12.20.07
Quick Mention: Samba Gets Its Way
Ending what seemed like a major loss at one point [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11], Samba gets the documentation it needed.
The Protocol Freedom Information Foundation has just signed an agreement with Microsoft to receive the protocol documentation needed to fully interoperate with the Microsoft Windows workgroup server products and to make them available to Samba and other Free Software projects.
No. This isn’t a bit like the Novell-Microsoft agreements. This is for access to Microsoft’s protocols, as ordered by the EU Commission and agreed to by Microsoft. It’s a good thing, in my opinion, and the Samba guys worked really hard to make this as good as it gets. Note that it’s a copyright agreement, not a patent licensing, but there’s a list of patents. Samba has not agreed to license them. Rather it will avoid them, and with a list of them provided by Microsoft, they can and so can you. There is no acknowledgment of them by Samba, no money paid for them, nothing. This is what Novell and others could have done, and thanks to Samba, everyone is a bit freer today.
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.