Posts published in “Business”

Patent Trolls Working Overtime

By Christine Hall on July 15, 2015 |

The trolls are still at it. In spite of the fact that the Supreme Court was busy ruling against them last year — between January and June it ruled against patent holders six times — the number of cases being brought by non-practicing entities (NPE), which is one measure of a troll, continues to rise. According to a report published in June by patent defense organization UnifiedPatents, there will be about eight thousand tech related patent disputes this year, with over six thousand of these expected to go to trial.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com

Godfather Ellison’s Protection Racket

Godfather Ellison’s Protection Racket

By Christine Hall on July 13, 2015 |

Business and Software

On Friday, two business journals ran stories on Oracle’s latest tactic for selling its lagging cloud services. The articles should serve as a warning to business readers, as they say in effect, “If you’re using Oracle software to run your businesses, you should consider running an internal audit to ascertain you’re in compliance, because you don’t want to be caught out of compliance if Redwood City’s goon squad pays a visit.”

It appears that one of the tactics being used by Larry Ellison and his minions to sell the cloud is a new twist on the old protection racket. This shouldn’t surprise. Ellison didn’t become California’s richest person by playing nice — it doesn’t work that way.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

Microsoft Writes Check, Free OSCON Passes & More…

By Larry Cafiero on July 10, 2015 |

Business, Community, Distros, News, Operating Systems and Site News

FOSS Week in Review

Money: Can’t live with it, and can’t live without it. OK, maybe you actually can live with it, but money seems to be the overriding theme this week when it comes to FOSS news. With this being payday for most of you, try not to spend too much mental currency on some of the developments this week, like:

MS Writes a Check: Well, this was probably inevitable. With a generous donation, Microsoft has become a gold contributor to the OpenBSD project — the first gold contributor — in an effort to get OpenBSD’s help in porting OpenSSH to Windows. This comes from a report on ZDNet, where Steven Vaughan-Nichols tells the tale of checkbook participation in open source as “the best option…for our team to adopt an industry proven solution,” says Microsoft’s Angel Calvo. A gold contributor writes a check for anywhere between $25,000 to $50,000, so even at the minimum, the OpenBSD Foundation scores big. In exchange, Microsoft gets to port OpenSSH, which arguably is the gold standard for remote administration. Of course, it isn’t revealed how much, in code, Microsoft is going to contribute going forward, but as long as the money is there…I guess the money is there.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero, a.k.a. Larry the Free Software Guy, is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate. He is involved in several FOSS projects and serves as the publicity chair for the Southern California Linux Expo. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Newegg Goes Over Patent Judge’s Head

Newegg Goes Over Patent Judge’s Head

By Christine Hall on July 9, 2015 |

Business, News and Patents

There’s been an interesting development on the patent front, which has been deceptively quiet for some time. Surprisingly, the latest news involves a case that went to trial nearly two years ago. It’s not a surprise, however, that the case was tried in the Eastern District of Texas, infamous for awarding verdicts in favor of patent holders. Also not surprising, the plaintiff is a non-practicing entity (NPE), a fancy term for “troll.”

Back in November, 2013, a jury in Marshall, Texas found that online retailer Newegg infringed on a patent held by TQP Development because it mixed the use of SSL and RC4 on its websites. The jury awarded $2.3 million, less than half of the $5.1 million that TQP’s damage expert had said would be fair. At the time, TQP had sued more than 120 companies over the same patent, collecting $45 million in settlements.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

R, Matey: Hoisting the Sails for a Programming Language

By Larry Cafiero on July 1, 2015 |

Business, Community, News and Software

One of the several privileges of fatherhood — maybe it’s a duty, I’ll have to check — is that you have opportunities to torture your children with bad jokes. I am proud to say I have not failed in my parental role in that endeavor — ask my daughter — and whenever the letter R comes up, it is usually quick to be followed by a pirate reference. The R programming language, which runs on a variety of platforms and architectures, is no exception.

So, what’s a pirate’s favorite programming…oh, never mind.

Jokes like this, in your best pirate voice: Avast, matey, what be a pirate’s favorite programmin’ language?

R (of course, you have to extend it out, like “Arrrrrrrrrrrr” or it won’t make sense).

Larry Cafiero

ATO Opens Reg – Releases Partial Speakers List

By Christine Hall on June 29, 2015 |

Business, Community and News

All Things Open 2015 — “I’m trying to get to Raleigh — how far are you headed?”

The All Things Open conference today pushed out a notification to recipients on its mailing list announcing that registration for the event, slated for October 19th and 20th. has begun. For the first time ever, event organizers are offering something of a super early bird special: Buy a ticket before July 7th and get admission for both days for only $99 — which is a deal since that’s what a single day will cost once the Early Bird Special kicks-in next Tuesday.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

Is Google the New Microsoft?

By Christine Hall on June 29, 2015 |

Business, News and Operating Systems

Now that Microsoft has been pretty much neutralized as a threat, who’s next on the list to be free tech’s “public enemy number one?”

Oracle? While it’s true that the company is more thuggish than Redmond ever dreamed of being, Oracle has never really been a threat to anyone but the database and high finance crowds. Also, the company’s recent financials indicate the company, like Microsoft, isn’t what it used to be.

Apple? So long as it continues to be an overpriced walled garden, it’s not likely to pose much of a threat. It’ll always be held in disdain by free tech folks, but always in the number two position because it’s easily ignored.

My guess is that the company poised to win the most-hated-in-free-tech prize is Google.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

Red Hat, Samsung Team Up; TXLF Names Keynoter, and More

By Larry Cafiero on June 26, 2015 |

Business, Community, Distros, News and Operating Systems

FOSS Week in Review

It’s been a busy week for those in the FOSS realm — from sea-to-shining-sea, and even down South — with the Red Hat Summit going on in Boston, with Open Source Bridge in Portland, Oregon, and with preparations being finalized for the upcoming Texas Linux Fest in two months, among other things.

Let’s take these one at a time, shall we?

Red Hat, Samsung Team Up: While there has been a lot of oooh-ing and ahhh-ing over what’s been coming out of the Red Hat Summit in Boston this week, probably the most intriguing news to come out of the proceedings is that Red Hat and Samsung Electronics America “announced a strategic alliance to deliver the next generation of mobile solutions for the enterprise,” according to Red Hat’s PR department.

Larry Cafiero

Tux Paint’s Birthday, RMS Keynotes SeaGL & More…

By Larry Cafiero on June 19, 2015 |

Business, Community, Distros, News, Operating Systems and Software

FOSS Week in Review

Yep, it looks like the end of the week is upon us once again, and with it there has been a lot of news in the FOSS realm. What you might have missed, if you weren’t paying attention, is the following:

Happy 13th, Tux Paint: There was reason to break out the candles this week — 13 of ’em — and put them on a cake before saying “Happy Birthday” to Tux Paint. Tux Paint was first released to the wider world on June 16, 2002. Now that it’s a teenager, we can see what fantastic progress the New Breed Software folks have achieved in this time.

Tux Paint turned 13 this week, and also became available for Android. Great going, New Breed Software!

FOSS Force — or rather, I — wrote about Tux Paint back in August of last year, and on its birthday back on Tuesday, there was a note on the site that said, and I quote, “We’ve just learned that Tux Paint (based on what will become the 0.9.23 version) has been created for Android, and is available for free in the Google Play Store!”

Larry Cafiero

In Search of SELF in the Queen City

In Search of SELF in the Queen City

By Christine Hall on June 12, 2015 |

Business, Community, News and Operating Systems

Day one of this year’s SouthEast LinuxFest (SELF) was kind of slow, without the bone crushing crowds I expect to see at an open source conference. However, talking with the go-to person at SELF, Jeremy Sands, I understand that this is normal for this conference. It seems that Charlotte is a city with a strong work ethic, keeping the crowd away until the weekend. Still, nearly five hundred in attendance isn’t deserving of sneers — especially on a “slow” day.

Somehow I managed to get up on time to make the hour and a half trip from my house to the Charlotte area in plenty of time for the 9 A.M. opening, groggy from only getting about three hours sleep, then wondered why I bothered arriving early. After all, the first presentation I planned to attend wasn’t until 11:30, and with no keynote address scheduled for Friday morning, that left me with a lot of time on my hands.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

SourceForge Not Making A Graceful Exit

By Christine Hall on June 11, 2015 |

Business, Community, Internet, Software and Web Apps

If SourceForge were a person and I were the New York Times, I’d make certain I had an obituary on file right about now. It’s obvious that the once essential code repository for open source projects is terminally ill, although it’s just as obvious that Dice Holdings, which took over ownership of the site nearly three years ago, has no plans of letting SourceForge go gently into the good night, so we’ll probably see more kicking and noise-making until the lights are inevitably extinguished.

Newer converts to open source probably don’t know much about the site, but it wasn’t long ago when Linux users were very aware of SourceForge and how to use the service, at least well enough to download software — perhaps more aware than they wanted to be. It was the go-to site when looking for a program not available in a particular distro’s repository. Not anymore. Not for a while. These days, the more important projects have either migrated to GitHub or are hosting their own.