A gentler way to put this would be hard to find because ISO continues to show what a disgrace it has become. It was given a chance to change. It was given a chance to listen to polite critics and respond sensibly. It was given a chance to tell the world that it had been captured. But no.

I was reading the wikipedia article on the Sony rootkit scandal from a couple of years ago, and it got me to thinking about the war that the entertainment media industry has declared on its customers. And it occurred to me that some parallels exist between that and the open source movement.

There is no equating software piracy, the theft and misuse of copyrighted software, with using open source, where the license specifically allows and encourages the redistribution of the software. Piracy violates the terms of the copyright and license. It's possible to do this with open source software as well, by not following the terms of the license.

Tomasz Bednarski (Mandriva Poland) wrote a letter to PKN president, Tomasz Schweitzer, in which he expressed his concerns about the Polish OOXML ratification process which Bednarski took part of, as a member of the technical committee 182. We publish the translation of his letter and the response from Schweitzer.

"The European Parliament adopted a resolution this morning which commits the member states - therefore France - «to avoid adopting measures conflicting with civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness, such as the interruption of Internet access.» This vote proves that the system of graduated response that Nicolas Sarkozy wants Fr

Reassuring news arrived from The Inquirer, which says that a legal challenge to the BSI might be served in addition to a formal complaint and a large-scale investigation by the European Commission. It could soon become the third vector of scrutiny.

There are many misinterpretations in the press at the moment. Microsoft has just released some documentation and some reporters foolishly equate that to openness, which certainty it is not.