To critics like Florian Mueller of FossPatents, all this sounds more like Skull & Bones than Semper Fi. “Canonical is known for being a strategic partner of IBM, and since IBM is the most influential force behind the OIN, that’s probably the reason why its membership status was upgraded,” he wrote me.

It’s an in-depth analysis from Florian Mueller, whose FOSSPatents remains fiercely opposed to all software patents. It’s something of a follow-up to a May piece in which he considered the idea of a Fair Troll.

Blue GNU caught up with GNUe' Reinhard Mueller to learn more about the ERP project. Mueller points out the project's shift in focus, thus highlighting the need for project developers to remain flexible.

It seems Groklaw will have to open a new category, answering Florian Mueller FUD.

Florian Müller (the English spelling of Müller is Mueller) has a problem. He has no provenance. To quote Wikipedia:

If the buyout fails, MySQL has been reasonably independent, but Sun's other businesses would either have to find ways to go forward independently or find another buyer, said Florian Mueller, an early investor in MySQL.

KDE e.V. is pleased to announce that we have joined the Open Invention Network community as a licensee. Open Invention Network was founded as a way to help defend the Linux ecosystem, and by extension much of the Free and Open Source software world, from the risks associated with software patents.

Open Invention Network (OIN), the company formed to enable and protect Linux, today extended its community with the signing of Mandriva as a licensee. By becoming a licensee, Mandriva has joined the growing list of organizations that recognize the importance of leveraging the Open Invention Network to further spur open source innovation.

Groklaw defends IBM and OIN very stubbornly (as well other initiatives that help legitimise software patents rather than immediately eradicate them), but Florian Müller from Germany disagrees with this approach