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Microsoft has recently been making sounds that indicate it will use its patent portfolio to start to extract fees from other companies. A recent example was its use of patents around technology mapping short filenames to long file names, and how Microsoft is licensing this technology to embedded devices company which use FAT on devices such as digital cameras. So what else do Microsoft have in wait for us? How about New Zealand patent 525484 - "Word processing document stored in a single XML file that may be manipulated by applications that understand XML". Filed on the 24th of April...

<p>Why is the Free Software Foundation given a pass on the issue of contract enforcement under state law on binding legal agreements like the GPL? The consequences are dramatic indeed for the commercial enterprise environment.</p> <p>When the Free Software Foundation speaks of unilateral permissions or bare license law enforcing the GPL, they are referring to a long line of case law concerning patents that was summarized by the Supreme Court in General Talking Pictures Corp v Western Electric Co, Inc., 305 US 124,125.</p>

This is an article at Groklaw on the financial outlook for SCO done by Decatur Jones' Dion Cornette. The article at Groklaw has links to the PDF, and I have taken the text from Groklaw along with Pamela Jones introductory commentary. ++++++++++++++ Decatur Jones' Dion Cornett on SCO Friday, January 30 2004 @ 07:34 AM EST Here is the PDF of Dion Cornett's January 13 report on SCO. As you will see, the OSDL legal defense fund, the Novell indemnification, and the Open Source Risk Management vendor-neutral indemnification program seem to him meaningful events, which he believes make it unlikely...

Linux delivers for U.S. Postal Service Linux-based scanning machines speed mail sorting in 250 facilities.By Phil HochmuthNetwork World, 01/19/04 While many businesses are just now turning to Linux as a server platform, the technology has delivered for the U.S. Postal Service for several years.The Postal Service has used penguin power since 1999 to streamline the "snail mail" process. More than 900 Linux machines currently sort in excess of 670 million pieces of mail per day in the Postal Service's 250 mail-sorting sites around the country."Linux has been working well for us for some time now," says Jasbir Sandhu, electronics engineer at for the USPS, who...

The originator of the Linux OS has sharp words for SCO's "cornered rat" claims of intellectual-property infringement If anyone knows what's in Linux, it's Linus Torvalds. He did the first work on the open-source operating system while a student at the University of Helsinki, and he managed the often chaotic process of building it with other programmers. Now, SCO Group (SCOX), a small Utah software company, claims Linux is trampling on intellectual property rights it inherited from Novell (NOVL), which got them from AT&T (T). In an e-mail interview with BusinessWeek Correspondent Jim Kerstetter, Torvalds explains why he thinks SCO...

As the MyDoom virus spread rapidly across the Internet on Monday, Bill Gates extolled the value of such attacks and warned against other operating systems' complacency Microsoft chief software architect Bill Gates took a side-swipe at rival operating systems on Monday, as he reiterated the importance of security for Windows; in particular its next version, which is codenamed Longhorn. As the latest mass-mailing worm spread across the Internet on Monday, infecting many tens of thousands of Windows PCs with a program designed to attack the servers of Unix vendor SCO Group on 1 February, Gates stressed the importance of...

A fast-spreading mass-mailing virus has emerged as an unlikely weapon in the ongoing 'Linux War' between the SCO Group (Quote, Chart) and the open-source community. Anti-virus experts have increased the threat level on the W32.Novarg.A@mm (MyDoom) virus, which is spreading like wildfire through e-mail in-boxes worldwide and is programmed to launch a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDos) attack against the SCO home page. "This one is pretty bad. It's widespread and it only looks to be increasing," said Chris Belthoff, a senior security analyst at Sophos, Inc. "This takes the Linux Wars to a new intensity. It appears that the author...

New virus infects PCs, whacks SCO By Robert Lemos update A mass-mailing virus that quickly spread around the Internet on Monday is compromising computers so they attack the SCO Group's Web server with a flood of data, according to antivirus companies. The virus--known as MyDoom, Novarg and as a variant of the Mimail virus by different antivirus companies--arrives in an in-box with one of several different random subject lines such as "Mail Delivery System," "Test" or "Mail Transaction Failed." The body of the e-mail contains an executable file and a statement such as: "The message contains Unicode characters and has...

The modern PC is a marvel of technology. One of its more useful capabilities is the ability to use the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive as a boot disk. Many Linux distros use this feature to launch their installers, but if you can boot off the CD, why can't you run off the CD? In fact, you can. The cool thing about all this is that you don't have to install anything on your computer. In our other articles this week, we've looked at distros that had to be installed to your hard disk before you could use them. But that's...

The SCO Group Inc. has taken its fight with the Linux community to Capitol Hill. Earlier this month, the company sent the 535 members of the U.S. Congress a letter that called Linux and open source software a threat to the security and economy of the U.S., SCO confirmed on Thursday The letter is dated Jan. 8 and was published on the Internet this week by an open source lobbying organization called the Open Source and Industry Alliance (OSAIA). It states that the commoditizing influence of open source software such as the Linux operating system is bad for the U.S....

At the end of the Interview the Lindows President gives a coupon code for a free copy of Lindows. Q. What do you consider do be your biggest challenge? Educating people about the Linux choice for their desktop/laptop. Getting people to try something new takes a lot of work, time and energy. The only hope Microsoft has, is that the monopoly they have had extends to the minds of the consumer. If we can get people to be open minded enough to give Linux a try, we know many will never go back. I didn't know what Linux was a...

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - U.S. software giant Microsoft said on Friday it would pump $1 billion of cash and software into a computer training program it has set up with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). "The scale of the program we have here is quite unusual in terms of corporate giving. It's $1 billion over five years and that represents both cash and software," Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates told journalists at the World Economic Forum. The United Nations will work with the Microsoft Unlimited Potential program to invest in community centers in poor regions where people can learn how...

Today Linux, Tomorrow the World? By James V. DeLong The term "open source" is linked with software, and most particularly with Linux, the operating system which, it is hoped or feared, can challenge both Microsoft's position on the desktop and its ambitions to extend its empire into server space. The theory is that Linux and other open source programs are written by hordes of volunteers, each contributing his/her widow's mite of code, communicating at zero cost over the Internet, and self-organizing their efforts without need for either the incentives of markets or the commands of organizational hierarchies. The proof that...

Continuing its war of words against the Linux community, The SCO Group Wednesday accused free software advocates of threatening the intellectual property protections provided by U.S. and European law. "There is a group of software developers in the United States, and other parts of the world, that do not believe in the approach to copyright protection mandated by Congress," SCO CEO Darl McBride wrote in an open letter posted on SCO's Web site Wednesday. Advertisement: The letter argues that Linux's GPL (GNU General Public License) software license is "exactly opposite in its effect from the 'copyright' laws adopted by the...

SCO is expanding its campaign to spread Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about open source software to Congress. The excessive hyperbole and “the sky is falling rhetoric” underlines the failure SCO has had in advancing its apparently frivolous claims against other companies which still create technology products and innovate. The company has been spreading FUD through past letters and lawsuits, and now SCO executives are telling Congress that Linux, open source software in general, and specifically, the General Public License (GPL), which protects most open source software is: a threat to the U.S. information technology industry; a threat to U.S.’ competitive...

SCO is continuing to press its unfounded vendetta against open source software to Congress. Repeating the Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt that the company has spread through past letters and lawsuits, SCO executives are telling Congress that open source software in general, and specifically, the General Public License (GPL), which protects most open source software is a threat to the U.S. information technology industry; a threat to U.S.' competitive position; and a threat to national security. All of these assertions are false. SCO, which long ago decided to abandon a business model of creating innovative and exciting software, has placed its...

SCO Files Slander of Title Lawsuit Against Novell Tuesday January 20, 3:25 pm ET Complaint Requests Injunctive Relief and Damages Against Novell for Copyright Misrepresentations and Alleges Bad Faith Effort by Novell to Interfere With SCO's Intellectual Property Rights to UNIX and UnixWare LINDON, Utah, Jan. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The SCO Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOX -News), the owner of the UNIX® operating system and a leading provider of UNIX-based solutions, today filed suit against Novell (Nasdaq: NOVL - News) for its alleged bad faith effort to interfere with SCO's rights with respect to UNIX and UnixWare®. Among the allegations in...

      |     Global legal action looms over use of Linux By Richard Waters in San Francisco Published: January 18 2004 19:55 | Last Updated: January 18 2004 19:55 Some of the world's biggest companies could shortly face lawsuits over their use of the Linux computer operating system, the executive at the centre of the growing legal storm over the software has warned.The potential lawsuits would escalate the legal wrangle around Linux, dragging non-US companies into a battle that has threatened to derail one of the technology industry's biggest recent success stories.BP, Siemens and Fujitsu are...

Munich Linux setback By Jan Libbenga Posted: 15/01/2004 at 09:50 GMT Last year, the city of Munich, Germany opted to go with Linux instead of Microsoft software on more than 14,000 desktop computers. This was seen as a significant setback for Microsoft and a clear sign of Linux' increasing viability. But now the project is in trouble, according to Computerwoche. This Spring, Munich needs to finish a migration plan as well as present a budget for the project. But according to Computerwoche there is not enough money and technical difficulties may result in stalling of the LiMux Project. In particular,...