"I attended an interesting talk by James Vasile of the Software Freedom Law Center earlier this week. The discussion focused on how the Free Software movement can now be regarded as a success and how others are now attempting to replicate this in other areas such as media (Creative Commons).

There are a lot of people that confuse Free Software (and Open Source) with Shareware.

Though all three types Free/Open/Share may well be available for free (as in zero cost), there are some fundamental licensing issues that make them each separate and distinct.

You sometimes hear people trying to dismiss the GNU General Public License, the most popular of the Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) licenses, as being unenforceable. While there is a long list of companies that have been alleged to infringe the license, none of these companies seem to agree this license is unenforceable and opt to settle out of court rather than challenge the license.

"Last week, the Free Software Foundation announced an important new initiative called End Software Patents whose goals are pretty evident from the project's name. So far, the initiative is backed by the FSF, the Public Patent Foundation, and the Software Freedom Law Center [...] ESP can reach out farther than the FSF alone and build a coalition that can destroy software patents for the good of much more than the free software community..."

"End Software Patents, a project working toward the elimination of software patents, was launched today. The ESP project will initially focus on two approaches: 1) assisting corporations that choose to challenge software patents in the courts and at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on the basis that patents for software and designs with no physically innovative step have no legal validity, and 2) public education aimed at passing laws to protect software from patent law. [...] In a separate announcement today, ESP released its first report on the current state of software and business method patents. The report covers the economic impact of software patents, including the $11.4 billion that U.S. businesses waste each year on software patent litigation.

"... «By publishing this guide, we hope to share our knowledge, just as free software developers do when they share their creations with the world» said James Vasile, Counsel at SFLC. «I take great pride in this work put together by my colleagues, and I expect that it will be especially useful to developers of free software.» ..."

"McAfee warned that license terms governing [Free Software] 'may result in unanticipated obligations regarding our products.' ..."