The Whole is Less than the Sum of the Parts

Sun has made a new statement regarding its IPR claims in connection with OpenDocument to the OASIS group. It differs from the old statement at two significant points (a) the language of essential claims is gone, and (b) the reciprocity requirement is now limited only to IPR relevant to the OpenDocument itself.

As far as Sun is concerned, this is undoubtedly a major step in the right direction, indeed a step that goes farther than we might have reasonably expected of them. Nevertheless, the question whether the free software community should ever embrace as its own a specification that is encumbered by patents remains; free software and software patents make uneasy bedfellows. The great mogul has graciously bestowed his benevolence upon us, allowing us to use his ideas in spite of his exclusive claims on them. How kind! Long live the gratious King! May his mercy never leave us! Can we ever repay him? Can our gratitude ever be enough? I promise to do my best, and that means I have to stop uttering these empty words and put them into action — time to install Solaris and rewrite AbiWord in Java. The future is bright, and my eyes are dazzled already from the brilliance.

P.S. They taught me at school that I should not look directly into the sun without a dark glass. And do you know what? When looking through the dark glass, not all of the giant ball is that bright.