It appears that Red Hat stock is in freefall now that Oracle announced that it would offer identical services at 50% the cost. I don't know enough to understand how much Red Hat contributes to the open source movement, but I am suspicious that anything good can come from Red Hat tactic.

I await enlightenment for more informed sources.

A Korean newspaper is carrying a story about Microsoft, asserting that it is using patents to keep out competitors (link here). It has filed a rising number, starting from 6 in 2000 to 591 in 2005, for a cumulative total of more than 1000. The article notes that MS tried in the past to close a Korean competitor of MS Office by investing $20 million if it stopped writing programs in Korean characters. Local fund raising saved the program with a nationalist public campaign. One of the paper's sources is quoted as saying it is a worldwide drive by MS, not just confined to Korea.

The paper also notes that Korean software companies do not worry much about patents. That may result from the widespread pirating.

Blogger Matt Yglesias has an interesting take on the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and the success of the iPod (http://www.matthewyglesias.com/). When you buy an iPod, the only place you can buy music for it is at the iTunes Music Store. And the only place you can play the tunes is on an iPod, since at the behest of the record companies, the DMCA makes it illegal for anyone to make a player for iTunes .

It's a monopoly essentially created by government.

Hollywood studies have begun an anti-camcording website against pirates who record a film at a theater and then produce DVD copies for sale (yahoo news link here). It quotes Motion Picture Assn. of America president Bob Pisano that 90% of pirated films worldwide are the result of camcording. Schemes to cut off the practice include getting laws passed against such camcording and campaigns to get theater owners to throw camcorders out of the theater and patrons to report the practice to the theater manager.

The story also notes that pirated copies of films currently showing in one country are made from DVDs already released in another country. The industry wants to stop the original sale while the film is still in theaters in another country.

For anyone who has ever lived in a low-income country (not to mention New York City), getting laws passed and enforced against film piracy is sisyphusian.

Via Slashdot we find IBM suing Amazon for patent infringement. One of the downsides of the patent system is that people genuinely think they invented something new (Amazon) so they think they should be entitled to sue anyone who does anything vaguely similar (Barnes and Noble) - and they are outraged that anyone would suggest (IBM) that maybe what they invented wasn't really so new. People tend to be very proprietary about their ideas, rarely recognizing the extent to which the build on and incorporate other ideas. Is it utopian to suggest that instead of IBM sues Amazon, sues someone else, sues IBM - maybe we should just get rid of patents? Shifting money around in circles doesn't enhance incentives to innovate, and the court system has not proven a very effective method of resolving disputes over intellectual credit.

2006 - NORTH COUNTRY GAZETTE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - NO UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION (see the bottom of the page) - of course fair use allows unauthorized reproduction - like my reproduction of their copyright notice, for example. Hattip Volokh who points out that while it might be possible to waive fair use by signing a contract (a gray area to be sure), it certainly isn't by opening a web page that announces you've waived your rights.

Yahoo today has a story entitled “Be loyal, kind and don't steal Movies” about a Boy Scout merit badge awarded for learning about the “evils of downloading pirated movies and music" (yahoo news link here). The curriculum was developed by the movie industry.

Fortunately, this nonsense is confined to the Los Angeles area, at least for now.

Responding to a comment, I tried again today to get into the NYTimes TimesSelect to get the url for its article on patents for tax strategies but still couldn't, though as a subscriber to the paper version I had been able to up till a few days ago.

By Googling the title of the article, however, I came up with the text at here One must wonder how long it stays there.

My Google search also came up with another website that took a view of the practice similar to mine at here. Have a look.

The New York Times reports today that tax strategies can be patented, that forty nine have been granted, and that eighty one are pending. This absurdity results from a case in which the court ruled that tax avoidance strategies are a business method and under a 1998 federal appeals court ruling, business methods can be patented. This has the potential for all kinds of mischief, as the article points out. Someone wishing to use a strategy will now have to search whether it is patented, and such a search could prove time consuming and expensive. If the strategy has been patented, a new user will have to seek a license. Patent trolls will have a field day with this one. (I am unable to provide a link, as the New York Times now insists that I must subscribe to its on-line access, TimesSelect, in addition to being a hard-copy subscriber, and I refuse to pay twice for the same product.)

Microsoft has failed to keep its EU bargain according to security software makers Symantic and McAfee (Yahoo news link here).

After promising to alter its new operating system, Vista, it has apparently not allowed access to the core of the 64 bit version of Vista which they believe is necessary to provide real security. Such access had been allowed them with Windows XP.

Microsoft says it has complied, providing a list of the things it has done and disclaiming all knowledge of what the complainers are talking about.

Negotiations continue but time is running out if Vista is to be shipped for launch in January.