[Quote:]

The International Standardisation Organisation (ISO) is refusing to discuss a leaked paper that suggests it has already rejected appeals against the ratification of Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) document format as an international standard.

Anyone still taking ISO seriously needs to have their head examined… pity.

[Quote:]

One of the biggest revelations at WWDC was quietly unveiled in a session on Friday morning entitled “Building Native Look-and-Feel Web Applications Using SproutCore.” While Apple maintained high security during the entire NDA-sealed WWDC session, the secret of SproutCore is out because it is an open source project and people can’t stop talking about it.

As Apple’s public schedule for WWDC explained, “SproutCore is an open source, platform-independent, Cocoa-inspired JavaScript framework for creating web applications that look and feel like Desktop applications. Learn how to combine SproutCore with HTML5’s standard offline data storage technologies to deliver a first-class user experience and exceptional performance in your web application.”

A bit more here.

[Source:]

(oh, and here is a download counter)

[Quote:]

Speaking at the Handsets World conference in Berlin on Tuesday, Dr Ari Jaaksi told delegates that the open-source community needed to be ‘educated’ in the way the mobile industry currently works, because the industry has not yet moved beyond old business models.

Jaaksi, Nokia’s vice president of software and head of the Finnish handset manufacturer’s open-source operations, said: “We want to educate open-source developers. There are certain business rules [developers] need to obey, such as DRM, IPR [intellectual property rights], SIM locks and subsidised business models.”

Jaaksi admitted that concepts like these “go against the open-source philosophy”, but said they were necessary components of the current mobile industry. “Why do we need closed vehicles? We do,” he said. “Some of these things harm the industry but they’re here [as things stand]. These are touchy, emotional issues but this dialogue is very much needed. As an industry, we plan to use open-source technologies but we are not yet ready to play by the rules; but this needs to work the other way round too.”

So your answer to the question “Why do we need closed vehicles?” is “We do”? And you want to use Open Source but you’re not ready to follow the rules Open Source asks you to follow? You want to ditch the core what makes Open Source work and have us work for you in a way that allows you to use vendor lock-in to garantuee profits?

Excuse me for not being convinced by that brilliant dissertation. You’ll find that a lot of Open Source developers would rather think you just declared war on them.

[Quote:]

The Dutch Council of State will let loose the software it uses to convert proprietary document formats created in MS Office into Open Source documents which follow the Open Document Format (ODF) protocol.

The software, which has been developed by Council employee Marcel Pennock and uses existing plug-ins, offers an icon which centrally converts documents to either ODF of PDF in the background.

[Quote:]

For all the high-tech tactics colleges have employed to slow or block students’ illegal file sharing activity, few have actually turned to methods used in the classroom to get the message across. A university in Missouri thinks it’s found the right solution, combining an age-old teacher’s tool with a dash of discipline.

Last academic year, Missouri University of Science and Technology, in Rolla, received some 200 Digital Millennium Copyright Act “takedown” notices from the recording industry, notifying the institution that users of its network had made copyrighted works available for download. This academic year — at a time when colleges across the country have been experiencing sudden spikes in copyright complaints — the university received eight. Karl F. Lutzen, a systems security analyst at the university, chalks it up to Missouri S&T’s unusual method of regulating students’ network usage: In order to download (or upload) files on any peer-to-peer network whatsoever, all on-campus users have to pass an online quiz on copyright infringement.

But not just once. Passing the test — with a perfect score — enables peer-to-peer access for six hours on the user’s on-campus registered machines, presumably enough time to download that (legal) song, TV show or e-book. The next time, the student, staff or faculty member has to go to the intranet Web page and take the randomized test again

Test software: Hello Mr. Manson, 1) Is murder legal?
Charles Manson: no
Test software: 2) Is murder bad?
Charles Manson: yes
Test software: 3) Would you feel bad if you murdered someone?
Charles Manson: yes
Test software: 4) Do you presently feel like murdering?
Charles Manson: no
Test software: 5) murder, Murder, MURDER!!!
Charles Manson: no, No, NO!!!

Test software: Congratulations, you have scored 100%. You now have 6 hours of access to the cutlery drawer.

On a side note, take a look at the website the university created, which states:

If you have downloaded copyright-protected files without paying for them then you have violated an author’s property rights.

which is of course utter and total bullshit. Here, let me list a few sites where you can download copyright-protected files without paying for them, and without violation the author’s rights:

http://www.debian.org
http://www.gentoo.org
http://mandriva.com
http://www.redhat.com
http://www.slackware.com
http://www.suse.com
http://www.freebsd.org
http://www.netbsd.org
http://www.openbsd.org
http://www.gnu.org
http://www.apache.org

More are listed here, but I think I’ve already listed at least half of all the software used on internet servers today.

If your university pulls crap like this, you’re not getting your money’s worth of education, I suggest you go find another place to learn.

[Quote:]

There were 30 in the bed and the little one said, “Roll over, roll over.”
So they all rolled over and 23 fell out.

There were 7 in the bed and the little one said, “Roll over, roll over.”
So they all rolled over and 4 fell out.

There were 3 in the bed and the little one said, “Roll over, roll over.”
So they all rolled over and 2 fell out…

There was 1 in the bed and the little one said, “Norway votes Yes!”

[Quote:]

[Quote:]

I love Microsoft for their sheer willingness to piss off every human being on this planet in their quest for approval of OOXML.

[Quote:]

A large number of readers are submitting the news that Microsoft has made a major announcement about interoperating with others including specifically the FOSS world. The impetus is the ongoing EU antitrust case against Microsoft. The announcement comes in the context of the release of 30,000 pages of API documentation for Microsoft Vista, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 — and a listing of patents that apply to these technologies, and a pledge not to sue open source developers who use the APIs. InfoWorld summarizes by saying that Microsoft “promised greater transparency in its development and business practices.” Fortune is blunter, saying “Microsoft declares truce in open source war.” Here’s Microsoft’s FAQ on the open source interop initiative.

Only an idiot would take their word on issues like this.

[Quote:]

Especially since it’s a trap.

(from the doc…)

• iii. Open Source Compatibility. Microsoft will promise not to sue open source developers for development and non-commercial distribution of implementations of these Open Protocols. Companies that engage in commercial distribution of these protocol implementations will be able to obtain a patent license from Microsoft, as will enterprises that obtain these implementations from a distributor that does not have such a patent license.

So basically they’ll be sending the hounds over to the Ubuntu camp, Red Hat and anyone else who doesn’t want to pay their fees. Any developer of GPL products should steer well clear from any of their bait.

And note that they’re publishing the doc in a format that itself isn’t in any way “interoperable”:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/interoperability/docs/MicrosoftInteroperabilityAnnouncement.docx

Microsoft are going to have to change an awful lot before people are willing to trust them.

[Quote:]

In reading through IDC’s excellent report, “2007 Industry Adoption of Open Source Software, Part 2: Project Adoption,” analyst Matt Lawton stumbles across an intriguing observation in open-source software adoption. He apparently believes it is a weakness of the current open-source landscape, but I believe it is a strength.

The observation? That IT departments do most of the services around open source, rather than third-party consulting companies.

[..]

Why is this a bad thing? Enterprises are unshackling themselves from proprietary, expensive licenses and reinvesting that money in the gift that keeps on giving: people. That’s how I read the data.

This becomes especially pronounced when one considers two other questions IDC asked. The first is, “Compared to all of your other current IT initiatives (whether Open Source software or not), please indicate the importance to your organization of your top 10 Open Source software projects.” The answer? Across the board (Applications, Infrastructure, and Application Deployment and Development) these open-source projects were rated “Critical” or “High Importance” by 73 percent of respondents.

In other words, these projects weren’t simply casual afterthoughts that didn’t require outside help. They were perhaps some of the most important IT projects the enterprise was deploying. Those may be best kept in-house.

And why does IDC read all this as bad? My guess is they make most of their money by selling reports to the vendors, so anything bad for the vendor, is bad for IDC.

[Quote:]

Open source code, much like its commercial counterpart, tends to contain one security exposure for every 1,000 lines of code, according to a program launched by the Department of Homeland Security to review and tighten up open source code’s security.

Popular open source projects, such as Samba, the PHP, Perl, and Tcl dynamic languages used to bind together elements of Web sites, and Amanda, the popular open source backup and recovery software running on half a million servers, were all found to have dozens or hundreds of security exposures and quality defects.

A total of 7,826 open source project defects have been fixed through the Homeland Security review, or one every two hours since it was launched in 2006, according to David Maxwell, open source strategist for Coverity, maker of the source code checking system, the Prevent Software Quality System, that’s being used in the review.

At the same time, projects like Samba have been adept at correcting the vulnerabilities, once they were identified. Samba was found to have a total of 236 defects, a far lower rate than average for 450,000 lines of code. Of the 236 defects, 228 have been corrected, said Maxwell in an interview.

And as a result everyone’s security improves.

Except Windows users. Will somebody please think of the Windows users?

No? Okay.

[Quote:]

Sun Microsystems is to pay $1bn for open source database developer MySQL.

MySQL’s open source databases are widely used online, but Sun is hoping to increase their use in more traditional IT and enterprise settings. The database is used by many websites - 50,000 copies a day are downloaded.

MySQL will be integrated into Sun’s Software, Sales and Services organisation. MySQL’s CEO Marten Mickos will join Sun’s “senior executive team”, and a group made up of staff from both companies will help sort out the integration.

[Quote:]

I’ve just finished building CommitteeCaller.com, a site that allows one person to target an entire congressional committee over the phone. The web application utilizes the open source Asterisk PBX system to connect you to every senator or house member on a particular committee. No more digging around the ‘net entering zip-codes to retrieve phone numbers of representatives — CommitteeCaller.com automates the tedium of repetitively dialing your favorite politicians.

Just go to the website, select a committee, enter in your phone number and click “Put me in touch with democracy!” and you’ll be called by our system and sequentially patched through to the front office of each member on that committee. You can even rate how each call went — information that will enable us to rank representatives on how accountable and responsive they are to their constituents.

This is an excellent opportunity to contact the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence — the politicians who are debating today whether telecoms should receive retroactive immunity for spying on your phone calls and e-mail.

Now that is a nice demonstration of the power of open source telephony…

[Quote:]

Microsoft may not have beaten French Linux vendor Mandriva in a large deal to supply Nigerian elementary schools with laptop computers and software after all.

Mandriva had closed a deal in mid-August to provide a customised Linux operating system and support for 17,000 Intel Classmate PCs intended for Nigerian schools, but found out last week that the company deploying the computers for the government, Technology Support Center (TSC), planned to wipe the computers’ disks and install Windows XP instead.

Now, however, a government agency funding 11,000 of the PCs has overruled the supplier. Nigeria’s Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) wants to keep Mandriva Linux on the Classmate PCs, said an official who identified himself as the programme manager for USPF’s Classmate PCs project.

“We are sticking with that platform,” said the official, who would not give his name.

Even bribes don’t work… Microsoft can’t even pay people to use Windows!

[Quote:]

IP Innovation LLC has just filed a patent infringement claim against Red Hat and Novell. It was filed October 9, case no. 2:2007cv00447, IP Innovation, LLC et al v. Red Hat Inc. et al, in Texas. Where else? The patent troll magnet state.

The first ever patent infringement litigation involving Linux. Here’s the patent, for those who can look at it without risk. If in doubt, don’t. Here’s the complaint [PDF].

And now let’s play, where’s Microsoft? You know, like where’s Waldo? Betcha he’s in the tree’s leaves somewhere if we look close enough. We had our first hint when Steve Ballmer said in his speech the other day that he figured other folks besides Microsoft would want Red Hat and FOSS to pay them for their patents. Remember? Is he a prophet or merely well informed? Or is there more to this? When I lay out all the research, you can decide.

[..]

So in July one Microsoft executive arrives; then as of October 1, there is the second, a patent guy. October 9, IP Innovation, a subsidiary, sues Red Hat. And Novell. So much for being Microsoft’s little buddy.

I think SCO II has arrived. Except it won’t be just one. It will be one after another, just like Ballmer predicted. Until Linux gives up the ghost. In their dreams.

[Quote:]

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has warned users of Red Hat Linux that they will have to pay Microsoft for its intellectual property.

“People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us,” Ballmer said last week at a company event in London discussing online services in the UK.

The IP laws require that when an IP owner notices an infringement they have an obligation to notify the infringer of the exact nature of the infringement in order to allow them to mitigate the damages by removing the infringement. Failure to do that will render any subsequent claims for damage moot. Microsoft has been at this game so long that any claim they now specify will be laughed out of court.

“Every time an Eolas comes to Microsoft and says: ‘Pay us,’ I expect they eventually would like to go to the open source world [as well],” said Ballmer.

Except they don’t, despite the fact that the source is there for inspection. Apparently, that must mean they aren’t infringing, Steve.

[Quote:]

SCO Group CEO Darl McBride says competition from the open source Linux operating system was a major reason why the company was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday.

In a court filing in support of SCO’s bankruptcy petition, McBride noted that SCO’s sales of Unix-based products “have been declining over the past several years.”

The slump, McBride said, “has been primarily attributable to significant competition from alternative operating systems, including Linux.” McBride listed IBM, Red Hat, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems as distributors of Linux or other software that is “aggressively taking market share away from Unix.”

Damn Microsoft and their support of Linux!