Google Book Search: Boons and Banes

You're probably not big into antedating - the academic game of finding earlier citations of words and phrases. But here's an interesting tale, because it shows the pros and cons of Google Book Search:

this discovery is typical of how Google Book Search now provides limited assistance to participants in what Erin McKean recently called "the competitive sport of antedating." Bonnie Taylor-Blake happened upon the relevant volume of Car Life but had no way of determining the precise context or even the correct issue and page number because of the limitations of Google's "snippet view." Fortunately, the metadata for this record includes accurate volume information ("v.9 1962-1963"), which allowed Bonnie to zero in on the correct page in a library copy of Car Life.

In other words, Google Book Search tantalises the antedater by showing earlier uses, but makes it awkward if you want to pin down the details. This is yet another reason why we need full-text open access to all books: otherwise, imagine the antedaters' anguish.

Android's Unity in Diversity

By choosing the relatively liberal Apache licence for its Android platform, Google runs the risk of fragmentation - something that the stricter GNU GPL tends to avoid. The company is evidently conscious of this:

a spokesperson for Google told ZDNet.co.uk on Monday that the OHA had foreseen these pitfalls. "All of the partners have signed a non-fragmentation agreement saying they won't modify [the code] in non-compatible ways," said the spokesperson. "That is not to say that a company that is not part of the OHA could not do so."

That's all fine and dandy, but it will interesting to see how it pans out in practice.

Also Spricht Peter Suber

There can be little doubt that the principal voice in the open access conversation is that of Peter Suber, who tirelessly gathers every crumb of information in this area, and then garnishes it with insightful comment on his Open Access News blog.

So it's rather paradoxical that the literal sound of that voice is something that is rarely heard. Good, then, to have this chance to encounter the man himself in this extensive interview, which also provides a handy primer on what exactly all this open access lark is about.

Finally, MULTICS Goes Open

The source code for the grandfather of Linux, MULTICS, has finally been released:

This is extraordinary news for all nerds, computer scientists and the Open Source community: the source code of the MULTICS operating system (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service), the father of UNIX and all modern OSes, has finally been opened.

Multics was an extremely influential early time-sharing operating system started in 1964 and introduced a large number of new concepts, including dynamic linking and a hierarchical file system. It was extremely powerful, and UNIX can in fact be considered to be a "simplified" successor to MULTICS (the name "Unix" is itself a hack on "Multics"). The last running Multics installation was shut down on October 31, 2000.

(Via OSNews.)

The Androids Are Coming

Well, they've arrived, actually, but what exactly does that mean? If you want to start to find out, the new Google site has plenty of technical info. Alternatively, for a more analytical perspective, there's a good piece at ONLamp.com, which draws on a chat with Mike Cleron, Senior Staff Engineer at Google and Technical Lead for Android.

Patently Outrageous

Europe does not allow software patents, but that doesn't stop some people - patent lawyers, mostly - from circumventing that clear and specific intention. One of them has not only written a book on how to sneak software patents through the system, but is now challenging an eminently sensible ruling on the subject by the UK authorities last year.

But the bits that stick in my craw are the following sections of the accompanying press release:

High-tech businesses can obtain a European-level monopoly over the distribution of computer disks and internet downloads of programs that configure an apparatus to perform a patented process. Now, in Britain, they cannot.

and

“A lot of people think there is no problem here because disks and downloads are protected by copyright,” noted Nicholas Fox, of Beresford & Co, the patent attorney acting for the high-tech five. “However, that is just not true. Copyright protection only protects code against copying. In contrast, patent protection enables a company to monopolise an invention even if competitors independently come up with the same idea.

Got that? These poor little companies just absolutely must have a monopoly on ideas to stop others from coming up with the same idea *independently*, because, you know, intellectual monopolies - like all monopolies - are just so good for society, and we can't allow other people to have the same ideas on their own without paying, oh my word no, because - heavens! - art and science might actually progress. And we can't have that, can we?

It's sad enough writing a book on how to get around a clear legal statement of intent; but brazenly demanding the right to a monopoly in what amounts to mathematical knowledge (as all software is, embodied in logical operations and algorithms) really takes the biscuit.

Full of Fail

Lovely piece here on the underwhelming launch of somebody's phone thingy in the UK. Makes yer proud to be British....

Fun Fiscal Facts of Firefox

Somewhat belatedly, The New York Times has caught up with the rumblings in free software community about all the dosh Firefox is raking in thanks to its search engine deals, and its possible over-dependence on Google. Nothing really new there, but it does have some juicy figures:

According to Mozilla’s 2006 financial records, which were recently released, the foundation had $74 million in assets, the bulk invested in mutual funds and the like, and last year it collected $66 million in revenue. Eighty-five percent of that revenue came from a single source — Google, which has a royalty contract with Firefox.

Despite that ample revenue, the Mozilla Foundation gave away less than $100,000 in grants (according to the audited statement), or $285,000 (according to Mozilla itself), in 2006. In the same year, it paid the corporation’s chief executive, Mitchell Baker, more than $500,000 in salary and benefits. (She is also chairwoman of the foundation.)

Hm: $500,000 a year - who says free software doesn't pay?

The Art of the Remix

One of Larry Lessig's favourite concepts is that of the remix: taking pre-existing stuff and doing something new with it. Recently I came across one of the purest expressions of that remix idea in the shape of the Georg Baselitz exhibition at the Royal Academy.

After a series of rooms packed with often deeply disturbing images, the show culminated in one devoted entirely to the remix. More precisely, the pictures were remixes by Baselitz of his earlier works, which created a powerful double resonance. The ultimate remix, perhaps.

Ouch!

That has got to hurt. (Via Salon.)

Certifiably...Open

Here's a slightly different approach to encouraging openness:

Today sees the launch of the trial period for Certified Open, a programme to evaluate the technical and commercial lock-in of ICT solutions. Certified Open promotes fair and effective competition in the delivery of software, hardware and services.

...

Graham Taylor, Director of OpenForum Europe said: "Certified Open represents a complete solution for public and private sector users to check the openness of their ICT solutions. We frequently see examples where organisations have become locked-in to a system due to the costs involved in change. Analysis carried out by OFE has indicated that 90% of public sector organisations no longer have the freedom to choose ICT solutions on the basis of competitiveness, functionality or price because of lock-in.

Certified Open is designed to ensure freedom from lock-in and openness to fair competition. The framework assesses dependence on proprietary or undocumented protocols, dependence on undocumented or proprietary data formats, licensing terms that preclude the use of alternative products, extensions to standards to ensure good performance and the use of pseudo-standards dependent on patents or other restrictions that prevent compatible competing implementations."

Certified, indeed.

Everything You Wanted to Know About the GPLv3...

...but were afraid to ask in case it made plain your inability to grok the legalistic subtleties. Though hardly an idiot's guide to the version 3 of the GNU GPL, this Quick Guide to GPLv3 from the FSF itself is certainly very welcome.

Groklaw Interviews Becky Hogge

A couple of days ago I mentioned two key players in the fight to get the BBC to do the right thing over its downloads service. Groklaw has put up an extremely detailed discussion with one of them, Becky Hogge, capo dei capi at the Open Rights Group, about what's a stake. Well worth a read if you want to understand the issues.

Digg, Dugg, Dugg

The perils of being Dugg:

At around 4am PST today, the last of the Firefox 3 Beta 1 release candidate builds appeared on our public FTP. This was mistakenly reported on Digg as the official release of the first Firefox 3 Beta. It’s extremely flattering to get this sort of attention, and we know that it’s motivated by the very best of intentions, but it does cause us three major problems:

1. The release candidate builds have not been thoroughly tested by our QA group,
2. we haven’t completed all the steps required for a beta release (see below), and
3. these builds aren’t being mirrored properly on our servers.

Perhaps they should give would-be downloaders a little coding test before giving them access to ensure that they are *really* serious hackers.... (Via Linux Journal.)

Wu's He?

On Nov. 5, Google (GOOG) unveiled what many in the phone business had long awaited. CEO Eric Schmidt explained how the search giant was ready to create new software for mobile phones that would shake up the telecom status quo. A Google-led "Open Handset Alliance" would provide consumers an alternative to the big cellular carriers and give them new choices among mobile phones and the types of nifty services that run on them, from e-mail to Google Maps.

Google's brain trust was again trying to change the rules of the game. Behind the scenes, they owe a sizable debt to a man nearly unknown outside the geeky confines of cyberlaw. He is Tim Wu, a Columbia Law School professor who provided the intellectual framework that inspired Google's mobile phone strategy. One of the school's edgier profs, Wu attends the artfest Burning Man, and admits to having hacked his iPhone to make it work on the T-Mobile (DT) network.

And the ever-modest Larry throws in the following helpful signpost:

Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford University law professor who has been the leader in arguing for reduced restrictions on what can go up on the Internet, predicts that Wu will become even more influential than he himself has been: "The second generation always has a bigger impact than the first."

Clearly, a name to remember.

Red Hat Enters Cloud Cuckoo Land

There has been a lot of interesting blogospheric comment on Red Hat's latest move:

Cloud computing with Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a web-scale virtual computing environment powered by Amazon Web Services. It provides everything needed to develop and host applications: compute capacity, bandwidth, storage, and the leading open source operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Cloud computing changes the economics of IT by enabling you to pay only for the capacity that you actually use. Compute capacity can be scaled up or down on demand to accommodate changing workloads and business requirements. Red Hat Enterprise Linux for cloud computing makes it easy to develop, deploy, and manage your new and existing applications in a virtual computing environment.

One point, though, seems not to have been picked up. And that is that open source has unique advantages in the cloud, er, space. Since open source applications are freely available, there is no barrier to expanding your use of the cloud at no extra cost (though I do wonder how support contracts are going to work there). Moreover, anyone can provide cloud computing versions of open source apps running on GNU/Linux, including dedicated services concentrating on specific sectors - leading to a highly efficient market.

I suspect that for the mainstream proprietary apps, the only people who will be able to offer them will be their respective software houses (given the complexities of licensing on in-house servers, imagine how messy it's likely to get with virtual systems potentially varying by the hour). Not much of a market there, methinks.

DRM's Worst Nightmare: Profit

This is what will finish off DRM:

Killing DRM is saving digital music, reckons British retailer 7Digital. The company says DRM-free music sales now outnumber sales of DRM-enumbered music by 4:1 , and credits EMI with the shift.

Removing the locks and keys also helps shift albums, with 70 per cent of MP3 sales by value being full albums.

Music companies that fight the move to DRM-less music are fighting against profits - and their shareholders might not like that....

Using a Commons to Protect a Commons

Here's some joined-up thinking: providing open access to key greenhouse figures:

The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (A.B. 32) requires CARB to adopt regulations creating a greenhouse gas registry by Jan. 1, 2008, putting in place what appears to be the country's most comprehensive and sophisticated greenhouse gas registry.

The proposed regulations were developed with input from public and private stakeholders, state agencies and the general public. Modeled after the California Climate Action Registry (CCAR), a voluntary greenhouse gas reporting program started in 2001, the regulations detail which industrial sectors will report, what the reporting and verification thresholds and requirements will be, and how calculations will be made. Approximately 800 facilities will be required to report greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which CARB estimates will represent 94 percent of California's total carbon dioxide production from stationary sources.

(Via Open Access News.)

Openbravo Acquires Librepos

Here's a classic example of an open source micro-acquisition:

This acquisition will benefit the Librepos community of users and developers for several reasons. First, the continuation of Librepos is now guaranteed, Librepos will be an independent product of the Openbravo portfolio hosted in Sourceforge, and is and will be open source and licensed under the GPL. Forums will continue actively and there will be frequent releases of Librepos. Openbravo is a company truly committed to open source and believes in the strengths of the community to drive innovation.

Second, I will continue to be involved in the future of Librepos. I am the founder and main developer of Librepos since I published Librepos in January 2005. Now I joined Openbravo as Senior Architect and Librepos is part of my responsibilities. This is also great for me because previously to this acquisition I used to spend my spare time on Librepos, now I will have more time for Librepos, because now Librepos is part of my job.

One of the biggest problems with young open source projects that depend on one or a few key coders is ensuring their survival and continuity. Being bought is one obvious way to do that, with the benefits listed above. In fact, the benefits are far greater in the case of a small open source project than they are for a small closed-source product company.

As the comment above points out, open source projects, even successful ones, are often part-time jobs for the coders - something that is rarely the case in the world of traditional software. Bringing several smaller software projects together, as with Openbravo and Librepos, really is a case of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.

What's Wikipedia Got Against Open Source?

This is curious:

In case you didn't notice, Openbravo does not have an entry in the English edition of the Wikipedia, the fine community driven encyclopedia.

For some reason, the word Openbravo has been "blacklisted" and any attempt to create an entry about Openbravo gets automatically deleted.

Given the open source-y nature of Wikipedia, you would have thought it would have had a natural tendency to look favourably on open source companies like Openbravo. So what gives, Jimmy?

Comparisons Are Odorous...

...but useful. Here's a nice analysis of the rather crowded open source systems management sector, with a graph of downloads by month. As the post notes:

The volume of downloads is indicative, like search trends, of the relative mind share for each project. Download volume isn’t a perfect measure, but it is one of the best available. I doubt even the projects themselves have an absolutely accurate idea of how many installations they have.

(Via 451 CAOS Theory.)

BBC: Bound to Be Beaten on iPlayer?

Interesting:

We met with Mark Taylor, President of the Open Source Consortium (OSC) last night, directly after his meeting with the BBC to discuss opening-up the iPlayer to run on more platforms than just the Microsoft browser.

It appears that the meetings were positive and boiled down to two points, the BBC feels they haven’t communicated their desires for iPlayer properly and that they want the iPlayer to run on an open platform.

That seems to offer some hope things are moving in the right direction. This, on the other hand, guarantees it:

Both Mark Taylor (OSC) and Becky Hogge (Open Rights Group) will be taking part in a discussion with the BBC to further discuss the iPlayer situation this Friday at 10am.

The BBC stands no chance against those two....

Update: Here's the OSC's official report on the meeting.

Happy Birthday, GNU/Linux

RMS sends his own characteristic birthday greetings to celebrate the marriage of GNU and Linux:

15 years have passed since the combination of GNU and Linux first made it possible to use a PC in freedom. During that time, we have come a long way. You can even buy a laptop with GNU/Linux preinstalled from more than one hardware vendor, although the systems they ship are not entirely free software. So what holds us back from total success?

(The answer, in case you were wondering, is "social inertia".)

More on Mobile Linux

Both the Open Handset Alliance and [the LiMo Foundation] leverage open source business models, and both rely on industry leaders to contribute market-proven technologies to open source community. Many of the players/members/founders are the same OEM and silicon companies in each camp to remain relevant to operators who narrow down to a single Linux platform, whichever they select.

LiMo and the Open Handset Alliance will likely both achieve many of their consortium goals in the market, avoiding a zero sum game. In fact, it doesn’t have to be that Open Handset Alliance is the exclusive platform for any OEM or carrier, or even exclusive Linux platform, but very clearly the open source counterbalance will be a LiMo compliant platform. Linux fragmentation still exists and will for some time Outside of the Linux world, however, competition from other platforms including Symbian and Microsoft is immense, intense, pervasive, and won’t sit idly by as the Open Handset Alliance and LiMo try to gain traction. For either partnership’s long term survival, its imperative that the two determine how to co-exist and even mutually benefit from one another at the expense of the non-Linux and fragmented Linux parties.

This is particularly interesting because it comes from Wind River, a member of both the Open Handset Alliance and the LiMo Foundation. Even more interesting is the fact that it was a long-time rival and opponent of mobile Linux, but afterwards saw the light, and is now an important promoter of the latter.

Why Linux is Great, Part 9392

What makes the code in the kernel so great is not that it goes in perfect, it's that we whittle all code in the treee down over and over again until it reaches it's perfect form.

So says Dave Miller, and he should know.