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• The GNU GPL is contagious. So what? 1 day, 23 hours ago
  
  In an otherwise great post about the GPL and its goals, Bradley Kuhn writes something that strikes me as a typical example of open-source political correctness that ultimately tarnishes the credibility of the community:
• Digital Rights Management (DRM): is it in its death throes? 4 days, 18 hours ago
  
  In this opening salvo, I will reprise the technical terms and history of DRM and thereafter I will try to keep you abreast of the issues for computer users in general and free software in particular. Hopefully, I will in fact be chronicling the death throes of DRM.
• Free software great and small 1 week ago
  
  The OOXML document format war is over, and the good guys lost. The world will be a worse place because of it, for a long time to come. After being a lobbyist for many months, it was a great relief to get back to being a Samba coder. At least that's something I feel I have some competence in. The jury is still out on my lobbying career.
• Skype Withdraws Appeal Case and GPL Wins 1 week ago
  
  After last year's case, when the high district court of Munich, Germany, issued an injunction against Skype for selling the SMC WSKP 100 Linux-based WiFi VoIP phone, the Luxembourg-based company seems to be plagued with legal problems once more, this time related to the violation of the GPL license. After the initial GPL violation, Skype provided a flier with the URL for the source code with the package and now they decided to make an appeal on the court's decision... and they've lost!
• Impossible thing #6: Freedom for all with the One Laptop Per Child project 1 week, 1 day ago
  
  For many years, there has been a growing concern about the emergence of a “digital divide” between rich and poor. The idea is that people who don’t meet a certain threshold income won’t be able to afford the investment in computers and internet connectivity that makes further learning and development possible. They’ll become trapped by their circumstances. Under proprietary commercial operating systems, which impose a kind of plateau on the cost of computer systems, this may well be true. But GNU/Linux, continuously improving hardware, and a community commitment to bringing technology down to cost instead of just up to spec, has led to a new wave of ultra-low-cost computers, starting with the One Laptop Per Child’s XO. These free-software-based computers will be the first introduction to computing for millions of new users, and that foretells a much freer future.
• What is Free Software and how to make money with it 1 week, 3 days ago
  
  A simple and short essay intended for the non-tech people who are misinformed about Free Software and think it's not possible to make money with it.
• The progress of X.org 7.4 1 week, 5 days ago
  
  If all goes according to plan, X.Org 7.4 will finally be released this month. This release isn't quite as elaborate as X.Org 7.3, which introduced input hot-plugging, EXA enhancements, and RandR 1.2 to just name a few features, but X.Org 7.4 is another update better enhancing this X server.
• An open palette: Tux Paint's Bill Kendrick 1 week, 6 days ago
  
  Bill Kendrick on Tux Paint, Tux4Kids, the GSoC, computer games, KDE, Debian, the spread of Linux and open source software in education.
• Interview with the Ekiga developers 1 week, 6 days ago
  
  "Ekiga is the most popular, free VoIP software available. When I asked the Ekiga team for an interview, there was a lot I didn’t know. For example, I had no idea I’d be interviewing quite so many people (coordination was quite a challenge!), and -- more importantly -- I didn’t know that so much knowledge would have been uncovered."
• Mozilla speaks out against the free but proprietary Web 1 week, 6 days ago
  
  Mozilla Europe's founder Tristan Nitot has no problem with free software. Indeed, his organization has created some of the best of it....
• Watching the watchers of the GPL 2 weeks, 3 days ago
  
  Ah, the GPL. The GNU Public License. It’s probably one of the most controversial topics in all of the IT world. What is it and how is it enforced? Who backs it and who defends it? And who watches the watchers? Now there’s the real rub. We all know that there are numerous groups out there standing on the open source soap box (myself included). But of all of us grandstanding for the open source community - are there those who can and those who can not be trusted? Do members exist among the ranks that distort the facts and bend the rules to suit their needs? Outside of Groklaw, I would say a firm, “You never know.”
• FLOSS Best Practice for Business and Government 2 weeks, 4 days ago
  
  In April I attended a meeting of FLOSS lawyers in Amsterdam. One of the things I got to talk about there was some directions for FLOSS related policy - which turns out to be unusually relevant because the Australian Government is conducting a review into innovation in Australia. This post is some thoughts on what might make good FLOSS policy for community and government and may form the basis for OSIA’s submission to the Innovation Review. The submission is due by 30 April 2008. If you have any thoughts or comments on any of these please email me or drop me a comment below.
• Free Choice: the "Social Business" model and Free Software 2 weeks, 6 days ago
  
  Free Software developers fall into two main categories: those that stand by the principles behind free software - patent-free, license-free and unrestricted distribution (for example, Richard Stallman's admirable stance); and those that are simply happy to compromise to some extent, for example to download libdvdcss to watch DVDs, or to install proprietary software such as Skype, on the basis that there is simply no (or no better) alternative (for example, Ubuntu which supports all kinds of proprietary firmware and binary drivers, and gets itself into enormous difficulties as a result).
• Bill Gates: "the GPL, which we disagree with" 3 weeks, 1 day ago
  
  At the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Bill Gates gave his thoughts on where the pharmaceutical industry was going, and where it should be going. However, he also slipped up a bit and criticized the GNU General Public License (GPL). The GPL is a widely used (including by the Linux kernel) free software license. Wired's Thomas Goetz took notes on Bill Gates' response to a question from the audience regarding whether Gates thought Microsoft should use open source software in health research:
• Why Microsoft should not lose (and free software will still win) 3 weeks, 3 days ago
  
  There has always been a section of the free software community which has an anti-Microsoft agenda. It’s almost like their mission statement is “It’s not over until Microsoft is dead”. Certainly there is a lot of feeling that if Microsoft went away, a lot of our problem would be over. But do Microsoft even need to “lose”; is there even a battle to be fought and if so what would constitute winning it?
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