"Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied."
Noam Chomsky
"A balanced approach to intellectual property rights is vital to economic growth."
Committee for Economic Development
In the Canadian copyright reform arena, the events of early December 2007, changed everything.
"Software assembly, whereby developers reuse already created code components, is dramatically changing how applications are built. The efficiencies are realized if development teams establish processes to manage how code is assembled, and to assure that the use of the code components is in compliance with the various licenses governing the code."
Doug Levin, CEO of Black Duck Software
As 2007 draws to a close, three emerging trends are gaining momentum. The first is that companies are releasing formerly proprietary code under an open source license. The second is that open source companies are being acquired or are issuing public offerings. The third trend is that very large number of citizens increasingly uses the Internet to oppose politicians and law makers who threaten, sometimes unwittingly, the fundamental principles of open source development.
As 2007 draws to a close, three emerging trends are gaining momentum. The first is that companies are releasing formerly proprietary code under an open source license. The second is that open source companies are being acquired or are issuing public offerings. The third trend is that very large number of citizens increasingly uses the Internet to oppose politicians and law makers who threaten, sometimes unwittingly, the fundamental principles of open source development.
These three trends tie into this month's editorial theme: Clean intellectual property or clean IP. In a nutshell, clean IP is about reducing license incompatibilities and non-compliance with licensing terms. Clean IP significantly affects the value of the code released as open source and the value of a company that develops and markets software.
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"OERs will really start to succeed when they can augment our experience of the learning space that is the entire internet, instead of sitting off to the side and requiring learners to self-identify that they want an OER."
Scott Leslie, researcher
"For years the software industry has largely competed on the basis of symmetry: Oracle versus IBM in databases; BEA versus IBM in application servers; etc. Feature wars, price wars, but not true competition wars. That is, competing by playing a different game, with different rules. Open source enables an alternative battleground upon which to compete, with community, code, and culture the new competitive tools."
Matt Asay, VP Business Development at Alfresco
"The primary hurdles to increasing adoption of F/LOSS software in the sector are missing applications, lack of information about support options, lack of training and familiarity of nonprofit staff on F/LOSS applications, and, finally, perception... There is still the perception that F/LOSS is harder to support, or that it's not possible to find support for F/LOSS."
NOSI Primer