Wednesday January 31, 2007 links for 2007-01-31
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EC as scrupulously neutral as ever. Lovely "Get the FUD" juxtapostion at the end.
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Stephen Harpster, Sun's Director for OpenSolaris, calls for community debate on whether to add GPLv3 to the OpenSolaris licensing. Seems a good idea to me, I'd be interested to see what others think.
Posted by webmink
( Jan 31 2007, 01:24:09 AM PST )
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Tuesday January 30, 2007 Adobe Adds Non-Assert
I just got home from a great day at JFokus in Sweden, so this is my first chance to pass longer comment on Adobe's excellent move to turn PDF into a ratified international standard like ODF. I first saw the news in Duane's blog and saw from there that they are sensibly using AIIM as the steward. This approach - waiting for the spec to stabilise before standardisation - is exactly the right thing to do and I understand the balance one needs to make between concern for the existing user base and desire to formalise the established standard. Stephen has one his Q & As on the news which is worth reading, especially for the implication of importance to the ongoing tussle between Microsoft and the rest of humanity over document formats.
When I saw the news, the first thing I went looking for was the details of how Adobe will handle all the patents associated with PDF, since it undoubtedly has a substantial portfolio. On Monday there was nothing at all about that in the announcement or the FAQ, so I asked on Duane's blog. Interestingly Stephen doesn't cover this important topic.
I just got a note from Duane with the very welcome news that Adobe has in fact decided to issue a Covenant not to sue surrounding its patent portfolio for PDF. They've added this fact to the end of the FAQ.This is excellent news since it frees the forthcoming ISO standard for implementation by Free and open source communities. Kudos to Adobe for taking this increasingly normal step with their standard, and to Duane for acting so fast to get it sorted.
Posted by webmink
( Jan 30 2007, 06:20:33 PM PST )
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links for 2007-01-30
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Seems ISo Fever is catching. I assume this is to head off the threat from Metro (although I suppose Microsoft will try to push that to ISO too if they can establish duplicate standards as a principle). No IP covenant for PDF visible, I wonder why.
Posted by webmink
( Jan 30 2007, 01:27:17 AM PST )
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Sunday January 28, 2007 links for 2007-01-28
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This is pretty disgusting behaviour from the monopolist. "After blatantly copying BlueJ (without reference or attribution), Microsoft have now filed for patent for the functionality they knowingly copied from us."
Update: It's not just my view, Microsoft admits it...
Update 2: Excellent news - Microsoft withdraws the threat and apologises. Kudos to their team. -
South Korea has no choice but to use Windows, since the only way to do secure transactions uses an ActiveX control. And even that fails under Vista, which Microsoft will release there regardless. To think I was criticised for calling monocultures harmful.
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"In a little noticed provision included in the Patriot Act reauthorization last year, the ... law was changed so that if a vacancy arises the Attorney General may [completely avoid] the Senate confirmation process"
Posted by webmink
( Jan 28 2007, 01:21:08 AM PST )
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Saturday January 27, 2007 links for 2007-01-27
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Includes a case study exploring the OpenSPARC design.
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"If you're a Windows Vista user, you're especially susceptible to this attack because of the difficulty in identifying it when using Vista." Another reason not to migrate to Vista. I've seen lots of these ad-hocs in the wild, so this is real.
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Nice article on ODF here - does anyone know the author? "The main benefit of ODF is that it assures content will always be available to the people who create it and to those with whom they share it."
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Deep insight into the soul of a sales guy.
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Finally - the way the system works officially revealed.
Posted by webmink
( Jan 27 2007, 01:23:28 AM PST )
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Friday January 26, 2007 links for 2007-01-26
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"ODF was standardized for both idealistic and commercial reasons....OOXML was standardized defensively" -- It's Microsoft's tactic to "Teach the controversy" by drowning the matter in detail and forgetting the context.
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OpenOffice.org press release about the new ODF Toolkit Project.
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Once again hosted by Sun.
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Interesting analysis of Jonathan's impact on Sun. OpenSolaris is not currently GPLed, by the way.
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Another company decides to save money and end the co-dependent relationship with the monopolist.
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Great company name, love it.
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As if the story around voting machines in the US couldn't get worse, it seems Diebold has left further hostages to fortune. On the old "for every bug found there are two yet to find" basis this story has a lot of 'down' left to fall.
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European groups call for a halt to ISO fast-tracking of Microsoft's Office 12 file formats. I tend to agree.
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I love this, I need some stickers.
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Good to great summary from Stephen. If the Linux Foundation sticks to Linux and leaves GNU to the FSF life will be wonderful for all of us. If they insist on bellicosity instead of unity, the only winner will be Microsoft.
Posted by webmink
( Jan 26 2007, 01:22:50 AM PST )
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Thursday January 25, 2007 links for 2007-01-25
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The contrast here is enlightening. The ODF Toolkit allows people to create ODF-capable applications independently of any vendor or product. Microsoft's stuff lets developers target Microsoft products. Emblematic.
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Excellent article from CRN looking at the state of the GPLv3 debate. The only thing I would have fixed was to balance the LKM white paper, whose criticisms seemed based on old data, but overall this is worth reading.
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Especially that last choice.
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Another hard-hitting message from the OpenOffice.org community asks why, if you really think you need to "upgrade" your office suite (which they question) you don't try OpenOffice.org first.
Posted by webmink
( Jan 25 2007, 01:27:36 AM PST )
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Wednesday January 24, 2007 ODF Tookit Project
I do sympathise with the view that Stephen has about having too much news in one week, but in the midst of all the excitement of the Intel announcement and Sun's return to profitability, the OpenOffice.org community made a very important announcement yesterday that I'd like to point out to you.
It announced the ODF Toolkit Project, a community with the goal of creating shared software that both OpenOffice.org and other communities and developers can use to create applications that create and consume OpenDocument Format. Having an open source implementation of a standard like the OASIS-derived ISO/IEC 26300 is important becuase it provides the basis for the much faster proliferation of compatible support for the standard. Having that code be common to multiple open source and commercial projects is also important - it makes the burden for us all less while making the value for us all more.
While other formats seek only to be fully implemented once, having architecture-neutral componentry that implements ODF in this way will be a key to format freedom. Just say no to software standards with no open source implementation - those aren't standards, they are time-to-market barriers by their inventors.
This is very much in the spirit of the concept Rob Weir of IBM articulated a while back, and I very much hope they and many others will join together to make the project successful - the folks who voted "+1" to start the project are setting a great example. Sun is committed to the project, and you can read more about that from Sun's Juergen Schmidt.
Posted by webmink
( Jan 24 2007, 03:53:22 AM PST )
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Links for 2007-01-24
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Posted by webmink
( Jan 24 2007, 02:17:05 AM PST )
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Tuesday January 23, 2007 OpenSolaris Governance Ready to Boot
As Ben Rockwood notes, the time has finally come for the OpenSolaris community to pay close attention to the community governance. The Board (OGB) has completed a proposed governance document - the OpenSolaris Constitution - and it's time to hold an election. The work was actually completed at the end of 2006 just before the OGB's term expired, and while it would be feasible to select an entirely different group to run the voting, Stephen Harpster (to whom responsibility has reverted under the Charter) felt it would be smarter to ask the OGB to hang on for a little longer to oversee things.
If you trawl back through the OGB discussions you'll see we toyed with having separate votes to ratify the Constitution and to elect the new OGB under its terms, but Roy Fielding pointed out (and I agreed) that really all that's needed is one vote - if the Constitution needs radical revision, the OpenSolaris Community can elect a Board to go do that.
So, now is the time to sit up and take note. Please read the Constitution Draft, then consider if you would make an ideal Board member for the community and be ready for the announcements. This is the moment many of us have been anticipating with both excitement and concern - when OpenSolaris truly steps out as a member-led organisation. Get ready, the project needs you.
Posted by webmink
( Jan 23 2007, 06:48:36 PM PST )
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links for 2007-01-23
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Nice to see that they are supporting the full range of ODF formats in this product. Way to go, we need a full range of offerings with ODF support including proprietary.
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No doubt we'll have headlines in the UK soon about binge-drinking pit bulls.
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I'm still holding out against their evil DRM (I can't burn this stuff to DVDs) but even so it's so tempting it hurts when they start to stock things like this.
Posted by webmink
( Jan 23 2007, 04:18:33 AM PST )
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Monday January 22, 2007 links for 2007-01-22
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The brilliant Eve Maler makes an excellent case for OpenID and SAML needing each other deeply and being perfectly complementary in their goals and experiences. Now all we need to do is get the cultures talking, and it looks like that's started.
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Proving once again that it's not over until the fat lady sings (and serves you with orange sauce).
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Seems Tim & I aren't the only sceptics.
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Classy lawyer joke as Linden Labs join in the parody
Posted by webmink
( Jan 22 2007, 04:20:55 AM PST )
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Friday January 19, 2007 links for 2007-01-19
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I'm quoted praising the recent EC study on open source. It presents Microsoft's "Get The FUD" campaign with a cold, hard draught of unbiased basic research from a neutral party. I hope BECTA are reading this...
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Since advice to Microsoft is in vogue, I actually think they should join the Mozilla Firefox community and stop wasting time and money on IE, which simply alienates power users.
Posted by webmink
( Jan 19 2007, 04:20:41 AM PST )
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Tuesday January 16, 2007 Edited Out of History
Now here's an interesting difference in corporate styles. I remember when I left IBM in 2000, the (extensive) mentions of me on IBM's web pages were gradually edited away until today, six years later, there seems to be only one or two left that date from my pre-Sun days (doubtless they will also get expunged now). This one's interesting - my job title has been changed to Sun even though I was still at IBM on the date I gave the talk (7 months before I gave my notice in fact).
When we started blogs.sun.com, we had a long discussion about what we should do when employees left. The conclusion we all reached, supported strongly by Jonathan Schwartz who attended the meeting, was that they should simply be left in place, merely closed for further changes. Our view was that, if the blog text had been acceptable when it was published, there was no reason a change of employment status should vary that. Not to mention the desire by Tim to preserve URIs. Interestingly, one of Jonathan's motivations for this was also so that people could pick up where they left off when they rejoined Sun! Going one step further, Sun now has a blog aggregator for alumni.
So it's with some surprise that I see IBM's former Fellow, "Father of Websphere" Don Ferguson, is already in the process of being airbrushed out of history. His blog already redirects to the home page for IBM's dW bloggers (he's still listed as I type this) despite the cached version showing no signs of being any less defensible than it was a month ago. You can see an older version in WayBackMachine. It seems that, now he works for Microsoft, his views are retrospectively unacceptable. Or is there another explanation?
Update: IBM has responded to this controversy by re-instating Don's blog, with the addition of a comment to say he no longer works at IBM. Jolly good, hope it's now a policy since URL-rot is a problem we all hate!
Posted by webmink
( Jan 16 2007, 03:23:58 PM PST )
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