[Coco] OT: Vista and MS patent application, Linux

[Gene Heskett]

On Sunday 04 February 2007 11:04, Roger Taylor wrote:
>Although I depend on Windows like many, I agree with you on some of
>your statements.
>
>MS does try to compete across the board.  As long as the hardward
>their OS runs under (a PC) can do anything a modem, an MP3 player, a
>DVD player, a TV, a radio, a fax machine, a router, a telephone, etc.
>can do, they will continue to put those features in Windows so you
>can do it all from one place.
>
>We know another big company doing the same thing to our towns as MS
>does to other companies.  They are Wal-Mart.  One of their powers is
>knowing that people get attached to an idea that works for them and
>the older we get the harder it is to change our ways, even if a
>similar store moves right next door and has the same items for less.
>
>Linux can be free for all, and shipped to us for free, but that's not
>going to be the reason people ditch Windows, nor will they give up
>their addictions, ways of thinking, simplicity, habits, business
>requirements, etc. for an OS that doesn't have a "just make it work"
>concept.  I love Linux, but it is just the opposite of "just make it
>work".  It's more like, "learn how to program, then recompile the
>kernel or drivers and see if that makes it work".  ;)  Not gonna happen.
>
>Also, I think most people have the idea that if they pay for the OS,
>it must be worthy of the cost or at least some of it, and along with
>it comes an amount of support from the company, like automatic
>updates, patches, bug fixes, security fixes, etc.
>
>This is just my 2 cents on the OS world, where obviously the vast
>majority of the public leans towards the beast that MS is and will
>remain to be.  I don't like it that MS rules the roost, but there's
>nothing I alone or a group of 20,000 people can do about it
>now.  Some of "Gates" last evil words in the movie Pirates of Silicon
>Valley was, "You're too late...".  Kinda makes you want to kick the
>screen, but then it's back over to the Windows computer to check your
>e-mail.  :)

me pulls out soap box (see sig)

While I can to a small degree, sympathize with those who will take the 
easy road, and continue to pay the biggerish of the M$ annual tax bill, 
that road is I fear, going to need a serious grading to keep it riding 
smoothly.  Vista, I fear will ship with a lot of its 'features' vis-a-vis 
DRM and Trusted Computing turned off.  But what happens Roger, when an 
upgrade for 'security' reasons is done, say 2 months on down the log, and 
that upgrade turns on the DRM in full force in the M$ vision of it.  All 
your music suddenly turns to crap because its not a legally purchased 
from zune copy of it.  Stuff you've ripped from cd's, with that cd still 
a legally purchased disk sitting on the shelf, may/will be erased because 
the legal status of that rip cannot be determined.

And what happens when that so-called security, just gotta have it upgrade, 
turns on all the Trusted Computing locking?  Then your IDE will probably 
not run on your vintage mobo because it doesn't have the TPM chips 
installed.  Your home brew software, since its not digitally signed and 
approved by M$, will not be allowed to run.  And it may even be summarily 
erased if deemed to be a non-complying application or data.

In the initial release, it has to be fairly open else the sound of hard 
drives being formatted for ext3 will be a deafening cacaphony about the 
land as M$ and the media companies ride roughshod over YOUR rights to DO 
what YOU want to with YOUR computer.

>At 09:37 AM 2/4/2007, you wrote:
>>Because of the compatibility, pricing, and hardware issues, my next
>>upgrade will likely be to Linux.

Bravo!

>>I've been meaning to play with a 
>>Simply MEPIS

Ok, but just that, simple.  It makes a great rescue disk for fixing 
inadvertantly intro'd problems with other distro's though.

>>or FreeSpire

Has many potentially non-gpl things in it, (and patches to the linux 
kernel to detect some of the more blatant miss-uses of the 
MODULE_LICENSE=string, intended to make that code look like its GPL when 
it in fact isn't, are being put in place as we speak) but we all do that 
just to be able to play all this crap on the net, generated by M$ 
applications, and loaded with DRM provisions they would like to think 
prevent it from being played on a non-M$ system, thereby locking you into 
the M$ group-think forever because you don't know enough about the 
alternatives to even consider them.

Sorry, but it does work, complete with the commercials thanks to the free 
flow of programs from localities where its legal to write them, to 
localities where its illegal to use them as they are a direct DMCA 
violation (here in the states for instance).  But the corporate think 
that Freespire represents was taught by M$ trained people.  And that 
thinking is like a piece of fish that's been in the fridge for 3 weeks, 
it is AFAWAC, well past its "use by" date and has no place to hide in a 
free society.

Note please that I am NOT campaigning for wholesale piracy.  95% the music 
on my drives can be replaced with new copies in just a few hours, ripped 
from the same cd's as they are nearly all physically here, legally 
purchased.  However, I sure am campaigning to restore copyright to its 
pre-sonny-bono and disney status, and I have been known to monetarily 
support legal revisitation of quite a few software patents by the FSF, 
who, FWIW, have won an eventual denial ruling by the patent office for 
every such patent targeted once we've pried the eyes of the examiners 
open to prior art or the obviousness of the method making it 
nonpatentable but it was so buried in the usual legalsleaze BS in the 
average application, wholely designed to obfuscate and hide things such 
that not even the patent examiners can stay awake long enough to rule 
intelligently.

This I believe, if we let it slip by, will be the greatest loss of 
personal freedom we've suffered from in 231 years.  We have, as a 
society, come to be utterly dependant on the computer.  But it was 
supposed to free us from the drudgery, not enslave us to the **AA and M$ 
like monoliths.

How loud do I speak with my actions here at the coyote.den?

Fedora Core 6 runs this machine, and its currently running development 
kernel 2.6.20-rc7.  You can't get much newer than that.  Yeah I compile 
my own, no big deal once the scripts are written, just re-use them..

Fedora Core 5 runs my laptop (I did save the XP partition for warranty 
reasons, it will go when the warranty has been used up, another 2 years 
as I bought the long one thinking about its lcd screen and (in-famous) 
battery)

dd-wrt, free version ATM, runs my router, installed on an old 500mhz k6 
box, booting from a CF card plugged into a $3 adaptor on the end of an 
ide cable.  No other drives in the box, not even a floppy.

Kubuntu-6.06 runs my milling machine and will run my lathe eventually too.

Redhat-7.3 used to run my firewall box, with the arrival of the dd-wrt 
package, its been powered down saving me a kwh about every 6 hours.

So you can see there is one legal copy of XP here, on the laptop, last 
booted a month ago to see if windows could still run the bcm4318 radio in 
it, it could.  Session lasted 5 minutes, then rebooted to FC5 and fixed 
the linux driver so it worked again.

You nor I really have to have windows anything to run our daily 
activities, its simply not required.

>>installation for a while now, but haven't  
>>found the time. Took the time to work on trying to get a CoCo3
>>emulator working on my old laptop yesterday instead -- priorities!
>>
>>Pricing has been a problem to me with all the MS stuff from the
>>start. They sell enough copies that pricing could be substantially
>>lower and they'd STILL make one heck of a profit -- partially
>>because there would be fewer pirated copies with a more reasonable
>>price. I don't think anyone should work for free or pennies, but
>>that's hardly the case here! It's not like they don't have the OS
>>market wrapped up either, regardless of the failure of the
>>government anti-trust law suit results. One big player and a few
>>strugglers is still pretty much a monopoly. The worst thing is MS
>>tries to compete across the board, not just in the OS field. I have
>>no problem with Windows being packaged with basic to mid level tools
>>to get someone started right out of the box. It's great that you can
>>buy Windows and be able to at least get by without buying a lot of
>>additional software like back in "the old days" when you had to buy
>>a disk defragmenter, telecom program, etc., just to be able to use t
>>  he com
>>puter. But to package in such a way as to eliminate competition is
>>borderline criminal, and no help. IMHO the full version of Internet
>>Explorer should be an add-on, giving people more incentive to
>>consider what to spend their money on rather than keeping what was
>>provided. I'm sure many would disagree, but tings like that is one
>>reason the price is so high, and security is an issue. If 80% of
>>Windows users also use IE, what would you target if you were
>>inclined to write a virus? If there was a greater spread, browsers
>>would be a little more secure. MS just goes after every somewhat
>>successful competitor in a crushing wave. Redmond can afford to lose
>>money on one or two products for several years while they bleed the
>>competition out, then up the prices. Smaller companies can't. IMHO
>>MS should have been broke up into divisions with specific items
>>(such as IE) split off to encourage a bit of competition in some areas.
>>
>>I have to agree with one thing -- we (computer users in general) are
>>so entrenched in Windows now that it would be detrimental to the
>>computer industry to makie Windows a totally open environment.

I doubt that very much.  As Linus has said on more than one occasion, "if 
we can change the way they do business, we will have won"

M$ needs to compete on a level playing field, but they would rather do it 
by vendor lock-in.  And I can guarantee that M$'s source code is NOT fit 
for public consumption.  Some of it has been made public in the past, 
ugly ugly stuff, particularly in the comments.

There is a web site called 'groklaw'; run by a paralegal named Pamela 
Jones.  If you *think* you know M$, there is an class action driven 
antitrust case going on in the State of Iowa right now between M$ and the 
Iowa AG.  This site prides itself on being accurate in its reporting and 
stays up late many nights of the week to assure, or correct if need be, 
what it posts.  There you can read/listen/watch all the testimony and 
depositions in this case, typically not more than a few hours behind the 
actual proceedings. Its also a forum you can register for and post to.  
Some of the messages are like MasterCard, priceless in their candor.

>>Everyone touts the openness of Linux as a strong point, and it is to
>>a degree, but there are so many distributions that work differently
>>that there is no stable base or standard. There needs to be a
>>*COMPLETE* standard installation that will work for the average
>>computer *USER* that will simply load and run similar to Windows.
>>*THEN* there can be custom distros subtracting and adding to that,
>>NOT the core kernal.

Either fedora, or one of the *ubuntu's satisfies that with their basic 
installation, and both give you some excellent tools to upgrade the 
install to make it do anything you want.  There are differences 
in 'vision' between the two of course, would you like it if cheerios was 
the only breakfast cereal?  I think not.

>>When there's something I can buy or download and install, then
>>expect it to work with 90% of the software and peripherals I buy
>>without a lot of tweaking and fiddling with settings from a command
>>line, then Linux will take it's place BESIDE windows as a real
>>alternative. But did you catch what Clifford said about his new job
>>with MS, working with Linux/UNIX guys? MS is moving on Linux, I
>>think, because Linux is starting to become something that can
>>eventually be a real competitor. That's there modis operandi -- when
>>something looks like real competition, beat it out or buy it. Linux
>>can't be bought out, so it must be beaten down.

Correction there, their 'mutual benefit agreement" with Novel was their 
foot in the door, a classic example of the M$ embrace, extend, and 
destroy program.  Novel will pay dearly as sales of SuSe linux have 
already tanked.  When they started rattling patent swords over those who 
do not have the Novel "no sue" guarantee, that was the wrong PR message 
to send.  SCO thought when linux started to hurt their unix business, 
that they could make a killing suing everybody in sight, starting with 
IBM, AutoZone and Daimler/Chrysler.  IBM, who did see the linux 
handwriting on the wall and jumped on the bandwagon gleefully, even 
donating a few patents they hold and pledging they will never sue an open 
source coder or company for accidentally using any of their patents.  Its 
predicted that the SCO vs IBM  case will never be adjudicated because 
SCO's business tanked straight down when they sued, and they do not have 
enough money in the bank right now to survive till the cases final 
judgment day.  They also owe Novel about 3x what they do have in the bank 
in unpaid royalties and Novel is attempting to get a summary judgment 
right now that protects the money they haven't been paid now in several 
years.

>>Might have something to do with the patent application for a modular
>>operating system... like Linux...

Or Unix, os9, cnx, mach, minix, the list goes on for pages, all of which 
is prior art.

>>If MS gets a US patent, that could 
>>be a problem. Even if it's not a full patent, but just grants
>>exclusivity to some portions or ideas about a modular system, MS
>>will viciously protect it. They don't have to be right, or to win.
>>They just have ot have enough of a "foot in the door" to have a
>>viable suspicion to claim infringement to get a court order to
>>"cease and desist" then take a small company to court. That will be
>>enough. MS pockets are deep enough to drag a case out long enough to
>>bankrupt the competition, or prevent anyone from even trying to
>>compete for fear of being dragged through court. That's a typical
>>big business practice. There are law firms who have purchased older
>>patents simply to go after infringers that the orignal holder
>>couldn't afford to take to court. We'll have to wait and see what
>>happens here...

Waiting and seeing will end up costing you money as well as your faith, do 
it now.  Install one of the more widely distributed flavors on linux, and 
never look back.  Fedora started counting installs by the number of 
unique ip addresses they could pick out of the logs of the machines 
holding their updates as they are released.  It may not sound like much, 
but Fedora 6 logged its millionth unique address in those logs in just 7 
weeks.  With all the older machines that have not been upgraded to FC6, 
that means there are upwards of 10 million copies of linux in use that 
came from the redhat machines.  Heck, there are probably, in a server 
closet someplace, a couple of RH5.1 installs laboring along and more than 
likely forgotten about.  One such server at Berkeley couldn't be located 
for years, but was finally found during a remodel project that knocked 
out a wall, it had been sealed in by a previous remodel 6 years back up 
the log!

The mailing lists they maintain for help are 100% user supported, and 
while there are maybe 50 guru's replying there, the subscription list is 
probably several thousand.  If you can't get an answer to your problem 
there in half an hour, then I submit the question is too vague and lacks 
enough detail, so ask it again with more details.  Even my oddball 
requests usually get decent answers, and that's quite something right 
there.

>>The hardware requirements for Vista are way up there. The first
>>articles I read were from PC Magazine, and the writer was obviously
>>a "power user" (I figured that out later!) who just had to have the
>>latest and greatest. His recommendations to "get the most out of
>>Vista" were way up there! I just built two mid level computers. No
>>dual core processors, but bought motherboards capable of supporting
>>dual cores for a later upgrade. There's no way either would run
>>Vista according to that clown! Then Vista was released, and I saw
>>the minimum recommended hardware. That was more like it. I've got
>>more than the minimum, but nowhere near what was recommended to "get
>>the most" out of it. Even to run Aero you don't have to have a dual
>>core processor, but do have to have a graphics card that's on the
>>low side of high end ($150+). Not too unreasonable like the article
>>indicated -- dual core a must, and $200+ graphics cards.
>>
>>
>>------------------
>>Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2007 16:37:36 -0600
>>From: "Roger Taylor" <operator at coco3.com>
>>
>>To those who've upgraded to Windows Vista...
>>
>>The Rainbow IDE and M.E.S.S. emulator system seem to work great.  You
>> should be able to upgrade to Vista and continue your IDE projects as
>> usual, but with a better experience.
>>
>>Btw, Vista rocks like no other, but we're in the early compatibility
>> problem stage.  Get the Home Premium or above version to experience
>> the Aero window effects.  There's a 3-D flip window mode that shows
>> you a 3-D stacked view of all open programs and you can see those
>> programs running in the 3-D view, even the CoCo window in M.E.S.S. 
>> Also, the program preview thumbnails that pop up when you hover over
>> the taskbar is excellent, and the blurred glass effect that shows
>> portions of any underlying windows or the desktop is pretty cool.  The
>> gadget sidebar feature is nice and I plan to make some Rainbow IDE
>> gadgets that can be installed automatically from the IDE, such as a
>> mini programmer's calc, and M.E.S.S. emulator tools.  This kind of
>> feature will allow portions of the Rainbow IDE to appear on the
>> sidebar of Vista so they are always visible if you like.
>>
>>If I can give my 2 cents about Vista, to get the best deal, buy a new
>>computer/laptop with Vista on it, since the price alone of the upper
>>versions of the OS is ridiculous considering it has compatibility
>> issues with a great number of software titles (at this time).  This
>> was a problem with XP as well and it can literally stop you in your
>> tracks if you run a business or do a lot of work from home.  Luckily,
>> some versions of Vista come with complete multimedia solutions like
>> DVD making/burning, which I will have to convert the CoCo TV project
>> to soon.  Vista and Nero don't mix at this point unless you upgrade
>> Nero for a cost.
>>
>>So far, the IDEs that I use for all of my development work well under
>> Vista with no changes required.

Mark that on the wall, Roger, and see if you can say that 2 years from now 
without figuring out a way to emasculate some of Vista's "features".  If 
I'm still around, and you can without doing that, I owe you a 12 pack of 
Michelob Ultra.  Just tell me where to send it.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above
message by Gene Heskett are:
Copyright 2007 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.