BOTH MICROSOFT and Novell will have a role or at least some impact at a formal, national level. Mundie's involvement is a subject that we covered yesterday [1, 2], but we wrote not as much about Schmidt's impact. Sun, Google, and Novell are all places where he worked, so his affinity towards particular companies cannot be ignored.

I was going over an old Groklaw posting that got me thinking about Microsoft and it’s .NET Agenda. I decided to do more research and took a look at the Comes vs Microsoft documents again but from the perspective of the current Mono issues. I am even more convinced that Mono and Moonlight do nothing but help Microsoft win against competing platforms.

Open source is under attack in Europe. Not openly or obviously, but in the background, behind closed doors. The battleground is the imminent Digital Agenda for Europe, due to be unveiled by the European Commission in a month's time, and which defines the overall framework for Europe's digital policy.

A regular reader of this site, MattD, has taken a look at Novell’s FAQ about the Microsoft deal. His analysis is worth extra attention. The FAQ is by no means new, but knowing what we know 9 months later, the intents are transparent.

Assignment for a new man in Microsoft's political helm

In a few short weeks, it will be time for national standards bodies to decide whether the Microsoft Office Open XML specification will be accepted as an ISO standard or not.

Microsoft funds are swinging from the Republicans to the Democrats as the parties swap positions

“I’ve killed at least two Mac conferences. [...] by injecting Microsoft content into the conference, the conference got shut down. The guy who ran it said, why am I doing this?” –Microsoft's chief evangelist. So: Microsoft is trying to “kill” yet another event of its competitors by repelling attendees and changing the agenda in exchange for money

Is Microsoft a friend or foe of open source? Going by the company's actions, Microsoft can't seem to decide whether to make love or war. But if it's war, Microsoft appears to lack the legal weaponry to defeat or even disturb its adversaries.