Interviews: Ask Florian Mueller About Software Patents and Copyrights 187
Florian Mueller is a blogger, software developer and former consultant who writes about software patents and copyright issues on his FOSSPatents blog. In 2004 he founded the NoSoftwarePatents campaign, and has written about Microsoft's multi-billion-dollar Android patent licensing business and Google's appeal of Oracle's Android-Java copyright case to the Supreme Court. Florian has agreed to give us some of his time in order to answer your questions. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.
I'll pass... (Score:5, Insightful)
I really can't think of anything I would want to ask Florian Muller. Except maybe how much Microsoft and Oracle pay him to shill?
Re:I'll pass... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Microsoft must be shelling out a bunch of dough to Dice for all these Microsoft ads.
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Microsoft must be shelling out a bunch of dough to Dice for all these Microsoft ads.
Which makes me wonder if a lot of these comments will be modded down into oblivian by Timothy, like what happend in the Slash Beta Wars a few months back...
Please don't feed the troll (Score:5, Insightful)
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Pathetic actually. There are three or four nicks hated at slashdot.
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So, I see this as rationalization.
The fact is, you took a leadership position, and later turned your coat for reasons that perhaps made sense to you. But they don't really make sense to anyone else. So, yes, everyone who supported you then is going to feel burned.
You also made yourself a paid voice that was often hostile to Free Software, all the way back to the SCO issue. Anyone could have told you that was bound to be a losing side and you would be forever tarred with their brush.
So nobody is going to bel
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We knew what was going on when you ran your anti-IBM campaign, sometimes even positioning yourself as arguing on behalf of our community. It was a way to lend credence to IBM and MS arguments during the SCO issue. To state otherwise is deceptive, perhaps even self-deceptive.
Florian, you would not be devoting all of this text to explaining yourself if you didn't feel the need to paint your actions in a positive light. That comes from guilt, whether you admit it to yourself or not.
Go write your app, and if yo
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Anyway, I have better uses of my time than to waste another minute with you.
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Exactly. Florian is a troll or a shill. See the archives of Groklaw.
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Ask Florian if he is a bigger dick-sucker than Daniel Domscheit-Berg, another famous disinformation agent of recent times.
Let's leave out the question of Lennart Poettering. The question of dick-suckage would disappear into its own event-horizon.
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This post, complete with anti-gay slurs, is a typical example of the "sickness" that Lennart recently spoke about among those in the FOSS community. Absolutely disgusting.
Contextualize the observation you make, with the homo-erotic Bowie lyric in the sig. Now? Go meta, pea-brain.
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What Is Your Relationship with Microsoft & Ora (Score:5, Interesting)
What Is Your Relationship with Microsoft & Ora (Score:5, Informative)
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Oracle paid him (disclosed by Oracle under court order) while he was blogging in support of them. He admits to having been paid by Microsoft in the past.
He has probably since set up a series of "shells" to provide him with "plausible deniability" on this issue.
What Is Your Relationship with Microsoft & Ora (Score:5)
This is my first reply here because I can easily clarify the question of why, when and how disclosures were made and address some misconceptions.
The "court order" mentioned above came down in August 2012, see e.g. http://www.cnet.com/news/judge-to-oracle-google-did-you-pay-off-bloggers/ [cnet.com], approximately four months after a voluntary, proactive disclosure I had made in April 2012, see http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/04/oracle-v-google-trial-evidence-of.html#oracledisclosure [fosspatents.com]. Oracle attached that previous disclosure to its response to the court order [scribd.com]:
I disclosed consulting work for Microsoft in October 2011, see http://www.fosspatents.com/2011/10/study-on-worldwide-use-of-frand.html [fosspatents.com]. At that point, no judge had asked for a disclosure, nor has this happened to date. I did it because it was the right thing to do.
At the end of last month I shut down my consulting firm in order to focus on my (Android and iOS) app development project. I'm still blogging, but less than before.
My consulting business had served numerous clients, not just Microsoft and Oracle. There were dozens of investment banks and funds who paid me to answer questions or participate in conference calls. I also did research for a couple of law firms and a German car manufacturer (that company allows me to refer to them like this but not to disclose the name, just industry and country).
I wish all others commenting on these types of issues were equally transparent.
Re:What Is Your Relationship with Microsoft & (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't change the fact that you for years let people believe you were a patent lawyer when you were never a lawyer, and even encouraged such misperceptions.
Doesn't change the fact that you shilled for years, pushing all sorts of bogus "patent claims by microsoft that threaten linux" when they never existed.
Doesn't change the fact that you simply are not perceived as being even half-way honest by those who have been around the block a few times - with reason.
We've had this discussion before. You were caught misrepresenting yourself and your history too many times. And now you must be getting desperate, delusional, or both, because for some reason you believe that doing a Q and A on slashdot won't once more expose your BS to the light. Wow. You're google-bombing yourself. Again. Payback is a b*tch.
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My consulting business had served numerous clients, not just Microsoft and Oracle. There were dozens of investment banks and funds who paid me to answer questions or participate in conference calls.
Which only damns you more.
Re:What Is Your Relationship with Microsoft & (Score:5, Informative)
He was never a valuable source for anything, which is why it was shocking to find out he became a paid shill. Who would pay for that crap writing?
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You were a valuable unbiased source of information on software patents and patent litigation.
In a parallel universe, perhaps.
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"You were a valuable unbiased source of information on software patent"
No he wasn't. Not then and not now. He has always been a paid shill representing himself as an expert, independent and reliable. He has never been any of those. He is the Internet meme for dishonest paid shills.
To Florian: How does scum like yourself look in the mirror and not vomit?
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How can I... (Score:2, Interesting)
As an independent software developer, how can I avoid getting dragged into a patent lawsuit? How can I leverage my rights to ensure others aren't exploiting my patents?
As a middle management cog in a large organization, how can I impress the importance of patents on the executive leadership? How can I work with our console on ensuring that our creations are correctly patented? And what steps should I be taking to minimize our risk of being sued?
-Rick
You don't need Florian to answer that. (Score:5, Insightful)
As an independent software developer, how can I avoid getting dragged into a patent lawsuit? How can I leverage my rights to ensure others aren't exploiting my patents?
You can't.
A patent is just a license to sue.
It licenses others to sue you if they think you might be infringing their stuff (or they can get you to pay them to go away even if you aren't). It licenses you to sue others who are infringing your patents. That's all it is.
If you want protection for your creations, you have to be ready to put on the armor and walk into the arena to defend them.
and, most importantly, shill (Score:5, Interesting)
OK... (Score:5, Interesting)
OK... (Score:5)
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It kind of does. Well, at least it will go a long way toward having your opinions fall on deaf and unwelcoming ears - here, anyway.
I don't know you, Florian, and I don't have anything against you personally. You might be a great guy that I'd enjoy hanging out with for all I know. However, I'm sure this isn't the first time you've heard that large chunks of the F/OSS community don't particularly trust you. I can't comment on your disclosure timeline that you described in another post, but I know that I was d
New low (Score:5, Insightful)
Holy crap, I can hardly believe this topic. Who in their right mind would want FM opinion on anything? This is really puzzling to me.
Know your enemy. (Score:2)
Holy crap, I can hardly believe this topic. Who in their right mind would want FM opinion on anything? This is really puzzling to me.
There's a saying that applies: Know your enemy.
I doubt anyone will be fooled into thinking his arguments are unbiased, or correct, and adopt the mindset he's pushing. (If nothing else, there will be PLENTY of warnings from posters in the discussions. B-) ) So this is a chance to do a little research: Find out what arguments are being brought into court and congressional c
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Re:New low (Score:5, Informative)
If you are not good enough for Pamela Jones (PJ), you are not good enough for me.
Really, who is responsible for this train wreck? Is the Slashdot editorial staff all twenty-somethings now? Read GrokLaw, you idiots.
Oh, you want a question? Here's one. Hey Florian Mueller. When is there a good time to tell you to go f*ck yourself? Is now good? GO F*CK YOURSELF!
(downvote away)
Things to know before you ask ... (Score:5, Informative)
Things that people with short memories will have forgotten by now since they happened all of three years ago. Detailed summaries of his doing can still be found on Groklaw though.
You see, mr. Mueller is not just *any* publicist. He's a publicist who is, basically, for hire by large companies to provide a congenial account of their doings and their position. In short: he is a lobbyist. His (former) clients seem to include SCO (the company who tried to claim crippling copyrights on Linux and engaged in an intense campaign of legal blackmail aimed at companies using Linux) and one of his current clients seems to be Oracle (the company that reied to shut down Android by claiming copyright on Java library API's).
As summarised by the following posts:
http://www.groklaw.net/article... [groklaw.net]
http://www.dailytech.com/Top+A... [dailytech.com]
http://techrights.org/2010/08/... [techrights.org]
My only question to him would be: who is on your current client list?
Thoughts about groklaw.net? (Score:2)
Thoughts about groklaw.net? (Score:5)
You may or may not be surprised, but despite various disagreements over the years I'd have liked Groklaw to continue or, after its 2013 shutdown, to have come back. For example, I think Groklaw could have made some useful contributions to the public debate over this year's Apple v. Samsung trial in the Northern District of California. Also, I do regret some of my derogatory comments about PJ, including that I wondered at some point whether there was more than one person behind the PJ name. Earlier this year I met a highly trustworthy source (a corporate executive) who confirmed PJ's participation in a certain (patent-related) meeting years ago.
The part I don't understand is how Groklaws "predictions were mostly more accurate than [mine]" or "[my] opinion was painted as clearly wrong there." With respect to approximately 98% of the IP lawsuits I covered, Groklaw never made any prediction whatsoever (for example, you won't find any Groklaw prediction concerning German smartphone patent disputes, and very few relating to U.S. smartphone patent cases). The overlap essentially came down to API copyright matters: the use of Linux kernel headers in Android and the API copyright part of Oracle v. Google. While Groklaw's position on API copyright was shared by one district judge in California, my opinion was unanimously validated by three circuit (i.e., higher-level) judges in Washington DC this year [fosspatents.com]. Now Google is trying to take that case to the Supreme Court. Any conspiracy theory concerning the opinions I had expressed about API copyrightability in general and the API copyright part of Oracle v. Google in particular makes no sense unless someone is crazy enough to believe that those Federal Circuit judges are part of the conspiracy.
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Uniform-royalty regimes shut out free SW (Score:2)
Alternatively, someone wielding too much market power based on ownership of APIs may have to grant a (compulsory) license on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.
"FRAND", also called a uniform royalty regime, has been used to deliberately shut out free software [gnu.org] and low-volume proprietary software. Let's hope a broad fair use argument can be made, or else the lack of interoperability will cause the software market to balkanize even more than it already has. For instance, The SCO Group might pop back up and accuse FSF of infringing its UNIX copyright through copying of the UNIX API into the GNU system without an explicit license through The Open Group.
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Earlier this year I met a highly trustworthy source (a corporate executive) who confirmed PJ's participation in a certain (patent-related) meeting years ago.
And just the other day a friend who I made up (a very trustworthy fellow), happened to metion that you sleep with silver slippers on your feet.
Who can you think of that is less popular? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there anyone out there who you think would be even less well received by the slashdot audience than you? If so, who?
Re:Who can you think of that is less popular? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is there anyone out there who you think would be even less well received by the slashdot audience than you? If so, who?
Hell, even Steve "DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS!" Ballmer would be better recieved...
Re:Who can you think of that is less popular? (Score:4, Interesting)
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That would at least be interesting. And you might even get some straightforward answers. Though I think the overall hostility might be greater. Florian isn't getting questions like "How do you think your enemies will kill you?"
Who paid for a Q&A on Slashdot? (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks
No Thanks (Score:2)
The only reason I can think of doing an Ask is so that shills can ask questions to legitimise him in an otherwise very vocal and Florian-hostile community:
"Florian, why is it you spend so much time helping the Open Source world and spreading the Lord's work to the unwashed masses?" +5 Insightful
"I've been a heathen all my life until I read your
I've got one (Score:4, Insightful)
Being a complete shill for positions and companies that hurt the software world, how do you live with yourself? And why haven't you just jumped off a bridge yet?
And Slashdot, WTF are you doing giving the time of day to this tool?
Whoops, I guess that's three questions.
OracleVSGoogle: Judge can program, you still for O (Score:4, Interesting)
Any commenter that knows about programming said in this very moment that this will become a monumental defeat for Oracle, only you still believed in Oracle (you were very wrong as we know).
It was so funny when the Judge explained that any teenager could program a range check [bool check(val, min, max) {return val >= min && val <= max;}] and the Oracle lawyer looked like a complete idiot.
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Anybody I know was for Google, and anybody that I know was right that the Judge will be for Google. Name one public programming figure that was for Oracle. Just one.
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The "wrong decision" referred to the GP isn't about the trivial range check, but rather the notion that APIs are not copyrightable.
It would be really shitty if APIs were copyrightable, but, as the GP said, that has been the conventional understanding of copyright law for a long time.
It would be interesting to see how the story unfolds, but really, there's nothing funny about the notion of APIs being copyrightable.
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But it hasn't. Looking at a couple of potentially-relevant aspects:
The standard for copyrightability of facts is "particular selection, coordination, or arrangement" of facts -- it's why maps are copyrightable but data dumps like phone books aren't -- phone books don't really select, they take pretty much all of them, coordination doesn't really apply, and arrangement is a simple mechanical process that nobody would regard as identifiable as any particular author's work.
The standard for copyright of ot
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clean-room reimplementation is legal
Clean room reimplementation is legal as long as the specification used by the implementors is free of copyright (and other I.P.) issues.
I definitely agree that some of the prior cases of clean-room implementation is at odds with the notion that APIs are copyrightable. To be honest, copyright law has never been logically consistent to me -- which is why I don't even pretend to have knowledge of it unless I'm arguing about legal topics on slashdot ...
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Question (Score:4, Interesting)
What's it like being a giant douche bag who will do anything for money?
Is university a waste of time and money? (Score:3)
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Corrections (Score:4, Interesting)
How many times have you contacted news and commentary organisations to correct their description of you as a patent lawyer? How often have they made the correction?
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It's funny, I leave for a few years, and when I come back EVERYTHING is still the same. Florian Mueller is still whoring himself out as some sort of "expert", Canonical is still coming up with "this product will be the one!!!" every so often, my perso
Can I have my money back? (Score:1)
Florian,
I once believed in you as an independent idealist, and contributed to the FFII cause you spearheaded - probably in the $50-100 range in total, plus some proselytising on your behalf. I since discover that you were a paid shill. I consider that I have been conned because you misrepresented your position while acting as a figurehead for that organisation.
So, with that in mind, would you be prepared to make, say, a $75 donation to the FSF (or to another charity, if any consensus forms in response to th
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Florian Müller and the FFII always have been different entities. No money donated to the FFII ever went to Florian Müller (even if we had wanted to, there was no way we could ever afford his salary). The FFII did cooperate with him while he was being funded by MySQL and later Red Hat, but even at those times the cooperation was everything but easy.
Makeup (Score:2)
Why do you wear eye shadow and mascara? Is that normal for men where you're from?
Is this April 1st already? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is this April 1st already? No? Then why is this cruel joke being played on the Slashdot community?
Most of us remember who and what Florian Mueller is. And there is nothing we can learn about him or from him, in an interview, that we don't already know.
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I'd still love to see the answers. It's a bit like watching a Colombo movie. You know that the murderer did it and you know how he did it, but you still watch to see how he's going to dig his own grave.
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Is this April 1st already?
That was my question. I've even been trying to think of some sort of joke question (that sounds somewhat believable, enough to be answered). I can't think of anything.
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[_] Thanksgiving is coming and we're gonna roast this turkey! ...
... get out your shills for patent trolls
[_] We just discovered they mayan calendar was only off by a few years
[_] Birth control pills in the water supply. [slashdot.org]
[_] Hallowe'en is coming
[_] He wants to replace The MoGTroll [slashdot.org].
[_] Slashdot wants to give their new profanity filter a real workout.
[_] He applied for a job with Dice, and slashdot's editors suggested that he do a Q and A "to help break the ice." (cue evil laught
How much money? (Score:4, Interesting)
My only question (Score:1)
How much do we have to pay, that you shut up?
Why didn't Oracle sue Google over Trademarks (Score:2)
instead of API copyright? It seemed it would have been a better case since there is precedence?
Nominative use (Score:2)
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Thanks! This had been bugging me for a while now.
Does This Look Cancerous To You? (Score:1)
in simplest form (Score:2)
and for the rest of you (Score:1)
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You want a civil question? Okay... here goes... and it's an honest question:
See? Keepin' it polite and everything.
This is how you Q&A a troll... (Score:2)
It doesn't really matter what the thread was supposed to be for; there's no useful information on software IP that can possibly be received from this paid shill, as you have no idea if he's presenting the viewpoint he's simply paid to espouse.
You'd be just as likely to get useful answers in a Q&A on family law from Hans Reiser.
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and for the rest of you flamers and trolls, this is a Q&A thread not a thread to personally attack another person. Take the insults elsewhere.
Looks like Chris Crocker has someone new to white knight for.
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and for the rest of you flamers and trolls, this is a Q&A thread not a thread to personally attack another person. Take the insults elsewhere.
Since this is a Q and A thread, it IS about what WE decide it's about. He has done more than his share of harm, and some of us won't oblige by ignoring it.
We have questions - serious questions - for a known paid shill. It's entirely appropriate, on a tech news site, to ask a shill why he shilled for companies with an antagonistic view towards open software development.
Patents and Innovation (Score:3)
Thanks for being interviewed on Slashdot.
Could you please give us an estimate, if you have one, of how much innovation has been destroyed by patent trolls? Also, if you happen to know, how many startups?
Thanks
What I want to know (Score:3)
Dear Florian,
What can we do to make you go away?
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Dear Florian,
What can we do to make you go away?
Stop feeding him, same as any other troll.
Or better yet, get him to say something bad about APK's HOSTS file and pop some popcorn.
Slashdot Takes Next Step After "Anonymous Coward" (Score:4, Insightful)
Why Should We Care? (Score:2)
Why should anyone care what you have to say, since you're almost always in your own little Bizarro universe that is devoid of anything resembling the reality in which the rest of us live?
Florian Müller the Open Source blogger .. (Score:2)
How can you still keep a straight face? (Score:2)
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He was never an expert. He claimed to be one, and stupid people took him at his word. Some of them then began referring to him as a patent lawyer, assuming he must be one, and he never even tried to set the record straight at the height of the whole mess. He was a paid shill, and when I went checking his background, I found his official resume was seriously padded. Like in Celine Dion to Dolly Parton padded.
It must be ironic that he can't find any more gigs, and has to try to develop an Android "project
Protection Against Incumbent Players (Score:1)
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The first symptom of a new but incomplete understanding of patents is gold fever. That is when you have an idea that what you are holding is extremely valuable and that you must protect it from others at all costs. People tend to get irrational about it.
So here is some reality: The fact that you have even published your video (which is "use in commerce" under patent law) invalidates future patents that you might file on that same art. Then there is the prior art (including art you are not aware of), and the
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Let me preface this with the fact that I'm an intellectual property specialist. I bill $450/hour, and still have lots of time to work on my startup without having to take venture capital.
I thought about some educational answers for your questions, but the insult at the start of your comment rubs me wrong and I decided I don't owe you anything. So, I'll save them.
question (Score:2)
How can I get a job shilling for MS and Oracle (Score:2)
Really.
How did you get setup with such a sweet job? Do you have to use your blood to sign the contract?
FOSS Patents (Score:2)
Thanks