After the past week's kerfuffle w/ the BSD folks regarding the copyright notices in ath5k, the SFLC thought it was important to provide some educational outreach to the Linux kernel development community. Since I have been working with them over the past year or so on a couple of matters, they have asked me to pass-on this information.

"Earlier this week, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) released a document that explains and clarifies the meaning of the term “Program” in the GNU General Public License, version 3 (GPLv3). This document is an outcome of an ongoing collaboration between SFLC and the FSF..."

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) today announced that it has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Extreme Networks, Inc. on behalf of its clients, two principal developers of BusyBox, alleging violation of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

"PCF, which makes Miro, is a non-profit organization. That means no one can own us and we don’t take for-profit investment. That also means that we rely on donations to fund everything we do. We’re working towards Miro 1.0 and we are making big improvements to the Miro Guide, but we’re running very low on funds right now..."

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) today announced that agreements have been reached to dismiss the GPL enforcement lawsuit filed by SFLC against Verizon Communications Inc. on behalf of two principal developers of BusyBox. Verizon distributes BusyBox to its FiOS customers in devices that are provided to Verizon by Actiontec Electronics, Inc.

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) today announced that it has filed two more copyright infringement lawsuits, on behalf of two principal developers of BusyBox, alleging violation of the GNU General Public License (GPL). The defendants in this new round of lawsuits are Bell Microproducts, Inc. and Super Micro Computer, Inc.

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) and High-Gain Antennas today jointly announced that an agreement has been reached to dismiss the GPL enforcement lawsuit filed by SFLC on behalf of two principal developers of BusyBox.

Law.com recently ran a sensationalist piece by Edmund J. Walsh warning of the impending “dangerous real world business dispute” in store for any for-profit company that uses free software. Walsh points to lawsuits filed by SFLC on behalf BusyBox as a source of this danger, and having worked on those lawsuits, I hope I can provide a helpful counterpoint.

As part of my year-end planning I look at what charities to donate to, since charitable contributions are tax-deductible. Here's a list of charities with ties to free software, open source, and information technology.