The Java IP Story

Every year, I teach the AMOS class, a lab course on “Agile Methods and Open Source” that combines lectures with a real software project that ideally turns into a startup (see the AMOS Project concept, in German). To explain open source, I have to introduce students to intellectual property rights, of which most have been blissfully unaware of until then. Nothing teaches concepts better than a colorful story, and so I have been using the IP strategies around Java to make this dry topic come alive. For fun, comments, and corrections, I’m providing the short version of my talk below, including commentary. (You can also download a PDF version of the talk, with our without notes, licensed as CC-BY 3.0. If you find this useful for teaching, please tell me.) Students at this point have a basic working understanding of intellectual property and exclusion rights. Please let me know what you think! Finally, IANAL.

Java is an important technology powering the modern web and in particular enterprise applications. It has a checkered intellectual property history, and with the recent acquisition of Sun, the Java creator and owner, by Oracle, things only stand to heat up. This slide set discusses some of the more interesting issues around Java intellectual property and its strategic use in business.

  1. What is Java?
  2. Short Java IP Story Time-Line
  3. Three Substories
  4. Java’s Challenge to the Windows Platform
  5. Microsoft and Java
  6. The OpenJDK Strategy (Open Core Model)
  7. Certification of Compatible Implementations
  8. Threats to Commercial Revenue
  9. Main Tools to Curtail “Competitors”
  10. Problems for Alternative Implementations
  11. Problems for OpenJDK Forks
  12. Thank you! and References

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The Open Source Big Bang

Open source is not only software, but also an approach to software development. The public nature of open source projects lets us show how open source software development scales to the largest project sizes. The following figure illustrates the scalability of open source software development. I call it the big bang of open source.

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The Open Source Innovation and Commoditization Frontier

Following up on Matt Aslett’s excellent post about the growth of permissive licenses and a short discussion about it on my research group’s blog, I wanted to suggest here a thought about the ratio of new vendor-owned vs. community-owned open source projects. I’m ignoring existing projects because of their path dependence (read: only today do we know what we are doing). My point is being illustrated by the following figure that I occasionally use:

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Dating Design Patterns Skit Script

While cleaning up, I found this copy of the OOPSLA 2004 Dating Design Patterns skit script. The skit itself was, as Brian Foote called it, occasionally humorous. I’m providing it here (before throwing out the paper copy) for the intermittent professional entertainment on my blog. We performed the skit at OOPSLA 2004. Fortunately, I don’t have any photos of this. However, I did find the following photo of the Gang-of-Four celebrating the ten year anniversary of the Design Patterns book. I think the photo is attributable to Brian Foote as well. In the back, you can see the late John Vlissides, still “in costume” from the skit.

New Talk: How and Why IT User Companies Sponsor Open Source

New talk! For German, see below. Other stock talks here. If you are interested in this talk, feel free to contact me.

Topics Open source, IT user company, open source foundation, sponsored open source
Audience CIO, CFO, product manager, project manager
Format 45min talk, 60min talk
Level Intermediate

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The Parser that Cracked the MediaWiki Code

I am happy to announce that we finally open sourced the Sweble Wikitext parser. You can find the announcement on the OSR Group blog or directly on the Sweble project site. This is the work of Hannes Dohrn, my first Ph.D. student, who I hired in 2009 to implement a Wikitext parser.

So what about this “cracking the MediaWiki code”?

Wikipedia aims to bring the (encyclopedic) knowledge of the world to all of us, for free. While already ten years old, the Wikipedia community is just getting started, and we have barely seen the tip of the iceberg, there is so much more to come. All that wonderful content is being written by volunteers using a (seemingly) simple language called Wikitext (the stuff you type in once you click on edit). Until today, Wikitext had been poorly defined.

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Open Commons Region Linz is Starting

The region of and around Linz, Austria, has declared itself the Open Commons Region Linz. The opening festivities, including talks, free-of-charge, will take place on April 11th, 2011, in Linz (naturally). Read more about it on the blog of the Open Commons Region Linz! I’m a member of the academic advisory council of the Open Commons Region Linz and applaud and support the effort. I’m also happy to say that it will me bring to Linz in person once in a while.

Why I'm Interested In Computer Games Research

Just before my inaugural lecture at University of Erlangen, a broad panel of scientists was debating the merits of computer games. Except for a computer games researcher and a games professional, all participants thought that computer games are of no particular interest. When I asked: “But isn’t there anything to learn from computer games?” I got a full rebuke by the M.D. on the panel: “No, there is no recognizable value whatsoever.”

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Call for Papers: OSS 2011, the 7th International Conference on Open Source Systems

  • Paper submission deadline: April 8, 2011
  • Conference location: Salvador, BA, Brazil
  • Conference dates: 6-7 October 2011
  • Conference website: OSS 2011

Conference Theme

Over the past decade, the Open Source Software (OSS) phenomenon has had a global impact on the way organisations and individuals create, distribute, acquire and use software and software-based services. OSS has challenged the conventional wisdom of the software engineering and software business communities, has been instrumental for educators and researchers, and has become an important aspect of e-government and information society initiatives. OSS is a complex phenomenon and requires a interdisciplinary understanding of its engineering, technical, economic, legal and socio-cultural dynamics.

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New German Edition of Design Patterns (Entwurfsmuster) book (in German)

Seit ein paar Monaten ist die neue Ausgabe des Entwurfsmusterbuchs verfügbar. Dies ist meine Übersetzung des Klassikers “Design Patterns” von Erich Gamma et al. aus dem Amerikanischen. Mit der neuen Ausgabe kommen einige Neuerungen und Änderungen. An erster Stelle zu nennen wäre der neue Umschlag:

Erster Vorschlag für den Umschlag der neuen Ausgabe

Der tatsächliche Inhalt der Sprechblase in der endgültigen veröffentlichten Fassung ist ein anderer und lautet: “We present you the book that changed software design.” Da die Viererbande (Gang-of-four) noch auf ein Nachfolgebuch mit weiteren Mustern hofft, habe ich Addison-Wesley’s ursprünglichen Vorschlag entsprechend geändert.

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