Wild Webmink

• "Word²" by Massively Fun
  This game is massively multiplayer Scrabble on an infinite board. It plays in the browser smoothly, and I'm finding it utterly compelling.

Filed under: Links | 1 Comment »

• A Walled Wide Web for Nervous Autocrats
  I have been making the core point that this good WSJ article makes in my discussions with governments all over the world for the last six years, and it always makes an impression.

  It also transfers to the commercial world. The reason you need contractual indemnity when you procure proprietary software is you have no other way to attempt to protect yourself against careless or malicious infringement of the rights you or others can reasonably expect to be protected. With open source, as long as there’s a sufficiently diverse community around the software the best assurance you can get comes from them, and indemnity adds nothing.

Also:

• Is the removal of H.264 from Chrome a step backward for openness?
  Excellent claim-by-claim takedown of the the rubbish people have been spouting against Google for deciding to omit H.264 video from Chrome’s HTML5 support.
• Chrome Experiments – Home
  Very interesting gallery of (mainly HTML5) sample web applications. Shows just what can be achieved without ever going near Flash or Java. The new WebGL section on the site is jaw-dropping – you’ll need to run Chrome with a command-line switch to enable the experimental WebGL support though.

Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Indemnity

• The Document Foundation joins OpenDoc Society
  Obvious (but still good) move by TDF as it continues its rapid voyage through respectability and on to leadership.
• GNOME Foundation is hiring!
  Not a surprise that they would be looking for a new Executive Director now that Stormy has moved on to Mozilla. Tempting though it is, I’m too committed to ForgeRock to do this at the moment, so one of you will have to do it 🙂

Filed under: Links | 2 Comments »

• Hudson’s future | Hudson Labs
  After making a valiant attempt to negotiate an amicable outcome with Oracle, the Hudson community may well decide to rename itself Jenkins, move off Oracle infrastructure and build open governance underwritten by the Software Conservancy. Naturally Oracle will still be able to participate and co-develop the code it’s using for java.net within the Jenkins community (they are even invited onto the leadership team) but the one thing open source communities cannot and should not tolerate is a participant that regards itself as worthy of extra rights that are beyond question.

Also:

• Latvijas atvērto tehnoloģiju konference 2011
  I hope to be delivering a keynote at the LATA Open Technology Conference next Tuesday in Riga, Latvia. In english.

Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Hudson and Jenkins

• OpenAM Book and eBook – Packt Publishing
  The first book about OpenAM is due for publication any day now. I hope they send me a review copy!

 

• Java/DevJam/2011/Fosdem/TalkSchedule
  I’m on the agenda for the Java dev-room at FOSDEM, speaking about the lessons open sourcing Java taught me. (Thanks, Tom!) I’ll likely be staying Friday-Sunday so let me know if you want to meet up.

Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Public Information

• School’s in for open source advocates
  Excellent initiative that deserves to be emulated all over the world. If you have any kind of meeting spaces at your company, you could run a similar event for local teenagers in your area.
• MariaDB Trademark Policy
  The proposed trademark policy for MariaDB is worth reading; they are keen to receive comments. Despite the policy being very well balanced, it lacks a matching implementation document to make all the statements have concrete consequences. Take a look and add comments for them.
• Egypt’s Muslims attend Coptic Christmas mass, serving as “human shields”
  Truly moving actions from people pushed to their limits by the evil of fanatics full of religion but empty of God.

Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Educational

• WikiLeaks prompts internal federal crackdown
  As I recall this is exactly the auto-immune response Assange was seeking to cause…
• Open Source community building: a guide to getting it right
  Dave Neary is always a good person to involve if you’re trying to build an open source community, and this article of his is especially good. By the way, he’s a member of FossAlliance along with me.

Filed under: Links | 1 Comment »

• LibreOffice Is the Default Office Suite for Ubuntu 11.04
  
  Good to see the folks at Canonical supporting LibreOffice. This is a significant development and strong endorsement for the Document Foundation.

Filed under: Links | 1 Comment »

• The Ultimate Patent Troll Patent: Get Sued When You File A Patent
  You almost never hear about IBM’s patent shakedowns (and there are many of them) because former VP Marshall Phelps (now at Microsoft) invented such an efficient machine for doing it that victims rarely attempt to publicly defend themselves. Looks like they have now patented the process itself in this curious business method meta-patent.
• ACTA blog by FFII
  Useful reference point for information about the progress of ACTA, worth bookmarking.

Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Two Approaches To Patents

• World condemns UK control orders
  And rightly so. They are as bad as Guantanamo, punishment without end for people accused of being a threat without conviction and with secret evidence. The fact the Lib-Dems have not done away with them as they promised shows their presence in the UK government is a sham and that we are actually governed by old-style Conservatives with no respect for anyone but their rich friends.
• Village halls lead hi-tech revolution
  Setting up broadband really isn’t rocket science, so it would be exciting to see more communities take matters into their own hands the way this one has done.
• A Year After: The People
  Useful round-up of the diaspora Oracle induced. It’s events like this that re-seed the computer industry and cause future innovation and growth.

Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ New Order