09.20.07
Posted in General Management, Industry News, Legal Issues at 3:32 by lnxwalt
In what has been called a “stinging rebuke”, the European Court of the First Instance (CFI) ruled against an appeal by Microsoft in a long-running case pitting the world’s largest software company against the European Commission.
The second-highest court in Europe on Monday rejected Microsoft’s attempt to overturn a landmark European Commission antitrust ruling and record fine, bolstering smaller software makers and putting market leaders on notice that they cannot leverage dominance in one technology niche to squelch broader innovation, industry and legal experts said
This from an article in the International Herald Tribune. I noticed that the article did not get all the details correct. For example, it said the court “ordered Microsoft to obey a 2004 commission order to share confidential computer code with competitors.” The only problem is that the court made no such order. This is about the languages that software programs speak to one another: protocols and file formats, and also about illegal bundling of Windows Media Player as a way to squeeze RealPlayer out of the market. It has nothing to do with sharing code.
In my experience, RealPlayer is an inferior product, so given the choice, most users will choose WMP over Real, although they might choose to use Quicktime instead of either one. The problem, which even many technical people do not understand, is in using dominance in one area (such as operating systems) to push you into dominance in another area (such as media players or Web browsers). It violates a longstanding prohibition on misusing an existing monopoly in order to build another one.
“What the court did was uphold EU law, which makes it illegal to leverage a dominant market position to obtain similar dominance in another area,” said Michael Reynolds, a Brussels antitrust lawyer with the firm Allen & Overy who filed the initial complaint against Microsoft in 1998 on behalf of Sun Microsystems. “Microsoft argued that the software industry, because of its dynamic growth, was an exception. But the court dismissed this argument.”
The US has similar laws, but the Department of Justice is lax about enforcement, believing that it is better to let the market sort things out. The problem with that is when you have situations where the market fails to remedy the wrongs. An example of that is when one provider obtains monopoly share of the market. Competitors, if they exist, fight over the crumbs that are left over, never being serious challengers to the monopolist. The monopolist, in this case Microsoft, then gets away with all sorts of abusive and questionable (if not illegal) behavior.
The question for non-technical people is this: what does this mean to the users and purchasers of computer software? It means that, assuming that Microsoft behaves according to the law, consumers will have more choice–choice of operating systems, of media players, office suites and more. Businesses will have more choice of operating systems and other software to use on their servers. Many of the choices that are available are less costly than Microsoft products, so for many people and businesses, this is good for the wallet.
I encourage you to open your eyes and look around. The choices that are available already would surprise you. Look at the Ubuntufamily of GNU+Linux operating systems, the StarOffice, OpenOffice, KOffice, and now Lotus Symphony office suites, and an incredible variety of other ready-for-prime-time software applications that are available now. Many of them were not ready just a few years ago (although I have to say that for someone that was willing to do a little work, the software was already even with commercial competitors).
Recognize that even big companies will eventually get punished for wrongdoing, but they often continue to do wrong anyway. The best thing to do is to spread your dollars around so that no single company controls your (or your business’s) destiny.
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05.19.07
Posted in FLOSS, Industry News, Legal Issues at 3:50 by lnxwalt
In ancient times, one of the weapons that soldiers used was the spear. The good thing about a spear is that it gave the ability to repeatedly hurt your enemy (enemies) before the enemy could get into sword range.
Microsoft is looking in its rearview mirror, terrified at the approaching juggernaut that is FLOSS. As more of the market uses FLOSS in place of proprietary software, Microsoft’s market share and profits are limited. Microsoft has been the leading software company for many years, so seeing competitors that are parrying their every thrust must loosen their sphincters. Now they have pulled out the equivalent of the nuclear bomb and said in effect, “We are willing to use this if you continue to threaten our dominance.”
I have read that eventually, it was learned that a sword-bearing soldier could beat a spear-bearing soldier more often than the reverse. That is, the victory comes up-close-and-personal, not from far away. I would caution Microsoft that using patents as weapons instead of building great customer-centric products is not the road to continued success. It is the road to slow death, like the one chosen by the Detroit automakers.
I believe that FLOSS is the future of software. This does not mean that proprietary software will die out. However, I believe that proprietary software is destined to become primarily a niche product. For one thing, the high margins that some software companies (including Microsoft) have received can not continue indefinitely. For another, things like TUR place the user’s interests underneath those of the vendor, which also can not continue indefinitely. Enlightened users will seek software from vendors that are less hostile to their own interests.
The knowledge that this is coming fills many of the proprietary companies with fear.
Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion only. It does not reflect the views of WebConnect Consulting or any employers, relatives, or anyone else.
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05.02.07
Posted in Legal Issues, Local News, News and Announcements at 20:22 by lnxwalt
Shortly after CBS’ Don Imus was fired for his remarks, Clear Channel’s Barbara Stanton was suspended for racially-insensitive comments she made on her radio program.
I had heard of neither broadcaster before their respective incidents. Imus was apparently trying to be funny. Coverage of the event refers to him as a “shock jock,” so it may have been his job to generate controversy (and therefore higher ratings).
Stanton, here in the sleepy Victor Valley, could not have been much of a shock jock–that genre would never survive here in the conservative High Desert. Her words came during a serious discussion about the acquisition of the local bank by an out-of-the-area bank. That the words were serious, and that they come so soon after Imus’ experience is disturbing, to say the least.
Unfortunately, besides being out of line in her expression, Ms. Stanton is also misinformed about the responsibilities of the CEO of a publicly-traded bank. Ron Wilson, CEO of DCB had apparently been interviewed on her program recently, without mentioning buyout talks. Well, I am sorry if he has to obey the laws relating to insider information, but there are some things that can not be revealed except under specific conditions.
As a side note, Jonathan Schwartz of Sun has had a running discussion with the SEC about finding a way to publish announcements on Sun’s site at the same time or even before releasing the information to the traditional channels, because most individual investors do not get those announcements until the next day, when they appear in the Wall Street Journal and other financial publications. This gives large institutions a leg up on reacting to any news or announcement. Schwartz believes that a standardized way of displaying that information on the company site would be a better way to reach investors, because they tend to check the site for information anyway.
What is this thing with degrading groups of people because of their ancestry? After several civil rights movements and hundreds of years of progress, is this all the distance we have come?
On the other hand, I favor freedom of expression. If people feel that they can express such sentiments, we will be more likely to know who actually has those sentiments. It makes it a lot easier to understand it when certain things happen.
Mr. Imus, you need some Black friends. Ms. Stanton, you need some Asian friends. I don’t just mean that you know one another. I mean friends to the point that you get upset when you go with them to a conference and the hotel suddenly has no rooms available; to the point where you get angry when everyone at the restaurant has ordered and been served, but your friends are still waiting for someone to come and take their orders; and to the point where you are mad when people start talking with accents and repeating ethnic stereotypes about your friends’ presumed ancestry.
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04.25.07
Posted in Legal Issues at 6:40 by lnxwalt
We mentioned the spam / splog problem recently. As a way to limit the spread of splogs and blog spam, all comments and trackbacks are moderated and will not appear without approval. Further, comments require that you join this blog with a valid e-mail address (and after all of that, we still moderate).
We have similar policies in effect with our other blogs as well. Some of our blogs use B2Evolution software. In these blogs, only members can comment, and both comments and trackbacks are moderated. We also have blogs that run on Pivot software. Comments are moderated, but membership is not required.
If you desire to comment, but do not want to bother joining, set up your own blog, post a comment there and use trackback to us here.
The content of this site may not be used for commercial purposes without our prior and express written permission.  If you see this or any other article / posting from this site on one of those dot-info sites, click on the “gooogle” link and report the site for theft.
Note: by commenting on our blogs, you give us permission to use your words and ideas for any purpose. In practice, we do not intend to use your words for advertising (for example) without your express permission to do so. However, we may discuss a topic that comes from a comment.  We may even endeavor to provide products or services based upon something you say.
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04.24.07
Posted in Legal Issues, News and Announcements at 5:58 by lnxwalt
If you have done many Web searches lately, you have seen dozens or hundreds of spam blogs that pop up during your searches. Recently, I was searching on a blog search site for information on a particular topic and had to wade through about five pages of “splogs” (spam blogs) before I found the first results. They do this because they are looking for “easy money.”
You know, the same thing that is offered on those late-night infomercials: send us a few hundred dollars and you can make $5,000 per day sitting around in your underwear. No more getting up in the morning, showering and shaving, wearing the accepted clothing for your industry, and getting on the freeway. No more boss telling you to stop lollygagging. Become an overnight millionaire on the Internet!
If you are not reading this article through your feed reader or on our site, you are probably seeing stolen content. If so, please click on the “Goooogle” link and report the site you see this content on. I believe it violates the terms of Google Adsense to completely duplicate existing content.
The thing is, this is not anything new. One of the reasons that e-mail and IM are getting clogged with spam and “spim” is because companies see a way to send out millions of advertisements at almost zero marginal cost. If even 1/10 of 1% of the targeted people respond with clicks (or worse yet, purchases), the spammers make money.
Before that, it was junk mail to postal mail boxes. Send out a few thousand advertisements and if you get a 1% or 2% response, you’re making money. Especially since “bulk” mailers get frequent-customer discounts from the Postal Service. Isn’t it nice that I pay full price when I send real mail, some of which goes to subsidize the people that send me junk mail that I have to throw out each day.
We get the scams where someone is trying to sneak money out of their country. These things are not new. There were other ways that they tried to get you to hand over cash in exchange for an expected jackpot.
We get the chain letter that promises wealth if we forward and poverty if we do not. But again, these things are not new. Except back in the pre-networked world, these things were typed up and duplicated and you were actually supposed to send cash to one of the previous recipients.
Some time back, I had sent for some information from one of those wholesalers that have the “start a business plan.” I already knew what I wanted to do, but I was willing to look at other options. After a wait that was so long I had nearly forgotten I had sent for it, I got a packet a couple of weeks ago. The packet was long on “sign up NOW and start making the money you’ve dreamed of making” and short on details like what you’d be doing in order to make the money. Then today, I got a telephone call from a salesman, a very rude and pushy salesman, a very rude and pushy salesman who let me know that I wasted his time and money by sending for information without being convinced to purchase their plan. After that, they could have said, “we’ll send you all the gold in Ft. Knox and you don’t have to pay us anything,” I would still have nothing to do with them. So then I checked on Rip-Off Reports and there they were, with a long page full of complaints and some vehement defenders who could easily have been employees.
As I said, there is nothing new there. I first became aware of this kind of behavior–something for nothing–while reading Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Later, I read about FBI and Secret Service agents and the founding of those agencies, which was heavy on various something-for-nothing scams that have been pulled over the years. (As a child, I probably read more in two weeks than I currently read in a year.)
I recommend that you check out White Collar Fraud before investing in any kind of business.
Aside from that, do not contribute to the continued existence of the something-for-nothing fraudsters. You do this by refusing to buy from spam that you receive and by refusing to join the “we’ll make your rich overnight” plans. If their product or service really made people rich, do you think they would be sharing it? I mean, come on. One of the richest guys in the world regularly gets in trouble because his company tries to put its competitors out of business. So there is no way to convince me that someone who had a fool-proof, easy-to-follow cash-generation system would sell it to outsiders for a few hundred dollars each. It would be locked up under guard somewhere in the inventor’s underground vault.
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04.17.07
Posted in Industry News, Legal Issues at 1:54 by lnxwalt
In Defense Of Free Markets
Or, Reasons Why Antitrust Laws Must Be Enforced
Sadly, the technology news and information site C|Net has allowed itself to be used as a tool of monopolists. Why is Microsoft under fire for antitrust violations? I am not an attorney, but just reading the news and my old business law texts says that they are under fire because their whole strategy is based upon violating those laws.
Case in point, taken directly from the C|Net article: CompTIA’s Lars Liebeler defends Microsoft on violations relating to server interoperability. In fact, Microsoft took the industry-standard Server Message Block protocol and extended it so that no other vendors’ products would work with theirs—clearly anti-competitive behavior, designed to limit the choices available to purchasers who had Windows servers.
One thing never seems to change: Microsoft is always enduring some antitrust challenge–even when it is working with other industry players to create better products. Take, for example, Microsoft’s recent agreement with Novell to make Windows server software interoperate better with the Linux server products of Novell.
Last month, oblivious to this agreement, the European Commission issued another statement of objections alleging that Microsoft engaged in bad faith to thwart interoperability in the server market. The Commission’s proposed remedy would require Microsoft to make its valuable intellectual property available to its competitors–for free.
Mr. Liebeler ignores the details of the Microsoft-Novell agreement. Note that no matter where one stands on the agreement, it does nothing for those who use Samba apart from Novell / Suse. As it is Samba, not Novell, that is creating the software, Microsoft’ should be working with Samba and other SMB/CIFS server software makers. Novell reuses Samba’s work in their own products and formerly employed a leading developer in the Samba team. Yet, an agreement with Novell can only mean that Novell may get some of the missing documentation that nearly all server software makers have sought for years.
Besides this, is Microsoft paying IBM a licensing fee for using SMB as the core of the now-renamed CIFS? After all, the SMB protocol is IBM’s “valuable intellectual property” that underlies Microsoft’s revised protocol suite. In essence, Microsoft has taken an open standard and made a few secret, incompatible changes to block their competitors out. This is hardly innovation and surely not worth legal protection as “intellectual property.”
One thing that this behavior surely is, and that is anti-competitive behavior—you know, the kind of thing that the Sherman and Clayton acts were passed to eliminate.
Yet the Commission alleges that Microsoft has established “unreasonable” prices for its protocol licensing of its server technology in Europe. The Commission characterizes Microsoft’s proprietary server software protocols, which is protected by patent, copyright and trade secret law, as containing “virtually no innovation.”
The Commission then remarkably concludes that everyone in the industry, nonetheless, “needs” Microsoft’s protocols, and that Microsoft should provide them “royalty-free.” What the Commission demands in the end is that Microsoft make its intellectual property available to its competitors for free.
Attempting to “outlaw” the Microsoft-Novell deal through changes to the GPL or trying to force Microsoft to disclose its software protocols through regulation and litigation both suffer from the same erroneous foundational assumption–that there is something wrong with the operation and functioning of the free market in general, and that IP protections that underlie the free market.
The free market theory lists certain underlying assumptions, without which it cannot be expected to work. One of those assumptions is that goods and services are functionally identical, that is that the goods or services from one producer can be used as drop-in replacements for similar goods from another producer. As soon as this becomes untrue, producers gain market power, which violates another underlying assumption: namely that neither buyers nor sellers individually have any market power, the ability of an individual buyer or seller to affect the pricing of the particular good or service in the general market. It is helpful if someone arguing from a free market standpoint understands the requirements for free markets to exist.
This position is directly contrary to a central premise of free-market economics: IP protections will encourage investment and result in a wider breadth and depth of innovation.
I am amazed that an attorney and free market advocate knows so little about the topic. “IP protections” are incompatible with free market economics. Their justification is based on the idea of market failures where an inventor or other creator may not be able to reap adequate reward for his or her creative works before copycats move in and make those works low-price commodities. In the server market, whatever minor creative work was exercised has already been compensated many times over, so this so-called need for IP protections does not apply.
Furthermore, since software has a near-zero incremental cost per unit, theory demands that any IP protections be strictly limited in time and scope. I suspect that his advocacy is not borne out of any commitment to the theories and ideas behind free markets, but merely promoting and protecting the interests of the organization’s largest member. That makes this article dangerous, because those who are not acquainted with these ideas might absorb this wholesale, without vomiting up the anti-competitive, anti-consumer portions of the rant. That would be truly negative for all consumers of server software as well as for Microsoft’s competitors (some of which are presumably also members of CompTIA).
Smaller businesses, our target market, can benefit by taking a look at server implementations that utilize Samba and other FLOSS-based implementations of SMB/CIFS. It is important to note that Microsoft’s monopoly-preserving actions could cause some problems between their products and some of the other products listed on the Wiki page.
I note that Mr. Liebeler is the antitrust counsel for CompTIA, and that Microsoft is a leading member of the group. I am not suggesting anything improper about it, but surely the point of view expressed must be informed by the dependence of the organization upon the continued good will of such an important member.
In fact, I would suggest that CompTIA is not independent enough to be critical of Microsoft when it deserves it.
I think we should always be sure to praise them when it is proper to praise them, just as we criticize them when it is proper to criticize them. The Eolas suit against Microsoft, for example, was completely groundless—in my opinion—and should have been thrown out from day one. Eolas, in targeting Microsoft, went after deep pockets, but threatened everyone in the industry that used plugins to enable one application to utilize another to manipulate an object within the first application. The OLE system is an example, and could easily result (if this is never rectified) in large damages against any company building OLE-capable software going back to the time the patent was issued.
Yet, while we should support Microsoft in this fight, we should not turn a blind eye to their misbehavior. In the server field, there are a number of companies that build servers that utilize what is publicly known about SMB/CIFS. Enterprises can purchase server software from numerous vendors that will work with one another, but each one has a certain amount of trouble working with a Microsoft Windows-based server, not because Microsoft was innovative, but because they made incompatible changes in their implementations of the protocol.
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04.16.07
Posted in Industry News, Legal Issues at 4:01 by lnxwalt
James Robertson of Cincom Smalltalk has been following the story. Apparently, a woman wrote in her blog about a bad personal experience with an employment agency. The agency responded with a personal attack in the comments of her blog, followed by a letter from an attorney to remove the blog entry or face a suit.
Naturally, the woman posted the information about the letter, and the story has ballooned to something much bigger, with other bloggers now posting their personal experiences and discussion about the threat now being on television, YouTube, and other blogs.
I have little to add to the conversation, other than to repeat Mr. Robertson’s comments: this is just plain dumb. The company should fire whomever decided to threaten / sue, fire the person who leaked personal information in the response to the blog posting, and immediately do whatever they can to patch things up. Now, without further commentary, here are some links to information about the situation.
If you have a small business and you are not participating in a discussion with your customers, your prospective customers, and the online society at large, you are not prepared for what could happen to your business.
If your first reaction is legal, you are living in the wrong century. The 71,000,000 bloggers are vocal and active. They are fast to close ranks against attackers, especially non-blogging attackers. Citizen journalism and advocacy is truly liberating, and repressive nineteenth century legal weapons will fail to stamp out negative information from a dispersed target.
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03.27.07
Posted in Industry News, Legal Issues at 21:32 by lnxwalt
As a very minor and unknown member of the community of online personalities, I am grieved to read about the persecution of Kathy Sierra. I had honestly never heard of her before, nor of any of her persecutors. However, it is difficult to go anywhere online without bumping into the story. She is being threatened with both physical and sexual violence.
Threatening Messages and Images
According to her post, this has been going on for about two weeks, beginning with threatening comments on her blog. Looking at some of the blogs that were listed in her message, one person admitted his part and apologized. Another person angrily retorted that he is being blamed for the actions of others. Another one never really said where she stands on the conduct.
Doc Searls, who is acquainted with many of the persecutors, is trying to research things before he responds. I would hope that his response will clarify the fact that such behavior is unacceptable.
Society’s Problems
It is true that these things have been happening forever. It happened in small towns with no electronic communications. It happened in big cities. It happened with every advance in communications technology. This is not an excuse—the behavior can not be accepted or tolerated.
People need to be reminded of the expectations of society. Not just law enforcement, although this incident has apparently gone far enough to be a criminal situation. We need to shun or disfellowship or excommunicate (or whatever your word is) people who act in this way, until they avail themselves of the community’s mental health resources and get better.
Conclusion
That behavior is not acceptable. Whatever the purpose of the sites may have been, tolerating these kinds of threats leads to enabling and encouraging sick people to carry them out. It leads to situations like the school killings. At its best, it is nothing less than bullying. At its worst, it is inciting violence against your opponents.
I believe in freely discussing issues and differences of opinion. But when our conflicts over ideas and practices begin to reach the level of thinking about harming the other person, it is time to stop talking and seek mental help.
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03.21.07
Posted in Legal Issues, Political at 21:57 by lnxwalt
Spent some time at the county law library, checking into incorporation. We are a nation of laws, as well as all sorts of compliance enforcement staffers in a multitude of different agencies. If you have not checked on your legal compliance recently, now is a good time to look into that.
Are you properly registered, licensed, insured, and taxed? If not, it is time to make plans to rectify that. Your business—and your freedom—are on the line.
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03.15.07
Posted in Legal Issues at 19:30 by lnxwalt
Here in California, we had a political campaign a few years back that would have implemented mandatory employer-paid health insurance. There were many commercials for each side, with one side featuring employees who were ill but were unable to obtain affordable health care, while the other featured small business owners that said they were just barely making ends meet already and would have to close if the law passed.
The measure did not pass, but it is a fascinating example of manipulation. The largest retailer in the world paid for most of the “No” ads. It seems that their low-wage employees are frequently uninsured or dependent upon state and county medical assistance. The founding family of said company were all in the billionaires lists of the financial magazines. The company manipulated smaller businesses for its own gain.
On the other side were all of the usual unions and political groups. They also were using low-wage workers who often are not members of unions anyway.
When someone comes to you claiming to have your interests at heart, ask yourself what benefit that person gets from pursuing your interests. You may decide that having something in your interest is worth allowing the other person to benefit also. After all, this is what business is all about: an exchange of value. On the other hand, you may decide that supporting interests is not worth what the other person stands to gain.
There is always someone who is prepared to tell you what will be best for you. Be sure to ask if what is best for you is also best for them.
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