Busybox developers have agreed to dismiss another GPL enforcement lawsuit, this time against Verizon Communications. Verizon was distributing Actiontec equipment that had Busybox installed and were not providing the code to downstream users. "'Actiontec takes great pride in providing innovative, quality products
to its customers, while respecting the intellectual property rights of
third parties,' said Dean Chang, Actiontec's President and CEO. 'We
appreciate the value of the technological contributions of the open
source community, and look forward with renewed commitment to working
cooperatively with them.'" Click below for the full press release from the Software Freedom Law Center.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has announced that the
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted a request for a
reexamination of an online gaming patent.
"Sheldon F. Goldberg was awarded the illegitimate patent for
online gaming systems that use tournament-style play,
advertising, and real-time updates of ladder-rankings in
multi-player games. Goldberg has used this bogus patent to
coerce licensing fees from numerous small businesses.
In the reexamination request, EFF along with Paul Grewal
and Brad Waugh of Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder show
that the technology covered by the Goldberg patent had been
widely disseminated in the public domain for years before
Goldberg made his claim."
The Audacity
sound editor project will be involved in the 2008 Google Summer of Code.
"We are now seeking student participants. As we wrote in our application: At student selection stage, we look for evidence that the student has a real interest in our project, 'Do they actually use it?' rather than just choosing some project that is part of GSoC."
The gEDA electronic design tool project has
announced
a list of projects that could be used in the 2008 Google Summer of Code.
"This page contains various ideas for projects, organized by the tool. You can use these as fodder for creating your application to Google. Also, if you have your own idea, feel free to share it with the gEDA developers they might like it more than any project on this list!"
The WorldForge virtual world project has
announced
its participation in the Google Summer of Code.
"WorldForge has been accepted as a mentoring organization for the Google Summer of Code 2008.
If you are a student interested in participating, see our project ideas list, visit us in the #lounge channel on irc.worldforge.org or say hello on the general mailing list. We are looking forward to hearing from you."
Alan Robertson has announced the ten year anniversary of the
Linux-HA project.
"The 10-year anniversary of the first working code was this week. I
announced it 10 years ago yesterday."
Ivan Krstić, the developer behind the One Laptop Per Child security model
(among other things), has posted a message about
his departure from that project. "I cannot subscribe to the
organization's new aims or structure in good faith, nor can I reconcile
them with my personal ethic. Having exhausted other options, three weeks
ago I resigned my post at OLPC. It's been an outstanding experience, and I
truly wish OLPC the best in its future endeavors. My belief in the mission
is in no way compromised, and I will miss my coworkers dearly."
Ed Felten, who is starting to make a habit of drawing cease-and-desist notices from manufacturers, has posted a notice from Sequoia Voting Systems telling him not to analyze any voting machines. "Sequoia has also retained counsel to stop any infringement of our intellectual properties, including any non-compliant analysis. We will also take appropriate steps to protect against any publication of Sequoia software, its behavior, reports regarding same or any other infringement of our intellectual property." Certainly a democracy would have no reason to want to know about the "behavior" of its voting machines.
The United States PostgreSQL
Association has been launched. The association will support PostgreSQL
in the US through user group development, conferences, education
initiatives and fun.
USENIX has announced that it has decided to offer open access to the proceedings from all of its conferences. "This significant decision will allow universal access to some of the most important technical research in advanced computing. In making this move USENIX is setting the standard for open access to information, an essential part of its mission." One might argue that it's a bit late to be "setting standards" in this regard, but it's still a good thing.
Alcatel-Lucent and Red Hat have
announced a partnership.
"Alcatel-Lucent and Red Hat, the leading
provider of open source solutions, will integrate Red Hat Enterprise Linux
and Realtime technologies in Alcatel-Lucent communication products for
small and medium enterprises (SME). The collaboration supports
Alcatel-Lucent's Dynamic Enterprise commitment to interconnecting people,networks, process and knowledge in a flexible, open environment while
helping Red Hat expand its business."
Funambol is helping the AGPLv3 license to achieve OSI approval.
"Funambol, the leading provider of Mobile 2.0 messaging
software powered by open source, today announced that the AGPLv3 has received formal approval by
the Open Source Initiative (OSI). Funambol led the process of the license's approval by the OSI
after adopting AGPLv3 in November. It was the first company to adopt the license, which closes the
"ASP loophole"."
Ingres Corporation has
announced the launch of
Ingres CAFE.
"Ingres Corporation, a leading provider of open source
database management software, announced today the creation of Ingres
CAFE(TM) (Consolidated Application Foundation for Eclipse), which brings
together in one bundle all the components developers need to create and
deploy rich Java applications built using the Eclipse Foundation's open
source development framework."
Linspire, Inc. has
announced a partnership with Fluendo S.A. involving the distribution
of multimedia software via the CNR.com site.
"Immediately
available and one-click accessible through CNR.com's easy-to-use software
delivery service, Fluendo's multimedia software products are now available
to Freespire 2.0, Linspire 6.0, Ubuntu 7.04 and 7.10 users and will soon
expand to additional popular Linux distributions".
Quim Gil has posted a brief note with pointers to a talk by Ari Jaaksi (in text, audio (MP3) and PDF slides forms) on how Nokia wants to work with the open source community. "We at Nokia are working hard to get it. We have to. We need to get better in communicating our strategies and plans. We need to be more open and get even more involved in various projects and communities. We must be better at articulating our views, providing information and code back, and supporting the community. We must be sure we support freedom and openness and do not try to limit anybodys work. But at the same time, we must be better at telling what is OK for us and what is not."
Novell has
announced that it will work with Sesame Workshop.
"Novell today announced that Sesame Workshop, the non-profit educational
organization behind the ground-breaking children's television program
"Sesame Street," has selected Novell to streamline its hardware and
software infrastructure."
Packt Publishing Ltd has
announced that it has donated more than $100K to open-source projects.
"Following its first donation
to the phpMyAdmin project in April 2004, the company has gone on to provide
sustained support for over thirty different open source projects.
Packt has introduced initiatives such as the Open Source Project
Royalty Scheme and Open Source CMS Award to provide sustained donations to
projects over the last four years. The Open Source Project Royalty Scheme
allows projects to benefit from the publication of a book, as they are
allocated a percentage of every copy sold."
SourceLabs has
announced new Self-Support offering for Linux and Java.
"Until now customers have had to choose between using open source
software without support or buying traditional support contracts from
vendors at a cost and service level that hasn't always made sense. Now they
have a third choice," said Byron Sebastian, CEO and Founder of SourceLabs.
"Our Self-Support Suites together with our Swik.net social network use
unique patent-pending technology that enables open source professionals to
quickly access better information and analytical tools than support vendors
have traditionally had at their fingertips. Much in the same way OSS
commoditized the software industry, marking a huge shift in the way
technology is developed and operates, we are extending that value to
software support."
The Open Group has
announced that Sun
Microsystems, Inc. has become a platinum member of the organization.
"In this capacity, Sun will play a leading role in advancing
best practices, standards and professional certification programs related
to enterprise architects and IT Specialists, including The Open Group's
Architecture Framework (TOGAF(TM)), IT Architect Certification (ITAC) and
the IT Specialist Certification (ITSC)."
The March 17, 2008 edition of the FSFE Newsletter is online
with the latest Free Software Foundation Europe news.
Topics include:
Microsoft's so-called 'interoperability' pledge excludes primary competitors,
FSFE calls on Microsoft to release interoperability information without restrictions,
FSFE at FOSDEM in Brussels, Belgium,
SELF conference in Sofia, Bulgaria,
FSFE participates in a global day for document liberation,
FSFE announces the first European Licensing and Legal Workshop,
Jonas ?berg in Sofia, Bulgaria,
FSFE Context Briefing on DIS-29500: Deprecated before use?,
"Fairware" for the Protestant Church in Germany,
Late breakfast for Rhineland Fellows and RMS in Berlin.
TechWeb has
announced the keynote lineup for Web 2.0 Expo San
Francisco 2008. Registration has been opened for the conference.
"TechWeb (formerly CMP) and
O'Reilly Media, Inc., co-producers of Web 2.0 Expo, today announced the
lineup of keynotes scheduled to appear at the upcoming Web 2.0 Expo San
Francisco 2008 -- a list that includes Marc Andreessen, Max Levchin and
Johnathan Schwartz, and many others. Web 2.0 Expo is the global annual
gathering of developers, designers, marketers, and business professionals
building the next generation Web, taking place April 22-25, 2008 at Moscone
West."