Red Hat's Patent Pledge, Openwashing, and Imminent Positive Results

• Red Hat expands its pioneering patent promise to the open source community

  Open source software business Red Hat this morning announced a big expansion of its patent promise, its commitment to not assert its patents against free and open source software which it launched in 2002. The expansion of the promise means that it now extends to all of Red Hat’s patents and so offers further defensive cover to the open source community. Red Hat claims that the new promise is significantly broader than the original agreement with the new version covering more than 99% of open source software compared with 35% for the original. The new promise also specifically covers permissive licences which, in recent years, have over taken copyleft licences as the most popular type of open source agreement.

• Red Hat’s Patent Promise covers permissively-licensed code, offering broad protection for open innovation

  Red Hat announced on Thursday a significant revision of its Patent Promise, helping to protect open innovation. That promise, originating in 2002, was based on Red Hat’s intention not to enforce its patents against free and open source software. The expanded Patent Promise, while consistent with Red Hat’s prior positions, breaks new ground in expanding the amount of software covered and otherwise clarifying the scope of the promise. Red Hat believes its updated Patent Promise represents the broadest commitment to protecting the open source software community to date.

• Red Hat Announces Broad Expansion to Open Source Patent Promise [Ed: Red Hat should toss out all the software patents, in case of takeover]

  Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced a significant revision of its Patent Promise. That promise, originating in 2002, was based on Red Hat’s intention not to enforce its patents against free and open source software. The new version significantly expands and extends Red Hat’s promise, helping to protect open innovation. In its original Patent Promise, Red Hat explained that its patent portfolio was intended to discourage patent aggression against free and open source software. The expanded version published today reaffirms this intention and extends the zone of non-enforcement. It applies to all of Red Hat’s patents, and all software licensed under well-recognized open source licenses. The expanded Patent Promise, while consistent with Red Hat’s prior positions, breaks new ground in expanding the amount of software covered and otherwise clarifying the scope of the promise. Red Hat believes its updated Patent Promise represents the broadest commitment to protecting the open source software community to date.

• How 10,000 people helped us rediscover our purpose [Ed: Red Hat openwashing again]

• Red Hat (RHT) to Report Q2 Earnings: Will it Beat Estimates?

Security: SEC Cracked, Back Doors in Manchester Police, NBN Scans, and Securing Wi-Fi

• SEC reveals it was hacked, information may have been used for illegal stock trades

• Manchester Police still runs Windows XP on 20 per cent of PCs

  The Met has recently signed a deal with storage company Box which will, amongst other things, reduce the amount of data held locally.

• Manchester police still relies on Windows XP [Ed: update below]

  The BBC has appealed against its refusal to provide an update.

• NBN leverages open source software to analyse faults

  A new NBN initiative will use a range of open source projects including Apache SPARK, Kafka, Flume, Cassandra and JanusGraph to help analyse and improve the end user experience on the National Broadband Network. The government-owned company today announced it was launching a new ‘Tech Lab’, which it hopes will provide insights into pain points for customers on its network and help resolve faults sooner.

• 5 Ways to Secure Wi-Fi Networks

  Wi-Fi is one entry-point hackers can use to get into your network without setting foot inside your building because wireless is much more open to eavesdroppers than wired networks, which means you have to be more diligent about security. But there’s a lot more to Wi-Fi security than just setting a simple password. Investing time in learning about and applying enhanced security measures can go a long way toward better protecting your network. Here are six tips to betters secure your Wi-Fi network.

You lost your ballpoint pen, Slack? Why's your Linux version unsigned?

Slack is distributing open Linux-based versions of its technology that are not digitally signed, contrary to industry best practice. The absence of a digital signature creates a means for miscreants to sling around doctored versions of the software that users wouldn't easily be able to distinguish from the real thing. El Reg learned of the issue from reader Trevor Hemsley, who reported the problem to Slack back in August and only notified the media after a promised fix failed to appear.

Tux Machines is proud to be hosted by