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Jan 20, 2011 Amazon.com: The Wal-Mart of Android apps?

QUOTE: there's too much incentive for Amazon.com to undercut competing app stores as a way to drive business to its own....The net effect is that when you offer your apps on the Amazon Appstore, you agree to grant Amazon.com, in perpetuity, the right to offer a lower price for your apps than is available anywhere else

 InfoWorld
Jan 06, 2011 Software security: Honesty is the best policy

QUOTE: Admitting to flaws in your code can be embarrassing, but OpenBSD's hunt for a backdoor proves the alternative could be much worse

 InfoWorld
May 28, 2010 Google's WebM license could undermine the meaning of 'open source': Google's adoption of non-OSI-approved license could create a raft of problems for open source users

QUOTE: For better or worse, an OSI-approved license has become the de facto requirement for vendors calling themselves or their products "open source." When Google, one of the largest supporters of open source, goes out and purposefully circumvents the OSI, what signal does this send to other vendors?

 InfoWorld
Apr 15, 2010 Has IBM turned its back on open source?

QUOTE: Consider the case of IBM versus TurboHercules, a tiny open source company trying to make a living selling mainframe emulator software. TurboHercules and its supporters claim that IBM is using its considerable patent muscle to stifle competition and browbeat the little company and, by extension, the open source community. IBM sees TuboHercules as a knockoff artist seeking to cash in on billions of dollars of Big Blue R&D and characterizes it as a Microsoft proxy.

 InfoWorld
Jul 27, 2009 Pirate Party's copyright reform cannon could sink copyleft

QUOTE: Free Software Foundation (FSF) founder Richard Stallman published a statement last week expressing concern about the Swedish Pirate Party's copyright reform platform. The party's ambitious goals for copyright term reduction would blast holes in copyleft licensing, a serious blow to Stallman's Free Software movement.

 Ars Technica
Jun 01, 2009 The fight over open source 'leeches': Open source is supposed to be all about community, but as commercial open source becomes the norm, fewer developers are giving back. Is that hurting open source?

QUOTE: There's long been a tension within the open source community between those who have seen it as a movement and those who believe it is a business.

 InfoWorld
Mar 03, 2008 Apple slammed over programming secrets: Firefox developer claims Apple uses secret techniques built into WebKit to make its own apps work better with its operating system

QUOTE: Microsoft may not be the only software company that uses secret techniques to make its own applications work better with its operating system - a Mozilla Firefox developer has discovered similar practices at Apple.

 Techworld
Feb 25, 2008 Is Microsoft turning over a new leaf? This time, the company's talk of increased openness has some substance behind it, with APIs for the latest versions of popular apps for the first time

QUOTE: When Microsoft announced on Thursday that it was changing its business practices to be more open — specifically to release documentation on its APIs and protocols — many people reacted with disbelief....Yet in this case Microsoft’s commitment may be genuine.

 InfoWorld
Aug 28, 2007 Open source court ruling impacts debated: Licensors could be deprived of ability to stop violations, but the case may not set a solid precedent

QUOTE: The case raises questions about the rights of those who release software via open source. "What rights do they have, and how strong are those rights?" Hall asked.

 InfoWorld
Aug 11, 2007 Judge Says Unix Copyrights Rightfully Belong to Novell

QUOTE: a federal district court judge in Utah ruled Friday afternoon that Novell, not the SCO Group, is the rightful owner of the copyrights covering the Unix operating system....The ruling could remove the cloud over open-source software like Linux...

 New York Times
May 14, 2007 Microsoft takes on the free world: Microsoft claims that free software like Linux, which runs a big chunk of corporate America, violates 235 of its patents. It wants royalties...

QUOTE: But now there's a shadow hanging over Linux and other free software, and it's being cast by Microsoft. The Redmond behemoth asserts that one reason free software is of such high quality is that it violates more than 200 of Microsoft's patents. And as a mature company facing unfavorable market trends and fearsome competitors like Google (Charts, Fortune 500), Microsoft is pulling no punches: It wants royalties. If the company gets its way, free software won't be free anymore.

 Fortune
Apr 02, 2007 GPL v3: V for vindication: Recent events underscore the Free Software Foundation's foresight in drafting the new license

QUOTE: [Free Software Foundation] lawyers have been busy weaving clauses into the new license that take specific aim at perceived threats to the Free Software movement, such as DRM (digital rights management) technology. In addition, it plans to close any loopholes uncovered in the previous version of the license; in other words, it has the Microsoft/Novell partnership square in its sights.

 InfoWorld
Mar 26, 2007 Mr. Gates, tear down this wall: Fruitless persecution of open source achieves nothing but harm

QUOTE: A few giant vendors produce key software for the majority of computers in use today. But at the opposite end of the spectrum, independent developers and hobbyists have made significant contributions in their own right. In between are countless other ISVs of varying sizes. And all that code is constantly intermingling, moving hand to hand, each piece of software complementing the others.

 InfoWorld
Jan 24, 2007 Citizendium Web Encyclopedia Opens Doors

QUOTE: "We are demonstrating that experts and non-experts can work shoulder-to-shoulder on a wiki, using their real names, in a collegial atmosphere," Sanger said in a statement...We are learning that accountability has merit in the world of wikis."

 PC Magazine
Jun 14, 2006 Why Apple snubs its open source geeks: What obscure sort of person wants the freedom to compile the OS X kernel? I know this guy named Steve …

QUOTE: ...Apple thought it would be OK, that nobody would notice or care, if it back-burnered its commitment to keep its open source Darwin OS in lockstep and binary compatibility with OS X.

 InfoWorld
Jan 23, 2006 Stallman vs. DRM: The new version of the GPL tackles issues much larger than software distribution

QUOTE: You can expect public debate about GPL3 to carry on for at least the next year or so....Whether you're likely to agree with all of the terms of the new license probably depends on the extent to which you subscribe to Stallman's personal philosophy -- a philosophy that seems to have grown beyond the use and distribution of software to encompass a much larger mandate.

 InfoWorld
Jan 16, 2006 GPL 3.0 Draft Tackles Patents, Compatibility

QUOTE: The first discussion draft of the GNU General Public License was finally released on Monday, and addresses the issues of patents and patent-related retaliation, as well as its compatibility with other licenses.

 eWeek
Sep 13, 2005 Reader Voices: White Box PCs

QUOTE: ...some suspect that another reason the local resellers days are numbered is that Microsoft's "Genuine Windows" activation and validation programs are designed to eliminate them.

 InfoWorld
Aug 08, 2005 Panel: Open-source needs more women developers: Barriers include chauvinism and an 'old boys network'

QUOTE: The barriers to women in open-source development include chauvinism from some male developers who post or verbalize nasty comments as well as an "old boys network" that discourages them from taking part in open-source projects, said panel members.

 Computerworld
Feb 18, 2005 Battle Lines Being Drawn

QUOTE: ...court ruled the Blizzard EULA's prohibition on reverse engineering could deprive the BnetD group of open source programmers of rights that copyright law, including the DMCA, specifically gives them. So the only things that are at stake in the case are open source programming, the concept of fair use, competition and innovation.

 InfoWorld
Jan 17, 2005 IBM Opens Its Code To Cadre Of Developers

QUOTE: ...IBM says it retains the right to block organizations that file lawsuits asserting patent rights over open-source software from accessing the patents it's contributing. The stipulation is necessary to "avoid the possibility that a party will take advantage of this pledge and then assert patents or other intellectual-property rights of its own against open-source software,"...

 InformationWeek
Sep 24, 2004 Catastrophic loss for unencumbered standards

QUOTE: ...the most promising of current attempts to create an e-mail authentication standard for combating spam, is dead.

 eWeek
Sep 17, 2004 Cash Bounties For Spammers Win Limited FTC Backing

QUOTE: The Federal Trade Commission yesterday gave limited endorsement to offering cash rewards to people who help track down e-mail spammers...

 Washington Post
Nov 17, 2003 JBoss to indemnify customers

QUOTE: Addressing any legal questions about open source and its own software has been one of several moves JBoss has made in the past several months to make its software more attractive to corporate customers.

News.com
May 14, 2003 How Microsoft Warded Off Rival

ABSTRACT: Microsoft's strategy to dissuade governments across the globe from choosing cheaper alternatives to the Windows computer software systems and thwarting competition exposed.

 New York Times
Mar 06, 2003 SCO Sues IBM Over Linux

QUOTE: The [SCO] suit charges that IBM "misappropriated the confidential and proprietary information" from a joint SCO-IBM project...

 Forbes
Feb 10, 2003 .Net patent could stifle standards effort

QUOTE: Microsoft is in the process of applying for a wide-ranging patent that covers a variety of functions related to its .Net initiative.

 CNET
Apr 05, 2002 New name, same smell

QUOTE: The list of customer duties in [software] licenses grows longer and longer, while the list of vendor responsibilities seems to dwindle.

 InfoWorld
Mar 13, 2002 Chained melodies

QUOTE: Copyright-holding corporations are pushing new laws and computer-crippling technologies in their war on piracy. But can anything keep geeks from copying the music and movies they crave?

 Salon
Mar 13, 2002 Some games aren't fun

QUOTE: Up until now, producers of a product could void a warranty if you did not use the product according to the manufacturer's instructions. But now, the producers of a product can actually demand that you use the product in a certain way.

 InfoWorld
Dec 07, 2001 In the Name of Quality

QUOTE: Knowing the names of the people who write your software doesn't give you a list of people whom you can blame when things go wrong; it gives you a list of people who are highly motivated to see that things don't go wrong in the first place.

 InfoWorld
Nov 02, 2001 The Open Source: IT Manager's Nightmare

A software supplier that closes its doors is the nightmare of every IT manager, but that rule no longer applies in the open-source world.

InfoWorld
Oct 01, 2001 W3C Patent Plan Draws Protests

QUOTE: To date, either those [World Wide Web Consortium] standards have not been based on patented technology, or the holders of patents have chosen to not enforce patents...

 ZDnet
Sep 17, 2001 Open Source Rocked By Patent Dispute

QUOTE: But the thorny issue that now remains is who exactly will enforce this alleged breach of the GPL license.

 ZDnet
Aug 29, 2001 Governments Push Open-source Software

QUOTE: A recent global wave of legislation is compelling government agencies, and in some cases government-owned companies, to use open-source or free software...

 CNET
Aug 28, 2001 Microsoft Patents a Threat to Open Source

QUOTE: ...ongoing moves from Microsoft Corp. to acquire a range of software patents that the company can potentially use down the line to attack and try to restrict the development and distribution of open-source software.

 ZDnet
Jul 27, 2001 The True Struggle Behind the MS-Open Source Fight: Ideology

QUOTE: The upsurge in free software...is a valid reaction to a company [Microsoft] that has achieved too much dominance.

 ZDnet
Jun 19, 2001 Gates: Open-source GPL is 'Pac-Man-like'

QUOTE: [Bill Gates said that GNU General Public License, GPL] "...makes it impossible for a commercial company to use any of that work or build on any of that work."

 ZDnet
Apr 06, 2001 Open Source to Industry: It's Payback Time

s-ABSTRACT: The open-source community is planning to meet IBM, HP and others that are making fat profits from open-source software, and ask them to relinquish intellectual property in return.

 ZDnet