“Were they ever out?” one might ask, but this week:
CNET has this piece from Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith offering Two cheers for intellectual-property law and opining that
nothing is more effective at focusing attention on the arcane subject of patent law than a $1.52 billion jury verdict–in a case that could affect everyone who […]
No surprise about that, except open source was the issue.
Reported here on ZDNet are these comments from George Osborn MP, the shadow chancellor:
Too many companies are frozen out of government IT contracts, stifling competition and driving up costs. Not a single open-source company is included in Catalyst, the government’s list of approved IT suppliers. […]
The launch earlier this week in the Houses of Parliament of the National Open Centre is reported by The Reg (including a photo - spot yours truly!), Public Technology, Linux World, and PC Advisor.
The Daily Record has this piece
It has emerged that Cuba and Venezuela want to break ties with the capitalist machine that is Microsoft.
Both governments are trying to wean state agencies from Microsoft’s Windows to the open source Linux operating system.
Linux is developed by a global community who share their code, and is as politically right-on […]
In an email the House of Lords Judicial Office confirms that
The petition for leave to appeal in the case of Macrossan (Petitioner) v Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (Respondent) and one other action was refused on 05 February 2007.
The importance of this case in the ongoing struggle over software patents in the […]
… is analysed here; it is markedly more up-beat than our previous post on this topic and ends by quoting a definitely tounge-in-cheek suggestion that
If somebody sues you [for patent infringement], you change the algorithm or you just hire a hit-man to whack the stupid git.
Readers who are citizens of the European Union may want to follow up this item on Slashdot:
The Council of the EU has a streaming service so that we can watch its meetings — but the service can only be accessed by Mac or MS Windows users. This is because they employ WMV format for the […]
A month or so ago we mentioned an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons. A vigorous campaign by the UK FLOSS community and the increasing number of signatories (97 at the time of writing) keeps it in the news (here and here).
… is the somewhat faintly praising title of this piece on the legalities of open source licencing viewed from within the English legal system.
Now that “SCO is toast”, you may need another reason to read the amazing Groklaw. Well this may be it, with thanks to FFII for highlighting the case for European readers.
We post from England and Wales so need to be circumspect in our comments about goings-on in Scotland. However, this annoying piece caught our eye; looking further into it only increased the annoyance:
The Government Leaders’ Forum Europe is one of Microsoft’s flagship events for government, parliamentarians, education and business leaders across the continent and […]
So says Victor Keegan in this piece in today’s Technology Guardian extolling the virtues of the Open Rights Group, PledgeBank, writetothem.com, http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/, and the all-round general good guys at MySociety.
A timely example of this impact comes in the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property which
recommends introducing a strictly limited ‘private copying’ exception to enable […]
The Gowers report on IP in the UK is published on Wednesday; in this piece sets out the issues, mentioning open source.
… in a leader setting out the arguments for FLOSS in schools, about which we have posted several times in the past few days, with politics:
Yet Becta, the government agency that sets education IT policy, … works according to the framework principle, which in best civil service tradition sets out approved suppliers who are easy […]
This is the title of the Early Day Motion which John Pugh MP has tabled in the House of Commons. Media reaction is moving up the food chain.
In case you have not seen it, this message is in circulation within the UK FLOSS community:
Dear FLOSS supporter
John Pugh MP has tabled an Early Day Motion […]
UK Members of Parliament have identified Department of Education and Skills (DfES) and Becta policies as favouring proprietary software vendors thereby blocking the adoption of Open Source software by schools and colleges. An Early Day Motion tabled by Liberal Democrat MP John Pugh, has called for a fair approach to ICT procurement in the education […]
Speaking to an audience at St Bride’s Church in central London, Shadow Chancellor George Osborne gave the annual Olsen Memorial Lecture entitled ‘Politics and the Media in the Internet Age’.
To quote from his speech
Linux is the open-source operating system that is the main rival to Microsoft Windows.
Here is John Naughton’s slightly grudging assessment.
… is how one blogger hailed the news of the Microsoft - Novell deal. Read the press release here and find a whole lot more from Novell here. For Microsoft’s PR go here.
This story has prompted literally hundreds of news items on the web (Google says 527 at the time of writing) with […]
Educational software manufacurer Blackboard have begun legal action against rival company Desire2Learn based on a software patent which critics in say could stifle innovation and disrupt educational institutions, as well as threaten open source projects with costly legal battles.
The company was awarded the wide-ranging patent, which covers educational groupware and other tools which facilitate web-based […]
SCO’s infamous attempt to get huge sums of money by suing IBM over alleged theft of their code in the Linux kernel took a turn for the worst on Friday. The judge in the case, which is widely seen one front in the FUD campaign by proprietary software companies directed against Linux and open source […]