The free software foundation said it would start adapting rules for development and use of free software by including penalties against those who patent software or use anti-piracy technology.
Free software needs to be licensed under specific rules to guarantee that it can be freely studied, copied, modified, reused, shared and redistributed. The Linux operating system kernel is one of the best known examples of free software.
The most popular rule book, the GNU General Public License, was developed 14 years ago by Richard Stallman, before big internet shops and web services.
The license needs to be adapted to a world in which e-commerce firms like Amazon.com (AMZN) have patented one-click ordering which prevents software makers from freely using such a feature in their programs, Stallman said.
The idea is that if someone uses software patents against free software, that company or person loses the right to distribute that particular program and use it in their product, he added.
Stallman will write a draft version of the new license by December, after which it will be evaluated and discussed by thousands of organizations, software developers and software users in 2006.
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Peacemaker player: Samsung Electronics will bring out a DVD machine next year capable of playing both Blu-ray and HD-DVD if backers of the rival standards fail to agree on a unified format.
Competition between the two camps has hampered the launch of the next generation of optical disks, which will have greater capacity and higher definition, as movie studios hesitate to commit to printing disks on either standard.
Samsung is a backer of Blu-ray, which promises higher capacity than HD-DVD and better interactivity and security.
But supporting all standards -- as Samsung has done with cell phones and mobile video -- could give it an advantage in the multibillion-dollar market for DVD players, PC drivers and optical disks.
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Linux goes corporate: Trolltech, the world's biggest producer of Linux software for mobile devices, has appointed two ex-Microsoft executives as it gears up for a possible initial public offering.
Trolltech delivers Linux systems for cell phones, set top boxes and other platforms to customers including Motorola (MOT), Adobe Systems (ADBE) and Google (GOOG).
The company said Juha Christensen and Tod Nielsen had joined the board as non-executives. Christensen used to be Microsoft's (MSFT) head of mobile devices software, and helped to set up the mobile phone software rival Symbian before that. Nielsen, currently a senior vice president of technology marketing at Oracle (ORCL), also used to work at Microsoft.
One source close to the company said it was looking at a possible initial public offering within 12 months. Separately, a consultant said that a flotation looked likely.
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Vindictive virgin: HMV, the biggest specialist music seller in Britain, made a big splash with the launch of its new digital service, employing the band Razorlight to showcase its library of around 1.3 million tracks for consumers to download from the internet.
But some of its thunder has been stolen by Virgin Megastores, the country's second-biggest music chain, which signed up the Dandy Warhols for an ambush launch of its own digital service.
Both outlets are fighting for a share of a market that, while still small in Britain, is expected to grow exponentially. A year ago, the total number of songs officially downloaded from the internet in Britain was 500,000 -- the same number is now sold every week.
HMV and Virgin are both planning to offer a separate subscription service, where users pay 15 pounds ($27.72) a month to download as much music as they want. HMV has also stepped up the competition, making a special 39 pence (72 cents) offer for tracks by some new artists. It also plans to sell recordings of gigs and is formulating a film and computer game download service.
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Safety in seeing: Toyota has developed a safety technology that it says will keep the driver's eyes on the road.
An image-processing computer system developed by Toyota Motor and a Toyota affiliate uses a camera near the steering wheel to detect when the driver stops looking straight ahead.
The system flashes a light on the dashboard display and emits a beeping noise when the eyes start to wander. If the driver still doesn't respond, brakes kick in.
The feature will be offered in Lexus luxury models set to be sold in Japan in spring next year. Toyota won't comment on whether it will be offered in models sold abroad.
Research shows that most accidents happen because the driver isn't paying attention, according to Toyota.
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Compiled by Keith Axline. AP and Reuters contributed to this report.
