Licensing

Are all Linux distributions created equally?

Brian Proffitt notes something on Linux Today that won't please many in Raleigh or Redmond, but which is arguably true: Linux is Linux is Linux. There really isn't much inherent in a base Linux distribution to distinguish it from its neighbors.

I think the distributions are becoming so similar in their construction, and the differences between them so subtle, the whole notion of distribution superiority is completely moot.

Ian Murdock, founder of Debian, has been saying the same thing for years.

Lately, Microsoft and Novell have tried to suggest that Suse Linux is very different from Red Hat (in terms of interoperability with Microsoft), while Oracle has been saying the exact inverse for its Unbreakable Linux (100 percent compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux).

They're both right. It's just a question of degree.… Read more

How long should copyright last in a digital age?

Victor Keegan of The Guardian asks an important question for today's market of near-disposable IP: how long should we allow copyright to endure? When business models increasingly revolve around immediate monetization, does it make sense to hold copyright for 50 to 70 years after the creator dies?

It is curious that there is so much pressure to extend copyright in an internet age defined by the willingness to share knowledge freely, ranging from Wikipedia to the genome project. The reason? Producer lobbies are far more powerful than difficult-to-organise consumer ones.

I'm somewhat biased in this - after all, my understanding of IP came of age under the tutelage of Larry Lessig in law school - but I believe the desire to extend copyright interminably bodes ill for both consumers and creators of intellectual property. That is, provided we actually policed it, which we fortunately don't (or don't strictly) [PDF].

As Keegan points out, and which I've noted before, we don't really have a "respect for IP" problem that goads us into extending copyright. It's just that our producers are still tweaking business models for a digital age that recognize the ease of copying and capitalize on this, rather than fear or shun it:… Read more

Adding insult to injury: One Laptop Per Child sued for patent infringement

It's unclear where Lagos Analysis Corp. (LANCOR) expects the One Laptop Per Child project to come up with the money, but it has sued OLPC, anyway, for patent infringement. To make matters more complicated, the suit was brought in the Nigerian-owned company's backyard in Lagos, Nigeria. I'm sure the court will have no bias whatsoever....

LANCOR is seeking big money damages because, um, it has lost millions selling $100 PCs to developing nations (???):

The patent infringement lawsuit was filed on November 22nd, 2007 as a result of OLPC's [alleged] willful infringement of LANCOR's Nigeria Registered Design Patent # RD8489 and illegal reverse engineering of its keyboard driver source codes for use in the XO Laptops.… Read more

Congratulations! You're responsible for $12.45 million in copyright violations today

Ever wonder what the world would be like if copyright holders actually enforced their rights on a regular basis? Where IP is respected to the nth degree? You don't want to know.

But in case you do, Bruce Schneier points to an excellent law review article by John Tehranian: "Infringement Nation: Copyright Reform and the Law/Norm Gap" [PDF]:

By the end of the day, John has infringed the copyrights of twenty emails, three legal articles, an architectural rendering, a poem, five photographs, an animated character, a musical composition, a painting, and fifty notes and drawings. All told, he has committed at least eighty-three acts of infringement and faces liability in the amount of $12.45 million (to say nothing of potential criminal charges). … Read more

Open-source IP: Lessons from Marc Fleury

I woke up to this post from Marc Fleury (Founder of JBoss), and found his comment about what intellectual property to protect in an open-source project to be very telling:

[P]rotecting IP in OSS [open-source software] is extremely important. The only "private" property that exists in OSS are 1- brand 2- URL. Both are obviously related but really you need to protect your brand name, in other words REGISTER your trademarks, use them, declare they are yours and enforce the trademark, meaning protect against infringement. Other products, specifically based on your product should not include your name. Consultancies will be able to say they know and work with your "product name" but they cannot ship products using your trademark. Educate yourselves on brand IP, that is a big asset in OSS.… Read more

Microsoft patent claim on embedded Linux?

Paul McDougall at InformationWeek may be reading too much into Microsoft's recent patent deal with Kyocera, but he does ask an interesting question. Does the agreement reveal Microsoft's patent position, at least as it relates to embedded Linux? (Or does it simply reveal that Japanese companies would rather settle with Microsoft than stand up for themselves, since they seem to be falling like flies before Microsoft's patent FUD?)

McDougall writes:

Under the deal, Microsoft gets to add patented Kyocera Mita technology to its Windows and Office products.

What does Kyocera get? The right to use patented Microsoft technology in its printers, copiers and "certain Linux-based embedded devices."… Read more

Microsoft to allow developers to access .Net reference libraries source code by end of 2007

So close, and yet so far away. Scott Guthrie, General Manager within the Microsoft Developer Division, announced on his blog that Microsoft will be releasing the source code for its .NET Framework libraries with the .NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008 release in late 2007.

This isn't open source as the Microsoft Reference License which will govern the code release is a "look but don't modify or distribute" license. Still, baby steps for Microsoft. Guthrie writes:

One of the things my team has been working to enable has been the ability for .NET developers to download and browse the source code of the .NET Framework libraries, and to easily enable debugging support in them.

Today I'm excited to announce that we'll be providing this with the .NET 3.5 and VS 2008 release later this year.… Read more

Who is the world's biggest patent troll?

In two consecutive days, The Wall Street Journal presented two different answers. The first is not surprising: Intellectual Ventures, the brainchild of ex-Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold. It's now out "to raise as much as $1 billion to help develop and patent inventions, many of them from universities in Asia." I know I will sleep so much more comfortably knowing that IVL will be out plundering Asia so that it can turn around and plunder the rest of the planet.

The second might surprise you: the University of California. The University of California may be especially pernicious because it can sue for patent infringement but has sovereign immunity:… Read more

Open sourcing the mobile web with Goo...err, Volantis

There's been a flurry of excitement about open source in the mobile world in the past few weeks, what with Google's Open Handset Alliance and its associated Android software platform. In all the hype (some deserved, some not), people seem to have forgotten one Very Big Problem in mobile:

There is a huge array of different hardware and software specifications.

Google's Android solves the software specification problem (at least, for those phones that end up using it), but it does nothing to resolve the wider compatibility problem for mobile developers. Developing for the Android platform may make sense five years from now, but it's a losing (market) proposition until it gains widespread adoption.

Which is why Volantis' decision to open source its framework is such a positive thing for the mobile world:… Read more