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After an unprecedented development process that brought four drafts in eighteen months, the Free Software Foundation has released the third version of the GNU General Public License, the world's most popular free software license. "Since we founded the free software movement over 23 years ago, the f...

As Microsoft's saber-rattling patent infringement claims continue to resound throughout the open source world, Linux distributor Mandriva is the latest player to stand up to Microsoft and draw a line in the sand. Last fall, Microsoft and Novell signed a multi-faceted patent-protection agreement, whi...

WSO2 has entered the open source SOA field with a slate of veterans from Web services specifications, application server design and lightweight framework development. The company's latest offering to the market came June 11 with the arrival of WSO2 ESB 1.0, based on Apache Synapse and targeted at bo...

Ubuntu will not be joining the list of open source OS and productivity suits recently linked to MS through interoperability deals, said Ubuntu founder and Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth. "We have declined to discuss any agreement with Microsoft under the threat of unspecified patent infringements,"...

Linspire has become the latest Linux vendor to sign a deal with Microsoft, the two companies announced Wednesday. The pact promises a closer working relationship between the two software makers. For consumers, it brings greater interoperability and a technical collaboration that also includes intell...

Microsoft and South Korea's LG Electronics have announced a patent cross-licensing deal, similar to one Microsoft recently signed with Novell, that allows LG to use Microsoft technology in its products while giving Microsoft access to LG's intellectual property. The deal means LG can use Linux in it...

Worldwide revenues from standalone open source software will reach $5.8 billion by 2011, according to a report released last week by IDC. Revenue from open source software will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 26 percent from 2006 to 2011, according to predictions from the Framingham, Mass.-

Microsoft and Linux distributor Xandros announced a broad agreement on Monday based on several technical and intellectual property commitments aimed at extending the software giant's relationship with commercial open source vendors. The technology-sharing agreement with the Linux distributor marks t...

The Free Software Foundation has released the "last call" draft of version 3 of the GNU General Public License. The near-final draft simultaneously paves for the way for the controversial Microsoft-Novell Suse Linux distribution pact while at the same time inhibits similar deals from occurring again...

Google has created new Web software that runs both online and offline, allowing users to work just about anywhere -- even in places with spotty or no Internet connections. The new open source technology for creating offline Web applications, Google Gears, is a browser plug-in that will let people ru...

The flap erupted earlier this month. The Motion Picture Association of America started sending Digital Millennium Copyright Act requests to Digg.com and a slew of other popular blogging sites on which users had posted a 32-hexadecimal digit code, a processing key that could be used to circumvent DRM...

Public companies are required to note possible risk factors that investors need to be aware of, and one of the risk factors reported by Novell notes the uncertainty of the effects of the new and upcoming GNU General Public License, according to the company's annual United States Securities and Excha...

Before the end of the year, Sun Microsystems will follow the lead of Amazon and Microsoft in providing a "pay as you drink" applications hosting service that provides a lifecycle approach to new Web application development and deployment. In addition to announcing JavaFX Script, a lightweight progra...

A tiff between the world's largest chipmaker and an organization selling low-priced laptops to the developing world will ultimately benefit poor kids, according to one tech aid expert. "I think it's wonderful that Intel and OLPC are now competing," Wayan Vota, editor of OLPC News and director of Gee...

IBM helped the Eclipse Foundation score a huge hit with the Eclipse development framework and community. Now the software engineering target is even higher, but the methods and approaches are similar. IBM in June will unveil details about its Jazz framework and community for automation and governanc...