How long should copyright last? Should living beings or software be patentable? How do we as a society manage our knowledge? The World Intellectual Property Organisation deals with this sort of question. This associated organisation of the United Nations serves as a forum for the countries of the world to negotiate treaties like those that Read more »
Yesterday, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the Next Big Thing (TM) for Facebook: OpenGraph. In a typically glowing article, Wired sums it up as follows: an initiative that will allow thousands of developers to make social applications tightly woven into the Facebook system, much more so than with the existing platform. Media applications Read more »
Yesterday evening in Berlin, there was a rare meeting of the heads of three different FSFs: Richard Stallman (FSF US), Nagarjuna G (FSF India) and myself for FSFE. With us were FSF India volunteer damitr and FSFE intern Nicolas Jean. We did discuss some weighty issues, such as the relation between Free Software and Open Read more »
Now it’s official: The European Commission will migrate to Microsoft Windows 7 without considering alternative offers. In a reply to questions asked by MEP Bart Staes (Greens/EFA), the EC on May 27 confirmed that it has awarded contracts for the upgrade to Microsoft and reseller Fujitsu-Siemens on behalf of 55 other European institutions and the Read more »
Will technology make us freer? Cory Doctorow has a nice little article about the role of Free Software as a tool for social activism. In particular, he’s writing about why it’s important that the tools we use for activism should be free: Herein lies the difference between a ‘‘technology activist’’ and ‘‘an activist who uses Read more »
Yesterday, I hopped over to Amsterdam to speak at Mediamatic about Free Software and FSFE at one of their Ignite events. The format was interesting: A strict time limit of five minutes per speaker, with slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. The Mediamatic Bank is an art and exhibition space in central Amsterdam. Most or Read more »
(Article originally published on netzpolitik.org) Das Bundeskartellamt und das US-Justizministerium haben gestern den Verkauf von 882 Novell-Patenten genehmigt. Die Software-Monopolrechte gehen an eine Firmengruppe namens CPTN. Die wiederum besteht aus Microsoft, Oracle, Apple und EMC. Das Erfreuliche: Offenbar unter massivem Druck aus der Freie Software-Welt mussten sich die CPTN-Firmen offenbar auf Bedingungen einlassen, die den Read more »
At FSFE, we’re closely watching how the public sector goes about buying software. A lot of money changes hands here, so it’s worth paying attention, especially since a couple of studies have shown that public authorities frequently get the process wrong. Fortunately, there are legal remedies available. If your company bids for a contract, and Read more »
When it comes to Free Software and Open Standards, the UK has long lagged way behind other countries. There were a few policies that sounded good on paper, but that’s exactly where they stayed. This may be finally changing. The UK Cabinet Office has issued a “procurement policy notice” (.pdf) that is, well, surprising. In Read more »
On the invitation of the GNU hackers, I spoke today in the GNU DevRoom at FOSDEM. The talk was on “Power, Software, Freedom — Why we need to divide and re-conquer our systems”. Here are the slides. What makes a free service? If we do our computation on machines that we don’t control, how can Read more »