12.02.07

Pick Your (Patent) Poison

Posted in GNU/Linux, GPL, Mono, Novell at 2:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Now available in three wonderful flavors

The interesting news from Spain is that Novell will divide Mono into chunks which correspond to different logical units.

First, [Mono,] the open source organization, sponsored by Novell, decided to separate the source code into three chunks: ECMA Core, Server and Desktop.

Be reminded that Mono presents a software patents dilemma [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9] and also be aware that GPLv3 was designed to provide patent protection through Novell’s distribution of GNU/Linux. The latest report from Palamida suggests that adoption of GPLv3 is still steady and strong. Moreover, cautiousness and hesitation about GPLv3 appear to be declining quickly.

Lastly, the GPLv2 or later count is now at 6286 GPLv2 or later projects, as compared to last weeks number of 6119 GPL v2 or later projects.

It appears as though GPLv3 FUD, which Microsoft has spread using its proxies, is growing very thin and ineffective. A fortnight ago I noticed a blog post from a WordPress member of staff. He said that choosing GPLv3 was just a matter of waiting and watching what others do. This suggests that the ‘cattle phenomenon’ — as insulting as it might sounds — is likely to play a significant role when comes to squashing unnecessary doubts. People look at other people rather than study the licence. █

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Another Supporter of Microsoft’s OOXML: Microsoft

Posted in Formats, Microsoft, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenDocument, Standard at 1:49 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

OOXML patent issue prompt

As further proof of the 'wide' industry support of OOXML, get a load of this:

Windows Mobile has not had the ability to handle OOXML-based documents until now.

This might make 2 applications which are built from the same codebase and properly support a derivate of OOXML. Both applications come from the same company, to whom OOXML is "a simple matter of (its) commercial interests", according to its own manager.

Those who wish to use formats that are cross-platform, long-lasting, free to access, and involve no forced (and costly) upgrades have fortunately got OpenDocument format. Here is a new paper titled “Open Documents and Democracy: A Political Basis for Open Document Standards” [PDF] (via Bob Sutor). █

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