Microsoft and TomTom have settled their patent dispute, including claims related to the FAT file system and Linux. But the rest of the open-source world, which could be affected, isn't ready to lie down and accept Linux's possibly besmirched reputation.
Red Hat, for its part, declares that "without a judicial decision, the settlement does not demonstrate that the claims of Microsoft were valid." And Pamela Jones of Groklaw, a highly influential open-source legal blog, deprecates Microsoft's claims ("What? You thought Microsoft's spin on things was always gospel?"), citing the Software Freedom Law Center's commitment to sticking up for Linux, even if TomTom quickly caved.
The settlement neither implies that Microsoft patents are valid nor that TomTom's products were or are infringing...The FAT file system patents on which Microsoft sued are now, and have always been, invalid patents, in our professional opinion.
SFLC remains committed to protecting the interests of our clients and the community. We will act forcefully to protect all users and developers of free software against further intimidation or interference from these patents.
SFLC, working with the Open Invention Network and the Linux Foundation, is pleased to participate in a coordinated, carefully graduated response on behalf of all the community's members to ongoing anticompetitive Microsoft conduct. We believe in strength through unity, and we think our community's unity in the face of these threats has helped to bring about Microsoft's quick settlement on all issues with TomTom.
This is good news because I admit I read the settlement as an implication that TomTom caved. As ZDNet's Larry Dignan suggests, however, "the settlement doesn't seem to answer a lot." For Microsoft, this may well be a good thing: FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) is as good as a court judgment against Linux.
This was Microsoft's tactic in its Novell patent deal. Every press release about interoperability included verbiage about patents and Linux. I talked with Novell's press team repeatedly during this time and was always told, "Microsoft insisted on including that language. We wanted to focus on interoperability, which is what customers actually care about."
Microsoft may or may not have been trying to sully Linux's reputation with the TomTom lawsuit, and this settlement doesn't clarify things at all. Fortunately, the SFLC is on the case. It's a more than ample counterbalance to Microsoft's worst intentions.
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For years people have suggested that open-source adoption would go even faster if only open-source licenses like the GNU General Public License (GPL) were easier to understand. My personal belief is that "It's so hard to understand!" tends to be an euphemism for "I really want to pilfer this open-source software but its terms don't let me!" After all, the terms of the GPL have been explained repeatedly, including by the Free Software Foundation itself, which authored the GPL.
Regardless, the Software Freedom Law Center is now making it easy to understand the GPL and related licenses with a guide (available online) that walks through effective compliance:
Unlike highly permissive FOSS licenses (such as the ISC license), which typically only require preservation of copyright notices, the GPL places a number of important requirements upon licensees. These requirements are carefully designed to uphold certain values and standards of the software freedom community. While the GPL's requirements may appear initially counter-intuitive to those more familiar with proprietary software licenses, by comparison its terms are in fact clear and favorable to licensees. The terms of the GPL actually simplify compliance when violations occur.
GPL violations are often caused or compounded by a failure to adopt sound practices for the incorporation of GPL'd components into a company's internal development environment. In this section, we introduce some best practices for software tool selection, integration and distribution, inspired by and congruent with FOSS methodologies.
What follows, then, is a highly practical walk-through of how to use GPL software, when to release derivative works, etc. Any company that uses GPL software - which includes roughly 99.999 percent of IT departments due to the rise of Linux - should get a copy of this compliance guide and study it. Ignorance is no longer an excuse for a lack of compliance with open-source license compliance.
It seems that most of the world's open source-related lawsuits emerge from Utah, for whatever reason. First there was Caldera vs. Microsoft (which, of course, didn't have anything to do with open source, but for Caldera's inclusion). Then there was SCO. Somewhere along the way there was Linksys, which didn't have anything more to do with Utah than that I used to visit its offices, and I'm from Utah.
And now we have BusyBox (through the Software Freedom Law Center) suing Monsoon Multimedia, with BusyBox's project founder, Erik Andersen, a former colleague of mine at Lineo (based in Utah). This is the industry's first US copyright lawsuit based on an alleged violation of the GPL (GNU General Public License). You can read the complaint here [PDF].
There really is no compelling news story here, but for the fact that this will be the first time that the GPL gets tested in court (if the suit ever makes it to court - most lawsuits don't). I doubt it will make it to court, denying us of the test many of us long to see. Oh, well.
Eben Moglen (left) tells it like it is.
(Credit: James Duncan Davidson)Once upon a time, the term "open source" was coined to save the free-software world from itself--or, rather, from the free-software zealots, as you can read on the Open Source Initiative's Web site.
Today, I can't help but feel that the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction, where we're so self-satisfied with the money we're making off open source that we have neglected the essential freedoms that make open-source profit possible.
The wake-up call about the necessary freedoms came from Eben Moglen at last week's O'Reilly Open Source Conference. Some, including software consultant Stephen Walli, don't like the way Eben said it. I wasn't in the room to hear Eben. At any rate, I'm not one for handwringing and am just glad it was said.
Why?
... Read moreAs Steven Vaughan-Nichols is reporting, the Software Freedom Law Center is offering a free day of open-source legal education from the best in the business. Let's put it this way: if you get any opportunity to hear Eben Moglen speak, you take it. Especially when admission to the event is free.
The Summit will have two parts: a closed session in the morning for a private meeting of some of the world's foremost FOSS attorneys, and an open session in the afternoon consisting of free legal presentations to the public.
... Read more
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