Posted on November 27, 2012 by Simon Phipps
You can be if it’s not really open source. While open source forms a part of many proprietary solutions, the term “open source” should only be used to describe software whose full source code is made available under an OSI-approved license, commercial or not. I discovered to my surprise at a recent conference that there are still vendors who want to deceive people into thinking proprietary solutions can be open source, so I’ve written about the issue in InfoWorld this week.
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Posted on November 27, 2012 by Simon Phipps
I gave a presentation yesterday in Malaysia on the forces driving change in open source; here are the slides.
Filed under: Open Source, Webmink | 1 Comment »
Posted on November 9, 2012 by Simon Phipps
Not a title that you might expect to see, but Richard Stallman has indeed posted a pragmatic proposal for dealing with software patents – to limit enforceability of patents against software running on a general-purpose computer. Based on my experiences fighting the Software Patent Directive in Europe, I believe his proposal will face stiff opposition from the telecoms and consumer electronics industries, so I’ve a modified proposal – limit enforcement of patents on software only to cases where it’s implementing a standard which includes patents declared during standardisation.
The full discussion is on InfoWorld – take a look and tell me what I’m missing,
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Posted on November 9, 2012 by Simon Phipps
Find out on ComputerWorldUK 🙂
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Posted on November 8, 2012 by Simon Phipps
Here’s my interview with this month’s Oracle Java Magazine about the forces driving open source and the need for open source skills.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlOOEFDnRH8]
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Posted on November 2, 2012 by Simon Phipps
And nothing more. My experience at Sun showed me that, when you use downloads as a metric for project success, you’re missing the point and perhaps trying to distract people from other truths. I explain in my InfoWorld column today.
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Posted on November 1, 2012 by Simon Phipps
I’m delighted with the definitions the UK Government has chosen for “open source” and “open standards” in their new Open Standards Principles. They are using OSI as their benchmark for open source, and have a clear statement that only standards with all rights to implement freely available are open. I’ve written more on ComputerWorldUK.
Filed under: ComputerWorldUK, Standards | Comments Off on Open Means No Patents
Posted on October 26, 2012 by Simon Phipps
Maybe it’s just a lustful fling, but for now, the only laptop in my life is my 3G Chromebook. Read about it on InfoWorld.
Filed under: InfoWorld | 6 Comments »
Posted on October 24, 2012 by Simon Phipps
I was co-host on today’s FLOSS Weekly episode, about the Baserock continuous integration system for Linux (and also the amazing 8 CPU/32 core Baserock Slab server slice that’s come out of the development activity) developed by UK engineering company Codethink.
[youtube http://youtu.be/OeBG59cNRhU]
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Posted on October 23, 2012 by Simon Phipps
Hearing that Amazon had remotely wiped someone’s Kindle, I decided to investigate and find out if it had actually happened. It hadn’t, but what had happened instead was perhaps as distressing and educational. I wrote about it on ComputerWorldUK.
Filed under: ComputerWorldUK | Comments Off on Concentration of Power
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