" The future of software patents in Europe is uncertain. The Software Patent Directive was rejected by the European Parliament on the 6th of July 2005, after seven years of campaigning by people in FSFE and other organisations - most notably, one of our associate organisations, FFII. This was a monumental victory and displays the legislative competence of the Free Software community. However, the struggle is not over. Information about the current status of software patents in the EU can be found in this November 2007 blog entry: Do software patents exist in the EU?

The software patent issue is likely to return via initiatives such as the Community Patent or the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA)..."

Groklaw: OLPC has answered the LANCOR claims. And if you want to know what really happened between Intel and OLPC, I suggest you read this interview with Nicholas Negroponte in Fortune. Here's the meat of it:

As a journalist, if a very different kind from Trudeau, I appreciate the sentiment. Looking back at 2007, who could have predicted that, after all the posturing by open source advocates, that the new version of the GNU General Public License would have caused so little division? Or that Linspire and Xandros would have followed Novell and made their own deals with Microsoft? Or that virtualization, which was such a hot topic in 2006, would have settled down to just another technology?

"When Richard Stallman announced the GNU Project back in 1983, he launched a movement that would, in time, transform the software industry. The Free Software Foundation, also created by Stallman and now sponsor of the GNU Project, has become a driving force behind the adoption of the widely used GNU GPL software license.

We discussed some of the more recent developments with Richard Stallman, whose passion for freedom in computing remains intense. The following Q & A explores the goals of free software, progress that has been made, and ways to maintain or instill freedom in software that we use..."

For months, I've been trying to get Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) to answer a few questions about the Unix technologies in its intellectual property portfolio. Microsoft agreed to an interview, then backed out. So the question remains: How much Unix code does Microsoft have its hands on?

International Business Machines Corp is asking the U.S. government to ban imports of some notebook computers made by Taiwan's Asustek Computer Inc, alleging that the products infringe three IBM patents.

"For the past twenty-two years the Free Software Foundation has had the mission to promote, preserve, and protect the freedoms to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute modified computer software, and to defend the rights of all free software users..."

I have never had a bounty on my head before (see also blog post here). And I can't imagine why Ray Niro would pay $5,000 to find out who I am. I emailed him to find out (from the corner internet cafe, heh). He didn't respond. Ray: if you up it to $50,000, can I collect the reward?