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PalmSource this week announced that it will push its new software library, which is part of the Access Linux Platform, into the open source developer community. The firm said its libsqlfs software library, a SQLite add-on, would ease implementation of the ALP. The library is immediately available fo...

Virtualization continued to capture attention last week as open source system utilization software from OpenVZ won operating system-level support from Debian Linux. OpenVZ Project Manager Kir Kolyshkin told LinuxInsider the announcement was key for the open source project's larger objective of incor...

The Free Software Foundation and Software Freedom Law Center released a second working draft for the next iteration of the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 3, which updates digital rights management, patent and other provisions included in the most popular free and open source software lice...

Saying it may have some scratch for the open source software itch, search giant Google chose the O'Reilly Open Source Developers Conference (OSCON) in Portland, Ore., this week to unveil a free service hosting open source software projects. The service, Project Hosting, will give open source softwar...

Antivirus and security giant McAfee stirred up some controversy with the first issue of its security journal Sage, highlighting how hackers and creators of malicious software, or malware, are using open source software development techniques to target computer systems and users. McAfee, which...

Software development toolmaker Trolltech, which provides its Qt and Qtopia development software for embedded, mobile and Linux systems developers, completed its initial public offering and earned a listing on Norway's Oslo Stock Exchange this week. "We wanted to have bigger financial muscle," Trollt...

Open source development has always been an international phenomenon. After all, the killer app of the movement -- Linux -- was born in Finland, and the quintessential dual licensing business was started in Sweden with mySQL. Companies like Red Flag have stepped up in Asia to take Linux into double...

Richard Stallman is a free software pioneer. As president of the Free Software Foundation and founder of the GNU Project, he is also an evangelist of a free society in which people have inaliable rights to run, study, copy and distribute software. As such, Stallman is often grieved when he reads new...

The Free Software Foundation released what many expected to be a controversial first draft of the GNU General Public License version 3.0 on Monday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Now it looks as though the draft may not actually be as controversial as some had speculated.

Linux has come a long way from its hobbyist roots. The open-source operating system has certainly gotten the attention of enterprises, governments -- and mighty Microsoft. This year saw the typical backbiting between proprietary and open software camps as Linux continued pushing its agenda. It also ...

The Free Software Foundation is releasing the long-awaited first draft of GNU General Public License Version 3 today at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. Legal experts are already wrangling over the possible revisions to the most popular open-source license in the world.

The much-anticipated first draft of GNU General Public License Version 3 will be released on Jan. 16 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. However, the draft may raise more questions than answers. In fact, the debate over the content and exact wording of the license has al...

Nessus, maker of one of the most popular open-source vulnerability scanner programs available, changed its licensing agreement with the release of version 3.0.0 on December 12, causing a bit of a stir among security industry players that rely on the code as a component of their commercial solutions....

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) this week released a document specifying the process and guidelines for revising the GNU General Public License (GPL). The FSF will release the first discussion draft of the GNU General Public License (GPL) revision in January 2006. The GNU GPL is the most widely u...

Several recent software and service offerings indicate there is a market for users of open-source software worried about the intellectual property and related legal repercussions of that use, but how big of an issue, and how big of of a market, is it? Legal observers and those who provide the servic...

It won't help in the aftermath of hurricanes, but it could help in technology storms. Insurance underwriter Kiln plc, a Lloyd's of London underwriter and Miller Insurance Services Limited, a Lloyd's broker, said yesterday that they will offer a new product called Open Source Compliance Insurance. Op...

Oracle announced Friday what seems to be a squeeze play on MySQL -- the purchase of Innobase, a Finnish developer of open-source database technology. Terms of the agreement were not released. Innobase's most prominent product is InnoDB, a transaction engine that ships as an add-on to MySQL, the most...

In a move to speed up the outcome of an ongoing legal dispute, IBM on Friday agreed to drop its patent infringement claims against the SCO Group. Big Blue initially filed the claims in August 2003. The countersuit was a response to SCO's lawsuit that alleged IBM has infringed its Linux patents. IBM ...

Our system of law in the United States is what is called a "common law" system. When judges make decisions in such a system, they rely on what is called case law -- the written opinions on matters of law that are previously published by other judges. The other legal principal that lucky non-lawyer...

While the General Public License (GPL), the open-source license covering the Linux operating system, is not scheduled to be released for public comments until early next year, there is already speculation about how some of its provisions could impact developers. Specifically, the General Public Lice...