This is ridiculous. The author has a long and excellent record fighting against software patents. On a couple of occasions his analysis may have been an error, but I don't think he's ever mis-reported anything. You comment is just FUD.
There's a good chance that he's a paid anti-Google shill: http://lwn.net/Articles/434587/. Note that in this case he immediately jumps from the verdict to "Android is doomed", when the case had nothing to do with Android specifically except that it uses Linux, as do millions of other products.
> The author has a long and excellent record fighting against software patents.
Based on what? All we have is your (and his) assertion. I had trouble finding any history at all of this guy with "25 years software industry experience". And every single one of his blog posts portrays FOSS software as an unreliable IP minefield. Even if that's not the specific legal issue at hand.
In my opinion this looks like he is paid to smear FOSS.
"In 2004, Müller received the support of corporate sponsors 1&1, Red Hat and MySQL for launching NoSoftwarePatents.com, which opposed the European Commission's proposed directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions.[8] Following several years of intensive lobbying by many parties, this proposed directive was rejected by the European Parliament on July 6, 2005, with 648 out of 680 votes cast.[9][10]
For his political activities, Müller received several awards in 2005. A leading publication for intellectual property lawyers, "Managing Intellectual Property", counted Müller - such as the Chinese vice premier Wu Yi - among the "top 50 most influential people in intellectual property"[11][12] (renominated in 2006[13]). IT-focused website Silicon.com listed him among the Silicon Agenda Setters.[14] A jury of EU-focused weekly newspaper "European Voice" elected Müller as one of the "EV50 Europeans of the Year 2005", and handed him the "EU Campaigner of the Year 2005" award.[15] Jointly with the FFII, Müller received the "CNET Networks UK Technology Award" in the "Outstanding Contribution to Software Development" category.[16]"
Roy Schestowitz is the guy behind "Boycott Novell". The only connection Florian Mueller has to Boycott Novell is that Boycott Novell calls him "Microsoft Florian" and constantly accuses him of working for Microsoft.
Ah, you're right. Thank you for the correction, I had conflated the two, probably because I hear them both maligned often, or maybe I read another incorrect statement some time ago.
Nevertheless, Florian Mueller is still a controversial figure and has incorrectly reported in the past (see here: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1939165/mueller-for... ). Something like groklaw would be better, but the story isn't showing up there at the moment.
The thing with Florian is that he's never always on one side of the story. Unlike Groklaw, where they openly admit to being in pain if they have to side with MS on a case.
So you're saying that he supports i4i in this patent case against MS? I find that hard to believe, since MS is trying to weaken SW patents, which is something he has been trying to do for a while.
What I have suspected ever since he not so deftly started dodging questions concerning his employment on LWN is that there is a rather specific reason he supports MS over i4i, and it has little to do with software patents.
But in general, without resorting to getting to conspiracy theory-ish stuff, I'd say that 99.9% of the time I'd say his motivation is almost entirely the Groklaw community collectively laughing at him and not paying him the respect he thinks he deserves. His ego was bruised and he doesn't know how to respond as an adult.
That's a rather one-sided view. You are ignoring the fact that Groklaw takes a lot of shots at him. He's critical of rabidly pro-software patent company IBM, and Groklaw doesn't seem to like people who criticize IBM.
