Socrates and Free Software

Open source is winning where it counts, so where to next?

When Microsoft stated last year that they loved open source, the first thought that crossed my mind was that Free and Open Source Software had won the war, and that the rest would simply be a race to determine who would be left to carry the torch into the proprietary software sunset. The success [...]

A week to reflect on openness versus walled gardens

I was not going to mention the sad early departure of Steve Jobs, the media and the blogosphere are already saturated with coverage of his death. Of all the words uttered in the last few days, I think that xkcd’s tribute (pictured) is the most adequate. The coverage has been incredibly over [...]

Software patent could threaten open source

Google has just lost a patent infringement suit in Texas (where else?) which could have nefarious consequences for open source development in the United States. A Texas jury has awarded Bedrock Computer Technologies $5 million USD when it found that the search engine giant had infringed one of its software patents. You might be forgiven [...]

Kinect – Licensing implications of open hardware projects

I’ve been looking with great interest OpenKinect, an open source project that in its own words is an “open community of people interested in making use of the amazing Xbox Kinect hardware with our PCs and other devices. We are working on free, open source libraries that will enable the Kinect to be used [...]

Poetic licence

I loved this version of the BSD open source licence in rhyme so much that I thought I would have to reproduce it here.

SSCL Lecture Eben Moglen in Edinburgh

Last Wednesday I attended Professor Eben Moglen’s lecture in Edinburgh, he is presenting here for the second time in two years. Here are some notes.

Defining the problem: Software is everywhere, it’s in cars, hospitals, in buildings, and in all other sort of devices. “There is software in the things that power people’s hearts”, there [...]

Should governments encourage open source?

As mentioned in earlier posts, Yours Truly presented at a conference in Rwanda a couple of weeks ago. The conference was attended by African IP officials, and dealt mostly with software protection topics such as software patents, open source software and standards. However, I was surprised to find that one of the topics that interested [...]

Creativity, reward and motivation

This is a great video about what makes people perform better and be more creative:

One of the questions asked over and over again about open business models is precisely what makes open source work. How can Wikipedia exist? Who programs open source software? There is growing empirical evidence that the answer to that [...]

Socrates and Free Software

Very interesting discussion here about the defence of Free Software using Socrates. This dialogue between Socrates and sophist Antiphon can be found in Xenophon’s Memorabilia (Book I, Part VI):

Antiphon. Socrates, for my part, I believe you to be a good and upright man; but for your wisdom I cannot say much. I fancy you [...]