You’ve downloaded and installed Linux, but now you realize that you can’t play movies on it! In some countries playing DVD files through DEcss is illegal, so in many cases Linux distributions choose not to let you watch DVD’s right out of the box.

The BBC is being threatened with an anti-trust challenge in Europe over its use of the Windows Media format in its on demand service, iPlayer, which is in the final stages of testing.

In the past, I have always found it comical when companies have found themselves buying into the need to protect their content with DRM because of the pressure from the music and movie industries. Well, it seems that Netflix is no different, but I have to ask: is the DRM protection really needed in their case for online movie viewing?

The Linux community is splitting — right down the middle, at this point — over Microsoft Corp.’s controversial claimsthat the open-source operating system infringes on patents it holds.
Last Tuesday, Paris-based Mandriva became the third Linux vendor within five days to say it isn’t interested in signing a licensing deal with Microsoft to avoid possible infringement claims.

This begins as a reasonable recap of the new provisions in GPLv3, then as they run out of material (or think so), it degrades into a parade of filler. Hence, "It concerns me a little bit that we're kind of getting politics into the legal documentation". The FSF getting political? That's unpossible!

Tomorrow at noon GPLv3 will be released. I was on one of the committees, so it's a relief it's finally done. I just wanted to say out loud how hard it was to try to get everyone's wants included. But the effort was real. And not everybody on the committees were fanbois either, from what I saw on the committee I was on. Lots of give and take.

The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), said that it was putting up a 2,500 Euro prize in its fight against Microsoft's attempt to gain international standardisation for its Office format.

The iPhone hype hides a basic problem with the product – Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) inside the iPhone means that it wont be under your control. Apple has built this “smart” phone to dumb you down.