CTV: 4 in 10 Americans support annexing Canada. [Scripting News]

Microsoft Settlement Compliance Criticized. Jeremy Allison – Samba Team writes “A report on the Microsoft “release” of … [Slashdot]
Maybe the mythological Microsoft Brain Implant is working overtime, but I just can’t see what the fuss is about. This part of the settlement was to balance two things: one, allow market competition to have wire compatibility for their products and two, continue to have incentives for Microsoft to build new useful protocols. The compromise was RAND licensing, meaning (for what I can understand) that Microsoft can not discriminate among the different companies that licensing the protocol and to have reasonable terms for said licence. (For a feel what reasonable terms means see this zdnet article about a seperate RAND licence issue.) If Red Hat wants to use the protocols, they are free to license them, and release a product with that knowledge, but I don’t see why it should have to be completely free. Microsoft often gives away a ton of IP and work when it makes sense, but there are times when it’s better to try to license it. I guess it sucks for RedHat that they can’t incorporate Free Software into a product that uses the licenced tech, but then that’s a limitation of thier using the GPL (and why Microsoft continues to avoid it like the plague). I’ll worry more when a party like Sun or IBM says that they have issues.

Will C# benefit Microsoft, or the industry? [ZdNet]
David Berlind has an article about licencing issues around C# and the CLR. He talks about four major components of RAND licencing that are not fee related (Reciprocity, Defensive suspension, Field of use limitation and Sub-licensing prohibition) via his interview with Michele Herman.

John Carroll has written a very intresting commentary on a different stratagy Sun could have taken with Microsoft on Java. [Zdnet News]
The essence of the piece is that sun should have allowed the java extensions that Microsoft did. The result would be allowed sun to pull in the good stuff, and suck in the huge vb/windows developer base.

Microsoft’s Bluetooth support nearer. The giant is set to release a Windows XP update adding support for the hyped technology for wirelessly connecting peripherals. But analysts questioned aspects of the release. [CNET News.com]

Michael Robertson responds to Ballmer’s Cnet Interview about the price/value difference between Lwindows and a simular Windows XP box. Micheal tries to claim that Lindows is $427.28 and Windows comes out to $1067.10. However he gets really shaddy on his list of pricing. If you replace Office XP on the Windows XP box with StarOffice for Windows (comparing apples with apples) you replace $478.87 with $75.95. Now lets put a comparable html editor like the one in the netscape or mozilla which costs $0. What’s the new total? $504.21. So is Windows worth the $75 difference? I hope so.

Intel adds security to network chips. The forthcoming processors are expected to reduce the cost and improve the performance of networking equipment. [CNET News.com]

Gateway snubs Office. In another blow to Microsoft’s Office suite, the PC maker plans to include Corel’s WordPerfect 10 and Quattro Pro 10 on its 300s desktops. [CNET News.com]

Arafat’s security adviser quits. A senior aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat offers his resignation before an expected announcement of a new cabinet line-up. [BBC News | WORLD]

Office Talk: A Primer to the Office XP Primary Interop Assemblies. Learn how to use the Office XP Primary Interop Assemblies to extend and automate Office XP features from Microsoft Visual Studio .NET code projects. [MSDN]