Towards a Post-H.264 World

In my post yesterday about Cisco making the code for its H264 codec available, I noted that the really important news was that Mozilla was working on Daala, a fully open next generation codec. One of the key people on the team doing that is Monty Montgomery, and he's written a really interesting blog post about the announcement and its background, which I recommend thoroughly (the discussion in the comments is also very illuminating):

On Open Enterprise blog.

Is Cisco Open-Sourcing its Code - or Openwashing?

You know that open source has won when everybody wants to wrap themselves in a little bit of openness in order to enjoy the glow. That's good news - provided it represents a move to true open source and not fauxpen source. Which brings me to the following news:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Cisco Becomes Infected by the GNU GPL

When it was first announced that the FSF had filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Cisco, some were predicting that this was going to be the definitive test of the power and legality of the GNU GPL. I was more sceptical...

On Open Enterprise blog.

GPL Violations: Is Cisco the Big One?

Many sceptics were convinced that as free software spread out beyond hackers into the general computing sector the rigorous GNU GPL licence would gradually be replaced by more accommodating – meaning weaker – forms, since it was “obvious” that its unbending rules were too strict for widespread use. In fact, the GPL has grown in importance, until today it is probably fair to say that it underpins most of the free software world, including enterprise applications. This makes any violation of its terms particularly worrying, because if left unchallenged, it threatens to undermine the entire ecosystem.

On Linux Journal.

Cisco Reduces Messaging to Just Jabber

Cisco today announced its intent to acquire privately held Jabber, Inc., a provider of presence and messaging software. Based in Denver, Jabber will work with Cisco to enhance the existing presence and messaging functions of Cisco's Collaboration portfolio.

As several have pointed out, open source doesn't really enter into the equation - or even get a mention in the press release. That's not surprising: Cisco neither gets nor cares about free software. For Cisco, this is just some pretty icing, which it will doubtless distribute freely. Everyone else can now forget about making money in messaging.

Let Us Now Praise Patent Troll Trackers

So the anonymous patent troll tracker is anonymous no more:

My name is Rick Frenkel. I started in IP over 10 years ago, as a law clerk at Lyon & Lyon in Los Angeles. After a few years there as a law clerk and attorney, I litigated patent cases for several years at Irell & Manella. Two years ago I moved to the Valley and went in-house at Cisco. In my career, I have represented plaintiffs, defendants, large companies, small companies, individual inventors, universities, and everything in between. I currently work at Cisco.

Do I care? Not a jot. What I care about is this:

Now that I have been unmasked, I’m not sure where the blog is going from here. I’d like to keep it going. For one, I still have quite a few post ideas in me (indeed, I have several already prepared, waiting to go). Further, there aren’t many in-house counsel blogging, and I think we deserve a voice. I’m going to take off the next couple of weeks to think it over.

He can be called Rick or Rumpelstiltskin for all I care: he performs a hugely valuable service that the world of computing would be poorer without. Let's hope those couple of weeks of thinking it over mark a hiatus and not a halt.

US Patents: Is the Tide Turning?

Maybe I'm an incorrigible optimist, but these look hopeful signs:

The U.S. Supreme Court made it easier to challenge patents for failing to introduce genuine innovations, siding with Intel Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. and dealing a setback to the drug and biotechnology industries.

...

The decision extends a Supreme Court trend that has put new limits on patent rights. In today's case, the justices heeded arguments from large computer companies and automakers that the lower court test, which centered on the requirement that an invention be "non-obvious," had given too much power to developers of trivial technological improvements.

"Granting patent protection to advances that would occur in the ordinary course without real innovation retards progress," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court.

(Via Slashdot.)

The Other Thunderbird

No, not that one, this one:

Sandia National Laboratories’ 8960-processor Thunderbird Linux cluster, developed in collaboration with Dell, Inc. and Cisco, maintained its sixth position in the Top500 Supercomputers by achieving an improved overall performance of 53.0 teraflops, an 18.5 percent increase in efficiency from last year's performance.

(Via Technocrat.)

Energy Worries: Not Just Virtual

Following the recent excitement about Second Life's energy consumption, it seems that people are beginning to realise that it's not the only one with problems:

The nation's biggest technology companies sat down with federal regulators Wednesday to assess the industry's thirst for power amid fears that volatile and expensive energy could hinder the growing sector.

The fierce competitors at the table -- including Google, IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard -- rarely gather to talk strategy. But they were lured by the chance to influence the development of national energy standards.

"I think we may be at the beginning of a potential energy crisis for the IT sector," Victor Varney, a vice president for Silicon Graphics, told the regulators. "It's clearly coming."

(Via Slashdot.)

The Internet Goes...Open Source

There is a great irony at the heart of the Internet. Free software and its characteristic distributed development method were made possible by the Internet. Similarly, many of the earliest free software programs - Sendmail, BIND etc. - helped create the Internet. And yet today, the knots of the Net's interconnections - the routers - are generally proprietary (and usually from Cisco).

So here's an idea: how about creating an open source router? Enter Vyatta, which is doing precisely that. It's been working on the idea for a while, and, according to GigaOM, is close to launching its first product.

Assuming they get it right, I don't see any reason why this shouldn't steadily chip away at Cisco's dominant market share, just as every other open alternative to commoditised products has done. As they do, expect other open source solutions to enter this market soon.