The Daily Mink

Grooming

webmink — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 01:21:17 BRT

webmink posted a photo:

Members of a monkey family at a house in the forest outside São Paulo.

links for 2009-06-29

webmink — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:30:40 BRT

The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security

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.

(tags: Computer Security networking Hack hacking network software internet sysadmin)

Orchids growing on a tree

webmink — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 06:52:44 BRT

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The lake at Duas Marias

webmink — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 06:49:40 BRT

webmink posted a photo:

In the hotel grounds.

Lula Speaking at FISL

webmink — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 06:42:20 BRT

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Lula at FISL

webmink — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 06:40:16 BRT

webmink posted a photo:

Big Sur Moonrise

webmink — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:32:27 BRT

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.

links for 2009-06-15

webmink — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:30:22 BRT

American ending 'Nerd Bird" nonstops to Silicon Valley from Austin

Uh-oh. Serious blow to the Sun folks working in Austin.

(tags: Travel USA Austin Texas Sun)
OpenSolaris on Blog Talk Radio

I interviewed Liane and Glynn on the show floor at JavaOne about the new 2009.06 release of OpenSolaris.

(tags: OpenSolaris Podcast Interview SimonPhipps Clippings JavaOne JavaOne2009)

links for 2009-06-13

webmink — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:30:34 BRT

VirtualBox Premium Edition: Amazon.co.uk

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.

(tags: FOSS OpenSource VirtualBox virtualisation Retail Amazon)
X5 Free Sampler - Jazz

Another good, free sampler from Amazon MP3 in the USA. If only the UK store had some of these.

(tags: Jazz MP3 Amazon Music)

Goodbye, AdSense

webmink — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:50:00 BRT

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

webmink — Tue, 9 Jun 2009 01:43:00 BRT

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.

links for 2009-06-08

webmink — Mon, 8 Jun 2009 11:30:30 BRT

It’s The Internet Stupid

"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.

(tags: Broadband Internet USA Policy Politics netneutrality)
Massachusetts altar for this California couple

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.

(tags: Marriage California Massachusetts zeitgeist)

Moonlight on the water

webmink — Mon, 8 Jun 2009 04:39:31 BRT

webmink posted a photo:

At The Lanes, Santa Cruz

Full Moon at the Lighthouse

webmink — Mon, 8 Jun 2009 04:35:50 BRT

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Moonlighthouse

webmink — Mon, 8 Jun 2009 04:34:44 BRT

webmink posted a photo:

The lighthouse at Santa Cruz lit by the light of the full moon

Perching Gull

webmink — Mon, 8 Jun 2009 04:19:18 BRT

webmink posted a photo:

On the beach at Carmel-by-the-sea. You can license this photograph for commercial use.

Moon Rise Over Big Sur

webmink — Mon, 8 Jun 2009 03:55:52 BRT

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Seen from Nepenthe Restaurant

☞ Geek Atlas

webmink — Sun, 7 Jun 2009 11:30:24 BRT

The Geek Atlas: 128 Places Where Science and Technology Come Alive

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!

(tags: Books Travel Geek Amazon)

☞ End of an era

webmink — Sat, 6 Jun 2009 11:30:23 BRT

Colorado Software Summit 2009 Cancelled

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.

(tags: Events conference Colorado java opensource software development programming softwaresummit)

OASIS Protects Open Source Developers From Software Patents

webmink — Fri, 5 Jun 2009 04:08:42 BRT

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

webmink — Wed, 3 Jun 2009 07:43:49 BRT

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.

TweetSwoop: Java ME Fragmentation Initiative?

webmink — Wed, 3 Jun 2009 03:58:00 BRT

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.

TweetSwoop: US Only Java Store?

webmink — Wed, 3 Jun 2009 03:00:19 BRT

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

webmink — Mon, 1 Jun 2009 06:33:20 BRT

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Went nice and early to collect my badge and avoid the crowds. Hey, what's that on the wall?

J1 Registration Area Detail

webmink — Mon, 1 Jun 2009 06:32:57 BRT

webmink posted a photo:

So /that's/ why people keep coming up and saying hello!

☞ Semantics, Ancient and Modern

webmink — Thu, 28 May 2009 11:39:36 BRT

Decoding antiquity: Eight scripts that still can't be read

Fascinating overview of the challenges deciphering ancient languages. At least there's no DRM or obsolete media to overcome.

(tags: Language History Archaeology linguistics)
Palestrantes - FISL 10

Great line-up of speakers for the 10th anniversary meeting of FISL in Porto Alegre, Brazil, at the end of June.

(tags: FISL FISL10 FISL2009 Events FOSS OpenSource SimonPhipps)
Topsy Labs Blog - Hello, World!

Fascinating background on the thinking behind Topsy.

(tags: Topsy Search Social SocialGraph SocialNetworking)
Topsy

"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!

(tags: Topsy Search Twitter Social socialnetworking)
What's in a Name: Can Trademarks be Helpful to Free Software Projects?

I'll be speaking at OSCON 2009 - using material from Tiki Dare's wonderful paper on open source communities and trademarks.

(tags: OSCON OSCON2009 FOSS OpenSource Community Trademark Events SimonPhipps)

links for 2009-05-27

webmink — Wed, 27 May 2009 11:30:49 BRT

Matthew Alexander: Former Senior Interrogator in Iraq Dissects Cheney's Lies and Distortions

Well worth reading this commentary from the sort of professional Cheney claims to be speaking for.

(tags: USA Cheney Torture)
How To Put Free Software Experience On Your Resumé

Sensible advice in a digestible format delivered just when a load of us need it...

(tags: Employment FOSS OpenSource Work Development)

☞ An Eclectic Holiday Sunday Selection

webmink — Sun, 24 May 2009 11:33:44 BRT

Malay court hearing 'Allah' case

Unexpected trademark dispute. Is the noun "Allah" a trademark of Islam or a generic usable by any religion?

(tags: religion trademark Islam Christianity Malaysia)
Butterflies and Elvis: Yohanna

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)

(tags: Amazon Iceland Music Eurovision)
Word Cloud Of Obama And Cheney Speeches

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.

(tags: Obama Cheney USA Politics Terrorism Freedom)
US credit card firms clamp down

"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".

(tags: USA Credit Debt BBC)
Licensing update vote for Wikipedia

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.

(tags: Licensing Wikipedia Rights Copyright Freedom creativecommons CC GFDL GNU)
Eyeborg - Video Enabled Prosthetic Eye Fuels Privacy Debate

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...

(tags: Privacy Ethics Video Rights Freedom Zeitgeist)
UNESCO and Sun Microsystems Announce Joint Education and Community Development Effort Powered by Open Technologies

I've been helping to negotiate this agreement for many months, very pleased to finally see it signed.

(tags: UNESCO Sun FOSS Standards Open Education)
HADOPI full translation

France's dreadful new online copyright enforcement law, translated into english.

(tags: France Law Policy HADOPI Copyright Rights Freedom Online)

☞ Unexpected Segway Usage

webmink — Fri, 22 May 2009 11:30:56 BRT

The most ridiculously cool Steadicam shot you’ll see this week

Quite remarkable camera work used here.

(tags: Eurovision Camera Video)

☞ Slow Loris Operating System

webmink — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:35:00 BRT

Slow loris loves getting tickled

Here's how to keep your slow loris happy.

(tags: Loris OpenSolaris video YouTube)