LINUX DISTRIBUTOR Linspire has shown what it is costing it to sign a deal with Microsoft over patents.

This morning a press release winged its way from Linspire which said the outfit was "joining the current efforts to improve the ability of OpenOffice.org users to work with the Office Open XML format by increasing the interoperability between ODF and Open XML".

These efforts are being carried out by other Volish pact members Novell and Xandros who apparently want to create bi-directional open source translators for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations between ODF and Open XML.

More Here.