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RECENT ENTRIES
Posted on Tuesday, May 1, 2012
It’s now up to a jury in San Francisco to determine whether Google’s Android mobile platform infringes Oracle’s copyrights in the code and documentation for the Java Platform. Or is it?
Posted on Wednesday, Apr 4, 2012
A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court issued a decision in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories that promises to significantly disrupt well-established (and investment-backed) expectations in the biotech industry.
Tags:Mayo v. Prometheus
Posted on Tuesday, Mar 6, 2012
Over on Groklaw, a recent post suggested that the copyright claims in Oracle v. Google might give rise to a defense of copyright misuse. The copyright issues in that case have been fascinating from the start: Google has argued, for instance, that software APIs are per se uncopyrightable. Judge Alsup rejected this argument, but I expect that we’ll hear more about it before the case is over.
Tags:copyright, Oracle v. Google
Posted on Tuesday, Feb 14, 2012
The debate over GPL enforcement continues, with the two leading GPL enforcers lashing back at the “anti-copyleft” forces.
A few weeks ago, Rob Landley sparked a firestorm of controversy within the FOSS community when he criticized the GPL enforcement campaigns conducted by the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) and Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC).
Posted on Friday, Feb 10, 2012
Back in the fall I wrote about the flap over the HP TouchPad tablets that were shipped with Android 2.2, or FroYo, installed. The TouchPad was a WebOS-powered tablet, but somehow at least a few units had Android installed. Most thought that these were test units that were never meant to be sold.
Posted on Friday, Feb 3, 2012
Rob Landley thinks so. One of the principal developers of BusyBox, Landley was a lead plaintiff in some of the enforcement actions brought by the Software Freedom Law Center a few years ago. He’s now leading up a project, called Toybox, to rewrite BusyBox and release it under a more permissive, non-GPL license. And for doing that, Landley’s drawn a lot of fire from free software advocates.
Posted on Monday, Jan 30, 2012
It’s traditional in late December to take a look back at the past year and review the top stories, and there are plenty of pieces that review the developments in open source in 2011: Sean Gallagher’s article at Ars Technica, Stephen J. Vaughn-Nichols’ recap of the top five Linux stories, and Mark Radcliffe’s take.
Tags:Android, GPL, Harald Welte, Linux, open source
Posted on Thursday, Nov 10, 2011
As I wrote a few weeks ago, it seems that a few of HP’s now discontinued TouchPads shipped with Android 2.2, or FroYo, installed. The TouchPad was a WebOS-powered tablet, but somehow at least a few units had Android installed. It’s thought that these were test units that were never meant to be sold.
Posted on Tuesday, Nov 8, 2011
In September, federal judge William Alsup denied Google’s request for a ruling that the Java application programming interfaces (“APIs”) were, categorically, not protected under copyright law. In that order, which came in Google’s litigation with Oracle over Google’s use of Java in its Android mobile operating system, Judge Alsup ruled that each of the disputed files must be analyzed individually to determine whether it is protected by copyright.
Posted on Wednesday, Oct 26, 2011
It was inevitable that malware would eventually target smartphones. The mobile devices are ubiquitous, and they can store quite a lot of valuable private data. Downloaded apps – projected to reach a staggering 29 billion for 2011 – provide an easy vector for infection.
