According to Gates, non-Free software is “747″ and Linux is “OpenSource Airplane”
Summary: Same old FUD patterns found in Microsoft’s internal discussions
OUR next Comes vs Microsoft ’smoking gun’, namely Exhibit PX07191 (2002)[PDF], is an E-mail from Bill Veghte, which contains other messages. Jim Allchin writes to fellow Windows managers like Chris Jones, Will Poole, and Brian Valentine about Longhorn (to be Windows Vista) and passes Bill Gates’ words to a few others.
It is no secret that Microsoft loves schmoozing the press, so Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer had a dinner “with about 20 leading editors in Las Vegas.”
Here is a funny one from Bill Gates:
We have to be careful to just say “we are doing the software to allow for this” rather than saying “we are going to make this happen to undermine cable and DSL pricing”
That’s a classic.
There is no mention anywhere of Apple, but GNU/Linux preys on Gates’ mind. We showed this earlier today using another antitrust exhibit. Gates writes:
What is our view of Linux? I point out that Linux like Unix is not a single thing - it is many different systems that are not the same. The point that Linux is diverse is not one we are good at making. People who develop for RedHat Linux need to test for UnitedLinux. When people like SGI or HP enhance Linux you don’t get all those enhancements in one version -in fact just like Unix each company wants to have something that it does better and even though some pieces of source code are there it doesn’t mean that the pieces are integrated and tested together. 1 explain how the commercial model allows for testing and binary upwards compatibility.
What about Linux price? I explain how Linux plus Websphere is more expensive than Windows equivalent and Linux plus Oracle is more expensive than Windows equivalent. I explain how the richness of the platform that we sell for $500 just keeps getting richers - directory, certificates, app server, etc etc. I explain that for most projects the licensed OS is only a few percent of what people spend and getting the right platform can save much more than a few percent on the development, management, richness of the app, hardware flexibility, communications cost etc.. I say that is places where customers are very price sensitive like Education we have had special prices that are 15% of normal and we will keep those prices low enough to get very broad usage in education.
What about platform innovation - doesn’t Linux have more people doing cool stuff?. I gave the analogy of someone saying that the new 747 competitor is being designed by an OpenSource Airplane design group. The interdependencies and need for parallel coordinated innovation requires a commercial model with risk taking. A new 747 can’t be done by a non commercial model. I say that an opensource model could take an old design and have people do cloning and modest improvements on various aspects independently. I give tablet as an example of something that required changes in many aspects on the system -getting Office to do its work and handwriting recognition and new platform capabilities. I say that Linux is not where advances like great games, or tablet or management have come or will come despite the openness. I explain the things like community involvement we have learned from Linux. I go back to the argument above that we are forced in to do big advances or else or installed base will have “share” but there will be no revenue for us. I talk about Stallman’s view that there shouldn’t be jobs doing commercial software and how that would cut off a whole range of innovations that have come from the commercial world.
Notice how he mixes the terms “commercial” and “proprietary”. This is not an accident, he is deliberately confusing them to imply that Free software cannot be used commercially. This is classic FUD and it is valuable to see where it may originate from. We have begun assembling some other examples of GPL FUD that comes out of Gates’ own mouth.
He then goes on to talking about Vista and Xbox Live, but watch this bit about India:
What about Microsoft in india? Lots of discussion about my trip there and how Indian companies like Infosys and Wipro are growing and proving to be effective.
Shortly we will write about Microsoft’s latest cost-cutting plan and neglect of American workforce. It keeps getting more serious and even people in Seattle are nervous.
Another last GNU/Linux gem:
The old chestnut about us not innovating will die. There will still be the edge of “Wow they are big and smart and no one is gaining on them except perhaps the Linux model”.
GNU/Linux is certainly a recurring theme, which confirms that it is Microsoft’s main concern. The full exhibit lies below as plain text. █
Appendix: Comes vs. Microsoft - exhibit PX07191, as text
Summary: Microsoft-tied entities brushing shoulders amongst people in the Free(dom) software world
“Microsoft” is not a company, it is an ecosystem. It is a network of connected businesses that share the same goals and thus help one another. The role of Citrix is clear to see based on the XenSource story. The short story is that Citrix took Xen away from GNU/Linux, which is gradually gravitating towards KVM, probably as a direct result. Unsurprisingly, one of the only remaining supporters of Xen in the enterprise-oriented space is Novell, which is part of Microsoft's linked interests.
As we pointed out several days ago, an investment from Citrix in Vyatta may be cause for concern [1, 2]. On the surface, it sure seems rather innocent and virtualisation guru Dan Kusnetzky opines that this may be a strategic move against Cisco (Cisco and Microsoft don't get along so well anymore).
Dell, HP, IBM are you watching? I believe you would gain some important ground in your emerging competition with Cisco by also becoming buddies with Vyatta.
Dana Blankenhorn believes that “It’s a delicate dance, especially at times like this when growth capital is so scarce. Time will tell whether Vyatta tilts toward, say, Xen in helping craft customer solutions. Or whether it starts pushing Novell’s Suse Linux over, say, Red Hat.”
Considering the fact that Microsoft promotes SUSE and vilifies Red Hat, how likely is it that some gentle pressure might come from Citrix so that Vyatta leans towards Microsoft’s patent ploy? This hopefully will never happen.
A home-cooked Microsoft license has carved out a small but growing following among the open-source community in less than two years.
[...]
That’s according to license and code watcher Black Duck Software, who attributed the rise in MS-PL to Microsoft’s efforts to increase the appeal of its CodePlex project-hosting site. MS-PL is one of 1,577 software licenses from 200,000 projects analyzed by Black Duck.
“It is very dangerous to allow Black Duck to become (or be perceived as) a sort of spokesman for “open source”.”It is also important to remember that Black Duck is a proprietary software company (and marketing puppet at times, for press exposure that leads to shameless self-promotion). Black Duck talks a lot about “open source ” while selling proprietary software and nothing which is Free (libre) software at all, not to mention Black Duck’s ripoff of Palamida’s good *GPLv3 database (but that’s old news).
It is very dangerous to allow Black Duck to become (or be perceived as) a sort of spokesman for “open source”. But some people allow this to happen, not just Microsoft proponents with prominent positions in the press. █
“Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.”
–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO
Summary: Why Microsoft chose to maintain a bully’s attitude (unlike IBM or SUN, for example)
MICROSOFT has always been an aggressor. Suffice to say, there is plenty of hard evidence to back this conviction (e.g. recent ECIS document) and those whom Microsoft pressured range from OEMs (partners) to competitors, and even customers who were forced to pay for software they did not want. None of this has changed recently. There is more pretending for sure, but then again, from planning in the Halloween Documents, Microsoft has already moved on to suing Linux directly (no use or need for intermediates like SCO anymore).
Microsoft later wonders why folks publicly denounce it for describing them as “zealots” and some such. A more classic case of hypocrisy hardly exists, but any big company thrives in the supposition that only the small guys can be “zealots” and big, wealthy guys are always right and reasonable. This applies to politics too.
Anyway, someone has just published a list of “Microsoft’s Worst Mistakes” and there is a portion there which is dedicated to Microsoft’s attitude towards GNU/Linux.
Microsoft’s agreement with vendors to sell only the Windows OS has been significantly challenged with free software operating systems such as Linux. Linux is the most prominent free operating system and is both cost-effective and versatile. Though Windows continues to dominate the desktop and pc market, in February of 2008, Linux powered 85% of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. One of the key strengths of Linux according to free software proponents is that it respects a user’s essential freedoms; the freedom to run it, to study and change it, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. Microsoft could do well with its own version of Linux.
Microsoft is terrified of the GNU GPL (the antithesis of Letter to Hobbyists), so that last bit is not likely to materialise. Microsoft’s core business model is the selling of licences to run binaries; unlike SUN and IBM, Microsoft does not really sell hardware, so the idea of giving software away is far fetched and almost alien. As argued in the following video, Microsoft is used to crushing threat, so to expect anything but bullying would be almost unthinkable.
There is another new report in the Asian press which shows that Microsoft is trying to divide Linux and FOSS (or OSS and the GPL, or standards and “interoperability”) in order to promote its own software licences, to promote Windows, and to promote patent-encumbered bridges that act as a taxing mechanism applying only to Microsoft’s competition.
De la Cruz noted that a few projects from the Interoperability Lab have been put into commercial use and that many more could be developed out of the facility.
“Windows users can be summed up in three categories: those who know nothing about computers, those who care nothing about computers, and those who exploit the first two groups.”
Summary: Where “copies” means ‘pirates’ there is a certain sign of weakness
MICROSOFT hardly believes in unrestricted sharing, so the following case of legitimate copying by Microsoft Bong[sic] is not only an admission of defeat (neglect of Encarta) but it is also a case of Microsoft linking to a GNU licence, which is just so ironic. Microsoft owes Richard Stallman some credit.
We all know that Google’s search engine likes to push Wikipedia links to the top of its results pages. But Microsoft has gone a step further.
[...]
Microsoft doesn’t appear to be editing Wikipedia pages and it’s linking back to the GFDL license, so it would seem that Redmond is free to reproduce the content and even serve ads against it. “An inherent part of our license structure is that downstream commercial uses are allowed,” one longtime Wikipedian tells The Reg. But the GFDL isn’t easily navigated - even for the sharpest legal minds.
GNU is not UNIX and Bing is not Google, but there is more to it than just a playful recursive acronym. Goblin from Boycott Novell reminds us of the meaning of the word “Bing” (he is a Brit by the way).
Bing - “–noun British Dialect. a heap or pile.”
Bing is really quite a pile of something [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] (not a Dogpile). It also piles up other people’s resources. █
Posted in FOSS, FUD, GPL, Law at 8:05 am by Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Tiring disinformation is being spread about the GPL, probably in order to suppress its adoption
SOME company in Redmond (and the likes of it) must be getting very nervous about the most popular software licence, namely the GNU GPL. The amount of FUD against it seems to be rising and this sometimes comes from Microsoft allies like White & Case. We saw this several weeks ago [1, 2] and we are seeing it again in ECT, which lets the likes of Jonathan Moskin drop some disinformation about Free software. Yes, again.
Coincidentally, this morning we received an E-mail warning about this blog post from a prominent legal Web site. Our reader explains:
[Kevin Fayle] writes in 2009 about “test cases” for the GPL:
1) Copyright law is upheld in all countries that have signed the Berne Convention, thus the copyright license GPL is upheld in all those countries.
2) There have been court cases for years where violators have been set straight. However, it would be good to find the first ones and then point them to the blogger in the finlaw post.
This is a terrible myth that we keep seeing year after year. Is this a classic lie whose intention is to be repeated? That GPL was never tested?
we debunked this very specific point back in 2007, in direct response to similar FUD/disinformation, which propagates like a disease. Given some of the documents Microsoft unleashes about the GPL, it does deserve part of the blame. █
Not that Figuiere is a Mono advocate. But his opposition over the years has been more practical than philosophical. For instance, in several discussion threads about Including Mono in GNOME on the desktop-devel-list in July 2006, Figuiere objected to shipping Mono-based apps on the grounds that the language required a lot of disk space, but was supporting only minor applications — and he made the same objection to Python, a far less contentious programming language.
This objection, incidentally, is one that he continues to hold today. Gnote, he tells me, “has all to do with the burden of carrying runtime systems designed to make the programmer’s life easier (but not the users’). Had Tomboy been written in Python, it would have gotten the same treatment.”
Of course, Figuiere might have soured on Mono after being laid off at Novell in February. But, if he did, it would be strange if he continued to use what he describes as an “openSUSE 11.1 custom build with SUSE Studio with some custom packages” — free software versions of Novell’s own products.
“We do NOT want to ship the ’standard’ with Windows because we want to make the native APIs more attractive. We want to evolve the standard APIs rapidly, and not have ISVs [independent software vendors] spending time on something that is cross-platform. Java standard server APIs are bad news for us. I veto any cooperation with this group unless someone comes and convinces me otherwise.”
–Bill Gates, Microsoft
“Don’t encourage new, cross-platform Java classes, especially don’t help get great Win 32 implementations written/deployed. [...] Do encourage fragmentation of the Java classlib space.”
–Ben Slivka, Microsoft
“The core of this trial is consumer choice and the premise is that consumers ought to make that decision, not Microsoft. Microsoft’s argument that says Java would have died anyway is a little bit like saying if somebody shoots you they can defend [themselves] by saying you have cancer.”
Coming on the heels of its April 28, 2009 release of Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 (”SP 2″), Microsoft has added several versions of the OpenDocument Format standard (”ODF”)to its list of specifications covered by the Microsoft Open Specification Promise (”MOSP”). The expected move casts the pall of the Microsoft software patent cloud over ODF, which is supported by many free and open source software (”FOSS”) computer programs.
SP 2 adds native ODF read/write support to Microsoft Office 2007 and is slated to become an automatically installed update to Office 2007 in approximately 75 days.
“The MOSP was criticized on several grounds including transferal of insufficient patent rights to implement OOXML, extreme ambiguity, and provisions incompatible with the Gnu General Public License.”The MOSP achieved notoriety during the processing of Microsoft Office Open XML into ISO/IEC:29500-2008 Office Open XML (”OOXML”). The MOSP was criticized on several grounds including transferal of insufficient patent rights to implement OOXML, extreme ambiguity, and provisions incompatible with the Gnu General Public License. Major critiques were published by Groklaw, the Software Freedom Law Center, and the University of New South Wales Faculty of Law.
Although the points raised by the Groklaw critique — also addressed in the later University of New South Wales critique — were published in January of 2007, Microsoft has apparently never responded to any of the specific criticisms. (Disclosure: although unattributed, this writer researched and drafted the portions of the Groklaw document criticizing the MOSP.)
Microsoft lawyer Steve Mutkoski, who co-authored the MOSP, was interviewed by ZDNet Asia in regard to the University of New South Wales critique but did not address any specific criticism included in the University publication.
One question raised by the Microsoft extension of the MOSP to ODF is whether Microsoft actually controls any patents whose claims read on implementation of ODF. As with Microsoft’s claim of patent infringement by the Gnu/Linux operating system, Microsoft has not identified any specific patents that implementation of ODF might infringe.
According to a 2007 Fortune magazine interview with Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith and licensing chief Horacio Gutierrez regarding Microsoft claims that Gnu/Linux infringes, Microsoft “refuses to identify specific patents or explain how they’re being infringed, lest FOSS advocates start filing challenges to them.”
But [Gutierrez] does break down the total number allegedly violated - 235 - into categories. He says that the Linux kernel - the deepest layer of the free operating system, which interacts most directly with the computer hardware - violates 42 Microsoft patents. The Linux graphical user interfaces - essentially, the way design elements like menus and toolbars are set up - run afoul of another 65, he claims. The Open Office suite of programs, which is analogous to Microsoft Office, infringes 45 more. E-mail programs infringe 15, while other assorted FOSS programs allegedly transgress 68.
While Microsoft has not identified any specific patents whose claims read on ODF implementation, the Microsoft claim that the OpenOffice.org (”OOo”) office suite infringes 42 Microsoft patents raises reasonable grounds to suspect that some of the same patents — if they in fact exist — may read on implementation of ODF, since OOo is presently the market-leading implementation of ODF.
However, a follow-on article published by RedmondDeveloper attributes to Microsoft a statement that OOo infringes on 45 patents rather than 42, which leaves the precise number of patents claimed to be infringed by OOo ambiguous.
It is equally reasonable to suspect that Microsoft lawyers’ concerns that FOSS advocates might challenge the patent’s validity has only increased since the 2007 Fortune interview. Since then, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has severely undermined (PDF) its precedents approving of software as patentable subject matter but has reserved a ruling on the specific issue for a later case in which a software patent is at issue:
We leave to future cases the elaboration of the precise contours of machine implementation, as well as the answers to particular questions, such as whether or when recitation of a computer suffices to tie a process claim to a particular machine.
That case was preceded by indications that U.S. Supreme Court justices doubted whether software is patentable subject matter, an issue on which that court has never ruled.
Microsoft’s list of specifications covered now includes the following ODF standards:
OpenDocument Format for Office Applications v1.0 OASIS
OpenDocument Format for Office Applications v1.0
ISO/IEC 26300:2006
OpenDocument Format for Office Applications v1.1 OASIS
Microsoft also added language to the MOSP specific to those standards and to Ecma 376, the predecessor of OOXML:
As long as Microsoft participates in their revision process to completion, Microsoft irrevocably commits to apply this promise to future versions of the below listed specifications.
That language resolves one criticism of the MOSP but leaves all others unrepaired, leaving the MOSP still hopelessly ambiguous. Microsoft also added its own Implementer’s Notes for ODF 1.1 to the list of covered specifications, with a new definition of “Microsoft Necessary Claims” specific to those implementation notes and those for ECMA 376, which served as the draft for ISO/IEC:29500 OOXML:
With respect to these Implementer’s Notes, the definition of “Microsoft Necessary Claims shall be – those claims of Microsoft-owned or Microsoft-controlled patents that are necessary to implement the information contained within the Implementer’s Notes when read in conjunction with the Covered Specification to which the Implementer’s Notes applies to the extent the information is described in detail and not merely referenced in such Implementer’s Notes”.
In this writer’s opinion, the injection of a definition for the Implementer’s Notes different from that applied to ODF itself does nothing more than increase the ambiguity of both definitions in combination. However, with both, the problem remains that patents are not “necessary to implement” a specification.
“As a practical matter, Microsoft’s extension of the MOSP to ODF is in my considered opinion unlikely to have anything beyond propaganda value to Microsoft, the ability to extend its infringement claims to ODF implementations other than OOo.”Software is written in code, not in patent claims, and a specification can be implemented regardless of whether a patent would thereby be infringed. “[P]atents that are necessary to implement” a specification is a null set and no rights are thereby conveyed. It remains worrisome that Microsoft continues to foregop usage of widely-adopted and well understood language for the conveyance of patent rights such as “patent claims that are necessarily infringed by implementation” of a specification.
Rather than repeating what has previously been written, the reader is referred to the other critiques of the MOSP linked above as to other and equally troubling issues embodied in the MOSP.
As a practical matter, Microsoft’s extension of the MOSP to ODF is in my considered opinion unlikely to have anything beyond propaganda value to Microsoft, the ability to extend its infringement claims to ODF implementations other than OOo.
Never-withdrawn and expansive Microsoft public statements about the extent of the rights conveyed by the MOSP when it was first issued remain at odds with what the MOSP actually says. Those statements were beyond question intended to induce reliance on the statements, and an estoppel or waiver of any contrary rights would likely be found by a court reviewing the issues.
Likewise, Microsoft’s failure to take any legal action to assert the rights it claims are being infringed in more than two years plus its refusal to identify the specific patents involved raises the affirmative defense of laches, that Microsoft slept on its rights too long.
Because of those factors, the movement by courts toward curtailing or eliminating the patentability of software, and the likelihood that any assertion of relevant Microsoft patent rights would trigger patent Armageddon as other ODF implementers’ patent portfolios are fired in retaliation, it appears likely that the patent stand-off between FOSS advocates and Microsoft will continue, with every day of delay in pursuit of its claimed legal rights strengthening the argument that Microsoft slept too long on its rights.
Still, Microsoft’s continued claims of patent infringement by FOSS developers and its refusal to alter the MOSP to make it compatible with any other licensing scheme — from FOSS to proprietary in nature — stand as concrete barriers between Microsoft and other software developers, barriers that can only be removed by a good faith Microsoft effort to create a patent rights structure that other developers can work within.
A patent promise that threatens to jerk the legal legs out from under any who dare to implement the covered specifications is an unstable foundation both for any software development effort and for those reformers within Microsoft seeking to improve working relations with FOSS developers. █
Summary: Marriages of inconvenience, courtesy of Novell and Microsoft
ACCORDING TO this, Novell’s MonoDevelop finds a home on Windows where it fits nicely as a “cheap” Visual Studio. That’s where Novell wishes to take Free software, turning it into a follower rather than a leader. But that’s the bad news. There is some other stuff worth noticing; see for example how Microsoft Moonlight continues to fascinate mostly Microsoft folks [1, 2]. This morning we found this comment from former Microsoft employee John Bailo:
“The Moonlight port clearly proves that Linux can deliver DRM’d media to users. (Hulu has already proven that with its Flash based delivery system, but this should assure customers). I look forward to the day when Real’s Rhapsody client can work on Linux and I can download and move audio files to my Sansa View.”
“Microsoft people (or former employees in this case) are pushing for Microsoft software to go inside GNU/Linux, including Microsoft DRM.”Again: Moonlight is not a port. To suggest it is a port of Silverlight is to suggest that Safari is a port of Mozilla Firefox because they both handle the same type of content (or similar content).
Bailo used to lurk and participate heavily in the Linux newsgroups over at USENET where he was considered a k00k or a troll by some. And as we were warned before, Microsoft people (or former employees in this case) are pushing for Microsoft software to go inside GNU/Linux, including Microsoft DRM. Nat Friedman too was a Microsoft employee and Miguel de Icaza tried to become one.
From: Robert Millan <rmh at aybabtu.com>
Date: Thu, May 7, 2009 at 1:28 PM
Subject: [Gnewsense-dev] Gnote in gNewSense/mipsel-l
To: gnewsense-dev at nongnu.org
Hi,
Gnote [1] has been added to the default desktop selection for the gNewSense / mipsel-l port. I think that with version 0.3.1 it reached a level of maturity that makes it suitable replacement for Tomboy on environments where installing Mono/.NET is not possible or desired (in this case, due to lack of support for mipsel architecture).
This is the type of progress that will abolish Microsoft’s Trojan horses for GNU/Linux. Hubert has just had a laptop failure, but Gnote continues to be developed very rapidly and it also enters Fedora. █
“As many of you may know, we’ve actually kind of broadened the product portfolio of Visual Studio, targeting all the way from the low end with students and hobbyists, kind of competitive in that Linux space, making sure that every developer has a copy of .NET and is trained in writing .NET solutions. [...] I think it will really help us in our competition with open source.”
Summary: Where “copies” means ‘pirates’ there is a certain sign of weakness
