08.29.08
Posted in Microsoft, DRM, Deception, OpenDocument, Antitrust, Interoperability, Open XML at 6:04 pm by Roy Schestowitz
Timely reminder of why Microsoft’s promises are worthless
Apache
Here is why Microsoft is so desperate to intervene with Apache’s direction [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. The latest report from Netcraft suggests that Microsoft continues to fall, perhaps having exhausted its ability to pay/influence large hosts like GoDaddy, which help the gaming of statistics.
In the latest report, everyone can see that Apache and other FOSS-based servers are up, whereas Microsoft’s IIS is down.
In the August 2008 survey we received responses from 176,748,506 sites. This month’s overall growth of 1.3 million sites reflects Apache’s growth of 1.2 million and Google’s gain of half a million sites, but a loss of 760 thousand sites using Microsoft IIS.
Opera, Inter-Opera-bility and Antitrust
This situation was previously discussed in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Antitrust action if how far the war against Microsoft has come. Microsoft has, for many years, deliberately and knowingly ignored and/or subverted Web standards. As soon as the legal burden appeared, Microsoft suddenly made some promise of compliance. To nobody’s surprise, Microsoft seems to have lied. It broke its promise.
This week, the promise was broken. It lasted less than six months. Now that Internet Explorer IE8 beta 2 is released, we know that many, if not most, pages viewed in IE8 will not be shown in standards mode by default. The dirty secret is buried deep down in the «Compatibility view» configuration panel, where the «Display intranet sites in Compatibility View» box is checked by default. Thus, by default, intranet pages are not viewed in standards mode.
Should people trust Microsoft with its vague ODF promises [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]?
Compatibility Issues (the ‘Vista Effect’ equivalent of Web Browsers)
Just like Windows Vista, as soon as IE7 came out, software that worked perfectly well with predecessors and other Web browsers simply ceased to work. It’s a backward compatibility nightmare and the same thing is now happening with IE8, by Microsoft’s own admission.
Microsoft Corp. yesterday warned users of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) that they won’t be able to uninstall either the service pack or Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) under some circumstances.
The warning was reminiscent of one Microsoft made in May, when Windows XP SP3 had just been made available for downloading. At the time, the company told users they wouldn’t be able to downgrade from IE7 to the older IE6 browser without uninstalling the service pack.
The following one is a better story:
It may be a Microsoft creation but it doesn’t play well with other Microsoft products.
Bugs, Competition (E.g. Firefox)
Yesterday we wrote about Microsoft’s reinvention of the browser privacy ‘wheel’. It’s already failing.
Privacy feature in Internet Explorer 8 leaks private data
[…]
Forensic experts however found it trivial to retrieve the history, according to a test by Webwereld, an IDG affiliate in the Netherlands, and Fox IT, a Dutch firm specializing in IT security and forensic research.
Microsoft’s products are designed to eavesdrop and enable forensics [1, 2], so this may be no accident.
DRM: Poison on the Web
Just have a look at what Microsoft wishes to do to our precious Web.
Will W3C Accept DRM For Webfonts?
[…]
Microsoft has submitted Embedded OpenType (EOT) to W3C and a slimy campaign for EOT has been launched. EOT is a DRM layer on top of normal TrueType/Opentype files; EOT ties a font file to a certain web page or site and prevents reuse by other pages/sites.
Microsoft labels DRM technology using the word “Open”. How familiar.
The above is a “slimy campaign” by all means. The campaign cited contains nothing but glorification of DRM and IE. Another example of pseudo-grassroots support? If Microsoft cannot replace (X)HTML with XAML, it wishes to at least ruin the standards and ‘extend’ them its own way. █
“The Internet? We are not interested in it.”
–Bill Gates, 1993
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08.27.08
Posted in Microsoft, Novell, Deception, Patents, Standard, Europe, Open XML, ISO at 7:55 am by Roy Schestowitz
Novell’s PR Director has made some mistakes recently when he used GNU/Linux patent FUD to market Novell and SUSE [1, 2]. In one of his first postings, he appears to be forgetting (or not knowing) that there is room for more appeals against OOXML. Having witnessed so many scandals from beginning to end, for Novell to take this stance is dangerous. it has already helped Microsoft push/standardise OOXML.
Here is what Ian Bruce wrote:
Accelerating demand for virtualization solutions that cut across Windows and Linux, and the recent ISO adoption of Microsoft’s OOXML standard document format, are just two examples of why interoperability is so vital and our partnership increasingly relevant.
The dissenting comment below this post is interesting. The new PR guy makes mistakes that even Bruce Lowry did not make before quitting the company. At Novell, lying to the public is a standard procedure. For example, they unsuccessfully pretend that a patent deal they gave a nod to has nothing to do with patents, yet their new PR Director mistakenly admits that it is. He says the truth, but saying this truth is treason at Novell.
Meanwhile, another OOXML scandal is being highlighted. It never seems to end.
Physical meetings are the ISO way to exclude participation. Don’t expect public online discussions on how HP and Microsoft will change the ISO rules for Fast Track. Mr ECMA has already been the responsible person to change the ISO Fast Track rules in 2006, remember?
Never let the deniers get away with it. There is a lot more to be learned about how Microsoft uses the press to rewrite history. This is an old example:
Here, only the headlines of the newspaper articles really disagree. You actually have to do some research (about 5 minutes worth) to find web-retrievable documentation that absolutely refutes Microsoft’s orwellian revision of NT 5.0/Windows 2000 release schedule.
This time, I have to say that the Business Editor didn’t slip up. The Bloomberg News wire service slipped up by not checking what it had previously run on the topic, and by not checking rather easy to find citations on the topic.
There are very recent examples of this too. Related external stories:
Don’t let corporate press rewrite history on behalf of its benefactors. █
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08.25.08
Posted in Standard, OpenDocument, Open XML, IBM, ISO at 6:01 pm by Roy Schestowitz
“The disparity of rules for PAS, Fast-Track and ISO committee generated standards is fast making ISO a laughing stock in IT circles.”
–Martin Bryan, Former Convenor of OOXML WG1
It might seem as though Microsoft could ruin soon OASIS just as it ruined ISO with ECMA. Even the IEEE and a certain situation irked some observers after it had gotten closer to ISO. OASIS, being one that thrives in openness and transparency, needs none of Microsoft, yet according to this, Microsoft might want to treat it like it already (mis)treats ODF. It gives away money. Has the world forgotten how viciously Microsoft attacked ODF [1, 2] and at a later stage slammed OASIS as well, especially through its ‘talking heads’?
Regarding this latest development, Pamela Jones at Groklaw wrote: “I gather OASIS has no sense of irony. It’s a Security Challenges for the Information Society conference, September 30 through October 3 in New London: “The Forum will provide a unique opportunity for the security standards community (public sector, private sector and standards developing organizations) to come together to discuss current issues and challenges, strategic approaches, recent successes, and future outlooks.” Microsoft is a Gold sponsor, and DTrace is Platinum, which is a higher category, but the OASIS newsletter titles the item, “Microsoft sponsors upcoming OASIS Security Forum near London”. And so it begins, I fear.”
Does Microsoft suddenly think that OASIS is not all that bad? Is this just presence? Does it want to make it worse, so as to make it “equally ruined” w.r.t. ISO? Speaking of ‘talking heads, Patrick Durusau can’t help unleashing some outrageous letters. A new rebuttal:
Unlike editors as Durusau Microsoft standardisation participants are loyal drones of their company’s standard they edit. SC34 won’t be able to do anything which is not approved or developed in the United States. External input would be ignored unless there is a leverage. We saw it during the process. “Vendor capture” as we call it. The whole situation makes a joke out of international standardisation institutions. ISO should be as concerned as industry veterans are.
So why surrender to perpetrators because Durusau finds it more cozy? I have to admit, that is the wrong question. The true evil ISO perpetrator is IBM, a company behind everything…
ODF is not IBM. Far from it. So, what are these letters about anyway [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]? █
“That particular meeting was followed by an anonymous smear campaign against one of the TC members. A letter was faxed to the organization of the TC member in question, accusing the TC member in question of helping politicize the issue (which is, of course, untrue). I too had the dubious pleasure of hearing first hand how Microsoft attempted to remove me from the TC (they did not succeed, thanks to integrity and cojones of the organization I am affiliated with).”
“If this unethical behaviour by Microsoft was not sufficiently despicable, they did the unthinkable by involving politics in what should have been a technical evaluation of the standard by writing to the head of the Malaysian standards organization and getting its business partners to engage in a negative letter writing campaign to indicate lack of support of ODF in the Malaysian market. Every single negative letter on ODF received by the Malaysian standards organization was written either by Microsoft, or a Microsoft business partner or a Microsoft affiliated organization (Initiative for Software Choice and IASA).“
A Memo to Patrick Durusau
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Posted in Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Novell, Bill Gates, Standard, Interoperability, Open XML, FOSS at 5:34 am by Roy Schestowitz
“Get your coupons ready…”
Novell, a paid supporter of Microsoft OOXML, continues to be a big threat to open standards. It helps Microsoft change the meaning and purpose of standards. As their joint-yet-exclusionary work on hypervisors proves, they believe in licensing of software patents as the means of bridging software from different companies. It is difficult to ignore the fact that these two companies are joined in their mission to make software patents the new ’standard’, all at the expense of real open standards. Watch Novell listed among the occupants of the “Interop” conference. Novell’’s CEO is even a noted speaker. From this weekend’s news:
The company said the keynote line-up includes executives from Cisco, IBM, Novell, Research in Motion and Salesforce.com.
Novell is listed there among the proprietary software vendors. It figures.
Here is the official Web site. Microsoft is among the sponsors and so is Novell. This whole event is essentially created to serve the sponsors’ purposes and business goals rather than to invite some guests and encourage unification that benefits everyone. It carries a message and glorifies this term which is “interoperability”. It is a nasty term when used in mundane speech and propagated from mouth to ear. It dilutes, escapes or even substitutes the word “standards”.
Interoperability is another word to strongly avoid. “Interoperability” is to standards is what “Intellectual property” is to software patents. Think along the lines of phasing out the term “Free software”, trying to dissolve its meaning and replace it with “open source”. Spot the catch below:
“There’s free software and then there’s open source… there is this thing called the GPL, which we disagree with.”
–Bill Gates, April 2008
“Given standards, this whole charade with weasel words like “interoperability” is not even needed.”Just as they try to redefine FOSS using opportunities like OSBC that they create and fund [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], they also try to phase out words like standards and free, promoting instead words and catchy sound bites like “interop”. I published an article about the difference about a year ago.
It’s likely intentional. Open standards permit fair competition to all. Interoperability, on the other hand, can be exclusive, so it inhibits and obstructs. it promotes duopolist and shared control (not the same as sharing) of information technology.
Given standards, this whole charade with weasel words like “interoperability” is not even needed. But events like “Interop” are intended (though not necessarily purposely) to change people’s vocabularies and along with these perceptions and expectations. █
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08.23.08
Posted in Formats, Microsoft, DRM, GNU/Linux, OpenDocument, Open XML, Google, ISO at 8:32 am by Roy Schestowitz
Some months ago we summarised examples of heavy lobbying by Microsoft. As people may be aware, especially after the Massachusetts fiasco, there was a lot of lobbying directed against ODF (and Free software, by association). The following new article from LWN goes into a few of the details. It also introduces GeekPAC, which is trying to fight fire with fire, just like the Linux Foundation. It won’t work.
Last year California Assemblyman Mark Leno authored AB 1668, a bill designed to encourage the state to adopt the Open Document Format as the standard format for government documents. Not surprisingly, Microsoft came out against the bill and it was eventually struck down in committee. CollabNet Community Manager and longtime FOSS supporter John Mark Walker was angry. Realizing that the open source community had no voice during the hearings and no way to fight back against the opposition’s lobbyists, Walker decided to mobilize support from within the ranks of the FOSS community and let them do what they do best — rally behind a cause and prove once again that there’s strength in numbers. So he founded GeekPAC.
GeekPAC’s goal is to pull together enough funding — a mere $2,200 — to file the necessary paperwork to be formally recognized by the Federal Elections Committee as a Political Action Committee (PAC). Then the group will locate politicians or candidates in the House and Senate who support hot-button technology issues like copyright reform and net neutrality. Once identified, GeekPAC will help support their campaigns and lobby together for change.
For those who are wondering, the ISO story is not over yet. It’s still seen as outrageous and it continues to be discussed.
So what shall be done? Has OOXML finally won its way through the ISO? It obviously did buy its way through the ISO leadership, but there are still other ways to show the world how outrageous this process has become. Now OOXML is still left where it is: noone has seen it, or rather, many (including me) have reported to have seen it, but few, if no one, can actually say for sure where it is, as it simply has never been implemented. Conflicting reports exist about file formats called OOXML that do not seem to conform to the ISO/IEC 29500 spec. But the spec itself is rarely seen, and even more rarely witnessed as an implemented standard. Of course, it does not carry any obligation to be implemented. It’s just an ISO standard…
Regardless of all the dirty play, OpenDocument continues to be embraced. Here’s some
fresh evidence of support from Google.
The new entry is context sensitive, so it only appears when you right click supported filetypes, which include Word docs, PDFs, PowerPoint, Excel, and every Open Document format.
Not a word about OOXML.
Glyn Moody suggests that Amazon should be pressured to support ODF on the Kindle. He is not alone because similar complaints were recently made about Sony’s e-Reader/s.
As far as I am aware, there is no support for ODF. Assuming Kindle catches on, that’s going to be an increasing problem for those of us pushing ODF.
Maybe time to start a campaign for ODF support on the Kindle….
Once again, not a single word about OOXML in the cited item.
This gadget runs Linux, so it ought to at least respect open standards, as opposed to its DRM masters. Will it inevitably happen? █
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08.21.08
Posted in Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Novell, SLES/SLED, Servers, Patents, Interoperability, Open XML, FOSS at 8:41 am by Roy Schestowitz
Image from Wikimedia
Previous press coverage of Novell’s latest-and-greatest software patent ‘coupons’ [1, 2] is probably worth expanding on. For future reference, here are some of the many articles about it:
Picking out a few highlights, here is the post “Microsoft is profiting from Linux.”
So doing the simple calculation ($340 million by 29%= X), Microsoft over the lifetime of the Novell coupon deal could profit by $99 million (or more) dollars. At that figure Microsoft would likely be one of the top Linux resellers on Earth.
[…]
As Microsoft is set to pump up to $100 million more in Novell for Linux, it’s important to note that Microsoft is not paying off Linux - it’s actually making money from it.
Microsoft isn’t just buying Linux subscriptions from Novell to give away…it’s buying them so they can sell them. So that means for the past 18 months, Microsoft has been selling Linux.
Stating the obvious almost 2 years late. It goes further than this, as far as back room extortions which the press rarely covers.
Matt Asay explains what Microsoft is trying to achieve:
It’s just business for Microsoft, and business is better when Linux is limping. So Microsoft is trying to kill off the Linux market leader by giving Novell a compelling differentiator. The day that Novell becomes a threat to Microsoft’s business, however, is the day that the deal is shut down.
Why are some companies still picking up these coupons? People who were approached by Novell and Microsoft contacted us privately. Microsoft and Novell jointly offer them considerable discounts just so that they buy ‘Microsoft SUSE’ (with patent tax). They try to set a precedence and they invest in this precedence.
Dana at ZDNet wrote about this fiasco (he even ‘borrowed’ our image) and he actually thinks those coupons are about bridging.
It’s created a compliant client state, a vassal, small and subservient, a bridge between the closed world of Windows and the free world of open source.
He wrongly asserts that GNU/Linux benefited when he says: “Microsoft has benefitted enormously from its Novell deal, and to be honest so has the Linux community.” The truth is that only Novell benefited in the short term, at the expense of its image, which will suffer. Here is an interesting quote from another article on this subject:
“There’s a lot of Linux out there — much more than Microsoft generally signals publicly — and their customers are using it, so it’s important that Microsoft have a good interoperability story on that front. Linking up with a Linux vendor is a good way to do that,” added Paul DeGroot, a Directions On Microsoft analyst.
Big Lies about the ‘market share’ of GNU/Linux (both desktop- and server-side) were highlighted before.
Here is some coverage from IDG:
For Microsoft, the deal was a recognition of the significant role that Linux plays in enterprises, but also provided a way to show the European Commission, which was hounding it at the time about anticompetitive practices, that it was open to working with the open-source community.
“Working with” as in “mooching”. Truthfully, Microsoft hopes to have the cake and eat it too. It wants to sabotage Free software while at the same time keeping those ‘pesky’ regulators off its back. Shane and I foresaw this back in 2006.
“It wants to sabotage Free software while at the same time keeping those ‘pesky’ regulators off its back.”Has Microsoft offered the ‘interoperability’ it had promised? Of course not. Look no further than Silverlight and the Olympic games [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7].
Another similar example of behaviour is Microsoft buying a company with its product that works on GNU/Linux and even typically demonstrated on Ubuntu and then turning it into a Windows-only Web technology. It’s another Silverlight-esque ‘infection’ on the Web — rendering parts of the Web accessible only to Microsoft Windows users. It made the news yesterday. Watch the comments.
Going back to those Novell/Microsoft coupons, Paula Rooney gets it wrong. Not only does she suggest that OOXML is an ISO standard (there is still room for appeals and an EC investigation), but she also suggests that there’s something “sweet” in the Microsoft/Novell relationship. On the other hand, she gets it right when she suggests that businesses use Novell and Microsoft to bypass the spirit of Free software and just get things working on Microsoft’s terms. That’s an implicit message anyway. █
“People that use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us.”
–Steve Ballmer
“We believe every Linux customer basically has an undisclosed balance-sheet liability.”
–Steve Ballmer
“There’s no company called Linux, there’s barely a Linux road map. Yet Linux sort of springs organically from the earth. And it had, you know, the characteristics of communism that people love so very, very much about it. That is, it’s free.”
–Steve Ballmer
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Posted in Microsoft, Intellectual Property, Patents, Open XML, FOSS at 6:37 am by Roy Schestowitz
From the Campaign for Document Freedom
A
few days ago, those protests in Bangalore received a quick mention. As background to this, consider [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. The short version of this story: Microsoft and its partner in India are trying to legalise software patents in a nation that rejected them. Yes, again. It seems like another case of ballot-stuffing or chair-warming, i.e. voting by a minority with a common interest on ‘behalf’ of an entire nation. Watch what Richard Stallman wrote yesterday:
20 August 2008 (Microsoft corrupts the ISO)
Microsoft consummated its corruption of the International Standards Organization, which dismissed an appeal by several countries against the approval of OOXML.
However, I think the EU’s criminal investigation of this corruption is still live. (Is it?)
The investigation is ongoing. Some say it might be the cause for further ISO delays.
There is clearly some recognition of the fact that Microsoft will go as far as necessary to get its way. It desperately needs software patents in India. Now is the time to fight back.
The latest details about a peaceful protest are here:
Software patents are rejected by Indian Parliament in 2005 (Patent Amendment bill 2005). But Indian Government is now trying to push it through back door by bringing a Patent manual. Public consultations on this draft manual is going on in various metros in India. Bangalore Consultation is scheduled for the last week of August.
The Candle light vigil to “Say No To Software Patents” is a occasion to raise civil society voice against this back door trojan to Indian patent system.
On 23rd August 2008 in front of Town Hall near Corporation Circle, Bangalore. Publicity campaigns will be hosted in various places on 22nd.
There are some more details about the event in this page and the following article was published last week.
Nothing could be further from the truth. As explained above, software patents are bad for everyone other than large companies. Each software patent is a potential mine in the path to progress for small software companies. Allowing software patents in the country will be like strewing the path with mines.
Stay tuned for FSF India to unleash its response. There is already a mature draft of a lengthy letter.
Help the world fight against intellectual monopolies, a new embodiment of which is defended by the very same governments that dishonour them. Read the following letter:
As much as I utterly despise the entire premise of Intellectual Monopoly, this is about violating the principles of a Free License, and if it’s good enough for the British government to violate our civil rights in the name of Intellectual Monopoly, then it’s good enough for the Free World to protect its “property” (in fact Freedom) too…
There’s a book review that touches on the issue of Free software and intellectual monopolies. At least it’s a critical assessment.
A book on (gulp) law? Why would I want to read this? Well, if you’re a developer (open source or not) and you are at all interested in protecting the fruits of your labors, you will want to know this the same way you want to know about locking your house when you leave for work each morning. The next question is, “Will I understand anything the author is saying?”. Depends. If you’re an attorney, the answer is “yes”. If you’re a software engineer, the answer is…”yes”. What? How can that be? Turns out the author is both a software engineer and a practicing attorney (at least, according to the blurb on the back cover of the book). Is it possible he can speak to both audiences? Let’s find out.
Such a book which strives to mix (almost marry) FOSS and software patents is — perhaps unsurprisingly — from O’Reilly Media, which recently received payments from Diamond Sponsor Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. They are pro-OSS, but a little hostile or skeptical towards the philosophy of Free software. It’s only reason for apprehension. █
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08.20.08
Posted in Microsoft, Novell, Mono, Interoperability, Open XML, ISO at 6:49 am by Roy Schestowitz
T
he man who called Microsoft’s OOXML a “superb standard” under Novell’s wing (Novell is being paid by Microsoft to support OOXML) had a different point of view some years ago. Here he is talking about formats as a lock-in mechanism. What has changed since 2004? Is it the many long journeys Miguel takes to the Microsoft campus?
This multiple-part interview also contains bits where Miguel speaks about his background as a Windows programmer.
Here is a roundup of the latest OOXML situation. Nothing is over yet.
The rejection of the HypocrISO appeals offers opportunities for another wave of appeals.
[…]
So let me give some points: What can be won through another ISO delay?
* more OOXML uncertainty
* ISO to expose itself even more and get ready for procedural reform
* keep the debate in the news
For further details, see [1, 2, 3, 4]. █
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« Previous entries ·
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.