Legal Archive

Jason O'Grady, who runs PowerPage.org, one of the websites Apple is forcing to disclose sources, has reacted to all of it at ZDNet. "My position on the Asteroid postings is that I didn't steal the information and I didn't ask for it. Someone volunteered it to me and it looked credible, so I posted it. It wasn't marked confidential, trade secret or any such thing but it looked legit to me, so I ran it. When Apple later asked me to remove it, I complied. Apple feels that independent online journalists are not protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and that a journalist's confidential communications and sources should be exposed to them or any large corporation that doesn't like what they publish - at will. I think that this is completely wrong on several levels."

FreeBSD developer Poul-Henning Kamp (PHK) happens to run a tier-1 NTP server, intended only for use by ISPs' main servers in Denmark, and specifically not intended for individual client connections, not to mention client connections from anywhere else in the world. He offers this service pro bono to ISPs. Unfortunately, D-Link has decided to abuse the open nature of the NTP protocol and has actually hard-coded PHK's server hostname in the firmware of several of their home network products. Since contacting D-Link yielded no results, PHK went public.

A company called eSoft was recently granted a patent for "systems and methods for selecting, ordering, installing, managing, updating, and if necessary, uninstalling software applications." Their first step has been to sue their major competitors, but it appears that online software update systems of all kinds could be covered by this patent, which would mean that Windows Update, OS X Software Update, Redhat's up2date, and YUM, among others, would be infringing.

The European Commission said on Thursday it will need to spend a number of weeks analysing the information that Microsoft has presented in its hearing before making a final decision on whether the company will be fined for not complying with a 2004 antitrust ruling. The hearing, which is taking place on Thu and Fri, gives Microsoft an opportunity to argue why it believes it has complied with the ruling.

French lawmakers approved an online copyright bill Tuesday that would require Apple to break open the exclusive format behind its market-leading iTunes music store and iPod players. The draft law - which also sets new penalties for music pirates - would force Apple, Sony, and others to share proprietary copy-protection technologies so that rivals can offer compatible services and players. An analyst expects that Apple is more likely to leave the French market, than to open its format in France. My take: Just buy CDs. They play in every CD player, and have no weird restrictions. In case you forgot, CDs look like this.

In an unexpected move, Microsoft posted its formal response to the European Commission and correspondence used in the case in the EU's anti-trust case against the company. According to Microsoft, the EC had "not even bothered to read the most recent versions" of and "waited many months before informing Microsoft that it believed changes were necessary". And: "despite Microsoft's substantial and serious efforts to reach the ever-receding horizon of the commission's demands... The commission was not to be deterred from its pre-holiday rush to impose a punitive daily fine on Microsoft."

This week, one of the most-commented stories on OSNews was the story about how 'Maxxus' cracked/hacked (take your pick) the Intel version of Apple's OSX once again. This sparked a lively debate over whether we should encourage Maxxus, or condemn his actions. I made myself clear from the get-go: I condemn his actions. Note: This is the Sunday Eve Column of the week.

"The proposed law would not make P2P both free and legal, although this popular misconception has persisted. Rather, P2P usage would be made legal in exchange for a monthly surcharge on Internet access, to the tune of circa EUR 5 per month. Some users are jumping for joy at the idea of being indemnified against copyright infringement for a mere EUR 60 a year, but not everyone. Like all taxes and surcharges, the fees would have to be paid by everyone, but not everyone thinks it's a great idea (especially the entertainment industry)."

European Commission antitrust head Neelie Kroes told EU lawmakers on Tuesday that Microsoft cannot charge a licensing fee for the Windows source code it has promised to share, unless it can prove such code is "innovative." Microsoft made the offer last week in order to comply with a 2004 court ruling.

A representative of the European Commission faced down a Microsoft exec on the BBC Radio 4 programme this morning, accusing it of holding a press shindig in Brussels but not popping round the corner to tell it what was going on. Microsoft may have briefed hacks and others on the elements of source code it is prepared to give its competitors, said an EC representative, but as far as the organisation was concerned it has still not complied with the terms of the agreement.

"DRM is a lie. When an agenda driven DRM infection peddler gets on a soapbox and blathers about how it is necessary to protect the BMW payments of a producer who leeches off the talented, rest assured, they are lying to you. DRM has absolutely nothing to do with protecting content, it is about protecting the wallets of major corporations. The funny thing is they aren't protecting it from you, they are protecting it from each other."

A UK judge has questioned whether software patents should be granted, and has criticized the U.S. for allowing "anything under the sun" to be patented. Sir Robin Jacob, a judge at the UK's Court of Appeal who specializes in intellectual-property law, spoke about the potential problems surrounding software patents at a seminar for the Society for Computers and Law on Thursday evening in London. "Do we need patents for computer programs? Where is the evidence for it?" Jacob asked.

Some five months after Google announced plans to open a product research and development center in China, and said it was appointing former Microsoft vice president Kai-Fu Lee to head the operation, the parties have settled the matter. In a brief statement released late Thursday, Microsoft spokesman Jack Evans said the parties had entered into a private agreement that resolved all issues to their mutual satisfaction.

The European Commission has threatened to fine Microsoft up to 2m euros a day until it gives rivals more access to its systems. Brussels said the software giant had failed to supply adequate information about its server programs. Microsoft has five weeks to provide improved documentation before the daily penalties are imposed. But the company pledged to contest the EU's "unjustified" demands by whatever means possible. Update: Microsoft contests.