In a welcome move, Nick Clegg announced his opposition to the communications data bill (CDB) last week. His article in the Telegraph listed five reasons why CDB went “too far” in its attempted legislation. Among those reasons was the ease with which competent criminals could sidestep the effects of CDB and the alarming precedent the UK government would be setting for other countries in the scope of its jurisdictional claims. He’s not on his own; these arguments and many more have been brought against CDB from a wide range of opposition.
Category Archives: Articles
Free Software Needs Support
This open letter from the director of Bytemark Hosting is a call for other hosting companies to help financially support the development of a new free email client. It asserts that by supporting this particular project the industry as a whole can progress, becoming better able to compete with propriety software giants.
The principle seems valid enough, if you want a project to succeed, adding value to your own product, you need to give that project your support. Hopefully hosting companies will see this call, respond, and take its underlying principle on board. Read more in today’s CWUK article.
Options in Place of New Foundations
For the majority of projects a software foundation is not the next step. There are plenty of other options available to developers looking for a way to protect the interests of their project and contributors. Using existing fiduciary hosts and fiduciary and governance hosts allows you to take advantage of proven approaches and experienced stewards. Read more in today’s InfoWorld article.
Patent Defences For The Rest Of Us
The patent system as it stands today could use a general overhaul. We need to see fundamental shifts in society’s understanding of the reasons for and uses of patents. But in the mean time there are all manner of companies, (from the small to the very large) facing patent threats right now.
What defences can be mustered against the trolls and the corporate aggressors defending their legacy control? Open Invention Network plays the broken system to protect the open source community from software patents. Read more in our InfoWorld article today.
Migration Needs A Plan
Do open source mandates work? Plenty of entities have tried to apply an open source mandate, requiring use particularly of open source office suites like LibreOffice. But it takes more than just a decision or a mandate; to successfully gain the benefits of open source in the enterprise, you also need a thoughtful migration plan. Read about this in our article today at Linux Advocates.
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