Dopey DOPA

This story about US legislation that will require schools to block MySpace and other social networking sites might not seem to have much to do with this blog. But the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) is symptomatic of a far-wider problem.

The story is basically old, ignorant politicians that are taking the opportunity to grandstand by supporting legislation full of high-sound principles - "protecting the children" and other such tosh - that in fact is highly pernicious.

Of course, banning access to social networking sites from schools will not "protect the children": on the contrary, it will expose them all the more. The children will simply access these sites from home, or friends' homes, where they will probably be completely unsupervised. At school, by contrast, they could be taught how to recognise trouble, and how to deal with it - educated, in other words.

The knee-jerk reaction to ban any novel technology that can be used for nefarious purposes is also symptomatic of politicians' lack of understanding and fear of the new - call it the Tubular Syndrome. DOPA is clearly block-headed, but it's not, alas, a unique example of political block-headedness.

Google's Summa of Code

Google has launched an open source code repository, called, with stunning originality, Google Code. This is particularly good news, because it not only signals Google's continuing efforts to boost open source - probably the best single way to attack Microsoft without seeming to - but also because it provides an alternative to the main code repository in use today, SourceForge.net.

Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against SourceForge. On the contrary, it has played a crucial role in the blossoming of free software, and we owe it a huge debt. But it represents a single point of failure that has been one of open source's greatest weaknesses: just imagine what would happen if SourceForge were to go down for a few days. The existence of an alternative, backed by Google, can only be good news in this respect.

The ABC of ODF

If you need a quick but comprehensive introduction to ODF to give to relations/friends/colleagues/total strangers, you could do worse than this one by Sam Hiser. It concludes by noting:

At one time the main interface for working with information in documents was the software application (an office suite or a text editor of some kind); now, the main interface is the document itself, and it won't matter what application you use. The OpenDocument Format is bringing the world from an application-centric model of computing to a document-centric model of computing. This means that creating new business processes will be as easy as typing a memo on a PC or working with a small connected device.

Why WiFi Sharing is Good for You

One idea gaining currency is that of creating a patchwork of free wireless Internet access points by leaving your WiFi network open for anyone to use. Of course, spoilsports have adduced all sorts of reasons why this might be a bad thing to do, but now, courtesy of those nice people at the RIAA, here's a reason why it might be a good move:

For years, the RIAA has claimed that having the IP address of a computer that has shared unauthorized files is the equivalent of having the evidence of who was actually sharing files. That, of course, is false. The IP address simply can help you know who paid for the internet access, but not who was using what computer on a network. In fact, this even had some people suggesting that, if you want to win a lawsuit from the RIAA, you're best off opening up your WiFi network to neighbors. It seems like this strategy might actually be working.

Emoticonatronic

I'd have expected this news about a new Emotion Incubator Group at the W3C to have been released on the 1st April:

Emotion-oriented (or "affective") computing is gaining importance as interactive technological systems become more sophisticated. Representing the emotional states of a user or the emotional states to be simulated by a user interface requires a suitable representation format. Although several non-standard markup languages containing elements of emotion annotation have been proposed, none of these languages have undergone thorough scrutiny by emotion researchers, nor have they been designed for generality of use in a broad range of application areas.

Well done Andy Updegrove for spotting this: quiet day at the office, Andy?

At Last! Opening Up the ICANN of Worms

I have been writing about the Internet since 1994, and about ICANN, the body that oversees the domain name system, since 1999. Unfortunately, in those seven years, ICANN has confirmed the fears of myself and many other observers about the stultifying effect it would have on the functioning of the Internet.

Given that ICANN was backed by the US Government, which is not known for its sensitivity to the views of others, especially mere foreigners, I had largely resigned myself to this sorry state of affairs. But miraculously, something seems to have happened:

In a meeting that will go down in internet history, the United States government last night conceded that it can no longer expect to maintain its position as the ultimate authority over the internet.

Having been the internet's instigator and, since 1998, its voluntary taskmaster, the US government finally agreed to transition its control over not-for-profit internet overseeing organisation ICANN, making the organisation a more international body.

For me, the main thing to come out of this is the hope that ICANN might finally be forced to open up its totally inappropriate secrecy, and as a result that maybe - just maybe - it will start serving the Internet community in the way it was supposed to all those years ago.

CASPAR = Openness

Something called "Cultural, Artistic and Scientific knowledge for Preservation, Access and Retrieval (CASPAR)" sounds like a typical money-wasting euro gravy-train. But the central problem it aims to address - "How can digitally encoded information still be understood and used in the future when the software, systems and everyday knowledge will have changed?" - is important, and becoming more so by the day.

Over long periods of time, you cannot hope to keep every wacky proprietary data format alive by storing copies of the relevant software: you'd also need to store old operating systems, software manuals etc. The only practical solution is to use open formats. For these, the information will be accessible long after the programs that created them have gone to the great data repository in the sky.

More ODF Support Out in the Open

Alfresco, probably the leading open source enterprise content management company, has announced that it will support ODF. Not earth-shattering in itself, but a useful, incremental, step forward. (Via Bob Sutor's Open Blog.)

Uninspired Little Englanders

I've written about INSPIRE before, and now this depressing piece in The Guardian suggests that the twits in the UK Government are going to scupper it because of their feudal insistence on protecting inefficient and anachronistic "businesses" like the Ordnance Survey. Release the data and let a thousand businesses bloom, people.

Open Source Education

The Guardian has a story entitled "The open source approach to education". It's about a report on the same from Futurelab, and while there's nothing really new there, it's nonetheless good to see the usual memes being spread about a bit in new contexts:

It is also possible to conceive of young people or teachers working together as programmers to create new resources and tools that are of relevance to them in supporting their own learning. These approaches go beyond the traditional distinction between 'users' and 'producers' of educational resources, instead, they offer models of innovation in which these communities are intermingled, the notion of ownership is changed and the economical model of cost and reward is reworked. These new hybrid models of innovation that FLOSS exemplifies require us to ask what models of ownership we might need to develop; what mechanisms might need to be put in place to encourage exchange between sectors; what role users of educational resources might play in the creation of resources; and what business models would need developing to allow further exploration in this area.

Scalix the Chameleon

Scalix has always been something of a showcase for how GNU/Linux can be used to run enterprise-level software. And yet, ironically, Scalix itself has been proprietary.

Until now.

Given that the company was successful with its earlier strategy, this move to a dual-licensing approach is an interesting comment on the even greater advantages of being open source, and not just running on it. (Via Linux-Watch.)

The Curse of the Zombie Standard

Another great post by Rob Weir, with an even better heading (any friend of Modest is a friend of mine). It shows in loving detail how Microsoft would rather exhume one of its old zombie standards rather than be caught, er, dead supporting an open standard, especially one supported by ODF.

Microsoft's Unhealthy Move

For all its corporate rapaciousness, Microsoft has always been scrupulous in keeping its partners happy: it knows that much of its immense strength derives from the huge Windows ecosystem it has created around itself. Indeed, whatever its manifest misdeeds in terms of abusing its monopoly position, it is arguable - and the company itself has made the argument - that through this vast network it has created far more wealth than any harm it is accused of.

Against this background, two recent moves are pretty astonishing. First, there is Zune, which as many commentators have observed, is unlikely to damage Apple so much as all those who signed up to the horribly-named "PlaysForSure" initiative to provide online music services based around Microsoft technologies.

And now, even more surprising, we have Microsoft's move into offering healthcare software. The actual figures involved are minuscule, but the signal it sends is immense. For it seems to suggest that in its growing desperation at the loss of market share in its traditional sectors - and with the threat of ever-greater losses in the future - the company has decided to break its golden rule to leave to third-parties vertical markets, while it supplies (at a handsome profit) all the infrastructural stuff.

I can't help seeing the hand of Ballmer in this, eager to make his own mark on what is still Bill Gates's company. It would be an obvious thing for a hard-nosed salesman to do - to carve up former partners in an attempt to grab slices of new pies. But I predict that the move will go down very badly with Microsoft's erstwhile supporters, already unnerved by the sword of Zune hanging over them, as they begin to wonder which sector will be next on the Microsoft hitlist.

In fact, I expect they're starting to feel as sick as a parrot.

One Laptop Per Child: Pedagogically Suspect?

I've been a little dismissive of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, but having read LWN.net's fascinating interview with Jim Getty, the Vice President of Software, I have become more impressed with what it is trying to do, and how it is trying to do it.

Unfortunately, it seems that the Indian Ministry of Education does not share my new-found enthusiasm. According to Heise Online:

The Indian Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD), the country's ministry of education, has rejected the suggestion made by the country's Planning Commission to take part in the "One Laptop per Child" (OLPC) program. In a letter sent to the Planning Commission last month Education Secretary Sudeep Banerjee of the Ministry of Human Resource Development stated that the case for giving a computer to every single child was "pedagogically suspect." This the Indian daily The Hindu reports. "It may actually be detrimental to the growth of creative and analytical abilities of the child," the secretary added. Classrooms and teachers were more urgently needed than "fancy tools," the Education Secretary went on to say.

It's a fair point, and a concern that research will need to show is unfounded when the first deliveries of the laptops take place next year (assuming they do).

Pervasive but not Persuasive

Further proof, if any were needed, that open source business operates under different rules. Here's a letter from CEO of Pervasive, a company set up to "with the goal of helping accelerate the transition from the traditional, high cost database licensing model to the open-source, high-value model", specifically to PostgreSQL. But something funny happened along the way:

While we always knew that PostgreSQL is a solid product with advanced database capabilities and that it has a very real opportunity to shake up the high-end database market, we underestimated the high level of quality support and expertise already available within the PostgreSQL community. In this environment, we found that the opportunity for Pervasive Software to meaningfully increase adoption of PostgreSQL by providing an alternative source for support and services was quite limited.

In other words, the PostgreSQL community can look after itself, thank you very much. Just as can all other flourishing free software projects. Which is why, ultimately, they will prevail, because there are immune to the fads and fashions of the business world. (Via Matthew Aslett.)

...And That Leaves GNU/Linux

Om Malik has a nice (if brief) piece on the rise and rise of the domestic penguin. I particularly liked this:

The logic is simple – the other two players – Apple and Microsoft will have their own proprietary systems. Apple will not share them with anyone else, of course! Microsoft would as long as you play ball with their DRM system or some other lock-in. (And they are not to be taken lightly.)

This leaves CE makers, and start-ups with one option – Linux.

Time to put some herring in the 'fridge.

Democratise Innovation: Put It Online

This isn't particularly new, but I've only just caught up with it (on Irving Wladawsky-Berger's blog). It's "Democratizing Innovation" by Eric Von Hippel, yet another book that draws inspiration from open source:

The trend toward democratized innovation can be seen in software and information products -- most notably in the free and open-source software movement -- but also in physical products. Von Hippel's many examples of user innovation in action range from surgical equipment to surfboards to software security features. He shows that product and service development is concentrated among "lead users," who are ahead on marketplace trends and whose innovations are often commercially attractive.

Nor have I read it, but the basic idea sounds good, and Von Hippel is generally very sound - as evidenced by the fact that he has made the book freely available online under a CC licence.

Open Tools for the Semantic Web

The Semantic Web is a kind of intelligent Web, one that consists not just of contextless numbers and meaningless words but of data that means something:

The Semantic Web is a web of data. There is lots of data we all use every day, and its not part of the web. I can see my bank statements on the web, and my photographs, and I can see my appointments in a calendar. But can I see my photos in a calendar to see what I was doing when I took them? Can I see bank statement lines in a calendar?

Why not? Because we don't have a web of data. Because data is controlled by applications, and each application keeps it to itself.

The Semantic Web is about two things. It is about common formats for interchange of data, where on the original Web we only had interchange of documents. Also it is about language for recording how the data relates to real world objects. That allows a person, or a machine, to start off in one database, and then move through an unending set of databases which are connected not by wires but by being about the same thing.

Tim thinks it's going to be really big, which is good enough for me.

But to use all this richness, we're going to need tools, so it's good to seem some open source ones coming along. Doubly good, because they're from a company, Aduna, that has seen the free software light. (Via Enterprise Open Source Magazine.)

Here We Go Again...

Why am I not suprised by this?

“It appears as if the venture capital industry is slowly ratcheting up investment levels for the first time in four years, and these increases seem to be directed in a prudent manner,” Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association said in a press release. That might have been true, but the recent trend of big money investments shows that prudence might be giving away to old-fashioned avarice.

Om Malik makes clear why the next dotcom delirium is inevitable:

Before they can go out and raise cash for new funds, many of the firms have to invest the remnant money from their circa 2000-2001 funds. Otherwise, Limited Partners might be asking them the difficult question: Why should I give you more cash when you are sitting on a pile already? A good example would be Oak Investment Partners, which raised $2.56 billion to become the largest venture capital fund ever.

In other words, there is simply too much greedy money in the system, some of it left over from the last VC feeding frenzy at the trough, which in the coming days absolutely must be spent, whether or not it makes sense. Did anyone say bubble?

Open Source Metempsychosis

When it comes to virtualisation, I still wonder what the fuss is about, since it all seems so, well, virtual. But even I have to admit this (warning: highly-level geekery) is seriously heavy:

Xen, an open source virtual machine (VM) monitor, works with just about any Linux distribution. One useful feature for shops that care about high availability is Xen's ability to migrate virtual machines while they are running.

...

With Xen and live migration, hardware can be replaced or upgraded without interruptions in service. Applications can be freed from the hardware they run on.

Metempsychosis, anyone?

The Scoop on Open Source Journalism

Jay Rosen is the Richard Stallman of open source journalism: he has thought the ideas and pushed for the action. So anything he came up with would be interesting, but I think that his NewAssignment.Net idea is more than that. It is:

In simplest terms, a way to fund high-quality, original reporting, in any medium, through donations to a non-profit called NewAssignment.Net.

The site uses open source methods to develop good assignments and help bring them to completion; it employs professional journalists to carry the project home and set high standards so the work holds up. There are accountability and reputation systems built in that should make the system reliable. The betting is that (some) people will donate to works they can see are going to be great because the open source methods allow for that glimpse ahead.

In this sense it’s not like donating to your local NPR station, because your local NPR station says, “thank you very much, our professionals will take it from here.” And they do that very well. New Assignment says: here’s the story so far. We’ve collected a lot of good information. Add your knowledge and make it better. Add money and make it happen. Work with us if you know things we don’t.

Do read the whole post: it's long, very detailed and very well thought-out.

I hope it works. But I fear it may not, because it sounds terribly similar to schemes during dotcom 1.0 that were designed to do the same for open source. That is, somebody - companies, usually - would put up money to get particular bugs fixed. Coders would then agree to fix the bugs for the money. It was a great idea, but all fizzled out somehow.

Maybe this will work better, because people will be more engaged about stories, especially if it touches their lives in some way. But in any case, it's worth trying, especially since Craig Newmark, of craigslist, has provided $10K to give it a whirl. (Via Searchblog.)

Wikis Get Down to Business

Mention wikis, and most people think of Wikipedia. But Wikipedia is a one-off, a unique, unrepeatable example of what a wiki can be. And so its well-aired growing pains are also pretty specific to what it is and what it's trying to do. They arise mostly from the lack of a strict organisational hierarchy that allows content to be perused and ultimately policed. Strikingly, just such a hierarchy is a salient feature of all the main open source projects, from Linux down.

As a consequence, this most uncorporate of tools might just flourish best precisely in the context of a company. Why? Because there the hierarchy is already in place - it doesn't even need to be articulated, it can simply be applied in the context of a wiki. Basically, this means that more junior members of the hierarchy have to watch what they say and do more than senior ones.

That doesn't imply that they should refrain from joining in: on the contrary. The wiki is a canvas on which to display their wit and wisdom to even the most senior echelons of the company, so it would be counter-productive to abstain entirely. But it does mean that the kind of puerile activities that some get up to on Wikipedia would be self-censored.

Against this background, it's interesting to see announcements from two companies offering corporate wiki products. JotSpot applies the wiki's collaborative method to traditional tools like documents and spreadsheets. I think that's a mistake, because the wiki isn't so much a way as a thing, contrary to popular wisdom. After all, collaboration is hardly a new idea; what's new is the specific form of the wikispace in which it happens. In that respect, I prefer Socialtext's approach, especially now that it has come out with an open source version.

Obviously...Not

The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) has released its response to the British Library's Content Strategy. It's a wonderful demonstration that they don't really know what is going to hit them:

We believe that a shift towards the provision of online rather than physical access is appropriate. However, customer expectations of what is possible with online content are limited only by the capabilities of the technology, and not by realistic business considerations; at the extreme, every UK citizen might expect free online access, and unhindered re-use, at home or at work to everything in the Library’s collection, which would obviously destroy the market for publishers.

Obviously. Not.

Saying that online access will "obviously" destroy the market for publishers is akin to saying - as was said - that television will obviously kill the cinema, that the cinema will obviously kill the theatre etc. etc. Those who are the gatekeepers of older technologies always fear new ones that will reduce their powers. But what happens is that new technologies tend to create new opportunities even for the older ones they appear to threaten - at least to those who are open-minded enough.

Two classic examples: MP3s have created a huge demand for songs that are no longer in the catalogues, and P2P networks are full of videos of old television shows. Think how much money they owners of these materials could make if they decided to satisfy this demand themselves, instead of trying to stifle it.

It's the same with books. Providing online versions does not kill the need for books; indeed, it is likely to encourage people to buy more, for one very simple reason. The text that you read online is not the text you read in a book, even though the characters are similar: it lacks the physical experience of bookness. It is that - not the text - that book publishers are ultimately selling.

"Obviously", judging by the comments above, and by many others elsewhere, it's going to take a long hard battle to din this idea into the heads of those in the publishing industry. (Via Open Access News.)

Why Domain Names Make Me Go .EU

Another reason why the system for registering domain names needs sorting out:

For quite some time numerous European registrars have been complaining that the company Ovidio is registering .eu domain names en mass. Upon looking into the complaints Eurid's legal department came to the conclusion that Ovidio Ltd., Fausto Ltd. and Gabino Ltd. had been used as a cover by some 400 registrars to "warehouse" .eu domain names.

At least this time there may be some rapped knuckles. Ultimately, though, something more thoroughgoing is required to stop this persistent abuse.

Whither, Wither, WTO?

I don't pretend to know anywhere near enough about the inner dynamics of the WTO to understand what the apparent failure of the "Doha Round" means, but I live in hope that it represents some fatal weakening of the WTO globally. Especially in the area of intellectual monopolies, I can't help feeling that the WTO is a 20th-century mechanism for solving a quintessentially 21st-century problem.