10.13.08
Pressure in Sweden to Move to Free Software
The English-speaking press appears not to have caught this one yet, so we publicise a quick headsup on a wonderful development from Sweden. Here is the report in Swedish and — using automated translation — in English. The gist of it is that a parliamentary representative from the far right is proposing to require the use of Free/open source software (FOSS) in the public sector. This is similar to things which have happened in other neighbouring nations, including the United Kingdom (Tories promote FOSS).
“As readers may recall, a year ago Microsoft was caught bribing for OOXML support in Sweden.”Free software is not new to the Swedish public sector. The police has already adopted a great deal of it, a very large pharmacy chain adopted GNU/Linux, and ODF is already the national standard.
As readers may recall, a year ago Microsoft was caught bribing for OOXML support in Sweden. The vote got invalidated as a result and this said a lot about Microsoft’s fear of change and repellent reaction to competition.
Also noteworthy from Europe is this short report from EPO, which some of its own employees claim to be corrupted by monetary interests. It turns out now that the EPO is lobbying the EU. This seems like the type of thing the BSA would do and it probably promotes more patents under a broader permissible scope. The EPO is, after all, in the business of granting patents, not denying most of them. █
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.