Free Software Community

The Microsoft-Novell Linux deal: Two years later — Two years ago this month, Microsoft forged its controversial partnership with Novell that, among other things, had the two companies agreeing not to sue each other over intellectual property issues, in part to protect Suse Linux users over any patent litigation from Microsoft.Just how well has that deal worked out? That depends on whom you talk to.Microsoft and Novell paint nothing but a rosy picture of the arrangement. "[Customers] like the idea that Microsoft and Novell are in the same room," says Susan Hauser, Microsoft's general manager for strategic partnerships.[ Microsoft Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Horacio Gutierrez recently... [Tags: boycott, co editor, deputy general, free software community, general counsel]

Creative GPLs X-Fi Sound Card Driver Code — An anonymous reader writes "In a move that's a win for the free software community, Creative Labs has decided to release their binary Linux driver for the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi and X-Fi Titanium sound cards under the GPL license. This is coming after several failed attempts at delivering a working binary driver and years after these sound cards first hit the market."Read more of this story at Slashdot.... [Tags: anonymous reader, creative labs, creative sound, failed attempts, fi]

Maemo Summit and Desktop Search Hackfest (part 1) — The first Maemo Summit was held in Berlin on the 19th and 20th of September. Nokia proposed to organise a "Desktop Search Hackfest" in collaboration with the GNOME foundation. This proposal was forwarded to all the participants in the discussions on a set of common standards for desktop search called Xesam. The list of attendees was very interesting and I had the impression that it would be hard to get the same group of people together soon. So I decided to skip a family day at my employer, PANalytical, and went to the hackfest. On the way to Berlin, which... [Tags: attendees, corridors, costumes, desktop search, dining car]

What Free Media Center Software Do You Use? — Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed Have you ever tried to view your media on your computer through your television? You could either connect your computer to your TV, or use software designed to collect this media for you. Where can you get this software? Giovanni sent me the following email: I have just published a study comparing 10 of the most prominent FLOSS Media Center projects, under a Creative Commons License. This might be useful for a lot of people to get state of the art information in this area,... [Tags: center projects, center software, creative commons license, democratic organization, developing software]

SGI Releases OpenGL As Free Software — StoneLion writes "Since its release, the OpenGL code that is responsible for 3-D acceleration on GNU/Linux has been running on licenses that were accepted by neither the Free Software Foundation (FSF) nor the Open Source Initiative. Today, however, the FSF has announced that the licenses in question have been rewritten, the problems resolved, and the code freed. Peter Brown, executive director of the FSF, says, 'This represents a huge gift to the free software community.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.... [Tags: acceleration, executive director, free software community, free software foundation, fsf]

Behind the Doors of the Free Software Foundation — Linux.com has an interesting look at the inner workings of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). "The purpose of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is probably obvious from its name -- but what does promoting free software mean in terms of everyday activity? Examining the roles of the organization shows how complex the FSF's advocacy role has become. It also reveals the range of services available to the free software community, and helps to explain how such a small group has had such a major influence on computer technology. As a 501(c)3 charity in the United States, the FSF is run... [Tags: 501 c 3, advocacy role, board of directors, charity, computer technology]

Court: violating copyleft = copyright infringement — A federal appeals court held Wednesday that copying free software without complying with its license is copyright infringement. The ruling, which will make such licenses much easier to enforce, is a key victory for the free software community.Read More...... [Tags: copyright infringement, federal appeals court, free software community, victory]

Since the release of Firefox 3 I’ve gotten this question over and over again: Why does Firefox 3 make it so hard to use a self-signed certificates? It was pointed out to me, rightfully so, that this tends to affect the free software community more than others because it’s easier for technical people to set up a self-signed certs. True, but we did it for a good reason. Johnathan has a post up that talks about SSL in Firefox 3, a post that I hope will put some of those questions to rest. He talks about why we did... [Tags: better security, certificates, certs, firefox, free software community]

Autonomo.us Group Wants to Help Free Your Data — If you’re worried about the freedom of your data in today’s web services — data on sites like Facebook, MySpace, Google docs and more — you’re not alone. We’ve written repeatedly about the need for sites to open up data and there are several active groups designed to promote open technologies, like OpenID, OAuth and others. One group that has been conspicuously absent from the debate however, is the granddaddy of user rights champions — the Free Software Foundation (FSF). But that’s changing with a new group known as Autonomo.us. The only question is: is it too late to matter?... [Tags: centralized services, creative commons, data storage, desktop software, developers]