CyberTech Rambler

Moved to ctrambler.wordpress.com

2006-02-24T15:53:00.000Z

I moved to ctrambler.wordpress.com for no other reasons than my friend blog there.

Back to life

2006-02-20T15:42:00.000Z

I was on vacation for the past few weeks. Back to normal service now.

US Government eyeing Google's Data: Real Privacy Concern or Just a Storm in a Tea Cup?

2006-01-20T23:02:00.000Z

The net has ben buzzing with news that the US government wants data from Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo and Google to support its case in the law court for internet censorship to protect children. The first three surrendered the data while Google decided to put up a fight. The question raising the most hit around the net focus around privacy of individuals are compromised. I, instead, think everyone miss the big picture "Can companies and government compel others to give them data they would like to have simply because it is useful to them and might be able to advance their case?"

Let's get the privacy issue out of the way first. Whether individual privacy is violated depends very heavily on the data being turned over. If it is anonymized data, i.e., no IP address, user name etc that can be traced back to an individual, it would not be a problem. To pacify people that their privacy is intact, the companies involve and the US government simply just have to disclose the nature of data turned over. With this, people can make their mind up on whether massive privacy violation take place. We have a rule of thumb at work, if the data can be trace back to a group of less than 25 persons, then we are voilating Data Protection and Privacy Rules.

A bunch of anonymized data of the searches done by a million or more people is a rich source of data for a data mining operation. The US government is effectively asking the big four search engine to turn over their data to allow them to mine the data. The size of the combined dataset is huge and is in itself, much more valuable then the total sum of the individual datasets Hence, assuming any government, or any big companies is capable or willing to pay for mining a large dataset, should anyone be compelled to give them the datasets? I do not think so. In the case of litigation, I am willing to give the defendent more leeway to ask for a large set of data from the plaintiff to allow him to make his case or vice-versa. I cannot see why a totally unrelated third party can be asked to provide data not directly related to the court case simply because the defendent or the plaintif believe it is helpful. Normally, a search of material held by third party are very narrow and can be directly linked to the court case. Here, it seems the relationship between the data asked by the government and the court case is very slim and at a very long stretch.

Why? The US Government hope to use this to support its case for Internet censorship to protect children. But the nature of the data may mean that this data mining operation is meaningless. Bottomline is that does censorhip of the internet, in the form proposed by the legislation under investigation, protect American Kids and its implication on the freedom of American Adults. It is important to note that the US government can only argue that the legislation will protect American kids, not English Boys or a French girls.

Here lies the problem, the datasets turned over probably consists of searches all over the world, the number of searches from overseas is highly likely to be significant enough to upset the conclusion derived. Then, another fundamental question is how one can distinguish between searches by American kids and searches by American adult. American government is not an idiot who do not realized it, thus raising the concern on how much detail is needed for the data to be meaningful and this give rise to the privacy concerns above. Details are the bad guys when it comes to privacy. Again, only if they disclose the nature of the data turned over, we cannot judge for ourselves.

Lets hope more information comes to light to allow us to make an informed opinion on whether this overstep the privacy mark.

Symantec use File Cloaking. Doubt casted on F-Secure trustworthiness

2006-01-13T11:34:00.000Z

Back in November, as part of the Sony XCP Rootkit Fiasco, the XCP software maker, First4Internet, claims that it has Symantec's input when designing XCP. I mentioned in my blog post that Symantec has not responded. At that time, I thought this might be true because Symantec had not denied it, eventhough I said in the blog post that "I cannot see how Symantec, a competent and reputable anti-virus company, can miss this if First 4 Internet did consult them and described fully what their Digital Restriction Mechanism works."

Recently, there is an eWeek report that Norton SystemWork, a Symantec product, do deploy directory-cloaking. This evident, although do not conclusively proved it, supports First4Internet's claim that it had consulted Symantec.

While it is great that Symantec comes clean on this issue, the fact that it comes after Sony Rootkit shows that Symantec did not consider this a security risk until the Sony case blow up for First4Internet. The timing of the announcement by Symantec is more PR (waiting for Sony Rootkit to die down in order not to be 'linked' to it) then technical (time needed to engineer a fix and distribute it). With all the delays, users of Norton SystemWork is put at risk.

I am angered by the fact that F-Secure, who claimed to had detected Symantec's rootkit way back in March 2005, did not disclose it until Symantec comes clean, ten months later. F-Secure, as you recall, is probably the only anti-virus software provider that comes out rosy in the XCP fiasco for confirming Mark Russinovich's account of rootkit and stands with him on saying that it is a security risk. I am sure F-Secure would argue that it was acting on everyone's interest by staying mum on the subject until a fix is available. This argument does not wash with me, because Symantec obviously did not consider it a security risk back in March 2005, therefore, extremely unlikely to fix it. Public disclosure is probably the best way to fix for everyone, bar Symantec and F-Secure's relationship with the company.

It is true that unlike Sony's Rootkit, Symantec's Rootkit was designed for the benefit of the consumer, a rootkit is a rootkit is a rootkit. Period.

According to the same eWeek article, other companies are doing the same as well. Shame to them for not even coming clean on it. It is argued that parental control software are one type of software where hiding the folder containing the controls make sense. Let me tell you it is just a smoke screen. With parental control, your kids know that you have it installed. The solution here is to make it impossible to delete. Hiding does not make it so. It simply makes it more difficult. Your software vendor should use other strategy, such as Unix style read/write/execute permissions, not rootkit.

Perhaps the most important issue highlighted by Sony and Symantec Rootkits are the trustworthiness of commercial anti-virus software providers. Here, we see the ignorance of Symantec on the risk of the rootkit and clear case of conflict of interest in Symantec as both Norton SystemWork vendor, and anti-software provider. On the part of F-Secure, one can argue it had placed its commercial interest above that of its customers, the very people who hired it to protect them.

Google Video Service and Google Pack

2006-01-12T17:42:00.000Z

The much anticipated Google keynote speech at the Consumer Electronic Show did not deliver the VOW factor. However, if one look at the concepts behind the new Google Pack and Google Video Service, one can see some potential revamp of the computing landscape, something Google is really good at.

Google Pack, at the very least, have the potential to revolutionize how softwares are delivered and maintained. The central concept is to have a Trusted Party, Google in this case, to manage your software for you remotely. Microsoft, Linux and Unix's can learn a lot from Google Pack. If Google manage to deliver as it has done with GMail, a fresh rethink of how software are maintained is inevitable.

With Google Video Service, Google is trying to build a market place for video. It stand out from other video stores in the sense that it allows almost everyone to trade in video, thus democratise video trading by giving an outlet to small producer. With the flexible pricing, it represents the best way to allow real market dynamics such as supply-and-demand forces to work its magic. However, it looks like a bazaar for video content. More accurately, a online Blockbuster that also sell video or another Amazon Video Store (sell videos, but also rent them out). This can be prove to be a fatal flow because it fails to standout from Blockbuster or Amazon. Most importantly, it means punters do not feel that they can get quality products from it.

I had a look at Google Video Store. I must say I am disappointed. The layout fails the high Google standard that I have come to expect, i.e., something that stand out from the rest, very clear and simple to use. Content-wise it is seriously short of it. Google should had call it "Video Stall Alpha".

As for Google Media Player and Google Digital Right Management, I think the biggest archilles heel is the need to remain online to play DRM-protected content. It will be a great handicap for consumption of the content by consumer. Except for Live Events or News Bulletins, there is no real need to stay online to consume the content. An overwhelming amount of video content out there are pre-recorded content and therefore, staying online in order for the content to be "streamed" to you does not make much sense, especially if you view the content repeatedly. Here, I think Google had made a backward step.

Seeing the way Larry Page handle himself during the presentation, he should had practice more. He looks like a student who is ill-prepared for a presentation. The Google team should be sent to presentation boot camp to relearn how to present a corporate presentation.

A lot of commentators forgotten that Google is rather unproven when it comes to selling products (video) to the general public or managing software for the masses. Google Video Stall Alpha is not a good start and Google Pack does not manage all the software an average Joe Consumer needs on their computers. Other Google offerings that have the degradetory "Beta" attached to them are much better then these two final products.

In my opinion, Google rushed the Video Stall and Google Pack out and it shows. Why did Google decides to do this, I do not know. May be it is feeling the business pressure.

Overall, this reinforce my impression of Google is that it is a technologically very capable and skilled company, and one that have a lot of innovative concepts. From a business point-of-view, it still have a lot to learn.

Flaw In Patent Reexamination Procedure by USPTO

2006-01-11T12:07:00.000Z

Microsoft's FAT patents had been upheld by US Patent And Trademark Office. In this entry, I am not going to talk about the merits of the patent, but rather the procedure used to reexamine the patent.

The two quotes below are attributed toPublic Patent Foundation President Dan Ravicher ina CNet article. When reading the first quote, I would like readers to substitute "Microsoft" with "Patent Holder":

"Microsoft has won a debate where they were the only party allowed to speak, in that the patent re-examination process bars the public from rebutting arguments made by Microsoft,"

and

"We still believe these patents are invalid and that a process that gave the public equal time to present its positions would result in them being found as such."

Current process of patent reexamination has a potential flaw because the patent examination board only hears detail argument from one side, the patent holder. While I am sure the board will endeavour to be impartial, hearing only from one side open the board to criticism of biasness at the very minimum. I am more interested in the practical issue of having the board fighting the potential bias favouring the patent holder and do think that by openning up the reexamination to all interested party, we can eliminate this bias. One possibility is to open the proceedings to the public and have a public commentary period. Another, which I believe to be a better one, is to adopt an adversory system similar to that of the court, where the party requesting for reexamination and the patent holder both present their case to the reexamination board.

There is no denying that adversarial system do have its flaw. One serious one is its reliance on the skill of the advocate to present one's case. However, its beauty is the difficulty in accusing the system of bias.

In fact, I will go further by emulating the criminal court by placing the burden of proof of validity of the patent on that of the patent holder. His opponent simply have to poke holes in his claims. First and formost, a valid patent can be defended. Since only a patent worth its salt is worth defending, it also have the effect of rooting out weak patent. Not to mention that since the patent holder is willing to make a claim, he must be prepare to defend the claim. Lastly but not least important, a patent is a grant of monopoly over a particular method, therefore, it is the onus of the person gaining the monopoly to make a convincing argument and to defend it for the duration of the monopoly grant.

Verizon Windows Media Player Fiasco : Bad customer practice and may be, just may be, MS performing a forbidden dealing through the back door ?

2006-01-10T11:53:00.000Z

Remember that the judge overseeing Microsoft's antitrust settlement in the US chiding Microsoft for drawing up (and later drop) a proposed contract that says that only Microsoft's Media Player is allowed on portable audio player? Just when we thought the dust had settled, Verizon's introduce a music service that supports only Microsoft Media Player.

Let's get the most important fact first: It is reported that supporting only Microsoft Media Player IS Verizon's own decision, and they have every rights to do so. However, I think it is worth investigating whether Microsoft applied pressure or illegal sweeten the deal
to drive Verizon to this decision. After all, we cannot allow a monopolist to go anywhere near the very action it is not suppose to do under the antitrust settlement. More worryingly, it is reported (but not verified) that Microsoft an agreement with Verizon for Windows Media Player to be the solo media player. If true, this is worrying.

Verizon's action is deplorable in several ways. First, if you upgrade your phone, Verizon originally does not bother to tell you that the MP3 playback function is disabled. The lure of upgrading, as far as the customer is concerned, is about richer feature and enhancement, not the degradation of the phone as it is here. If one is to remove something as important as MP3 playback, it should be advertised. Second, it surrepticiously convert all your MP3s to WMAs format if you upload to the phone. This is bad because customers do expects MP3s to stay as MP3s or WMAs to stays as WMAs. There is nothing wrong with doing this conversion, just make it clear that the conversion take place. All in all, bad customer relation practice. There are also claims of misleading advertising (Verizon advertise that the phones involved have built-in MP3 players)

Verizon defends the action as to "enhance" user experience. I cannot see how removing MP3 playback is an "enhancement" of user experience. It looks to me as if Verizon is trying to "lock-in" their customers by putting technical hurdles when its customers attempts to play music bought from another source.

Lets see how this issue evolve. I do not think we are seeing the end of it.

Given the Sony XCP fiasco and this event, I believe we are living in interesting time. Market forces are at play shaping the future of DRM-enabled content.

More Education for Coursey

2006-01-06T12:14:00.000Z

PJ of Groklaw decided to educate David Coursey over his misconceived article over OpenDocumentFormat. As Coursey's article do appear from time to time on my radar screen, I do know that this articles are pro-Microsoft in a way beyond reasonable. As a matter of comparison, John Carroll of ZDNet is very pro-Microsoft as well, but at least in his article, there are tangile reasons for this view.

PJ is right. David Coursey's accusations were long answered. I will refer readers to Groklaw for an explaination and "reeducation" if any of my reader needs one.

While I am not PJ's classroom assistant, I will comment on other issues on the article that PJ did not care to comment.

First, I will like to touch on this two quotes from Coursey:

"Rather than adopt a single format for the distribution of documents, governments should support multiple formats or at least provide some means of converting from whatever format the state uses to whatever the citizen is using."

As I understand it, if Joe Citizen file a request for document to be provided in XYZ format, the government will endeavour to provide the document in the request format, including Microsoft Office Format, the format that Coursey wants Massachusett to use. The key here is there is no regulation/legisations/rules/laws preventing the government official to do so.

Secondly, Coursey said
"If your goal is document access, selecting a format that Microsoft chooses not to support won't accomplish your goal."

When talking about document access, Coursey is referring to document access by citizen. My argument about XYZ format shows that he is misguided. Besides, when we speak about document access in Massachusett's case, we are mainly referring to archiving needs. With this, it is necessary to stress mandatory use of OpenDocumentFormat is only for "internal" use only. This distinction is important. How a government store its data is the government's internal business. If the government decides to decompose a document and store it in 100 separate databases, and then on request, reconstitute the document from these 100 separate databases for its own consumption or for its citizen, why should the citizen cares? Before I get flamed, I must say that this is only an example, and that it is on the assumption that decomposing the document to store it in 100 separate databases make sense.

Internally, insisting on only one format for data make sense. It simplify management and can safe cost by achieving economics of scale and by removing the need for converters, improve sefficiency.

Next issue. Coursey said:

"Still, I am not sure a fully interoperable read/write format is a requirement for public documents. I am satisfied if the finished documents made available to the public are in an open format, such as Adobe PDF."

Expectation do change. Today people mostly public documents, including forms, but increasingly, people wants the ability to write to the documents as well, and to submit it electronically if possible.

As a columnist writing on technology related issue, I am suprise that Coursey is satisfied with simply reading documents.

About a year ago, when I applied for a Canadian Visa, the ability to fill in the PDF form electronically then print it out was a novelty , something refreshing and something I would like to see more. Today, when I receive a PDF form, I am dissapointed when I find that I cannot fill the form electronically but to do it the old fashion way.

My prediction is, in the future, we can write and submit forms electronically as well. This is likely to be driven by the fact that it will allow automatic processing of the form. For some government agencies, this can lead to great efficiency improvement. Thus, in this case, the ability for ALL to read AND write to documents is of paramount importance.

Now, let me says that Coursey blames the wrong person when he says:

"After all, unless Microsoft chooses to support OpenDocument, then a move to that format would make it more difficult for Microsoft Office users to access state documents than it is today." [Implying that the State is to blame for this]

Sorry Coursey, if this is the case, then Microsoft is to be blamed for not choosing to support OpenDocumentFormat. No one in this world, including government, have the duty to ensure Microsoft Office Users is not inconvenient by any decision. Throughout this OpenDocumentFormat vs Office XML Schema debate, my stance is that Microsoft have every rights not to support OpenDocumentFormat. However, it has to take all blames and credits for its decision. So far, I use this to quash the argument Microsoft allies' is manufacturing an argument against OpenDocumentFormat when they argue about accessibility problems with OpenDocumentFormat, (More correctly, softwares that support OpenDocumentFormat's) because the accessibility problems will go away if Microsoft Office supports OpenDocumentFormat. But here, the arguments goes against Microsoft, unless it can prove that the decision not to support OpenDocumentFormat is not a business one but is based on sound technical/legal reasons. The "backward compatibility" issue, "Office XML Schema is better" and "Not all data we want to store in Microsoft Office can be stored in OpenDocumentFormat" are red herrings, not real arguments.

He said:

"Microsoft is here, and as the overwhelming choice of customers, it gets to make certain decisions, file formats being one of them."

Nevermind the argument that people probably did not "overwelming" chooses Microsoft because of the lack of competition. I have enormous problem with him implying that because he is implying that Micrsoft gets to make file formats decision for others: government, corporate or individual. As ~~Microsoft~~ Courtsey is finding out, it does not.

Finally

"In summary, I think it was arrogant for a state department head to think he could force people to use a particular document format—one they don't use and their applications won't support—if they want to interact with their government.

"You'd think a top executive of the state best known for a certain Tea Party would have better understood who works for whom."

Eh... who is the arrogant one here? The state department head did not force citizen to use particular document format. Common sense says that it is in his jurisdiction to say what document format his department use internally. If anyone think he is wrong, the onus is on him to point out why. It is arrogant for a columnist to think that he can tell anyone what he or she can do in internally in his/her department.

About the Tea Party, open standard advocate would equate Office XML Schema as the Colonial Government and OpenDocumentFormat as the rebels. The Tea Party is about government forcing something on its citizens, which is not what is happenning here.

NetBeans should NOT throw in the towel

2006-01-05T17:23:00.000Z

David Berlind accepted Tim Bray's bet that he will change his mind in 2007 that NetBean should throw in the towel. (Event sequence : 1, 2, 3). Ian Skerett of Eclipse Foundation believe that Berlind will win. Granted, Skerett is biased, but will Berlind win? Yes, of course. The flaw in the bet is that Berlind, one party to the bet, is the solo authority that will decide whether he wins or lose. See the conflict of interest here? Since we have not invented a way to say whether he is lying, we will have to accept what he says as the truth and nothing but the truth.

Of course I have all confidence that Berlind will tell the truth come 2007. His integrity is at stake. The actual bet is whether NetBeans will be one of the IDE considered by developers beside Eclipse IDE in 2007. I was telling the half truth when I say we cannot verify that he is lying, coz if NetBeans did indeed becomes an alternative to Eclipse for most developers, he can lie through his teeth that he won and nobody will believe him, ... and Bray will be happy to buy him dinner if this is the case, although I am not sure Berlind will eat it.

In my work, I use Eclipse very heavily. Even with this in mind, I do not want NetBeans to throw in the towel. By being an alternative to Eclipse, it provide competition to Eclipse and forces Eclipse to innovate to stay ahead where it has the advantage, and to catch up where it is behind. I want this competition to continue as long as I am using Eclipse (or NetBeans for that matter).

Real story, Reporter in search of a story, or PR? (Updated)

2006-01-03T14:23:00.000Z

Lets have a look at this news item on Email Battles about Microsoft Employees ranting about IE6 in a negative way. The reason why I want to look at it is because I am not sure whether am I seeing a real factual account of what really happens inside Microsoft, Microsoft PR Campaign to counter the spread of Firefox 1.5, or just simply, a reporter reporting an uninteresting story because of the annual "End of Year News Drought" as everyone is on holiday.

Let's look at the chornology of events first (All dates approximate):

** December 16, 2004: Launch of Mozilla Firefox1.0
January 29 2005: Rory Blyth of Microsoft, in response to a comment on his blog, complains that IE6 is "horribly behind time".
February 15 2005: Bill Gates announce IE7
** December 08, 2005: Launch of Mozilla Firefox 1.5
December 19, 2005: Dare Obsasanja tell Microsoft to shake up or concede web browser development to other companies.
December 19, 2005: Jorg Brown revealation about a conversation he has with a Microsoft superior on Slashdot
Decmebr 29, 2005: The article discussed was published.

Italic items are comments quoted by the article and attributed to people close to Microsoft.

Is it a genuine story? No. Nothing worth reporting here.

A reporter filling the "end of year news drought"? Not very likely. Look at the timing of events. Events (5) and (6) is planted to path the way for the news item. At this festive season, reporters want a break too. I doubt he really spend the time to dig out Blyth's comment in the beginning of the year.

Moreover, I am sure everyone can see that all responses from Microsoft side seems to be triggered with Mozilla Firefox launches (Items marked with **). The lack of about one-and-a-half months between (1) and (2) can be easily explained by Microsoft preparing its response to Firefox. If you need supporting evidence, there is a one month difference between the launch of Firefox 1.0 (1) and Rory Blyth's complain (2) but Bill Gates announcement is merely two weeks away from Blyth's complain. My money is that when Rory Blyth comments is a precursor for Bill Gate's announcement and when Blyth makes his comments, he knows that IE7 project is a go or being finalized. Bill Gate's announcment is delayed in search of a big conference to announce it. If you need one more reason on why this is a PR campaign at work, just remember, as employee, it is a rule of thumb not to speakout about ones work, especially one that devalues your employers product; Unless, of course, you have prior clearance from PR.

Another thing to remember is, when did you see reporter pick up something that happens almost a year ago (1)? That comment by Rory Blyth is stale by all accounts.

[Update 4 Jan 2005]
Second story on the same vein appeared. My verdict: stronger evidence that this is a PR campaign. Who in the right mind will talk about non-existing issues surrounding IE7 beta (rivalries, complains etc) instead of the IE7 product itself (reviews)?

Sony BMG may settle the XCP/MediaMax case [the EFF case]

2005-12-30T12:07:00.000Z

According to several reports including this from Groklaw, Sony and the plaintiffs had reached a settlement proposal on the Class Action suite against it from the EFF. In it, Sony practically bowed to all the demands of EFF. The demands from EFF, as far as I can tell, is reasonable.

The most important aspect is that Sony agree to provide a "clean, non-content protected CD identical in music content to ech XCP CD exchanged". Yes, you read rightly, Sony agree to provide non-DRM CD. Why is Sony prepared to drop the claim that it need DRM to protect the copyright content without even putting up a fight? If DRM was so crucial to protect the content, Sony would not had compromised so easily. This is a convincing proof that DRM is not really central to the protection of copyright content, as least not when it interfered with the rightful consumption of the content.

Sony also agrees not to distribute CDs with the current XCP and MediaMax for at least two years. It will affect the share prices of First4Internet and SunnComm (manufacturer of XCP and MediaMax). It will also devalue SunnComm's current effort to spin off MediaMax. Other than that, not much worth talking about. As far as Sony is concern, XCP and MediaMax software, as it currently stand, is a no-no for future CDs so it would not affect it much. The damage to XCP and MediaMax brand name are already done. It would not surprise me if the two companies ditch the names and go through a rebranding exercise soon.

One last notable effect of this settlement is Sony's agreement to go back to standard software installation practices, i.e., providing uninstaller and not to install anything when user says no. It is also forced to withdraw those nasty little End User License Agreement (EULA) clauses that are unfair.

Overall, a good settlement. Sony have to offer affected customers some sweetstake and bear the cost of distribution of these sweetstake as punishment. EFF succeeded in pulling Sony's business practice back to the straight and narrow. Most importantly, the settlement establish a baseline on what acceptable practice for content distribution should behave.

EU should not exercise the option break up Microsoft without thinking long and hard

2005-12-30T11:27:00.000Z

With reference to this International Herald Tribune article, EU has the rights to order the break up of Microsoft if it is satisfied that Microsoft is not amending it ways with respect to its illegal monopolistic behaviour.

While I agree that the ability to break up companies must be an antitrust arsenal available to regulators, I do not think this option should be exercised without extreme caution. It is a "death penalty" for company. If imposed, I believe the burden of justifying this move lies squarely on the shoulder of EU and they will have to show that no other possible remedies is possible or effective.

Simply because a company is exploring all avenues legally available to it to fight an antitrust decision is not enough reason to break it up. Neither is its failure to comply with antitrust decision. Taken together it may form the basis for exploring break up, but still, in my opinion, insufficient basis to order a breakup. Lets not forget the overwhelming aim of antitrust legislation is to remedy the market situation. Properly punishing the perpetrator is a good deterrence, it is, and should be, the secondary aim.

One situation I can think of ordering a break up is that the EU can prove that the company is in the way of remedying the situation. Even then, before breaking up the company, it should explore other possibilities, including penalizing individuals in the management. This can be imposing a personal fine on the individuals, and perhaps throwing some of them in jail. It is not unheard of where managers were drag to the criminal courts for their business decisions (think Enron), why not for violation of antitrust?

There is one recent precedence on breaking up a company as a result of antitrust proceeding, i.e., the break up of AT&T into Baby Bells in the United States that is of the same scale we are talking here. Does it enhance competition in the (United States) market place? Yes. However, in terms of advancing telecommunication technology, the lost of a big giant with pockets deep enough the finance the development and fulfillment of a vision, is deeply felt. Since the break up, it seems that American market is trailing the European and now the Asian in terms of telecommunication advances. A notable example is the use of mobile phones.

Traslate this to Microsoft requires the EU to answer this question: are they sacrificing other benefits of having a big giant like Microsoft when ordering a break up? Yes, there will be no big lost in advances in technology by Microsoft is by far the biggest copycat. It is still the thousand pound gorilla that other companies have to innovate against to stay in the market. Perhaps more importantly, it is still the symbol that one can strike it big in the industry.

The take home message: Do not underestimate the value of keeping the gorilla known as Microsoft intact. Like a gorilla, we need to clip its nails from time to time and punish it if it misbehave. Killing the gorilla may not be a good idea, even if it gives a lot of grieve.

Massachusetts lost a great CIO

2005-12-29T18:53:00.000Z

It is confirmed, Massachusett's Peter Quinn is quiting on Jan 12. A sad day for Massachusetts State. He did not jump before he was pushed. He says he is quiting to protect Massachusetts's move to open standard. It is understandable because lately the spotlight had been on him. His every move is being scrutinized and every opportunity to discredit him by smearing him unfairly, like the unfounded and biased article in the Boston Globe accused him of. (See rebuttal from Groklaw -- "Peter Quinn Exonerated" and "Boston Globe Throws Mud at Peter Quinn -- Mud Lands on Boston Globe"-- and Andy Updegrove -- "Quinn Cleared in Travel Investigation (But Will the [Boston] Globe be Cleared?)" and "Romney administration reviewing trips made by technology chief". I am not going to link to the original Boston Globe article but you can find it from the links above)

This is a sad day for everyone in IT and Management. It shows that making bold and unconventional decision can be extremely damaging to one's professional and private life. To say that Mr Quinn failed to note that his decision will be closely scrutinized will be naive on the part of the commenter. Mr Quinn is not a fresh man out of university, he is an experienced IT Professional. He knows he is playing a high stake game, that his decision will generate a tsunami and he will be under extreme pressure. He also knows that, like every one who was not born yesterday, there are going to be situations in his life where others can exploit to throw mud at him. To his charing, the pressure is more than he is prepared to stomach.

I do not want this blog entry to be an eulogy for Mr Quinn. Rather, I want to take this opportunity to celebrate his success and boldness, especially in deciding for the OpenDocumentFormat decision and defending that decision. Bold, because this decision of his go against what everyone expected and did not "toe the line". Success, because he is the one that put OpenDocumentFormat from back-burner into the spotlight. Success, because his decision make sense and the action of his detractors demonstrated this: They took the contemptable route of focusing on his day-to-day activity because they cannot find flaws in his decision. Unfortunately, he fall victim to this success.

Like him or hate him, you must agree he started all these intense interest about OpenDocumentFormat and Office XML Schema. He turned it from a largely academic discussion to a discussion with real-life implication.

With Mr Quinn departure, we have one less Open Document Format supporter in Massachusett government and a heavy weight one indeed. I am sure those responsible for pushing him over the edge will be openning one more bottle of champaige this festive season. Rather than being ashamed of their action, they probably took the mud on their face as "trophies" or acceptable damage.

Mr Quinn has to do whatever he think is best for him and his family. I wish him every success. While I am sad to see him go, it does open an opportunity for other governments/business to hire a very competent person. May be, just may be, we will see him pushing ahead with his vision in other governments.

Bias in ECMA Committee for Office XML

2005-12-23T13:05:00.000Z

If one need to see how potentially biased the ECMA committee can be, just have a look at the appointment of co-Chairs: Both are from Microsoft. Surely for the same of appearing impartial we cannot have co-chairs from the same company in an independent committee. Or do I have to send the whole committee back to school?

Let's also have a look at the picture in the article and consider the ackwardness of the ceremony, assuming the standard etiquette is followed: Jean Paoli of Microsoft hands over the initial draft to ECMA Secretary General which then hands over the draft to the chair of the committee, the same said Jean Paoli. In other words, the draft do a merry-go-round. Some might says it is "proof" that ECMA is rubberstamping the standard proposed by Microsoft.

I am not sure how a committee is to look like, except that I know for sure it has to be someone high up and sufficiently detached from the company's working team on the topic of interest. High up, to ensure any decision in the committee will be followed through at the individual company's; Sufficiently detached to ensure that discussion will not degenerate into my implementation vs yours, as it frequently happen with people too closely involved in the process. They need to be also sufficiently "attached" to understand the technical dynamics and practical implication of the standard. Jean Paoli (of Microsoft) and Adam Farquhar (of British Library) are too detached from the document creation/preservation process. In coperate hierarchy terms, they are also too far up the chain. The other co-chair, Isabelle Valet-Harper, Sr. Program Manager for Standards Strategy and Microsoft’s primary representative to Ecma, no pun intended, does not know a thing about documents. Moreover, why is a company strategist made a co-chair of a "technical committee"?

The wrong leaders were elected!

British Library and Office XML

2005-12-23T13:03:00.000Z

British Library is a leading UK public body. In the UK, public body are very sensitive about the appearance of impartiality. Therefore, it is, for me, very strange that Adam Farquhar, head of e-Architecture, allow himself to be used to indicate British Library is strongly supporting Micirosoft Office XML standardization effort in ECMA, as photographed in the article and on its initial press release announcing the effort.

Now, the most important thing first. Mr Farquhar is engaging in anything wrong at all. In fact, ECMA is "supposed" to be a neutral body. Second, he is the Vice Chair of the ECMA committee in charge with the standardization effort, hence he should be in any picture that is about the committee's work. Moreover, his involvement in the committee can bring the British Library's expertise in managing large collections of books to the committee. Nor is it a slur on British Library, which, following the tradition of British Institutions, encourage its staffs to be involve in outside organziations to promote public good, provided their involvement is not seen to be endorsing anything even slightly controversial or biased.

It is just that, why is he involving himself with a committee that a lot of people says is there to rubberstamp Microsoft Office XML? My view is even dimmer, it is a committee to write the documentation of Office XML for Microsoft!

His statement on the subject. quote, "Some people think we are adopting Microsoft formats as our standard for digital preservation. This is not right; we are striving to make sure that content we receive in MS formats will be preserved", unquote, in my view, makes his involvement in the committee even more difficult to understand. If digital preservation of documents in different formats is the aim, surely the British Library must involve themselves in other standardization as well. While they can claim they underestimated OpenDocumentFormat potential, they cannot claim the same for PDF standardization effort. Why didn't I see them mentioned in PDF standardization then? The British Library is a big catch for any organization.

Well, he claims that it is not directly linked to Microsoft's sponsored project to digitize rare and out-of-print books from British Library Collection. The cynic in me beg to differ. I will say it is a strong factor influencing the decision, unless, of course, that MS format is simply unuseable for archiving and he is there to correct this defect. This is unlikely, the committee looks to be a rubberstamp committee.

Developments on Microsoft EU antitrust case

2005-12-22T15:54:00.000Z

Wow! Why the end-of-year rush of bad news for Microsoft EU Antitrust case? Is it because the European Bureaucrates need to meet an end-of-year deadline to allow them to claim "progress"? Or did they think that Microsoft needs the Christmas break to digests the information? Or someone is trying tos spike Microsoft's Christmas? Most likely it is that the "end-of-year" slow down means news organzation were short of news to fill pages so smaller news items bubble up to the front pages.

In chronological order:

First and this is a rather surprising: The European Court of First Instance rejected the the application of four organizations to intervene on Microsoft's behalf. These failed to demonstrate that either "their members' interests can be affected by the principle decisions in the case", or that "they represent a non-trivial propotion of a sector and the decision of the court have an appreciable impact on the sector concerned". One organization (The International Association of Microsoft Certified Partners, Inc. or 'IAMCP' )was rejected because in the court's opinion, they are simply a conduct of communications between Microsofts and developers and failed the first criteria, the others, the court says that they are mere think tanks, i.e. no direct interest. I think Microsoft is surprised as well. It is difficult to believe that Microsoft did not have a hand in their application. I hope they can now have Microsoft foot the legal fees they are supposed to pay to the other parties involved. Free Software Foundation Europe, on the other hand, should had asked for legal fees. Because they did not ask, they missed out.

Second development is one that have longer impact on Microsoft and others, including me: EU green paper on antitrust damage says, according to Bloomberg News, that trade secret deserves less protection from other Intellectual Properties such as Patents. (Note I tried to read the green paper but it is so full of legalese that I cannot understand it.) If so, Bloomberg News rightly conclude that this weaken Microsoft claims that releasing interoperability information to open-source as required by the EU, violates trade-secret rights. In my view, the most important aspect is not that this weaken Microsoft case, but rather the acknowledgement by the EU that intellectual property rights (IPR) is subservent to monopolistic abuse which it should be. Furthermore, this is consistent with my first principle of Intellectual Property: "Promoting Innovations". Putting trade-secret, or other IPR above Monopolistic Abuse will certainly reduce innovation. I hope we are seeing a crack in the armour for those trumpetting IPR rights for content owner.

Third development is that EU says that Microsoft did not comply with its requirement to release the information it was ordered to. Hence, it is threathening to fine Microsoft upto two million euros per day if it fails to do so by 15 January (backdated to 15 Dec if the fine materialized). Microsoft is sitting on a pile of cash that it does not know what to do, hence the fine will not hurt the company as much. Moreover, two million euros is only an upper limit, the actual fine is likely to be substantially lower. If you ask me, I think the chances of Microsoft being fined is not very high, but it is likely to result in some Microsoft employees losing their Christmas Break. Well, at least those employees are very well paid.

Oh ya, did I mentioned AOL is cuddling up to Google rather than Microsoft?

Guilty of misrepresentation, but not hijacking

2005-12-19T14:21:00.000Z

A storm (in a tea-cup) has erupted over Microsoft's labelling of the use of of a valid C++ standard function call std::copy() deprecated.

The issue of contention is that in some circumstance, a perfectly legal call to std::copy() will trigger the compiler to issue a "deprecated" warning in one of the internal function used by std::copy(). Microsoft has promised to removed this wording. This, of course, trigger suspicion that Microsoft is again up to its "embrace, extend and extinguish" strategy.

As a C/C++ programmer, I normally treat any warning displayed by my compiler when I am using standard C++ function as an indication that there is a problem with my style of writing the function, as defined by the C++ standard. This is true even if the warning message is generated by an internal function called by the function I used because it is not an uncommon practice to have internal functions catching and reporting the problem. However, not everyone will consider that the warning/error could be a results of incompatibility between the compiler I am using and the actual C++ standard. In fact, I did not develop this way of reasoning until I have to work with several compilers at the same time, each with their own quirks. Therefore, there is a risk of misinformation.

Hence, by displaying a "deprecated" warning when users use std::copy(), function unnecessarily, Microsoft is guity of misrepresentation. It is not Microsoft's right to declare function call defined by the C++ Standard committee "deprecated", especially when "deprecated" carries a very well defined meaning in the C++ Standard. (A function marked as "deprecated" means the use of the function should be avoided/recoded if necessary as it will eventually be removed from the standard document). Apparently, the reason why Microsoft's C++ compiler issues such a warning have to do with its extension of the C++ Standard. Unfortunately, everyone who do not wish to use Microsoft's extension of the C++ standard is going to be presented with this warning and this is unacceptable.

However, we cannot conclude from this that Microsoft is deploying the "extend" phase of its infamous "embrace, extend and extinguish" strategy. For one it did not suggest the use of any of the Microsoft specific function to work around this warning message. Moreover, most programmers will simply revert to pre-std::copy() ways of copying a range of data, most likely the famous for-loop construct. If this were part of the "extend" phase, it is extremely unlikely that programmers will be fooled to use Microsoft-specific extension.

Anyway, as I said, Microsoft is working to remove this message. As such, Microsoft is guilty of misrepresentation, but there is seriously insufficient evidence to suggest that it is hijacking the C++ standard.

I would characterized this issue as something that can affect any compiler vendor. It is not uncommon to have compiler specific extension. For most C/C++ programmers that have to write code that works on all platform, we are accustom to this fact and do, from time to time, check that we are simply using standard complience function calls only.

For other vendors, it would simply means filing a bug report with the vendor and insisting that the vendor change the text of the warning. Unfortunately, the vendor this time is Microsoft, hence, a lot of people who cares about standards first reaction is to find out whether Microsoft is trying to hijack the C++ standard. Sad fact. It underlies the mistrust between Microsoft and the community that cares about the C++ standard.

Alan Yates @ Massachusett's Open Forum

2005-12-16T19:39:00.000Z

After listening to the audio of the MA Open Forum on the Future of Electronic Data Formats for the Commonwealth, I agree with Pamela Jones that Andy Yates of Microsoft comments on the Massachusetts's Open Forum (REF) is asking Massachusetts to adopt two standards, OpenDocumentFormat (ODF) and MS Office XML format (MS-XML).

Assuming that MS Office XML format meets the requirements set out by Peter Quinn on the September meeting, whether Massachusetts adopts two standards, change to MS-XML format, or continue using ODF, is of course Massachusetts' decision and theirs alone. My gut feeling, as inferred from Peter Quinn's comments in the September Meeting, Halloween Meeting and this meeting is that Massachusetts is receptive in adopting two formats. If I were the Massachusetts Officer in charge, I will think very carefully before adopting two standards. By adopting two standards for the same purpose of archiving documents, I am very likely to cost the state more money then it would be if I stuck to one standard, because I have to do things in the double. Alan Yates is correct in pointing out that competition between the two formats is good, but it does not mean that “adopting the two standards” make economic sense. Moreover, I am not sure that it is Massachusetts government's job to ensure competition between the two standards. Someone did mention that “the competition is in the applications, not the standard” (REF). Linda Hamel characterizes Massachusetts State Government as a 23 billion dollar enterprise . Like any enterprise, they are entitle to choose which standard they want to use.

As I mentioned in my previous blog (REF), Microsoft is finally making the right approach in Massachusetts. Asking Massachusetts to adopt two standards and bringing their attention to the possible advantages of adopting two standards is the correct way to go, especially for the “loser” in the selection process which is effectively a “beauty pageant” (as oppose to an “auction”). I use loser in inverted commas because it is still unclear whether MS-XML or ODF is the loser. The only thing I can say is that MS-XML is at a disadvantage.

To support his case for adopting two softwares, Alan Yate's characterize Microsoft's (MS-XML) approach as the “software-based approach” and IBM/Sun (ODF) approach as “service-based approach”. His speech writer should had checked Linda Hamel's written response to the Halloween Meeting where she said “The overarching goal of the ETRM is to create a web-based service oriented architecture.” as this effectively means Yate's conceding that ODF is better for Massachusetts.

Alan Yate said that Microsoft is not oppose to ODF. I doubt this. First of all, they are still insisting not to support ODF in Microsoft Office and instead, pushing the State to adopt two standard. Secondly, while it is true with an exception of an interview with David Berlind and Brian Jones' blog, Microsoft was mum on the subject all along. However, the influx of articles berating Massachusetts for not endorsing MS-XML from Microsoft supported organizations and Senator Panacho's almost point-for-point parroting Microsoft's argument in the Halloween meeting simply imply that they choose to fight by proxy. So, no, Mr Alan Yate, your action shows that you are oppose to ODF until today.

Andy Updegrove managed to squeeze in a question asking Yate's to comment on MS FAQ item about Office XML ECMA process misrepresented the ODF standardization effort in OASIS. Yate's response is that they simply wants to point out that both MS-XML and ODF started as proprietary format and that they are pointing out that the quantities of written comments from SUN do indicate that SUN has very strong influence in the process and the OpenOfficeFormat (predecessor of ODF) made it to ODF without much alteration.

Considering the fact that only OpenOffice and SunOffice are extremely closely linked, and they are the only two software using OpenOfficeFormat, I will agree that it is a proprietary format for the purpose of this discussion. I am, of course, ignoring the fact that unlike MS-XML predecessor, there is no obstacle for third parties to implement OpenOfficeFormat and in that sense, it is not proprietary. Let's not split hair here.

However, while I am sure that Sun's has the most written comments to OASIS with reference to ODF, I would not consider that to be prove that SUN has undue influence in ODF standardization. Why? First, Sun, via OpenOffice and SunOffice initiative, has the most experience in the field of office documents. Hence, they are going to be the more prolific in commenting. Second, Koffice is also heavily involved, they were the first to implement ODF and was used as a proof that two separate initiatives can implement the ODF standard. Also, as application writers that implements ODF rather than end users of ODF, Sun is going to be more vocal as it discover problems etc when implementing it. Thirdly, IBM is on the committee. It brings on to the table expertise in using ODF in Back office application, namely server-oriented architecture as can be expected to object if things does not go their way. As IBM is almost equal in size with Sun, it is difficult to see how Sun have an unimpeded passage to force its view on others. Finally, simply because someone is more active in a standardization, i.e., commenting, simply means they are more committed than others in the process, not that they have undue influence over the process. It is the content of SUN's comments that counts, not the quantity.

Microsoft making right noises at Massachusett Meeting

2005-12-15T15:31:00.000Z

I have not finished listening to the Dan Bricklin's PodCast on "MA Open Forum on the Future of Electronic Data Formats for the Commonwealth" yet, but so far, Microsoft had taken the right steps.

Understand this, I am not commenting on whether Alan Yate's comment. Rather, I am saying that they taken the correct steps:

Not threatening to take legal action. (Everyone, except lawyers, hate lawsuits)
Instead of complaining that Massachusett do not adopt Office XML and insist that they take the Office XML as offerred, take steps to make Office XML acceptable
Send someone high up (Alan Yates) to the meeting. At a mininmum it show that you respect your big customer (the state of Massachusett), but more importantly give your high ranking officer a better feel of the situation.

I will comment on Alan Yate's statements later.

Microsoft making right noises about Office XML Format

2005-12-14T13:07:00.000Z

Microsoft posted an FAQ on the ECMA process. It is making some right noises about standardization. It clears up that the covenant not to sue will extends to the final ECMA specification (which I had expected) and most importantly, clear up what is meant by "conformance". Of particular interest is the ability to implement part of the specification, or to extend on the specification.

Andy Updegrove posted an excellent review of the FAQ. I broadly agree with his review, especially the part where he said that Microsoft misrepresented/smear the OpenDocumentFormat (ODF) process in OASIS. It is perfectly fine for Microsoft to explain why they chose not participate in the ODF process. I have a question for them: If they had chosen not to participate, how would they know that participants have no say in ODF's evolution to final standard? It is true that Microsoft have no say because they have no vote in the ODF process, but this is because OASIS have the policy that state that merely being a member of the process do not give you voting right if you do not participate in the process. Participation, as I understand it, merely means one have to turn up for meetings. Microsoft had chosen not to participate. It is their business decision and they have to live with it.

The swipe was totally unnecessary. Calling the ODF committee "small" is disingenuous: the role call for that committee (see Andy Updegrove article above) is certainly larger than that of the Office XML format committee. Moreover, Mr Updegrove had demonstrated what expertise the not-so-obvious members of the committee brought to the table. For example, Boeing brought expertise on complex documentation requirement (specifications, manuals etc) and the Bibliographic Society brought in expertise on multiple languages and bibliography generation. The fact that Mr Updegrove manage to describe these contribution shows that they at least got mentioned in the meetings. The continuing participation of these members implies that they see a value, which I interpret as they see that they can influence the process.

Obviously, this shows that Microsoft is rattered by comments that the ECMA process is simply a rubberstamping committee. There is still time to correct this. People like me is prepared to give ECMA a one-time opportunity to rubberstamp Microsoft Office XML format. However, the operative word is "one-time" and it is on the understanding that future standards from this committee is a result of collaborative work of all members in the committee.

Mr Updegrove says that at least one thing is true, that "The OASIS [ODF] committee did not focus on the requirements, constraints, and experiences of Microsoft customers." I agree, and will like to add that it is because Microsoft choose not to represent its customers. Indeed, Microsoft had chosen to leave representation of its customers to (dissatisfied?) Microsoft customers such as Boeing.

Consumers care, didn't they?

2005-12-13T11:59:00.000Z

Remember Mr Thomas Hesse, president of Sony BMG's global digital business who was made infamous by this quote (in his own voice) :

"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"

Unfortunately for him, people cares. He is quoted on the BBC for saying this with respect to another security problem with his company's DRM:

"Even if the issue is only a slight one, at Sony BMG we are very clear that any software security issues are taken with the utmost seriousness,"

While I disagree with his characterization. his change of stance is welcomed.

Another thing, Mr Hesse, while copyright is a huge problem for your industry, infringing on consumers fair use right is also a big issue for consumer. It is on par with security issues.

While I agree that Games software do have security problems, in these two cases, it is the way Sony surrepticiously install software without consent that is the real/bigger problem.

I guess an apology will be too much for Mr Hesse to bear. However, I have two advices for him:

Vet your contractors' software. If possible, get rid of DRM completely, and
(most importantly) Clear everything you want to say with your PR fellow before mentioning it in public, especially if you are going to be recorded. That is what you pay them for.

ECMA approve MS Office XML Technical Committee

2005-12-09T13:55:00.000Z

It is not a surprise, as Andy Updegrove reported, ECMA approved the MS Office XML Technical Committee.

Mr Updegrove and others are right, it seems that the first duty of the Technical Committee is to rubberstamp the current MS Office XML Standard. As I mentioned before in a previous post, I do not think this is extremely bad given the advanced stage of development of MS Office XML Standard. My problem is that I cannot see how others in the committee brings their expertise in in later stages.

For developers of complementary technologies to MS Office XML, this is comforting news. It is also not a big departure from MS goals of getting the MS Office application integrated into the server end. In fact, I believe what MS knew that they have to submit the Office XML to a standard committee one day to get others to complementary technologies. They simply brought forward the process in the light of development in Massachusetts.

For developers of office productivity software, the Terms of Reference is blatantly unacceptable because it gives them no say in future development of the Office Data Standard. Why? Put it this way. Because of the goal to create a standard that fully conform to MS Office XML standard, any proposal from third party cannot be accepted by the Technical Committee unless MS says OK.

This step is a brilliant move by MS. It took away a lot of uncertainty with MS Office XML format and for the majority of people, especially decision-makers who are not well-versed in technologies, MS can pull wool over their eyes when it says it is openning up.

As far as Massachusett is concerned, I do not think this meet the Terms of Reference meet one important criteria set out by Peter Quinn: That the standard must be modifiable by peers.

Why one should stick to standard software installation practice and rare case of plaintif in a lawsuit siding with defendent

2005-12-09T13:28:00.000Z

Yesterday, the news was EFF and Sony issue joint Press Release on vulnerability of MediaMax Digital Restriction Management. This is one of the rare case where you see the defendent (Sony) and plaintif (EFF) publicizing that they are on the same page for the issue under litigation. Kudos to EFF.

Today, the news was that EFF is withdrawing its recommendation that users install the patch as news break on Freedom to Tinker that the patch reintroduce the vulnerability. Ouch!

From software technology perspective, the biggest issue here is that you are infected by simply putting the CD inside your CDRom Drive. Granted, you are putting your computer at risk when you insert CD with Autorun-enabled, or you click on "setup.exe" on the CD. However, most people is right to demand that, as soon as I remove the CD, or refuse to install the software on the CD, the vulnerability will cease. This is not the case here. Initially, I thought it was the fact that the MediaMax software still continue running (until you reboot your computer) that is causing the problem. Unfortunately, it appears that it is worse than that as MediaMax had written something permanent onto the computer, and it is the stuff it writes that is vulnerable to exploitation by malicious people.

This shows why it is necessary to adhere to standard Industrial Practice: When user declines to install the software, the installer should remove every trace of the software.

The stink in the tail is that there is no benefit whatsoever for the consumers to install the DRM software offerred. There is no upside for the consumers, simply more pain.

Pick-and-mix Windows?

2005-12-08T12:42:00.000Z

This is one of the few occassion when I agree with Mr Carroll: South Korean FTC did not go far enough.

Taking his car analogy, consumer choose the final paint colour and most of the time can choose which radio/CD/DVD players they want. Car manufacturer, who today is more-or-less a system integrater, get to choose how to build the engines and who to source engine parts from. Isn' that great? Why cann't we see this in software?

South Korean FTC and European Union effectively want consumer choice. Obviously, end users are customer and they get to choose additional softwares that they need (paint and radio). System Integraters behave more like car manufacturers, and both are consumers. Why shouldn't they be allowed to compete by integrating different products from different vendor, like car manufacturer? Do I really need the WiFi software to be installed on my computer given that I do not have a WiFi card? Is there any technical reasons why I cannot find a system integrater willing and is able to strip this function away from my computer, if I can only afford a small hard disk?

EU, KFTC take notes, you INDEED did not go far enough. Open up the market, allow vendors/developers to compete.

Microsoft ECMA process, a mockery of standardization?

2005-12-08T12:27:00.000Z

Microsoft's ECMA Process for Office XML

For an overview of ECMA process, read Pamela Jone's Groklaw article (Second Half) . In the same article, PJ do discuss the Terms of Reference for the process and good Andy Updegrove have an analysis of the Terms of Reference. A Term of Reference, as I understand it, set out the goals for a particular committee, in this case, the “Technical Committee” in ECMA for Office XML format. CCIA's letter asking ECMA to reject the proposal is a must read.

The first thing that strike anyone who read the Term of Reference is how many times the word Microsoft is used. The second thing that strike me the strange goal of defining a format that “conforms” to Microsoft's XML format. The goal is strange because normally it is a proprietary format that have to conform with International Standard, not the other way round as described in this terms of reference. It also means the goal of the Technical Committee is to chase behind and play catch up to Microsoft's Office XML format. Andy Updegrove express this very well when he imply this is really a pervesion of the standardization process.

Lets also have a look at the composition of the Technical Committee. A good committee is one that contains both technical expert (in this case, office software vendors) and users (software users). There is no members there that is another serious vendor of office productivity software. Apple's involvement looks to be to be a “user” rather than a “developer”. There is nothing much to talk about Apple's expertise in developing office productivity software. Microsoft is the solo expert here. This in normal circumstances give it a lot of clout already, not to mention a process that is geared strongly to give it an advantage. The lack of a second serious technical expert is glaring, even after taking into account that SUN and Corel, two major players in office productivity would not be expected to join this Technical Committee because of their involvement in OpenDocumentFormat (ODF). I would expect secondary players, such as vendors of complementary software in the Technical Committee. Contrast this with the ODF process. Here we see involvement of smaller players such as KDE and IBM. [IBM was a surprise to me. IBM's commitment to ODF is serious. They promoted it and even went to the length of writing a letter to Massachusetts's Governor estolling their support and have Bob Sutor writes a blog entry about the importance of openness and what it means. However, as I do not see any office productivity software on offer from them at present, hence, until next year when the first copy of of Workspace Managed Client software that do actually read/write in ODF is sold, IBM is, in my opinion, not a player in office productivity software]

The composition of “users” in the technical committee is not as impressive as ODF's committee. British Library is the big name here, but British Library's Adam Farquhar comment , as analyzed by Updegrove implies that they are simply happy to be able to offer another format to their users, they are not as enthusiastic as Microsoft's implies in their initial Press Release announcing this standardization effort. Although the British Library is capable for bring their expertise on archiving documents to the table, I just have this gut feeling that they would not and this is really a pity. I am also rather unsure what expertise Toshiba and Apple is bringing to the table.

Since Microsoft is very late to bring its format to the standardization process, this Technical Committee looks like a “Rubber Stamping” committee to endorse Microsoft Office XML format. In fact, the emphasis on creating “a standard that conform to Microsoft Office XML Standard” in the Terms of Reference suggest that the easiest way for the Technical Committee to reach its aim is to beg/bribe Microsoft to put its Office XML Standard in the folder where the proposed standard is supposed to be stored. The best that can come out of the process is better documentation of the Office XML Standard, and we do not really need a Technical Committee to write the documentation, Microsoft can do it itself.

Given that the current Office XML format development is virtually completed, it is not very difficult for me to accept and rubberstamp Office XML Standard as it is currently available *on the proviso that”, the next revision should allow British Library and other members to bring in their expertise to bear. It iis difficult to see how this is possible from the Terms of Refence as it is written in such a way that in effect says that this is not the task for this Technical Committee. The pessimist in me will say that this is a Technical committee that will simply convene to “rubber stamp” the next Office XML standard again.

Litigation culture gone mad

2005-12-07T12:38:00.000Z

Microsoft is being sued over Xbox 360. In my opinion, the suit is wrong!

While I am not disputing that the person who brought the suit against Microsoft did not manage to enjoy the Xbox, I think it is too early to say that there is a problem with the Xbox design. Moreover, as a new product, there is always going to be "teething problems" with Xbox 360. To be first means you have to accept that you are more likefly to find them.

Of course, if Microsoft refuse to acknowledge that there is a problem, or refuse to correct the problem, then a lawsuit is approporiate. However, it is simply too early to say that Microsoft is not correcting the problem!

South Korean called Microsoft bluff

2005-12-07T12:34:00.000Z

The BBC is reporting that South Korea's Fair Trade Commision (KFTC) is fining Microsoft and (more interestingly) force Microsoft to unbundle its messaging services from Windows. The latter is important because Microsoft had threaten to withdraw Windows.

KFTC is effectively calling Microsoft's bluff. If Reuters is to be believed, they succeeded. I am, however, more interested in the situation should Microsoft fails its appeal on this decision. That is when Microsoft really have to make a decision on whether to withdraw or not. Hopefully by that time, if Microsoft do decide to withdraw, the impact is not that huge as it would today.

Disgraceful Legislation in France

2005-12-07T11:59:00.000Z

If this article is correct, a disgraceful legislation is being sneak through France's legislative process. The need to "sneak" the legislation is in itself, a telltale sign that something fishy is going on.

Opponents says undr the law you can be jailed for three-year jail sentence if you lend a CD to a friend or create one's own compilation of CD. This is probably a bit far-fetch, but do serve to remind us that one needs to defend "Fair Use" rights.

What most troubled me is the criminalization of distribution of software or code that enables copyright infringement and the prohibition of publicising methods for circumventing DRM restrictions.

Prohibition of distribution of software that enables copyright infringement is too strong a wording for any legislation. Simply because I can use a pen to copy a poem, should it mean that the sales/distribution of pens should be banned? Better still, since weighting machine can be used by drug traffickers, they should be prohibited. It is not "Software that enables copyright infringement" (e.g., CD ripping software) that is at fault, but rather the use of the software to make illegal copies. Thus, the law should penalize the guity party (end user), not the innocent party (the software developer).

More chilling is the prohibition of publicising methods for circumventing DRM restriction. This, in effect, means no research is possible into DRM restriction, even for academic reasons. Moreover, this encourage bad DRM implementation. My biggest problem is this means that you cannot enjoy the content your are legally entitled to because some DRM fails. Is this fair?

I think this is related to a similar process in UK which I do plan to comment on.

MS Office XML Schema License: Lets give Microsoft some benefit of doubt, but not too much....

2005-11-29T11:00:00.000Z

Analysis of Microsoft's License

Andy Upgrove has a good analysis of Microsoft's License Covenant for its office XML format. It covers most of the issue an rival to Microsoft Office product will be interested in.

I agree with the point that the covenant will have more bite if there is some enforcement procedures, such as ECMA or OASIS rules. He is also correct to say that it is dangerous to depend on a covenent for a format described by a company on a website completely under the company's control (as oppose to a covenant for a format in a published standard). While these are important issues to bear in mind, lets not forget that at present, Microsoft is unable to meet this standard because its XML format is not accepted as a standard yet.

For the question on whether the Office XML format will be truly open, we will have to see what emerge from the ECMA process. I hope it is not something as predicted by David Courtsey predict it to be, i.e., simply a cloak for a proprietary format.

A risk with using Microsoft's covenant at present, is that Microsoft can withdraw from ECMA process at any time. Sun did it with Java with the same standard body. This will mean that everyone that were sold based on the fact that Microsoft's format will be opened will have eggs on their face. The chances of Microsoft doing this is small, because this will completely destroy their business reputation, especially if this is seen as a ruse to get their format accepted by government agencies. One just do not spike their customers this way without serious repercussion latter on.

Politics and OpenDocumentFormat

2005-11-29T10:54:00.000Z

Yup, I know, this is old news now:

In this article, Senator Pacheco, the chair person of the committee that grilled Peter Quinn and Linda Hamel in Senate Hill said:

"If you have a product that's going to be accepted in the international community, and they still exclude it here, then it's really about restricting Microsoft and not about open standards,"

If there is any doubt whether Senator Pacheco is influenced by Microsoft, this clinch it.

Should we call Senator Pacheco clueless on what really matters in a open format? NO. Absolutely not. Unless one is in the industry, it is difficult to know that it is the small little details about published standards that actually matters.

However, the hearing he chaired show him to be totally clueless about the issue. For example, he cannot even differentiate between OpenDocumentFormat and OpenOffice. One would had thought that since he is the one who took the lead and make a fuss of the issue, he will first bother to get his fact straight. No chance there. That is my beef with him. Not that he has a different opinion from me, but he did not do his homework. The sad thing is, he may be the first, but he will not be the only one.

Peter Quinn and Linda Hamel may not be politically savvy, but when it comes to technology, they are very thorough. As long as they judge Microsoft's XML schema with to the same evaluation criteria they spell out when selecting OpenOfficeFormat, and come out with a fair reason for rejecting/accepting Microsoft's XML schema as open, we have to give them the benefit of doubt. Of course, their decision is going to be made more difficult with this move by Microsoft to submit their office format to ECMA.

MS submitting Office XML schema as Open Standard

2005-11-22T13:25:00.000Z

Microsoft took the first step in the right direction to get itself used in Massachusetts with submission of Open Office XML as Open Standard to a standard body, the ECMA, and through ECMA's fast track agreement with ISO, to ISO eventually.

ECMA is the same body that Microsoft used to submit its C# programming language and Common Runtime Language.

However, I would not go as far to say Microsoft is for open standard. First, its track records shows that it will open up only when forced to. I do not mean being forced by authorities such as the on going appeal of EC decision to force Microsoft to offer a version of Windows without media player, or the Korean Fair Trade Commission's probe into the virtually the same subject. In fact, in those cases, Microsoft is either fighting tooth-and-nail (EC) or had threaten to withdraw its product, leaving its customer high and dry (Korea).

Instead, it takes the rise of serious competition for Microsoft to change its way. First we have Netscape (browser war 1), then Open Source (Share Source Initiative), Google (browser war 2) and now Open Document Format (leading to this decision).

Long live competition!

Second, it is necessary to review the licensing terms and conditions. This is not going to be published till Wednesday. Suspiciously, ECMA has a misleading clause called Random And Non-discriminatory (RAND), this allow proposers to collect a royalty. This, if elected to use, in effect, will torpedo open source effort in creating software to use Microsoft XML Schema. I believe one necessary quality of being open is not to use any tactic that will stop competitors, including potential competitors and especially known, major competitors.

Third and perhaps most importantly, open standard is about participation in setting the format. In Open Document Format specification via OASIS, we have different bodies with vastly different interests, including Sun Microsystem (and OpenOffice), IBM, Corel, Boeing, Society of Biblical Literature, National Archive of Australia and New York State Office of the Attorney General to name a few, all sitting down together to write a standard.

Constrast this with Microsoft's XML standard approach where one person comes out with standard, and ask others to endorse it. Microsoft do get a lot of illuminaries to endorse it, including Apple, Intel, Barclays Bank PLC and the British Library. I wonder what input those companies have in defining the format. Did Microsoft promise a discount to them if they endorse it?

Nevertheless, lets have a look at the licensing conditions on Wednesday. I hope it is not like C# and CLR standardization process where it is very difficult to work around other patents held by Microsoft to implement alternative to their offering.

Ad-supported Microsoft software?

2005-11-22T13:19:00.000Z

John Carroll and I both have tunnel vision. Mine is my blind support for Open Source Software, while Mr Carroll's Microsoft's Software.

The issue of contention this time, is ad-supported Microsoft Software. In John Carroll's original post, the discussion seems to center on Microsoft Office. In Mr Carroll's response to Phil Wainewright comments, the notion of Ad-support also encompass Microsoft Windows.

I certainly like to see more exploration in ad-supported software. John Carroll is right. The key with ad-supported software is that a way must be found to balance the need of consumers and advertisers. Ad-supported software's potential is still be fully understood and largely untapped. Unfortunately, Microsoft's track-record shows that it has so far failed to get it right: Just compare how intrusive the advertisement in Hotmail is compared to Google Mail (Gmail). Also compare how many unnecessary ad-sponsored pages you have to click through before setting up your new Hotmail account.

So far, all successful ad-supported software model concentrates on web-enabled software applications, like Opera Software, Google Software and Microsoft Live. This is the fatal flaw for ad-supported software: the need for the computers to be on-line. If being on-line is a requirement for ad-supported software, it will be very constraining. Even if the computers need not be online every time the ad-supported software is used, the need to be online periodically is still a constrain. I know because I do not have a online connection at home and do not want it, despite the fact that I live in a developed country and it is dirt easy to get access.

It is difficult to see how the ad money can be used to support off-line computers. However, Microsoft is one of the technology-savvy companies with very acute business sense. If anyone can come out with a workable model, I will put my money on Microsoft.

It is true that ad-support can reduce cost to the user. However, I do not agree with John Carroll that Microsoft can “retake” the low cost high ground in the developing world. As long as a company's software cannot be distributed for “free” and used perpetually, it will cede the low cost high ground to open source software. As I said, existing ad-supported models require on-line connection, partly to “refresh” the advertisements. Online connections cost money, even in developing world and this is assuming that online connection is available. Hence, either a benevolent benefactor have to be found to foot the online bill, or the user have to cough up the money. For underdeveloped countries where people live hand-to-mouth, they simply cannot afford it. If a completely offline solution is found, it is likely that an advertiser (or a group of advertisers) must be found to sponsor the software upfront, as the adverts cannot be “refresh”ed. To achieve the “advertising” effect the sponsored software will have to reach a sizable number of people. This is difficult to achieve. In his reply to Mr Wainewright, he acknowledge that third world advertisers is needed to serve the third world computer user. The amount of money needed for sponsorship of offline solution probably put it out-of-reach of the majority of these advertisers. The amount can of course be lowered if the offline ad-supported software model relies on having an expire date on the software. This introduce the problem of maintenance, chiefly in the form of obtaining new copy of the software when it expires. and create uncertainty for the computer user on whether his access to the ad-supported software can be cut short by Microsoft's inability to find a substitute sponsorship when current sponsorship expires.

Contrast this with open source software where the software can be preloaded for no cost and will work for as long as the computer is functioning. Open source software has other advantages, but however, since Mr Carroll concentrates on the cost component, I will reciprocate by restrict discussion here to cost.

Moreover, ad-supported software assumes that there is a market big enough to make it worthwhile for Microsoft (or other companies for that matter) to offer their software to advertisers. Without naming names, this is certainly not the case for a number of very underdeveloped countries. Who is then going to serve the needs of these people?

While John Carroll is rubbishing OpenOffice competition, the fact that he mention it in both his blog entries make me think I detect some hint that he is troubled. Before OpenOffice 2.0 I would agree with Mr Carroll that it is not a serious competitor. With the arrival of OpenOffice 2.0, I put my neck out and say that it is ready to replace Microsoft Office for at least 80% of users and I am one of them. In fact, despite the fact that I can get Microsoft Office Professional for less than GBP50 through University Licensing Agreement with Microsoft, my next computer will be devoid of Microsoft Office in favour of OpenOffice 2.0. Having only OpenOffice on my computer is no longer a problem.

One problem with John Carroll's tunnel vision is that his view is too Microsoft centric that it is often easy to see how Microsoft benefits but difficult to see how the customer benefits. It is easy to see how Microsoft benefits from making their software ad-supported but how do consumers and advertisers benefits from it is far from clear. This is effectively Mr Wainewright's central point in his article. My tunnel vision is that I do not care about companies and is only interested to see how consumer benefits from software. Both of us need to move to a more central ground by considering the other side. I am trying very hard to do this. Mr Carroll is certainly doing the same. His arguments on ad-support softwares and his calling a storage device a substitute for computer shows that he is trying hard.

Bad to Worse for First4Internet

2005-11-18T14:21:00.000Z

The situation is getting from bad to worse (or worse to worst?) for First4Internet.

There are rumors on the net that First4Internet's XCP program, the notorious rootkit DRM, violated the General Public License (GPL). Ironically, it is the VideoLAN code of DVD Jon that they violated. VideoLAN is one of the software that can bypass Apple DRM mechanism. Remember DVD Jon? He is the Norwegian nemesis for RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). He is definitely on the top of their "Most watched" list. He was on the top of their "Most Wanted" list but they have to demote him back to the first list, after two unsuccessful attempts to prosecute him under Norwegian Law for the same offence. You got to take your hat off to this DVD Jon fellow. He managed to seriously upset the recording industry while standing at the correct side of the law. This is by no means a small feat.

There are other allegations that the XCP violated LAME's and other softwares' Lesser General Public License (LGPL). These allegations are relatively speaking, very minor. It evolves around allegely having source code from LAME but does not seems to be calling those code and failure to acknowledge using these LGPL code. The fact that one is not sure whether does using these code constitutes "mere linking" which is permissible under LGPL means we have to give First4Internet the benefit of doubt before saying that a major violation of LGPL occurs. With GPL-ed code, however, there is no ambiguity.

If it is true that XCP violated GPL code. The consequences for the company is dire. For a start, DVD Jon can bring a lawsuit forcing First4Internet to publish the source code to the XCP program or to withdraw the XCP software. First4Internet's successor to XCP program will probably be affected as well, as it is unlikely that they write those program from scratch. They could in theory pay DVD Jon and other developers of the GPL-ed software they used to keep their source code out of open source. However, I do not think this is even worth considering this possibility, given DVD Jon's track record. It only takes one person in the chain who disagree to scuffle the deal.

Most importantly, as far as I am concern, First4Internet credibility as a programming house is utterly destroyed. Dubious software practice (the DRM rootkit) is one thing, very bad programming (introducing vulnerability in the original DRM rootkit and then having a fix that introduce a bigger vulnerability) is another. Now, it seems that the company that creates DRM to protecting other people's intellectual property is itself totally disregarding other people's intellectual property. Perhaps I should not be surprised given its dubious software practice and bad programming. Now that there are three nails into their coffin, if it does not cause the company to collapse, hopefully a fourth nail will. Do I have sympathy for the company? Not a bit. In fact, I will pay for the chance to nail the fourth nail.

Returning to the issue that GPL requires downstream software to reveal its source code as well. Is it worthwhile forcing First4Internet to reveal their source code? As I am anti-DRM, any legal weapon that we can use to kill DRM, including forcing vendor to reveal their code, should be explored. But as an anti-DRM person, having the source code does not mean I will touch or use it, not even with a barge-pole. If the copyright holders of the GPL'ed software do indeed go down this route, the biggest benefit would be to show proprietary vendor that open source is not public domain software and they have to respect open source license as well.

Sony on the right path to fix DRM Debacle, more doubts on the competency of First4Internet

2005-11-16T11:27:00.000Z

Finally, Sony is on the right path to limit the damage caused by the DRM Rootkit debacle. According to USA Today, Sony will pull all copies of the Rootkit-infected CDs from the shelves and swap these CDs if consumer ask them to. It also soften its tone from "There is no security threat" to "Sony BMG deeply regrets any inconvenience to our customers and remains committed to providing an enjoyable and safe music experience".

Dear Sony, what took you so long? That should had been the second logical step to take (The first step is to establish that the deployed DRM is doing something unacceptable to consumers.) Not the fifth or sixth step! Why go through the tortures, self-harming ritual of denying there was a problem in the first place? Not having the correct staff to evaluate the technical aspect of this problem? For god sake hire one then! May be your PR guru believe that this is "denial then fix it" strategy is the best overall PR damage control. Believe me, this is not a good strategy. It completely destroy trust. Next time if someone cries wolf, nobody will believe your denial anymore.

The biggest casualty in the whole saga is First4Internet, the company that supplied the DRM technology. First we have the negative publicity. Then, Sony's denial that there is a problem reflects First4Internet' view (since it does not bother to correct Sony). In an effort to provide a fix, (when read in conjunction to Sony's denial, an unnecessary fix), it opens another security hole. It is alarming that this new security hole, i.e., not properly checking the source of a script download, thus allowing the infected computer to execute arbitrary program, is remarkably similar to the whole the Rootkit opened, i.e., allowing other programs to use it to hide their presence because of inadequate check on the name of the program to cloak from user. Two same problems in a row make one wonder whether First4Internet do the due-diligence check expected from them.

Most importantly, as a technology-oriented person, this cast doubt on the company's business practice. It is going to take its toll on the company.

To be fair, SunnComm probably have a worse reputation for threatening to inappropriately use DMCA to sue a Princeton student for showing how to bypass its copy-protection system and now, its version of DRM insist of keeping active until you shutdown your computer even if you say "No" and abort the installation process. This means SunnComm has the potential to be the next target in the DRM war.

Raising questions on DRM practices is good for the consumer. It is still not a certainty whether consumer will accept DRM. DRM is still in its infancy. All these revealation about DRMs have positive effect. It might not be successful in achieving its ultimate aim: Removal of DRMs from the market place. Sometimes, revealation is a double-edge sword: By pointing out what is wrong with DRM, it allows DRM vendor to take corrective steps and thus, make newer versions of DRM more acceptable to Joe Consumer. However, at the minimum, it

Educate consumers on DRM
establish the line between protection of IP and intrusions (trespass) into computers
Keeps companies honest

Thus, I think we in the anti-DRM camp have a lot more to win than to lose.

DRM vendors gone too far!

2005-11-15T12:51:00.000Z

Hot on the heels of Sony XCP debacle, another debacle is in the making. This time it is SunnComm's. It is also used by Sony. The problem here is that they installed and run the most important bit of their software without your permission. The act of inserting the CD into your computer is extremely very likely to trigger this action. This modus operandi sounds familiar? Yes, virus writers use this technique.

Am I surprised that another Digital Restriction Management vendor is named this time? No. That it involves Sony again? No. That a DRM companies use dubious techniques? No. That big media companies like Sony does not think twice to deploy those dubious techniques Not a a single bit.

That is not the end, that piece of DRM phones home. "Phoning home" is the phrase used when computers transmit any information back to a server controlled by the person who provide you with the software. Companies seems to think that it is fine to transmit any information from your computer to their computers provided that they do not use the capture or use the information. That is wrong, as far as a consumer is concern, it is the act of transmitting information that counts, not what the companies do with that information.

Debacles after debacles all serves to confirm one thing. Companies had gone overboard in their quest to protect their intellectual property. DRM is particular bad in these cases because it penalize and hurt legitimate purchasers, not the pirates they intend to stop.

If DRM is to stand a a chance of public acceptance, such activities have to stop. Sony and other media companies MUST follow the straight and narrow. Any business is about trust. It cannot be taken for granted. Microsoft is finding it hard to recover from the perception that its software is insecure. Why? People lost trust in Microsoft software. Media companies should learn from Microsoft's lesson.

What is the straight and narrow then? It is simply to follow standard industry practice when providing software

First and foremost, DO NO HARM
Never install anything on the computer before you get users' consent and if user quit the installation process, clean up completely
For every installer, an uninstaller must be provided. It must do what an uninstaller do. Half-way uninistaller is a no-no.
Do not say you do not phone home if the software do phone home, even if it is simply to retrieve a advertisement banner. Phoning home means transmitting anything about the CD or the computer from the user's computer. Whatever you do with the information is irrelevant. It is the ability to capture information about the CD and the computer that is the issue.

They will do well to listen to Secretary Baker when he said:

"It's very important to remember that it's your intellectual property -- it's not your computer."

Best quote on Sony rootkit fiasco,... and I feel their pain!

2005-11-14T12:10:00.000Z

This is by far, the best quote on the Sony rootkit fiasco,

[On the subject of Digital Right Management with clear reference to Sony Rootkit without directly mentioning it] "It's very important to remember that it's your intellectual property -- it's not your computer." -- Stewart Baker, U.S. Department of Homeland Security's assistant secretary for policy.

What make this even more painful for Sony to bear is the fact that Secretary Baker made this comment at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce-sponsored event in downtown Washington on combating intellectual-property theft.

Sony, I feel your pain!

Sony got something right, at last!

2005-11-12T13:17:00.000Z

Finally Sony gets something right in its damage control strategy for the Rootkit fiasco.

It basicallly says it is halting production of CD containing the controvesial technology. This is a good step, the next step must be to repair the computers they already damaged. They should do it sincerely, not the clumsy multistep process they had been imposing so far.

It is sad to say that what Sony is doing is probably no much different from what other media companies are doing.

Big companies always think that they can make you swallow anything if they can just get you to sign on the dotted line or click through their End User License Agreement (EULA). This time, the technology in question cross the line into trespass on computers. It is sad that no government officials, in the US or in Europe, see fit to prosecute Sony for trespass. I think a criminal prosecution is necessary here to set an example, and to push the question on the line between the IP Protection and Fair Use Rights on to the global stage.

Malware writers, what took you so long?

2005-11-11T11:44:00.000Z

The threat of someone taking advantage of Sony's Rootkit was never a doubt in everyone's mind except Sony and the supplier of that piece of Malware, First 4 Internet. As such, the confirmation that virus writers take advantage of it to hide their viruses is itself not surprising. The only question is: What took them so long? Isn't the game about zero-day exploits (exploiting security and other loopholes in less than 24 hours from its announcement)?

The are two possible reasons. First, the rootkit does compromise security by being capable of hiding malware, but luckily, this publicized vulnerability can only do that, thus reducing its attractiveness to virus writers. Second but most importantly, this attractiveness where greatly reduced by the fact that not a lot of computers were infected by Sony's rootkit. Sony/First 4 Internet must count their blessing that the Rootkit is discovered early.

Of course Sony and First 4 Internet will see it differently. They will argue that if Mr Russinovich did not publicize his finding that everyone will be fine. This argument is flawed because if a malicious person discover this further down the road, the two companies will have a bigger debacle to deal with.

The saga is still evolving and Mr Russinovich blog is a must read if you are following this case. To date, Sony's handling of the affair fail miserably in damage control. In particular,

They deny that the rootkit is a security vulnerability (and still do) despite evidence to the contrary, a good week before this virus appear.

(I particularly like this one)Have a top level officer going on the record saying, in his own voice, that users do not know what a rootkit is and therefore do not care.

Putting so many barriers for users to go through to get an uninstaller, and limit the uninstaller to one-time use whether you successfully uninstall or not, is a rather unnecessary step. This makes it looks like Sony is being dragged kicking and screaming into providing such a facility.

A giant has woken!

2005-11-10T11:41:00.000Z

If anyone have any doubt that Microsoft is interested in delivering web-based services when it launches its "live" services, the email and memo from Bill Gates and Ray Ozzies, as published by Hypercamp, should clinch it for you.

A giant is indeed woken. Microsoft have the resources, it is simply lacking in direction. Once they got their direction figure out, they are a force to be reckoned with. The way they dethroned Netscape is a good omen.

It all shows that competition is the key to innovation. There is not much happening on the internet front once the Browser War was concluded in the favour of Microsoft. Competition from Firefox caused Microsoft to reverse its decision to not release a standalone Internet Explorer. Now we could be seeing Browser War 2, which is a battle to control content displayed in the browser. Hopefully, this time Google will learn from Netscape.

Personnally, I do not believe Browser War 2 will end, as contents do need refreshing from time to time. But I believe before the Browser War will sizzle out, we will see a lot of innovations/improvement to the way we use browser.

First 4 Internet repsonsed to Sony DRM debacle

2005-11-07T11:26:00.000Z

BBC News caught on to this Digital Restriction Management debacle and offer this story on its website. This represents one of the most authoritatively piece on First 4 Internet response I had seen so far.

Disingeniously, First 4 Internet's chief executive, Mr Gilliat-Smith commented:

"Mr Gilliat-Smith said Mr Russinovich had problems removing XCP because he tried to do it manually something that was not a "recommended action". Instead, said Mr Gilliat-Smith, he should have contacted Sony BMG which gives consumers advice about how to remove the software."

If Mr Gilliat-Smith had seen a draft of the BBC news article, I think he would ask for this comment to be removed. In the beginning of the article Mr Russiinovich is described as a renowned Windows Programming Expert. His analysis of the DRM software peddled by Mr Gilliat-Smith company strongly support this characterization of him. If anyone is qualify to experiment with manually removing the software, he is. The availability of rootkit detection software means a lot of less competent users is going to try it. Moreover, as there is no hint that the rootkit comes from Sony, it is unlikely that at the point of detection, these less-capable users will know to contact Sony for removal advice.

Steps described by Mr Russiinovich to remove the Rootkit is effectively what a reasonable research programmer in an Antivirus Company will undertake to understand how to remove a rootkit. The only difference is that Mr Russiinovich did it in public, where else the research programmer would had done in private. The fact that this is done in public is in no doubt the source of Mr Gilliat-Smith trouble. If Mr Gilliat-Smith claims that other companies are doing the same is true, then at best, it is just his unfortunate faith that Mr Russiinovich just happen to buy a CD which included his software. However, Mr Gilliat-Smith should had expected it when his company pursue this line of software.

My comments on other comment accredited to Mr Gilliat-Smith in that article:

"We've moved away from using that sort of methodology,": True, but according to one of your spokeperson, you moved to "cloaking" individual files. Is the use of cloaking technique really necessary?
He was said to have said that there was no evidence that viruses were being written that took advantage of XCP.: It is just luck. Purchaser of CD which comes with Mr Gilliat-Smith's software are lucky. Even more so for Mr Gilliat-Smith's company. Mr Gilliat-Smith should donate a big sum of money to charity and thank god it haven't. It might sounds rather odd but Mr Gilliat-Smith should consider a cash payment to Mr Russinovich to thank him for his effort. Why? If some malicious person other than Mr Russinovich discover it the situation would had been different. If this were the case, Mr Gilliat-Smith would not be handling a PR disaster, but an issue that can "sink" his company.
My bigger problem with this statement is the implication that "there is no actual harm done". By making computers vulnerable to virus attack, the damage is already out there. It is through Mr Russinovich effort that we can start limiting the damage this has caused and hopefully nipped it in time. No thanks to First 4 Internet nor Sony though. Sony's (and by implication, First 4 Internet's) assertion on their patch download website that there is no harm to the security of user computers cannot withstand even the most rudimentary scrutiny.

Is it really necessary to cloak Protected Files?

2005-11-04T18:48:00.000Z

Hot on the heel on Sony BMG DRM Rootkit fiasco (see previous post), just when I thought Sony and its supplier's (First 4 Internet) sin is restricted to one DRM product, Professor Felton correctly commented that First4Internet have not learned the lesson as it is still insisting on cloaking files from user. He is referring to First 4 Internet's playdown of the incident by saying they abandon cloaking deep inside the Windows system and is now pursueing a strategy of cloaking individual files instead.

I am not going to repeat what Professor Felton had identified and eloquattely explained in that blog entry. I concurs with his analysis and have these to add on my own:

According to the CNet Article quoted by Prof Felton in his blog entry, First 4 Internet claims to work closely with Symantec to ensure that users are not at risk. I need to emphasize that this is simply a claim, as Symantec have not responsed. Since it is made clear in F-Secure technical report that their restriction mechanism can also hide malware, to say that users are not at risk is blatantly untrue. More interestingly and perhaps more importantly, I cannot see how Symantec, a competent and reputable anti-virus company, can miss this if First 4 Internet did consult them and described fully what their Digital Restriction Mechanism works.

Moreover, does a company that is peddling legal software needs to risk going so close to the borderline between malware and legit software (and in this case cross it)?

Why bother cloaking anything at all? From cloaking deep inside file system, First 4 Internet moved on to cloaking individual files on the hard disk. Cloaking implies one have something to hide. If DRM is legit software (and it is), why go through such length to "fool" users? It is definitely not good business strategy to hide things from customers. If DRM stand a chance of taking off, content providers must follow the path of straight and narrow and build user's trust. Cloaking/hiding things from users just generate (unnecessary) distrust. (Come and think about it, why do I bother point this out to them, I benefit from collapse of DRM)

The F-Secure technical report identified that a lot of files and system functions are modified by the DRM program. This is especially alarming. If I install the program, I would had felt that my computer was molested by the DRM program.

The moral of the whole incident to any software developer is clear. One need to build trust with users. Once abused, it is going to be difficult to rebuild the relationship. In particular:

Do not cloak or hide anything you do from the user. Most important step here is to ask them to confirm all modification you do with their system.

If you do have to modify their system, follow the convention: Do not modify too deeply if possible. Tell the user why you have to do deep modification if you really have to do it.

Letter to Sony regarding "Rootkit" DRM (Updated 7 Nov)

2005-11-03T17:59:00.000Z

Dear Sir/Madam:

[Please forward this letter to the appropriate person on my behalf. I am sorry to have to write to you but you were listed as the "General Enquires" contact for for "http://www.sonymusic.co.uk/". Many thanks in advance.]

I read with alarm the technique used by Sony in protecting its rights:

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.htmlwebmaster@sonymusic.co.uk

I must admit I am not a Digital Restriction Management fan, but this simply goes over the top. Regardless of what your "Terms and Conditions" says, the modification you had done overstep the mark of fair protection. I agree with the author for the same reasons they mentioned in the website that your DRM is in fact, a Rootkit.

The thing that most alarmed me is the fact if you continue on this course, and assuming your customer accepts the DRM (they have to, don't they? you did not give them any realistic choice), your customers will have problem distinguishing between the DRM you imposed onto them, and more malicious Rootkits. Anti-virus protection programs will be correctly identify your DRM as Rootkit and attempt to remove your DRM from your customers' computer. Unfortunately, as the author shown, this will cripple the optical drive in question. Your attempt at protecting your rights thus not only leave your customer with a crippled computer, but impose cost on others (your customers, their tech support, anti-viral companies) to correct the situation. This is totally unacceptable.

Whatever your approach to DRM, this is definitely not one a reputable firm like Sony BMG should even contemplate to exploring. Any DRM system you selected should at the minimum allow itself to be uninstalled. It is your responsibility to ensure that and make your DRM immune to uninstallation. Your behaviour here is no better than a malicious hacker.

Best Regards,

-----

news update on this PR Disaster: (updated 4 November)

Information on how to remove the Rootkit. According to this ZDNet News article, it simply ~~replace the Rootkit element of the DRM with a non-rootkit one~~ uncloak the DRM. If you want to remove the DRM completely, you have to write to Sony. My recommendation is that one write to Sony whether or not you want to leave the DRM on. Better still, write to Sony to request for a removal every week or so, after you are entertained by the CDs. If Sony does not understand that consumer do not want DRM, may be an economic reason is a good way to make them think twice. [Deleted 4th November because downloading the patch is simply you interacting with a computer. See the description of how to download a patch and what the patch does from the person who first posted the problem publicly.
[updated 4th Novemeber] Sony had demonstrated that it is unrepentent for using this highly unprofessional technique for a commercial company

[4th Novemeber] F-Secure has a more detail analysis of the DRM.

Microsoft Inventing?

2005-11-02T17:41:00.000Z

The self-confessed Microsoft-phile John Carroll ran a series (article, another and another to show a few.) talking about Microsoft's invention. His affection for Microsoft extended to him posting a message on his blog pretending to be one of those silly comments people (unfairly and disingeniusly) hurl at him. He got me fooled. I thought he blog was defaced by hacker. (If that was true, it is certainly unacceptable behaviour on the part of the hacker and it deserves full condemnation from everyone.)

He was responding to a commenter that Microsoft only "innovates" and not "invents". The line between "innovations" and "inventions" is really thin and difficult to define.

Both "innovations" and "inventions" are about new ways or new things. They both "add value" to existing approaches. The difference is in their magnitude. It is difficult to decide the line between "innovations" and "inventions". My own definition is that innovation is simple a small step while invention is a big step. However, an accumulation of innovations (small steps) can eventually turn all of them into one invention. It is true that some "invention" happens overnight, but most of the invention are actually a result of a person, or a group of people, works slowly and accumulate up sufficient "innovations" and finally turn it into "invention". Take television for example, it is not possible to attribute it to one person alone.

I always think that Microsoft is a copycat because I do not really see anything coming out from Microsoft. Well, for one, Microsoft Research seems to be rather a lame duck compared to Xerox Parc or IBM Research. Ironically, Microsoft is the "open source" of the "proprietary world". Open source do very well in "commoditizing" technology. By "copying" it into windows and open it out to others, Microsoft in effect, commoditize software technology. But John Carroll argues that by giving a giving everything a common API, Microsoft is inventing a new way of programming. There is no doubt that this strategy serves Microsoft very well, is one of Microsoft strongest value proposition, and Microsoft have probably the largest set of technology building block for a single vendor/organization. But can we call it an "Invention"?

Well, as I said, the difference between invention and innovation is the "value-added" angle. Hence, what is the value added by having a company/organization providing a common platform and a collection of technologies. In this case, the value-added aspect is not the collection of technologies, since everyone doing application development, always have to assemble a collection of technologies. Having a common API for all API is at best an innovation. The advantage of a common API is that the developers need not relearn the programming style/pattern. But this is small in comparison with the need to understand how to use elements that makes up the API, i.e., what information the individual class/structure/message in the API do. The main "value-add" is therefore the common platform. Common platform is the guarantee that different technologies are more likely to work with each other. This is an important added-value aspect of Microsoft. Another, equally important added-value, is the guarantee that the common platform and its technology mix will be constantly updated. Individually, both are important "innovations", programming innovations, not something you can hold in your hand but none the less, important. Moreover, Microsoft is probably the first to offer such a platform for third party developer. This is another innovation. Smaller innovation but nonetheless an innovation.

One other important issue to qualify for invention is to be the first to do it. One need not be the most successful to do it, as it simply determine whether you are famous or not for your invention. There is so far, no evidence to suggest that Microsoft is not the first to do all these. Hence, no dispute here.

Now, taken all these innovations together, do we have a "invention" here. This time, I will have to say yes. It is not a conventional invention in the sense that there is no "Wow" factor, no killer-app or something that actually stands out. But to programmers, there is sufficient "value-added" aspects to qualify as a new way, pioneered by Microsoft in developing software, hence, an "invention" for programmers.

And John Carroll is right, at present, there is serious competitors to Microsoft approach in the consumer market. RedHat and other Linux companies are effectively trying their best to provide a common platform. However, they can only emulate/provide all the "common platform" advantages, but because they use a collection of software developed elsewhere, it is not possible to offer a common API. In fact, their innovation is to provide a common platform for downstream developers where software from different vendors "works" together. In the corporate market, the situation is different, Eclipse is gaining sufficient momentum to start competing with Microsoft on the common platform ground using a common API. It, together with Java, can be a threat to MS .Net strategy. It is going to be interesting to see how this competition shape the market place. My view is that both have to learn to coexist.

2005-11-02T17:25:00.000Z

When regulatory disclosure becomes a threat

Reuters News carries a news item about Microsoft threatening to withdraw Windows from the Korean Market if the Korean Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) requires it to unbundle Media Player and Instant Messager from Windows.

Groklaw have a blog entry on the it. In one of the comment thread for this story,
Zak3056 reminded us that it is a regulatory filing, because of the decision for KFTC can negatively impact Microsoft's bottomline. Specifically, he refers to Microsoft Windows will be banned from Korea if MS did not make the modification as required. He does not believe it is a threat. In this blog entry, I will argue why the commenter is wrong and this is indeed a threat.

First, let get the fact straight, the commenter is correct in saying that future versions of Windows will be barred from the South Korean market until the software meet the demand of KFTC. Microsoft, as a publicly listed company, is required to disclose any possible future major impact to its bottomline which it can foresee to the appropriate regulatory authority. Microsoft, like any other companies, can choose which market it wants to sell its product in. Hence the question is, is this simply a necessary disclosure or is it a threat in disguise as a necessary disclosure?

First question: The effect of withdrawal of Windows for the Korean Market. If the effect is small, it is not a threat, as far as KFTC and the Korean IT consumers are concerned. However, Windows is a popular software, hence the impact is huge. Besides the obvious point that Microsoft dominate Korean Desktop Market, one have to consider the fact that Windows is an Operating System and therefore, the foundation of a lot of software. Without ability to upgrade Windows Operating System, South Korean companies will be forced to use not only older version of Windows Operating system, but older versions of application software as well. This reduces the competitiveness of South Korean companies. Most importantly, South Koreans is a big manufacturers of computer hardware. Application softwares relies on Operating System to talk to hardware. To do so, it is necessary to developed specialized software (known as drivers to users, and firmware to technical specialists) to allow the Operating System to communicate with the hardware. Without access to uptodate Windows, how are they going to develop these firmware? That effectively lock South Korean manufacturers out of a big chunk of the global market. This, I will argue, is more significant than not having Windows on Desktop. Hence, withdrawal of Windows for the Korean Market do severely (negative) impact South Korean. Hence, any attempt to inform KFTC that Microsoft may exercise its rights to withdraw from South Korean market can be seen as a threat to get favourable decision from the authority.

Second question: Do Microsoft needs to disclose this to the regulatory? The real question here is how heavily it impacts a company's bottomline. If the disclosure is done for Korean's regulators, the answer is yes. However, the disclosure is to U.S. Regulators, hence, the question is whether the South Korean market is large enough to have a major impact on its bottom line. Well, this is a question for Microsoft. The South Korean market is unfortunately, in a grey zone. Potential withdrawal from smaller market like Singapore is probably not worth mentioning. Potentially withdrawal from Japan is something that must be reported. The Korean market? It is a judgement call. Looking at the size of the Korean economy with respect to other countries, and Microsoft's global market capitalization, I tend to say, yes, they have to disclose.

Now that I believe Microsoft have to declare this as a negative impact to its bottom line in the US, we have to consider the third question: timing. As this has more to do a companies corporate decision, not circumstances forced on the company, the common sense rule is that the company has to disclose this when it is actively consider this as a possible recourse. Thus, the only conclusion we can draw is that Microsoft is actively considering withdrawal from the South Korean market. The timing is suspiciously close to when KFTC is expected to issue its ruling. However, we must consider that this is the first opportunity Microsoft have to disclose its decision. The alternate and most logical disclosure avenue, disclosure to South Korean regulators, may not be due for a few months yet. Let's err on the side of caution and give Microsoft the benefit of doubt.

Since we are giving Microsoft the benefit of doubt on timing and that I believe disclosure is necessary, whether is this a threat relies only on assessment of the negative impact to the South Koreans. Microsoft and KFTC both know that the impact is huge. Hence, by not saying that Microsoft will endeavor to comply with South Korean ruling whatever the South Korean decides, it is clearly an attempt to change KFTC view and its decision. Therefore, this is threat.

Luckily for us, we can compare Microsoft behaviour in the ongoing EU anti-trust case. Microsoft always have the option of withdrawing from the EU, rather than comply with EU decision. So far, I am not aware of any disclosure from Microsoft to withdraw. Most importantly, they did not say this just before EU is going to announce their decision back then. Moreover, the fact that they have not even mention this in their filing to the same US regulators confirm that they do not have to disclose it unless they are actively consider it.

What do I think about this threat? I think this is the worst abuse of monopoly position: bullying governments into submission. This shows a complete disrespect for the whole country, its citizens and therefore, its customers.

This whole episode is going to impact Microsoft negatively in the end. At the minimum, it makes governments jumpy about getting into bed with Microsoft. If it dare to even contemplate withdrawing from a large economy like Korea, how about smaller economies? It pushes responsible governments towards alternative to Microsoft's product. It definitely weakens Microsoft's hand in any negotiations. If any, it highlights the importance to show preference for vendor-neutral standard, such as OpenDocumentFormat.

I think Microsoft is bluffing. It does not do the company any good in withdrawing from the South Korean market. If any, it will spur the growth of its rivals, open source software. If it does withdraw, this will be the smoking gun open source and open standard supporters need to convince governments to support their products.

The fact that it is phrased as a statement to satisfy "regulatory"
requirement is simply a camoflage for the treat.

An opinion worth considering

John Carroll believe it is a threat, but he has a suggestion how Microsoft is to be dealt with if KFTC decided to impose sanction (See his blog. He believe that rather than telling a company what to do (EU anti-trust case and potentially this case), they should choose to modify the behaviour instead (The US settlement). I cannot say he is right but it is definitely worth exploring. Let's remember that anti-trust can be about correcting distorted marketplace, not punishing the perpetrator. However, when saying

Koreans wouldn't want American antitrust authorities dictating design decisions to Samsung.

He forgotten that this is a double-edge sword: Korean authorities wouldn't want an American company dictating what the Koreans can regulate.

Microsoft Media Player Blunder : Innocent Mistake? It goes deeper than that

2005-10-27T11:15:00.000+01:00

The judge overseeing Microsoft compliance under the infamous antitrust settlement had chided Microsoft over a license presented to portable music player manufacturer which will effectively stop them from using anything but Microsoft Media Player on their devices. That license had since been withdrawn.

When the news first broke about a week ago, I took no notice about it and actually accepted Microsoft explanation that this is a honest mistake done by a newly hired, low level employee. After reading about the judge's dismay on the issue, and taking into account that the US Government believes it needs to discuss with Microsoft about its legal training for employees, and lastly but most importantly, putting my conspiracy hat on, I think this issue is not that simple.

While it may be true that sending the license to manufacturers is an innocent mistake by a "insignificant" employee, the fact that the license even exists is and should be the source of concern. The employee blamed for this incidence could not had wrote the license himself, as he is, in Microsoft lawyer's description, a 'business person', low ranking and himself a new addition to Microsoft empire. The persons who should be placed in front of a firing squad and described to journalists, US government and the judge are the lawyer(s) who dared to draw up the license, and the manager(s) sanctioning the drawing up of the license and its distribution. They are the real culprits, not the poor employee offered up as a sacrificial lamb.

I hope this does not mean that Microsoft had not changed its behavior after the antitrust Settlement was signed. If so, I hope the US government manage to rid Microsoft of this pandemic. Otherwise, the future is bleak. Worse, it is not that far away (late 2007 to be precise as this is when the constrains on Microsoft's business practice under the settlement is lifted.)

MS introduces five new Share Source Licenses

2005-10-24T18:38:00.000+01:00

Website : http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/licensingbasics/sharedsourcelicenses.mspx

Well, not really, more like 4 new licenses and a rename for an old one. The new name for Share Source is MS Reference Library. Of the four new ones, there are actually two licenses and both of them have a slightly modified license each.

Like FSFE, I did not do a full analysis of the license, but rather just skim through it. The devil is always in the detail, and one cannot actually know what the detail is until one have to study it because one wants to use it. MS is notorious for having a lot of legalese in their licenses. However, this time, the licenses are quite short and rather easy to read. It is certainly easier to read than the GPL or LGPL or the Eclipse Public License. Hence, on first glance, well done to Microsoft.

The first new license, MS Permissive License (MS-PL) is very BSD-like. Cannot find any problematic clause in it. The second one, MS Community License (MS-CL), is GPL-like because of the requirement to share the file which contains call to the source code licensed under this license. To paraphrase Bill Gates, this is smaller version of the "Viral" GPL clause containing provision of "compulsory licensing". I sense a problem here. I cannot really figure out what constitute "the file". Furthermore, I cannot understand what is the purpose of asking the developer to open up that file. Perhaps it is to write interface to the proprietary portion of the developer's code, but then it would just be necessary to use the LGPL clause of permitting reverse-engineering to discover the interface (and no more). The other two licenses is like these two licenses, but restricts the use of the programs to the Windows Platform only.

If I were to speculate how MS will license their source code under these licenses. Their most valuable source code, like those for Windows and MS Office will be available under the MS Reference Library, the second most valuable under the two Windows-only licenses, and the least valuables one the Permissive License and the Community License. My hunch is that among the two, Community License will be used for the slightly more valuable source code than the Permissive License. This is very subjective assessment as sometimes, the viral condition of Community License may means that the source code is not used to its full potential as it would under the Permissive License.

On the wider picture, we might be seeing a change in direction on Open Source in Microsoft. Microsoft had been hiring a lot of open-source people lately and I guess this is the results of their work.

FSFE says that this is a good sign, but mourn that MS is introducing new licenses into a already crowded Open Source License space. They would had preferred that MS uses GPL or LGPL (what's new?). Well, first and foremost, Microsoft have the rights to introduce new licenses and most importantly, the rights to determine how they want to share their source code. Moreover, if the position of their American counterpart (FSF) is a guide, FSFE will have problems with all licenses, including Open Source License, which are not compatible with GPL or LGPL. Please do not get me wrong as I think their aim and aspiration is a good one and I support their cause, but the world is not perfect and we live in a real world. It is true that open source landscape is more challenging than commercial or properitory licenses where the licensees know that they have to pay either a lum sum to use the licensed software, or a per-user/per-site license charge for the licensees and the customers of licensee. The reasons for this complicated Open Source Landscape is effectively the results of dabbling by commercial interests. Every companies have to struggle to reconcile their commercial interest with that of open source and they all want different levels of restriction on their source code, and a desire to tailor-build their open source license rather than rely on a small set of reference licenses. Looking at the bigger picture, the proliferation issue is just a sidetrack. It may be difficult to navigate the landscape, but everyone have to manage licensing issues, even if one goes on the purely proprietory license route. To have someone open up their source code, even if it is for a very limitted scope, is a step forward as it may save somebody time to reinvent the wheel.

Defining the license(s) is a good first step. As FSFE point out, having licenses available is not sufficient, since it is access to source code that counts. What I would like to see now is not Microsoft rejigging existing share source code from Microsoft, e.g., (Windows CE) to align it with the new licenses without adding any more "openness", but that Microsoft made available more source code under these licensing scheme.

In the end, I will judge them by looking at the how they license their source code and the value of their contributions to open source. My ultimate criteria how much they contribute to the open source community and humanity. I will definitely view very dimly any company that uses open source as a tool to foster a set of complementary technology to their technologies while keeping their technology firmly proprietary. This to me is not open source but rather a market ploy and a cunning ruse to promote and enhance the value of the proprietary technology.

Astroturfing by Microsoft on ODF?

2005-10-21T16:22:00.000+01:00

When the news first broke that Massachusetts is adopting OpenDocumentFormat, there was a buzz in the media around it. Everyone jumped in including Microsoft Brian Jones. Normally one can expect to move on to the next topic in a week or so. At worst, the whole affair will stretch to two weeks. However, in this case, it lasted for at least 4 weeks, and still counting.

Just as I thought the story will go away, we have people trying to keep this story in the headline. First we have a Fox News article from a group which Microsoft supports, then Microsoft's Yate talking to David Berlind. After which another Microsoft employee, John Caroll joins in. It sounds like there is a concerted effort to keep this story fresh. The fact that I mentioned two Microsoft employees and a Microsoft affiliation is no coincident and no accident.

May be I am simply paranoid. But I think Microsoft, or its allies, do not want this issue to die. The latest run is from John Caroll, a self confessed Microsoft supporter and now Microsoft employee. It may be possible that John Caroll may simply feels that there is a need for robust reply to Berlind's comments on Microsoft. However, he is simply rehashing what is already said and added virtually nothing to the discussion. In fact, in his latest installment to date, all his questions were already answered, if he bother to do his research, such as reading his fellow Microsoft employees' (Brian Jone's) blog. If I want to be harsh, I would say he simply parroted existing Microsoft opinions on the case.

Are we seeing an astroturfing campaign? May be. Writing an article takes time. Parrotting what is already said is a waste of an author's time, as an author's real value is to present new insights/opinion to the topic. However, from a business point of view, having more people parroting an opinion helps to create an impression that that opinion is the majority view, casting doubts on opposing opinions. Parroting is a type of "astroturfing", just as using affiliates to voice similar views is.

Is this a campaign to bias top results returned by Google using the search term "Massachusetts OpenDocument" towards negative opinion? At present, Google return a balanced results. David Wheeler once said something on the line that the best way to fight FUD is to write articles to refute it. The logic, I believe, is to overwhelmingly pointing out the fallacy of the FUD. If this is the case, then one of the main battleground will be search engines' results. The flip side of the coin is that the more people refute the FUD, the more the article is perceived to be valuable from a business point of view (e.g. brownie points in selling advert on a website). It is a catch-22 situation at best. I have not decided what the best course of action is.

What is interesting is that it used to be the Open Source people who trash talk corporate/government decision to adopt proprietary software. Now we are seeing the opposite. In this case, Microsoft-phile trash talk the decision. All we can draw from this is that the loser, whoever they are, generally feels that they need to get their message across. What surprise me is that the length of time some corporate entities will go to propound their point of view. Or may be it is the other way round, open source have too short an attention span.

It is expertise that counts

2005-10-20T13:01:00.000+01:00

ZDNet carries a story where Microsoft's Nigeria Manager argues that cost is not as important as the expertise to use a piece of software.

He is right and wrong at the same time. He is right because expertise is needed to make the most out of the software you use. To support this point I will point out that people pay good money to have experts create templates for the word processing documents for them, and there are courses on advance use of software which charges a lot of money. I use GIMP but find myself unable to do a lot of fancy stuff with my image precisely because I do not have the technical expertise on manipulating images (and of course, my lack of artistic talent does not help). Savvy readers will immediately note that I am only talking about a small high end of the market which is not representative of how most people use software. Nonetheless, the proliferation of IT colleges that offers introductory and intermediate course on computers, especially Office productivity software such as Word Processor, spreadsheet and presentation software, definitely point to the fact that having a piece of software is not as important as the ability (expertise) to use it.

He is wrong because cost do matters, especially in a country where the average wage is too low to even afford a computer and pay of any software to use on it. Access to software and expertise in using them goes hand-in-hand. I had argued that expertise is needed to use a piece of software. Conversely, if users cannot afford access to the software, any expertise to use that software is useless and moot.

Since Mr Ilukwe (The Microsoft Manager in question) insists that cost is not a matter but expertise is and Microsoft is "sharing expertise" with Africa. I am going to post him this question: "What is the point of sharing expertise when the receivers is not able to use the expertise as he cannot afford it?". I understand that Microsoft's purpose, like that of any companies, is to increase the value of their product. However, it is also necessary to make sure one's product is accessible to the people one "share" expertise with.

Hence, here is my most drastic viewpoint to any software company that "share" expertise knowing fully well that the recipient cannot afford the product to exercise that expertise *and* takes no steps in making their product affordable: YOU ARE ENCOURAGING PIRACY OF YOUR PRODUCT. I just hope one day you reaped what you sowed.

That is my cue to start my rambling about Free Software. If it is not already clear to the readers, my argument here is that sharing and building expertise in Free Software is one that allows the recipients to be able to exercise and demonstrate their expertise, as the recipients have access to the software. If I were the government of a developing country that really have its people interests at heart and is working towards giving them better access to ICT and training local expertise, I will choose Free Software, especially when I cannot see how the non-free versions can be afforded by the majority of my citizens for a foreseeable future.

Other articles which explains the situation better than me:

Africa needs free software, not slick marketing talk - Directly from the people who really matters in this conversion.

Editor's Note from LinxToday - Brian Proffitt noticed an inconsistency: Cost matters in cash-rich countries, but not in a cash-strapped one.

MS Response to Massachusett's ODF issue

2005-10-17T11:19:00.000+01:00

Finally we have a response from Microsoft. It is from Alan Yates (the person who wrote the long comments to Massachusett on behalf of Microsoft).

It is a pity it was not on official stationery, but rather through a third party blog (David Berlind's blog on ZDNet). Its a pity because David Berlind, as the author of the blog, exercised his rights to comment on the blog, giving us a "filtered" view of Mr Yate's response. Please do not blame Mr Berlind for that, its not his fault. Mr Berlind cannot post Mr Yate's correspondence on his blog as it is private conversation. Therefore, his hand is tied and have to post the whole affair as a commentary. Moreover, given Mr Berlind's previous records on journalism, I will say that he is one of the few on ZDNet who is relatively neutral on most topics. He definitely give everyone a fair hearing, and most importantly, report the facts as they are. If you want to blame anyone, blame Alan Yates. He is the one who choose not to release it on official stationery.

I had always said that Microsoft should presents its side of the story, if only as a record for historians to judge the matter.

John Carroll calling a storage device a PC

2005-10-14T13:48:00.000+01:00

John Carroll's idea for a sub $100 PC is interesting, and I like the idea/concept and can see myself doing this. However, I cannot call it a PC, not even a PC substitute.

His idea is that everything is stored on a USB device instead of an internal hard disk. User simply bring the USB device to a dummy computer terminal, i.e. one that only have processor, display, keyboard and mouse, boot it off the device and run everything from the USB device. He then call USB device and the dump terminals a PC.

He asks us to be bold and disregards the concept of a traditional PC. There is no need to do so. The dummy terminal/external storage combo is a PC in every sense of the word. Let's not forget that hard disks is a relatively new addition to PC. Before hard disk become common places (around 1995), we boot PCs from floppy disks. In fact, today you can download Knoppix CD and DVD and boot your computer off it, bypassing your harddisk completely and store your data to a USB device.

However, since he ask it nicely, I will try my best. BUT what I am not prepared to do is to confuse the ownership of a storage device with the ownership of a PC. He is asking us to disregard the composition of a PC. But a PC, whatever its composition, must be able to process data such write a document or spreadsheet. This is actually a fundamental requirement for any PC. Another important purpose of creating a sub $100 PC is to give its owner an INDEPENDENT means of processing his data. Otherwise, we can all call a dummy terminal that do timesharing processing time on a mainframe a PC ... and it is easier to configure one like this sub $100 coz it means we can disregards the cost of everything on the servere end (including the server). A USB or other device which stores program/data/OS cannot perform data processing and therefore fails to qualify as a PC. An owner of the storage device, however sophisicated, still needs to access to a dummy terminal. If he does not own one, he is at the mercy of others and therefore not independent.

His argument seems to rely on the fact that the majority of the people personally spend less than $100. This does not fly. It is like saying I have a sub $30 PC TODAY since I own a Knoppix CD ($1 - cost of a CDR) and a small USB flash memory stick (approx $20 for a 256MB model) and at time insert the two into someone else computer to do my word processing. Even if we stretch this personnal cost thinner by using communal ownership of dummy terminals to spread the cost of it over as many storage device to bring the cost per person down to sub $100 level, I am sure most people will count the number of PCs as the number of dummy terminals collectively owned. Otherwise, given enough people, we can each personally spend less than $100 for supercomputing.

If his purpose is to squeeze in Microsoft Windows into the sub $100 PC space, by offseting the cost of a copy of the OS against the dumb terminal, that is disingenius. There are better ways. I reckon the easiest way Microsoft can achieve this is to give away Windows Starter Edition or other crippleware version of Windows.

P2Pnet : Use and Abuse of TPM

2005-10-14T12:59:00.000+01:00

P2Pnet have an good article on Use and Abuse of TPM. Technological Protection Measure (TPM) is just another broader name for Digital Right Management (DRM), or more correctly, as Tim Bray puts it: Digital Restriction Measure.

He asked for comments on the WIPO's WIPO Copyright Treaty article 11 which mentions Technological Measures:

Contracting Parties shall provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by authors in connection with the exercise of their rights under this Treaty or the Berne Convention and that restrict acts, in respect of their works, which are not authorized by the authors concerned or permitted by law.

I decided to oblige by posting my comment on P2Pnet, here and on the discussion board for WIPO course (DL101 : General Course on Intellectual Property) I am studying.

Here is my comment:

The treaty text shoulds reasonable as it only aims to prevent circumventions that are illegal. However, it would be stronger we change it to

"Contracting Parties shall provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by authors in connection with the exercise of their rights under this Treaty or the Berne Convention and that restrict acts, in respect of their works, which are not authorized by the authors concerned or permitted by law, **provided that the technological measures preserve access to and do not interfers with activities permitted by the law.**

My reasoning is that TPM measures must maintain fair use as mandated by the law, and when the the copyrights etc expires, the same DRM measure must ensure unflattered access to the material as permitted by law.

Well done, Microsoft's Watson

2005-10-11T11:46:00.000+01:00

In this article, Microsoft Chief Security Advisor (software security, not physical security ;) ) for Australia and New Zealand, Peter Watson, is quoted to had said that

"I don't think it creates any benefit for us or anybody in the ecosystem to turn around and say, 'It's good that this company has a whole load of security vulnerabilities',"

Given all the negative publicity of Microsoft Software's vulnerabilities, and that one of the major attraction of non-Microsoft software is the perceived reduced-vulnerabilities, I can understand it if he decided to use the Firefox vulnerability issue to lash back at his competition. Let's face it, for a guy who is at the receiving end of all the "security vulnerabilities" arrows we throw at Microsoft, he is entitled to lash back at us. Instead, he had chosen to clarify that nobody benefits from any software having a whole load of security vulnerabilites.

Now, before someone discovers the blog post and start flaming the blog, I know there are disputes to whether Firefox is more vulnerable than IE. That is not the point. The point here is that we have a chap that kept his cool and levelled head. He deserves the praises.

Intellectual Property vs Intellectual Monopoly

2005-10-10T13:21:00.000+01:00

I am doing a course with WIPO Distance Learning (DL101 : General Course on Intellectual Property). I am about 1/8 through the course, and begin to form some opinion on the course. I will write a review when I complete the course, which should be sometime late November. Right now, inspired by the first module that introduce the notion of Intellectual Property ownership, I want to attempt to reconcilate my conflicting view on why certain so called IP, such as copyrights and trademarks, are fine and acceptable, but others, like Patents, are not acceptable.

Opponents of open source keep spreading FUD about open source proponent are against Intellectual Property, which open source proponents counterclaim by saying that the open source rely on Intellectual Property protection to protect their work, in particular, the copyright provision. Lately, open source proponent, like myself, have rally behind the movement against Software Patent. Some members of the general public probably think that we are hypocrits by embracing some form of IP protection that benefits us, namely Copyright, but decries other that do not or expensive to obtain, namely patent. Opponents of open source is starting to use this "inconsistency" to attack open source. Various members of the open source community had addressed this issues before.

My own struggle with Intellectual Property is that Intellectual Property Protection has gone overboard and is constraining humanity, rather than advance it. I believe that Intellectual Property, properly implemented, do help advance humanity, but at a price. The price we pay is short term ownership of a piece of "intellectual property" by individuals (including companies). However, in the long run, the society benefits because this short term ownership is conditional on the owner disclosure on how he did it. And if society can exploits the disclosure and retake ownership after the "short term" private ownership expires, the pain is worth it. The history of the Chinese People is one littered with a lot of lost "inventions", all of which are well substantiated by various documents. These inventions are lost because there is no framework that reward and encourage the inventors to disclose how they did it. Thus, inventors rather take their inventions to the grave than to tell others how to make it. I can only imagine how much richer our society will be if these inventions are not lost.

The problem I have with IP laws are their implementation, in particular the constant redefinition of "short-term private ownership" which seems to be getting longer and longer. In my opinion, these extensions are often not justifiable, as they are contrary to my stated priciple above on what IP is meant to be. This is the easy part to explain. However, my view is not that simple, because I find that certain categories of IP rights, is more repungant than others. Although I have a certain ideas on why this is the case, I am often at a lost on how to explain this. That is, until I took the course.

The course explains that Intellectual Property is like a phsyical property, e.g. real estate, where it can be owned by excluding others from using the "property". I have trouble with the physical property analogy, for the sake of this blog entry lets just leave it as it is. Rather, lets focus on the issue of "excluding others on using the property". This is the root of the problem I have with certain categories of intellectual property.

If IP is like a house, I have no problem with it. This is because many people can own houses. They simply own different houses. These houses serve the same purpose: providng shelter. The houses can be very similar (think terrace houses), but not identitcal (must occupy different spaces). Since there can be many houses owned by many people, excluding the majority of people to use a particular house does not really bother any one, including me, as long as there is enough house to go around.

Now, imagine that you cannot own a house because someone else own all the houses in this world. Futhermore, this someone is not impartial, is out there to protect his own interest at the detriment of others if necessary, and his decision is final and binding with no rights to appeal. In effect, he has a monopoly on house ownership. If this is the case there will be a big uproar against this monopoly.

For intellectual properties that behave like "Properties", where different people can own similar (but not identical) properties, I am fine with the notion of granting temporary exclusive rights. It serves the purpose of rewarding the creation of the property and there is no overbroad exclusivity. Copyrights, Trademarks and related rights falls into this category.

However, if Intellectual Property start to behave like "Monopoly", i.e., only one person can own the property to for his exclusive use, then they should ideally be banned, or extremely heavily regulated, to ensure that they are consistent with public good. In the case of Patent what is granted is a form of "monopoly", but unlike other form of monopoly (electricity, gas and telephone for example), they are NOT regulated at all. I think this is wrong and should be vehemently opposed.

Is it an accident that the words "Intellectual Property" rather than "Intellectual Monopoly" is prefered? I do not think so. The word "Monopoly" have a negative cognotation and immediately put one in the defence of not granting the right. If the rights is granted to somebody, that person is usually under constant watchful eye and heavily regulated. However, using the word "property" give the whole thing a different meaning. It implies that the rights should be, by default, granted, unless there is a compelling reasons not to, and that regulations is not really necessary. Psychologically and practically speaking, the use of the word "property" favour the rights owners.

Indeed, as I had mentioned, some IP do behave like property, and therefore the terms IP is apporpriate for them. However, IP that behaves like monopoly should be identified instead as Intellectual Monopoly. It is simply a matter of saying things as they are.

Digital Right Management and Fair Use

2005-10-07T18:32:00.000+01:00

Patrick Ross, VP of Progress and Freedom Foundation, an organization that is known to work with the Music Industry (See
SourceWatch information), recently published an article arguing that the ability to circumvent Digital Right Management measures (He calls it "Technology Protection Measure") is wrong. In particular, he is against a bill (HR-1201) proposed by Congressman Rick Boucher (See Congressman Boucher's opinion piece).

What do I think about the article? Another classic "Framing" exercise. Rather than tackling the issue Congressman Boucher raised, i.e., the purpose of the Bill is to readdress the imbalance that tilted towards complete protection and disregards towards fair use, Mr Ross decided to launch a tirade praising how "Technology Crippling Measures" are good since they provide more revenue.

Its true that these damn Technology Crippling Measures can create new business models for distribution of copyrighted content and have a place in the market. However, the way these measures are created ignore completely the notion of Fair Use. It is not the content owner's right to decide what constitute fair use. It is that of the law courts. Moreover, over and over again it is demonstrated that the content owner's notion of fair use is flawed and tainted. To say that one cannot circumvent technology measure even if one can demonstrate fair use is the same as saying that content owner is allow to infringe on the general public's "Fair Use" rights. Only one sentence for this: IT IS WRONG, and should be illegal. Until this is corrected, i.e., when the public rights to fair use is restored in these technology measure, any technologically-based method MUST be opposed and should not be allowed.

Preventing piracy is something every Intellectual Property owner have to do since day 1 of the first IP law. All the while, the definition of Intellectual Property is being defined and redefined to meet emerging challenges. The basic IP laws are surprisingly robust enough to deal with all situations. The basic spirits of IP laws had not changed. Rather, it is human greed that had lead to the skewing of IP laws to unfairly favour the owners of IP. The situation needs to be corrected. And that is what Congressman Boucher is proposing to do.

Restricting public's fair use right is a sure way to stifle innovation. Behaviours of big content providers had repeated demonstrated their willingness to stifle innovation and free speech. This include the attempts to use it to stifle Free Speech (Professor Ed Felten and SDMI case) and the imprisonment of a Russian Programmer when he went to the United States on something he did legally in Russia as a results of someone else decision to distribute his program illegally in the United States. Congressman Boucher correctly identified these as the weakness of existing laws and it is worth correcting. I will suggest to Congressman Bouncher to add a case where a company's failed attempt to apply DMCA to garage door remote control as another case study.

Any technological measure to prevent law-breaking is good provided it also respects other peoples' right as well. Otherwise, it is better not to have it at all, since it is supporting one evil over another.

The Damp Squib Press Conference

2005-10-05T15:15:00.000+01:00

The much anticipated Sun-Google Press Conference (audio link : [High Bandwidth] or [Low Bandwidth]) is over, its a bit of a damp squib, if you ask me.

No anticipated BIG upheaval to the software landscape. The news that the two are cooperating may be important to the shareholders of the two companies, and might raise an eyebrow or two in Microsoft. But that tis just it. It was overhyped, and with such a meagre news to announce, the fall is definitely harder.

Well, it looks an announcement of a piece of business: Google buys SUN hardware and pay an undisclosed sum to SUN in return for the privilege position of making Google Toolbar an "optional download" presented to websufers when they want to download Java Runtime Environment from SUN. Nothing exciting here.

As for the promise of collaboration on OpenOffice.org. I will prefers to wait-and-see. No announcement can excite me until I see concrete results, especially when the announcement sounds like it is only a MAYBE Google involvement in OpenOffice.org.

BBC commented that the announcement fell short of Google announcing it is going to offer OpenOffice.org as a web service or download. I actually thought it is a blessing that they did not announce this. Although in a previous post I am impressed with OpenOffice.org 2.0, any announcement of this magnitude will see people flocking to download OpenOffice.org 1.x, something that is not as market-ready as OpenOffice.org 2.0. This might actually kill interest in the much superior OpenOffice.org 2.0.

OpenOffice.org 2.0 rocks!

2005-10-05T11:23:00.000+01:00

Well, I'm the not first to admit it, although I believe that OpenOffice.org 1.x is "technically" up to the job, I still crawl back *on all fours* to MS Office when I need to impress other with glitzy presentation. I use OpenOffice.org on my Linux and MacOSX machines, but only because it is the most comprehensive free office software for Linux, and I did not want to fork out GBP50 (academic license riding on University's agreement with Microsoft) from my grant money for a MacOffice license. Although I always tell people look and feel of a software is not as important as the actual functionality offered, I am as extremely highly influenced by the look-and-feel of a software as them, OpenOffice.org 1.x's look-and-feel looks like it is stuck back in 1995 and turn me off. I tried to switch to OpenOffice.org 1.x a few times, and abandon it because of its rough edges. Did I recommend OpenOffice.org to others? Yes I do, but only when they ask me for help and I cannot find any other substitute for it.

Luckily, things are about to change... I discovered OpenOffice.org 2.0!

OpenOffice.org 2.0 is still in testing phase. Formally and technically, it is known as "Release Candidate" (RC). I heard good reviews for it, and finally took the plunge. Before I continue, I must mention that any comparison I made between OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office, I am referring to Microsoft Office XP, which is not Microsoft's latest offering. The latest offering is Microsoft Office 2003 and there might be significant improvement over the XP version, which is the version I have.

The first thing that impress me is the up-to-date look of the install wizard, a sharp contrast to the previous ones. The installation process also finally follows the norm we expect from Windows program: (1)No need to launch it as a command line program because you want to do a multi-users installation, (2) On multi-users environment an entry for the software is placed in the "Start Menu" and (3) there is no need for every users to search for a "Setup" program in the "Program Files\OpenOffice.org". This greatly simplify installation. I must say these are overdue modifications.

After installation, OpenOffice.org 2.0 look and feel like Microsoft Office. This is intentional. This is one of the few cases where Microsoft is better than Open Source, and where Open Source Software copies Microsoft. While Microsoft is not the leader in usability, (Apple has the upperhand here), usability of Open Source Software is usually at the rock bottom. The official line for OpenOffice.org for copying Microsoft Office Look-and-feel is likely to be "to ease transition from Microsoft Office". While this has technical merits, as far as I am concern, its higher function is to the sugar-coat the bitter pill for Open Source advocate to swallow. Whatever the case, it does greatly to improve the usability of OpenOffice.org.

Import from Microsoft format improved greatly. Previously, if you have any "Autoshapes" or Microsoft Office generated graphics, importing it into OpenOffice.org 1.x is extremely problematic as they are always placed at the wrong places. In OpenOffice.org 2.0, almost all are placed exactly as intended, with a few very minor corrections needed.

Is there any problems with OpenOffice.org 2.0 RC? Yes. My computer is about 4 years old, so it will suffer if there is any computing intensive job. Hence,it is a bit slow in launching "New Wizards". The animation in OpenOffice.org Impress (the equivalent of PowerPoint) requires a lot of computing power. It is jerky and do not offer the smooth flow one expects. Some of the effect have rough edges. For example, is the square used in "dissolve in/out" is a bit too big, giving a coarse feeling. Most significantly, the time taken to load slides during a presentation is also much longer than Microsoft office XP. One will not notice this during a actual presentation because it is still shorter than you can utter "This is too slow for my liking and I am going to dump OpenOffice.org for it", but a noticeable delay when you are previewing the presentation. Most critically, there is a useless distinction between the arrow buttons on the keyboard ("go to next slide") and the "right mouse click" ("go to the next animation point, and when exhaust it, go to the next slide"). This is BAD.

Another significant problem with OpenOffice.org is that it does not come with many preloaded templates for new documents/presentations. It is also lacking in dictionary and spell checkers. For people like me who have no artistic talent at all and hopeless at languages, they are a necessary part of creating my office documents.

Will I recommend OpenOffice.org 2.0 to others as the first choice for office application? Yes. In fact, I will go even further by trying to make it my *default* office application. This time, I am very confident that I will succeed.

Should Microsoft Office be worried? Yes, I think so. OpenOffice.org 2.0 is OpenOffice.org coming of age. It has all the functionalities the average to moderately advanced users will want and need. OpenOffice.org 2.0 use of Open Standards such as OASIS OpenDocumentFormat, XForms and XSLT can be a big selling point against Microsoft's mostly proprietary offering.

Unlike previous versions of OpenOffice.org, OpenOffice.org 2.0 shows that it has matured and ready to start exploring new innovations, rather than playing catch up. Thus, in the form of OpenOffice.org 2.0, Microsoft Office finally have a serious competitor to reckon with. At last, we may be seeing renewed competition on the Office software front. Consumers can only benefit from good competition.

P.S. Unfortunately for me, this blog post coincide with Sun and Google join announcement which discussed OpenOffice.org. although this sounds like an Astroturf campaign, it is not.

To Brian Jones of Microsoft: Please don't start personal attack

2005-10-04T11:36:00.000+01:00

Dear Brian,

I am disgusted when I read the second last paragraph in your blog "Some background information on the reasons we have moved to an XML format as the default in Office "12" ":

"[On the Massachusetts ETRM affair] The official himself had also been the CEO of an open source company just before taking office. So, just before he left office (yes, he just took off), he fired off his shot gun with this new policy while running out the door without really thinking through all the implications. Starting to get a picture of what happened? It's actually even a bit uglier that than, but I won't bore you with the details."

While, the first sentence is fair disclosure. The rest of the quote is an uncalled for personal attack on Formal Secretary Kriss (Your pathetic attempt at portraying this is not a personal attack by not naming the official is just plain disingenuous, given the fact that Microsoft named him in one of its letter to the state. [Go to Microsoft Letter to Massachusetts on ETRM and search for the "depart"].

In my opinion, the State of Massachusetts handling on this affair is more than open. I doubt it is not up to American standard of Open governance, but it is definitely more transparent than most other governments. Their reason for not choosing Microsoft's XML Schema (Data "Sovereignty") is well thought, documented and argued for. Rather than addressing the that issue head on, you had chosen, repeatedly, to reframe the question in a different, unrelated way.

You claim that the situation is uglier, please advise us. We want your side of the story. Others (IBM and Sun, to name a few) had chosen to tell their side of the story, and I think its only fair that Microsoft should present their side of the story. Through your blog, particularly as exemplified by the paragraph which the quote originated from, Microsoft obviously had a different view of the process. Moreover, you cannot claim that the situation is uglier *without* explaining how it is. Otherwise, this is an unsubstantiated slur on everyone involved in the process.

Nobody, including me myself, is well placed to make any judgment on this going affair. Let's just document the whole affair as-it-is, put forward all our views and let future historians be the judge.

And by the way, interest in this Microsoft vs Massachusetts affair is waning, it would just had just gone away if you haven't stir it up again. It is interesting to note that Microsoft had kept mum and have not prepared a robust official response. Rather, they had chosen to use less official channels such as blogs to air their view. I note with interest that you choose to attack Secretary Kriss after he left office eventhough you had plenty of time to do so when he was in office. Does this signal another round of lobbying by Microsoft in the hope that the new secretary overturn this decision?

Sincerely,
CyberTech Rambler

Opera joining "browser war 2" -- great!

2005-10-03T12:45:00.000+01:00

According to TheRegister, Opera is joining the browser war. Big cheers for consumer!

Looks like the competition is heating up as the result of a successful FireFox launch. First we have Microsoft reversing is position on not updating IE, then, opera decided to stop spoofing itself as IE, give away free registration code (to eliminate the banner advertisement in the free version) before finally doing away with the advertisement completely. The new browser war is definitely heating up.

Opera browsers are very fast in loading webpages, and do have very nifti features not available in IE or Firefox. Hence, its decision to join the war will give the other two browsers a run for its money.

Despite what someone had said ("there is no more innovation in webbrowser" and "We are responding to customer's requests"), competition is the greatest motivator for innovations (and in a lot of case, the only motivator). If the only thing that firefox contributes to this world, then all the sweat and effort that gone into creating it is worthwhile!

Massachusetts vs Microsoft (Last Updated 10 Oct)

2005-09-27T17:44:00.000+01:00

The Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council hosted a meeting in which representatives of the state discuss the state's recent proposal to standardize on Open Document Format (The mp3/ogg is 2 hours long. A summary is available here). It helps me understand the whole issue of "Open Standard" from Massachusett's view point. It centered on the question of "sovereignty", i.e., the state ability to provide unencumbered access to all public documents. With this, the state decided to use only "open standard"-based document format. The state criteria had caused it to exclude Microsoft's XML Schema. That decision is a surprise.

Hence, not surprisingly, the meeting focuses very heavily on why Microsoft's XML Schema is not acceptable. The state's representatives really know what they are doing and answered all questions adequately, demonstrating that they had thoroughly research the issuesbefore forming their decision. Unlike, I must say, Microsoft representatives who came with a prepared script and either cannot or will not adapt that script to argue their case in the light of changing circumstances. Most damning of all is their failure to do their homework on Open Document Format. This is demonstrated by making false claims that Open Document Format cannot store voice, image and video, and saying that no software capable of using Open Document Format. These were, of course, corrected by others immediately. However, damages to their credibility was done. (Perhaps Microsoft sent the wrong people to the meeting? [Update, David Berlind thinks so as well, more on the links section.)

They also attempted to bring in their strong suit, i.e., the "cost" of conversion. I understand why they tried this, which unfortunately, was not the issue of interest right now (how to maintain "sovereighty"?) but a procurement issue. At one stage, after Secretary Kriss and Bricklin outlined why the Microsoft's Office XML Schema is not open (no thrid party participation in modifying it; openness restricted to reading public record [For the record, I believe Microsoft had modified it to read and write public record], forbidding partial implementation [This is a big problem reading the whole complete document is most of the time unnecessary.]), that was the trigger (suprise, surprise) for Microsoft representative to roll in the "we need to protect our intellectual property". Most Unfortunately, he did it in a accusary tone. Although I know this is classic Microsoft redirection: introducing issues that at face value, looks to be related but cannot withstand scrutiny. However, to Secretary Kriss credits, he did not take the bait and set the record straight.

At one point, Microsoft explained that while they are a member of OASIS (the body that set the Open Document Format), they had chosen not to participate and not to use it in Office 12. Moreover, as they are in a product development push, they imply that they cannot spare time to incorporate Open Document Format. I find this is irrelevent because it is a Microsoft issue: They decide for themselves whether to participate in any body and have to live with the decision. The fact that they are in a product development push is at best an excuse to delay implementation of Open Document Format should they choose to implement it, not a valid reason for the decision not to implement it. They did point out that since Microsoft XML Schema is in XML, a converter may be already available. [The ETRC requires Open Document Format as the native save format. This is a bummer for Microsoft. They argued that they cannot store everything they in Office 12 in Open Document Format. OK, why not just engineered a "degraded" version on CD/DVD for the State Government. Afterall, the effort is minimal, simply write a converter to filter to and from Open Document Format and attached it to the "Save" menu. It is certainly much easier than creating the crippleware known as Windows Starter Edition.]

Microsoft and their associates certainly did pull all their stocks in argueing their case. However, I have the feeling that while the whole room is dicussing the issue in question, access to data collected by the government ("soveriegnty"), Microsoft is focusing on pushing its own separate agenda. It is also addressing the issue by trying to frame it their way. [Pamela Jones of Groklaw have a different view, saying they were pressuring and threatening the officials. Se links below.] Instead of understanding and addressing the issues on why their format is not accepted, they chosen to use the "why chose them, not me?" attitude and formulated their questions this way.

One good thing in the discussion is that it had not degenerated into "Massachusetts vs Microsoft" all over again (remember the Windows Monopoly anti-trust case?). Representatives of other companies and organizations back Massachusett's view by bring in supporting information. This includes Adobe's confirmation that the restriction on Adobe PDF is minimal (simply that you cannot call it PDF if your derivative does not satisfy interoperability criteria), IBM's contention that it uses file format pragmatically, not religion, and that the "sovereignty" is not an issue recognized by various governments besides Massachusetts. Overall, as expected, Microsoft did not get its way. I expect the state to put a few arrows into Microsoft, but the fact that they took arrows from other companies, they came out more bruised that I thought they will.

One last thing, I want Secretary Kriss, Mr Quinn and his team to be in charge of my IT. Citizen of Massachusetts, you lucky bastards!

Good links for discussions on the topic:

Groklaw: PJ's article
Newsforge: [What has Microsoft done for Massachusetts lately?]

Massachusetts Government:
ETRM (Enterprise Technical Reference Model) version 3.5
Comments receive for ETRM
It is unfair to suggest that Microsoft's comments is by far the longest without explaining the context. Negative comments are usually longer because the author must argue his case. Microsoft had most to lose therefore you do expect a long reply. However, note the strange emphasis on procedural issue. PJ of Groklaw read Microsoft's stance in the meeting as pressuring the state and threatening them with lawsuits. It is a fair interpretation, and possibly true given the emphasis on procedural issue.

One legitimate question is raised by people with disability. Using Open Document Format might seriouslly complicate their life, as screen readers cannot read Open Document Format now. The state will need to address this issue whether or not is there a American With Disabilities Act. Hopefully. Hopefully with the wide adoption of Open Document Format,
this is a short term issue.

The schedule proposed by the state is a very aggressive one, as a few people points out. The state will have to come out with a realistic schedule, such as that proposed by David Wheeler.

[Update 10 Oct]
Massachusetts has published a FAQ that addresses concerns raised by the comments above. It answers Microsoft's complains well, besides explaining how they will try to meet the disability issue. To me, the latter is more important than Microsoft's or any other peoples' comments.

[Update 29 Sept]
ZDNET : Did Microsoft send the wrong guy to Massachusetts' ODF hearing?. Berlind argues that either Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates or someone allowed to make one the spot decision should had attended. It is not without precedence that MS top exec drop in when things do not go their way (see Munich case).

[End update]

Notable Quotes:

PJ of Groklaw or maybe someone she is quoting from:
"I think a good test of the license is this: if Microsoft had to license someone else's file format as a mandatory format in Office, and that format was only available under the same terms Microsoft is offering the Office schemas under, would Microsoft's legal department accept the terms as-is or not?" [article]

Stephen Walli:
[On the difference between a de facto standard and a de jure standards developed in a consensus-based process] Another categorization attempts to discuss the difference between de jure standards developed in a consensus-based process and de facto standards. A more accurate statement might be de facto technology that describes a market dominant product, rather than a specification for interoperability open to all implementers. [article]

FUD == "British Computer Society: The Trouble with Open Source" ?

2005-09-20T13:11:00.000+01:00

Thank god the article "The trouble with open source" is simply a "Member's view" and just that. At its heart, it is an advocacy piece: Keep open source inside academic and outside software industry, and can the government please please launch an investigation on all these negative impact of Open Source to British Software Industry. The main flaw with the article is that the author had tried to frame its main arguments, the rest of the article simply suggested that the industry faces chanllenges from open source software. Hence it fails to provide compelling reasons for any government investigation.

Lets disects the four main problems with open source, unframing the arugments as we go. First, on intellectual property, the question on whether an employee have the rights to contribute the software he or she develop while in the employment of others is a question that affects ALL software professionals, and therefore, cannot be potray as an open source only problem. No matter how many laws he quote in as many jurisdiction as possible, every software professionals are governed equally. I am not a lawyer, but I am sure the court will take a common sense approach when confronted with this problem, especially it the software is developed "after hour" and not in line of the employee's responsibitiy to his employer. His piece also ignored the growing number of software professionals employed by companies specifically to contribute to open source projects.

Second, His view point on "conceptual Integrity" is already answered by Mr Eric Raymond in the book "The cathedral and bazaar" by Eric Raymond. Moreover, it is wrong for him to suggest that "conceptual integrity" is the exclusive province of a company or a brilliant man with his team in support. There need not be a central design concept that need to be slavishly adhere to as advocated by Mr Marshall for a software to succeed: the coming together of TCP/IP, email and webserver to form the entity we know as the Internet prove my point. In fact, this rigid adherence to a blue print (design concept) can inhibits innovation/creativity. Moreover, nowadays, there is a shift to developing a structure where software can be developed piecemeal and joined together. JavaBeans, .NeT Framework and Eclipse Platform are good examples. If adherence to a central design concept is important, the "community process", in the example of Linux Kernel Project, shows that this is not an exclusive province of company or software industry. By the way, the internet relies very heavily on open source software.

Peer review is important. By revealing their source code, small open source team get the opportunity to have their code reviewed in a way not possible with a small team. The quality of peer review depends on the expertise of the peer. Restricting source code access as in the case closed source program, can only reduce the quality of the code. In contrast, with important open source project, the code is reviewed by renowed experts in the field. One such example is of course the Linux Kernel Project.

Thirdly, some software professionals called themselves hackers because they perceive their effort in modifying small pieces of program code into a bigger software is like "hacking" the software. Every programmers therefore started life as hackers (and probably remains as hackers), as we all start by modifying softwares, a small piece at a time. Getting credits for one's contribution is the motivation for most open source contributor. This, and the fact the visibility and readability of source code make it easy to review unprofessional practice, is a higher incentive to behave professionally. At least higher than someone who can hide behind anonymity of proprietory software.

Fourthly and finally, while money is a very good incentive for innovation. It is not the only way. Using open source code, by reusing existing source code, an open source programmer can concentrates on writting the little extra code that realize his creation and unleash his innovative potential. Open source and proprietory software are often created to do the same task, therefore they share a lot of similiarity. This, does not mean however that open source, or indeed, properitory software, is a facsilimile of the other. Moreover, open source do promote innovation, examples include the "Union Filesystem" from Knoppix and Gimp and its ScriptFu programmability, to name a few.

Mr Marshall fears of small proprietory innovative software company being driven out of business by open source. The truth is, small business fails because it cannot compete, and the competition may come from other properitory software company, especially the larger one, or the open source company. Most importantly, if these companies can continue to innovate, they have no fear.

The authors highlights the benefit open source brings to academia but believe it is not appropriate for software industry. Why shouldn't the software industry copy or learn a thing or so from a strategy that had helped the academia? It is true that traditional business model for software does not sit well with open source, but business model do evolve. Companies that fails to evolve its business model, like companies that fails to innovate, will fall sideway. MySQL, RedHat, Novell, Trolltech, SleepyCat and SendMail are examples of a few companies that found a model for themselves. None of the company above have nonscalable business model.

He says academia requires industry to distribute the fruit of its research. While industry is one of the most easy way of distributing the fruit of research, there are other channels, such as directly from the internet. Hence, it is not the industry that needs academia or vice-versa, this is a symbiotic relationship.

UK government, like that of the state of Massatucetts, or any company for that matter, is entitled to formulate their own procurement criteria for to suit their software need. However, as public body, they need to explain their policy decision and why they vaiour one type of sovware over another. As long as their explaination is valid and is clearly in the interest of their citizens, they performed their public duty and we should let it be.

In a free economy, the government should not favour one type of business model over another but instead let the market decides. Hence, it is wrong for Mr Marshall to ask for government help to investigate and combat the so-called "negative" impact Open SOurce might pose or to build on the opportunities that OS had created (I assumed, from my impression on his article, he wants to limit the assistance for open source limitted to academia only). The government should only investigate when there is a distortion of the market, such as the abuse of monopoly power. Open Source is changing the industry, the same way proprietory program changed the industry 25 years ago. It is not a distortion of the market, until than, the government should wash its hand.

---

Are Free Software Foundation (FSF) and/or Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) pressure groups? Mr Marshall thinks so. I reexamined the boundary I imposed between advocacy group, pressure group and lobby group. For me, an advocacy group uses legitimate tactics including refering to the law courts, education and PR campaign to advance one's view. It becomes lobby group when it tries to buy influence, e.g., by contributing campaign fund or outright bribery. It is a pressure group when it assert "pressure" to get its way, such as threatening to withhold something they know is important to others to impose its view. Using this definitions, FSF and EFF are just advocacy groups. This is my view, and you can use FSF and EFF's websites (pay particular attention to their activities) to make your mind up.

links:
Slashdot discussion

Is having different edition of the same thing a good idea?

2005-09-19T09:17:00.000+01:00

Raymond Chen's blog on why is there many versions of Microsoft Windows (e.g., Microsoft Starter Edition, Microsoft Home Edition, Microsoft Tablet Edition. See also Ken Fisher's description of Microsoft Vista versions) at his blog drew a lot of responses. Among them, David Berlind suggested that Microsoft take a leaf from Linux's distribution model. In Linux, as Berlind point out, only the kernel is essential, you pick-and-mix software on top of the kernel.

I think the closest analogy in Linux for "version" is distribution. Here, we find RedHat, SuSE, Debian, Knoppix and Ubuntu as a few example of linux distributions. For the purpose of this blog lets just ignore the incompatibility between the different distributions and argue why having different distributions is valuable and how the way Microsoft does different versions do not satisfy these criterias.

We once have a PhD student who is good with Linux and build us a custom Debian server for our website from ground up. The server was truely lean and mean: No unnecessary software and I mean it. The glitch is, it is difficult to maintain the server. You cannot update the server using standard Debian tools but have to download the source code, resolve conflicts, compile and test it. Therefore it is not surprising that the server works well for us until we added more people iinto the webserver management team. No other people on the team, including myself, have the knowledge necessary nor the time to rebuild the server everytime we need to apply an update. This approach flops and the minute he left us, I reformatted the server using a standard Debian distribution. This demonstrates what is to me the most crucial decision for using a distribution: Ease of maintaining. A distribution have its own standard practices and if everyone adhere to it, it make maintenance, including upgrade, much easier.

Computers nowadays have different roles to play. A computer destined for the desktop have different hardware and software combination. Thus, having different software distributions tailors their software collection for different needs is a cheap and good way of extracting values from these computer. However, experts earn their keep by fine-tuning the computers to make it more effective according to the needs in hand. I am working happily with an unaltered Knoppix. However, for the aforementioned webserver, there is no need for a graphical user interface. It also make no sense trying to configure the keyboard properly (to enable hot-keys). Hence we chosen to build the webserver using the most basic package available, i.e. directly from a Debian boot disk. For our data analysis machines, we use a modified knoppix distribution because we need to provide a rich user environment with our own sets of software combination not found elsewhere. I could had built all three systems from the minimal Debian boot disk. However, for my personal computing need and the data analysis machines this means I have to spend a lot of time adding the necessary software. Hence, I decided to use the knoppix distribution as "seeds" to populate the computers. Hence, this demonstrate the next biggest advantage of distributions: supplying different seeds on which to build up the computer.

Most people do not use operating system distributions as-it-is, but rather customize the distribution to a certain degree. For instance, when you receive your Windows Machine from your vendor. It is not immediately usable. Rather, you have to install a few other softwares to make your machine useful to you. Now imagine a corporate/academic scenario where it is a good idea to keep 100+ computers in identifical configurations. This is the scenario we faced for our data analysis computers. Our IT management team therefore decided to create their own custom distribution, based on knoppix, to ensure the same software is deployed throughout the organization. This show the ability to create one's own distribution is important as well.
Windows Server, I believe, has similar capabilities to replicate machines over-the-net. However, this is different from creating one's distribution as we cannot burn the distribution into a CD and take it to another machine.

Chen also argued that only developers will want every software available for Windows to be installed on their computer. That is not true. As a developer, I only want software my users are going to install on their computers, plus some development software on top of it on my computer. Having every software available on my development computers makes my life difficult, since I can accidentally use a piece of software not available on my user's computer.

However, as a technical geek, I do not like the idea of creating different editions to suit the business model of charging different price to different people, or to force customer to fork out more for the same software (see this comment on Chen's blog). While this approach make business sense by carving up and/or creating artificial market, to me, this is like importing South Africa apartheid system based on how much the customer can pay. This is worse when it sucks valuable technical resources from advancing software to work on artificial barriers (crippling) existing software. One good example is Windows Home Edition where I think resources had been diverted to create the "three applications at anytime" barrier. Companies are better of differentiating their softwares by advancing the software and not creating articificial markets by carving up existing one. The latter only provide short term gain.

To summize, the value of distributions are:

Creating a common practice for installation. This makes managing and maintaining computers easier.

improve efficiencies by aggregating softwares for different purposes.

forming the seeding points for customization

and I believe creating distributions should not be done for the sake of satisfying an artificial business need.

In his blog, Chen argued that there is no "one-size-fit-all" and therefore there is a point for different distributions. I agree that there is no "one-size-fit-all", their strategy only go half way to address the issues of versions/distributions, namedly the first point above and arguably, some of the second point. Taking WinXP for example, the difference between WinXP Starter Edition and WinXP Home Edition is simply an commercial exercise to create a low end market. The distriction between WinXP Home edition and Professional edition is so vague that it simply confuse the end users and frustrate sysadmin by complicating the management of computers. While Microsoft claims that one of the advantages of using Windows on servers is their familiarity to the desktop. Reading the comments from Chen's blog shows that this might not be true for Windows 2003 Server. Rather, we could be seeing the a split for destop/server edition in the making.

Can Microsoft or proprietory software companies creating something close to that of Linux? I think so and this include incorporating licensing revenue in the distrbution as well. It is necessary, however, to dump the current distribution model. Rather than creating different distributions themselves, Microsoft should put a price tag on every bit of Windows Software, throw them into a bin, allow third party to take parts out of the bin and build their own distributions, and charge for the privilege to do so. This does not, however, means that Microsoft should not provide a selection of distributions themselves. One other advantage of this approach to Microsoft it will tell them what sells and what does not.

Will Microsoft or other proprietory software companies adopt such a model? My prediction is no and the reasons are business-related rather than technological issues.

Copyright and Photocopier, VCR, DVD etc

2005-09-12T18:12:00.000+01:00

As any good travellers do, before I depart for my holiday in Ireland, I decided to photocopy some important information about my travel details. Although I used the office photocopier for the purpose, I do fully reimburse the University for the privilege of using the photocopier. The cost, as I put it, is 6p per page.

That got me thinking, why did it cost 6p per page? For every copy I make, the paper and toner powder together cost less than 0.7p, The rest represents the cost of maintaining the copier and operation profit for the company we outsource the maintenance of the photocopier to. I have no beef with that. However, I have a problem knowning a small sum of money, either directly from the 6p I paid, or indirectly paid by the University on my behalf, to so-called copyright licensing fee collecting agency. Why should I pay license fee to them? I owned the copyright for the information on the piece of paper I printed. I did not give them the rights to license the material on my behalf.

I am sure everyone is aware of notices placed near photocopiers talking about restriction on what you can copy. For UK universities, most of us are photocopying under license from a particular license fee collection agency. This agency shall remain anonymous in this blog because I am not against the agency's practice, but the whole issue of collecting licensing fee where no licensing fee is owned.

First and foremost, I will like to stress that I strongly believe in just reward. Hence if you photocopy/use material copyrighted by others, you have to pay the copyright owner. Equally, nobody should be allowed to demand payment for something you have not used.

It is true that in an academic environment, we used to photocopy a lot of articles under the copyright license. However, the use of photocopiers for this purpose had been superceded by printers. [ Note. There is one exception: photocopiers in libraries. Legally, photocopiers in libraries are treated differently in copyright lawsbecause of their public role. Therefore I excluded them in this blog]. The rights to print a copy is normally covered by a different licensing scheme, i.e., subscriptions to the online library providing the copy. Photocopiers are generally relegated to printing duplicates of important documents generated in the course of business, where the ownership of the documents in most case lies with the person who do the photocopying, or the organization he is attached to. Even in the case where the copyright does not belong to the person or organization, it is highly doubtful that the copyright agencies have the right to collect royalty on behalf the copyright owner. Hence, why should we pay royalty (more like a tax) to them?

That agreement is outdated and should be renegotiated. Academic photocopier usage is getting closer to that of normal business practice. Any renegotiation should take that into account.

The actual agreement between the copyright agency, the university or the photocopy company we use is of course written in such a way that says that the agencies are collecting their dues only and nothing else. This neatly let those agency sidestep the issue of of them collecting license fee illegally. However, as everyone who use a photocopier know or should know, part of your charges goes to those agencies no matter what you are photocopying. This presumption of "photocopying licensed material" is a good compromise in the 80s and 90s, but the situation had changed and hence, no longer valid and should be changed.

Do you know that the empty VCR tapes you buy in the shop is very likely to include a royalty fee (a.k.a. tax) paid to the entertainment industry just because you might use it to copy a copyright movie? How many of us use it to copy movies? Most of us use blank tapes to record TV programs and Home Videos which we have the legal rights to do so in the first place. Copying movies using VCR is technically challenging for most of the population. Even then, not every copying is illegal. There is a case to be made for "fair use" if I simply copied the movie as a backup.

Why is this issue important? The "tax" on photocopying and empty VCR might one day make its way to all blank DVD, CDR etc that you buy. If this happens, you paid someone unnecessarily to record your home video on DVD, make a backup of your software you purchase (which you are entitled to under fair-use). Better still, you paid the wrong person when you download and burn "Free and Open Source Software" which the owner explicitly give you permission to do so.

Personally, I do not like this tax, It treat me like criminals by presuming I am guity and worst of all, do not reward my good behaviour of not copying copyrighted material where I should not.

Another case of MS Imcompetancy : Its Recruitment Letter to ESR is insulting

2005-09-09T14:29:00.000+01:00

According to Eric Raymond's blog, Microsoft tried to recruit him. Did this surprise me? No. Companies are always head-hunting for talented staffs and staffs that can "add value" to the company. Mr Raymond can certainly "add value" to Microsoft if he accepts the offer. However, as anyone who heard of Mr Raymond will tell you, it will surprise a significant number of people in the open source community if he jump ship. Mr Raymond is not someone who mince his words and is quite brash so his reply (on the same blog entry as the recruitment letter) will give you a good taste of what he thinks about the offer.

Microsoft should be congratulated for taking such a bold step if only ... they give more thoughts into the offer and give Mr Raymond the proper respect!

I have my doubts on whether the letter is genuinely from Microsoft or people acting on behalf of the company. However, for the purpose of this post, I will assume that this is a bona fide solicitation from Microsoft. I will put aside the debate on whether Microsoft is foolish and/or arrogant because you will get these messages on Mr Raymond's blog and it is just a matter of time before this story is discussed on SlashDot. Instead, I will focus on why I think Microsoft botched the process and did not show Mr Raymond any respect.

Firstly, did you notice that the recruiting offer letter is a generic one. While people like me expects this type of letter from any head-hunter, people the statue of Mr Raymond deserves a offer letter written specially for him. This is especially important because the headhunter needs to show that he is serious about recruiting Mr Raymond, someone who is known for his hostile view about Microsoft.

Secondly, after reading Mr Raymond's description of what the officer said in their phone conversation and after filtering off the flowery language in Mr Raymond's reply, I do not think the recruitment officer have any idea who Mr Raymond is. Well, If I were the recruitment officer I will explain why I sent the letter to him as soon as Mr Raymond identified himself on the phone! May be we should not be too harsh on the officer for not knowing who Mr Raymond is. There is, however, no excuse for the staff member(s) who recommended Mr Raymond's on for not briefing him and do the necessary background research. If this indeed did not happen, that recruitment office is totally incompetent and a waste of money.

That recuitment letter sounds to me like they are not serious and simply casting a net and hope to catch some fishes in the process. All in all, this approach by MS shows their incompetancy again. The other two cases that is still fresh in my mind are the Microsoft Virtual Earch removed Apple's HQ from the map and resurrected the World Trade Centre in New York (They used seriously out-of-date (4+ years) map) and Microsoft backtracked and finally offer to repair PlayStations that scratch CDs after initially claiming that scratches is not a problem since it did not lead to failure to read the affected CDs.

And Mr Raymond, I can see MS sending the same recruitment letter to Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman. They are extremely likely to demonstrate the same incompetency and disrespect they show you.

P.S. A big thank you to Microsoft for giving me a good story to launch my blog.