Why Governments Must Use Free Software

Fab story here from Northxsouth (for background on this fascinating outfit, see my interview with its founder, Ryan Bagueros) about the very real perils of using proprietary software for national infrastructure:

Venezuela’s decision to move to free software happened after a disaster scenario like this actually took place. In 2002, the traditional, social elite-backed administrators of PDVSA (Venezuela’s state-owned oil company) decided that they didn’t agree with President Chávez’s policy decisions, which included re-directing profits from the oil company elites into social programs (including literacy and medical programs). These administrators were so adamant about their position, they illegally shut down the oil company, locked out the workers, and took control over the software that ran the corporation. Conveniently, that software had been contracted to a US company called SAIC, which has well-known relationships with the US Department of Defense and CIA. In response to the illegal lock-out and sabotage of oil production in Venezuela, federal authorities were sent to PDVSA’s headquarters to reclaim the facility.

The SAIC workers realized that they had committed an enormous crime and fled the country — after they had changed all the passwords that ran PDVSA’s computer systems and set themselves up with remote control of these systems. Since the software was proprietary, no one except the SAIC workers knew how the software worked internally and the oil facilities were literally held hostage by criminals who were now seeking refuge in the United States. Why US authorities did not take action and apprehend these criminals is up for the reader’s interpretation. If the SAIC workers had used their remote access to destroy the data, they would have effectively sabotaged oil production in Venezuela for months, if not years.

The Venezuelan government recruited some computer security experts who were able to reverse engineer SAIC’s software, cut off their remote control of the computer systems and return access to the legal administrators of PDVSA. After this startling information warfare scenario had played out in real life, threatening the entire economy of a sovereign state by a multinational software firm with strong ties to a foreign defense and intelligence agency, President Chávez fully embraced open source, free software and mandated that all government systems be migrated to this more secure solution.

As the article points out, if a national government doesn't have full control over the software that is running key elements of its country, it doesn't have full control. Free software puts the power back where it should be: with the user, not the manufacturer.

gIMP My Foot

Jackboot Jacqui is at it again:

The government Interception Modernisation Programme (gIMP), a plan by spy chiefs to centrally collect details of every phone call, text, email and web browsing session of every UK resident, will be in place by 2012, according to a Home Office minister.

Apparently:

because communications providers already hold information about who contacts whom, when and how, the gIMP would not represent a major change. "We are not proposing that data that have never been collected are held," he said. "The question is how in the future, with all the changes that are coming we can still have access to something that we regularly use today for serious crime and counterterrorism." The final system will be fully compatible with human rights legislation, he said.

This shows once again that the Government either doesn't understand - or feigns not to understand - that putting together disparate information *is* a huge change, precisely because it allows all kinds of *new* info to be gathered about the public thanks to correlations and cross-linkings that are not evident when the data is held separately. Crudely speaking, this is putting together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle to see something whole.

(Open) China Rising

It's become something of cliché in recent weeks to invoke the rise of China as an economic superpower. But what about its role in the world of free software?

On Open Enterprise blog.

Thingiverse: SourceForge for Objects

I wrote below about the distinction between digital and analogue objects, but that was just a crude statement of the situation, which is in a state of flux. The distinction between digital and analogue is blurring thanks to rapid prototyping machines that can take digital representations of objects and turn them into physical things.

Once that happens, it becomes possible to apply all the usual open source methodology to analogue stuff - sharing designs, improving on them etc. One thing you need to do this is a repository of open designs; enter the wonderfully-named Thingiverse:

Thingiverse is a place for you to share your digital designs with the world. We believe that just as computing shifted away from the mainframe into the personal computer that you use today, digital fabrication will share the same path. Infact, it is already happening: laser cutters, cnc machines, 3D printers, and even automated paper cutters are all getting cheaper by the day. These machines are useful for a huge variety of things, but you need to supply them with a digital design in order to get anything useful out of them. We're hoping that together we can create a community of people who create and share designs freely, so that all can benefit from them.

Creative Commons has some useful further info:

Thingiverse is an “object sharing” site that enables anyone to upload the schematics, designs, and images for their projects. Users can then download and reuse the work in their projects using their own laser cutters, 3D printers, and analog tools. Think of it as a Flickr for the Maker set.

Besides implementing our licenses, Bre and Zach [Thingiverse's creators] have also gone the distance and allowed users to license works under the GNU GPL, LGPL, and BSD licenses, as well as allowing them to release works into the public domain.

More Analyst Cluelessness

Yesterday in "the other place" I was berating Gartner for its inability to understand the reality of open source, and now here's someone else from that strange world of "research" that simply doesn't understand the basics - in this case, digital music:

Music cannot just be 'for free' anymore than cars or houses can 'just be for free'. If people aren't paid, they don't make the product.

Sigh. Once more, then, children - and do pay attention at the back: music is digital, cars and houses are analogue. You can make copies of digital music for effectively zero cost (it exists, but it's too small to measure); you cannot easily make copies of cars or houses, and certainly not for vanishingly small cost.

As for the second part, ever heard of something called free software? Variously estimated as worth tens of billions of pounds, most of it is created by people who aren't paid. And even if they are, that's not a necessary pre-condition for its creation, simply a reflection of the health of the business ecosystem that has grown up around it. If there weren't people who got paid, free software would stil exist - as it did originally.

Similarly for Wikipedia: nobody gets paid, but look at the results. In just a few years it has succeeded in creating an unmatched respository of human knowledge, to the point where it is pretty widely regarded as the first place to look stuff up, despite its undeniable imperfections.

As with Gartner, this seems to be a case of analysts simply telling their clients what they want to hear, rather than what they need to know. Hence my general contempt for the breed, with a few honourable exceptions - RedMonk and the 451 Group spring to mind - that both know what they are talking about, and tell it as it is.

New Open Source Second Life Viewer

Linden Lab's decision to open-source its viewer (and ultimately its server, too) has triggered a wave of creativity in Second Life free software. Here's the latest example:

More than two months after Jacek Antonelli and team launched an initiative to create a more user-friendly, open source version of the Second Life viewer, cheekily dubbed Imprudence, the first release candidate is available for download.

Do the Maths: GNU/Linux's Discovery

Westfield State College senior mathematics majors Jeffrey P. Vanasse and Michael E. Guenette, working under the direction of Mathematics Department faculty members Marcus Jaiclin and Julian F. Fleron, have made a significant new discovery in the mathematical field of number theory. They have discovered the first known example of a 3 by 3 by 3 generalized arithmetic progression (GAP).

And how did they do that?

An algorithm to check the necessary cases – still easily hundreds of trillions of cases – was programmed using a Linux version of the computer language C++.

Nothing extraordinary there - except that it's not extraordinary....

Why the Real Dan is the Real Thing

We need this man:

One thing you have to admire about Kara [Swisher] is that in a blogosphere that all too often resembles an echo chamber, she’s managed to cut out the middleman; she just echoes herself. And while others engage in logrolling, Kara keeps it real and rolls her own log. Kara, listen. You’re not the story. Bokay? You’re the reporter. This isn’t about you. It really isn’t. Now stop it or I will fly out there and sit you down for a talk. You’re getting Mossberg Syndrome, honey, and that’s not a good thing.

Update: Or maybe not....

The Super Windows That...Couldn't

One of the more bizarre accusations flung by Microsoft at GNU/Linux over the years is that it doesn't scale. This is part of a larger campaign to portray it as a kind of “toy” operating system – fine for low-end stuff, but nothing you'd want to run your enterprise on....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Mining the Mindless Wisdom of Crowds

First it was Google:

Google search isn't just about looking up football scores from last weekend or finding a great hotel for your next vacation. It can also be used for the public good. Yesterday, we announced Google Flu Trends, which uses aggregated search data in an effort to confront the challenge of influenza outbreaks.

By taking Google Trends — where you can see snapshots of what's on the public's collective mind — and applying the tool to a public health problem, our engineers found that there was a correlation between flu-related queries and the actual flu. They created a model for near real-time estimates about outbreaks, in the hopes that both health care professionals and the general public would use this tool to better prepare for flu season.

Even directory enquiries is at it:

Number request figures from the country's biggest directory service provider paint a gloomy portrait of Britain that reveals requests for bailiffs, credit card companies and house clearance services rising while calls for estate agents, surveyors and removals are falling.

...


The figures, based on about 130m calls a year to 118118, compare requests for numbers from January to June 2007 to the same period in 2008 with some surprising variations. "When we saw these figures we couldn't quite believe the huge difference in call requests between last year and this," said William Ostrom, spokesman for the company.

But for me, one of the best ways of mining the blind but revealing moves of the masses is through Wikirage:

This site lists the pages in Wikipedia which are receiving the most edits per unique editor over various periods of time. Popular people in the news, the latest fads, and the hottest video games can be quickly identified by monitoring this social phenomenon.

Gartner's FUD

Good news:

New research has highlighted quite how pervasive open source software (OSS) has become, with 85 per cent of companies currently using OSS and the remaining 15 per cent expecting to in the next 12 months.

The findings come from a Gartner survey in May and June 2008, which covered 274 end-user organisations in Asia/Pacific, Europe and North America, and raise a series of management issues for businesses.

But wait, trust Gartner to find a cloud in every silver lining for open source....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Of Lawyers and Software Patents

Regular readers will know that I have a bee in my bonnet about the non-patentability of software, largely because of the fact that software is made up of algorithms, algorithms are maths, and maths is not patentable: QED. So, as you might expect, the following, from a patent attorney, makes me go a funny colour:

Software is not a mathematical equation, nor is it a mathematical language. How anyone who writes software or professes to understand software could argue to the contrary is beyond me. Do people who write software actually think they are sitting down and writing mathematical equations and stringing them together? It is absurd to have such a narrow view of software.

The good news is that I do not intend to rebut this (and the rest of the post) here, because the comments to it, and those on Groklaw discussing it, are so good, and so varied, that it would be superfluous. If you ever come across people who have doubts about the non-patentablility of software, just point them towards those comments.

The Politicians’ Syllogism

Something must be done; this is something; therefore this must be done.

Nice.

Share This: The Internet is a Right

“They order, said I, this matter better in France.” So wrote Laurence Sterne in his 1768 book A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. Alas, things have changed much since then, at least as far as the Internet is concerned. In the light of recent events, now he would we have to say: they order this matter worse in France. Even more unfortunately, France's bad habits are spreading, and could have serious consequences for free software....

On Linux Journal.

ContactPoint: A Contradiction in Terms

People have been pointing out that the government's child database, ContactPoint, will actually make it *more* dangerous for children. Now the government is slowly cottoneing on:

Data on about 55,000 children will need to be protected from estranged and abusive family members, or because they are under police protection, according to figures from local authorities.

The protected information - part of the forthcoming ContactPoint child protection database - will include their address and details of the school they attend. ContactPoint users, who The Register revealed yesterday could easily number more than a million, will only be able to access basic data about "shielded" children: their name, age and gender.

In other words, some of the most vulnerable children must be excluded from ContactPoint, because its security is now recognised as insufficient - even though the whole point of ContactPoint was to *enhance* protection.

ContactPoint - and any centralised database - is simply not fit for its purpose: chuck it, people.

ARMed and Dangerous - to Microsoft

It's often forgotten that one of the strengths of GNU/Linux is the extraordinary range of platforms it supports. Where the full Windows stack is only available for Intel processors - even Windows CE, a distinct code-base, only supports four platforms - GNU/Linux is available on a dizzying array of other hardware.

Here's an interesting addition to the list:

ARM and Canonical Ltd, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, today announced that they will bring the full Ubuntu Desktop operating system to the ARMv7 processor architecture to address demand from device manufacturers. The addition of the new operating system will enable new netbooks and hybrid computers, targeting energy-efficient ARM technology-based SoCs, to deliver a rich, always-connected, mobile computing experience, without compromising battery life.

The combination of a commercially supported, optimized Ubuntu distribution for ARM, together with Canonical’s ability to tailor solutions to specific ARM technology-based devices and OEM requirements, ensures that highly-optimized systems can be rapidly deployed into the fast growing mobile computing market. ARM’s wide partnership with leading semiconductor and device manufacturers strengthens the mobile computing software ecosystem and extends the market reach for Ubuntu-based products.

Since ARM is based on original work by the ancient Acorn Computers (hello, BBC Micro), this represents a nice coming together of two British-based companies, albeit with global reach.

Spreadthunderbird is Go

One of the reasons that Firefox has been successful is the extraordinary way that users have been mobilised as part of a vast, global marketing group without precedent. Tens of thousands – perhaps even hundreds of thousands – of people have added their pebble to the cairn of promotion to produce the market shares we see today for Firefox (particularly in Europe)....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Not so FAST....

FAST is seriously losing it:

More worrying is how organizations like FAST feel that somehow they should be able to shortcut, bypass or change the law to suit their needs. “One argument,” said Lovelock, “is that personal data relating to a given IP-address may be given to the rights holder on request, without a court order being needed, which is arguably gold plating.”

Sure, let’s just scrap due process and the Data Protection Act. They just complicate things.

Why do these self-important little organisations think that they can override fundamental rights and legislation simply because they are too lazy to come up with a new business model to cope with the changing environment?

It's called "absence of scarcity": get used to it.

Novell's Faustian Pact

There is something rather curious about software companies operating in the open source world. Although they may be competitors in a particular sector, the open source licence they employ means that they are also partners: they can generally use the code of other companies if they wish. The stronger those companies become, the more code they produce, and the more code there is available to everyone – including their nominal rivals. This makes the commercial ecosystem that evolves around free software strangely collegiate: everyone has a vested interest in growing the code base, because it is a commons that all can and do draw on....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Add a Computer to a Cable

Here's a GNU/Linux-based computer the size of an RJ-45 jack:

Specs listed for the Digi Connect ME 9210 are said to include:

* Processor -- 32-bit Digi NS9210 75MHz (ARM926EJ-S)
* Security -- On-chip 256-bit AES accelerator
* Memory -- 8MB SDRAM
* Flash -- 4MB or 8MB of NOR flash
* Networking -- 1 x 10/100 Ethernet
* Expansion -- Flexible Interface Modules (FIM) with 300MHz DRPIC165X CPU
* Interfaces:
o High-speed TTL serial
o Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI)
o I(2)C v1.0 bus with 7- and 10-bit address modes
o 10 x shared GPIO ports with up to 3 external IRQ options
* Power management -- modes for on-the-fly clock scaling, low power sleep, and configurable scaling/wake-up events (EIRQ, UART, Ethernet, etc.)
* Other features -- software watchdog
* Operating temperature -- -40 to 176 deg. F (-40 to 80 deg. C)
* Power -- 3.3VDC @ 346 mA; 1.14 W typical consumption
* Operating systems -- Digi Embedded Linux; NET+OS (ThreadX-based

Don't miss the pix - they are almost literally incredible. (Via Wind River blog network.)

A Huge Leap *Back* for Transparency

One of the fundamental rules in an open, democratic society is that government must be transparent to be truly accountable: if you can't see who is doing what, there's no hope of fingering the wrong-doers. Against that background, this is a huge slap in the face of the European Union's citizens:

Marco Cappato MEP asked the Council to provide him the contract concluded by the Council and Microsoft, and the Study on the Open Source realized by the interinstitutional committee on informatics in 2005.

...


The Council negative answer was motivated saying that "because these contracts establish specific terms and conditions for the European institutions, the divulgation of those information could jeopardize the protection of commercial interest of Microsoft. Acknowledging that the divulgations of the records are not backed by a clear public interest, the Secretariat general concludes that the protection of Microsoft's commercial interests, being one of the commercial partners of the European institutions, prevails on the divulgation for the public interest".

Got that? "Protection of Microsoft's commercial interests ... prevails on the divulgation for the public interest." Microsoft's profits are more important to the European Council than the public interest of 300 million EU citizens....

Why Ordnance Survey's Management Must Go

After the results of the Show Us A Better Way competition - the X-Factor for web services (as I think I dubbed it) - now here’s the letdown. Ordnance Survey has emailed local government organisations waving its copyright stick. And it’s quite a bit stick. One which, in effect, could prevent many - perhaps all? - of the SUABW winners (Free Our Data announcement; BBC announcement), and certainly those which might rely on local authority data that is in any way geographically related - from being implemented, certainly on Google Maps.

Ordnance Survey is a drag - not just metaphorically, but literally: a drag on UK innovation. It clearly doesn't understand the 21st century Web, and therefore deserves no serious role in its evolution. Remember, this is *our* data that it is refusing to allow local authorities to hand out for *our* benefit. This is intellectual monopoly hoarding at its most selfish and counterproductive.

Time to fire its entire, witless, self-serving management, and spend the money saved to pay its fine cartographers to generate scads more lovely data for other people to use in innovative mashups, which will contribute far more to the UK economy than the Ordnance Survey ever did or ever could.

The Chinese Overlords of Intellectual Monopolies

This looks tiny:

A Chinese Internet company has sued Microsoft for patent infringement over its use of RSS* in Windows Vista.

Wang Jianbo, chairman of China E-commerce Info Tech Company, said his firm applied for a patent on RSS services in 2005 and was granted patent ZL 2005 1 0022721.3 in December 2007 from China's State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO). Wang says Microsoft adopted RSS technology in Vista without his company's authorisation.

It's actually huge. Here's what is going on.

In the 19th century, America was a by-word for piracy of British ideas. In the 20th century, as its industry developed, it embraced intellectual monopolies, and became the most fervent advocate of maximalist legal regimes.

In the 20th century, China was a by-word for piracy of American ideas. In the 21st century, as its industry developed, it embraced intellectual monopolies, and became their stoutest defender. The news story above is but the trickle that presages the torrent.

Soon, America will be deluged with such suits, as China tries to leverage its huge industrial power. The consequence? America will become one of the most fervent advocates for *minimalist* intellectual property regimes. Yes, you read that correctly: just wait.

Total's Total Shame

In the present climate, with growing distrust and disgust at the antics of greedy, global mega-corporations, I don't think this kind of scandal is going to go down too well:

Total, one of the world’s largest oil companies, has been accused of hiding behind a “completely ludicrous” legal argument to avoid responsibility for Britain’s biggest peacetime explosion.

...


Earlier this year, Total admitted in preliminary hearings that the blast was the result of negligence by the supervisor on duty at the time. However, it has only accepted liability for properties within 451 metres of the blast on the grounds that damage to property beyond that could not have been predicted.

Claimants whose properties lay further than 451 metres from the site of the explosion will have to prove that damage to their properties was foreseeable. That includes more than 170 local residents and small businesses.

Mr Gaisman said that Total's argument was legally unprecedented and based on flawed calculations. “Even a child” could have guessed that an explosion of such magnitude would cause damage to properties within several kilometres of the plant, he said.

Now, about that windfall tax....

GoogleMail Voice and Video Chat

I've written elsewhere calling for Skype to become open source; perhaps this news that GoogleMail is adding voice and video chat might help that along. Pity, though, that Google hasn't even got around to support GNU/Linux in its latest move....