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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?
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.
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.
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.