I must admit, it simply never would have occurred to me that the Media stockpiles lists of future obituaries ... until I read this premature ejaculation by Bloomberg:

"The Bloomberg financial newswire decided to update its 17-page Steve Jobs obituary today — and inadvertently published it in the process. Some investors were undoubtedly rattled to see, as our tipster did late this afternoon, the Apple CEO's obit cross the wire and then suddenly disappear. Jobs's battle with pancreatic cancer, and speculation over his health, jarred Wall Street earlier this year and continues to be the subject of speculation."

It seems that an agent acting on behalf of the British government has violated the copyright of the software it used to create the PM's spiffy new Website. As much as I utterly despise the entire premise of Intellectual Monopoly, this is about violating the principles of a Free License, and if it's good enough for the British government to violate our civil rights in the name of Intellectual Monopoly, then it's good enough for the Free World to protect its "property" (in fact Freedom) too:

After receiving many emails on the subject, it’s been brought to my attention that my NetWorker theme for Wordpress has been used by the government of the UK, and it seems they’ve not honored the copyright agreement. The theme was released under the Creative Commons 3.0 license, which requires attribution to me whether the theme is modified or not. The link that I place in the footer of each theme I have available, which points to this website, is the attribution that I expect from each website that uses that theme.

The theme has been heavily modified, and looks very different from the original. However, one look at the source files verifies that it is indeed built on NetWorker.

The website in question is apparently the official site of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and boasts protection under Crown Copyright.

~ Anthony Baggett, NetWorker developer.

From the criminal-thug-gets-just-deserts dept.

Ruling Is a Victory for Supporters of Free Software - NYTimes.com

By JOHN MARKOFF

Published: August 13, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO — A legal dispute involving model railroad hobbyists has resulted in a major courtroom victory for the free software movement also known as open-source software.

In a ruling Wednesday, the federal appeals court in Washington said that just because a software programmer gave his work away did not mean it could not be protected.

The decision legitimizes the use of commercial contracts for the distribution of computer software and digital artistic works for the public good. The court ruling also bolsters the open-source movement by easing the concerns of large organizations about relying on free software from hobbyists and hackers who have freely contributed time and energy without pay.

It also has implications for the Creative Commons license, a framework for modifying and sharing creative works that was developed in 2002 by Larry Lessig, a law professor at Stanford.

And it's only the beginning of the second half of 2008!

Another 90 Billion down the pan, and there won't be a Microsoft much longer.

WOOT!

Bloomberg.com: Exclusive

Microsoft, the biggest software maker, has lost about $90 billion in market value this year as Ballmer vacillated on Yahoo and failed to show how he would crack Google Inc.'s dominance of Internet advertising.

Microsoft is quickly shaping up to be the next SCO.

In the wake of the death of Joe Barr, Linux.com's editor, I've been reacquainting myself with his work, and his insights into Microsoft's earlier "dirty tricks". I was vaguely familiar with some of this, but it's worth remembering that Microsoft's racketeering techniques are hardly new ... they've been doing this stuff since day one.

I may end up adding this to the collection at Grokdoc's Dirty Tricks History wiki pages, but for now - here's a sample: