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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 22 declined, 11 accepted (33 total, 33.33% accepted)

Patents

Submission + - Tridgell recommends reading software patents (swpat.org) 1

H4x0r Jim Duggan writes: In a recent talk, Andrew Tridgell rejected the common fears about triple damages "If you’ve got one lot of damages for patent infringement, what would happen to the project? It’s dead. If it gets three lots of damages for patent infringement, what happens to the project? It’s still dead." Tridge then explains the right way to read a patent and build a legal defense: "That first type of defence is really the one you want, it’s called: non-infringement. And that is: 'we don’t do that. The patent says X, we don’t do X, therefore go away, sue someone else, it’s not relevant for us'. That’s the defence you want. [...] Next one, prior art: [...] Basically the argument is: somebody else did that before. It’s a very, very tricky argument to get right. Extremely tricky, and it is the most common argument bandied about in the free software community. And if you see it in the primary defence against a patent, you should cringe because it is an extremely unsafe way of doing things." — there are even some tips in the talk specifically for Slashdotters.
Patents

Submission + - FSF to Supremes: software patents are unjust (endsoftpatents.org)

H4x0r Jim Duggan writes: Not taking chances on any particular argument, FSF has submitted a brief approaching the word limit. After outlining the contribution of the free software movement to software progress, the brief details how software patents fail their constitutional justification, and how the USPTO's practice is harming individual freedom, community development projects and the progress of software as users would want. "Given that software development includes common activities such as making a webpage, the freedom to use a computer as you see fit for your daily life is a fundamental form of expression, just as using a pen and paper is. ... In the context of writing an email reader, a word processor, or an image viewer, being blocked from reading, modifying, or writing in the required data format is equivalent to being banned from writing a functional program for that task.

Submission + - Consumer electronics and violations of free softwa (lwn.net)

H4x0r Jim Duggan writes: "Veteran violation chasers Shane Coughlan and Armijn Hemel have summarised how licence violations are caused in the consumer electronics market under time-to-market pressure and thin profit margins "This problem is compounded when one board with a problem appears in devices supplied to a number of western companies. A host of violation reports spanning a dozen European and American businesses may eventually point towards a single mistake during development at an Asian supplier." They also discuss the helpful organisations which have sprung up and the documents and procedures now available."
Patents

Submission + - IBM to SCOTUS: patents drive free software

H4x0r Jim Duggan writes: "For the Supreme Court's upcoming review of the Bilski decision, IBM has submitted an amicus brief claiming that software patents "fueled the explosive growth of open source software development"! (p38 of linked PDF) EndSoftwarePatents, for its own amicus brief, is looking for help building a list of free software harmed by software patents, and a list of companies that distribute free software and are taxed by patent royalties."
Networking

Submission + - Antitrust working for Samba and FSFE (fsfe.org)

H4x0r Jim Duggan writes: "It's now just over a year since Microsoft lost their final court case in the EU regarding breaches of antitrust regulation. Samba developer Andrew Bartlet's blog writes that the documentation and help that MS is forced to give is proving truly useful. FSFE blogger Ciaran O'Riordan also explains the motiviations for those years of work (hint: it wasn't about fines)"
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - RMS explains GPLv3 draft 3

H4x0r Jim Duggan writes: "A transcript is now online of a talk Richard Stallman gave in Brussels earlier this week about discussion draft 3 of GPLv3. Among other things, he explained how it will address the Novell-MS deal, from Novell's point of view and from Microsoft's, and he explained how the tivoisation clause was narrowed to make it more acceptable in the hope that it will be used by more people. After the talk he also gave an interview, and yesterday, draft 2 of LGPLv3 was released."
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - Stallman with 20 years of explaining free software

H4x0r Jim Duggan writes: "The first recorded talk by Richard Stallman on free software was in 1986, so I've picked from the 2006 recordings and have made a transcript of a recent talk: The Free Software Movement and the Future of Freedom. Those two are the only transcripts of his general free software talk. Others that exist are on specific topics such as patents, GPLv3, copyright, etc. For those who've been reading Slashdot during the gradual evolution of Stallman's pronouncements, it's interesting to see what has changed on a 20 year timeline."
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - RMS transcript on GPLv3, Novell/MS, Tivo and more

H4x0r Jim Duggan writes: "The 5th international GPLv3 conference was held in Tokyo last week. I've made and published a transcript of Stallman's talk where he described the latest on what GPLv3 will do about the MS/Novell deal, Treacherous Computing, patents, Tivo, and the other changes to the licence. While I was at it, I made a transcript of my talk from the next day where I tried to fill in some info that Richard didn't mention."

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