Summary: Microsoft is trying to sneak patents-encumbered MPEG formats into the Web using Internet Explorer 9 (IE 9); Microsoft threatens (again) to go after Linux legally

IN OUR previous posts about IE 9 [1, 2] we mentioned not only security problems but also Microsoft’s ’support’ of the video tag, which we expected to have a negative side when implemented by Microsoft. It now turns out that Microsoft — just like its buddy Apple — is trying to piggyback Web video to push H.264 into the standard. The W3C’s new CEO (Novell's former CTO who brags about software patents and helped create the patent deal with Microsoft) is unlikely to have a problem with this as the three people in his working group are from proponents of software patents (Apple, Microsoft, and IBM).

Here is the news article outlining Microsoft’s patent-saturated vision of the Web:

The rough version of IE9 that Microsoft demonstrated includes HTML5 video encoded with a particular technology called H.264. Apple’s Safari also supports this encoding and decoding technology, or codec.

But Mozilla is adamantly opposed to open-source-unfriendly H.264, supporting the rival Ogg Theora codec instead, and Opera is in that camp with its new version 10.5. Google’s Chrome supports both, tying the score at Ogg Theora 3, H.264 3.

Mozilla is fighting for us, but will it be enough? Mozilla is strongly against software patents, just like most companies that are without a monopoly (patent trolls don’t qualify as companies). According to this new post from Miro (formerly known as Democracy Player), the fight for free codecs intensifies and Wikipedia puts its weight behind it.

This is a concept that I had thinking about and trying to nudge towards reality for a long time; I’m thrilled that we’re finally there. There’s a bunch of interesting aspects, but perhaps the heart of it is a chance to bring open video to mainstream users and strike a blow for freedom.

Wikipedia is the most popular site in the world that posts video exclusively in open formats (specifically, theora). The steadfast commitment that the Wikimedia Foundation has to open information, tools, and formats, is amazing. They truly put their values first.

We are respectfully concerned that the W3C suffered some form of entryism in the sense that everyone there is a proponent of software patents, except Tim Berners-Lee, which is just so ironic and sad. Why are proprietary software monopolists given so much control over the Web’s direction? How was it allowed to happen? Even Apple, the company that’s attacking Free software using software patents [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] and getting criticised for having software patents that harm the Web (this goes over a year back), was given a valuable seat, alongside its supportive friend, Microsoft. For those who have not read the past few days’ posts, Microsoft is openly supporting Apple’s action [1, 2, 3] against GNU/Linux. Only yesterday we quoted some of the latest FUD from Gutierrez (endorsement for Apple’s legal team), who led Glyn Moody to writing a sensationalist headline which he pushed into Slashdot. It says: “Is Microsoft About to Declare Patent War on Linux?”

Microsoft’s comments on happenings outside its immediate product portfolio are rare, and all the more valuable when they do appear. Here’s one from Horacio Gutierrez, “Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel”, entitled “Apple v. HTC: A Step Along the Path of Addressing IP Rights in Smartphones.”

By now, all the alarm bells should be going off: this is from Microsoft’s top intellectual monopoly bloke, writing about one of the most surprising and potentially disruptive lawsuits in the world of technology – and one that doesn’t even involve Microsoft directly. Why on earth is he doing it? Answer: because Microsoft has something very important to communicate.

[...]

Translated: smartphones are mostly about the kind of software that Microsoft produces; we have lots of patents in this area, and we are going to collect much more in this area – if necessary, through lawsuits (“continued activity”) of the kind Apple is bringing.

The question, of course, is against whom will Microsoft be bringing those lawsuits? And the answer, presumably, is everyone that makes smartphone software stacks, since these computer-like technologies will doubtless overlap with some of the doubtless broad and obvious patents that Microsoft will claim to have.

Some companies, used to these kind of games, will simply cross-license stuff if they have a big enough portfolio of similarly obvious patents. Others will just cough up some dosh to get Microsoft off their backs. But amidst all these conventional players, there is one very unconventional one: Linux, in its various mobile incarnations.

Taking legal action against *all* companies producing software stacks for smartphones would allow Microsoft to claim with some semblance of plausibility that it was not specifically targeting Linux this time (unlike its previous sabre-rattling statements about patent infringement that were specifically aimed at Linux). But the net effect would be that Linux would be the chief victim of such an approach, since any companies using it in their smartphones are likely to end up doing deals with Microsoft – and hence implicitly accepting its claims – whatever the open source community might think or want. It would be like Novell’s pact with Microsoft, writ large and much worse.

We don’t agree with Moody’s exaggeration here. Microsoft is just beating the bushes (it’s sometimes called “shakedown”) in order to find more sellouts like I-O Data and Amazon [1, 2, 3, 4]. In the next post we will show that Microsoft uses other companies to launch lawsuits against GNU/Linux. It’s very much apparent at this stage and it takes extreme discipline to sincerely deny this. █

Summary: Privacy offender criticises another in a public event, proving that FUD is still a strategic focus at Microsoft

Microsoft has a history of exploiting SXSW, but today’s subject is a talk Microsoft gave there about “privacy”. Recent examples that we gave of Microsoft’s privacy abuses can be found in [1, 2, 3, 4]. We even gave an example last night. According to someone who blogged from SXSW over the weekend, Microsoft is up to the usual behaviour [1, 2]. It’s part of a theme of FUD that Microsoft is using, hoping that nobody would spot the sheer hypocrisy.

At the keynote today at SXSW, Microsoft’s Danah Boyd placed a lot of emphasis on Google’s privacy “fails” with Buzz. The topic of the keynote was the relationship between privacy and publicity, and she certainly covered much more territory and social media in general, but it was interesting that Google Buzz was essentially the first thing talked about.

This is Microsoft. Of course it would speak about another company’s privacy violations and never about its own. What utter hypocrisy. █

Summary: Disagreement between the press and the hostile acquirer as to whether or not Novell would stay in tact

NOVELL is at a stage of uncertainty and state of denial because it’s likely to be acquired soon [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. The Novell-faithful people watch with concern as their Novell skills/certifications are at stake and Novell’s BrainShare, which is just days away, has "uncertainty" written all over it. Attendants are likely to bring up questions about the company’s short-term plans. Novell’s PR team promotes the event [1, 2], whereas analysts at Ovum claim that “The end is nigh for Novell”:

After years of acquisition rumors, last week Novell received a buy-out offer from hedge fund Elliott Associates (EA). Whether the offer succeeds or not, Novell is likely to end up in pieces.

[...]

Novell’s parts are more valuable than its sum

Novell’s board is likely to reject the current offer before Novell’s annual conference, BrainShare, starts on 21 March. It can keep rejecting EA’s offers, but it cannot stop EA from going directly to Novell’s shareholders. Should EA be successful, it is likely to pocket Novell’s cash then split the company and sell its constituent parts.

This news report from Bloomberg (also published in BusinessWeek and later corrected slightly) claims that Novell will be torn apart by Singer and his minions, who are only interested in money and not in Novell’s staff, products, and customers.

Elliott Associates LP, the fund manager that made an unsolicited $2 billion offer for Novell Inc., may consider selling the NetWare networking-software unit if its bid succeeds, a person familiar with the matter said.

Elliott, which owns about 8.5 percent of Novell stock, would also try to run the company more efficiently and bring about $400 million in cash that Novell holds off shore to the U.S., said the person, who asked not to be identified because Novell hasn’t agreed to the bid. Elliott may also try to find a buyer for Novell’s business that specializes in an open-source operating system, the person said.

“Our intent is to own Novell,” New York-based Elliott said in an e-mailed statement. “We have absolutely no plans to sell any business units.”

The Inquirer wrote about it shortly afterwards:

Novell will be asset stripped

SOURCES AT the investment fund Elliot have confirmed that if it is successful in its bid to take over Novell, the outfit will be asset stripped.

Its Netware networking-software unit will be flogged and the company will look for a buyer for its SUSE Linux operation.

Elliott Associates, the vulture fund, later issued a denial:

As the week was ending, rumors were swirling that the hedge fund suitor of Novell, Elliott Associates, which last week offered $1bn net of cash to take over the perennially struggling software maker, was going to start selling off its target’s assets if it clinches a deal.

[...]

In response to the Bloomberg story, Elliott put out a statement two hours after the market closed denying the rumors. “The story that Bloomberg ran today was inaccurate. Elliott has made no statement with respect to its intent regarding Novell. Elliott wants to own the company. Elliott has no plans to sell any business units and to report anything else would be erroneous.”

So what was the Bloomberg report based upon?

The Novell-faithful folks were also quick to point out this “mistake”, whose correction came through PRNewsWire. In Associated Content, one fan of SUSE wrote: “Why Microsoft Needs to Buy Novell or Has Its Own Linux Distro?” [weak English]

I personally do not want to see SUSE to die. I ‘dabbled my feet’ with linux was SuSe 6.0. I actually bought the boxed version of that software (since installing, downloading, configuring, etc were a major pain in those days). Among all linux I tried that time (which was probably early 1990s), SUSE was always the winner in detecting any hardwares I throw into. All other distros just simply failed, usually, in detecting the ’soft modem.’ Remember that era? If not, soft modem is that annoying modem that can be used with Windows driver only. You would be lucky to run your beloved 1.44k band modem if someone did the hack for linux driver of it.

Taking a moment to look a few days back (before the Bloomberg report and the subsequent denial), Paul Rubens believes that sale of Novell’s assets is inevitable.

The enterprise Linux space has suddenly got very interesting following the news that a bunch of sharp-suited New Yorkers have made an offer to buy SUSE Linux’s parent company, Novell. Whether or not they succeed, there can be little doubt that it’s cheerio and night-night for Novell, a business that has been doomed since, let’s be brutally honest here, everyone stopped buying NetWare.

The offer, from hedge fund outfit Elliott Associates, was for $5.75 per share, valuing Novell at a shade under $2 billion. But bearing in mind that the company has vast cash piles in various currencies, worth about $950 million, and the offer values Novell’s businesses at around $1 billion greenbacks.

There is clearly a takeover expected, so the question is, by who?

Macquarie Securities initiated coverage on takeover target Novell (Nasdaq: NOVL) with an Outperform rating and $7.50 price target.

Microsoft's buddy reckons that Novell will be sold and in Boston (near Novell’s headquarters) this is pointed out too. The takeover gets mentioned in many other places that we mentioned before (we try to produce an exhaustive list of links to articles) and negative speculations about Red Hat are fueled by FUD from Canonical's Matt Asay, leading to articles like this one.

But there are fears that if Novell goes, that could be the first domino which damages the commercial outfits based on Linux.

The next target might be Red Hat. Some think that if Novell’s SUSE Linux business finds its way into Oracle’s or VMware’s or IBM’s paws, it will be hard for Red Hat to remain viable as a stand alone company.

This is only based on CNET, which they think is a reliable news site. When they say “there are fears” they only refer to Matt Asay, who used to work for Novell and thus compete strongly against Red Hat. This whole thing also feeds the shameless Microsoft booster Preston Gralla [1, 2]. His disinformation is self explanatory and public admiration of Microsoft very much expected. █

Summary: Without any disclosure, Gartenberg’s smears continue to be disseminated by IDG, which cares about traffic rather than accuracy and conflicts of interests (Gartenberg is a former Microsoft employee)

Microsoft Evangelist Michael Gartenberg is doing his annual “anti-GNU/Linux” [1, 2]. Gartnerberg, who has been working for Microsoft for years (sometimes on the payroll directly), is publishing lies about GNU/Linux at least once a year and IDG not only publishes this in one site; it even modifies the headline and posts it another site, only to receive somewhat angry responses from people who can call “FUD” when they see it. Here is one such response:

I am seriously annoyed by the constant disingenuous articles that state GNU/Linux is not ready for the average user’s desktop PC as the primary, or only, operating system. What a dump truck load of manure! The majority of the people making such spurious claims are usually ignorant end-users, clueless “reporters”, Microsoft fanatics or Apple worshippers. I am not sure which of these categories may contain Mr. Gartenberg. But I suspect it is one or more of the above. If not, then someone point out to me just exactly where Mr. Gartenberg stands in the operating systems wars. Yes, these are wars. If you do not believe that, fine. You can be wrong if you want to.

This FUD is nothing to be upset about. It’s just one of those routine things from the Microsoft ecosystem. “The MicroShills Are At It Again,” writes another person:

It’s almost impossible to read anything from the mainline computer press that does not have the hard and heavy thumbprint of Microsoft on it. We get it. You all depend on Microsoft for your continued existence, so all articles pointed at them will be heavily slanted in their favor, and, every once in a great while, when Microsoft really screws the pooch, the sarcastic remarks and criticism can fly, but only for so long. (If you don’t believe this, you aren’t paying attention. Also, gander at the amount of criticism Vista got, and then there were a load of articles saying how no one – not even them – really gave Vista a chance, and it wasn’t that bad. Then, magically, when Windows 7 started looking halfway good, and Microsoft itself admitted what a pig Vista was, again it was alright to criticize again.)

Now, it’s Bing. Bing is acceptable as a search engine – for anyone that has never used Google, or Yahoo, for that matter.

But the press is beating us with the “gains” of Bing in the market every time they show up. Enough already.

He then refers to US-only figures (that roughly quadruple Microsoft’s real presence in several areas of computing) which come from Microsoft’s business partner, ComScore [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. He also does not mention the fact that Microsoft is losing over $2 billion per year because market share gets bought, not earned (see Verizon for example [1, 2]) █

–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]

Summary: The same old myths that Microsoft spreads in the media contradict reality and fact; the GNU/Linux userbase resists hostile intervention

YESTERDAY we gave a new example of Microsoft TEs smearing GNU/Linux in the technology media. SJVN has politely responded to the same FUD without exposing the messenger, who is a former Microsoft employee whose job still appears to be boosting of Microsoft (we have gathered many examples to show this and got in touch with the actual person, who politely denied it).

Here are the rebuttals to particular technical points that were exaggerations, lies, and spin (for example, the typical suggestion that GNU/Linux needs to look and act like Windows in order to succeed).

I found it more than a little sad that someone in 2010 could still think that Linux is “still a non-starter on the desktop.” Please — wake up: We’re all Linux desktop users now.

No matter what you’re running on your desktop — Windows 7, Snow Leopard, XP, whatever — you use the Internet, right? And you use Google to search? You talk to your friends on Facebook, Twitter of some other social network, yes? Then congratulations — you’re a Linux user.

Thanks to the Web, desktop Linux is everywhere. The old desktop metaphor is dying. Every day that goes by the lines between what used to be a desktop, a server, and the network keep blurring. Don’t think so? Answer me this: How much work could you get done without access to the Internet?

It goes on and discusses more areas such as the desktop. On the desktop too there is this issue of bad reporting regarding market share and the following new rebuttal just posted by Jeff Hoogland:

For starters how do these places collect their statistics? What websites do they pull their data from? The content of a webpage very much determines the type of operating system that a person is likely to view it on. For instance these are the operating system statistics from the last month for my own (primarily Linux-focused) blog :

* Windows: 44.4%
* OSX: 8.03%
* Linux: 44.03%
* Other: 3.54%

[...]

Beyond just looking at the source of web statistics of operating systems, when it comes to the global market as a whole, you have to consider the countless systems that are offline or are rarely connected to the internet. Unlike OSX where you can count the systems by the amount of Apple hardware sold or Mircosoft’s Windows where they can count the number of activations, a single Linux ISO download can account for multiple (sometimes even hundreds) of offline (or online) installations.

Truth be told, will we ever truly know the precise market share of each operating system? No, we will not. From my four sources here (and others you can find around the internet) I’m inclined to believe that currently Windows floats somewhere around 88%, OSX around 8%, Linux somewhere close to 2%, and the rest can get lumped into that wonderful “other” category.

What do you think? Know of another credible source for market share statistics regarding operating systems that I didn’t mention? Let me know!

This is an issue that we explored several times before. Here at Boycott Novell we get similar percentages (similar to the above). In a way, Boycott Novell is a ‘vacuum’ of GNU/Linux traffic in the sense that it is one among many GNU/Linux sites that ‘deplete’ from the presence of GNU/Linux users in sites that give away their users’ privacy (for Microsoft- and Apple-sponsored firms like Net Applications).

Speaking of this Web site, there seems to be misunderstanding when it comes to the effect of Boycott Novell (especially when it comes to so-called divisiveness); The site actually addresses potential problems, it never strives to divide, but where a division does exist it’s often a case of people who cross over (for money) to a side that’s hostile towards GNU/Linux. Shane Shields has just explained why it’s OK if “the Linux community is fragmented” and here is part of his argument:

So while the Linux community may look fragmented to those outside looking in, in reality it has a stronger, larger bond than any proprietary company can ever hope to achieve. It is the individuality of it’s members which drive and motivate innovation as well as the shedding of unneeded cruft. What is good in Linux quickly propagates through the rest of the Linux community and what is not fades away.

This is, in my humble opinion, the reason why Linux is becoming so powerful and in a surprisingly short time has surpassed the capabilities of older, more established operating systems. This is why proprietary companies have made efforts to either embrace or destroy the Linux community. Those who have embraced Linux have not lost anything and those who tried to destroy it have, in some cases, lost everything.

Microsoft has tried to embrace Novell; to a great extent it succeeded, but Novell is rejected by many who are using GNU/Linux, so this ‘fragmentation’ can be seen as a defensive one, and thus not a detrimental one. █

Summary: Formerly-paid Microsoft employee and technical evangelist Michael Gartenberg belittles GNU/Linux again, this time through IDG

IN OUR PREVIOUS post we showed that the market share of GNU/Linux can easily be misrepresented due to quiet deployments that receive no proper attention because Linux and GNU have no public relations departments with advertisements and such conventional means of mind control.

Another vector of mind control (promotion and ridicule) consists of paid marketing people and pushers whom Mirosoft labels “technical evangelists” (TEs for short) and pays full wages. We covered these before [1, 2] (with concrete proof and confirmation) because Boycott Novell was among their victims.

A regular basher of GNU/Linux makes his appearance again. He is no stranger to us because we gave an example of his mischiefs in:

• Paid Microsoft Slug Michael Gartenberg Does the OLPC Slog
• Microsoft’s Twitter AstroTurf Continues
• What is Microsoft Doing Inside the ‘Press’?
• Microsoft-Funded “Analysts” Fight Against the Truth
• Deceptive Vista 7 Advertising, Neglect, Bugs, and More Security Problems

That is former Microsoft employee (evangelist) Michael Gartenberg, who merely does that “anti-Linux” job once again (as he does every now and then, using similar arguments). He also pretends to care about GNU/Linux, by starting with “I’d love to see viable alternatives to the current mainstream operating systems.”

“It’s not reporting, it’s opinionated placements in disguise, daemonising one’s professional rival.”This is the equivalent of “I like Linux, but…”

It’s a lie with which the author tries to gain some credibility to begin with. It was only yesterday (or earlier today, depending on geography) that we wrote about the Microsoft-affiliated “Linux curious” persona attacking more often than before.

“Linux on the desktop: Still not happening,” says the former Microsoft TE over at ComputerWorld today. Shame on IDG for publishing this nonsense despite the obvious yet undisclosed conflict of interests. It’s either malicious or IDG was bamboozled again (IDG relies on Microsoft as a large revenue stream [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]). IDG might as well pass over some writing responsibilities to Microsoft’s many PR agencies. It’s not reporting, it’s opinionated placements in disguise, daemonising one’s professional rival.

Last week we wrote about how big statistics firms produce and spread lies that benefit those who pay them [1, 2]. Here is a decent new post which explains the role of money.

Oh Linux, how shall I count thy installs?

[...]

I have also heard it said that 76.3% of people believe that you put a percentage sign behind any random number they will believe it to be true.

Research and marketing companies especially love statistics. That is how they make their money by providing the numbers to make their paying customers feel good. Yet there is the old adage GIGO, which means Garbage In, Garbage Out. It seems to me that just about all of the numbers regarding operating system installs fall into that GIGO category.

Of course bloggers, journalists and article writers take those numbers and spin them into fanciful stories for their readers to eat up like so many cream puffs. These fevered outpourings of fanatical minds are often used to show how their operating system has the most market share and consequently is the bees knees and of course everyone should be using it.

Where do these statistics come from? Most of the time it comes from sales data provided by the companies supplying the operating systems and this is where the problem lies. This is because while companies of proprietary operating systems actually rent their products, open source operating systems are not. So any statistics regarding operating system market share are automatically bogus and can only be used for FUD campaigns.

What about Web sites that are not included in those Microsoft-sponsored aggregations of logs, such as this new one?

Operating System 	on WWWUSE 	on W3Counter
Windows XP 		28.00% 		53.60%
Linux 			20.00%	 	1.55%
Windows 7 		18.00% 		10.66%
Windows Vista 		16.00% 		20.07%
Mac OS X 		13.00% 		8.12%
Unknown 		3.00% 		under 1%
Windows 2003 		1.00% 		1.01%
iPhone OSX 		0.60% 		0.75%
Android 		0.20% 		0.10%
Windows 2000 		0.10% 		0.43%
All Microsoft 		63.10% 		85.77%
All no Microsoft 	36.80% 		14.23%

As a side note, Alex Brown, Jesper Lund Stocholm, and Microsoft employees are flirting at the moment in Twitter, promoting their agenda for Microsoft lock-in. We won’t go into it on this occasion. The important point to remember is that Microsoft is getting very desperate. It relies on known allies attacking GNU/Linux with lies that they repeat over and over again. Lies need to be rejected. Tolerating them only helps them spread. █

“I’d put the Linux phenomenon really as threat No. 1.”

–Steve Ballmer, 2001

Summary: Latest OpenSSL FUD and Microsoft’s Howard Schmidt’s role informing the public about cyber-security risks

OUR complaints about The Register have intensified recently [1, 2, 3, 4] because of poor articles like this one (see the comments).

The Register spreads FUD about OpenSSL (not the first such smear, after comparisons to "communism" too) and Bradley M. Kuhn from the SFLC has responded as follows:

Ok, Be Afraid if Someone’s Got a Voltmeter Hooked to Your CPU

Boy, do I hate it when a FLOSS project is given a hard time unfairly. I was this morning greeted with news from many places that OpenSSL, one of the most common FLOSS software libraries used for cryptography, was somehow “severely vulnerable”.

I had a hunch what was going on. I quickly downloaded a copy of the academic paper that was cited as the sole source for the story and read it. As I feared, OpenSSL was getting some bad press unfairly. One must really read this academic computer science article in the context it was written; most commenting about this paper probably did not.

First of all, I don’t claim to be an expert on cryptography, and I think my knowledge level to opine on this subject remains limited to a little blog post like this and nothing more. Between college and graduate school, I worked as a system administrator focusing on network security. While a computer science graduate student, I did take two cryptography courses, two theory of computation courses, and one class on complexity theory. So, when compared to the general population I probably am an expert, but compared to people who actually work in cryptography regularly, I’m clearly a novice. However, I suspect many who have hitherto opined about this academic article to declare this “severe vulnerability” have even less knowledge than I do on the subject.

There are much bigger problems to worry about, such as the latest news about Windows botnets [1, 2, 3]. The authors of the Windows exploit might not even face a jail sentence, based on this report.

Three Spanish men were arrested last month for allegedly building an international network of more than 12 million hacked PCs that were used for everything from identity theft to spamming. But according to Spanish authorities and security experts who helped unravel the crime ring, the accused may very well never see the inside of a jail cell even if they are ultimately found guilty, due to insufficient cyber crime legislation in Spain.

Regarding this new article about Scott Charney’s outrageous remarks [1, 2] (he worked for the US government before Microsoft hired him), Groklaw wrote 3 days ago: “First Microsoft fills the world with security issues and problems, then it wants the public to be taxed to fix them? I think Microsoft needs to fix its own software itself.” Microsoft’s own negligence [1, 2, 3] ought to have Microsoft bear the bill.

Howard Schmidt, the US Cyber Czar who came directly from Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4], claims/pretends that there is no problem, even though many firms that include Google were intruded due to an Internet Explorer hole that Microsoft had knowingly ignored for 5 months [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12] (there are more security patches coming shortly). Even Google source code got grabbed. [via]

Operation Aurora continues to be a hot topic inside and outside of security circles. At this week’s RSA Conference in San Francisco many conversations are on the topic of the attacks that hit Google and dozens of other companies in January.

These reports indicate that proprietary source code got nicked from Google. Microsoft also nicks proprietary source code from companies/projects like Plurk [1, 2, 3, 4], which probably puts the Redmond-based company at the same side as the crackers.

“Cyberwar Hype Intended to Destroy the Open Internet,” says this report from Wired. [via]

The biggest threat to the open internet is not Chinese government hackers or greedy anti-net-neutrality ISPs, it’s Michael McConnell, the former director of national intelligence.

McConnell’s not dangerous because he knows anything about SQL injection hacks, but because he knows about social engineering. He’s the nice-seeming guy who’s willing and able to use fear-mongering to manipulate the federal bureaucracy for his own ends, while coming off like a straight shooter to those who are not in the know.

And on the other hand, on the same occasion we find that “US urges ‘action’ needed to fight net attacks,” according to the BBC.

Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano has admitted there is an urgent need to step up efforts to protect Americans from cyber attacks.

They seem to contradict themselves. Now they claim to be looking for ideas:

Homeland Security wants to pick your brains

[...]

The lucky winners will be invited to an event in Washington DC in late May or early June. They’ll get to partner with the department to lead in the planning of the National Cybersecurity Awareness Campaign, due to launch in October.

Over at CNET, Dennis O’Reilly has this new article about “five ways to keep your [Windows] PC free of viruses and Trojans”. Here is one of his suggestions.

If you can’t give up Windows, you may still be able to install Linux on an old PC or in a partition of your Windows PC. Then you can use that system (or partition) whenever you engage in any sensitive computer activities. You’ll find instructions for dual-booting Windows and the Ubuntu version of Linux on the Ubuntu Community Documentation site.

Thumbs up to Dennis. █

“Usually Microsoft doesn’t develop products, we buy products. It’s not a bad product, but bits and pieces are missing.”

–Arno Edelmann, Microsoft’s European business security product manager

Summary: Using flawed and partly Microsoft-funded numbers, the advocates of proprietary software beg to suggest that GNU/Linux is declining (which it’s not)

SEVERAL days ago, Pingdom published this reminder which shows how GNU/Linux dominates the top end of computing.

Most popular supercomputer OS

Here below you can see the division by operating system family across the top 500 supercomputers.

1. Linux (89.2%)
2. Unix (5.0%)
3. Mixed (4.6%)
4. Windows (1.0%)
5. BSD based (0.2%)

Two days ago we wrote about Gartner's bogus numbers referring to server 'share' (improperly measuring the wrong things). One thing we did not highlight at the time (or in more detailed posts on the subject) is that a supercomputer/mainframe would count as one server and so will a dual-core machine. Since GNU/Linux is dominant at the high end, any number of units (let alone just sales of boxes, as opposed to installations) is going to demote Free software, by the very definitions chosen.

Microsoft booster Preston Gralla^* takes IDC/Gartner numbers (they deceive in the same way) and he is being very dumb, as usual. SJVN sets him straight.

But Gralla and other critics are missing that IDC is not measuring what server operating systems are being used; it’s measuring what server operating systems people are buying, and those are bundled with their hardware purchases. Specifically, to quote IDC, the researchers are measuring “server revenue includes components that are typically sold today as a server bundle, including frame or cabinet and all cables, processors, memory, communication boards, and OS.”

Another piece of disinformation that’s floating at the moment cites the Microsoft-sponsored Net Applications. Adversaries of Free software are desperate for something to boost their own ego as Microsoft’s results are still declining [1, 2, 3, 4] and their expenditures rise. █
______
^* For the uninitiated, see [1, 2].

Summary: A gentler, kinder Microsoft? Not so fast, reveal news items

• Legal Trouble For Google In Europe: Courtesy Microsoft (see previous coverage of this)

It is interesting to see Microsoft is now fighting for the same reasons it has supposedly dominated the tech segment. The company which once called Linux a cancer; which killed Netscape and many such competitors; forcefully brought OOXML format; and has been ignoring all CSS standards is now looking for healthy competition.

• Microsoft says Google acts raise antitrust issues

Microsoft Corp made its most vehement and public attack on Google Inc on Friday, calling its internet rival’s actions potentially anti-competitive, and urging victims to file complaints to regulators.

The broadside comes days after a Microsoft-owned business, along with two other small online companies, complained to European Union regulators about Google’s operations there. Microsoft is also fighting a plan by Google to digitize millions of books, currently under scrutiny by the Department of Justice.

• Does Microsoft want a Linux trial?

• Has Microsoft Redefined The Meaning of Cross-Licensing Agreements? (more on the Amazon patent deal in [1, 2, 3])

According to an article by Rick Aristotle Munarriz, published on The Motley Fool, the recent cross-licensing patent agreement between Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) provides each tech giant access to the patent portfolio of the other company. While some people figured that the deal does not involve the leading online retailer trampling over the intellectual property of the world’s largest software company, MSFT’s press release suggests otherwise. The press release indicates that MSFT is receiving payments from AMZN.

• FOSS equals piracy. Or so they say (see previous coverage of this)

An American lobby group [tied to BSA and Microsoft] has asked the US trade representative to put countries like India, Brazil and Indonesia on a special watchlist simply because these three countries encourage the use of open source software.

[...]

Citing this survey, another poster to the same mailing list, Erik Christiansen, noted that in 2007, Israel and Norway had effected the induction of some free software while Malaysia and Japan had encouraged switching. Singapore had offered tax breaks for switching to GNU/Linux.

• A race for smarties (warning about history being rewritten)

Sure, it’s had challengers. Anyone remember DR-DOS, once owned by Novell? It got some traction, but never enough to pose a serious threat to Microsoft.

–Jeremy Allison, LCA 2010

Summary: How boosters of Microsoft have covered the insulting “support” of ODF in Microsoft Office

IN THE previous post we explained that Microsoft pretends to be a friend when it’s obviously not. It’s a lulling technique against critics.

Microsoft is attacking ODF — at least indirectly if one pays attention — in all sorts of ways while pretending to have embraced it (which would make no business sense). We have given so many examples over the past year. One vector of attack has been Microsoft’s bribed [1, 2, 3] and sometimes just loyal ‘reporters’ (loyal to Microsoft). We are seeing examples of it even this week. Here is Microsoft’s booster Gavin Clarke attacking ODF with a headline that says “ODF’s doomed mission to break into Microsoft Office”

There are the following two criticisms being mentioned:

Free-Software-Foundation president Richard Stallman has told Neowin that the Office ballot screen is designed to actually deter potential users from using ODF. Stallman concludes Microsoft is simply going through a pretense – to be able to say it offers ODF support.

ODF managing director Marino Marcich pointed to a bigger issue, saying a ballot screen is meaningful only if the ODF implementation is “complete, current, and interoperable with other ODF applications.”

Clarke is ending with his Microsoft party line: “Would it take fresh regulatory pressure on Microsoft this time? Possibly. Microsoft is within its rights to support ODF as much – or a little – as it wants in Office.”

That’s not true. Microsoft’s strategy of “embrace and extend” was at times ruled illegal and had Microsoft penalised. Microsoft is still doing this to ODF [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] because it wants to get rid of ODF by making it look bad and thus discourage its use. Other Microsoft boosters did the same thing. The Microsoft-boosting site called Neowin got its hands on a screenshot that we mentioned a few days ago. It’s like those fake “leaks” [1, 2] that are actually controlled — leaks where they are setting the tone for all followup articles (breaking the news artificially). Neowin’s biased coverage has fed other Microsoft boosters like Marius Oiaga who cites Neowin and Mary-Jo Foley (whom Microsoft contacted based on the statement which says “the Redmond company confirmed officially to Mary-Jo Foley, after Neowin published a story accompanied by the file format screen which is apparently being served to users of the Release Candidate version of Office 2010″). Even sites that are not in Microsoft’s pocket had to rely on biased coverage from Neowin, which fortunately they took with a barrel of salt.

As for Office, Neowin has revealed Microsoft will use a similar ballot screen to prompt users about which file format they would prefer to use: Office Open XML (OOXML) or OpenDocument (ODF) document formats. OOXML is the suite’s default format, but Canadian software company i4i filed a patent dispute over the way Word uses these XML files. In December Microsoft surprisingly lost an appeal against i4i’s sales injunction and has had to act quickly.

So can these matters now be drawn to a close? Highly unlikely…

Should Microsoft add to the dialogue some warning about deliberate patent violations in OOXML [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]? And if not, then why not? It’s actually unfortunate that the i4i case is currently being used to promote software patents:

Mark Kenrick, a partner at patent and trademark attorneys Marks & Clerk, explores the recent Microsoft injunction, prohibiting sales of its flagship Word program. How did it come to pass that David beat Goliath in this fiercely contested patent dispute, and what does this mean for the software industry at large?

Another Microsoft booster admits that competitors are not satisfied with what Microsoft did. He quotes ODF Alliance’s director:

Update: Marino Marcich, managing director of the ODF Alliance, had this to say via email this morning:

The ballot screen, although it may at first look like it gives users a fair choice between OOXML and ODF, doesn’t give ODF a fair shake, and it isn’t likely to have much impact. Not only does the ballot offer OOXML as the first option, but more significantly, it provides what is essentially a warning — OOXML is designated to support “all the features” of the software, while ODF is explained to enable “many features,” but “some content or editability may be lost.”

At the end of the day, the key issue here is the level of ODF support and functionality. A ballot is no substitute for a quality implementation of the format. In this case, a ballot that offers the user the choice of ODF in MS Office is only significant if the ODF support in MS Office is complete, current, and interoperable with other ODF applications. Previous attempts, in Office 2007 SP2 fell far short of this. We have not yet evaluated the level of ODF support in Office 2010.”

Here is an update on where Google stands when it comes to document standards. █

Microsoft — like Novell [1, 2, 3, 4] — uses YouTube to promote its products and to spin/lie (e.g. about OOXML), but according to the following two reports, Microsoft also uses YouTube to disparage its competition. Microsoft not only sues Google and resorts to whisper campaigns; right now it has employees going out there to smear a rival of Microsoft’s biggest cash cow (and one of the very few products that are profitable):

The Irony of Microsoft’s Anti-Google Apps Campaign on YouTube

[...]

In a Microsoft video extolling its virtues, the narrator makes the point that marketing is difficult with Google Apps. It’s far simpler with Microsoft Office.

So we find it deliciously ironic that Microsoft is marketing a number of anti-Google Apps videos using Google’s YouTube. Hmm…doesn’t that defeat the point a bit?

[...]

It all feels like a company protecting its power base more so than embracing the current disruption in the market.

Also:

Microsoft Attacks Google Apps … on YouTube

[...]

They’ll let anything onto YouTube these days. No, I’m not talking about the millionth video featuring a squirrel lip-syncing to Right Said Fred, but a set of Microsoft-created videos attacking Google Apps. I guess Google, which owns YouTube, really has no inclination to censor anything aside from content that violates copyrights; but watching the Microsoft videos play out next to that YouTube logo is like watching promos for a TV show like “Dexter” (produced by Showtime) playing on HBO or another rival channel.

Microsoft sometimes uses former employees from the Office group in order to do the smearing/belittling of Google Apps and the Microsoft-paid blog called TechFlash is now giving a platform for a former Microsoft employee (“He worked in Microsoft’s Information Technology Group in the early 1990s,” says the bottom part) to do the same type of things. This control of the press is a subject that was demonstrated in the previous post and one which we’ll return to later.

It’s easy to see why Microsoft is so concerned. First it was ODF and now it’s Google Apps. One dismantles Microsoft’s lock-in using open formats that everyone supports and the other challenges Microsoft’s core business model. Microsoft's old friend, Dina Bass from Seattle, has just disseminated this Microsoft narrative which she originally published in Bloomberg:

Microsoft Corp. President Stephen Elop is preparing for the biggest shakeup to the $19 billion Office business in a decade as the company races Google Inc. to sell Internet-based programs.

The article is imbalanced and Google is hardly quoted at all (even though it’s a subject of the article). It reads almost like an advertisement for Microsoft. Speaking of which, Microsoft already advertises a product that’s not even available (Office 2010) and someone sent us this screenshot of a new dialogue, which he described as “Satan’s talk with Jesus, at the desert.” As usual — and as we have expected all along — Microsoft sells people the illusion that ODF is defective. Microsoft doesn’t even implement it properly [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7].█

Summary: Free software’s “many eyeballs” defence is being slammed by Microsoft employees who cite their own reports and continue to show incompetence and extreme negligence when it comes to security

IS MICROSOFT really changing? Is Microsoft finally accepting that “open source” (as it insists on calling it) is acceptable? Hell no.

Back in December we showed that Microsoft was smearing Free software even though it can run on Windows and now we find the monopolist using its own lies that its arrogant employees have manufactured in order to fuel this latest security spin and lies about Free software’s security. Microsoft titled this FUD “Microsoft’s Many Eyeballs and the Security Development Lifecycle”. Blankenhorn states in his response that “Closed source still state religion at Microsoft”

But closed source remains a sort of state religion at Microsoft, as I learned this week from Fred Trotter, an expert in open source medical software.

Fred wrote this week about some FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) Shawn Hernan of Microsoft is spreading within the security community — that open source is less secure despite its being visible.

Yes, that would be Microsoft, which is still doing extra PR work to pretend that it has an “open source” side and that CodePlex is not just a shell/front for Microsoft. To advertise the CodePlex Foundation as not tied to Microsoft, these liars previously recruited Microsoft MVP Miguel de Icaza (before he was officially their MVP). They also exploit their long-standing friendships with British Library staff in order to achieve this. The true intentions are so obvious to see that it takes gullible or misinformed individuals to fall for it.

Regarding those Microsoft claims of “better” security in proprietary software, here is a new article which attributes the rise in E-mail malware to Microsoft Windows botnets (zombie PCs). The article says: “Malicious spam volumes increased dramatically in the back half of 2009, reaching three billion messages per day, compared to 600 million messages per day in the first half of 2009. But this is still a tiny fraction of the estimated global spam volume, thought to be about 200 billion messages per day.

“A new report by net security firm M86 Security points the finger of blame for the torrent of malware, phishing and other scams (collectively defined as malicious spam) and junk mail more generally towards botnet networks of compromised machines. It reckons five botnets were responsible for 78 per cent of the malicious spam it fought in the second half of 2009.

“M86 reports that the major spam botnets such as Rustock, Pushdo (or Cutwail) and Mega-D continue to dominate spam output, supported by second-tier botnets such as Grum, and Lethic. Rustock alone pushed out 34 per cent of spam in 2H09. Pushdo zombie drones puked out one in five spam messages (20 per cent), with Mega-D zombies account for 9 per cent of the global junk mail nuisance.”

“[S]ince 2007, 5 major maintainers on Ubuntu are linked to Novell [...] Mostly the one maintaining .NET packages.”
      –OiaohmNeedless to say, this is only affecting Windows and Microsoft’s utter negligence [1, 2, 3] contributes to it. The last thing we need is for GNU/Linux to inherit the same security problems through Mono and Moonlight. In today’s IRC conversations (the relevant part starts here), it came up that “since 2007, 5 major maintainers on Ubuntu are linked to Novell [...] Mostly the one maintaining .NET packages.” That’s a claim from Oiaohm, who added: “Matt Asay will allow .NET to infect more. Then end of next year MS can drop the patent wall on them.” Maybe this is a good opportunity to ask Asay some questions in Slashdot. Well, Slashdot treats him like a celebrity and some months ago he was mentioned in their front page because former Microsoft employees voted him one of the “most influential in FOSS” (no coders at all were seen as worthy for this list, not even Richard Stallman). But then again, as the new call for questions states, “Matt [Asay] is on the board of advisors for Slashdot’s parent company, Geeknet.” We previously complained about Slashdot’s new Microsoft slant [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], not to mention the hiring of former Microsoft employees who can change the agenda and groom particular people who are helpful to them (Matt Asay is the one who brought Microsoft to OSBC [1, 2, 3]). MinceR says that “Geeknet is completely corrupted”. Why is it that Slashdot picks questions for Jim Zemlin, for example (he is a marketing person from the Linux Foundation), whereas technical people from the heavily-disrespected GNU receive no opportunity to offer their side of the story? Slashdot reached out in the same way to some Microsoft employees.

DaemonFC, a former Microsoft MVP, says: “I still don’t get why many large companies with lots of lawyers don’t flinch at shipping Mono if it really is so bad… you’d think they’d clear something like that with their legal dept first…”

MinceR says that Microsoft “does everything they can to make the legal situation about mono-related patents as unclear as possible” and Oiaohm tells DaemonFC that Intel and other companies do know about the problem, which is why they stay out of Moonlight, for example [1, 2]. “Intel will not touch it,” Oiaohm insists, “due to legal issues.”

MinceR adds: “we see canonical pushing mono… if their legal department didn’t warn them about this, when exactly will they do so?”

At a later stage in the day, Oiaohm dropped this interesting new link (“2010 CWE/SANS Top 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors”). “Good read for those who think languages like .net are majorally more secure,” he said. “That is the new list for bugs that common breached systems last year. Lot of them don’t link to what .net and java languages protect against. To be correct php and other equal languages have been breached.” █

“The continuous and broad peer-review enabled by publicly available source code supports software reliability and security efforts through the identification and elimination of defects that might otherwise go unrecognized by a more limited core development team.”

–CIO David Wennergren, Department of Defense (October 2009)

Summary: Latest “anti-Google” from The Register; New survey indicates that 38.5% of PHP developers use desktop GNU/Linux and The Register finds a way to spin it in Microsoft’s favour

A COUPLE of days ago we argued and showed that The Register had been poisoned by staff that’s friendly towards the company that retards IT by breaking the law many times (Microsoft is paying The Register). We also argued that The Register was publishing a lot of Google-hostile articles. So yesterday we tracked the site’s headlines for just 24 hours and unsurprisingly, as usual, we found just anti-Google articles and none that are flattering. From just one day we gathered:

1. “Schmidt denies Google wants ‘dumb pipe’ carriers”
2. “Vodafone chief gripes at Google dominance in online ad market”
3. “Google Buzz bug exposes user geo location”

The fourth article is not as negative, but it is still belittling Google. The headline is “Yahoo! looks beyond Google’s data cruncher”. That’s all that we found on this one day (24-hour span), which is pretty much representative of the norm.

“We picked just one day arbitrarily in order to show what had become a clear trend, but we have an even better new example of bias at The Register.”Now, to be fair, there is one issue where Google clearly deserves some shaming. It’s the Buzz incident, which was covered by CNET, the Microsoft sympathiser Maggie Shiels at The BBC, The Guardian of course (they are also Google hostile), Ars Technica, and Microsoft’s friends at IDG, who also published “Why Google Has Become Microsoft’s Evil Twin”. There are probably more articles about the Buzz incident, but The Register just seems one sided all in all. We picked just one day arbitrarily in order to show what had become a clear trend, but we have an even better new example of bias at The Register. It involves an old friend of Microsoft.

The great news that 38.5% of PHP developers prefer GNU/Linux on their desktop is being concealed in a way by Microsoft booster Gavin Clarke, who came up with the headline “PHPers prefer Windows desktop to Linux”. What utter foolishness. That’s not the story. It’s just Microsoft promotion, which is produced out of a total disaster for Microsoft.

The truth goes as follows (from the press release):

In terms of a production environment, 85% of PHP developers surveyed named Linux as their primary operating system while 11% named Windows and 2% named Mac OS X. When asked to name their primary operating system for development, 42% named Windows versus 38.5% who chose Linux and 19.1% who chose Mac OS X. For these same development environments, approximately 27% of respondents said they now use Zend Server and Zend Server Community Edition.

The real news is that the market share of GNU/Linux by far outpaced that which is typically being reported. The Microsoft booster has attempted to spin that and it looks bad for The Register as a whole. This is typical for Gavin Clarke, based on years of his bias.

The full press release is below (for readers’ convenience). █

Zend Technologies Polls Fast-Growing Zend Framework PHP Developer Community

Zend Survey Reveals Major Focus on Developing Business-Critical Web Applications Using Zend Framework, Growing Use of Mac OS X for Development, and Increased Demand for Training and Certification.

CUPERTINO, CA (PRWEB) February 16, 2010 — Zend Technologies, Inc., today announced results from ‘State of PHP and Zend Framework Development’, a global online survey of the Zend Framework PHP developer community conducted in December 2009. Survey responses reflected a high level of satisfaction with Zend Framework across a diverse group ranging from independent consultants to organizations with 5,000+ employees.

“The Zend Framework Open-Source Project debuted only four years ago and already more than 70% of the developers are using it for business-critical applications,” said Zeev Suraski, Chief Technology Officer at Zend Technologies. Survey results showed that Zend Framework is used by 58% of respondents for enterprise-level business critical-applications, and by 16% for department-level business-critical applications.

In terms of a production environment, 85% of PHP developers surveyed named Linux as their primary operating system while 11% named Windows and 2% named Mac OS X. When asked to name their primary operating system for development, 42% named Windows versus 38.5% who chose Linux and 19.1% who chose Mac OS X. For these same development environments, approximately 27% of respondents said they now use Zend Server and Zend Server Community Edition.

“We are seeing rapid and broad-based adoption of the Zend Server technologies that we released last year,” said Suraski. “At the same time, we are focused on integration of the framework, development tools and run-time environment to provide the developer community with an end-to-end solution. We believe this will take the already highly productive nature of PHP to the next level.”

In other survey results, close to 70% of respondents said they use Zend Studio or Eclipse PHP Development Tools (PDT) for development, and 18% use Vim. Close to 50% of respondents reported using PHPUnit to perform unit testing.

Zend noted that 46% of respondents said they plan to obtain Zend Framework Certification, joining close to 5% who are already certified. Developer Certification is increasingly viewed as a job market advantage, a view that is reflected in growing demand for Zend training materials including webinars and online training. Zend has responded with a new Zend Framework training and certification bundle that enables novice and advanced PHP developers to become proficient in Zend Framework and achieve certification.

About Zend Technologies
Zend Technologies, Inc., the PHP Company, is the leading provider of products and services for developing, deploying, and managing business-critical PHP applications. PHP runs 35 percent of the world’s Web sites and has quickly become the most popular language for building dynamic Web applications. Deployed at more than 30,000 companies worldwide, the Zend family of products is a comprehensive platform for supporting the entire lifecycle of PHP applications. Zend is headquartered in Cupertino, California.

For more information, visit http://www.zend.com or call +1 408-253-8800.

Zend, Zend Technologies, Zend Framework, Zend.com, Zend Server, and Zend Studio, and associated logos and icons, are trademarks of Zend Technologies, Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Summary: A controversial Microsoft/BBC executive accuses Google of the very same things Microsoft is doing to one’s privacy

THE video shown above was taken in London. In it, Steve Ballmer is seen taking just one of his many cheap shots at Google; there are many more. He is being hypocritical too, but that’s not the point. Last week we mentioned Erik Huggers, a former Microsoft employee who was doing his usual mischiefs at the BBC.

There are many other Microsoft UK executives in the BBC [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] and one BBC executive, Ashley Highfield, recently moved to Microsoft UK, right after the iPlayer fiasco he was responsible for [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Highfield does throw punches and FUD. He did, for example, say: “We have 17.1 million users of bbc.co.uk in the UK and, as far as our server logs can make out, 5 per cent of those [use Macs] and around 400 to 600 are Linux users.”

That was of course an utter lie and right now he’s using channel 4 (another UK channel) to throw FUD at Google:

The one distinguishing feature according to Microsoft is privacy. The firm’s UK Managing Director Ashley Highfield told Channel 4 News: “Every website address, every URL they type in is going back to Google. I think a number of users will not want Google to know where they’ve been on the internet.

“Most people do not realise the difference between Internet Explorer 8 which does not capture any information about the websites you visit and other browsers that do capture the information and send it back to the ‘mothership’.”

“Capture the information and send it back to the ‘mothership’,” eh? Like Highfield’s own employer is doing with software that it virtually forces people to buy [1, 2]? The hypocrisy is amazing. Who does he think he is? Ballmer? And this is the type of nonsense that broadcasters and newspapers over here share with the public. We wrote about this problem yesterday. █

Summary: The Microsoft fan press lies or at least knowingly deceives about how Microsoft is doing against Google

ACCORDING TO some global metrics and statistics (only approximate), Microsoft continues losing market share to Google (not only in search). But that’s not the story Microsoft wants the world to be told. Microsoft has always been an empire of lies.

A Microsoft/Bing-sponsored site cites a Mirosoft-sponsored firm [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] showing only US market share and neglecting to state this clearly, as usual. Bing’s real market share is said to be around 3%, but many boosters of Microsoft spend their day pointing to numbrs that are 4 times greater (US-only). The Microsoft/Bing-sponsored site even asks, “Could Microsoft overtake Yahoo?” (yes, that’s part of the headline which says “Stats show Bing cracking 11%: Could Microsoft overtake Yahoo?”)

It’s all part of an exercise in hypnosis and Microsoft uses the same methods to lie about (aggressively belittle) the market share of GNU/Linux. A lot of people wrongly believe that Microsoft has over 10% share in search and that GNU/Linux (desktop) has just 1%. █

Steve Ballmer’s presentation slide
from 2009 shows GNU/Linux as bigger than Apple on the desktop

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.” █

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. █

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:

1. Er OOXML dømt ude? Her er kravene til en offentlig dokumentstandard
2. Dokumentation: Her er hele aftalen om åbne dokumentstandarder
3. ODF vinder dokumentformat-krigen

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):

• The Microsoft OOXML ‘Corruption Train’ Reaches Denmark (Updatedx2)
• OpenDocument Takes One Giant Leap, One Step Backwards
• OOXML Watch: Sweden’s OOXML Fiasco Representative of the Norm?
• Today is the Day — The Day the World Will Learn That Crime Pays
• OOXML in Norway, Denmark, and Poland… Looking More Closely at the Stories (Updated)
• ODF and OOXML in Denmark
• Quick Mention: Summary of Microsoft OOXML Manipulation and Ballot-stuffing
• How Microsoft ‘Bought’ Nicolas Sarkozy, France, and Parts of Europe
• Software Patents and Colombia
• Microsoft Stacks the Danish Panel Too
• More About OOXML in Denmark, Jesper Stocholm
• OOXML-style Stacking Against the Web, Denmark OOXML Complaint Filed (Updated)
• Another Official Complaint Against Microsoft/OOXML: Denmark’s Turn
• Germany and Denmark Show Signs of Endorsement of Appeals, Complaints Against ISO OOXML
• Venezuela Appeals ISO Decision on OOXML (Denmark Reportedly Also)
• Another Backlash Against Microsoft in Denmark; Anger Over Microsoft Office Lock-in
• Reminder of What Microsoft Did in Denmark and What It’s Up to Now

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

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

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

Related posts:

1. With Microsoft Monopoly in Check, Bill Gates Proceeds to Creating More Monopolies
2. Gates-Backed Company Accused of Monopoly Abuse and Investigated
3. How the Gates Foundation Privatises Africa
4. Reader’s Article: The Gates Foundation and Genetically-Modified Foods
5. Monsanto: The Microsoft of Food
6. Seeds of Doubt in Bill Gates Investments
7. Gates Foundation Accused of Faking/Fabricating Data to Advance Political Goals
8. More Dubious Practices from the Gates Foundation
9. Video Transcript of Vandana Shiva on Insane Patents
10. Explanation of What Bill Gates’ Patent Investments Do to Developing World
11. Black Friday Film: What the Bill Gates-Backed Monsanto Does to Animals, Farmers, Food, and Patent Systems
12. Gates Foundation Looking to Destroy Kenya with Intellectual Monopolies
13. Young Napoleon Comes to Africa and Told Off
14. Bill Gates Takes His GMO Patent Investments/Experiments to India
15. Gates/Microsoft Tax Dodge and Agriculture Monopoly Revisited
16. Beyond the ‘Public Relations’
17. UK Intellectual Monopoly Office (UK-IPO) May be Breaking the Law
18. “Boycott Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in China”