"With about a week remaining to collect comments on a plan to adopt Ecma’s Open XML standard, Massachusetts is mum on how the issue is fairing, but some who disagree with the action are already voicing their opinion publicly."

Well, this got my attention. InformationWeek has just stated in a strange anti-GPL, anti-Linux, anti-Open Source article called "Open Source Is Dead, Long Live Open Patents?" (he imagines the IBM patent move this week was to replace the GPL, if I've followed his train of thought) that IBM owns Unix

It's probably safe to say that most Americans, at one time or another, have felt they could do a better job of governing the nation than their elected officials. It may even be safe, in fact, to say that that has never been more true than it is today.

Linux vendor Linspire on July 11 said that the new Open XML translator is now available for use in its latest Freespire and Linspire distributions. The Open XML translator enables bi-directional compatibility, so that files saved in the Microsoft-created Open XML format can be opened by OpenOffice.org users, and files created by OpenOffice can be saved in Open XML format.

"Microsoft sought to avoid tangling itself up in the GPL license when it struck a deal with Novell. Rather than pay Novell, it agreed to hand out SUSE Linux coupons to consumers. It stayed at arms length from distributing the code… But did Microsoft circumvent the trap of GPLv2 by stepping into the snare of GPLv3?"

Late last week, Gray Knowlton wrote a lengthy blog comment, sharing some of this thoughts about my review of the Microsoft white paper "Accessibility of Ecma Office Open XML File Formats" that Gray posted to the OpenXML Developer website.

Heads up! Some new patent applications have just been posted on the Peer to Patent Project website, including one from Microsoft, its first entry in the project, on a kind of system I think of as a DRM'd computerized bean counter which tracks all the media clips bought and sold in the offline system of the invention, and then pays copyright holders and their ex-filesharing pirate distributors.

IBM today announced that it is granting universal and perpetual access to certain intellectual property that might be necessary to implement more than 150 standards designed to make software interoperable.