Free Software Licensing

451 CAOS Theory: Time for a new open source definition?

MarketWire: OpenLogic Scanning Data Reveals OSS Developers Choose GPL, Enterprises Prefer Apache

Interesting read on AGPL. Short answer to the title: no, quite the oposite.

Free Software Business

David Braben (co-creator of legendardy game Elite) starts Raspberry Pi – a new UK ultra-cheap ultra-mega-nano-mini-computer running GNU/Linux and a foundation around it – to teach UK kids again to tinker with hardware and software and learn how to code.

Sony seems to have really gotten (again?) on the Linux train. Not only have they started using Linux on their TVs and Android on their mobile phones, but now they even encourage users to flash their mobile phones with other Linux distributions and tinker with them. Sadly their recent decision to ban GNU/Linux as the "other OS" from their PS3 still leaves a bad taste in mouth.

the Inquirer: Apple is accused of withholding IOS LGPL code

ComputerWorld: Mozilla building on Firefox's dominant share in Indonesia

ReadWriteWeb: Android@Home: Google Gets Serious About the Smart Home

Eucalyptus Systems: Ubuntu, Linux, and Eucalyptus

Google announces their long-awaited ChromeBooks – ultra-portable "laptops" with ChromeOS on them – where everything except the bare OS is running from the cloud. Simon Phipps points out that these cannot be considered Linux laptops (or rather Free Software). There is also a thought about how Android and ChromeOS go together or compete. (Interesting fact: Chrom(e|ium)OS is derived from Gentoo.)

Although Android takes most of the spot-light neither WebOS nor MeeGo are alive and kicking – long live competition!

Make: Why Google Choosing Arduino Matters and is This the End of “Made for iPod” (TM)?

Canonical is joining the GENIVI Alliance, a non-profit industry alliance which is creating an open source "In-Vehicle Infotainment" reference platform. At the same time Canonical announced a flavour of Ubuntu to run on such IVI ARM devices.

Nokia decides to move to open governance with Qt 5.

ReadWriteWeb: Will Amazon Become the Dominant Player in the Android Ecosystem?

IEEE: Aldebaran Robotics To Open Source Code of Nao Robotics

the Next Web: WordPress: The Free Software With a Big Economy & How You Can Get Involved

the Inquirer: Sweeping changes blow through Novell's board

Ars Technica: Mono team presses on with new startup after Attachmate layoffs

Software Patents

TechDirt: Patent Hawk's Wings Clipped; Editable Toolbar Patent Is Invalid

Thomson Reuters: How Yahoo won the Bedrock patent trial that Google lost

Engadget: HTC files patent complaint against Apple, asks for ban on iPhone, iPad, and iPod

MacRumors: Lodsys Threatens to Sue App Store Developers Over In-App Purchases and Upgrade Links

the IPKat: German Federal Court: bread crumbs navigation is not patentable

CrunchGear: Google Spends $4.9 Million On Modu Patent Portfolio

Patentlyo: Intellectual Ventures: Revealing Investors

Nokia started a new croudsource portal to raise innovation, but also asking its users to patent their ideas.

the Inquirer: Rambus will buy Cryptography Research to get its patents

TechnoLlama: Lodsys and app patent disputes

ConsortumInfo.org: FTC Seeks Input on Patent Holdup in Standards Development

IPKat: Amazon '1-click' patent: now Australia rules

Groklaw: Not So Fast, Bedrock

Groklaw has some more information on the Oracle vs. Google patent suit.

Copyright and Other Legal Act Reforms

Portuguese Socialist Party announced that it will push for a copyright reform that will make economic rights inalienable and therefore cannot be waived or renounced. This might make CreativeCommons (and Free Software) licenses illegal.

IPtegrity.com: European Commission comes clean on "anti-piracy" talks

Ireland is realising that the (current) copyright system is hurting innovation and therefore business and economy and change is needed.

IPtegrity.com: ACTA: European Parliament postpones ECJ motion

TechDirt takes a critical look on US' PROTECT IP Act.

It is no news that copyright (as it currently stands and seems to develop) is harming the developing nations and are therefore not happy at all that the developed nations are negotiating changes to global copyright – e.g. via ACTA and TPPA – without them and behind closed doors.

TechDirt: Developed Nations Protest Developing Nations' Desire To Create Their Own IP Laws

First Spain – which used to be known as a very CC-loving country – considers adopting copyright law that seems under heavy influence of Hollywood, then EU considers to harmonise EU law in the same style. Me no likey.

TechDirt: Why ACTA Requires Congressional Approval

As already reported, with the change of government, Brazil is planning a copyright reform that would be a step back.

IPtegrity.com: 3-minute speech limit at EU copyright hearing

It seems France intends to lead the G8 in the direction of more governmental control and restriction of internet usage.

TechDirt: How To Lie With Statistics: France Pretends HADOPI Law Is Working

IP Watch: Trading’s End: Is ACTA The Leading Edge Of A Protectionist Wave?

In the UK, a long awaited report on "IP laws" from prof. Hargreaves and his team has been published. There are some interesting suggestions in there about copyright and patent laws – some of which influenced by the success of Free Software.

Open…: World Copyright Summit: 7 Billion Elephants

Ars Technica: New bill upgrades unauthorized Internet streaming to a felony

Government and Free Software Policies

Critique about recent UK change of their ICT policy (mostly about formats).

German Foreign Office's recent decision to go back to proprietary software has raised quite a few questions and the government's even more recent answers have raised even more then solved.

OSOR: IT: DossierScuola – Promoting the use of free software in public education

OSOR: DE: Launch of the Open Source Integration Initiative

OSOR: IE: National Library wins national open source award for its online catalogue

Open Standards

[ReadWriteWeb: HTML5: It's Last Call for Comments/a>

the Inquirer: HP, IBM, Intel and Red Hat promote an open virtualisation standard

Other interesting links

Yet another interesting story of artist Nina Paley how (current) laws can get in the way of making (Free) art.

Richard Stallman revises his old essays and puts them out again under a new, updated, version. - Open…: Righting Wrongs by Re-writing Ebooks - FSF: Book Bundle:

TorrentFreak: Artist Slays Louis Vuitton in Intellectual Property Dispute

Heather Brooke: Can superinjunctions survive the internet?

CreativeCommons Russia launched on 1st of May.

BoingBoing: Ann Arbor library acquires lending, sharing and copying rights to Creative Commons music catalog

TechDirt: Copyright Maximalists Come Out Against New TLDs Because It Creates 'More Space' For Infringement

One of this month's biggest news was Microsoft buying of Skype for insane amount of money. It was disclosed that Skype will form a division under Microsoft. Considering MS's recent pairing with Nokia, to me this smells like getting the biggest proprietary VoIP solution, with a proprietary VoIP protocol on a proprietary VoIP mobile OS on one of the biggest mobile phones. There is a lot of talk about Skype on Kinect, but let's face it: VoIP on mobile phones is inevitable and it looks like someone is trying again the(ir) old networking effect with vendor lock-in combination. Also the cynic in me predicts an even less stable client on GNU/Linux (and probably other non-MS OS).

Some analysists predict that Microsoft might acquire Nokia as well. Nokia says this isn't the case (even though it just pulled the plug on its Ovi services).

This year there is an outstanding amount of Indian students attending GSoC.

A review of Intellectual Property and Growth

La Quadrature du Net: The Spectrum Of Our Freedoms

TechDirt: BMI Says A Single Person Listening To His Own Music Via The Cloud Is A Public Performance

Scots Law News: First illegal music file sharing conviction in Scotland

BoingBoing: URGENT: Intellectual Property Consortium wants .net domains to be subject to TRADEMARK seizures and to abolish privacy-shielded .NETs

Christian Engström: What are Cecilia Malmström’s promises on Internet censorship worth?

PaidContent: FCC Commissioner Goes Through Revolving Door, Comes Out As Comcast Lobbyist

Quora: In Fifty Days, Payments Innovation Will Stop In Silicon Valley

Christian Engström: Books for the blind in the EU Parliament: Win!

kNOw Future Inc.: Jean Bergevin Lands EU IP Enforcement Unit

TorrentFreak: LimeWire Pays RIAA $105 Million, Artists Get Nothing

TechDirt: Why Innovation Is Under Attack

Oversimplification: OpenNetwork

Andy Updegrove talks about how the true way to make semantic web a reality would be through governments pushing for it. A gem that I might add is that EU funded project NEPOMUK, which to my very best knowledge is the best semantic desktop system and actually already implemented in KDE (and is written so it could be implemented in other solutions as well).

Bnet: New Privacy Laws in India and China Could Make IT Outsourcing Ugly

Slashdot: Dropbox Accused of Lying About Security

Open…: Self-Perpetuating Copyright Enforcement

Slashdot: Australian Government To Widen Spy Agency Powers Again

the Globe and Mail: Restrictive copyright plays into music industry myths

More uglyness from/about Righthaven:

Must read short story about our possible future, IT and law!

ScienceBlogs: Take a Dip Into The Medicines Patent Pool!

paidContent: EU Committee Suggests Tough Rules On Locational Privacy; May Influence U.S.

the Register: ACS:Law fined for data breach

the Register: Microsoft, Nokia, HTC fight Apple's 'App store' trademark

OpenSource.com: Belgian court rules that Google infringes newspaper copyrights

the Inquirer: Hackers put Linux back on the Playstation 3

the Inquirer: Microsoft launches a European trademark fight with Apple

Ars Technica: Senators press Apple, Google for answers about location tracking

EDRi: Virtual Schengen documents released by EU Council

Great interview with Carlo Daffara about many issues of Free Software licensing, governance, patents, SaaS etc.

EDRi: Dutch ISPs admit to using deep packet inspection

EDRi: Data retention in EU Council Meeting

Many of you have already heard it: After PJ announced she is leaving Groklaw, Mark Webbink is taking over. Groklaw is dead, long live Groklaw!

hook out → well, that were two surprisingly eventful weeks OJo


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