I welcome efforts by companies such as Microsoft and Sun to embrace openness.  Sun gets it.  They've released Java under the GPL license.  That's a significant contribution to my software freedom, and I will always appreciate Sun for doing so.  As a result, I know I can involve myself in Java as deeply as I need, and never fear my software freedoms can be taken.

Today, Microsoft announced an initiative to improve their openness.  Looking it over, much of it sounds good. 

As an immediate next step, starting today Microsoft will openly publish on MSDN over 30,000 pages of documentation for Windows client and server protocols that were previously available only under a trade secret license through the Microsoft Work Group Server Protocol Program (WSPP) and the Microsoft Communication Protocol Program (MCPP).

That's great.  In some ways, that makes you more open than some of the open source software I know.  Way to go Microsoft.

To promote and enable more interoperability between commercial and community-based open source technologies and Microsoft products, this initiative will provide resources, facilities and events, including labs, plug fests, technical content and opportunities for ongoing cooperative development.
....
An ongoing dialogue with customers, developers and open source communities will be created through an online Interoperability Forum. In addition, a Document Interoperability Initiative will be launched to address data exchange between widely deployed formats.

Again, sounds good.  Microsoft has paid attention to how the open source community works, and is going to get involved in the right way.

The interoperability principles and actions announced today reflect the changed legal landscape for Microsoft and the IT industry. They are an important step forward for the company in its ongoing efforts to fulfill the responsibilities and obligations outlined in the September 2007 judgment of the European Court of First Instance (CFI).

Eh, so you are doing this because you have to.  Can't you just do this because it's the right thing?  I'll just pretend you didn't say that.

Microsoft is providing a covenant not to sue open source developers for development or non-commercial distribution of implementations of these protocols. These developers will be able to use the documentation for free to develop products. Companies that engage in commercial distribution of these protocol implementations will be able to obtain a patent license from Microsoft, as will enterprises that obtain these implementations from a distributor that does not have such a patent license.

Woah, the wheels just fell off the open bus with one small paragraph.  This is wrong on so many levels.  There is no software freedom in this statement.  Open source developers absolutely cannot develop software that hooks into Microsoft products under such terms.  Microsoft is now attempting to get the open source community to hook their wagon to Microsoft products and protocols, and provide Microsoft with revenue in the process.  This is a direct attack on software freedom.  Microsoft just figured out how they can profit from the open source movement.

Sun gets it.  Microsoft still doesn't.