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German LinuxTag exhibition questions impact of mergers on future of Linux
,----[ Quote ]
| Targeted at professional users, decision
| makers, developers, beginners and the Linux
| community in general, the event's panel
| discussion is said to feature a topical
| discussion on whether recent mergers threaten
| innovative small and medium sized Linux
| businesses.
`----
http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/open-source-insider/2010/06/german-linuxtag-exhibition-questions-impact-of-mergers-on-future-of-linux.html
"Is Linux Secure?" at Southeast LinuxFest
,----[ Quote ]
| I'm at Southeast LinuxFest right now,
| listening to Daniel Chen's Linux audio talk. A
| bit over an hour ago, I finished my
| presentation on the Linux security myth. It's
| meant to be accessible to normal users or to
| geeks needing to explain to normal users. I
| was asked afterward why I didn't talk about
| buffer overflows. That's easy: normal users
| can't do anything about them.
`----
http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com/2010/06/is-linux-secure-at-southeast-linuxfest.html
Res publica non dominetur
,----[ Quote ]
| The others may or may not speak directly to
| the FOSS paradigm and philosophy, with the
| remote exception of Muhammad Aliâs chiling yet
| inspiring two sentences: âSpeak your mind.
| Donât back down.â Iâm trying to find where the
| guitar player, the soccer player, the
| astronomer and the pilot fit in, but
| nevertheless, it seems that seven years ago,
| IBM did the Free/Open Source Software
| community a huge favor by producing this ad.
`----
http://larrythefreesoftwareguy.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/res-publica-non-dominetur/
Recent:
European Union processes relevant to Linux and open source
,----[ Quote ]
| Overview of recent, ongoing and impending
| decision-making processes at the EU level
| (legislative and regulatory processes) that
| are relevant to the commercial adoption,
| distribution and development of Linux and
| open source: the European Commission's
| Digital Agenda and the European
| Interoperability Framework; the proposed
| European patent reform and its impact on
| software patents; the aftermath of recent
| competition cases (Microsoft cases;
| Oracle/Sun merger control; potential new
| cases and recently lodged complaints (such
| as the complaints against IBM's conduct in
| the mainframe market); other relevant
| developments in Brussels.
`----
http://www.linuxtag.org/2010/en/program/free-conference/popup/details.html?talkid=347
Legal fight over breast cancer gene
,----[ Quote ]
| Landmark legal action challenging a patent
| over breast cancer gene BRCA1 is being
| launched in Australia today.
`----
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/08/2920908.htm
The Ethical And Legal Problems Of Having Patients Sign Over The Copyright On Doctor Reviews
,----[ Quote ]
| About a year ago, we wrote about the really
| troubling concept pushed by a group called
| Medical Justice, which tries to "protect"
| doctors from negative reviews online by
| having them demand that patients hand over
| the copyright on any future reviews they
| might write. As we noted at the time, this
| was an attempt to completely abuse
| copyright law, way beyond its intended
| purpose -- though we wondered if it would
| actually work.
|
| [...]
|
| Separately, Jason Schultz points out that
| this whole scheme appears to violate basic
| medical ethics rules. He points to a
| particular rule:
|
| Under no circumstances may physicians
| place their own financial interests
| above the welfare of their patients.
| The primary objective of the medical
| profession is to render service to
| humanity; reward or financial gain is a
| subordinate consideration. For a
| physician to unnecessarily hospitalize
| a patient, prescribe a drug, or conduct
| diagnostic tests for the physician's
| financial benefit is unethical. If a
| conflict develops between the
| physician's financial interest and the
| physician's responsibilities to the
| patient, the conflict must be resolved
| to the patient's benefit.
|
| How does that apply here? As Schultz
| explains:
|
| Since the main concern of Medical
| Justice appears to be preventing harm
| to the physician's reputation (and thus
| financial interest), forcing patients
| to assign away their copyrights in
| exchange for medical care strikes me as
| close if not over this line. It
| certainly is not putting patients
| first. When a patient goes to see a
| doctor, they are often anxious, in
| pain, or worried and thus in a very
| psychologically vulnerable position, or
| what the law often calls a position of
| "duress" where they will often sign
| documents without giving them proper
| consideration. This hardly seems to me
| to be a fair time to demand they assign
| some unknown number of future
| copyrights to their doctor; instead it
| feels like a huge power grab by the
| physician.
|
| When you create draconian copyright laws
| that include free speech removing notice-
| and-takedown provisions, don't be surprised
| when people abuse it for other purposes,
| well beyond the intent of copyright law.
`----
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100609/0154149750.shtml
Bilski Decision Watch
,----[ Quote ]
| They are probably right to be. A delay
| this long in the decision most likely
| means that the Court is waiting until the
| end of the term to release it - which they
| traditionally do for what the Justices
| consider to be their most important and/or
| far reaching decisions of the year.
|
| It may also be the case that there are
| either important dissents or concurring
| opinions on the case, thus prompting a
| delay with back and forth rewrites and
| revisions to the final decisions. (Though
| one should recall that at oral arguments,
| the Justices seemed universally critical
| to the idea of broad-based business method
| patents.)
`----
http://www.againstmonopoly.org/index.php?perm=593056000000003049
And I thought patents encouraged innovation
http://www.againstmonopoly.org/index.php?perm=593056000000003046
Mailing Out Patent Absurdity
,----[ Quote ]
| On the eve of re: Bilski, the anxiously
| awaited Supreme Court decision on business
| method patents (with potential
| implications for software patents), I
| decided to collaborate with the End
| Software Patents coalition and send out
| 200 copies of the short movie they
| recently produced called Patent Absurdity
| about why software should not be able to
| be patented to a focused list of key
| people. The letter follows.
`----
http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2010/06/mailing-out-patent-absurdity.html
Mailing Out Patent Absurdity
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/post.aspx?bid=358&bpid=25296
Patent Absurdity mailed to 200 policy setters
,----[ Quote ]
| Venture capitalist Brad Feld has mailed a
| copy of Patent Absurdity to 200 policy
| setters in the USA (see Who should see
| Patent Absurdity?). The 200 are
| influential people in companies, standards
| groups, academia, and the relevent
| political committees.
`----
http://news.swpat.org/2010/06/patent-absurdity-mailed-to-200-policy-setters/
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