US Patent Law and Microsoft – Jeez!!!
I found this link in an article entitled “Microsoft’s Advertising Framework” on Glyn Moody’s blog.
I have been following the Patent saber-rattling by Microsoft and their simultaneous attempt to own the world’s data by trying to force through impossible document standards with feelings of unease, hilarity and cynicism… All at the same time.
The Patent to which Glyn’s article refers is – in my humble and non-legal opinion – complete hogwash. It reads just like a description of any page in any of the world’s advertising driven content networks like Google’s for instance.
How this could be:
- An Invention
- Unique
- Innovative
- Unlikely to come about by evolution
- Having no prior art
is a complete mystery to me. What is the US Patent Office thinking it is doing by approving such things?
There is a cracking bit of typical Microsoft legalease at the bottom of the page too; it’s a bit like a disclaimer and catchall rolled into one and basically seems to allow them to use this patent for pretty much anything to do with advertising presented on-screen…
[0038] Although the forgoing text sets forth a detailed description of numerous different embodiments of the invention, it should be understood that the scope of the invention is defined by the words of the claims set forth at the end of this patent. The detailed description is to be construed as exemplary only and does not describe every possibly embodiment of the invention because describing every possible embodiment would be impractical, if not impossible. Numerous alternative embodiments could be implemented, using either current technology or technology developed after the filing date of this patent, which would still fall within the scope of the claims defining the invention.
[0039] Thus, many modifications and variations may be made in the techniques and structures described and illustrated herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. Accordingly, it should be understood that the methods and apparatus described herein are illustrative only and are not limiting upon the scope of the invention.
The US is a very mysterious place sometimes…
Dell and Ubuntu start travelling!
After the release of Ubuntu Feisty on several of Dell’s computers last month, things seem to be moving at a pace…
On their Linux blog, Dell have stated that they WILL start selling outside of the USA (“Hey Dell! Over Here – The UK Please”). AND they have also committed to supplying Ubuntu to SME customers. This is great news and it must be indicative of the current rumour control-centre that is suggesting that Dell has seen better than expected demand for the small portfolio it initially launched.
Kindly, Dell has set-up a separate RSS feed just for their Linux news, comment and technical commentary. In true Open Source style, the blog is open and allowing comments and feedback.
Finally, as another indication that the Linux thing must be going quite well for Dell, they have made this little video about what’s going on at Dell’s HQ. It is very funny…
GPLv3 Gets Samba!
The recently introduced GPL version 3 gets Samba – the ubiquitous Open Source networking stack for interoperability between Windowstm and pretty much everything else.
The next version of Samba to be released (3.2.0) will be issued under the GPLv3 license. This, in effect, means those organisations who have recently signed deals with Microsoft will most likely have to recind on their agreements or stay on the old version of Samba. They could, potentially fork it, but that’s an immensely non-trivial task to say the least 
The Microsoft/Novell deal is already tumbling with M$ backing away from their side of the bargain and leaving Novell to pick up the pieces. An excellent analysis of this is at the groklaw blog.
Samba is supplied with almost every Linux distribution I can think of and in recent years has become a better Windows networking stack than Windows itself provides… Better performance, better reliability and, of course, better price 
You can read the Samba news article here: http://news.samba.org/announcements/samba_gplv3.
You can also get a snapshot of which Open Source projects are adopting the new Version 3 license from Palamida.
This is good news for the GPLv3 as it will now almost certainly propagate very rapidly around the world. There are a large number of applications that use the Samba libraries. Some of these apps will have to change their licensing too.
If your code is released under a “GPLv2 only” license, it is not compatible with the Samba libraries released under the GPLv3 or LGPLv3 as the wording of the “GPLv2 only” license prevents mixing with other licenses. If you wish to use libraries released under the LGPLv3 with your “GPLv2 only” code then you will need to modify the license on your code.
National Archive being scammed!
I really can’t believe it (well O.K. I can – it’s just M$ being M$), but here in the UK the National Archive Office (the place that is SUPPOSED to look after all our important documents) is being duped by Microsoft.
They are working with the evil empire Microsoft to enable access to their old Word and other proprietary document formats by – get this – running M$’s vitual machines so they can have Windows 95 and old versions of MS Office running on top of more Microsoft software, to get access to these files!
Then, to add insult to plain stupidity, they are singing the praises of M$’s OOXML specification. Yes, that 6000 page document, calling itself a technical specification that contains, amongst other things:
- Bugs that mean dates before 1900 are handled incorrectly
- 60 pages of CLIPART!!!!!
- Technical implementation notes like “DoLikeWord95″
- Proprietary encryption routines that don’t conform to ISO approved standards and have not been verified safe
- Implementation details kept hidden or removed from public scrutiny so only M$ will be able to fully implement it
- A strong reliance on a single vendor’s operating system.
Why oh Why oh Why are they being so stupid?
Yesterday, Sun released a free ODF plug-in for Microsoft’s Office product line which allows bi-directional conversion to and from proprietary, closed and locked file formats, and the ISO approved Open Document Format.
Surely, that seems a far more sensible route than having more M$ software, virtualised, running yet more M$ software ( and old software at that) just to get access to your files?
The National Archive news item is here: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk…
Sun’s ODF Plugin can be downloaded from here: https://sdlc3b.sun.com/ECom/EComAction….
If you are at all interested in this issue, please write, email, telephone the National Archive office and your MP. This action is NOT in the public’s interest. They will find themselves going down a road that will lead to one company only having control over your national archive… Think about it.
Oh yes. And the other very interesting fact on the news item is this: “Adam Farquhar, Head of eArchitecture at the British Library and co-chair of the Office OpenXML standards committee said:…” Head of our British Library AND chair of Microsoft’s document specification steam roller? Hmmmm… doesn’t sound too impartial to me, does it to you?
Shiny Buttons in Inkscape
I have been using Inkscape more and more recently and to be honest – it’s brilliant! I have never had it crash or lose my work and whatever I wanted to do (from an amateur’s perspective at least) I could do. I keep thinking – if it is this good now – what will this app be like a year from now?
Anyway – I know there are loads of Inkscape tutorials out there, but I thought I’d do a simple one of my own…
I wanted to make some nice “buttons” for our new Open Source training and consulting venture The Open Learning Centre.
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Here is one I prepared earlier |
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To make a button like this, start with your circle (or elipse, or rounded rectangle) and make it the right colour. For this example I’ll use a rather lurid purple colour in the shape of a lozenge. |
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Now duplicate the lozenge (ctl-d) and fill it with white. Then select the “fill and stroke” dialogue (ctl-shift-f) and give the white lozenge a gradient fill. Play with the gradient position until you are happy with it. |
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Add a drop shadow by duplicating the lozenge, filling it with a dark grey, blurring a bit (say 2 or 3%) and then shifting it down and right and finally moving it to the bottom of the stack. |
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I’ve now added another white lozenge to the top and given it a radial gradient fill and reduced the opacity to about 50%. This just gives the button some “depth”. This will also act as a filter for the text to make it look like the lettering (or graphic if you wish) is under some sort of clear plastic or glass cover. |
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To give it that “shiny” look, add a small elipse or rounded rectangle with a gradient fill and play around to get the look you want. I actually changed this bit after I took these screenshots. See the final image for the difference. |
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Finally, add some text (or a graphic), reduce it’s opacity and then move it down the stack so it is below the graduated fill we added 2 steps earlier. |
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And here is our finished button in all it’s PNG glory! (Almost certainly not the best or most attractive, but it’s mine) And in true open source fashion you can copy it, modify it and share it as you like. No restrictions. |
Compiz Fusion on Ubuntu Feisty
I used to play around with Beryl on my computer as it looked really cool and had a rather rapid development process
However, after the feuding between the Beryl fork and the original Compiz crew calmed down, they have now – happily – rejoined forces with a new approach called Compiz Fusion.
From my initial experiences with it (now a couple of weeks), it is seems more stable than Beryl was and seems to run more smoothly! The new configuration tool is very nice (although lacking any help whatsoever) and effective. And, there are some very nice new features.
So, here’s how I installed the latest Compiz Fusion on Ubuntu Feisty. NOTE: This is not officially released software and might break things so don’t try this if you are unsure. Having said that, it hasn’t broken my set-up.
A member of the Compiz Fusion team has set up a repository for Ubuntu. The instructions can be found on this thread of the forum. http://forums.opencompositing.org/viewtopic….
But to simplify it here are the steps for Ubuntu Feisty i386. (There is a separate repo if you are running the 64bit version, instructions on the thread above). Open a terminal and cut and paste the text that looks like this.
1, Add the new repositories to your synaptic manager:
sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
Simply cut and paste the info below into the bottom of your /etc/apt/sources.list file
# Treviño's Ubuntu feisty EyeCandy Repository (GPG key: 81836EBF - DD800CD9)
# Many eyecandy 3D apps like Beryl, Compiz, Fusion and kiba-dock snapshots
# built using latest available (working) sources from git/svn/cvs...
deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy
deb-src http://download.tuxfamily.org/3v1deb feisty eyecandy
2, Add the key for the repo:
KEY=81836EBF; gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --recv $KEY && gpg --export --armor $KEY | sudo apt-key add -
3, Update your local package list:
sudo apt-get update
4, If you have an old version of compiz installed, remove it first…
sudo apt-get remove compiz-core
And do agree to remove “ubuntu-desktop” if you are asked, it’s only a meta-package and won’t harm your system.
5, To download and install the base packages…
sudo apt-get install compiz # compiz-gnome AND/OR compiz-kde
6, Install the configuration tools…
sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager # compizconfig-backends-* ?!
7, To install the Fusion packages…
sudo apt-get install compiz-fusion-*
8, Finally to run Compiz, open a terminal and type:
compiz --replace
or press ALT-F2 and enter the command in the box.
That’s it!
Under your System > Preferences menu you should now have CompizConfig Settings Manager. Run that and you can play about to your hearts content. In my machine, I have a very old GeForce PCX 5300 graphics card. It really is nothing special and it cost me about £20 from eBay. It runs Compiz Fusion very nicely indeed.
The best-looking features, for me at least, are the reflections that have been added to the cube, and the superb looking Expo plugin. I find myself using the expo plugin more and more because it is fast, and using the cube + rotation just to impress those who use Windows! To see expo work with the default settings, enable it in the CompizConfig Settings Manager [CCSM] and move your mouse to the top left corner or hit Super-E. (Super being the Windows key on my keyboard.)
Another neat tool is the Ring Switcher. This lets you rotate all your open apps in front of your very eyes and it looks very impressive. To use the Ring Switcher, enable in CCSM, and use Super-Tab.
I have now had Compiz Fusion on my computer for a few weeks with very few glitches or issues. Occasionally a window or a drop down menu may be black but I have had no spectacular failures (fingers crossed and all that). The black windows seems to be a memory issue. If I close a few other apps then the problem goes away. Of course if you get really stuck, just use CTL-ALT-BSPACE to restart X!
Here’s the new Compiz Fusion home I recommend the forum and the blog as good places to start!
Now who thinks Vista cool? You couldn’t even get Aero to run on this computer!
