Over on the Tech Liberation Front, the Show Me Institute’s Tim Lee is questioning my post on the role patents played in the development of Apple’s new iPhone. Unfortunately, it seems that Mr. Lee has been brainwashed by the mythology of the anti-software patent crowd. While I don’t have time [...]
I’ve spent the past few years asking the software development community, ”Why can’t we all get along?” I became increasingly optimistic after Microsoft’s General Counsel, Brad Smith, announced Microsoft’s intention to start improving relations. At ACT’s Intellectual Property & Technology Summit in 2005, he said that, "We’re going to have [...]
Microsoft and Novell announced a collaborative effort. Whoa, this is big news! Windows and SuSE Linux, proprietary and open source, Microsoft and Novell -- working together? Well, yes, according to a recent announcement. And for this collaborative effort to have even been formalized, a required element was some intellectual property [...]
In what will hopefully be a sign of things to come, Microsoft and Novell took an important step toward bridging the divide between the open source and proprietary software communities today. The companies agreed to a wide ranging partnership that includes an extremely important patent licensing deal that will give [...]