UK Gov's Latest Move on Copyright: Exactly Wrong

Remember the Digital Economy Act? Surely one of the worst pieces of UK legislation passed - or rather, rammed through - in recent years, as readers may recall. This was inspired (if that's the right word) by the French Hadopi scheme brought in by Nicolas Sarkozy, whereby people were threatened with being disconnected from the Internet if they were accused of unauthorised sharing of digital files. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

Net Neutrality under Threat in Europe - Unnecessarily

As long-suffering readers of this column will know, I've been following for a while the winding road leading to the European Commission's proposals regarding net neutrality in Europe. Along the way, there have been many twists and turns, with hints of first one direction, then another. But today, the Commission has finally released its plans - not just for this area, but for the whole telecoms market in Europe:

On Open Enterprise blog.

NSA's Crypto Betrayal: Good News for Open Source?

Revelations from documents obtained by whistleblower Edward Snowden that GCHQ essentially downloads the entire Internet as it enters and leaves the UK, and stores big chunks of it, was bad enough. But last week we learned that the NSA has intentionally weakened just about every aspect of online encryption:

On Open Enterprise blog.

UK Gov: Smaller, Better, Faster, Stronger...Opener.

One of the recurrent themes on this blog has been the UK government's use - or failure to use - open source and open data. To be fair, on the open data side, things are going pretty well. Open source was previously conspicuous by its absence, and that is finally changing, albeit rather slower than many of us would wish.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Microsoft + Nokia = Dog

When Stephen Elop moved from Microsoft to run Nokia, many saw this as part of a cunning plan to prepare the latter for purchase by the former. There's no real evidence for that, although soon after joining, Nokia did place the Windows Phone platform at the heart of its future strategy, despite the many drawbacks of doing so, effectively betting the company on the success of Windows as the third mobile platform alongside Android and Apple.

On Open Enterprise blog.

How Network Neutrality Promotes Innovation

As I've pointed out many times in previous posts, one of the key benefits of mandating network neutrality is that it promotes innovation by creating a level playing field. Such statements are all very well, but where's the evidence? An important new study entitled "The innovation-enhancing effects of network neutrality" [.pdf], commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs from the independent SEO Economic Research unit provides perhaps the best survey and analysis of why indeed network neutrality is so beneficial:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Linus on Linux, 22 - and 5 - Years Later

In case you weren't aware, Linus is on Google+. Here's a recent post:

On Open Enterprise blog.

A New Chapter for Open Source?

Back in April, I wrote about in interesting new venture from the Linux Foundation called the OpenDaylight Project. As I pointed out then, what made this significant was that it showed how the Linux Foundation was beginning to move beyond its historical origins of supporting the Linux ecosystem, towards the broader application of the important lessons it has learnt about open source collaboration in the process. Following that step, we now have this:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Windows 8+TPM: Germany Warns of 'Loss of Control'

Last year, I wrote about some serious issues with Microsoft's Secure Boot Technology in Windows 8. It seems that the German government has started to wake up to problems with Windows 8, as this headline in Die Zeit attests:

On Open Enterprise blog.

The Canary in the Coal Mine: Groklaw Shuts Down

If you follow me on Twitter or elsewhere, you'll have noticed that I've been tweeting rather extensively about the NSA's spying, the most recent attacks on Glenn Greenwald and now the Guardian. If you were still wondering what any of this has to do with open source, this latest news might clarify things a little:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Open Source in the UK: Sharing the Fire

As even a cursory glance at articles on Open Enterprise over the last few years will indicate, open source is a massive success in practically every market. Except, unfortunately, on the desktop (famously) and more, generally, for consumers. And as Aral Balkan points out in an important post from a few weeks ago, that's a real problem:

On Open Enterprise blog.

TTIP Update II

As I noted in my first TTIP Update about the current negotiations between the EU and US over a massive trade agreement that is far from being only about trade, it is probably true that it will not include many of the more outrageous ideas found in ACTA last year. But that is not to say that TTIP does not threaten many key aspects of the Internet - just that the attack is much more subtle.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Did You Know that Mozilla is Hijacking the Internet?

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the incredible spectacle of the European arm of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) attacking Mozilla on the grounds that the latter had "lost its values" because it insisted on defending the users' rights to control how cookies were used on their systems. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

Is Apache the Most Important Open Source Project?

Back in the mists of time - I'm talking about 2000 here - when free software was still viewed by many as a rather exotic idea, I published a book detailing its history up to that point. Naturally, I wrote about Apache (the Web server, not the foundation) there, since even in those early days it was already the sectoral leader. As I pointed out:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Is This Finally the Year of Open Source...in China?

One of the long-running jokes in the free software world is that this year will finally be the year of open source on the desktop - just like it was last year, and the year before that. Thanks to the astounding rise of Android, people now realise that the desktop is last decade's platform, and that mobile - smartphones and tablets - are the future. But I'd argue that there is something even more important these, and that is the widespread deployment of open source in China.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Tell Old Pharaoh: Let My Postcodes Go

The story of open data in the UK has been fairly uplifting in recent years, as more and more public datasets are released under liberal licences. Even the big holdouts - things like Ordnance Survey - have gradually loosened their grip. The same is true for the Postcode Address File (PAF), which has a surprising long history:

On Open Enterprise blog.

TTIP Update I

At the start of this year I flagged up the likelihood that hugely important trade negotations between the EU and US would start in due course. A few months later, I gave some more background to that move, as well as the text of a document calling for the participants to avoid repeating the grave mistakes of ACTA, which ultimately led to that agreement being rejected in the European Parliament on July 4 last year.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Russia to Ban Swearing Online: UK to Follow?

Yesterday I wrote about the slide into censorship and self-censorship that the UK government's misbegotten plans to impose a default set of Net blocks could bring about. Of course, the UK is not alone in seeking to introduce disproportionate schemes. Here's one from Russia:

On Open Enterprise blog.

UK Sliding into Something Worse than Censorship

Unless you have been living under the proverbial rock, you will have heard and probably read plenty about the UK government's grandstanding proposals to make pornography opt-in. I won't waste your time by going through the many reasons why that is a foolish idea and won't achieve the things the government says it will. Instead I'd like to concentrate on some disturbing hints about where this could be going, and why we need to start fighting any such plans now.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Yet More Security Reasons to Give Microsoft a Miss

In the wake of Microsoft's dire financial results, it might seem a little unsporting to draw attention to more of the company's problems. But its continuing stranglehold on companies and governments around the world means that such measures are justified, not least because people are suffering as result - millions of them.

On Open Enterprise blog.