"So for non-lawgeeks, this won't seem important. But trust me, this is huge [...] In non-technical terms, the Court has held that free licenses such as the CC licenses set conditions (rather than covenants) on the use of copyrighted work. When you violate the condition, the license disappears, meaning you're simply a copyright infringer. This is the theory of the GPL and all CC licenses.

EFF's Coders' Rights Project protects programmers and developers engaged in cutting-edge exploration of technology in our world. Security and encryption researchers help build a safer future for all of us using digital technologies, yet too many legitimate researchers face serious legal challenges that prevent or inhibit their work.

Network services are one of the fastest growing areas in modern software. However, while network services have much of the convenience of free software, only a minority are available under a free license. In fact, it was only last November that the Free Software Foundation (FSF) released the GNU Affero General Public License for network services.

One of the things that has amazed me recently is the power of the letter – or, more specifically, the power of the letter when sent to an MP or MEP. Naively, I would have expected a deafening silence from these exalted beings in receipt of my ever so 'umble communications, but by and large they are astonishingly quick to respond, often with personal replies.

Now that the Novell sideshow appears to be finished, subject to any appeals either side might bring (or even requests for reconsideration), I think it's time to turn our attention back to the main tent, and that would be SCO v. IBM, which will be ramping up in due time.

Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Canonical Ltd., which maintains the Ubuntu desktop Linux distribution said he doubts Microsoft would file suit against a free software developer unless the software giant wants "war."

A new global standard for the enforcement of intellectual monopolies is currently being discussed by representatives of the United States, the European Commission, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Korea, Mexico and New Zealand. This new agreement is so important that it must be drawn up in secret, safe from the prying eyes of little people like you and me.

The Patent and Trademark Office has now made clear that its newly developed position on patentable subject matter will invalidate many and perhaps most software patents, including pioneering patent claims to such innovators as Google, Inc.