Links for the end of July

• Sun shareholders approve Sun’s merger with Oracle: I hear Jonathan Schwartz did not show up to the meeting; I don’t know why, but it sure is a sad moment. Not because of Oracle (it makes things quite interesting) but because Sun is very likely to go away, and with it a whole part of I.T. history. I am glad to have known a lot of people at Sun, and look forward working with them again in their new company.
• Oracle or not Oracle, OpenOffice.org is busy. Not just with the preparation of the next OOoCon that will take place in November, but also with some serious work on the OpenOffice.org’s interface. Before you say anything, here’s something you should know: it’s not an attempt to design a ribbon; take a look at it very carefully, you will find some very nice concepts.
• The European Commission has published an interesting whitepaper about ICT standardization. This seems to have left Jonathan Zuck confused.  Lots of good things, but at the same time, I feel the software patents clique has never been breathing so close to the Commission’s neck: when will they accept that Royalty-Free (RF) is the only acceptable term for ICT standards? These people need the equivalent of a “patent subprime crisis” to show the revenues they make on “Intellectual Property Rights” rest on nothing but wind and wild speculation while harming pretty much everyone else in the industry, citizens and the advancement of science and technology in general.
• Did Microsoft speak too fast when it announced its contributions to the Linux kernel? Check this out!
• In an Earth-shattering announcement, Claws Mail brings its second micro-release of the 3.7 branch out in the wild. Enjoy without moderation.
• Last but not least, the ODF Toolkit’s DOM component has been released in its version 0.7. You can grab it here.

Stay tuned (although I won’t be close to my computer for most of the month of August)!