May 2009
May 27
- Help rewrite Canada's copyright law
The Globe and Mail has put C-61, a bill to reform Canadian copyright law, on a wiki for editing. This is a great opportunity to remove the bad parts of the bill, and to guide the reform efforts toward something sane and consistent with free software principles. Full Story
May 20
- FSF Settles Suit Against Cisco
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) and Cisco Systems, Inc. are pleased to announce that they have reached a joint agreement. Cisco has agreed to appoint a Free Software Director for Linksys, a subsidiary of Cisco, to supervise Linksys' compliance with the requirements of free software licenses such as the GPL (the GNU General Public License). The Free Software Director will report periodically to the FSF regarding Linksys' compliance efforts. Cisco has further agreed to take certain steps to notify previous recipients of Linksys products containing FSF programs of their rights under the GPL and other applicable licenses, to publish a licensing notice on the Linksys website, and to provide additional notices in a separate publication. In addition, Cisco will continue to make the complete and corresponding source code for versions of FSF programs used with current Linksys products freely available on its website. Cisco will also make a monetary contribution to the FSF. Full Story
May 14
- War on Sharing: RIAA moves to block new FSF court brief
While we were publishing our response to the RIAA's recent attack on the merit of organizations who represent the public's interest filing informative briefs in cases that threaten to negatively affect the public's interest, the RIAA was attacking us again. Full Story
May 5
- New Zealand in urgent danger of software patents
The New Zealand government has proposed allowing unlimited software patenting. They are accepting comments until July 2nd, but participation from the people who will be harmed seems very low. The details of how to participate can be found on swpat.org
