Diff for "Press Release Boycott Trend Micro"

Differences between revisions 12 and 23 (spanning 11 versions)
Revision 12 as of 2008-02-07 12:01:24
Size: 3956
Comment:
Revision 23 as of 2008-02-08 01:22:39
Size: 3008
Editor: BrankoCollin
Comment: +about, links
Deletions are marked like this. Additions are marked like this.
Line 1: Line 1:
'''UNDER CONSTRUCTION'''
Line 5: Line 3:
== Persbericht ScriptumLibre / Vrijschrift, 6 februari 2008 ==
== Press Release ScriptumLibre, Februari 6, 2008 ==
= Wereldwijde boycot van antivirusontwikkelaar Trend Micro =
= Worldwide boycott of anti virus developer Trend Micro =
== Press Release ScriptumLibre, Februari 7, 2008 ==
Line 10: Line 5:
Boycot van Trend Micro na patentaanval op Open Source virusscanner. = ScriptumLibre.org calls for boycott of Trend Micro =
Line 12: Line 7:
ScriptumLibre calls for a worldwide boycott of Trend Micro after their attack of Barracuda Networks with a software patent. WORKUM, The Netherlands -- Friday, February 8, 2008 -- The ScriptumLibre.org Foundation today has issued a call for a worldwide boycott on Trend Micro products. The call comes as a response to a lawsuit filed on January 29th by Trend Micro, which claims that software-security company, Barracuda Networks, is infringing its U.S.-patent on software that filters out viruses on Internet gateway computers. The claim targets the free and open source (FOSS) software program, Clam AntiVirus (ClamAV), and demands that Barracuda either cease distributing with their Web filtering hardware and other products, or pay Trend Micro a licensing fee.
Line 14: Line 9:
Barracuda Networks levert beveiligingsoplossingen voor organisaties en gebruikt voor het scannen van virussen de open source virusscanner ClamAV . Trend Micro eist dat ClamAV niet meer geleverd wordt of dat er betaald wordt. Trend Micro impliceert daarmee dat alle gebruikers van ClamAV inbreuk maken op het bewuste patent. De open sourcegemeenschap, ScriptumLibre voorop, roept nu op tot een wereldwijde boycot van Trend Micro. In the United States, most software vendors that hold software patents tend to maintain a "cold war" amongst each other, collecting patents, and holding on to them for defensive purposes. Rarely are suits filed against one another aggressively. ScriptumLibre's chairman Wiebe van der Worp finds Trend Micro's aggressive use of litigation to be "well beyond the borders of decency," and points to the company's past history of, "extorting organizations such as Symantec and McAfee with similar threats of litigation." However, there are deeper concerns echoed by van der Worp, and others, in the threats this lawsuit holds toward others in the FOSS community. Recognizing this threat, Barracuda CEO, Dean Drako, in a statement to the FOSS community, writes, "Trend Micro’s actions illustrate that ClamAV and other open source projects remain vulnerable to commercial patent holders attempting to unjustly hinder the free and open source community."
Line 16: Line 11:
Barracuda Networks delivers boxed security solutions for organizations and uses ClamAV for virus scanning. Trend Micro demands discontinuing delivery of ClamAV or payment. However this implicates that Trend Micro states all users of ClamAV are infringing on the specific patent - resulting in anger pointing to Trend Micro. As a result, many in the community are banding together, and offering support towards Barracuda, such as Eben Moglen of the Software Freedom Law Center, who has stated that the "Collective defense from software patents is a shared responsibility for everyone in the free software ecosystem." The roll that ScriptumLibre has taken is to raise the flag and draw attention to the abuses being made of the patent system and to urge the entire IT community, including both the proprietary and FOSS communities, to boycott Trend Micro products.
Line 18: Line 13:
Een algemeen probleem met softwarepatenten is dat ze vaak een te breed technisch gebied monopoliseren wat de vrije marktwerking hindert. Bovendien monopoliseren ze bijna altijd triviale ideeën. In dit geval gaat het om het scannen van poorten op virussen, iets uitermate voor de hand liggends wat iedere virusscanner doet. Trend Micro gebruikt het patent op agressieve wijze. Na het afpersen van grote bedrijven - waaronder Symantec en McAfee - zijn nu dus ook bedrijven die Open Sourceproducten gebruiken slachtoffer.

A General problem with software patents is that they often monopolize a broad technical spectrum - severely blocking free market working - and that they nearly allways have a trivial character. In this case it concerns the general concept of virus scanning at the ports - something very obvious that every virus scanner does. Normally software patents are used defensive but Trend Micro uses them aggressively and extorted in the past several organizations like Symantec and McAfee and now also end users.

Vrijschrift-voorzitter Wiebe van der Worp: "Trend Micro gaat op een afschuwlijke wijze ver over de grenzen van fatsoen. Een rechtssysteem dat softwarepatenten toelaat is zwak, slecht nieuws voor de economie en moet hervormd worden. Maar dat er gaten in de wetgeving zitten is geen excuus om daar misbruik van te maken en eindgebruikers aan te vallen. Wat hier gebeurt is absoluut onaanvaardbaar en moet moet afgestraft worden."

For Scriptum Libre this is reason enough to call for a boycott of Trend Micro. ScriptumLibre's chairman Wiebe van der Worp: "Trend Micro crosses the borders of decency by far in a disgusting way. A law system that permits software patents is weak, bad news for the economy and needs a reform. But the existence of flaws of the law system is no excuse to abuse it and attack end users. What happens here is totally unacceptable and should be punished."

Om de boycot kracht bij te zetten heeft Vrijschrift op haar site banners en spotprenten beschikbaar gesteld die vrij te gebruiken zijn.

In order to back the boycott ScriptumLibre made banners and cartoons freely available on their site.

== Links en bijlagen ==
Boycot-internetbladzijde met informatie, banners en spotprenten: http://www.scriptumlibre.org/Boycott_Trend_Micro
'''About ScriptumLibre:''' ScriptumLibre.org Foundation is the international branch of the Dutch "Stichting Vrijschrift.org". ScriptumLibre creates awareness about the economic and social meaning of free knowledge and culture for our society. The foundation was involved in the successful campaign to keep software patents out of the European Union.
Line 36: Line 18:
Barracuda Networks call for help:
http://www.barracudanetworks.com/ns/legal/
Line 39: Line 24:
Wiebe van der Worp, voorzitter Vrijschrift wiebe at vrijschrift.org tel.: 06 455 939 82

== Contact ==

attachment:boycott_trend_micro_dweil_2_trans_l.png

Press Release ScriptumLibre, Februari 7, 2008

ScriptumLibre.org calls for boycott of Trend Micro

WORKUM, The Netherlands -- Friday, February 8, 2008 -- The ScriptumLibre.org Foundation today has issued a call for a worldwide boycott on Trend Micro products. The call comes as a response to a lawsuit filed on January 29th by Trend Micro, which claims that software-security company, Barracuda Networks, is infringing its U.S.-patent on software that filters out viruses on Internet gateway computers. The claim targets the free and open source (FOSS) software program, Clam AntiVirus (ClamAV), and demands that Barracuda either cease distributing with their Web filtering hardware and other products, or pay Trend Micro a licensing fee.

In the United States, most software vendors that hold software patents tend to maintain a "cold war" amongst each other, collecting patents, and holding on to them for defensive purposes. Rarely are suits filed against one another aggressively. ScriptumLibre's chairman Wiebe van der Worp finds Trend Micro's aggressive use of litigation to be "well beyond the borders of decency," and points to the company's past history of, "extorting organizations such as Symantec and McAfee with similar threats of litigation." However, there are deeper concerns echoed by van der Worp, and others, in the threats this lawsuit holds toward others in the FOSS community. Recognizing this threat, Barracuda CEO, Dean Drako, in a statement to the FOSS community, writes, "Trend Micro’s actions illustrate that ClamAV and other open source projects remain vulnerable to commercial patent holders attempting to unjustly hinder the free and open source community."

As a result, many in the community are banding together, and offering support towards Barracuda, such as Eben Moglen of the Software Freedom Law Center, who has stated that the "Collective defense from software patents is a shared responsibility for everyone in the free software ecosystem." The roll that ScriptumLibre has taken is to raise the flag and draw attention to the abuses being made of the patent system and to urge the entire IT community, including both the proprietary and FOSS communities, to boycott Trend Micro products.

About ScriptumLibre: ScriptumLibre.org Foundation is the international branch of the Dutch "Stichting Vrijschrift.org". ScriptumLibre creates awareness about the economic and social meaning of free knowledge and culture for our society. The foundation was involved in the successful campaign to keep software patents out of the European Union.

Boycott web page with information, banners and cartoons: http://www.scriptumlibre.org/Boycott_Trend_Micro

Barracuda Networks call for help: http://www.barracudanetworks.com/ns/legal/

AttachList()

Contact

Wiebe van der Worp, chairman ScriptumLibre, wiebe at vrijschrift.org tel.: +31 6 455 939 82

All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.