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Comment by FOSSpatents | Hacker News Reader

Not so fast. Spin doctoring is no substitute for substance.

As Caesar used to say, "fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt" (people are ready to believe what they want to be the case).

The fact of the matter is that New Zealand has passed a law with some restrictive language, but this is far from abolition. Broad swaths of software patents can still be granted.

Here's my more detailed take on it: http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/08/new-zealand-parliament-ad...

And this is what a publication read by patent lawyers says: http://www.iam-magazine.com/blog/Detail.aspx?g=96d4aeaf-dedf...

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The rationale here was that they still wanted to allow patents of machines and devices and they had to draw the line somewhere since software these days is embedded in almost everything. I think New Zealand has a very good set of laws in place and has shown remarkable courage to pass this anti-software-patent legislation. Unfortunately, their legislation to support government surveillance and software backdoors is really terrible.

Are you still getting paid by Oracle?

Is that relevant to the merits of his argument?

Well, as he said, “Spin doctoring is no substitute for substance.”.

Since Mueller isn't a lawyer, and his only other credentials are being a paid lobbyist, yeah it matters. Sure a lobbyist might be correct, but why would you trust them for information to begin with?

And looking at his post with a sceptical mind would have you learn his only third party source is a magazine whose tag-line is "Maximising IP value for business".

Even if correct his post is blatant propaganda. In fact, I'd go so far as to question why he chose today to register an account on hacker news. This isn't the first patent related news we've seen.

>In fact, I'd go so far as to question why he chose today to register an account on hacker news.

He has actually commented here with a different account in the past: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=FlorianMueller

Your personal attacks really don't have any relevance to the legal questions at hand. Trying to muddy the discussion with irrelevant speculation about people's motives is totally unnecessary when the legislation is there for any of us to read.

> Trying to muddy the discussion with irrelevant speculation about people's motives is totally unnecessary

In an ideal world, where we all had an infinite amount of time to research any and all items of controversy in their entirity, I would agree with you.

In this hyper-specialized world, where we basically look to others to do the research and summarize for us, motives are extremely relevant and it is the height of naivety to pretend otherwise.

Everyone has motives and biases but it's not fair to attack someone in this forum just because you happen to know their motives and biases. I don't see your contact info or bio listed in your profile -- how are we to trust your motives without knowing more about you?

We should discuss ideas on their merits rather than trying to psychoanalyze or dig up dirt on the commenter.

considering the whole google vs oracle thing... yes.

Let's cut to the chase.

No-one has time to become an expert on absolutely everything. To some extent, we have to choose who to listen to, and then trust that they are speaking true. Anything else is completely unmanageable. So your argument, while logically correct, is not applicable. In the real world, we don't take the sex offender's word that our child is safe on its pure merits.

When someone with a long and vivid history of acting against the interests of the community speaks, it is on them to overcome the prejudice against them, not on us.

I don't get it. Let's stipulate that he is an Oracle puppet. Why would that incentivize him to lie about what the bill actually covers? Regardless of his incentives, is he wrong that not all software patents would be prevented under this bill?

Disclosure: I'm a Microsoft employee, so I probably have some devious motives, too.

Do you know what a heuristic is?

Basically, being an Oracle puppet is an extremely negative heuristic for being a useful voice on anything related to software IP. Absent compelling evidence to the contrary, I am inclined to ignore any and all opinions of said puppet.

And FWIW, being a Microsoft employee defending an Oracle stooge doesn't play all that well either.

Isn't this all common sense?

I can certainly see how being an Oracle puppet would make it hard to trust his coverage of the Oracle/Google spat. I don't see how it affects his take on the contents of the NZ bill, particularly since the text of the bill is available and no one has countered his assertions!

Also, I'm not "defending" him. I don't know if he is or is not a shill, and I don't care. But he made verifiable statements about the content of the bill. All I want to know is, are his statements wrong?

So wait Matt Cutts being paid by Google makes him a puppet and we shouldn't take him to be a useful voice on anything related to search?

Matt Cutts is an employee of Google and clearly speaks on behalf of Google's search team. Not sure what your point is?

The point was that people who have financial interests can still provide useful information for the community. Of course you knew what the point was and decided to take us on a pedantic tangent.

Another point I could make is that analogies don't have to be perfect to be useful.

Another point might be that the people making ad hominem attacks on FM aren't actually adding anything constructive to the discussion while he did. In fact his contribution to the thread added more than everyone elses' combined.

And while I don't really care for FM himself, there are many people who spin and editorialize heavily that are still very much worth reading. If you're interested at all in tech patents, he's one of them along with whatever ends up replacing Groklaw.

The point was that people who have financial interests can still provide useful information for the community.

I wasn't questioning that. I have no doubt the information he is articulating is valuable, but who is benefiting more, us, himself or his client? Regardless of how pedantic I'm being, your point is slightly flawed and should be called out. I don't feel it's worth attributing merit to people's efforts without understanding their behavior first.

There financial interests are very different and thus the information they create can lean one way or another. One is a paid consultant and another is a full time salaried employee. The one makes more money directly by benefiting the client (Mueller) and the other one makes more by equity and control (Cutts).

When it comes to money, people are largely motivated by 3 things: control, equity, and cash (which all subsequently translate quite nicely into money/wealth) however, each one can manifest itself very differently. Someone who makes their living by advising clients has a very direct interest in cash, so it's more obvious that his/her behavior is in line with ensuring that cash goes into the bank first and foremost.

HN is turning into a conspiracy paranoia breeding ground these days. Who cares who he works for, is the information he's presenting sound? Also dismissing it as unsound just because you disagree with his possible motives doesn't make him a "liar" or a "shill", it is just laziness on your part to try and dismiss him out of hand or trying to verify the evidence presented on your own.

It is his job to create a perception that his side is winning. Because perception drives behavior and affects reality. Therefore every event is spun to make it look as good as possible for the pro-patent side so that actual innovators will get demoralized about resisting that tide.

No, I do not know why someone would consider it worth their while to pay for this. But someone apparently does, as is evidenced by his series of extremely confident, widely covered, and provably inaccurate articles on how the Oracle lawsuit against Google was going.

@btilly My articles on how the lawsuit was going weren't "inaccurate". The district judge ruled against the copyrightability of the declaring code Oracle asserted, and that decision is on appeal. The parties have completed their briefing, numerous amici curiae ("friends of the court") have made submissions, and the appeals court will hold a hearing in a matter of months.

The inaccuracies started with your claim to be an "independent" analyst when you were actually a paid shill, and only got worse from there.

You are right that there is an appeal - there always is. But consider that the judge the first time around ruled nothing like you claimed would happen. On anything. Why should we expect the appeal to be different?

@btilly In district court, the jury identified copyright infringement, was hung on fair use (which means that this would have to be determined by a new jury if the relevant code is found copyrightable), and the judge overruled the jury to the effect that the court additionally ruled that certain test files I had published in January 2011 were indeed infringed. The key thing that was missing was copyrightability. You're right that the appeals court might affirm the district judge's ruling, but we'll know in early 2014 what comes out of this. The decision at the appeals court will be made by a panel of three judges, which is quite different from a decision made by just one person.

You don't really need a list of your misrepresentations of reality, but http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120724125504129 may remind you of some of them.

I should note that it was written at a time when you were still claiming to be independent. You know, before you faced the fact that your name was going to be on Oracle's list of paid lobbyists and so you admitted to it up front in the way that made it look as good as possible.

He disclosed his relationship with Oracle four months before the judge asked both companies to "name their shills" [1,2]. It was a highly unusual and controversial order [3], so it's not like Mueller, or indeed anybody, could have predicted this and "come clean" in advance.

Also note that Oracle had that one name on its list. Google had a much longer list. Further, I think the judge erred by not requiring both sides to disclose relevant PR ties, because really, it's the PR companies that oversee the shilling [4, 5]

1. http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/04/oracle-v-google-trial-evi...

2. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/name-your-shills-...

3. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/with-anti-shill-o...

4. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

5. http://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/Facebook-busted-fo...

Well, given that Microsoft is shaking down people across the industry with patents (http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2011/07/07/microsofts...) including stuff like FAT32 against B&N, one has to suspect bias.

> When someone with a long and vivid history of acting against the interests of the community speaks, it is on them to overcome the prejudice against them, not on us.

Who has a "long and vivid history of acting against the interests of the community"? It's clearly not Müller: [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florian_Müller

As if Oracle has a history in doing anything at all clever or interesting....

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