There has been some recent interest and discussion about whether a contributor of open source code can take it back at some point. That is, can he take it out of a GPL license? The answer is NO. This "NO" is implicit in GPLv2 and explicit in GPLv3. In other words, a number of sections … Continue reading Gift of open source is irrevocable.
For some time, I've been wanting to read Anand Giridharadas's critically acclaimed Winners Take: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. It's a book about the relationship between rising inequality and the current culture of philanthropy among the top 0.001% the wealth spectrum. It's also about so much more, including the role of the share … Continue reading Open Source Code: Democratic tech or Oligarchic tool?
A coalition of major open source code stakeholders have affirmed their commitment to a unified global definition of 'open source.' That definition can be found at the bottom of this post. Their announcement can be found in this press release. The coalition operates under the non-profit organization named the Open Source Initiative. It's board members … Continue reading Coalition recommits to single unified definition of ‘open source’
After four years of debate, the European Union passed the GDPR in April 2016. It became active on May 25, 2018, forever altering how organizations across the world will approach data processing. Here is a quick analysis of the impact of the new regulations. Who does it affect? Though the European Union only has jurisdiction … Continue reading General Data Protection Regulation: How the EU’s data privacy regulations will impact even those outside the EU.
Increasing inequality and decreasing upward mobility and opportunity in this century is well documented in Thomas Picketty's book, Capital in the 21st Century. However, one of the few, if not only, counter-points to this disturbing trend has been the internet. The internet has allowed innovation and hard work to compete with money and size. Everywhere, … Continue reading The EU’s disastrous proposed “Link Tax” law is a trojan horse gift from media giants, to kill off internet democracy and freedom.
Needless to say, mapping software is extremely important to Uber. Accordingly, it developed a proprietary mapping program called Kepler.gl. It's browser based. It's visually detailed and stunning. Vivid visualization of data was a key goal in Kepler.gl's development. And now, best of all, it's open source. That is, it's available to the public, not only to … Continue reading Uber makes its mapping software open source.
Beware of copyright trolls using Creative Commons as bait. Here's what you can do to protect yourself: Most of you already know that you can't just pluck images from the internet and use them in a website, blog, or article. Most of them are "copyright reserved." In fact, that is the default setting under the … Continue reading Use of Images: Don’t get Tricked
