Archive for September, 2006
Friday, September 29th, 2006
Anderson and Lessig: Free culture and the long tail
Met up with Luis Villa at the NYPL event last night covering the long tail and free culture. I wasn’t taking notes and without trying to post a summary from memory I’ll point you to Luis for a great recap of the event.
There was great irony in the “blockbuster best selling author” arguing “the end of the blockbuster” - but the long tail does allow for “blockbusters within smaller segments” so I can concede a minor argument in his favor.
My 1min takeaway from last night and everything I’ve read on the subjects is that there are many interconnecting, correlating threads in the long tail discussion and that’s what makes it so difficult, yet interesting to dissect. I was actually surprised at some of the good Q&A questions - and as always got a nice laugh at some of Lessig’s realisms.
Someone brought up YouTube’s “billion dollar valuation” claim… an attorney might argue YouTube is a “billion dollar liability” but I think it’s a great example of the intersection of growing personal, public use of “property” without personal claims/ramifications of IP law. It’s odd b/c a company wouldn’t put someone’s video with an artist’s music up on the web, but individuals don’t seem to mind doing it with their own mashed up media. How do IP owners police that behavior - better yet, should it be policed at all? And so with that we’re back to “The Commons”… :)
It was an interesting event - nothing really “new” - but a great rehash of timeless arguments nonetheless.
Friday, September 29th, 2006
Bob Sutor on GPL3
Just noticed Bob Sutor has posted on the GPL3 debate. I couldn’t agree more with his position. Just think… when did an open community last have the chance to haggle over the terms of Windows 1/2/3/3.5/95/NT/98/98SE/Me/2000/XP/2003/Vista (or Oracle, IBM, licenses for that matter)?
The GPL3 debate is not a weakness for the open source community - this is actually the strength of it. Many don’t see all the debate in the Linux kernel community - but there’s always some debate going on, differences of opinion are aired, and eventually a consensus is formed. And surprisingly it all happens faster than some standards bodies…
Did you ever participate in an open debate on the CDDL terms? Here’s an opportunity for the entire community to debate the pros/cons, ups/downs of a license the community can form.
http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1102Â
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006
Lawrence Lessig and Chris Anderson Live in NYC
Short notice, but this event is tomorrow. If anyone plans to be there, drop me an email.
http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/pep/pepdesc.cfm?id=2372
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006
Want to test your app on POWER5? Build it for free…
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/openpower/
Good for open source devs too…
Tuesday, September 26th, 2006
eWeek Labs’ Must-Have Tools
This is a pretty cool site to check out - and maybe pickup some new tools..
Tuesday, September 26th, 2006
WebSphere Application Server 1.1 Now Available - w/ Free Support!
WebSphere Application Server is built off the Apache Geronimo base. v1.1 has been released. There are a number of new enhancement listed on the page. I also _believe_ v1.1 works on SLES 10 but this page was not updated… need to check on that (or just try it out when I get home).
Looks like they’re also offering free 30 days of support…
I’ve been fooling around with Geronimo and PHP integration for the last month. I should try and see if that works with WAS CE too… I know there’s the PHP Integration kit over at alphaWorks… but that thing looked like a mess to setup.
Tuesday, September 26th, 2006
MediaBerkman
Just noticed that MediaBerkman has launched - it’s a collection of videos, blog posts, etc on a wide variety of topics from the top post on Africa’s IT Infrastructure to Doc Searls on the “Giant Zero” further down below.
Anyway, take a look - worst case: you may learn something.
Tuesday, September 26th, 2006
HP: Needs to add a “The Real Story” on HP’s Board…
HP just can’t seem to shake this issue - and it’s getting worse. Senior counsels resigns and has to testify in front of Congress on top of having Hurd and Dunn testify… ouch.
I smiled when I realized that HP needs to update this website with a “The Real Story” on HP’s Board of Directors Scandal. I’m guessing they may “modify” the story a few times over the next few weeks, but it does seem like the appropriate website for them to post it :)
I’m trying to decide which will have greater business impact: replacing Hurd over this scandal or holding onto Itanium until it hits the ocean floor…
Friday, September 22nd, 2006
Stallings on the Modern Mainframe
If you’ve ever met Jim Stallings you know he has a very “dynamic” personality. He’s also a visionary leader. This article just published is just as fascinating as listening to him.
In it, he also cites that it takes 9 seconds (yes, 9s) to provision a Linux server on the Mainframe. It really is like snapping a finger. It amazes me companies are still spending days, weeks, a month (or two if you’re a certain large accounting firm I know of…) to just provision a server. That’s mind boggling - there are so many tools to speed that up even if you’re not a mainframe user.
Thursday, September 21st, 2006
IBM Linux Client Migration Cookbook
Check it out if you haven’t already.
Wondering how to migrate 1,000 users and save millions? This is it.
I have a feeling this area is going to explode with activity sometime very soon… all the pieces are lining up.
Thursday, September 21st, 2006
HP’s Dunn toasted with Hall of Fame Award by ethics focused business group… que?
Got a good laugh out of reading this today.
The bizarre juxtaposition of receiving a leadership award from an organization that stresses business ethics and good corporate governance (click for PDF) was not lost on Dunn, who said she’s aware of the “irony of being inducted into the Bay Area Business Hall of Fame.”
Thursday, September 21st, 2006
When, oh when, will media companies “get it”
How obvious is it that this just won’t work - people won’t use it. If I was on the WMP11 team, I’d quit b/c I’d know that my work on the team would be pointless. The music industry hates Apple now and next negotiation round is going to push harder - but Apple saved what they have left. Looks like TV/media rights are getting into the game now too.
At least some people seem to be finding bright, new ways to end corporate stupidity around HD-DVD and BlueRay DVD formats. I can’t possibly imagine how they think two competing standards will survive… it’s as if we’ve learned nothing and those involved are just willing to place a bet on a single roll of the dice rather than agree on a common standard.
Thursday, September 21st, 2006
Adobe and Symantec Partner to Fight Vista in EU
Next step would be to get these guys supporting an alternative desktop platform. At least they’re taking steps against Vista now. Looks like the EU’s staunch refusal to be bought off is making it a battleground for Microsoft.
Wednesday, September 20th, 2006
Digg this: Desktop Migration from Windows to Linux
http://digg.com/linux_unix/Free_376_page_book_on_migrating_to_Linux
Digg it, then download it :)
Fun stuff…
Wednesday, September 20th, 2006
Novell launches SLERT: Real Time SUSE… what an Acronym
Not sure I’d agree with the acronym SLERT (sounds like slurp or some gross thing) but if you have SMP systems that need 11-27 millionths of a second response time, SLERT maybe the one for you.
I couldn’t tell if the real time extensions were going into OpenSUSE…
Wednesday, September 20th, 2006
El Reg … Education?
The Register is probably more well known for sarcastic, vendor-outing tech media humor, but I just read an interesting article on floating point calculations that was more educational in nature. A bit of a twist… educational… but not giving up humor entirely.
Tuesday, September 19th, 2006
Stallman continues to weigh in on OSDL Open Source as Prior Art project
When I read this headline: “Stallman: OSDL patent project ‘worse than nothing’“, my initial reaction was “oh no, here we go again…”
Then I read what Stallman actually said and quickly understood that the press … well doesn’t always write a headline to match the content. Stallman’s concern is that by disclosing prior art in a patent application review, that the OSDL is then barring use of that same prior art as evidence in any subsequent trial over the patent. Chicken vs Egg approach. The issue I have with his argument is that most are just accostomed to fighting patents post-granting and with the OSDL approach we could actually see a viable pre-grant approach and practice form that can cut out unneccary risks/time/bs down the road.
I’m not a patent attorney so I’m not an expert on the procedural aspects of the patent process. I do not understand why Stallman thinks it’s better to let someone get an absurd patent and fight it with prior art after granting it than to attack it prior to being granted at all… I can only guess he’s assuming that a granted patent is already narrowed in its scope and definition - and thus easier to attack the entire patent with prior art. Or possibly the burden of evidence is greater pre-grant than post. I’d be interested in a patent attorney’s view.
Where I completely diverge from Stallman is on the issue of whether the OSDL is helping at all. I do see value in this project - think of SPAM.
You have varying levels of SPAM protection in email apps these days. You can often set your SPAM email controls to “High, Medium, Low” types of settings. The Low setting will catch the spam email that is blantantly obvious as spam. The Medium provides another set of checks, and high ultimately creates a more comprehensive set of rules. With each setting increase from Low to High you also increase the chances of false-positives (emails that weren’t actually SPAM).
The OSDL project is what I consider a “Low” SPAM setting - they’re working to catch as much of the blatantly obvious SPAM out there. So for patents like “one click ordering” or “web page caching” that are blantantly ridiculous and have so much prior art that nobody even bothers to speak up, we can eliminate these patents at the start rather than let someone get a patent granted.
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think this is a “comprehensive” solution - this is just a quick/dirty SPAM protection. It doesn’t solve SPAM issues/problems, it just helps clear the worste 10% out of the field. This is a 100% great business move by the OSDL - it eliminates part of the risk for businesses and developers working in, around, and using open source.
I do agree with Stallman that there are much greater issues with software patents in general that need a major overhaul. However, I cannot envision that possibly happening anytime soon… hopefully in my lifetime - which hopefully won’t be too short :)
And then I noticed the author wrote this (below) and wondered if he even spoke to Stallman. Microsoft an OSDL member?? Gee they didn’t have anyone on the last DCL call from Microsoft. and they’re not on the OSDL member roster. That’s a pretty big error - or we should congratulate Microsoft on a noble move…
“Critics have pointed out that many of the large companies behind patent reform efforts in the United States, such as Microsoft and IBM–both also OSDL members and supporters of Open Source as Prior Art–are the same companies aggressively pushing for software patents to be legitimized in Europe.”
Tuesday, September 19th, 2006
DeveloperWorks: RadRails and Eclipse
Looking at RoR but want a familiar Eclipse IDE to work in? Take a look here.
Monday, September 18th, 2006
PHP Java Bridge
I was just playing around with php-java-bridge and must admit I’m very impressed. It’s actually fairly easy to deploy - I’m using the latest Apache Geronimo with php-java-bridge. The ability to share sessions between your PHP and Java apps can create a number of integration scenarios. I haven’t done extensive testing to figure out what doesn’t work, but on it’s face, this is an awesome capability. IBM launched a PHP Integration Kit for WAS CE - it’s probably similar in effect to php-java-bridge but on its face appears to use a different implementation.
The other side effect is probably transaction performance… I’ve done no testing to identify what the overhead hit looks like - and I’ll leave it to the experts to sort out.
Monday, September 18th, 2006
Mandriva does virtualization trifecta
I actually know quite a few Mandrake users who are still holding onto the platform. It’s been years since I actually paid for Mandrake 7.2 at a local CompUSA just to see the new KDE 2 and DrakX… the old days when GUIs were “new”. Maybe I should take another look… this one would be interesting to try loading up in a virtualization frenzy. Corporate Server 4.0 has a (para)virtualization hypervisor, application containers (OpenVZ), and a proven VMWare all built into in the OS. Not sure how they juggle Xen vs VMWare… would have to try it first.
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