, but you wouldn’t actually be able to DO ANYTHING until the
rest of the start-up was completed. Meanwhile, Linux boots up and
takes about 60 seconds (longer that that “first desktop, but still
pretty good) to come up with a fully functional desktop capable of
running any application you want to launch.
> | Willis said Citrix has partnered with Microsoft to develop Linux extensions
> | for its Hyper-V platform.
> `—-
That just seems like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. 
> http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;311906363
> Ubuntu picks KVM over Xen for virtualization
> ,—-[ Quote ]
> | KVM will be built into Ubuntu’s next version, called Hardy Heron and due in
> | April. “For the Hardy Heron release, we’ve really picked up the
> | virtualization ball. Virtualization is making its way into data centers and
> | onto developer workstations everywhere. Even ‘regular’ users are using it to
> | run Ubuntu on Mac OS X all the time,” Hansen said. “Virtualization has been
> | on our agenda for a long time, but it became a top priority at UDS (Ubuntu
> | Developer Summit) in November. We could see that demand for it was growing.”
> `—-
>
> http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9867657-39.html?part=rss&subj=news&t…
This is a very real trend, and one of the challenges for any
virtualization vendor is trying to keep up with the work being done by
VMWare. VMWare was very smart. They provided “free” applications
like VMWare Player, and VMWare Server, which allows people to use
VMWare “Appliances” generated with VMWare Workstation or ESX. In
addition, they have VMWare Converter, which can be used to save any
existing Windows environment (desktop or server), with or without the
converter footprint, and use that Windows environment as an
“Appliance”.
The result is that a Linux user can purchase a PC with Windows XP or
Vista installed, an external USB drive, and generate a Windows VMWare
“appliance” on the USB drive. Then they can install Linux and copy
the appliance back to their PC Linux drive. Then, the user can take
“snapshots” of the Appliance, allowing user with a corrupted Windows
Appliance to fall back to an earlier snapshot.
All that free software seems to make no sense, until you start to see
that if you have VMWare Workstation, you can change the sizes of
memory, hard drive, and peripherals. The net result is that lots of
people end up buying workstation.
As people start to become with VMWare Workstation, they begin to
realize that ESX is a really practical server solution, and then they
see that upgrading to Virtual Center gives them disaster recovery,
load balancing, fail-over, and reliable back-up/recovery that are much
easier to manage than having to create new images from scratch on
“Bare metal” (as Citrix reccomends), which means that the system is
easier to manage and deploy.
By offering some free applications, and getting VMWare on the desktop,
the company makes corporate decision makers MUCH more receptive to the
VMWare solutions. Suddenly, a VMWare player user is saying “Yes, we
can run on VMWare” because he’s using it. Before long, you have
VMware Virtual Center running on blade servers with a few hundred
processor cores, and balancing the load optimally. A free application
leads to several million dollars in Virtual Center sales.
Then we go back to Citrix.
> Related:
> Citrix strays far from XenSource’s original open source mission
> ,—-[ Quote ]
> | “Citrix is not a virtualization company,” said Phil Montgomery, Senior
> | Director of Citrix’s Virtualization and Management Division. “We’re not
> | trying to be another VMware. Citrix is an application delivery software
> | company.”
Put another way, Citrix WON’T be offering something like “Converter”
to put Windows into a VM image that can be started under a Linux
system running Xen.
Microsoft hasn’t been particularly worried about the success of it’s
partners lately, and they seem quite willing to have Citrix lobotomize
Xen, go bankrupt, and then claim that virtualization was a failure,
just to try and provide “VaporWare” that is “Just like VMWare”.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has it’s own virtualization solutions, which it
will probably start shipping as “Shovel-ware” if they can’t stop
VMWare any other way.
I’m sure that Microsoft will call this an “Operating System
Enhancement” rather than a strategic function being provided by a
competitive market, which Microsoft will try to strangle using it’s
monopoly power.
> http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=1984
> Citrix strips XenSource of virtualization, open source…everything
>
> ,—-[ Quote ]
> | Citrix either got completely snowed in the acquisition or, much more likely,
> | it’s getting pressure from its bosom-buddy, Microsoft. What it’s not getting
> | is much value for its $500 million.
> `—-
It’s becoming more and more obvious that Microsoft is using Citrix as
a “sock puppet” to throw off the DOJ, EU, and other antitrust
regulators, in an attempt to do what it did to Netscape.
Remember, Microsoft was able to convince the NSF to rewrite the
licenses unilaterally, so that they could pirate Mosaic code, written
and managed by many employees who had joined Netscape, in an attempt
to “Cut off Netscape’s Air Supply”. The result was Internet Explorer
and Outlook, complete with an 8-lane-highway for viruses, worms, and
other malware.
[snip other great references]
It’s pretty clear that Ballmer is more than willing to tell Citrix and
corporate customers to “Bend over and crack a smile, it won’t hurt a
bit, you’ll even like it”.
In conclusion, it’s no longer the Xen that promised its contributors zen. It’s Citrix. By association, it’s the Microsoft ecosystem. It was devoured.
VMWare mustn’t be taken on a similar type of ride under EMC’s reign. EMC, just like Citrix, is one of Microsoft’s top partners and it controls VMWare, in charge of which it put a Microsoft man. █
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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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