IT Lessons from the Thylacine's Genome

The thylacine is a near-mythic animal. A marsupial related to the kangaroo, it was wiped out early in the last century, surviving just long enough for a few specimens to be pickled in jars. As usual, mankind was responsible, hunting the animal to extinction. But not entirely:

Scientists have detailed a significant proportion of the genes found in the extinct Tasmanian "tiger".

The international team extracted the hereditary information from the hair of preserved animal remains held in Swedish and US museums.

The information has allowed scientists to confirm the tiger's evolutionary relationship to other marsupials.

The study, reported in the journal Genome Research, may also give pointers as to why some animals die out.

The two tigers examined had near-identical DNA, suggesting there was very little genetic diversity in the species when it went over the edge.

Although it was hunting that finally drove the Australian animal out of existence, its longevity as a species may already have been fatally compromised, the researchers believe.

So if *you* want to avoid the tragic fate of the thylacine, remember: avoid those Microsoft monocultures, wallow in the genetic diversity of the free software ecosystem.

Linus Gets Misty-Eyed Over the Sinclair QL

Apparently the Sinclair QL (remember the microdrives?) turned 25 yesterday (or thereabouts). One rather famous former owner was Linus; to begin with, he seems unimpressed by this historic moment:

when somebody sends me an email saying that the Sinclair QL turned 25 years old yesterday, and that I should mention it on my blog, I just went "hmm". Because while I had one and loved it, I have to say that I was so much happier with the PC I ended up replacing it with, and decided that I'll never use an odd-ball machine ever again.

But once you've leapt the Quantum Leap, you're never the same again, as Linus finally admits:

the email from Urs König (aka cowo) did end up festering in my mind and brought back fond memories. So here we are, twenty five years and one day later, and I'm writing a shout-out to the QL anyway. It was odd, and it was flaky to the point of being the only machine I had to do hardware surgery on to make stable and useful, but I guess I was at an impressionable age. And while I don't think there were many QL's that ever made it outside Britain, it was an interesting machine for its time.

I'm sure that made Sir Clive's day.

How Open Source Will Save Education

One of my favourite writers is John Robb; his book Brave New War is all about "open source warfare" - how the ideas behind open source software can, unfortunately, be applied with huge effectiveness to wreaking destruction.

Here's a good post about another little problem we have: the unsustainability of today's educational system. The solution? You guessed it: open source and open courseware, among other things:

The shift towards online education as the norm and in-person as the exception will arrive, however, the path is unclear. It is currently blocked by guilds/unions, inertia, credentialism, and romantic notions. Here's what could happen:

* Local governments cut costs. Nearly or officially bankrupt local governments, out of desperation, opt to reduce costs through online education (the single biggest line item in most local budgets). Drawing from online home schooling systems, the market for these systems explodes (growing at several thousand percent a year).

* Entrepreneurial innovation. As student populations at the collegiate level dwindle due to cost pressures, a major University (with a brand as good as MITs or Harvard), opts to offer full credentials to online student (at a tiny fraction of the cost of being in attendance). Ten million students enroll in the first year to attend Harvard's virtual world.

* Open source alternatives. Unable to afford in-person education, the lack of a major brand in the marketplace, and a job market in free fall stunts the growth of online education. As a result, a massive open source effort develops to develop virtual worlds and other online courseware that rivals the best Universities. The government is forced, over the objections of established institutions, to confer credentials to graduates that pass standardized tests (in fact, comparisons quickly show that these graduates are the equal and/or better than traditionally educated competitors). The business world embraces them.

Warning: only read the other posts on his blog if you are feeling strong. His analyses of the coming problems are frighteningly convincing. Let's hope he has a few more solutions too....

Free Software or Open Source? You Choose

“Free software” or “open source”? It's a perennial question that has provoked a thousand flame wars. Normally, the factions supporting each label and its assocated theoretical baggage manage to work alongside each other for the collective good with only a minimal amount of friction. But occasionally, the sparks begin to fly, and tempers rise. I think we're in for another bout of this particular fever.

On Open Enterprise blog.

SAP True to its Name

What is going through the mind of SAP? These people are *promoting* your products:

Business Objects claims that no one can use a Crystal Reports screenshot in a book without their approval. They sent letters to courseware vendors (including me) telling use that we need to get permission to use screenshots in our books. Most vendors ignored those letters and nothing more was said in the three years since. Now it appears that more letters are going out from SAP (who now owns Business Objects). I read one of the letters this past week and it talks about screenshots and adds a new warning about using SAP trademarks like the term “Crystal Reports”. The letter was very impressive, with majestic references to various sections of US copyright and trademark law. Sprinkled throughout the letter was the Latin incantation “inter alia” to make it seem almost pontifical. It sounded so ominous that it brought to mind the blustering Wizard of Oz (”ignore the little man behind the curtain”).

As I explained in 2005, using screenshots of a software product in a book is a “fair use” of a copyrighted work (see Sony vs Bleem). And there are also several clear cases to show that “nominal” use of a trademark word or phrase is fine for any purpose at all, so long as you are not claiming to be affiliated with or authorized by the trademark holder (see Volkswagen vs Church).

(Via Techdirt.)

Humanitarian FOSS Project

Here's an interesting group I'd not come across before:

The Humanitarian FOSS Project is a collaborative, community-building project that was started by a group of computing faculty and open source proponents at Trinity College, Wesleyan University, and Connecticut College. Our goal is to build a community of academic computing departments, IT corporations, and local and global humanitarian and community organizations dedicated to building and using Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to benefit humanity.

...


Our project is part of the growing Humanitarian FOSS Community, a community that was inspired by the Sahana FOSS Disaster Management System, an IT system that was built to aid in the recovery effort following the December 2004 Asian Tsunami. During the past two years, with the help of IT professionals in Sri Lanka and at Accenture Corporation, our students have actively contributed to the Sahana project.

Our approach is not unlike the Habitat for Humanity project: Instead of helping communities build houses, our students help build free software systems that benefit communities. The NSF grant enables us to explore whether engaging students in the Humanitarian-FOSS enterprise will help undergraduates see that designing and building software is an exciting, creative, and (often) a socially beneficial activity.

(Via storming.)

Snowl 0.2 Takes Flight

As you may have noticed, messaging is pretty popular these days. An obvious place to read and send messages is the browser, the obvious way to do that is with a Firefox extension. Enter Snowl....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Is Google Running Short of Hackers?

How hard can it be porting Chrome to GNU/Linux? Hard, apparently:

The 2.0 version of the browser was released to developers and includes a number of new features including the begins of an extension strategy for the browser.

Senior Google staffers said, however, that Linux and Mac versions of the browser would only be made available later this year. CNet quotes Brian Rakowski, Chrome’s product manager, who said that the Mac and Linux versions of the browser were now at the “test shell” stage which meant that they could show web pages but are still in a very raw format.

Rakowski said that versions of Chrome for Linux and Mac would likely be made available by the middle of 2009.

Things getting a bit tough in the Googleplex, chaps?

Corporate IT Skills in an Open Source World

It's a given on this blog that open source is changing the world of computing. But what about the IT skills required to flourish in that world? Here's a thought-provoking blog post by Ian Smith, from the open source company Nuxeo, on what has changed since he first learned to program....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Keeping the Czechs in Check

Hm, looks like bad news from the Czech Republic:

Die tschechische EU-Ratspräsidentschaft hat sich für die kommenden sechs Monate auch auf den Gebieten der IKT und Bürgerrechte viel vorgenommen. Beim Schutz des "geistigen Eigentums" und der Neuordnung des EU-Telekommunikationsmarkts wollen die Tschechen auf der Vorarbeit der Franzosen aufbauen.

Die EU hat 2009 zum Europäischen Jahr der Kreativität ausgerufen. Dass es dabei auch um den Schutz des "geistigen Eigentums" geht, versteht sich von selbst.

So hat die tschechische EU-Ratspräsidentschaft in ihre Prioritätenliste für die kommenden sechs Monate unter dem Punkt "Entfernung von Handelsbarrieren" auch das umstrittene Anti-Piratierie-Abkommen ACTA aufgenommen, das derzeit hinter verschlossenen Türen von EU-Kommission, US-Unterhändlern und Vertretern weiterer wichtiger Industriestaaten ausgehandelt wird.

[Via Google Translate: The Czech EU presidency has opted for the next six months also in the areas of ICT and Citizens' lot. As regards the protection of "intellectual property" and the reorganization of the EU telecommunications market to the Czechs on the preparatory work of the French build.

The EU has 2009 at the European Year of Creativity exclaimed. That it will also ensure the protection of "intellectual property" goes, goes without saying

Thus, the Czech EU presidency in their list of priorities for the coming six months, under the item "Removal of trade barriers", the controversial anti-Piratierie ACTA agreement, which is currently behind closed doors of the EU Commission, U.S. negotiators and representatives of other major industrialized countries will be negotiated.]

And as if intellectual monopolies and ACTA weren't enough:

"Die tschechische Ratspräsidentschaft wird auf ihrer aktiven Kooperation mit der französischen Ratspräsidentschaft aufbauen", heißt es dazu im Arbeitsprogramm aus Prag. Man werde sich um einen Kompromiss zwischen den Positionen des Rats und des Parlaments bemühen. Nur Österreich und Dänemark hatten sich auf der Ratssitzung im November dafür ausgesprochen, Zusatz 138 in der Universaldienstrichtlinie zu behalten. Der französische Vorsitz sorgte dafür, dass der Zusatz in der endgültigen Fassung entfernt wurde.

["The Czech presidency is at its active cooperation with the French Presidency Building," puts it in the work program from Prague. It will be a compromise between the positions of the Council and Parliament endeavor. Only Austria and Denmark had to the Council meeting in November, called for additional 138 in the Universal Service Directive to keep. The French Presidency has ensured that the addition in the final version has been removed.]

And to round things off:

Weit oben auf der Agenda der tschechischen Ratspräsidentschaft steht auch das Thema Kinderschutz und Internet. Zu diesem Thema soll es informelle Ministertreffen in Prag geben; auch hier wollen sich die Tschechen eng an die Vorarbeit der französischen Regierung halten.

[High on the agenda of the Czech presidency is also the issue of child protection and the Internet. On this issue, should it informal ministerial meeting in Prague type; also want the Czechs closely the preparatory work of the French government hold.]

This could be bad, people: start preparing the pushback.

Should We Trash Windows Vista – or BadVista?

The world and their dog seems to be talking about Windows 7 at the moment. Ironically, in part that's because it's proving almost impossible to download the beta that has just been released: you can't help feeling that Microsoft has let this happen on purpose just to create a little demand. But while everyone is looking forward, I want to look back, at Windows Vista – more specifically, to the FSF's BadVista campaign.

On Linux Journal.

Why Outsourcing, not Open Sourcing?

James McGovern has a question (and another brilliant pic - where *does* he find them?):

Why do people outsource when they can open source? For example, if there are 250 P&C insurance companies in the US in which each may have their own claims administration system, why do they outsource individually to India instead of open sourcing the systems that are expensive but otherwise don't provide competitive advantage? Is it the lack of vision within the enterprise architecture crowd?

Microsoft and Artificial Scarcity

One of the themes of this blog is the relationship between scarcity and abundance. Here's a good example of how you make something artifically valuable by making it scarce:

Due to very heavy traffic we’re seeing as a result of interest in the Windows 7 Beta, we are adding some additional infrastructure support to the Microsoft.com properties before we post the public beta. We want to ensure customers have the best possible experience when downloading the beta, and I’ll be posting here again soon once the beta goes live. Stay tuned! We are excited that you are excited!

So either they're saying that they didn't expect Windows 7 beta to be popular and their infrastructure doesn't scale, or they've let this happen on purpose to generate a little buzz. In other words, in order to make Windows 7 desirable, first you make it unobtainable....

Whole Lotta Whole Earth Catalog(ue)

One of the seminal publications of recent years was the Whole Earth Catalog, which has attained almost mythic status in hacker circles. Now you experience (most of) the reality:

After the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG and its descendants ceased publication, New Whole Earth LLC, headed by entrepreneur and philanthropist Samuel B. Davis, acquired the intellectual property and physical assets of the family of publications from the Point Foundation.

We thought it was important to preserve the heritage of the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG and its succeeding publications. Although the CATALOG's heyday was during a specific and turbulent period of American history, the ideas found in it and in its related publications continue to engage the brightest minds of the 21st century—and Whole Earth LLC believes that those ideas should be preserved as they were originally disseminated.

This collection is not complete—and probably never will be—but it is a gift to readers who loved the CATALOG and those who are discovering it for the first time. The great stuff found on these pages is a celebration of the genius of Stewart Brand and all those associated with the WHOLE EARTH family of publications.

It uses Flash (alas), but quite effectively, to let you flick through the volumes. Fantastic fun for browsing.

Watch Out, There's a Meme About

There's a nasty rash of congruent memes going around government circles: they're all coming up with fiendish new ways to wage the non-existent war on terror, all of which unfortunately involve locking down useful technology.

Here's the latest threat - to us, that is:

The Indian government has set up an inter-ministerial panel to trace the activities of terrorists using Wifi networks. The recent series of blasts which has shattered the Indian subcontinent has been characterised by the culprits sending emails about the bombs via Wifi.

Headed by Advisor (Telecom), the Department of Telecommunication (DoT), and members from the Telecom Engineering Centre, the Ministry of Home, the Intelligence Bureau and the Department of Information Technology, the committee will examine international practices and enforceable ways and means to detect the actual user on a Wifi network. It will then prescribe modifications to existing policies and licences.

The decision is prompted by terrorists hacking into open Wifi networks twice in three months to send mails about the Ahmedabad and Delhi blasts to the media. While admitting the impossibility of obstructing the flow of technology, DoT officials say that its misuse must be checked, according to the Times of India.

Loved that bit about "[w]hile admitting the impossibility of obstructing the flow of technology, DoT officials say that its misuse must be checked" - a classic case of "something must be done; this is something; so we must do it."

How long before other governments start following suit? (Via Andrew Katz.)

Enough is Enough: Stand up for Sanity

TechCrunch UK's Mike Butcher has had enough:

From March this year all ISPs will by law have to keep information about every e-mail sent or received in the UK for a year. Currently many do this on a voluntary basis but this will now become mandatory. With little evidence to support their position, the government says this move is vital for monitoring crime and combating terrorist activity. The new rules are due to come into force on 15 March, as part of a European Commission directive which could affect every ISP in the country. It will cost between £25m and £70m. The rules already apply to telephone companies, which routinely hold much of the data for billing. The Home Office think the data is vital for investigation and intelligence gathering.

The Home Office insists the data will not contain the email content but data about when and where it was sent. But of course we all known that it is quite possible to work out quite a lot from email headers. This data will be accessible by over 600 public bodies, such as the police and councils, if they make a “valid” request.

Dr Richard Clayton, a security researcher at the University of Cambridge’s computer lab, points out that this will include all the spam out there and would rather see more focused online policing that catch all initiatives like this. Of course, once the government has this power, they will not draw back from it.

So what you gonna do about it, Mike?

On Monday I will be calling Westminster Council about how we can go about setting up a public rally against these initiatives, and I’d like to hear from anyone else who wants to get involved.

Me, I've had enough too: I'll be there, and getting in touch; anyone else?

Young People These Days...

Insightful point from Clay Shirky:

the thing that people say about young people is just that they understand the technology so well. Well, I teach in a graduate program, I see twenty-five-year-olds all the time. They actually don’t understand the technology particularly well. I think I understand quite a lot of it quite a bit better than they do, which is the reason why I’m teaching there and they’re students. The advantage they have over me is that they don’t have to unlearn anything. They don’t have to unlearn the idea that a card catalog is a helpful thing to have. That you need a librarian to find things. That you have to figure out where you’re looking before you what you’re looking for. None of those things are true anymore. And so one of the problems that old people like me suffer from is just we know too many solutions for problems that no longer exist. And it kind of freaks us out to realize that all the things we mastered don’t really add up to much value anymore.

SECURE's Future Not So Secure?

Last year I wrote about an insidious little agreement called SECURE - Standards to be Employed by Customs for Uniform Rights Enforcement. As you might guess, those "standards" involve intellectal monopolies to the nth degree. But lo! There is hope:

In what might be seen as a victory for defenders of flexibilities for poor nations in international trade rules, the World Customs Organization in December recommended the discontinuance of a working group on intellectual property enforcement standards after it became “deeply embroiled” in debate from member governments fearing it would impose undue obligations on them. But the IP and customs issue may not be out of the fire yet.

A new committee will be sought with a stronger focus on technical assistance and capacity building, according to a WCO document, but this has raised new doubts about participation in new committee’s creation, according to a developing country official.

“The Policy Commission was informed that the SECURE Working Group established by the Council in June 2007 to deal with IPR issues had become deeply embroiled in difficulties related to its terms of reference, essentially because of a perceived fear that the group’s work on standard-setting might be used as a means of enlarging the obligations imposed on countries by the WTO TRIPS Agreement,” said the summary of outcomes document [pdf] of the WCO Policy Commission, which met from 9-11 December in Buenos Aires.

It ain't over yet, but what is important is that it seems that the developing nations are really waking up to the way that intellectual monopolies are being used as a kind of new imperialism: the more that realise that, the less chance TRIPS and its misbegotten siblings will have in imposing their hidden agendas around the world.

A Different VistA for the NHS?

I've written quite a lot about Microsoft's ill-fated Vista in Open Enterprise, but nothing so far about another VistA:

Electronic Health Record systems (EHR) are essential to improving health quality and managing health care delivery, whether in a large health system, hospital, or primary care clinic. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has developed and continues to maintain a robust EHR known as VistA - the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture. This system was designed and developed to support a high-quality medical care environment for the military veterans in the United States. The VistA system is in production today at hundreds of VA medical centers and outpatient clinics across the country....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Security Vendors Will Log the Police Keyloggers

Kudos to Kaspersky Labs and Sophos: they understand that once you compromise a computer's security, there *is* no security:

The Home Office on Friday said it was working with the European Parliament on plans to extend police powers to conduct remote searches of computers. UK police already have the power to hack into suspect systems without a warrant, due to an amendment to the Computer Misuse Act, which came into force in 1995.

However, security vendors Kaspersky Labs and Sophos told ZDNet UK that they would not make any concession in their protective software for the police hack.

...

Em said that while police could provide details of the software it used so Kaspersky could avoid blocking it, the police software could also be used by cybercriminals. "While we wouldn't want to scupper police attempts to catch bad guys, police [hacking] software could end up in the wrong hands," Em said.

Kaspersky would not put a backdoor in its software to enable the police to bypass its protections, Em added. "If we provided a backdoor, it could be used by malware authors," Em said. "People would be able to drive a coach and horses through our security."

Once again, the experts have spoken: will the politicians listen? (Will they, heck....)

Open Cloud Conundrum, Open Cloud Consortium

One of the hot areas in 2008 was cloud computing, and 2009 looks likely to be a year that is equally occupied with the subject. But cloud computing represents something of a conundrum for the open source world.

On Open Enterprise blog.

You Know Your Software is Respectable When...

...big-name manufacturers start making hardware to support you:

Netgear has just announced its Internet TV Player, a set-top box that allows users to play content from video streaming sites like YouTube, directly on their TV. Perhaps of more interest is the device’s built-in BitTorrent client, which makes it an ideal TV-torrent player as well.

Netgear is a company that has its finger on the pulse of what users are doing and want; this is a clear sign that BitTorrent is mainstream now.

Follow me on Twitter @glynmoody

Trees Will Save the World

We need more trees. This is what they did 500 years ago:

The massive depopulation of the Americas via smallpox, hepatitis and other diseases introduced by Westerners (perhaps as much as 95 percent of the existing population died in vast pandemics) and the large landscape-altering scale of agriculture practiced across the "New World" by pre-Columbian cultures are two of the big themes of "1491." Both popped up in a presentation made by two scientists at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union last December. (Thanks to MongaBay for the tip.)

The scientists contend that after the die-off, massive reforestation on abandoned agricultural land occurred on a large enough scale to contribute significantly to the period of global cooling between 1500 and 1750 known as the "Little Ice Age."

After examining soil samples and sediment cores from numerous locations in Central and South America, Richard Nevle, a visiting scholar at Stanford's Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences at Stanford, and Dennis Bird, also from Stanford, concluded that the reforestation sequestered as much as 10 to 50 percent of the carbon necessary to cool the earth. Up until 1500, the soil samples showed a steady increase in charcoal content, likely generated from human-caused fire used to clear forest. After 1500, the scientists discovered a drastic drop in charcoal content. No more burning.

The good news is that we've cut down so many trees, there's huge scope for harnessing this effect to mitigate climate change by planting lots of trees.

The Pink 'Un Starts to Get It

Surprisingly spot-on piece in FT today about netbooks. Key bit:

The netbook category is posing a challenge for Microsoft, the biggest software group, as manufacturers turn to alternatives to its Windows operating system, writes Chris Nuttall.

To help cut costs, the free Linux operating system is featured in many products, while the use of flash memory rather than hard drives along with ‘virtualisation’ techniques means that Windows is being bypassed in others.

Consumers are beginning to associate netbooks with “instant-on” features, which mean that they can be used in a few seconds rather than waiting a few minutes for Windows to be booted.

How the OLPC's Rose Got its Canker

This blog post explains in painful detail how OLPC was "turned" by Microsoft - and hence why I have personally given up on the project:

As part of a small personal project, I've been reading through the court exhibits presented in Comes V Microsoft. One of those exhibits is a chain of internal Microsoft emails discussing how to get Windows XP on the OLPC.

...

Finally, in case you think I've failed to mention it: there is never any talk of "the best technology" or "educating or empowering children" or "customers/governments want Windows" or any such merit-based discussion. Outside of a brief mention of Academic Software offerings - literally the very last thing in the recap and suggested by the OLPC faction - the entire discussion revolves around what benefits Microsoft, what might hurt Google, and exploiting inside information they have on the OLPC project and OLPC people.

Read it and weep.