After an interesting free software licensing event in Helsinki yesterday, I got thinking about licence complexity. At the conference, people had two types of questions (a) Why didn’t GPLv3 additionally solve X problem? and (b) Why is it so long? In my presentation, predictably, I gave GPLv3 two thumbs up: Slides: Free Software Licences, For Read more »
Frequently Asked Question: Do software patents exist in the EU? Answer: The problem is that software patents exist in some ways in the EU. The power of patent governance is split between a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary. The legislature (the European Patent Convention) says that software ideas are not patentable. The executive (the Read more »
Sean Daly has just posted an interview about the BBC’s iPlayer DRM scandal: Groklaw: Interview with Mark Taylor, by Sean Daly The iPlayer is a piece of proprietary software developed by the BBC which only runs on Microsoft operating systems, thus excluding GNU/Linux users from watching this publicly-funded channel. Not only that, but it seems Read more »
From now on, "Yesterday’s Links" will be about whatever I’m up to. Better bloggers and blog readers tell me that this is what my blog should be for, so I’ll try. I’ll rename the series sometime. Some things I did recently: Publicised the RMS pavia transcript: LWN.net, Linux.com Newsvac, Blu-Gnu ODF Alliance meeting – strategy Read more »
Some links about today’s announcment by the European Commission that an agreement has been reached with Microsoft about the anti-trust case. Groklaw story with transcript by Sean Daly of the post announcement press Q&A The European Commission’s press statement, read out by Neelie Kroes A supplementary FAQ from the EC An NY Times article, quoting Read more »
Possibly interesting links I saw recently. A net-neutrality cartoon (thanks to tonnerre) Microsoft, antitrust and innovation an article by Georg Greve, who has also put some interesting open standards discussion in a blog entry. National Geographic article about languages dying, and a similar NY Times article An ogg of an interview with Stallman by bsdtalk Read more »
The University of Pavia, in Italy, recently awarded Richard Stallman with an honorary degree. Stallman gave a short speech, his "lectio doctoralis", on the ethical imperative to use free software, focussing on individuals and schools. The speech has been transcribed by Alessandro Rubini, with checking by Dora Scillipoti and Luca Andreucci. The transcript text, with Read more »
Just finished some travel planning. On October 25th, I’ll be at a Helsinki-based free software licensing event. Getting to and from Helsinki is much harder than I’d’ve expected, but it’s all worked out now. And on October 27th, I’ll be at Florence [GNU/]Linux Day. Afterward, I’ll go to Pisa to meet some of the local Read more »