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Microsoft Foes Aim to Snatch Patent Advantage in Linux Tussle September 09, 2009 
Open Invention Network announced Tuesday that it acquired 22 Linux-related patents that Microsoft recently sold to the Allied Security Trust. OIN consists of a group of companies -- including Microsoft rivals IBM, Sony, Red Hat and Google -- that have been girding themselves for a legal fight over Linux.
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Court Decision Sets Up SCO for Another Round August 25, 2009 
A federal appeals court on Monday reversed a judge's decision that granted the copyright of the Unix computer operating system to Novell. A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a judge erred in August 2007 by granting the copyright to Novell. The panel ordered a trial to determine ownership.
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Licenses, Libraries, Laws and Loopholes August 20, 2009 
It's been a relatively quiet few days on the Linux blogs, but that didn't stop geeks from taking time out last Sunday to wish Debian a happy birthday. Yes, it was exactly 16 years ago on the 16th that Ian Murdock announced the imminent arrival of what he called the "Debian Linux Release." Happy Birthday, Debian.
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Piracy, Open Source and the Shrinking Space Between August 06, 2009 
There's a rumor that honor exists among thieves, but outside of Robin Hood, no one considers them a bunch of do-gooders. Yet there may be a bright side to their shadowy work, at least in terms of enterprise software. It could very well be that they will drive the prices down.
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On Patents, Promises and 'Ugly' Patches July 16, 2009 
It was once written that promises are most given when the least is said. Lately, however, a great deal has been said about Redmond's latest round of promises. For those who haven't been following the story, it all began when Microsoft's Peter Galli announced last week that his company had applied its "Community Promise" to the C# and CLI programming languages.
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Microsoft Puts C#, CLI Under No-Lawsuit Umbrella July 08, 2009 
Microsoft made good Tuesday on a promise it made months ago to the open source community that it would not sue software developers who use its EMCA C# programming language and Common Language Infrastructure, or CLI. This announcement aims to calm growing fears that Microsoft might restrict open source projects by going after program developers for patent or other intellectual property infringements.
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FOSS and the Labyrinthine Land of Licensing May 29, 2009
Last December, a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a decision that could push FOSS questions into a more litigious arena. In the matter of Jacobsen v. Katzer, the court ruled that breach of an open-source license can support a claim for copyright infringement with associated remedies.
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Open Core Debate: The Battle for a Business Model April 15, 2009 
Is software truly open source if you pay for additional features? Your answer may depend on whether you side with the purists or the, ah, not-so-pure. A recent trend entering the debate involves the marketing of so-called open core software. This morphed business model is not what many open source supporters consider "pure" open source.
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The Mystery Deepens: Sinister Views on the TomTom Case March 09, 2009 
When we wrote about the Microsoft-TomTom lawsuit a week ago, we thought we had pretty much covered the spectrum of perspectives flying around the blogosphere. But then Jeremy Allison, a leader of the Samba project, posted a comment on Glyn Moody's original Open... post that seems to have changed everything.
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Microsoft vs. TomTom: Low-Level Hum or Drums of War? March 02, 2009 
Those in the Linux community tend to pay fairly close attention to any news relating to Microsoft, but when that news includes a lawsuit involving our favorite operating system, all eyes, ears and keyboards become trained on Redmond. Yes indeed, traveling across the blogosphere in the past few days since Microsoft announced its suit against TomTom, it was almost difficult to find discussion of anything else.
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Hawking Open Source in Tough Times February 24, 2009 
The ongoing economic meltdown has presented a unique strategic opportunity to vendors of open source software. Slashed budgets and riffed staffs are forcing enterprise users of proprietary software business solutions to rethink the suitability of open source replacement products. Many firms are discovering that the misconception that "free" means "cheap" is causing them to overspend on proprietary software.
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Open Source Integration Challenges and Solutions December 24, 2008 
Linux has proven that the open source model works -- it addresses two of the biggest challenges for IT professionals: the high cost of infrastructure software and the limitations a closed stack imposes on the enterprise. Open source is particularly appealing for cost savings, vendor neutrality, access to source code and innovation.
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A Teacher's Misguided Linux Rant and the Equally Misguided Response December 15, 2008 
A variety of interesting topics are usually discussed on the Linux blogs in an average week, which is why it's often so hard for us here at LinuxInsider to choose a select few to focus on in this column. Luckily for us this time around, last week was no average week.
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Free Software Foundation Hauls Cisco to Court for Open Source License Violations December 12, 2008 
The Free Software Foundation filed a lawsuit against Cisco Systems on Thursday, alleging the networking giant is in violation of numerous open source licenses. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court of Manhattan by the Boston-based nonprofit open source software group.
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The Rocky Legal Landscape of Virtual Worlds, Part 2: Patents November 19, 2008 
A patent represents a grant from the United States government to an individual for the exclusive right to make, use, import, sell, and offer to sell an invention. In order to obtain a patent, an inventor must prove that the invention is new, useful, and not merely an obvious improvement over what was already known.
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The Linux Licensing Labyrinth November 18, 2008 
It's a small wonder that the Linux operating system remains vibrant in multiple industries and is poised to make a dash for more consumers' desktops, considering how often misunderstandings get in the way of its advancement. For instance, Linux was not immediately recognized as a real OS in the way that consumers and business owners viewed the Apple computer or IBM PC in the early days of computing.
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