Learn about Linux
Download Linux
Get Linux helpSpecial Offers
NewsVac: News from around the Web
-
FBI recruits former Lehman Brothers IT exec
10 months, 3 weeks ago
An ex-IT executive at the failed investment bank Lehman Brothers has been hired by the FBI to be the agency's new technology chief. -
What Shall We Do About Software Patents?
11 months ago
One of the central issues facing free software around the world is what can be done about the threat of software patents. -
Creative Commons Asks How You Define "Non-Commercial"
11 months, 1 week ago
Joi Ito and the Creative Commons need help getting the word out -- and defined. Creative Commons licenses allow (to varying degrees) the content they apply to to be freely used, distributed, and altered, with varying levels of attribution or certain restrictions on commercial use. One of the gray areas Creative Commons has been grappling with is how exactly one defines "non-commercial. -
Lessons From the $1 Billion Intel Trade-Secret Theft
11 months, 2 weeks ago
What if the FBI came knocking on your door saying that your employer had accused you of stealing US $1 billion from the company? That’s exactly what happened to Biswamohan Pani, a former Intel engineer who was indicted earlier this month for stealing trade secrets from the chip maker. Instead of raiding the supply closet for some notepads, pens, and paper clips, Pani allegedly downloaded more than 100 pages of data containing details about future Intel chip designs and 19 drawings detailing the chips’ layouts. -
Final judgment: SCO owes Novell millions (plus interest)
11 months, 2 weeks ago
Federal district judge Dale A. Kimball has handed down the final judgment in the SCO case. The decision dismisses SCO's latest claims, grants declaratory relief to Novell, and sustains the court's previous judgment that SCO owes Novell over $2.54 million (plus interest) for unjust enrichment. -
Microsoft Asks for Vista Suit's Dismissal
11 months, 2 weeks ago
Microsoft moves to have lawsuit's class action status pulled and for the whole darn thing to be dismissed. -
Apple, AT&T Sued Again Over iPhone 3G Issues
11 months, 3 weeks ago
A New York iPhone 3G user has filed a class action suit against Apple and AT&T Wireless, claiming the device does not deliver promised network capabilities and the smartphone's casing is prone to hairline cracks. -
Cory Doctorow: Why I Copyfight
12 months ago
Why does all this copyright reform stuff matter, anyway? What's at stake? -
More Patent Threats From Microsoft
1 year ago
Ina Fried has an interview with "Microsoft's top intellectual property lawyer", Horacio Gutierrez, and Gutierrez directly threatens to sue any company, like Red Hat, that refuses to sell out and do a patent deal like the one Novell signed up for: -
Senate calls for FCC to consider content-blocking technologies
1 year, 1 month ago
The Senate on Wednesday unanimously voted in favor of providing parents with more control over the content their children receive through various technologies. -
Judge: EMI can sue MP3tunes, not Michael Robertson
1 year, 1 month ago
A federal judge has dismissed a copyright-infringement lawsuit filed by EMI Group against Michael Robertson, founder of MP3tunes and a , MP3.com and Linspire. -
Anti-Piracy Bill Headed for the White House
1 year, 1 month ago
Bill to tighten piracy-enforcement laws and championed by entertainment industry heads to president's desk, though objections persist. -
Thomson Reuters Takes Virginia to Court over Zotero
1 year, 1 month ago
Legal news wire service Courthouse News reported recently that Reuters was suing the Commonwealth of Virginia because George Mason University was "handing out its proprietary software." Nothing is ever that simple, is it? George Mason University's Center for History and New Media distributes Zotero, an open source Firefox extension that helps users collect and manage citations found on the web. It performs a similar function as Thomson Reuter's EndNote software. The lawsuit is based on the premise that Zotero's newest beta is able to convert the proprietary EndNote format to the open CSL (Citation Style Language) format. -
Intellectual property bill passes in the House
1 year, 1 month ago
The House of Representatives on Sunday cleared the intellectual property enforcement bill that would create an "IP coordinator" position in the White House. -
Mistrial for RIAA's $222,000 defendant
1 year, 1 month ago
A federal judge on Wednesday threw out the verdict against Jammie Thomas, the peer-to-peer network user ordered to pay the recording industry $222,000 for allegedly sharing music online. - More News
Linux.com : Legal
Funambol's CEO sees AGPL as essential for FOSS in cloud computing's future
"The future of software is in cloud computing," says Fabrizio Capobianco, CEO of Funambol, a company that provides mobile services. And if free and open source software (FOSS) is going to survive in that emerging market, he says, then the community needs to adjust by promoting greater use of the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL), a license specifically crafted for software as a service.
Alleged Israeli GPL violation settled out of court
After two years of litigation, the parties involved in an Israeli law suit that centered on the validity of the GNU General Public License (GPL) have settled out of court. The result leaves the legal status of the GPL in Israel unresolved.
Attorney Shaalu Mehra discusses emerging GPL trends (video)
Shaalu Mehra, an attorney with Perkins Coie, spoke at LinuxWorld 2008 about the legal implications of adopting the GPL within one's organization, and about outsourcing and performing due diligence on the software stack. This was a high-level but compelling conversation about legal matters that are important to all open source software developers.
SGI relicenses OpenGL: "A huge gift to the free software community"
After nine months, an open secret can finally be acknowledged: The OpenGL code that is responsible for 3-D acceleration on GNU/Linux, which was released by SGI in 1999, has been running on licenses that were accepted by neither the Free Software Foundation (FSF) nor the Open Source Initiative. Today, however, the FSF has announced that the licenses in question, the SGI Free License B and the GLX Public License, have been rewritten after months of negotiation between the FSF and SGI. The problem is now resolved, and the result is a code contribution that the FSF ranks as one of the greatest given to the community by a proprietary company.
Inside the SFLC's "Practical Guide to GPL Compliance"
One of the goals of the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) is to become a center for education in free and open source software (FOSS) legal issues. As part of this effort, the SFLC has already published "A Legal Issues Primer for Open Source and Free Software Projects." Its latest effort in public education, released last week, is "A Practical Guide to GPL Compliance," a 15-page guide for FOSS projects on how to avoid violations of the GNU General Public License (GPL) and Lesser General Public License (LGPL). The guide is a practical summary of its subject, but its wording is unnecessarily legalistic, and its structure and omissions sometimes fall short of the goal of being a standalone reference.
Meet Open Invention Network CEO Keith Bergelt (video)
Linux.com correspondent R. Scott Belford caught up with Open Invention Network CEO Keith Bergelt at the 2008 LinuxWorld Expo and had a pleasant (on-camera) conversation with him.
Meet the people behind the Open Source Initiative (video)
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the group that decides whether a software license merits a seal of approval as actual, genuine open source software. It has never been a secret group -- its license-discuss email list has always been open to all comers, for example -- but not many open source users or developers know who belongs to the board or what they do. This impromptu, hand-held video -- shot at OSCON 2008 -- is, we believe, the first time the OSI board has been introduced to the public on-camera as a single body. We may have missed a member or two, but this is still a valuable introduction to the people who run OSI and how their meetings work.
Is OpenSolaris in hot water?
Here's how it works: Novell owns Unix's IP (intellectual property). SCO sold Unix's IP to Sun. Sun then included some Unix IP into Solaris. Finally, Sun open sourced Solaris as OpenSolaris. Sounds like trouble, doesn't it?
FSF organizes against Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
Nobody knows yet what the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will consist of, but the few available indications are so ominous that the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has started a campaign to raise public awareness of the possibilities. According to Matt Lee, an FSF campaign manager, ACTA threatens to "create a culture of fear and suspicion," and, in the worst-case scenario, undermine and demonize free software.
Is SCO finally dead?
Even though SCO has suffered another legal defeat, the company looks like it has enough willpower, if not sense, to keep its legal losing streak going.
OpenDomain.org owner: Selfless FOSS helper or domain squatter?
OpenDomain.org is an organization that offers to provide free use of certain domain names to worthwhile open source projects. Ric Johnson, the leader of OpenDomain.org and the owner of dozens of domain names, says he has spent thousands of dollars registering those domains in order to prevent "squatters and phishers" from snapping them up. He's keeping them safe so you can have a chance to use them. However, to some people, based on Johnson's past practices, it's not clear how OpenDomain.org differs from other organizations that buy up domain names in the hopes of future gains.
Web apps: the next battleground for FOSS?
Concerned about the increasing popularity of Web applications, Marco Barulli of the Clipperz project has written one of the first detailed suggestions about how free and open source software (FOSS) should respond to the trend. Although neither Barulli nor Clipperz is well-known, his ideas are being listened to by such figures as Richard M. Stallman of the Free Software Foundation and Fabrizio Capobianco, the CEO of Funambol and a long-time advocate of FOSS in Web applications.
Canadian open source community upset over proposed copyright law
The Government of Canada has angered those who believe that a proposed copyright law threatens the country's open source business model.
How to risk your project and your livelihood with sloppy licensing
Recently the makers of the free-as-in-cost iPhone jailbreaking utility PwnageTool discovered that someone was reselling their creation -- without permission, under a new name, and for profit. That's a situation no software developer wants to be in, but the PwnageTool team was in an even tougher position because of the license under which it released its code. It didn't have one.
Barracuda launches reluctant legal offensive against Trend Micro
The already vicious lawsuit involving Barracuda Networks and Trend Micro that is currently in discovery in front of the American International Trade Commission (ITC) just turned nastier. Barracuda has filed its own patent infringement claim against Trend Micro, based upon three recently acquired patents. The suit is in response to Trend Micro's allegation that its patent is being infringed by Barracuda shipping Clam Antivirus (ClamAV), the popular free software application, and appears designed to pressure Trend Micro to reach a negotiated settlement.
GPLv3, one year later
After 18 months of widespread consultation with community and corporate interests, the third versions of the GNU General Public License (GPL) and GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) were released one year ago on 29 June 2007. In November, they were joined by the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL). Looking back at these licenses today, observers of free and open source software (FOSS) judge them a modest success, and credit them with continuing to educate people about free software.
Deposition challenges Trend Micro patent on virus scans
Goran Fransson, a Swedish developer and entrepreneur, has given a deposition in the Barracuda-Trend Micro case that appears to seriously undermine Trend Micro's patent on gateway virus scanning.
Barracuda CEO Dean Drako explains why his company is publically fighting Trend Micro patent suit (video)
It's unusual for companies engaged in patent litigation to comment on how the fight is going. But Barracuda Networks CEO Dean Drako has openly sought FOSS community support for his company's defense again a Trend Micro lawsuit that, while filed against his company, is really about ClamAV. We've written about this before, as have others. In this video, however, we'll let Dean tell you in his own words what's going on -- and why.
Creative Commons promotes standard license expression
If Creative Commons (CC) has any say in the matter, the Web will soon have a standard machine-readable notation for licenses. Named the Creative Commons Rights Expression Language (ccREL), the notation has been under development for the last few years, partly with the cooperation of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3). It is described in a paper by four Creative Commons employees and published by Communia, a European site that explores the relationship between technology and the public domain. Creative Commons plans future presentations of ccREL, and is also actively explaining the need for it -- which is what CC's Chief Technology Officer, Nathan Yergler, was doing when Linux.com caught up with him at the recent Open Web Conference in Vancouver.
As the SCO rolls
Reality, as good writers know, is sometimes stranger than fiction. SCO's recent performance in the U.S. District Court in Utah is a perfect example. With years to prepare, SCO executives made some remarkable statements in their attempt to show that SCO, not Novell, owns Unix's copyright.
