IconThanks to SGI, a potential disaster for Free software purists has been averted. Back in January 2008, it was discovered by the OpenBSD guys that some of the contributions to X.org and the Mesa 3D Graphics Library made by SGI were covered under permissive open source licenses that didn't fall within FSF's definition of Free software.
Read more »FSF, SGI Cooperated to Resolve Licensing Issue in X.org, Mesa
http://osnews.com –
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GPLv3 to reinforce FSF open-source license position?
http://www.theregister.co.uk –
Adoption of GPLv3 has surpassed many older licenses in a short time, according to license watcher Black Duck Software.
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Copyright on the tracks
http://www.itpro.co.uk –
Seen in this light, free software and Creative Commons licenses can be viewed as a mechanism for seeding and preserving the common pool of knowledge, and ensuring the free exchange of ideas in a society that has become unduly acquisitive of ideas.
Read more »Firefox Removes its License Agreement From Ubuntu
http://www.linuxhaxor.net –
Mozilla received a lot of criticism from OS community for bundling EULA with Firefox builds. Even though they decided to remove EULA, earlier Ubuntu Ibex alpha builds still had the old EULA on.
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GPL Compliance Engineering Guide Released
http://www.loohuis-consulting.nl –
This guide presents a practical guide to ensuring GPL-compliant code, especially in embedded devices.
"Today Loohuis Consulting (LoCo) has released the first version of its comprehensive GPL Compliance Engineering Guide. LoCo is one of few companies in the world that offers commercial GPL license compliance engineering services.
Read more »Thank you SGI, for freeing the GNU/Linux 3D desktop!
http://www.fsf.org –
In January of 2008, software code at the heart of GNU/Linux 3D applications was discovered to be non-free—a potential disaster for free software advocates hoping to see advanced graphical acceleration now common on modern operating systems.
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Mozilla Comes Through!
http://www.groklaw.net –
Here's a screenshot of the latest language from Mozilla, and as you'll see, they absolutely have listened to the community's EULA concerns (if you click on the image, it gets larger).
Read more »SGI relicenses OpenGL: "A huge gift to the free software community"
http://www.linux.com –
After nine months, an open secret can finally be acknowledged: The OpenGL code that is responsible for 3-D acceleration on GNU/Linux, which was released by SGI in 1999, has been running on licenses that were accepted by neither the Free Software Foundation (FSF) nor the Open Source Initiative.
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Heretic and Hexen liberated!
http://www.fsf.org –
After several years of trying, members of the Doom community have succeeded in getting the source code to Heretic and its sequel, Hexen to be re-released as free software under the GNU General Public License.
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Strip mining of open source
http://www.itpro.co.uk –
Strip mining of open source can be interpreted as the appropriation of free software code for proprietary gain with no intention of feeding code changes back to the community. Open source software developers beware...
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Google's weird ways with open-source licenses
http://news.cnet.com –
CNET's Stephen Shankland has already picked up on Google's decision to allow two popular open-source licenses back onto its Google Code open-source repository. Up until now, the Mozilla Public License (MPL) and Eclipse Public License (EPL) were both banned from the site.
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A Big Day in Court for the FOSS Community
http://www.consortiuminfo.org –
Today those who believe in free content and free and open source software won a major victory in court, as reported by Larry Lessig, Mark Radcliffe, and Pamela Jones, among others.
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The Permission Problem
http://www.newyorker.com –
In the second decade of the twentieth century, it was almost impossible to build an airplane in the United States.
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autonom.us aims to be think-tank on network service software licensing issues
http://www.linux.com –
Network services are one of the fastest growing areas in modern software. However, while network services have much of the convenience of free software, only a minority are available under a free license. In fact, it was only last November that the Free Software Foundation (FSF) released the GNU Affero General Public License for network services.
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Meet the people behind the Open Source Initiative (video)
http://www.linux.com –
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the group that decides whether a software license merits a seal of approval as actual, genuine open source software. It has never been a secret group -- its license-discuss email list has always been open to all comers, for example -- but not many open source users or developers know who belongs to the board or what they do.
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