No, it's not a dream. Now you're awake, this will be all over the newswire... http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/feb08/02-21ExpandInteroperabil... Their new interoperability principles (http://www.microsoft.com/interop/principles/default.mspx) include such useful pieces of information as "Microsoft commits that all the protocols [..] will be made openly available to the developer community in a non-discriminatory fashion", "Microsoft will indicate [..] which protocols are covered by Microsoft patents and will license all of these patents on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, at low royalty rates" and "Microsoft will covenant not to sue open source developers for development and non-commercial distribution of implementations of these Open Protocols." What does this mean? Time will tell, but the news sounds good for both business and Open Source developers. An interesting move! Hats off to the EU. Craig