For my last blog post I thought I might do a little wrap up and give deep, meaningful and quite probably thumb-sucked predictions for the future of open source blah, blah, blah. BUT THEN! Google popped up with a ‘surprise’. It’s very own OS browser. And since they are now one step closer to world domination, and therefore one (GIANT) step closer to running the world of open source (a painful contradiction) this could still be considered a look at the future of open source.

But back to the Chrome-ster.

And oh the scandalous geek drama that accompanied it! A feast for any development follower. First there were the long circulating rumours about a Google browser. As the ever-faithful wired.com explained it “A Google browser has been rumoured for so long that most people have stopped talking about it.”

Then, lo and behold, out of the blue came the ‘accidentally’ released cartoon about the browser. Then the announcement by Google that Chrome was going to be released the next day. Then it’s release in over 100 countries. Then the accusations about wobbly Terms of Service by Slashdot which was then explained and rectified by Google. I mean, with all this complexity and changing, the browser has received so much attention that users don’t even have to try it to know all about it.

I personally have advocated Google’s support of open source in the past. But Chrome has definitely made me rethink a little of my Google-enthusiasm… were they just being nice to open sourcers to weaken their rival Microsoft so that they could eventually go in for the kill?? (Which they probably didn’t even achieve this time round)

But on the positive side, it has been seen in the past that when Google does something, they do it well. So I am keen to keep an eye on the developments and refining of Chrome. And yes, even if it is owned by a giant, it is still open source which means it can be adapted and stuff.

Matthew Buckland posted a succinct summary of pros and cons of the features of the browser here.

One of the things that worries and frustrates me the most about the attitudes of people who live on the very cool continent of Africa is that we have developed a poverty mindset which often causes us to wait around for the Big Bad Developed World to come to our rescue in learning, adapting and providing tools for development.

But a bunch of Ugandan students from Makerere University along, with a team from Rhodes University (yay!) are proving me wrong. The students in collaboration with a group of linguists and support from translate.org.za held a two-day Translate@thon during which they translated the Mozilla Firefox browser into Luganda.

An article on Tectonic reporting the event explained the achievement by saying that the students’ work and commitment to the project “allowed them to make a practical contribution to their language’s presence in the digital age”.

And one of the most important aspects of this project is that the shared and adaptable nature of open source allowed for the modification of the browser to Luganda. This is a move away from the often culturally imperialistic reality that says software is written by elite and developed countries and those who wish to use it need to learn for the software, rather than making the software work for them.

The translation of software is a big issue in terms of accessibility and extension of new media. The more ICTs are opened up to people worldwide in their own language. The less ‘strange’ and foreign they will become.

So well done to pioneering Africans.

At the GovTech Conference held at the end of July in Durban, the government came out strongly in support of the use of Free Open Source Software and Open Standards. The conference was intended to “keep you up to date on the latest ICT developments in government and demonstrate how technology can be a key business change lever in improving performance and service delivery” (GovTech Website).

This fits in well with the government’s eGovernment intentions where technology will be used to communicate and interact with the public. And what I think is important about incorporating open source software is that it alleviates some of the cost for the government (and therefore the taxpayers who are the people that the government is trying to communicate with). And even high up ministers like Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, the Minister of Public Service and Administration have been long-time supporters of open source.

There are obviously a number of problems with the concept of eGovernance in South Africa, the main one being the limited Internet access of the broader population grid. But despite the current situation, what I like about the initiative is that it is forward thinking and looks to invest in the potential of new media in South Africa.

But as Graham Taylor, Chief Executive, OpenForum Europe explained at the GovTech conference, there are a number of advantages with having Open Source eGovernment. These include;

• lower costs
• encouraging a sharing culture
• increased accessibility for citizens by removing dependence on specific software
• improving the ‘local’ oppotunity for Small and Medium Enterprises/ start ups

On the whole, I’m very excited about the SA government getting behind open source and making it work for the benefit of the citizens.

Experimenting with creating wikis in Wetpaint

In light of the praxis (i.e. theory and practical mix) that my new media course has been based on this year, I decided to branch out of theoretical blogging and find out how to create a wiki myself.

I figure that open source ideas are supposed to benefit the average someone and I am a someone.  So how easy/difficult is it to contribute and share my own ideas and not just borrow from generous developers?

The main trickiness of the wiki idea is that you need a host of some kind because otherwise it is very unlikely that anyone will ever see your wiki and then there will be no additions or benefits to the information that is put up there.

I found two fairly solid bases for wiki creations; Wetpaint and Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is obviously the most common one and many organizations use it as a host for wikis.  Wikipedia also hosts one of the web’s most extensively contributed-to wikis on the Virginia Tech Massacre.

Wikipedia seems to value contributions by users that have proved themselves to be reliable and valuable which is good if you are looking for reliable information but which makes life a little more difficult if you are trying to break into the wiki creation world. But it is still possible to create your own wiki within the system.

Wetpaint on the other hand makes wiki creation as easy as creating a blog. I went to the main page here.  Then I followed the simple steps to make my very own wiki for the purpose of this blog.

But to be honest, the process seems a little stagnant now.  I could just keep adding to my wiki myself but otherwise I just have to wait until other people stumble upon it and add.

I thought at first that the wiki idea would require the same promotion as a blog.  But have now realised that that isn’t true. Blogs are a place that people can come to and browse and leave again.  But unless someone is looking for the information that your specific wiki provides it can have almost zero stickiness.

The concept is basic open source in that it is structured around the free sharing of intellectual knowledge. The home site for the project says the objectives are

• To provide a complete high school science text that can be used for free anywhere else in the world as needed
• To provide a free resource, that can be used alone or in conjunction with other education initiatives in South Africa, to any/all learners and teachers
• To provide a detailed, accurate and interesting text that adheres to the South African school curriculum and the outcomes-based education system
• To provide a text that is easy to read and understand even for second-language English speakers
• Make a difference in South Africa through helping to educate our next generation

According to Internet World Stats, 11.6% of the population of South Africa uses the Internet. One of the best aspects of the Free High School Science Texts (FHSST) project is that it uses principles of open source which are usually based on the Net to reach ordinary South African school children who are not necessarily part of that 11.6%.

FHSST is importing open source into tangible printed forms, but is at the same time including the Internet in the recruiting of volunteers to write the textbooks. It’s a great merging of new technologies and platforms with traditional mass media forms that are able to reach and help more people than the Internet alone currently can.

Another interesting facet of the project is that it is basically one giant wiki. It is more like the Knol concept which Google is working on where contributors are experts and not any old randoms who think they have scientific wisdom to share because they were able to create an electrical circuit in Grade 7.

The motivation of the scientists involved in the project are reminiscent of the work done by the Shuttleworth Foundation in the Hip2B2 initiative and it is encouraging to see that there is a recognition by South African scientists of the need to freely share information and ideas for the development of the scientific potential in the country.

The science superheros of this project prove the Joker in The Dark Knight wrong when he says “If you’re good at something, never do it for free”. Villian, I’d have to respectfully disagree.

But with the predominantly impersonal nature of the Internet where there is not face-to-face interaction, the sharing and ‘communing’ of ideas is the only thing that seems to maintain the human element of community when online.

So to supersede the arguments surrounding patents and intellectual property, I decided to look at some of the ways in which intellectual property is shared on open source platforms. The most interesting form that I found is the social knowledge collaboration tool of the ‘wiki’.

Officially (as in according to the ever helpful Wikipedia and Oxford English Dictionary Online) a wiki is a website that people can contribute their own information to. Wikipedia itself is currently the most used wiki. Official statistics show that at the end of 2006 there were 151934 people a day visiting the website.

(Although it is very interesting to note that Google is in the process of establishing an expert-contributors-only wiki website called Knol)

But the benefits of wikis are not just limited to a database of interesting information. They can also provide support for professionals in particular fields, helpful ‘how to’ information and sources for class projects (although no Wiki is allowed at University… I wonder how Knol will be received??). But it is also good to see that wikis in general contributing to the social and sharing nature of Web 2.0.

For more cool stories about specific wikis and open source ideas that aren’t just software or hardware… watch this space!

At the end of 2006, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer indicated that Microsoft thought Linux was infringing on their intellectual property rights. If this issue sounds familiar, it is because I talked about the idea of who owns what and how open source faces difficulties because different non-open source companies own different parts of things that other people need to use, a few weeks ago.

Now the issue between Microsoft and Linux has flared up again. And Microsoft says that it is USERS of Linux and open source that are infringing patents. The problem is that Microsoft still is not saying which patents are being violated. So basically open-sourcers are being told that they are stealing, but are not being told what they are stealing… so how can it be fixed?

If you are told that there is some ingredient in a cake that is illegally used but you are not told what it is… do you abandon the whole cake? What if it’s the half teaspoon of baking powder that you used that could be replaced by beaten egg or self-raising flour? IT executives said they so far have no plans to throw out their cakes.

Microsoft has however, offered a Patent Pledge for Open Source Developers. But that doesn’t really even explain why they are bringing up the issue with Linux.

When I first delved into the topic of patents, I thought it might tend towards the philosophical and ethical aspects of open source development. But with accusations and lawsuits in the picture, it seems to be a lot more about greed and protecting territory than about broader right and wrong.

A key issue that I have noticed with open source is that it is not aimed at a niche online market. For open source to work effectively it needs to be embraced by a large number of people. The ’sharing is caring’ idea requires lots of people to share as well as to use.

So far for open source that seems to be working well. So much so that Mozilla is on the brink of releasing an analytics system that can use only 1% (of Mozilla’s 17% of the total browser market) of its user information and still have valuable and accurate Internet usage stats.

But still the open source guys can’t do it all themselves. They need support from a big brother that is willing to give them a hand up. And that’s what Google is proving itself to be.

In a blogpost earlier this month, Google security team engineer, Will Drewry said that the company’s engineers “are encouraged to contribute both software and time to open source efforts”. To the extent that Google are now backing an open source security team: Open Source Computer Emergency Response Team (oCERT). oCERTworks on filling up and securing gaps in open source systems that could be unsecure for users.

It’s a good thing that Google is helping smaller spheres of digital development. Up till now I had strong personal suspicions that Google was becoming the Googlezon of our nightmares, but if they help the small guy who wants to share free stuff they might not be so bad. I just hope they don’t buy them all out in the end.

Linux Africa distributors have come up with a way to help provide Internet connections and software access which will reduce basic access costs for people in Africa. The idea is that a single software or Internet connection can be used for up to 10 PCs.

CEO of Mullard Electronic Limited Patrick Mathenge (which is a big part of the entrepreneurship of the project in Kenya) says they offer two different systems. The first is a Desktop Multiplier, which is suitable for normal office and general use and a Discover station for public computing. The Discover option allows administrators to control access and user accounts, as is generally how things work in any public lab.

I have felt for a long time that the most effective way to bring technological advancement and development to poorer (particularly African) countries is through cell phones. I thought that because ownership of cell phones is far more prevalent in Africa than ownership of PCs, it would make more sense to focus on optimizing mobile technology for the masses. This Linux venture in Kenya made me re-think that.

Through this initiative, open source developers are finding ways to increase the effectiveness of accessibility where money for software is limited. So even though the software might not be open source, the concept of increased, cheaper distribution also carries the heart of the open source movement. Altruism.

This week, however, my eyes were opened to a whole new and seriously weird side of people behind open source. Well, one person in particular really. Hans Reiser. On the 30 April he was sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of killing his estranged wife Nina Reiser.

Reiser was an open source developer for Linux who created a new filing system for the open source company.

But a more strange situation I would be hard pressed to find. There was no body and no murder weapon and the case seems to have been based entirely on some reportedly weird behaviour of Reiser’s, several drops of Nina’s blood on a sleeping bag and pillar of their house, the fact that Reiser was carrying around $8,960 cash in a fanny pack (the fanny pack screams geek to me!) and bought some books on murder investigations after his wife went missing. So the defence based their response to the charges on what wired.com call “Geek Defense”. Which can be explained as this: “I may be awkward, a little weird, and prone to convoluted theories about nearly everything. But I am not a killer.” Which obviously didn’t work out well for them.

Eish.

This man sounds cooked. The best response I’ve heard to the case was from my digsmate when I told her about it all she asked was “So did he plead insanity?”

With each new piece of information that I read on the case it becomes a little more bizarre.

The conviction also leaves Linux in a sticky spot. They can’t very well use the recently developed elements of Reiser’s file systems if they are associated with a convicted murderer. And according to Jonathan Corbet, founder of Linux news website LWN.net, even open source geeks aren’t really interested in getting involved with the work of Reiser4 (the file system founded by Reiser).

For more information about the case:

Wired.com

Threat Level Visits Inmate No. BFPS63 – aka Hans Reiser

Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder

Defense Lawyer Says Reiser Didn’t Help Himself

Techworld

Linux guru faces prison for murder