The Commons: When Digital Meets Analogue

Given the convergence of thinking about the digital and analogue commons that is taking place, the news that EarthTrends is releasing its online collection of information regarding environmental, social, and economic trends under a Creative Commons licence is welcome.

The Birth of Free Content

The term "open content" is applied almost universally to materials that are freely available to varying degrees. Its origins derive directly from the term "open source". But what about the correlate of "free software"? Enter free content, which some enterprising souls have decided to promote. Among them is Erik Möller, the bloke behind both Wikinews and Wikimedia Commons, so he certainly has the right credentials.

Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad

The thought-provoking Against Monopoly blog makes an interesting contrast: copyright bad, trademark good. Not quite sure where a copyright-less world would leaves the GNU GPL, though, which depends on copyright to work.

W(h)ither Sun?

McNealy leaving Sun is certainly the end of an era. But the big question is: what follows?

As far as Jonathan Schwartz is concerned, too much is being made (a) of his ponytail, and (b) of his blog. Perhaps the clearest indication of his thinking is this panegyric:

There is no single individual who has created more jobs around the world than you. And ... I'm not talking hundreds or thousands of jobs, I'm talking millions. They ended up in America and India, Indonesia and Antarctica, Madagascar, Mexico, Brazil and Finland. They ended up everywhere. Everywhere the network travels.

No single individual has spawned so many startups, fueled so much venture investment, or raised so much capital without actually trying - just with a vision of the future that gets more obvious by the day.

No single individual has so effectively created and promoted the technologies at the heart of a new world emerging around us. A world in which the demand for network computing technology will never decline - as we share more family photos, watch more digital movies, do more banking on-line, build more communities on line, run our supply chains, automate our governments or educate our kids.

Unfortunately, Schwartz is not talking about Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who did all these things, and did them entirely out of altruism, but supposedly about McNealy, who did nothing on the same scale, and did it for the dosh. If this is the quality of analysis we can expect from the new head of Sun, it's probably time to find some comfortable chairs, order a dry sherry, and to enjoy the imminent sunset.

Poodles, UFOs, Truth, Terror and Microsoft

The facts behind the UK cracker who ill-advisedly decided to break into Pentagon systems just gets more and more bizarre. The main issue is that this poor bloke faces porridge in Guantanamo Bay - with hot and cold running torture (mental and physical), kindly provided by that nice Uncle Sam. But along the way there are issues of jurisdiction, questions about George W. Bush's favourite poodle, UFOs and Microsoft.

Yes, it's actually all Microsoft's fault.

Mum Was Right: It's Good to Share

A nice story in PC World (via Engadget) about a way to pool WiFi connections with a neighbour so as to boost throughput for both. Now, imagine if we started to do this on a national basis....

Send Microsoft a Message Today

Microsoft has been suprisingly good in its Firefox support recently - until this came along. If you use Firefox, do make sure you pay them a visit just to let them know through their Web stats that Firefox has to be on the A-list in the future.

Why Open Access Makes Sense

There are lots of moral reasons why academics should support open access. But there is also an extremely strong pragmatic one: their work is more widely read, and their institutions gain in visibility and hence prestige.

Open access? - You'd be daft not to.

Update. Peter Suber has kindly sent me this link to a huge bibliography of studies that demonstrate the benefits of open access in even more detail.

Dry Sterile Thunder Without Rain

The looming storm...?

Tridge and Bill

An interesting story in The New York Times about the courtroom battle between the EU and Microsoft. It makes beautifully clear how one human story trumps any number of dry legal expositions, however detailed and cogent the evidence they present.

Certainly, it was a shrewd move wheeling out Andrew Tridgell. I had the pleasure of interviewing Tridge for my book Rebel Code, and his boyish enthusiasm for hacking positively beamed through the conversation, undiminished by the journey from his native Australia. Indeed, he presents a fascinating contrast to some of the other bigs of the free software world, for example the driven and messianic Stallman or the sardonic and by nature rather shy Linus.

We Are Not Alone

One of the heartening things is how I keep coming across blogs that are broadly pushing for the same things as this one, even if they come at it from very different angles. A case in point is the excellent Against Monopoly, which has the subhead "Defending the Right to Innovate" - a phrase that will sound familiar (and wonderfully ironic) to Microsoft-watchers.

I shall have more to say about this site and some of the people behind it in due course.

I've Seen the Future - and It's Patented

The name Nathan Myhrvold probably doesn't strike fear into your heart; it may not even be known to you. But one day, rest assured, he will make Bill Gates look benign. Gates simply wants to own the software industry, and, as has been amply shown over the last quarter century, is prepared to do anything - including creating the odd illegal monopoly - to achieve that. But at least Gates has the virtue of believing passionately in the value of the software his people make; and at least they do actually make something.

Myhrvold's company, Intellectual Ventures, does not make anything. It will never make anything. For its domain is patents, and all it aspires to do is to create the world's biggest and most lucrative heap of patents to get the people who do actually make stuff to pay licences - whether justified or not - by threatening to sue them if they don't. Industrial-scale patent troll-dom, in other words.

Myhrvold once worked for Microsoft, and became very rich doing so. His new venture is based on an astute reading of the broken patent system in the US, and on how to play it in all its glorious brokenness. If you want the full details, read the excellent article in IP Law & Business, probably the best introduction to just how Myhrvold intends to do it.

He may well pull it off. His logic is impeccable, as you would expect from someone who is anything but a fool. But it is based on the past - a deeply-flawed past that threatens to bring innovation to a grinding halt in the US, and anywhere else stupid enough to acquiesce in the latter's demands that its own patent regime be imposed as part of trade agreements.

For all his cleverness, Myhrvold cannot see - will not see - that the future belongs to a different model for "intellectual property", a commons-based approach made famous by free software, though not invented by it (it's actually as old as the idea of the commons, which goes back to the Romans and beyond into the mists of time).

In fact, Myhrvold's likely success in bringing entire sectors to their corporate knees through the use of broad patent portfolios may have the ironic consequence of hastening the ultimate repeal of all the accumulated stupidities in the fields of patents, trademarks and copyright. For this reason, I wish him every success. Almost.

Apache Now Leader in Secure Web Servers Too

One of the statistics most often trotted out to demonstrate open source's rise and reach is Apache's total dominance of the public Web server sector (I should know, I've done it often enough myself). This has always stuck in Microsoft's craw, and their standard response is "Well, it doesn't really count since it's mostly mickey-mouse Web servers, whereas we are the tops for grown-up secure Web servers" (not their phraseology, but you get my drift).

The news that Apache is now the leading secure Web server as well as the leading Web server overall rather blows this story out of the water. It also means that all that hard work Microsoft has been doing converting domain registrars in a desperate attempt to boost its market share - that is, gaining share among the mickey-mouse Web servers it so pooh-poohed before - was a complete waste of time and money.

Avast There, Landlubbers

Quite.

Audacious, Adorable Auntie

I've been a big fan of the BBC ever since I first saw Doctor Who - and I mean since I first saw the very first episode of the first Doctor Who (yes, I know, I know). Today, life is inconceivable without the backdrop of Radio 3 from early morning until late at night. And so it's good to see such a fine institution being so, well, good and fine.

Its latest move as it dances on the brink of opening up the vast audio-visual thesaurus hidden in the vaults is to make its Programme Catalogue freely available for searches (and how appropriate that an institution that almost defines Britishness should use two of the words that almost define the British variant of English for this).

It's not complete (it only has one entry for me, but I'm sure I took part in a deeply obscure BBC TV programme about computers several geological time-periods ago); it's not completely free (the licence essentially limits you to personal, non-commercial use). But it's a completely wonderful start, and a magnificent contribution to open knowledge.

Update: Apparently, the dinky little graphics that pepper the results are called sparklines (via Nodalpoint.org).

The European Digital Library: Glimmers of Hope

When I last wrote about the proposed European Digital Library, I was not optimistic about what users might be able to do with its content: "IP" considerations seemed to be raising their ugly head.

But maybe there's hope. A recent background paper contains the following two clueful passages:

The Creative Commons initiative, which started in the USA, is gaining ground in different European countries. It provides a set of user-friendly online licenses giving creators of content the opportunity to protect some of their rights, while giving away others.

and

London’s Wellcome Trust, one of Europe’s largest charities, is planning to launch a system that will archive all papers produced by its grantees in a digital library. Wellcome will require researchers to deposit a copy of the accepted manuscript within 6 months of publication.

Copying CDs is Worse Than Stealing Them

At least that's one implication of the proposed DMCA++. There are other interesting ways of putting it, too.

Opening Up to Pure Geek Goodness

The real power of open APIs is not so much the particular, obvious things they let you do, but that - as with all open endeavours - they remove unnatural obstacles so that the only limits are your ingenuity.

For example, an outfit called TruePath Technologies has plugged network monitoring into Google's open Calendar API to create something no sane - or uninspired - individual would ever have dreamt of. (Via Digg)

Beyond Open Source - The Talk

I mentioned a little while back that I'd been asked to give a talk at the Open Source and Sustainability conference in Oxford. This has now taken place, both I and my audience survived, and the talk is available online (as a PDF, I'm afraid). It's about open source, open genomics and open content.

Now there's a surprise.

Now It's Trademarks' Turn

I've written a fair amount about patent woes in these posts (some would probably say too much). And in many ways, patents are easy pickings, since the idiocies perpetrated by patent offices around the world are pretty obviously wrong, even to the person on the Clapham omnibus.

But trademarks are another matter. Rights and wrongs here are more slippery, since there is certainly commercial sense in allowing owners to protect brands that they may have invested considerable amounts to build up. But trademarks are not like copyright: it is not an artistic question of infringing on an expression of an idea, but rather a commercial issue of avoiding confusion in the marketplace.

So the news that the US is about to push through some changes to its trademark law that will radically re-shape what trademarks will do in areas outside commerce is bad indeed. The bill in question would remove traditional exceptions to US trademark law that concern news reporting and commentary; fair use; and non-commercial use. If these proposals become law, it will give owners of trademarks huge and totally inappropriate power over not just competitors, but the media and the public too.

Update: Here's what companies already get up to using trademarks.

At the Top of the Stack

The Inquirer has an interesting story about the quaintly-named "China Rural PC", which seems to be Intel's bid (a) to make some dosh out of the huge Chinese market and (b) to prove that a Lintel duopoly is just as nice as the Wintel one.

But what really caught my attention was the software line-up that this system - whether it ever gets made or not - will/would run at the top of the stack:

Mozilla
Evolution
Gaim
Gnomemeeting, aka Ekiga
OpenOffice.org

along with some interesting extras like Moodle (what a great name: now I wonder why I like it so much...?). The only things I'd change are to swap out Mozilla for Firefox and Evolution for Thunderbird, especially once the latter acquires the Lightning calendar extension.

What this list shows is the range and maturity of GNU/Linux apps on the desktop, and the fact that the technical obstacles to broader take-up are diminishing by the day.

That only leaves the users.

Burning Down the House

After middleware, now business intelligence. Burning down the house (of closed source) - seeping up the stack.

Murdering Memory

This press release from the US National Archives raises a key issue for the digital age: the need for archives to act in a completely transparent fashion. If, as has been happening, archives can be silently "disappeared" by security forces, history - built on sand at the best of times - becomes even more unstable.

The words of the grandly-named Archivist of the United States should be framed on the walls of everyone working in the world of digital memories:

There can never be a classified aspect to our mission. Classified agreements are the antithesis of our reason for being.

Imagine, for example, if the great and wonderful Internet Archive were forced to delete materials, without even leaving a notice to that effect. Perhaps they already have.

Wikis, Wikis, Everywhere...

...Nor any stop to think.

The New York Times reports on the rash of wikis that are appearing on e-commerce sites. I've already mentioned the one that's popped up on Amazon, as well as that on Chinesepod.

But I really can't see this as turning into a general component of any old shopping site. Unless there is a clear benefit for users to contribute to this communal effort - and for most e-commerce sites there isn't - then customer reviews, which at least allow people to express themselves, seems the better approach.

Unrelenting Evil

I couldn't have put it better myself.