I recorded a short interview explaining OSI Membership while I was at Open World Forum.
[youtube http://youtu.be/c0c5IsST_9w]Thanks to openworldforum.tv for the opportunity to tell people how to join!
Filed under: MinkCast, OSI | Tagged: OWF12 | Comments Off on About OSI
Academic research about the problem of patent trolls has finally started to flow, and the findings are just as grim as all our instincts suggested. In my article for InfoWorld Open Sources this week, I look at some of the evidence and summarise it to save you the reading.
All the same, the research paper from Lex Machina is worth reading in full. It puts solid numbers on what previously was dismissed as biased surmise, as well as coining an excellent term for the companies causing the problem – “patent monetization entities” – that will allow confrontation of the issues without the dismissal as rabble-rouser that comes from saying “patent troll”. All a fine preparation for the event at Santa Clara University on November 16 on Solutions To The Software Patent Problem.
Filed under: InfoWorld | Comments Off on Patent Troll Research Round-Up
After the Community Summit at Open World Forum, three of the speakers – including me – spent 10 minutes discussing how cloud computing impacts the open source community.
[youtube http://youtu.be/qpVIJAdRTXc]Far from making open source irrelevant – an idea that only works if you see software solely in terms of proprietary packages sold by software vendors – cloud computing will drive ever more companies to participate in, and eventually contribute to, open source communities.
Filed under: Cloud Computing, MinkCast | Tagged: OWF12 | 2 Comments »
If you have been using the font Comic Sans to support dyslexics, there’s a new font in town – see ComputerWorldUK.
Filed under: ComputerWorldUK | Comments Off on Kicking Comic Sans
What’s driving open source? That was the question InfoWorld asked me to explore for a feature-length article. I spent a good deal of time over the summer thinking about it, and went on to present some ideas as the opening keynote at the eighth International Conference on Open Source Systems in September.
My conclusion is that the key forces driving open source – both for good and bad – are:
I’m continuing to work on these ideas and welcome input.
Filed under: ComputerWorldUK, Open Source | Comments Off on The Forces Of Open
My Freedom of Information request for the summary of citizen input on the UK’s Communications Data Bill reveals unanimous opposition, as well as a disturbing trend to lump opponents of the bill together. Read about it on ComputerWorldUK.
Filed under: ComputerWorldUK | Comments Off on CDB has 0% citizen support
News of government support for open source in the US and EU this week is great. But at the same time, software patents are stifling innovation and the same administrations are doing nothing about it – even permitting supposed “reforms” that just make things worse. My column in InfoWorld this week takes a closer look.
Filed under: InfoWorld | Comments Off on But What About Patents?
A chance encounter at the OFE Summit in Brussels, coupled with a provocative statement by an Oracle VP, lead me to believe it’s time for Oracle to come out of hiding and start working with the MySQL community – including MariaDB, Percona and other competitors After all, that’s how open source works. Read more at ComputerWorldUK.
Filed under: ComputerWorldUK | Tagged: Community, MySQL, Oracle, Security | Comments Off on MySQL FUD Claim Needs Action, Not Words
I was co-host on FLOSS Weekly again this week, and the guest was the community manager from JasperSoft, who make Jasper Reports and other business intelligence software. Oh, and it was Talk Like A Pirate Day.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DM8MWCtsQw]Filed under: FLOSS Weekly | Comments Off on FLOSS Weekly on JasperSoft
You’ll never guess who’s bankrolling open source. In my column in InfoWorld this week, I look at an initiative to get some crucial software written for America’s schools. Wisely, the Council of Chief State School Officers is making the infrastructure, toolkit and client software all open source so that states can collaborate rather than each expensively creating their own systems.
What will come as a surprise to some is who’s bankrolling the creation of this new open source community. The Gates Foundation (along with Carnegie) are funding two $75,000 awards to seed the community. The winners of the awards stand to become the leaders in a rich new open source software market. An upcoming code camp in Boston offers the chance to get in at the start.
Filed under: InfoWorld | Comments Off on Surprising Sponsor
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