TheOpenAnalyst

Although the open source movement has been active for more than a decade, it is only in recent months that such a copyright license actually has received the imprimatur of enforceability — from an unlikely court (the Federal Circuit) construing a perhaps unlikely license (the Java Model Railroad Interface for model train software). Open source [...]

Image via CrunchBase
Microsoft is drawing mixed reactions to the release last week of the source code for its ASP.NET Model View Controller (MVC). The tooling was released under the Open Source Initiative (OSI)-recognized Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL).
The move came just two weeks after the release of ASP.NET MVC, Microsoft’s design pattern for test-driven development of [...]

Image via Wikipedia
Open-source software companies are missing out on a relatively inexpensive way to fight concerns about patent liability, according to an attorney who spoke at an open-source conference in San Francisco this week.
More open-source companies should be asking the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office to re-examine patents that may pose a threat to them, [...]

Europe now has its own version of the GPL.
It’s got copyleft, but it lacks the extra language found in GPLv3 meant to enforce that concept.
The European Union Public License is an effort by EU government services to codify a Euro-centric view of copyleft, in 22 languages. (Nathan White has a giant version of this Tower [...]

In an interesting turn of events, TomTom has countersued Microsoft for patent infringement.
Microsoft sued TomTom in February claiming the GPS device maker infringed on Microsoft’s patents. TomTom, obviously thinking that turnabout is fair play, has in turned leveled its own lawsuit against the software giant.
TomTom Countersues Microsoft for Patent Infringement

Leading Linux distributor Red Hat is defending its position on software patents. Rob Tiller, Red Hat’s assistant general counsel and intellectual property VP, wrote Tuesday that the company’s position on patents and in support of open source has not changed:
“Red Hat has a a long track record of supporting FOSS generally, [...]

Image via CrunchBase
A recently uncovered Red Hat patent application for dynamic message routing on XML has some open-source advocates theorizing the company has quietly forsaken its promise to claim Linux IP only for defensive purposes.
Conspiracies are bubbling out of Slashdot and other sites over a 2007 Red Hat patent application for a “method and apparatus [...]

The Open Source initiative updated one of its licenses this month, the EU DataGrid Software License.
This turns out not to be eurotrash. Instead it’s an important example of negotiating credit in a multinational corporate environment.
Is the new open source Eurolicense eurotrash? | Open Source | ZDNet.com

On February 26, some organization called Wikileaks (just what you think it means) proudly outed an alleged Microsoft (MSFT) front group’s alleged comments on the alleged working draft of an alleged European Union (EU) workgroup on open source software. I have no idea if any of the allegations is true, but the pomposity of Wikileaks [...]

Once upon a time I was going to be a lawyer.
One reason I didn’t go that way was to avoid running down rabbit holes like the one our own Jason Perlow offered us Thursday. (This puzzle called Down the Rabbit Hole is now on sale over at Legendary Toys.)
Microsoft owns FAT32, but it didn’t appear [...]