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11. 6.2007

Delong on EU's Microsoft Decision

Jim Delong on the EU's Microsoft theory--and the implications for the rest of tech. He notes among other things:

Any company with a significant market share could be defined as "dominant," and forced to disaggregate an integrated product into as many separate pieces as the EC, or competitors, desire. The possibility is very real that the EU will force manufacturers to forego integration lest they run afoul of some objection filed in the future, complete with retroactive fines, and force consumers to pay for the integration services.

For an immediate example, makers of integrated circuits should worry. As Moore’s Law works its magic, they are incorporating into a single chip features that were once put on complementary chips, as recently noted by tech investment guru Paul McWilliams.

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 7:47 AM | International , Software , Standards

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08. 6.2007

Fake Steve Busted

Fake Steve Jobs, author of this jab at Linux and the anti-DRM crowd among other things, is really Dan Lyons of Forbes, reveals the New York Times.

Dang, that man can write.

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 11:19 AM | DRM & Watermarks, etc. , Software

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07.16.2007

DRMWatch on GPL3

Bill Rosenblatt on GPL3 on DRM.

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 9:11 AM | DMCA , DRM & Watermarks, etc. , Software

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07. 5.2007

Yet more on privacy concerns in the context of IP

From time to time concern has erupted over the tendency of P2P filesharing software to "share" user files and directories that the user would not want shared--excel files, for example. Identity thieves were known to be mining shared files for social security numbers. Software distributors have several times denied that this continues to be a problem. Apparently that is not so. A new report from the Copyright Office shows that the problem is very much much a current one, and that filesharing software continues to default to settings that share much much more rather than less, sometimes covering the default with deceptive screen displays. TheHouse Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has taken an interest.

Privacy advocates, so far, have not; buy in too far to "business is bad" ideology (ironically perpetrated by Hollywood) and one ends up not being able to see what is right in front of one's face.

Continue reading Yet more on privacy concerns in the context of IP . . .

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 10:25 AM | Internet: P2P, Search Engines... , Privacy and Security , Software

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06.13.2007

Bessen on Patents

I'm sure readers are aware of Jim Bessen, head of Research on Innovation and publisher of several comprehensive patent studies.

Bessen wrote in a blog post that many articles I review on this site do not make "pro-software patents arguments," and that he disagrees with several of my readings. I presume, and even encourage, readers to review the articles directly. Feel free to send any notes on my write-ups or put them in the comments section. Out of over 100 articles I"ve written-up on IPcentral, I imagine around 20% as focused on software patents, so Bessen and I a few articles to discuss:)

Bessen also comments that most patent articles I review aim at showing that software patents have not yet harmed the software industry. Word choice is important here. Scholars are not conclusive on software patents' impact on innovation, (see here for a great paper by David Mowery and Stuart Graham balancing evidence on software patents) although several important ones push the argument further than saying that software patents have not yet deterred innovation. Still, software patents have been around for at least a decade. If there was any particularly harmful effect, clear evidence would have emerged by now.

Continue reading Bessen on Patents . . .

posted by Noel Le @ 8:32 PM | Software

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06.12.2007

It's Greg versus Tim. Ouch.

TLF co-blogger Tim Lee had an oped in the New York Times on software patents; Greg Aharonian offers his usual pointed response. Am thinking of inviting them both to lunch.

Continue reading It's Greg versus Tim. Ouch. . . .

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 10:28 AM | Patents , Software

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06. 7.2007

Slashdot fortells the future of the GPL

From Tony Healy, a link to an interesting post on Slashdot:

The FSF should realize by now their influence is waning. Look at the plethora of alternative licenses. Now they're really hamstringing themselves with Version 3, taking the license further and further from where industry developers are heading... Do (developers) care when Eben Moglen says "the time is rapidly approaching when the GPL is capable of leveling the monopolist to the ground?" Developers demand more freedom, not less. They want clear, practical leadership, not bombast.

http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/06/whurley_the_gpl.html

http://talk.bmc.com/blogs/blog-whurley/whurley/the-death-of-a-software-license

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 10:29 PM | Prices, Terms, and Licensing , Software

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05.31.2007

Open Source Software & Less Developed Nations

Past entries on this blog have occasionally charged that the promoters of open source software (OSS) are engaged in an enterprise that misleads and harms naïve developers in the less developed world. In particular, this point was asserted in connection with a visit to Brazil made in Brazil by Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz a year ago.

It turns out that I missed a chance to cite an authority for my point – namely, Jonathan Schwartz himself. An interview in the June 2007 Linux Journal with Sun’s Chief Open Source Officer Simon Phipps contains the following passage:

Continue reading Open Source Software & Less Developed Nations . . .

posted by James DeLong @ 6:18 AM | International , Software

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"Is It Good for Open Source?"

At the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco last week, I was struck by the frequency with which panelists and commenters would ask with respect to some development or proposition: “Is it good for open source?”

Not, is it good for programmers, or customers, or the IT industry, or software development, or the world at large, but “good for open source.”

This anthropomorphization of open source seems passing strange. Open source is an approach to producing software, a method by which creators can make their work freely available while ensuring that others reciprocate, and in the view of its practitioners, it is a superior way of producing software.

But open source is a tool, and characterizing it as a test of value makes no more sense than asking whether something is good for electric drills.

Continue reading "Is It Good for Open Source?" . . .

posted by James DeLong @ 2:12 AM | Software

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05.16.2007

Property, Artists, Liberty (& a Smidgeon of GPLv3)

An email from Alec van Gelder of the International Policy Network:

[The Economist article on Mstislav Rostropovich] was a tremendous insight into an economic system where the liberty afforded to artists through property rights is taken away through force and government intervention - and how far artists will go to express their creativity.
Property rights aren't just about profit awarded to corporations: Rostropovich wasn't primarily motivated by profit when he fled the Soviet Union - as evidenced by the amount of time he stayed in his own country and suffered the consequences of its brutality - to perform his music elsewhere. But the fact that property rights facilitate the means to profit gives all artists the liberty to be as creative as they like, without running the risk of clashing with their, in this particular case, sole supporters.

I think that a significant cause of the opposition to IP rights by the copyleft is political -- if creators are forced to rely on a government-run system of payments for their livelihoods, then only art regarded as politically correct by the authorities will be produced.

Continue reading Property, Artists, Liberty (& a Smidgeon of GPLv3) . . .

posted by James DeLong @ 8:12 AM | Big Tent , Software

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05.14.2007

Nick Carr on a Programmer's Dilemna

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 9:14 AM | Prices, Terms, and Licensing , Software

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05.12.2007

Questions on IBM's Business Model

posted by James DeLong @ 7:26 AM | Software

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05. 9.2007