Carlo Piana :: Law is Freedom ::

Ifosslr Volume 2, issue 1, is out with an article of mine on a recent case on which the Italian Constitutional Court has ruled in favour of giving preference to Free Software in Public Administration. Here is the Abstract

Today we celebrate the Document Freedom Day 2010. Documents strive to be free.

URL shorteners are "cloud" services that do basically one thing: they take a long URL (such a web address) and transform it into a short one. They became popular with the explosion of microblogging facilities like Twitter, Identi.ca, Facebook et al.

Today "@AndyC", who is a UK person that posts a lot on Identi.ca, ranted about URL shorteners, and about a new one called ow.ly. He wondered what in heaven could be their business model, and I discovered some not-so-good things. That ignited me to write a little bit about them, hoping to receive more feedback and provide more reasoning later.

It was yesterday in the Herald Tribune, but the news was lingering around even before. Really soon the European Commission will finalize a settlement with Microsoft, possibly closing two big antitrust issues: the tying of the browser with Microsoft Windows and the withholding of interoperability information. I have had the opportunity to comment on the proposal of Microsoft earlier this August, because the Commission has formally asked the opinion of FSFE, which is an interested third party in the procedure. I hope things have improved from then, because there were serious gaps in the proposed commitment.

The point is that the current Commission is going to step down in a few weeks, and Commissioner Kroes – who has an incredibly good track record on the Microsoft case – might feel the urgency to close everything behind her, leaving the office empty and her case teams without a case. But at which conditions?

To use my good friend Jeremy Allison's words, will we be able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

Andy Updegrove has published his own take on the Rambus case, which he was following more closing from an US perspective. Andy is a leading authority when it comes to the law in the standards world, and beyond. We have had the opportunity to discuss this case earlier on, and I find his insight very valuable.

We have just heard of a proposed settlement of an  EC antitrust action against a private company named Rambus. Rambus has reportedly tabled an undertaking to reduce its royalties for DRAM patents, which would lead, technically, to a decision according to Art. 9 of EC Regulation 1/2003. The Commission has published it for market testing, inviting comments by the middle of July. Although the proposed licenses and royalties still raise questions, it is in the line of successes of EU antitrust activities where USA initiatives have most remarkably failed. But more importantly, it is the first signal to the world of standards that the recent free rides by some players in that field are going to be under vigilant scrutiny of the antitrust authorities.

I wanted to keep a low key on that, but the news hit the press and the avalanche started mounting.

I have submitted for approval to OSI a license on behalf of my good friend and client Mr. Leonardo Chiariglione, convenor of the ISO/IEC JTC1 WG11 (also known as MPEG).

Linux Journal, followed by many others, has a story: