Munich Set to Approve Linux Despite Patent Worries
92874
More than a year after the German city of Munich declared its landmark intention to abandon Microsoft Windows in favor of upstart rival Linux, its councillors are finally ready to go ahead with the plan.
576082
First hardware maker to align with community-based Linux offering.
676315
Company plans to help software companies certify products for SuSE Linux operating system.
130734
TechWeb - At the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit, developers discussed the evolution of the operating system--and tried to shrug off the patent threat.
382586
Hotly-debated plans to allow the patenting of computer-based inventions in the European Union hit a fresh snag on Monday, EU officials said, after concerns by the Polish government.
437117
PC Magazine - The clarification closely follows the release of a position paper signed by top Linux developers, in which they announce their objections to the proposed GPLv3.
769281
More than a year after the German city moved to abandon Microsoft Windows in favor of Linux, city councilors are finally ready to vote on the switch.
418768
More FUD  from our friends in Seattle:  "Asian governments using Linux will be sued for IP violations, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said today in Singapore. He did not specify that Microsoft would be the company doing the suing, but it's difficult to read the claim as anything other than a declaration of IP war."  "According to a Reuters report (which we fervently hope will produce one of Ballmer's fascinating 'I was misquoted' rebuttals*), Ballmer told Microsoft's Asian Government Leaders Forum that Linux violates more than 228 patents. Come on Steve, don't hold back - what you mean 'more than 228' - 229? 230? Don't pull your punches to soften the blow to the community. "Some day," he contin ...
668018
FRANKFURT, GERMANY -- The German subsidiaries of Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) and Novell Inc. are teaming to offer Linux-based products to the country's huge public sector.
28517
FRANKFURT, GermanyÂ -- Tough economic times in Germany have made Linux and other open source software products appear tantalizing to local businesses. Yet many remain hesitant to dump their Microsoft Corp. software completely, if for no other reasons than it performs relatively well, and nearly everyone in corporate Germany uses it. That was the general impression from speakers delivering presentations Tuesday at the LinuxWorld conference in Frankfurt.
268046
Linux fans take heart at promise of desktops running Linux shipping internationally.
748638
(InfoWorld) - Munich has begun its migration to Linux on the desktop, a year later than planned and nearly three years since the city announced itsÂ move to open source software. "There have been someÂ delays along the wayÂ but we're now moving steadily ahead," Florian Schiessl, manager of the Limux project for the city of Munich, said Thursday by telephone. Since Tuesday, the first 100 of the city's 14,000 PCs have been switched from Microsoft's Windows operating system and Office applications to Linux and OpenOffice. "Today, we're still working in both the Windows and Linux worlds," Schiessl said. "But over the next two years, the Linux world will get bigger, while the Windows world will get smaller." A full migration to Linux is "unrealistic," Schiessl said. Some hardware and software products in the public administration will continue to require Windows and some, particularly in the area of desktop publishing, will continue to require systems from Apple Computer, he said. By the end of this year, the city of Munich plans to have migrated 200 computers to the open source desktop environment. "Most of these computers are used for relatively simple office communications," he said. The configuration is based on Linux Distribution Debian GNU/Linux 3.1, the KDE 3.5 user interface and OpenOffice 2. The Limux team has established guidelines to help overcome format conversion issues between Microsoft and open source products, according to Schiessl. "With OpenOffice, we don't have a problem opening and reading Microsoft formats and, with most simple documents, we don't have any processing problems," he said. "But, in some cases, there can be format loss, and some documents need to be handled in a special way to avoid format conversion problems. Our guidelines address these issues." One of the bigger challenges moving ahead, Schiessl said, will be to migrate some of the public administration's larger departments with more complex processes. "Big departments with specialized processes will be a challenge, but we have a plan to tackle this and expect to achieve our goal of having around 80 percent of all desktop systems running on Linux by the end of 2008." Delays in the Limux project began with the dispute over software patent issues, followed by longer than expected negotiations with companies bidding for the contract to provide system configuration and support services. On top of that was a one-year extension of the pilot phase. "Because of the complexity of this migration project, we decided to have a very thorough pilot phase," Schiessl said. He declined to comment on the decision by the city of Bergen, Norway, to delay its Linux desktop plans by two years, largely for lack of detailed information about the decision. In September, the Norwegian city decided to focus on building an e-government portal first and later migrate its Windows-based systems to a Linux environment. Vienna is another big European city with ambitious plans to roll out Linux in its public administration.
377131
Almost everything that can be said has been said about the latest moves by Microsoft to create Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) about Linux. Countless pundits and analysts have pointed out that Microsoft threats are toothless. Some have noted that Microsoft has singled out Linux and OpenOffice, the biggest threats to its monopoly on operating systems and office suites. Surely Microsoft could claim that the *BSDs infringe on similar patents if not the same ones. But the *BSDs do not pose as great a threat to the company. Others have pointed out that Microsoft would be insane to pull an SCO and sue its own customers. Still others have noted that IBM and/or OIN could respond to a patent war with a massive retaliation in patent infringement claims. I have no doubt that Microsoft has lifted a lot of GPL code (more likely algorithms) for Windows, which would prevent Microsoft from following through with its threats. To do so would require that Microsoft open its own code to scrutiny. The list goes on, and others have covered the angles very well. There is one perspective I haven't yet seen, at least not the way I propose to deal with it. This perspective follows below.
423384
Linux continues to move forward even as the open-source OS faces challenges from Microsoft, which claimed recently that the OS violates several of its patents. On Monday, a draft of the Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) specifications was released, with the final version planned for the end of this year.
65764
Microsoft has warned Asian governments they could face patent lawsuits for using the Linux operating system instead of its Windows software.
168808
Linux maker hints it may convince Microsoft to honor its patents, as with other Linux vendors.
108011
(InfoWorld) - Xandros CEO Andreas Typaldos said Thursday his company did not agree that its Linux distribution violates any Microsoft patents nor did the software giant ask Xandros to do so as part of theÂ patent cross-licensing dealÂ the two signed Monday. But he says feedback from the Linux community has been on the order of âyou shouldnât really be talking to the devil.â Typaldos told Network World that at no time did Microsoft reveal to Xandros, which develops Linux desktops, servers, and management tools, any of the 235 patents thatÂ Microsoft says Linux violates. Microsoft has yet to detail publicly specific patents violated by Linux and some critics think the statement is a smoke screen in order to undermine the open source community. âWe did not discuss patents [with Microsoft] and we donât think Linux violates any patents and we were not asked about it,â Typaldos said. âIt is a non-issue for us.â Linux and open-source advocates believe it is a big issue and say the Xandros deal, and another signed by Novell with Microsoft last year, erodes open source licensing provisions especially around intellectual property issues. Indeed, the Free Software Foundation isÂ rewriting its GNU General Public LicenseÂ (GPL) 3.0 to prohibit such patent deals in the future. In terms of the forthcoming GPLv3 and its changes, Typaldos said, âWe do not enter into agreements if we don't believe we can handle them. We plan to honor whatever agreements we have in GPLv2, and will have under GPLv3 or with whomever we are licensing stuff from. When you create agreements you cannot anticipate the future, but you have to be comfortable you can deal with whatever happens one way or another.â He added that since GPLv3 is not yet completed (the final version is due June 29) that he canât really comment on the impact it will have on the Xandros/Microsoft deal. â[Our deal] is a forward looking thing, we are licensing certain technologies,â said Typaldos. He said the technologies will help Xandros integrate its Linux-based server and management software with like software from Microsoft. But he acknowledged that customers have concerns they could be hooked by patent claims and may want some insurance to protect themselves. âLinux says it does not infringe on patents, Microsoft say otherwise. But customers say let me buy some insurance because if there are any flying sparks I donât want to be caught in the middle of that.â Typaldos says that was the genesis of Mondayâs deal with Microsoft that covered interoperability and IP licensing and included âcovenantsâ to protect customers using Xandros software from any potential patent-infringement claims from Microsoft. Microsoft said last month it would seek royalties for patents that it says are being infringed upon by open-source technologies such as Linux. The company, however, said it would prefer to sign patent and cross-licensing deals with open-source distributors rather than seek payments via litigation. On Wednesday, Microsoft inked aÂ patent deal with LG Electronics. It also has signed patent contracts Novell, Samsung and Fuji Xerox among others. NovellâsÂ patent cross-licensing deal with MicrosoftÂ is nearly identical to the one Xandros signed Monday.Just like Typaldos, Novell said its agreement was in no way an acknowledgment that Linux infringes upon any Microsoft intellectual property. Novell made that statement in a Nov. 20 open letter to the open source community after being accused of caving into Microsoftâs patent threats. In the same letter, Novell highlighted that the agreement was focused on developing new technologies and standards in server management, virtualization and document file format compatibility. Typaldos says Xandrosâs motivation in dealing with Microsoft was to license technology beyond basic protocols in order to ensure interoperability between the pairâs server software and Xandrosâs BridgeWays management tools and Microsoftâs family of System Center management tools. Xandros also will develop connectors for better interoperability between Microsoftâs Open XML file formats and the Open Document Format. âIn the last six months, we have been delivering BridgeWays and the focus is to tell customers, who really do not want to be boxed into Windows or into one version of Linux, that they have freedom of choice. And to manage all of that stuff, they don't need to learn a different product every time,â said Typaldos. âAs we move up on the food chain in that area, then interoperability is more of a coupling of the lower levels of the products and the need to know how to open up the hood and fit all these things together.â Typaldos says the deal with Microsoft ensures that management tools from the two vendors are a perfect fit. He says that sort of value has to be delivered to customers for Linux to be successful in the market and to quicken the pace of adoption. âYou have to recognize you have a Windows world out there,â he said. âThe customer in the market place is dictating what we are doing, not my engineers, not my private views of Microsoft vs. Linux, it is customers that say I have Windows over here, Sun over there, this over here, and I donât want to worry about Windows or Linux. They want to run their business with single pane of glass management.â