The classic way for companies to violate the antitrust laws is to get together and agree to all do something the same way. Happily, the regulators understand that creating open standards and open source is a good thing. But you still have to keep the rules in mind if you want to stay on the right side of the line.

The final steps are being made in the Google v. Oracle copyright case, which will put the fate of programming in the hands of the Supreme Court.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is rotting away as an advocate against software patents; Patents on algorithms are still being granted (even when courts repeatedly reject these) and Red Hat’s Chief Patent Counsel remains Manny Schecter, one of the loudest proponents of such patents (citing the likes of Adam Mossoff this week, in effect Koch operatives); this is a very big problem because Free software projects come under a barrage of lawsuits, using patents like those IBM lobbies ferociously to legitimise

Free software” is a confusing name/term. The “free” here means freedom. So it is freedom software. But to exercise freedom you need something more. What is that? You have to own the software. Therefore, free software is about ownership of software.

Microsoft keeps buying ad space in magazines, compromising their integrity and tarnishing brands such as "Linux" (making it look like merely a component available with Vista 10)

The final steps are being made in the Google v. Oracle copyright case, which will put the fate of programming in the hands of the Supreme Court.

You wouldn't want to 'upend ... the computer software industry'. Google last night strode into the last-chance saloon of the US Supreme Court, warning judges (PDF) that if they did not overturn a Federal Circuit ruling in Oracle's favour over its use of Java code in the Android mobile operating system, this could "upend ... the computer software industry."…

Rambler claims code creator was working for them at the time and so they own tech worth $700m. Nginx's Moscow office was raided today by police after the ownership of the popular web server's source code was disputed.…

We need to stand for the freedom to not use the software — we need to enjoy that freedom without giving up the rest of the existing Free software ecosystem.

Microsoft and its boosters (and media partners) haven’t grown tired of spreading falsehoods to stigmatise and take control of GNU/Linux by creating their own versions and traps for it

The Winux Foundation: One can leverage the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to better understand how, over time, the Foundation called “Linux” deviated or diverged away from its mission statement for the sole purpose of raising corporate funds and selling influence to corporations (passing the community’s hard work to them — a form of tacit privatisation)

I would be willing to contribute to a project that creates a second tier, or "Four More Freedoms" but I have to ask: what freedoms do we need that we don't have?

IBM has long cross-licensed with Microsoft. This means they won’t sue one another over patents. Good for them, eh? Shared monopoly. No wonder Red Hat nowadays promotes Microsoft things almost every day. Now that IBM owns Red Hat (and all of its patents) IBM won’t care about Microsoft’s ongoing — even in 2019 — blackmail of OEMs that ship GNU/Linux.

Together, they'll support Unified Patents' Open Source Zone. This move will deter patent trolls from suing for fear they'll find their patents annulled.

The Open Invention Network (OIN), in collaboration with Fraunh?fer, is promoting software patents and all sorts of other nonsense as part of ‘open’ standards in a new paper sponsored by the EU and edited by the former EPO Chief Economist Nikolaus Thumm (not Battistelli's choice); this is another reminder of the fact that OIN misrepresents Free/Open Source software (FOSS) developers and their interests

Microsoft understands that by entrapping FOSS and GNU/Linux inside proprietary software platforms like GitHub and Azure it can utilise the false perception that it somehow speaks on behalf of both (whilst attacking both)

Rather than settle and make pain just go away, project wants to send a message instead. After being hit with a patent-infringement lawsuit last month, the GNOME Foundation has fired back with a counterclaim – and urged the courts to dismiss the case.…

Those who work for corporate publishers, e.g. SJVN (Vaughan-Nichols) and Swapnil, aren't loyal to facts as much as they're loyal to their employers, very rich and well-connected people with an agenda deeply hostile towards Software Freedom

Patent trolls with Intellectual Ventures (IV) ties won’t do Microsoft with its “Microsoft loves Linux” PR campaign any favours, especially now that these trolls are preying on GNU/Linux in the courtroom

Sure, anyone can sue anyone, but winning this intellectual property lawsuit against the GNOME Foundation, a leading open-source and Linux non-profit group, will be a heck of a challenge.

Linux darling faces the lawyers over Shotwell shenanigans. The GNOME Foundation, maker of the eponymous Linux desktop, has been hit with a sueball over how its Shotwell photo manager, er, manages photos.…

The GNOME Foundation is facing a lawsuit from Rothschild Patent Imaging, LLC. Patent troll Rothschild allege that Shotwell photo manager infringes its patent.

Armed by the biggest patent troll of Microsoft, Rothschild Patent Imaging LLC not only threatens but also sues Free software that's part of standard GNU/Linux desktops

The Linux Foundation does a disservice to those whom it claims to speak for and represent; unless of course the Linux Foundation is the trade group whose goal is to outsource Linux to the foes of Linux

The ways Microsoft depresses GNU/Linux advocacy and discourages enthusiasm for Software Freedom is not hard to see; it’s worth considering and understanding some of these tactics (mostly assimilation-centric and love-themed), which can otherwise go unnoticed

Microsoft and its boosters (media insiders) spread the illusion that Microsoft is “opening up”; the reality, however, is that it’s looking to tighten control over Linux while at the same time profiting from exFAT patents owing to back room deals

Contrary to what Microsoft-dominated media is trying to tell us, Linux does not need exFAT and by adopting exFAT Linux would become more closely connected to and tightly controlled by Microsoft

The concept of "Open" at the Linux Foundation gives room for thought; are things really being opened or mostly marketed as "Open" and, if so, is the Foundation more like a marketing agency?

This strategy is not far from when Microsoft talked about “de-commoditizing protocols” in the late 90s, as part of their plans to control, dominate, and end Open Source and Free software.

Unjust and at times fatal plea ‘bargain’ tricks are being leveraged against people who fight ‘the system’; Eric Lundgren has come to realise he’s one of these people

An example of why open source is necessary.

The copyright is on the expression or implementation of the recipe (the wording) or the program (the code.) There is no copyright on the process or the concepts implemented.

Microsoft's anti-Linux strategy is a hybrid of "embrace" and "tax" (if not amicably then by force); critics are being neutralised by giving them suitcases of cash

Open source use continues to skyrocket, not just in use cases and scenarios but also in volume. It is trivial for a developer to depend on a 1,000 JavaScript packages from a single run of npm install or have thousands of packages in a Docker image. At the same time, there is increased interest in ensuring license compliance.?

A sort of corporate takeover, or moneyed interests at the expense of our freedom, can be seen as a 'soft coup' whose eventual outcome would involve all or most servers in 'the cloud' (surveillance with patent tax as part of the rental fees) and almost no laptops/desktops which aren't remotely controlled (and limit what's run on them, using something like UEFI 'secure boot')

For over 10 years, VMware was accused of illegally using Linux code in its VMware ESX bare-metal virtual machine hypervisor. After a German court dismissed the case, the Linux programmer behind the lawsuit has called it a day.

Microsoft is still preying on GNU/Linux using patents, notably software patents; it wants billions of dollars served on a silver platter in spite of claims that it reached a “truce” by joining the Open Invention Network and joining the LOT Network

After disbanding community participation in the Board (but there are Microsoft staff on the Board now) the “Linux Foundation” (or Zemlin PAC) continues to take Microsoft money and polishes or launders that as “community”

Microsoft, which nowadays does the patent shakedown against GNU/Linux by proxy, is still moaning about companies that don’t pay ‘protection’ money (grounds for antitrust action or racketeering investigation)

For over a decade, VMware has been accused of illegally using Linux code in its VMware ESX bare-metal virtual machine hypervisor. A German court has dismissed the case, but the struggle may not be over.

A popular note on the Linux Kernel Mailing List claims that a program's author can block people from using his code at his discretion. Wrong.

As an attorney running an open source program office for a Fortune 500 corporation, I am often asked to look into a product or component where there seems to be confusion as to the licensing model. Under what terms can the code be used, and what obligations run with such use? This often happens when the code or the associated project community does not clearly indicate availability under a commonly accepted open source license.

Even days apart/within confirmation of IBM’s takeover of Red Hat IBM makes it clear that it’s very strongly in favour of software patents, not only in the US but also in Europe

The problem is that such restrictions run afoul of the Open Source Definition used by the Open Source Initiative, the standards organization that decides which licenses qualify as open source. The restriction also means that any code covered by the license probably can't be used within any other open source project.

Alibaba and Ant Financial are trying to cool things off in the Sino-US intellectual property wars by joining the pro-Linux Open Invention Network patent protection organization.

The Linux Foundation has released the second edition of?Open Source Compliance in the Enterprise?by Ibrahim Haddad, which offers organizations a practical guide to using open source code and participating in open source communities while complying with both the spirit and the letter of open source licensing.

Microsoft's legal department relies on its vultures (to whom it passes money and patents) to sue its rivals; but other than that, Microsoft is a wonderful company!

The Linux Foundation has just launched an Automated Compliance Tooling (ACT) project to help companies comply with open source licensing requirements.

Microsoft is again scattering patents around (for profit and lawsuits), having long done that with patent trolls which attack GNU/Linux

New statements from Microsoft's management (Andersen) serve to show that Microsoft hasn't really changed; it's just trying to sell "Azure IP Advantage", hoping that enough patent trolls with their dubious software patents will blackmail GNU/Linux users into adopting Azure for 'protection'