sfcrazy writes "Google has announced the Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge. In the pledge Google says that they will not sue any user, distributor, or developer of Open Source software on specified patents, unless first attacked. Under this pledge, Google is starting off with 10 patents relating to MapReduce, a computing model for processing large data sets first developed at Google. Google says that over time they intend to expand the set of Google's patents covered by the pledge to other technologies." This is in addition to the Open Invention Network, and their general work toward reforming the patent system. The patents covered in the OPN will be free to use in Free/Open Source software for the life of the patent, even if Google should transfer ownership to another party. Read the text of the pledge. It appears that interaction with non-copyleft licenses (MIT/BSD/Apache) is a bit weird: if you create a non-free fork it appears you are no longer covered under the pledge.

Too Lazy to Login writes "Wired reports that, based on her previous decisions, Sonia Sotomayor will likely affirm high damages (read: RIAA excessive) in cases where copyright claims are at issue. Good thing I'm not a betting man, because I'd have guessed the exact opposite." We discussed the nominee's cyberlaw record in general last week.

Accommodate Students writes "In a move that is sure to cause even more discussion of Google's intentions to go head-to-head with Microsoft in the Office Suite arena, they have launched a spreadsheet. AP is reporting this as 'Google further invades its rival's territory.' You can share spreadsheets with other users and can chat while you're editing -- multiplayer spreadsheets! It can read both CSV and XLS formats." More from the article: "Google is targeting Office, which generated $2.95 billion in sales and $2.09 billion in profit in Microsoft's third quarter ended March 31. Microsoft plans a new release this year and is trying to get Office into more consumers' hands at a cheaper price while persuading businesses to buy higher-priced versions."

McSnarf writes "It's not Windows. It's not distro wars. Sometimes it's just the arrogant attitude that keeps people from switching from Windows. 'As I spoke to newbies, one Windows user who wanted to learn about Linux shared the encouraging and constructive note (not) he received from one of the project members. The responding note read: "Hi jackass, RTFM and stop wasting our time trying to help you children learn.""

An anonymouse reader writes "Tom's Hardware has a feature up on the makings of Tron which may interest latent fans. Through interviews with the creators they explore the makings of Tron, from how it came to be picked up by Disney to how the effects were put together ('While the majority of the film takes place in the computer world, only 15 minutes worth of footage actually used CGI', because it would have taken years to make the film otherwise). They then explore why the film flopped at the box office. 'It was like we put LSD in the punch at the school prom and it was just way more than they can handle,' said Steven Lisberger."