As usual, haven’t packed yet, but am nevertheless very excited to return to South Africa tomorrow (leaving tomorrow, getting there on Wednesday)…. Anyway, on my way to the www.catia.ws meeting in Durban, then a few days in Ntafufu (a word that warrants 222 google results / none of which refer to the actual place I am going to / no Internet or phone / brilliant!)), then one day at globelics, and back to Maastricht.
I feel that many of the mathematically challenging models are more concerned with themselves than with the real world they aim to describe…. I should put together a resource page on the wiki with all the links I found helpful, and some of the background stuff that seems impossible to understand until someone explains it in plain English.
However, it lacks real teeth, does not provide binding procurement guidelines, there is no institution overseeing its implementation and very little help available for government departments considering FOSS…. A number of studies are now underway to assess the use and implementation of FOSS in the public sector in Africa and I think the outcomes will be similarly dis-illusioning.As I suggested in this presentation at UNCTAD I still think that FOSS Policy is not as straight-forward as many make it out to be.
Great book!Random quotes –Language, she said, was just our way to explain away the wonder and the glory of the world…. And that’s the only lasting thing you create.At her last trial, before this last time she went to jail, the Mommy had sat up next to the judges and said, “My goals is to be an engine of excitement in people’s lives.”
NTP says that RIM is infringing on technology they own and is obviously looking to get a piece of RIM’s business in the US.I have not done further research on this, but it seems that this is the first headline case of a patent raider taking on a very visible and successful company and possibly winning in the court. There is a lot of economic research on patent length and scope and how increasingly patents are used for anti-competitive behaviour, but academia needs to step up the pace if it wants to keep up with how bad this has already become and suggest some solutions.See google news articles here.
