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iTWire: Open source software has long been accepted as a legitimate software license by tech-savvy crowds. It’s become recognised by business. And even the courts are taking seriously open source software authors rights despite the fact no money has changed hands. This month an Artistic License was tested in court in the case of Robert Jacobsen vs KAM Industries, and upheld as enforceable copyright conditions. It is a landmark decision ratifying the philosophical basis behind FOSS.

iTWire: A lot has been said of late concerning the way Apple slipped in a brand-new Safari installer into the Apple Software Update used by many hundreds of thousands of iPod-wielding Windows users. Let me offer a new perspective, from the open source point of view – why what Apple did was bad, and why open source developers wouldn’t do it.

ITWire: Nobody wants to lose their e-mail. So, for Gmail users, G-Archiver seemed like a great buy. For $US 29.95 this shareware app will make a duplicate of your Gmail account on your hard disk, for as many accounts as you like. What its users didn’t count on was that G-Archiver’s authors helped themselves to your Gmail username and password too. Here’s the scoop.