Open source leech rails against open source companies
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When you are an open source leech you should probably avoid calling other people names.
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Open source doesn't necessarily automatically translate into better paid support for customers.  But it does offer a lot more options and aligns customers with vendors more tightly.
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Users force enlightenment OSCON Sometimes being the open source software leader means distancing yourself from open source claims.â¦
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Microsoft has an offer open-source startups are having a hard time refusing.  Should they?
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Open source is changing the game by making software free.  About time.
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Blog: Open source applications will drive a hefty load of infrastructure purchases in the future.  Proprietary vendors who hide their heads in the sand and try to avoid this trend or make it difficult for would-be open source partners to work with them will fin
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ALTHOUGH Microsoft&#39;s anti-spam sender-ID is disliked by Open Sources, it is providing popular with the very people it is targeted against.
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Not my bag, baby The news that the operations chief from a major US airline, Jim Whitehurst from Delta, is taking over at Red Hat from Matthew Szulik is a further sign of the growing legitimization of open source and Linux in the eyes of corporate, mainstream America. It underscores how the âsuits to sandalsâ ratio in the open source and Linux movement sliding further towards the suits.â¦
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Taiwanese chipmaker dangles open-source software lure to attract programmer interest.
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There's a lot of money to be made in open source, both as a shareholder and for the company.
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Google is in the online ad-service business. Why does it lavish attention on software developers and open-source projects? Kicking offline Web apps into gear
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Search engine optimization vendors and other companies can help corporations and individuals monitor and manage their online reputations. But are they crossing ethical boundaries by tinkering with Web search results?
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Taking a cue from open-source software, a Danish company is releasing its beer recipe for its drinkers to hack and modify. By Lawrence Lessig from Wired magazine.
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Plans to provide umbrella from patent-infringement suits to outsiders using or developing the OS--a move to counter Linux.
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Now for some real Apache code Column As I write this, I'm on the Eurostar train, just returning from O'Reilly's OSCon (Open Source Conference) in Brussels. Some fascinating insights there; and even my own talk generated some interesting discussion. Some of the delegates, including O'Reilly himself, are promoting opensource ideas going beyond software and into society more generally. I've touched on that in this very column before now, but a related argument that's new to me is that the open/closed debate in software could become largely sidelined, as the industry focuses on software as a service (such as Google's offerings) more than as a product.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - A recent federal court ruling pertaining to open-source software in model railroads could derail enforcement of open-source licenses altogether, according to Mark Radcliffe, general counsel for the Open Source Initiative. If allowed to stand, the decision could withhold an important and expected remedy from open-source licensors, that being the ability to get an injunction against license violations, Radcliffe said. But the case does not necessarily set a precedent for other judges to follow, countered Eben Moglen, founding director of the Software Freedom Law Center. In the case, the plaintiff, Robert Jacobsen, claimed that the defendant, Matthew Katzer, sought royalties from Jacobsen on software covered by invalid patents obtained on open-source software. The software in this case was from the JMRI (Java Model Railroad Interface) Project, with which Jacobsen is involved. The original complaint is viewable here. According to court filings by Jacobsen, Katzer filed a patent application tailored to the capabilities of JMRI three days after the release of new JMRI software in 2002. The plaintiff alleged breach of the obscure Artistic License for open-source software and copyright infringement due to the removal of original copyright notices and substituting the name of Katzen's company, Radcliffe said.Â  But in a ruling on the case in San Francisco on August 17, Judge Jeffrey S. White denied a motion by the plaintiff seeking a preliminary injunction from infringing copyrighted open-source material. To establish copyright infringement, the plaintiff needs to show ownership of the copyrights and copying by the defendants, the judge said. Defendants, meanwhile, said they voluntarily ceased all potentially infringing activities. "This is one of the first cases about enforcement of any open-source licenses," Radcliffe said. In his ruling, the judge said the Artistic License was a contract and the failure to include copyright notices was not a restriction on the scope of the license, according to Radcliffe. Jacobsen sought to have Katzer put copyright notices in his software reflecting that it was open source. "What the court said was that remedy is not available," said Radcliffe. The remedy for contract violations under US law is damages, not injunctive relief, in which the court would order a party to cease a violation, Radcliffe wrote in his blog. The case, Radcliffe said, is a blow to the fundamental basis of open-source software, he said. "Most people in open source believe if you violate the license, you're outside it, Radcliffe said. "What this case indicates is that expectation may be wrong," he said. Assessing damages for use of open-source software is difficult because the software is given away free, according to Victoria Hall, attorney for the plaintiff. "What are the damages for an open-source project? These aren't your typical contract damages," she said. The case raises questions about the rights of those who release software via open source. "What rights do they have, and how strong are those rights?" Hall asked. But she and Moglen pointed out that the case does not necessarily set a precedent for future cases. "It seems to me a not very important ruling," said Moglen, who has not been involved in the case. The Software Freedom Law Center provides free legal services to those who make and distribute free and open-source software. "I do believe that the use of a more carefully drafted and more industry-tested license will probably help courts and other parties to deal with software in a more informed and accurate way," Moglen said. To avoid the lack of clarity in the Artistic License, the JMRI Project will switch to the GNU General Public License. "I think the big advantage [of GPL] is the automatic license revocation that is present in GPL that is not present in Artistic License," said Hall. Jacobsen also plans to appeal the judge's ruling, said Hall. Katzer defined to comment on the case. His attorneys did not return phone calls from InfoWorld. The judge set a September 14 date for a case management conference to further deliberate on the matter.
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Open-source spam blocker gets legal makeover with switch to Apache license. Oh, and tech upgrades.