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Free
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) doesn’t like Microsoft, doesn’t like software patents, it especially doesn’t like Microsoft’s patents, and it doesn’t trust the two of them in the same room together. It’s convinced that Microsoft is eventually going to sue any open source developer who uses Mono, the Novell-supported open source version of Microsoft’s .NET widgetry, or who writes open source programs in C#, the Microsoft development language. It’s warning off developers now because Microsoft has added both C# and Mono – or rather the ECMA 334 and 335 standards that embrace them – to its two-year-old irrevocable, legally binding Community Promise not to sue. (See www.microsoft.com/interop/cp/default.mspx.) read more
Fellowship interview with Smári McCarthy (FSFE)
The Free Software Foundation Europe presentsan interview with Smári McCarthy."Stian Rødven Eide: One of the most profiled projects you have been involved with is the Fab Lab, having headed the Icelandic branch for over a year now. While best known for its use of 3D printers, the Fab Lab is actually a much broader concept that goes far beyond technical innovation. Can you tell us a bit about your work there, and what you hope to achieve?Smári McCarthy: There are two sides to the Fab Lab story. On the one hand, there’s the research side, which is all about developing the universal constructors, figuring out the hard science of digital fabrication. In that realm I think our work is done when we can download chicken sandwiches off the Internet."
Is Software Installation on Linux ‘Broken’?
You know a controversy is a big one when none other than RMS weighs in with his opinion, and sure enough, that's what happened in the Mono debate late last week. "Debian's decision to include Mono in the default installation, for the sake of Tomboy which is an application written in C#, leads the community in a risky direction," RMS wrote on the Free Software Foundation's site.
DoD's
This guest BriefingsDirect post comes courtesy of ZapThink. Jason Bloomberg is managing partner at ZapThink. You can reach him here. By Jason Bloomberg ZapThink recently conducted our Licensed ZapThink Architect Bootcamp course for a branch of the United States Department of Defense (DoD). As it happens, an increasing proportion of our US-based business is for the DoD, which is perfectly logical, given the strategic nature Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) plays for the DoD. SOA is so strategic, in fact, that SOA underlies how the DoD expects to achieve its mission in the 21st century -- namely, defending US interests by presenting the most powerful military presence on the globe. Furthermore, the story of how SOA became so strategic for the DoD provides insight into ...
Apple Adds NDA to App Store Rejection Notices
The situation regarding Apple's App Store for the iPhone is getting weirder by the day. Several applications have been rejected from the App Store based on seemingly dubious claims such as duplication of functionality (even though they didn't duplicate anything), or alikeness to default applications. Two such cases made headline news over the past few days; Podcaster and MailWrangler. The developers of these applications openly protested against these rejections, and apparently, Apple doesn't really like that. Apple now reiterates that rejections fall under the NDA, prohibiting developers from speaking up about rejections.