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Grooming
webmink posted a photo:
Members of a monkey family at a house in the forest outside São Paulo.
(From Photo Mink on Mon Jun 29 13:21:17 BRT 2009)links for 2009-06-29
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Deliciously direct and deep paper looks at the assumptions behind our security thinking and confronts them head-on. Still relevant after 4 years, which is good going for anything geeky.
Orchids growing on a tree
webmink posted a photo:
The lake at Duas Marias
webmink posted a photo:
In the hotel grounds.
(From Photo Mink on Sun Jun 28 18:49:40 BRT 2009)Lula Speaking at FISL
webmink posted a photo:
Lula at FISL
webmink posted a photo:
Big Sur Moonrise
webmink posted a photo:
I finally had the time to build an HDR version of the moonrise I posted earlier, using three frames bracketed one stop apart.
(From Photo Mink on Fri Jun 19 20:32:27 BRT 2009)links for 2009-06-15
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Uh-oh. Serious blow to the Sun folks working in Austin.
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I interviewed Liane and Glynn on the show floor at JavaOne about the new 2009.06 release of OpenSolaris.
links for 2009-06-13
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Delighted to see VirtualBox showing up as a retail item. Yes, those of us who know can go get the free download, but having it on the shelves in stores is still the only way to reach the mass market for most things. It's time we had more Free software for sale like this.
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Another good, free sampler from Amazon MP3 in the USA. If only the UK store had some of these.
Goodbye, AdSense
I got an e-mail from Peter Brown at the FSF recently asking if I'd investigated the new advertising network they are endorsing, AdBard. Since I have seen Google Adsense revenue fall and fall, and since I have increasingly seen advertisements I don't like on my pages, I took a look at it.
It has some interesting features. First, they only accepts sites that support Free software for displaying advertisements. Second, they only accept advertisers supporting Free software, and they give site owners the chance to vote on advertisements. This way the accept/reject decision is transparebt and crowdsourced. Third, they are limiting display to one ad per page.
Those were all attributes I liked, so I am switching Webmink.Net over to AdBard. The topic is always controversial so I look forward to your views!
OpenJDK Board gets Google & Red Hat Members
Over the weekend, Mark announced he's updated the OpenJDK Interim Governance Board page to add details of the two new members Sun has asked to join the Board to navigate towards a permanent OpenJDK governance system. They are both well-known contributors to OpenJDK, and in fact when I asked Mark Wielaard to suggest the best pick for new Board members they were the names he suggested. They are:
- Andrew Haley, of Red Hat, GCJ co-maintainer and Classpath corner-stone, and
- Martin Buchholz, of Google, a developer of the JDK core libraries at Sun for many years.
I'm delighted they are joining the Board and, while there's no crisis to solve since the existing interim governance is mostly working fine, I hope their arrival will help us formalise arrangements at last.
(From Sun Mink on Tue Jun 09 13:43:00 BRT 2009)links for 2009-06-08
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"A Comment on Notice of Inquiry, FCC GN Docket No. 09-51" -- If I was a US citizen I'd go sign this now. The semantic gap between "broadband" and "internet access" is just waiting to be exploited by certain reptilian corporations.
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I used to work with Dick when he was at Sun, and this principled stand is exactly what I would expect from him. Congratulations and bravo.
Moonlight on the water
webmink posted a photo:
At The Lanes, Santa Cruz
(From Photo Mink on Mon Jun 08 04:39:31 BRT 2009)Full Moon at the Lighthouse
webmink posted a photo:
Moonlighthouse
webmink posted a photo:
The lighthouse at Santa Cruz lit by the light of the full moon
(From Photo Mink on Mon Jun 08 04:34:44 BRT 2009)Perching Gull
webmink posted a photo:
On the beach at Carmel-by-the-sea. You can license this photograph for commercial use.
(From Photo Mink on Mon Jun 08 04:19:18 BRT 2009)Moon Rise Over Big Sur
webmink posted a photo:
Seen from Nepenthe Restaurant
(From Photo Mink on Mon Jun 08 03:55:52 BRT 2009)☞ Geek Atlas
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Currently reading the copy of The Geek Atlas that O'Reilly kindly sent me and I'm enjoying it. It covers places a geek would find interesting in destinations around the world. There are a lot of UK sites, then one or two per state for the US and one or two per country for most other places. Each chapter has a "popular science" explanation of the science area covered by the destination. Worth considering as the antidote to normal travel books!
☞ End of an era
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After 18 years, the world's best developer conference closes the shutters after seeing a huge fall in registrations. I have a decade of the very best memories of speaking there and I wish Wayne and Peggy the happiest retirement possible.
OASIS Protects Open Source Developers From Software Patents
Some of you may remember a fuss that was made a few years ago by some open source people over the copyright and patent policy used by OASIS, the computer protocols standards body1. OASIS seems to have taken it to heart, because it has today announced what looks to me like the perfect basis for technology standards in an open source world.
Their new rules2 include a new "mode" which standards projects can opt into using. In this new mode, all contributors promise that they will not assert any patents they may own related to the standard the project is defining. Contributors make this covenant:
Each Obligated Party in a Non-Assertion Mode TC irrevocably covenants that, subject to Section 10.3.2 and Section 11 of the OASIS IPR Policy, it will not assert any of its Essential Claims covered by its Contribution Obligations or Participation Obligations against any OASIS Party or third party for making, having made, using, marketing, importing, offering to sell, selling, and otherwise distributing Covered Products that implement an OASIS Final Deliverable developed by that TC.
That's deliciously simple, and implements close to what I have previously recommended as the basis for handling patents in open source projects. I've written before how patent non-assert covenants are low cost for the patent holder and low risk for the developer. There is of course a "patent peace" associated with it:
The covenant described in Section 10.3.1 may be suspended or revoked by the Obligated Party with respect to any OASIS Party or third party if that OASIS Party or third party asserts an Essential Claim in a suit first brought against, or attempts in writing to assert an Essential Claim against, a Beneficiary with respect to a Covered Product that implements the same OASIS Final Deliverable.
I think this is a wonderful development for protecting open source developers from patents, and I would like to see it replicated in all standards bodies. The only issue will be whether OASIS TCs choose to adopt this mode; we need to demand it and boycott the TCs that don't.
- I thought the fuss made was pretty unfair at the time, since it complained about legacy OASIS approaches to patent licensing just at the time when OASIS had fixed them - the essence of the complaint was that OASIS hadn't just blown away the old approach but had left it there so that older projects weren't harmed.
- There's a redline PDF document showing the changes - the new stuff is mainly in section 10, although other areas had to be changed to match as well, I gather.
TweetSwoop: Illuminata's Take on JavaOne
I ran into analyst Jonathan Eunice this afternoon. Jonathan's long experience following Sun and Java makes him a great person to ask for an insightful and impartial view of the news so I asked him about JavaFX, Java EE 6, JDK 7, Oracle and more.
(From Sun Mink on Wed Jun 03 19:43:49 BRT 2009)TweetSwoop: Java ME Fragmentation Initiative?
I'm at JavaOne in San Francisco and this is a TweetSwoop, where I swoop on people who know the answers to the questions I've seen on Twitter.
This TweetSwoop asks Sun Director Simon Nicholson about the Java ME fragmentation initiatives launched this week at JavaOne by a group of key mobile industry companies, Java Verified and JATAF.
(From Sun Mink on Wed Jun 03 03:58:00 BRT 2009)TweetSwoop: US Only Java Store?
I'm trying something new today. Having finally given in to the desire to buy a personal video recorder (the Flip Ultra HD), I decided to use it to swoop on people who know the answers to the questions I've seen on Twitter.
My first TweetSwoop victim interviewee was Jeet Kaul, who I asked the question I'd seen from @The_Contrarian, who asked why the new Java Store was closed and under a kind of NDA and from a number of people asking why it was restricted to the US.
JavaOne Registration Area
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Went nice and early to collect my badge and avoid the crowds. Hey, what's that on the wall?
(From Photo Mink on Mon Jun 01 18:33:20 BRT 2009)J1 Registration Area Detail
webmink posted a photo:
So /that's/ why people keep coming up and saying hello!
(From Photo Mink on Mon Jun 01 18:32:57 BRT 2009)☞ Semantics, Ancient and Modern
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Fascinating overview of the challenges deciphering ancient languages. At least there's no DRM or obsolete media to overcome.
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Great line-up of speakers for the 10th anniversary meeting of FISL in Porto Alegre, Brazil, at the end of June.
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Fascinating background on the thinking behind Topsy.
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"A search engine powered by tweets". Congratulations to Rishab Ghosh and his colleagues on their emergence from stealth mode with their social-graph-powered search engine. Inspired marketing to associate it with Twitter too!
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I'll be speaking at OSCON 2009 - using material from Tiki Dare's wonderful paper on open source communities and trademarks.
links for 2009-05-27
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Well worth reading this commentary from the sort of professional Cheney claims to be speaking for.
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Sensible advice in a digestible format delivered just when a load of us need it...
☞ An Eclectic Holiday Sunday Selection
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Unexpected trademark dispute. Is the noun "Allah" a trademark of Islam or a generic usable by any religion?
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I thought the best song in Eurovision was actually the Icelandic one. I discovered that Johanna, the Icelandic performer at Eurovision, has made the most of her appearance and released an album. It's pretty good, even if the is the anti-Bjork. (UK-only link)
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Fascinating analysis from CBS of the word frequency in last week's "Duelling Speeches" episode in the US suggests that while Obama's goal is protecting the interests of the American people by closing Guantanamo Bay, Cheney's interest is more in defending his record for history.
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"Some of the major US banks have warned the changes may reduce the amount of credit available to some card holders. They say this is because the new rules will make it more difficult for them to set rates based on the risk customers pose." Or, to put it another way, "we should be free to gouge the suckers".
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The results are in and it's a landslide in favour of adding CC-BY-SA in addition to GFDL. Excellent, and a wise decision by the crowd.
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I bet the police in the UK can't wait to get their hands on these. That guy staring at you is actually a surveillance device...
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I've been helping to negotiate this agreement for many months, very pleased to finally see it signed.
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France's dreadful new online copyright enforcement law, translated into english.
☞ Unexpected Segway Usage
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Quite remarkable camera work used here.
☞ Slow Loris Operating System
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Here's how to keep your slow loris happy.
[Daily Mink last updated Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:06:48 BRT by Planet Roller]
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