Enclosing the Commons, 21st-Century Style

In an age where commons are rare and exotic beasts, "enclosing the commons" seems quaint rather than troubling. But in the modern context, this is what enclosure means:

Amateur photographer Chip Py was wandering around the newly developed downtown section of Silver Spring when he decided to snap a few pictures. He thought the building rooftops set against the blue sky made for a handsome image. A security guard promptly rushed out to tell him that he was not allowed to take pictures; the Peterson Companies, the developer of Ellsworth Street, prohibited it.

Welcome to the latest enclosure of the commons: privately controlled public streets. Even if streets may be nominally public, companies have few qualms about claiming them as private and bullying people into forfeiting their rights as citizens.

Solving the Open Source Conundrum

As I've written elsewhere, people have realised that there's a bit of a problem with the term "open source". It's becoming too popular: too many people want to stick the "open source" label on their wares without worrying about the details - like whether they conform to the "official" Open Source Definition (OSD).

The real conundrum is this: how can the use of the term "open source" be policed when it has no legal standing, since it is not a trademark. Theoretically, anyone can use it with impunity - for anything. This is obviously a problem for the "real" open source world, which needs to find a way to encourage vendors to use the term responsibly.

Peer pressure is certainly important here, but there may be another factor. In the course of research for a feature, I came across IBM's big patent pledge of January 2005:

IBM today pledged open access to key innovations covered by 500 IBM software patents to individuals and groups working on open source software. IBM believes this is the largest pledge ever of patents of any kind and represents a major shift in the way IBM manages and deploys its intellectual property (IP) portfolio.

Back then, this was mildly interesting, if greeted with a certain cynicism. But today, in the wake of Microsoft's sabre-rattling, patents are much more of an issue for all open source companies, which makes the next paragraph of the IBM announcement particularly pertinent:

The pledge is applicable to any individual, community, or company working on or using software that meets the Open Source Initiative (OSI) definition of open source software now or in the future.

So there we have a major incentive to meet the OSI definition of open source: if you do, IBM will let you use a good wodge of its patents. This means that in the event of patent Armageddon, where IBM and Microsoft slug it out in the courts, you will not only be safe from any direct attacks from IBM, but might even enjoy the indirect halo effect of IBM's patent portfolio.

Although IBM has not exactly guaranteed it would come rushing to the aid of any OSI-approved damsel in distress if it were attacked by the Microsoft dragon, its patent pledge does contain an element of this implicitly. It's certainly easy to see the benefits for IBM of such a move, both in terms of positive publicity and direct competitive advantage. At the very least, Microsoft is likely to think twice about attacking any company that has this kind of patent hook up with Big Blue.

If you don't adopt the OSI approach, though, you're outside the IBM castle, and on your tod when that nice Mr Ballmer comes calling about those patents he claims your company infringes. And since you're not playing nicely with the official OSI crew, don't expect any help from its big corporate chum, IBM.

Now, tell me again why you don't want to go legit with this "open source" label?

Offiziell: de.wikipedia.org ist Offiziell

Here's an interesting precedent being set:

For the first time, the German edition of the open Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia will be receiving state funding. Germany will be setting aside part of its budget to improve information about renewable resources in Wikipedia. Over the next few years, several hundred articles will be written on this issue.

"A number of key words already have excellent entries in the German Wikipedia" within the field of renewable resources, explains Andreas Schütte. Schütte is the executive director of the Renewable Resources Agency (FNR), which receives funding from the German Ministry of Nutrition, Agriculture, and Consumer Protection to conduct research on renewable resources with an eye to launching products on the market. At the same time, Schütte says that a number of key words in the German Wikipedia have very short descriptions, are not up to date, or are missing entirely.

Entries on this topic are to be improved under the direction of the private-sector Nova Institute. The Institute plans to get external experts to write entries on renewable resources for Wikipedia. These experts will first receive training for Wikipedia because collaboration in the community project has its pitfalls. The Institute is therefore looking for someone well versed in Wikipedia to handle project coordination. The project partners have issued a call for tenders for that position. Wikipedia experts can send in their applications immediately.

The benefits of expanding this approach are great. The state gets to distribute useful information, highly efficiently, and helps to ensure its reliability. The users, of course, gain enormously from this new influx of quality contributions.

Even the Wikipedians gain, since in the future there might be the prospect that they could be commissioned by governments to write high-quality articles on particular subjects (but with editorial independence).

And if other governments start following suit, the long-term viability of the entire Wikipedia project - still rather uncertain, at present - will be transformed completely.

All-in-all, this move by the German ministry represents a small but important step towards making Wikipedia into an all-encompassing reference, subsuming both official and unofficial information.

Here Be (Virtual) Dragons

A nice scamper along the virtual horizon has just appeared: the Metaverse Roadmap (MVR).

The MVR has “near-term” anticipation horizon of ten years (to 2017), a “longer-term” speculation horizon of twenty years (to 2025), and a charter to discover early indicators of significant developments ahead.

Nothing staggeringly new, but lots of interesting ideas, well presented. Highly recommended as a guide to the near future of the metaverse. Start planning those virtual hols now.

Opener Than Thou

What's interesting about the news that LinkedIn is going to "open up" is that it is happening as a direct result of competitive pressure:

He told me that over next 9 months LinkedIn would deliver APIs for developers, ostensibly to make it more of platform like Facebook, and create a way for users who spend more time socially in Facebook to get LlinkedIn notifications.

In other words, once somebody in a space starts opening up, its competitors simply have no choice but to follow if they want to keep the developers with them - absent unnatural constraints like lock-ins born of long-standing monopolistic behaviour....

Nooxml

Not, as you might think, an Aztec god....

Open Textbook Joins the Family

Today we are pleased to announce the launch of http://www.opentextbook.org/, a place to list and keep track of news about textbooks that are open in accordance with the Open Knowledge Definition — i.e. free to use, reuse, and redistribute. We welcome participation in the project and if anyone has a textbook or notes they’d like to see listed or would like to be a contributor to the site please head on over to http://www.opentextbook.org/.

More here.

Is Microsoft People-Ready?

It's interesting that the brouhaha over Microsoft's "people-ready" campaign involving top bloggers mouthing incomprehensible sound-bites about "people-readiness" has concentrated on castigating the bloggers involved. But what I find interesting is the light it throws on Microsoft.

The whole campaign is just so maladroit: using blogger stars in this way shows that the company simply has no idea of how the blogosphere - glorified echo-chamber that it so often is - works. This crescendo of self-righteousness on the part of other bloggers was inevitable: it's not like this kind of collective breast-beating hasn't happened before.

Which goes to show that in its dealings with this quintessentially people-centric medium, Microsoft is, to coin a phrase, deeply "people-unready".

Of Open Knowledge and Closed Minds

Extraordinary:

US university students will not be able to work late at the campus, travel abroad, show interest in their colleagues' work, have friends outside the United States, engage in independent research, or make extra money without the prior consent of the authorities, according to a set of guidelines given to administrators by the FBI.

Better shut down that pesky Internet thingy while you're at it - who knows what knowledge may be seeping out through it? (Via The Inquirer.)

Funny Old Business.com

This is just a test to see if anyone's awake, right?

Entrepreneurs Jake Winebaum and Sky Dayton were widely mocked for lavishing $7.5 million on a single Internet domain name -- business.com -- back in 1999. It was the single highest price paid for a domain name at the time.

Now look who is having the last laugh.

The company that grew out of business.com -- a search engine used by businesses to find products and services -- is now on the auction block, and could fetch anywhere between $300 million and $400 million, according to people familiar with the matter.

Me, it was me: I mocked back in 1999, and guess what: I'm mocking now, even more - about 50 times more.

Don't Mess With Our Thing

This litany of music industry woes is an object lesson in what happens if you fight the (Net) Family:

The major labels are struggling to reinvent their business models, even as some wonder whether it's too late. "The record business is over," says music attorney Peter Paterno, who represents Metallica and Dr. Dre. "The labels have wonderful assets -- they just can't make any money off them." One senior music-industry source who requested anonymity went further: "Here we have a business that's dying. There won't be any major labels pretty soon."

Amazingly, it could have all been so different:

Seven years ago, the music industry's top executives gathered for secret talks with Napster CEO Hank Barry. At a July 15th, 2000, meeting, the execs -- including the CEO of Universal's parent company, Edgar Bronfman Jr.; Sony Corp. head Nobuyuki Idei; and Bertelsmann chief Thomas Middelhof -- sat in a hotel in Sun Valley, Idaho, with Barry and told him that they wanted to strike licensing deals with Napster. "Mr. Idei started the meeting," recalls Barry, now a director in the law firm Howard Rice. "He was talking about how Napster was something the customers wanted."

So near and yet so far. (Via IP Democracy.)

Time for BBC to Face the Music

Great to see the plucky Open Source Consortium getting its terrier-like teeth into the corpulent flesh that is the BBC:

The Open Source Consortium has written to Ofcom, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and the BBC Trust, asking for a re-examination of the effects of the BBC's iPlayer (TV on-demand) service being tied into Microsoft Windows Media Player for at least two years and, by extension, new versions of Windows, to be considered.

OSC Chief Executive Iain Roberts said "This action from the BBC effectively promotes one operating system vendor at the expense of others. It is very disturbing that the BBC should be using licence payers' money to affect the operating system market in this way. Imagine if the BBC were to launch new digital channels, but only make them available on a certain make of television - there would be uproar."

We can't let the BBC get away with this, and it's great to see the OSC stepping into the arena to take on the bloated behemoth.

WIPO Webcast Wipe-Out?

Good news, it seems:

World Intellectual Property Organization negotiations for a treaty on rights for broadcasters broke down at the eleventh hour, according to participating government officials. A high-level final treaty negotiation scheduled for November will not take place, they said.

This was a treaty that would have effectively killed fair use for "webcasting" - essentially distributing media files online. There's still a slight danger that the wicked WIPO witch isn't quite dead:

Government sources stopped short of calling the treaty talks dead forever, saying that proponents might still propose a way to resume the talks in the future.

Fingers crossed.

Update: My characterisation of the threat is ill-expressed at best, and downright wrong at worst. Try Ars Technica for something better.

After Flickr, It Gets Quickr

Not, alas, open source as far as I can tell:

IBM Lotus Quickr is team collaboration software that helps you share content, collaborate and work faster online with your teams -- inside or outside firewall.

Interesting not just for its adoption of Web 2.0 technologies, but its anointing of the Flickr naming meme. (Via Bob Sutor's Open Blog.)

After Netcraft

For over a decade, it has been a point of faith that Apache is not only a better Web server than Microsoft's IIS, but that this is demonstrable: the Netcraft survey of public Web servers shows that Apache has been consistently ahead.

Alas, for a variety of reasons - not least Microsoft's determination to reduce the gap, whatever the cost - Apache's lead is falling. So it's good to have this new survey that re-asserts Apache's superiority, and adds a nice extra twist:

Linux websites have better uptime and load faster than Windows-based websites. Research by WatchMouse, a website monitoring company, also shows that web server platform Apache outperforms the Microsoft IIS platform. Therefore, having a Linux website and an Apache webserver platform offers the best choice for professional web pages.

I feel another Microsoft-funded piece of research on its way....

UK in the Doghouse

Talking of paying the price for environmental factors in products, it seems that many Europeans would be willing to pay for greener options. Except the bloody Brits. Shame on us!

Paying the True Cost

I and many others have written about the need for economic goods to include all the real costs of production - including environmental costs. Here's a great demonstration of what goes wrong if you don't:

"The West moved its manufacturing base to China knowing it was vastly more polluting than Japan, Europe or the US," he added.

"No environmental conditions were attached to this move; in fact the only thing manufacturers were interested in was the price of labour.

"This trend kept the price of our products down but at the cost of soaring greenhouse gas emissions. Long term, this policy has been a climate disaster.

Nominal price goes down, environmental cost goes up. If the latter were factored in, China would not be so eager to employ production techniques that poison its own land and people.

US vs. WTO

I've written about the spat between the US and Antigua before, but it looks like things are getting really heavy:

And so, today, what is expected to become a parade of countries demanding sanctions against the United States as a result of its refusal to comply with WTO rulings on gambling services began to form, as Japan and India piled it on with more demands for compensation. Every other signatory affected will have a right to demand sanctions, and those sanctions may, depending on the circumstances, be applied against any American industry, from automobiles to semiconductors.

Something's got to give: I wonder what it will be.

Penguins in Space

Well, sort of:

Wind River Systems, Inc., the global leader in Device Software Optimization (DSO), today announced that it has been selected by Honeywell Aerospace to support the development of NASA's New Millennium Program Space Technology 8 (ST8) Dependable Multiprocessor. The contract marks the first time a Linux platform has been selected by Honeywell for a space mission. Honeywell Aerospace is the prime contractor for NASA's ST8 Dependable Multiprocessor project. Wind River® Platform for Network Equipment, Linux Edition, will be the underlying operating system to support the processing of science and experiment data onboard the ST8 spacecraft.

What's ironic here is that Wind River was once one of the biggest sceptics about open source in these kind of mission-critical situations. How times change. How times will change. (Via DaniWeb.)

As I Was Saying...

...the New Great Lie is the beginning of a larger attempt by traditional content owners to put the genie back in the bottle. Here's some more of the same:

Wright praised Cotton's work with the Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy, work that drew criticism after Cotton suggested that US law enforcement resources were "misaligned" and that too much energy and money was spent stopping burglaries and bank robberies and not enough spent on piracy prevention. Cotton's plan is a "groundbreaking and far-reaching set of proposals," according to Wright, who made clear that the full power of GE was behind the plan.

Government Glimmers: Open Source, Open Data

Kudos:

An online calculator that enables people to work out their carbon footprint was launched by Environment Secretary, David Miliband today.

Defra’s Act on CO2 calculator is designed to increase understanding of the link between individual action and climate change, through carbon dioxide emissions. It also raises awareness of the different actions people can take in their everyday lives to help tackle climate change.

Double kudos:

The software that runs the calculator, complete with the Government data, will be made freely available under general public licence. This will enable others wanting to use the software to power their own calculators, using their own branding.

Wow: open source and open data. (Via Open Source Weblog.)

Crowdsourcing Sousveillance

I wrote recently about Microsoft's amazing Photosynth demo, which shows pictures of Notre-Dame taken from Flickr stitched together automatically to produce a three-dimensional model that you can zoom into in just about any way.

Then I read this:

Madeleine McCann's parents will appeal to Irish tourists to check holiday snaps for clues - while the flat their child was abducted from reportedly sold for half price.

Madeleine's parents Kate McCann, 38, and Gerry, 39, will appear on television to ask anyone who took a trip to Portugal in early May to send photos to British investigators.

It occurred to me that what we really need is a system that can take these holiday snaps and put them together in time to create a four-dimensional model that can be explored by the police - a new kind of crowdsourced sousveillance.

Given that Photosynth is still experimental, we're probably some way off this. I'd also have concerns about handing over all this information to the authorities without better controls on what would be done with it (look what's happening with the UK's DNA database.)

Open Source Comedy

Well, that's what it says here:

The concept involves comedians driving around Europe and users (viewers) can decide where they go and what they do. In Where Are the Joneses comdedians drive around, trying to find their fictional siblings.

Users have a full arsenal of ‘open tools’ to engage with the site and campaign: a wiki to influence the script and also a twitter integration.

Welcome to Second Earth

This is the best introduction to virtual worlds so far: comprehensive, link-rich, and well written. Do read it if you can - it's time well spent.

Do Not Feed the Patent Trolls

Good point here about a big problem with the apparently welcome Peer to Patent project:

Helping patent trolls with their QA is like going through bandits' ammunition and throwing out the dud rounds for them before they try to rob you.

And sensible advice, too:

If you have Prior Art, print it out and put it in your safe deposit box. Make sure that the source is verifiable, but don't tell anyone what the source is. Don't say it's from "the June 1997 login;" or "comp.sources.unix in May 1986". If you want, borrow a tactic from Tim O'Reilly and tell people that you have prior art for a certain patent, but don't give attackers any more information than you have to.

More generally, perhaps the free software community should set up a shadow scheme that tracks all of these patent applications, and works to find prior art, which it then stores safely against a rainy day.