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Recent news that Microsoft and Barnes & Noble agreed to partner on the Nook e-reader line rather than keep fighting over intellectual property suggests the prospect of more settlement and fewer IP suits in the industry. However, the deal further obscures the blurry IP and patent landscape currently impacting both enterprise IT and consumer technology.

It is good to see settlement — something I’ve been calling for, while also warning against patent and IP aggression. However, this settlment comes from the one conflict in this ongoing war that was actually shedding some light on the matter, rather than further complicating it.

See the full article at TechNewsWorld.

Recent news that Microsoft and Barnes & Noble agreed to partner on the Nook e-reader line rather than keep fighting over intellectual property suggests the prospect of more settlement and fewer IP suits in the industry. However, the deal further obscures the blurry IP and patent landscape currently impacting both enterprise IT and consumer technology.

It is good to see settlement — something I’ve been calling for, while also warning against patent and IP aggression. However, this settlment comes from the one conflict in this ongoing war that was actually shedding some light on the matter, rather than further complicating it.

See the full article at TechNewsWorld.

Mark Cuban is no fool. A tech billionaire, the no-nonsense owner of the Dallas Mavericks is just the sort of person you'd expect to value software patents. So the title of his blog post this Tuesday, "I hope Yahoo crushes Facebook in its patent suit," may not look out of place to you.

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The open source community should feel a little safer from software patent attacks today. The Open Invention Network (OIN), a consortium of Linux contributors formed as a self-defense against software patents, has extended the definition of Linux so that a whopping 700 new software packages are covered, including many developer favorites.

Just one hitch: The new definition also includes carve-outs that put all Linux developers on notice that Phillips and Sony reserve the right to sue over virtualization, search, user interfaces, and more.

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Apache Web Server, GNU/Linux Operating System, MySQL Database, Mozilla's Firefox Browser.

All pillars among the open-source community.

Each of these deserves its imminent position as a venerated project. Each has changed the world, and not a little. Moreover, they are the projects that spring to mind when we seek to justify the brilliance of the open-source licensing and development models.

But if this is intended to be a list of the highest-impact and most significant open-source projects, there is a project missing from this list.

VA VistA.

VA VistA is arguably the best electronic health record (EHR) in existence. It was developed over the course of several decades by federal employees in a collaborative, open-source fashion. Because it was developed by the U.S. government, it is available under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in the public domain. VistaA has served as the basis for several open-source and proprietary products.

Anyone with expertise in health IT knows about VistA, but few in the open-source community are aware of the project. This is tragic, because it really is one of the most important examples of an open-source system anywhere, for any reason. Why? Because Veterans Affairs (VA) has been able to use VistA to deliver a system of high-quality healthcare.

That word "system" is important. You will get excellent healthcare at Mayo, Harvard, Cleveland Clinic, etc., but it is difficult to make a "system" that consistently delivers excellent healthcare. The VA has done that, and VistA is basically the health IT "operating system" that has made it possible. (I wrote and maintain the WorldVistA "What is VistA Really?" page if you would like further context on the system.)

Sounds amazing right? And it is. But there's a problem: VistA has been rotting. Development has largely stagnated in the last two decades.

This stagnation is mostly due to VistA's institutionalization at the VA. VistA was not developed as an "approved" project. It was developed as a kind of rebellion against the backward software that was available at the time and a rebellion against the backward ideas held by VA bureaucracy. This rebellion was called the "underground railroad" among VistA insiders.

Once the VA approved the project and started managing the software development using top-down practices, everything slowed to a crawl. Imagine the bazaar being "blessed" and moved into the cathedral.

Several outsiders in open-source health IT have been advocating for the VA to return VistA to its open-source roots. I wrote a proposal to make VistA truly open source, and Rick Marshal blogs about this almost exclusively.

Recently, a new, enlightened leadership at the VA has decided that taking the open-source route is precisely what VA VistA needs. The result is the Open Source Electronic Health Record Agent, or OSEHRA.

OSEHRA faces tremendous challenges. VistA uses a technical stack that makes typical project management very difficult, and there are several thorny political issues involved. But if this transition is successful, it could truly be a revolution for health IT.

If you care about healthcare software and open source, participating in OSEHRA is worth your while.

Meaningful Use and Beyond: A Guide for IT Staff in Health Care — Meaningful Use underlies a major federal incentives program for medical offices and hospitals that pays doctors and clinicians to move to electronic health records (EHR). This book is a rosetta stone for the IT implementer who wants to help organizations harness EHR systems.

Related:

• What is VistA Really

There are many questions that arise out of Oracle’s copyright and patent infringement complaint against Google regarding its use of Java in Android. There are several things that make the suit significant to the entire industry: it centers not just on software copyright, but also software patents (an increasingly and hotly debated issue), the quickly-expanding smartphone market and open source software. The first question is: what is Oracle doing?

Many are speculating that this is simply an effort to further and more effectively monetize Java, a storied program language that has move more toward openness and survived several supposed death sentences as newer languages arrived. Still, with all of the open source parts — GlassFish application server, MySQL database, OpenOffice.org suite — is Java the most significant to Oracle? It may be, but regardless of what Oracle is doing, its legal moves here may certainly have an impact on the many other open source projects from Sun that are now under Oracle’s umbrella.

Oracle may also simply be initiating an IP licensing effort around Java, but as Microsoft has found, this can be a delicate endeavor to say the least. Another possibility is that Oracle, not typically mentioned or meaningful when we discuss the hot market of smartphones, wants to make sure the world knows its Java code is in many of that Android technology. Still, there are more constructive ways to go about that, I would think.

We have questioned Oracle’s full appreciation for open source software before, but its latest action simply brings more questions to mind.

The smartphone market is seeing incredible opportunity, competition and innovation right now? In addition, with waves of iPhone and more recently Android popularity, the smartphone market might even be poised for a slow in growth (even though it is by many accounts the fastest growing technology market). Still, if there is some slowing that was part of the natural market cycle, will Oracle take some or even all of the blame?

Given that Google is adept at software development and using open source, we also have to wonder about the impact of any and all major workarounds. Plans may already be well underway to circumvent the use of Java in Android and any range of other devices or markets where it has managed to stay relevant despite its age. This could finally make Java less relevant, or at the least have a negative effect on Java development going forward.

One thing seems clear, Oracle’s move makes all that software patent discussion and debate more relevant and more real. We have sensed a coming storm over software patents, but we did not anticipate a first shot from Oracle, frankly. One of the biggest questions now is what kind of reaction will this trigger from the likes of the Open Invention Network, Linux Foundation (of which Oracle is a Platinum member and Google is a Gold member) or others with resources and interest in legally defending Linux and open source software?