Before everyone gets too worked up, please look at this:

http://samba.org/samba/PFIF/

Samba and any other free software project (via the PFIF) has a royalty free license to most of the patents that are important for these protocols.

There are some patents that are excluded from this (see appendix 4 of the agreement for a list of the excluded patents), and we do indeed need to avoid infringement of those patents. That has not so far proved to be an insurmountable obstacle, although it is an inconvenience.

Cheers, Tridge

Anthony's webserver has been slashdotted, but
he has copied the files to:

    http://jupiter.samba.org/

He is now trying to login to his server so he
can redirect the pages to the above site.

As well as being an amateur astronomer, Anthony
is a keen Linux enthusiast. His home built
telescope is controlled by his Linux box.

Cheers, Tridge

yes, this is news. Most good lawyers tend to stay out of the limelight. Mark is a good lawyer,
and has helped many things that could have become problematic for the free software community
not become problematic. You don't hear of those successes on sites like Slashdot.

I'm glad to hear Mark is joining the SFLC. The SLFC has some really great people, including one
of my personal heros, Eben Moglen, but they are very busy, and I suspect they will get busier
over time. More good, experienced lawyers like Mark can only help.

If you don't know Marks work at all then you might like to read this bit he wrote about the Microsoft/Novell deal: http://blogs.redhat.com/executive/archives/000274.html

Cheers, Tridge