What’s happening in the world of consortia, standards,
and open source software
The Standards Blog tracks and explains the way standards and open source software impact business, society, and the future. This site is hosted by Gesmer Updegrove LLP, a technology law firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. GU is an internationally recognized leader in creating and representing the organizations that create and promote standards and open source software. The opinions expressed in The Standards Blog are those of the authors alone, and not necessarily those of GU. Please see the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for this site, which appear here. You can find a summary of our services here. To learn how GU can help you, contact: Andrew Updegrove
The latest entry into the "now that's really cool" department (or at least my RC department) is a new, free service announced by SouceLabs, a VC backed service provider for open source software. That service is called "Swik." How cool is Swik? Very cool indeed.
What do an interview with Jon "Maddog" Hall and an obituary for a cartoonist have in common? Too much for good open source marketing
According to eWeek, Assistant Secretary of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Michael Gallagher stated during an address: "Given the Internet's importance to the world's economy, it is essential that the underlying DNS of the Internet remain stable and secure." In other words, we're going it alone again. Sound familiar?
If you don't know the answer to that question, you should look into it. "WSIS" is an acronym that stands for the World Summit on the Information Society, which has been convened by the United Nations, and which is administered by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the global treaty organization that manages telecommunications strategy and related matters. WSIS has been chartered with such worthy goals as ensuring that the benefits of the Internet and the Web are shared by all peoples everywhere. But it has also decided to look into the question of Internet governance -- or, as they like to say in WSIS, "Who Should Govern the Internet?"
Not so long ago (April 21, to be exact) it was reported that the long-running battle for next-gen DVD supremacy being waged between the Blu-Ray Group camp (led by Sony) and the HD-DVD forces (commanded by NEC and Toshiba, et al.) might result in truce. Well, that didn't work out, so it's back to the arms race.