Summary: News analysis and preparation for patent news catchup

THE lawsuits against Red Hat and Google help teach us that once someone is making money with Linux, patents come knocking on the door in pursuit of a share of the profits. As Simon Phipps recently explained, everyone loses from this practice (except lawyers). He speaks specifically about the Oracle case and it is summarised as follows:

Besides Google, biggest loser is free culture in general and open source in particular. Here's your guide to what's at stake

As a former manager at Sun (of Java fame), Phipps understands what's at stake and in the rest of this month we are going to catch up with patent news that we missed in March and April (due to personal reasons).

The new Android case kicks off and Groklaw provides detailed analysis while the less legalese-savvy press follows the lead. As Pogson puts it, "Oracle [is] is clutching at straws," for reasons we covered here before. ⬆