When Walt Mossberg talks, people listen. He's the big tech writer at the Wall Street Journal, and ... having the WSJ report on Linux and Ubuntu is huge.

According to spokespeople for the two companies a report on Sunday evening in the Wall Street Journal, the much-rumored and never-admitted merger talks between IBM and Sun Microsystems appear to have hit an impasse.

No kidding. Huh.

Dave Garrod, a lawyer who leads patent reform group PubPat's initiative against false marking, is now playing the part of the patent troll. He filed a patent infringement lawsuit against a number of tech companies, including a small Texas software company that went out of business years ago.

Three technology heavyweights are joining a coalition to fight Google's attempt to create what could be the world's largest virtual library. Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo will sign up to the Open Book Alliance being spearheaded by the Internet Archive. They oppose a legal settlement that could make Google the main source for many online works.

Linux users take note: Microsoft has signed another patent licensing agreement with a Linux using vendor. In this new case, Microsoft has signed a deal with Melco Group the group that owns tech vendor Buffalo Technology.

Walter Mossberg, an influential tech columnist who writes primarily for the Wall Street Journal, wrote a piece the other day in which he said that Linux still wasn't ready for mainstream users.

The media has been abuzz over the past 24 hours as the Wall Street Journal has reported that Google has begun presenting their phone strategy to carriers. While much of this information is not new, the fact that mass media is covering it, has caused new focus on the initiative.

On 23rd August, 2008, a group of Bangaloreans is to gather outside Town Hall to protest software Patents under the aegis of Free Software Users Group, Bangalore at 5.30 PM.

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal’s Nick Wingfield broke a story on Microsoft selling a group of patents to a third party. The end result of this story is good for Linux, even though it doesn’t placate fears of ongoing attacks by Microsoft.