In February the Patent Office accepted a patent application from Microsoft patenting load balancing based on communicating about load between servers. The patent basically deals with the concept of having the load balancer server talk to the other servers to work out which one is best to give new data to. The patent dates from June 2003 where it was filed in the United States. It wasn't until a year later, in May 2004 that it was filed in New Zealand.

The Australian Computer Society as it happens but at least they have the right idea. The article in Computerworld has more details from the NSW ACS Chairman Anthony Wong.

Quote of the Day: "In short, implementation of open technical standards decreases risk for organisations - a key requirement for consideration by procurement officers in both the private and public sectors. Decreasing risk increases the likelihood of uptake."

In this article at crn.com.au Patrick Callioni from the Department of Finance and Administration says that Government is open to Open Source, but that Open Source Companies need to become more reliable. "Government wants to do business, but a lot of open source companies are here today and gone tomorrow," he said. "They need to set up co-op arrangements with similar companies to back each other up. We need to see things that work and can offer a long-term proposition."

Forbes is running an article in which it interviews Steve Ballmer. In the interview he refuses to rule out taking legal action against Linux where it infringes Microsoft intellectual property. Since the SCO case began there have been very comprehensive audits of Linux, and no copyright violations were found. However, there may be patents which are infringed.

A very interesting article from IT-Analysis. It's written by Clay Ryder of The Sageza Group and is well worth a read.

The premise is that, just as today we don't have to ask if a system is TCP/IP capable, in the very near future Open Source software will be just as ubiquitous and 'assumed' to be part of the solution. And by the way, just as TCP/IP provided a base for the explosive growth of the network model, Open Source software will do the same for business.

Yes, I know that some network manufacturers are no longer in business but the reality is they couldn't adapt fast enough. The same will happen to software makers who don't adapt.

It's called evolution.

NZOSS Representatives had a successful and productive meeting this morning with the New Zealand State Services Commission. The points raised by the NZOSS in response to the SSC's recent recommendation document covering the use of Open Source Software were discussed, and a means of involving input from the NZOSS in the creation of the document's successor was formulated.

In brief, the SSC regard the intial document as a starting point, and agree that some further research is needed. The NZOSS looks forward to assisting the SSC in this and other matters.

Interesting article on ITWire in Australia. Bill Hilf is the man who has reneged on speaking at the upcoming Linux World Conf & Expo in Australia, although he did manage a phone conference to the recent GOVIS Open Source Seminar.

I am always intrigued by the selective memory that marketing people have. Bills main argument is that the reason Microsoft products are so successful is that they are integrated, easy to use and tested with a wide range of products. Really? I thought it was because you coudn't buy a computer or laptop from a major vendor that didn't have Windows on it.

ComputerWorld has an article today describing how IBM made sixteen billion dollars out of services for Linux last year. Mary Ann Fisher says that there are 10,000 Linux engineers in IBM working on Linux, and IBM’s whole vision is to provide the best infrastructure that embraces open systems.

On Monday the NZOSS released a response to the State Services Commission regarding the guide to the legal risks of Open Source. The response was the result of extensive peer review in the New Zealand Open Source community and cites several concerns about the document. Representitives of the NZOSS will be meeting with the SSC to discuss the response, later this week. Groklaw, a blog by Pamela Jones, has reported the response.

This is an article in the Australian Computer world about Peter Quinn, the erstwhile CIO of the State Government of Massachusetts and one of the chief proponents of the move to the Open Document Format.

The excellent news is that he is scheduled to speak at the upcoming LinuxWorld Conf & Expo in Sydney. This would be a really great session to attend coming from someone who was definately in the front lines.

Get over there if you can.