Hats Off for Ofcom

Ofcom (Office for Communications), the regulator for UK communications industries, is a grey and rather amorphous body. So it comes as something of a surprise to find that Ofcom is getting positively right-on when it comes to open spectrum - the unlicensed part of the electromagnetic spectrum that has given us things like WiFi, and which potentially could see a tremendous blossoming of ideas, given half the chance.

One step in the right direction is the latest report looking into whether it might be possible to increase the maximum permissible power used in parts of the unregulated spectrum - which would also permit new uses. (Via OpenSpectrum.info.)

The Hive Mind Buzzes - and Stings

The Bubble Generation Strategy Lab (there, and you thought it was just a blog) was recommended to me by Chinesepod's Ken Carroll. It's interesting stuff, but I must confess a certain ambivalence.

Clearly this Umair is a bright chap, it's just that occasionally I cannot understand a word he is saying - and this is not a problem I normally have with, well, much.

On the other hand, some of his postings are right on the button. To wit: this one, on the "New Bourgeoisie". Or is it just because he has the guts to criticise the otherwise untouchable la Dyson?

Shock! Horror! Macro Viruses for OSS

This explains why macros are generally a bad thing to use in word processors or spreadsheets (yes, I know they can be useful, too). It is also a warning to OSS activists not to hit the "OSS is immune to viruses" button: it may be true now, but it sure won't be in the future as OSS enters the mainstream. (Via LWN.net).

Open Nanotech

Normally I wouldn't pay much attention to this story about producing mechanical components with industrial printers:

the company builds components by piling thin, patterned layers of ceramics, metals and other materials on top of each other and curing the individual layers as the structure takes shape.

These printed components, which consist of hundreds of layers, can also contain fully integrated moving parts, hinges or sealed air chambers.

What leant this otherwise routine piece of nanotech fluff some interest was a comment made last night by Alan Cox, for a long time de facto number 2 of the Linux kernel, and still very much a big cheese in the open source world (and a nice bloke too).

He was speaking at a question and answer session arranged by the British Computer Society's Open Source Specialist Group. Also present was Mark Taylor, founder and President of the Open Source Consortium, very plugged-in and switched-on, and a coder-turned-lawyer called Andrew Katz, whom I'd not met before.

Alan mentioned the idea of printing arbitrary objects one day, in exactly the manner described by the C|net piece above. I asked him whether he'd been talking with Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, who espouses similar ideas rather more fervently - indeed, he says that Project Gutenberg's open content is only the start of the the next industrial revolution, when everything - as in every kind of analogue object - will be downloadable and printable.

When two such different individuals have a blue-sky vision so similar, it makes you stop and think.

It's worth noting that open nanotech will have a huge advantage over proprietary versions, since the whole benefit from the technology will be putting together microscopic elements to build something useful. If each sub-part is proprietary and/or patented, it will be a legal minefield. If the elements are open and patent-free, the only limit is your imagination.

Half-Open, Half-Closed

This isn't really open source, but it seems to me that the underlying idea has much in common with the open source development process - call it half-open (or half-closed). Here's TechCrunch's explanation:

Utah-based Logoworks, which just relaunched a major new user interface, has an innovative and inexpensive way of creating corporate and other logos for customers. They outsource the project to interested and pre-approved designers who come up with design concepts. You then pick the concept you like best and iterate from there. Designers are paid bonuses based on having their designs chosen, and so a very efficient and competitive market is created around each logo creation project.

Although TechCrunch frames this in terms of the "competitive market", I prefer to think of it as a Darwinian selection process that is akin to what happens with the larger open source projects. In any case, it's an interesting application of that idea in a general commercial context.

We're All Content Creators, Now (Well, Almost)

The Pew Reports are invaluable for their independent, irreproachable findings. So when the latest one says that 35% of US Internet users have posted content, you'd better believe it. One third down, two thirds to go.

Clueless or What?

You might think this is a typical non-sequitur laden piece of cluelessness about open source. But one of the ever-watchful readers of LWN.net points out the interesting tidbit that the author "previously worked as policy researcher for Microsoft’s Geopolitical Policy and Strategy Group". Now there's a coincidence.

The Future of Free Information

I've written a couple of times about the emerging Digital Universe - an attempt to do Wikipedia "properly", with grown-up editing. Now the man partly behind both Wikipedia and Digital Universe has written a fascinating essay considering the Future of Free Information.

One thing I'd take exception to is his belief that there will never be public information about every single living (and dead) human: since it's possible - indeed only too easy as technology advances - it's almost bound to happen, probably automatically. The other is the idea that

It seems unlikely that all of the world’s information will be open content in the future; as long as authors, artists, and coders perceive no other viable model but traditional intellectual property to support their work, many of them will be opposed to simply “giving away” their work.

We shall see. (Via Open Access News.)

Blogging with Style

Well, more blogging in the style of the Telegraph: this is their blogging guide, which they've kindly made available. And well worth reading too: you can't have too many of these, since they represent a kind of group wisdom as help and hints get passed around. (via Open (finds, minds conversations).)

Vote, Vote, Vote for the EU Parliament

After voting out software patents, the EU Parliament has proved its worth again. It asked the European Court of Justice to block an agreement between the European Commission, EU governments and the US whereby European airline passenger data is meekly handed over to the US authorities, and the wise old court has agreed.

This could get very interesting.

The Decline and Fall of Microsoft

This sounds like a trivial story: morale among workers at Microsoft is low. So what? you may ask.

But this is how the company will be defeated.

Not by the continuing rise of open source rising, not because local and national governments refuse to buy its over-priced, under-performing products. Simply because, like all empires, it will sink down under the weight of its own corporate infrastructure into a kind of vast, irresistible lethargy, unable to summon up the power to fight these and other threats, unable to motivate its workers to produce anything of any real value.

Microsoft will never be destroyed; it will just fade away.

GPL'ed Java

I see that Jonathan is still trying to impress me with tantalising hints that he may take Java open source using the GPL.

Wiki + Google Maps = WikiMapia

As I've said before, every good mashup needs a mesh, and you can't beat a map as a mesh. So here we have the obvious next step: a wiki based on the mesh of Google Maps - WikiMapia, which describes itself modestly as "a project to describe the whole planet Earth". Not much there at the moment, so you know what you have to do.... (Via C|net).

The Bloggable is Political

An interesting story in the New York Times that hints at how gobbets of the blogosphere may be starting to emerge blinking into the strange world of meatspace, with potentially important political ramifications.

BloodSpell - For Openness' Sake

Another film released under a Creative Commons licence - but this one with a twist. It's made using the Machinima framework - a kind of virtual world production. It's dead clunky now (think old videogames), but it's not hard to see where this is going: completely realistic virtual worlds that unfold according to scripts with actors capable of independent action, all filmed with free camerawork. Hollywood won't know what hits it.

All it needs now is a fully open-source platform. Unless one already exists - my ignorance of this fascinating world is such that it might well do, but I couldn't find one. (Via OpenBusiness.)

Now It's Larry's Turn

I'm not a great fan of market research companies, but these studies certainly sound eminently sensible to me. No wonder Larry's desperately trying to crash the open source party.

Microsoft's War on Two Fronts

Not content with making itself look ridiculous trying to find ways in which GNU/Linux is worse than Windows, Microsoft has now decided it wants to look doubly silly by calling the OpenDocument Format "slow" compared to its own office format. Read the article for why this is an extremely desperate thing to do.

SuperOyster, Cybertout, Queue-Trolls

Well, perhaps it was inevitable, given the online Klondike rush to devise "monetizations" of god knows what: someone has come up with a way for people to buy and sell positions in a queue.

But aside from giving the rich even more ways to push ahead of the little people, the inevitable result of this approach will be thousands of cybertouts joining queues purely with a view to selling their positions to those with more money than morals.

If you want to see a practical example of the commons destruction this wanton "monetization" causes, just take a peep at the domain name system. This used to be about people buying domains to use; now it's mostly about guessing which names others will want, buying them first, then trying to flog them for exorbitant prices - thereby adding precisely nothing to the ecosystem.

A bit like patent trolls, really. Now, there's a coincidence. (Via TechCrunch.)patent trolls, queuing,

How to Save the Commons: Compute

There aren't many commons bigger than the atmosphere, nor one whose existence in something near its present state is so critical to our own survival. But in the face of the indisputable scientific consensus that global warming is taking place, it is hard to know what to do.

Well, short of rugby-tackling your elected representatives to the ground and refusing to let go until they do something about the climate crisis, you might at least join this project. It's pretty standard distributed computing stuff: your PC (Windows only, alas) does calculations in the background during idle time, and contributes its bit(s) to the greater whole - in this case making more accurate predictions about climate change.

It hardly requires much commitment from you, just a quick download, plus some electricity (pity that the latter will make the global warming worse). In fact, it's worth taking part just to get the ultra-cool screen-saver, which shows your model - your earth - and its climate, evolving before your very eyes.

Are O'Reilly Still Really the Good Guys?

Apparently not.

Update 1: See Jack Schofield's wise words on the matter.

Update 2: And this is Tim O'Reilly's response. Dunno: seems a bit hectoring, to me.

Welcome to the 20th Century

Region coding on DVDs is an old throwback to when the world was disconnected, and different parts of it could go their merry ways. But since the arrival of that curious thing called the Internet, we all live in the same county, which makes country codes pointless.

Alas, somebody forgot to tell the DVD Forum, who look likely to push through the same stupid approach for HD DVDs. Good job nobody is buying them. (Via the Reg.)

Google Does Picasa for GNU/Linux...Almost

In the light of an earlier post wondering whose side Google was really on, the news that it has come out with a GNU/Linux version of its Picasa image management tool is interesting - particularly because of the way it has chosen to do it.

Rather than release a completely re-written version for the GNU/Linux platform, it has chosen to "cheat" by using WINE, which lets it employ the Windows code that is then mediated by WINE. So while it's good to have Picasa for GNU/Linux, it would have been nicer to see Google going all the way, rather than cobbling together this makeshift version.

However, to be fair, Google's decision has resulted in some patches for WINE, which may well help other porting projects. Apparently, a GNU/Linux version of Google Earth is also coming, but this won't be using WINE. (via Ars Technica.)

A Quantum Mechanic Writes

How could anyone fail to love a project called Dirac? It's named after one of the most modest of quantum mechanics' pioneers. He once said that he was fortunate enough to have found himself amidst the Golden Age of quantum mechanics, when even second-rate minds could make first-rate discoveries.

If you're uncertain what this all means in practice, try this:
Dirac is a video codec that provides general-purpose video compression and decompression tools comparable with state-of-the-art systems.

All distributed under an open source licence by those kind people at the BBC.

A Tiny Victory?

This is all deeply abstruse stuff, but the bottom line is that there seems to be a glimmer sanity in the European Commission's attitude to the European patent system, in the clash between the competencies of the European Union and the European Patent Office (which have little to do with each other), and even with regard to the patentability of software. Or are we being too optimistic?

Open Filmmaking

After collaborative books, here comes collaborative filmmaking. A film in 28 parts, made by 28 different groups, the whole released under a CC licence. (Via eHub)