Linux Foundation Legal Voices

Yesterday I filed a pro bono amicus curiae (”friend of the court”) brief with the United States Supreme Court in support of the Federal Trade Commission’s petition for writ of certiorari in its suit against Rambus Technologies. I’m pleased to report that 19 standard setting organizations (SSOs) - including the Linux Foundation - representing over 13,300 members, joined as amici curiae supporting this brief; the list of participants appears later in this blog entry. As noted in the brief itself, these SSOs:

If you haven’t already heard the news, long-term kernel developer and pillar of the open source community Ted Ts’o has been named the new Chief Technology Officer of the Linux Foundation. Ted is a great choice for a variety of reasons, one of which is that few people have been knocking around the Linux world longer than Ted - he was the first North American kernel developer.

If you’ve ever wondered whether there is a SCO case for open standards, many people would say that the answer is “yes.” And the stand in for SCO that they would pick is a company called Rambus incorporated.

The goals of the Obama administration are in tune with — but in some technical respects, ahead of — the technological times. Unless certain standards-related dependencies are promptly addressed, the timely achievement of the president-elect’s innovation and technology policy will be jeopardized. Unfortunately, the government does not have the historical competency to address these dependencies. What, then, is the new administration to do?

Open source projects lean toward meritocracies, rather than democracies. As a result, some voices and votes in open source projects mean a lot more than others, and nobody pretends otherwise. Democracies, on the other hand, claim that everyone’s vote should be equal. But is that really the way it is?

Although much of the brouhaha of the OOXML adoption process has abated, the post-partum process of reviewing how SC 34 gave birth to IS 29500 continues. SC 34 is the committee in ISO/IEC that adopted both ODF and OOXML. SC 34 continues to hold meetings in which a variety of related matters are being considered, including the ongoing maintenance of each standard, and whether and how the Directives that control the deliberations of JTC1 committees might profitably be amended to address the concerns that arose during the consideration of these two overlapping document format standards.

If you hail from one of the hot beds of high tech--Silicon Valley, say, or (in my case) the Route 128/495 area of Massachusetts, you've doubtless heard the phrase "serial entrepreneur." What those words describe is someone who has started several companies, and the phrase, when used, is invariably regarded as a compliment. These days, if such a serial entrepreneur has some major successes under her belt, that makes her one of the elite of the high tech nobility - someone with the golden touch, that can turn ideas into huge returns for founders and investors alike.

How do you measure the value of free and open source software (FOSS)? That’s a puzzler, because it’s, well, free. Moreover, a popular distribution like Linux can incorporate the contributions of thousands of individuals working remotely from around the world. That means that there are almost no associated overhead costs over and above the time of the developers themselves.

Note: Nominations for the awards noted below will close on October 8, so please act now

Although most of the thunder of the OOXML adoption battle has now died away, the after effects of that controversial process continue to linger. Some of the residual effects have been intangible, such as hard feelings on the part of at least four National Bodies over their inability to obtain a formal review of their complaints over how the OOXML adoption process was conducted. But there have been other responses that are more concrete, and directed at taking specific actions to raise the bar and avoid a repeat performance.

In the latest twist in the OOXML - ODF document format story, ISO and IEC, two of the most venerable standards organizations in the world, have been dealt a slap by government IT agencies in six countries. In a public statement, the agencies deplore the refusal of ISO and IEC to give full attention to appeals against the OOXML process earlier lodged by Brazil, India, South Africa, and Venezuela, and suggest that if the two global standards organizations are not interested in listening to member concerns, then these members may no longer be interested in adopting ISO/IEC standards.

ISO and IEC have announced the rejection of the four appeals submitted by the National Bodies of Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela, as earlier recommended by the Secretaries General of each of the two standards organizations. to their respective management boards not to give the appeals further consideration.

Today those who believe in free content and free and open source software won a major victory in court. The underlying facts, and counsel, were hardly major figures on the commercial landscape: the open source software at issue had been developed for model train buffs under an infrequently used free and open source license, and the attorney was young and inexperienced. But as often happens, a small case between small parties can have huge implications.

The latest edition of Linux World ground to a halt in San Francisco today. I made it into town just last night for a VIP party hosted by the Linux Foundation where I caught up with lots of the true believer friends (developers, journalists and corporate supporters), and for the Board meeting today. The LF board meeting today was productive, though (a highlight was a walk around the Linux Developers Network Site we brought live today, as well as the new Linux Application Checker that Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols immediately pronounced to be a “killer development tool.”

Ever since Steve Jobs addressed the adoring crowds at this year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, the press, Apple fans - and most especially, Apple investors - have been concerned over the state of his health. The reasons are obvious: Five years ago, Jobs announced that he had been diagnosed, and cured, of a rare and happily less pernicious form of pancreatic cancer (the more common variety is almost never discovered before it has become incurable). And, when Jobs took the stage this June, he was far thinner and more haggard than he had ever been seen to be before.

Back in December of last year, Google posted a brief announcement of a new experiment in online publishing. At first blush it seemed to represent a challenge to the Wikipedia - but with a few differences. Google summarized the concept as follows: