This visualisation of activity on the LibreOffice code repository rocks!
[youtube http://youtu.be/C3To0wrawYg]
Filed under: LibreOffice | Comments Off on Dynamic!
Open Source and Cloud
Posted on October 17, 2012 by Simon Phipps
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 »
Kicking Comic Sans
Posted on October 16, 2012 by Simon Phipps
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
The Forces Of Open
Posted on October 16, 2012 by Simon Phipps
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:
- The rise of open source foundations
- The number of licensing choices available, and how they are understood
- The threat of software patents and responses to it
- Cloud computing and the usage modalities it induces
- Big data and the change in the value point of software it implies
I’m continuing to work on these ideas and welcome input.
Filed under: ComputerWorldUK, Open Source | Comments Off on The Forces Of Open
Eric Whitacre Interview
Posted on October 15, 2012 by Simon Phipps
CDB has 0% citizen support
Posted on October 12, 2012 by Simon Phipps
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
Legal Topics For Practical People
Posted on October 4, 2012 by Simon Phipps
The track I’m chairing at Open World Forum in Paris next week is now public and I think we’ve got a pretty hot schedule there what with Richard Fontana and Bradley Kuhn rematched after their showdown at FOSDEM, plus the explanation of why SpagoBI switched from GPLv2 to MPLv2. Hope to see you at the event.
Filed under: Events | Tagged: GPLv2, Open World Forum, Paris, SpagoBI | Comments Off on Legal Topics For Practical People
Still Nutty After All These Years
Posted on September 29, 2012 by Simon Phipps
Madness @ The Roundhouse, a set on Flickr.
I was lucky enough to win tickets for an iTunes Festival show again this year. I was even luckier that it was my wife’s favourite band. And best of all, it was a tremendous performance from them that we both enjoyed tremendously. Overall, very thankful for the whole thing! I wish I could share more than just the photos with you.
Filed under: Links | Comments Off on Still Nutty After All These Years
But What About Patents?
Posted on September 28, 2012 by Simon Phipps
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?
MySQL FUD Claim Needs Action, Not Words
Posted on September 27, 2012 by Simon Phipps
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
Wild Webmink 