Demise of Print
-
InfoWorld: InfoWorld Brand Moves Online
“The news hit the internet this morning: as of next month, InfoWorld will no longer be distributed in a print edition.” About time, I hope the others follow.
Office 2.0
-
Start-up Zimbra takes Web e-mail offline | CNET News.com
“E-mail software company Zimbra on Sunday released an early version of Zimbra Desktop, Web e-mail software that will run online and offline.”
-
Joyeur: Joyeur: Joyent Slingshot
“Joyent Slingshot allows developers to deploy Rails applications that work the same online and offline (with synchronization) and with drag into and out of the application just like a standard desktop application.”
Open Source
-
Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” betas arrive
‘The Ubuntu project today released the first betas of Ubuntu 7.04 (GNOME-based) and Kubuntu 7.04 (KDE-based) — aka “Feisty Fawn.”‘
-
“But according to a Yankee Group report that will be published next month, the real threat to Microsoft Exchange isn’t IBM � it’s Linux- and open-source-based e-mail servers.”
-
Oracle bands with open-source patent group | CNET News.com
“Oracle has licensed patents of the Open Invention Network, a group seeking to give open-source allies some clout in an intellectual property realm that favors the incumbent proprietary software powers.”
-
New GPL draft due Wednesday | CNET News.com
“A new phase of wrangling over the future of the dominant open-source license, the General Public License, is set to begin Wednesday and to end 90 days afterward.”
Second Life
-
Reuters/Second Life � Gauging the Second Life Hype Cycle
“Kevin Dugan of the Strategic Public Relations blog is taking a look at where Second Life may fall on the Gartner Group�s Hype Cycle”
-
IBM developerWorks : Grady Booch – Better Than Life
“I was stunned to learn from Chuck that, late last year, there were only 325 IBM residents of SL but today there are now over 4,000. Today also IBM owns 22 islands in SL, and there are 36 more on order.”
The BBC has got hold of the proposition that there’s something in IBM Research Japan, to help blind people access video content on web sites. And that IBM ‘hopes it will be free’.
Now, there’s various definitions of ‘free’; we are watched over by the business end of the Corporation who do their best to keep us legal and profitable; and until there’s something on the IBM web site, IBM can change its mind.
So, the definitions of ‘free’ that I know are
1) GPL-style ‘aggressively free’, source code on SourceForge, use at will, redistribute the source code please. This is ‘free like a Websphere Umbrella’, a marketing novelty. If IBM is serious about its reputation with its traditional large corporate customers who may have blind employees who might benefit from this contribution, this could be the best choice.
2) CPL-style ‘free’, use at will, no need to redistribute the source code, but if by any chance you decide to sue IBM for patent infringement then you will need to negotiate a separate licence for your blind video browser. A sort of ‘mutual defence union’.
3) Object-Code-Only All-Rights-Reserved Free; tested to work under Windows XP, SuSE Linux, and RedHat Linux, might work under Windows Vista if you are lucky. That’s the Alphaworks style, and maybe DeveloperWorks too.
4) Free like IBM Java (or a power cable for an IBM mainframe); no charge, but the only way to get one is to buy an IBM product (such as Websphere, or that z900 you always wanted)
Any idea which kind this will be ? Or might IBM try to find a way of actually selling it for real money ? (No, it’s Research. Put it down to ‘Good Advertising for the Services Business’, like the Nobel Prizes.)