Open Enterprise

How Can Any Company Ever Trust Microsoft Again?

Glyn Moody — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:34:56 GMT

Irrespective of the details of the current revelations about US spying being provided by Edward Snowden in the Guardian, there is already a huge collateral benefit. On the one hand, the US government is falling over itself to deny some...

Digital Economy Act Lurches On; Public Still Shut Out

Glyn Moody — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 20:04:03 GMT

Remember the Digital Economy Act, surely one of the most disgraceful episodes in recent British political history? It was "passed" back 2010 - I use inverted commas, since it was actually rammed through an almost empty House of Commons in...

How Does Prism Change the Way We See Things?

Glyn Moody — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:39:52 GMT

The extraordinary revelations about the NSA's global spying programme Prism have only just started - was it really just last Thursday that things began? So it would be extremely rash to attempt any kind of definitive statement about what is...

What's the Net Net on Neelie Kroes's EU Net Neutrality?

Glyn Moody — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 10:09:32 GMT

It's been a while since I wrote about net neutrality, but of course it's never gone away as an important theme. Indeed, it was inevitable that it would start to rear its ugly head again, since so many powerful companies...

Meeting Mr Firefox: Johnathan Nightingale

Glyn Moody — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 08:52:21 GMT

Mozilla and its central Firefox project are themes that I have returned to often on this blog. That's not so surprising: Mozilla is one of the oldest free software projects, starting back in 1998 when Netscape stunned the world by...

Open Sourcing the UK's Operating System

Glyn Moody — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 07:16:03 GMT

"Law is the operating system of our society ... So show me the manual!" Not alas, my witty words, but those found on the site Public.Resource.Org, run by the redoubtable Carl Malamud. The basic idea is simple: that laws can...

BSA Study Demonstrates Open Source's Economic Advantage

Glyn Moody — Tue, 28 May 2013 13:17:35 GMT

I love the spring. Not, of course, because of the glorious weather, since we don't have any. But because it's time for the annual BSA report on piracy, which is guaranteed to provide me with hours of innocent fun as...

Another Reason Why Open Source Wins: Fairness

Glyn Moody — Mon, 27 May 2013 16:20:19 GMT

I've written a number of posts looking at less-familiar advantages of open source over closed source, and here's another one. Proprietary systems can't be forked, which means that it's not possible to change the underlying ethos, for example by tweaking...

EU Vote on Clinical Trials Data - Please Contact MEPs Now

Glyn Moody — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:52:36 GMT

I've written a few times about open data in the context of clinical trials - the information that must be provided when new drugs seek approval. As I noted, there is a growing movement to make such basic safety data...

Reading Shakespeare: the Next Act of Open Data

Glyn Moody — Tue, 21 May 2013 09:36:50 GMT

As readers of this blog will have noticed, much of the most innovative work in the field of openness is taking place in open data. One of the largest stores of data is held by government, and the argument for...

Why We Need Open Source: Three Cautionary Tales

Glyn Moody — Mon, 20 May 2013 14:20:53 GMT

Open Enterprise mostly writes about "obvious" applications of open source - situations where money can be saved, or control regained, by shifting from proprietary to open code. That battle is more or less won: free software is widely recognised as...

Why are Facebook, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle Backing the Fight Against the Blind?

Glyn Moody — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:24:00 GMT

One of the more disgraceful examples of the inherent selfishness of the copyright world is that it has consistently blocked a global treaty that would make it easier for the blind and visually impaired to read books in format like...

The Importance of Being Attributed

Glyn Moody — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:19:04 GMT

A few weeks ago, the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 received Royal Assent. Among its rag-bag of measures are some dealing with the vexed issue of orphan works (or hostage works as they should really be called.) To cut...

Happy 10th Anniversary, Groklaw

Glyn Moody — Thu, 16 May 2013 09:01:12 GMT

One of the amazing things about free software is how it has managed to succeed against all the odds - and against the combined might of some of the world's biggest and most wealthy companies. That shows two things, I...

FRAND Is Broken: Time To Bin It [Updated]

Glyn Moody — Wed, 15 May 2013 09:49:07 GMT

I've written many times about why FRAND licensing is not an option for open source projects, and should therefore be replaced by Royalty/Restriction-Free (RF) terms when it comes to defining open standards to create a level playing field. That's simply...

Open Data, Creative Destruction and Money

Glyn Moody — Mon, 13 May 2013 11:39:34 GMT

Nearly three years ago, I wrote an article exploring why at that time there were no billion-dollar companies (since then, Red Hat has finally broken through this barrier). Here's the key point: open source solutions save money for customers by...

Why the Idea of the Software Patent Does Not Fly

Glyn Moody — Wed, 08 May 2013 12:33:27 GMT

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about the growing threat of software patents in Europe (again). I was delighted to come across this reply from Martin Goetz, who wrote: On April 22nd I read Glyn Moody's Computerworlds.UK...

EU Consultations: A Modest Proposal

Glyn Moody — Tue, 07 May 2013 09:58:48 GMT

Last week I reported on the reply I received from Jean Bergevin of the European Commission on the subject of the IPRED consultation, and my own response to that. I wondered whether I would receive a reply, suspecting that I...

The Most Dangerous Windows Infection of All

Glyn Moody — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:07:41 GMT

Readers of this blog don't need to be told about Windows' awful security record, or how, when news outlets talk glibly of "viruses", they actually nearly always mean Windows malware. But sometimes there are stories from this weird world that...

Open Source (Seeds) Under Threat

Glyn Moody — Fri, 03 May 2013 09:11:21 GMT

Seeds might seem far from the world of high tech and free software, but they have much in common. Seeds contain DNA, which is a (quaternary) digital code much like a binary program. Just as there is free software that...

Benefit Claimants Must Use Ancient Microsoft Software

Glyn Moody — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:48:22 GMT

Remember the bad old days when the UK government forced people to use Microsoft software in order to interact with it online? Remember how we thought the UK government had finally moved on, recognising that it should use truly open...

The Free, Open Web: 20 Years of RF Licensing

Glyn Moody — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:05:46 GMT

As regular readers of this column know, there's still a battle going on over whether standards should be FRAND or restriction/royalty-free (RF). The folly of allowing standards to contain FRAND-licensed elements is shown most clearly by the current bickering between...

European Commission Replies to My IPRED Letter

Glyn Moody — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:03:15 GMT

Earlier this month I wrote a couple of posts about a letter I sent off to the European Commission concerning my appalling experience with the IPRED consultation. Well, I now have a reply, which I reproduce below: Dear Mr Moody,...

Please Write to MEPs Now about TAFTA/TTIP

Glyn Moody — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:49:26 GMT

Sorry to trouble you again this week, but there's an important vote in INTA today (25 April) on the transatlantic trade agreement (TAFTA/TTIP), and there are some crucial issues that you might like to convey to your MEP, especially if...

Please Write to Your MPs About Snooper's Charter

Glyn Moody — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:55:08 GMT

It seems that the UK government will be deciding what to do about the Snooper's Charter this week. It is already under huge pressure as more and more problems with the plans become evident. I urge you to write to...