Reaction to EC’s Oracle-Sun delay. OIN to acquire ex-Microsoft patents. And more.

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Reaction to EC’s Oracle-Sun delay
Despite widespread criticism of the European Commission’s decision to open a formal investigation into Oracle’s proposed acquisition of Sun, Glyn Moody maintained that the EC deserves credit for making open source a central part of its analysis. Meanwhile Monty Program (by way of Steven J Vaughan Nicholls) explained why the EU should block Oracle/Sun, Roberto Galoppini reported …

One might have thought Microsoft was back rattling the patented software sabres against Linux and open source this week, reading some of the recent reports regarding Redmond’s patent infringement suit against automotive navigation and GPS player TomTom. However, upon further review, it seems that Microsoft is making a point to say that these suits are not aimed at the Linux OS or open source. In response to my own query, the company offered this:

First, to answer your earlier question on how the suit with TomTom involves the Linux Operating System, three of the infringed patents read on the Linux kernel as implemented by TomTom. However, open source software is not the focal point of this action. …