BBC iPlayer: Converted in a Flash

Well, here's an interesting confluence of two of my pet hates:

By adopting Adobe Flash Player software, the BBC will make its free catch-up TV service — BBC iPlayer — available as a streaming service across Macintosh and Linux, as well as Windows, by the end of the year. The strategic relationship will also allow the BBC to provide a single consistent user experience for the majority of streamed video and audio content on www.bbc.co.uk.

Note that this is only for the streaming service: downloads are still Windows only. Still, it's a neat partial solution for GNU/Linux. Not only that, it emphasises an interesting shift that has taken place with Flash.

Once, Flash seemed to be used only for serving up annoying ads or time-wasting games. But increasingly it's turning into the cross-platform media player of choice, a job it does rather well, I have to admit. And so I'm forced to concede that Flash might not be quite so evil as it once was.

How to Sell Books

I've written before about how those selling content need to pay more attention to the packaging; it looks like the Vatican has got the message:

The Vatican's Secret Archives, one of the world's great repositories of historical documents, is selling a limited edition of 800 numbered copies of the Chinon parchment.

It is printed on synthetic parchment, comes complete with a reproduction of the original papal wax seal, and is packaged in a soft leather case together with a scholarly commentary.

Each copy will cost just over 5,900 euros ($8,000; £3,925).

Update: Here's an interesting, and rather less flippant, post exploring the same idea (Via Open Access News.)

BBC News Goes Offline; A Lightbulb Goes On

I too noticed that Auntie was off making the tea, yesterday:

For several hours on Thursday afternoon, the front page of the BBC News website was slow to respond, sometimes displaying error messages. Other sections of the site were also affected at various times during the afternoon.

It's a rare event and it caused some comment on technical websites, and also theories about what might have happened - was the BBC changing its webserving providers? Was it a redesign problem? Was it "computer gods punishing us for iPlayer"?

Ah, self-knowledge is a wonderful thing.

Is Apache About to Get Scalped?

Certainly looks like it:

Apache loses 2.8% share this month, partly through the strong growth at the major blogging systems, and partly due to 2.5 million domains on Apache expiring at trouble-free.net. Apache has around a 10% market share advantage over IIS now, which is the smallest gap between the two since IIS was launched in 1996.

The only consolation is that Apache's job is done: it has the shown the way. Today, if necessary, we can live without Apache as an example of how Microsoft can be beaten in a market, because the total open source story is now so strong.

Xara's Failure: Half Closed, Half Hearted

We are so used to the Cathedral and the Bazaar story of how the open source methodology succeeds that it is easy to forget that it can fail. Here's a classic case: Xara Xtreme, which was nominally open sourced a couple of years ago. Despite that, the project never really took off and is now moribund. Why?

Numerous developers told Xara point-blank that they would not devote their time and energy to working on Xara Xtreme while its CDraw core remained closed source. Xara persisted with its original stance, in essence telling the developer community that the community was wrong: the code it had released was enough, and they should start working on it and stop complaining.

Other companies take note: open sourcing is not to be undertaken lightly. And if you do go that route, you go all the way: half-heartedness does not work in a world where the main fuel is passion.

FROG Hops into the Open Source Commons

FROG - FRee Online druG 3D conformation generator - is not a program I was aware of, but it sounds pretty cool:

Frog is an on-line service aimed at generating 3D conformations for drug-like compounds starting from their 1D or 2D descriptions. Given the atomic constitution of the molecules and connectivity information, Frog can identify the different unambiguous isomers corresponding to each compound, and generate single or multiple low-to-medium energy 3D conformations, using an assembly process that does not presently consider ring flexibility. Tests show that Frog is able to generate bioactive conformations close to those observed in crystallographic complexes.

Cooler still, its code is being released under the GPL:

On behalf of the OpenBabel project, I am pleased to announce that Dr. Bruno Villoutreix (INSERM, University of Paris 5) and Dr. Pierre Tufféry (INSERM, University of Paris 7) have generously donated their code to OpenBabel. This code will be incorporated into OpenBabel under the GPL in the coming months, making fast and accurate SMILES-to-3D conformer generation available to the open source community for the first time.

The open source commons just got richer. (Via Peter Murray-Rust.)

Exchanging Exchange for OpenChange

Because of its hooks into the rest of the stack, Exchange is one of the key programs for turning companies into Microsoft shops, so this could be quite important if it comes to fruition:

OpenChange aims to provide a portable Open Source implementation of Microsoft Exchange Server and Exchange protocols. Exchange is a groupware server designed to work with Microsoft Outlook, and providing features such as a messaging server, shared calendars, contact databases, public folders, notes and tasks.

We are working on two different aspects:

* Provide interoperability with Exchange protocols. This is the MAPI library development purpose (libmapi). MAPI stands for Messaging Application Programming Interface and is used within Microsoft Exchange. The OpenChange implementation provides a client-side library which can be used in existing messaging clients and offer native compatibility first with Exchange server; and in a near future with OpenChange server. As a proof of concept and in order to keep the implementation close to what developers shall expect, we are developing a gnome-evolution plugin which relies on libmapi.

* Provide a transparent replacement to Microsoft Exchange Server with native Exchange protocols support and direct communication with Microsoft Outlook. This basically means that OpenChange server won't need any plugin installation in Outlook. The server is tighly linked to Samba4 since it is developed as an endpoint module for smbd (the samba server daemon). One of the main objective with the server development is the abstraction layer architecture we are working on; it would not be sane for long term development either to rewrite a messaging server or to work with a single existing product. As a matter of fact, openchange should be able to run with any messaging server. For the first technical preview, we will surely orient the development towards a sqlite backend for testing purposes and a postfix one for production one.

(Via tecosystems.)

Towards the Instant PC

Here's an interesting straw in the wind:

I just got a chance to try out a Webware PC: a computer built around the new P5E3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP motherboard from Asus. What makes this motherboard be hardware for Webware is that it has a Firefox Web browser (running on an embedded Linux operating system) burned into ROM. It also has Skype. You turn it on, and in fifteen seconds (I timed it), you can be in Firefox and surfing the Web.

The logical conclusion of this would be to have thousands of free apps running on an embedded GNU/Linux operating system, all burned into ROM, ready to run almost instantly. As the cost of storage - both disc-based and flash - comes down, this kind of thing is going to be more and more feasible.

Why Open Source Works - Honestly

People often wonder why the open source development process works - why hackers selflessly code for the greater good. There are obviously lots of reasons, but one is captured by this BBC piece:

We all know about honesty boxes. In staff rooms and clubhouses across the country there are boxes for hot drinks or food that rely on members of a community making their fair contribution towards the cost of something.

The principle has been applied in the real world. In the US there are newspaper vending machines that rely on the consumer putting his coin in and not taking more than one paper.

And in Britain, at WH Smith branches in train stations, the customer is asked to make their payment for a newspaper into a container.

According to the company, the "vast majority" pay the correct amount, and one of its shop assistants even reported the boxes make money as people who don't have the correct change over pay. However, they could quite easily pay less or even walk off with the paper for nothing having feigned the act of paying up.

Copyright Olympics

Good to see an eminent writer getting it:

It's not just that the idea of copyrighting an entry in the English dictionary, or someone's face, haircut or name, is ridiculous. There is an issue of principle. By declaring images, titles and now words to be ownable brands, these various organisations and individuals are contributing to an increased commodification and thus privatisation of materials previously agreed to be in the public domain. For scientists, this constrains the use of public and published knowledge, up to and including the human genome. For artists, it implies that the only thing you can do with subject matter is to sell it.

(Via TechDirt.)

Let's Make That a Round Trillion, Shall We?

Just to be on the safe side, you understand:

A Brussels think-tank has accused the US government of reneging on commitments made to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over internet gaming.

Panellists at a trade forum levelled harsh criticism at the US, focusing on a burgeoning trade clash between the US and Europe over internet gaming.

The forum believes that the US could be liable for up to US$100 billion in trade concessions to European industries after placing illegal discriminatory trade restrictions on European gaming operators.

(Via Slashdot.)

Read All About It! - But Not in Newspaper

I'm making a promise to myself, and now to you, to reverse this trend. The future of journalism, not just newspapers, depends upon such loyalty. And now I pose this challenge to you: It is your duty as a journalist and a citizen to read the newspaper -- emphasis on paper, not pixels.

No, no, no, it's got to be clay tablets - I mean, why pick one particular modern instantiation? Let's at least go back to the origins of news.

And if you want to know why the suggestion that we all rush down the newsagents is simply a waste of time, try this, from the same misguided article:

I have no proof, but a strong feeling, that even journalists, especially young ones working at newspapers, don't read the paper. That feels wrong to me -- and self-defeating.

You don't think this could possibly be because they realise there are better ways of getting and conveying information these days? Just like more and more musicians realise that there are better ways of making a living from music than selling bits of plastic with little holes in them. (Via IP Democracy.)

Creative Commons in the Agora

If the Creative Commons licences are all Greek to you, try this.

Delving into the Dingly Dell

Interviews are a great way to get the background to important areas, but too often they concentrate on the big names (and I'm guiltier than most). So it's refreshing to come across somebody unknown but with an interesting perspective on things - in this case, Dell's embrace of GNU/Linux for ordinary users, seen through eyes of John Hull, manager of the Linux Engineering team there:

Ubuntu is already a great Linux distribution, so we try to only make changes where we can add value. Our primary focus is to get all necessary hardware support and bug fixes into the distribution itself, so that we don't have to make any changes to the shipping code. For those important bugs or hardware support that don't make the distribution, we'll make modifications to the factory-installed image as necessary. We add driver packages and scripts on top of the standard operating system to make sure our the customer experience is as nice as possible. Up to this point we have tried to minimize the changes we have made.

Business Week Goes Open Source, Apparently

Or so it says:

We're introducing this type of open source aggregation into the new magazine, with blog items, quotes, and content from unusual, global sources surrounding stories, sometimes enhancing them, sometimes disagreeing with them. It's a conversation, not a lecture.

We shall see.

Behold: Son of SCO

Well, that nice Mr. Ballmer did warn us, and here it is:

Plaintiffs, IP Innovation L.L.C. and Technology Licensing Corporation (collectively “Plaintiffs”) complain of defendants Red Hat Inc. (“Red Hat”) and Novell Inc. (“Novell”) as follows:

1. This is a claim for patent infringement arising under the patent laws of the United States, Title 35 of the United States Code.

Of course, this is replete with ironies.

First, "IP Innovation" - as in, zero innovation. These are patent trolls, and the patent - which looks like basic windowing technology - is both obvious and probably covered by prior art.

Secondly, poor old Novell: they probably thought they were immune to this kind of thing. But their deal with Microsoft says nothing about not getting sued by trolls. Or rather, trolls with interesting connections to Microsoft:

So in July one Microsoft executive arrives [at IP Innovation]; then as of October 1, there is the second, a patent guy. October 9, IP Innovation, a subsidiary, sues Red Hat. And Novell. So much for being Microsoft's little buddy.

The good news is that this is all too late: even in the US, a modicum of sanity is returning to patents as the US Supreme Court begins to rein in some of the excesses that have spawned in the last decade. The other good news is that Microsoft will come out of this looking bad, again. However much they huff and puff, the clear link back to them shows them not only to be underhand, but cowards, too.

Best4C: Best4U?

I was interested to read Vic Keegan's column in the Guardian today:

This week I bumped into a number of people who had no office to go back to. But there is no need to feel sorry for them. It was not that they were too poor or unemployed, they just did not need an office to work from.

the reason being, of course, that they mostly use web-based apps.

I'm not quite office-less, since I do tend to work in the same room, but I'm certainly big into web apps, and I'm always on the look-out for new additions to my collection.

Here's one, the wonderfully literalistic Best4C:

Best4c(Best for chart) is a Web-based, online diagram tool that allows you to create, edit and share charts anytime, anywhere.

The interface is rather clunky, and the icons almost indecipherable, but, do you know what? It works, and has a lot of nice computer-related artwork. Not that I have much need for any of this, but if I ever do, at least I won't need to go to an office.

Of course, it's not open source in the traditional, client-side, sense, although the underlying server-side code probably is (LAMP etc.). Which raises the whole issue of what's to be done about such web services that take so much from the free software commons without always giving back. But that's a post for another day.... (Via China Web 2.0 Review.)

Omeka: Open Source Museums

One of the canards about open source is that it lacks apps, particularly for vertical markets. While that may have been true ten or even five years ago, it certainly isn't today. Take Omeka:

Omeka is a free and open source system built to be simple and flexible system for organizations, cultural institutions, and individuals to manage and publish items, collections, and exhibits on the web. Learn more.

The Center for History and New Media (CHNM) is partnering with the Minnesota Historical Society (MHS) to develop Omeka as a next-generation web publishing platform for museums, historical societies, scholars, collectors, and educators.

Open source content management and web publishing software for museums: how much more specialised do you want to get? (Via DigitalKoans.)

To Russia, With Love

The story about a large-scale implementation of GNU/Linux systems in Russian schools surfaced recently, but it was all rather vague, so I didn't write about it then. Now the Beeb has done the business and got some facts:

Schoolchildren in Russia are to be taught using the free, open-source Linux software in an effort to cut the cost of teaching information technology.

By 2009, all computers in Russian schools are to be run on Linux - which means they will not have to pay for a licence for software, such as Microsoft's Windows.

Aside from the fact that all those Russky proto-hackers are to be given a training in free software from their tender years, I was also pleased to note one of the main spurs for taking this route:

Alexey Smirnov, Director General of the Company ALTLinux, said that schools formerly tended to run illegal copies of Microsoft operating systems, but after Russia entered the WTO, the laws became much stricter and schools began to be prosecuted for doing so.

Two-edged sword this WTO, eh?

Rather like India, Russia has the potential to become a major open source powerhouse; the present scheme will do much to realise that, although it is likely to take a few years before the results become evident.

Open Data Database

Well, not quite, but a handy page of links to info about the Open Data Commons licence. (Via Simon Phipps.)

Cielo!

Or rather, Madonna! - another one:

Pop star Madonna is close to leaving her long-time Warner Bros. Records label for a wide-ranging $US120 million (A$134 million) deal with concert promotion firm Live Nation, a source familiar with the talks said on Wednesday.

The story was first reported on the Wall Street Journal's website, which said Madonna would receive a mix of cash and stock in exchange for allowing Live Nation to distribute three studio albums, promote concert tours, sell merchandise and license her name.

Such a deal is virtually unprecedented, but may become more common as struggling record labels and other players in the music industry seek to shore up revenues by going into business with musical acts, rather than just taking fees for selling their albums or concert tickets.

OK, so no mention of music being given away, but the other key elements are there: concert tours, merchandise and licensing. Bye-bye music industry. (Via TechCrunch.)

Re-booting FOSS.IN

FOSS.IN is "India's premier FOSS event" (well, that's what they say.) So this is a brave move:

As we had explained, over and over: this is a FOSS developer and contributor conference. We are no longer a FOSS user conference.

As was mentioned last year - in the end FOSS is about Free and Open Source Software, and somebody needs to write that software.

FOSS.IN is about demolishing the contention that India is a land of FOSS consumers, with almost no contributors - that we only take, not give back.

Our objective is to enable and jumpstart more FOSS contributors from India.

But most people just don't seem to have understood that, and have submitted user oriented talks (even if they involve development).

...

To fix this, we are restarting the Call for Participation process.

As Open Source India rightly says:

I think it is about time that we stopped being a nation of downloaders and started "uploading." TCS releasing WANem as open source is among the great contributions coming out of India, but we need more contributions going upstream given that we produce almost 20 percent of the software developers in the world. Unless and until we start contributing, we cannot have a say in the development of technology.

I've always believed that India can become a real free software powerhouse: let's hope this bold move marks the first step towards that.

There Are No Tyops in this Web Page

Is everything going virtual today?

wello horld

turning the World Wide Web into a World Wide World

If the name weren't intriguing enough, the people behind it would be.

Virtual worlds for business, I presume. (Via Ogle Earth.)

Virtual Worlds Get a Second Life with IBM

I was lucky enough to interview Irving Wladawsky-Berger for the Guardian shortly before he retired from IBM. One of the most intriguing hints of things to come concerned virtual worlds:

Does IBM have its own internal virtual world system - an intraworld running on its intranet?

We plan to build them; exactly how is all under discussion. We very much feel that many of our clients will want intraworlds in the same way they have intranets.

Then you want to make the navigation between the intraworlds and public worlds as seamless as possible.

Some of the "how" regarding interoperability is being addressed with this interesting collaboration between IBM and Linden Lab:

IBM and Linden Lab, creator of the virtual world Second Life (www.secondlife.com), today announced the intent to develop new technologies and methodologies based on open standards that will help advance the future of 3D virtual worlds.

...

IBM and Linden Lab plan to work together on issues concerning the integration of virtual worlds with the current Web; driving security-rich transactions of virtual goods and services; working with the industry to enable interoperability between various virtual worlds; and building more stability and high quality of service into virtual world platforms. These are expected to be key characteristics facing organizations which want to take advantage of virtual worlds for commerce, collaboration, education and other business applications.

What's striking about this announcement - still rather lacking in details, but clearly very good news for Linden Lab - is the emphasis on openness:

Open source development of interoperable formats and protocols. Open standards in this area are expected to allow virtual worlds to connect together so that users can cross from one world to another, just like they can go from one web page to another on the Internet today.

No surprise there, really - open standards are the only way to build resilient, heterogeneous systems. And if you're contemplating linking together myriad, disparate virtual worlds, it had better be resilient in the extreme. (Via Clickable Culture.)

In the Battle of the Platforms, Openness Decides

It feels strange to find myself in agreement with Steve Ballmer (eek), but I, too, find all these social networking sites rather faddish. That's not to say they won't settle down into an important role, but the gold-fever mentality (how many zeros is Facebook worth today? I do find it hard to keep up) seems destined for a dotcom-type deflation.

That notwithstanding, this is interesting, and important:

MySpace is gearing up to launch MySpace Platform, according to a number of third party developers who’ve been contacted for input on the product.

...

Suddenly Facebook, with nearly 5,500 third party applications, has significant competition around their platform - Within a month both MySpace and Google ... will probably have launched their own services. Platform competition is great for developers, but it also means they need to create and maintain separate code for each platform they choose to play on.

Well, one factor that will doubtedly affect that decision is the openness of the platform. After all, which would you rather code for: one that locks you in and tells you what to do, or one that doesn't?