licensing

Perhaps retirement doesn't suit former Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz.

Just weeks into his post-Sun life, Schwartz offers some delicious anecdotes in a blog post, summarizing Apple's and Microsoft's threats to sue Sun for patent infringement as more about bluster than substance.

But that's not the lesson I learn from Schwartz's commentary.

Instead, what is immediately obvious to me is that a) the technology industry is a morass of conflicting patent claims, b) since there's really no way to completely avoid others' patents the best defense is to have a hefty counterbalancing patent portfolio … Read more

The Electronic Frontier Foundation obtained a copy of Apple's iPhone developer license agreement and posted the 28-page document on its Web site on Tuesday.

The digital rights watchdog group used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the document (PDF) from NASA after it noticed the NASA App for the iPhone.

The EFF has also listed what it describes as "a few troubling highlights" from the agreement.

In order to be eligible to sell an application on Apple's App Store, for example, developers must agree to the license agreement, part of which forbids public statements about … Read more

If you're a digital-video professional--the sort of person who records weddings, sells stock footage, or edits B-roll--chances are good you deal with the H.264 video encoding technology. But after reading software license agreements, you might well wonder if you have rights to do so.

A recent blog post by Harvard Ph.D. student Ben Schwartz, including the provocative phrase "Final Cut Pro Hobbyist," put the spotlight on license terms in Apple's video-editing software by questioning when professionals may use H.264 video. A similar "personal and non-commercial activity" license requirement appears in Adobe … Read more

Microsoft and Amazon announced on Monday that the two have entered into a patent cross-licensing deal.

As part of the pact, Amazon will pay Microsoft an undisclosed amount of money, though the two sides did not disclose more details.

The deal covers both Amazon's Kindle product as well as the company's use of Linux-based servers. Microsoft has maintained that many implementations of Linux infringe on its patents and has signed numerous licensing deals that cover Linux with both companies that sell Linux-based software and those that use the operating system in their hardware.

Microsoft, which started an intellectual property licensing push … Read more

In what is likely a reaction to recent complaints of disappearing music in the Zune Marketplace, Microsoft has hired an outside firm to help clear music for its Zune Pass subscription service.

In an announcement today, Music Reports Inc. revealed an agreement made with Microsoft to "administer the music publishing licensing and royalty accounting for the Zune Pass subscription service in the United States."

The use of an outside music licensing house isn't a new move for Microsoft and its Zune music services. Nonetheless, the change in firms points to shortcomings in the previous arrangement, evidenced perhaps … Read more

Hard as it may be to believe, sometimes Microsoft's patent lawsuits have nothing to do with Linux. Increasingly, however, they all seem to end with the same punchline: "Get a license to our patent portfolio and everything will work out."

Microsoft intervened in AT&T's patent infringement suit against Linux-based TiVo; it said it was doing so to uphold its IP interests. While the open-source community fretted that the intervention might signal evil intent against Linux, closer inspection by Groklaw revealed the lawsuit "has absolutely nothing to do with Linux."

Phew!

At … Read more

Microsoft's efforts to revamp a Web site that handles software licensing for businesses have resulted in hours of frustration for some of the company's most loyal customers.

Problems arose early last month when Microsoft aimed to consolidate three separate Web sites into a single, more secure site. Almost immediately, Microsoft could tell something was wrong as customers were unable to sign into the site.

While unable to log in, business customers and the partners that manage software for businesses can't do things like download software, obtain necessary license keys, and manage volume licenses.

"We certainly know … Read more

Google, the company that made "don't be evil" its corporate motto, is shunning use of an open-source license variation that precludes use of software for evil purposes.

The matter illustrates the tensions between the sometimes free-wheeling ways of open-source programming world and the buttoned-down corporate realms where open-source software is no longer unusual. This particular issue bubbled up at Google Code, a site that hosts open-source projects from Google and others.

Google only permits software governed by a limited list of widely used open-source licenses to be hosted at Google Code; one that's permitted is the … Read more

Lost in the flutter over Google's hymn to openness is an intriguing factoid on open-source licensing:

Though many of the programs hosted on Google Code are licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), when Google wants to open-source its software, it turns to the Apache Software License version 2.0.

Why?

Google's Jonathan Rosenberg elucidates:

When we open source our code we use standard, open Apache 2.0 licensing, which means we don't control the code. Others can take our open source code, modify it, close it up and ship it as their … Read more