Free software advocates call for boycott of Trend.
With legal proceedings ongoing between
Trend Micro
and gateway appliance specialist
Barracuda Networks
, concerning
Barracuda
‘s implementation of the free, open-source AV software
ClamAV
and
Trend
‘s claims to patents on the use of anti-virus scanners to check email, a Dutch organisation promoting free and open-source software has called for a boycott of
Trend
‘s products.
The row went public last month when
Barracuda
announced
plans to fight
Trend
‘s assertion of patent rights, and called on the community for assistance in asserting that
Trend
‘s patent was not an original idea. General outcry ensued, with some supporters of
Trend
‘s action arguing the importance of patent laws to protect innovation and enterprise, while many others found the patent improbable and raised fears of a threat to a wide range of open-source security products.
Now Dutch open-source advocacy group
ScriptumLibre.org
has thrown its hat into the ring, calling on believers in the open-source ethos to shun
Trend
products in a bid to force the company to back down in what they call an ‘aggressive use of litigation’, describing the patent system as ‘fundamentally broken’.
The
ScriptumLibre.org
announcement is on the group’s website
here
. More analysis and comment on the ongoing row is at
Linux.com
here
and in a blog entry from Mary Landesman at
About.com
here
. Counterarguments are in a
CNET News.com
blog piece
here
.
Posted on 13 February 2008 by
Virus Bulletin
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