Why ranting about Software patents doesn't seem appropriate this weekThis week has been a testing week for my home city of Sheffield, UK.We have experienced the worst floods in living memory when we had 1 month's rainfall in just one day on Monday. You forget that all the major cities around the world are built up around great rivers. It's these rivers that gave the names to many cities and helped them grow. There are 2 major rivers in Sheffield, the Sheaf and the Don along with a number of smaller rivers that empty into these. The Don also flows through Doncaster whilst the river Rother flows through Rotherham. All these flooded on Monday evening, turning main roads into rivers, flooding houses and business and causing wide spread devastation. It's nothing on the scale of New Orleans, but it brought home the power of nature and it hardly seemed appropriate to write a blog entry about software patents this week.If you want to know where Sheffield is, look at this map.If you want to see some pictures of the flooding, there are many on the BBC website sent in by residents:It's amazing that technology in people's pockets, on their phones, has helped to capture scenes which would have been impossible to capture only 10 years ago. The last great flood in Sheffield, caused by a dam erupting was in 1864. There are only sketchy eye-witness reports remaining and a few photos of the aftermath. That day 250 people died, and it still remains the worst 'natural' disaster in Britain since. Luckily, the response this time from the city's emergency crews were fantastic and must have prevented many deaths. Even so 2 people died in Sheffield on Monday.That evening it took some of my colleagues 6 hours to complete a 3 mile journey home. You don't realise that all the major roads are in the valleys and they were all flooded. Most of the riverside areas are so industrialised, that you forget the rivers exist until a day like that. One of my friends who was stuck in the traffic noted that for the most part there was only 1 person in each car and a handful on each bus. We bring some of the effects upon ourselves at times like this, and it is a stark reminder of the perils of over-urbanisation and of course, global climate change.There has been a number of power cuts affecting many areas of Sheffield for hours on end. I haven't been able to do anything at work as I depend solely on the use of computers to do my job. It just shows how useless we are without power and how little preparations we have made for these eventualities which must surely be on the increase.More rain is expected over the weekend, so there may be more flooding and disruption. The residents have remained characteristically stoical throughout this, but there's a limit to how much people can take. Here's hoping next week will bring better news.Why dealing with Microsoft could be the first nail in the open source coffinThere has been much written about the recent deals that Linux companies/distributions have made with Microsoft. I have already posted a number of my thoughts on the PCLinuxOS forum. Now I have had time to think more carefully about the deals, I thought I'd kick this blog page off with my conclusions.Let's just remind ourselves of the facts.Three companies that distribute Linux have made deals with Microsoft:1. Novell - who distribute SUSE Linux2. Xandros3. LinspireThere are seemingly two parts to the deals:1. An agreement to work on interoperability between Linux and Windows2. An agreement from Microsoft not to sue the distro or their customers if they ever bring legal proceedings against Linux or Open Source for infringing on 235 Microsoft patents.All 3 companies distribute a free and open source Linux distribution, but also ship a version of their distro that has to be paid for and significantly, Novell SLED and Xandros compete directly with Microsoft for the lucrative server market as well as the desktop market.Initially details on the interoperability pacts were sketchy when Novell first signed. More recently, Linspire have shed some light on this. Microsoft will license Linspire to use Microsoft codecs for Windows Media formats, for VoIP and fonts. In return Linspire will set MSN Live Search as its default search provider.Here's why this maybe the first nails in the Open Source coffin.Microsoft through it's corporate might, have pushed their media codecs onto the world. They are proprietary, protected by patents and heavily DRM'd. The goal of Linux should be to offer open source alternatives of proprietary formats. Of course, no open source format could be designed for DRM, but Linux should be pushing the OGG format heavily. Licensing Linux to use Windows Media 10 codecs, brings DRM to Open Source and the two do not sit comfortably side by side. It's a watershed for incorporating more and more proprietary formats into Linux. The same goes for fonts and VoIP technology. Licensing proprietary formats doesn't come cheap and leads distributions down a closed source dead-end with Microsoft calling the shots. Once the end-user cost for this closed-source distro comes near to Microsoft operating system prices, Linux becomes less of an alternative.Microsoft is supposedly working with Xandros on its Open XML document format for Office 12. Microsoft have never supported the Open Document Format and this is another way of getting Microsoft patented technology into every home and office on the planet. Microsoft are intent on edging out its old rival Sun Microsystems and Open Office before it makes any real dents in Microsoft's profit margin.Microsoft have never been afraid of fighting a court battle and losing. They have so much money and employ their own lawyers that whoever they fight will invariably drown in debt before a verdict is reached. Even so, if Microsoft continue dealing with Linux, they won't have to bring the patent deal to the judges in any case.All 3 Linux companies should have got behind the "show us the code" campaign instead.It's not about hating Microsoft for hate's sake. It's about protecting our freedom of choice and freedom of use. Microsoft already dominates the operating system market and office applications market. What will be left if they dominate media, internet and server markets too?Fighting these deals is about fighting for a more free information society where innovation is shared to everyone's benefit. Fighting these deals is fighting for the right for Open Source technology to be created in good will for the good of the end-user without having to worry about being sued. I see also that 3 major electronics companies that use Linux extensively n their mobile products have struck deals as well - samsung, fuji-xerox and LG. These companies have benefited heavily from free open source technology. The least they can do is give something back by supporting Linux at this difficult time.Please keep any comments clean. I am interested in furthering the debate not starting a flame war.
This week has been a testing week for my home city of Sheffield, UK.We have experienced the worst floods in living memory when we had 1 month's rainfall in just one day on Monday. You forget that all the major cities around the world are built up around great rivers. It's these rivers that gave the names to many cities and helped them grow. There are 2 major rivers in Sheffield, the Sheaf and the Don along with a number of smaller rivers that empty into these. The Don also flows through Doncaster whilst the river Rother flows through Rotherham. All these flooded on Monday evening, turning main roads into rivers, flooding houses and business and causing wide spread devastation. It's nothing on the scale of New Orleans, but it brought home the power of nature and it hardly seemed appropriate to write a blog entry about software patents this week.If you want to know where Sheffield is, look at this map.If you want to see some pictures of the flooding, there are many on the BBC website sent in by residents:It's amazing that technology in people's pockets, on their phones, has helped to capture scenes which would have been impossible to capture only 10 years ago. The last great flood in Sheffield, caused by a dam erupting was in 1864. There are only sketchy eye-witness reports remaining and a few photos of the aftermath. That day 250 people died, and it still remains the worst 'natural' disaster in Britain since. Luckily, the response this time from the city's emergency crews were fantastic and must have prevented many deaths. Even so 2 people died in Sheffield on Monday.That evening it took some of my colleagues 6 hours to complete a 3 mile journey home. You don't realise that all the major roads are in the valleys and they were all flooded. Most of the riverside areas are so industrialised, that you forget the rivers exist until a day like that. One of my friends who was stuck in the traffic noted that for the most part there was only 1 person in each car and a handful on each bus. We bring some of the effects upon ourselves at times like this, and it is a stark reminder of the perils of over-urbanisation and of course, global climate change.There has been a number of power cuts affecting many areas of Sheffield for hours on end. I haven't been able to do anything at work as I depend solely on the use of computers to do my job. It just shows how useless we are without power and how little preparations we have made for these eventualities which must surely be on the increase.More rain is expected over the weekend, so there may be more flooding and disruption. The residents have remained characteristically stoical throughout this, but there's a limit to how much people can take. Here's hoping next week will bring better news.
There has been much written about the recent deals that Linux companies/distributions have made with Microsoft. I have already posted a number of my thoughts on the PCLinuxOS forum. Now I have had time to think more carefully about the deals, I thought I'd kick this blog page off with my conclusions.Let's just remind ourselves of the facts.Three companies that distribute Linux have made deals with Microsoft:1. Novell - who distribute SUSE Linux2. Xandros3. LinspireThere are seemingly two parts to the deals:1. An agreement to work on interoperability between Linux and Windows2. An agreement from Microsoft not to sue the distro or their customers if they ever bring legal proceedings against Linux or Open Source for infringing on 235 Microsoft patents.All 3 companies distribute a free and open source Linux distribution, but also ship a version of their distro that has to be paid for and significantly, Novell SLED and Xandros compete directly with Microsoft for the lucrative server market as well as the desktop market.Initially details on the interoperability pacts were sketchy when Novell first signed. More recently, Linspire have shed some light on this. Microsoft will license Linspire to use Microsoft codecs for Windows Media formats, for VoIP and fonts. In return Linspire will set MSN Live Search as its default search provider.Here's why this maybe the first nails in the Open Source coffin.Microsoft through it's corporate might, have pushed their media codecs onto the world. They are proprietary, protected by patents and heavily DRM'd. The goal of Linux should be to offer open source alternatives of proprietary formats. Of course, no open source format could be designed for DRM, but Linux should be pushing the OGG format heavily. Licensing Linux to use Windows Media 10 codecs, brings DRM to Open Source and the two do not sit comfortably side by side. It's a watershed for incorporating more and more proprietary formats into Linux. The same goes for fonts and VoIP technology. Licensing proprietary formats doesn't come cheap and leads distributions down a closed source dead-end with Microsoft calling the shots. Once the end-user cost for this closed-source distro comes near to Microsoft operating system prices, Linux becomes less of an alternative.Microsoft is supposedly working with Xandros on its Open XML document format for Office 12. Microsoft have never supported the Open Document Format and this is another way of getting Microsoft patented technology into every home and office on the planet. Microsoft are intent on edging out its old rival Sun Microsystems and Open Office before it makes any real dents in Microsoft's profit margin.Microsoft have never been afraid of fighting a court battle and losing. They have so much money and employ their own lawyers that whoever they fight will invariably drown in debt before a verdict is reached. Even so, if Microsoft continue dealing with Linux, they won't have to bring the patent deal to the judges in any case.All 3 Linux companies should have got behind the "show us the code" campaign instead.It's not about hating Microsoft for hate's sake. It's about protecting our freedom of choice and freedom of use. Microsoft already dominates the operating system market and office applications market. What will be left if they dominate media, internet and server markets too?Fighting these deals is about fighting for a more free information society where innovation is shared to everyone's benefit. Fighting these deals is fighting for the right for Open Source technology to be created in good will for the good of the end-user without having to worry about being sued. I see also that 3 major electronics companies that use Linux extensively n their mobile products have struck deals as well - samsung, fuji-xerox and LG. These companies have benefited heavily from free open source technology. The least they can do is give something back by supporting Linux at this difficult time.Please keep any comments clean. I am interested in furthering the debate not starting a flame war.
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