Sean Michael Kerner

Legal eagles on staff with Red Hat are a busy group these days. The Linux distribution leader just announced that it has settled two of three patent lawsuits that had been hanging over its head for two years. “We’re putting the patent issue to rest with the settlement of patent litigation involving Firestar Software, and […]

From the ‘aaaaaah that’s why they hired those guys‘ file: In March of this year Red Hat expanded its legal firepower by hiring lawyers Rob Tiller and Richard Fontana.  Three months later it’s evident that these two have been busy as today Red Hat announced that it has settled two of three outstanding patent lawsuits. […]

Hidden behind the massive hype that was the iPhone 3G launch is the fact that Apple’s critical QuickTime software, which enables multimedia playback and iTunes, remains software under siege. The QuickTime 7.5 update fixes five issues that could potentially leave users at risk from attackers. Though Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is patching QuickTime yet again, at […]

Microsoft is out with its June Patch Tuesday vulnerability haul, this time issuing advisories on a range of technologies including Internet Explorer, Bluetooth, Microsoft Speech, DirectX, Windows Internet Name Service (WINS) and Pragmatic General Multicast (PGM) protocol. Among the advisories labeled with the maximum severity of critical is MS08-31, which details a pair of vulnerabilities […]

What does it take to build an open source browser used by over 170 million people? Apparently it’s not quite as gargantuan as you might have guessed. I would have thought that from a build framework point of view it would take some massive super cluster array with ridiculous amounts of processing power and RAM- […]

When AOL opened up its instant messaging platform with OpenAIM a few years ago, the idea was to expand the development ecosystem for the popular IM program. Today, AOL is expanding the AIM system with dollars with its AIM Money program, new features in OpenAIM and a new AIM public client. The new initiatives mark […]

From the ‘when will they learn‘ files: The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) has filed a pair of new lawsuits on behalf of its client BusyBox for alleged violations of the GPL open source license. The defendants in this new round of lawsuits are Bell Microproducts, Inc. and Super Micro Computer, Inc. “Before filing these […]

What does Mozilla – arguably the most popular open source project in the world – use for its telephony solution? It shouldn’t surprise you that they use a solution built in open source should it? When I was at Mozilla’s Toronto office – I made sure to check out all the ‘flashing lights’ and being […]

Digium, the lead sponsor behind the open source Asterisk open source VoIP PBX project, is expanding its appliance footprint with a new SMB targeted device. The AA300 appliance is geared for up to 150 users and deploys technology from Digium’s Switchvox division to provide a full telephony solution. Switchvox, which was acquired by Digium in […]

From the ‘you gotta play by the rules‘ files: The basic premise of all Open Source software (Open Source being software licensed under an OSI approved license and adhering to the Open Source Definition) is that the code is ..well..open and available to all.  Someone at Microsoft didn’t think that applied to them when they […]

The battle for Web browser performance bragging rights is all about speed. Both Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox are jostling for the title of fastest browser, with one of the key metrics being how fast JavaScript performs. Apple this week upped the stakes with the new SquirrelFish bytecode JavaScript interpreter, which it claims offers significant […]

I spent the better part of today at Mozilla’s offices in Toronto – the workspace that my friend Nicholas Carlson at Valleywag labeled as ‘the worst in tech’. Mozilla’s Toronto office is far from the worst tech workspace I’ve ever seen – in fact I’d rank it among the best small office spaces in tech […]