It can be hard to get paid for producing free-licensed works. Software represents a niche where a lot of exceptions can be found, but for aesthetic works, the problem is severe. This has spurred a lot of innovative ideas for better incentive systems.

This article examines a field called compliance engineering. Compliance engineering was pioneered by technical experts who wanted to address misuses of software, and was made famous by gpl-violations.org, FSF, and similar organizations correcting Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) license violations.

We contacted Netgear to receive their perspective on the issue, and they wrote back to let us know that their Senior Product Line Manager Som Pal Choudhury has written a post which describes Netgear’s stance.

Keith Bergelt, CEO of the Open Invention Network (OIN), described the circumstances which led the company to recently purchase 22 Microsoft patents, as part of a talk at the first LinuxCon. While the circumstances surrounding that purchase were quite interesting—and indicative of Microsoft's patent strategy—he also described the mission of OIN as a protector of Linux from patent trolls.

When is an open source license not an open source license? The recent rush to "Open Core Licensing" as defined by Andrew Lampitt, the business development director of JasperSoft, raises many questions as to the meaning and purpose of free and open source software.

If you happen to believe that Microsoft could never open source one of its operating systems, think again.

Vietnam has just made ODF a national standard whilst other new gains are noted

Google has sent one of the most prolific independent developers for the Android phone a letter demanding he stop distributing software that greatly expands the capabilities of the fledgling smartphone operating system. Neither Google nor the developer, who goes by the handle Cyanogen, is saying much about the cease and desist letter.