News

• Software firms go to Washington to defend patents

  Software patents, facing new scrutiny in the U.S., drive innovation and protect huge investments by developers, representatives of software companies said during a Capitol Hill briefing.

• UEFI secure boot fix released for Linux

  After just a few months of development, users finally have an official way to run Linux on machines using Windows 8's UEFI secure boot framework.

• Stallman slams Ubuntu, calls Amazon integration 'spyware'

  Activist and free software guru Richard Stallman on Friday hammered Ubuntu for including what he termed spyware in new versions of the popular open-source operating system and urged GNU and Linux users to avoid the distribution.

• Looking for Free Software? A new directory can help

  There are free and open source alternatives to just about every proprietary software package available today--the trick is just finding the right ones for your business.

• Tor Project, Flash cloner win free software awards

  A project to ensure privacy and anonymity on the Web that helped dissident movements in Iran and Egypt was honored by the Free Software Foundation in the group's annual award ceremony. The Free Software Foundation also honored an individual who created an Adobe Flash player clone that contains no proprietary software.

• OSI, FSF want inquiry of Microsoft consortium deal on Novell

  Protesting the secrecy of the deal, the Open Source Initiative and the Free Software Foundation have jointly asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the purchase of more than 800 patents by a Microsoft-led consortium, CTPN Holdings.

• Free Software Foundation's software repository hacked

  The Web front end for a Free Software Foundation software repository remains down after the server it was hosted on was attacked last week.

• Court patent ruling leaves software patents intact

  The U.S. Supreme Court has ducked the question of whether the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) should continue to issue software patents in a ruling Monday striking down a business-method patent.

• May 4 named as 'Day against DRM'

  Tuesday May 4 has been named as this year's Day against Digital Rights Management (DRM) by the President of the Free Software Foundation.

• Multiple consumer electronics companies hit with GPL lawsuit

  The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) has brought a copyright lawsuit against 14 consumer electronics companies for allegedly violating GNU General Public License (GPL) in the use of GPL-licensed software in their products. Among those named in the suit are Best Buy, JVC, Western Digital Technologies and Westinghouse.

• Cisco settles lawsuit with Free Software Foundation

  Cisco Systems will appoint a director to ensure that its Linksys products comply with the terms of free software licenses, and in return the Free Software Foundation will dismiss its lawsuit against the networking giant, the parties said on Wednesday.

• Cisco sued for copyright infringement

  The Free Software Foundation Thursday slapped Cisco with a lawsuit claiming copyright infringement related to Cisco's Linksys wireless routers.