News (66)

New Linux licence takes aim at DRM and Hollywood

New licensing terms for Linux and other open-source products take a "highly aggressive" stance against the digital rights management software that's widely favoured in the entertainment industry, said Eben Moglen, general counsel for the Free Software Foundation. Read more »

GPLv3 to drive users from Linux to FreeBSD?

GPLv3 will help FreeBSD take some users away from Linux, according to the founder and vice president of The FreeBSD Foundation. Read more »

DRM, GPLv3 just 'hot air': Linus Torvalds

Digital rights management (DRM) and the General Public License (GPL) cause a lot of 'hot air' to be exchanged but they are not a 'big deal', according to Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux. Read more »

Stallman unbending on software patents

Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation, debated proposed changes to the General Public License at a public forum but made it clear that provisions to protect users from patent litigations will remain intact. Read more »

Torvalds says DRM isn't necessarily bad

Provisions against digital rights management in a draft update to the GPL could undermine computer security, Linus Torvalds said this week in e-mails reflecting the Linux leader's pragmatic philosophy. Read more »

Play!
Stephen Fry kicks off GNU's 25th birthday party

The Free Software Foundation is beginning celebrations of 25 years of GNU with the release of a video presented by actor and comedian Stephen Fry. Read more »

Free Software Foundation denies GPLv3 forking risk

Some open source developers are concerned that the introduction of the third version of the GNU General Public License could split the free software world - but the FSF is confident these fears are unfounded. Read more »

'Too early' to debate Linux GPL 3 support

Alan Cox is trying to nip premature debate on GPL 3 support in the bud. Read more »

GPL offenders tackled by Linux law watchdogs

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) said it has filed suit against two companies for allegedly violating the General Public Licence, which covers usage of Linux and thousands of other free and open source products. Read more »

New GPL draft due Wednesday

A new phase of wrangling over the future of the dominant open-source license, the General Public License, is set to begin on Wednesday and to end 90 days afterward. Read more »

More Foundation, Gpl, Linux News Results

Features (9)

Sprucing up open source's GPL foundation

Modernisation is coming to the General Public License, a legal framework that supports a large part of the free and open-source software movements and that has received sharp criticism from Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. Read more »

In defence of freedom

The principles are the same, but technology has moved on significantly in the 15 years since the release of GPL 2. Read more »

Unix pioneer an open-source killjoy?

Bill Joy, Sun's chief scientist and a pioneer in designing Unix, has voiced doubts about Linux's open-source underpinnings. Read more »

Q & A with Linus Torvalds

When Linus Torvalds successfully harnessed the talent of thousands of programmers to create Linux, the operating system that arguably suffered most was Sun Microsystems' Solaris. Read more »

A look inside Google's open source kitchen

Google's Chris DiBona says the search giant has a lot of involvement in open source, but is also a firm believer in proprietary software. Read more »

Developer Spotlight: Richard Stallman

Builder AU recently caught up with RMS to talk about his achievements, the Free Software movement and his concerns with the US-Australian Free Trade Agreement. Read more »

Torvalds: What, me worry?

In this interview Linux's creator, Linus Torvalds, sounds off on the SCO lawsuit, patents and the future of Linux. Read more »

Symbian's research chief on going open source

We caught up with Symbian's research chief, David Wood, at the Symbian Smartphone Show at Earls Court in London, to discuss the complications of such a process, as well as what the next few years holds for smartphone technology. Read more »

In defence of proprietary software

Open source advocates believe that emerging governments should give preferential treatment to their products. But why shut out proprietary software? It's profitable, attracts investment and creates jobs. Read more »

Blog (3)

GPL 3 -- a bridge too far?

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Now it's time to create a new phrase: "free as in free software," meaning the freedom to make adversaries of potential partners -- the kind of freedom one has when one's work must be carefully excluded from other people's projects. Read more »

Samba gets an inside look at Microsoft documentation

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- A complicated third-party arrangement means that the open-source Samba project will be able to make use of proprietary documents describing Microsoft file-sharing software. Read more »

GPLv3 would prevent MS/Novell

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- According to the Free Software Foundation's general counsel, Eben Moglen, GPL version 3 would prevent the type of deal made by Microsoft and Novell from happening. Read more »

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  • Staff Crying, mooning and leaving

    In this week's roundup we see that continuous whining can get results, Linux users get 64-bit Flash and Moonlight previews, the latest in the Yahoo/Microsoft relationship and Senator Conroy ducks and weave in Senate Question Time. Read more »

    -- posted by Staff

  • Brendon Chase Sun eye Web developers with Netbeans 6.5

    Despite the recent employment axe hitting Sun the company has pushed out a new release of its Netbeans open source IDE with an eye to appeal more to Web developers. Read more »

    -- posted by Brendon Chase

  • Renai LeMay BarCamp buzz: Let the hacking continue

    Attending last weekend's BarCamp in Sydney, it was hard to escape the conclusion that a certain "dot-com bust" flavour had seeped into the kool aid previously being drunk by Australia's web 2.0 and early stage start-up sector. Read more »

    -- posted by Renai LeMay

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