Recent news that Microsoft and Barnes & Noble agreed to partner on the Nook e-reader line rather than keep fighting over intellectual property suggests the prospect of more settlement and fewer IP suits in the industry. However, the deal further obscures the blurry IP and patent landscape currently impacting both enterprise IT and consumer technology.

It is good to see settlement — something I’ve been calling for, while also warning against patent and IP aggression. However, this settlment comes from the one conflict in this ongoing war that was actually shedding some light on the matter, rather than further complicating it.

See the full article at TechNewsWorld.

Topics for this podcast:

*Opscode Chef extends to Windows for more enterprise devops
*Black Duck continues growth, gains new funding
*Cloudant expands NoSQL database focus, customers
*New open source Web server and vendor Nginx arrives
*The downside of Microsoft’s Android dollars

iTunes or direct download (27:35, 4.7MB)

Welcome to this week's edition of Developer Week in Review. Sorry we're running a little late. We assure you it has nothing to do with the release of "Portal 2."

The wide world of litigation

Another busy week for the court system, courtesy of the software industry. Software patents are back at the Supreme Court, this time courtesy of Microsoft and i4i. Meanwhile, Apple is suing Samsung over look and feel issues related to the Galaxy Tab, while at the same time ordering $7.8 billion USD of iPad 2 components from Samsung this year. This is …

There are many questions that arise out of Oracle’s copyright and patent infringement complaint against Google regarding its use of Java in Android. There are several things that make the suit significant to the entire industry: it centers not just on software copyright, but also software patents (an increasingly and hotly debated issue), the quickly-expanding smartphone market and open source software. The first question is: what is Oracle doing?

Many are speculating that this is simply an effort to further and more effectively monetize Java, a storied program language that has move more toward openness and survived several supposed death sentences as newer languages arrived. Still, with all of the open source parts — GlassFish application server, MySQL database, OpenOffice.org suite — is Java the most significant to Oracle? It may be, but regardless of what Oracle is doing, its legal moves here may certainly have an impact on the …

Licensing, community, funding, revenue, business models, patents. And more.

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“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

# The OpenOffice.org Community announced the release of OpenOffice.org 3.2.

# An interview with Michael Tiemann on licensing and community.

# DotNetNuke raised $8m series B funding.

# Microsoft updated its Linux Integrated Components, introducing support for RHEL in Hyper-V.

# An interview with Marten Mickos on …

There was some incredulity expressed yesterday when I suggested that SAP is a great case study on the way in which proprietary companies have engaged with open source.

To be clear, I was not suggesting that SAP is, or should be considered, an open source company, but based on our understanding of SAP’s changing strategy with regards to open source software it represents a good case study on how proprietary companies have learned that it is in their best interests to contribute to open source software projects.

Jay and I had the opportunity yesterday to speak to Claus von Riegen, SAP director of technology standards and open source, and Erwin Tenhumberg, SAP open source program manager. Our formal …

Topics for this podcast:

*Microsoft founds CodePlex Foundation, losing Sam Ramji
*Software patents at the center of MS, OIN maneuvering
*Eucalyptus Systems releases hybrid cloud product
*Oracle-Sun Microsystems and the potential fate of MySQL

iTunes or direct download (26:40, 6.1 MB)

Following the release of our report, ‘The Myth of Open Source License Proliferation’ and during research for it, we heard and sensed a feeling that open source software licenses had evolved to become a generally well-accepted piece of the the enterprise IT and IP market. However, we also heard from numerous vendors, developers and other individuals that the next battlefront is obviously software patents, which are in need of reform, according to many supporters of free and open source software.

This week, we saw some of the software patent skirmishes that are driving and validating this thinking. There was first news that the Open Invention Network, the consortium dedicated to legal and IP defense of Linux, had bought some software patents that related to …

One might have thought Microsoft was back rattling the patented software sabres against Linux and open source this week, reading some of the recent reports regarding Redmond’s patent infringement suit against automotive navigation and GPS player TomTom. However, upon further review, it seems that Microsoft is making a point to say that these suits are not aimed at the Linux OS or open source. In response to my own query, the company offered this:

First, to answer your earlier question on how the suit with TomTom involves the Linux Operating System, three of the infringed patents read on the Linux kernel as implemented by TomTom. However, open source software is not the focal point of this action. …