• Intel and Nokia Merge Software Platforms for Future Computing Devices

  “Global leaders Intel Corporation and Nokia merge Moblin and Maemo to create MeeGo*, a Linux-based software platform that will support multiple hardware architectures across the broadest range of device segments, including pocketable mobile computers, netbooks, tablets, mediaphones, connected TVs and in-vehicle infotainment systems.”

  tags: open, source, mobile, platform

• Highlights of Eben Moglen’s Freedom in the Cloud Talk - Software Freedom Law Center

  “So we got an architecture that was very subject to misuse, indeed it was begging to be misused. Now we are getting the misuse we set up…There are a lot of reasons for making clients dis-empowered ... There are many overlapping rights owners, as they see themselves, each of whom has a stake in dis-empowering a client at the edge of the network. To prevent particular hardware from being moved from one network to another. to prevent particular hardware from playing music not bought at the monopoly of music in the sky.”

  tags: open, source

• LinuxPlanet - Interviews - What Matters to Open Source: Licensing or Community? - More to FOSS Than Licenses

  ”“I do believe that licensing is a key component that underpins a successful community effort,” Tiemann said. “The license, in a sense, dictates how the community can or should be expected to behave.” The OSI currently lists 66 open source approved licenses that together offer a broad set of options for open source. In recent years, even proprietary vendors like Microsoft have issued OSI-approved open source licenses. Among the most popular open source licenses is the GPL, which is a reciprocal license, meaning that if you make code changes, you are required to contribute them back. “If you have a GPL license, than you set a strong precedent and expectation that people are going to share and not take proprietary versions out of the system,” Tiemann said. “

  tags: open, source, license

• What Third Parties Know About John Doe | Freedom to Tinker

  “Take for example the popular online blog Boing Boing. Upon loading its main page while recording the HTTP session, I noticed that my browser is automatically redirected to domains owned by no fewer than 17 distinct third party entities: 10 services that engage in advertising or marketing, five that embed media or integrate social networking functionality, and two that provide web analytics. By visiting this single webpage, my digital footprints have been scattered to and collected by at least 17 other online entities that I made no deliberate attempt to contact. And each of these entities will likely have stored a cookie on my web browser, allowing it to identify me uniquely later when I browse to one of its other partner sites. I don’t mean to pick on Boing Boing specifically—taking advantage of third party services is a nearly universal practice on the web today, but it’s exactly this pervasiveness that makes it so likely, if not probable, that all of my digital footprints together could link much of my online activities back to my actual identity”

  tags: security, privacy

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