Does the European Commission’s DG Comp Violate Human Rights?
“Neelie Kroes violated our human rights!” That is the curious claim being made by Intel in its appeal of the European Commission’s ruling that the company had violated European antitrust laws and the concomitant record breaking 1.06 billion euro fine, according to the Wall Street Journal Europe’s Charles Forelle. While Forelle calls the argument a bit of a “Hail Mary,” he also explains that Intel is just one of many companies that are making it. Intel isn't alone. A growing [...]
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Melissa
A clown, a rabbit, and the Pope walk into a bar. Which one is against IP? OK, that’s putting it sort of harshly. And maybe it’s not even something that I should joke about. But the Pope did issue (is that the right word?) a cyclical last week in which he comes out against intellectual property, specifically in health care. I’m not quite sure what to make of this news. Will some of my fellow Protectors of IP, the ones [...]
Facts, Bias, and Self-referential Hypertext Reality
It appears that some mistakes will live on in Internet infamy no matter how many times you try to apologize and correct them. Red Hat’s Vice President of Open Source Affairs and president of the OSI Michael Tiemann posted an piece on the OSI Board Blog entitled “A Question of Bias,” which features our inaccurate press release on the European Commission’s ICT Standardisation Whitepaper. I tried to clear things up directly with Tiemann via a comment to his blog, but [...]
Our Own “Own Goal”
Oops. Last week, we put out a short little statement about the final publication of the European Commission’s White Paper on ICT Standardisation. It said: “ACT has always been very supportive of European initiatives that foster an SME-friendly environment. The White Paper is a positive step towards a more flexible and forward-looking ICT standardisation process. However, we remain concerned that the policy framework suggested in the White Paper seems to favour open source software over proprietary software to achieve more [...]
Paying for Free: Security, Privacy, and Sustainability Costs for “Free” Software
Today’s tough economy creates fiscal pressures for state and federal government budgets. Resourceful policymakers are increasingly looking for ways to reduce or at least maximize their information technology (IT) spending, and utilizing free software and services is one possible direction. But what does “free” really mean?
Exponential Innovation
For more than forty years, the software development community has leveraged huge increases in computer chip performance and steady drops in chip prices to give consumers what they want: better products at lower prices. In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore predicted that the number of transistors on a chip (essentially the speed of the chip) would double every two years - a pace of innovation unmatched by any other industry. This American success story of rapid product improvement at steadily [...]