01.28.10
Posted in Courtroom, Microsoft, Novell, Patents at 12:31 pm by Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Novell persists with its Free software-incompatible agenda; prominent booster of software patents gets punishment; Microsoft’s Channel 10 writer Sarah Perez is once again badmouthing Microsoft’s competition (which promotes Ogg)
HERE is a quick rundown covering patent news, starting with Novell for obvious reasons.
Novell has just earned (at least) two more software patents. It had become an almost-monthly occurrence:
Method and mechanism for the creation, maintenance, and comparison of semantic abstracts, patent No. 7,653,530, invented by Stephen R. Carter, of Spanish Fork, Delos C. Jensen and Ronald P. Millett, of Orem, assigned to Novell Inc. of Provo.
[...]
Multi-epoch method for saving and exporting file system events, patent No. 7,653,645, invented by Randall K. Stokes, of Provo, assigned to Novell Inc. of Provo.
The above are just from Utah, so there are likely to be many more. Even European employees of Novell are applying for software patents.
Well, on to some good news, a loud fan of software patents is finally getting sued. Yesterday we called him “Patent Watchtroll” (not Watchdog) because of his behaviour that even Groklaw is denouncing. The Against Monopoly Web site says:
Patent lawyer Gene Quinn has been sued
by Invention Submission Corporation (dba Invent Help) in the United States Federal District Court for the Northern District of New York. The complaint … alleges that I have engaged in false and misleading advertising that has cost Invent Help business. They apparently do not like the fact that I have written about invention submission scams and have recounted the many stories that I have heard from inventors who feel they have been taken advantage of by Invent Help.
Quinn is a notorious (but inarticulate and inept) defender of the patent system…
On we move to some bad news for Bill Gates, who is investing a lot of money in highly controversial patents on life. He wants to establish another monopoly, this time on the world’s food [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] and drugs [1, 2, 3]. We wrote about this many times before.
Glyn Moody comments on a report that indicates defeat to what he names “neo-colonialist patents”:
Patents are bad enough, because they enclose knowledge. But when they steal that knowledge from the lore of traditional medicine, it’s a double crime – adding a dash of neo-colonialism to the mix. So here’s some good news on that front:
The Opposition Division of the European Patent Office (EPO) has today revoked a patent granted to Dr. Willmar Schwabe (Schwabe) in its entirety. The patent was opposed by the African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) from South Africa acting on behalf of a rural community in Alice, in the Eastern Cape, in collaboration with the Swiss anti-biopiracy watchdog, the Berne Declaration.
That’s good news for a change. It shows that perseverance pays off and not always will the sociopaths get their way. Here is Brazil’s proposal at WIPO:
On January 15, 2010 the Permanent Mission of Brazil to the World Trade Organization and other economic organizations in Geneva submitted a proposal to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The Brazilian note verbale to WIPO notes that the proposal:
“aims at contributing to the discussion of exceptions and limitations to patent rights. . . While not purporting to cover all interfaces of the matter with development concerns, it emphasizes the importance of promoting a wide and sustained debate on the issue in the SCP”.
The President of the FFII notes that “President Lula can do any nice speech for Software Libre he wants, the Brazilian Patent Office grants software patents”
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) was there too (WIPO SCP/14). WIPO is typically a venue where maximalists of imaginary property rule supreme. If they are given leeway, they will make things worse. It is the same with the copyright cartel. Public Domain is increasingly being promoted as a substitute for copyright as default option. In the words of Glyn Moody:
“The Public Domain is the rule, copyright protection is the exception”: sounds like a good encapsulation to me – let’s start spreading it.
Yesterday we noted that Mozilla is fighting against software patents on the Web. As Carla from Linux Today points out, a lot of journalists are missing the point of Mozilla’s argument, including the Microsoft minion Sarah Perez (“she also writes for Microsoft’s Channel 10,” says her public profile), who is attacking Firefox over the call for Ogg. We previously received some complaints from readers about Perez, but we did not cover it at the time. Another person who publicly attacked Ogg is Microsoft Jack [1, 2, 3, 4] from the Guardian.
Anyway, Carla says:
What journalists are missing out on is that H.264 is a patented codec, and that the patent holders expect to collect royalties. The last H.264 patents expire in 2028. Mr. Blizzard draws some apt parallels with GIF and MP3, and the problems caused when patented, royalty-burdened technologies collide with a supposedly open and unencumbered Web. This is a must-read for anyone wanting more good information and less not-well-informed cheerleading on these issues.
There is a lot to be learned from the Rambus extortion [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]. The company quietly planted a patent Trojan inside a standard everyone uses and now it is claiming billions of dollars from the whole world. nVidia is the latest victim of these ugly tactics of Rambus.
What Mozilla is doing for us is simple: it ensures that the code required to render Web pages will not require that one purchases patents, even in regions that are poor (Africa for example) and/or do not permit software patents anyway. █
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, SUN at 11:23 am by Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Novell’s role as a stooge in Microsoft’s agenda is shown in the latest news
ONE YEAR ago we showed that Novell helped Microsoft's SharePoint lock-in by cozying up to Microsoft SharePoint. Novell wants to sell the illusion that by helping Microsoft it is helping the adoption of GNU/Linux, but this is total nonsense. Google and IBM fight against SharePoint the right way [1, 2], whereas Novell, which receives part of its revenue from Microsoft, is just helping SharePoint.
Recently, Mr. Worthington went over to Microsoft and Novell, which in turn resorted to misinforming or pampering him. Now he is writing this:
Microsoft, Novell collaborate on LDAP access to SharePoint
Microsoft and Novell are collaborating on an identity federation solution that will allow LDAP directories to access Microsoft SharePoint.
The solution, which will ship in March, adds a service component to Novell’s Access Manager identity management system to federate identities to SharePoint, said Joshua Dorfman, Novell’s senior director of global partner marketing.
Yes, that’s Novell developing in collaboration with Microsoft. These two companies are becoming indistinguishable. Other obvious areas where Novell is developing for Microsoft are Mono and Moonlight. Microsoft is still working hard to spread Silverlight™, even using the development scam which strives to characterise Silverlight as “open source” [1, 2, 3, 4]. It’s only pretense of “open source” and the confusion proves effective. Here is another potential attempt to associate Silverlight with “open source”:
McObject® announced it has successfully ported Perst™, its open source, object-oriented embedded database system, to Microsoft’s Silverlight technology for building rich Web applications.
As mentioned in the previous post, Microsoft is now bribing Web users to try out Bing Maps, which turns out to be a Silverlight trap. One Microsoft booster (Emil) defends this assault on web standards and another one suggests it can be used as a lock-in strategy for removing or taxing other people’s phones with software patent “licensing”. GNU/Linux does not have Silverlight, except Moblin. We wrote about this before [1, 2, 3], noting that Microsoft had stabbed Novell in the back. Linspire found that out too. It’s the usual sob story of betrayed partners that Microsoft is just exploiting and then throwing to the den of wolves when it’s all done. Microsoft compares partners to "one-night stands".
A few months ago, Microsoft’s partner FASA Interactive said that Microsoft “destroys” partners. We are seeing it all the time, even with Novell. Microsoft is still squeezing out what’s left at Novell.
“Now [Novell is] little better than a branch of Microsoft”
–LinuxToday Managing Editor
“Has anyone ever benefited from a Microsoft partnership,” asks one of our readers. He quotes Sun/Scott McNealy regarding that question:
Scott McNealy signs off in style
Selected previous quotes:
`We’re the only computer company that isn’t a partner in some way to Microsoft, so they have a lot less leverage over us.’
Q: So how do you feel about the proposed [Nov. 2] settlement between Microsoft and the Justice Dept.?
A: It’s garbage. We’ve now got a much more unfettered monopolist now-one that will hurt innovation and take away people’s choices.
“It’s mankind against Microsoft” November 2001
Source
“The way I put it is: Chapter 58 in most antitrust textbooks is ‘Bundling the Browser With Your Operating System.’ Chapter 1 is ‘Buying Your Distribution Channel,’” McNealy said in an interview with Newsweek magazine to be published tomorrow. “It’s like Standard Oil buying gas stations.” June 2003
Source
“As you know, I didn’t have to write a note to my engineers that said ’security is important’” June 2003
Source
“We are in a fairly unique position in a couple of ways. We have patent amnesty/patent peace as part of our contract [...] the customer doesn’t have to anticipate a patent or an IP [intellectual property] battle between the two companies.
“I can guarantee you that Microsoft is going to have a very different view if Red Hat or SUSE desktops step on Microsoft IP-there’s no patent peace/patent amnesty and 10-year interoperability agreement between Novell and Microsoft or between Red Hat and Microsoft.” March 2005
Source
A year and a half later Microsoft essentially bought Novell’s heart, using that so-called “Microsoft IP” mentioned above. █
“I’d put the Linux phenomenon really as threat No. 1.”
–Steve Ballmer, 2001
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Posted in FSF, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Red Hat, Search, Ubuntu at 8:55 am by Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Further analysis of Canonical’s deal with Yahoo! and some thoughts or suggestions
THE Yahoo!-Ubuntu deal was being discussed for hours in our IRC channel. It’s a tricky one. It means that Canonical’s priorities become more complex, as they indirectly become dependent on Microsoft for revenue (Microsoft is paying Yahoo! like it pays Novell). There are other issues through. As The Source puts it:
If that wasn’t offensive enough for you, don’t worry – there’s more: it appears that upgrades will have the default changed to Yahoo!, even if the user has set it to something else. How helpful.
The comments in Linux Today are mostly negative and while some articles focus on Mozilla, others focus on the official message alone (that it’s just Yahoo!). From Ars Technica:
Rick Spencer, the leader of Canonical’s desktop team, announced the search engine change today on a public Ubuntu mailing list. The specific terms of the agreement have not been disclosed. According to Spencer, the new default will appear in the development version of the distribution “as soon as reasonably possible” and will be in place in time for Ubuntu 10.04, which is scheduled for release in April. They have not indicated whether the change will be applied retroactively to existing installations of the current stable version, but they have confirmed that it will be changed for existing users who upgrade from the current stable version to 10.04.
From The Inquirer:
Rick Spencer, leader of Canonical’s desktop team, announced the Yahooo deal yesterday. The deal is scheduled to take effect in April and means that the FireFox web browser will default to using Yahoo’s search engine under Ubuntu.
None of the above mentions that Spencer came from Microsoft (but to be fair, we don’t know whose idea this whole deal was) and there is also a refrain from saying that Yahoo! will be just a front end to Microsoft’s Bong [sic]. Yahoo! is just some bling on the Bing.
Chips B. Malroy says (in IRC) that “Microsoft is counting on enough users to not know that Yahoo has or is becoming Bing. It’s extension of the renaming ploy, just more dishonest”
Jose X wrote last night:
With the money going to Canonical developers, Microsoft isn’t just getting (a) increased brand exposure; (b) pricing power increase on adverizers; (c) management of more user’s search results (notably that of open source users); (d1) backup tracking on Windows users as well as (d2) tracking on Linux users left out of their Windows loop, (e) momentum towards their goal of eclipsing Google at some point and gaining much more powerful monopolies, (f) stock price support down the line, etc, but they will probably get as a side bonus (g) accelerated development of mono and other API, protocols, and standards that help Microsoft. Canonical is putting much of that money back into furthering other very important Microsoft goals.
Novell took the noisy direct path. For how long has Canonical had plans on taking the quiet subtle path? Was this support of Microsoft why Dell chose to deal with them? When will Canonical eat Novell’s dinner?
People need to understand that Canonical has “developers to feed and investors to satisfy” and should not be hesitant to question to what degree this or any other company has decided to fight monopolies or instead to try to suckle up to them.
The enemy of high profit seekers is customer choice and customer leverage.
There are more such comments from Jose and it does raise some doubt. Any idea what this will mean for Mono? Is Canonical less likely to dump Mono now? Jeremy Allison opines that Mono needs to go [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8], not the GIMP [1, 2, 3, 4]. Most of the polled users of Ubuntu are against the GIMP decision, the Free Software Foundation is still against Mono, and so are users and developers [1, 2, 3].
I am using Kubuntu at the moment; it comes without Mono (Microsoft) and Kubuntu 10.04 will reportedly come without the browser’s search bar pointing at Microsoft’s datacentres. In general, Ubuntu derivatives are of good use here and therein lies the value of choice.
“In general, Ubuntu derivatives are of good use here and therein lies the value of choice.”To reject something by uninstalling it from the default setup is still sending the distributor a message of endorsement. To use an analogy, if you order a hamburger with pickles and take out the pickles later at the table, the seller is still left with the impression that customers love pickles. Those pickles will never be removed by the seller as long as hamburgers are purchased without asking the seller to leave them out. The moral of our own story is that Ubuntu will continue spreading the perception that GNU/Linux users like Mono (which they don’t, according to polls) and are fine with downloading an operating system that uses Microsoft’s engine for search.
Someone from Red Hat went as far as asking me if I thought Canonical had sold out like Novell, but the immediate answer was “no”. The Ubuntu deal does not hurt rivals of Ubuntu (or GNU/Linux at large) in any way; Novell — by contrast — actively used its deal to destroy others in promise of a "safe haven" (SUSE).
Speaking of Red Hat, having created a new Web site called “Open Source”, Red Hat’s Richard Fontana does give a token of respect to “Free Software”, under the article “The Free Software Way” which Groklaw reposted and commented on:
I thought I’d introduce you to the website’s rich content by posting an article from the Law section. It’s by Richard Fontana, who is Red Hat’s Open Source Licensing and Patent Counsel, and I know him and trust him from being on the committee that he chaired in the revision of GPLv3. I can republish his article, because it’s under a Creative Commons license, Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, which means you are free to republish it and share it with others under those terms as well. I think you’ll want to, because he explains very clearly the legal rights that are implied by free, not just open source, software, and its extension to other areas, and why open source, while necessary, is not enough.
This was also covered here at The Source:
There have been lots of “fauxpen source” efforts to pretend they are Open Source by simply exposing source code. I’m sure the Gentle Reader will be shocked that Microsoft leads the way in “innovating” here: Shared Source, the MS-LPL and MS-LRL licenses, “covenants” not to sue sub-sets of users and so forth.
To me, then, open source is not a development methodology, let alone a distillation of broadly-applicable principles seen as underlying such a methodology. Rather, open source is a specific legal model of property rights transfer. To put it differently, open source is about freedom to use, modify, and share creative material that could otherwise be severely legally restricted by the author. (Source code availability is relevant because otherwise the freedom of modification would be practically impossible to exercise.)
This encapsulates so well the failure of the term “Open Source”: if open source is about freedom, then say it. Call it “Free Software”. At least call it “Free and Open Source” or “FLOSS” or “FOSS” or something that acknowledges that Freedom is what it is really all about.
Those who think that Microsoft is not the key problem are simply not paying attention. GNU/Linux must not help Microsoft in any way. █
“Shouldn’t we leave the [Microsoft] elephant alone and stop poking it with sticks? Well, the problem is they aren’t going to leave us alone.”
–Jeremy Allison, LCA 2010
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01.27.10
Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Kernel, Microsoft, Novell, Patents at 1:19 am by Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Many reminders from the past week’s news of Apple’s unhealthy obsession with patents, which are the #1 threat to Free software
THE PREVIOUS post addressed the words of Jeremy Allison, who had warned about Microsoft at last week’s LCA 2010 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. He also warned about Mono [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. Allison’s colleague, Andrew Tridgell, made similar points regarding software patents last week [1, 2]. Here is new coverage of the subject:
Patents biggest threat to free software
Samba developer Andrew Tridgell reckons the open source community is poor at fighting patent attacks, but says things could improve with a change in strategy.
Samba developer and Australian open source legend Andrew Tridgell has had plenty of experience dealing with interesting legal issues while trying to get Linux servers communicating with Windows, but he now sees the exploitation of patents as the biggest threat to the open source movement.
It is rather telling that software patents are probably the #1 barrier to the success of Free software. Linus Torvalds seemingly feels similarly. This is what makes the Novell deal such a considerably dangerous and serious step against Free software. It is also the reason Boycott Novell has been so focused on the subject of software patents over the years.
“We have already given many examples in this Web site where Apple too harmed standards, Free software, and GNU/Linux using patents.”No company other than Microsoft has resorted to Linux extortion using patents (Microsoft later sued, so the threats were not empty). One might argue that Microsoft is therefore the only threat to GNU/Linux, but it’s not. We have already given many examples in this Web site where Apple too harmed standards, Free software, and GNU/Linux using patents.
Apple is a company of branding, marketing, and fake hype. It is like Disney in the sense that it creates fantasies and it is sad to see Apple proponents clamouring for more patents from their beloved hardware (and software) vendor. The very latest examples are mostly hardware based [1, 2, 3, 4], but they restrict the market of mobile/embedded Linux. We have already seen Apple threatening Palm’s Linux phones using patents [1, 2, 3]. With its patents (whether asserted or not), Apple is harming Free software and software in general (including proprietary). Moreover, this new article indicates that Apple has already castrated another Linux-powered phone:
According to sources, Google was forced to remove multitouch functionality from the Nexus One because Apple owns patents covering its use in mobile devices.
With its lamp/genie effect and other ridiculous patents (e.g. [1, 2]), Apple also harms GNU/Linux desktops, not just gadgets. Here is a new post on the subject:
Compiz, Patents, and Ubuntu
No, this isn’t about the stupid max_waves conflict with Apple’s patent that everyone has been ranting (and working around) for the last few years. From what I hear the future 0.9.0 release won’t be hampered by it, but how does Compiz fare with patents? Who made Compiz, and who’s working on it today?
It is time to formally recognise that Apple is a huge nuisance when it comes to software patents (and other classes of patents too). This ought to be brought up when Apple is posturing as an Open Source-friendly company. █
“FSF did some anti-Apple campaigns too. Personally I worry more about Apple because they have user loyalty; Microsoft doesn’t.”
–Bradley M. Kuhn (SFLC)
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01.25.10
Posted in GNU/Linux, Novell, OpenSUSE at 5:11 pm by Roy Schestowitz
Summary: OpenSUSE’s community chief is leaving Novell next week
SHORTLY after Friedman called it a day, so does the Brockmeier who writes:
January 31st will be my last day with Novell. I’ve given it a great deal of thought, and decided that it’s time to move on.
Brockmeier was recently caught spreading the usual Microsoft/Novell lies (their propaganda), only to be denounced for it. Brockmeier is an excellent journalist and hopefully he will carry on promoting GNU/Linux without promoting Novell. █
Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier, photo by jimgris
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Posted in FOSS, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Windows at 4:02 pm by Roy Schestowitz
“Shouldn’t we leave the [Microsoft] elephant alone and stop poking it with sticks? Well, the problem is they aren’t going to leave us alone.”
–Jeremy Allison, LCA 2010
Summary: News about Mono and Microsoft sticking themselves onto GNU/Linux; Zenoss and LINA demonstrate correct way to build bridges
David Worthington, a journalist who spent some time with Microsoft and Novell earlier this month, is not promoting Mono/C# (he did this before), but he does promote Microsoft’s F#. Why advance a language (and APIs) from a company that’s a convicted abuser, or simply a violator of the law? Developers mostly dislike or at least distrust Microsoft. Maybe it takes some guts to have principles and refuse to help sinister agendas. Jeremy Allison is not too shy to tell the truth about Microsoft and Mono. From a new article:
Telling it like it is, the Allison way
He’s the man with a conscience in the computer industry. Not too many of them around these days, an era when people attach the name “open source” to anything in a bid to attract funding.
Never mind if the business in question is really not gving away source code.
Jeremy Allison caused a stir in 2006 when he announced that he was leaving Novell because the company had signed a patent indemnification deal with Microsoft.
One could well argue that someone with his reputation could easily do this, as he wouldn’t have had a problem finding a job anywhere.
But then, just tell those who raise this argument that a couple of gentlemen by the names of Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman stayed behind at Novell when Allison left and see how quickly silence prevails.
Jason from Mono-Nono has this update about Gnote and Red Hat (or Fedora):
Gnote and Fedora
The Good: Gnote has a new support team in place with exciting plans.
The Bad: Said support team has to bend over backward to make it clear they are not “anti-Mono”. After effects of the smear campaign against the original author of Gnote?
Those smears (one might call it a “campaign”) can be seen here.
“Banshee is a Novell project that uses non-ECMA bits that Microsoft’s community promise (MCP) does not cover.”Debates about Mono in Ubuntu sometimes heat up a bit. One person ends up bringing forth Banshee as candidate for Ubuntu, only to receive comments like: “Banshee is a very bad idea. Amarok is a totally better option, has been around a lot longer and isn’t based upon Mono.”
Also he is told: “I Agree with Brandon regarding mono apps. Mono is bad. Rythmbox is a great player, they should have kept that player over the garbage mono alternatives. Water under the bridge for me though, i moved to Arch/Linux with KDE. Amarok is a worthy music player.”
Banshee is a Novell project that uses non-ECMA bits that Microsoft’s community promise (MCP) does not cover. It would be better not to promote Go-oo either; it’s just Novell’s attempt to take control of an important GNU/Linux project/program, adding Mono and Microsoft’s OOXML to it [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].
Here is a better way to ‘embrace’ Windows users, namely to compile for GNU/Linux and then allow them to also try out some applications on Windows. As this press release from Zenoss puts it:
The Zenoss Core project., a leading open source IT monitoring and management solution, today announced the general availability of Zenoss Core version 2.5.1 under the GNU General Public License (V2) is now available as a free and open source solution for the Microsoft Windows operating system. This latest release of the open source monitoring and systems management project enables users to run applications compiled for Linux under Windows with a native look and feel using the beta version of the LINA run-time environment developed by Lina Software.
When LINA reaches full maturity it will be a decent tool for doing exactly the opposite of Mono. With Mono, users can taste a sample of .NET and if they want to use the “real thing”, then they move over to Windows. With LINA it’s the opposite because GNU/Linux is the “master” for which applications get compiled. For the “full experience”, GNU/Linux is required.
Mono developers are virtually going through the garbage can called “Microsoft” to use their ideas by duplicating them. The winning APIs are then Microsoft’s. █
“The best way to prepare is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating systems.”
–Bill Gates
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01.24.10
Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Ubuntu at 9:43 am by Roy Schestowitz
Health check of democracy
Summary: Analysis of some of Canonical’s recent moves, which give rise to Novell’s Mono and proprietary software (at the expense of Free software)
“If you want to watch the mischief,” says one of our readers, “this might be the place to begin. The very harmful stuff is probably not as obvious as overt mischief.”
The page says: “Ekiga is not longer installed by default [in lucid]. Added link to download beta version for Windows in switching guide, and added an apt url for download in Ubuntu in internet section. LP: #508572″
Recently, Canonical floated the idea of adding proprietary software to Ubuntu rather than get rid of Mono, which is problematic just like Moonlight. We receive mail complaining about that.
Then there is the GIMP incident (to be replaced by .NET/Mono), which we covered in:
Groklaw points to a somewhat old article about Ubuntu, which notes that Canonical “has had its CEO discard the executive mantle to “focus [his] Canonical energy on product design,” [...].” Pamela Jones believes that “it partially explains some of the decisions, by clarifying the goal.” That was a few days ago.
A poll from Ubuntu Forums (shown by Groklaw) indicates that Ubuntu users oppose the removal of the GIMP and a petition on the subject has amassed 768 signatures of people who oppose the removal of the GIMP. Is Canonical listening and paying attention to the users? The worry is that warning signs from people like Jeremy Allison get ignored for temporary convenience [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. Shooting down messengers who show something that they do not want to see is not a wise decision. Messengers include the Free Software Foundation, users, and developers [1, 2, 3]. █
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01.23.10
Posted in GNU/Linux, Kernel, Microsoft, Novell, Patents, Protocol, Samba, Ubuntu at 4:05 pm by Roy Schestowitz
Urgent need to put an end to Microsoft and the trolls
Summary: Microsoft’s software patent war on Linux carries on, albeit very quietly; a patent troll represented by McKool Smith and Ward & Olivo strikes (quite massively too)
UBUNTU has been mostly apathetic when it comes to Mono and Moonlight problems, so it is good to see that Canonical’s technical chief gets a lecturing from Dr. Tridgell, whose warnings about software patents we have already mentioned (right after his talk at LCA 2010).
Matt Zimmerman writes
Andrew Tridgell: Patent defence for free software
I missed the start of this talk, but when I arrived, Andrew was explaining how to read and interpret patent claims. This is even less obvious than one might suppose. He offered advice on which parts to read first, and which could be disregarded or referred to only as needed.
Invalidating a patent entirely is difficult, but because patents are interpreted very narrowly, inventions can often be shown to be “different enough” from the patented one.
Where “workarounds” are found, which enable free software to interoperate or solve a problem in a different way than described in a patent, Andrew says it is important to publish them far and wide. This helps to discourage patent holders from attacking free software, because the discovery and publication of a workaround could lead to them losing all of their revenue from the patent (as their licensees could adopt that instead and stop paying for licenses).
Tridgell’s colleague, Jeremy Allison, has just warned about this as well (also at LCA 2010). He previously advised Ubuntu to move Mono and Mono-based applications to the ‘restricted’ repositories [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. His take on OOXML was seen as noteworthy and some would say prophetic.
Dana Blankenhorn wrote about Allison’s talk as follows:
Open source evangelist Jeremy Allison was in New Zealand yesterday, where he issued dire warnings of Microsoft launching a patent attack against open source to win back mobile market share. (Picture from Wikipedia.)
Allison, who famously quit Novell after it announced its patent pact with Microsoft, told a Linux conference in Wellington that Microsoft has to go to court or Windows Mobile is dead. He called a patent fight its “nuclear option.”
Allison is in the business of having no choice but to mimic or comply with a Microsoft protocol. The European Commission is on his side thanks to an exclusive resolution which came after a decade of fighting against Microsoft (which must now comply with the law or heavy pay fines, so it’s not a case of playing nice with Samba).
Let’s remind ourselves that Microsoft sued TomTom over filesystems in Linux. Andrew Tridgell personally suffered from this (he eventually posted a patch enabling Linux to work around the VFAT patents) and the FAT crusade continues as Microsoft signed a patent deal with Funai (for exFAT) a few days ago. Novell’s deal with Microsoft is mentioned in this new article about Funai:
Microsoft inks patent deal with LCD builder
[...]
Microsoft has a long history of signing high-profile patent sharing deals. The company’s landmark 2006 deal with Novell sent shockwaves through the open source industry, and the firm has signed similar deals with Brother, Kyocera and Nikon.
See our posts about Tuxera in order to understand Microsoft’s plan to tax GNU/Linux through filesystems (to begin with). It all started with Novell, which came to Microsoft looking for a deal.
A few days ago Microsoft sued TiVo. Asay (formerly of Novell) writes:
As Red Hat evangelist Jan Wildeboer suggests,
The 6,008,803 patent…looks very broad. Might affect all kinds of media center [software]. So also Linux apps. The real question is, “Which Linux media center app infringes on Tivo patents?
In other words, we’re not out of the woods yet, though it does appear that Microsoft’s interest is in supporting the largest customer of its Mediaroom software, not in undermining Linux. Not this time, anyway.
Microsoft appears to have lied about its interests though. Moreover, as we explained the other day, any attack on TiVo — whether it targets Linux or not — can lessen the usage of Linux by weakening TiVo.
From the comments on this: “More reason to detest Microsoft, just wonderful…. Microsoft needs to be dismantled.”
In other patent news, watch what McKool and Ward are up to:
McKool’s promotional material doesn’t emphasize its work for FotoMedia, a patent-holding company whose only apparent business is filing infringement lawsuits. As part of its litigation campaign, FotoMedia has been demanding royalty payments from more than 60 companies with photo-sharing websites. The McKool lawyer in charge of the FotoMedia cases was not available for interviews on Friday, and FotoMedia has not responded to TPA interview requests in the past. FotoMedia is also represented by John Ward & Olivo, a firm out of New York that frequently represents patent-holding companies.
[...]
FotoMedia is a patent-holding company that claims just about every photo-sharing website you can imagine infringes its three patents. Its lawsuits, covered by TPA last May and June, are notable not just for the audacity of the claims they make, but also because they target dozens of small- and medium-sized software companies that provide various types of photo-sharing services over the Internet.
Disgusting. Patent trolls and parasites, including FotoMedia which we mentioned here before. Their site lists not a single product and their job openings are just “for an experienced candidate to join the licensing team of FotoMedia’s parent company, Scenera Research, as a Patent Analyst/Engineer.”
Got that? It says “licensing team… Patent Analyst/Engineer.”
A “licensing team” is basically a bunch of racketeers like Sisvel [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12] and Microsoft. What the hell is a Patent Engineer? A fancy terminology for a lawyer?
We wrote about McKool Smith in [1, 2, 3]. As for Ward, he is working for patent trolls and suing critics (and their employers [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]). According to this, he’s also pumping money into politics (assuming it’s him). These people should not be allowed in this business if innovation is the real goal. They are leeches and Ray Niro is probably the nastiest of all of them [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. █
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