Posted on August 11, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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“We’re really getting our grip around building a mission critical operating system that includes technologies from openSolaris that we’ve been working on for some time as well as technologies that we’ve more recently developed. … Solaris 11 will be a superset of what is in openSolaris.” Sounds like the rumours that Oracle was no longer going to engage in open source development of Solaris were true. The best it seems we can hope for is an act-of-grace over-the-wall drop of some of the source code to Solaris 11 after it’s released.
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I really like this free album that Amazon US are providing as an introduction to the delights of the Benjy Davis Project. They have a great, laid-back surfer sound (think Jason Mraz or Jack Johnson) but with a band too. This will be worth paying for when it stops being free; as it is, it’s definitely worth your time to download it.
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The Linux Foundation has marshalled its considerable corporate resources and allies to create an impressive compliance program to address the problem that they face from community members enforcing the GPL with gusto.
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As OIN transforms into a wider community of businesses supporting free and open source development, it becomes more and more a valuable asset to software freedom. I’m very pleased to have ForgeRock join this community so that we can bring more patent safety to the communities we serve.
Filed under: Links | 1 Comment »
Posted on August 10, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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Matthew Aslett describes what I called “the open source bubble” as open source 3.0 and agrees it’s ending in favour of what he calls “open source 4.0” or company-dominated (but not controlled) collaborative communities. He notes he’s adjusting his predictions in the light of the involvement of entities such as NASA who are not directly software vendors and describes this as the coming “golden age of open source”, citing examples. Certainly worth reading, and bound to stimulate conversations – “the King is dead, long live the King”.
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Really excellent historical tour of north London in this article, following the course of the (now buried) River Fleet and observing the rich history that gathered along its banks over the centuries. I’m almost motivated enough to try following sections of this on one of those new Boris Bikes.
Filed under: Links | 1 Comment »
Posted on August 9, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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Excellent and thorough article about copyright assignment. If you are involved in the current, Canonical-sponsored Project Harmony, this is a must-read.
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The sweet, beautiful and sad music that Eastmountainsouth produced turns out to live on in one half of the duo, Peter Bradley Adams. This three-track free sampler on Amazon.com MP3 store (which has started working for me again on my US account but sadly won’t work if you don’t has a US account & address) is gorgeous and well worth your time to download. And it did its job, I just bought “Traces”.
Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Must {Read, Listen}
Posted on August 4, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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“Despite what appears to be a big-budget lobbying effort by the pro-patent fraternity, Hon Simon Power announced [on July 15] that he wouldn’t be modifying the proposed Patents Bill hence software will be unpatentable once the Bill passes into law.” — You may have already seen this news, but I’m posting it for two reasons. First, I still think it’s fantastic! second, this is from the NZ Computer Society, which unlike the British Computer Society is willing to take a stand on behalf of its members.
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We all have days like this.
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Congratulations to Evan and the team on this encouraging next step they’ve taken. I remain convinced that the StatusNet microblogging platform is going to be instrumental in the network-of-things revolution that’s just around the corner, so keep an eye on this software and company.
Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Career Bets
Posted on August 1, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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Yes, I get the fact the documents smear the war and that the US government spins the facts. I also get that there’s a damage control media campaign in progress. But this former General makes excellent points that I only see the Wikileaks people making indignant hand waving responses to. And I can totally see how the leaks advantage America’s enemies.
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If this is true it undermines the whole transparency case Assange is making and shames everyone involved. Investigative journalism is not about enabling the enemy to kill more people, regardless of the war disgrace being exposed
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While at first this sounds wonderful, it acts so fast that I have to wonder what other effects it might have. Still, I want some!
Filed under: Links | 1 Comment »
Posted on July 31, 2010 by Simon Phipps
- Announcement – Illumos Project
“A number of the community leaders from the OpenSolaris community have been working quietly together on a new effort called Illumos, and we’re just about ready to fully disclose our work to, and invite the general participation of, the general public.” (from the announcement on opensolaris-discuss)
- Brazilian Government Signs OpenJDK Manifesto
Concerned about Oracle’s approach to communities, the Brazilian Government has signed up to testing and using open source Java platforms (notably OpenJDK) instead of the proprietary one. (Linked page is in Portuguese – translation)
Filed under: Links, OpenSolaris | Comments Off on ☞ Evolutionary Pressures
Posted on July 30, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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More a statement of Motorola’s decline that Apple’s advance, but still a significant sign of a market transition that I am sure will continue as “phone” becomes an app on a mobile device.
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Clean and tidy announcement ties up all the loose ends Oracle created a few months back.
Filed under: Links | 1 Comment »
Posted on July 29, 2010 by Simon Phipps
Main link:
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O’Grady has come to the same conclusion that I did at OSCON, namely that the “open source bubble” may be over – the period where it was assumed open source would be directly monetised – and it’s time for a resurgence of the traditional approach of many parties with their core business elsewhere synchronising fragments of their interests with fragments of the interests of others. The announcement of OpenStack was iconic, but there were plenty of other signs once I’d started looking for them.
There’s naturally plenty of scope for variety, but I am certain that businesses whose leverage of open source extends only to the licence and not the community will find it increasingly hard to survive. Those whose revenue is derived from software must have models that at worst cope with and at best leverage the presence of many interests in the communities upon which they depend.
Other links:
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Oracle shut down its three PostgreSQL build farm servers without warning…”If they had given us, say, three months warning, I’d have been less peeved,” Dunstan told iTnews. “It can’t have been costing them much – the thing pretty much runs itself, and they can’t be short on hardware.”
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“Intel’s rebates amounted to 38 per cent of Dell’s operating profit in the fiscal year 2006, and rose to 76 per cent (or $720m) in one quarter alone, Q1 2007. While almost all of the Intel funds were incorporated into Dell’s component costs, Dell did not disclose the existence, much less the magnitude, of the Intel exclusivity payments.” — Entirely jaw-dropping disclosure shows Dell was not the profitable behemoth it appeared. I wonder just how much of this Intel has done over the years?
Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Maturity and Misbehaviour
Posted on July 27, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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Congratulations to the EFF on this victory for digital liberty. We mustn’t over-state the victory, however. The DMCA is still an unnecessarily broad act that chills innovation and liberty for Americans and sets a norm that endangers digital liberty worldwide. Moreover, the acts they have caused to be decriminalised are still covered contractually by the ridiculous terms applied to customers. So the fight for digital liberty is far from over.
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Carl has personally catalysed more change than most organisations can manage collectively and I am sure is one of the heroes of the internet revolution.
Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Public Service
Posted on July 26, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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Worthwhile reading for a Monday from Clayton Christensen.
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Bryan Cantrill says his farewells but rehosts his blog promisingly at dtrace.org and makes this great observation: “One of Sun’s greatest strengths was that we technologists were never discouraged from interacting directly and candidly with our customers and users, and many of our most important innovations came from these relationships.”
Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ What Will You Do?
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