Pressreview

What has Microsoft In Common With he bull in the china shop?

Tue, 11 Apr 2006 02:18:47 +0200

Today - fortunately – I don't need to start my press review with Microsoft, because RealNetworks attached importance to be first – see how Ingrid Marson from ZDnet quotes them.

“Jeff Ayars, a vice president at RealNetworks, said in a talk at LinuxWorld here Tuesday that if Linux does not offer support for DRM, people will not be able to run restricted digital content on the operating system, which will damage its success in the consumer market.” No - Mr. Ayars, the market works diametrical! The more guys like you try to put consumers into digital prison, the more they will escape, the bigger the success of GNU/Linux!

With this message we got covered by Builder AU, Zdnet.com, News.com, eHomeUpgrade, and Computerwoche Online. Infos-du-Net.com, Clubic.com,

But then we're already again back in this rubric to our Redmond based special guest. I mean ... I can understand that you might think that I have some kind of MS-phobia. But I can assure you: I have not! Instead these guys really ask for punishment any day!! See the latest example:

Fortunately there seem to be some people who don't want to use windows – and ask for machines without pre-installed OS. Now, I think especially with regard to the European antitrust suit they would do well to let them escape out of their proprietary prison. - But no!! Instead of accepting that these guys fell in love with another operating system Microsoft seems to be establishing a private sniffing service to visit those who don't want to pay the MS-tax. I am not really sure how I would feel if being visited by these guys – maybe something in between being threatened by the mafia, the secret service, the tax authorities or somebody who is spyed on by his jealous lover. Anyway: We called it an incredible piece of impudence and got covered by Ars Technica, Infos-du-net, Generation NT and ZDnet. Here you can join the discussion on slashdot.

That fits very well together with Ballmers announcement to sue GNU/Linux if it infriges Microsofts “intellectual proprietary” when speaking with Forbes. You know – the company has software patented the interoperability information which are in question in the antitrust suit?

The combined effect of the Commission pushing for antitrust remedies on the one hand, yet simultaneously allowing the legalisation of the current practice of registering software patents would be self-defeating. We would end up with the Commission successfully applying anti-trust remedies, which

the competition then could not benefit from, because the same Commission had "successfully" deprived the market of any chance to use relevant, now patent-ridden, technology. We got an interview on this with pressetext.de. Copies are to be found at: Zdnet.de, DiePresse.com, news-select.de, businessportal24.com, Inside-it.ch, Österreich Journal and telekom-presse.at,

Another good thing was the interview with pressetext about Free Software solving the piracy issue: Pupils don't need to steel proprietary software but they should copy Free Software instead. It looks to me as if the software giants are about to kick thesemselves in their back ... but it really helps us. Copies of this interview are to be found at Connect.de, derstandard.at,

Do you know what Microsoft has in common with a bull in a china shop? Both don't know how to do better! But fortunately Microsoft can rely on the trustee of European Commission Professor Neil Barrett – After his presentation it was clear to Microsoft what to do. That is not a joke... That is what MS's chief lawyer Brad Smith said to AP: "It finally gives us the kind of specificity and clarity that we need in order to work in a constructive way and to move all these issues forward." Just strange: Prof. Barrett didn't say anything different to his statements the weeks before – as it had been noted by Carlo Piana, FSFE's lawyer. These and other details have been reported by

Australian IT, PC PRO, Wallstreet Journal, Market Watch, The Olympian Online, MSNBC, phylliBurbs.com, Businessweek, Forbes, Localnewsleader.com, Westfall Weekly News, Brocktown News, Newsone, Leadingthecharge.com, The Detroit News, Ohmynews.com, USA Today, The Sidney Morning Herald, THE AGE, The China Post, International Herald Tribune, The Wichita Eagle, Signonsandiego.com, MercuryNews, NorthWestNewsChannel, TMCnet, WRAL.com, EXAMINER.com, Technewsworld.com, kirotv.com, LasVegas Sun, king5.com, FOXNEWS, CBS2Com, Bluefield Daily Telegraph, CBS NEWS, Reuters, The Scotsman, TechWorld.com,

DMasia.com, The Windows Observer, Stuff, Herald Daily News, News.com, Referencement-internet-web, CIO.com, Silicon.de, Winfuture.de, DerStandard.at, Mail & Guardian Online, N24.de, Netzeitung.de, Computerwoche, Heise.de, de.internet.com, Businessportal, Pressetext.de, Supinfo Paris, Le Monde Informatique, Telecommunity.com, CIO Espana, IDG.es,

Some small news:

Did you know that FSFE is just five years old? On March 10^th we celebrated birthday. Parallel to this we are happy about our Fellowship existing for one year now. To boost this community we started the raffle of two HP notebooks – pre-installed with Debian GNU/Linux. And the Spanish Free Knowledge Foundation becomes associate of FSFE.

“Attention! Nature Reserve! Threatened Software Giant!”

Mon, 20 Feb 2006 00:42:43 +0100

“Attention! Nature Reserve! Threatened Software Giant!”

As you know I am no software developer. This is why I have to rely on others judgement regarding these technical issues. And because I am critical I am in doubt quite often. E.g. Microsoft: A lot of software developers I know speak really bad about their stuff (To be honest they slip into the fecal language. So unfortunately I cannot quote them verbatim here.) And me – as you imagine correctly – I have been in doubt (at least to the middle of this week): “How can Microsoft's software quality be that poor if the the company is that successful with them?”

This article does not make demands on clarifying all the myths in the world but it seems at least one thing can be taken for sure now: The above mentioned software developers seem to be right and the language they use appears to be justified. You want to know what happened? Have a look: This week Microsoft's deadline ended to comply with European authorities. In Europe's so far most important antitrust suit Microsoft has been asked to publish protocols and interface information of their workgroup server.

So what did MS? They are claiming the Commission would have ignored these efforts:

“Hundreds of Microsoft employees and contractors have worked for more than 30,000 hours to create over 12,000 pages of detailed technical documents that are available for license today. In addition Microsoft has offered to provide licensees with 500 hours of technical support and has made its source code related to all the relevant technologies available under a reference license,” the company said in a 75-page response filed Wednesday.

By the end I think this has to be read like: “We are unable to give you more than this - Accept it or forget it!”

Wow. Didn't really expect it to be that awful: The software does not only attract bugs and viruses magnetically – It actually seems to be impossible to document it, even if there are any financial means of this world available! I am sure this would have frightened even legendary Hercules – and he after all had to clean the Augean stables in one day! German radio station NDR asked Microsoft why they couldn't publish the documents in question and - didn't get an answer. I suppose they are just embarrassed about washing their dirty linen in public. But as ever most probably I am just too naive and credulous and NDR is right to say that MS doesn't want to comply basically 'cause it really takes it out of them? So which is the claim they wanna make? Should we maybe put signs in front of their offices: “Attention! Nature Reserve! Threatened Software Giant!”??

Since the last press review we again had a number of articles explaining FSFE's successful role in this game.

But I would like to point you to an article of Austrian Computerworld and our letter to their editor (in the same document) specifically: Microsoft obviously still loves to play their “Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt” (FUD) policy (e.g. claiming that we want gratis copies of their source code or want them to give up their copyright). If you should find an one of these funny examples to confuse journalists, customers or politicians, please send me a note.

Reports in English:
TechSpot, indymedia.org, COMPUTER BUSINESS review online, AxcessNews.com, commentwire, Bloomberg, Macworld, PC Adviser, CIO, IT World, MSN BC, MSN Money, The Guardian, ZD Net UK, EU Business, IT World Canada, Mail & Guardian online, DW-World, TurkishPress.com, Macworld Daily News,

Reports in German:
Pro-Linux.de, Clickmall, DerStandard.at, OÖNachrichten, Salzburger Nachrichten, Wiener Zeitung,

Reports in Swedish:
IDG

Please note: This review is not exhaustive!

How To Make A Damp Squib Out Of A Smoke Grenade? Ask Mr. Smith!

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 14:51:23 +0100

How To Make A Damp Squib Out Of A Smoke Grenade? Ask Mr. Smith!

Brad Smith from Microsoft is clever. Last week he announced the disclosing under license of the Windows server source code. The company claimed in a press release they would go "beyond EU decision". In fact, he was trying to kill two birds with one stone: Firstly he wanted the world to believe Microsoft were complying with the European Commission. Secondly he pointed quite a big gun towards our community.

But EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes wasn't taken in by him: Reuters quote her as saying that the Commission never requested their source code.

In a different article Reuters reported that this offer would help proprietary software competitors but not the Free Software community. Huh?? Not the Free Software community? So which competitor is Mr. Smith speaking about? Maybe he should go and talk to his marketing department to find out that the samba project is the only competitor left in the desktop/server-market. And samba is Free Software, Mr. Smith! But what if the marketing department is still seeing lots of proprietary competitors? Maybe they feel surrounded by lots of competitors who do not exist at all? Microsoft - a global giant, suffering from a persecution complex? Anyway: What do we learn from the lesson Mr Smith has taught us? Paraphrasing: Anybody may benefit from our source code - provided that they are not our competitor!

So what if a samba developer writes code in the future? Microsoft most likely will bombard him with its armies of lawyers for copyright infringement (You know: Rumors say MS has supported SCO with 50 Million US$ - so you really can expect them to run this "FUD business" properly).

And - for the sake of completeness - there still seems to be one (in comparison to their persecution complex of course minor) problem left: Let's say you are a French pupil at school and want to learn English - what do you need to learn? The classroom answers of your neighbour or grammar and vocabulary books? Of course, it's the latter!

To me it looks like the morphing of Microsoft's smoke grenade into a damp squib!! Anybody here to make film on that?

Reports in English:
Trade Arabia, Local News Leader, Computer Business Review Online, Out-Law.com, Bloomberg, TECHWORLD, Leading The Charge, Stuff, Wired, Metro, The Scotsman, Herald News Daily, Computerworld, International Herald Tribune, New York Times[1] + [2], Wallstreet Journal Europe, The Guardian, ZD Net UK,

Reports in Flemish:
Planet

Reports in French:
Reuters, VNUnet.fr, Challenges.fr, La Tribune, Liberation.fr, Capital.fr, Le Nouvel Observateur, Boursorama, Le Devoir.com, Tageblatt,

Reports in German:
Computerpartner, PC Magazin, Golem.de, die tageszeitung, de.internet.com, inside-it.ch, InfoWeekOnlineNEWS, Die Welt, pressetext.at, Handelsblatt, Heise.de,

Reports in Italian:
Unimondo, Distretto PMI

European Antitrust Suit And German Electronic Health Backbone Attract Public Interest During Festive Season

Wed, 11 Jan 2006 15:05:01 +0100

Christmas time lacks of news - normally: Papers do have few pages only and TV stations broadcast cinema evergreens. But this general rule does not seem to adapt to FSF Europe.

European Antitrust suit against Microsoft

As we are the most relevant supporters of European Commission in the antitrust suit against Microsoft the IT news services IDG and ZD Net asked us to comment the threat to impose a fine of 2 Million EUR on MS if they would not comply with the ruling by the end of January. See the results in international media: IT World Canada , ZD Net Australia and ZD Net UK .

Electronic Health Backbone: Germany plans to fail with its most important IT project by failing to plan privacy

123.000 medical practioners, 65.000 dentists, 2200 hospitals, 21.000 pharmacies and 270 health insurances shall exchange data of every health insured person in Germany via an electronic backbone. IT specialist Thomas Maus has tested the system and comes to the conclusion that no privacy can be assured by this concept. That means in final consequence that anybody of serveral hundred thousands employees in German medical system could be able to deal with up 80 millions data records - 150 Euro each. The risk to loose public trust is high - especially as the Germans tend to be cynical about any system which might affect their privacy: Some of them even refuse a credit card for that reason. This is why the developers tried to muzzle Thomas by threatening to sue him for damages. But they haven't been able to verify mistakes in his analysis. From an internal document of the developers we know about thoughts to sue him then for reverse engineering, copyright or patent infringements.

In a press release we have pointed out our concerns and said that this would be a sign of absurdity in the so called "intellectual property" discussion. See our German media attention: Ratgeberbox.de, NetTribune.de, OpenPR, NGO Online, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, PRO Linux, testticker.de, PC Direkt and Handelsblatt, virtuelles Datenschutzbüro