...And it was vague or unintelligible, would it still be enforceable?

Martin LaMonica's article, "Linux defenders go after more alleged GPL3 offenders," marks the line drawn in the sand between, "What the heck is open source?" and "We better not be using any GPL3!"

While I can't intelligently comment on whether the content of the GPL is good or bad, oppressive or otherwise, I will say that these lawsuits are proof positive that the purported "FUD" surrounding the importance of open source license audits is in fact, real.

Matt Asay wrote a very compelling blog last week regarding open source use in the Federal Government. From my standpoint, the content of the blog served as much more than a topic of discussion it was a call to action for the open source community.

Every so often I think about how fortunate we are as a company to be part of such a dynamic and thriving open source community. Our physical location is fantastic and even better, our "back yard" boasts some of the most innovative open source organizations in the nation.

In an October 9, 2007 article on Vnunet regarding GPL v3 conversions, the author refers to Black Duck's CEO in the piece and writes, '[He]suggested that most projects that have converted to using GPLv3 so far are the smaller ones.'

Stephen Shankland recently wrote an interesting blog regarding the GPL/Monsoon lawsuit. In the piece, he quotes James Harvey, an attorney with Hunton & Williams, as saying, "There still appear to be flaming examples of either indifference to or outright disregard for the GPL.

On September 25, 2007 Dana Blankenhorn wrote a blog in which he examined whether or not code audits are necessary. The inferences made throughout the blog invited a thoughtful and serious response.

Dana states, "With the FUD train having left the Linux OS station, vendors are now focusing on Linux applications, warning that careful, expensive auditing and licensing is necessary before you deploy anything."

Last week, ZDNet posted a news item on the Linux Foundation's upcoming Legal Summit.

Japan is synonymous with technological innovation. Pushing the boundaries of product design, they continually look to do more — features, functionality, processing power — in less space for less money. To this end, the next frontier of large scale software development may well be in the palm of your hand. The explosion of the amount of software powering DVD recorders, GPS systems, mobile phones, and similar devices is truly amazing. Fundamental to these goals is the use of open source code, most often embedded within the chipsets internal to these products.

In June of this year, Robert Westervelt wrote a great piece on how security issues are driving an increased awareness surrounding intellectual property (IP) protection. He also cites an IP study, in which 74% of respondents said their organization was going to spend more to secure electronic forms of intellectual property in 2007 than they did in 2006. Of interest to me was the use of the phrase "electronic forms of intellectual property".