How many different consumer online platforms does Microsoft have right now?

• Bing
• MSN
• Windows Live
• XBOX Live
• Zune Marketplace

That’s just a quick braindump; there are probably more, but for the purposes of my quick bout with insanity, this should suffice.  The way I see it, Microsoft is rapidly losing branding focus, and while this doesn’t sound like something that matters in this age of Web 2.name-it-whatever, it is an issue for Microsoft, and it extends beyond the world of Microsoft’s online properties.

Jump to see why I think this is becoming a problem. Yeah, it’s long, but this is one of the few times when an overly long post is justified.

Bing, MSN, and Windows Live share the same origin, which is to say, they all came from The Microsoft Network. MSN came about as a name because it used to be an ISP, though that’s in the distant online past. Later, MSN transformed into a general online content and services platform, with MSN Messenger, the MSN launch page, MSN Search, et al. finding themselves all a part of one platform.

Windows Live found its way into existence after being toyed around as “start.com” (which you’ll now notice redirects to Bing) and later coming into existence as just plain “Live” before becoming Windows Live down the road. While MSN was designed to deliver predefined content much like Yahoo’s default portal, the idea behind Live was to deliver a personalized services experience, from a customizable launch page to various user services such as Messenger. The justification for the Windows Live branding was that Windows Live as a platform was an extension of the Windows experience.

Bing was officially launched June 3, 2009. Before Bing, Microsoft’s search efforts started under MSN before progressing to Live, Windows Live, and then back to Live again in the form of “Live Search". The name itself was chosen because the guys with Kumo (the testing name for Bing) “needed a brand that was as fresh and new as [their] approach. It needed to be like the product — optimized for the Internet.” In other words, it’s yet another web 2.0 name, though thankfully, I seem to have at least been somewhat wrong about the name being a major problem.

So, the end result of this is a jumbled series of online platforms which accomplish only marginally different tasks. MSN is a generic online launch page, while Bing is Microsoft’s version of the plain search page. The customizable launch page concept is now kinda-sorta over at home.live.com, while any further-personal services and extra Windows apps from Microsoft have been tucked under the Windows Live brand name. I can see the logic, but unless Microsoft’s goal is to make some properties look like they’re from Microsoft while making others look as distant as possible while still retaining some association, this sort of fractured online presence just feels much more confusing than it needs to be.

Do you see Google squaring fundamentally similar yet differently functional apps away under vastly different names? GMail (Google Mal), Google Shopping, Google News, iGoogle, Google Google Google Google Great you get the idea. They’re all people-services, and as a result, they all share the same root name. There was a time when Google was slightly branding-confuzzled (froogle), but they’ve rightfully straightened out.

The reason for why I’m busy throwing gray matter at the wall this morning, though, is that there’s just no reason for the Windows brand to fall victim to the same fate. Once upon a time, Windows meant something. The name was directly related to the concept behind the user interface itself, and this has held steadfastly true (the exception being Windows Live, but Windows Live was meant as a tie-in for Windows users) up until Mobile World Congress this year.

Windows Phone 7 is exactly the kind of gradual brandicide that Microsoft really doesn’t need to be committing, whether it’s against Windows or against Zune. I’m inclined to see it as being the eventual downfall of the term “Windows” as a meaningful Microsoft brand for one simple reason:

Do you see any windows in the UI?

Nope. Neither do I. In fact, I see a data-centric user interface in Windows Phone 7, whereas the entire user experience in Windows (including Windows Mobile) up until now has been function/application-centric. With a UI which is so fundamentally different from the original concept of the brand itself, what’s the point of even calling it “Windows”-anything at all? There are no windows, there is no traditional window-oriented multitasking, and the entire UI is many miles away from the Windows concept. In fact, I can explain exactly where this name came from in a few simple points:

• 7 has proven to be worth something in the consumer’s mind thanks to the success of Windows 7.
• Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7 sound similar
• A name close to Windows Mobile was needed so that people could associate it with its completely unrelated cousin without reminding people of the horrors of the old Windows Mobile platform, hence why it’s now Windows Phone.

That’s it. Microsoft essentially decided to take the cheap road and draw heavily from other successful brands despite simultaneously butchering the inherent meaning in the most important name in Microsoft’s history. Whether this was or wasn’t the conscious reason is beside the point; this is absolutely why the name was chosen.

Seriously, do you see any windows in that UI?

Speculation that Microsoft would release a Zune phone, in my opinion, was 100% correct. The only difference is that Microsoft decided to stay away from the Zune name in order to ensure its short-term success. The Windows Phone 7 UI is brilliant in execution, but the problem is that both the name and the UI concept are a huge risk. If Windows Phone 7’s roll-out doesn’t go as planned, if apps stay limited (Zune HD is a great example), or if  Microsoft flubs something up down the line beyond Windows Phone 7 (think Windows Phone 8), more than just that brand will be compromised. Furthermore, if Microsoft proves yet again to know what its doing with its mobile division upon the release of Windows Phone 8, 9, etc., then the brand will further dilute.

Microsoft needs to sort its branding priorities. In the online sector, I can understand the split between Windows Live and Bing, but I see no reason for MSN to be separate from either platform. It’s so closely related to both Windows Live and Bing that it can go under either as another subordinate property. On the flip side, keeping branding separate between Microsoft’s mobile and desktop properties would almost definitely be a better idea: Zune HD is a fantastic device which suffers from terrible advertising, while Windows Phone 7 is definitely not a Windows Phone at all. Zune Phone or Zune Mobile would almost definitely have been better names for the OS itself given the interface similarities (heck, just call it Zune OS. It’s not as if people don’t already know that Zune is a Microsoft mobile property anyway). Microsoft has the backing to make sure the Zune name becomes successful, but Microsoft’s marketing teams feel so compelled to keep some of their brands unnecessarily interwoven in order to ensure short-term success that they’re doing damage to the very foundation of the brands in question.

While Microsoft’s mobile product development teams did indeed have the guts to try something new and go metro, Microsoft’s mobile marketing teams seem to be unwilling to take risks (conversely, Microsoft’s online branding teams seem to be taking too many).

In short, name your similar apples apples and your similar oranges oranges, but don’t name your apples and oranges peaches.

Did I get it wrong? Drop me a line in the comments and I’ll either address your thoughts, edit accordingly, or both.

NVIDIA confirmed last night their intention to launch their Fermi-based GF100 graphics cards during Q1 2010 now that delays in the Fermi architecture have been settled. The board and others in the Fermi lineup will include DirectX 11 support while adding other features such as live raytracing to the mix.

The demo box was running the UNiGiNE benchmark, and while I didn’t have time to run through that benchmark last night, I will have time to run through it after this morning’s NVIDIA press conference in just under three hours.

Catch the video of GF100 after the break!

Watch in High Definition

ASUS (pronounced ah-soos, apparently) demonstrated four laptops at their press conference yesterday. Announced were

• the ASUS NX90 Bang&Olufsen concept (pictured).
• a new line of EeePCs designed by Karim Rashid.
• ASUS’ latest gaming laptop, the G73. It wasn’t branded as a Ferrari or Lamborghini this time.
• the U Series Bamboo Collection.

All of them had an unusual focus on aesthetics, with each focusing on some theme related to the target market. The G73 took on a stealth look, while the U Series focused on Bamboo (the explanation was that Bamboo grows back quickly, though the laptop isn’t exactly green in any other sense). The Karim Rashid EeePC and the Bang & Olufsen laptops are both designed for the sake of design. I’m not entirely certain how usable the dual trackpad design of the B&O concept is, but it does make for a clean design.

As for specs, the G73 and the NX90 are top-tier, with both allowing for the use of quad-core Core i7 processors. The G73 uses AMD’s Radeon 5870 for the GPU, while the Bang & Olufsen concept focuses on nvidia’s wares by using the GeForce GT 335M. The Bamboo collection can run with either Core i7 or Core i5 processors, while the EeePC sticks to the latest generation Intel Atom.

Videos of the NX90, the EeePCs, and the U Series are after the break. I’m still working on the G73.

My thanks goes, as noted before, to Microsoft for providing the licenses to give away. Best of luck to you all!

Last Update: the final drawing has been completed. Congratulations to @wizardcm for winning the last license! I’ll strive to find more to give away from CES.

Windows 7 launched on October 22nd to mass fanfare, and a good friend of mine at the event thought it would be fantastic to spread the Windows 7 spirit. In addition to assisting with Mary Jo’s Windows 7 afterparty in NYC (giveaway video here), he passed a few licenses my way to give away on winJade, so here it goes.

I’ve got three Windows 7 Ultimate licenses to give away (pictured above), and they’ll be given away as follows:

• The first on Christmas Day (25th). @yertosaurus nabbed this one!
• The second on December 28. @migue333 won this license!
• The last on December 31. @wizardcm got this last license!

If you want one, dive in to find out what you need to do. It’s pretty simple.

There are three steps for you to take part:

1. Tell us what you think is the best new feature in Windows 7. You can expand on this with whatever else you want, such as what you wished made it into Windows 7 prior to RTM or what you hope ends up in Windows 8. Remember to comment with a valid email address, and a valid twitter URL (twitter.com/yourtwittername) as the URL in your comment. Otherwise, I’ve got no way of getting in touch with you if you’ve won. If your comment doesn’t immediately appear, don’t fret; I need to approve comments before they show up, but I’ll still see your comment either way.
2. Follow @eganist on Twitter. Otherwise, you’ll have no real way of knowing whether or not you won, which would truly suck if you happened to be one of the ones to win..
3. Retweet This. Or, if you’d prefer using your own client, just tweet “RT @eganist Win 1 of 3 #Windows7 Ultimate licenses for Christmas, New Years’ from #winJade: http://is.gd/5v9lu” without quotes.

I need at least 100 qualifying retweets by 11:50 AM Eastern Time on Christmas Day for this giveaway to go ahead, so be sure to enter!

Each retweet counts as an entry, so if you want multiple chances to win, you can retweet that line (at most) once every 12 hours. The comment and any tweets need to be up before the drawing dates listed above to qualify for said drawing dates. That’s it, really. 

Regarding shipping, here’s the thing: I can send the physical disc to any winners within the continental United States. However, I cannot ship the disc on my own to any winners outside the continental United States. As such, if you happen to win and you’re not in the continental United States (meaning the 48 states that happen to be touching each other), you have a choice of either reimbursing my shipping costs or agreeing to receive only the key on one of these discs. To the rest of you within the continental United States, if you happen to win, we’ll discuss how to get this thing to your place via email.

I should note that Microsoft employees, any employees working with the PR firms Waggener Edstrom and Edelman, as well as close friends and immediate family of me or anyone working for winJade cannot participate (it would be unfair, and you know it).

As the person who headed the Office user experience teams and the person who is now running the Windows experience teams in Microsoft, Julie drove the idea for the Ribbon user interface in Office 2007 and led the conceptualization and development efforts behind all of the new user interface elements in Windows 7. At PDC, I had a chance to speak with her about her efforts within the Windows and Office teams. During this interview, we discussed:

• the inspiration and need for a new interface for Office
• the circumstances which led to the superbar and the multi-touch-oriented user interface in Windows 7
• how the PDC laptops came into existence
• the decision to use various new technologies such as gaze tracking, heat maps, among others.

Highlights:

Office 2007’s Ribbon: “A lot of the things they would ask for would already be in [Office], and so we felt we could come up with a better way to expose capabilities that were in Office and help people create better, more powerful documents”

The Windows 7 superbar, jumplists, etc.: “We wanted to simplify the whole experience and take away the differences between launching applications and switching applications and making it easier to get back to documents you did the day before. That was kinda the inspiration: to put the customer more in control of everything they’re trying to do on their PC”

Multi-touch in Windows 7: “There were a lot of cool things going on both inside Microsoft and outside Microsoft with touch, things like the iPhone which has the touch interface as well as Microsoft Surface, and so we felt that your PC experience could be very much enhanced by having direct manipulation [of objects on the screen], and you’d work much more naturally with it.”

The PDC laptops and how they happened: “We worked together with Acer to spec-out a PC and we kinda had the idea that ‘what would the ultimate developer machine look like?’ and ‘what can we do to put all the things in it that would be the things we want developers to do with Windows?’ So we had location awareness, the touch screen, all of the virtualization capabilities in it, 64 bit, etc.”

The direction of the Windows 7 beta program: “We used a lot of the beta feedback from Vista to help inform the plan for what we were going to do with Windows 7, as well as things on the blogs, the customer research that we did”

How the Office 2007 UI itself was researched: “We always try to apply new technologies to learn about how people use [our software]. We even talked about trying to figure out if we could put electrodes on [people’s heads] and measuring brain waves to see how they responded to one interface over another, but we didn’t get to that point.”
(You can catch the Ribbon presentation where the gaze tracking and heat mapping bits were discussed on Jensen Harris’ blog. ~Bryant)

Catch the full video interview with full answers to these topics after the jump.

Update: I made the video public prior to posting this, but within the last ten minutes (as of 6:54 PM GMT-5), something happened to revert the video back to private again. Video has been re-established as public.

We’ve tried to withhold ourselves from sourcing our news from leaky valves in Microsoft as of late (and you can see where that’s gotten us. ahem), but we don’t just stay away for the sake of keeping ourselves out of that eternally stressful race for content. We tend to stay out of it because behind every leak, someone’s job suffers as a result.

I had a very open interview with someone at the launch event. This person frequently deals with product leaks, and as a result, it’s fair to say that the person knows exactly how said leaks impact work, the lives of everyone connected to the project, the public perception of a product, and so forth. My interview with this particular Microsoft employee was fulfilling in the sense that I’m able to offer an uncensored glimpse into what Microsoft has to deal with whenever someone decides to leak a build, leak a screenshot, break an embargo, and what not.

Check the break to read about how it all went down. Keep in mind that there’s no video or audio and that this is, indeed, a long read apparently not as long as some people have seen in the past. Thanks is due to the anonymous commentators who pointed this out.

Anonymous Softie: So, with regards to leaks

Bryant: Yeah

Anonymous Softie: Leaks can affect the public perception of a product. For instance, there’s a reason why we only release specific builds. You know, because we want to release a certain level of quality that people can take a look at, have faith in, and [say] "okay, this is the product, the product is progressing as planned." Sometimes, interim builds, leaked builds, they often haven’t passed any of our quality checks. They were never meant to be released.

Bryant: Right. They can easily have nasty bugs.

Anonymous Softie: Yeah, exactly, and all of a sudden, you’ve got everyone in the world taking a look at this build; everyone wants to see the leaked build, right? ’cause it’s mysterious. It’s rare. It’s from the inside. So yeah, there could be bugs in it. People [find] bugs in it. They question functionality they find in it. And so when all of that happens, my phone starts ringing [with] people asking for comments. I’m not doing my day job at that point.

Anonymous Softie: And so, one, it’s a huge distraction on all of us. Phones ring off the hook. [People say] "I can’t believe there’s this shitty quality build out there!" It’s like, look, I’m not going to take time to talk to you, first of all, ’cause you, you know, that was an unplanned leak. It’s not representative of what we ultimately want to sanction and release.

Anonymous Softie: So, there’s the distraction, the bugs… if it’s really buggy, people might think that that’s the current state of the product when, in fact, it’s not. Internally, we’re already many many builds beyond the one that’s leaked. We don’t really care about that one. It doesn’t exist.

Bryant: Right.

Anonymous Softie: –for all we care.

Bryant: Right. It never happened.

Anonymous Softie: It never happened! But everyone is quick to jump to an opinion about that particular moment in time. They often draw incorrect conclusions, "oh my gosh, the product is incomplete, it doesn’t have this, it doesn’t have that." So that’s one.

Anonymous Softie: And quite often we have features that come out over time, right? You don’t necessarily have all the features in [Windows 7 Milestone 3], for instance. We didn’t have any [of the new] UI.

Bryant: Right. Well when we posted [the article about Milestone 3], that was it. It was just very bare and everything was hidden by a bunch of switches. I remember when we originally posted the very suggestive "we know what’s coming but we don’t actually… know" article, we got a lot of hits. We really killed your day job with that one.

Anonymous Softie: Yeah. So it’s a big distraction; it causes people to form incorrect opinions which I as a communications professional ultimately have to fix. Right? The world starts thinking "Wow, this is it?" and I go "Wait, wait wait"

Bryant: "Yeah, this was like a few months in the past. We’re much further ahead of this now, and there are different branches [besides the one with the leaked build], etc."

Anonymous Softie: Exactly. It’s a distraction for developers that are… you know, so we have an enormous [Independent Software Vendor] community that tests various milestones. They test their software. They test their drivers. They test their apps.. and for them it’s a distraction too because they’re wondering "wow, what’s going on? Should I look at this? Should I stop what I’m doing and look at this leaked build?" and so it tends to slow everything down.

Anonymous Softie: Those are the biggest issues that we have. And then so many people get sucked into potentially having to respond to all the questions that people are raising about that particular moment in time. We just don’t have time to deal with that, and so, generally, we don’t comment on unreleased builds.

Bryant: There you go.

Bryant:
I guess… how does it affect, I mean, you talked about how it affects you guys, what you guys do, but let’s say… how does it affect the actual development of a product itself? Or, on a similar line, how does it affect the timeline? Let’s say you’ve got a bunch of leaks setting things back.

Anonymous Softie: It generally doesn’t affect the timeline. The developers are always heads down; they’re writing code, they’re fixing bugs, but even they will stop and read the reviews of the leaked build. So there’s loss of progress there, potentially. And so, when you add it all up, it really does no one any good. ’cause even all the people that pause to download it– we also have the problem of viruses. People leak builds. They stuff them with payloads, and everyone wants the leaked build. They get a bunch of viruses, and now I have to deal with that problem. So, in some sense, it’s "dangerous" as well, and we have no control over what’s out there, what the quality is…

Anonymous Softie: but leaks generally don’t affect the schedule, but they affect the communication. They affect the perception They’re a distraction for all of the outside developers in the world that are trying to be focused on the right builds, and they might see something they didn’t expect, but when you catch us in between, all bets are off. We establish a contract with developers. We say "here are the APIs." It’s a contract between Microsoft and the developers. [We tell them] "we’re not going to change these APIs." and interim builds could actually have changes, maybe some things that we’re actually just testing out, prototyping. And so, you get some people on the outside that are, you know, wondering "Gosh. Did Microsoft– Did I not– Did I miss something? Did Microsoft not tell me what’s happened?" And so it’s pure theater.

Bryant: Right.

Anonymous Softie: People like to see it because it’s secret and nobody else can see it, but if you download some rogue binary from some site and you get infected, or you download something that, you know… people accuse that, even, of being Microsoft’s fault, and I’m generally the one that has to deal with… you know, whenever press call, my phone rings. I would rather spend my time preparing for that next big real milestone, making sure people have the most accurate information and keeping everyone on track instead of being distracted by all of these external issues.

Bryant: Now that was with regards to, um, actual build leaks. How about news leaks? Like, um, if somebody leaks a screenshot of something in progress– I figure that would possibly be the same ordeal. You know, news leaks, perception leaks [such as reviews], let’s say an embargo is broken about something. How about those? How does that work?

Anonymous Softie: Both a similar and a whole different set of issues as well. You know, we have a… I have a very professional relationship with all of the professional journalists that I work with. And so, it’s difficult. When I en masse pre-brief journalists and I say "okay, all of the information that I’m telling you under confidence–" professionals embargoed under this certain date. For the most part, people respect that. But then, somebody breaks the embargo, and then all the other journalists look around [and think] "well, they went! I gotta go!" And then it jeopardizes my relationship with other people ’cause suddenly everybody is going. At the end of the day, it often causes a lot of misinformation to be out there because people– I haven’t had a chance to talk to you, Bryant, yet, to let you know what’s our intent, What do we do and what is this about, why are we delivering this thing, who is it for, what’s it capable of doing. And so, if I don’t have that opportunity to kinda frame everything with everybody and put it in context, everybody starts speculating. "Maybe it means this. Maybe it means this. Maybe it means that.” Again, huge distractions. The people that need accurate information don’t have that accurate information any longer, and I spend weeks trying to sorta put things back in order so that everyone has the accurate Microsoft view of things instead of 30 different conspiratorial opinions on what may or may not be true.

Bryant: Yeah, of course. And, well I suppose for now that’s all I’m really looking for.

Anonymous Softie: Cool.

Whether this person’s account of how leaks affect things at Microsoft represents the Microsoft way of thinking is beyond me. I didn’t ask, but it’s safe to infer that this person isn’t the only person who thinks along these lines.

1. The day after 7: perspective… and Brad Brooks (October 23, 2009) (Update: video brightened)
2. The Windows 7 tweet-up in New York City, Winners, etc. (October 24, 2009)
3. The Effects of Leaks: A Candid Interview (October 25, 2009)
4. Unfortunately, the Windows 7 Keynote Interview with  Thorsten Ganz cannot be published due to technical issues.
   

That’s it. Keep an eye on us for PDC!

Thursday evening, I attended and taped the tweet-up which occurred in the Antarctica Bar. Other pressies besides @conhopper (me) who attended include @withinrafael, @thurrott (who organized the event), @tom_warren, @edbott, @maryjofoley, and @inafried. The event can be described in the following concise bullets:

• It was very packed.
• We gave a lot of stuff away. The (almost) complete list of items is in the video.
• A lot of people walked away happy regardless of whether or not they actually won anything.
• Antarctica may have had their best business in a while. You’re welcome, guys!
• A few Microsofties came and contributed to the giving away of items. My thanks in particular goes to Chris Flores, but others were also involved when it came to securing some of the prizes.
• Everyone was generally stunned at how awesome this whole thing was.

In all honesty, this is the first time I’ve seen the power of twitter when it comes to organizing group attendances like this. The enthusiasm here was fantastic, and I met some truly wonderful people as a result (and signed a Kindle. That thing better see some good use).

It didn’t even matter that this was a group of Windows enthusiasts. The discussions ranged anywhere from tech to politics to economics and even to women (I didn’t pay attention to what the women were talking about). One geek even managed to score a girl’s number, and to him I issue a hearty salute for successfully debunking the butt of all jokes in geekdom, at least in his own world.

Anyway, this video here is a tribute to everyone who came even though the people you’ll see here are people who won a giveaway item at the tweet-up. I recorded other video from inside the event, though the question of practicality (do you guys want to see it? What is there to see besides people talking and Ed&Paul giving things away?) still lingers.

The video can be caught after the break.

1. Microsoft is fully shifting focus to Windows 7. Windows Vista, of which the sheer length of the development cycle was inversely related to the level of approval and favor it garnered as time passed, has turned into something of an elephant in the room for Microsoft employees. Using the same metaphor and finding an excuse to quote an anonymous Microsoft employee I overheard yesterday afternoon, Windows 7 is the equivalent of a reputational wrecking ball designed for the sole purpose of “getting that elephant the f*** out”; it was the first Windows consumer OS born almost entirely from what the user wanted (read: what the average user hated about Vista). Now that it’s out and it starts replacing what was a good OS blighted by pre-SP1 bugs with what is a good OS right from the get-go, Microsoft has switched into what’s essentially a massive damage control mode.
2. Adoption rates and momentum are high, at least according to an analysis by Rob Enderle. Based on his analysis of a study done independently from Microsoft by Laura DiDio and Sunbelt Software, he believes that Windows 7 adoption rates are “unmatched since Windows 2000” adoption rates almost a decade ago. Consumer adoption rates are also up there, with PCMag using the line “Windows 7 More Popular Than Harry Potter” to carry their point. Given that Windows 7 beat Harry Potter on Potter’s home turf, I’m going with the notion that PCMag and Amazon UK are right.
3. Apple created more ads specifically for launch day. Yes, that depressing and uninspired ad campaign which Apple has continued for the last 4 years saw three new additions to the lineup. That’s three new ads released on the same day, which makes sense given the massive dearth of negative press against Windows 7. When a competitor simultaneously launches three attack ads specifically for your product launch, it’s a sign of desperation and a good enough reason for you to pull out your grill and refill that propane tank.

Hey, it wasn’t just me. The vast majority of Engadget’s commentators happen to agree.

Despite the recession and the subdued projections stemming as a result, it’s fair to say that all of the excitement is actually making jobs easier. Microsoft’s PR teams have an easier time when products don’t suck, and the press can move on to fuming at something more important, like the name of the next celebrity’s adopted baby.

The benefit to you? Better apps, higher developer morale, a solid OS, a higher willingness to publicly be a fan of Windows 7, and enough free time for a quick and awesome interview with a certain keynoting executive and perhaps the new face of Windows client by the name of Brad Brooks (Brandon LeBlanc would wisely and accurately like to remind me that there is no single face to Windows).

You can catch the video after the break. This interview happened near the end of our day, so the detailed questions were reserved for others who were around the event. You’ll see all (but one) of them over the coming week.

Download links coming in a bit.

For the uninitiated,

FSF = Free Software Foundation

CC = Creative Commons

That out of the way, let’s get to the point: The Free Software Foundation’s latest ridiculous hit piece on Microsoft (after the break) not only uses a license considered a “cardinal sin” (as stated by Matt Asay) amongst free open source software proponents, they actually render their own licensing null and void by blanketing IP which they don’t actually own. Let’s take a look.

The important part, circled in mspaint-esque red, can be found at the bottom of the campaign’s page. Basically, their Creative Commons license requires attribution, denies derivative works (the “cardinal sin”), and, quite ironically, puts no limits on commercial reproduction. I’ve saved a copy of the page to commercially reprint for the sake of covering my PDC bills since they apparently don’t care, but that’s beside the point. The point is that they applied a Creative Commons license to the entire page, which of course spans all of the elements used within the page. This also spans the header image, which violates Microsoft’s trademark by reproducing the new Windows logo with the primary four colors intact, thereby qualifying as a gross breach of Microsoft’s trademark. Because the FSF did not receive permission to use the Windows logo and because they did not exempt the trademark from the license, they’re now left with a license which covers items in violation… which renders the Creative Commons license spanning their entire page (and every other page mentioning that license with that header) null and void. This, of course, also means that my derivative works are perfectly allowed. Score one for defense.

To summarize, not only did the Free Software Foundation violate their own principals, they hypocritically denied the right to create derivative works from the campaign page while creating a derivative work from Microsoft’s logo which is close enough to the original as to give grounds to Microsoft for a lawsuit. In addition, it begs the question of whether the funds they happen to have are truly being used to better the open source cause or if they’re just burning money in a campaign of FUD.

Microsoft, of course, likely won’t sue because giving the Free Software Foundation their own Streisand Effect would be a nightmare scenario.

All of the above is from my primitive understanding of IP law and licenses. I am not a lawyer, but I would love to be corrected by someone who is and hasn’t chosen a side in this mess.

Photopapered derivative of site content ©2009 Bryant Zadegan, all rights reserved. Original site ©2009 Free Software Foundation. No rights were reserved by the FSF, apparently, because they violated the license they were using to cover their stuff.