Google has introduced the Nexus One and no matter what you think of the current hardware (HTC) and software (Android 2.1), the ground around the mobile business is starting to shake. The reason? The combination of unlocked service and open source software.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments today for and against patents for business methods. This category covers patents on software, so this is a huge case which has the potential to change the balance of power in our industry. In 1997 there were 974 applications, in 2008 there were 13,779 (with an 85% rejection rate over the past three years). I’ve always viewed software patents as ambiguous. Where do you draw the line between smart use of well known math techniques, and true innovation? So starting today the Supreme Court gets an opportunity to weigh in.
"To effectively achieve its missions, the Department of Defense must develop and update its software-based capabilities faster than ever, to anticipate new threats and respond to continuously changing requirements. The use of Open Source Software (OSS) can provide advantages in this regard...".
What would happen if the wireless network were more similar to the wired internet?
We’re moved (up). Our new address is 215 Second St. Second Floor, San Francisco. If you compare that to our previous address you may notice that it appears to be one floor up, and that’s exactly right. Our landlord (Birmingham Development) wanted to make a major upgrade to the building and did a terrific job. New everything – beautiful new server room, almost floor to ceiling windows so lots of light and fresh air, comfortable conference rooms. Overall a very positive change for us. For anyone travelling to San Francisco, we are very near Moscone Center and would welcome a visit.
Good debate at www.fossic.org, between advocates for GPL, BSD and EPL (Eclipse Public License). At the end of the debate, there were not a lot of new reasons to consider or dismiss any of them, but it was useful to revisit the arguments. A couple of the better statements: (1) if you are not redistributing code, we’re all BSD (2) business models (for software companies) largely follow licensing choices, and (3) the major impact of GPL is to create trust in a developer community.
The big VMware conference is happening down the street from us. It appears to be the first of the fall “big shows” at Moscone Center in San Francisco. You can tell because the restaurants are full for lunch again, hotel prices on Hotwire are up again etc. Good for the local economy, that’s for sure.
Couple of observations about our first patent award. First, it took almost five years; and second, its worth the wait. We have always known that CodeRank was important – and its terrific to get the confirmation that we were right. For those of you not familiar with that feature, it’s a lot like Page Rank from Google. The whole idea is that any type of search engine will probably generate more results than a human cares to plow through, and that it would be a very good thing if the results were ranked according to their usefulness before you looked at them.
Unemployment is rising and competition for the few jobs that are available is becoming tougher than ever. With each open job requisition, hiring managers are receiving hundreds of resumes. How do you stand out of the crowd? What can you do to get noticed? How can you start an interesting conversation?
In challenging economic times, how do internal application development teams continue to deliver higher quality software and Web applications with fewer resources? Unlike in past economic downturns, development teams today have a resource they can turn to in order to lower the costs of development, maintain high-quality, and decrease cost of ownership for the long run: open source software.
