A Moot of Folksonomies

Being a rigorous sort of chap, I was sceptical about folksonomies - ad-hoc tags. But over time I've come to appreciate their power - and the fact that once people start using them routinely, the combined body of folksonomic knowledge becomes quite impressive.

But the obvious question is: what lies beyond the simple tag? Myabe this kind of thing:

GroupMe! extends the idea of social tagging systems like del.icio.us, Flickr or BibSonomy by introducing the group dimension. The foundation of social tagging systems are so-called folksonomies, which describe how users (folks) tag resources (e.g. photos, videos, publications, etc.). In technical terms a folksonomy is just a collection of tag assignments:

(User, Tag, Resource) = User has tagged Resource with Tag at a particular time.

Over time it is likely that semantics emerge, e.g. tags that are often assigned to same resources may be synonyms. Hence, folksonomies are promising to improve (web) search, etc. With GroupMe!'s approach of taggable groups we extend tag assignments with a group dimension:

(User, Tag, Group, Resource) = User has tagged Resource with Tag in a certain Group at a particular time.

This prompts the next question: what do we call these groups? I vote a "moot".

What Next: Copyright Tax on Potato Stamps?

Printer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard has announced that the German Supreme Court ruled in a hearing that the firm will not have to pay a flat fee to German copyright collective VG Wort to cover copyrights.

And I should damn well hope so: why should people have to pay a copyright tax to print out their own documents - which, surprisingly, is what most people do most of the time. If a printer, why not on pens? Pencils? Potato stamps? - They can all be used to commit heinous acts of copyright infringement that would doubtless bring civilisation as we know it to its knees....

Interview with OSC's Mark Taylor

On the Open Enterprise blog.

Likewise Does Likewise

On the Open Enterprise blog.

(Henceforth, for those who might be interested, I'll be posting simple links to entries on my new Open Entreprise blog in this way. If you're not, just ignore them.)

Seagate All at Sea

Here's a company with a death-wish:

SEAGATE'S latest batch of drives are not compatible with the Open Sauce operating system Linux.

...


There are a few work-arounds but Seagate Tech Support says they do not know what they are. Instead they are telling man plus dog that their latest drives do not support Linux.

How to run a 21st-century computer company. Not.

Fixing ISO...with OpenISO

As I noted below, ISO has some serious problems. The solution? Open up:

The vision of OpenISO.org is to become a truly open international standards organization. In particular,

* Decisions between conflicting opinions or interests should always be made in a fact-oriented manner based on sound engineering and openness principles.
* Participation in OpenISO.org work should be open to everyone who is willing and able to work according to a reasonable set of procedural guidelines. Draft OpenISO.org Core Guidelines.
* In addition to facilitating a conversation among experts (by means of which standards are developed and evaluated, etc), OpenISO.org should also solicit, actively consider, and respond to feedback from the general public.
* OpenISO.org will be active both in the area of developing technical specifications which are suitable as standards and in the area of reviewing documents published by other organizations for compliance with principles of good engineering, openness and economic fairness.
* All work documents of OpenISO.org will be made freely available to everyone via the internet, free of charge.
* Currently OpenISO.org is simply a personal initiative with the commitment that at the very least, a good and appropriate problem report regarding the OOXML specification will be produced. However, a serious attempt is being made to establish a sustainable business model for OpenISO.org, this could be an industry consortium composed of companies which are interested in ensuring that fact-oriented review of standardization proposals is done in a credible manner, or alternatively a start-up business of some kind might be established for which it makes sense as part of its marketing plan to operate OpenISO.org.

(Via Planet FSFE.)

Dysfunctional ISO - Courtesy of Microsoft

This is an extraordinary testimony to the havoc wrought by Microsoft on parts of ISO through its attempts to get OOXML (aka ECMA 376) fast-tracked:

This year WG1 have had another major development that has made it almost impossible to continue with our work within ISO. The influx of P members whose only interest is the fast-tracking of ECMA 376 as ISO 29500 has led to the failure of a number of key ballots. Though P members are required to vote, 50% of our current members, and some 66% of our new members, blatantly ignore this rule despite weekly email reminders and reminders on our website. As ISO require at least 50% of P members to vote before they start to count the votes we have had to reballot standards that should have been passed and completed their publication stages at Kyoto. This delay will mean that these standards will appear on the list of WG1 standards that have not been produced within the time limits set by ISO, despite our best efforts.

Unless ISO tightens up on its rules, and removes or demotes, P members who do not vote as required by ISO rules I would recommend my successor that it is perhaps time to pass WG1’s outstanding standards over to OASIS, where they can get approval in less than a year and then do a PAS submission to ISO, which will get a lot more attention and be approved much faster than standards currently can be within WG1. The disparity of rules for PAS, Fast-Track and ISO committee generated standards is fast making ISO a laughing stock in IT circles. The days of open standards development are fast disappearing. Instead we are getting “standardization by corporation”, something I have been fighting against for the 20 years I have served on ISO committees. I am glad to be retiring before the situation becomes impossible. I wish my colleagues every success for their future efforts, which I sincerely hope will not prove to be as wasted as I fear they could be.

(Via The Open Sourcerer.)

Reneging on Gowers

When the Gowers review of copyright in the UK came out I was ambivalent: there was some good things, but also areas that were potentially problematic, notably in terms of one-side strengthening copyright enforcement. One year on, it looks like my fears were justified:

If enforcement and flexibility are two sides of the same coin, then one year on it looks like the toss has definitely gone to enforcement. This means that Government is in effect making the situation worse: concentrating on strengthening enforcement measures while failing to address the inherent inflexibility of copyright law that Gowers identified as a key factor in the general public’s disrespect for the law.

Given what is happening in France, with its idiotic "three strikes and you're out" approach - this isn't a game, you know - and the fact that the UK industry is beginning to salivate at the prospect of bringing in something similar here, this is not good.

Behold! The New Anti-Open Access FUD

As I've noted before, I'm something of a connoisseur of FUD, and I really like coming across new examples. Here's one, directed at the burgeoning open access movement, which wants to make publicly-paid for scientific papers freely available (and others, too):

'The idea of public access to research information is a little bit specious,' added Robert Parker, managing director of RSC publishing. 'The UK government will be funding the London Olympics in 2012, but that doesn't mean that everybody can have free tickets - there is a big difference between funding something and having it be freely available.'

Nice sleight of hand there, Robbie. Except that the UK government is funding the Olympics in the (probably mistaken) belief that everyone will benefit from the knock-on effects on the economy, world prestige, blah-blah-blah: so there *is* an expectation of getting something in return for the public funds. And of course no one expects free seats - because there is a finite number of them - whereas the larger benefits, if they materialise, can be shared.

Open access is different because taxpayers can benefit from it directly. Most importantly, though, open access is digital in nature, and therefore can be copied and distributed for effectively zero cost - it is non-scarce and non-rivalrous. There is no way of giving away seats at the Olympics for zero cost, because they are scarce, rivalrous resources. The economics are completely different, as any managing director should understand. (Via Peter Murray-Rust.)

Wired Uses the 'B'-word

I write about commons a lot here - digital commons, analogue commons - and about how we can nurture them. Whales form a commons, and one that came perilously close to becoming a tragedy. Which is why Japan's resumption of commercial whaling under a flimsy pretext of "scientific" whaling sticks in my craw. Obviously, I'm not the only one; here's the Chief Copy at Wired:

But more and more the Japanese are turning to the cultural-tradition defense, a blatant if clumsy attempt to portray themselves as the victims of cultural prejudice. That, too, is bilge water. This is no time for the world to cave in to some misguided sense of political correctness. On the contrary, pressure should be applied to stop. If Japan won't stop, a boycott of Japanese goods would not be unreasonable.

Oooh, look: there's the "b"-word: I predict we'll be hearing a lot more of it if Japan persists in this selfish destruction of a global commons.

Microsoft: Gone in a Flash

I have commented here and elsewhere that the new category of ultra-light portables using flash memory represents a huge opportunity for GNU/Linux - and a potential bloody nose for Microsoft. It seems I'm not the only one to see it that way:

Microsoft announced plans today to expand support for Windows XP on budget flash-storage computing devices with an eye towards getting Windows XP running on the OLPC. The software giant will publish design guidelines next year that will make it possible for manufacturers of low-cost mobile devices to build hardware that provides optimal compatibility with Microsoft's legacy operating system. The company also announced plans for field trials next month that will put Windows XP to the test on One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project's XO laptop.

This is interesting from two points of view.

First, it confirms that Windows Vista is a complete dog: it will be Windows XP, rather than Vista, that forms the basis for most desktop computing - which means less revenue for Microsoft, and trouble with its entire ratchet pricing model.

Secondly, it shows - contrary to all the usual whining - that GNU/Linux is innovating, and Microsoft is following. In fact, this is far from the only such case of open source being the leader - remember, the Internet is open at all levels - but it's nice that Microsoft is once again seen to be trotting behind the open pack with its tail between its legs.

DRM in the Analogue World

DRM is normally viewed as an issue in the world of digital content, which can be duplicated losslessly. But in this virtuosic post, Mike Masnick points out that it also exists in an analogue context in the form of noncompete agreements, which seek to prevent ideas being copied perfectly:

just think of noncompetes as the "DRM" of human capital. Just as DRM tries to restrict the spread of content, a noncompete seeks to restrict the spread of a human's ideas for a particular industry within the labor arena. Both concepts are based on the faulty assumption that doing so "protects" the original creator or company -- but in both cases this is incorrect. What it actually does is set up an artificial barrier, limiting the overall potential of a market. It may not be easy to see that from the position of the content creator or company management (or investors). It's natural to want to "protect," but it's actually quite damaging.

...


While it may seem easier to "protect" your ideas and your people, what you really end up doing is blocking off your own access to many of the ideas that you need to continue to innovate. You limit the vital mix of ideas to build not just decent products, but great products. Just as DRM has helped to destroy the record labels when competing against more nimble, more open technology -- noncompetes destroy businesses when competing against more nimble, more open technology clusters.

Brilliant.

Sun Gives Prizes to Teacher's Pet (Projects)

Sun has released some more details of its forthcoming Open Source Community Innovation Awards Program:

which will foster innovation and recognize some of the most interesting initiatives within Sun-sponsored open source communities worldwide. To participate in the program's first year, Sun has selected six communities: GlassFish, NetBeans, OpenJDK, OpenOffice.org, OpenSolaris and OpenSPARC. Prizes are expected to total at least $1 million (USD) a year.

Beginning in mid-January 2008, Sun and the six open source communities will announce details on how developers can participate in the individual programs. Each community will have its own contest rules and judging criteria. Prize winners will be announced in August 2008.

So, unlike Google's Summer of Code programme, which is basically to foster generic open source among young hackers, Sun's effort is targeted at its own projects. And nothing wrong with that, especially when one of them, OpenOffice.org, is a critical component of the free software stack. But Sun should't expect to get as many brownie points as Google, which, for all its faults, has been is playing the open source card very well (about which more later.)

A Real Carrot to Use Open Source

This was new to me:

Carrot2 is an Open Source Search Results Clustering Engine. It can automatically organize (cluster) search results into thematic categories

This is actually very useful, since it groups similar results together, and lets you sort through results by theme. There is an associated company, Carrot Search. (Via eHub.)

Not Another Open Source Blog...

Or rather, not just *any* old open source blog, but a new gig for me, called Open Enterprise:

I'll be looking at all levels of the enterprise open source stack – from GNU/Linux distros, through middleware up to the top-level apps – at web services (most of which run on free software stacks like LAMP), writing about the companies working in these sectors, old and new alike (start-ups welcome), and the communities of users and developers that have formed around them (or not, as the case may be).

As well as detailed analysis of the latest goings-on, there will be longer, more speculative pieces about emerging trends or issues, including legal and social ones – vitally important aspects for free software. Another key thread will be interviews with the leading players in this sector – both coders and the corporate types, along with a sprinkling of key individuals in related areas like security and copyright.

Since free software is global, postings to this blog will naturally report on anything of note happening anywhere in the world; but it will do it from an unashamedly European viewpoint. And don't expect me to be too serious all the time: after all, this free software stuff is meant to be fun as well as useful.

And if you're wondering where that leaves leaves old opendotdotdot, fear not:

Alongside this content you'll notice plenty of posts from my other blog, Opendotdotdot, popping up. This has been going for two years now, and has a couple of thousand posts about the general culture of openness, including open source and related areas like open access and open content. This new blog is designed to complement that material by concentrating on the business side of things, although inevitably there'll be some overlap between the two.

So basically, heavier enterprise stuff will go in the new blog, while general cultural stuff will appear here and be mirrored there: my hope is to cover even more of the openness spectrum.

The Foundational Ted Ts'o

Ted Ts'o is not widely known outside hacker circles, and yet he has played an important role in the development of Linux right from the start. He was using it from version 0.02 or 0.03 of the kernel, and contributed code to 0.10; he also set up the first site in the US that carried Linux and related software. Since then:

Ts'o is also a Linux filesystem maintainer, a role in which he maintains several packages including e2fsprogs. He currently serves on the board of USENIX, is the founder and chair of the annual Linux Kernel Developers' Summit and regularly teaches tutorials on Linux and other open source software. Ts'o was project leader for Kerberos, a network authentication system used by Red Hat Enteprise Linux, SUSE Enterprise Linux and Microsoft Windows. He was also a member of Security Area Directorate for the Internet Engineering Task Force where he chaired the IP Security (ipsec) Working Group and was a founding board member of the Free Standards Group (FSG).

That's from the Linux Foundation press release announcing that Ts'o would be joining that organisation as "chief platform strategist" during a two-year fellowship, before returning to IBM, his current employer.

Given the key roles he played in the early days, it's good to see him getting some recognition in this way. It's also a reflection of the growing maturity of the Linux ecosystem that such roles as "chief platform strategist" exist at all.

Why the BBC Does Not Get It

I came across this gem from the BBC Internet blog:

Even the beleaguered iPlayer – forget the issues, who can quibble that in making virtually all main programming available on demand, within a seven day window, over IP, for free is anything other than a breakthrough for the public good?

Me - I can "quibble". The point is that the programming is *not* made available for free: it is imprisoned in Windows DRM. Which means that it is a vector for that DRM: it spreads both lack of freedom and Windows itself by forcing people to install that system.

It is not "a breakthrough for the public good", even if the programming on its own would be: the long-term price paid in terms of establishing Windows-only DRM as the obligatory rights manager for on demand multimedia more than outweighs the short-term benefits of some content, however well made that may be. "Forget the issues" is not an option if we wish to safeguard our future freedom. This is what the BBC seems unable to grasp.

Fighting the Copyright Contagion

Mike Masnick spots a nasty new trend:

trying to create "copyright-like" regulations on what you can do with non-information goods. In a normal, functioning economy, if you buy something, it's yours. You are then free to do what you want with it, whether that's modify it, enhance it, destroy it or resell it. In the copyright world, there is some ability to mimic this behavior with a "right of first sale," but there are still so many limitations within copyright that others have looked to take those limitations beyond copyright. We've already seen efforts, such as the law in Japan to ban the sale of some used electronics as well as a push in the UK to grant artists a resale royalty as well (so that any time a piece of their artwork is resold, the artists would get another cut).

While the aims of the music managers may be good (they claim it's to protect consumers from being ripped off by scalpers), the means are highly questionable. A market is efficient for a reason, and giving the original "owner" the right to a cut from every resale messes with that efficiency and is simply unnecessary. It simply becomes a way to get paid multiple times for the same product, distorting the real market.

Another reason to knock back copyright to reasonable levels.

What is Open Archaeology?

It's becoming fashionable to stick the epithet "open" on just about anything days (I should know - I do it all the time.) But what does it mean to speak of "open archaeology", say?

Well, one important element of "classic" openness like open source is the freedom to take knowledge and re-use it in new ways. If you want to see what that might mean in the context of archaeology, here's a rather brilliant site (apart from the heavy use of Flash) that gives a hint of what's possible:

For more than a decade, archaeologists and scholars have gathered in central Turkey to explore the remains of the 9,000-year-old village of Çatalhöyük. First excavated in the 1960s, Çatalhöyük became world-famous for its dense architecture and spectacular wall decorations. Between 1997 and 2003, a team from the University of California Berkeley worked intensively on one building there, bringing to light the life history of a Neolithic home. Remixing Çatalhöyük features the investigations and discoveries of the BACH team, who invites you to participate in the interpretation of their work. Explore themed collections, create original projects, and contribute your own “remix” of Çatalhöyük.

Quite rightly, it's just won first prize in the Open Archaeology Prize at the Alexandria Archive Institute. (Via Open Access News.)

Why Open Sourcing AnySIM is Bad for Apple

I seem to be one of the few people in the known universe that (a) does not have an iPhone and (b) does not want one. So I don't really care either way about this:

In an effort to keep up with Apple's changes at a faster speed, the iPhone Dev Team is considering open sourcing AnySIM, the free unlocking solution for the iPhone.

But I can tell you one thing: it will be very bad news for Apple if they do open source it. Why? Because this is a classic arms race between Apple and the hackers; opening up will mean that there are more of the latter, thinking more quickly and more creatively. Apple, on the other hand, will still be Apple, thinking its closed little thoughts. No contest.

What's the Opposite of Openness?

Not simply being closed, but something like this:

If I make a computer security mistake — in a book, for a consulting client, at BT — it’s a mistake. It might be expensive, but I learn from it and move on. As a criminal, a mistake likely means jail time — time I can’t spend earning my criminal living. For this reason, it’s hard to improve as a criminal. And this is why there are more criminal masterminds in the movies than in real life.

BTW, this interview with security god Bruce Schneier is just amazing - not least because it goes on for ever. Luckily, you just can't have too much of Brucie.

Can You Love Openness Just a Little Too Much?

News that Verizon Wireless will support Google's Android after all is obviously welcome:

In yet another sudden shift, Verizon Wireless plans to support Google's (GOOG) new software platform for cell phones and other mobile devices. Verizon Wireless had been one of several large cellular carriers withholding support from the Android initiative Google launched in early November.

But given the stunning U-turn Verizon Wireless made Nov. 27, announcing plans to allow a broader range of devices and services on its network, Chief Executive Officer Lowell McAdam says it now makes sense to get behind Android. "We're planning on using Android," McAdam tells BusinessWeek. "Android is an enabler of what we do."

But you've got to be a little sceptical when you hear stuff like this:

All the while, McAdam kept focus by carrying a crumpled piece of paper in his pocket with seven bullet points defining what an open-access policy would mean to Verizon Wireless. "The paper is all wrinkled and it's got coffee stains," he says.

Yeah, right. (Via TechCrunch.)

One Door Closes, Another Door Opens

So Germany has decided to live in the past:

Deutsche Telekom AG, Europe's largest telephone company, can block buyers of Apple Inc.'s iPhone from using the handset on competitors' networks, a German court ruled, overturning an injunction won by Vodafone Group Plc.

The Regional Court of Hamburg said in a statement today that it lifted an injunction obtained by Vodafone that stopped Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile unit from selling the device only with exclusive contracts or software that restricted use on competitors' wireless systems.

But there is a long-term silver lining to this short-term cloud, as this analysis points out:

What might be the result of this? Hopefully Vodafone, and Verizon, will get a clue and offer more cooperation to Google’s Android, further opening their networks. They might also deliver a true Internet experience, rather than the walled garden of data services Verizon is noted for.

Spectrum Commons Catching On

I've written about the idea of treating radio spectrum as a commons - something owned by no one, but available for the use of all - subject to constraints on behaviour that might lead to a depletion of that resource, in this case through interference. It looks like the UK's Ofcom, which regulates this kind of stuff, is really getting in the commons groove:

Ofcom believes that, in general, application-specific spectrum allocations for licence-exempt devices result in inefficient utilisation and fragmentation of spectrum. Ofcom prefers the “spectrum commons” model, where a block of spectrum can be shared by as wide a range as possible of devices, subject to regulatory-defined mandatory constraints on radiated power profiles as functions of frequency, time, and space (i.e. politeness rules), in addition to standardised or proprietary polite protocols. We believe that this model would maximise the value derived from any spectrum set aside for licence-exempt uses.

Wow. Now if only the UK government could follow the same logic when it came to non-personal public data.... (Via openspectrum.info.)

Excessive Cubicle

I'm in favour of fun as much as the next clown, but the new book Eccentric Cubicle from O'Reilly seems to be forgetting a key aspect of the hacker world it aspires to engage with: economy - making less do more.

This book is a dream come true for you office-bound souls who are tech DIY enthusiasts, hobbyist engineers/designers, and Makers at heart. Imagine having your cubicle sport projects such as:

* A mechanical golfer
* Lucid dreaming induction device
* USB-powered bubble blower
* Fog machine
* A desktop guillotine

What are these but extremely wasteful uses of raw materials, and excessive burdens on the earth? A case of making more do less.