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DRM and open source are the great divide

If there is any word other than Microsoft which can get an argument going among open source advocates, it is DRM. (The t-shirt is available here.)DRM, Digital Rights Management, is generally found in the form of an encryption wrapper giving control of the content to a rights holder. DRM is...

Tags: mass market, Legal, Hardware, GPL, General, FOSS, content, business models, Applications, Apple

Blog posts 2007-07-16

Can OpenMoko break the wireless monopoly?

Open source telephony takes a big step forward today as the OpenMoko neo1973 starts shipping to developers. Its public Wiki is also open for business.The phone runs an open Linux kernel and what it calls Mobile FOSS, meaning everything inside it is Free and Open Source Software. Parts were chosen based...

Tags: wireless, VOIP, telecom, mobile, Hardware, Government, General, FOSS, Development

Blog posts 2007-07-09

It's finished. It's done. GPVv3 that is.

Why is this GNU smiling?Because with a political flourish the Free Software Foundation has released the final versions of both GPLv3 and LGPLv3.IBM has given its blessing but there is, as yet, no white smoke rising from Portland, where Linus Torvalds has expressed his preference for GPLv2.The new license makes an...

Tags: Software Licensing, Patents, Linux, Legal, GPL, Google, FOSS

Blog posts 2007-07-02

Harvard study illustrates Microsoft's political problem

A recent Harvard Business School survey of open source developers accidentally demonstrates Microsoft's big political problem.Alan McCormack right and colleagues sought interviews with 332 open source developers, and 34 eventually succumbed. They agreed that the best open source license is the one which gives them the greatest flexibility.Not a big deal,...

Tags: Development, FOSS, General, GPL, Legal, Microsoft

Blog posts 2007-06-18

Novell reveals Microsoft's open source strategy

Novell today announced Open Workgroup, a basic Linux set-up for small-to-medium businesses.In doing this Novell also revealed Microsoft's open source strategy.It's a defensive game. Microsoft has channels covering all areas of the market. Now, when those channels need an open source solution, there's something they can point to.While it's amusing...

Tags: FOSS, General, Google, GPL, Legal, Linux, Microsoft, Patents, politics, Strategy

Blog posts 2007-06-15

The era of open source negotiation

It is just possible the latest exchange of notes between Jonathan Schwartz and Linus Torvalds signals the start of a new era in business.Call it the era of open source negotiation.Taking the notes at face value, Linus has concerns about Sun's strategy as well as GPL V. 3, and Schwartz...

Tags: Sun Microsystems, Strategy, management, Linux, Legal, GPL, General, FOSS, Development

Blog posts 2007-06-14

GPV V3 and hardware modification

The Free Software Foundation has released its "last call" draft of GPL V3, along with a personal plea from Richard Stallman for folks to upgrade from V2. (This gadget-loving Tux was found at Computer Shopper.)Most discussion of the new release will focus on Novell, which won clearance for its Microsoft...

Tags: wireless, telecom, Strategy, Software Licensing, mobile, mass market, Legal, Hardware, GPL, Government, FOSS

Blog posts 2007-06-01

Novell document dump makes it look like a scandal

The Washington game of dumping incriminating documents late on a Friday is well-known. When someone does it, suspicions are raised. (Image from the blog of La Shawn Barber.)Now Novell has done just that with its Friday night document dump on the Microsoft agreement. Just to make us even more suspicious,...

Tags: FOSS, GPL, Legal, Linux, Linux Desktop OS, Linux Server OS, Microsoft, Patents

Blog posts 2007-05-27

Obligation at bottom of open source incline

On this Memorial Day weekend I'd like to approach the controversial question of free software.Not free as in free beer, but free as in granting liberty.At the bottom of what I call the open source incline, in the GPL license, is the highly-controversial idea of freedom as an obligation. You...

Tags: FOSS, General, GPL

Blog posts 2007-05-25

Moglen goes all Democratic on Microsoft

I erred earlier in saying there was no news at the Red Hat summit in San Diego last week. Eben Moglen was there. Moglen, who keynoted last years Nashville summit, was not supposed to be the main attraction this time. But Microsoft had just done its thing, Moglen is a...

Tags: FOSS, General, GPL, Legal, Microsoft, Patents, politics, Red Hat, Strategy

Blog posts 2007-05-15

Why Microsoft hasn't sued (yet)

Microsoft continues to make its claim that Linux violates its patents. Chief counsel Brad Smith told Fortune last week open source violates 235 Microsoft patents. It reminds me of some of the lists Joe McCarthy used to wave back in the day. Software patents are not described in patent law....

Tags: FOSS, General, IBM, Legal, Linux, Microsoft, Patents

Blog posts 2007-05-14

Microsoft joins the race to open source IT

Anyone questioning the market power of the open source idea should have those doubts erased by todays news from Redmond. (C|Nets own Martin Lamonica took the picture. Nice, huh?)The launch of Microsoft Silverlight made Big Green seem like a cross between Google and Sun Microsystems. They could have replaced Ray...

Tags: Applications, Development, FOSS, General, GPL, Infrastructure, Internet, Microsoft

Blog posts 2007-04-30

Eben Moglen leaving Free Software Foundation

Eben Moglen right announced on his blog this morning he is leaving the board of the Free Software Foundation.The decision is evidence that the third draft of the GPL v.3, which he oversaw, has drawn positive reviews, and will likely go through with few edits.The release of Discussion Draft 3...

Tags: Software Licensing, politics, GPL, General, FOSS, Legal

Blog posts 2007-04-25

Should the next billion just pay it forward?

I was listening to an NPR report yesterday about Microsofts plan to deep discount Windows in Asia. Peter Brown of the FSF was offering his "give a man a fish, teach a man to fish" analogy, about how much more powerful would it be for Asian users to control their...

Tags: Microsoft, mass market, GPL, General, FOSS, Development, business models

Blog posts 2007-04-20

Children of GPL

In all the hubbub over GPL Version 3, a lot of you may not know this is just one license that the Free Software Foundation manages. (The image stood at the top of Georg Greve's Brave Gnu World columns from 1999-2004.)They also manage the LGPL, or the Lesser GPL. A...

Tags: Software as a Service, Legal, General, FOSS, Software Licensing, GPL

Blog posts 2007-04-06

Who decides what is open source?

If the code you build from is not GPL its easy to build a proprietary company on an open source base. PostgreSQL, for instance, uses the BSD license. Thus EnterpriseDB can build proprietary extensions and offer them to the market. Are they an open source company? No, they have no...

Tags: BSD, Database Management, FOSS, Software Licensing, General, Applications

Blog posts 2007-03-01

Are international open source attitudes really different?

I have always been intrigued by the idea that attitudes toward open source in the developing world are different from those of Americans. Ill-informed, sometimes. But different?Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, managing editor of First Monday, is among those pushing this meme. In his paper Cooking Pot Markets he argues that the...

Tags: business models, FOSS, General, open source

Blog posts 2007-01-31

Open source issues for 2007 start with the profit motive

One of the big issues here in 2007 will continue to be the divide over profit as prime motivation.We are used to this in software. The very term open source is meant to differentiate those who care first about profit from the Free and Open Source FOSS crowd, like Richard...

Tags: motive, open source, Internet

Blog posts 2006-12-19

Can open source content make money?

The secret of open source, as opposed to FOSS, is that it has a business model.But what about content?The question is asked directly by Matt Yglesias, normally a political blogger, in discussing the recent Wired package which includes a feature on LonelyGirl15, a hit YouTube video series. In the past,...

Tags: open source, business models, FOSS, Applications, General, income

Blog posts 2006-12-08

Additional Resources

Can (and will) Microsoft keep Silverlight compatible across platforms?

The better question is WHEN will it be better for Microsoft to keep it compatible across platforms, and WHEN or under what conditions might it not be better for MS to NOT keep it compatible across platforms.In other works, it is NOT a question of IF, but, at WHAT TIMES...

Tags: Web browsers, Web site development, Operating systems, .NET, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Silverlight, Microsoft Internet Explorer

Discussion threads 2009-11-24