Darwinian Software and Intelligent Design

On Open Enterprise blog.

Really Bad News for a Virtual World

The statement, issued on behalf of Rosedale, read: "I can confirm that Cory Ondrejka, CTO, will be leaving Linden Lab at the end of this year, in order to pursue new professional challenges outside the company. I wanted to take this opportunity to publicly thank Cory for his tremendous contribution to the company and to Second Life, in terms of its original vision and ongoing progress.

Eeek: this is not good. I interviewed Cory earlier this year, and found him both an extremely pleasant chap and very switched-on. Obviously, I don't know the background to this latest news, but it bodes ill to lose your CTO in this way....

Messrs. Copyright and Copyright Say "Basta!"

William Patry is Senior Copyright Counsel, Google; he's also author of a seven-volume, 6,000 page treatise on copyright, which suggests he knows a thing or two about the subject. In one of the longest blog posts I've seen in a while (and not exactly light reading, either), he wrote about "the legendary UK intellectual property authority Sir Hugh Laddie" and his inaugural lecture as a Professor at the University College London.

The title of his lecture was "The Insatiable Appetite for Intellectual Property Rights" - interesting in itself. But what is really remarkable is that Patry agrees:

Regrettably, both Sir Hugh and I have been lead in recent years to speak out in protest over the unslakable lust for more and more rights, longer terms of protection, draconian criminal provisions, and civil damages that bear no resemblance to the damages suffered. As Sir Hugh noted in his speech, “A calm look at the way IP rights are obtained and enforced in practice suggests that something is wrong. The drive for more IP rights has produced startling results.” He then gives page after page of examples, drawn from copyright law, trademark law, and patent law

When two of the top copyright experts in the Anglophone world both speak out in no uncertain terms against the current intellectual property maximalism, you know that there's something seriously rotten in the state of Denmark.

Open Teaching, Learning & Certification

I have to declare an interest in the new blog Open Teaching, Learning & Certification, since I was probably partly instrumental in its creation. Its author, Leo Max Pollak, chatted to me about his interesting ideas, whose principal ideas are:

* An instituted centralised hub of British open courseware from Britain's Russell Group (and contributing) research universities, at www.ocw.ac.uk. Open courseware constitutes of a freely-accessible, IP-cleared, online publication of a university's full catalogue of under- and post-graduate course materials - syllabi, reading lists with links to open access papers, course notes, video/audio lecture notes, slideshows, past exam papers, assignments etc.. The pioneering university in the provision of open courseware is MIT, whose entire course materials can be found at ocw.mit.edu
* Complementing a high-quality and pluralistic British open courseware offering, I will be advocating a new kind of university qualification - an Open degree - whereby citizens can pay a premium fee and take the same exams as do existing students in enrolled face-to-face learning, with certificates signifying information about the specific courses examined on. This would be targetted, via a high-profile public information campaign, at adult learners, excluded minorities, and students at pre-university age.

Recognising that such bold moves might prove hard to get implemented, I suggested blogging to get them out in the open, so to speak. The result is the new blog.

Just one word of advice, Leo: drop that puce colour scheme.

Up and Down in the Middle Kingdom

It's still very hard to read what is happening in the Chinese GNU/Linux market:

Although China's Linux market as a whole doubled from 2003 to 2006 to $20 million per year, sales of Linux desktop software grew more slowly. In fact, the market share of Linux desktop software in China dropped from 16% to 12% in the same period. But according to CCID Consulting, sales of Linux desktop software increased 25.1% in the third quarter of this year, catching up with the quick growth of China's Linux industry as a whole. Several new developments have added fuel to the growth.

And this is very worrying:

Additionally, the low-cost advantage of Linux desktop software is diminishing. Microsoft has taken a more flexible pricing tack in the Chinese market, offering increasingly better discounts for Chinese computer producers. An anonymous executive of a Chinese computer producer says that his company considered using the Linux desktop OS at the beginning of this year, but eventually went with Windows because Microsoft didn't charge much more than the service fee of Linux companies. He suggested this could be looked at as a victory for Linux, as it had forced Microsoft to lower its price.

How do you say "Pyrrhic victory" in Putonghua?

Where Are My Yobibytes?

This post says:

I just learned that in a Scale Out File Services (SOFS) solution a customer can implement a global filesystem (with clustering/replication) that has a maximum filesystem capacity of 33554432 Yobibytes.

I can't find the original reference to those yummy yobibytes (1024 zebibytes, in case you were wondering), but I have no reason to think they're not there, somewhere, it's just a question of searching....

Applied Cryptography Revealed

On Open Enterprise blog.

*The* e-Primer on Open Content

Independently of the fact that it's probably the best single intro to open content currently available, how could anyone resist a publication that has a gnu and penguin sitting together on its front cover?

If you *do* need more, try this:

This e-Primer introduces the idea of Open Content by locating it within the larger historical context of copyright’s relation to the public domain. It examines the foundational premises of copyright and argues that a number of these premises have to be tested on the basis of the public interest that they purport to serve. It then looks at the ways in which content owners are increasingly using copyright as a tool to create monopolies, and how an alternative paradigm like Open Content can facilitate a democratization of knowledge and culture.This e-Primer focuses on some of the implications for policy makers thinking about information policies, and the advantages that the Open Content model may offer, especially for developing countries.

(Via Open Access News.)

The Deranged Disc Drive Disease

First Seagate, and now Western Digital:

One of the world's largest hard disk manufacturers has blocked its customers from sharing online their media files that are stored on networked drives.

Western Digital says the decision to block sharing of music and audio files is an anti-piracy effort.

Presumably Western Digital will soon be installing radio-linked video cameras in its hard drives to ensure we are not breaking other laws as well.

The (I)Meem They've Been Waiting for

The music industry has finally found an online music model it can live with:

Imeem, a social networking site that was in the recording industry's crosshairs earlier this year for allowing file-sharing on its network, has pulled off an impressive feat. This summer it settled its lawsuit with Warner Music by promising to give Warner a cut of advertising revenues from the site. Now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that it's signed similar deals with all four major labels, meaning that Imeem is now the first website whose users have the music industry's blessing to share music for free.

But wait, even though it's a streaming site, it's not actually much different from all the download sites the music industry professes to hate:

it's quite easy to download music files from Imeem using third-party tools. And because Imeem's site doesn't use DRM, Imeem downloading tools are probably legal under the DMCA. So what we have here is the de facto legalization of Napster-like sites, as long as the record labels get a cut of the advertising revenue. It's an exciting development, albeit one that should have happened seven years ago.

Codenamed "Cloudbook"

More evidence that GNU/Linux is carving out a new ultra-portable market sector:

Everex has confirmed plans to ship a UMPC (ultra-mobile PC) with a 7-inch screen, similar to competitor Asus's EEE PC. A source close to the company revealed that the device -- codenamed "Cloudbook" -- will ship with the Google Apps-oriented "gOS" Linux distribution early next year.

I rather like the name Cloudbook: let's hope they keep it.

What Richard Stallman Wants for Christmas

Bruce Byfield has an interesting write-up of the FSF's High Priority Free Software Projects.

Projects make this list "because there is no adequate free placement," the list's home page explains, which means that "users are continually being seduced into using non-free software."

He concludes with the just observation:

Personally, I find the current list both encouraging and depressing. On the one hand, it is encouraging in that relatively few items affect daily computing for the average user. Moreover, the fact that free software is in reasonable enough shape that it can start thinking beyond immediate needs and worry about such things as the BIOS is a sign of progress.

On the other hand, it is discouraging because progress sometimes seems slow. Video drivers have been a problem for years, and the improvements, while real, are also painfully slow. Similarly, Gnash has not yet developed to the stage where it can rival Adobe's Flash reader, despite several years of work.

Still, over time, the list reflects progress. For instance, since Sun announced last year that it was releasing the Java code, you will no longer find support for free Java implementations listed. By comparing the current list with previous ones, you can get a sense of the gradual evolution of free software, seeing where it's been and where it is heading. For a GNU/Linux watcher, it remains an invaluable resource.

Condor Takes Flight as Open Source

Here's something that I'd missed before, since it was buried deep in a press release about Red Hat's Enterprise MRG (Messaging, Realtime, Grid), offering:

Red Hat Enterprise MRG enables customers to leverage the full power of distributed computing with commercial-strength grid capabilities, based on the University of Wisconsin's highly respected Condor high-throughput computing project. These capabilities provide customers with a practical means of using their total compute capacity with maximum efficiency and flexibility, while improving the speed and availability of any application. Additionally, Red Hat and the University of Wisconsin have signed a strategic agreement to make Condor's source code available under an OSI-approved license and jointly fund ongoing co-development at the University of Wisconsin.

As grid guru Ian Foster notes, that last point is particularly good news regarding

the supposedly open source, but never really accessible Condor software

a point confirmed by the Condor manual:

At this time we do not distribute source code publicly, but instead consider requests on a case-by-case basis. If you need the source code, please e-mail us at condor-admin@cs.wisc.edu explaining why, and we'll get back to you.

Free software is already very strong in this sector; open sourcing Condor will only add to its lead there over proprietary solutions.

Be Afraid, Verizon, Be Very Afraid

On Open Enterprise blog.

In Search of the GNU/Linux Desktop

On Open Enterprise blog.

Towards Open Government Data

One of the premises of this blog is that openness - radiating out from open source through open content, open access, open data and the rest - is more than a technical issue. Ultimately it is something that will touch every aspect of our lives.

One manifestation of this is the move to obtain free access to government data. In the UK, the Guardian has been a leading campaigner, and here's some news of what going on the other side of the pond:

I got a sense for the importance of the task talking with Dan O’Neil, who is “people person” for Everyblock.com, a remarkable project headed by Adrian Holovaty designed to be a “one-stop shop” for information about urban neighborhoods, including building permits, crime reports, planned improvements, school information, etc. Dan’s job is to negotiate with government officials in the twenty cities Everyblock seeks to map, and gain access to vast geocoded data sets. Armed with a set of principles and best practices that government geeks can show to their bosses, his job would be a lot easier than it is right now.

Most significant, perhaps, is the definition of what constitutes open government data:

Government data shall be considered open if it is made public in a way that complies with the principles below:

1. Complete
All public data is made available. Public data is data that is not subject to valid privacy, security or privilege limitations.

2. Primary
Data is as collected at the source, with the highest possible level of granularity, not in aggregate or modified forms.

3. Timely
Data is made available as quickly as necessary to preserve the value of the data.

4. Accessible
Data is available to the widest range of users for the widest range of purposes.

5. Machine processable
Data is reasonably structured to allow automated processing.

6. Non-discriminatory
Data is available to anyone, with no requirement of registration.

7. Non-proprietary
Data is available in a format over which no entity has exclusive control.

8. License-free
Data is not subject to any copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret regulation. Reasonable privacy, security and privilege restrictions may be allowed.

Nokia: Hollywood's Lapdog, and People's Enemy

Somewhat naively I thought that Nokia was a savvy company on the side of light - maybe because it's Finnish; but I was wrong, it seems:

Nokia has filed a submission with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) objecting to the use of Ogg Theora as the baseline video standard for the Web. Ogg is an open encoding scheme (On2, the company that developed it, gave it and a free, perpetual unlimited license to its patents to the nonprofit Xiph foundation), but Nokia called it "proprietary" and argued for the inclusion of standards that can be used in conjunction with DRM, because "from our viewpoint, any DRM-incompatible video related mechanism is a non-starter with the content industry (Hollywood). There is in our opinion no need to make DRM support mandatory, though."

...

Nokia intervention here is nothing short of bizarre. Ogg is not proprietary, DRM is, and DRM-free may be a "non-starter" for Hollywood today, but that was true of music two years ago and today, most of the labels are lining up to release their catalogs without DRM. The Web, and Web-based video, are bigger than Hollywood. The Web is not a place for proprietary technology or systems that take over your computer. For Nokia (and Apple, who also lobbied hard for DRM inclusion) to get the Web this badly wrong, this many years into the game, is really sad: if you haven't figured out that the Web is open by 2007, you just haven't been paying attention.

Time to cross Nokia off the Christmas card list, then.

Apple the Imitator

Seems like Microsoft isn't the only company copying the innovations of the open source world:

Apple plans at Macworld to introduce a 12-inch Mac laptop with flash memory in place of a hard drive.

Wow, how original....

OpenID Becomes Enterprising

On Open Enterprise blog.

Open Source Society

One of the themes of this blog is how the principles behind open source can be applied to other domains. Here's someone with the same idea:

Just say the words quietly to yourself: open…source….society…. A society where the inner workings of the government, the economy, every aspect of everyday life, are placed under the spotlight for every citizen to see, examine, and have an impact on.

These are my goals: to present ways you can improve your own life and the lives of your friends and family through the benefits of the open source movement; to present ways you can give back to the movement through your own ideas, labor, or financial support; to present ways you can have a positive impact on other aspects of your life completely unrelated to technology through the use of an open source philosophy; to create a movement hellbent on remaking the world into a more cooperative, friendly, honest, and above all equitable place to live, work, and play.

Deutschland 2.0 Über Alles

One of the besetting faults of the online world is a certain anglocentricity in its reporting: we tend not to hear much about the goings-on in other parts of the world - even other parts of Europe. So for all those of you who were wondering, here's a list of the top 100 Web 2.0 sites in Germany, complete with quick notes explaining what they do.

Source(Forge) of Strength or Weakness?

On the Open Enterprise blog.

Sell the Analogue

This is what the film industry *really* makes its money from:

new research suggests that the presence of other people may enhance our movie-watching experiences. Over the course of the film, movie-watchers influence one another and gradually synchronize their emotional responses. This mutual mimicry also affects each participant's evaluation of the overall experience -- the more in sync we are with the people around us, the more we like the movie.

Note, too, that this is not something you can download and copy....

YouTube, the Government's NewTube

In the light of this:

Keelan says, “YouTube is increasingly a resource people consult for health information, including vaccination. Our study shows that a significant amount of immunization content on YouTube contradicts the best scientific evidence at large. From a public health perspective, this is very concerning.”

Clearly, we need to start seeing YouTube for what it is: a communications medium that governments should be employing routinely to get messages - about health, for example - across:

According to Wilson, “The findings also indicate that public health officials should consider how to effectively communicate their viewpoints through Internet video portals.”

With one important caveat: that governments must learn to use YouTube on its own terms - not trying to impose traditional formats, which will simply be ignored. That's going to be hard...

Sage Does the Maths of Free Software

One of the persistent myths about free software is that successes like Linux are one-offs, and that the open source methodology can't be applied easily to tackle complex software challenges. In the early days of free software, the relative paucity of end-user apps was trotted out as proof of this idea - The GIMP stood in splendid isolation back then.

Things have change, though; today, there is a wide range of high-quality open source apps, and the list keeps on growing. Here's there latest, and it's a biggie:

Until recently, a student solving a calculus problem, a physicist modeling a galaxy or a mathematician studying a complex equation had to use powerful computer programs that cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. But an open-source tool based at the University of Washington won first prize in the scientific software division of Les Trophées du Libre, an international competition for free software.

The tool, called Sage, faced initial skepticism from the mathematics and education communities.

"I've had a surprisingly large number of people tell me that something like Sage couldn't be done -- that it just wasn't possible," said William Stein, associate professor of mathematics and lead developer of the tool. "I'm hearing that less now."

Open-source software, which distributes programs and all their underlying code for free, is increasingly used in everyday applications. Firefox, Linux and Open Office are well-known examples.

But until recently, nobody had done the same for the everyday tools used in mathematics. Over the past three years, more than a hundred mathematicians from around the world have worked with Stein to build a user-friendly tool that combines powerful number-crunching with new features, such as collaborative online worksheets.

"A lot of people said: 'Wow, I've been waiting forever for something like this,'" Stein said. "People are excited about it."

Sage can take the place of commercial software commonly used in mathematics education, in large government laboratories and in math-intensive research. The program can do anything from mapping a 12-dimensional object to calculating rainfall patterns under global warming.

The benefits of using free software for maths extend far beyond the usual ones:

The frustrations weren't only financial. Commercial programs don't always reveal how the calculations are performed. This means that other mathematicians can't scrutinize the code to see how a computer-based calculation arrived at a result.

"Not being able to check the code of a computer-based calculation is like not publishing proofs for a mathematical theorem," Stein said. "It's ludicrous."

(Via A Blog Around the Clock.)