source software

Microsoft's newest lawsuit is the first on record to involve patent infringement based on usage of the Linux kernel -- proving that open source software is becoming the biggest fox in Microsoft's henhouse. Microsoft filed District Court charges and ... International Trade Commission charges Tuesday against in-car GPS navigation company TomTom Inc., claiming that TomTom is violating eight Microsoft patents. While Linux is not specifically mentioned as the focus of the charges, three out of eight alleged patent violations relate to TomTom's usage of the Linux kernel. (Source: zdnet.com ) The case ... (view more)

Vietnam's Ministry of Information and Communications has reportedly issued instructions on using open source software products at its state agencies. According to the issued instruction, by June 30, 2009, 100 percent of the servers for government IT ... divisions must be installed with open source software; 100 percent of the staffs in these IT divisions must be trained in the use of the open source software products and at least 50 percent of those must be able to use the open source software proficiently. IT divisions at government agencies are comprised of the IT departments of ministries and ... (view more)

Industry analysts are scratching their heads after Microsoft recently decided to join a project measuring how people are using open source software. The Open Source Census is run by OpenLogic, a company that aims to help organisations obtain, use ... and control open source software -- programs where the underlying code is open to everyone to see and to share ideas on improving it. The project launched in April and has so far taken details from more than 200,000 places where open source software is being used. It's got several industry backers, but Microsoft has become by far the biggest. It's ... (view more)

Sound Off! Yesterday, we asked Infopackets Subscribers what they thought of Microsoft's latest fiasco : the claim that various Free Open Source Software (FOSS) developers have violated some 235 Microsoft patents -- and now Microsoft wants to collect ... royalties. So, is Free Open Source Software really doomed -- or is Microsoft simply grabbing straws in hopes of resurrecting lost Vista sales? Infopackets Reader C. Williams was the first to chime in: " Okay, I'll admit it. I've been using a PC since late 2001, and during that time, I have used Windows exclusively. However, my experiences with ... (view more)