Nov
02
2009
Skype open source? Reading the full announcement on Skype blog:
[...]Having an open source UI will help us [...]
So, it’s not Skype being open sourced, but it’s only the UI. The full sentence should be:
Having an open source UI will help us further our [Skype's] plans to monopolize the Voice Over IP market with a proprietary [...]
Tags: business, free software business, interoperability, market, open standards, skype, voip
Jul
10
2009
Reading of the latest cyber attacks against South Korea and USA digital systems, I remembered a rather old post from Gen Kanai @Mozilla, the cost of a monoculture. It’s about monopoly, government decisions and security in the cloud.
[South Korea] is also a unique monoculture where 99.9% of all the computer users are on Microsoft Windows.
The [...]
Tags: cloud, korea, microsoft, mobile cloud, monopoly, open standards, standards, virus
Jul
09
2009
Finally Google revealed its plans to enter the operating system market. The first thing that comes to mind are chairs flying in Microsoft offices The other thing comes from this statement:
“All Web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite Web technologies,” the company said.
It means cloud computing, [...]
Tags: autonomo.us, chrome, freedom, google, microsoft, mobile cloud, open, open standards
Apr
02
2009
The debate on health records data is starting also in US with the new federal government plan to spend $19 billion to spur the use of computerized patient records.
In Milan, where I live, the regional health system requires me to carry around a digital ID card that allows for doctors and farmacists identify me. Until [...]
Tags: health, open standards
Feb
27
2009
The issue is how to bring the values of free software community to the cloud. According to reports from Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE), Bradley Kuhn’s speech has addressed the issue.’ I hope he will include it in the next episodes of the Software Freedom Law Show, the interesting podcasts he runs with SFLC counsel [...]
Tags: cloud, community, freedom, funambol, identica, interoperability, laconica, open standards, standards
Oct
16
2008
Big boost to the PlayOGG campaign coming from Firefox:
This is the first beta from Mozilla to include support for <video> and the <audio> elements. This beta includes support for the OGG Theora and OGG Vorbis formats on all platforms.
It’s going to be easier to use this format if millions of users will be able [...]
Tags: firefox, free software, mozilla, open standards, software patents
Apr
03
2008
We’re back to square one, 1 ISO standard on each side of the barricade since Microsoft managed to convince the ISO that its proprietary standard, OOXML’ deserves the approved stamp. For all the money Google and IBM have thrown trying to stop it, it seems they’ve lost this battle. But I’ve learned yesterday from a [...]
Tags: , freedom, iso, microsoft, odf, ooxml, open standards, standards war
Mar
31
2008
If you close your eyes and stay in silence for a few minutes you will hear the echo of the fight engaged by Microsoft against Google and IBM (with many more smaller allies) to dominate the future of office documents. I’m now following from the distance and there is so much dust it’s impossible [...]
Tags: , freedom, iso, microsoft, odf, ooxml, open standards, standards war
Mar
26
2008
A group of free software organizations and companies declared today the Document Freedom Day, a day dedicated to the promotion of Free Document Formats and Open Standards in general. Data lock-in is a very serious issue for knowledge based economy and knowledge workers. All we do is collect data to elaborate information and create [...]
Tags: freedom, fsf, funambol, odf, open standards
Feb
01
2008
Only a couple days ago I was having lunch with Carlo Piana and we started chatting about his Blackberry and about its dependence on MS Exchange. I’m moving the first steps in the mobile arena and I’ve already confirmed that the standards war on the desktop is nothing compared to the war on mobile [...]
Tags: blackberry, community, funambol, open standards, plugin, release