Simon’s blog post about the bias the UK’s domain authority is showing against charities obviously struck a nerve with them as they responded to him. Sadly, the response was not a reply; rather, it sought to focus on issues away from the main point while using logical fallacies to attempt to discredit his complaint. Since there was no reply, Simon has posted a more focussed restatement of the issue and is now awaiting a reasoned reply (rather than the further logical fallacies a domain salesman has posted so far).
Author Archives: Simon Phipps
UK Domain Mismanagement
Alerted by a Twitter conversation, Simon checked Nominet’s rules concerning the new .UK domain and found they have a distressing bias against UK charities. It’s bad enough that UK web sites have to waste money on more domain names to protect their brand; these rules actually prevent charities from doing so. Read his article for more.
Net Neutrality – Act, Don’t Mourn
Alexandra posted to ComputerWorldUK last Friday with news of the worsening situation with net neutrality. It’s not just the push-back to the FCC that’s concerning; there are also real challenges posed as vendors corrode the principle. Read her posting to learn more and see what she suggests instead.
Understanding Google’s Sale Of Motorola
In InfoWorld today, Simon challenges the assertion some are making that Google’s sale of Motorola after such a short time is a sign of failure. Noting all the gains Google has made, both financial and strategic, he suggests actually the deal is both profitable and clever. Certainly it’s a deal for its time, focussing mainly on triaging the negative consequences of a patent system designed for an industrial age being misapplied to the meshed society. Read all about it.
Meet At FOSDEM?
The coming weekend marks the return of the Free and Open Source Developers’ European Meeting — FOSDEM. Held annually in Brussels, it’s one of the world’s largest gatherings of open source developers and a crucial venue for many projects to get together and discuss their next year over a few beers.
Simon will be attending for us. If you would like to meet him, you’ll need to tell us as his diary is packed and the event is huge. Please use our contact form.
See you there!
Setting Up Our Voice-Over-IP Phone System
As I mentioned recently on Google+, I’ve recently installed a telephone system for Meshed Insights using a Raspberry Pi. Here’s a description of the system I’ve put together.
The brains live in a model B Raspberry Pi. I installed the GNU/Linux distribution Raspbian using the easy NOOBS on an SD card, then installed RasPBX — FreePBX and Asterisk — using the Pi Store via the desktop as that was easiest. I enabled sshd so I can log in from the office (using a private key so it’s less hackable), set the unit to have a fixed IP on our internal network and then disconnected the keyboard, mouse and screen. The system now runs headless in our server room. Continue reading
SFSCon 2013 Video
We delivered a workshop on defences against software patents at SFSCon 2013 in Bolzano, with travel sponsored by Open Invention Network. Here’s the video summarising the event
If you’d like to attend a similar seminar, let us know.
Does Open Source Really Need Tax Breaks?
Open source Foundations have a great track record for good governance of open source projects – think of the Apache Software Foundation, the Document Foundation, the Eclipse Foundation or the Mozilla Foundation and the tremendous software they produce speaks volumes. We take it for granted that they need to be tax-exempt organisations.
Yet troubles in the USA with gaining recognition for open source projects from the tax authorities raise an important question: is tax-exempt status really necessary? Or are we mistaking approval of sound accounting principles for certification of good governance? Today’s article in InfoWorld has more.
Logo Store
Do you like our logo image? We’ve an online store where you can buy a wide range of items that incorporate it. They’re all just the image, with no words or other branding, so they make great gifts as well as reminding you of Meshed Insights!
Go take a look now!
US Federal Circuit Finds CLS Software Patents Invalid
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit published an opinion last week in the CLS vs Alice case. You’ll recall this was a crucial hearing that has the potential to decide whether software is patentable in the USA.
The opinion published by the court — sitting en banc with all but one of the Circuit’s judges represented — found that the software in question was not a patentable subject. That’s very good news and if the finding stands could strike at the heart of the software patent problem.
But the story isn’t over here. The document actually includes six separate opinions by different groups of the judges. A majority of them were able to agree to the overall court verdict, but it is clearly inconclusive. As a consequence, it seems almost certain this finding will itself be appealed to the US Supreme Court. So celebrate, but hold back a little – it’s not over yet.
Meshed Insights Ltd 