This is a joint blog post written together with Matija Šuklje with the goal to disband some popular FUD that you lose your warranty if you flash or root your device

Rooting your phone

Does rooting your device (e.g. an Android phone) and replacing its operating system with something else void your statutory warranty, if you are a consumer?

In short: No. Just the fact that you modified or changed the software of your device, is not a sufficient reason to void your statutory warranty. As long as you have bought the device as a consumer in the European Union.

I am here speaking software patents. I was replying to a thread on G+, and wrote a very long reply, that indeed is a post. It's on Red Hat patent promise, which has some unfortunate language that can be interpreted as "in general software patents impede innovation", meaning that in some cases they don't. I think that my reply can be of more general interest and make an excerpt here, with a few minor edits.

The post

I hate to defend rich companies and not getting paid for it (not that it would be the first time ;-), but in this case I will make an exception, also because the people who conceived the strategy of registering software patents for defensive purposes are good friends and trustworthy Free Software friends. Red Hat is a company full of cash, which is eating chunks of market away from even richer companies. It makes software, Free Software, it contributes heavily to Linux, it has no proprietary exploitation of the software it makes.

This morning I have read this article on Tech Crunch mentioning that – great news – one of the senior executives of Google has finally said it loud what we have thought for years: [most] software patents are detrimental to innovation. Only, he falls short of the point, because he asks for a "real patent reform," whereas the only suitable reform is a software patent abolition (if not an entire patent system abolition, but that is another discussion). All software patents are detrimental to innovation. Period.

But software patents are also detrimental to competition. Especially if they are used in an anticompetitive way. The Microsoft case, once again, gives us good food for thought and leads me to think that there is more than one antitrust concern over the sale of Nortel patents. May I attempt a few short answers to reasonable questions that are lingering around when I mention the antitrust issue. I plead guilty of omitting much of the necessary background.

Karsten Gerloff, President of the Free Software Foundation Europe, publishes a blog post on the hearing in the Microsoft v Commission case (T-167/08) dealing with the 899 million euro fine for failing to offer reasonable and non discriminatory condition for revealing secret interoperability information, AKA the "no patent" agreement that the Protocol Freedom Information Foundation has subsequently negotiated to provide same information to Samba Team and others. The article is offered under the condition "Creative Commons Attribution" (CC-BY)

A new issue of the International Free and Open Source Software Law Review is out. This number sports among others a very interesting article by my good friend Maurits Dolmans on the interaction of patents and standards, with a plea for Open Standards. Definitely worth reading. Also noteworthy an introduction to a document that attempts at clarifying how the various linking and other interactions between software from different sources can work – or not work – in copyleft software mingling, by Malcolm Bain.

Other hot topics covered are the patenting of software in Europe, by Noam Shemtov, and the somewhat controversial Project Harmony aims and workings, explained by the leading lawyer Amanda Brock. For those interested in public procurement, the article by Mathieu Paapst explains some aspects of the affirmative actions to favor open source, form mostly an economical perspective, which nicely complements my own article in the previous issue. Those who like reading controversial authors will definitely love to hate Matt Asay's platform article.

Go and fetch it, it's [F | f] ree!

Recently I have caught myself deep into discussions on the extent of copyright applied to Free Software and how the copyleft effect plays a role in Software Freedom. On an Identi.ca message I said:

Free Software is NOT about the freedom to choose the license under which software made by others can be redistributed.

Let me expand a bit on copyleft compatibylity

Recently Oracle has sued Google on patent and copyright claims, demanding satisfaction regarding a – for want of a better word – functional equivalent of Java for Android named "Dalvik". A voice has pointed out that I have not been as talkative as when I announced my public support to the merger between Sun and Oracle. Now it is time to respond.