Reality, as good writers know, is sometimes stranger than fiction. SCO's recent performance in the U.S. District Court in Utah is a perfect example. With years to prepare, SCO executives made some remarkable statements in their attempt to show that SCO, not Novell, owns Unix's copyright.

Some successful open-source companies are using a dual-licensing scheme. In short, software is released both through an open source version (e.g. licensed under the GNU GPL) and through a proprietary license usually reserved to paying customers.

There are some in this world who believe that Linux is the king of all operating systems. In some ways I agree with them because Linux certainly is a big player in the server world. It may lack in market share in the the desktop sector, but that doesn't mean it's a lesser operating system.

When Tanya Andersen opens the door to her modest apartment in suburban Portland, Ore., her Maltese-terrier mix, Tazz, runs over and wags his tail in a friendly hello. The 45-year-old single mother doesn't seem like much of a fighter.

Since I gave a presentation on this topic at the OFE Conference in Geneva at the end of February I have meant to post something about it here. As some of us stated before, if anything, the OOXML debacle has achieved one thing: raising awareness for the need for higher quality standards and standards development processes.

A US court has ruled that users have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" in their internet surfing records and that police must obtain warrants from higher than usual courts in order to force ISPs to hand over records.

Legal Issues about Contributing Code to GNU --- Project GNU has to be careful to obey intellectual property laws, even though these laws are wrong and people generally should share useful information without hesitation, because we are in the public eye. This means that if you want to contribute software, you have to do something to give us legal permission to use it.

On February 21 of 2008, just two months ago, Microsoft announced “strategic changes in technology and business practices to expand interoperability.” These changes, which would be incorporated into a set of “Interoperability Principles” that would provide API and protocol documentation for connectivity to and from their “high-volume business products” naming specifically Windows Vista,