Author Archives: Simon Phipps

Simon Says … No More Foundations!

Simon spoke at OSCON Europe on Monday, delivering a keynote calling for a halt to the proliferation of open source trade associations calling themselves “Foundations” — not to be confused with open source public benefit non-profits. Here’s his keynote in full.

Phone Consultations

Arranging the necessary agreements for a business consultation can be heavy lifting, especially if the matter in hand could be discussed in half an hour. To that end, we’ve set up an account on Clarity so you can quickly and easily benefit from our experience! If you book during 2015, we will donate all proceeds to the Open Rights Group.

EU-US Safe Harbour For Personal Data Eliminated

Simon’s quick take on the safe harbour news.

Simon Phipps's avatarWild Webmink

The European Court of Justice (CJEU) handed down a decision declaring EU-US safe harbour for personal data invalid this morning. It has far-reaching implications for cloud services in particular and may presage increased opportunity for open source solutions from non-US suppliers. Looks like a real gift to companies like Kolab.

Here’s my first reaction on reading of the sources. Let me know what I have wrong & I’ll fix it. In the Opinion of the Advocate General (who has a broader but compatible view), he said:

¶183. I am therefore of the view that Decision 2000/520 must be declared invalid since the existence of a derogation which allows in such general and imprecise terms the principles of the safe harbour scheme to be disregarded prevents in itself that scheme from being considered to ensure an adequate level of protection of the personal data which is transferred to the United States from the European…

View original post 1,346 more words

FRAND Is Always Discriminatory

I participated in a study asking about the fairness, reasonableness and non-discriminatory nature of FRAND licensing in the context of licensing of patents in standards. I was surprised to find people there asserting there was no conflict between FRAND licensing and open source software. Here’s a simple explanation why that’s wrong.

Since patent licensing is by definition bilateral, and since open source communities that aren’t run by a single vendor are by definition multi-lateral, any standard which includes patents that require licensing discriminates against true multi-participant open source implementation. By definition, patent licensing as a precondition of implementation of a standard cannot ever be non-discriminatory. Even zero-fee licensing is discriminatory as it still requires implementers to seek permission, the antithesis of open source.

How To Safeguard Surveillance Laws

Here’s my letter to the Evening Standard yesterday, where I explain the problem with surveillance laws and how to minimise their harm (in 200 words as required by their letters editor)

Simon Phipps's avatarWild Webmink

This letter was published in the London Evening Standard on January 12th, 2015:

I watch with alarm as, in the wake of the barbaric murders in France, politicians seek increased surveillance powers for the security services.

Surveillance is not always wrong; far from it, our democracy has long allowed accountable public servants to temporarily intrude on individuals they believe to be a threat.

My alarm arises for two reasons:

  • The powers requested in recent attempts at new law are open-ended and ill-defined. They lack meaningful oversight, transparency or accountability. They appear designed to permit the security services free rein in making their own rules and retrospectively justifying their actions.
  • The breadth of data gathered – far beyond the pursuit of individuals – creates a risk of future abuse, by both (inevitable) bad actors and people responding to future moral panic. Today’s justifications – where offered – make no accommodation for…

View original post 66 more words

DLC 1: Hotel arrogance, the no-win laptop and more

Digital Life Clippings from week 1

  1. Marriott will ban shareable WiFi if the FCC don’t let them block it – NYT – Their arrogance in attempting to protect their high-margin abuse of customers’ vulnerability knows no bounds; threatening the FCC is jaw-dropping.
    To carry out their threat to ban shareable WiFi, they would need to ban not only MiFis but also Windows, Mac and Linux laptops as well as almost all smartphones. They may think they have a right to break my internet if I won’t use their broken internet, but the “hospitality” they will need to show their “guests” will be deeply harmful.
    The bug is not that people want to use their own internet connections; it’s that Marriott think people should have to pay extra for a facility that’s become as fundamental to travellers as hot water or electric light. [Coverage]
  2. HP’s low-cost Windows laptop is not a Chromebook killer – GigaOm – It’s a mistake to try to squeeze Windows into hardware designed for ChromeOS. You end up with a laptop that’s so under-powered it’s best for cloud-hosted applications (as the HP/Microsoft TV advertising in the UK implies). But you still have to maintain anti-malware software, apply updates, manage drivers, buy upgrades and so on.
    So you have bought yourself the functionality of a Chromebook but with the upkeep of Windows. Why on earth would anyone think that was a good deal?
  3. A Europe Of Treaties? – Webmink – The UK is entering its election cycle and the political manipulators are trying to whip Britain’s closet xenophobes into an anti-European frenzy intended to justify Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. But what would be the alternative? Britain can’t up-anchor and sail to Florida. Opting out like that would simply mean discarding democratic engagement over the market conditions Britain depends on and instead seeking secretly-negotiated treaties.
  4. Samsung to use Tizen in TVs – Tizen Experts – Samsung’s embrace of Tizen continues, although this move to deploy it to TVs instead of phones may indicate someone has woken up to the need for a large and diverse developer ecosystem to make a platform succeed. All the same, the probem is on clear display in this insider article. This quote embodies the problem.

    Tizen TV is expected to be running Tizen 3.0 based on Tizen Common at launch and the non Intellectual Property (IP) Source Code released shortly thereafter.

    Secret development, partial code availability, binaries before code; how could any meaningful collaborative community possible emerge in the absence of an existing diverse ecosystem?

Digital Life Clippings – New Year’s News

  1. Indian government blocks programming web sites, including archive.org and Github gists – TechCrunch – As if to illustrate why it’s bad to allow anyone the power to block web sites arbitrarily, the Indian government has blocked entire slices of web infrastructure because one of their functionaries found something about ISIS somewhere on it. More on the blog.
  2. Marriott wants to block your devices so you have to pay for their wifi – Boing Boing – Marriott clearly does not want anyone from the technology industry to stay at their hotels or to use them for events. Best to respect their wishes and avoid them like the plague.
  3. End-user adoption of open source is a lousy metric – RRW – Open source is primarily a collaboration technique, leveraging the permission-in-advance arising from software freedom to unlock innovation in many unrelated deployers. For many reasons, enterprise end-user deployment of unmodified open source software is thus a lousy metric for gauging the influence of open source.
  4. Perfect slapdown to a bogus takedown – TechDirt – The monkey selfie is resoundingly in the public domain, your jurisdiction has no say in mine and my use is fair use. Otherwise, do you have any questions?
  5. If the Supreme Court tackles the NSA in 2015, it’ll be one of these five cases — Ars Technica — This is a great test for the separation of powers. US law very clearly needs an update for the meshed society and signalling it is a job for SCOTUS. I’m also interested to see if the court is willing to clarify the Third Party Doctrine. It seems obvious to me that if I have a relationship with a telco as a customer, that telco can’t truly be considered a “third party”.

Happy New Year!

Wishing you a great 2015! We plan to post news clippings more frequently this year; if you ever feel the need to encourage us, please throw a coin or two in the tip jar over there on the right!

India Illustrates The Risks Of Censorship Laws

Next time you see your government proposing internet censorship laws of any kind, remember this incident where the Indian government crippled their own software industry so they could be seen to be doing something about terrorism. Their department of telecommunications has blocked 32 web sites — including archive.org and Github — as if to illustrate why it’s bad to allow anyone the power to block web sites arbitrarily (ETI claims it’s 60+). They’ve blocked entire slices of multi-purpose web infrastructure because one of their functionaries found something about ISIS somewhere on it, according to TechCrunch.

Perhaps it is happening because a person tasked with being seen to be doing something about terrorism found a broad and badly-drafted regulation with no checks, balances or oversight that she could use to satisfy her instructions at no personal cost. As a result, vast numbers of Internet uses that are neutral or positive to Indian culture and society are being inhibited in pursuit of a tiny number of cases that are negative. Certainly the sources ETI cites have no clue the damage they’re causing.

Laws and regulations don’t just get used for their intended purpose; they get used by anyone that is permitted to do so for any purpose that is not proscribed. So broad rules permitting censorship for open-ended durations and purposes can and will be used to silence opposition, score points and prove some functionary is tough on terrorism or paedophiles. Who cares if businesses, research and culture are harmed? Think of the children!

Digital Life Clippings – Christmas Break Edition

  1. Police called to remove pre-teens just in case they pirated Hunger Games movie with cellphones – Ars Technica – Given the storyline of the movie, this is ironic. Cineworld thinks copyrights are so precious it’s worth infringing common sense and individual rights to protect them. They think paying customers are criminals until proven otherwise, even kids. Don’t let any kids you care about watch movies at a cinema with this attitude, it’s not safe.
  2. The most wasteful patent aggression strategy ever has failed – Ars Technica – Another skirmish in the ongoing dirty war by the legacy technology & media industry against Google bites the dust.
  3. NSA dumps incriminating documents on Christmas Eve – Boing Boing – Anyone who doubts the effectiveness of Freedom of Information requests should see how government agencies squirm responding to them.
  4. Inadvertent Algorithmic Cruelty – MeyerWeb – Facebook’s Year In Review is a product of an unremittingly positive mindset that believes algorithms can handle anything. This time I think it will be widely regretted rather than welcomed, for the reasons Eric Meyer explains and I expand. Algorithms can’t exercise discretion; don’t use them for things that demand it.
  5. Cuba’s “offline Internet” – Guardian – The Internet was designed to work around obstacles. This fascinating example does it via sneakernet.