Faced with a potentially large threat to free/libre and open source software from patent consortium CPTN, the two organisations have collaborated publicly for the first time. Before Christmas Open Source Initiative (OSI) wrote to the German Federal Cartel Office asking them to investigate the acquisition of Novell assets by the CPTN Group as a possibly anti-competitive move by CPTN's four members.

Survey finds only 2 of 87 departments are conforming to federal open document regulations. Research published this week suggests that the majority of federal government departments in Germany are ignoring requirements to implement Open Standards.

A quick analysis of the concerns expressed about KDE SC-associated projects and what should be done about it

a German court has effectively allowed a wide range of software patents. Previously, you could have very limited software patents only if they involved using "controllable forces of nature" to create a desired effect. Software usually did not qualify.

The Debian Project is pleased to announce that the first Debian Mini Conference in Germany will take place on the 10th and 11th of June in Berlin as a subconference of this year's LinuxTag.

More radio stations and also an entire developed nation turn their back on software patents

"I will be giving a talk about the fully free GNU/Linux distribution movement in the Free Software Foundation Europe’s Berlin meeting on Thursday, February 11th, next week. The talk will start at 19:30 in the Newthinking Store, Tucholskystraße 48. Hopefully, we will have a chance to continue discussing the topic over a few beers right after the meeting, too..."

According to a letter seen by heise online, the German Federal Office of Justice last week launched summary proceedings against The SCO Group GmbH for "breaching regulations pertaining to the publication of its accounts." The proceedings were suspended after the imposed fine was paid. No information on the size of the fine is available.