[Patent Lawsuit Filter] On Wednesday Sun Microsystems announced a counter suit against Network Appliance, wherein they will draw on their "defensive portfolio" which is "one of the largest patent arsenals on the internet". They are going to be requesting a permanent injunction to remove all of NetApp's filer products from the marketplace, and also seeking monetary damages (half of which they've pledged to donate to the Software Freedom Law Center and Peer to Patent Project). Last month, NetApp sued Sun for patent infringements in ZFS. Earlier this month in Texas, the first ever patent infringement lawsuit against Linux distributors was filed.
posted on Oct 26, 2007 - View this thread

To work around the proprietary whims of digital audio software developers and laptop processor limitations during the mid- and late-1990s, a small band of technically-minded people, including the electronic musician Blitter, pulled together in the late 1990s to engineer the open-source OPEN DSP EZ-Kit platform, a 16-bit computer designed entirely with a focus on low cost and extensible control and DSP arithmetic capabilities. While this project and similar commercial offerings never seemed to gain the critical mass needed to sustain long-term interest, perhaps the new Arduino hardware project from MIT's Processing hardware group may gain a foothold with Processing and Pure Data audio software hobbyists and artists alike, allowing the creative community to extend, enhance and share inventive uses of new technology. Arduino's use has already begun in fascinating museum installations around the world, and has become a part of this year's SONAR and Ars Electronica festivals.
posted on Aug 12, 2006 - View this thread

An Open Letter to Zed. Someday people will realise that the GPL offers no protection from anything, and use a real free software license instead.
posted on Aug 30, 2004 - View this thread

Think tanks attack Open Source "The Alexis de Tocqueville Institute’s attack on Linux is just the latest in a series of attacks on Open Source by think tanks.....

I was able to detect a common theme to all their criticism. They all seem to be funded by Microsoft. "
posted on Jun 25, 2004 - View this thread

SCO is at it again ... this time they've asked a federal judge to declare that Linux's general public license — a backbone of the free software movement — unconstitutional. Let's hope the judge has more sense than SCO.
posted on Oct 31, 2003 - View this thread

Build your own Howard Dean website! The Dean campaign has released web site "kits" under the GNU GPL and based on the Drupal codebase, which allow web-based communities to quickly and easily build their own sites to support Dean's campaign. Last night, he held a conference call with over 3,500 "house parties" and individuals to spread the word. If Dean gets the nomination, he'll have technology to thank for it. (yeah, via slashdot.)
posted on Sep 30, 2003 - View this thread

Take your hands off the GPL and back away from the keyboard... New twist in the SCO vs. IBM and the rest of the known computing universe: it appears SCO's primary argument in their case will in fact be that the GPL is invalid, trumped by US federal copyright law. (Quote redirect from via Inquirer from Wall Street Journal). And apparently, I'm not alone in beginning to think there's merit to the "Microsoft's behind all this!" conspiracy theories, since these "coincidences" are really starting to pile up...
posted on Aug 16, 2003 - View this thread

Peru goes GNU. And I quote: "You may have heard about this if you watch the free software news, but I just want to repeat it for anyone who hasn't. The Peruvian government has introduced legislation requiring government offices to use free software; Microsoft is unhappy; and a member of the Peruvian Congress has written a response which I highly recommend reading, in which he explains in strong terms why it's out of the question for the government of a democratic nation to use proprietary software."
posted on May 2, 2002 - View this thread

Let's stop wasting US$ 78 billion a year. Is software development really this inefficient? Aside from the main theme, there is also an interesting statement from a CIO towards the end of the article. "Those folks [involved in the open-source movement] are very knowledgeable, very good at what they do, and they're producing really great code," [...]
posted on Oct 20, 2001 - View this thread

Is the GPL a binding legal contract? If so, who would be able to (and could afford to) bring necessary legal action against groups who choose to ignore the terms?
posted on Sep 17, 2001 - View this thread

Political software licences? The GPL prevents commercial use. Should it also try to enforce human rights?
posted on May 12, 2001 - View this thread

Cyber Patrol hacker sells out for one dollar < I made my political point and just don't want further annoyance... ...Mattel initiated legal action in e-mail subpoenas in mid-March and Skala and Jansson removed cphack from their sites, but not before urging computer activists to copy and distribute it.... ...Nevertheless, some mirror site operators think open source software protections make the issue moot. The court cannot impose an Internet ban because cphack was released under the GNU General Public License... > perhaps you've seen this--the final decision will be interesting with repect to free speech and the GNU GPL. something to watch anyhow.
posted on Mar 28, 2000 - View this thread

Dontcha hate it when something like Winamp gets bought out by AOL? It crashes a bit too much on my home system so I went looking for alternatives and was glad when I found FreeAMP (it's GPL'ed to boot!). Take the high road, use the mp3 player that guarantees no AOL buyouts on your desktop.
posted on Sep 23, 1999 - View this thread