rants.org

I’m a big fan of Google’s Summer of Code program — it’s brought a lot of new developers to the Subversion project, and this also seems to be true for many other open source projects.
Summer of Code encourages college students to participate in open source projects over the summer, by funding both the student (for the [...]

No doubt this was just an accidental slip by a photo caption editor on autopilot, but still it’s disheartening to see the New York Times broadcast Administration talking points so unthinkingly.
This photograph on page A9 of yesterday’s New York Times shows a lone demonstrator (apparently one who supports the Administration’s policies) standing across from a [...]

Microsoft recently claimed that open source code (in particular the Linux kernel) violates 235 of Microsoft’s patents. It’s not clear they actually intend to sue anyone for infringement, it may instead be some kind of bizarre publicity ploy. But there’s a great quote from Microsoft’s licensing chief, Horacio Gutierrez:
This is not a case [...]

[Blogcheck alert, blogcheck alert!]
So what’s the blogiquette take on writing a post that’s essentially a link to another post somewhere else? I just read a great piece by Ben Collins-Sussman over at iBanjo, about the difference between hacker and non-hacker cultures — using banjos and guitars as the case study! Check it out.

I’ve written elsewhere about how software patents harm software development. This article is about how there’s very little corresponding benefit to justify that harm.
Ostensibly, our patent system is supposed to stimulate innovation and progress, by granting those who come up with a genuinely new and useful invention a temporary monopoly on that invention, as [...]