The International Herald Tribune reveals that “

[i]n a report to be issued Wednesday, Peter Mandelson, the EU trade commissioner, will raise questions about whether importers of inexpensive goods should be considered greater drivers of Europe’s future prosperity than manufacturing sectors in some nations that have remained uncompetitive amid the inflow of low-cost products.”

eWeek asks, “[w]ill Red Hat Lose Customers Over Patent Protection?”

Preston Gralla writes on the O’Reilly blog that the Microsoft peace pact with the Open Source world has begun to pay dividends.  Gralla points out that Novell just announced OpenOffice.org’s support of Office 2007’s Open XML format, meaning that there is “more openness and more interoperability” from which “we all benefit”.

On CNet News, Stephen Schankland points to “[t]he dark side of empowered users: Bug Flood.”  He writes: “The open-source community prides itself on the direct feedback developers get from their software’s users. But there’s an ugly side, too: the bug flood. When Red Hat released its new Fedora Core 6 on October 24, users chimed in with plenty of gripes.  The number of bugs reported jumped north of 140 per day before dipping down to a more moderate rate of about 50.”

In an unrelated story, CNet News reports that “Open Source Development Labs, an industry-funded consortium, has cut a third of its staff, lost its chief executive and scaled back some technical work.”