I am sure, it’s all about innovation and NEVER hindering your competition…

Android has a patent fee. It’s not like Android’s free. You do have to license patents. HTC’s signed a license with us and you’re going to see license fees clearly for Android as well as for Windows.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/10/03/ballmer-android-aint-free-microsoft-gets-paid/

And some desillusioned people still believe Mono/Moonlight would be free (and safe from Microsoft) if it ever would have the same sucess as Android…!

From that blog entry:

Dailymotion has transcoded over 300,000 videos to the free Ogg Theora format, which will play without the need for plugins in the latest free software web browsers. Dailymotion is among the world’s largest video streaming sites, making this a major advance for Ogg Theora format.

The FSF also has a web page up as part of the Play Ogg! campaign. Ogg formats, Theora for video and Vorbis for audio, are important, because they have no patent restrictions and comparable, if not superior, quality as patented formats. There has been some controversy about the removal of Ogg Theora as the specified format for the HTML 5 <video> tag. 

As of June 29, 2009, the WHATWG summarizes the situation as such:

Apple refuses to implement Ogg Theora in Quicktime by default (as used by Safari), citing lack of hardware support and an uncertain patent landscape.

Google has implemented H.264 and Ogg Theora in Chrome, but cannot provide the H.264 codec license to third-party distributors of Chromium, and have indicated a belief that Ogg Theora’s quality-per-bit is not yet suitable for the volume handled by YouTube.

Opera refuses to implement H.264, citing the obscene cost of the relevant patent licenses.

Mozilla refuses to implement H.264, as they would not be able to obtain a license that covers their downstream distributors.

Microsoft has not commented on their intent to support <video> at all.

The future is uncertain for Ogg Theora – the thing that will determine its success is popular adoption, which some corporate interests seem intent on blocking.

In Which Your Noble Hero Braves Market-Speak to Deliver a Story

The webcast “Making IT Work in the Real World” runs about an hour, and a pretty bland hour at that.
I confess I skipped through quite a bit of the droning – I’m not really as brave as the little headlines make out sometimes.

There are a few slides that were of interest, because I think they show a darker side of the Novell-Microsoft collaboration. Keep in mind this was a pure PR fluff piece, so Novell and Microsoft had plenty of time to prepare and the hosts were not there to play any sort of investigative role. It was pretty much open mic night for your favorite corporate spokesmen.

Let’s see what they had to say!

In Which a Bit of That Good Old-Fashioned FUD is Spread around

Here’s a slide where the gentleman from Novell talked up the 3 pillars of value that the Novell-Microsoft collaboration delivers:

"Intellectual Property"

There’s that good old “peace of mind” codeword that Microsoft and Novell love so much to throw around. How does one reconcile Novell’s statement that the “agreement with Microsoft is in no way an acknowledgment that Linux infringes upon any Microsoft intellectual property” with the constant marketing that only Novell can offer “IP peace of mind” and the bullet point that “Microsoft and Novell” provide “patent coverage”?

A little fancy dancing, perhaps?

See this fellow here? He’s my bestest friend

Here’s a slide where Novell plays up the exclusivity of their collaboration with Microsoft:

"Only" Novell can offer you this?

In the blue box we are told that “SLES” is the only Linux distribution officially supported by MSFT on Hyper-V.
This is strange, because both Microsoft and Red Hat, when talking about Red Hat on Hyper-V say:

Q5: How do customers get support for the validated solutions? Who do they call?

A5: Customers with valid support agreements with both companies call either Microsoft or Red Hat to have their issues resolved. If the first vendor contacted cannot resolve the issue they will work with the other vendor to come to a resolution for the mutual customer.

I mean it sure looks to me like that is Microsoft officially supporting Red Hat.
I know I’m not a captain of the industry, but I am lettered and can even sign my name if someone tells me where to make the mark.

I like the wording of the green box, because I suspect it might be technically true at this exact moment in time, but we do know (again from Microsoft) that the folks at Red Hat tell me that they’ll “provide WHQL [Windows Hardware Quality Labs] drivers for a variety of Windows Server versions.” So not only will you get cooperative technical support, you’ll also get high-performing enlightened VMs.

And, come to think of it, wasn’t the whole purpose of the drivers Microsoft just released to provide enlightened support at the kernel level?

So yeah basically this entire slide is, to put it politely, inaccurate.
At best it is half inaccurate-now and half soon-to-be-inaccurate.

Hit ‘em with the stinger!

Finally, one last slide that I thought was funny:

You're calling *this* a feature?

OK, so we already have shown that SUSE Linux is not the only Linux distribution supported by Microsoft. I don’t want to touch endorsed, too vague and I’m not sure that’s really something to lay claim to, anyway!

I also found it funny that Novell asserts Linux is “FOS”. What’s that all about? Is it to distance Novell from “FLOSS”, or is “FOS” some common acronym that I just haven’t ran across? I was pretty sure I’ve read the whole internets, but I guess I could have missed a page or two.

This was originally posted at mono-nono.com

ConsortiumInfo.com has a very informative blog focused on standards and the standardization process, with a strong understanding of Open Source. The author, Mr. Andy Updegrove also serves on the board of the recently formed Open Source for America.

If you are interested in hardcore standardization wonkery, I suggest you check out the blog!

End Software patents has a wiki page already set up and says the arguments “will be used as a base for drafting work in the coming weeks and months as well as in the upcoming Bilski case and maybe the New Zealand legislative proposal, and other Current opportunities and dangers.”

Here’s  a couple I added:

• Companies in the software industry are banding together for the sole purpose of patent defense (ex: OIN), illustrating the system is broken.
• In the United States, the Constitutional purpose of patents is to “promote the progress of science and useful arts”, but there are numerous studies and reports showing that software patents retard progress, and have a great cost to the economy.

In a recent Computerworld UK blog entry, Glyn Moody takes Microsoft’s Jason Matusox to task for conflating “balance” with “open”. I won’t re-hash the points Mr. Moody makes so read his article too!

Basically, Mr. Matusox laments how Open standards are “overbalanced” in favor of standard implementors, and someone is insisting that standards must have “no IP restrictions”.

Notwithstanding the laughable idea of Microsoft pretense to have any interest at all in a fair, open, or “balanced” standard process, there are some interesting points revealed in Mr. Matusox’s article. The Exacting Task of Extracting Signal from Noise is once again assumed by your Humble Host.

I’m going to need more hay for this here strawman!

Mr. Matusox sets up a nice little premise:

I think that things like defensive suspension are really important.

[... A long bit about using one patent in an un-related "aphrodisiac" field ...]

But the “no IP restrictions” concept of “open standards” does away with too much. Out of balance.

Now, I put this to you: who exactly is arguing that “defensive suspension” and “no IP restrictions” are necessary or required for standardization?

Most patent grants have language that the patent grant applies to the implementation of the standard, thus covering Mr. Matusox’s aphrodisiac. Most patent grants also have language that the grant is revoked for those parties that bring patent action against the granter, thus covering Mr. Matusox’s “defensive suspension”. Both together, of course, cover the “no IP restrictions”.

So who is arguing for “no IP restrictions”? Red Hat isn’t. Google isn’t. “No IP restrictions” would mean that all related copyrights, trademarks and patents would have to be released into the public domain. Is someone out there seriously proposing that?

Business as usual

Here’s the thing I really want to draw attention to; in a follow-up post - where he is careful to repeat the “no limitations on IP” canard – Mr. Matusox says he “was writing about “open” issues back in March of 2005.”

Further back then that, actually. Mr. Matusox, and Microsoft in general, have been testing this angle since at least 2001-02. Here is Mr. Matusox back in 2002 defending Craig Mundie from 2001 who was at that time trying desperately to directly equate “Shared Source” with “Open Source”:

As a result of Microsofts statement of position today, many people will attempt to say that Shared Source is Microsofts failed attempt at being an Open Source Company. This could not be a more incorrect statement. Shared Source is Open Source.

The number of people outside of Microsoft that think “Shared Source is Open Source” may be closest thing we have ever observed in nature to a perfect zero, but it shows how clearly did Microsoft tries to conflate “Open” with whatever other term or criteria they felt suited them, and that they continue to do so today.

Just wanted to show they’ve been beating the “this not-Open thing is really Open” for at least 8 years now, right up until today. Handy to keep that sort of thing in mind when the Redmond Astroturfers take the field at the bottom of the inning.

(This is why I need a artist partner. Someone please work up a “Redmond Astroturfers” SVG ala the ’95-99 Houston Astros logo!)

More business as usual

This is not a Microsoft-specific failing: you’ll continually see companies that want all the rewards of Free, of Open, of community, with none of the responsibilities. If they must take on any of the responsibilities, it will be the legal or absolute minimum requirements.

If there is a way to twist the word Open into the meaning Proprietary, you can be sure some company is out there bending away right now.