SugarCRM is to adopt Version 3 of the GNU general public license (GPLv3) for the next release of its open source CRM software after coming under pressure from its user community to move away from its own Sugar Public License.

UPERTINO, Calif. (July 25, 2007) - SugarCRM Inc., the world’s leading provider of commercial open source customer relationship management (CRM) software, today announced the upcoming release of Sugar Community Edition 5.0 will be licensed under the new Version 3 of the GNU General Public License (GPL). The GPL is the most widely used free and open source (FOSS) license in the market.

Red Hat has bowed to pressure and improved the way it describes partner software licenses on the Red Hat Exchange (RHX). The licenses of companies such as SugarCRM, Zimbra and Alfresco used to be buried on the RHX site, requiring interested customers to spend considerable time finding the documentation.

The quest for OpenDocument gets grounded by the hard realities of Microsoft Office-bound business processes. What's next for enterprise users who really want document interoperability?

German district court Munich has convicted Skype of violating the GPL. One of the VoIP telephones sold by Skype run Linux, but the GPL text was not handed out together with the phone, although the GPL requires that.

The no-lawsuit agreement reached in June between Linspire and Microsoft earlier this year is almost useless to Linspire customers because of tight restrictions on what the deal covers, according to a high-profile open source legal commentator.

"As you will recall, V1, the INCITS Technical Committee that addresses document format standards, was unable to reach consensus on a recommended US vote to either approve or reject DIS 29500, the draft ISO/IEC standard that describes Microsoft's OOXML formats. As expected, Microsoft is seeking to gain a US vote in favor of OOXML..."