I thought it would be good to have a text version of Attachments 1 and 2 to Annex A, attached to the cover memo of the ISO document. Here is how they describe Attachment 1:

Attachment 1 contains a summary of the distinct grounds for appeal claimed in the four appeals, together with an explanation from the ISO and IEC CEOs for each one.

Attachment 2 is a continuation. So, they are a list of the various bases for the appeals. We can, therefore, compare their characterizations with the Brazil text, and we can see if we think their analysis makes any sense. We'll do the other three appeals as text too later, but let's start with Brazil's.

If you work around Linux regularly, in some ways the latest amazing news is… not that amazing. The New York Stock Exchange, where the world’s largest public companies trade their stocks, is now running on Linux. (Microsoft is not listed on the NYSE; they trade on the NASDAQ. Now *that* would have been a fun headline…) In addition the Chicago Mercantile Exchange also runs on Linux. While perhaps not as famous as the NYSE, the CME is one of the largest exchanges in the world. Even the Tokyo Stock Exchange is running on Linux.

Why is this? Linux’s stability and flexibility make it an obvious choice for stock exchanges that mix in a wide range of server and real-time application technologies connected by global networks with extremely high security needs. People who work around Linux have always thought Linux really shines in these kinds of computing environments.

Still, the sheer amounts of money that are now traded on top of Linux are staggering. NYSE Euronext and its family of exchanges which include the NYSE, Euronext, Liffe, Alternext and NYSE Arca Options, operating in the US and Europe, now run on Red Hat Linux and look to Red Hat for support and services. Put it another way, over 4000 public companies and over $141 billion in daily stock transactions depend on Linux. The Chicago Mercantile exchange at last count traded 1.403 Billion contracts valued at $827 trillion annually. The Tokyo Stock Exchange has 2,413 listed companies have a total market capitalization of nearly 678 trillion yen.

Wow.

Interested in hearing more from the kinds of developers and vendors that work on large, high-performance installations? The Linux Foundation is hosting our End User Collaboration Summit this fall in New York City, Oct 13-14. The leaders of the development and vendor communities will be interacting directly with CIOs and senior IT people to discuss in detail how to accelerate problem solving and advance the Linux platform. The author of Wikinomics will be there with his observations on collaborative development and I suspect to learn a little from the folks working on Linux. All verticals are welcome, including Online Services, Financial Services, Healthcare, and HPC.

It’s an invitation-only event, limited to 150 participants, so if you’re interested in attending, please don’t wait to get in touch. http://www.linux-foundation.org/events/enduser . If you have questions or need further information, please email us at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .

Last night someone sent me a copy of a document delivered by the CEOs of ISO and IEC earlier that day to the ISO Technical Management Board (TMB). That documents summarizes the four appeals filed in relation to the adoption of DIS 29500 (OOXML), and provides a response to each claimed basis for appeal. Those appeals, you will recall, were registered by the National Bodies of South Africa, India, Venezuela and Brazil, not all of which have became publicly available. Under the Directives, the next step in the Appeals process is for the TMB to vote on each appeal, with each member being entitled to vote yes, no or abstain on one or the other of the following resolutions, in each case as to each appeal separately:

a) Not to process the appeal further

b) To process one or more of the appeals, which would require setting up of a conciliation panel

If more than one appeal is approved for further consideration, the CEOs recommend that a single panel be formed to address them (I’ve previously described the ongoing process in greater detail here). The TMB’s are asked to vote by August 4.

The recommendation of the CEOs is as follows:

The processing of the ISO/IEC DIS 29500 project has been conducted in conformity with the ISO/IEC JTC 1 Directives, with decisions determined by the votes expressed by the relevant ISO and IEC national bodies under their own responsibility, and consequently, for the reasons mentioned above, the appeals should not be process further.

Those who have been disappointed by how the Fast Track process was conducted will also be disappointed by the reasoning they will find in the document, which can be effectively be summarized as follows:

Read the Rest

Recommendation

20. The processing of the ISO/IEC DIS 29500 project has been conducted in conformity with the ISO/IEC JTC 1 Directives, with decisions determined by the votes expressed by the relevant ISO and IEC national bodies under their own responsibility, and consequently, for the reasons mentioned above, the appeals should not be processed further.

I know you are not surprised. The same people who gave us OOXML were expected to tell us that they did a fabulous job. However, it does mean the appeals have been sent along to the TMB. The memo is dated June 30. You can read the filings by those who appealed -- Brazil, South Africa, Venezuela, and India -- as they are attached as exhibits, and decide for yourself if the rules were followed. I guarantee it will curl your lip. There is an August 4 deadline mentioned in the document for all the members of the TMB to take a position on the appeals, it says.

A recent discovery order by the Federal Court hearing the case of Viacom v. YouTube has triggered concern about what information will be disclosed by Google and YouTube and how it will be used. Viacom has not asked for and will not be obtaining any personally identifiable information of any YouTube user. The personally identifiable information that YouTube collects from its users will be stripped from the data before it is transferred to Viacom. Viacom will use the data exclusively for the purpose of proving our case against You Tube and Google.

Viacom has been in discussions with Google to develop a framework to share this data. We are committed to a process that will not only comply with the Court's confidentiality order, but that will also meet our commitment to the strongest possible internet privacy protections.

That's some progress, if it's true, the part about Google redacting it first. But what's that part about Viacom didn't ask for it? They say the same thing on their homepage, where you can see this questionably true statement:

Viacom has not requested any personally identifiable information from YouTube as part of the litigation.

Say what? I think it would be more truthful to say that they *did too* ask for it, Google asked them to let them redact, Viacom saw the public's reaction, and so it agreed. I gather Viacom has noticed that a lot of consumers, as they view us human beings, seriously hate Viacom's guts because of this over-the-top litigation.

Viacom may think they can say whatever they wish about what they asked for, since the details of their motion to compel were filed in a sealed memorandum. But we're not stupid, and we can read the Order, where the judge tells us what Viacom asked for. Let's review.

Microsoft has made many acquisitions for many reasons over its history - 122 to date, according to the list maintained at the Wikipedia. Almost 100 of these have been consummated in the last decade, as the company that triumphed in operating system and office productivity software has sought (often unsuccessfully) to achieve similar success in other domains. Other purchases have demonstrated pragmatic “build versus buy” decisions, serving to add functionalities to products that needed them more quickly and efficiently than in house efforts could achieve.

In its earlier days, Microsoft was much more likely to mimic the products of other companies rather than buy them, in part reflecting its engineering-driven culture, and in part its hardball approach to competition. When it did add features this way, it invariably added them for free into its existing products to make them more desirable. The result was often to drive the originators of those features out of the marketplace, since who would buy what they could get for free? Sometimes, the motivation was more desperate, as with the crash development, and bundling, of Internet Explorer in Window, when Netscape threatened to open a critical breach in Microsoft’s control personal computing.

If that sounds vaguely familiar, it should, since Google is following the same course, albeit in a kinder, gentler way, as it adds service upon service, all for free, and all in the service of racking up more and more ad revenues. That’s disturbing, because when your goal is ad revenues and not great technology, you may not necessarily produce great technology. But as Google’s dominance continues to grow, who will be able to credibly compete against it in those technologies, to ensure that innovation continues?

Read more here

Microsoft says the fine announced in February is too high. It should be annulled, and if not, they ask that it be reduced. Oh, and it would like the EU Commission to pay costs. Yes, the EU Commission is the defendant. It seems it neglected to believe Microsoft's experts about how valuable its patents are. And it accuses the Commission of accepting reports from the trustee, whom Microsoft hand-picked, by the way, based on "documents obtained through powers of investigation that the Court of First Instance held to be unlawful." Whoah. No more Mr. Nice Guy for Microsoft, I see.

Note that this is news to us, but not to the EU Commission, as this action was brought May 9th. So. Here we go again.

Our previous articles on day 2 covered the second day of Chris Sontag's testimony (which I put together with his first day, for logic and convenience), then Darl McBride's, and then Greg Jones' testimony. Those were Novell's witnesses, the ones it called.

Novell's case having been fully presented, it was SCO's turn to put on its case, each side trying to present evidence to support their opening statements. The first SCO witness called is John Maciaszek. We've seen him before on paper, and so has Judge Dale Kimball. But this is our first opportunity to watch him in person.

I think by the end of his testimony, SCO's argument that UNIX System V and UnixWare are the same thing completely unravels.

The "Digital Communities" category will honor important achievements by digital communities as well as innovative artistic approaches towards web-based communities. This category focuses attention on the wide-ranging social and artistic impact of the Internet as well as on the latest developments in the fields of social software, ubiquitous computing, mobile communications and wireless networks. Special attention goes to community-related "net.art". "Digital Communities" spotlights bold and inspired innovations impacting human coexistence, bridging the geographical as well as gender-based digital divide and cultural conflicts, sustaining cultural diversity and the freedom of artistic expression or creating outstanding social software and enhancing accessibility of technological-social infrastructure. This category showcases the political and artistic potential of digital and networked systems and is thus designed as a forum for the consideration of a broad spectrum of projects, programs, artworks, initiatives and phenomena in which social and artistic innovation is taking place, as it were, in real time. A Golden Nica, two Awards of Distinction and up to 12 Honorary Mentions will be awarded in the Digital Communities category in 2008.

I am surprised that they recognized us, given their emphasis, but I'm very grateful, because it means that there is an awareness that what we did was innovative and well worth doing.