An article on ZDNet UK is echoing the concerns of a group of Linux users. They are petitioning the EU Council, claming that the video streams on the EU Council web site are unreadable under Linux.

Strange. It is true the files are in the proprietary WMV format. However this format is supported by both MPlayer and the Xine/Totem player. These packages are included in most Linux distributions. So, it is just not true that Linux users are being left out.
The fact is that the WMV format is proprietary, but this is a different story.

The fact is also that the EU Council’s contractor for video streaming, ie Belgian telecom operator Belgacom, has demonstrated its own cluelessness. In its FAQ dated 1st January 2007 (in Google cache), they stated “We cannot support Linux in a legal way. So the answer is: No support for Linux”. This is mistaken of course, as demonstrated above. The newest version of their FAQ deleted the offending sentence. However, they still do not mention the fact that WMV files can indeed be played under Linux.

This raises the question if one would hire Belgacom to do the video streaming, knowing the company is apparently not able to do a simple homework of googling for “Linux WMV” ? The same question applies to the ZDNet staff writer, by the way. Can you trust an IT information source where journalists seem unable to do some research before publishing a paper ?

However, I agree the EU should use open file formats for publishing information on the Internet. This is why most docs on the EU web sites are posted in PDF format. Soon, documents will also be available in ODF format, where they were previously only in the proprietary MS Office formats. For video streaming, there is still a need to do more. Do we have one open file format that is allows live streaming that compatible with MS Windows, MacOSX and all the different flavours of Linux and *BSD ?

Update: I tried and it failed. The issue is not so much the actual streaming, but the javascript and AJAX put around the URL so that it displays in your current browser window rather than launching another one.

Jeremy Allison, the creator of the open source Samba applications, has announced he is leaving Novell at the end of this month. Samba allows Unix machines to connect to the proprietary, closed source Microsoft networks.
Earlier, Novell has signed a deal with Microsoft. Allison wrote “that even if it does not violate the letter of the license, it violates the intent of the GPL license the Samba code is released under, which is to treat all recipients of the code equally”. Allison added: “Until the patent provision is revoked, we are pariahs….Unfortunately, the time I am willing to wait for this agreement to be changed …has passed, and so I must say goodbye.”

A man with such a high sense of morality must be congratulated. There are so many among the people I know who would find a way to justify undefendable behaviours by their employer, even if this means twisting their own values.

Last Friday a Utah judge dismissed most of SCO’s legal claims against IBM, stating that SCO failed to produce any evidence to back up its intellectual property ownership claims, according to this news bit on VNUnet. SCO claimed that IBM had included source code it owned into the Linux kernel.
Consequently, SCO shares dropped. VNUNet says SCO is now worth $26 million. When it launched its lawsuit against IBM, it was worth $400 million. Yup, when you play with fire, you end up burning your fingers.

This is a great day. Not only is Linux bringing a brand new life to my laptop, as reported earlier. I now know SCO won’t go after me.

According to this post on the Register, Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer claims the Linux community is using Microsoft source code, without being aware of it.  Strange, I though the MS products were closed source. How come Microsoft source code could be included in Linux ? Did they leak some on purpose ?
It looks like a remake of the SCO vs Linux story.  It seems that if a company can no more compete on the basis of innovation, it will use legal threats instead.
Microsoft has already settled a deal with Novell regarding Suse Linux, by which Novell paid $40 million to Redmond. This was previously presented as a mutual technology transfer. It now looks much more as a settlement to avoid future legal threats.

Microsoft now has an open source community. You must think it is a joke. Well, no. Their web site is here.

The first posting shows the Microsoft open source lab has no clue on how to deal with spam, proposing an utility which is outdated, as pointed out by a reader. MS reply is that not all users are as advanced as said user and it should keep it simple. However their suggestion is giving a false impression of protection. Add to that every open source OS these days includes Spamassassin. Very much better.

The Belgian federal ministers council decided this 23th June to standardize on the Open Document Format for electronic document exchange inside the federal administration. From next year, the federal computers should be able to read ODF documents, while the format will become mandatory in 2008.

The link (in dutch) and comments at ZDNet (in English)

Seems like Microsoft wishes to once again push forward its proprietary technologies.From next November its Hotmail and MSN e-mail services will start to tag messages with no Sender-ID as spam.

Sender-ID was proposed to the IETF Marid working group last year by Microsoft. However, the working group refused it because it is covered by a patent. MS was willing to give free access (for how long ?) to its technology to others but the open source community said they was no way they could incorporate this into open source software implementations. As a result, the Marid group disbanded with no agreement.

The Internet is based on open standards. Sender-ID is not. So, from next November, I intend to refuse all mail coming from Hotmail.* and MSN.* and suggest the poor owners of these e-mail addresses to go look elsewhere. After all, there are enough free services available, from Yahoo, Gmail and many others.

Update: it seems the IESG has approved Sender-ID on 24th June. It is not yet clear how the patent issue will be handled.

According to this article on E-week, Microsoft has patented an auto configuration technology for the IP stacks in Windows machine. This was apparently inspired by the autoconfig feature of IPv6, which is described in RFC 2462 . However, Microsoft failed to mention this prior art in its patent claim.

As usual, should we say, the USPTO did a bad job at researching prior art, although the RFCs are publicly posted on the Internet. 2 minutes of googling would have produced evidence. So, if one needs an additional reason for NOT patenting sofware, we can invoke the fact that patent offices (and this includes the EPO) do a bad job at searching for prior art, even when obvious references exist on the Internet.

If Microsoft has its way to have the USPTO moving to a “first-to-file” system, as opposed to a “first-to-invent” system, no engineer if an IETF meeting will ever want to suggest anything, lest some competitor will walk out of the room to quickly file a patent. This could bring the entire IETF process to a halt. As the article describes it: “The IETF has a rule that states that such engineers sit on working groups solely on the basis of personal interest in the technology, a stance that many find naively ignores the fact that employers exert influence on their engineer employees”. Obviously yes. Whatever you do, you look at who’s signing your paycheck.