A new, free alternative to Spamhaus has arrived: the Barracuda Reputation Block List (BRBL), provided by well-known, open source-based Barracuda Networks. And Barracuda CEO Dean Drako says the company has no plans to charge for the service in the future.

Barracuda Networks CEO Dean Drako says his company won't license a virus scanning patent from Trend Micro, and he's going to users to help build Barracuda's case file of prior art—previous software products and documentation that could help invalidate the patent in court.

Trend Micro might insist that its patent case against Barracuda Networks isn't about free software -- but try telling that to the free and open source software (FOSS) community. Since Barracuda Networks went public about the case last month, it has heard from "a tremendous number of individuals" according to Dean Drako, Barracuda's president and CEO. Even more significantly, announcement of the case has led to a boycott against Trend Micro.

There's some news on the Trend Micro v.Barracuda Networks case. That is the one where Trend Micro sued Barracuda over ClamAV and brought a complaint to the International Trade Commission. Barracuda has just filed a countersuit in California, alleging patent infringement by Trend Micro.

Security software appliance vendor Barracuda Networks is joining the Open Invention Network (OIN) today as a licensee. In exchange for agreeing not to assert any of their own patents against the Linux software ecosystem, Barracuda will gain royalty-free access to the significant collection of patents held by OIN—which includes the Commerce One web services patents.

It's unusual for companies engaged in patent litigation to comment on how the fight is going. But Barracuda Networks CEO Dean Drako has openly sought FOSS community support for his company's defense again a Trend Micro lawsuit that, while filed against his company, is really about ClamAV.

The already vicious lawsuit involving Barracuda Networks and Trend Micro that is currently in discovery in front of the American International Trade Commission (ITC) just turned nastier. Barracuda has filed its own patent infringement claim against Trend Micro, based upon three recently acquired patents.

"Join us and the ScriptumLibre.org Foundation in boycotting all products and services sold by Trend Micro. The proprietary software company Trend Micro has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Barracuda Systems. They claim that Barracuda is violating their patent by distributing the free software antivirus program ClamAV..."

It seems like everyone is talking about Barracuda, Trend Micro, ClamAV, and what it has to do with open-source. The whole issue is made complicated mostly because of a lot of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) that the two companies have been throwing at each other. In fact, it is getting hard to tell who is right and who is wrong through all the FUD.