2007 Linux and free software timeline: July

[Posted December 21, 2007 by corbet]

MS-OOXML is accompanied by an unusually complex and narrow "covenant not to sue" instead of the typical patent grant. Because of its complexity, it does not seem clear how much protection from prosecution for compatibility it will truly provide.

-- FSF Europe asks some questions

Slackware 12.0 is released (announcement).

The state of Massachusetts acknowledges OpenXML as an "open format" (groklaw).

Free software can be used in radio devices in the U.S., or so the SFLC concludes (white paper).

Intel and Novell become corporate patrons of KDE (announcement).

Linus' job is leaning more towards spokesman than programmer. He's been a relatively effective manager up until now, but I think that effectiveness will begin to erode rapidly with time. The further you get away from the actual work, the less you are able to accurately judge the appropriateness of other people's work.

-- The Jem Report

The 2.6.22 kernel is released (announcement).

The purchase of the CUPS project by Apple is announced - the actual transaction had happened in February (announcement).

IBM pledges not to enforce patents against interoperability standards (pledge).

SugarCRM adopts GPLv3, dropping its private, badgeware license (announcement).

The Common Public Attribution License gets Open Source Initiative approval despite its badgeware provisions (announcement).

Microsoft has decided that the Novell support certificates that we distribute to customers will not entitle the recipient to receive from Novell, or any other party, any subscription for support and updates relating to any code licensed under GPLv3.

-- Microsoft

Mozilla announces plans to cast out Thunderbird into its own project (blog posting).

The OpenHAL code is pronounced clean by the SFLC - again (press release). This code is an important part of the free Atheros wireless network driver.

<== June

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