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Interviews: Ask Florian Mueller About Software Patents and Copyrights
Florian Mueller is a blogger, software developer and former consultant who writes about software patents and copyright issues on his FOSSPatents blog. In 2004 he founded the NoSoftwarePatents campaign, and has written about Microsoft's multi-billion-dollar Android patent licensing business and Google's appeal of Oracle's Android-Java copyright case to the Supreme Court. Florian has agreed to give us some of his time in order to answer your questions. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.
I really can't think of anything I would want to ask Florian Muller. Except maybe how much Microsoft and Oracle pay him to shill?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
You were a valuable unbiased source of information on software patents and patent litigation. Particularly the German court's struggle with them. However it came to light -- in a rather surprising way -- that you were paid or possibly employed by Microsoft and Oracle. I have heard much about this and it often casts a negative light on your blogging but I would like to hear your side of these relationships. I can conceivably understand how you could accept money that furthers your ideals but it is difficult to comprehend how I can be assured this does not influence your writing, position, selected details and bias. Are you able to lay my concerns to rest?
My work here is dung.
You write about companies. Some of them have paid you (directly or perhaps indirectly through their advertising agencies, etc). What's the intersection of that set?
Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
Oracle paid him (disclosed by Oracle under court order) while he was blogging in support of them. He admits to having been paid by Microsoft in the past.
Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
Who's idea was it to do this Q&A - Slashdot or you?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Holy crap, I can hardly believe this topic. Who in their right mind would want FM opinion on anything? This is really puzzling to me.
"better ways of doing things eventually just replace the inferior things" - Linus Torvalds 09-08-07
Things that people with short memories will have forgotten by now since they happened all of three years ago. Detailed summaries of his doing can still be found on Groklaw though.
You see, mr. Mueller is not just *any* publicist. He's a publicist who is, basically, for hire by large companies to provide a congenial account of their doings and their position. In short: he is a lobbyist. His (former) clients seem to include SCO (the company who tried to claim crippling copyrights on Linux and engaged in an intense campaign of legal blackmail aimed at companies using Linux) and one of his current clients seems to be Oracle (the company that reied to shut down Android by claiming copyright on Java library API's).
As summarised by the following posts:
http://www.groklaw.net/article...
http://www.dailytech.com/Top+A...
http://techrights.org/2010/08/...
My only question to him would be: who is on your current client list?
Did you read groklaw.net and what do you think about it, e.g. do you admit that it's predictions were mostly more accurate than yours and did you look at the cases where your opinion was painted as clearly wrong there?
Is there anyone out there who you think would be even less well received by the slashdot audience than you? If so, who?
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Who (or how many parties) paid you to do a Q&A on Slashdot?
Thanks
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
The only question I have isn't for Florian, it's who on earth thought it would be a good idea to throw him into the lions den because he's not welcomed here.
The only reason I can think of doing an Ask is so that shills can ask questions to legitimise him in an otherwise very vocal and Florian-hostile community:
"Florian, why is it you spend so much time helping the Open Source world and spreading the Lord's work to the unwashed masses?" +5 Insightful
"I've been a heathen all my life until I read your completely unbiased and thorough articles on Microsoft/Oracle practices. Will you please continue your quest to educate us?" +5 Informative
A hundred and twenty characters ought to be enough for anyone...
Being a complete shill for positions and companies that hurt the software world, how do you live with yourself? And why haven't you just jumped off a bridge yet?
And Slashdot, WTF are you doing giving the time of day to this tool?
Whoops, I guess that's three questions.
When it was clear that Judge Alsup in Oracle vs Google can program Java, how the *#*# could you still think Oracle would get its huge victory? Do you understand that you look like a shill for such things?
Any commenter that knows about programming said in this very moment that this will become a monumental defeat for Oracle, only you still believed in Oracle (you were very wrong as we know).
It was so funny when the Judge explained that any teenager could program a range check [bool check(val, min, max) {return val >= min && val <= max;}] and the Oracle lawyer looked like a complete idiot.
What's it like being a giant douche bag who will do anything for money?
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Why spend 3 to 4 years studying computer science just to realise at the end, that everything patentable in software has been patented (from the truly stupid, trivial to non-trivial ideas) and big firms holding the patents have been and are doing so for decades and decades!! For innovation's sake and to tell university student that they have a future in this sector, isn't it time to shorten the life of software patents or ban them all together?
He was never a valuable source for anything, which is why it was shocking to find out he became a paid shill. Who would pay for that crap writing?
How many times have you contacted news and commentary organisations to correct their description of you as a patent lawyer? How often have they made the correction?
Is this April 1st already? No? Then why is this cruel joke being played on the Slashdot community?
Most of us remember who and what Florian Mueller is. And there is nothing we can learn about him or from him, in an interview, that we don't already know.
How much money was /. paid, and by whom, to sponsor a Q&A with Florian Mueller?
Hi Florian,
Thanks for being interviewed on Slashdot.
Could you please give us an estimate, if you have one, of how much innovation has been destroyed by patent trolls? Also, if you happen to know, how many startups?
Thanks
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Dear Florian,
What can we do to make you go away?
Slashdot, obviously, has to innovate in order to stay current. Thus, they are now taking the next step after "Anonymous Cowards". The new "Identified Troll" feature will include interviews of people who have prostituted their personal credibility to some company's calculated disinformation campaign.
Bruce Perens.
Yes, this is definitely a "WTF?" moment in the history of Slashdot. I suggest that you all just move on to the next story and refuse to feed the troll by asking him questions.
Bruce Perens.
As an independent software developer, how can I avoid getting dragged into a patent lawsuit? How can I leverage my rights to ensure others aren't exploiting my patents?
You can't.
A patent is just a license to sue.
It licenses others to sue you if they think you might be infringing their stuff (or they can get you to pay them to go away even if you aren't). It licenses you to sue others who are infringing your patents. That's all it is.
If you want protection for your creations, you have to be ready to put on the armor and walk into the arena to defend them.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You were a valuable unbiased source of information on software patents and patent litigation.
In a parallel universe, perhaps.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
"You were a valuable unbiased source of information on software patent"
No he wasn't. Not then and not now. He has always been a paid shill representing himself as an expert, independent and reliable. He has never been any of those. He is the Internet meme for dishonest paid shills.
To Florian: How does scum like yourself look in the mirror and not vomit?
This is my first reply here because I can easily clarify the question of why, when and how disclosures were made and address some misconceptions.
The "court order" mentioned above came down in August 2012, see e.g. http://www.cnet.com/news/judge-to-oracle-google-did-you-pay-off-bloggers/, approximately four months after a voluntary, proactive disclosure I had made in April 2012, see http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/04/oracle-v-google-trial-evidence-of.html#oracledisclosure. Oracle attached that previous disclosure to its response to the court order:
I disclosed consulting work for Microsoft in October 2011, see http://www.fosspatents.com/2011/10/study-on-worldwide-use-of-frand.html. At that point, no judge had asked for a disclosure, nor has this happened to date. I did it because it was the right thing to do.
At the end of last month I shut down my consulting firm in order to focus on my (Android and iOS) app development project. I'm still blogging, but less than before.
My consulting business had served numerous clients, not just Microsoft and Oracle. There were dozens of investment banks and funds who paid me to answer questions or participate in conference calls. I also did research for a couple of law firms and a German car manufacturer (that company allows me to refer to them like this but not to disclose the name, just industry and country).
I wish all others commenting on these types of issues were equally transparent.
Slashdot invited me and I was happy to accept. I know there are some misconceptions out there, but that doesn't have to prevent me from sharing opinions and information on more important issues.
Oracle "retained" Florian Müller as a consultant ref. Groklaw answering Florian Mueller FUD ref ref.
You may or may not be surprised, but despite various disagreements over the years I'd have liked Groklaw to continue or, after its 2013 shutdown, to have come back. For example, I think Groklaw could have made some useful contributions to the public debate over this year's Apple v. Samsung trial in the Northern District of California. Also, I do regret some of my derogatory comments about PJ, including that I wondered at some point whether there was more than one person behind the PJ name. Earlier this year I met a highly trustworthy source (a corporate executive) who confirmed PJ's participation in a certain (patent-related) meeting years ago.
The part I don't understand is how Groklaws "predictions were mostly more accurate than [mine]" or "[my] opinion was painted as clearly wrong there." With respect to approximately 98% of the IP lawsuits I covered, Groklaw never made any prediction whatsoever (for example, you won't find any Groklaw prediction concerning German smartphone patent disputes, and very few relating to U.S. smartphone patent cases). The overlap essentially came down to API copyright matters: the use of Linux kernel headers in Android and the API copyright part of Oracle v. Google. While Groklaw's position on API copyright was shared by one district judge in California, my opinion was unanimously validated by three circuit (i.e., higher-level) judges in Washington DC this year. Now Google is trying to take that case to the Supreme Court. Any conspiracy theory concerning the opinions I had expressed about API copyrightability in general and the API copyright part of Oracle v. Google in particular makes no sense unless someone is crazy enough to believe that those Federal Circuit judges are part of the conspiracy.
The fact that the only Judge involved who actually understands programming didn't just dismiss Oracle's allegations out of hand, he ridiculed them. How many of the programmers you refer to are also Judges who actually understand copyright law?
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
Doesn't change the fact that you for years let people believe you were a patent lawyer when you were never a lawyer, and even encouraged such misperceptions.
Doesn't change the fact that you shilled for years, pushing all sorts of bogus "patent claims by microsoft that threaten linux" when they never existed.
Doesn't change the fact that you simply are not perceived as being even half-way honest by those who have been around the block a few times - with reason.
We've had this discussion before. You were caught misrepresenting yourself and your history too many times. And now you must be getting desperate, delusional, or both, because for some reason you believe that doing a Q and A on slashdot won't once more expose your BS to the light. Wow. You're google-bombing yourself. Again. Payback is a b*tch.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.