Wednesday October 07, 2009 ☞ Official Paperwork
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Another "friend of the court" filing in the US Supreme Court in the reconsideration of the case law that makes software patents viable in the US. In this filing, the Free Software Foundation argues that "The Country Needs and Relies on FOSS". Let's hope the good sense in these filing together with a very recent "visual aid" of the harm software patents can do sways the court to uphold the rejection of the finding in re Bilski.
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It's been my privilege throughout my career to be supported by the most excellent publicists, especially in the IBM Java days (hi, Judy & Megan!) Ever since I started handling open source at Sun I've had the most tremendous support from Terri Molini and she deeply deserves this industry recognition. Congratulations, Terri!
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No doubt with an eye on the ticking clock that is the Supreme Court reconsideration of Bilski. I'll not be commenting specifically since Sun is one of the targets.
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I was surprised to hear about this when it cropped up recently at an OSI Board meeting I was observing. It reflects a desperate need for reform at OSI, which needs to become a representative organisation with diverse membership from the whole free software ecosystem and with a mission far beyond just licenses.
Posted by webmink
( Oct 07 2009, 05:06:08 AM PDT )
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Hi, Thomas Lord here.
I can not be certain but I suspect that the OSI was suspended quite a few months ago and in response to a complaint that I filed with the state attorney general office.
I had had an unpleasant interaction with the OSI - one that startled me and offended me. I thought to look deeper into the organization and in particular to examine its sources of funding and its use of funds. With the help of a couple of "internet friends" on Bruce Perens' former blog, "technocrat", I discovered that OSI had (per the public record, at least) failed to file federal tax forms (form 990) for several years running. I also noticed what seemed to my amateur eyes like oddities in how they had spent money, at least as far as one could tell from published board meeting minutes. I also noticed what to my eyes were some inappropriate comments on the board's blog. I reported these facts to the state A.G. office. Not much later, OSI became a suspended corporation.
Per (wise) policy the A.G. office will not discuss matters with me unless I want to add to my complaint - they protect the "innocent until proved guilty". Bless them.
And I wish to be very clear that, although it seems the several years of missing tax forms is not in dispute, my additional suspicions about how they spent their money are purely speculation and should not be taken as anything more than part of my own personal motivation for talking to the A.G. Nobody should assume based only my word that OSI has done anything more wrong than missing a few filing deadlines. Clear?
As far as I can tell, the OSI board has several really wonderful, proactive, smart, social benefit do-gooders. I do not wish to impugn the board or the organization. Yes, I do have some strong differences with a couple of the board members. Yes, I do have some suspicions about their history as a fiduciary - but for now that's between me, the A.G. office, and OSI. It's not something I want other people to start believing only because "Tom says....".
Regards,
-t
Posted by Thomas Lord on October 08, 2009 at 02:55 PM PDT #