The freedom of the software we all sometimes use is under attack, in part thanks to companies like ACCESS and Microsoft, which found a partner in Tim O’Reilly and others who take money to change the direction of Open Source (taking it further away from Free/libre software)

In the enterprise market GNU/Linux seems to be Microsoft's most dominant threat, not Apple

Accepting the money from Microsoft would, in itself, do not harm. But Microsoft typically demands a price for its sponsorship, a price that implies a change in the nature of the event. The price might be, let someone from Microsoft give a speech. The price might be, don’t say that proprietary software is evil. The price might be, present Microsoft sponsorship in a way that inhibits
you from denouncing Microsoft’s software as unethical.

Thanks to those who attended the talk earlier tonight. For anyone who is interested, here are the slides of the talk which lasted about 2 hours. There was also video footage taken, but the quality may be too low. We'll find out soon.

Over the past week, I have had several posts on ACTA in the wake of the most recent leaked text, including a scorecard on the major remaining areas of disagreement, one assessing the growing rift between the U.S. and E.U., Canadian positions on ACTA, the changed U.S. position on anti-circumvention rules, and a look at geographical indications, a key issue for the EU.

Timely reminder of the fact that software patents opposition is not the same of Free software advocacy

After public embarrassment for Microsoft, Dell "censors" its own Web pages that say GNU/Linux is more secure than Windows