Bonum Certa Men Certa

Free Software a Primary Litigation Target

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

--Sometimes attributed to Mahatma Gandhi



Gandhi



Summary: Bits from the news about Android, GNU, and Linux, which are under attack from proprietary software giants that use copyright, patent, and antitrust lawsuits

Patent and copyright fights are the last resort against Linux, which is now the most dominant platform (kernel) in the world, often accompanied by GNU. SCOracle tries to claim copyrights over Android, but it has not worked out so far, even after 3 years of litigation.

The SCO case is not totally over (after over a decade in court) and SCO is not dead yet. Mysterious funds keep reviving litigation. IBM is still wrestling with SCO and "IBM is right," says Pamela Jones, "that almost all of the claims in SCO's complaint are dead as a door nail now, because of Novell's victory over SCO regarding the ownership of copyrights, SCO concedes." Novell is pretty much a dead company now; its patents got passed to Oracle, Microsoft, and Apple (CPTN).



"The IBM-backed OIN has not helped fight Apple, e.g. in the Samsung case, showing its futility in a way."In the mean time we learn that software patents are brought forth as defence of Linux, expanding a shield as follows: "Open Invention Network (OIN) has furthered its mission to enable and protect Linux by expanding the Linux System technologies covered by its protective network of royalty-free cross-licenses and by its defensive patent portfolio to include nearly three hundred new Linux software packages. These additions contain a number of packages from notable technologies and projects such as Python (e.g., Django, PyPy, and Twisted), MongoDB, OpenStack, Ruby, and webOS. This new coverage builds upon the two..." (full press release)

The IBM-backed OIN has not helped fight Apple, e.g. in the Samsung case, showing its futility in a way. Samsung was left to fight Apple on its own, challenging the legitimacy of some patents:

Samsung has just filed a motion for a new trial on liability in Apple v. Samsung with respect to Apple's '381 patent. That's the bounce back patent, which was used by Apple in the first trial in California, and the jury ruled that Samsung infringed that patent with 18 products. As you know, the two companies are currently in the pre-retrial motion stage leading up to a retrial on the question of damages only, scheduled to begin in November.


"As the South Korean electronics manufacturer continues to grow, it's expanding operations in the U.S. This means a 1.1 million-square-foot modern campus with space for 2,000 employees," says CNET as Samsung outpaces Apple. "Samsung Electronics is the world's 14th-largest company in terms of revenue, beating out Apple," according to Fortune Global 500. Watch the spin from the Microsoft booster who uses the US-centric worldview to make Android look small.

The matter of fact is, very much as everyone expected, Linux is becoming a worldwide sensation, but this means it also becomes the target of copyright, patent, and antitrust lawsuits (working against Android, the antitrust victim). These lawsuits need to be countered and they are a sign of growth. The more nervous proprietary giants become, the more lawsuits and dirty tricks they will summon, sometimes by proxy.

Recent Techrights' Posts

SoylentNews Grows Up, Registers as a Business, Site Traffic Reportedly Grows
More people realise that social control media may in fact be a passing fad
 
Garden Season Starts Today
Outdoor time, officially...
More Information About Public Talks That Richard Stallman Gave This Week in Europe
Two talks in Switzerland
Engadget is Still a Spamfarm, It's Just an Amazon Catalogue (SPAM/SEO), a Sea of Junk Disguised as "Articles" With Few 'Fillers' (Real Articles) in Between
Engadget writes for bots now, not for humans
Richard Stallman's Talks in Switzerland This Week
We need to put an end to 'cancer culture'; it's trying to kill people and it is even swatting people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 28, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, March 28, 2024
[Meme] EPO's New Ways of Working (NWoW), a.k.a. You Don't Even Get a Desk at Work and Cannot be Near Known Colleagues
Seems more like union-busting (divide and rule)
Hiding Microsoft's Culpability in Security Breaches and Other Major Blunders (in the United Kingdom, This May Mean You Can't Get Food)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is vast
Giving back to the community
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 28/03/2024: Sega, Nintendo, and Bell Layoffs
Links for the day
Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
China's New 'IT' Rules Are a Massive Headache for Microsoft
On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries