Recent Blog Posts
Blogs » Open Source
Open Sourcery
: Open Source BlogBill in US Congress to Overhaul Patent Law
The US government is starting down the long, arduous path of patent reform. Obviously this will entail lengthy debate and would hopefully at the very least move patent law in the US a few steps ahead.
This issue is certainly of importance to those in the open source arena, as even though many developers of all sizes are releasing patents into the open, the direction legislators take will either improve or worsen intellectual property issues and licensing.
Of equal interest is Linus Torvald’s foray into protecting the Linux name. Some have reacted poorly to Torvald’s moves - however, as the LinuxInsider piece reflects - he communicated his concerns several years back.
Personally I look at trademark and patent issues far apart from one another and see no harm in Linus protecting his namesake. I am sure we all see the value in his contributions to our world.
We have had commercialization discussions before facing the growing pains of Linux and open source in general entering the marketplace alongside the mavens of proprietary software. Certainly as we track the new GPL, we should equally track and comment on this new road toward patent reform.
I think most of us who have dealt …
Reach out and touch with Google
Google is branching out beyond search this week with news of a multi-faceted instant messaging client the the upgraded Desktop 2 with Sidebar.
MySQL at Ten Years
If anyone missed this letter to the MySQL community from its founders, David Axmark and Michael “Monty” Widenius, earlier this month prior to OSCON - it is worth a read.
Certainly after a decade MySQL has racked up serious credibility, an impressive distribution count and some high profile users.
Undoubtedly MySQL’s reputation is largely proven by our own use - however - it helps to gather some marketing material if you are pitching solutions that include it. Take note that some of your customers may be totally comfortable at the idea of licensing MySQL commercially for support based on sophisticated deployments.
Letter from August 2
Open Source Patent Commons
The announcement by the Open Source Development Labs further reinforces an observation made in my previous post on the forthcoming new GPL version3.
This should go a long way to continue to expand the integration of proven development solutions into open source projects. It does not hurt that power players such as IBM, RedHat, Nokia, Sun and Novell are a part of the OSDL. It also embraces the fact that service driven companies rather than software licensing companies are making money.
Granted - there are I am sure some critical patents these folks may be holding back and making serious money on - but they are starting to put themoney where there mouths are.
The success of Linux and open source solutions is (not anything new to open source users - I know) largely about expertise, understanding of a client’s business sector and service/support.
While earlier business models built on this may have failed in the 90’s - the failure was more about greed in companies who took free software and thought they would make kabillions on the backs of unassuming consumers of services. What businesses based on open source now see is that their passion for the use of …
GPL 3 Expected in 2007
While news reports are projecting a new General Public License from the Free Software Foundation in 2007 - I believe they are missing the key point in the exercise. This is largely being debated in the open source community rather than written quietly in the board room.
More importantly, open source users can have an impact by sounding off on concerns and requests about open source licensing. This again is a reminder of how open source is done today. We would not be where we are without community input including developers, testers, documentation warriors and evangelizers (my own word!).
The GPL, by far the most popular, has not been updated in nearly 14 years. It has a decade of corporate and small business evolution to adapt to as well as a wealth of intellectual property (IP) philosophy. Perhaps more importantly is the fact that Linux is now being considered an enterprise solution alongside commercial platforms drives the need for a license that provides flexibility. This capability will need to address the minions of developers goals as well as those of recently converted senior technology managers from Wall Street to Main Street who seek to integrate open source into …
Leo Laporte on Open Source
For those who were rabid fans of TechTV (like myself) and latched onto Leo’s lively coverage of modern tech - he lives on in many ways - including a growing podcast, blog as well as in mainstream media.
The Mad Penguin has a great interview with Leo on the intersection of traditional media and content and the open source world. Apparently there is a theme emerging here as we see modern media converge with modern open source technology.
It is interesting to think about this shift of technology, presentation and how web professionals will leverage content and open source beyond the web browser. Certainly we need to begin exploring this more in depth.
Open Source Becoming More Than Software
Public Radio International, known to many in the US as a partner to National Public Radio, has taken the term ‘open source’ to a new level in its global radio programming.
The organization, possibly best known for its show The World, which brings an international flavor of news and features to the US,launched a new talk show format online in July.
Talk shows have long already been successful largely based on audience participation - PRI tapped the open source philosophy by leveraging the community of listeners to truly drive content and improve show quality. This has been done through a live Internet radio show, podcast and user community-based blog combo.
As we have discussed before - the BBC has started down a similar road as well (though not using the same methods, yet).
I find it fascinating that the momentum of open source is now trickling outside of technology spheres and impacting our everyday language and life. More importantly, this may be returning to the original philosophy of open source from years ago- an open and free exchange of knowledge and ideas (without needing to pay for a support contract).
Caution: Online Publishing is Permanent
Interesting article in today’s Wall Street Journal (sorry - subscription required but there is a free two week trial!).
It seems that today’s attorneys are using the Wayback Machine and other caching services like Google to nail down folks on what they have potentially said, posted, hosted or otherwise executed online in years past even after pages have been deleted.
Precedent has now been set via a lawsuit by Dell against a small computer maker who in the past used dellcomputerssuck.com as a bit of humor and redirected to his own business site.
Using the cache of old pages - Dell was able to gain a favorable ruling and take possession of the domain and close it down.
As a web professional, great thought should go into any endeavor that has the possibility of crossing the line. I am not suggesting supressing free speech - however - consider legal fees and your reputation when possibly shifting into unchartered waters.
Securing an RSS Feed
While Kevin has pointed out some important issues in regards to Greasemonkey - I found this new concept for securing an RSS feed an invaluable tip.
Joe Gregorio wanted a way to syndicate content for himself and appears to be onto a method. With some tweaking perhaps this could also be explored as a way to distribute paid content to a restricted audience…?
New Webmin Release Worth a Look
For those familiar with Webmin - they understands it administrative value on Unix workstations and servers (including Mac OS X). Especially if you need to administer multiple systems.
For the unitiated - I wrote on Webmin a while back and explored its capabilities as a powerful root-enabled sys admin tool.
The new updates hit on all cylinders for me as I deal with several servers at once in my own webmin usage - including with LDAP.
Highlights of updates include:
- Improved Postfix mail queue management
- Ability to edit and/or drop multiple tables (and databases) at once in MySQL and PostgreSQL
- Clustering tools including deploying printers to multiple servers at once (good for servers that produce print reports along with electronic distributions - important in some regulatory environments)
- Handy LDAP enhancements such as multiple user and group deletions and multiple user and group unlocks
- Read-only access option for allowing in users who may need to review webmin configurations but do not need editing rights
- Sped up the performance of searching and reviewing system logs - nice when dealing with very busy servers.
If you have intensive sys admin needs or want to explore more powerful options than the traditional Unix control panel solutions - Webmin is worth a test run. Best …
Sponsored Links
Logo Design, Web page Design and more!
- Custom logo designs created ‘just for you’.
- Pick the design you like best.
- Only pay if you’re satisfied with the result.
Want More Traffic?
Get up to five quotes from qualified SEO specialists, with no obligation!
Download sample chapters of any of our popular books.
