Copyleft Currents

I don’t know about you, but when I get up in the morning, I always think:  the only thing that would make this cup of coffee better would be if it were made with open source software.  Until I decide to devote an entire computer to roasting coffee, open source caffeine will have to remain a dream for me.

Mozilla Public License 2.0 has been released, has been approved as an open source license  by the Open Source Initiative, and has been approved as a free software license by FSF.  

 

An open source project in New Zealand is involved in a trademark dispute. 

If you want to see an example of the kind of reporting about open source legal matter that drives lawyers like me to distraction, take a look at this article.  It describes the dispute as just about everything except what it is — a trademark interference.  “A small New Zealand library is fighting to keep its trademark free software from the clutches of a United States corporation.”  It’s actually a dispute about the trademark, not the software copyright.  “[A]n American company named LibLime has hijacked the system and wants to use it for its own private client base.”  Hijacked?  If it’s open source, it’s free to use and modify, though there may be a separate trademark issue.  Also the URL for the article calls it “Small-library-fights-US-corporation-over-software-patent” and there are no patents in sight.

But apparently the publicity worked, as the project, according to its own blog post linked above, got many donations to a legal fund, and also pro bono representation.  A deal is reportedly being brokered to assign the trademark to a non-profit representing the Koha community.

 

A recent article in Network World contained some interesting caveat emptors about marketing open source software.  The first part of the article — discussing whether open source is really free or secure — is nothing new.  But then, the article mentions this:  “Some software vendors playing fast and loose with the rules have slapped an “open source” label on software that in fact turns out to be a “free to download and use” version of proprietary software that cannot be altered or distributed.”

This raises an interesting potential legal issue that has not yet come to fruition.  Key “trademarks” in the open source space such as “open source” and “Linux” are probably largely genericized, so it seems unlikely that claims will arise as to whether inaccurately calling a product these things is a trademark infringement.  However, I have been surprised not to see a fraud or false advertising claim based on a vendor identifying software as “open source” when it is not.   It’s unclear what the damages might be if the software is gratis but not libre, but that has never stopped a class action plaintiff’s lawyer, as far as I know.

Intel has joined the Linux Foundation, and rebranded the Meego operating system as Tizen.  Meego was an open source mobile platform that has foundered, after being created based on Intel’s Moblin and Nokia’s Maemo.  The Tizen platform, “ an open-source, standards-based software platform that supports multiple devices including smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, netbooks and in-vehicle ‘infotainment’ systems” that supports HTML5 will be hosted by the Foundation and is supported by Samsung as well. Intel stated, “Tizen builds upon the strengths of both LiMo and MeeGo, and Intel will be working with our MeeGo partners to help them transition to Tizen.”   Asus says it will continue to ship Meego systems, and Nokia has just recently released a Meego device, N9.

Get your affairs in order.  An engine for text adventure games called Quest has been released as open source.  The Zork adventure game on PDP-11 pretty much destroyed my social life in 1980 — though come to think of it, it was not healthy in the first place and may have never revived.  And you would be correct if you observed that not everyone had a PDP-11 sitting around in the living room.  We played it at work, after our project managers went home for the day.  In fact, my project manager actually showed it to me; it was probably an evil plot to condition us to sleep under our desks.  Now you can create your own spelunking adventures — or whatever kind you want.

Spurred in part by Google’s planned purchase of Motorola Mobility, the S. Korean government announced plans to develop a new open source mobile O/S particularly geared toward Korean manufacturers and users.  Samsung, the world’s second-largest mobile phone maker, is the largest player in Korea.

Ebay today closed the purchase of Magneto, a company that makes open source ecommerce tools.   EBay purchased a minority stake in the company in 2010.

On August 8, 2011, the District Court for the Southern District of New York held Westinghouse Digital, LLC (“WD”) in contempt for failing to defend one of the BusyBox cases.   The court had previously issued a default judgment and injunction against Westinghouse Digital Electronics, LLC (“WDE”).   (The judgment was previously reported in this blog.)   WDE liquidated its assets after severe business distress, and told the court it would not defend the litigation.  WD then purchased the assets of WDE.  The court assessed whether there was “a substantial continuity of identity between” WDE and WD, and found that there was.  WDE made a fair use defense that seemed feeble based on its description in the court’s order.  The court invited evidence on damages and attorneys fees, and ordered forfeiture of all infringing articles.

The FFmpeg project posted a note about a legal threat that concerned the logo for the project.  FFmpeg says the threat comes from “a previous root admin of FFmpeg, who now is root admin of the Libav fork of FFmpeg.”  The threat claimed a copyright on the diagonal line logo.  FFmpeg replaced it with a new version, which represents the shape with different shading and contours.  FFmpeg posted an email suggesting that the claimant did not come up with the original shape, only a particular rendering of it.