Posted on April 9, 2010 by Simon Phipps
I’ve had some useful communications from a variety of well-informed people after yesterday’s blog about IBM and TurboHercules, and two things are clear from what I’ve heard:
- The case IBM has against TurboHercules has many murky layers and it’s pretty pointless trying to decide from the outside who is right. Certainly the sources we’ve heard so far are insufficient and have unclear motivations, especially knowing that Microsoft’s puppy CCIA is involved. I am not in any way interested in calling either IBM or TurboHercules evil on the evidence so far. To be clear: I have no view on the merits of the actual issue between IBM and TurboHercules.
- IBM’s actions in the case lack the necessary internal oversight for some reason. IBM messed up in allowing a document to leave the building suggesting any of the patents they had pledged to protect open source software would be used against it, and they need to admit the error and apologise. We all make mistakes, and when we make them most of us are called to account. I see no reason why IBM should be exempt. Continue reading →
Filed under: Patents | Tagged: IBM, Journalism | 1 Comment »
Posted on April 8, 2010 by Simon Phipps
What is the significance of IBM’s patent attack on the company behind the open source Hercules community? I believe it may indicate a change in the balance of power inside IBM, one probably reflected in other large corporations, as cloud computing rises in prominence and as the main disruptive force becomes Google – a large user of FOSS – instead of Microsoft. We need to take note. Oh, and I’m using “reptile” in a technical sense 🙂 Continue reading →
Filed under: Patents | Tagged: Hercules, IBM | 15 Comments »
Posted on April 7, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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Pretty good analysis of the IBM patent aggression from ESR: “IBM has reached a critical juncture. For the last decade the company has has had it both ways – allied with the open-source community to grow its forward-looking services business, and creamed big profits off the long-since-paid-for z-Series technology. Now these two strategies are in conflict. Whichever way this ends, IBM will probably only get to keep one of them.”
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Richard Stallman’s input on the Digital Economy Bill. Not a great contribution, unfortunately.
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If the British music industry is so urgently in need of protection by the Digital Economy Bill, how come they had their best year ever for sales in 2009 including exceptional sales of digital media? Is it possible they have been selective with the evidence they have been feeding Stephen Timms and Sion Simon of the British Labour Party?
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Creative Commons starts to address patents. This should be interesting, they have pointedly avoided patent issues until now.
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So much for IBM’s support for open source. When it’s a potential threat rather than a stick to beat their competitors, their situational ethics leads to this sort of attack. Clearly their membership of OIN and their “patent pledge” mean little in practice.
Filed under: Links | Tagged: IBM, Patents | 2 Comments »
Posted on March 17, 2010 by Simon Phipps
§ I think the time is coming to fill in a few gaps in technology history – including a little trivia. If you have photos, let me know!
A piece of history that many of us older Java geeks remember is the stunt someone pulled at JavaOne in 1997. Java was the hottest new technology in town, the embodiment of the emerging web culture. The JavaOne conference was in its infancy – it started in 1996 – and was sharing the Moscone Center in San Francisco with another conference, Software Development West. The relationship was friendly – indeed, the two conferences clubbed together to close Howard Street and hold a street party for delegates of both events. Continue reading →
Filed under: History, Java | Tagged: IBM, JavaOne, Microsoft, T-Shirt | 2 Comments »
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