Announcements
Brief items
Mozilla and Google sign a new deal
The Mozilla Foundation has announced that Google will continue to buy its position as the default Firefox search engine for the next three years. "The specific terms of this commercial agreement are subject to traditional confidentiality requirements, and we're not at liberty to disclose them."
IFOSSLR #5 available
The fifth issue of the International Free and Open Source Software Law Review has been published. Topics covered in this issue include interoperability, patent licensing, patents in Europe, licensing notices in web platforms, the past and future of Groklaw, and more.
Articles of interest
Apache: Open Letter to the Open Document Format Ecosystem
The Apache Software Foundation Blog is carrying an "open letter to the ODF ecosystem" meant to clarify the Foundation's plans for OpenOffice.org. "Our license and open development model is widely recognised as one of the best ways to ensure open standards, such as ODF, gain traction and adoption. Apache OpenOffice offers much more potential for OpenOffice.org than 'just' an end-user Microsoft Office replacement. We offer a vendor neutral space in which to collaborate whilst enabling third parties to pursue almost any for-profit or not-for-profit business model."
BT Sues Google for Patent Infringements (Wired)
Wired covers the latest entrant into the wireless lawsuit game: BT. "An example patent is 'Service provision system for communications networks,' which BT was awarded in the 1990s. It essentially boils down to an app figuring out whether a phone is connected to the web via Wi-Fi or 3G, and choosing to stream at a different bandwidth. Google infringes this in Google Music and the Android Market, BT alleges." Yes, this is the same BT that once claimed to have patented the hyperlink.
Yo Amazon: Please don't hijack the web on Kindle Fire (GigaOm)
GigaOm discovers the value of free platforms the hard way while playing with a Kindle Fire. "When trying to browse the Google Android Market website in the Fire's web browser, the device instead opens up Amazon's Kindle Fire application store. Since the Fire doesn't officially have access to the Android Market, I can understand the device highlighting its own app store. But to specifically hijack a browser URL and redirect it is disturbing and sets an ugly precedent."
New Books
Pragmatic Guide to Sass--New from Pragmatic Bookshelf
Pragmatic Bookshelf has released "Pragmatic Guide to Sass" by Hampton Catlin and Michael Lintorn Catlin.
Calls for Presentations
Android Open Starts Call for Proposals
Android Open will take place April 5-6, 2012 in San Francisco, California. "While our fall event is for the entire Android ecosystem (development, business, and marketing), this spring event is a more focused technical conference for developers. The Android world moves too quickly to wait a whole year between conferences." Proposals are due January 23.
OSCON 2012 Opens Call for Proposals
The O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) will take place July 16-20, 2012 in Portland, Oregon. Proposals are due by January 12.
Upcoming Events
Announcing FUDCon LATAM 2012 in Venezuela
The 2012 Latin American FUDCon (Fedora Users and Developers Conference) will be held in Margarita Island, Venezuela. Further details will be announced later. Bids are open for the 2012 editions of FUDCon EMEA and FUDCon APAC.Events: December 22, 2011 to February 20, 2012
The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
| Date(s) | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| December 27 December 30 |
28th Chaos Communication Congress | Berlin, Germany |
| January 12 January 13 |
Open Source World Conference 2012 | Granada, Spain |
| January 13 January 15 |
Fedora User and Developer Conference, North America | Blacksburg, VA, USA |
| January 16 January 20 |
linux.conf.au 2012 | Ballarat, Australia |
| January 20 January 22 |
Wikipedia & MediaWiki hackathon & workshops | San Francisco, CA, USA |
| January 20 January 22 |
SCALE 10x - Southern California Linux Expo | Los Angeles, CA, USA |
| January 27 January 29 |
DebianMed Meeting Southport2012 | Southport, UK |
| January 31 February 2 |
Ubuntu Developer Week | #ubuntu-classroom, irc.freenode.net |
| February 4 February 5 |
Free and Open Source Developers Meeting | Brussels, Belgium |
| February 6 February 10 |
Linux on ARM: Linaro Connect Q1.12 | San Francisco, CA, USA |
| February 7 February 8 |
Open Source Now 2012 | Geneva, Switzerland |
| February 10 February 12 |
Linux Vacation / Eastern Europe Winter session 2012 | Minsk, Belarus |
| February 10 February 12 |
Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering | Oslo, Norway |
| February 13 February 14 |
Android Builder's Summit | Redwood Shores, CA, USA |
| February 15 February 17 |
2012 Embedded Linux Conference | Redwood Shores, CA, USA |
| February 16 February 17 |
Embedded Technology Conference 2012 | San José, Costa Rica |
| February 17 February 18 |
Red Hat, Fedora, JBoss Developer Conference | Brno, Czech Republic |
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol