The (Intellectual Monopoly) Empire Fights Back

I've chronicled how WIPO is beginning to shift towards some semblance of fairness when it comes to intellectual monopolies. This is clearly bad news for those that have used WIPO to impose all kinds of unfair regimes on developing countries. It seems those forces of monopoly murkiness are fighting back - dirtily:

The World Customs Organisation is recommending far-reaching new rules on intellectual property rights that some say may extend beyond the organisation’s mandate.

Staff at the WCO’s Brussels headquarters are preparing what they describe as voluntary ‘model legislation’ to provide guidance on how IP rights can be upheld at border posts.

While they are hoping that the model will be approved by the 171-country body in June, representatives of developing countries were meeting this week to address concerns raised by Brazil over the proposal’s likely breadth.

Brazil is perturbed by a WCO recommendation that customs authorities need to be conferred with powers and be able to take measures that are additional to those set out in the key international accord on IP issues: the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). TRIPS does not oblige its signatories to introduce border control measures relating to exports or goods in transit.

During discussions in February, Brazil argued that a WCO working group known as SECURE (Standards to be Employed by Customs for Uniform Rights Enforcement) had no mandate to alter the international legal framework on intellectual property.

I'm sure they won't let a little detail like having "no mandate" get in the way....

Amazon the Bellwether

On Open Enterprise blog.

Really Googling the Genome

When I wrote a piece for the Guardian four years ago called "Googling the Genome", it was more of a metaphor than a specific warning about Google rummaging through your DNA. But it's a metaphor no more:

A Harvard University scientist backed by Google Inc. and OrbiMed Advisors LLC plans to unlock the secrets of common diseases by decoding the DNA of 100,000 people in the world's biggest gene sequencing project.

The *first* 100,000 people, I think they mean....

Japan Falls Back on the "Terrorist" Trope

Godwin's Law states:

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

I'd like to propose Moody's Law as a variant:

"When governments can't come up with a real argument, they invoke terrorism."

And here we have it from the Japanese authorities:

Die Auseinandersetzung zwischen japanischen Walfängern und Tierschützern ist erneut eskaliert: Die Organisation Sea Shepherd hat ein Walfangschiff mit Buttersäure beworfen. Die Aktivisten sprechen von harmlosen Stinkbomben, Japans Regierung von einem Terrorangriff.

[The confrontation between the Japanese whalers and animal rights activists has escalated again: the Sea Shepherd Organisation has thrown Butyric Acid at a whaling ship. Activities speak of "harmless stinkbombs", the Japanese government of a "terror attack."]

What Planet Are They On?

First there were RSS feeds, but that soon became too messy. So people have bundled up similar feeds into planets - clever. Here's one of the latest: Planet Creative Commons

This page aggregates blogs from Creative Commons, CC jurisdiction projects, and the CC community.

If nothing else, it will give you a chance to practise your Slovenian.

Microsoft's Finances

Much of Microsoft's power - particularly the kind used in bluffing - flows from an unwritten assumption that it is a huge, vastly-profitable company, with almost limitless resources. The limitless resources bit will certainly change if it acquires Yahoo, since it has admitted that it will need to borrow something like $20 billion to finance that transaction. But there is increasing evidence that even without that gargantuan meal to pay for, Microsoft's financials are not as rosy as they seem.

One of the most assiduous followers of this angle is Roy Schestowitz. The only problem has been that his posts on the subject have been running for so long that there is something of a rat's nest of links to follow on on his site if you want to see the big picture.

Happily, he has just put together a consolidated piece that links to all the main pieces of the puzzle:

Here is a summary of about half of our posts which cover this area. To make them digestible (readable without having to follow the link), a summary of references (external) and key points are provided for each.

Worth keeping an eye on.

Bruce Schneier Knows Alice and Bob's Shared Secret

I want one, too.

Elonex One Sighted

So now there's a Web site with some details.

Also worth taking a look at is this BBC video. One thing I noticed was the little stand to prop the macine up: this doesn't surprise me, since it looks slightly top heavy with its big screen and thin keyboard.

It's obviously slightly underpowered compared to the Asus Eee PC, but may well be "good enough", especially for the education market. I hope it does well, not least because it's innovative.

Microsoft's New Meme: "Marketplace Relevance"

Well, you can probably guess what Microsoft's Jason Matusow writes in his post about the Geneva BRM from the headline:

The Open XML Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM) Was An Unqualified Success

That, of course, was to be expected. But what interests me is a new Microsoft meme that seems to hint at how they will try to play this going forward:

ISO/IEC standards are not only technically sound, but they should also be relevant to the marketplace.

* DIS 29500, as improved through the rigorous review of the past year and the decisions made by delegations during the BRM, is a specification that meets both bars of technical quality and marketplace relevance.
* Independent implementations of the specification are already available on most major operating systems platforms and in hundreds of applications. The statement that Open XML is about a single vendor is specious and empirically false.
* Open XML has brought more attention to, and interest in, international standardization than any specification in the history of the ICT industry. The reason for this is simple - greater openness in all document formats (not just Open XML) is a good thing for everyone. There is general recognition that there will be broad adoption of this format around the world. Open XML delivers on that promise and is part of the rich ecosystem of open document formats that are driving this issue forward.
* At the end of the day, customers should be able to choose the format(s) that best meet their needs and should not be told which technology to use. Open XML, as improved through the hard work of national bodies over the past year, is an attractive alternative for them.

This seems to be preparing the ground for an eventual rejection of OOXML. The line would be well, being an official ISO standard isn't *so* important: what matters is "marketplace relevance". And we all know what that means: just keep that status quo rolling...

Geneva BRM Vote Result: It's Clearly "Zlthoy"

If anyone can make sense of what happened this week in Geneva during the BRM process it's Andy Updegrove. He has an unrivalled grasp of both standards in general and the specific background to the whole sorry business. So the fact that I don't really understand his post of what exactly the final result of the meeting was is a worrying indication that my brain has started to rot.

Here's the summary:

There are two ways in which you may hear the results of the BRM summarized by those that issue statements and press releases in the days to come. Perhaps inevitably, they are diametrically opposed, as has so often happened in the ODF - OOXML saga to date. Those results are as follows:

98.4% of the OOXML Proposed Dispositions were approved by a two to one majority at the BRM, validating OOXML

The OOXML Proposed Dispositions OOXML were overwhelmingly rejected by the delegations in attendance at the BRM, indicating the inability of OOXML to be adequately addressed within the "Fast Track" process

Oh, thanks, Andy. I think what I'm looking for here is a kind of Hegelian synthesis of those two contradictory statements.....

On Being Open

Interesting thoughts from Cory Ondrejka on the virtues of telling people what you're doing when you start a new company, rather than trying to keep everything secret:

It may seem slightly counterintuitive, but once you noodle on it a bit, being open is a tremendously positive and competitive move. It forces your ideas to survive far broader scrutiny, makes it easier to hire, and lets your early employees do what they want to be doing anyway: brag about their cool, new company.

He also makes another crucial point:

It’s similar to considering how to talk about competitors. Sure, having enemies can be motivational and useful when you are getting started, but you and your competitors are collaboratively shaping the landscape for your new companies. Spending time publicly bashing them makes you look like an ass and hurts your ability to work together down the road. It is rare for any sector to be winner-take-all – even eBay has competitors – and multiple, high-quality products in a space can help ensure the overall business grows far quicker than any one company could on its own.

Such "bashing" is much rarer in the open source world, since everyone is effectively working together - the code is open, after all. Your competitor is also your collaborator, since ideas - and even code - can generally flow freely between you.

Microsoft Using NGOs in India to Lobby for OOXML?

If this is true - and I have no reason to think it isn't - then I predict that it will come back to bite Microsoft very badly one day:

Mail from Microsoft India's Corporate Social Responsibility group to the NGO

As per our discussion please find attached the draft letters -­ please cut/edit/ delete and change it any which way you find useful. Also attached is the list of NGOs who have sent the letters. And attached is also a document that details wht (sic) this debate is all about. Look forward to hear from you in this regard. In case you decide to send the letters, can you please send me a scan of the singed (sic) letters that you send out. Thanks this will help me track the process.

Thanks

Form letters on OOXML sent by Microsoft to NGOs

To

Mr. Jainder Singh, IAS
Secretary
Department of IT
Ministry of Communications & IT,
Electronics Niketan
CGO Complex
New Delhi - 110 003

Respected Sir

Please write a paragraph about your organization

Please paraphrase "We support OXML as a standard that encourages multiplicity of choice and interoperability giving us the ultimate consumer the choice. * recognizes that multiple standards are good for the economy and also for technical innovation and progress in the country, especially for smaller organizations like us, who require choice and innovation"

Please write about your work

Please paraphrase "*** also supports OXML as this does not have any financial implications thus releasing our resources for welfare and development of society."

Thanking You

Yours Faithfully

Name Designation

(Via Open Source India.)

Do You Dare to Brainstorm?

On Open Enterprise blog.

Sounding Off Against Sound Copyright

Talking of petitions, here's one against extending the copyright in sound recordings, open to anyone. It includes the following excellent summary of what we're fighting for:

Copyright is a bargain. In exchange for their investment in creating and distributing sound recordings to the public, copyright holders are granted a limited monopoly during which are allowed to control the use of those recordings. This includes the right to pursue anyone who uses their recordings without permission. But when this time is up, these works join Goethe, Hugo and Shakespeare in the proper place for all human culture – the public domain. In practice, because of repeated term extensions and the relatively short time in which sound recording techniques have been available, there are no public domain sound recordings.

This situation is about to change, as tracks from the first golden age of recorded sound reach the end of their copyright term. The public domain is about to benefit from its half of this bargain. Seminal soul, reggae, and rock and roll recordings will soon be freed from legal restrictions, allowing anyone (including the performers themselves and their heirs) to preserve, reissue, and remix them.

Major record labels want to keep control of sound recordings well beyond the current 50 year term so that they can continue to make marginal profits from the few recordings that are still commercially viable half a century after they were laid down. Yet if the balance of copyright tips in their favour, it will damage the music industry as a whole, and also individual artists, libraries, academics, businesses and the public.

The labels lobby for change, but have yet to publicly present any compelling economic evidence to support their case. What evidence does exist shows clearly that extending term will discourage innovation, stunt the reissues market, and irrevocably damage future artists' and the general public's access to their cultural heritage.

As Europe looks to the creative industries for its economic future, it is faced with a choice. It can agree to extend the copyright term in sound recordings for the sake of a few major record labels. Or it can allow sound recordings to enter the public domain at the end of fifty years for the benefit of future innovation, future prosperity and the public good.

Everyone Loves an Open Source Hacker

On Open Enterprise blog.

End Software Patents Now!

One of the most remarkable - and heartening - changes in recent years has been in the attitude to software patents. Until a few years back, there was a certain fatalism regarding these particularly pernicious intellectual monopolies, as if they belonged, with death and taxes, to the inevitable and immutable. But people have started fighting back, both in terms of seeking to have patents revoked, and trying to get the entire category abolished.

The latest manifestation of this is the End Software Patents site:

Every company is in the software business, which means that every company has software liability. We estimate $11.4 billion a year is spent on software patent litigation (see our resources for economists page), and not just by Microsoft and IBM—The Green Bay Packers, Kraft Foods, and Ford Motor are facing software patent infringement lawsuits for their use of the standard software necessary for running a modern business.

Software innovation happens without government intervention. Virtually all of the technologies you use now, was developed before software was widely viewed as patentable. The Web, email, your word processor and spreadsheet program, instant messaging, or even more technical features like the psychoachoustic encoding and Huffman compression underlying the MP3 standard—all of it was originally developed by enthusiastic programmers, many of whom have formed successful business around such software, none of whom asked the government for a monopoly. So if software authors have a proven track-record of innovation without patents, why force them to use patents? What is the gain from billions of dollars in patent litigation?

Best of all on what is sure to become one of the central sites in the fight against patents, are the resources. Even though I follow this area closely, I was amazed at just how much hard evidence there is that software patents are harmful from just about every point of view. Victory just got closer.

Google Sites – Not Your Father's JotSpot

On Open Enterprise blog.

WaveMaker Visual Ajax Studio Goes AGPL

On Open Enterprise blog.

Not That They're Desperate or Anything

In what may be an unprecedented decision, Microsoft said Thursday that it plans to lower the retail prices for several flavors of Windows Vista.

For those in the U.S., Microsoft is cutting prices only on the higher-end versions of Vista, and only for the upgrade version used to move from an earlier copy of Vista. The suggested price for Vista Ultimate drops to $219 from $299, while Home Premium falls to $129, from $159.

A dog is still a dog, even it costs less.

Just How Healthy Will Google Health Be?

Ah, yes, Google Health:

Due to the sensitive and personal nature of the data that will be stored in Google Health, we need to conduct our health service with the same privacy, security, and integrity users have come to expect in all our services. Google Health will protect the privacy of your health information by giving you complete control over your data. We won't sell or share your data without your explicit permission. Our privacy policy and practices have been developed in thoughtful collaboration with experts from the Google Health Advisory Council.

All highly laudable.

So what happens when somebody turns up on Google's doorstep with a warrant, demanding information about an individual? Presumably, it will fight. And what happens when somebody *doesn't* turn up on Google's doorstep with a warrant, but just wants a quiet chat about the records of someone who is - because the US government says they are, but can't reveal the details because it's a state secret - a terrible wicked evil terrorist, and anyway has a funny-sounding name? Will it fight for them, too?

Why Microsoft's New EU Fine is Just Fine

On Linux Journal.

We 'Umbly Petition....

I'm not sure that these e-petitions do any good, but since they exist, it seems churlish not to use them. Here's another one Brits may be interested in signing:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to not force internet service providers to act as legal representatives for the RIAA and be treated like a common courier.

I think they meant "not to force" and "carrier", but I doubt Gordon's going to be paying that much attention....

What Windows Server 2008 Learned from OSS

Fascinating stuff from Microsoft's Sam Ramji:

When I think about what works really well in open source development and technology, the following things stand out:

* Modular architectures
You can find these wherever you see participation at scale – and often a rearchitecture to a more modular system precedes expanded participation. Great examples of this are Firefox, OpenOffice, and X11 – from both the historical rearchitecture and the increased participation that resulted. The Apache HTTP server and APR are good examples that have been modular for as long as I can recall.

* Programming language agnostic
A given project uses a consistent language, but there are no rules on what languages are in scope or out of scope. Being open to more languages means opportunity to attract more developers – the diversity of PHP/Perl/Python/Java has been a core driver in the success of a number of projects including Linux.

* Feedback-driven development
The “power user” as product manager is a powerful shift in how to build and tune software – and this class of users includes developers who are not committing code back, but instead submitting CRs and defects – resulting in a product that better fits its end users.

* Built-for-purpose systems
Most frequently seen in applications of Linux, the ability to build a system that has just what is needed to fulfill its role and nothing else (think of highly customizable distributions like Gentoo or BusyBox, as well as fully custom deployments).

* Sysadmins who write code
The ability of a skilled system administrator to write the “last mile” code means that they can make a technology work in their particular environment efficiently and often provide good feedback to developers. This is so fundamental to Unix and Linux environments that most sysadmins are competent programmers.

* Standards-based communication
Whether the standard is something from the IETF or W3C, or simply the implementation code itself, where these are used projects are more successful (think of Asterisk and IAX2) and attract a larger ecosystem of software around them.

What's interesting about this is not that it's astute analysis - which it is - but that Ramji doesn't mind making it public while admitting that Windows is learning from open source. Of course, it would be stupid not to, but it's nonetheless an important sign of how things are finally changing at Microsoft that it's prepared to trumpet the fact - and of the irreistible rise of the open source way.

Privacy Trumps Copyright in EU?

This could be big:

Today the German Constitutional Court decided that the state may not engage in surreptitious surveillance of information technology systems. The case, a constitutional complaint against a law permitting such surveillance by intelligence services, was decided on the basis of a new human right in the confidentiality and integrity of information technology systems.

...

The decision may have a dramatic impact in relation to the constitutionality of protected rights management information systems deemed to protect copyright. Where a supplier of copyright works manipulates data stored on a customers computer, or where personal data are being collected in order to allow the right holder to trace the use of works supplied online, it appears that if the customer can invoke the new right there is little left to argue for right holders that such means are necessary to protect copyright.

Now let's watch this ripple through the European Union until it reaches that nice Mr Brown and his plans to get heavy with ISPs over alleged copyright infringements on their networks....

MySQL's Disappearing Anti-Patent Page

Here's a troubling observation:

Go to the MySQL Web site and try to click on the MySQL anti-software patent page, and you won't find it. It's the other shoe dropping as MySQL today became part of Sun Microsystems, which like the rest of the commercial software and services industry, considers software patents a necessary evil.

Let's hope this isn't part of a larger trend at the new MySQL....