Filed under: Links, Open Core | 4 Comments »
Filed under: Open Source, Technology | 4 Comments »
Filed under: Links, Open Source | Comments Off on ☞ For A Topic That’s A “Futile Debate”, A Lot Of People Seem Interested
The open core model is being feted as the new default open source business model. But I assert it does not deliver and sustain the principle that delivers cost savings and flexibility to the customer – software freedom. As a consequence, businesses who live-or-die by open core risk the fate of Compiere ERP unless they can manage the incredibly delicate balance their customers will discover they demand. Mårten Mickos and Andrew Lampitt may disagree, but I assert that open core is bad for business. Read more on ComputerWorld UK.
Filed under: Open Source | Tagged: ComputerWorldUK | Comments Off on ✍ Open Core: Bad For Software Freedom
Maybe it’s a trend, or maybe I just noticed because I was looking, but following my article last week about the strange parallels between Life of Brian and the critics of the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement, there have been a number of similar articles.
Former OpenSUSE community manager Joe “Zonker” Brockmeier wrote about the Party of Gno, criticising the negativity of campaigns that are about stopping people doing something:
In general, the programs are all about “no.” Or rather, “gno.” We all know how well anti-campaigns work. Any day now, “just say no” will have wiped out drug use for all time, right? And PETA will have convinced everyone to go totally vegan, too. Yes, negative campaigns can be effective. However, they require the audience to be receptive to the overall message.
Predictably, the backlash he faced from daring to be directly critical was substantial, not least from the denizens of microblogging service Identi.ca.
Read on over at ComputerWorld UK and join me in Oxford tomorrow at the Transfer Summit.
Filed under: Open Source | 5 Comments »
If you’re a BCS Member or Fellow you’ve received a voting pack in the mail that needs your attention. Please vote this weekend so that there’s no risk of missing the deadline. I’ve written one more time on my ComputerWorldUK blog about the issues, but the synopsis is that no matter how you vote on the six vague no-confidence motions, please make sure you vote against the Special Resolution that sets the threshold for calling another EGM so high that it’s beyond the resources of an ordinary Member.
Filed under: Governance | Tagged: BCS, EGM | 2 Comments »
One of the frustrations of being a software freedom advocate is how many of the attacks that are made on me come from people who most observers would consider to be “fighting for the same side”. My recent call for volunteers to work on revamping the Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a case in point. Of the public comments I’ve read, the majority berate me for daring to be positive about OSI rather than castigating it in favor of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as they themselves do. (Fortunately the private e-mails are much more encouraging).
But it’s not just a tension between OSI and FSF. For example, in one forum where I mentioned my membership card for the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) had arrived, one reply asked if I would also be joining the FSF. Software freedom arouses extreme passions among its adherents. Why does this happen? Find out on my ComputerWorldUK blog…
Filed under: Open Source | Comments Off on ✍ “Life Of Brian”?
OSI was formed in 1998 to solve a pressing problem. The founders embraced the ideals of software freedom, but saw that businesses – being non-persons – lacked any way to embrace a philosophical principle. To advance software freedom, it needed to be pragmatically “projected” onto the surface of the computer industry of 1998, creating rules that could be followed without demanding ideological “purity”. The result was a focus on a certain kind of advocacy, plus an enormously valuable effort to analyse, categorise and selectively endorse copyright licenses. OSI was the pragmatic projection of software freedom onto the computer industry of 1998.
But in 2010, the industry has changed. It’s due in no small part to the effects of software freedom on technology and innovation, with the pragmatic liberties it guarantees seeding today’s key trends. It’s also in part due to the attempted corruption of open standards and the policies that rely on them, which has allowed proprietary software an undeserved ascendancy. So while new businesses are able to be formed with philosophical and ethical principles embedded in their DNA, existing ones still can’t “embrace software freedom” since that’s a capability only of intelligent individuals.
So it’s time for a revamp. Read more on my ComputerWorldUK blog or at OSI
Filed under: OSI | Tagged: Governance | Comments Off on ✍ Your Chance To Reform OSI
I just received notice of an Emergency General Meeting at the British Computer Society – some members think the current leadership want to subvert the BCS and turn it from the professional society for Alice and Dilbert into a mass-membership organisation serving the needs of the Pointy-Haired Boss and the corporations he serves.
Read more over on my ComputerWorldUK blog.
[Also in this thread: BCS EGM, this post, BCS Leadership Targets Member Rights, BCS Rebels Finally Get A Voice]
Filed under: Governance | Tagged: BCS | 1 Comment »
I’m delighted to say that Google has responded and fixed the licence for WebM so that they don’t need to submit it to OSI any more – they are now just using a BSD licence with a separate patent grant. Read more over on my ComputerWorldUK blog.
Filed under: Open Source | Tagged: Google, OSI, WebM | 2 Comments »
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