eff

Sixteen years ago, few imagined that a handful of people at a Linux start-up in North Carolina were laying the groundwork for an open source business with more than a billion dollars in annual revenue. Yet as we stand at that milestone, and as we take the opportunity to reflect, we believe our success speaks volumes about the power of community.

This billion dollar milestone is not only a win for Red Hat—it is a victory for open source advocates everywhere. Our fight has always been about » Read more

Patents may have been created to help encourage innovation, but instead they regularly hinder it. The US Patent Office, overwhelmed and underfunded, issues questionable patents every day. "Patent trolls" buy too many of these patents and then misuse the patent system to shake down companies big and small. Others still use patents to limit competition and impede access to new knowledge, tools, or other innovations. » Read more

Yesterday Peter Eckersly posted at eff.org about the EFF's coming Open Wireless Movement. Here's what he had to say:

If you sometimes find yourself needing an open wireless network in order to check your email from a car, a street corner, or a park, you may have noticed that they're getting harder to find. » Read more

On April 12 the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle of games went up for sale--for whatever price you want, and it's all DRM-free. On top of that, you can select how much of your payment goes to the developers and how much goes to charity.

Wolfire Games started organizing the Humble Indie Bundle series, which the HFB is the third of, in 2010. They're available for a limited time and benefit Child's Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The first two drives generated between $1 and $2 million in sales.
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Clifton Tunnell, a patent attorney registered to practice before the USPTO and associate of Anderson Dailey, LLP in Atlanta, GA and Andrew Norton of the United States Pirate Party and previously Pirate Party International, presented “Three Strikes and You’re Out” in the Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF) track at Dragon*Con 2010. They gave an overview of the graduated response program in the entertainment industry to pursue file sharers and online copyright infringement.

”Graduated response” means each time a copyright holder finds an infringement, they increase their response. The first time they find you infringing, you might get a warning. The next time they may » Read more

While the decision by the US Library of Congress to create exceptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) for unlocking cellphones and jailbreaking iPhones (among other things) in the USA are very welcome, the reaction has been just a touch too euphoric. Not by everyone, mind you. » Read more