Slashdot Mirror

Groklaw disagrees with your assessment.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20101111114933605

Is it "third parties" as in "anyone remotely connected to Android, including users and developers", or "third parties" as in the Open Handset Alliance which comprises 78 companies?

Methinks Google isn't saying, "Look, don't sue us, you should go after the users", but rather "Oh, you want to sue us? You'd better be prepared to include 77 other defendants with big pockets."

Yeah peeps need not get their knickers in a wad. PJ can explain things, as always:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20101111114933605

I love this:

"Wouldn't it be ironic if Oracle's patents ended up on the junk heap? Clearly that is Google's intention. I've been hoping for a settlement of this mess from day one. I smell that it is now a real possibility. You can take this amended answer two ways -- that it's Google angling for a better settlement or that it's Google looking to win the whole enchilada and free up Java for everyone."

Having a flow chart would clear up so many issues surrounding patents. Here is the question:

What line of reasoning must hold water before a patent is deemed valid?

If you read this story, you realize that each party is asserting their position as the valid one. To me, the confusion surrounding this topic is hitting me hard. A flow chart would help out a lot.

Lol.

Anyway, there are a few provisos on the previous. As it stands, the status of First Sale for licensed software (per the software's own EULA) is valid within the jurisdiction of the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. (In other words, the states of Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, and Nevada.) In more sane jurisdictions, First Sale may still be alive. For now. But since the majority of the games being discussed right now are published in the United States, and (I bet) many within the 9th Circuit, it's not reasonable to claim without reservation that First Sale applies to the subject.

Looking at recent news, I can't tell if Vernor intends to ask the Supreme Court to intervene. If so, and the Supremes agree with the 9th, then First Sale is dead for licensed software within the US.

Until then (and even after), the Groklaw page on the ruling quotes an ArsTechnica discussion and makes a point to take to heart:

Stay away from software that comes with EULAs that restrict you in ways you don't like.

Specifically, if the EULA purports to restrict or prevent your rights under First Sale doctrine, you have to assume it might do so effectively, because at least some courts have begun to empower EULAs that way.

Just as an FYI:

Oracle Objects to SCO's Cure Notice

"Oracle asks the court to deny any forward motion on SCO's request to assume and assign any Oracle executory agreement without Oracle's consent."

So, is it just me, or does anyone else conclude that Oracle really doesn't understand the licensing basis of their own copyrighted API codebase?

OpenJDK is released under the GPL. The android versions of the libraries have had the license changed to Apache v2.0. That is a legitimate copyright infringement. It looks like an isolated case where someone copied the file to use for testing, but who knows why they changed the license. Someone in the android development team screwed up.

See this groklaw comment for direct links to the files in the repositories.

She's on the job!

And she does actually use the phrase "It's SCO II".

And, it appears that Google's counter to the copyright infringement claims is that the code in question was open sourced between copyright registration and Google incorporation. Quoting Groklaw:

As to Oracle's copyright claim, the Complaint alleges that "Oracle America owns copyrights in the code, documentation, specifications, libraries, and other materials that comprise the Java platform" and that "Oracle America's Java-related copyrights are registered with the United States Copyright Office, including those attached as Exhibit H." Compl. 11. Exhibit H to the Complaint consists of certificates of copyright registrations obtained by Sun for two identified works, named "Java 2 Standard Edition 1.4" and "Java Standard Edition, Version 5.0" (the "Asserted Copyrights"). Compl. Ex. H. These registrations appear to relate to versions of certain Sun Java materials that were released as open-sourced software in 2006 and 2007.

(Emphasis mine)

So, is it just me, or does anyone else conclude that Oracle really doesn't understand the licensing basis of their own copyrighted API codebase? If we can believe Google's statements, either it's that or Oracle is trying to take back code it released to the Open community 3 years ago.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20101005114201136

Google's answer with counterclaims. Like a declaration that the Oracle’s claims be barred by the doctrine of "unclean hands" (i.e. bad faith), and for Oracle to pay Google's attorney fees for that invalid lawsuit.

Would be interesting to watch this one develop, I think. A lot of software patents under litigation now are unbelievably vague. And as always, there's something interesting on the subject over at Groklaw.

Processes in Place

* Linux desktop virtual team

* CompHot escalations weekly review

- EDGI request escalations

* Linux compete squad - billv

* International desktop OS tracker link link link

When I was a kid not only were there no cellular phones - you weren't even allowed to own your own wired phone in the US. You had to lease it from AT&T for a monthly fee because Alexander Graham Bell founded that company (sort of - read the prior link for the historic details), and he invented the telephone (this much is not in doubt). It's only recently that we're allowed in the US to bring our own phones to the wireless network, and they've pretty much handled that by making sure that each phone generally works with only one wireless network. We're pretty accustomed to being molested by our communications providers. Only a few years ago it was common to charge more than a dollar a minute to talk to your neighbor across the street if the street was one of the imaginary lines that separated Regional Bell Operating Companies. It was cheaper to call across the country, or even a foreign country, than to organize a meeting of the Parent-Teachers Association (PTA). Back then I bought Karma by subscribing to a cheap long-distance company and performing the contemporary version of bittorrent by serving as a "filebone hub" on an antique mail and data network called "FidoNet". It was like the Internet except in batch mode and we had parties called Get Togethers (GTs). Back then I was fiending for Internet because I had had it in the military, but couldn't get it because it wasn't available to the general public - only businesses, schools, folks who could afford CompuServ and so on. Get Togethers were a lot of fun because we got drunk, and sometimes naked, in person rather than over video chat. CUCME (see you, see me - an early video chat program) wasn't invented yet - it was the late '80's, or very early '90s. We still stayed anonymous in person mostly - everybody had a "handle" - which nym is taken from a completely irrelevant radio network (Citizen's Band) which will occur later. But I digress.

Anyway, there was this Georgia peanut farmer, whose name was Thomas Carter (not the former US President Jimmy Carter, as some (formerly including me) believe), who wanted to make phone calls from his tractor in the field. He was electronics savvy, so he rigged up a Citizen's Band radio that would allow him to dial the phone and talk on it, and this was the Carterfone and he sold copies of it, as any right-minded entrepeneur would. And of course AT&T shut him down because they didn't own this thing and so could prevent him from using it on their network. He sued, and it was many years later that his lawsuit resulted in the breakup of the US phone monopoly. That led to AT&T becoming at first just the vestigal long-distance portion of the former phone company, and later just a brand.

Non-Sequitur: The breakup also led to Unix - which was invented by Bell Labs (a division of AT&T at one point which invented not only Unix and C, but a great many other useful things), being divided into parts. The Unix name was sold to The Open Group, which certifies Unix to this day. The Unix source code and OS was sold first to Novell, which sold it to a quite respectable Linux .com called the Santa Cruz Operation, which burned through their .com millions and sold it off to a spinoff of Novell called the Canopy Group. Actually, they sold it to a spinoff of the spinoff. This story goes on for a long time, and is slowly grinding to an end documented here. Unix was the coolest thing that AT&T ever did, and I wanted to work that in even though the code is now owned by a gang of bastards who are determined to ruin every last bit of its utility. But I digress again. Forgive me, it's late.

AT&T's motto was: "We don't have to care. We're the PHONE COMPANY." The company that owns the AT&T brand now has nothing to

The complaint with Google was that Google was infringing on Oracle's patents and copyrights via Android. Google's official and legal response was along the lines of, "WTF are you talking about?"

My own theory is that Sun (and now Oracle) liked the profits they were receiving via licensing royalties from mobile phones that shipped with an embedded Java environment. Google did an end-run around these royalties by developing their own third-party JVM, Dalvik. When it looked like Android would gain a decent foothold in the smart phone market, Oracle probably thought they needed to do something. Maybe they have this opinion that they "own" all parts of Java.

(My understanding is that Dalvik and Java(tm) are completely different, except that the human-readable source code for both happens to be the Java programming language. A programming language itself, so far as I know, cannot be copyrighted. Patented, maybe, but you would have a tremendously difficult time trying to find any feature of a "modern" language that doesn't have decades of prior art.)

As for OpenJDK, Oracle appears to be the copyright holder of the source code and are entitled to any Java copyrights or patents applicable to it. Whether they give it away for free or charge for it doesn't matter.

I would bet on it. Look what Microsoft did with OOXML to damage ISO

The W3C is vastly smaller and less bureaucratic than ISO, and also more open. The HTML Working Group conducts its business exclusively on Bugzilla and the public-html mailing list, so if Microsoft were trying anything, everyone would see it. Nothing is done by vote in the HTMLWG, so Microsoft can't try to buy votes secretly. All decisions are made by either the editor (employed by Google) or the co-chairs (one employed by Microsoft, one Apple, one IBM). And everything is being overseen by the W3C administration; you can literally appeal directly to Tim Berners-Lee if you have a problem with the chairs' decision, and people have done that.

Nothing underhanded is going on here. Microsoft can mainly be faulted for not participating much, not for trying to subvert anything.

I would bet on it. Look what Microsoft did with OOXML to damage ISO

Microsoft sued HTC before and got a settlement. They're trolling. These lawsuits are nothing more than advertising for their Windows Phone 7 phone, which offers indemnification against lawsuits from... them. "That's a nice phone you got there. It would be a shame if anybody sued you over it."

Microsoft is suing their own customers here, and not retail customers, but billion-dollar manufacturing partners. That's not a good plan. SCO tried that plan and even with the Microsoft-backed investments from unsuccessfully indirect partners, it didn't work out for SCO.

The patents are bullshit. They're software patents, and even Microsoft admits almost all software patents are bullshit. Microsoft is looking for help from all of us to solve this argument for them both ways in favor. It's a fool's game.

If this is their plan to put Windows Phone 7 over then they're hosed. "Buy it or we'll sue you" never works.

Microsoft sued HTC before and got a settlement. They're trolling. These lawsuits are nothing more than advertising for their Windows Phone 7 phone, which offers indemnification against lawsuits from... them. "That's a nice phone you got there. It would be a shame if anybody sued you over it."

Microsoft is suing their own customers here, and not retail customers, but billion-dollar manufacturing partners. That's not a good plan. SCO tried that plan and even with the Microsoft-backed investments from unsuccessfully indirect partners, it didn't work out for SCO.

The patents are bullshit. They're software patents, and even Microsoft admits almost all software patents are bullshit. Microsoft is looking for help from all of us to solve this argument for them both ways in favor. It's a fool's game.

If this is their plan to put Windows Phone 7 over then they're hosed. "Buy it or we'll sue you" never works.

That's probably because you haven't looked at the nine patents in question (see the complaint in this PDF).

The first patent listed is the one entitled "Common Name Space for Long and Short Filenames,". It expires in 2013. It's the FAT patent (it's not even related to mobile phones as the article implied). It was used against Tom Tom recently, and since that attempted shake-down, plenty of prior art has been found and has already been submitted to the USPTO.

The second patent seems to be the same as the first one. Can anyone explain what happened there???

The third is about "Monitoring entropic conditions of a flash memory device as an indicator for invoking erasure operations". Reading its full description, this one seems kind of obvious to me, plus 2002 seems kind of late for applying for such a patent. Also with this kind of patent, Microsoft could just as well sue anyone and everyone involved in Flash memory right now. If I'm wrong in my lay interpretation, I'm sure someone will correct me.

The fourth one is entitled "Radio interface layer in a cell phone with a set of APIs having a hardware-independent proxy layer and a hardware-specific driver layer". This one seems so broad and yet so obvious, it was applied for in 2001 (if I'm not understanding the dates and to what they apply to, please someone tell me).

Please take a look at the rest yourself. It's no wonder Microsoft's share price went down as this was announced.

U.S. Patent No. 5,579,517 ("the '517 patent"),
U.S. Patent No. 5,758,352 ("the '352 patent"),
U.S. Patent No. 6,621,746 ("the '746 patent"),
U.S. Patent No. 6,826,762 ("the '762 patent"),
U.S. Patent No. 6,909,910 ("the '910 patent"),
U.S. Patent No. 7,644,376 ("the '376 patent"),
U.S. Patent No. 5,664,133 ("the '133 patent"),
U.S. Patent No. 6,578,054 ("the '054 patent"), and
U.S. Patent No. 6,370,566 ("the '566 patent") (collectively, "the Microsoft Patents"),

The first patent listed: U.S. Patent No. 5,579,517 ("the '517 patent"), entitled "Common Name Space for Long and Short Filenames," is expiring in 2013. It's basically what others have coined the FAT patent, since it could technically be used against anything and everything that uses the FAT file system.

In any case, that patent is probably not even going to last until 2013. Since Microsoft attacked Tom Tom with it, plenty of prior art examples have already been found and submitted to the USPTO for review. I don't have the time to look up the rest of them, perhaps someone else could do it. Here is the list (extracted from Microsoft's complaint in PDF format).

U.S. Patent No. 5,579,517 ("the '517 patent"),
U.S. Patent No. 5,758,352 ("the '352 patent"),
U.S. Patent No. 6,621,746 ("the '746 patent"),
U.S. Patent No. 6,826,762 ("the '762 patent"),
U.S. Patent No. 6,909,910 ("the '910 patent"),
U.S. Patent No. 7,644,376 ("the '376 patent"),
U.S. Patent No. 5,664,133 ("the '133 patent"),
U.S. Patent No. 6,578,054 ("the '054 patent"),
and U.S. Patent No. 6,370,566 ("the '566 patent") (collectively, "the Microsoft Patents"),

What's "legal" about Microsoft?! Convicted multiple times in anti-trust actions. Never out of the courts. Lost thousands of smaller cases.

Gates hasn't got an honest bone in his body, all his reputation laundering notwithstanding.

(Un)fortunately, the specific 'non-free' enhancements seem to be excluded. Groklaw has the inside:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100928224103271

Make what you will out of it, but OOXML may stay an outcast in Open^WLibreOffice for the foreseeable future.

Groklaw has mention of the event, too:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100916121940186

sure do. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100904101642564

note that it shows a: the antitrust links and b: why anyone can make a google search engine by their own choice

Really, why should google ever publish the "how we do our job"? that's not their job, and it's not microsoft, and it's not anyone's.

Really, then why are 'open source' supporters constantly on Microsoft's case for NOT publishing their "how we do it" documentation? Once again, the old proverb, " Be careful what you wish for" has come into play.

I read articles for and against Microsoft, in and out of Groklaw. As far as I can tell, the evidence is against Microsoft and that body of evidence identifying Microsoft as a bad player in the market is rather overwhelming. I don't see Groklaw or Google trying to "cut off the air supply" of Microsoft as Microsoft has done to so many others.

Do you have any credible evidence that Microsoft is not engaged in a legal proxy war against competitors like Google? Is there any credible source willing to say that Microsoft is really trying to play nice with everyone else? Is there any source willing to call Groklaw a smear campaign? Maybe these awards don't really count.

I haven't seen one credible source yet that would disagree. Perhaps you could point me to one. When Microsoft is willing to make better products rather than sue their competition to oblivion (or threaten to do so), by proxy or itself, I might be convinced otherwise.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100904101642564

Or did they break the story?

Link to Groklaw:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100904101642564

sure do. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100904101642564

note that it shows a: the antitrust links and b: why anyone can make a google search engine by their own choice

Really, why should google ever publish the "how we do our job"? that's not their job, and it's not microsoft, and it's not anyone's.

Wednesday, November 11 2009, "Microsoft Patents Sudo?!!"

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091111094923390

imo, the reality is that one of Microsoft's major contributions to business is the questionable exploitation of the far fringes of business legalities.

Ximian, now Novell, did fork OO.o...

Microsoft's partner Novell forked the code because they are putting toxic elements that are unacceptable to the community at large. Novell is acting as Microshat's proxy to poison the code pool. They weren't allowed to shit in the core project so they made fork and are polluting that. I would say use at your own risk but by you using it, you make computing worse for the rest of us. So don't use anything from Novell.

Novell is putting one trojan horse after another into their fork on behalf of Microsoft. That's where the docx and vba turds are coming from. Even if only strategy rather than the technical and licensing inferiority are not enough to eschew Novell's fork, OpenDocument Format is the future as are scripting languages Javascript and Python. Upgrading to OpenOffice.org and carrying VBA baggage with just guarantees that the systems are out of date before they are deployed. That goes double for the file format, especially since the public sector around the world has been moving back to open formats and naming OpenDocument Format specifically along with HTML and PDF.

Quantity of work is not the same as quality, and goals and licensing are yet another pair of separate factors.

Ximian, now Novell, did fork OO.o...

Microsoft's partner Novell forked the code because they are putting toxic elements that are unacceptable to the community at large. Novell is acting as Microshat's proxy to poison the code pool. They weren't allowed to shit in the core project so they made fork and are polluting that. I would say use at your own risk but by you using it, you make computing worse for the rest of us. So don't use anything from Novell.

Novell is putting one trojan horse after another into their fork on behalf of Microsoft. That's where the docx and vba turds are coming from. Even if only strategy rather than the technical and licensing inferiority are not enough to eschew Novell's fork, OpenDocument Format is the future as are scripting languages Javascript and Python. Upgrading to OpenOffice.org and carrying VBA baggage with just guarantees that the systems are out of date before they are deployed. That goes double for the file format, especially since the public sector around the world has been moving back to open formats and naming OpenDocument Format specifically along with HTML and PDF.

Quantity of work is not the same as quality, and goals and licensing are yet another pair of separate factors.

Java: Microsoft did not develop .Net, until Sun sued them for license issues, effectively stopping them developing on Java. ... and others.

This is what Microsoft tried to do to Sun to get rid of their Java: Embrace -- Extend -- Extinguish
This is the sworn expert testimony in court in case Comes vs Microsoft of a mr. Ronald Alepin on 5 january 2007, about Microsoft's strategy in 1995: Groklaw transcript of Comes vs Microsoft document (page down a bit for the transcript).
(please read the whole thing for yourself. this quote here on /. is too short to really inform).

...
Q. Before I do this, though, sir, in relation to Microsoft's employment of Java and use of Java, when you testified about Microsoft's Java interface extensions --
A. Yes.
Q. -- do those interface extensions tie the applets or applications to the Windows operating system?
A. They tie them. Another phrase is they bind the applications or they lock them into the Windows platform. That's correct.
Q. Okay. Thank you, sir.

It's long ago, but maybe it can still be illuminating to read if you care about Microsoft's plans with their .NET platform and interoperability e.g. with Mono (I personally don't use .NET so I don't care, but your comment "..until Sun sued them for license issues.." nagged me as only partially true :-).

To answer your counter-points specifically....

The back stab I was referring to for OS/2 wasn't Windows NT but rather Windows 95. As per the documentation put forward by IBM in the USA Vs Microsoft case ... and Microsoft eventually settled with IBM for the damage they caused them:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2005070114163052

Fortunately IBM, of course, were large enough to survive that.

Microsoft actually contracted with Spyglass to provide a royalty form Internet Explorer revenue in order to use Mosaic as a base... Microsoft then gave the product away free and therefore skipped out on said royalties. They eventually had to pay Spyglass a settlement for this action but not before sufficient damage was done and teh company did not survive - being bought out by OpenTV in 2000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc.

With Java Microsoft contracted with Sun to write their own Java VM for the Windows platform. They then added interfaces to the java.* namespace and changed behaviour in this namespace. As a consequence things written for Sun's Java would not run properly due to changes in what was expected to be standard and things written for Microsoft's Java VM were not likely to run in Sun's one. The issue came to a head since Microsoft used the Java name and logos... Note that Microsoft would have been okay if they had used their own microsoft.* or similar namespace... but then that would have made Sun's VM the preferred write once run anywhere target. Sun survived this and the result was Windows XP SP1a and the removal of the MS Java VM. Microsoft were free to continue to develop MS Java VM if they actually stuck to the specs... instead they produced .Net and C#.

I'll let you google the references for that one yourself ;)

It may be hip to hit on Microsoft on Slashdot... however there are occasions they deserve it (just as there are occasions they do not). I put it to you that the highlights I've picked from the past 10-15 years are points against them... and are far from an exhaustive list.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100815110101756

Just read the first few paragraphs of this and it's 2:30 here... time for bed. But I got as far as what eerily described Sun's suit against Microsoft so long ago.

Sun sued Microsoft successfully for their embrace and extend of Java. They claimed it damaged the Java dream of single binaries that run everywhere. Most of us on slashdot agree with that notion as a Microsoft version of Java would make Sun's Java appear broken due to their huge distribution model.

Now we have Sun (Oracle America) making claims against Google. Not that they are violating a license or agreement, but in spirit may contain the same basic drives as described in the Groklaw article. "New-Sun" is, perhaps, trying to do what "Sun" did before -- successfully take down a giant a step or two. After all, what were the end results of Sun v. Microsoft?

"PJ: Well. It's for patent and copyright infringement. And guess who is representing Oracle Morrison & Foerster and Boies Schiller. I take it the latter have decided to learn from the masters. But this is really, really sad on so many levels. Also puzzling. Since Sun released Java under the GPL, how can anyone be sued for anything like this? The complaint doesn't make that clear, saying just that Google has no license, so for sure we'll be watching this litigation. So we'll have to wait until Google answers the complaint to get a clearer picture."

Groklaw

Is the GPL even relevant here?

Is the Android Java platform even derived from Sun's GPL'd code? If so, under what version of the GPL was Sun's code released? AFAIK GPLv2 wouldn't preclude a patent-related lawsuit.

And does the Sun's release of the Java source code allow use of the Java name? If Google is calling their platform "Java" or "Java-compatible", they may be bound by the license that Oracle is claiming.

"PJ: Well. It's for patent and copyright infringement. And guess who is representing Oracle Morrison & Foerster and Boies Schiller. I take it the latter have decided to learn from the masters. But this is really, really sad on so many levels. Also puzzling. Since Sun released Java under the GPL, how can anyone be sued for anything like this? The complaint doesn't make that clear, saying just that Google has no license, so for sure we'll be watching this litigation. So we'll have to wait until Google answers the complaint to get a clearer picture."
Groklaw

>Oh, I'm sorry - I thought you were a programmer, not just a code monkey who relies on includes. I can see that we're really not going to get anywhere talking about software patenting, since you're not involved in innovating. Cheers, and watch that blood pressure.

I am a programmer - and that's why I know this. My skills is in how I put the pieces together - there is no such thing as a new algorithm and if you think you wrote one you're just too stupid to know that we've all done it before. Reality is algorithms are like lego blocks, there's about 20 of them in total - but they can fit together in a million different ways to make a billion different things.
Fact: NO non trivial program can POSSIBLY be written without violating patents. NONE AT ALL.

See, software really IS just math. There are GOOD reasons why math is unpatentable and the fiasco that is software patents is just those same reasons- because that is ALL software is. There is NO such thing as innovation or invention in software according to the legal definitions - there is only discovery.
There is also a major creative aspect as you apply the discoveries but that is not invention.

Now how about before you reply - you inform yourself with this wonderful introduction to algorithmic theory - written so lawyers can understand it:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091111151305785

It's all simple, verifiable and easily checkable facts - impossible to fake. And it means - I'm right and you're wrong. Software is maths and software innovation is a contradiction in terms. You can only DISCOVER new maths, you cannot invent it.

PJ tried to bury? dude you are asinine, by far.

Originally, from Groklaw: "So, why doesn't Florian and the folks he is lobbying for release the earlier letter from Bowler, in which he apparently expressed that he was unaware that "IBM has intellectual property rights in this area"? This letter, then is addressing that expression and responding to it with incredulity. The list is to show Bowler that, indeed, IBM has rights that it believes TurboHercules would infringe if it goes forward, and I see that IBM is saying that the infringement is not just patents. That's how I understand this sentence: "Apart from concerns about unauthorized use of proprietary IBM information by one or more TurboHercules contributors, IBM therefore has substantial concerns about infringement of patented IBM technology." So patents are not the whole story, from IBM's point of view. The letter, then, was a refusal letter, letting Bowler know that IBM's answer to what was evidently a request that IBM alter its position was no, it would not. And it's essentially implying that Bowler couldn't really be unaware of IBM's rights, that IBM simply did not believe they didn't know, but if they didn't, here's a list of patents, and by the way that is not the only issue IBM had with their plan, which IBM was not agreeable to. Now go back and read again what Florian wrote. Seriously."

Go read http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=2010041107355659 as well.

Note the florian/TH involvement.

PJ tried to bury? dude you are asinine, by far.

Originally, from Groklaw: "So, why doesn't Florian and the folks he is lobbying for release the earlier letter from Bowler, in which he apparently expressed that he was unaware that "IBM has intellectual property rights in this area"? This letter, then is addressing that expression and responding to it with incredulity. The list is to show Bowler that, indeed, IBM has rights that it believes TurboHercules would infringe if it goes forward, and I see that IBM is saying that the infringement is not just patents. That's how I understand this sentence: "Apart from concerns about unauthorized use of proprietary IBM information by one or more TurboHercules contributors, IBM therefore has substantial concerns about infringement of patented IBM technology." So patents are not the whole story, from IBM's point of view. The letter, then, was a refusal letter, letting Bowler know that IBM's answer to what was evidently a request that IBM alter its position was no, it would not. And it's essentially implying that Bowler couldn't really be unaware of IBM's rights, that IBM simply did not believe they didn't know, but if they didn't, here's a list of patents, and by the way that is not the only issue IBM had with their plan, which IBM was not agreeable to. Now go back and read again what Florian wrote. Seriously."

Go read http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=2010041107355659 as well.

Note the florian/TH involvement.

Let me quote from Groklaw: "This TomTom litigation is an attack on Linux, and it will be vigorously treated as such. Period."

Not an attack on one company, an attack on Linux itself! Yet somehow when it's IBM attacking a commercial company selling open source software by claiming that software's illegal to use, it's not an attack on the open source project.

> blinders on how?

Well, she has censored certain facts (and anyone who tried to discuss them on Groklaw). Like when she deleted a post showing that Red Hat is a CCIA member, or the PDF to text of the four letters between TH and IBM (formerly available as the parent of this post, but that link will just give you a blank page). Somehow, she STILL makes it out that TH brought this upon themselves when IBM FUDed them in letter 2 by raising the specter of Hercules itself being an "infringing platform", when all TH had asked prior to that was if it was possible to do business with them. But letters 3 and 4 came out first, so it's understandable that many people are confused.

Then she has an awful lot of hate for Florian personally and anyone else who tries to correct her. In fact, she's downright nasty when she disagrees. That's how AllParadox left. Nobody is free to disagree with her. You can be polite and well-mannered as you wish. You can cite facts and sources. But she'll just disappear them if she disagrees. And she's removed more than a few accounts, like on this story, where you can see that she would delete the account of someone who is only trying to help. Ask yourself: if that person was really a troll, why would they be contributing to Groklaw? Exactly what did their account get deleted for? Can you imagine the people who post Goatse here turning over a new leaf and deciding to help the site? But Slashdot uses transparent moderation: you know if you're at -1 or not. But you won't even know you've been moderated on Groklaw unless you know how her invisible moderation works: I can still see my own posts, but nobody else can (unless they replied before I got vanished). You have to use a proxy or something to see if your posts still exist.

That would be great if she were moderating the Goatse guy out of existence. But exactly why is it necessary to vanish someone who gives citations proving that many of her facts are in error? Shouldn't Groklaw post ALL the facts? And AllParadox isn't the only person to question her censorship of people merely for disagreeing.

This isn't new. It's been going on for ages. Plenty Groklaw supporters have gotten fed up. Or are you going to accuse several people who have written for Groklaw, moderated for Groklaw, and promoted Groklaw on Slashdot of all being anti-Groklaw trolls?

That's what she does, right? The only way someone could disagree with her is if they were paid to or if they're trolling, at least in her mind. Never mind the fact that I can find plenty of people who have worked closely with her only to get fed up. Yeah, I knew her. Her real email (past the filter) is pj2@groklaw.net (she can change it again if she wants to).

But I guess she can call all this "trolling." As we all know, anyone who disagrees with her is a troll. It doesn't matter how much they try to cite their sources or argue that something is a mistake. No, if they disagree, they're clearly being paid by someone or something or question her. But it's always okay when she speculates wildly about people's motives.

Just for the record, lest people accuse me of holding all sorts of beliefs that I do not hold, I say that Darl & SCO can die in a fire as far as I'm concerned. I believe that PJ is a real person (a retired paralegal in Connecticut, if I'm not mistak

> blinders on how?

Well, she has censored certain facts (and anyone who tried to discuss them on Groklaw). Like when she deleted a post showing that Red Hat is a CCIA member, or the PDF to text of the four letters between TH and IBM (formerly available as the parent of this post, but that link will just give you a blank page). Somehow, she STILL makes it out that TH brought this upon themselves when IBM FUDed them in letter 2 by raising the specter of Hercules itself being an "infringing platform", when all TH had asked prior to that was if it was possible to do business with them. But letters 3 and 4 came out first, so it's understandable that many people are confused.

Then she has an awful lot of hate for Florian personally and anyone else who tries to correct her. In fact, she's downright nasty when she disagrees. That's how AllParadox left. Nobody is free to disagree with her. You can be polite and well-mannered as you wish. You can cite facts and sources. But she'll just disappear them if she disagrees. And she's removed more than a few accounts, like on this story, where you can see that she would delete the account of someone who is only trying to help. Ask yourself: if that person was really a troll, why would they be contributing to Groklaw? Exactly what did their account get deleted for? Can you imagine the people who post Goatse here turning over a new leaf and deciding to help the site? But Slashdot uses transparent moderation: you know if you're at -1 or not. But you won't even know you've been moderated on Groklaw unless you know how her invisible moderation works: I can still see my own posts, but nobody else can (unless they replied before I got vanished). You have to use a proxy or something to see if your posts still exist.

That would be great if she were moderating the Goatse guy out of existence. But exactly why is it necessary to vanish someone who gives citations proving that many of her facts are in error? Shouldn't Groklaw post ALL the facts? And AllParadox isn't the only person to question her censorship of people merely for disagreeing.

This isn't new. It's been going on for ages. Plenty Groklaw supporters have gotten fed up. Or are you going to accuse several people who have written for Groklaw, moderated for Groklaw, and promoted Groklaw on Slashdot of all being anti-Groklaw trolls?

That's what she does, right? The only way someone could disagree with her is if they were paid to or if they're trolling, at least in her mind. Never mind the fact that I can find plenty of people who have worked closely with her only to get fed up. Yeah, I knew her. Her real email (past the filter) is pj2@groklaw.net (she can change it again if she wants to).

But I guess she can call all this "trolling." As we all know, anyone who disagrees with her is a troll. It doesn't matter how much they try to cite their sources or argue that something is a mistake. No, if they disagree, they're clearly being paid by someone or something or question her. But it's always okay when she speculates wildly about people's motives.

Just for the record, lest people accuse me of holding all sorts of beliefs that I do not hold, I say that Darl & SCO can die in a fire as far as I'm concerned. I believe that PJ is a real person (a retired paralegal in Connecticut, if I'm not mistak

Here is some facts and opinion from Groklaw, at least on the TurboHercules part.

Groklaw
Digging a Little Deeper into TurboHercules/IBM - OpenMainframe.org and Microsoft

Despite the fact that PJ probably has a few blinders at work when opining on IBM I believe this to be relevant considering
Florian's seemingly diametrically opposed (to PJ's that is) opinions on IBM...

I'm curious, is there a precedent for a third company pressuring Dell to drop Linux, under threat of retaliation?

"We should whack them, we should make sure they understand our value .. I want them to understand that every day they lead with Linux over Windows in Unix migrations they turn our field against them (take the southeast region mail thread as an example). I want them to think very very carefully about when and which forums they decide to push Linux very, very hard. Today, they do not. When they do, you can bet, behavior will evolve"

"HP discontinued its Linux SKUs beginning on November 18th. This is based on joint marketing effort that spans six months to promote low cost Windows SKU's with $30 extra channel incentives that focus on white box resellers"

It'll be interesting watching the MicroAstroturfers try and put a positive spin on the above statements.

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/1872/dellbeforeafter.png

"Meanwhile"? Unless you've got a very broad definition of that word, I think I have to disagree. Business method patents came in with State Street back in '98. And while this year's SC decision in Bilski didn't go as far as many (including me) might have hoped, it did actually cut back quite a bit on what's patentable. See, for example, this Groklaw article on a post-Bilsk software patent rejection.

I think a better statement might be, "meanwhile, in the US, the way for business method patents has been only partially blocked."

See here why that doesn't matter.

As AC points out, I WAS talking in my first reply about whether or not SCOG could be said to own the code, not on the fact of copying or derivation from anywhere.

I'd add another point to your list of So:
-Even if they owned the code and even if some lines of it were infringed and even if Novell's waiver doesn't hold, SCOG went on distributing *the same code* under the GPL for years after they started suing folk (IBM, Novell, Autozone, RedHat...).

I've got a licence for the Linux kernel from Caldera/SCOG already. As SCOG's lawyer said in his summing up for the jury trial in Utah, SCOSource is gone and it can't be resurrected.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100326184700459

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100627122353935

http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/iowa/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/8000/PX08593.pdf

But now, thanks to a volunteer working on doing the exhibits in the Comes v. Microsoft antitrust litigation as text, we find an email thread in Exhibit 8953 [PDF] where Microsoft employees, including the managing director of Microsoft in India at the time, mention SCO in a discussion about heading off the Linux threat in India. The emails are dated September 11, 2002. Given the date, I believe this opens up the question of Microsoft's involvement once again.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100627122353935

http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/iowa/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/8000/PX08593.pdf

But now, thanks to a volunteer working on doing the exhibits in the Comes v. Microsoft antitrust litigation as text, we find an email thread in Exhibit 8953 [PDF] where Microsoft employees, including the managing director of Microsoft in India at the time, mention SCO in a discussion about heading off the Linux threat in India. The emails are dated September 11, 2002. Given the date, I believe this opens up the question of Microsoft's involvement once again.

Yes, the SYSV ELF interface was published and promoted by the Santa Cruz Operation (not The SCO Group) for use in other operating systems, see the Declaration of Ulrich Drepper (PDF) in the SCO v IBM case. OldSCO talked Red Hat into adding Elf code to Linux, now NewSCO wants to sue because it's there.