A barrister gossips & rants on intellectual property law, the legal system and civil liberties.
News.com has done an interview with Linus Torvalds in which he is said to be pleased with the new GPL version 3 draft. Keeping Linus happy is a good thing since he controls the largest and most important Free/Open Source software project around: the Linux kernel.
Having read the interview it looks more like he is saying ‘it’s not as bad as previous drafts’: hardly the same thing.
Continue reading ‘Torvalds ‘pleased’ with the GPL 3 draft’
Geeklawyer thinks that getting someone to pay big bucks twice for the same thing is a pretty neat trick; he’s only ever managed it once. When it’s the government doing it to him however he is a little more outraged. For example trying making him pay a second time to get access to statutes, or Ordnance Survey mapping data for which he already paid via his taxes.
Now a petition is up asking for government sourced taxpayer paid for software to be Free/Open source Software. The broad principle Geeklawyer thought to be right so he signed. The devil is, of course, in the detail: how does one treat the work of private companies, should non UK residents get the benefit of our taxes for free etc. These issues need to be looked at hard, perhaps taking influence from the BBC’s Creative Commons inspired license the Creative Archive License.
Signing the petition may encourage the government to think. Yea, it’s long shot …
I have one. It’s Open Source under a BSD licence (with a ‘no attribution permitted’ clause) and I’ve been distributing it freely.
I need to be tucked up in bed with a cup of hot girl.
However I have volunteered to man a civil liberties campaign street stall in the South of England this afternoon. This promises to be fun now that Blair has authorised councils to authorise private thugs (e.g. Brighton, thanks James) to run around public roads beating up and arresting innocent people committing the offence of not trying to make money or buy stuff. Still, privatising the cops is a good move isn’t it? why should they have a state monopoly. A bit of competition will make them raise their game. Just a long as they don’t arrest the wrong people.
According to el-reg the RIAA is going after Limewire, the p2p company that provides a premium connection client to the Gnutella network to allow people to share files. That much was already know. Geeklawyer’s interest was piqued by the Register’s contention that a new feature of the RIAA’s complaint that distinguished it from previous litigation was that they were targeting the developers merely because they were developers of the code and/or they enabled and encouraged others to assist in its development. Continue reading ‘RIAA takes a pop at p2p developers’
Geeklawyer notes that Microsoft is ‘cracking down’ on software piracy again. Not for their sakes of course. Well only incidentally anyway; no, their concern is for the economy. Stupid. ‘Cos a mere 10% reduction in piracy would create 34000 jobs in the UK and add £3 billion to the economy in tax revenues. Continue reading ‘Microsoft cracking down on piracy’
“Microsoft is to open up the source code behind its server communication protocols“
says the Register. One cheer says Geeklawyer. Microsoft said: “The commission asked for specifications. If you want to understand the protocols the source code is even better. This is the ultimate documentation. Indeed, and in this respect Microsoft echoes, word for word, the opinions of Andrew Tridgell of the impressive Samba project who said the same thing in the same words. Continue reading ‘Microsoft EU compliance’
Via IPKAT.
Readers of a Linux, rather than legal, disposition and with long memories may recall the absurd antics of Les Editions Albert Rene. They are the owners of the mildly amusing Asterix the Gaul cartoon, sorry graphic novel, series which features a fat sidekick Obelix. LEAR thus sought and own the Obelix trademark and have been waging trademark battles marked by hypersensitivity and self-importance. Continue reading ‘revenge’
the Common Information Environment Group (CIE) have just released a study on the potential for Creative Commons Licences to simplify access to digital resources. The CIE fund ways of making digital work more widely available for reuse and so the CC licence is a big issue for them. The group was motivated by the needs of public and semi public groups, such as libraries & local government, to make available works for all: similar considerations to those of the BBC with it’s Creative Archive licence. Continue reading ‘The potential for Creative Commons licences in the public sector’
Via Boing Boing: How do you make a viable business when you give your stuff away for free and don’t protect (or at least fully protect) proprietary interests with IP rights? Continue reading ‘Open Business models’
Geeklawyer was at the LinuxWorld show in London yesterday. Ever an enjoyable bash it invariably degenerates into an epic booze up afterwards in the Champion pub in Notting Hill with the Lonix crew. Continue reading ‘Toys toys toys’
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