On the face of it, open-source software has been gaining ground of late. The much-anticipated draft of GNU GPLv3 (GNU General Public License Version 3) has been finally published, giving the open-source community an opportunity to finally get out of its own way.
State and local governments have latched onto the idea that having their documents hostage to a single vendor, no matter how well-intentioned, might not be such a good idea. Dell recently jumped on the Linux bandwagon and is offering Ubuntu on its PCs. And Microsoft's attempt to have its partly-proprietary OOXML (Office Open XML) format rubber-stamped by a friendly standards body hasn't gone as smoothly as expected.