Why Google prefers the BSD
Google uses the BSD license for most of its own software releases, but allows the
engineer to choose the license. The unanswered question in
this post is what the approval process is for releasing software open source at all. Google does not prefer the GPL, but does use the LGPL sometimes -- but finds the stewardship responsibility under those models too great.
Software patents belong in a trophy case
This article states that most software companies use patents as trophies in their case, as they continually innovate their products -- and that patents won't be useful to them. Patent reform is coming, they say -- but is it truly? Software patents are truly an experiment, and will they last? The IP system certainly requires tweaking, or the
practice of the the current IP system requires tweaking. Law always lags practice. Perhaps practice should change now, and law then change?
When do standards' organizations obligations end?
AT&T has approached several companes, claiming that they
violate the MPEG-4 standard, and offering to license rights to them on RAND (reasonable and non-discriminatory) terms. MPEG-4 has described their responsibilities to include patents which are "essential" to the standard in the patent pool, but acknowledge that other patents may speak to the standard. The .gif disaster is ?over? or almost over? so why is AT&T bringing this up now? A company decides to not join, that is painful to all standards' efforts. A company is refused, now that makes sense. And when does MPEG-4 have responsiblity to the users to collect rights "necessary" or fight, on behalf of the standards users, for "quiet" use of the rights?
Interesting that on the same day, Microsoft announces that they will
foot the legal bills (
all the legal bills in infringement cases is the key phrase) for IP infringement when redistributors/ integrators adopt MS products. Some would argue that Microsoft's operating system is the
de facto standard on computers (of many types) and this is a mechanism to protect its users from adopting its product. Microsoft has a huge cash arsenal, and thus can afford it. Can Microsoft's competitors?
Conflict of interest screen in posting to Wikipedia?
Wikipedia has had to block certain parties from editing Wikipedia entries, primarily politicians. Evidently staffers help the
entries portray their bosses in the right light. Scholarly authors must disclose their conflicts of interest when writing. I imagine authors of old, regular encyclopedias were hired to write about particular subjects. Wikipedia is a great idea. But open is a problem without stewards -- and endorsement from the community of those stewards standards. If open projects are to be credible, some care must be taken to maintain quality, integrity and objectivity. Amazon.com has gone to identifying real authors, and hoping that users value those opinions more than others. Shall Wikipedia adopt that? Or shall they create a special section where "bias" can be presented -- a "commercial" Wikipedia? What else?
When will the EIT open?
The European Institute of Technology (stories everywhere, see
this one as an example) may open -- but where? and when? MIT is certainly an important school to emulate, but not everyone is MIT. The entrepreneur infrastructure exists there -- does it exist "throughout" Europe? One to watch. Investment is a good idea, but what else is "necessary" and "sufficient" to create what MIT has?
Measuring the social effect of popularity
A
Columbia University study which had
14,000 teenagers pick what songs would be popular showed that the "best" and "worst" songs aren't necessarily the "most" and "least" popular. Anyone who listens to pop music these days will not be surprised. The researchers concluded that there is a strong social effect on music (and other media) popularity. People talking about, writing about, or playing media will make it more popular. So we look to DJs, our friends, and critics for advice on what should be popular. Now we have confirmation that there are opinion leaders. Shall we measure the impact of those opinion leaders? And how one becomes one? I think those are important questions of how new ideas spread.
How much intellectual property are you worth?
Al Michaels was traded from ESPN (ABC owns them -- ABC is Disney) to NBC for the precursor of Mickey Mouse. Through the strangeness of history, Disney did not own "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" (watch what your employers own. . ). We know where we will see Michaels (football broadcasts) but we don't know where we'll see Oswald. The move keeps the Monday Night football team together -- and I like to see teams stay together. What team has been rebuilt with Oswald?
