Making sense means more than just connecting the dots

  • Microsoft is again at work undermining Linux by signing patent agreements with OEMs. This time, it’s HTC, and it’s about Android.  While it’s another sign that software patents should not exist and need to be taken out of the global IP system the WIPO and others are trying to develop, I wonder what Florian Mueller has to say about this.
  • Microsoft signs the Joomla! agreement, which basically means Microsoft will be contributing to a GPL (v2) project. It’s a progress for sure, but when you read my first news item of this post and the present one, you wonder how these two can make sense. Because they don’t, they even seem radically opposed in the impression they convey. More than merely connecting the dots, I have been trying to make sense of these two news. It turns out they are not that contradictory. Microsoft seems engaged into some sort of pincer movement, although it’s not exactly clear whether it is doing it out of necessity or out of an evil plan to nuke the entire IT industry cunning plan to weaken Free and Open Source Software on both legal and political levels.
  • Trying to make sense, again, out of the acquisition of Palm by HP. It seems HP is very interested by Palm’s webOS, which might become an excellent way for HP to differentiate itself in the smartphones and netbooks market. Things look exciting in this field, that’s for sure.

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