A Drowsy Numbness Pains My Sense

Here's the good news:

Hemlock is a new web development framework, focused on allowing easy development of real-time, many-to-many apps. Hemlock follows the inspiration of Ruby web frameworks like Rails and Merb. It can be used for applications such as games, workspace collaboration and education.

Open source, too. What's not to like? How about this?

By combining the scalability of XMPP with the flexibility of Flash, Hemlock allows you to create web applications that are more dynamic, interactive and exciting.

Flash??? Aaaargh - quick: pass the hemlock.

So What Exactly Does Linus Do These Days?

What do you do when you wrote the kernel of the world's greatest operating system nearly two decades ago? Linus tells us:

My real "work" is not really writing code any more, and hasn't been for a long time. No, I worry most about the whole "flow of patches", and the way development happens, rather than so much about any individual piece of code I maintain.

So know we know: just like in any other job, he's ended up in management...

Copyright Industries Very Nearly Get It

They're getting there:

Copyright holders on Wednesday acknowledged they have done a poor job of countering the “anti-copyright” lobby and demonstrating the creative community’s value to the world.

During the second day of the 9-10 June International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers’ (CISAC) World Copyright Summit here, some content creators also lamented that instead of fighting for compensation with the advent of new technologies, they fought the technology - like the VCR - itself.

But then they spoil it with stuff like this:

”The enemies of copyright have really done a good job at creating the false premise that the interest of copyright holders and the interest of society as a whole are antagonistic, and they always talk about the need for balance,” said Fritz Attaway, executive vice president and senior policy adviser for the Motion Picture Association of America. “We have got to do a better job” at attempting approaches at copyright protection “in a way that we get paid but also that consumers can access our works,” he added.

So...balance is bad, eh? And still looking for copyright *protection*, instead of working on the business models.

And then there's this:

Although Israelite made the comparison that if people were stealing computers from stores en masse, the technology industry would be up in arms, Shapiro argued that it is not the same, and that copyright and intellectual property rights are different than “real” property - a statement that received groans from the rights holder-friendly audience. “That’s hurting your case because you’re being rejected by anyone under 25 who is saying, ‘these guys are full of it,’” Shapiro continued.

OK, I was wrong: they *still* don't get it.

A Presumption of Openness

Remarkable:

Public bodies should automatically release all information that does not need to stay secret, the information commissioner is expected to argue.

Richard Thomas, who is stepping down, will say all but the "crown jewels" should be released without waiting for Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

He will add that the MPs' expenses row was a "coming of age" for openness.

Well, it ain't going to happen overnight, but the fact that the "o"-word is flavour of the month - even arch open data fan Sir Tim Berners-Lee is being brought in to advise - should mean that more will get done in the next few months than in the previous decades. What we're aiming for is nothing less than a presumption of openness for government.

The Source Code of Power

Tom Watson is that rare thing: a net-savvy MP. So his decision to step down as minister means that our loss is all the greater. Maybe, though, he'll be able to do good from the sidelines - writing articles like the one in yesterday's Guardian, which contains the following memorable metaphor:

Our voting system is the source code of the power wielded by MPs. It bestows the authority of the people on their representatives. Yet few MPs can claim support from more than 50% of their electors. AV enables ­preference (ranked) voting, ensuring an MP can claim authority of a majority of their voters. AV also allows voters to protest – through the support of small and single-issue groups, while also choosing to support a larger party, if they so wish. Unlike some other voting systems, it allows the retention of a geographic link between MP and electors.

I can't agree on the AV (alternative voting) - I think it's got to be proportional or nothing - but what's really interesting is Watson's own explanation of why source code is much on his mind these days:

Changing the voting system is not the only solution to parliament's waning authority. I recently left the daily grind of ministerial life having had 18 months immersed in conversation with the UK's digital pioneers. I'm convinced that our economic future is dependent on developing a set of economic and regulatory arrangements to hothouse our digital natives – the under-30s for whom the internet is not a new technology.I hope to spend my time on the backbenches arguing for a digitally enabled democracy. There are technologies that did not exist when Labour was elected in 1997, that if adopted, will allow a new Speaker to lead parliament into a new age of transparency and accountability.

"Digitally-enabled democracy": that's really heartening. It suggests the kind of discourse that goes on among geeks here and many places elsewhere *can* feed through to the corridors of power, and change the way things are done there. If we keep plugging away, maybe the geek really will inherit the earth.

Has HADOPI Had It?

Well, not quite, but this judgment that its sanctions are unconstitutional certainly punches its teeth out:

Le Conseil constitutionnel a censuré, mercredi 10 juin, la partie sanction de la loi Hadopi - la "riposte graduée" - sur le téléchargement illégal. Considérant qu'"Internet est une composante de la liberté d'expression et de consommation", et qu'"en droit français c'est la présomption d'innocence qui prime", le Conseil rappelle que "c'est à la justice de prononcer une sanction lorsqu'il est établi qu'il y a des téléchargements illégaux". "Le rôle de la Haute autorité (Hadopi) est d'avertir le téléchargeur qu'il a été repéré, mais pas de le sanctionner", conclut le Conseil.

[Via Google Translate: The Constitutional Council censored, Wednesday June 10, the sanction of the law Hadopi - the "graduated response" - on illegal downloading. Considering that "the Internet is a component of freedom of expression and consumption", and "french law is the presumption of innocence which prevails, the Council recalled that" it is justice impose a sanction if it is established that there are illegal downloads.""The role of the High Authority (Hadopi) is to warn the downloader has been spotted, but not to punish,"]

So what will that nice M. Sarkozy do now?

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Ecology, Economics, Sharing

One of the things that interests me at the moment is the way open source ideas are proving hugely useful when considering areas like economics and environmentalism. If you want an encapsulation of this important but complex area, you could do worse than this brilliant essay, "From a Failed Growth Economy to a Steady-State Economy." Here's the key logic:

if we can’t grow our way out of all problems, then maybe we should reconsider the logic and virtues of non-growth, the steady-state economy. Why this refusal by neoclassical economists both to face common sense, and to reconsider the ideas of the early Classical Economists?

I think the answer is distressingly simple. Without growth the only way to cure poverty is by sharing. But redistribution is anathema. Without growth to push the hoped for demographic transition, the only way to cure overpopulation is by population control. A second anathema. Without growth the only way to increase funds to invest in environmental repair is by reducing current consumption. Anathema number three. Three anathemas and you are damned—go to hell!

Or, put another way, on a finite earth, only steady-state economics is sustainable; and economics without growth implies sharing.

Ecology => Economics => Sharing.

(Via Michael Tiemann.)

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SAP: Open Source's Friend or Foe?

For an outfit that calls itself “the world's largest business software company”, the German software giant SAP is relatively little-known in the open source world. With 51,500 employees, a turnover of 11.5 billion euros ($16 billion) last year, and operating profits of 2.7 billion euros ($3.8 billion), SAP is clearly one of the heavyweights in the computer world. Given that huge clout, SAP's attitude to open source is important; and yet it is hard to tell whether it is really free software's friend or its foe....

On Linux Journal.

Do We Need an Apps Store for GNU/Linux?

Everyone's doing it, so Novell wants to join in:

Novell plans to bring the wealth of open-source software to everyday users through an "open-source apps store".

The vast amount of free software available to open-source users has long been one of the major benefits of switching to a Linux distro such as Ubuntu, or openSUSE. The problem has always been in explaining this to customers reared on a Windows diet.

However, with the growing popularity of Linux on netbooks and the public's familiarity with apps stores on smartphones, Novell believes offering an "open-source apps store" could
solve this problem for vendors. The fruits of this strategy are set to appear in the openSUSE edition of the Moblin OS.

Er, haven't we had an "apps store for GNU/Linux" for ages? Things like Synaptic and KPackage? Do we really need anything more?

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A Different Point of View on Software Patents

One of the fears that I and others have voiced is that the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA) - an attempt to set up a unified European judicial system for patent litigation - might be an attempt to get software patents in through back door. Often, though, these concerns are dismissed by supporters of software patents as unwarranted. But here's someone who disagrees:

The industry-based driving force behind the EPLA comes from the pro-software patent group as a way of ensuring that their software or potential software patents are fully enforceable across Europe. The EPO is fully supportive of the EPLA, and some national governments and patent registries have voiced their support.

More whining from the anti-software patent lot? Well, not actually. These words were written by Alison Crofts, who:

provides specialist IP advice and expertise in both litigation and commercial matters. This includes advising on: the creation, protection and exploitation of IP rights, including trade secrets, confidentiality issues, technology transfer agreements and licensing; the enforcement and defence of IP rights, including the conduct of litigation and arbitration proceedings; and IP aspects of joint ventures, co-ownership and transactions. Alison has an engineering background and has particular experience in the semiconductor, oil and gas, hi-tech and telecoms engineering industries.

In other words, she's likely to be for rather than against software patents. Don't say we didn't tell you.... (Via FFII.)

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Microsoft's Pyrrhic Victory in the Netbook War

The rise of the netbook has been an extraordinary saga. When the Asus Eee PC was first launched at the end of 2007, it seemed to come from nowhere: there was no real precedent for such a low-cost, small machine, using solid state storage and running GNU/Linux. The brilliance of Asus's move was shown not just by the rapid uptake of this new form-factor, but also the high level of satisfaction – the only element viewed less positively was the small size of keyboard, an inevitable consequence of the design....

On Open Enterprise blog.

China's Censorware: What about GNU/Linux?

News is breaking that the Chinese government will insist on censorware being shipped with all PCs:

China plans to require that all personal computers sold in the country as of July 1 be shipped with software that blocks access to certain Web sites, a move that could give government censors unprecedented control over how Chinese users access the Internet.

The government, which has told global PC makers of the requirement but has yet to announce it to the public, says the effort is aimed at protecting young people from "harmful" content. The primary target is pornography, says the main developer of the software, a company that has ties to China's security ministry and military.

There's more background information and discussion about the quaintly-named "Green Dam Youth Escort" here, including a link to the software itself.

This turns out - surprise, surprise, to be a Windows executable, which raises a question: what will the Chinese government do about GNU/Linux? Will they simply ignore that platform, or insist that a GNU/Linux version be developed?

And what happens if one day the use of that software becomes mandatory (it seems voluntary at the moment - but we all know how these things are the thin end of the wedge)?

How will the authorities in China - and, ultimately, elsewhere - cope with the freedom built into GNU/Linux? Will GNU/Linux one day become illegal in those parts of the world benighted enough to mandage online censorship?

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Creative Commons, We Have a Problem

I'm a big fan of the Creative Commons movement. But it has a big problem: few people have heard of it according to a survey conducted on behalf of the UK's Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI).

In the survey, people were shown one of the standard CC logos (like the one at the foot of this page). Here's what they found:

75% of respondents did not recognise this image.

Lack of recognition was highest amongst the “general public” – 87%. And lowest amongst respondents from the OPSI website – 55% did not recognise the image.

The majority did not understand the meaning of the image. Understanding was highest amongst the OPSI website respondents – 35%.

This is not surprising as this group was also the group in which the most had heard of Creative Commons licences before – 47% (vs 10% of the “general public” and 29% of the OPSI database). Only those likely to be more familiar with copyright (inferred from their route to the survey) are likely to have a previous understanding of Creative Commons terminology and imagery. One might argue that if these are used moving forward, more people will become more familiar with these, however, the benefits at this stage of shared/added meaning would only really apply to a minority – a minority who are likely to have a strong understanding of Crown copyright already.

It looks like much more work needs to be done to get the message out about Creative Commons and its licences.

Fashion Industry Repeats Software's Mistakes

Software patents are stupid on both theoretical and practical grounds. Since software is just algorithms - that is, maths - software patents are intellectual monopolies on pure knowledge. Practically, they make coding almost impossible, since software patents have been given for so many trivial and common programming techniques.

Unbelievably, it looks like the fashion industry is going to allow big business to impose something similar there:

Let’s say we help you produce this line, you sell it and make your pile crumbs. Then -thanks to the influence of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA, membership by invitation only) and Congress- somebody can come out of the woodwork and claim it is their design, they own it and now you owe them. If they registered the design and you didn’t know it, this could be perfectly legal. Of course you didn’t copy them but it won’t matter. The fact that society designers have been copying nameless unknown independent designers for years doesn’t even register. Even Diane Von Furstenberg, the leading champion of this bill recently got caught doing it. Because you don’t have any money, this party will sue everyone in your production and retail chain. That means pattern makers, contractors and the stores who bought your stuff. So in the interests of avoiding law suits, any service provider is going to require you prove you own it. It’s even worse for retail buyers who face potential criminal prosecution for dealing in pirated goods. Everybody who helps you or buys from you is going to require you to prove ownership of your concept before they’ll have anything to do with it. If wealthy society designers like Diane Von Furstenberg have their way, this could become an unfortunate reality. Paradoxically, CFDA is telling Congress they’re protecting you.

The parallels with software are clear: the use of lawyers to bully smaller companies who employ software coding techniques that are obvious but have been wrongly granted patents in some jurisdictions.

The only consolation is that if this legislation is passed, and the fashion industry goes into meltdown, the obvious difficulties there will help legislators understand why software patents are such a stupid idea at all levels.

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Open Source Sensing Initiative

Here's another interesting initiative: open source sensing.

Pervasive sensing is arriving soon — we have a short window of opportunity for guiding this technology to protect both our security *and* our privacy.

This is an open source-style project with the goal of bringing the benefits of a bottom-up, decentralized approach to sensing for security and environmental purposes.

The intent of the project is to take advantage of advances in sensing to improve both security and the environment, while preserving — even strengthening — privacy, freedom, and civil liberties.

We have a unique opportunity to steer today's emerging sensing/surveillance technologies in positive directions, before they become widespread.

What's particularly noteworthy is the fact that open source sensing is seen as a way of offering security while dealing with various threats to privacy and freedom that sensor technologies obviously present. Openness may help square the circle here, is the hope.

Keep the Libel Laws out of Science

UK libel laws are famously unbalanced, and allow the rich and powerful to bully challengers who have truth on their side. That's bad enough, but when it crimps the practice of science itself, as here, it's even worse:

The use of the English libel laws to silence critical discussion of medical practice and scientific evidence discourages debate, denies the public access to the full picture and encourages use of the courts to silence critics. The British Chiropractic Association has sued Simon Singh for libel. The scientific community would have preferred that it had defended its position about chiropractic through an open discussion in the medical literature or mainstream media.

On 4th June 2009 Simon Singh announces that he is applying to appeal the judge's recent pre-trial ruling in this case, in conjunction with the launch of this support campaign to defend the right of the public to read the views of scientists and writers.

He needs our help:

Join the campaign! In a statement published on 4th June 2009, over 100 people from the worlds of science, journalism, publishing, comedy, literature and law have joined together to express support for Simon and call for an urgent review of English law of libel. Please help us with this campaign, sign the statement and tell everyone you know to sign it. With every additional 1000 names we will be sending the statement again to Government until there is a commitment and a timetable from the parties for the necessary legislation.

Please help fight for the right to conduct science freely.

Happy Birthday, Mozilla - and Thanks for Being Here

Seven years ago, Mozilla 1.0 was launched:

Mozilla.org, the organization that coordinates Mozilla open-source development and provides services to assist the Mozilla community, today announced the release of Mozilla 1.0, the first major-version public release of the Mozilla software. A full-fledged browser suite based on the latest Internet standards as well as a cross-platform toolkit, Mozilla 1.0 is targeted at the developer community and enables the creation of Internet-based applications. Mozilla 1.0 was developed in an open source environment and built by harnessing the creative power of thousands of programmers and tens of thousands of testers on the Internet, incorporating their best enhancements.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Intel buys Wind River: the End of the Wintel Duopoly?

This is big:

Intel Corporation has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Wind River Systems Inc, under which Intel will acquire all outstanding Wind River common stock for $11.50 per share in cash, or approximately $884 million in the aggregate. Wind River is a leading software vendor in embedded devices, and will become part of Intel's strategy to grow its processor and software presence outside the traditional PC and server market segments into embedded systems and mobile handheld devices. Wind River will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel and continue with its current business model of supplying leading-edge products and services to its customers worldwide.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Knuth: Every Algorithm is Sacred

One of my computer heroes, Donald Knuth, has sent a message to the head of the EPO, hoping to convince her that every algorithm is sacred, and should not be delivered up to become the personal, exclusive, proprietary possession of any one person or company:

Basically I remain convinced that the patent policy most fair and most suitable for the world will regard mathematical ideas (such as algorithms) to be not subject to proprietary patent rights. For example, it would be terrible if somebody were to have a patent on an integer, like say 1009, so that nobody would be able to use that number "with further technical effect" without paying for a license. Although many software patents have unfortunately already been granted in the past, I hope that this practice will not continue in future. If Europe leads the way in this, I expect many Americans would want to emigrate so that they could continue to innovate in peace!

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This is the Future: the Grid Meets the Grid

Wow, this is cool:

At first glance it’s hard to see how the open-source software framework Hadoop, which was developed for analyzing large data sets generated by web sites, would be useful for the power grid — open-source tools and utilities don’t often mix. But that was before the smart grid and its IT tools started to squeeze their way into the energy industry. Hadoop is in fact now being used by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) to aggregate and process data about the health of the power grid, according to this blog post from Cloudera, a startup that’s commercializing Hadoop.

The TVA is collecting data about the reliability of electricity on the power grid using phasor measurement unit (PMU) devices. NERC has designated the TVA system as the national repository of such electrical data; it subsequently aggregates info from more than 100 PMU devices, including voltage, current, frequency and location, using GPS, several thousand times a second. Talk about information overload.

But TVA says Hadoop is a low-cost way to manage this massive amount of data so that it can be accessed all the time. Why? Because Hadoop has been designed to run on a lot of cheap commodity computers and uses two distributed features that make the system more reliable and easier to use to run processes on large sets of data.

What's interesting about this - aside from seeing yet more open source deployed in novel ways - is that it presages a day when the physical grid of electicity and its users are plugged into the digital grid, to allow massive real-time analysis of vast swathes of the modern world, and equally real-time control of it across the grid. Let's hope they get the security sorted out before then...

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Of Open Standards, Interoperability and Open Source

One of the key moments in the rise of open source was when Massachusetts announced that it was adopting an open standards policy for documents. Since this was a gauntlet flung down for the dominant supplier in this space, Microsoft, it was inevitable that a battle of epic proportions would result. In fact, it turned out to be a very dirty fight, degenerating into ad hominem attacks on the person behind this move to open standards. In some ways, it was a prelude to the equally ugly struggle that took place over Microsoft's attempts to ram its OOXML standard through the ISO process – another important moment in the rise of open standards....

On Open Enterprise blog.

DNA Database Breached in New Zealand

Yesterday, I wrote about how the UK ID database has been breached even before it formally exists; now here's another tale that shows what the problem with all such super-duper databases is:

Police are investigating a claim an Environmental Science and Research worker made an "inappropriate disclosure" from the DNA databank.

ESR said yesterday a criminal investigation had started. "A staff member has been suspended pending the outcome of the police and internal investigations," a spokeswoman said.

Which means that *every* database, ultimately, has a weak link: people. So all these assurances of cast-iron, unbreakable security are worthless, for the simple reason that these databases are designed to be used by people, not all of whom are trustworthy or unblackmailable....

ID Database Breached Even Before It Exists

Well, I was expecting this, but not so soon:

A Glasgow council worker was sacked and another resigned after they were caught snooping into the core database of the Government's Identity Card scheme.

The two Glasgow staff were caught snooping on people in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Customer Information Systems (CIS) database, which includes among its 85 million records the personal details about everyone in the UK, and which the Identity and Passport Service plans to use as the foundation of the national ID scheme.

"A member of staff tried to access stuff about famous figures," said a spokesman for Glasgow City Council. He said the DWP alerted the council about the breach. He refused to name the celebrity or say how the council dealt with the matter.

The INQ has learned, however, that the staffer caught looking up personal data belonging to celebrities was sacked.

Whether they were resigned or sacked is neither here nor there: it represents no deterrent whatsoever.

As if that's not bad enough, try this:

"The small number of incidents shows that the CIS security system is working," he added.

Er, no: it just means that you've only *caught* two of them, and that the other n, where n may be a large and growing number, have got away with it so far....

Let's just hope Labour continues its entertaining meltdown before it can bring its insane ID card/database plans to total "fruition" - for the identity thieves and blackmailers.

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Standing up to the Playground Bully

The EU is contemplating some further action against Microsoft:

Frustrated with past efforts to change Microsoft Corp.'s behavior, European Union regulators are pursuing a new round of sanctions against the software giant that go well beyond fines.

The regulatory push is focused on a longstanding complaint against Microsoft: that it improperly bundles its Web browser with its Windows software. Rather than forcing Microsoft to strip its Internet Explorer from Windows, people close to the case say, the EU is now ready to try the opposite measure: Forcing a bunch of browsers into Windows, thus diluting Microsoft's advantage.

The sanctions would come from an EU investigation that began last year. In a sign of how rapidly the case is progressing, these people say, the possible penalty has emerged as a key focus in discussions between the parties.

Inevitably, this suggestion has led to whining about how nasty those eurocrats are, and how unfair to pick on little old Microsoft, and what a crimp on innovation all this is.

How utterly pathetic.

What we are seeing is teacher starting to get heavy with the playground bully - one who, despite a decade of warnings, continues to abuse its monopoly position. What we are seeing is an institution that finally has both the will and means to place limits on what are acceptable business practices.

Of course, forcing Microsoft to give people a choice of browsers when they start up Windows will make little difference to the that market, but that's not the point. The point is the punishment - a further reminder that Microsoft is under scrutiny, and that further serious financial sanctions are always an option. It's absolutely the *right* thing to do, because Microsoft's behaviour for the last two decades has been absolutely the *wrong* thing to do, and it is finally being called to account.

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Why Chemical Software Will be Open Source

Here's an important post from Mr Open Chemistry, Peter Murray-Rust:

“Chemical software will be Open Source”

This statement expresses both a simple truth (Simple Future, see WP) and an aspiration (Coloured Future – Software shall be free). The latter is what I have been advocating on this blog – the moral, pragmatic, utilitarian value of Open Source. The former simply states that it will happen. IOW a betting person could lay a wager.

The heart of Peter's argument is this:

there is a particular aspect to “Chemoinformatics” - the software that supports the management of chemical compounds, reactions and their measured and computed properties:

There have been no new developments in the last decade

What I mean by this is that there have been no new algorithms or information management strategy to have come out of commercial chemoinformatics manufacturers. Chemical search, heuristic properties and fingerprints, molecule docking are “solved” problems. And advance comes from packaging, integration and parameter_tweaking/machine_learning. Only the last adds to science and since the commercial manufacturers are secretive then we can’t measure this (and I believe this to be mainly pseudoscience in its practice – you can make extravagant plans without independent assessment). So the advances from the manufacturers have been engineering – ease of use, deployability, interoperation with third-party software – but not functionality.

So the Open Source community – the Blue Obelisk – is catching up. I believe that OSCAR is already the best chemical language processing tool, that OPSIN will soon be as good as any commercial name2structure parser and that OSRA will do the same for chemical images.

What this essentially means is that chemoinformatics has become commoditised; and as history has shown us time and again, once that happens, the advantages of open source in terms of aggregated, distributed development kick in. It is proprietary software that does not scale - ironically, given the prevailing wisdom to the contrary - and which therefore always falls behind open source projects once a particular domain has matured.

This is not to say that free software never innovates, as I've discussed elsewhere; simply that in new sectors open source's advantages are less clear than they are in mature ones. Peter's point is that chemoinformatics in particular is ripe for open source to produce better versions of existing tools; and the implication is that as successive areas of science software become similarly mature, so free software offerings will move in and ultimately take over.

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