My article about how procurement policies need to address copyright ownership is now available from the Essays section.
Filed under: Copyright, Webmink | Tagged: Procurement | Comments Off on ☂ Procurement And Copyright Article Available
☝ Is Open Source Good For Security?
Posted on February 9, 2011 by Simon Phipps
I’ve two stories about the discovery and resolution of bugs in important software packages – Solaris and Java – that suggest a properly-functioning open source community gets security problems fixed faster than a closed process. Read about it on ComputerWorldUK.
Filed under: ComputerWorldUK, Security | Tagged: Java, Solaris | 1 Comment »
☂ Governance Benchmark Available
Posted on February 7, 2011 by Simon Phipps
My article establishing an open-by-rule benchmark for checking the governance of open source communities is now available in the Essays section.
Filed under: Governance, Webmink | Comments Off on ☂ Governance Benchmark Available
✈ Getting Online Abroad
Posted on February 5, 2011 by Simon Phipps
One of the best travel purchases I have made is an unlocked high-speed USB 3G modem. It allows me to get broadband-speed internet access for the duration of each trip abroad for a per-trip price comparable to one night of internet access at a hotel, using a locally-purchased pre-paid data SIM at each destination.
The modem I bought is a Zoom 3G Tri-Band USB Modem (that’s the UK link, looks like it’s also available in the US), and so far I have used it successfully with SIM cards for TIM Italy, Mobistar Belgium and 3 UK. In each case I inserted the SIM, selected the network provider from the software and it worked instantly, usually at the 7Mb HSDPA speeds. There’s simple and easy Windows and Mac software pre-loaded on the stick – I’ve not tried it with the EeePC and Ubuntu yet, I’d be interested to hear from people about their experiences. The SIM card I bought today from Mobistar in Belgium was €15 and gave me 275Mb of bandwidth to use over the next month – more than enough for broadband everywhere at FOSDEM.
Until we see the regulators sort out Europe’s mobile market and get rid of the ridiculous avaricious feudalism that blights us, this is a great solution for reducing the cost of getting online everywhere and I recommend it.
Update: As you’ll see from the comments, I also use this with a Zoom Travel Router (also available from Amazon in the US). I just plug the USB stick into the router (which is battery powered as well as working with a power supply) and it provides WiFi to multiple devices. It also allows you to connect to a wired ethernet and provides WiFi acces the same way Apple’s Airport Express does.
Filed under: How-to, Travel | 7 Comments »
☝ Open Source Procurement and Copyright
Posted on February 3, 2011 by Simon Phipps
Legacy procurement rules that try to demand custom copyright licenses and the assignment of new copyright to your company could be costing you dearly. They could be preventing you getting the freedoms open source brings, and along with them the flexibility and control that will make you competitive. It’s worth fixing the rules and gaining the freedoms.
Read about it on ComputerWorldUK.
Filed under: ComputerWorldUK, Copyright | 2 Comments »
☝ The Open-By-Rule Governance Benchmark
Posted on February 1, 2011 by Simon Phipps
With Oracle’s OpenJDK Project about to announce new community governance, many people have asked what I look for in good open source project and community governance. My personal benchmark is over on ComputerWorldUK today – take a look. I will probably be speaking about this in the Java DevRoom at FOSDEM on Saturday afternoon.
Filed under: ComputerWorldUK, Governance | Comments Off on ☝ The Open-By-Rule Governance Benchmark
Ⓕ Sirius News
Posted on February 1, 2011 by Simon Phipps
When we started last year, it was thrilling to see how many companies responded when we asked who would be interested in reselling ForgeRock subscriptions, consulting on the projects and delivering training. Over eighty former Sun partners contacted us.
But customers asked us, out of all those community partners, who we would recommend locally, who did we trust. We started thinking about how to identify key business partners from the community partner list, and have spent the last two months gradually working our way country by country through the list. The result? Take a look at the map.
Today was a particularly satisfying day in that process – our first UK partner. Members of the UK open source community will be familiar with Mark Taylor and his company Sirius, probably the UK’s leading supplier of open source IT services (especially to local government and the public sector). I’m delighted to say that Sirius is ForgeRock’s first full UK partner. We’ve added them to the map and I’m really looking forward to working with Mark and his excellent team to deliver open source identity solutions across the UK.
Filed under: ForgeRock | Tagged: Partner, Sirius | 1 Comment »
Ⓕ New OpenDJ Architect
Posted on January 31, 2011 by Simon Phipps
Last week I broke the news that ForgeRock (where I work) had gained an architect for OpenIDM. Today is the last day of ForgeRock’s first year, and I’m pleased to say we have gained an architect for the open source LDAP directory product we work on, OpenDJ.
Matthew Swift comes with great experience, having worked on the OpenDS project before at Sun Microsystems where he was responsible for the core server (its performance; reliability; administration model and tools) as well as developing many new core features. He’s already dived in with ideas about how ForgeRock should contribute to the OpenDJ roadmap, including planning for a new v3 release of OpenDJ with a redesigned core server so that the v2 base can be kept as stable as possible for existing users, adding only usability features and mainly fixing bugs.
This is a great end to a great first year. Welcome to ForgeRock, Matthew!
Filed under: ForgeRock | Tagged: OpenDJ | 1 Comment »
☂ O Artigo “Direitos Humanos estão acima dos Direitos do Autor” Agora Disponível em Português
Posted on January 28, 2011 by Bruno Souza
O artigo “Direitos Humanos estão acima dos Direitos do Autor” está agora disponível traduzido para o Português na seção Essays. Muito obrigado a Bruno Souza por doar seu tempo.
Filed under: Copyright, Em Português | Comments Off on ☂ O Artigo “Direitos Humanos estão acima dos Direitos do Autor” Agora Disponível em Português
☂ Indemnity Article Available/Disponível em Português
Posted on January 26, 2011 by Simon Phipps
My article on the problem of indemnity requirements for open source procurement is now available in the Essays section, in English and Portuguese.
O artigo “Aquisição de Software Livre: Indenizações” está agora disponível traduzido para o Português na seção Essays. Muito obrigado a Bruno Souza e Ana Prado.
Filed under: Em Português, Open Source | Comments Off on ☂ Indemnity Article Available/Disponível em Português
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