Posted on June 4, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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 »
Posted on June 4, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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There are some very worrying phrases in this legislative push, suggesting that the lobbying by big corporations to get rules that favour them is working. Most worrying is the complaint in connection with the digital agenda that “getting patents is too hard”. No! It’s far, far too easy to get patents on digital technologies and the public commons suffers each time one is issued due to the extreme imbalance that allows them to ve treated as property instead of as responsibility. I smell advance work to clear the path for ACTA ratification…
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Once again “protecting children” is being used as the pretext to introduce a badly-considered stream of legislation that would result in web searches being retained and analysed – yes, more surveillance. Apparently MEPs are being told just that it’s for the children, without having the consequence that every search by every citizen will be archived and retained. Write to your MEP and ask them not to sign or to withdraw their signature.
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This is a very worrying development that looks like an abuse of power. It’s extending the law surely beyond where it was ever intended by lawmakers and then being supported by courts. One of these cases will need to make its way to the Supreme Counrt. There’s just as worrying a trend in the UK, of police using massively heavy photographic activity against the public while unjustly restricting photography by the publoc.
Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Mission Creep
Posted on June 2, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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“The VP8 patent situation is no different from the patent challenges that face any computing innovation, from search to social networking to user interfaces to browsers” — CNet adds little beyond my initial report.
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Not to mention putting on weight. More bad lifestyle news for geeks.
Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ FUD and Teeth
Posted on June 1, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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Perry sums up what I have been wanting to say for days about the BP oil disaster. “There but for the grace of God go I”.
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“On 1 May this year a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline in the state of Akwa Ibom spilled more than a million gallons into the delta over seven days before the leak was stopped. Local people demonstrated against the company but say they were attacked by security guards.”
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Good article about the value of open source in Africa.
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fMRI is a technique some people are suggesting can be used to read people’s minds. This article suggests it’s as accurate as a polygraph test (lie detector).
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I’m not sure I go along with this particular public beating of Google. In this example, if the author logged the output of kismet he may well have “inadvertently gathered personal data” if the names of the networks reflected information about the owner (as, for example, several of the networks on my street do). It’s quite possible to interpret Google’s confession as over-caution by lawyers rather than an admission of extreme guilt.
Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Where Justice Applies, And Elsewhere
Posted on June 1, 2010 by Simon Phipps
In an unusual move for such a significant news item, the UK government announced over the weekend that they were ordering all government departments to embark on a voyage of transparency. There were some very good ideas in the announcement, including a mandate to publish details of all ITC procurements. And there is no doubt that a mandate for open data is a fantastic move. The letter from the Prime Minister was pretty clear:
Given the importance of this agenda, the Deputy Prime Minister and I would be grateful if departments would take immediate action to meet this timetable for data transparency, and to ensure that any data published is made available in an open format so that it can be re-used by third parties. From July 2010, government departments and agencies should ensure that any information published includes the underlying data in an open standardised format.
Read on over on my ComputerWorldUK Blog…
Filed under: ODF, Open Data | Tagged: ComputerWorldUK, Transparency | 3 Comments »
Posted on May 31, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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Noble words that, if truly implemented, take Britain down a path to open governmnet and citizen scrutiny. But only if “transparency” actually means “open data”. We don’t need summaries, PDF, printouts and other indigestible publication. We need the data in machine-readable, current form so that citizens can process the data and discover the real-time truth about the country. It’s great that there’s an advisory board (can I join it or is it a closed club?) but there also needs to be an ombudsman with power to fix problems. My summary: fantastic news if it’s true, but Tory opposition to the Digital Economy Act wasn’t and I won’t believe this until I see it either.
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“There are real privacy issues to be faced in the data collected by web companies. But they are part of a far bigger picture of how the world is changing. We need thoughtful understanding of what the real risks are, not finger pointing by the media (and even more frighteningly, by members of Congress) at companies that are easy targets because they make good political theater.” — Or as Scot NcNealy put it much more concisely, “You have no privacy – get over it.”
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“Creativity is akin to insanity, say scientists who have been studying how the mind works. ” – It’s all on a continuous scale, just like other important factors in our psychology.
Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Transparency, Privacy and Genius
Posted on May 29, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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What does open source have to do with open data? This extremely insightful move by the SEC demonstrates that the syntax of open data is not enough to provide transparency. We also need an implementation of the semantics of that syntax, provided openly, freely and as the basis for reimplementation, so that we can understand what we are being shown.
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This long and detailed analysis is well worth the read to see just how low the US delegation at ACTA will sink to hide the fact that they are a tool of the US media industry. There’s enough data available in public to make it impossible for people like this to get away with lies and extreme spin. I hope they see the coverage and realize no-one is fooled.
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“However, Google, for all its open source credibility, should be expected to work with, not around, established open source processes. If the process is broken, help fix it, not make it worse.”
Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Transparency and Good Will
Posted on May 27, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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This FAQ/debate article with an anonymous BCS spokesbeing make it clear what the issue at the BCS is all about, both directly and through tone.
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This EFF campaign makes a great point: that ACTA is ironically a counterfeit itself, since it is not mainly about the counterfeiting of goods but has been hijacked as a back-door method to impose controls on the internet that have failed to be imposed by transparent and democratic methods. The campaign is very much focussed on the US but the message seems one worth transplanting elsewhere.
Filed under: Links | Tagged: ACTA, BCS | Comments Off on ☞ Getting The Point
Posted on May 26, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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The British Computer Society is in the process of being transformed into The Chartered Institute of IT. This is the wrong direction – it’s becoming a club for the Pointy Haired Boss instead of an association to support Dilbert and Alice. The consequence? It’s full of talk of outsourcing real computer jobs abroad and wants to serve the people who are doing it. It failed to take any public leadership position over the Digital Economy Bill and rejects attempts to embrace open source. It has no connection to the interests of actual computer professionals any more. For me (a Fellow, for now) it has come to symbolise all that’s worst in British IT.
The last-ditch battle to wrest the BCS away from the budget-and-management apparatchiks is coming, because an Emergency General Meeting has been called for July 1st. I just hope there are enough real computer professionals still involved to rescue it; my experience of the current leadership suggests it’s too late.
[Also in this thread: this post, BCS Faces No-Confidence Vote Crisis, BCS Leadership Targets Member Rights, BCS Rebels Finally Get A Voice]
Filed under: Links | Tagged: BCS, UK | 17 Comments »
Posted on May 25, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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Carlo demonstrates that On2 must clearly have analysed the patent context for VP8 since so many of the “sub-optimal choices” called out by H.264 partisans reflect avoidance of patented ideas. This lends weight to Google’s confidence over WebM, as well as highlighting the way software patents hinder innovation (although I recently heard an advocate declare they stimulate innovation by forcing this sort of working-around; ridiculous!)
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Thus making the reason WebM is a Good Thing as plain as the nose on your face, just as long as MPEG-LA can be totally shut out of taxing it.
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If you wondered why end users, and not just developers, need protection from MPEG-LA’s patent pool, read this and discover that your publication of H.264 video on your web site might mean you owe MPEG-LA $100,000. We really do need an alternative, safe patent pool with a $0 charge for those promoting freedom instead of fees.
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So Sun’s secrets were gifted to an insider trader as pillow talk? Great, that makes it so much better. Can’t say I instantly feel “Moffat is the least culpable person charged” on that basis.
Filed under: Links | Tagged: WebM | 4 Comments »
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