Tough Times for Patent Troll Tracker

Just this morning we were lamenting the fact that the formerly anonymous Patent Troll Tracker had shut down his blog, but now we know why. It appears that two patent attorneys in East Texas have sued him and Cisco for defamation. One of the attorneys happens to also be the son of the judge who helped make Marshall, Texas famous as a favorite for patent holders. The details on the case suggest that this lawsuit may have been the reason that Rick Frenkel outed himself, as it was actually filed back in November and used as a way to unmask the Troll Tracker.

Tough it out, Troll Tracker....

Open Government

I predict this will become increasingly common in the future:

Earlier this year, former US senator and presidential candidate Bill Bradley published The New American Story, a book about reforming the American agenda. As part of that process and as a public citizen, he has joined open source activists to produce a Web-based window into the US federal budget.

Jimmy Wales of Wikia.com, Silona Bonewald of the League of Technical Voters, and Taylor Willingham from the LBJ Family of Organizations are others involved in the new initiative. In August, the group will hold a confab in Austin, Texas, to begin development of the ambitious project.

Bradley says, "Democracy is more responsive when people have good information. The purpose of the Transparent Federal Budget is to allow anyone to go onto the Internet and to discover how much is being spent on any particular area such as roads, bridges, breast cancer, missiles, secondary education. You could keyword search to identify specific places in the federal budget where money is being spent on a particular category. Then you could link to the floor debate in Congress about that part of the federal budget and to the votes that were taken about that subject, and who voted which way, and then link to the campaign contributors of that particular congressman or senator. The Transparent Federal Budget would allow citizens to hold elected officials accountable."

Exactly. (Via Linux.com)

ODF: The Speech

A rather fine little speech about ODF and the virtues of openness, made by IBM's Bob Sutor as part of his testimony to the Texas House and Senate regarding the open document format legislation. Here's the nub:

to be clear, EVERYONE can implement a true open standard. This bill is about choice. ODF and open standards for file formats will drive choice of applications, innovative use of information, increased competition, and lower prices. Personally, I think these are good things.

In closing, the world is shifting to non-proprietary open standards based on the amazing success of the World Wide Web, a success that was far more important than any single vendor’s market position or ideas for what was right for the world.

Do read it if you can: it has some nice rhetorical rhythms to it.

ODF Moves Up a Gear

Yesterday I posted a story about ODF on the Linux Journal blog. The basic gist is that things are really starting to come together for ODF and OpenOffice.org, and that for a variety of reasons, 2007 could see the long-awaited breakthrough into the mainstream for both.

As if to prove my point, I learn today that not one, but two US states are considering mandating ODF: Texas and Minnesota. Europe has been moving increasingly in this direction, so it's good to see the US doing the same now.

This is classic positive-feedback stuff: the more people that get behind it, the more people will see it as a safe option and do the same. (With thanks to Ari Fishkind.)

King Coal Rides Again

The greed and cynicism of some is simply beyond words:

Whatever the cost to the ecosystem, it could be an immensely profitable bet. Company executives say the plants will provide cheap electricity for Texas, make lots of money for shareholders, conserve more valuable natural gas and reduce the pollutants that make smog.

"Whatever the cost to the ecosystem": that's us, people.