Some of you may have noticed that this blog now has a Random Page feature. The way I heard it, StumbleUpon announced a Site Specific Stumbling facility; someone asked Photo Matt whether there was a WordPress plug-in that did something similar, and soon there was one. Because Matt built it. Thanks, Matt! and thanks as […]
Entries Tagged as 'Opensource'
Site specific random surfing and related subjects
April 23rd, 2007 · 1 Comment
Tags: Four pillars · Opensource
10 reasons for enterprises to use opensource
April 12th, 2007 · 25 Comments
I don’t really understand why it happens, but for some reason far too many people think opensource is free as in gratis rather than free as in freedom. As a result, when I ask people why they would use opensource, the answers are framed in the context of cost. The three commonest answers I get […]
Tags: Opensource
Random musings on opensource
April 10th, 2007 · 2 Comments
As you would expect, I spent a lot of time with my wife and children over the Easter break. And then stayed up to watch the golf. When I wasn’t doing either of these things, I was catching up on my reading.
Dan Farber’s True Nature Of Open Source post got me thinking. Go take a […]
Tags: Opensource · Because Effect
Look what they’ve done to my song, ma
February 6th, 2007 · No Comments
[With thanks to Ms Safka, and to Malcolm for alerting me to this story via his post here.]
[An aside: Would you believe Melanie turned 60 earlier this week? Happy belated birthday.]
In a HotNews post earlier today, Steve Jobs opened up (pun intended) with his views on DRM. Well worth a read. For me, the most […]
Tags: Four pillars · Opensource · DRM and IPR · Publishing · Innovation · Patents · Stupidity · Because Effect
Musing about Digital McCarthyism and Digital Nonviolence
February 2nd, 2007 · 3 Comments
While researching aspects of the lives of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr, I was reminded of the works of Richard B Gregg. While I had come across Gregg while reading Economics, I hadn’t appreciated quite how influential he’d been on King, or for that matter just how dedicated he’d been in seeking to […]
Tags: Four pillars · Opensource · Identity · DRM and IPR · Trust · Books · Retarded hippie · Music · Publishing · Innovation · Patents
7 seconds of fame: a parable for our times
January 25th, 2007 · No Comments
There’s a lovely little story going around, about a band called 7 seconds of love.
They’re very today, they even have a myspace site;
They’re very yesterday, they play ska;
They’re very tomorrow, they’re unsigned.
Somehow a 2005 hit of theirs got copied lock stock and barrel. Seriously plagiarised. Not just the tune, but the characters and costumes in […]
Tags: Opensource · DRM and IPR · Music
One million dollars and counting
January 23rd, 2007 · 1 Comment
How often do you visit Wikipedia? If you’re like me, you probably go there three or four times a day. In which case you’ve probably noticed the “thermometer bar” at the top of the page for the last month or so.
The Wikimedia Foundation ran its recent month-long fundraiser from 16 December 2006 to 15 […]
Tags: Opensource · Because Effect
EU Study on impact of opensource
January 18th, 2007 · 3 Comments
I’ve spent some time reading a recent study titled Economic Impact of Open Source Software on Innovation and the Competitiveness of the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) Sector in the EU. Don’t worry, you won’t think the title is too long when you see the document, all 287 pages of it. And no, I haven’t […]
Tags: Opensource · DRM and IPR · Software
Musing lazily about identity
January 14th, 2007 · 4 Comments
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Who you are is a function of:
what you stand for
what you belong to (both blood as well as thunder)
what you like (and what you dislike)
what you’ve done (and what you’d like to do)
Sure there are many other things. Ways to contact you. The size of […]
Tags: Four pillars · Opensource · Identity · DRM and IPR · Trust · Privacy
Agoramancy? A Sunday afternoon ramble
January 14th, 2007 · 2 Comments
I don’t know about you, but I spend a fair amount of time looking at things that emerge from open source communities, be they free-as-in-freedom or free-as-in-gratis. At least one of the reasons I do so is to try and figure out what happens next. Agoramancy? Who knows. [For those who care about these things, […]
Tags: Four pillars · Opensource · Innovation · Software · Because Effect