★ OpenSolaris Governing Board Resigns

Posted on August 23, 2010 by Simon Phipps

I’m very sad to report that, as expected, it proved necessary for the OpenSolaris Governing Board to collectively resign today. The motion was as follows:

OpenSolaris

Motion concerning dissolution of the OGB

Whereas Oracle has continued to ignore requests to appoint a liaison to work with the OGB concerning the future of OpenSolaris development and our community, and
Whereas Oracle distributed an email to its employees on Aug 13 2010 that set forth Oracle’s decision to unilaterally terminate the development partnership between Oracle and the OpenSolaris Community, and
Whereas, without the continued support and participation of Oracle in the open development of OpenSolaris, the OGB and the community Sun/Oracle created to support the open Solaris development partnership have no meaning, and
Whereas the desire and enthusiasm for continuing open development of the OpenSolaris code base has clearly passed out of Oracle’s (and thus this community’s) hands into other communities,

Be it Resolved that the OpenSolaris Governing Board hereby collectively resigns, noting that under the terms of the OpenSolaris Charter section 1.1 (and Constitution 1.3.5) the responsibility to appoint an OGB passes to Oracle.

The motion passed unopposed.

As I said in the meeting, huge thanks are due key members of the OpenSolaris team at Sun who have stuck with the project despite an enormous change of context. I would like to specially recognise Alan Coopersmith and Jim Grisanzio for their wisdom and patience.

Filed under: OpenSolaris | 12 Comments »

☞ Liberation and its Opponents

Posted on August 23, 2010 by Simon Phipps
  • Electronic Voting Researcher Arrested Over Anonymous Source
    “About four months ago, Ed Felten blogged about a research paper in which Hari Prasad, Rop Gonggrijp, and I detailed serious security flaws in India’s electronic voting machines. Indian election authorities have repeatedly claimed that the machines are tamperproof, but we demonstrated important vulnerabilities by studying a machine provided by an anonymous source. The story took a disturbing turn a little over 24 hours ago, when my coauthor Hari Prasad was arrested by Indian authorities demanding to know the identity of that source.” — It’s always easier to shoot the messenger than to heed and act on the message, especially when the message tells you something that harms your political agenda.

  • No Copyright Law: The Real Reason for Germany’s Industrial Expansion?
    Fascinating conjecture in this Spiegel article.

  • The liberation of OpenSolaris
    “Odd as it may be, Oracle’s decision to fork is actually a relief to those of us whose businesses depend on OpenSolaris: instead of waiting for Oracle to engage the community, we can be secure in the knowledge that no engagement is forthcoming — and we can invest and plan accordingly. “

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★ Open Source Trade Associations Lack Sanctions

Posted on August 23, 2010 by Simon Phipps

Software patents are broken and the only possible justification for having them is self-defence (which is itself a risky accumulation of armaments that can easily fall into the wrong hands). It seems plenty of important members of both the Linux Foundation and the Open Invention Network make public assertions claiming they believe that, so there should surely be no objection to equipping both of these trade associations with firm, meaningful sanctions.

Read on over at ComputerWorldUK.

Filed under: Open Source, Patents | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

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