It is therefore appropriate that The Hague has been chosen to witness yet another pronouncement in defense of human rights. That pronouncement has been titled The Hague Declaration by the new international group, called the Digital Standards Organization ("Digistan," for short), that crafted it.
Read more »Introducing The Hague Declaration
http://www.consortiuminfo.org –
The GNU GPL is contagious. So what?
http://blog.milkingthegnu.org –
In an otherwise great post about the GPL and its goals, Bradley Kuhn writes something that strikes me as a typical example of open-source political correctness that ultimately tarnishes the credibility of the community: "I'm disturbed by the notion that some believe the goal of the GNU GPL is to expand copyrightability and the inclusiveness of derivative works."
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An alternative to Dual Licensing
http://blog.milkingthegnu.org –
In a previous post, we have made our point that dual licensing was unfair and community debilitating. In a search for a better solution, I met this weekend with Ludovic Dubost CEO, Founder and original contributor of XWiki. XWiki.com is making its income out of enterprise support, software guarantees and integration projects. This last part being a substantial source of revenues for XWiki.com
Read more »Britain complains to EU about Microsoft file system
http://www.salon.com –
A British watchdog agency said Tuesday it had complained to European Union regulators that Microsoft Corp.'s new file format for storing documents discouraged competition.
Read more »The Difference Between US Stance and EU Stance on Intellectual Monopolies
http://boycottnovell.com –
It was only a few weeks ago that we last showed total indifference inside the United States government amid an evident patent problem. It’s becoming rather hopeless. The latest update seems to suggest that a proposed semi-solution hasn’t just been put on the ice, but almost discarded.
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Memo to Sun: Make ‘Open’Solaris an OpenSolaris and Even FreeSolaris
http://boycottnovell.com –
There’s a lot to a name and if Sun Microsystems believes it can fool people with the name “OpenSolaris”, then it ought to remember the effect of keeping Java closed. Until Sun departs from the CDDL (or duality) it’s better to stick with GNU/Linux and not even poke OpenSolaris with a bargepole.
Read more »Skype agrees to obey GPL
http://www.zdnetasia.com –
Skype has abandoned its efforts to avoid complying with an open-source license that requires it to provide source code with Linux-based VoIP phones.
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BECTA: OOXML Lock-in and Anti-Linux Abuses All Microsoft’s Fault
http://boycottnovell.com –
Several months ago BECTA complained about OOXML, Windows Vista, and Microsoft Office 2007. It was not an issue of cost. This came after BECTA’s long and rather disturbing love affair with Microsoft. An accomplice claiming innocence?
Read more »Intellectual Monopolies: From Microsoft Back Stabbing to Software Patents from the Back Door
http://boycottnovell.com –
Earlier on we mentioned the Europe-based Blender and recently we also mentioned Microsoft’s role in pushing for software patents in Europe, using ‘proxies’ as large as the United States government. You may be interested in the following perspective on the latest Blender story.
Read more »What Can We Learn from the MySQL Saga?
http://www.computerworlduk.com –
It seems appropriate that Sweden, the original home of MySQL, should be part of the ancient Norse territories, for the MySQL open/closed code story is threatening to turn into a saga as long and as complex as Njal's.
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Do we need to protect open source from the cloud?
http://www.cnet.com –
I'm out at JavaOne in San Francisco this week and one discussion I've heard popping up with some regularity is, "Do we need to do something to protect open source in a cloud computing world?" I've written about aspects of this topic at length previously.
Read more »The ghost of software patents is back!
http://osindia.blogspot.com –
Life is never easy for an open source evangelist. The OOXML drama came to a close on 2nd April 2008 and we were on to our next issue -- software patents. The Draft Patent Manual might end up bringing software patents through the back door. this would be surprising because the Indian parliament explicitly rejected software patents in the Patent Amendment Act 2005.
Read more »Free software great and small
http://news.zdnet.com –
The OOXML document format war is over, and the good guys lost. The world will be a worse place because of it, for a long time to come. After being a lobbyist for many months, it was a great relief to get back to being a Samba coder. At least that's something I feel I have some competence in. The jury is still out on my lobbying career.
Read more »Microsoft + Government + Patent Troll Push Against Free Software
http://boycottnovell.com –
In this continued pursuit for identification of attacks on GNU/Linux we spot some other (old & new) intrusion vectors. We previously mentioned the push in the UK to crack down on — or at least expose (in the transparency sense alone, i.e. no action) — heavy corporate lobbying activities, which are akin to bribery that’s legalised, no matter how questionable this analogy may seem.
Read more »Shareaza Stands Up To Scammers: “We’re fighting back!”
http://torrentfreak.com –
"After falling victim to a domain and brand hijacking, Shareaza is fighting back at the scammers, assisted by the Software Freedom Law Centre, the EFF and Richard Stallman. "
Besides they just announced Shareaza 3.0 based on QT 4.4!!
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