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Funambol's CEO sees AGPL as essential for FOSS in cloud computing's future

Lee Schlesinger

December 09, 2008 7:00:00 PM

"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

Lee Schlesinger

October 27, 2008 6:00:00 PM

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)

roblimo

September 22, 2008 9:00:00 PM

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"

Lee Schlesinger

September 19, 2008 3:30:00 PM

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"

Lee Schlesinger

August 27, 2008 8:00:00 PM

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)

roblimo

August 18, 2008 9:00:00 PM

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)

roblimo

August 03, 2008 2:00:00 PM

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?

roblimo

July 25, 2008 9:00:00 PM

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

roblimo

July 21, 2008 9:00:00 AM

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?

roblimo

July 18, 2008 2:00:00 PM

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?

Lee Schlesinger

July 16, 2008 9:00:00 PM

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?

Lee Schlesinger

July 14, 2008 7:00:00 PM

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

Lee Schlesinger

July 10, 2008 9:00:00 PM

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

Lee Schlesinger

July 09, 2008 7:00:00 PM

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

roblimo

July 02, 2008 9:01:21 PM

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

Lee Schlesinger

June 27, 2008 7:00:00 PM

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

roblimo

June 23, 2008 11:13:44 PM

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)

roblimo

May 21, 2008 9:00:00 PM

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

Lee Schlesinger

May 07, 2008 7:00:00 PM

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

roblimo

May 05, 2008 6:49:13 PM

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.

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