Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Patents

Submission + - Research Proves Patent Trolls Harming The Economy (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
WebMink
WebMink writes: "It used to just be speculation, but the numbers are now in — patent trolls are costing America jobs and economic growth. Newly-published research using data commissioned by Congress shows big rises in patent troll activity over the last five years — from 22% to 40% of all patent suits filed, with 4 out of five litigants being patent trolls. Other papers show that jobs are being lost and startups threatened, while VC money is just making things worse by making startups waste money filing more patents. Worst of all, it's clear this is just the tip of the iceburg; there's evidence that unseen pre-lawsuit settlements with patent trolls represent a much larger threat than anything the research can easily measure.

At least there is a little good news though; the fact Congress commissioned research on patent trolls means there are legislators taking the problem seriously at last,"
Censorship

Submission + - "New Statesman" Pirates Its Own Magazine (newstatesman.com)

Submitted by
WebMink
WebMink writes: "Knowing that its explosive special edition on China this week will be blocked by censorship, UK political magazine "New Statesmen" has taken the unusual step of posting its own torrents of the PDF of the Mandarin edition on the magazine. Looking at the content of the issue they are probably right to expect censorship — there's an article from the former newspaper editor Cheng Yizhong about media censorship, and Ai Weiwei interviews a member of the "50 cent party" — a commenter paid half a dollar every time he derails an online debate in China. "Essentially, these people are paid internet trolls; their job is to stop any meaningful discussion online about the government." The magazine asks us to share the PDF, .torrent file and magnet link widely, so where better than Slashdot?"
Oracle

Submission + - Calling Time on Oracle's Claims of MySQL FUD (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by
WebMink
WebMink writes: "Last month, the wider MySQL community called foul on Oracle's failure to publish test cases with the most recent MySQL release. But Oracle claimed this week at a conference in Brussels that talk of it winding in control of MySQL is "just FUD".

An insider to Oracle's thinking suggests that the community's grievances are indeed real but Oracle's motivation is internal politics and not malice towards the community. Could the hurt be healed by taking an idea from Apache?"
Education

Submission + - Gates and others offer $150,000 to start open source community (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
WebMink
WebMink writes: "With an impending deadline for America's schools to satisfy new federal reporting requirements on academic achievement, a new alliance of state educators is creating a system of open source software to help schools gather and submit the data that the rules require. To get the whole thing started, the Gates Foundation and Carnegie are funding two $75,000 awards for the open source developers who create the in-school software. The winners could also become the lynchpins of a new industry in academic software."
Iphone

Submission + - iPhone 5 Scorns Standards Promise To European Commission (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by
WebMink
WebMink writes: "Back in 2009, Apple signed an agreement aimed at reducing electronic waste resulting from mobile phone accessories. But this week's launch of the iPhone 5 shows them reneging on that commitment. Instead of including a micro-USB connector on the iPhone, as they agreed to do along with the rest of the phone industry, they created yet another proprietary connector. At a stroke, they have junked earlier iPhone accessories, forced a new industry in Apple-only accessories to arise and broken their promise to the EC. It's a huge missed opportunity both for their customers and for the environment."
Patents

Submission + - Easy Fix For Software Patents Found In US Patent Act (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
WebMink
WebMink writes: "What if there was an easy, inexpensive way to bring software patents under control, that did not involve Congress, which applied retrospectively to all patents and which was already part of the US Patent Act? Stanford law professor Mark Lemley thinks he's found it. He asserts that the current runaway destruction being caused by software patents is just like previous problems with US patent law, and that Congress included language in the Patent Act of 1952 that can be invoked over software patents just like it fixed the earlier problems. All it will take is a future defendant in a patent trial using his read of a crucial section of the Patent Act in their defence to establish case law. Can it really be that easy?"

Comment Re:Facts From OSI (Score 2) 158

by WebMink (#40930851) Attached to: Open-Source Movements Bicker Over Logo

The only questions remaining - why didn't the OP check with you, why didn't Slashdot editors check with you, and why hasn't there been an article update already?

Actually the IDG journalist involved did contact me; the text I posted above was copied from my reply to him! He even quoted the "build bridges" bullet...

Comment Facts From OSI (Score 5, Informative) 158

by WebMink (#40930421) Attached to: Open-Source Movements Bicker Over Logo

I'm OSI's current president. Here are the facts that are missing from the OP:

  1. OSI has not sent any legal notice to OSHWA, does not want to and has no plans to do so.
  2. OSHWA approached OSI last year to ask about the relationship between the OSHW and OSI logos, which their internal discussion had identified as a problem.
  3. Since then, there has been an ongoing conversation between OSI & OSHWA. It's not been perfect, but everyone involved is a volunteer doing their best in a complicated situation.
  4. Last week OSHWA decided to consult its members/stakeholders about the matter before next steps with OSI.
  5. The template trademark agreement from OSI that they published was not a proposal or demand, it was just an example document to assist them in making a proposal to OSI. It was requested by OSHWA prior to a meeting between OSI & OSHWA on June 29.
  6. The discussions are ongoing and it's unhelpful to treat this as a conflict; neither OSI's Board nor (as far as I have been told) OSHWA's board do.
  7. OSI is very keen indeed to devise an approach that brings maximum benefit to the whole open source community and which builds bridges to strengthen it.
  8. When OSHWA's data-gathering ends (August 16) OSI will be ready with a strong proposal that fixes things.
Java

Submission + - Sun Admitted JavaME Was Fragmented Without Any Help From Android (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by WebMink
WebMink writes: The heart of Oracle's case against Google was that Android was fragmenting Java. But as Sun admitted repeatedly — notably at JavaOne in 2009, as the video linked from this article shows — Java ME was already a thoroughly fragmented platform in need of remediation. Has Oracle's decision to fire its one-shot Java defences at the wrong target cost it the ability to "defend" Java again?

Submission + - Wikileaks Shows Cloud Too Risky For Business (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by
WebMink
WebMink writes: ""It used to take a bailiff and a man with an axe for the door, but the cloud makes it so much easier. If I told you that your entire business infrastructure could be taken offline by a government employee, or even a commercial provider, without judicial review, useful explanation or workable recourse, perhaps because a politician has philosophical issues with your activities, would that worry you? Yet it seems that the most popular brands on the market for cloud computing and web services place you at that risk if you follow the trend to cloud hosting for business infrastructure.""

Submission + - Love it or hate it, we must defend Wikileaks (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by
WebMink
WebMink writes: "Whether you approve of Wikileaks or not (and the author clearly isn't a fan), the weakness it exposes in web and cloud service provision and the reaction it will provoke from legislators must concern us all. Despite the writer's distaste for Wikileaks (and The Pirate Bay) themselves, the article calls on us to defend their ability to exist against the coming onslaught of Internet-toxic legislation."

Submission + - DRM Is Toxic To Culture (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by
WebMink
WebMink writes: "Digital Restriction Methods (DRM) aren't just a nuisance that treats all customers as if they had stolen what they actually paid for. They also threaten our future cultural heritage. It's possible that you think that unauthorised use of copyrighted music, films and books is such a serious problem that it's worth giving away a little of your convenience and freedom in exchange for stopping it. This article lays out the issues and sounds the alarm that we need to act before ACTA makes this worse permanently."

Slashdot Top Deals

2.4 statute miles of surgical tubing at Yale U. = 1 I.V.League

Close