02.05.10

Black Duck Wants Proprietary Monopoly on Free Software Analysis, SFLC Responds

Posted in FOSS, FUD, GNU/Linux, GPL, Microsoft, Novell at 7:33 am by Roy Schestowitz

Summary: A software patent which we wrote about before saw the following post appearing as a response from Bradley M. Kuhn (SFLC)

THIS is just a quick update regarding something which we wrote about yesterday. It’s about Black Duck Software, a proprietary software company that bragged about receiving a software patent on analysing source code that’s publicly accessible (Black Duck Software does not care about the rights associated with this code, except the semantics of licences).

“I Think I Just Got Patented,” said Bradley Kuhn in the headline of a short rant:

I could not think of anything but the South Park quote, “They took our jobs!” when I read today Black Duck’s announcement of their patent, Resolving License Dependencies For Aggregations of Legally-Protectable Content.

This is not the first time that someone from the SFLC complains about Black Duck and its secrecy. A discussion can be found here:

Bradley Kuhn grumbles about Black Duck Software’s recently-announced patent on the process of finding license incompatibilities. “Indeed, the process described is so simple-minded, that it’s a waste of time in my view to spend time writing a software system to do it. With a few one-off 10-line Perl programs and a few greps, I’ve had a computer assist me with processes like this one many times since the late 1990s.” Here’s the full patent for the curious.

We never thought of Black Duck Software as a friend of Free software, setting aside the fact that it was created by a Microsoft executive [1, 2, 3, 4]. It’s like a threat right inside the F/OSS world, always pretending to be an opportunistic friend.

Speaking of which, Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza, who has just announced another preview of “Microsoft Moonlight”, is to have the following colleague at Microsoft’s CodePlex Foundation:

CodePlex Foundation Picks Paula Hunter as Executive Director

[...]

As you’ll see from the announcement, one of Paula’s prior jobs was as the Executive Director of UnitedLinux. UL was a client of mine, and that’s where I first met Paula.

Yesterday we showed how GPL FUD had come from another associate of Microsoft’s CodePlex Foundation (namely Monty). Yesterday we also showed how ECT was promoting Microsoft Trojans like Mono or Moonlight and now we find the comments in Linux Today, one of which says: “A Linux Insider endorsement of a Mono based app. [sarcasm] Who would have thought it? [/sarcasm]”

For those who do not know, Linux Insider is considered Linux hostile. We wrote about this several times before.

Another one says: “F-spot is a mono app and as such is not safe to use unless you get it from Novell who has am agreement from Microsft not to sue. IMO it is trojanware.” █

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02.04.10

Microsoft Whitewashes Criminal History in the Press and Attacks the GPL Using Allies

Posted in Antitrust, Deception, Europe, FOSS, FUD, GNU/Linux, GPL, Microsoft, Novell at 11:22 am by Roy Schestowitz

Summary: New heights for Microsoft’s spin and lies; the latest wave of GPL smears arrives from friends of Microsoft and former employees

A FEW days ago we mentioned Microsoft’s patent royalty coupons that it (re)sold to Novell customers. From the comments on that same article we have “The purpose of Microsoft’s engagement with Novell”:

The purpose of Microsoft’s engagement with Novell was to placate the European Union who were gunning after Microsoft for their – alleged – anti-competitive practices. The EU had reached the conclusion that Microsoft had largely (and illegally) wiped out most of (Europe’s) software industry and was actually in the business of now gouging its corporations and citizens for billions of dollars every year.

SUSE – being formerly a German owned Linux developer.. and the No 1 distribution in Europe – was specifically targeted by Microsoft in an attempt to mitigate the enormous pressure they were under to prove they had become more ‘inter-operable’. Thus the ‘inter-operability’ agreement with Novel/SUSE so as to prove itself a good corporate citizen and placate the EU about it intentions to ‘open up’…. and to provide forward supporting evidence seeking to protect Microsoft from further efforts by the EU to prosecute them for – alleged – monopolistic practices.

Watch what the ‘Microsoft press’ published a few days ago in order to deceive the masses with the help of people who masquerade as journalists or merely pass on whatever ludicrous claims Microsoft makes, uncritically. Their negligence is to blame for a lot of problems because they can prevent almost any problem by investigating and exposing. Microsoft booster Marius Oiaga promoted the same PR lies, as well. These people have no shame about lying and spinning. Some of them are paid handsomely by Microsoft in order to do this, namely promoting this delusion that Microsoft’s blatant patent attacks on GNU/Linux and Free Software are in some ways an act of playing nice.

The dishonesty is breathtaking and Novell helped initiate this, in the words of Oiaga:

Back in 2006, Microsoft made a landmark move designed to bridge Windows Server and Linux with an interoperability agreement inked with Novell, a partnership that has evolved and grown in complexity. Although criticized for its intellectual property assurance aspect, the Novell deal signaled a cultural change for Microsoft.

No, it didn’t! Microsoft began suing GNU/Linux companies after it had signed the deal with Novell.

The lies will obviously never end and those who have the money will manage to squeeze their story (lies) into the media. If only Brian Proffitt stopped sympathising with Novell, then the quest for truth would be nearer to being accomplished. There are another couple of comments on his promotion of a Novell job vacancy (Zonker left), one of which says:

I was already skeptical a few years ago but after reading many of the documents Groklaw has linked to in the Comes vs Microsoft case and read how Microsoft does business (I always thought the case against them was a bit on the heavy handed side but after reading those documents and emails, its seems they were just as bad as we thought if not much worse).

‘Show me’ is popular in my state and not because of spring break.So until I hear/read any repudiation of the past 2-3 years of attacks on Linux from THE HEADS at Microsoft, I have absolutely nothing to base this ‘things are different’ vibe you are peddling. And considering that the whole TomTom lawsuit by MS over three patents that relate to TomTom’s implementation of the Linux kernel wasnt even one year ago, it seems your idea of thaw is pretty strange.

As a “Non-Compensated Individual Hobbyist Developer”, Novell and their apologist Zonker were defending threats to my livelyhood.

To broaden this last statement and to use the same words, all of Novell and their apologists are defending threats to the livelihood of Free software. They are helping Microsoft.

Microsoft is more than just Microsoft. It is an aggregation of companies all of which serve similar and sometimes overlapping agendas.

Take Black Duck Software for example. It is yet another source of FUD against the GPL and it was created by a Microsoft executive [1, 2, 3, 4]. Watch what Black Duck Software announced a few days ago (in a paid press release even):

Black Duck Software Awarded Patent for Core Technology That Automatically Resolves Software License Obligations and Conflicts

Black Duck Software, the leading global provider of products and services for accelerating software development through the managed use of open source software, has been granted a patent protecting core technology that can automatically identify license obligations and resolve license conflicts for legally-protectable content (e.g. software, multimedia, video, audio, textual representations, works of art, visual representations, technological know-how, business know-how, contract rights, and/or software elements, etc.).

For those who do not know, Black Duck Software is a proprietary software company (monetising the existence of FOSS as raw data to work on) that even endorses and brags about software patents that it’s applying for and receiving right now. It promotes Microsoft’s moves against the GPL by announcing deceiving numbers, which lead companies like Alfresco to changing their minds about the GPL.

“There are new articles that discuss the attacks on the GPL, typically quoting Monty, who is now in Microsoft’s CodePlex Foundation (like Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza, who also removed GPL code in December).”We must make ourselves aware that anti-GPL folks are busy smearing the GPL at the moment, just like in prior years (but probably more so than before). There are new articles that discuss the attacks on the GPL, typically quoting Monty, who is now in Microsoft’s CodePlex Foundation (like Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza, who also removed GPL code in December). The apple does not fall far from the tree and one reader of ours says that “they have escalated their FUD carefully so that their target audience is acclimated to it in steps — first it was all just anti GPL 3.0, now a year later it is anti GPL entirely… this is how professional marketing campaigns are done. This is more organized than people want to believe.”

We previously showed how attacks on the GPL had been coordinates by Microsoft front groups like ACT. █

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01.30.10

ODF is Winning in Europe; ‘Microsoft Press’ Spreads ODF FUD as OpenOffice.org Passes to Oracle

Posted in Europe, FOSS, FUD, KDE, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenDocument, OpenOffice, Oracle, SUN, Standard at 4:00 pm by Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Victories for ODF, especially in Denmark; other developments that bring about better ODF support, still facing the usual FUD from Redmond

NORWAY’S special story when it comes to document formats was told here many times before. It’s a mixture of huge Microsoft scandals (corruption followed by rewards) and an eventual victory for freedom and justice. Here is an encouraging new report:

Government Of Norway:Open Standards In Public Sector’s Websites With Effect From 1 January 2010

Taking effect from 1 January 2010 the content of public sector’s websites will be available in open formats. This new regulation will contribute to enhancing equal accessibility of users and suppliers to the information available on the websites of both central and local government.

In the light of this initiative, the Minister of Government Administration and Reform, Ms. Rigmor Aasrud, assured that, with this new regulation, users or suppliers seeking for information in the public sector’s websites will not be obliged to use a specific software anymore. This will help users to have equal access to public information, while establishing fairer competition conditions among software suppliers.

The biggest news for ODF this week comes from Norway’s neighbours in the south. Kim Bach writes from Denmark: “Chilling at Verdes after the hearing on open standards. It was the usual OOXML/ODF fight that has been going on for 5 years, its embarising [he meant embarrassing]“

He also notes: “Michiel Leensars of OpenDocSociety, ODF advocate, on OOXML/ODF in Parliament yesterday: “Go ahead, get another decade of anxiety” #itpol”

There are those who interact with him in Danish, but translations help, such as this one of an article that says: “ODF wins the document format war”

There are many articles about this in Danish, mostly from version2.dk (at least initially). We have gathered:

There are many comments in there too. Later on, the news appeared also in ComputerWorld Denmark (IDG) and in The Register, which chose the headline “Danes ditch Microsoft, take ODF road – at last”

Among the other articles on the subject (almost always in Danish), there are some automated translations, although some are rewritten properly in English and posted in Danish Web sites. Here for example is “Denmark dumps Microsoft”

As of April next year, Danish state office communication will be in the ODF format rather than Microsoft’s office format following a Parliamentary decision.

After four years of discussion, Parliamentary parties have decided to use the Open Document Format in all exchanges of documents between official institutions.

Wow. That’s quite a statement. The Danes apparently pushed it into Slashdot and eventually it made the front page. This ensures that many people in Information Technology (IT) are at least aware of this triumph right now. It will make things harder for Microsoft to sneakily reverse using its army of partners. Also see (for background):

Bart Hanssens (of the ODF people) is pleased with the news from Denmark. He writes: “It appears to be that Denmark voted for #odf as document standard (starting from 2011)”

Morten Vittrup writes: “BREAKING: ODF wins the danish document fight (ODF vs. OOXML)”

Alaa Abd El Fattah and others write: “♻ @JosefAssad: DK parliament has voted to make #ODF the state standard from 2011. A good day for open society.”

“Danish Parliament: ODF is in. OOXML can apply when they are ready”
–Leif LodahlAnother person writes: “congratulates #dk on deciding to use open document standards for all public documents from apr 2011. So far #ODF is the only one qualifying.”

Leif Lodahl, who promotes OpenOffice.org, summarises as follows: “Danish Parliament: #ODF is in. #OOXML can apply when they are ready”

In his personal blog, Lodahl calls it a “victory”:

The Danish Parliament has decided to create a list of allowed standards. The standards MUST be implemented before end 2011.

The decision includes two important things:

1. ODF is on the list – OOXML is NOT!

After the Helge Sander altercations, this is indeed an achievement. It is especially important as it is likely to inspire other countries to follow suit.

Lodahl receives some kind words: “This is great news. Enjoy your glass of Champagne! So IIUC Denmark now requires ODF & not OOXML by 2011. How large is the scope?”

Quoting Alan Lord from the UK, Lodahl posts: “Actually the government (liberals & conservatives) would rather go OOXML, but the Parliament said ODF.”

Mads Foersom writes: “Hell has frozen over!? Danish gov finally chooses ODF over OOXML for document exchange.”

Red Hat’s Jan Wildeboer writes about the wonderful news and also creates this pledge which he wants us all to support (it only took me 2 minutes to do so).

Let us show Denmark how much we support their brave decision to use ODF as the [only] document format.

Planet Fedora quotes Wildeboer: “Denmark goes ODF. Only ODF. Sorry, OOXML: Breaking news. If your danish is good enough…”

From his original post:

So from April 2011 all intergovernmental documents will be in ODF. If this will also mean a change to OpenOffice remains to be seen however.

It is rather clear that Wildeboer is from Red Hat, but citizens of Denmark deserve real standards, so this is not a case of one vendor fighting another for domination. It is one vendor fighting all others by eliminating choice through formats.

Daniel Schierbeck writes: “The Danish parliament has just voted to switch the state administration over to ODF. Success!”

And another remark: “Danish parliament has just voted favorably on ODF. Well, they have also determined that the ocean should not rise more than 2 cm. #yam #in”

Peter Krantz and Ryan Cartwright also responded: “Denmark gov chooses ODF over OOXML. http://is.gd/7htVS (danish) http://is.gd/7htYI (eng trans). — Are you watching #ukgov”

Cartwright is among those who try to use Denmark’s judgment as precedence for the UK (Alan Lord does so too).

Among other feedback we have Glyn Moody (UK) asking: “anyone have definitive info on the Danish ODF/OOXML decision? the official statements aren’t very clear to me… #denmark”

We’ve sent him some material to increase his certainty, so hopefully another article will come soon.

Anna Baileylrr apparently writes from Slovakia (looks like a spam account though): “Document freedom in Slovakia celebration, OOXML didn\’t made it into national standards and ODF can be used in any version! openstandards !”

Jeremy Allison is quoted a lot [1, 2, 3, 4] for his analogy that explains Microsoft’s half-hearted ’support’ of ODF [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. He said at LCA 2010: “Microsoft implemented ODF with all the grace of a 6 year old asked to tidy up their room”

Microsoft had no choice. As pointed out here a few days ago: “has Open XML displaced ODF? Even in Msft apps, it has not.”

As we noted some days ago in a separate post, ODF 1.2 is under public review; it was passed on after this milestone had been announced by Mary McRae (OASIS). Rob Weir explains: “Good ODF TC meeting today, starting discussion on post-1.2 “ODF-Next”: SVG, modularization, web profiles, harmonized packaging, etc.”

There is a lot of public communication over this. Dennis Hamilton said that he “Got up painfully early while lying awake obsessing about #odf 1.2 and #openformula.” He was pleased to see the end of that and his colleague Bart Hanssens wrote about “new #gnumeric version with some #odf improvements,” pointing to some improved support in version 1.9.18. We wrote about Gnumeric when it participated in OOXML, which was unhelpful [1, 2].

KOffice is also expanding and spreading the use of ODF. From KDE News:

KOffice Based Office Viewer Launched for Nokia N900

An alpha version of Office Viewer has been uploaded to the repositories for the N900. Users of Nokia’s smart phone can install the KOffice based app to view word processing documents, spreadsheets and presentation. The application can also be used to give presentations. “This shows both how portable and lean on resources KOffice is” says Inge Wallin, the marketing coordinator of KOffice, “we hope and believe that this is only the first port of KOffice to other mobile devices.

Core parts of KDE are getting more tightly integrated with ODF:

OpenDocument Thumbnail Plugin is a KDE file managers plugin (Dolphin and Konqueror) to preview ODF (OpenDocument Format) files as Thumbnails.

You do not need to install OpenOffice.org or any other office suite for it to work (it only uses KDE API).

OpenOffice.org is to be owned by Oracle, which will create a separate business unit for it. Oracle emerges as a new dominant force in ODF (and the TCs), having previously defended and advocated it (for years in fact). Here is an ODF paper in Oracle’s new turf (Sun.com) — a paper that hopefully informs while the ‘Microsoft press’ writes about it in at least 3 domains it has (Redmond-based [1, 2, 3]). This new article is quoting Microsoft-hired shills from Burton (now Gartner).

In addition to quoting current Microsoft employees (the Burton Group analysts in question [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23] were later hired by Microsoft), the author from this Microsoft-serving media company is quoting people who downplay OpenOffice.org and also advertising Microsoft vapourware at the end. It’s an illusion of balanced reporting. The whole thing is constructed as a bit of an advertisement for Microsoft and mockery of ODF. Typical. █

“That particular meeting was followed by an anonymous smear campaign against one of the TC members. A letter was faxed to the organization of the TC member in question, accusing the TC member in question of helping politicize the issue (which is, of course, untrue). I too had the dubious pleasure of hearing first hand how Microsoft attempted to remove me from the TC (they did not succeed, thanks to integrity and cojones of the organization I am affiliated with).”

“If this unethical behaviour by Microsoft was not sufficiently despicable, they did the unthinkable by involving politics in what should have been a technical evaluation of the standard by writing to the head of the Malaysian standards organization and getting its business partners to engage in a negative letter writing campaign to indicate lack of support of ODF in the Malaysian market. Every single negative letter on ODF received by the Malaysian standards organization was written either by Microsoft, or a Microsoft business partner or a Microsoft affiliated organization (Initiative for Software Choice and IASA).“

A Memo to Patrick Durusau

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German Federal Office of Justice: SCO Breaches Regulations in Germany

Posted in Europe, FUD, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Novell, SCO at 9:34 am by Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Operation of the SCO cowboys continues to be scandal-rich and a large fine is coming

Germany is repeatedly fining SCO and the last time it did this (in 2008) we argued that Germany should also fine Microsoft for slandering GNU/Linux. The latest fine comes rather shortly after scandals like the Hans Bayer scandal (and attributed to breach of regulations):

According to a letter seen by heise online, the German Federal Office of Justice last week launched summary proceedings against The SCO Group GmbH for “breaching regulations pertaining to the publication of its accounts.” The proceedings were suspended after the imposed fine was paid. No information on the size of the fine is available. According to the agency’s website, the fine can range from 2,500 euros to a maximum of 25,000 euros.

The German reader who showed this to us last night added: “I still think that somebody some day will go after the puppet master behind SCO:”

Here is an overview of posts that we have about the SCO case. Groklaw is apparently the only Web sites that properly reported on this case this month, the latest posts being:

• SUSE Motion to Lift Stay Denied. Natch.

Hot off the presses, the bankruptcy court has denied SUSE’s motion to lift the stay so as to complete the arbitration. What? This surprises you? This court favors SCO, as it is a bankruptcy court, and it says SCO doesn’t have the money to do both; if SCO fails in Utah, the arbitration won’t be necessary; and the bankruptcy court has no way to know who is likely to prevail, so SUSE can’t meet one necessary prong to get a stay lifted.

• Request for Info: Ransom Love Talks

• Novell’s Reply in Support of Motion to Set Aside Judgment

Novell has filed its Reply to SCO’s Opposition to Novell’s Motion to Set Aside Judgment…

• Notice of Agenda for SCO Bankruptcy Hearing on the 27th

The Notice of Agenda [PDF] is up, letting us know what will be handled on the 27th in bankruptcy court. All that is on the schedule is the motion [PDF] by Edward Cahn, SCO’s Chapter 11 trustee, to approve SCO board members issuing some stock options to themselves after they forgot to timely do so, without first seeking approval or apparently even telling Mr. Cahn first. The story is they voted in August to issue them, but then they forgot to actually do so for some months.

• Judge Stewart Rules on Novell’s Motions: No and Mostly No – Updated

Well, here we go. The new judge in the redo of SCO v. Novell, the Hon. Ted Stewart, has issued his decision on the two Novell summary judgment motions, and I’ve only skimmed them, but it looks like if it’s Novell, he says mostly no and if it favors SCO he says yes, which is what I expected. That means the hearing set for February 4 has been cancelled. No oral argument. Weird. And he ruled on a motion that I don’t see anyone asking him to decide.

Here’s the Memorandum Decision and Order Denying Novell’s Rule 60(b) Motion for Relief from Final Judgment [PDF]. Here’s Rule 60(b). He says they should have appealed the matter. That’s the motion about the money from Microsoft and the other SCOsource licensees.

“Money from Microsoft,” eh? Well, Microsoft has funded both sides of this legal war. It keeps them distracted, fighting one another. █

“[Microsoft's] Mr. Emerson and I discussed a variety of investment structures wherein Microsoft would ‘backstop,’ or guarantee in some way, BayStar’s investment…. Microsoft assured me that it would in some way guarantee BayStar’s investment in SCO.”

–Larry Goldfarb, Baystar, key investor in SCO

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01.27.10

Chief Microsoft Lobbyist Bill Gates Goes on Anti-Google Tour in the Press

Posted in Bill Gates, FUD, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Search, Ubuntu at 9:56 am by Roy Schestowitz

Gates on tape
Bill Gates Deposition Transcript

Summary: The mainstream press/media shows its cowardice by permitting a felon to call is rival all sorts of things

BILL GATES is pretending to have left Microsoft, but he is a super lobbyist [1, 2, 3, 4] with a criminal past and a fake ‘charity’ that he uses to make even more money by harming society with cartels (oil, pharmaceutical, genetics, etc.) while using his wealth to control communication about the subject [1, 2, 3] and indoctrinate the young [1, 2, 3, 4].

As we showed yesterday, Bill Gates had begun some kind of a media blitz starting with the New York Times and the Huffington Post [1, 2, 3]. Bill Gates is attacking Google while pretending to congratulate them. He also uses some shrewd talking points in order to use Google to whitewash his own crimes in all sorts of publications. Here is what he did in Good Morning America: (direct link to the interview)

TAKING A BREAK from global philanthropy, Bill Gates has chipped in his tuppence worth on China’s Internet policy by stating that the Internet needs to thrive as an engine of free speech.

In an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America, Gates said he felt that official Internet censorship policies are very limited. When questioned about Steve Ballmer’s remark on China’s ‘Google problem’, Gates replied without referring to Google.

The same nonsense from Bill Gates has reached Reuters and other Web sites. They just print everything he says as if his wealth indicates that he knows better than anyone else, even in fields like economics. Robber barons are the ones to inquire about rogue economies, not economics.

Regarding the New York Times piece, our reader quotes Gates as follows:

“I wouldn’t call anyone a monopolist,”…

‘He went on to say that historically companies that become “hyper-successful” invite government antitrust scrutiny…’

“If governments don’t care, that’s a bad sign,” Mr. Gates said.

“There are several positive feedback loops in this business, and they are particularly powerful” [regarding Google]

‘Microsoft is investing heavily in search — “the last big investor” other than Google’

[ haaaa ? what the **** is he on about ? Remember Microsoft was in 'search' way before Google, yea ?? ]

“They’ve done nothing and gotten a lot of credit for it,”

“Now, if Google ever chooses to pull out of the United States, then I’d give them credit.”

Pay attention to these talking points which he is repeating in his latest “anti-Google tour”.

Over at Ghabuntu (Ghana Ubuntu), memories of what Bill Gates did to Gary Kildall and his business have just been resurrected.

Gary Kildall was an computer instructor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate school in Monterey, California. In 1974 he saw an ad for an Intel processor and called the company to offer his services. He was hired to write programming tools for the new Intel 4004 microprocessor. When Intel introduced the 8008 and 8080 models he wrote a high-level language for them that made the processor infinitely more useful. You could give English-like commands to the chip instead of talking in 0s and 1s.

When Intel developed the world’s first floppy disk system, the company decided not to sell it to the public. Kildall asked if he could sell a version. He invented the first DOS (disk operating system) and called it CP/M or control program for microprocessors. It could keep track of peripherals like a monitor or a disk drive.

His friends said he wrote it by himself, effortlessly, which showed his tremendous aptitude for writing computer code. They also wondered why anybody would possibly want an operating system for a single user. Kildall wasn’t in it for the money, but for the joy of being able to do it.

[...]

He sold his company DRI to Novell for $120 million in 1991. He hosted a television show for PBS about computers and wrote a 250 page tell all book that was never published. He acknowledged that the book would probably be construed as sour grapes. His son is afraid to have the book published to this day for fear of being sued by Bill Gates.

Shortly before midnight July 8, 1994, Kildall walked into a bar wearing his Harley-Davidson vest. The bar was filled with a group of rough looking bikers. No one is sure what happened, but somehow he hit his head on something while falling backwards. Was he in a fight? Drunk? Not even Kildall could remember.

He walked out of the bar on his own. In two separate visits to the hospital that weekend no one found the bloodclot between his skull and brain. Three days later he was dead at age 52.

This version from Ghabuntu says that “Gary Kildall was not happy when he found out about the Microsoft-IBM deal. He considered it theft when he learned how similar MS-DOS was to CP/M. He was too easy going to sue and even if he did, copyright laws would have made it hard for him to win. A copyright only protects you from an outright copy, not an imitation.” Sadly, Ubuntu is now helping Microsoft against Google, but that’s the subject of the next post. █

“He [Bill Gates] is divisive. He is manipulative. He is a user. He has taken much from me and the industry.”

–Gary Kildall

01.25.10

Microsoft Escapees Find New Hosts to Damage Society From

Posted in FUD, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 2:09 pm by Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Microsoft personnel respawning under umbrellas that are seemingly subservient to Microsoft

A SAD reality we must all accept is that when a company filled with unethical people suddenly implodes, then those same unethical people that the company is comprised of end up infesting other companies that hire them. One example that we covered before is Visible Technologies, which is spying on people also on behalf of its client Microsoft. Visible Technologies was created with Microsoft funding and people. This includes former Microsoft data miners who are now spying on people and responding to them in blogs. They try to police coverage of companies like Microsoft. They call it “PR”, which is a euphemism, and Microsoft has a whole bunch of these firms out there.

According to the Microsoft-sponsored TechFlash, a Microsoft executive whose departure from Microsoft we wrote about before [1, 2] and role in antitrust exhibits we saw here, is becoming the CTO of Atigeo. It is a “data intelligence” (potential use is spying) company which is already filled with the Microsoft family. It’s like another one of those Microsoft offshoots near Redmond (a corporate reunion).

Bellevue-based Atigeo — a 5-year-old data intelligence company — has attracted two high-profile executives to lead technology and financial operations. Jawad Khaki, a longtime Microsoft executive who left the software giant last summer, has joined the company as chief technology officer and executive vice president of engineering. At Microsoft, Khaki served as a corporate vice president in the Windows Group.

Meanwhile, Nathaniel “Buster” Brown — the former chief financial officer at Paul Allen’s Vulcan Ventures — has taken up that same position at the company. Brown already sits on the company’s board.Atigeo is led by Michael Sandoval, the former Director of Partner Strategy at Microsoft and a former executive at AccessLine Communications.

There may be serious, uninvited compromises of privacy, which Microsoft has just violated in other ways that we will cover later on.

Moving on a little, based on this new press release, Microsoft is promoting anti-GNU/Linux FUDMeister, Susan Hauser. We wrote about her a few weeks ago because she is no ordinary executive. It’s a snake to GNU/Linux and she gets to be a leader now, after two decade in the company (that’s a lot of time for indoctrination). She has been spreading lies and FUD against the competition (especially software patents FUD), which is how one gets promoted in the abusive, monopolistic company that is currently suing TiVo (a Linux distributor). Microsoft is suing because its own rival to TiVo is going nowhere and is fragmented. To whit:

The one thing that I don’t get and that Microsoft didn’t have a good answer for, is why is the company building up two separate products/interfaces (Mediaroom, Windows Media Center) that are designed to do very similar things?

Based on the escape route of Rodriguez (Microsoft SVP), it’s a messy technical affair that articles continue to shed light on. Another Microsoft SVP, Veghte, very recently quit the company, right after a meeting with Microsoft's Ballmer. There is still mostly whitewashing of his character coming from the Microsoft de facto PR people [1, 2, 3] (all the familiar names). It’s like when someone passes away and suddenly nobody dares to say anything negative, probably “out of respect”. Microsoft news is delivered almost exclusively by people whom Microsoft is pampering to become apologists.

Here is another new appointment to note:

Wayne Guinn, Director of Finance for The National Society of Collegiate Scholars (NSCS) has been named to the 2010 Microsoft Not For Profit Advisory Board.

“Non-profit accounting”… now, isn’t that a paradox? The conflicts of interests which this can generate are not too obvious, but the future might tell. █

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Microsoft is Lying to the Public with NPD (Again)

Posted in Deception, FUD, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Search at 10:58 am by Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The familiar pattern of FUD which Microsoft has been using against Google and against GNU/Linux is once again being used, this time against Sony and Nintendo

NPD and those who are using NPD numbers (Microsoft and its boosters for the large part [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]) capitalise on many loopholes and the localisation of samples (biased populations) in order to make utterly false statements and by sheer repetition make them be perceived as true.

We have given several examples before, so we won’t repeat these examples again. But watch what lip service Xbox 360 is once again receiving from NPD (which spreads the illusion that the United States is a surrogate for the international market, to which it cannot be extrapolated):

Microsoft clarifies NPD claims

10m sales figure referred to global numbers, not the US, platform holder explains

Platform holder Microsoft has clarified a statement that it released earlier today that appeared to claim that Xbox 360 sold 10m units in the US in 2009 – a number that didn’t correspond with official NPD figures.

This clarification came after complaints. They try to get away with a whole load of lies. A notable example where GNU/Linux suffers from these lies is sub-notebooks [1, 2, 3], where GNU/Linux is already killing Microsoft, at least financially. Search is another example because Microsoft and its boosters only ever speak about the US market, where Microsoft’s share is estimated to be about triple of what it is has in the world at large.

Going back to Xbox, what is the reality of it all? Well, Microsoft is just copying Nintendo several years late and Microsoft itself is rather hopeless based on this new report:

Spencer: Project Natal launch ‘fraught with risk’ for Microsoft

Speaking to Eurogamer, Microsoft Game Studios head Phil Spencer responded to criticism that Microsoft takes fewer risks than Sony in first-party development by referencing Project Natal — “if there isn’t risk in Natal then I don’t know what’s keeping me up at night.”

Sony isn’t lagging, either. “Wireless controller for the PlayStation coming in fall,” says this report. That’s even sooner than Microsoft’s, which it says will be ready only around Christmas.

Japan’s Sony has announced it will postpone for the fall 2010 launch of its wireless controller with motion sensor for PlayStation 3, which is the second delay of a major product launch in a short time after ‘Gran Turismo’. In any case, reach before ‘Project Natal’ for Xbox 360.

The winner is still Nintendo, which actually makes a profit, leads this race, and has a big gap behind it.

Sony says PS3 sold 3 million units in UK

[...]

The Wii is leading the market easily worldwide with 56 million units sold globally.

The Independent (UK) has gone as far as putting together silly headlines like this one. Nintendo is untouchable and Sony — unlike Microsoft — does not need to lie about it. Microsoft has always been a factory of lies and it was even sued for it. █

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Microsoft Fights Google with More FUD, Lawsuits, and Lobbying

Posted in Courtroom, FUD, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Windows at 8:16 am by Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Some of Microsoft’s latest moves against Google, including Google’s endeavours that promote GNU/Linux

AS the battle between Google and Microsoft turns into a battle of office suites/collaboration and operating systems (GNU/Linux versus Windows), Microsoft grows more wary and nervous. It’s not just search that’s at stake anymore, as it’s Microsoft’s jewels (and cash cows) that are finally at risk. Windows revenue was down 40% in the last quarter and Office revenue was also down sharply. Paul Rubens writes about the subject and it is definitely worth pointing out that Microsoft is openly mocking Android/Linux [1, 2] — a mockery that’s indicative of Microsoft’s fear of Google. Microsoft is now publicly mocking another product from Google:

Microsoft Teases Google Over New Storage Service

[...]

Microsoft didn’t miss the opportunity to ‘poke fun’ at the puny online storage capacity offered by the search engine giant and said in a statement that “Just a friendly reminder that Windows Live has been offering its more than 450 million customers 25GB of cloud-based storage space for free through Windows Live SkyDrive since 2008.”

Microsoft just can’t help making fun of Google. It is a bad marketing strategy and IDG’s Microsoft watcher/booster Nancy Gohring is doing her job belittling Microsoft competitors like Google, as usual. But there’s more.

As we mentioned before, Microsoft is suing Google right about now (latest lawsuit among several) and the mainstream press does not miss this. It’s rather blatant this time around:

Eleven-year-old Ciao was in 2005 bought by online market research surveys firm Greenfield, which was in 2008 acquired by Microsoft, which itself is trying to build a web ads operation to rival Google’s.

Apart from this new joke that Microsoft is buying Google for $300 billion, there is also real news about Microsoft losing control of Facebook, in which it put investments (probably in order to block a Google takeover).

Facebook stopped using Microsoft this month to sell graphical banner ads in some international markets. It may also drop those ads in the U.S., Robin Domeniconi, vice president of U.S. ad sales at Microsoft, said yesterday in an interview.

The original report is from Bloomberg.

Lastly, in addition to FUD and lawsuits, Microsoft is lobbying the government very heavily (but so does Google). Bill Gates is visiting the White House very frequently [1, 2] despite claiming to have retired from Microsoft. Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, is currently lobbying for public- and Google-hostile policies and he too visits the White House based on the following new report:

But when it comes to tech executives from the private sector, Google and Microsoft have both done well at getting into the White House. Former Microsoft boss Bill Gates even snared an intimate audience with President Obama back in March 2009 when only three other people were present. Steve Ballmer made three visits over two days to members of the Obama technology team. And Microsoft exec Craig Mundie put in an appearance.

The above article also speaks about Google visits to the White House, which are nonetheless fewer. Microsoft still uses publicity stunts to pressure and daemonise Google, even using Yahoo as a pawn [1, 2] to force Google to change its algorithm’s retention.

Speaking of lobbying, Microsoft seems to be preparing and probably sponsoring some more bogus studies to assist with pressure on politicians.

MICROSOFT: Oil and Gas Pros Rapidly Embracing Social Media and Collaboration Tools, Yet Corporate Policy Lags, According to New

Nearly 75 percent of oil and gas professionals see value in using social media and collaboration tools at work an 83 percent jump from responses in last year’s similar poll but corporatewide endorsement of these tools continues to lag behind, according to a Microsoft Corp. and Accenture (NYSE: ACN | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) survey released today at Microsoft’s Global Energy Forum in Houston.

The Microsoft and Accenture Oil & Gas Collaboration Survey 2010, which surveyed 275 professionals within international, national and independent oil and gas and related companies, found that social media and collaboration technology adoption is primarily a grassroots phenomenon within firms. At the same time, half of those surveyed said their companies prohibit or restrict the use of many of these publicly available tools, such as photo-sharing and social networking sites.

Microsoft is probably trying to sell something or to pass new laws. We will probably see the outcome/s in the coming weeks because there is usually this type of delay. They usually do this sort of stuff for PR and/or lobbying (very recent examples can be found in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]). █

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