Robert Pogson

Munich claims to be the IT capital of Germany. Is it a case of chicken versus egg? Did Munich’s migration to GNU/Linux stimulate local IT businesses or did local businesses empower Munich to migrate? Rather than worry about such things, both Munich and its IT system roll on.

see City of Munich – Munich new video for start-up scene

• Smartphones –
  iCharts

• Tablets –
  iCharts

• Legacy PCs – Dell sells a raft of legacy PCs with GNU/Linux to businesses right here in Canada but not a single one for consumers… HP will sell to consumers as well, but you have to dig a bit. The default page lists none. It shows “Windows 8 or other operating systems available”. Searching finds Ubuntu GNU/Linux however. The consumer has to want GNU/Linux before that happens… That’s not really offering to sell GNU/Linux. That’s reluctantly agreeing to sell GNU/Linux to persistent consumers who mostly do not even know what an operating system is.

So, where OEMs and retailers offer to sell FLOSS systems, those systems clog the channels with high volumes and where OEMs and retailers pay homage to M$, FLOSS systems languish with small shares. What’s wrong with this picture? It’s not a free market for legacy PCs. It’s long past the time when governments should have slapped this organized criminal behaviour to exclude competition from the market. There is no shortage of software that consumers want. There is no shortage of viable operating systems. OEMs could put Android/Linux or any other distro on PCs and they would sell like hotcakes. Meanwhile, OEMs and retailers are faced with huge stocks of systems with that other OS not selling. It’s clearly in the best interest of comsumers, retailers and OEMs to sell GNU/Linux. Why don’t they get on with running their businesses instead of M$’s?

“FUD withers in sunlight. It only works when people lack accurate information.”
see Groklaw – Happy 10th Anniversary, Dear Groklaw! Happy 10th Anniversary to Us! ~pj

How much FUD GROKLAW deflated:

• GPL is evil/unconstitutional,
• Linux was copied from UNIX operating systems,
• The world owes SCOG, M$, and lots of other parasites per user/user/machine, etc., and
• Software Patents are good for us…

I must say I felt terribly bad when SCO claimed Linux was theirs to tax. I didn’t fully understand the world of FLOSS in those days. PJ educated all of us with thorough research and detailed legal investigations. Fortunately for the world, the courts finally saw through the smoke and mirrors to the truth. Too bad they still haven’t seen through M$’s smoke, but that gives us something for which to live.

Thanks, PJ. You have done a lot of good work and documented everything so that the search engines can pierce FUD in seconds. Thanks.

That’s pretty decent as many large organizations consider 80% the maximum share GNU/Linux can easily have of PCs in an organization. Of course that depends on the work that’s done but governments like Munich have diverse operations, everything from collecting garbage to managing land-use. I am sure they could get to 100% eventually but the effort of creating a replacement for a few non-free applications may not be worth their while. They could also find other ways of doing the tasks.

Munich reports all 15K PCs run FLOSS applications and 14K run GNU/Linux. Congratulations, Munich, for getting the job done despite years of political sabotage, FUD from M$ and “partners”, and no end of mud-slinging on the web. You triumphed over them all and now you have a robust and flexible IT-system and $millions saved.
see City of Munich – Current numbers

I have often seen it in my career in teaching. A monthly contract is set and you go to work. At first, you are on fire making plans and setting things up, matching resources against objectives. It is easy to be motivated. Then reality (students) enters its ugly head and plans must be revised to fit reality, good or bad. It becomes the teacher’s task to motivate students who could care less about education and to guide the inspired learners in good directions. Then in the short days of winter, it is easy to be depressed about how things are going and to dwell on the failures rather than the successes. That’s when the good principal steps in and gives an encouraging example or remark. Teachers get fired up all over again responding to the current problems with creative means, doing more with less, getting a teacher’s greatest assets (students) fired up to solve the problems and being pleasantly surprised that impossible tasks become easy when approached differently.

It’s all about inspiration. An inspired person can do difficult things that others consider impossible. Like a fire, you cannot will the fire to grow you have to give it what it needs. It will grow naturally. Yelling at a fire does nothing. Punishing it by removing resources does the opposite of what is required. Rewarding it by dumping an excess of resources just smothers it. The same is true about inspiring people to do great things according to research published recently.

“If you want to help people perform well, make sure that they don’t have to worry about other stuff besides their work and give them positive verbal feedback about the work they do.”
see Motivation and Reward | Zwillingssterns Weltenwald

That’s a good rule to remember to encourage FLOSS developers and contributors to do great work. It’s also why detractors invest so much effort to make FLOSSies feel badly about their work. That reduces inspiration and disrupts productivity. It’s why trolls come to my site to disagree with everyone sharing news of good results in the world of FLOSS. It’s why I ban them eventually…

Look at the heroes of FLOSS. Some of them appear to work incredibly hard for many years with increasing motivation to do well without being paid on “piece work” or per unit of production. Compare that with the minions of non-free software who work for years and produce stuff like Vista or “8″, totally uninspired crapware, which users love to hate. Stuff that actually reduces the motivation of users and reviewers. It’s like those unfortunate souls whose only joy is to share their pain.

FLOSS is the right way to do IT. That’s why I recommend and use daily Debian GNU/Linux, a cooperative product of inspired individuals and organizations scratching their itches to succeed at producing great software. I used to use that other OS but it depressed me greatly by running slowly and crashing just at the instants we needed it to allow me and my students to succeed. In the whole world, over decades, that other OS has been depressing people by arbitrary rules in the EULA forced on people who find nothing else on retail shelves. Rather than abusing users like that FLOSS inspires them to do great things. That’s the right way to do IT, inspired, productive, creative, encouraged…

“Let’s be clear: if all of these claims, including the system claims, are not patent-eligible, this case is the death of hundreds of thousands of patents, including all business method, financial system, and software patents as well as many computer implemented and telecommunications patents.”
see Groklaw – Federal Circuit, en banc, rules in CLS Bank

Quoting from the ruling, ” It is also important to recognize that § 101, while far-reaching, only addresses patent eligibility, not overall patentability. The statute directs that an invention that falls within one of its four enumerated categories “may” qualify for a patent; thus, inventions that are patent eligible are not necessarily patentable. As § 101 itself explains, the ultimate question of patentability turns on whether, in addition to presenting a patent-eligible inven-tion, the inventor also satisfies “the conditions and requirements of this title,” namely, the novelty, nonobvi-ousness, and disclosure requirements of 35 U.S.C. §§ 102, 103, and 112, among others. See 35 U.S.C. § 101.”

Of course, if a computer can “understand” a piece of software that software surely must be “obvious”… chuckle.

” The computer-based limitations recited in the system claims here cannot support any meaningful distinction from the computer-based limitations that failed to supply an “inventive concept” to the related method claims. The shadow record and transaction limitations in Alice’s method claims require “a computer,” CLS Bank, 768 F. Supp. 2d at 236, evidently capable of calculation, storage, and data exchange. The system claims are little different. They set forth the same steps for performing third-party intermediation and provide for computer implementation at an incrementally reduced, though still striking level of generality. Instead of wholly implied computer limitations, the system claims recite a handful of computer components in generic, functional terms that would encompass any device capable of performing the same ubiquitous calculation, storage, and connectivity functions required by the method claims.”

Yup. Merely needing a computer to do the thing doesn’t make it patentable. Chuckle.

” Therefore, as with the asserted method claims, 4 such limitations are not actually limiting in the sense required
under § 101; they provide no significant “inventive concept.” The system claims are instead akin to stating the abstract idea of third-party intermediation and adding the words: “apply it” on a computer. See Mayo, 132 S. Ct.at 1294. That is not sufficient for patent eligibility, and the system claims before us fail to define patent-eligible subject matter under § 101, just as do the method and computer-readable medium claims.”

ROFL!!!

“The question we must consider is whether a patent claim that ostensibly describes such a system on its face represents something more than an abstract idea in legal substance. Claims to computers were, and still are, eligible for patent. No question should have arisen concerning the eligibility of claims to basic computer hardware under § 101 when such devices were first invented. But we are living and judging now (or at least as of the patents’ priority dates), and have before us not the patent eligibility of specific types of computers or computer components, but computers that have routinely been adapted by software consisting of abstract ideas, and claimed as such, to do all sorts of tasks that formerly were performed by humans. And the Supreme Court has told us that, while avoiding confusion between § 101 and §§ 102 and 103, merely adding existing computer technology to abstract ideas–mental steps–does not as a matter of substance convert an abstract idea into a machine.”

WHOOHOO!!! BINGO!

For those unable to parse the legalese, I will paraphrase: “You can’t reinvent painting a work of art by doing it with a paint-brush.”

“We are faced with abstract methods coupled with computers adapted to perform those methods. And that is the fallacy of relying on Alappat, as the concurrence in part does. Not only has the world of technology changed, but the legal world has changed. The Supreme Court has spoken since Alappat on the question of patent eligibility, and we must take note of that change. Abstract methods do not become patent-eligible machines by being clothed in computer language. “

Isn’t that a hoot? Can you hear the patent-FUD rushing out of M$’s collapsing balloon? Can you hear the “partners” who have signed up to pay M$ per Android/Linux smart thingy calling their lawyers and accountants? Can you see the small cheap computers becoming even less expensive? I can.