41331565
submission
l2718 writes:
The Electronic Frontiers Foundation announced today a large donation by Mark Cuban and Markus Persson to the EFF Patent Project. Notably, part of Cuban's donation is for the creation of the "Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents" (the first holder is current staff attorney Julie Samuels). Time will tell if the new title will help her advocacy work.
662316
submission
l2718 writes:
Yesterday we discussed Skype's appeal of a German court's ruling against them regarding a violation of the GPL. Harald Welte (the plaintiff) now reports that following oral argument, Skype decided to drop the appeal and accept the lower court ruling in his favour. More details and analysis at Groklaw. Congratulations to Mr. Welte and GPL-violations.org!
382797
submission
l2718 writes:
Edgar Bronfman, CEO of the Warner Music Group, publicly framed the music industry's failure to accomodate file-sharing as an "invadvertent" war on consumers. I'm left wondering how you can file a series of lawsuits inadvertently.
"We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding ... By ... moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won."
50962
submission
l2718 writes:
In the wake of its recent deal with Microsoft, Novell has announced a fork of OpenOffice.org which will support Microsoft's planned Office formal, Open XML.
43988
submission
l2718 writes:
In a new take on the reach of "Intellectual Property", the Mapuche Indians of Chile are accusing Microsoft of "intellectual piracy"
. Their lawsuit alleges that Microsoft needed permission from the tribal elders before translating its software into Mapuzugun, a project which was co-ordinated with the Chilean Ministry of Education.
