Jason Matusow, Microsoft's Shared Source honcho, is starting a series on interoperability, here and here, for starters.

The enterprise bids fair to be "a frank exchange of views," as the diplomats say. See the comment on Jason's first post, plus other bloggers, such as lawyer Andy Updegrove and IBM's Bob Sutor.

A key issue: Does licensing of intellectual property count as "interoperability"? The answer is: Absolutely! As noted before, the concern about using property rights as engines of interoperability derive from concerns over monopoly power and price discrimination; and those fears can be allayed by such licnese terms as as RAND and "Commercially Reasonable."