(via Laurence Diver and other sources) The Prime Minister’s office has been accepting online petitions, which has prompted all sorts of people making specialist requests. One such petition has been posted against software patents, which reads “We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to make software patents clearly unenforcible“. The Read more…
Those few regular readers who care about these sort of things may have noticed that I have not been posting that often in the last few days. I have been moving flats, which has of course affected my online connection as well. I have finally moved everything and I’m now Read more…
(Valuable item from Ultima Online) (via Colin Miller) This is an old item, but I’ve just read it. According to Slashdot, eBay has caved-in to increasing pressure from the games industry and has de-listed all in-game items from its database. However, I’ve made a search and you still can find Read more…
The version 3.0 f the generic (or unported) Creative Commons licences have now been released. There are many important improvements in the new licences. The biggest change has been to distinguish between the generic licence and the American one. The generic is now drafted with neutral international language in accordance Read more…
You could not make up stories like these even if you tried. James Pacenza used to work for IBM until he got fired for participating in adult chat rooms. He now has sued IBM because he claims to be a sex addict and an Internet addict, and that under his Read more…
(Via Howard Knopf) Those involved in the P2P debate might remember the 2004 Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf paper on the effect of music downloads on sales. The paper has now been published in the Journal of Political Economy with updates. The abstract reads: “For industries ranging from software to pharmaceuticals and Read more…
Finally! Looking for UK legislation? The Department of Constitutional Affairs has released its Statute Law Database. No longer will you have to guess the legislation’s name to find it in Google, everything is now available in one place. I’ve been browsing it (as you do), and I think that it Read more…
Creative Commons blog and even Eben Moglen are all talking about this video explaining Web 2.0, the hyper-web, or however you want to call it. It was quite an amazing display, really well done. Web 2.0 is one of those terms that I see defined in different ways. Originally, it Read more…
So, as part of my research into software and operating systems, I purchased a cheap OEM version of Vista and installed it on my new and shiny Core 2 Duo system. I also installed OpenSUSE 10.2 as a dual boot to test comparative installation times and ease of use. Vista Read more…
Apple boss Steve Jobs has surprised pretty much everyone by making a statement about technological protection measures in the music industry, in a move reminiscent of Bill Gates’ comment about how DRM had become too complex for consumers. In an open letter to the public, Jobs has stated that: “Why Read more…