In this week’s limelight, OpenSUSE had Marcus Hüwe.
Despite being a openSUSE member and a platinum member of the PackMan team packaging several widely-used applications he also helps the Build Service team with osc code contributions.
With no more talk, today we nominate Marcus Hüwe as part of ‘People of openSUSE’!
After knowing this news, I immediatly took YaST to update all KDE4 packages yesterday. Now, I’m going to mention how to do that in easy (GUI) way, how to install or update KDE 4 to your openSUSE machine (I’m recenty using openSUSE 10.3 right now and used in this whole tutorial). I assume You have installed KDE 4.0 before following this tutorial, see this to install KDE 4.0 in your openSUSE machine.
Kulow announced the release of Beta 3 of OpenSUSE 11.0 roughly a day ago:
The openSUSE team is proud to announce the third Beta release of
openSUSE 11.0!
Over 700 bugs were fixed since beta 2, more new artwork was added
and several new package versions were includes. The live installation
has seen great improvements and should work flawless now.
For screenshots and additional information, see the news posting at:
Remember that this is a beta. It may not be safe to run for production
systems, and should be used by users interested in testing the next
release of openSUSE for bugs.
Most Annoying Bugs
===============
See the Most Annoying Bugs[0] page on the wiki for an up-to-date list.
If you want to help testing our standard test-cases, just take a look
at openSUSE.org/Testing, and in particular the Testing:Features_11.0
[1] sub-page which includes a definitive list of the features added
into openSUSE 11.0. You can also coordinate with others and subscribe
to the opensuse-testing@opensuse.org mailing list to help with our
organized testing.
openSUSE 11.0 Beta 3 is a great time to start testing-out openSUSE
11.0 before it is officially released. You can directly help and
contribute to the openSUSE distribution by filing bug reports and
giving feedback to the developers.
* Reporting bugs: Please report all bugs you find on in our
Bugzilla as explained on bugs.openSUSE.org.
* Discussion and feedback is very welcome as well; the most
appropriate place is the opensuse-factory@opensuse.org mailing list.
Or in the #opensuse-factory IRC channel.
For other queries and ways to communicate with the openSUSE community
take a look at the http://openSUSE.org/Communicate wiki page.
The next planned release[2] is openSUSE 11.0 Release Candidate 1 on May 29.
According to Brockmeier, interest was high as the openSUSE project received more than 50 applications for its 10 allocated slots, and he is confident the students they’re working with will be valuable contributors in the long run.
Over at YouTube, an interview with Novell’s Brandon Philips has emerged. It’s embedded below and also available as Ogg now (we get better at producing these quickly, thanks to advice from reader akf).
The Linux Novell version will feature a 1.3mp webcam, 802.11b/g, 2.5 hrs battery life, 80G / 2.5” SATA hard drive, 512MB DDR2/ 667MHz memory, 10″W (1024×600) LED display, Intel 945GMS, ICH7-M chipset and weighs 2.3 lbs.
Broadwater recently faced a budget crunch at the same time he needed new Web servers and more room in his data center. His solution: new HP blade servers based on Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise server software, which builds in virtualization software from Xen, a leading open-source alternative to VMware’s offering.
The first public release of Moonlight, which provides a Linux client implementation of Microsoft’s Silverlight rich Internet application (RIA) technology, was made available this week.
We will reserve harsh judgment this time around. It’s Saturday after all. █
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
• 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. “
To be very clear and probably a little blunt, Linspire’s main distinguisher is CNR. At some stage last year, Matt Hartly even advised the company the have the entire business just centrered around CNR and rely on others, as it typically has (Debian or Ubuntu), to produce the GNU/Linux distribution. Linspire adds customisation, proprietary bits and CNR to make what we know as Linspire (or Freespire, which isn’t as free as the same implies). It’s pretty much the same with Xandros.
It’s unsurprising to find that Linspire’s presence is pretty much tied to CNR. Those two are now inseparable. Over at Linux.com you’ll find this article about Linspire using its ‘bread and butter’, CNR which is now free software, to approach Mint and Ubuntu. They all share the same codebase, but only Linspire will have great trouble with the GPLv3, due to its foolish deal with Microsoft.
Linspire, the San Diego, Calif.-based Linux distributor, is continuing to build up its CNR (Click-N-Run) software installation system with partnerships with Ubuntu parent Canonical and the Ubuntu-based Linux Mint distribution. Linspire recently announced that its beta CNR service now supports the Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron release and Linux Mint versions 4.0 and 5.
CNR or Click and Run is a free one-click software delivery service designed to standardize the process and eliminate the complexity of finding, installing and managing Linux software for the most popular desktop Linux distributions according to the Linspire folks.
[…]
CNR achieves what it strives to be, easy installation of programs, especially for newbies. What is great about CNR is that it integrates with the distro’s package manager and thus make making life much easier unlike other projects like Autopackage. However it is not as easy and great to use like Add/Remove in Ubuntu and is not as vast as the official Ubuntu repositories and many programs are not available but is not far behind. It is still in the beta-development phase so I expect more innovations in the future. And as I said before, it is great for purchasing and installing proprietary programs.
However most users of Ubuntu do not need CNR as such but it is good to have options as well.
Another non-announcement comes from Linspire about Cedega in CNR:
Cedega enables Linux gamers to play Windows titles on their Linux OS. Triple-A video games such as Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Battlefield 2142, World of WarCraft, Madden 2007, Civilization IV and many more, can be played on Linux using Cedega. This allows an easy, out-of-the-box gaming experience.
As we pointed out last week, eWeek doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to Xandros or Linspire. Almost immediately Henry Kingman covered this non-story. Bear in mind that Desktop Linux is owned by the bankrupt Ziff Davis, which hardly publishes anything these days, especially after SJVN changed directions (he publishes in Computer World, Linux.com, CIO.com, his personal Web site and IEEE) and Rick Lehrbaum made a career change.
Anyway, from the article:
CNR can also be used to install “over 900 free and commercial software games,” Linspire claims, in genres that span from classic arcade games, to action games, adventure games, puzzles, and boardgames.
In other words, that press release could brag about hundreds of other games. So, is it an article or a commercial? It’s hard to tell. Maybe somewhere in-between. On the brighter side of things, Linspire seems to be a source of inspiration to some.
Version 2.0 of the software will offer the iPhone SDK and the App store, which is similar to Linspire’s online store CNR.com which allows you to install software directly from the web, and can be used both by iPhone and iTouch users.
IIRA Technologies pioneer in the field of open source join hands with Xandros Inc. for basic OS and mail servers. After working on varied Open Source platform for long 8(eight) years, we found Xandros is most scalable, user friendly and network savvy. Xandros is the only OS having facility to communicate with almost all of the applications irrespective of platforms whether proprietary or open source.
Commtouch and Scalix Collaboration Brings Real Time Messaging Security to Linux-based E-mail Servers — New Scalix Release Incorporates Commtouch Anti-Spam and Zero-Hour Virus Outbreak Protection Technologies
Scalix, a Linux e-mail, calendaring and messaging company and Commtouch® (NASDAQ:CTCH) today announced the signing of an OEM licensing agreement to bring real time Scalix AntiSpam and Scalix ZeroHour AntiVirus protection to the Scalix messaging platform.
It would only be fair to admit that I resent Xandros and Linspire. With Novell it’s a more complicated relationship because I used to love the company and even advocated its products. Then came the deal with Microsoft. It felt like a divorce, or at least a cruel betrayal. Even Groklaw seems to maintain its love-hate relationship with Novell. █
Novell makes Ballnux, not GNU/Linux (free software) anymore
Techtarget.com may be delivering thisnews 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.
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.”
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…
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?
“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.”
Could Vote Rigging Get Any More Obvious Than This?
Many shameless deniers — spearheaded primarily through disinformation, which is notably disseminated by Microsoft — are out there continuing to rewrite history, badly. Let it be reiterated that the OOXML saga was so abundantly filled with corruption that setting up a page summarising it all is nearly impossible. There are literally hundreds of separate scandals that come to mind. One interesting new find is this one.
Microsoft Puppet countries are leaving the P membership. Lebanon, Turkey, Cyprus, and Trinidad & Tobago have already dropped out. All those countries voted Yes without comments to OOXML.
Let’s clarify what we see here. Andy Updegrove was astounded (he even publicly complained) around August last year when several nations suddenly joined in to vote for ‘no apparent reason’ (it was obvious to a prudent observer that knows all about OOXML).
The countries stayed there not only for the September 2007 vote, but for the second one at the end of March 2008 too. Now that it’s all over, just a month after the announcement from ISO, suddenly they drop out again (”back to normal, business as usual”), having just accomplished their mission, so to speak. Assignment completed.
It’s mildly amusing actually because Microsoft’s puppet don’t even try hard enough to cover their tracks by lingering on and sticking around for a while longer. It’s very revealing. Don’t believe us? Ask the man who was in charge before being replaced by another Microsoft puppet. Here is what he said:
“This year WG1 have had another major development that has made it almost impossible to continue with our work within ISO. The influx of P members whose only interest is the fast-tracking of ECMA 376 as ISO 29500 has led to the failure of a number of key ballots. Though P members are required to vote, 50% of our current members, and some 66% of our new members, blatantly ignore this rule despite weekly email reminders and reminders on our website. As ISO require at least 50% of P members to vote before they start to count the votes we have had to reballot standards that should have been passed and completed their publication stages at Kyoto. This delay will mean that these standards will appear on the list of WG1 standards that have not been produced within the time limits set by ISO, despite our best efforts.
The disparity of rules for PAS, Fast-Track and ISO committee generated standards is fast making ISO a laughing stock in IT circles. The days of open standards development are fast disappearing. Instead we are getting “standardization by corporation”, something I have been fighting against for the 20 years I have served on ISO committees. I am glad to be retiring before the situation becomes impossible. I wish my colleagues every success for their future efforts, which I sincerely hope will not prove to be as wasted as I fear they could be.”
Another Clarification: OpenOffice.org Does Not Support OOXML
We stressed this before, but Microsoft and its apologists — even a few who are deceived inside the FOSS world unfortunately, trolls in this site included — continue to repeat the self-justifying nonsense. Let’s just say that again: OpenOffice.org does not support OOXML. Put more clearly:
Some others take a more pragmatical approach, but even that one is very much telling about the whole OOXML farce. In this category, we find the OpenOffice.org project. Despite what Microsoft will tell you, OpenOffice.org does not and will not provide OOXML « interoperability » . It will however provide an import filter that users will be able to use in order to import documents formatted in the format used by Microsoft Office 2007 and 2008 that bears the name of Microsoft Office Open XML(OOXML). What this means is that the OpenOffice.org project has to work directly on the files edited and created by MS Office 2007 and 2008 in order to provide compatibility and does not use the OOXML specification, as it is not implemented by MS Office 2007 and Microsoft Office 2008. So much for interoperability. The jury is still out, by the way, on the search for OOXML implementations. The ones that exist are either broken or else very limited (even the famous Novell plugin).
Once again you can hopefully see the role of an OOXML villain called Novell, which did a big favour to Microsoft in exchange for cash. Speaking of which, Mary Jo Foley disappointed yesterday with a headline suggesting that “Silverlight for Linux” is now available. There is no “Silverlight for Linux” and therefore it’s an inaccurate and deceiving headline that gives Web developers the wrong impression. Microsoft refused to support GNU/Linux, so instead it used Novell to make a clone that’s always behind and requires patent ‘protection’. It’s the perfect arrangement for Microsoft, which even Miguel de Icaza has denounced by now. Appended below are some new bits of information about Flash.
In today’s news you might discover that Adobe was kind enough to finally treat GNU/Linux like a first-class citizen, at least as far as the Flash player goes (it made such promises back in 2006 but only in vain):
Once piece of welcome news is that Adobe is releasing the Flash Player 10 beta for all major platforms — Windows, Mac and Linux. Adobe has even upped the Linux ante with a new installer specially tailored for Ubuntu users. Barclay says that Adobe considers Linux a major platform and will continue to make all Flash releases simultaneous across platforms.
This is important because the Web is increasingly becoming a semi-replacement for some native applications. Here is a new article about this trend, with focus on Adobe AIR.
Twhirl is built on Adobe AIR, which has a lightweight client library that allows Web developers to use familiar tools and languages to build first-class desktop applications. Software created with AIR is fully interactive and network-enabled, with a rich UI. But unlike traditional Web applications, AIR apps gain the immediacy and user engagement that come from running outside the browser window.
Also recent is the following article which suggests that an open source Adobe Flash player might be inevitable: (colouring in red is ours)
Both Otte and Savoye do see some limited good coming out of the Open Screen Project. Otte suggests that the growing openness of Adobe might help to reduce the reservations in the free software community about working to reproduce proprietary technologies, as well as “the general ‘flash is evil’ attitude” that prevails in the community.”
Moreover, both Otte and Savoye see the announcement as a hopeful sign. “I think Adobe will open up Flash in the end, or at least the Flash player,” Otte says.
Software maker Adobe announced Thursday that it would drop many of the licensing requirements attached to its Flash technology, which is used to display video and audio content on the web.
I would hope that Zemlin will encourage Adobe to now treat Linux as a first class citizen as opposed to an afterthought for release after Windows.
I hope Zemlin will pressure Adobe to finally actually make Flash — not just the player — but Flash CS3 Professional, (the core Flash development tool) available for Linux as a fully commercially available and supported product. It is somewhat ironic in my opinion that Adobe can join the Linux Foundation, claim to support Linux and yet not offer its flagship Flash development tool on Linux.
Last but not least, as far as RIAs go, be aware that JavaFX is GPLv2-licensed. It’s probably the one to promote at the moment. █
Posted in Finance, Novell at 5:37 am by Roy Schestowitz
Further privatisation required
Yesterday we wrote about Novell’s new buyback program. There are some more reactions to it now. Sarcastically, for example, says the following guy: “Novell finds someone willing to buy $100M worth of its stock.”
In January, Jefferies analyst Katherine Egbert predicted the buyback when she raised her rating on Novell stock from hold to buy and jacked her price target 50 cents to $7.50
He also refers to this post, which comes from one of the most pro-Microsoft publications out there (probably second only to Motley Fool/MSN).
Katherine Egbert, an analyst at Jefferies & Co., notes that the buyback is “unlikely to move the EPS needle, even if executed quickly and entirely.” She points out that the company has about $1.8 billion in cash on its balance sheet, or about 78% of Novell’s current market valuation of about $2.3 billion. (Net cash is around $1 billion.)
Earlier came some warnings about McCreevy. He is backed by the French president, Nicolas ‘Microsoft MPAA’ Sarkozy — another dangerous character to keep an eye on [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].
Now comes the following, thanks to our reader who E-mailed a headsup that says “Most Important: Software Patents in the EU through the back door tried again.” Here is the urgent message from FFII:
Brussels, 13 May 2008 — European Commissioner McCreevy is pushing for a
bilateral patent treaty with the United States. This Tuesday 13 May in
Brussels, White House and European representatives will try to adopt a
tight roadmap for the signature of a EU-US patent treaty by the end of
the year. Parts of the proposed treaty will contain provision on
software patents, and could legalise them on both sides of the Atlantic.
“TEC talks are the current push for software patents. The US want to
eliminate the higher standards of the European Patent Convention. The
bilateral agenda is dictated by multinationals gathered in the
Transatlantic Economic Business Dialogue (TABD). When you have a look
who is in the Executive Board of the TABD, you find not a single
European SME in there”, says Benjamin Henrion, a Brussels based patent
policy specialist.
The Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) which comprises EU and US high
level representatives put a substantive harmonisation of patent law on
its agenda. Substantive patent law covers what is patentable or not. The
attempt to impose the low US standards on Europe via the Substantive
Patent Law Treaty (SPLT) process utterly failed at the World
Intellectual Property Organisation. Also progress in the WIPO B+
subgroup (without development nations) could not be reached.
This is why it is so important to watch the movers and to keep abreast of those who set trends. Novell is among them, but let’s not forget Microsoft’s own patent trolls.
Nathan Myhrvold [formerly of Microsoft] may not have done much of note yet with Intellectual Ventures, but he sure is good at getting press attention.
[…]
And here Myhrvold is either outright lying or he’s ignorant (he can let us know which one). First of all no one has ever said that patent litigation is threatening to stop all innovation. They’ve just said that it is slowing the pace of innovation. And there’s plenty of evidence to support that, despite Myhrvold’s claim that there’s none. James Bessen and Michael Meurer just came out with a whole book detailing much of the evidence, and David Levine and Michele Boldrin also have a book with even more evidence. Did Myhrvold simply not know about these? Or is he lying to PC World?
[…]
I’m sure Myhrvold is a smart guy — and he may truly believe that he’s helping inventors and changing the world — but he’s either being purposely misleading or he’s ignorant when it comes to patents and how they interact with the economy.
Also of interest: watch what Microsoft patent application Bruce Schneier wanted to share with his readers, as well as some initial responses to it.
Guardian Angel:
[…]
Note that Bill Gates and Ray Ozzie are co-inventers.
[…]
Unless there are details of the implementation in the application, it isn’t very original; there have been many slightly different versions of this in science fiction literature for decades.
Posted by: billswift at May 13, 2008 07:25 AM
What has Bill Gates ever invented? Not sure why he would get an ‘invent’ credit on anything. Acquire acquire. Not that he’s not great at exploiting that, but I don’t know that I’ve really heard of anything he has invented himself.
Kulow announced the release of Beta 3 of OpenSUSE 11.0 roughly a day ago:
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The countries stayed there not only for the September 2007 vote, but for the second one at the end of March 2008 too. Now that it’s all over, just a month after the 
