22C3 protocols services embedded devices
22C3: Private Investigations The European Hacker Conference The Chaosknoten: the Logo of the Chaos Computer Club The 22nd Chaos Communication Congress (22C3)...
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22C3 protocols services embedded devices - Video
22C3 - literarisches code quartett
22C3: Private Investigations The European Hacker Conference The Chaosknoten: the Logo of the Chaos Computer Club The 22nd Chaos Communication Congress (22C3)...
By: HackersOnBoard
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22C3 - literarisches code quartett - Video
An anonymous reader writes "As reported by Slashdot, Nokia recently notified the IETF that its RFC 6386 video codec (aka VP8, released by Google under a BSD license with a waiver of that company's patent rights) infringed several dozen of its patents; furthermore, Nokia was not inclined to license them under FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminating) terms. While the list provided by Nokia looks intimidating, Pamela Jones at Groklaw discovered that many appeared to be duplicates except for the country of filing; and even within a single country (e.g. the U.S.), some appeared to be overlapping. In other words, there may be far fewer distinct patented issues than what appears on Nokia's IETF form. Thom Holwerda at OSNews also weighed in, recalling another case where sweeping patent claims by Qualcomm and Huawei against the Opus open source audio codec proved to be groundless FUD. The familiar name Florian Mueller pops up again in Holwerda's article."
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Free Software Camps Wading Into VP8 Patent Fight
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According to Autodesk CEO Carl Bass, creating free smartphone apps is much more difficult than building expensive professional and enterprise software.
"People are more demanding for a low-cost consumer thing than they are for [expensive] profressional products," Bass told me in a sit-down at the company's slick gallery space in downtown San Francisco. "The cheapest things have to be the easiest to use," he explained. They don't get a user manual or training classes to show people how to use them.
That's a big deal to Autodesk, which made its name with high-end design and engineering software like AutoCad and Revit, but has made an aggressive move into smartphone and tablet apps in the last few years.
And it's especially releveant because on Tuesday morning the company introduced Autodesk ReCap, the "industrial strength" version of the free consumer product called 123D Catch, introduced in 2012. The products are designed to create "intelligent 3D data" from captured photos and laser scans.
To me, though, the most interesting part of the story is what the heck a professional software company like Autodesk is doing mucking around with free mobile apps for consumers.
Bass said the company first got into the area almost by accident. "The first thing we did was Sketchbook - a piece of professional software that was relatively unsuccessful Nobody knew about it. Then two guys went and turned it into an iPhone app," Bass said. "If I had been asked," he added," I would have said it's the stupidest thing I'd ever heard of. Would would want to fingerpaint on an iPhone?"
That product now has 15 million users. Overall, Autodesk's mobile products have gained some 100 million users in three years, compared to 15 million users of its professional products gathered over 30 years. The company is now building apps "as fast as we can," Bass said.
Sure, the apps are popular, but why would an professional software company would dive into apps? It certainly isn't for the money, at least not yet. While Autodesk's consumer revenue will double this year, Bass said, "We don't make enough [on consumer apps] to pay the rental on this floor."
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Autodesk: Hey, Free Apps Are Harder To Make Than Enterprise Software
The free in Free Software refers to freedom, rather than cost. It is largely a happy coincidence that Free Software is available gratis. Copyleft licensing certainly helps, but theres no overarching reason that Free-as-in-Freedom software need not cost anything. As Free Software has evolved and matured over the years, several major developmental archetypes have emerged. Theres the hobbyist software, worked on here and there as free time permits by one or more developers. Theres the this isnt a competitive advantage software written primarily by a single corporate entity and released to the public for any of a variety of reasons. Theres also foundation-backed software, like that produced by the Apache Software Foundation or the Document Foundation, that is financed by multiple independent contributors and stewarded by a representative body. And then theres stuff like the Linux kernel itself, where a non-trivial number of people are paid by their employers to work on it full-time.
Id wager that the bulk of Free Software is of the first sort: hobbyists looking to scratch an itch. Some of these hobbyists may be independently wealthy, and therefore able to work full-time on their projects; but most contributors to free software do so on the side, in between their other obligations. And lets not forget all the people dabbling with code for their own personal edification, rather than trying to productize something.
Its for this reason, I think, that Free Software often gets a bad rap in the court of public opinion. For every shining success like the Apache httpd or the LibreOffice suite or the Linux kernel, there are thousands of barely-adequate programs languishing at SourceForge and GitHub. Maybe they work well enough for their developers, who understand the various quirks and deficiencies, but theyre far from ready for prime time for regular users.
Historically, Free Software developers didnt have much in the way of funding options if they wanted to move beyond the hobbyist phase. Developers could solicit sponsorship from business entities, but just like venture capital that might open a Pandoras box of expectations and obligations different from what the developers originally planned. Or developers could put up a PayPal tip jar and hope to offset some of their hosting and development costs. Most such tip jars remained depressingly empty.
In medieval times, artisans would seek wealthy patrons to support them in the pursuit of their work without all the bother of a day job. These patrons had varying motives for sponsoring artisans, but generally enjoyed the prestige associated with doing so. In the end, most everyone benefited from the arrangement: the artisans avoided starvation and got to produce their works; the reputations of the patrons grew, and the general public got to (eventually) enjoy the works produced.
The rise of crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indigogo has brought forth a new kind of patronage for our modern era. No longer does one wealthy benefactor have to subsidize the life and work of artisans. Instead the funds and associated risk are distributed amongst multiple participants. The model has been working well for board games and movies and electronic doo-dads. Itll work for Free Software, too.
Yorba, the company behind the Linux photo management application Shotwell, are dipping their toes into the crowdfunding pool to finance their next project. Theyve started an Indigogo project to collect funding to develop Geary, a lightweight email program designed around conversations.
Although some folks are perfectly content with web-based email, there are many who prefer a native desktop client. In this regard, Linux desktops have been sub-par. Mozillas Thunderbird seems adequate, but the folks at Yorba seem to think they can do a lot better. To make their dream a reality, theyre asking the global community of Linux users to collectively put up $100,000 USD. I asked Jim Nelson, Yorbas executive director, how that money would spent.
We plan on feeding and clothing three engineers with the money raised, Nelson told me by email. The money we raise will be used almost entirely for salary and our tax obligations.
I was curious if Yorba had any concerns about some kind of hostile takeover, as might occur if all the financial backers of Geary started to try to influence development. Sure, its open source software and anyone can fork the code; but the relationship between donor and sponsor is nuanced. If a sponsor doesnt like the work-in-progress, they ostensibly have a chance to make their feelings known before the work is complete.
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Crowdfunding, Micro-Patronage, And The Future Of Free Software