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In a case of deja vu that is becoming bad news for Massachusetts residents in particular, and ODF supporters in general, another Massachusetts CIO has resigned in protest. This time it is Peter Quinn's successor, State CIO Louis Gutierrez.

Yesterday, the New York Times broke a story that suggested that IBM would put its entire patent portfolio on line, would post all of its patent applications as well, and finally, would call for an end to all "business method" patents. The only problem is, none of those things turned out to be true.

The New York Times reports that IBM will announce a new patent policy later today under which it will significantly change the way it deals with its patent portfolio. According to the Times, IBM hopes to move the industry in the same direction by its example.

[Go IBM! This editor certainly encourages other businesses to consider what they can do to join IBM in working toward patent reform here in the US. - dcparris]

In what seems to be a petty display of childishness, Google at first refused to post at its own Websites in Belgium the news of a recent defeat it suffered in a Belgian courtroom - at the cost of paying a $640,000 per day fine. A day later, it caved, saying it would appeal instead.

How much use is "fair use" when it comes to Web-based content? That's a question that I expected would receive more attention in the blogosphere when Google announced last month that it had reached a deal with the Associated Press that would permit it to continue to link to AP stories at the Google Website – for a price.

OASIS announced yesterday in Lyons, France, that it has launched a public Website "designed to serve as the official community gathering place and information resource for the OpenDocument Format (ODF)" sponsored by IBM, Sun Microsystems and, interestingly, Intel as well.

Microsoft has just posted the text of a new patent "promise not to assert " at its Website, and pledged that it will honor that promise with respect to 20 listed Web Services standards.

Last night's Nova program entitled Building on Ground Zero was memorable for many reasons, one of which was its focus on both the importance as well as the economic calculus of standards. Another was the degree to which the US is lagging in the upgrading of crucial standards identified in the wake of the 9/11 catastrophe, although a number of Asian nations have apparently taken to heart the lessons learned five years ago today.

[So how do you see this applying to open standards in the software realm? - dcparris]

Today is launch day for a new consortium I've been helping structure for the last several months – the PCI Security Standards Council, LLC. You should be happy to hear about this new organization, because its purpose is to tighten the security procedures that protect your financial data against theft and fraud, not only globally but on an end-to-end basis, from point of sale to debiting of your account.

When IBM's "Hannover" release of Lotus Notes ships next spring, users of Open Document Format (ODF) compliant tools will increase by more than two orders of magnitude. In this fifth in-depth profile of ODF-compliant products, IBM's Ken Bisconti, VP Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software tells how using ODF in IBM's Workplace (and Lotus Notes) will help give "knowledge workers access to a roles-based environment where information, business process, workflow, and collaboration with fellow workers are all done “in context.”

We've already learned from press accounts that Mass. will use plugins for those with disabilities, and that the January 2007 date for full implementation of ODF has slipped. Now we know what the new date is

There's news from the Massachusetts ITD on the implementation plans for ODF and accessibility. But now all of the news reporting is on target. Here's what's right and wrong.

For the third time in two weeks there is a new and significant standards case. This time around, Nokia is claiming that Qualcomm is violating its obligation to provide a license under "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" (FRAND) terms to patents that would be infringed under an ETSI standard. The Nokia suit is a defensive move, because Qualcomm is seeking injunctions to prevent Nokia from selling its new mobile handsets unless Nokia knuckles under to Qualcomm's license terms.

Santa Clara-based Foundery Networks has filed a "Son of Rambus" law suit alleging that French telecommunications giant Alcatel engaged in exactly the same sort of "submarine patent" trap-setting that the FTC slammed Rambus for last week.

The history of information technology has always had a bias towards Western languages, and particularly towards English, making it less accessible to those living in other parts of the globe. But there are those that are working to level the playing field.

The Massachusetts IT funding proposal that MA CIO and ODF champion Peter Quinn resigned in part to protect died on Monday when the State Senate failed to approve it before the 2005-2006 legislative session ended.

On July 27, the OASIS announced that the first draft update of ODF (version 1.1) had been posted for public comment. This draft is more than usually significant, since it seeks to assist those that implement ODF make their applications more accessible to those with disabilities.

The ODF Alliance issued a press release containing further good news yesterday, providing a good excuse to check in at their Website to see how that organization is doing. The answer appears to be rather nicely, thank you, with membership standing at "nealry 280," representing 43 countries according to the press release.

Five years ago, Tim Berners-Lee announced his vision of the Semantic Web. Now, the W3C has launched a new activity called the "Emotion Incubator Group," and its purpose is to take us beyond the narrow range of the emoticon to a Web that can incorporate information about emotions into Web pages.

Last fall, when things were moving quite rapidly in the ODF/OpenXML (then called "Microsoft XML reference schema") front, I did a c. weekly series of blog entries titled as above, pulling together most of what I thought was worth reading from all manner of sources on this topic.