OpenDocument

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has chosen OpenDocument as the primary document format to be used in the state. The State agencies should migrate to OpenDocument applications by Jan. 1, 2007 - very wise move if you ask me. Microsoft have so far refused to support the format even though there're no technical or legal reasons not to. The obvious reason for them to refuse to support it, is that they want to protect their monopol in the office suite marked. Sorry Microsoft, your office suite is a great piece of software, but at least some people see freedom and openess as being more important.

Groklaw article

Interesting spy story

Here is a quote:

In October 1985, The Washington Post ran a story that described Tolkachev as “one of CIA’s most valuable human assets in the Soviet Union.” According to FBI affidavits related to the Howard espionage case that were made public, Tolkachev had provided information on Soviet avionics, cruise missiles, and other technologies. The Soviets subsequently publicly confirmed that they had executed Tolkachev in 1986 for “high treason.”

Tolkachev, A Worthy Successor to Penkovsky

EEF -- The Customer Is Always Wrong: A User's Guide to DRM in Online Music

The EEF has created this excellent guide - here's a start:

There is an increasing variety of options for purchasing music online, but also a growing thicket of confusing usage restrictions. You may be getting much less than the services promise.

Many digital music services employ digital rights management (DRM) — also known as "copy protection" — that prevents you from doing things like using the portable player of your choice or creating remixes. Forget about breaking the DRM to make traditional uses like CD burning and so forth. Breaking the DRM or distributing the tools to break DRM may expose you to liability under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) even if you're not making any illegal uses.