Erwin Is A-goin'

Erwin Tenhumberg has been one of the closest observers of OpenOffice.org's growing strength. So his announcement that he is moving from Sun - a company that, for all its faults, really seems to get open source - to SAP, a company, for all its strengths, seems utterly witless in this area, surprised me.

I suppose it would be too much to hope that SAP has finally got a clue....

Whatever Happened to the GNU GPLv3?

On Open Enterprise blog.

Our Chains Will Make Us Free

How Orwellian is this:

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has defended the apparatus of the UK's emerging surveillance society as the means to bring liberty to the people.

Britain's infamous identity cards, CCTV, biometrics and DNA scanners will make people more free by making them more secure, he said yesterday in defence of his security strategy.

Brown has seriously lost it.

Open Access Increases Its Impact

Unless you're an academic, you probably don't care about "impact factors", but for the world of academic journals - and the people who publish there - it's a matter of life and death (sadly.) Think of them as a kind of Google PageRank for publishing.

Anyway, the news that the trail-blazing Public Libary of Science titles have increased their impact factors is important:

The latest impact factors (for 2007) have just been released from Thomson Reuters. They are as follows:
PLoS Biology - 13.5
PLoS Medicine - 12.6
PLoS Computational Biology - 6.2
PLoS Genetics - 8.7
PLoS Pathogens - 9.3

As we and others have frequently pointed out, impact factors should be interpreted with caution and only as one of a number of measures which provide insight into a journal’s, or rather its articles’, impact. Nevertheless, the 2007 figures for PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine are consistent with the many other indicators (e.g. submission volume, web statistics, reader and community feedback) that these journals are firmly established as top-flight open-access general interest journals in the life and health sciences respectively.

The increases in the impact factors for the discipline-based, community-run PLoS journals also tally with indicators that these journals are going from strength to strength. For example, submissions to PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Genetics and PLoS Pathogens have almost doubled over the past year - each journal now routinely receives 80-120 submissions per month of which around 20-25 are published. The hard work and commitment of the Editors-in-Chief and the Editorial Boards (here, here and here) are setting the highest possible standards for community-run open-access journals.

This matters because many sceptics of open access would love PLoS to fail - either financially, in terms of academic influence or, ideally, both - and its continuing ascendancy in terms of impact factors is essentially a validation of the whole open access idea. And that has to be good for everyone, whether they care about academic PageRanks or not.

Reddit Goes Open Source

On Open Enterprise blog.

It's In the Diary, Erik

Interesting post from Erik Huggers, ex-Microsoft bloke now Group Controller, BBC Future Media & Technology, called "My First Linux Desktop":

Over the last two decades I have used every flavour of Windows and Mac OS, but till now had never used a Linux desktop.

My only encounter with Linux has been flashing my wifi access point with dd-wrt firmware (which is great btw) but that is obviously not the same thing!

George Wright recently convinced me to take home a laptop with Fedora9 installed.

...

I am glad that I got a chance to test drive Fedora and as a result have come to believe in the potential of Linux as a mainstream operating system.

As Ashley said in this post last year the BBC does a lot of work with open standards already but in the future we plan to do more.

We want to make iPlayer work on all operating systems including open source ones like Fedora and I am confident we'll make good progress on this before the end of the year.

End of the year, eh? We'll be there.

Going Beyond Gowers

One of the great things about the Gowers Review is that it used a solid economic analysis to show that extending the term of copyright in music recordings made no sense. The other great thing about it is that others can carry out similar objective analyses to arrive at the same result:

Today, the leading European centres for intellectual property research have released a joint letter to EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, enclosing an impact assessment detailing the far reaching and negative effects of the proposal to extend the term of copyright in sound recordings.

“This Copyright Extension Directive, proposed by Commissioner Mccreevy, is likely to damage seriously the reputation of the Commission. It is a spectacular kowtow to one single special interest group: the multinational recording industry (Universal, Sony/BMG, Warner and EMI) hiding behind the rhetoric of “aging performing artists”.

Microsoft Monopolistic in the Middle Kingdom?

Talking of China, it looks like Microsoft may be facing charges of monopolism there:

Neue Monopolvorwürfe gegen den Software-Riesen Microsoft: Laut einem Pressebericht untersuchen chinesische Behörden die Marktstellung des Konzerns - bald könnte es ein offizielles Verfahren geben.

[Via Google Translate: New monopoly allegations against the software giant Microsoft: According to a press report Chinese authorities investigate the market position of the group - soon could be an official procedure]

Chinese As She Is Writ

The poem was originally published in the June 6 issue of Qilu Evening News, a newspaper circulated mainly in Shandong province. In the poem, Wang impersonated a dead victim expressing his gratitude to the government from his grave.

"天灾难避死何诉，主席唤，总理呼，党疼国爱，声声入废墟。十三亿人共一哭，纵做鬼，也幸福。银鹰战车救雏犊，左军叔，右警姑，民族大爱，亲历死也足。只盼坟前有屏幕，看奥运，共欢呼。“

Here is rather literal translation:
"Natural disaster is inevitable, so what should I complain about my death? The president calls, the Premier asks, the Party cares, the country is concerned, the voice goes into the rubbles. One billion and thirty million people shed tears, I felt happy even as a ghost. Silver eagles and army vehicles came to rescue, soldiers, police officers - the great love! I am satisfied to die. I only wish I could have a TV set so I could watch the Olympic Games and cheer with others."

Ah, yes, TV sets....

Thinking the World of Firefox 3

On Open Enterprise blog.

Time to Break Out the WINE

On Open Enterprise blog.

How to Get a Real Job in a Virtual World

Interesting:

My name is Simone Brunozzi, a 30 year old guy from Italy.
What’s interesting about me? Well, I’m a brand new Technology Evangelist for Amazon Web Services in Europe!

I’m going to tell you how I landed the job of my dreams, and I suggest that you pay attention because it’s a story you don’t hear every day.

SproutCore Sprouts From Nowhere...

...well, at least as far as I'm concerned:

Apple, continuing its reliance on open-source technologies, is using an open-source project called SproutCore to provide rich Internet applications like its new MobileMe service.

The idea is to use to keep Apple from being "locked into the browser plug-ins for...one particular standard."

Never heard of it, but if it offers a completely open alternative to the dreaded Flash, put me down for two of them....

The BPI Makes the BBC Broadcast its Stupidity

When I read this riposte by British Phonographic Industry's chief executive, Geoff Taylor, to an eminently reasonable column by Bill Thompson, who had noted the futility and counterproductive nature of attempts to stop filesharing, one passage immediately struck me:

Let's look at the figures. More than six and a half million people in the UK illegally access and distribute music, and it is plain wrong to say that this is good for music.

Independent research has shown time after time that people who download illegally generally spend less on music than people that don't, which undermines investment in new music.

Hang on a minute, I says to mesself: isn't it exactly the opposite - that there are oodles of studies that show that people who download music actually spend *more*? Alas, I was feeling lazy, and I couldn't be bothered hunting out the verse and chapter to show that Mr Taylor was talking a load of nonsense.

But then, the wonder that is the blogospher kicked in. Techdirt's Mike Masnick picked up the rather insubstantial gauntlet flung down by Graham, and answered thusly:

The real kicker, though, is his claim that independent studies say that those who use file sharing spend less on music. That's simply untrue. Study after study after study after study after study after study has shown the exact opposite -- noting that people who file share tend to be bigger music fans, and are more likely to spend on music.

If that's not a refutation, I don't know what is.

But what's really pathetic about this is that somebody in a nominally responsible position - one capable of making the BBC print "his side of the story" - should so barefacedly misrepresent the facts in order to cast slurs on an journalist's reputation.

Wouldn't it be rather better to face up to reality, admit that things in the digital world have "moved on" in Tony Blair's oft-repeated phrase, and come up with a better business model? Not least because it's pretty damn obvious to even the spottiest teenager else what that might be.

Insecurity is Bad for Your Health

Outrageous:

A shocking article appeared yesterday on the BMJ website. It recounts how auditors called 45 GP surgeries asking for personal information about 51 patients. In only one case were they asked to verify their identity; the attack succeeded against the other 50 patients.

Whatever Happened to Greek Civilisation?

You probably don't care much about the Greek National Land Registry unless you're Greek or have land in Greece, but I think we can all be saddened by the following from its site:

Η εφαρμογή είναι διαθέσιμη αποκλειστικά για Internet Explorer.

[Google Translate: The application is available exclusively for Internet Explorer.]

So much for Neelie's open standards.
(Via Linux Format Greece.)

Firefox 3 Is Given to the World – Or Maybe Not

On Linux Journal.

Share and Share-Alike

Fascinating study from the University of Herefordshire on the music habits of "young people". It conveniently confirms everything that I and others have been saying for some time. For example:

Respondents seem to attach a hierarchy of value to different formats of music, with streaming on demand the least valuable (though still valued); ownership of digital files somewhere in the middle; and ownership of the original physical CD the most valuable. However, with respondents spending 60% of their total music budget on live music, it may be that “being there” is considered the ultimate music experience of all.

Doesn't that just scream "business model" to you?

This, too, was heartening:

Those who do upload do so for mostly altruistic reasons – by far, the most cited reason was to give in return to others; or to recommend music.

This suggests that respondents recognise the value in the ‘share-ability’ of music and are motivated by a sense of fairness and the principle of reciprocity – something for something. They are operating within a moral code, even though they are acting illegally.

Again, this emphasises that people who are downloading and uploading music are not scofflaws, but operate "within a moral code" - unlike the recording industry, which seems motivated purely by greed and vindictiveness, unwilling to understand the market it purports to serve.

It could do worse than spending some time digesting the results of this survey, which pretty much provide a roadmap for the industry in terms of working with its customers, and making a pile of loot along the way.

Open Voting Consortium

Elections seem like a no-brainer for openness: after all, fairness requires transparency, and you don't get more transparent than being fully open. And yet previous e-voting systems have proved notoriously fallible - not least because they weren't open. The Open Voting Consortium aims to do solve these problems:

The Open Voting Consortium is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the development, maintenance, and delivery of trustable and open voting systems for use in public elections. We are comprised of computer scientists, voting experts, and voting rights activists. We have a growing international membership base, but our organizing efforts are currently focused in California where we are actively engaged in legislation and implementing Open Voting as a model for the United States.

Needless to say, it's based on open source:

We have developed (1) a prototype of open-source software for voting machines (2) an electronic voting machine that prints a paper ballot, (3) a ballot verification station that scans the paper ballot and lets a voter hear the selections, and (4) stations with functions to aid visually impaired people so they can vote without assistance. Open source means that anyone can see how the machines are programmed and how they work.

To Open DB2, or Not To Open DB2: That is the Question

Interesting:

IBM is positive about the possibility of bringing out its DB2 database-management software under an open-source licence.

While the computing giant has no immediate plans to open-source DB2, market conditions may make it unavoidable, according to Chris Livesey, IBM's UK director of information management software.

Open Enterprise Interview with Ryan Bagueros, North-by-South

On Open Enterprise blog.

Polishing the Firefox 3.0 Download Pledge

Pledging to download Firefox 3 tomorrow is clearly a totally pointless activity (yes, I've done it, anyway), and yet some interesting factoids can be gleaned from the relevant page.

For example, despite - or maybe because of - its dismal showing in overal installed base, the UK's pledges stand at a decent 54,000 currently. This compares fairly well with Germany (55,000), Italy (56,000) and France (69,000). The real surprise, for me at least, is Poland, currently on 90,000: impressive.

BECTA and the Groklaw Effect

Ha!

Right now Becta ( [the UK agency that snubbed the free software community] http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/community_posts/uk_agency_snubs_free_software_community) ) is in the process of being Groklawed by the free software community. A source close to the events right now told me quite clearly that Freedom Of Information Act requests are hitting Becta in flurries.

The Sense of Microsoft's Open Census Move

I predict we'll be seeing a lot more of this:

Microsoft has become a sponsor of The Open Source Census, a project started earlier this year that aims to track and catalog the use of open-source software in enterprises worldwide, the group announced Monday.

Call it the "loving to death" strategy: Microsoft entwines its tentacles around more and more of the open source world until it becomes almost - almost - an indispensable part of it. Result: the person on the Clapham omnibus is confused about what is and what isn't open source....

The Bang-on Blogosphere

Further proof that things are shifting in media-land:

as Iain Dale, the Tory blogger who ran Davis's ill-fated leadership campaign, points out, while newspapers scorned the resignation the blogosphere largely embraced it: political chatrooms are overflowing with right-wingers offering to start a fighting fund, and left-wingers agonising over whether to support him. Even the Daily Telegraph's Saturday letters page was two to one in favour of the former MP for Haltemprice and Howden.

Could David Davis somehow have stumbled across something the establishment has missed, an untapped anger with what the public sees as a snooping, heavy-handed state that spies on it through speed cameras and CCTV and microchips on its rubbish bins, that tramples its freedoms and makes sloppy mistakes with its private data?

Update: Related thoughts here.