Microsoft does not believe there is an inherent contradiction between its recent statements that free and open-source software infringes on 235 of its patents, and the veiled legal threats that go along with that, and its attempts to reach out and build bridges with the open-source community. "In fact, one makes the other possible, especially at a time like this, when interoperability is so important. Microsoft recognizes the importance of interoperability, which is why we are doing the things we are in our products, why we created the Interoperability Executive Customer Council, and why we are listening to customers," said Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's vice president of intellectual property and licensing.
Customers did not want to have to solve this problem themselves, they wanted industry leaders, their vendors, to solve the interoperability problem for them, he said. "The only way that's possible is for companies to really be open to licensing arrangements and building these bridges that people thought were impossible before, among different providers and among different software development models," he said. In a recent interview with Fortune, Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, claimed that the Linux kernel violated 42 of its patents, the Linux graphical user interfaces ran afoul of another 65, the Open Office suite of programs infringed 45 more, e-mail programs violated 15, while other assorted free and open-source programs allegedly transgress 68. While Gutierrez acknowledged that he could see how someone could believe by reading the Fortune story that there was some kind of change in Microsoft's position on these issues, that was not the case. "Microsoft has not changed its stance. We have worked very hard for more than three years to build a constructive solution to this problem, and that is the IP bridge we have built with Novell and which we have entered into with Samsung and Fuji Xerox and that we are working very hard on building with other people in the future. That is our approach, and it is precisely the approach that customers have asked us to implement," he said. While some customers on Microsoft's interoperability council, like Lt. Gen. Ulrich Wolf, director of the NATO NCSA (Communication and Information Systems Services Agency) based near Mons, Belgium, have no doubts about Microsoft's commitment to interoperability and are unconcerned about the ongoing patent and IP debate with the open-source community, others like Daniel Gasparro, the chief technologist for information services at global consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, based in McLean, Va., are disturbed by the recent moves.
Microsoft promised that Windows Vista would usher in a new era for PC gaming as a part of "The WOW Starts Now" marketing campaign. After spending several weeks with a complimentary copy of Microsoft's new operating system (Ultimate version), we say: "WOW, what was Microsoft thinking?"
As an everyday operating system, Microsoft has a winner. The stunning new look and the Aero interface (while functionality worthless) screams "Sci-Fi movie." The integrated sidebar allows for an assortment of useful (and not so useful) widgets and the OS simplifies many of the more laborious computing tasks (like hooking into a home network). The first few weeks were sketchy, with numerous appearances by the "Blue Screen of Death," oddball crashes, and an abnormal assortment of bizarre glitches, but things have improved dramatically over the last few weeks, making for a much more stable environment.
Promoted as a renaissance gaming platform, and so far, our experience with Vista falls so far short of a "gaming platform" it's laughable. In its current state Vista requires far too many manual tweaks to get games, hardware and peripherals to function properly. Sure XP was riddled with flaws in the early days, but XP wasn't touted as the savior of PC gaming.
Take, for instance, Cryptic Studio's City of… games. Gamers must manually alter the executable start file to get the in-game cursor to work properly. Worse, this "fix" can only be found in the game's official forums. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. also forces gamers to wade through unreliable Internet forums to find a fix that will get this fantastic hybrid shooter to work. Even after spending the better part of a day attempting to get it to run for longer than five minutes, we gave up in sheer exasperation. City of Heroes has been out since 2004. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has been in development for several years. Both of these games should run flawlessly on Vista, and they don't.
The server market is back, and Linux is helping, IDC reports. Linux servers posted their second consecutive quarter of double-digit growth and now represent 12.7 percent of the overall server market, or $1.6 billion for the first quarter of 2007.
The latest quarter was a good one for servers in general. Factory revenue in the worldwide server market grew 4.9 percent year-over-year, to $12.4 billion for the latest quarter. This is the fourth consecutive quarter of positive revenue growth and the highest Q1 server revenue since 2001, IDC said.
“The server market continues to experience solid growth as businesses of all types look to enhanced IT capabilities in order to help drive additional business efficiency, improved customer satisfaction, and accelerated revenue growth,” said Matt Eastwood, IDC’s program VP of enterprise platforms in a statement.
After a week of extensive testing, the CRN Test Center found that users of Windows Vista and Windows XP are equally at risk to viruses and exploits and that overall Vista brings only marginal security advantages over XP.
One of Microsoft's big promises with Vista was a more secure operating system. But when stripped to the bare bones and thrown into the wild, wild Web, Vista's security failed to impress Test Center engineers.
Vista remains riddled with holes, despite its multilayer security architecture and embedded security tools. Besides providing no improvement in virus protection vs. XP, Vista brings little or no security gains over its predecessor against such threats as RDS exploits, script exploits, image exploits, VML exploits, malformed Web pages and known malicious URLs, the Test Center found.
Armed with two notebooks — an HP Compaq 6515b notebook running Windows Vista Business 32-bit Edition with the 256-bit encryption version of Internet Explorer 7 and an HP Compaq nc6400 running Windows XP with the 128-bit encryption version of Internet Explorer 6 — Test Center engineers probed both OSes with some of the most dangerous exploits known today.
To even the playing field, all of the HP ProtectTools Security Manager tools on both notebooks were shut down. None of the encryption tools and the password-protect options were initialized. In addition, HP's ProtectTools Application Protection Service was not activated. Only the default security features and settings on both OSes were kept.
The Test Center selected Finjan's RUSafe appliance to analyze all HTTP traffic going to both notebooks. RUSafe is more than just a sniffer; it can analyze code behavior and identify malicious files. Engineers used RUSafe's report engine to compare the OSes and, with the help of Finjan and other experts, visited several known hacker sites.
In an op-ed piece published by BusinessWeek today, Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin stated his organization will be ready to fund the legal efforts of anyone who produces Linux software who's threatened with – or sued on account of – patent infringement. If necessary, Zemlin writes, the foundation will use its own patent portfolio to mount countersuits.
It was hoped that the launch of Windows Vista would see a rush of people splurging their cash on new PCs to take advantage of the shiny new interface. But that’s not the case, according to one industry analyst.
In fact, market research firm In-Stat reckons the demand for new PCs has not been significantly affected by the release of Microsoft's latest operating system.
Although a short term rise in PC sales did occur, In-Stat’s bods reckon this was because customers delayed buying new kit until the operating system was launched.
“System sales that had been muted waiting for systems pre-loaded with Vista rather than XP are expected to work through sales channels in the next two quarters," said Ian Lao, an analyst at In-Stat.
I bought the domain name HeyMicrosoftSueMe.org at the suggestion of Marcel Gagné after posting a blog entry on the topic. The idea was to ask Linux users to join me in calling Microsoft's bluff. Let's get the patent infringement claims tried in court and get this over with. Several people talked me out of it. Fortunately, a lawyer named Christian Einfeldt had the same idea and followed through. Here's a copy of Marcel's entry on the topic from his own blog, with a link to the "Sue me first Microsoft list" in case you want to add your own name. Christof, if you're reading this, you're welcome to the domain name HeyMicrosoftSueMe.org.
“2) That ‘Linux is a Cancer’ Remark
“The Blunder:
“In a horrible case of foot-in-mouth that revealed deep fear behind a thin mask of disdain, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer compared Linux to cancer. Ouch!
“What Happened:
“In 2001, Microsoft was feeling embattled. The year before, in the case United States v. Microsoft, a federal court handed down a judgment declaring the company to be an ‘abusive monopolist.’ There was talk of breaking the corporation into smaller, component parts…”
Read more….
Microsoft tends to tout the release of a new operating system as an earth-shattering event, certain to change computing as we know it. Take the Jan. 29, 2007 launch of Windows Vista: "The launch marks the achievement of an unprecedented collaboration between Microsoft and its customers and partners, and ushers in an era in which personal computing is easier, safer and more enjoyable than ever before," trumpeted a press release. "Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 will transform the way people work and play," Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates gushed. "Windows Vista squarely address[es] the needs and aspirations of people around the globe."
The consumer and corporate world, however, has taken a less exalted view of Vista. That's according to a new report by market research firm In-Stat, which said that PC sales haven't been significantly impacted by Vista's release. Sales have remained steady and have followed the same trends they have for years, said Ian Lao, a senior In-Stat analyst and author of the report.
OSBC First you get everyone riled claiming open source and Linux infringe on your patents, then you won't detail those patents. Why? The paperwork.
Yes, Microsoft cited administrative overhead for not detailing the 235 Microsoft patents its chief legal counsel recently told Forbes exist in Linux and open source.
Click here to find out more!
Microsoft patents attorney Jim Markwith told OSBC it would be "impossible" for Redmond's bureaucrats to respond to the volume of responses that would result form disclosure. Also, apparently, it's ungentlemanly to name names.
"Most people who are familiar with patents know it's not standard operating procedure to list the patents," Markwith said. "The response of that would be administratively impossible to keep up with." Far better to rattle sabers instead.
He spoke up during an Open Source Business Conference (OSBC) panel where Microsoft's director of platform strategy Sam Ramji joined Novell's director of marketing for Linux and open platform solutions Justin Steinman to explain why their controversial sales, marketing, technology and patent agreement is beneficial for open source.
Steinman trotted out names and numbers he claimed proved the agreement is driving adoption of Linux and open source. These included deployment of 40,000 new Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) licenses, a 650 per cent growth in Novell's Linux business in the first quarter, and new customers including Walmart and Nationwide. Read more at the Register