Academics say developers should be cautious following confusion over which parts of the OOXML specification are covered by Microsoft's "covenant not to sue".

4 links about OOXML, before next weeks' big vote at the ISO Ballot Resolution Meeting, on how it now fails it's own criteria for importance, how restricted the BRM will be, about worries over Micrsoft's patent promise, and a pic of the printed spec.

As history has taught us, Microsoft finds it too risky to attack GNU/Linux directly. It would be too transparent and probably result in backlash from Microsoft’s own customers, many of whom also use and/or stock Free software. Microsoft prefers to use proxies and insiders to do their seemingly-independent jobs that accomplish long-term objectives.

"... «By publishing this guide, we hope to share our knowledge, just as free software developers do when they share their creations with the world» said James Vasile, Counsel at SFLC. «I take great pride in this work put together by my colleagues, and I expect that it will be especially useful to developers of free software.» ..."

Trend Micro might insist that its patent case against Barracuda Networks isn't about free software -- but try telling that to the free and open source software (FOSS) community. Since Barracuda Networks went public about the case last month, it has heard from "a tremendous number of individuals" according to Dean Drako, Barracuda's president and CEO. Even more significantly, announcement of the case has led to a boycott against Trend Micro.

In 2004, Brandeis economist Adam Jaffe and Harvard Business School professor Josh Lerner published Innovation and its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System is Endangering Innovation and Progress, and What to Do About It - a rare book on patents and written for generalists, not patent lawyers. "Broken" is strong language, but it gets attention.

I've run into a few Apple UI patents a over the years while developing software. Their software patents, like most other software patents, tend to be completely inane. They are the sort of things that are obvious to pretty much anyone doing UI development who isn't stuck thinking "WIMP, WIMP, WIMP".

Forget Super Tuesday. Consider Super Friday. Super Friday is February 29, the end of the ISO Ballot Resolution Meeting which will decide the fate of Open XML as an ISO standard.