(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has lost a key vote in its quest to develop an alternative to the Open Document Format standard, backed by the open-source community.

The executive committee of the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) fell one vote shy of the nine required to approve Microsoft's Open XML standard. It voted 8 to 7 in favor of approval with one abstention, the group announced Thursday.

The vote is a setback in a long-running battle between Microsoft and those who are seeking to dislodge Microsoft's monopoly hold on the desktop with internationally approved standards for office documents. The battle has pitted Microsoft against open-source backers like Sun and IBM, whose rival ODF (Open Document Format for XML) has gained some support among government users.

Open XML is the default file format used by Microsoft's Office 2007.

ODF was approved as an ISO (International Organization for Standardization) standard last year, a sign that it could gain traction with organizations that give preference to standards-based technology.

But recently, Microsoft has been pushing to get Open XML blessed by the ISO -- seeking to have it approved by the Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC-1), which sets technical standards for both the ISO and the International Electrotechnical Commission. Standards groups like INCITS, which is examining the question in the U.S., have been debating whether or not to back this effort.

"This is going on all over the world right now in a very bitterly contested country-by-country battle," said Andrew Updegrove, an open-source advocate and attorney with Gesmer Updegrove in Boston. Microsoft's public relations agency did not return calls seeking comment Friday.

INCITS has until Sept. 2 to decide whether it will support Open XML within the JTC-1, but this week's vote shows that this will not happen unless Microsoft can swing some voters.

Committee representatives from Microsoft, Apple, Intel, Sony, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the Electronic Industries Alliance supported Microsoft's standard. Against it were IBM, Oracle, Lexmark, the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, GS1 U.S., and Farance. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) abstained due to "the divergent viewpoints of key IEEE members."

(InfoWorld) - The recently concluded LinuxWorld Conference and Expo looked like any other big tech industry conference as the logos of Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Dell, IBM, and other big names filled the exhibit hall at San Francisco's Moscone Center. That's a change from LinuxWorld shows of a decade ago, when open source was a renegade, even subversive, concept.

Kim Polese, CEO of SpikeSource, says that's because Linux and open source are now battle-tested. SpikeSource helps to integrate various open-source applications in a software stack.

Polese spoke with IDG News Service about the open-source movement and new products SpikeSource introduced at LinuxWorld.

IDGNS: You've introduced a new SpikeSource software suite that helps companies integrate wikis and blogs used for collaboration. How are they coming together?

Polese: Most enterprise users, if they have a blog, typically want to post to a wiki so others can respond and get engaged. Similarly, many people who post to wikis have a blog. So there's an intermixing of the applications inherently. More and more enterprises want to standardize on a suite. They may want to use blogs, wikis, and maybe RSS technology, encouraging [people] to collaborate and exchange information. Standardizing on a suite is becoming increasingly important for CIOs, where maybe a year ago, they were saying, "What's a wiki?"

IDGNS: SpikeSource has entered into a partnership with Funambol, which you say is Italian for "tightrope walker," an apt metaphor for the IT manager's role today.

Polese: They are an open-source company providing mobile software. They are becoming embedded in the leading handsets and back-end systems software for big providers like Nokia and others. We're adding mobile capabilities to the applications that we deliver to businesses, including CRM, content management, e-mail, and business intelligence. We provide users with easy mobile access to those applications. Funambol is a natural addition to our portfolio.

IDGNS: You say that one expanding market is for mobile phones in China that run on Linux. How is the Linux market changing?

Polese: We're seeing open-source go everywhere. It started on the back-end data center servers, and we're now seeing it become a part of the standard mobile infrastructure. And as Web-based applications become more popular and Linux becomes more mainstream, midsize businesses will start seeing standard business applications based on Linux. We also see a combination of Windows and Linux in environments. Our customers are running Linux on the back end and Windows on the front end, so we do certify all our applications on Linux and Windows.

IDGNS: So as all that expands the use of Linux, does it also expand the opportunities for SpikeSource for that software integration?

Polese: Integration and interoperability has always been the bane of software, and that challenge is compounded in the world of open source because all these applications come from a different source, whether it's from a company or a project, and they are all on a different release train and are always changing. So the integration of them up front and the ongoing maintenance and monitoring of the applications is critical.

IDGNS: Someone here told me they thought LinuxWorld has become too "corporate" with big players like Dell, Oracle, IBM, etc. What do you think happened to change Linux over the years from its renegade, revolutionary attitude to being corporate?

Polese: I think what happened was Linux proved itself. The more companies used Linux, the more clear it was that this was an industry-strength, battle-tested operating system that is flexible, that scales, and that runs the most demanding applications in the world. And that the most conservative companies in the world are depending on it. As that became more apparent, open source as a model became more accepted, and so we're seeing the results of that with big names [here] like Intel, AMD, and Motorola.

(InfoWorld) - A judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah Central District found that Novell is the owner of the Unix and UnixWare copyrights, dismissing SCO's charges of slander and breach of contract.

The judge also ruled that SCO owes Novell for SCO's licensing revenue from Sun Microsystems Inc. and Microsoft Corp. SCO is obligated to pass through to Novell a portion of those licenses, the judge said.

In the ruling, the judge said SCO must pay Novell, but the amount will be determined in a trial, said Pamela Jones, founder and editor of Groklaw, a Web site that follows open-source software legal issues.

In another major blow to SCO, the judge said that because Novell is the owner of the Unix copyrights, it can direct SCO to waive its suits against IBM Corp. and Sequant. "SCO can't sue IBM for copyright infringement on copyrights it doesn't own," Jones said.

The ruling is good news for organizations that use open-source software products, said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. "From the perspective of someone who is adopting open-source solutions to run in the enterprise, it proves to them that the industry is going to defend the platform, and that when organizations attack it from a legal perspective, that the industry collectively will defend it," he said.

The decision is "abysmal" news for SCO, according to Zemlin. "Their future is looking bleak," he said. SCO did not reply to requests for comment.

In a statement, Novell said the ruling cut out the core of SCO's case and in the process eliminated SCO's threat to the Linux community.

Still outstanding are several counterclaims. For example, Novell's slander of title counterclaim against SCO is still ongoing and will go to trial, Jones said.

The case is so complex that the judge asked the parties to file a document with what they think is outstanding in the IBM case, Jones said. Those documents must be filed by Aug. 31.

The battle began in 2003 when SCO filed a suit against IBM claiming that it had violated SCO's rights by contributing Unix code to Linux. The following year, SCO sued Novell, saying that Novell falsely claimed it owned rights to Unix.

SCO may still appeal Friday's decision.

(InfoWorld) - One of the founders of notorious adware vendor Zango is leaving the company.

Daniel Todd, who served as the company's president since its inception in 1999, will step down at the end of August, the company said Thursday. "Dan has had an incredible impact on this place, and we simply wouldn't be where we are today without him," wrote CEO Keith Smith in a company blog posting.

Todd had been one of the public faces of a company that has been reviled by anti-adware advocates and was named in a $3 million settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over the company's business practices. Prior to June 2006, the Bellevue, Washington, company did business as 180solutions.

Zango reached its settlement after the FTC found the company deceived consumers as to the nature of its product and made it unduly difficult to remove.

Just last week, Zango was in the news again, when researcher Ben Edelman accused the company of violating the settlement agreement by not providing users with proper disclosure of its terms of service and by showing ads without proper labeling.

Zango's adware gives users free access to videos and games, but it delivers targeted pop-up advertisements in exchange.

Though CEO Smith characterized Todd's departure as planned, it's not clear what he will be doing next. Todd left to "spend more time with his wife and two children and pursue his next opportunity," the company said.

Zango has been trying to shake its adware reputation by repositioning itself as an online media company recently. But it has experienced financial difficulties and is rumored to be in the market for a buyer.

According to a May 25 court declaration by Zango Director of Finance Tom Allan, the company's fortunes took a drop in April of this year. "Prior to that date, Zango had been experiencing a trend of positive revenue momentum. Beginning on or about April 1, that trend abruptly shifted to a trend of sharply negative revenue momentum."

Allan's declaration came in a lawsuit brought by Zango against security vendor PC Tools. Zango alleges that PC Tools's Spyware Doctor software removes Zango's software without warning users, and that this has hurt the adware company's business. Zango has also filed a similar lawsuit against Kaspersky Lab.

(InfoWorld) - A federal appeals court will hear arguments next Wednesday on whether to stop a class-action privacy suit that is based on allegations that the government and AT&T have been working together in an illegal wiretapping program.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) brought the case in a U.S. District Court in San Francisco last year on behalf of Tash Hepting and other AT&T customers. The suit alleges AT&T cooperated with the National Security Agency to conduct surveillance of millions of customers' communications illegally, violating the customers' privacy. Another case, Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation v. Bush, has been consolidated with the Hepting suit. The Al-Haramain case involves claims the government illegally wiretapped calls between the charity and its lawyers.

The Hepting vs. AT&T case has galvanized critics who claim the U.S. government is overreaching its constitutional bounds in its fight against terrorism. Congress recently expanded the government's powers to conduct wiretapping without a warrant, which EFF said makes its case more critical than ever.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a motion in the district court last year to stop the Hepting suit, saying a trial would reveal important state secrets. The judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Vaughn Walker, rejected that motion last July. The government immediately asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, also in San Francisco, to halt the case.

It has taken this long for the appeals court to hear that appeal even though it was expedited, said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the EFF. The nonprofit digital rights group believes the wiretapping is continuing and wants it stopped quickly, she said.

On Wednesday, a three-judge panel at the circuit court will hear arguments on whether to halt each case. If it does so, the EFF may take the cases to the U.S. Supreme Court, Cohn said. The government could do the same if the judges reject its appeal.

The DOJ argued last year that hearing the Hepting case would mean exposing information that would help Al-Qaeda terrorists. Just confirming or denying that the alleged surveillance takes place could aid terrorists by letting them know what forms of communication are monitored and which are not, government lawyers said. But Judge Walker said too much information had already been disclosed, including by the government and AT&T, to stop the case.

EFF brought the case in January 2006 after news reports told of carriers diverting traffic from their fiber-optic lines through NSA wiretapping equipment.