open source – Australian Science

Interview: Simon Phipps, a computer scientist and open source advocate

Danica Radovanovic — Fri, 29 Aug 2014 09:35:23 +0000

One could call Simon Phipps a real eclectic geek, having in mind his background and activism globally: from campaigning for digital liberties, open data, open source software and political transparency, through his columns at InfoWorld to presidenting at the Open Source Initiative.

Simon studied electronic engineering at the University of Southampton, after which he worked for IBM, being involved in introducing the Java programming language, then he was leading Sun’s open source projects for Sun Microsystems – where he also worked on open source licenses. When Sun Microsystems and Oracle merged in 2010, Simon joined ForgeRock startup as Chief Strategy Officer. Now, he heads his own consulting company, Meshed Insights Ltd.

He is the president of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) since 2012 – the non-profit organisation that advocates for open source software and builds bridges between open source communities and maintains the open source licenses. Also, he is a board director at the Open Rights Group in the UK and on the advisory board of Open Source for America.

Simon has been giving talks at many conferences on open source, free software, digital rights, etc. I had a chance to meet Simon couple of years ago in Oxford (UK), at the Transfer Summit conference on open innovation, development and collaboration, and ever since I’ve been following his work online and offline.

Welcome to Australian Science. Would you, please, tell our readers a little bit more about yourself? Where do you come from, both geographically and philosophically?

I’m originally from south London but have lived in Southampton for 35 years. I’ve been programming computers and making electronics since I was a teenager, with other interests in general science. I’ve always been fascinated by networks and the capacity for action at a distance, so my career has embraced many aspects of both.

Back in the days of Sun Microsystems, you were leading Sun’s open source projects, and later got involved in the Open Source Initiative. How did you initially get interested in open source software?

At one point I ran a company that helped programmers create and distribute software as Shareware. I realised most people who use software could be trusted to support the developers behind it; our business was successful as a result! That opened my eyes to the deeper reality that underlies open source software. If you remove the obstacle of needing permission to contribute, a community will naturally collaborate to create what they need individually and share it with everyone else. So when I arrived at Sun from IBM, I already believed that open source was a crucial part of the new society emerging because of the Internet. At Sun I was privileged to oversee the relicensing of pretty much the whole of Sun’s software portfolio, including Java, identity management, Solaris, and much more. The legacy we created is still important, especially the code that has ended up as LibreOffice and the ongoing releases of Java under the GPL.

Would you explain to our readers what do Open Source Initiative (OSI), beside promoting open-source software, do for the Internet, science, research, and academia?

OSI was formed in 1998 as the steward of the then-newly-coined “Open Source

test

The post Interview: Simon Phipps, a computer scientist and open source advocate appeared first on Australian Science.

Linux.conf.au 2013: ‘Nerdvana’ in Canberra

itgrrl — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 00:26:36 +0000

During the last week of January, approximately 700 IT professionals and enthusiastic hobbyists descended on Canberra to jointly create an intensive learning experience. Each year the call goes out across the intertubes to gather together open source geeks for Linux Conference Australia. Linux.conf.au, or simply LCA, is one of the largest open source conferences in the southern hemisphere, and one of the most highly-regarded conferences of its kind in the world. I was excited to attend LCA2013, as it was my first LinuxConf, despite being involved to a modest degree in the Linux and open source community for at least the last 15 years.

Most days, the programme commenced with a keynote address by an IT industry luminary who had made a significant contribution to computer technology and open source. At every keynote address, the lower level of ANU’s Llewellyn Hall was packed with delegates, each toting a selection of wifi- or 3G-enabled devices. While I saw a healthy 55Mbps idle capacity on the Internet link provided by conference organisers (ably assisted by the network engineers at AARNET), once the assembled cohort of digital natives hit the link, all of that that capacity was rapidly utilised.

The conference was opened on the Monday by Bdale Garbee, recently-retired Open Source & Linux Chief Technologiest at Hewlett-Packard, and a long-time contributor to the Debian Linux distribution. (Read Kelly Burnes’ article about Bdale at LCA2013, where you can also watch our video interview.)

On the Tuesday, Radia Perlman enchanted the audience with her talk on the folklore of networking. Radia has been instrumental in developing several key networking protocols that underpin the interconnectedness of computers that we now take for granted. She gave a highly-technical yet accessible talk laced with humour and even nerdy poetry. (You can read my thoughts on Radia at LCA2013, and watch our video interview.)

Andrew “bunnie

Cite this article:
Smith J (2013-02-11 00:26:36). Linux.conf.au 2013: 'Nerdvana' in Canberra. Australian Science. Retrieved: Apr 29, 2024, from http://australianscience.com.au/internet-2/linux-conf-au-2013-canberra/

test

The post Linux.conf.au 2013: ‘Nerdvana’ in Canberra appeared first on Australian Science.

Radia Perlman at LCA 2013

itgrrl — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 21:48:19 +0000

A little before 9am on Tuesday 29th January, I filed into ANU’s Llewellyn Hall along with approximately 700 other Linux.conf.au delegates to listen to the daily keynote speech. I’m now a little embarrassed to admit that I had never heard of Radia Perlman. A little over an hour later, I was a fangirl.

Radia delivered an engaging, funny, and highly-technical keynote address at LCA2013, and the audience of IT professionals and enthusiasts present lapped it up. In it, she placed the technical details of the network protocols she and her colleagues developed in an historical context. She half-jokingly explained that this was the only way in which anyone could hope to understand why the protocols we work with today include ‘features’ in their design that would otherwise seem crazy to an outside observer.

In delivering her keynote, Radia gave us not just the technical detail behind the development of networking protocols, but also wove in details from her creative side, as well as tidbits about her children’s involvement in her technical life. The crowd was delighted as Radia shared with us the poem that she created (an ‘Algorhyme’) shortly after devising the Spanning Tree Protocol in 1985 while at DEC. For as she says, “Every algorithm deserves an algorhyme…” (You can hear Radia reciting her AlgoRhyme in Dan’s video interview with Radia below, and read the text here.) There is also a recording of Radia’s daughter, Dawn Perlner, singing the Algorhyme set to music by Radia’s son, Ray Perlner. Radia also mentioned her son Ray’s involvement in the creation of an AlgoRhyme V2 to mark the creation of her most recent network protocol, TRILL.

Later in the week, I had the pleasure of heading off to lunch with Radia and a small group of fellow delegates during a break in technical sessions. She is engaging and thoughtful, and concerned as much with solutions for societal issues as solutions for thorny networking challenges. Radia is eternally self-effacing, and repeatedly claimed that she had “never done anything difficult

Cite this article:
Smith J (2013-02-06 21:48:19). Radia Perlman at LCA 2013. Australian Science. Retrieved: Apr 29, 2024, from http://australianscience.com.au/interviews/radia-perlman-at-lca-2013/

test

The post Radia Perlman at LCA 2013 appeared first on Australian Science.

Free and Open Source Agriculture

Sridhar Gutam — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 01:05:22 +0000

Credit: Thamizhpparithi Maari, Wikimedia Commons

A recent news published online by The Wall Street journal about the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) offer of germplasm from its massive seed gene bank at National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR) to multinational corporations (MNCs) in exchange for expertise and a share of the profits made me to put forth before you about the topic ‘Free and Open Source Agriculture’ which is proposed and discussed by Janet E. Hope (2004), Susan H. Bragdon (2005), Daniel D. Holman (2007) Keith Aoki (2009) and others. It is strange that the ICAR which is an the apex body of the world’s largest National Agricultural Research System (NARS) coordinating, many institutes involved in basic and strategic research, education and extension, is still looking at MNCs for next generation genetic technologies and the for the want of the same, it is going to share/sell its genetic materials. No doubt agriculture in India and elsewhere in the world is facing challenges from the changing climatic conditions, threats from biotic and abiotic factors. India is rich in biodiversity and with the use of agricultural biotechnology, it is now possible to develop new crop varieties that are tolerant to adverse climatic and poor soil conditions, pests, diseases, insects, weeds etc. and build agriculture and food security. The MNCs with their huge investments have taken proprietary rights on most of the rapid scientific and technological advancement tools and products. Now they are looking at harness the public plant genetic resources for the creation of new generation of crops with the use of advanced molecular biology tools.

As per the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) 1992, plant varieties are national sovereign resources and with sui generis system of protection in India under the Protection of Plant Varieties & Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001(PVFR P), the plant breeders and farmers have been given rights for conservation, improvement and re-use. Now the question arises once the MNCs takes the role of plant breeders and claim their rights on the improved traditional varieties with the help of biotechnological tools, does the farmers have any right to use the same improved material for his own use? or would they be left with no choice other than to buy the planting material at the cost specified by the MNCs?

As per the PPVFR, the farmers would have the right to claim for rewards from Gene Fund if genes from their local varieties are used for the production of improved material for commercial purpose, they don’t have any right to participate in decision making on matters related to the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture as suggested in the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGR) in Article 9.2. However it seems that in man of the decisions on sharing/selling the country’s germplasm, there is no seeking of prior consent from the farmers/communities from whose locations, the germplasm might have been collected.

Under the IPR regime, the free progress of science and innovation is hampering and the fruits are not reaching to the public while, the exchange of knowledge and tools should be a way of life in agricultural research. Hence, I would like to put forth the concept of ‘Open Source‘ in Agriculture and Biotechnology which is proposed/discussed since quite sometime when the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and GNU movements had become global movements. In contrary to the proprietary software which gives only license to work, FOSS gives source code and a bundle of rights to the user to use, reverse engineer, learn, share and improve it. We are seeing now many FOSS products which are built by the community and are very good. These products are licensed as ‘Copyleft‘ or ‘Share Alike‘ of creative commons and or GNU Public License which requires that the copies or adaptations of the work to be released under the same or similar license as that of original.

This concept of FOSS initiative in agriculture has not taken up as a policy by the public funded research institutes. Though the germplasm is being received and sent (shared) by material transfer agreements (MTAs), many of the breeders are not exploring the concept of ‘Share Alike‘. When the crop improvement is being taken up by both public and private, the MTAs should have the licensing terms which asks the agencies to share their improved materials in the similar terms to the public for further use and development without seeking any royalties for the further improvement and use. Recently, there are reports that there is a charge against the Bt Brinjal’s developers in India for violation of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 and allegations that they had accessed Indian varieties of brinjal for the development of genetically modified ‘Bt Brinjal’ without prior permission from the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA). These issues could be avoided when the materials are freely available to everyone to use and also for re-use.

Though there is a provision for ‘Compulsory License‘ under PPVFR for undertaking production, distribution, and sale of the seed or other propagating material on the grounds that the reasonable requirements of the public for seeds or other propagating material of the variety have not been satisfied or that the seed or other propagating material of the variety is not available to the public at a reasonable price, there is no provision for the use of the material for further improvement.

The FOSS movement had not built in one day but its a continuous building movement. And if this initiative to happen in agriculture, it would be a great thing. However, for that it needs greater advocacy and to be built by the convinced breeders/farmers. Centre for Sustainable Agriculture from Hyderabad in India which is working for sustainable agriculture is now exploring the concept called ‘Open Source Seeds‘. In the world, the BiOS Initiative of Cambia (BiOS – Biological Innovation for an Open Society) is the one which is based on the GNU/FOSS model and is sharing enabling technologies with large community of innovators under ‘Protected Commons‘. The BiOS licenses when employed for MTAs, would enable the public to access to the technologies freely and there would not be any prevention of the same by appropriation of IPR rights by private players.

test

The post Free and Open Source Agriculture appeared first on Australian Science.