The Open Invention Network, the Software Freedom Law Center, and the Linux Foundation have teamed up to create another tool to defend Linux from patents. It will be hosted by the NYU Peer to Patent folks, where Mark Webbink is now. It is called Linux Defenders, and that would be you, in that they are asking folks to provide prior art to block anyone else from patenting it.

Opponents of open source often use the specter of potential patent infringement charges to protect their proprietary turf.

Questions over patent validity in software are never easy to answer, but it's one that a new effort called Linux Defenders from the Open Invention Network (OIN) is trying help solve.

A report from LWN.net suggests that there may be a patent problem with KSM, a memory management technology that is a candidate for inclusion in a future version of Linux.

I tend to giggle a little bit to myself whenever I hear about a "100% Free GNU/Linux distribution". I'm sure it is possible, theoretically to make one, but it quickly delves into semantics.

With its recent 11.1 release, OpenSUSE has changed the end-user license agreement (EULA) users must accept in order to install the distribution. The new, more Fedora-like license could increase the distribution's appeal among those wishing to redistribute the software, including engineers assembling filesystems for embedded Linux devices.

You'll see that SCO, despite telling the media yesterday that it would file a plan today, meeting the December 31st deadline set by the court, instead has filed for another delay.

Ian Tree, the chief architect at IT consultancy Hadleigh Marshall Netherlands b.v. of Eindhoven, The Netherlands, has some free advice for IBM's Software Group: Take the Notes/Domino groupware stack open source with a community-developed programming model. The idea is to keep the Notes client and the Domino server relevant in a world becoming more accustomed to open source products.