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Patent violation, prosecution, acquisition: pick your top open-source project
,----[ Quote ]
| Co-incidentally, or not, Microsoft - who has a schizophrenic relationship
| with open source when it comes to the subject of intellectual property in
| free and open source software - is sponsoring the poll.
|
| [...]
|
| One wonders what diamond-level sponsor Microsoft might feel about this, given
| its own sense of software manifest destiny and, ahem, "concerns" over IP in
| open source software.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/11/sourceforge_poll/
More junk patents:
News: Konami sues Viacom over Rock Band
,----[ Quote ]
| This jockeying took another step forward this week when Konami, makers of the
| upcoming Rock Revolution® musical group rhythm game, filed suit against
| Harmonix, makers of the popular Rock Band® musical group rhythm game,
| accusing Harmonix of infringing three of Konami’s patents.
`----
http://www.patentarcade.com/2008/07/news-konami-sues-viacom-over-rock-band.html
The intellectual monopolies must be getting nervous during this recession.
Recent:
Microsoft & Sourceforge
,----[ Quote ]
| So here’s how to get involved: If you’re a project contributor, maintainer,
| or user – visit http://sourceforge.net/community/cca08/ - Select ‘Nominate’
| and get started recognizing your favorite OSS Projects. You can ‘Search’ for
| projects too – Sourceforge has developed a clever widget that returns results
| across forges. In the case below, I searched for ‘XNA’ and received multiple
| Codeplex results.
`----
http://port25.technet.com/archive/2008/06/05/microsoft-amp-sourceforge.aspx
Should We Fear the (Redmond) Geeks Bearing Gifts?
,----[ Quote ]
| As well as this unexpected backing, proponents of ODF should also find their
| hand strengthened once OpenOffice.org 3.0 appears. By all accounts it's a
| good step up from version 2.0, and that was markedly better than 1.0.
| All-in-all, then, things are looking up for open source office suites in
| enterprises: now might be a good time to go on the offensive.
`----
http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?RSS&entryid=815
Internode switches on SourceForge mirror
,----[ Quote ]
| Internode's 4.7 terabytes of SourceForge mirror is unmetered for Internode
| customers.
|
| With SourceForge Internode claims a total amount of mirrored content on its
| servers of more than 32 terabytes.
`----
http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php?id=288828333&rid=-50
Sourceforge.net Blocked In Mainland China
,----[ Quote ]
| "SourceForge, the world's largest development and download repository of Open
| Source code and applications, appears to be blocked in Mainland China. The
| current blocking may be related to the recent anti-China protests of Beijing
| Olympic Games, which will begin on 8 August. Some days before, a very popular
| free source code editor in SourceForge named Notepad++ start to boycott
| Beijing 2008. The project's developer said that the action is not against
| Chinese people, but against Chinese government's repression against Tibetan
| unrest earlier in this year. SF.net has once been banned by China in 2002.
| However, the ban was lifted later in 2003."
`----
http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/08/06/26/2047220.shtml
Killing With Kindness
,----[ Quote ]
| All of this [Microsoft] "openness" has two objectives: in the short term, it
| could convince the European Union regulators to back off their
| anti-competitive investigations of Microsoft. Long term, if played with
| enough sincerity, customers might actually believe what I am sure is the
| coming retcon from Microsoft: that they've always been an open source company
| at heart--in fact, they are the model for all other open source companies.
| Nutty? Just you wait.
|
| No matter how the message is delivered--whether you prefer BN, LT, or some
| other outlet, I believe we can agree that there is strong evidence of a slow
| collaborative effort from Redmond to co-opt "open source" as a concept. If
| that can actually be accomplished, one of Linux' biggest advantages could be
| rendered moot--if not in truth, then at least in marketing. And in business,
| sometimes marketing is all you need.
`----
http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2008-05-30-020-26-OP-MS-NV
Related:
Is Microsoft Hijacking Open Source?
,----[ Quote ]
| What really worries me is what looks like an emerging pattern in Microsoft's
| behaviour. The EU agreement is perhaps the first fruit of this, but I predict
| it will not be the last. What is happening is that Microsoft is effectively
| being allowed to define the meaning of “open source” as it wishes, not as
| everyone else understands the term. For example, in the pledge quoted above,
| an open source project is “not commercially distributed by its
| participants” - and this is a distinction also made by Kroes and her FAQ.
|
| In this context, the recent approval of two Microsoft licences as
| officially “open source” is only going to make things worse. Although I felt
| this was the right decision – to have ad hoc rules just because it's
| Microsoft would damage the open source process - I also believe it's going to
| prove a problem. After all, it means that Microsoft can rightfully point to
| its OSI-approved licences as proof that open source and Microsoft no longer
| stand in opposition to each other. This alone is likely to perplex people who
| thought they understood what open source meant.
|
| [...]
|
| What we are seeing here are a series of major assaults on different but
| related fields – open source, open file formats and open standards. All are
| directed to one goal: the hijacking of the very concept of openness. If we
| are to stop this inner corrosion, we must point out whenever we see wilful
| misuse and lazy misunderstandings of the term, and we must strive to make the
| real state of affairs quite clear. If we don't, then core concepts like “open
| source” will be massaged, kneaded and pummelled into uselessness.
`----
http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1003745
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