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AnnouncementsBrief items Booktype, an open source platform to write and publish print and digital booksSourcefabric has announced Booktype, a free, open source platform that produces books for print, Amazon, iBooks and almost any ereader within minutes. "Booktype can be used as an out-of-the-box community platform to enable contributors to create profiles, join groups, watch books, chat live, post status messages and keep track of book activity. Communities such as www.booki.cc and FLOSS Manuals are already using the platform with thousands of contributors in multiple languages collaborating on everything from cookbooks to textbooks, reference guides to works of fiction."
Articles of interest Patent troll claims ownership of interactive Web—and might win (ars technica)Ars technica is reporting on a patent trial taking place in ... you guessed it ... East Texas that could have quite an impact on the web as we know it. Eolas Technologies is suing eight companies including Google and Yahoo for $600 million in a series of four trials, the first of which (to determine the validity of the patents) could go to the jury today. "Today, Doyle and his lawyers say he’s owed royalty payments for the use of a stunning array of modern Web technologies. Watching online video, having a "search suggestion" pop up in a search bar, or even rotating an image of a sweater you might want to buy on an online shopping site—all are said to infringe on the idea-space of Doyle and his company, Eolas Technologies."
Jury rules that Eolas's "interactive web" patent is invalid (ars technica)Well, that was quick. The jury in a patent lawsuit against eight companies that use "interactive web" technologies has found the Eolas Technologies patent to be invalid, according to a report at ars technica. "[Tim] Berners-Lee took to Twitter to cheer the decision. 'Texas jury agreed Eolas 906 patent invalid,' he wrote. 'Good thing too!' [...] Companies that depend on the open Web hailed the verdict. 'We are pleased that the court found the patents invalid, as it affirms our assertion that the claims are without merit,' a Google spokesperson told Ars."
FSFE: Nortel/Rockstar and Google/Motorola dealsKarsten Gerloff, President of the Free Software Foundation Europe, warns that the approval of two deals involving large patent portfolios could cause problems for free software. The first deal, recently approved by the US Department of Justice (DoJ), involves the sale of Nortel's patent portfolio to a consortium led by Apple and Microsoft. The second deal involves the sale of Motorola Mobility patents to Google, which has been approved by both the DoJ and the European Commission. "'We appreciate that competition authorities in the US and Europe continue to take software patents seriously as a risk to competition,' says Karsten Gerloff, President of the Free Software Foundation Europe. 'However, we believe that the commitments made by Google, Microsoft and Apple regarding their patent licensing policies are not sufficient to allow everyone to compete on equal terms.'"
Welte: Some comments on the heated debate on SFC / Busybox / Linux GPL enforcementOver on his blog, Harald Welte comments on GPL enforcement in light of the Busybox/Toybox controversy. "In any kind of GPL enforcement, you of course not only want the complete corresponding source code to one program, but to all of the GPL/LGPL/AGPL or otherwise copyleft licensed programs contained in the product. We at gpl-violations.org have always been requesting the complete corresponding source code to all GPL licensed software during our communication with the infringing companies. This request was typically honored by everyone, without the need to apply any pressure onto it. After all, releasing only one bit of code causes the risk to get sued by somebody else who owns the other not-yet-compliant part of the code. [...] Now there have been rumors that SFC was not only requesting non-Busybox source code, but also making it a condition for the explicit re-instatement of the license on Busybox. Whether or not there was such a hard condition is subject to debate and there are different opinions on it. For those in the field of FOSS licensing, it has always known that there are different lines of thought with regard to the requirement to explicit reinstatement. We in Germany generally think that it is not required at all, and the existing preliminary injunctions at least implicitly acknowledge that as they enjoin companies from distributing a product as long as it is not in compliance with the license. In other (particularly the U.S.), it is generally assumed that explicit reinstatement is required."
New Books Practical Malware Analysis--New from No Starch PressNo Starch Press has released "Practical Malware Analysis" by Michael Sikorski and Andrew Honig.
Upcoming Events Events: February 16, 2012 to April 16, 2012The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
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Page editor: Rebecca Sobol |
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