Wild Webmink

• Forking doesn’t work
  Michael Meeks points out one of the poorly recognised aspects of dual-license scenarios (including those where patents are licensed). The contract companies submit to in order to gain non-open-source access to the software may well (in my experience usually does) include clauses restricting the exercise of freedoms available under the open source license. That can mean losing the freedom to contribute to competing projects or the freedom to use the software in other contexts under the open source license rather than under the private agreement. 

  One of the unseen menaces to software freedom is bilateral (private) agreements that supersede apparent freedoms. That’s a great reason to oppose RAND as a way of licensing patents in standards by the way – RAND ensures the market is not transparent and open because it compels participants to engage in bilateral agreements that supersede software freedom.

• Red Hat tries the value argument for open source
  This is the sort of thing that makes me want to believe in synchronicity. My keynote in Bolzano at SFSCON just before Savio posted this story was about some of the benefits of open source that would be worth paying extra for.
• Oracle and Apple Announce OpenJDK Project for OSX
  Good to see a solution being found. It’s by no means a perfect answer; I see that initially the support will be SoyLatte-style. It will clearly take some time to get the OpenJDK version to the level users expect. But at least the public campaigns had some effect.

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• Chatting with Eucalyptus Co-founder about OpenStack
  Great to see Eucalyptus exploring ways to engage with OpenStack – very positive trend. It’s the sign of a mind that has embraced open source and is looking for ways to make it work. There’s got to be something in OpenStack over which Eucalyptus can collaborate, given their close origins, and I sincerely hope they find it and flourish. Contrast with approaches to competition that prefer to bully and litigate.

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• Four Reasons To Pay Extra For Open Source
  My slides from today’s presentation in Bolzano, Italy. The core of the talk asserts that software freedom opens additional options for businesses which, if we weren’t pre-programmed by the price meaning of the word “free”, we would expect to pay a premium to obtain.
• Google Files Sizzling Answer to Oracle’s Amended Complaint and its Opposition to Motion to Dismiss
  Finally the filings are getting to the real heart of the issues. This Groklaw analysis is well worth reading.

Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Heart Of The Matter

• Belgian Court recognises CC licences
  Important progress here for Creative Commons. The more case law that upholds CC licences the better.
• iFixit: The free repair manual
  Just love this site, full of good stuff. And what’s more: “We fund our mission of helping people fix things by selling useful service parts and tools.”
• Symbian Foundation to Transition to a Licensing Operation
  Even the “so long and thanks for all the fish” press release is spinworthy.
• Risk Reduction Strategies on Facebook
  A look by danah boyd at “super-logoff” and “Facebook as inbox” strategies for managing reputation on Facebook by teens. Very interesting indeed.
• The Walking Dead: Tips for Survival After the Smartphone Zombie Apocalypse
  Look around you. The Undead are already everywhere.

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• EC lobs grenades at copyright’s Ancien Régime

  Kroes said she thought “the system has ended up giving a more prominent role to intermediaries than to artists”. She continued: “It irritates the public, who often cannot access what artists want to offer and leaves a vacuum which is served by illegal content, depriving the artists of their well-deserved remuneration.”

  Excellent summary here by Neelie Kroes of the actual problem with copyright law that needs root-and-branch reform – I hope Cameron’s advisers are listening to her rather than the industry lobbyists.

• BPI making misleading claims

  “This is very serious. We feel the BPI may have deliberately misled politicians and Ofcom when discussing how useful their evidence really is.”

• Open Core By The Numbers
  Interesting and useful statistics that deserve some closer study.

Apologies for the delay in posting links today – it was a problem at Delicious.

Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Making Claims