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.
Read more »OOXML Fiasco: More Legal Action Against the BSI Possible
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Microsoft’s Secret Anti-ODF Deals
“It looks like the hoops to jump through for OOXML include speed bumps for open formats like ODF. Could that a main reason Apple held back for two years on ODF?”
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European Parliament rejects graduated response
"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
Read more »Open source launches attack on software patents
Red Hat and ESP (End Software Patents), a Free Software Foundation project, are joining others in challenging the legal logic used for software patents.
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OOXML ISO aftermath in Poland
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.
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OOXML Drops An ‘O’
Now that the ISO standards committee has gotten hold of the Microsoft Open Office XML standard, after the vote giving it ISO status, one of the O’s is no longer needed, or wanted, as the Office moniker gets dropped.
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Open source is not piracy
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.
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Red Hat and Software Patents [Video]
Red Hat's Mark Webbink and Alan Cox explain why Red Hat have a patent portfolio and what it means relating to the "Red Hat Patent Promise" and the Open Invention Network.
Read more »Open source entertainment
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.
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Novell Part of the Software Patents Problem, Not Its Solution
About a year ago, Novell joined forced with the EFF. It needed to give the impression that it was just as concerned as many of us about patents. But meanwhile, Novell advocates the very same thing it purports to be fighting.
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Shame on You ISO, Shame On You. Total Disgrace
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.
Read more »US Commerce Secretary Wants to Restore Some Patent Sanity, Microsoft-Novell as Role Model of Abuse
Groklaw has just up scooped the following small portion of slightly reassuring news. It’s about the Commerce Secretary Gutierrez addressing the US senate regarding patents.
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ISO Ill at Ease Over OOXML
The nominal approval of OOXML last month unleashed an unprecedented outpouring of anger, with much of that ire directed at the ISO for failing to uphold basic standards during the process. This has prompted it to respond with a rather interesting FAQ in which it desperately tries to defend itself.
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Interview with Kurt Denke, the man who shut "Monster Cable" up
I was lucky enough to catch Kurt Denke for a short interview. Kurt is actually on vacation right now; however, he still found some time to answer my questions. For those who have been living under a rock for the last week, Kurt Denke is the owner of Blue Jeans Cable; Monster Cable attacked Blue Jeans Cable on the basis of “Intellectual Property violations”.
Read more »Tim Bray Calls the ISO Process “Brutal and Corrupt”
Tim Bray was clearly dissatisfied the last time his words were carefully selected and then used to describe the terrible state of the OOXML BRM in Geneva [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. To be more specific, it was the “cherry-picking” as he later called it that had him disappointed by articles quoting him.
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