Issue no. 387 - 12 May 2008

• US - Harvard Law School goes Open Access, unanimously (Berkman Center)
  by John Palfrey. I'm just delighted that the Harvard Law School faculty has voted unanimously to adopt an open access policy. This policy is consistent with the policy adopted by the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences earlier this year.

Issue no. 384 - 24 February 2008

• EU - EC expresses doubt on Microsoft open-source move (CNET News)
  The European Commission has expressed doubt regarding Microsoft's recent announcement claiming a move toward greater interoperability. "The Commission would welcome any move towards genuine interoperability," the statement says. "Nonetheless, the Commission notes that today's announcement follows at least four similar statements by Microsoft in the past on the importance of interoperability."

• Microsoft pledges not to sue over open source (CNET News)
  A Microsoft press release announced changes in its business practices to work better with software from other providers, including open-source communities. The software maker had already taken baby steps in this direction, signing individual pacts with companies like Novell and Turbolinux, as well as agreeing not to sue individual developers. Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said these steps are part of the company's efforts to comply with anti-trust obligations laid out by the European Court of First Instance (CFI).

• US - Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences goes Open Access (Ars Technica)
  In recent years, the Open Access movement in academic publishing has been gathering steam, with the growth of open access journals such as PLoS and mandates from funding bodies such as the NIH that require authors to deposit copies of their work into open databases. Now that 800lb. gorilla of academe, Harvard University, has started to throw its weight behind the spread of Open Access publishing. Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences has voted to require faculty to make copies of their research freely available through the Office of Scholarly Communications.

Issue no. 378 - 5 August 2007

• Microsoft seeks official 'open source' imprimatur (CNET News)
  For years Microsoft kept its "shared source" distinct from the broader open-source movement, but now the company is seeking official blessing for its work from the Open Source Initiative organization that bestows official open-source status.

Issue no. 377 - 5 July 2007

• EU - Microsoft funds questionable study attacking open source in education (Ars Technica)
  Yet another Microsoft-funded study about open-source software evaluates the comparative cost of open-source software and Microsoft technologies, this time in European schools. The study, which was conducted by Microsoft partner Wipro Technologies, evaluates the performance of Microsoft and open-source software solutions in the contexts of student learning, teacher productivity, administrator productivity, and cost.

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