Groklaw is the blog that has made a difference. Created as a personal project by Pamela Jones, better known as PJ, in 2003, its stated purpose was to increase understanding of the law as it is applied to Linux and free software.

Groklaw emerged just as SCO began its legal action against IBM and the Linux community, and quickly became a focus for Linux users, programmers and legal professionals in their mission to expose, understand and demystify the issues surrounding SCO's legal action.

Debian GNU/Linux was the first project to be deliberately modelled on the principles of distributed software development, and provides the core software for many of the more successful commercial Linux distributions. Though Debian does not have the high profile of other Linux distributions the commercial success of Linux may owe more to the Debian community than advocates of Linux in the enterprise are ever likely to acknowledge.

X Window, X11 or "X," as it is known for short, provides the programming framework and the underlying runtime system for most Unix and Linux-based network-transparent windowing implementations. It runs on a huge number of Linux and Unix flavors, including Mac OS X and with a bit of help, on several Windows varieties. Without X11 , there is no KDE, no GNOME, and no Linux-based window manager, unless one is prepared to accept an X replacement. They do exist, and many carry a proprietary license, while X comes with a GPL-compatible license.

"Unlike the wider network where there is genuine competition, the desktop has not been subject to open standards, and this has had a deleterious effect on competition and innovation. This is the most important outcome of the European Court's recent decision to uphold the European Commission's judgment against Microsoft. While the mainstream press focused on the record fine imposed on Microsoft, the more engaging and decisive part of the judgment was the Commission's insistence that Microsoft publish its proprietary protocols to enable interoperability."

In his last column, The Definition of Sanity, Jeremy noted that Cuba voted "yes" to the fast-tracking of OOXML, "even though Microsoft is prohibited by the US Government from selling any software on the island that might even be able to read and write the new format." As if by way of an apology, Fidel Castro has responded by quoting one of Jeremy's columns in his own column, which appeared 5 days later, in Juventu Rebelde, the Newspaper of Cuban Youth.

Microsoft has submitted two of its "shared source" licences for approval by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). The significance of this can be read in different ways. Some see it as a victory for open source, a capitulation on the part of Microsoft, and an admission that open source will be the way of the future. Others see it as a divisive move, designed to emphasise existing splits within the free and open source community. In reality, it is probably a bit of both.

From Groklaw: Right after the Court of First Instance announced its verdict Monday upholding the EU Commission's finding that Microsoft abused its monopoly, our own Sean Daly did an interview with the following: Georg Greve of FSFE, Jeremy Allison and Volker Lendecke of Samba, and Carlo Piana, their lawyer of record in the case. It's a delight.

"Due to the fact that Linux is free software and belongs to no-one, it is often assumed that Linux is "surrounded by legal uncertainties."

Some people ask us where the phrase Be Realistic. Demand the Impossible comes from. The proper answer is nobody knows, or at least, I don't. It was an offspring of the uprisings that appeared all over Europe, from Prague to Paris in May 1968, and appeared on walls around Paris, inspired or written by the enrages and the situationists.