In the scheme of things, few people have the interest (or is it patience?) to delve deeply into the concept of “intellectual property” (IP). I think that is why IP regulation is among the most under-considered issues in public political discourse today. It’s difficult, in the snap of a soundbite,
Continue readingAuthor: Joshua Chalifour
Thus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Terminology Advocates Protect FOSS
Open Source Initiative (OSI) president, Michael Tiemann, discusses adherence to the “open source” definition. I read his article with two interests in mind. First, of someone who feels semantics are important (I’ve always felt the poor argument “it’s only semantics” is little more than an attempt by small-thinkers to belittle
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Dissecting Proprietary Doublespeak–ISC Letter Criticism Part 2
Now to continue what I started yesterday–criticising the letter (PDF) from the Initiative for Software Choice’s (ISC) Hugo Lueders. Why bother criticizing this? Is it of any consequence? I think so, if not because the letter itself may actually influence policy, but rather because this kind of thing is visible
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Dissecting Proprietary Doublespeak–ISC Letter Criticism Part 1
What would we do if George Orwell hadn’t enabled us to come up with doublespeak neologisms? Matthew Broersma of Techworld.com wrote about a “leaked” letter (PDF) from the Initiative for Software Choice (ISC) regarding a UNU-MERIT study on FLOSS in the economy. Broersma describes the ISC as a “Microsoft-funded pressure
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Would Gov’t Procurement Process Neglect FOSS?
The Canadian Association for Open Source (Clue) published a thought provoking letter to an ITBusiness.ca article today. The Clue letter says that “…What is needed is for the government to separate the pricing and procurement of the source product from the various value-add services…” which is an interesting reflection for
Continue readingThus Prate the Pundit » Social Critique: Are Co-ops the Ideal FOSS Business Structure?
Free and open source software is a community affair. One would think it might be a perfect fit for a cooperative type of business entity. Businesses surviving and growing in virtue of FOSS ecosystems develop some interesting business models–the support and services model for example (though becoming increasingly common) relies
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