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• Symbian: A Lesson on the Wrong Way to Use Open Source
  Matt Asay correctly observes that this corporate attempt to use open source was ill conceived and doomed to failure. It was obvious to me right from the moment I heard the strategy (from a head-hunter trying to recruit me about 6 months before launch) that it was going to crater unless there was a serious focus on developers in general and open source developers in particular. 

  I responded to the headhunter that they needed two leaders; one to wrangle the sponsors, the other to wow the developers. They hired the former and ignored the latter, and the rest is history. It’s hard to see how the situation could possibly be redeemed now, and honestly it’s looked doomed for a long time.

  The key lesson we should all take to heart is that creating a Foundation solves nothing on its own. All it does is facilitate and crystallise other solutions to systemic problems. If the other problems are ignored and left unsolved, all creating a Foundation does is accelerate failure.  [See ComputerWorldUK for an expanded commentary]

• A month of LibreOffice

  “LibreOffice is here to stay; as a project, and as a software. After our two betas we are expecting a code freeze by tomorrow or so, and we already have included lots of patches and fixes that will make LibreOffice already different from what you would have expected: a themed OpenOffice.org . More changes will be visible soon.”

  Great to see the energy that has been unleashed by removing the barriers to participation. Let’s hope it can be sustained, and especially that parallel innovation can happen too. What’s really needed here is “FireGull” – the equivalent of the process that led to Mozilla’s old browser being replaced by Firefox, through reimplementation in a new project.

Also…

• Oracle Claims Google Copied Java Code – Not So Fast, Though
  I’m pleased that Oracle has updated their claims to actually include some meat, but the analysis from the first few people to dig into it doesn’t seem to yield a compelling case.
• Oracle Responds to JCP Concerns
  Exactly the sort of public statement that needs making, bravo. Let’s hope there is a whole lot more of this and it stops being necessary for the community to yell before there’s explanation or (even better) dialogue. [See ComputerWorldUK for an expanded commentary]
• ZFS v28 is ready for wider testing.
  The BSD community is pressing on with ZFS despite the closure of OpenSolaris. Hopefully they will upstream to Illumos so everyone wins.
• 2010 Open Source Award Recipients
  Open Source for America makes it’s first awards. Especially delighted to see Brian Behlendorf and Ean Schuessler recognised, both are awesome dudes (and I say that advisedly).

And finally…

• Vatican to rich countries: stop “excessive zeal” for IP rights

  “A recent encyclical by Pope Benedict, one that speaks at length about the Catholic approach to development, is deeply concerned with economic inequality. In Benedict’s view, strong IP rights can be part of such inequality. “On the part of rich countries there is excessive zeal for protecting knowledge through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property, especially in the field of health care,” he notes.”

  For once a papal conclusion I agree with. Hopefully the Pope will also make a stand against ACTA…

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