Open Ecosystems

Nokia uses crowdsourcing to design the ultimate phone

stephen — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:46:27 +0000

Looks like I am a bit late to the party, but Nokia is using the knowledge of the crowd to design a new concept phone. Based on user input on the Nokia Conversations site the handset maker will put together a concept that will have the correct mix of style, features and cost, based on customer input. Crowdsourcing is not a new concept but it has shown success in the past at solving tough challenges for a fraction of the cost of internally designed solutions.

So head over to the sight, spend a minute and give Nokia your input on the perfect phone.

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Why it’s time to close your Facebook account – Update

stephen — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:37:17 +0000

Last week I posted about some changes to Facebook’s security policy which could lead to your personal information being shared with 3rd party organizations without your consent or knowledge. At that time I mentioned I would be closing my Facebook account and gave a few reasons why. Since then I have closed my account and am happy to report that I have suffered no adverse effects. I have however gotten questions from a number of people regarding my motivations for leaving Facebook. Most of these people mistook my departure from the service as some sort of a rebellion or a ban – a way to get attention from Facebook so that they may change their policy. This however is not the case.

Facebook has over 300 million regular users and if they are not concerned about the privacy and security of their personal information, a small ban of the site will have little to no effect. My call to cancel your account is hoping to shed light on the policy change and allow you to collect all the information needed to make decisions about how you want your personal data being handled. In the end I decided to close my account not to start a “pocket of resistance” but rather because I did not want to entrust my personal information to an organization who makes privacy decisions I do not agree with.

So please, don’t close your Facebook account because I told you to (it’s not like you would anyways). But please do read up on the policy change and check your privacy settings. There is life after Facebook and if you don’t like what you find out about their privacy policies you may consider sharing less personal information or leaving the service completely.

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IBM vs. TurboHercules… Fight!

stephen — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:54:51 +0000

First of all a disclosure – I am currently employed by IBM as a software developer (but not in the z/OS group), however I will try to be impartial in my assessment of the situation. As you read this post keep in mind that the opinions expressed are mine alone and not representative of the opinions of IBM or its affiliates.

If you haven’t heard about the recent shots fired between IBM and TurboHercules, Ars Technica has good coverage of the whole situation which can be found here. If you don’t have a few minutes to read the whole thing there I can give you the gist: The Hercules open source project allows applications written for the IBM System Z operating system to run on alternate hardware (including desktop computers) within mainstream operating systems. IBM had no problem with this until recently, when TurboHercules was founded to offer the software commercially – and made a move against IBM accused monopoly of the mainframe space. Now, IBM has asserted a number of its patents against TurboHercules (some of which were pledged to the open source community back in 2005).

So what is going on here? Has IBM abandoned open source as some have said or are they merely protecting their right to profit from the billions they have spent on research and hardware development of their mainframe platform? The answer probably lies somewhere in between. As Matt Assay observes IBM is an opportunist – but realistically so is everyone else (and really how would anyone stay in business otherwise). I don’t think this move is representative of IBM turning its back on the open source community or even on the Hercules project. IBM’s objection seems to be with TurboHercules exploiting a loophole on the z/OS copyright which allows the operating system to run on non-IBM hardware for disaster recovery purposes. This allows Turbo Hercules to be sold for profit as a backup solution, or to replace aging hardware – potentially taking revenue from IBM.

Whether or not IBM will back down in the face of public scrutiny remains to be seen, but damage has been done to their image in the open source community regardless. Realistically, IBM’s position with regards to open source hasn’t changed – but it looks like the public’s perception of that position may have changed drastically. That’s my view on the situation. What do you think?

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Why it’s time to close your Facebook account

stephen — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 17:59:56 +0000

I’ll be closing my Facebook account tomorrow and I think you should too. In fact, you should message all your friends and tell them to close their accounts as well. Since its inception Facebook has constantly and consistently eroded its privacy features to the point that you can no longer keep your personal information secure. Do we care? The overwhelming consensus seems to say no. I am telling you that you should and I’ll give you a few reasons why.
Most Facebook users don’t pay much attention to their privacy settings, or news about changes to the site’s privacy policy. What that means is that as policies that reduce your privacy are added or changed, you will implicitly opt-in due to your inactivity. At the very least, Facebook should alert you to privacy policy changes and bring you directly to the affected settings for review and revision. I would prefer it if Facebook automatically selected the most private setting for any new policy as well as the notification.

Facebook is changing what “everyone” means in their security policy. In the past if you set one of the policies to give “everyone” access to something it meant anyone on the Facebook site – well that is soon to be expanded to include Facebook “partner sites”. What this means is that if one of your Facebook friends shares their friends list with “everyone” when they visit one of these so called partner sites that site will get access to their shared information which just so happens to include you. Here is a direct quote from Facebook’s privacy policy:

“If your friend connects with an application or website, it will be able to access your name, profile picture, gender, user ID, and information you have shared with “everyone.” It will also be able to access your connections, except it will not be able to access your friend list.” (http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150162289930301)

Well isn’t that great? My Facebook friend is lax with their security settings, so third-party sites (that Facebook has deemed worthy) will automatically get access to at least a part of my profile. The term “everyone” is starting to take on a much more literal meaning.

Facebook went the extra mile with this update however, making the news public just after 3pm on a Friday afternoon – a surefire way to make it go unnoticed by the general public. This fact didn’t escape Larry Dignan from Between the Lines blog on ZDnet who weighed in on this practice saying:

“Facebook’s timing is notable and tells us more than we need to know about the proposed privacy changes. On cue, all of the folks that pay attention to Facebook’s privacy moves closely—TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, Louis Gray and Inside Facebook—rang the alarm bells. After all, do we really want to share information with sites screened by Facebook and not the user? And just as the oldest media trick would dictate, the hubbub was fierce on Saturday and Sunday and played out by Monday—just in time for you not to notice.”

So, why all the cloak-and-dagger maneuvers? Kim-Mai Cutler of DigitalBeat mentioned that a similar policy proposal in 2006 resulted in complaints by almost 10% of Facebook users and an eventual reversal of the policy. So is the Friday afternoon announcement to blame or just a lack of privacy concerns from the site’s users? Regardless of the reason the result is the same – the policy will go into affect and your data will be unknowingly or unwillingly shared with third-parties. I for one find that abhorrent on principle alone. Perhaps no one is interested in my information but if they were I would like to know I have control over who gets access.

So after years as a Facebook user it is time for me to throw in the towel. My cancellation will not likely make any difference to Facebook (especially since I purged my friends list a few months ago, removing anyone but family and close friends) but I am hoping that by reading this and sharing it with your friends a small portion of Facebook’s users will have the knowledge to make their own decisions regarding their personal information.

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SCO dealt decisive blow

stephen — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 01:11:01 +0000

It seems as though the never-ending battle between SCO and Novell has ended with SCO ending up the loser. The jury ruled that Novell, not SCO owns the copyrights to Unix, ending any possible chance of SCO suing you for using Linux. This should remove the threat of legal action against Linux for the time being – but SCO seems to have a way of bankrolling lawsuits despite a lack of income or cash, so this thing might not be done yet.

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Remail acquired, open sourced by Google

stephen — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:58:27 +0000

So when I first heard about Remail’s acquisition by Google I had expected this would culminate (maybe) with a native GMail app for the iphone sometime next year using some of the newly acquired tech. So, Imagine my surprise when it was announced the client would be open sourced and availale for download on Google code!

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Simple network theory to help get your message out

stephen — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:40:19 +0000

Wondering why twitter isn’t driving the traffic you expected? Can’t figure out why only a small portion of your facebook contacts actually read your site regularly? Valdis Krebs (The Network Thinker) uses network theory and personal experience to give some tips on how Twitter can be used to effectively drive traffic to your site.

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Jacobsen v. Katzer settled, open source lands decisive win

stephen — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:24:56 +0000

In the first ruling of its kind, damages were paid to an open source project who’s source code was copied and used as part of a commercial package. Read the whole story here.

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Open science – Panton principles for sharing scientific data

stephen — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:32:47 +0000

Glyn Moody (from open… blog) covered the creation of a set of Panton Principles for open science data. The principles advise how scientific data should be used and shared in order for the scientific process to function effectively. I have covered open science before here. Check out Glyn’s whole post on open… here.

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Does open source attract new talent?

stephen — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:24:55 +0000

I know of a few people who will be graduating this year or who are currently looking for new software development jobs. Most of them are trying to find jobs that will allow them to continue contributing to open source projects during normal work hours. When I asked why this is such an important factor in the offer they accept I was told more than once that belonging to well-known open source communities really strengthens a developer’s resume, helps them build a strong global network and allows them to continually improve their development and (more importantly) leadership skills.

If the top-talent is looking for jobs that involve open source development, are the hiring companies delivering? To be honest I don’t know the answer but I can say that there are a lot more companies contributing to open source than in the past. If there is truly a demand by employees to contribute to open source projects, this could lead to a real explosion of corporate-championed open source.

What are your observations on the subject?

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