Updates from May, 2007 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Roberto Galoppini 8:17 am on May 1, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Internet Governance Forum: getting prepared for the next meeting 

    The Government of Brazil will host in Rio de Janeiro on 12 – 15 November 2007 the second Internet Governance Forum meeting. The IGF website – aimed at supporting the consultative process on the convening of the IGF and provides an interactive collaborative space where all stakeholders can air their views and exchange ideas – publiced a new announcement, as follows.

    Preparing for the Second Meeting of the IGF

    A draft programme outline and meeting schedule for the Rio de Janeiro Meeting are available for comment.

    The documents aim to provide an input into the open round of consultations on 23 May 2007 to discuss programme and agenda for the second meeting of the IGF in Rio de Janeiro. The programme outline will be revised in light of comments received. Comments submitted to the IGF Secretariat ( igf@unog.ch) or posted in our online discussion section by 17 May 2007 will be reflected in a revised version. (More …)

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 2:08 pm on April 21, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Hackers: Brian Behlendorf’s speech at the Digital Freedom expo 

    Brian Behlendorf, Apache founder and now CTO at Collabnet, on Thursday at the Digital Freedom Expo gave a speech entitled “Ten things you may not know about open source“.

    open standard campaignOpen Standard campaign by 4_eveR_Young

    Some excerpts out of his list:

    2. Apache kept the Web flat and free

    Apache was launched in 1995, at the time Netscape was the dominant Web browser and there was a fear that if the same company could own the browser market and the server market they would have too much control and could charge companies a tax of sorts for web hosting. Apache’s launch was done with a dual purpose. There was the pragmatic aspect of combining efforts for better development and there was the idealistic aspect of keeping HTTP (Hypertext transfer protocol) as an open standard.

    That is really interesting. Enforcing an Open Standards through an open source reference implementation. Someonelse is also suggesting the need for a reference implementation to augment – if not, perhaps, replace – the formal specification of the standard.

    4. Open Source helped free the human genome

    Before the mapping of the human genome had been completed, a commercial consortium, Celera, was sequencing the genome with the intention of patenting it. This preposterous idea of patenting a discovery rather than an invention began to get many geneticists concerned. In about 2002 a doctoral student, Jim Kent, wrote 10 000 lines of Perl code to make a program that could perform the number crunching of raw data that was necessary in sequencing the genome. This program [Human Genome Project] was then run over 100 Linux servers and the entire genome was successfully sequenced a few months before Celera finished.

    While more related to Open Knowledge this story is really interesting, in 2002 Tim O’Reilly described Kent’s work as “the most significant work of open source development in the past year”.

    5. Microsoft loves open source

    As odd as it sounds, Behlendorf explained that Microsoft has benefitted from open source development and also included software, which although not labeled “open source”, had the source code openly provided. The first use of TCP/IP in Windows was a port of Berkley’s code. He sited the work that Microsoft was doing with open source programs such as MySQL, SugarCRM and JBoss. Codeshare, Channel 9 and other websites were also cited as positive signs that the proprietary giant is openeing further, as Behlendorf put it, “dragged kicking and screaming into the future”.

    So I am alone thinking things like that. Ten days ago I happened to see a meeting of developers belonging to a Microsoft’s community and I was quite impressed.

    6. Altruism is not the only reason why people contribute to open source software

    Many contributors use the software professionally and find that doing things such as fixing bugs and adding features is much easier when collaborating within a group. According to a survey done in 2006, the existing base of FLOSS represents 131 000 real person years of developmental effort. The costs of sharing code are low while the benefits are high.

    Many thanks Brian, I am really tired to listen to professors talking about gifts and fun, I am happy that people hacking for real can tell them the truth.

    9. Open source can still change the world

    Behlendorf strongly believes in the power of open source to make the world a better place, citing many examples. Within government, he believes that open source software can help immensely in counting election votes in a trustworthy way and also with transparency of government’s actions and policy. For countries such as China where there is restricted acces on the internet, open source has already been successful on helping people within these countries get greater access by overcoming the censorship exerted on them. Third world development can benefite greatly through initiatives such as the One Laptop Per Child project which runs on entirely open source software for the dual purpose of making it cheaper to produce and so that it can be modified to suite each country’s specific needs. Fighting digital rights management was another example given.

    Technorati Tags: Open Source, open standard, hacker, behlendorf

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 8:39 am on April 19, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    FSF Europe call for action: next week IPRED will be voted 

    Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Software Foundation Europe and Open Rights Group launched a call for action because next week the European Parliament will vote IPRED2, the EU’s second intellectual property enforcement directive.

    no sw patentAgainst software patent by kianee

    If it passes in its current form, as reported by the Open Rights Group:

    “aiding, abetting, or inciting” copyright infringement on a “commercial scale” in the EU will become a crime. What’s more, it will be the first time the EU will force countries to impose minimal criminal sanctions – this is normally left up to the discretion of member states.

    The FSFE has prepared an open letter to the MEPs, the proposed text, in all formats and languages, can be found on the proposal’s eur-lex page. FSFE endorses amending that text with the compromise amendments hosted on FFII’s site.

    Electronic Frontier Foundation has also set up a web site to help stop the directive in its current form.

    Act now!

    Technorati Tags: software patent, copyright, IPRED, FSFE, EFF, ORG

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 10:36 pm on April 10, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Community-based production: do they need a roadmap? The Debian case 

    The Debian Project yesterday announced the release of “etch”, the last version of Debian.
    The press release reported that it took 21 months of development to create this release. Whether you consider contributing to Debian a work or a joy, it would be interesting to know how much would have cost to develop “etch” from scratch.

    roadmapRoadmap by Pinocure

    Being based exclusively on volunteer contributions, Debian can’t grant the availability of all packages included in the previous version, as results from “Evolution of Volunteer Participation in Libre Software Projects: Evidence from Debian“. Packages maintained by volunteers who left the project become unmaintained (“orphaned”) and the probability that an orphaned package gets adopted by other maintainers is not 1.

    [..] maintainers who left Debian between July 1996 and December 2004 were responsible for 33.5% of the packages in 2.0, 67.5% of these packages can still be found in 3.0.

    The Constitution itself can’t help much when a volunteer decide to exit and no one is willing to take care of his or her tasks. It is worth to notice that within an hybrid production model paid employees are often responsible for less attractive tasks, as results from “GNOME, a case of open source global software development“:

    Paid employees are usually responsible for the following tasks: project de- sign and coordination, testing, documentation, and bug fix- ing. These tasks are usually less attractive to volunteers. By taking care of them, the paid employees make sure that the development of GNOME continues at a steady pace.

    Corporate production has to be on Time on Budget. The firm solves the problem of finding the efficient management of human resources through time not allowing the free entry and exit, and delegating production control to a manager.

    Community-based production on the contrary allows volunteers to enter and choose their tasks. Volunteers choosing what to do apply for tasks they like, and that they are likely to accomplish effectively. They can also freely exit from a project though, or not to end their tasks on time.

    How open source firms will approach the hybrid production model? Whatever is your guess, read the following (old) excerpt from the Debian Weekly News – December 2nd, 2003:

    Debian Roadmap? The project was asked if there was a roadmap for the Debian distribution, so that certification can be organised accordingly. Ben Collins pointed out that Debian hardly has release goals and Jonathan Dowland added that a smaller group of loose-knit volunteers has managed to agree on a roadmap.

    Technorati Tags: Debian, Coordination costs, Hierarchy, hybrid production model

     

    • Martin Michlmayr 2:42 pm on May 10, 2007 Permalink

      I believe roadmaps are gaining importance in free software development too. IMHO this is related to increased complexity found in many successful projects (both in terms of the size of the development community and the code base itself), which requires a higher degree of planning than in the past. For example, shortly after Debian 4.0 was released, the release managers contacted the maintainers of every large software package in Debian (e.g. the Linux kernel, KDE and GNOME) to obtain more information about the release plans of these projects. This information will be used to create a release plan for Debian. Furthermore, during the development cycle of Debian 4.0, release goals were defined in a much better way than this was done in the past. There was also a split into release blockers and release goals to make it clearer which work is absolutely needed before a release can be made.

      In summary, I don’t believe the absence of plans is something inherent with free software development. I believe there will be more planning as more projects gain considerable complexity and size, and to some extent we can see that already.

    • Roberto Galoppini 5:06 pm on May 13, 2007 Permalink

      Martin thank you to join the conversation. I agree with you, the absence of plans is not inherent with free software development.

      You mentioned GNOME and other projects where paid developers are on duty for unsexy tasks. Do you believe that the hybrid production model might be the third way?

      This way we might get the best of both world, but harmonizing contributions is not straightforward, though.

    • Martin Michlmayr 12:47 pm on May 30, 2007 Permalink

      There’s certainly a trend towards hybrid models, even though they are (or may be) associated with certain problems too. There’s a fairly good paper about the issue of control in the Netbeans community. The question there is who is actually in charge of the project – community or a company (Sun in this case).

      Reference:

      Jensen, Chris and Scacchi, Walt: Collaboration, Leadership, Control, and Conflict Negotiation in the Netbeans.org Community

    • Roberto Galoppini 3:07 pm on June 2, 2007 Permalink

      Thank you Martin, I didn’t read that paper before.

      The way a corporate actor open the development process to others can deeply affect results. Looking at Eclipse vs Netbeans popularity I wonder at which extent it is to be related to the way IBM and Sun backed their respective projects.

  • mfioretti 8:58 am on April 1, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    File Format: Hidden traps in OpenDocument (or any other open standard) and how to avoid them 

    (Note: this post is an excerpt and a follow-up of an article published in December 2006 in the monographic issue on the OpenDocument Format by Upgrade, the online version of the Spanish magazine Novatica. The whole monography can be read online)

    It is almost sure that, eventually, all major producers of both proprietary and Free software in the office files space will support OpenDocument. In and by itself, however, that standard is open to several ways to keep monopolies possible, or to nullify its usefulness for long term archiving.

    Technically speaking, OpenDocument is very powerful and useful because it can be extended. The standard doesn’t mandate, however, nor it should, that all extensions are licensed in the same way as the standard itself. Even ignoring future extensions, the standard as it is today has plenty of backdoors for proprietary traps. Some examples are (see the full Novatica article for details):

    • digital signatures
    • macros
    • embedded images, audio or any other multimedia object embedded in texts spreadsheets and presentations
    • in-file databases

    Objects of this kind can be placed inside an OpenDocument file even if their format is accessible only through patent-covered or otherwise proprietary software. Nothing in the OpenDocument specification prevents this (and, again, it shouldn’t!).

    The practical consequence is that it is possible to have a perfectly Free as in Freedom XML container which is full of patent-ridden components. A container, in other words, which is culturally, economically and politically useless to guarantee long term preservation of information, public ownership of public documents or a really free market in the software industry.

    If anything, the fact that an office file standard is not owned and controlled by one vendor may make it even easier, not harder, than proprietary extensions appear to keep end users locked in, at least in some scenarios.

    Does this mean that OpenDocument is useless?

    Not at all. Personally, I am still convinced that OpenDocument is by far the best possible solution for a very serious problem. To the best of my knowledge, OpenXML is still much worse than OpenDocument both in terms of feasible support in third party applications and in terms of space left to reinventing the wheel and unnecessary proprietary extensions . For these reasons, I remain convinced that it is necessary, at least for creation of new public documents, to just say no to OpenXml (available to unregistered users by the end of April).

    At the same time, I am convinced that it is necessary to stop, at least in the public sector, to just “switch to OpenDocument” and feel happy about it without looking behind the corner. I believe that further steps need to be taken, steps which, by the way, are not specific to OpenDocument.

    What is the right solution?

    OK, so “100% OpenDocument (or OpenXML) Compliance” isn’t enough to guarantee that an OpenDocument report or law proposal stored today will be completely readable and usable 20 or more years from now. The real solution, however, is not a technical one. Technical ways to apply it once it exists are available, and they are mentioned in my Novatica article.

    This said, this is not a format specification issue. When present, technical extensibility of a standard is (and must remain) neutral with respect to intentions. It would be very inefficient, if not plain wrong, to place specifications of a legal nature inside what must remain purely technical documents.

    What I believe to be necessary is to establish and enforce:

    • in the first place, some official “OpenFile” trademark or equivalent label which can be legally applied only to files in which no component has restrictive licenses or uncomplete documentation
    • immediately after that, laws requiring that OpenDocument files can be stored by, or exchanged with public Administrations, libraries and so only if they carry this “OpenFile” seal. Exceptions to this rule should be temporarily granted only in really exceptional cases, when there really is no alternative

    What do you think? Are these conditions enough? Who should define the “label”? Governments or standard bodies? Who should enforce its usage? Which exceptions could or should be tolerated? Please let me know: I am very interested to hear your opinion and to participate in any future discussions on these issues!

    (Thanks to Roberto for suggesting that I write this post and for hosting it!)

     

    • Llorenç Pagés 9:59 pm on April 18, 2007 Permalink

      I think that your arguments are very interesting and the dilemma you are posing very challenging.

      I have translated your message into Spanish and posted it onto the ATI debate forum devoted to Open Document Standards

      I am planning to summarize and post that summary here, if exist, the most interesting opinions we collect on the ATI forum.

      Thank you very much Marco for giving me permission to make that translation.

      Llorenç Pagés
      Chief Editor of Novatica and Upgrade

    • Hikari 4:59 pm on February 19, 2012 Permalink

      Well, the features you listed are needed, and some of them can’t be open.

      Digital Certificate code can be open, I believe its hash data can also be, does ODF formats support it? But, AFAIK, there’s no open software to handle DC, and editor must access its proprietary DLL to sign the document. In the same way, to validate the sining we must access its AC. Would we wanna give up on signed documents and DC?

      Macro is editor-related in the way that it automates editor features, it can’t be standardized because it’d limit how editors work. Well, we need macros to automate our work, and when we decide to use it we know it will be bound to current editor and we’ll have trouble porting it to other editor, even the same model in different version. The solution would be ODF formats support multiple macros in them, related to specific editors, in a way that one editor can’t change or delete other editor’s macros. OR, macros be completely banned and each editor create external files to store its macros.

      Embedded multimedia data is also trouble. HTML 5 supporters are having hard time for years to define which formats will be standardized. Of course, any user worried with long time storage will use properly formats for their multimedia data as they do with their text, be we also can’t stop users from storing proprietary formats, because they’d get angry and go to Micro$oft ones.

      In general, I think ODF formats don’t need to force “openess”, they just need to support and allow it, and each user uses it in the way it’s better for them. Let’s not forget GIF, whose support is gone for years but is still largely used and supported by readers and editors.

      What we can’t allow, at any cost, is that editors add proprietary data inside ODF files without user explicit knowledge and acceptance, because if that’s done the user will only find out years later when it’s too late.

  • Roberto Galoppini 5:36 pm on March 26, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Public Service Content: Open Knowledge Foundation’s response to Ofcom’s consultation 

    Ofcom, the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries,released a discussion document to encourage debate around public service intervention in digital media and the concept of the Public Service Publisher. The Open Knowledge Foundation made a joint response in association with the Open Rights Group to OfCom’s Public Service Publisher consultation.

    public contentPublic Content by jlori

    Firstly, we commend the suggested investment in open content and open data. In particular we urge that, where the PSP funds the generation of new content, such content should always be made available under a license such that others are free to enjoy, redistribute and, most importantly, reuse and refashion that content.

    Secondly, we ask that OfCom pay special attention to the ability of the PSP to invest in architectures of participation, both by supporting the development of Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) and Open Content technologies and projects and by investing in the creation of content to encourage the growth of networks around these technologies.[..]

    The success of an endeavour like the PSP will rely upon these details of its founding principles, and we urge OfCom to pay significant attention to those details now. For example, the PSP may commission a website for people to post and discuss short films, investing in the “architectures of participation” suggested above. But unless the use of Free/Open Source software is specified, and the resulting website platform is ‘open’, allowing re-use and modification by other interested parties, the PSP will not be fully meeting its public service remit. Similarly, The PSP might commission a set of short films to be placed on the website, to seed its growth as a network. But unless the PSP commission explicitly requires that the resulting work be ‘open’ so that others are free to use, reuse and redistribute the work, the PSP’s audience will remain ‘consumers’ of content, and the PSP will have failed to maximise the opportunities of the digital age.

    Finally, the PSP should engage in advocacy and educational initiatives to enable people, organisations and companies to publish their material using open licenses, formats and technologies. It is our sincere hope that the PSP can become a strong, public voice in favour of open knowledge structures.

    Read the full article.

    Technorati Tags: Open Content, Open Source, Open Knowledge

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 6:50 pm on March 17, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    European Open Source Projects: pay once should be enough 

    European Community is now financing 6 different projects within the 6th Framework program related to FLOSS metrics and quality. As a matter of fact CALIBRE(mentioned) EDOS (mentioned), FLOSSMetrics (mentioned few times), FLOSSWorld, QualiPSo, QUALOS and SQO-OSS are somehow overlapping:

    waste

    Complete waste of energy by rooreynolds

    CALIBRE aims to coordinate te study of the characteristics of open source software projets, products and processes, distributed development, and agile methods.

    EDOS – The project aims to study and solve problems associated with the production, management and distribution of open source software packages.

    FLOSSWorld – It is expected that FLOSSWorld will enhance Europe’s leading role in research in the area of FLOSS and strongly embed Europe in a global network of researchers and policy makers, and the business, higher education and developer communities. FLOSSWorld will enhance the level of global awareness related to FLOSS development and industry, human capacity building, standards and interoperability and e-government issues in the geographical regions covered by the consortium.
    QUALOSS objectives:

    • Build the QUALOSS methode, an objective method to assess the robusteness and evolvability of open source software
      .
    • Develop the QUALOSS platform, a tool to automate most activities when applying the QUALOSS methos
      .
    • Validate the QUALOSS empirically on at least 50 open source projects

    SQO-OSS – The project is developing a comprehensive suite of software quality assessment tools. These tools will enable the objective analysis and benchmarking of Open Source software. SQO-OSS aims to assist European software developers in improving the quality of their code, and to remove one of the key barriers to entry for Open Source software by providing scientific proof of its quality.

    Many of these projects are collecting data from public open source repositories, some are working with thousands projects while others are focused on a tiny fraction of. Though all of them are supposed to collaborate with other projects investigating the same area, apparently they have no specific funds dedicated to coordination of tasks.

    On the other hand collection, aggregation and correlation of data fetched by public repository is getting everyday more important both for Public Administrations and firms. The analysis is more and more complex and it is really a waste of resources to let projects overlap.

    By the way looking for posts about European financed projects I happened to read the following posts. The first is from the Open Source Weblog (Matthew Aslett):

    While it is not altogether clear what QualiPSo will deliver that the various existing open source promotion activities and consortia are not, it will be interesting to see the results of the CMM-related project for assessing software quality.

    Other areas, such as the plan to “define a coherent family of open source software licenses” would appear to step on the toes of the OSI just a little bit.

    The second, still talking about Qualipso, is from Glyn Moody:

    Developing a new Capability Maturity Model-like approach to assessing the quality of OSS. This model will be discussed with CMM’s originators, the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), with a view to formalising it as an official extension of CMMI.

    What? Maturity? What’s this got to do with getting people to use the ruddy stuff?
    QualiPSo is launched in synergy with Europe’s technology initiatives such as NESSI and Artemis, and will leverage Europe’s existing OSS initiatives such as EDOS, FLOSSWorld (http://flossworld.org/), tOSSad (http://www.tossad.org/) and others. The project will also leverage large OSS communities such as OW2 and Morfeo.

    Oh, now I see: all this is just an excuse for more acronym madness. So it’s basically just a waste of money, and a missed opportunity to do something practical.

    But wait:

    QualiPSo is the ever largest Open Source initiative funded by the EC.

    OK, make that the biggest waste of money, and biggest missed opportunity yet.

    I’m definitely not a fan of the Public funded “business” model, but as Italian and European citizen I can’t be happy I am not alone. I really want to make a wish now: no more random public funded projects, please.

    Technorati Tags: commercial open source, research, public funded, qualipso, flossmetrics, edos

     

    • Flavia 6:59 pm on March 17, 2007 Permalink

      Your post it is a kind of “mental floss”, a tentative to bring some light in the matter.

    • gaidin 10:41 am on March 22, 2007 Permalink

      I have had a presentation of all the projects you mentionned at the beginning, and except EDOS, I’ve had the same feeling as yours : they are overlapping, and aren’t going to produce anything beside reports.
      Qualipso seems a little different, though.
      I must say, the weight of the industrial partners in those projects makes the topic of interests very far from what we consider “useful”, as “we” are more interested in improving the code base rather than making money, nor are we fighting a stupid US vs EC economic war.
      Also, most Free Software Communities, that are not political conglomerates, have no voice to be heard. That discards in a very effective way any useful idea.

      I think the only good funding for actual useful Free Software comes from Google’s Summer of code.

    • Roberto Galoppini 11:29 am on March 22, 2007 Permalink

      I see your point Gaidin, and that is what I am concerned about: how is it possible that EC keeps accepting overlapping projects?
      My suspect, and I am not alone here, is that EC is lacking of skilled evaluators, turning in random results, as its best.
      I do know evaluators that recommended me to apply just for this reason. I applied twice but I have never got a single answer.
      But the pie is getting bigger and bigger, and firms are not staying at the window, of course.

      You mentioned firms’ dimension as an issue, and you might be right in this respect. EC recognizing that “Europe is good for SMEs and SMEs are good for Europe” is trying to make public calls for tender more accessible for small companies.

      If a company, or individual, finds that EU laws, and the rules of the single market, are not being properly put into practice or interpreted by public authorities, entrepreneurs can find a solution by contacting the Commission’s online SOLVIT service

      By the way you cited Google Summers’ of code, and I agree is a good example but.. while Google is a big company, they are not begging money from the State, and it makes a huge difference to me..

    • gaidin 4:00 pm on March 22, 2007 Permalink

      About Google, the whole situation of fearing an american centric domination through what google is trying to do with the summer of code or the Library, reminds me of a joke that was circulated by email.

      A kind woman from Human Ressources decided to celebrate christmas at work by giving a special meal to the employees, and a $30 voucher each. Soon, she received a complain from the non-christian employees who requested their respective holiday to be celebrated as well. Next came all the vegetarians, claiming that they were being set aside from the rest of the company because of the meat-happy special meal.
      And finally, the Unions kicked in, claiming that the voucher was utterly unequal, that it should be increased for larger families ; and rather than vouchers, the fund should be better used towards a nursery for everyone instead.

      The story ends with her having a nervous break-down.

    • Roberto Galoppini 4:18 pm on March 22, 2007 Permalink

      Well, I like the story, you admit slightly off-topic indeed, and I believe that Summer of Code is definitely a good thing. We can’t say Google is running an open source business model, though, but it is contributing a lot, and that is definitely a good thing.

  • Roberto Galoppini 3:09 pm on March 13, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Drugs: the first Collaborative Drug Discovery meeting 

    Collaborative Drug Discovery enables scientists to collaborate to more effectively develop new drug candidates for commercial and humanitarian markets using a customizable, web-based database tool (not Open Source).They held the first annual meeting on the 5th of March.

    collaborationImage excerpt from CDD web site

    An open-source approach to disease and drug research.

    CDD’s goal is to help scientists optimally select and advance novel drug discovery candidates.

    This is accomplished via:

    • A highly-networked virtual drug discovery and development community
      .
    • Scientists can securely collaborate with their drug discovery data, information, knowledge and intellectual property
      .
    • Build deep technical collaborations to help researchers advance the most promising drug discovery assets

    Technorati Tags: Open knowledge, Collaborative drugs

     

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