05.16.08
Posted in Microsoft, Novell, GPL, SUN, Google at 11:34 pm by Roy Schestowitz
Richard Crandall
A long and hard look at the following change of roles does not reveal anything conspicuously missing. Here is how it’s summed up:
Software company Novell Inc. said Thursday it named Richard L. Crandall as its non-executive chairman, succeeding Thomas G. Plaskett, who has served since 2006.
From the press release:
Mr. Plaskett will continue to serve on Novell’s Board.
Also from the press:
Crandall is a founding managing director of Arbor Partners, a high technology venture capital firm.
Eric Schmidt
Older leaders of Novell fascinate a little because some actually fight against Microsoft rather than believe that Microsoft wants to help its partners (rather than help itself). It’s a fallacy. While Novell goes into bed with Microsoft, Novell’s former CEO tackles the giant.
Sanity check: Has Eric Schmidt finally outmaneuvered Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer?
[…]
When Eric Schmidt left his job as the chairman and CEO of Novell to become the top executive at Google in 2001 he privately told journalist John Battelle that one of the things he was looking forward to was no longer competing with Microsoft.
[…]
Like it not, Eric Schmidt is destined to go down in history as one of the most active opponents to Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and the Microsoft legacy. During the past seven years, Schmidt’s role in that saga has changed from whipping boy to white knight, and unless something dramatic happens it’s very likely that Google and Schmidt will ultimately be portrayed as the good guys — and the winners.
You can find out a little more about Schmidt’s legacy at Novell in this new CNN article:
Employee turnover is the norm in Silicon Valley, especially at companies where early hires get rich enough to do whatever they want (and post-jackpot hires don’t). For his part, Google CEO Eric Schmidt - who left Sun Microsystems for Novell and then Novell for Google - brushes off the effects of all those departures. “We’ve been hiring on the order of 100 people a week,” he says. “So in one week we hire more people than the people you just named.”
Corporate Affairs
Speaking of Sun (Schmidt’s previous company as well), its relationship with Novell is explained in a slightly trollish analysis from Jason Perlow.
While a number of seemingly insurmountable political and ideological hurdles need to be overcome in order for this to happen, many who are close to the industry and who are responsible for “thought leadership” believe that this will in fact be the inevitable outcome, over time. Aside from getting Sun to GPLv3 its Solaris code and getting Linus to rev the license from GPLv2 to GPLv3, there is the matter of the ownership of the AT&T UNIX System V intellectual property — which is currently being settled in the courts in the form of SCO vs. Novell.
[…]
I don’t want to compare Ron Hovsepian and crew to Tony Soprano and his Bada Bing gang, but stay with me here — Sun gets the rights to GPLv3 Solaris and anything else UNIX-related, and Novell gets the right to a bundle of stuff to re-license and use in perpetuity. Signed in blood, with an alliance commitment to support each other’s customers. A technology omerta, if you will. Sun and Novell already have alliances with Microsoft. Put the three together, and you get,well… the North Side gang (Redmond), the West Side (Santa Clara) and the East side (Waltham).
How about the Yahoo/Microsoft axis, which Steve Ballmer is forcibly trying to establish in order to topple Schmidt’s Google? Here is an article about it which happens to mention Novell too.
Investors are running out of patience with chief executive Jerry Wang after the collapse of talks with Microsoft, write Kristy Dorsey in the US and Bill Magee.
[…]
Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer is well-known for hedging his bets. Smack in the middle of the takeover bid period, he found time to consolidate the software giant’s presence in Asia, by extending its alliance with Novell in the Chinese marketplace.
Microsoft’s five-year partnership with Novell started in November 2006. Aimed at making its Windows operating system more interoperable with Linux, the firms collect a fee from software systems that mingle open source programs with products, including Vista and Office.
Caution is required because this doesn’t make much sense. There’s no “Jerry Wang” in Yahoo and the explanation of fees collection is also very inaccurate. See the analysis in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].
Partnerships
There are a couple of technical partnerships or development that were announced using press releases. Here they are:
1. Sonian Joins Novell PartnerNet for Technology Partners
Sonian today announced becoming a member of Novell PartnerNet for Technology Partners. Through membership in Novell PartnerNet, Sonian receives development, support and marketing resources to deliver new and innovative products to market that are compatible with Novell products, specifically GroupWise.
2. Messaging Architects Releases M+Extranet 3.5 for Enhanced Web 2.0-Enabled Collaboration of Novell GroupWise Users
Messaging Architects, the experts in email lifecycle management and compliance, today announced the release of M+Extranet 3.5. M+Extranet, formerly known as GWExtranet, is a powerful, web publishing solution that enables organizations running Novell GroupWise to collaborate more efficiently with both GroupWise and non-GroupWise users, while taking advantage of the latest web 2.0-based social networking software.
Novell Teaming
Another press release (this time from Novell) was about Teaming collaboration.
Responding to industry needs for cost-effective, next-generation collaboration tools, Novell today announced the worldwide availability of Novell(R) Open Workgroup Suite with Novell Teaming included.
There appears to be only one prominent article about it:
Enterprise software vendor Novell has added its Teaming collaboration software to its Open Workgroup Suite. The move is aimed at making it easier for companies to form ad-hoc teams or to set up knowledge-sharing initiatives, without the cost of installing specialist tools.
Novell Training
In the following article about training myths, Novell products receive a mention.
To keep your company from making the costly mistake Intraware did, we at BrainStorm, Inc., the Novell Authorized End-User Training Partner, have addressed the most-common excuses for not training end users. So whether you’re upgrading or migrating to GroupWise 7, read below to find out why you shouldn’t skimp on end-user training.
[…]
Further, the return on investment for end-user training shows that without training, you won’t capture the productivity gains you were planning on when you bought the software. If you use the results from the above mentioned BrainStorm and Novell study and say that conservatively, each trained employee saves at least one hour per week, then training one employee making $40,000 a year will save the company about $1,000 in the first year. Further, for every 100 trained employees that make $100,000 your company will save $250,000 a year. (See chart.) That’s saving ten to twenty-five times more than a half-day instructor-led training course costs, which may be more justifiable than even your original software purchase.
There is also this newly-announced acquisition of a company that specialises in such Novell technologies.
iQ Consulting specialized in Microsoft and Novell products, and planning, design and implementation of I.T. solutions. The company’s customer base will become part of Trivalent’s, according to the agreement announcement.
Marketing and Publicity
Novell gets itself a new tagline: “Making IT work as one.”
Novell’s new campaign, with the tagline “Making IT work as one,” is part of an overhaul of its brand positioning, said Phil Juliano, VP-global brand management and corporate communications. In addition to traditional ad vehicles, such as direct mail and print ads, and online avenues, such as search, Novell is busy revamping its Web site, he said, adding that about half of the company’s budget is spent online.
Continuing its tradition, Novell plays the role of a host in Provo. It’s another lecture.
TUESDAY
• The Utah Valley Entrepreneurs’ Forum; Omniture; the Open Source Technology Center at Novell; the Provo Business Development Corp.; Utah Science, Technology and Research; and the Utah Fund of Funds will host a free lecture series featuring speaker Josh Coates, who will discuss “Corporate Governance and Financial Exits.” Time: 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Location: Mountain View room, Novell Cafeteria, 1800 S. Novell Place, Provo. Please purchase your own lunch at the Novell cafeteria prior to these events.
The third part of this Saturday’s postings contains a video, so it’ll take a little while to transcode (for an Ogg Theora option). If you are not interested in these posts, please set up your reader to discard entries with “Do-No-Evil Saturday ” in the headline. █
“Pearly Gates and Em-Ballmer
One promises you heaven and the other prepares you for the grave. “
–Ray Noorda, Novell
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Posted in Red Hat, Microsoft, Windows, GNU/Linux, Novell, FUD, Deception, Ubuntu, Virtualization, Xen, Kernel, xandros at 9:45 pm by Roy Schestowitz
Novell makes Ballnux, not GNU/Linux (free software) anymore
Techtarget.com may be delivering this news a little too late, but it incorporates some quotes which the publisher sought from Red Hat, Xandros, Novell and some so-called ‘analyst’. The new article further illustrates the fact that Novell-type deals were more of an anti-Red Hat alliance (or an alliance against anyone who ‘dares’ not to pay Microsoft for GNU/Linux, including Ubuntu which is fairly dominant on desktops). You might find this article repetitive in the sense that it talks about news that’s over a fortnight old, but mind the following:
Novell extends interoperability with Microsoft
“This is just another good thing for Novell,” which has already increased its market share 9% due to the Microsoft relationship, said Chris Wolf, an analyst at Midvale, Utah-based Burton Group. “This gives Novell an increased opportunity for licenses and greater penetration into Microsoft space … and will hurt Red Hat. The results speak for themselves.”
[…]
Another Microsoft partner poised to benefit from the interoperability pact is Xandros, Inc.
Be careful of what the Burton Group utters. We previously wrote about this group in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36] because it’s seen serving Microsoft’s agenda on a regular basis.
“Novell buys its own stock, moves jobs abroad (cheaper labour), and expects layoffs this year.”In this case, Burton’s message to you is that the Novell/Microsoft deal is grear news and that you, as a customer, will be better off choosing ‘Microsoft-approved’ distributions. Don’t be fooled though because Novell does pretty badly. Novell buys its own stock, moves jobs abroad (cheaper labour), and expects layoffs this year.
What we find in Novell-type deals is actually related and similar to what is already happening in virtualisation. Not only has the Burton Group recently spread FUD about VMWare, but others do this too. Xen has, to an extent, become “the Novell of the hypervisors space”. Yes, it’s very much the same with Xen, which became a tool for Microsoft to fight VMWare and all those ‘nasty’ Linux distributors that don’t pay Microsoft. Ubuntu can’t be blamed for moving over to KVM, which is said to be superior and more elegant anyway. More recently it was an IBM virtualisation expert who said this, but the flamewars continue.
As further evidence that Xen is now indirectly controlled by Microsoft’s needs (just like Novell), consider this from the news:
XenSource, now part of Citrix Systems, has been the mainstay of the leading open source hypervisor, Xen. Unlike other open source companies, it has always shown an affinity for working with Microsoft.
[….]
Before being acquired by Citrix, XenSource already had a technology partnership with Microsoft to help it prep Windows Longhorn, now Windows Server 2008, to run Linux in Microsoft-generated VMs. There were subtleties to doing that well, and Microsoft needed a knowledgeable partner. Xen needed to be a super performer on future Windows systems to compete against VMware. Thus an alliance was built.
Citrix, long a close Microsoft partner, acquired XenSource last August for $500 million. By September, Microsoft and the XenSource team inside Citrix were saying they’d use the same VM file format, Microsoft’s Virtual Hard Disk. You can’t get closer to your virtualization allies than that.
As we stressed on some occasions before [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], Microsoft brought Xen over to Redmond and later put former Microsoft employees in it (at least a General Manager). That’s how it seems anyway. If you have been following Microsoft’s proxy fight against Yahoo, then you’ll probably have an idea of how such brutal things work. Deform and subvert, until forced obedience is achieved. █
“There are people who don’t like capitalism, and people who don’t like PCs. But there’s no-one who likes the PC who doesn’t like Microsoft.”
–Bill Gates
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Posted in Microsoft, Patents, Europe, America, Courtroom at 9:07 pm by Roy Schestowitz
Software Patents and Europe
It is important to keep an eye on Europe at the moment, especially after the most recent development (also see [1, 2, 3, 4]). Ciaran is doing some legwork at the moment and he explains what has been achieved.
Here’s a report from a breakfast meeting I was at yesterday on the topic of SMEs and the Community Patent. There were 50 seats, all full. The speakers included representatives from the Commission, the Parliament, and the Slovenian EU Presidency.
This counters attempts by lobbyists, including Microsoft, to mess things up for Free software in Europe.
Microsoft (and Nintendo) Sued for Patent Infringement
Repeated punishment might be the most effective way for Microsoft to sober up a little and finally remember where it came from. Here it comes under another patent lawsuit.
Microsoft, Nintendo Hit By Patent Lawsuit
[…]
While Sony is still in the process of appealing a patent infringement lawsuit over technologies utilized in their video game console controllers, Microsoft and Nintendo too have been hit with a similiar lawsuit from Texas-based Anascape earlier this week.
Here is some more background:
In July 2006, Anascape sued both Microsoft and Nintendo, alleging that several sensor patents used by the Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo game controllers violated the company’s patents. The suit also included a patent for a “remote controller with analog buttons.”
Mind the location, which is the now-notorious East Texas. Most patent trolls are stationed there.
Nintendo of America Inc. was ordered to pay a small East Texas gaming company $21 million Wednesday for infringing on a patent while designing controllers for its popular Wii and GameCube systems.
Weird SourceForge Humour
This pet peeve is rather minor, but why would SourceForge offer an award for the project “Most Likely to Get Users Sued”?
You have to like “Most Likely to Get Users Sued” as a category.
This seems to inspire fear rather than promote Free software. The latter was the purpose of this contest.
Such an unusual award might only justify if not urge more businesses to put SourceForge on their banlist. Some already do this because of unsubstantiated concerns and myths, such as security, licence obligations and various forms of proprietary software industry-imposed FUD. █
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Posted in Microsoft, Office Suites, Standard, OpenDocument, Europe, Open XML, FOSS at 8:36 pm by Roy Schestowitz
Nightmare scenario: no lock-in
Earlier on we mentioned in a post what some characterised as “Alpha-lunatic”; that post has been accordingly updated since yesterday. Wherever the insults come from, it’s despicable because non-profits serving the public need never be compared to terrorists. To give some information — as opposed to conspiracy-esque disinformation — about Digistan, Mr. Wheeler wrote down some clarifications a couple of days ago.
In my essay “Is OpenDocument an Open Standard? Yes!”, I addressed this problem of multiple different definitions by finding three widely-used definitions (Perens’, Krechmer’s, and the European Commission’s) and merging them. After all, if a specification meets all three definitions of “open standard”, then it’s far more likely to be a true open standard. Problem is, with all those trees, it’s hard to see the forest.
Andy Updegrove wrote about this too.
Standards and SocietyOn Wednesday, I introduced The Hague Declaration to those that visit this blog, promising to write again shortly to introduce the new organization that created the Declaration. That organization is called the Digital Standards Organization (Digistan, for short), and I’m pleased to say that I am one of its founders. In this entry, I’ll give you my perceptions of what Digistan is all about, and what I hope it will accomplish.
Attacks on Digistan and the Hague Declaration should not be surprising. In its latest quarterly disclosure, Microsoft reported a decline in sales of Microsoft Office, as pointed out at the time by Mary Jo Foley and others. In fact, both cash cows took a considerable tumble (Windows saw a decline of 24%). The cause? Well, there are several. It has a lot to do with timing of product releases, but as CRN put it yesterday, OpenOffice.org 3.0 is “Another Microsoft Headache.” The download volume and national policies/migrations we occasionally cite here speak for themselves.
The OpenOffice.org community is now beta testing the next major upgrade to its office productivity suite, version 3.0, and there is enough in it to cause Microsoft some more worry.
There is another new article about office suites becoming more of a commodity and it comes from ECT:
You don’t have to spend as much as you once did to get a decent computer nowadays, and thanks to free software, you don’t have to spend anything at all for a decent suite of office apps like OpenOffice. Even if you want to eventually migrate to a commercial office product, this is a good “starter” for a new computer user.
[…]
Of course, the expense of computing is not limited to the PC itself.
This article also covers a variety of other office suites, most of which are Web-based and rather powerful on the collaboration side.
The following good article from Market Watch comes to mind again, and particularly the following insightful quote from it:
‘Microsoft sees what’s coming. Things like Word and Excel are sort of like a drug now getting ready to go generic.’
We mentioned this article here. OOXML is the ‘new drug’, which almost nobody is able or permitted (patents) to replicate. █
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Posted in Microsoft, Standard, Europe, Courtroom, Open XML, ISO at 8:08 pm by Roy Schestowitz
Denmark
Yesterday we mentioned only a quick translation of an article written in Danish. Andy Updegrove and Groklaw have picked it up by now and there is now a minor update on this. It comes from Denmark in the form of another snippet that’s published in English.
Members of the parliament are angry that they didn’t know about the total split in the Technical Committee under Danish Standards.
Several Danish IT policy rapporteurs are surprised that the OOXML Committee with Danish Standard has been totally divided. It will have consequences, “said Morten Helveg Pedersen (R).
Whatever the consequences will be, who knows? But a formal complaint has already been filed, so it will need to be addressed.
Ireland
Here is how Ireland voted on OOXML back in September: it was a “No with comments.”
After months of intensive review, analysis and discussion, NSAI has voted Disapproval - with Technical Comments, in respect of the OOXML submission. This effectively is a qualified yes, whereby Ireland has some technical issues with the submission. If the Technical Comments are satisfactorily resolved and incorporated into a new draft, the vote is subsequently amended to Approval.
We mentioned this here.
Then, Microsoft itself was elected to represent Ireland at the BRM in Geneva (not confirmed). Surely it’s a joke, right? It doesn’t seem so. Interestingly enough, Microsoft’s relationship with Ireland has also some strings with its tax evasion habits. But in any event, here is a letter [PDF] calling for information to be revealed about the process that mysteriously turned a “No” vote into a “Yes”.
Vincent Henry
Freedom of Information Liaison Officer
National Standards Authority of Ireland
[…]
Dear Mr Henry,
I am writing to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
I would like to request the following information from the NSAI, relating to the NSAI’s work
on ISO’s as-was draft standard DIS29500 (Information Technology — Office Open XML file
formats).
• Minutes of all meetings of committees, sub-committees, working groups or similar where
ISO’s as-was DIS29500 was discussed.
• Dates of all such meetings.
[…]
This may seem similar to some of the complaints about BSI’s secrecy. The BSI issued a face-saving page and later on was taken to court — and rightly so. There must be transparency. Without it, self-serving abuse is only to be expected, as political vote-rigging taught the world many times in the past. █
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Posted in Microsoft, DRM, GNU/Linux, Novell, Patents, Europe, America, Patent Covenant, Vista, FOSS at 1:16 am by Roy Schestowitz
At this current pace, the USPTO will be falling down the wastebasket pretty soon (Grand Implosion™), so it remains important to ensure it does not take the EPO down along with it [1, 2]. Here are some highlights from the news.
All Your Typos Are [sic] Belong to Us
VeriSign got criticised out of this planet for profiteering from typos. Now it get the nerve to get a software patent on it.
VeriSign wins patent for Internet typo redirection
[…]
If VeriSign tries to demand licensing fees from others, patent lawyers could claim that similar services existed before Verisign’s was patented. In fact, VeriSign had cited those pre-existing services in justifying Site Finder.
All Your Curve Balls Are [sic] Belong to Use
Will you have a look at this one? It relates to Bilski [1, 2, 3, 4].
So is a curve ball patentable? No one really seemed to want to answer Judge Bryson’s question, and when they did answer the question there was not a lot of intellectual honesty. The answer, of course, should be that a “curve ball” is not patentable because it is still a baseball. There has been no transformation of the baseball in a physical way, so there is nothing new and/or nonobvious.
Microsoft’s Crusade for Intellectual Monopoly
It’s always rather amusing to find articles which speak of “export” when referring to imaginary things that they try very hard to characterise as “property”. All it deserves to be called is a “monopoly”, which in this case applies not to a complex process or a physical product but to human thought — imagination even. The other day we mentioned and commented on Microsoft’s latest patent deal. A day later, Microsoft lovers take their shot at it as well, seemingly trying to create some fear (just what Microsoft needs). Here comes CNET to market some more patent deals:
With Microsoft’s announcement of yet another patent cross-licensing deal this week, it would seem nearly everyone has a deal with Redmond.
CNET has just been acquired, but it also has some promotional arrangements with Microsoft and you must be careful when reading anything from Ina Fried because it’s filled with bias. The reporter is apparently (almost evidently) close to Steve Ballmer. Mary Jo Foley, by contrast, can’t get anywhere near him because she occasionally ‘dares’ to criticise Microsoft (she told me so). Microsoft plays ‘reward and punishment’ with journalists, thereby encouraging them to say positive things, i.e. have more of that existing Microsoft bias. It’s just something to bear in mind, making it a rule of thumb. If you thought that press control in Russia was bad…
Hypocrisy at its finest, yet again.
From Digital Majority
Gratitude goes to Benjamin who has accumulated some good new finds. Here we have what seems like software patent troll du jour.
# May 12
# Fotomedia Technologies LLC vs. American Greetings Corp. et al
# Fotomedia Technologies LLC vs. Fujifilm USA Inc. et al
Plaintiff Fotomedia has filed two separate complaints for patent infringement against 50 different defendants.
According to the original complaints, Fotomedia owns the rights to three patents:
U.S. Patent No. 6,018,774 for a Method and System for Creating Messages Including Image Formation, issued Jan. 25, 2000.
U.S. Patent No. 6,542,936 B1 for a System for Creating Messages Including Image Information, issued April 1, 2003.
U.S. Patent No. 6,871,231 B1 for a Role-Based Access to Image Metadata issued March 22, 2005.
The first complaint names two dozen defendants that offer photo sharing Web sites which the plaintiff alleges infringe the patents, including American Greetings, DotPhoto, Phanfare, PictureTrail, BetterPhoto.com, Kaboose, BubbleShare, Printroom, Scripps Networks, Photogra, Fotki and Zazzle.
Reading further you’ll also find continued attempts to change patent laws in Europe. Typically, reappointments play a role and Sarkozy comes to mind as an example [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. The OOXML scandal was filled with such examples, as was last mentioned yesterday. At the moment in fact, Microsoft appears to be playing a similar card in a proxy fight against Yahoo’s board. But anyway, watch this from the news: (our highlights are in red)
Despite the hard work put into reforming the intellectual property landscape during its presidency of the EU in the first half of this year, Slovenia has admitted there won’t be a breakthrough under its stewardship.
[…]
The only country to oppose this idea is Spain, which has fought hardest against plans to simplify the linguistic requirements of the patent system. The country argues that Spanish is a more important language than both French and German, two of the official languages of the European patent system (the other being English), because of its use in Latin America. It fears that if patents aren’t available in Spanish, then Spain will become an economic backwater.
Spain to the rescue?
But the arrival last month of a new Spanish minister in charge of science and innovation, molecular biologist Cristina Garmendia, gives reason to hope for a change in the Spanish position, Konteas said.
“The Spanish government seems ready to change the focus of the economy from tourism and construction towards innovation-led pursuits. They seem to be going in the right direction.”
Talk about ‘agents for change’. The term is typically used with a positive connotation, unlike “crusader”, which is more imperialistic.
Lastly, have another look at these recent moves in the UK [PDF]. It’s not news, but it’s summarised thusly:
The Intellectual Property Office has revised its guidance on claims relating to computer programs, reflecting the more permissive stance taken by the High Court in the recent Astron Clinica case. The High Court has made a further pro-patentee ruling, this time in the case of Symbian’s application for an improved method of accessing a dynamic link library.
As reported in our last technology update, the practice of the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) of flatly rejecting patent claims to computer program products has recently been overruled. The case law in the area, formulated in the 2006 Aerotel and Macrossan decisions (see our Internet & E-Commerce Update of November 2006) was clarified in January 2008 by the decision of the High Court in Astron Clinica & Ors (see coverage in our last Updated dated February 2008).
It is without doubt that the United States will relentlessly continue trying to ruin the European system until it’s ‘equally ruined’, which passes US disadvantage onto competing economies. To use the hypothetical analogy Peter Gutmann made up to explain DRM in Windows Vista, it’s like cutting off the legs or Olympic athletes and seeing who hobbles best on crutches. Still, better than having the Olympic games delivered via the DRM-crippled Silverblight/Silverbullet/Silverfish, right?
Need it be mentioned that Microsoft has many software patents on this technology? And if Mono’s patron and Microsoft partner Novell likes it, should everyone else accept it also? You ought to see the ‘warm’ welcome Moonlight receives at Digg (mind the comments in particular). █
“One Free Software Foundation-backed group–aptly called the End Software Patents Project–is using the [Bilski] case as a platform to argue that no form of software should ever qualify for a patent. Red Hat also argued that the “exclusionary objectives” of software patents conflict with the nature of the open-source system and open up coders to myriad legal hazards.”
–Court case could redefine business method, software patents
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Posted in Red Hat, Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Standard, IBM, Google, FOSS at 12:05 am by Roy Schestowitz
“Bring out the gimp”
Once again, the Dennis Byron ‘analyst’ [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] is trying to characterize FFII (or derivatives) as a front group for Google, IBM, Red Hat and Sun. Oh, he forgot to lump some others like Oracle into this, did he not?
To quote some comments from Dennis himself:
JohnMurphy, interesting analysis. Do you think that English has been somehow influenced by Europeans and terrorists? This worries me. If they attack the language Jesus spoke, who knows what they would do next. Do you think Linux is funded by a vast left-wing anti-business conspiracy? It seems the only plausible explanation to me. What do you suggest?
[…]
BTW, if those Eurolinux fanbois suggest I’m a Microsoft lover, they’d be wrong. It’s true that I run Vista but only because Linux sucks. I tried to plug in a mouse and I had to spend an hour on the forums finding out how to rebuild the kernel with mouse support. It’s ridicolous, and a waste of tax paeyers money. If I owned MSFT stock, which I don’t, I’d sell it all and buy AAPL. I mean, have you seen the iPhone? So, you see, I am not a Microsoft astroturfer.
[..].
time2money: I’m a eurolinuxfanboi and I’m offended by your post. If that’s the best you can do, you’re no better than a fascist terrorist yourself. Anyway I think you’re a windows troll, I’ve seen you on other forums and you always claim to be a linux user yet you can never get your mouse working. C’mon.
[…]
Please stop these posts, thank you.
Gosh, what a self exposition. “Eurolinuxfanboi”? I’m still laughing. Even worse than Rob Enderle [1, 2, 3], who too has implicitly compared Linux users to 9/11 terrorists and zealots. More hilarity at Linux Today. It’s too embarrassing to link to directly.
Amanda McPherson [1, 2] (Linux Foundation [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]) fell for an invitation from him a couple of weeks back. Fortunately, some editors appear to be gradually finding out who he really is.
For actual news from Digistan, see the following announcement about the Hague Declaration:
The Hague Declaration calls on governments to:
1. Procure only information technology that implements free and open standards;
2. Deliver e-government services based exclusively on free and open standards;
3. Use only free and open digital standards in their own activities.
Thanks for the laugh, Dennis. █
Update: The FFII folks have just countered with “Alpha-lunatic attack on Digistan and the Hague declaration.”
Update #2: More here from Glyn Moody. It’s quite funny and insightful. He pays attention to the use of the term “anti-Microsoft”, which substitutes “anti corruption”, conveniently enough. We have been through such use of negative labels before.
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05.15.08
Posted in Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Hardware, Antitrust, Open XML at 9:52 pm by Roy Schestowitz
Predatory EULA on chip
One exciting recent bit of news is all about Asustek extending the reach of Splashtop and putting it on pretty much every motherboard. This means that tens of millions of PCs are expected to have Linux installed down at the core, essentially (yet arguably) running it as the ‘default’ operating system.
As rudimentary as Splashtop may be at the moment, this could be the start of something greater that will be extended and improved over time. Splashtop also had its kernel patches released to the public (according to Phoronix), so other hardware makers are likely to follow suit. Phoenix has already found itself on a similar boat and Phoenix’ ubiquity is nothing to sneeze at.
In yesterday’s news, The Inquirer made the following important observation:
Asus to ship all motherboards with Linux
[…]
And, for many casual computer users who make use of web-based applications exclusively, Splashtop Linux might be all the operating system they ever need.
This becomes truer as time goes by. An increasing number of applications become Web-based. Not everyone would use them, but some might. Some will.
Splashtop receives a lot of publicity at the moment, but it’s arguably small potatoes compared to Phoenix HyperSpace, which was described here:
Phoenix Technologies’ new HyperSpace is an instant-on environment for laptops, letting users launch a browser or other apps with booting into the OS.
Today, Phoenix Technologies introduced a firmware product called HyperSpace, which allows PCs to run a number of applications separate from the operating system. What that means is that if you use a PC equipped with HyperSpace, you will be able to quick-boot your notebook into a secure Linux environment, where you can use Web browsers like FireFox and pre-loaded Web-aware apps like Google Earth, Picasa, and the like.
[…]
Also, since HyperSpace is a Linux-based platform, Windows viruses won’t affect it.
As Beta News put it at the time, “New Phoenix BIOS will run Linux apps when Windows fails.”
The basic concept is that an embedded Linux OS will accompany the core system firmware or BIOS, allowing instant-on applications to be run from it at any time.
Even Dell expressed some optimism and showed its enthusiasm about such disruptive technologies at the time, but let’s quickly look at Microsoft’s apparent reaction.
BIOS maker Phoenix Technologies Ltd.’s plans to market a new application platform the company claims will solve a number of problems endemic to Microsoft’s Windows platform might be taken as a provocative gesture at their longtime partner. But Redmond’s immediate reaction was nonchalant.
On Monday, the Milpitas, Calif. software maker announced Hyperspace, a Linux-based virtualization platform that will let OEMs bundle cut-down versions of popular open-source software that end users will be able to access instantly, even without booting Windows.
Based on such report you would think that Microsoft does not care, wouldn’t you? However, this new article brings back memories:
Splashtop is not the only such product on the market. A year ago, BIOS vendor Phoenix Technology launched HyperSpace, an equivalent that has yet to turn up on PCs in any numbers. Microsoft’s view on the movement to embed cut-down operating systems is not known, but Phoenix did launch a pre-emptive strike against it to stop it blocking HyperSpace using restrictive Vista end-user license agreements (EULAs). Microsoft relented.
An antitrust complaint from Phoenix Technology, an eternal Microsoft partner (or so it thought) forced the monopoly to fix the anti-competitive EULA of Windows Vista. Microsoft tried to characterise this change as goodwill and a nice gesture, essentially changing the story which was originally told and claiming credit (even glory) for being abusive. The press underplayed this fiasco, but Mary Jo Foley was rather disgusted.
But the real reason for Microsoft’s capitulation became clear on March 7 via a new joint-status report in the Microsoft-Department of Justice case. It turns out BIOS maker Phoenix Technologies (a long-time Microsoft partner) filed a complaint with antitrust regulators about Microsoft’s virtualization restrictions.
Microsoft has tried to manipulate the virtualisation market in a variety of ways [1, 2, 3] because it had fallen so far behind. Microsoft insulted many people’s intelligence when it claimed that a EULA could or could not define the level of security of the O/S, limited by editions of Windows, i.e. featureset being b/locked.
This wasn’t the first time that Microsoft lied or twisted excuses about ’security’ in order to be anti-competitive. Recall the OOXML/file types incident for example.
Speaking of which, OOXML is still a secret as Microsoft continues to disobey rules. Charles complaint about this only a couple of days ago and now he’s now joined by Bob Sutor, not just Rob Weir, among others.
Will it [OOXML] ever be available? Does anyone care? Do any rules apply to this at all? What are the excuses for this? Just like almost ever other aspect of this particular process, dangerous exceptions and precedents are being set.
To sum up, here we have another case study exemplifying total disregard, market abuse, distortion of stories and a strategic fight against Linux, which escapes the media’s attention. █
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Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.