10.24.07
Victory for OpenDocument Format in South Africa
Add another country to a growing list of countries that adopt truly open standards [1, 2, 3, 4].
The South African government yesterday announced the adoption of OpenDocument Format (ODF) as a standard for government communications.
Elsewhere, Adobe argues in favour of Portable Document Format for archiving (via Andy Updegrove), amid its pursuit for ISO certification.
Archiving is a rather loaded word since doing it can be a widely varying activity. In many situations, archiving PDF files is a very good solution. In fact it was so attractive to some US Government agencies that they encouraged their personnel to work on an ISO committee/working group to define a special subset of PDF called PDF/A that meets their needs better than plain old PDF might.
This is all very fascinating, but there are many patents associated with PDF files. PostScript may seem like a more attractive option, albeit it has fewer features.
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.