Patent Dispute Forces Openmoko Housecleaning
The Openmoko project, developers of an open source mobile phone platform, has recently pulled its download site offline due to a patent dispute.
The claimant in the dispute is Italian company Sisvel that accuses Openmoko of an infringement involving MP3 patents, according to an Openmoko mail thread. Sisvel specializes in patenting and licensing, in particular "the right to grant licenses for the use of several patent families concerning the MPEG Audio standard, the well-known digital processing standard for compressing the audio signal and converting it in a digital form."
Openmoko decided to inactivate its download server to pull all possible relics of MP2 or MP3 technology off the site. In the meantime they provide their software in test versions only. However, the project clarified that their phones never had MP3 playback capabilities. Doing housecleaning on the download site was a precautionary measure. As the Openmoko mail thread states, "For us the important thing is to defend the freedom of our users rather than cripple our phones so that certain things become 'impossible'."
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
Danish Ministry of Digital Affairs Transitions to Linux
Another major organization has decided to kick Microsoft Windows and Office to the curb in favor of Linux.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.
-
Linux Kernel 6.15 Now Available
The latest Linux kernel is now available with several new features/improvements and the usual bug fixes.