Dear friends of SFLC,

I know that the annual campaign missives have been arriving in shoals the last few weeks; my list of organizations to support has been growing longer, precisely because so many of us are having to do more with less, and need the help. With your support, the SFLC can continue its long-term mission of providing legal services to the hundreds of thousands of dedicated people who produce wonderful technology just because they want to share.

New York, NY, December 14, 2009//Best Buy, Samsung, Westinghouse, and JVC are among the 14 consumer electronics companies named in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed today in New York by the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC).

New York, NY (12/11/09): Eben Moglen, the founder and executive director of the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), will assure European Regulators today, that the open source license under which MySQL is distributed can protect the program from any proprietary threats that could emerge from the merger of Oracle and Sun Microsystems.

New York, NY (12/03/09): The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) submitted an independent opinion to European Union regulators to consider in the ongoing merger approval investigation of Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

On November 9, The Supreme Court of the United States will hear opening arguments in the most high stakes patent law case on its docket in more than two decades, Bilski v. Kappos.

On November 9, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear oral arguments in Bilski v. Kappos, a case that could fundamentally alter the application and scope of U.S. patent law and be felt across the economy, from banking and e-commerce to software and pharmaceuticals.

Today the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), provider of pro-bono legal services to non-profit developers and distributors of free and open source software, filed a brief with the United States Supreme Court arguing that software standing alone cannot constitutionally be patented.

Today SFLC filed a letter with the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York objecting to the Google Book Search Copyright Class Action Settlement. In the letter, filed on behalf of the FSF and author Karl Fogel, SFLC asks the court to consider the impact of the settlement upon members of the class who have distributed their works under Free licenses.

The Software Freedom Law Center is looking for a motivated individual to join our staff in a new and challenging public relations position, "Project Liaison and Media Relations". Details and instructions for applying are available on the opportunities page.

Today, SFLC filed a brief amicus curiae in the case Jacobsen v. Katzer before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC). In the brief, we argue that a Free, Libre, and Open Source Software (FLOSS) developer whose license has been violated should be able to call upon the courts to prevent further infringing distributions.

The Software Freedom Law Center is pleased to announce that its client the Free Software Foundation has reached an agreement with Cisco Systems, Inc., settling the lawsuit filed by the FSF last December.

Today's settlement between Microsoft and TomTom ends one phase of the community's response to Microsoft patent aggression, and begins another. On the basis of the information we have, we have no reason to believe that TomTom's settlement agreement with Microsoft violates the license on the kernel, Linux, or any other free software used in its products. The settlement neither implies that Microsoft patents are valid nor that TomTom's products were or are infringing.

The Software Freedom Law Center, a New York based not-for-profit legal services organization that provides legal representation and other law-related services to protect and advance Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), seeks a registered patent attorney passionate about defending software freedom.

Today, SFLC, along with its client the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and the GCC Steering Committee, announce the release of a new GCC Runtime Library Exception. This license exception will allow the GCC codebase to be upgraded to GPLv3, and enable the development of a plugin framework for GCC.

SFLC was glad to advise FSF in its successful efforts to obtain full relicensing permission of SGI's contributions to X.org. Now that the licensing has been clarified, all of the code 3D graphics under SGI's older licenses are Free Software. SFLC applauds the work done by FSF, X.org and SGI on this matter, and especially commends FSF for their commitment to certainty in free software licensing.