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AnnouncementsNon-Commercial announcements A new GNOME copyright assignment policyThe GNOME Foundation has announced a new policy on modules which require copyright assignment. "The very short summary is that the inclusion of a new module in GNOME that requires copyright assignment has to be explicitly approved on a case-by-case basis by both the Release Team and the GNOME Foundation Board." There is a set of detailed guidelines on when modules with such policies might be accepted.
Articles of interest Oracle sues Google over use of Java in Android (ars technica)Oracle has filed suit against Google over its Android Java implementation, according to a report at ars technica. There aren't too many details available, but according to the Oracle press release, it is about both copyright and patent infringements. "In the complaint, a copy of which was posted on VentureBeat, Oracle claims that Android, the Android SDK, and Dalvik all infringe on seven patents owned by the database giant. Oracle also accuses Google of "knowingly, willingly, and unlawfully" copying, preparing, publishing, and [distributing] its IP."
OSS and software patents: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em (ars technica)Over at ars technica, Ryan Paul has a report from Eben Moglen's LinuxCon keynote. Moglen spoke about the software patent problem, particularly for free software, now that the Bilski ruling did not go as far as some had hoped. "One of the main themes of Moglen's keynote is the power of collaboration between commercial business interests and the free software community. He argues that the economy of sharing that the free culture movement seeks to elevate is not mutually hostile with the mostly taken-for-granted and longstanding economy of ownership. In fact, he thinks that the sharing and ownership economies are mutually reinforcing."
A weak case for software patents (opensource.com)Red Hat's VP and assistant general counsel Rob Tiller writes about the case for software patents—or at least the case that is being put forth by proponents. He is responding to a recent blog post by attorney Gene Quinn that, among other weak arguments, calls those who oppose software patents "ideological buffoons". Tiller says: "Not everyone views it this way, of course. Those who are profiting from the existing system generally think that it works rather well. And they have some appealing-sounding arguments. For instance, they argue that patents encourage innovation by allowing lone inventors to pursue their ground-breaking dreams in the face of powerful corporations. This sort of story tends to excite emotions and hinder rational analysis. It ignores the rarity of inventors who work without significant collaboration, of inventions that are ground-breaking, and of patents that ever recover even the cost of the patent application. Dreams of getting a hugely successful patent are about as realistic as dreams of winning the lottery. Still, it's a nice, and understandable, dream."
Duffy: Mini-Education Summit LinuxCon Boston 2010Over on her blog, Máirín Duffy has a nice report from the Education Mini-Summit that was held just before LinuxCon. Seven different talks from the mini-summit are summarized, with topics ranging from open source adoption to open data for education, along with several others. "Karlie [Robinson] also talked about some other initiatives happening at RIT [Rochester Institute of Technology] involving open source. Currently they are working on improving video chat on OLPCs in the hopes of providing enough fidelity for sign language video chat, with the help of funding from the National Institute for the Deaf. The project is leading to better video drivers and software for the OLPC. Typically for college computer science students, their buddy working on a project with them or in the same class is right down the hall, and they can chat in-person and help each other out and work on things. In FLOSS, the help you need is in an IRC room, not a dorm room down the hall, and working within that social space takes a bit of adjustment. For example, Karlie gave the example of a student struggling to find an answer to a question he had on the software he was working on. He told Karlie he couldn't find the answer. "Who did you ask?" asked Karlie. "Oh, it was late" the student replied. Karlie responded, "It's never late! People all over the world come online all the time who can help you." She's had to explain to the students that time doesn't exist in the FLOSS world and if a chat room is silent, it's time to hit the mailing list — just don't give up."
New Books Map Scripting 101--New from No Starch PressNo Starch Press has released "Map Scripting 101" by Adam DuVander.
Resources New Python Magazine in spanish -- PET: Python entre todosPET: Python entre todos is "a magazine in Spanish, by pythonistas, for pythonistas, about Python made using python". The first issue has been released
Upcoming Events 2010 GCC and GNU Toolchain Developers' SummitThe annual GCC & GNU Toolchain Developers' Summit will take place in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, October 25-27, 2010. Acceptance and rejection notifications for proposals will be sent out by September 1, 2010.
OpenOffice.org Celebrates Tenth Anniversary at OOoCon in BudapestThe OpenOffice.org Community will be celebrating its 10th anniversary at the project's annual conference, August 31 - September 3, 2010 in Budapest, Hungary.
Events: August 26, 2010 to October 25, 2010The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol |
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