Open Source, Open data, Process Models

A while back I argued that Open data is more important than open source.

Dave Megginson has posted that your data is the next big battle. This is a key point. Its good to see the debate moving to this important question.

I'm hoping that as part of this, folks will begin to think about how process models - as opposed to traditional source code - might provide a better way of "open sourcing" key information about how open data is processed to produce particular results e.g. WYSIWYG renderings of documents.
ODF, I think is a good forum for this. As ODF grows and grows, the gap between what any ODF compliant application does interpreting the data, and what is explicit in the data - will need to be filled.

Traditionally, reference implementations (i.e. traditional source code) has been the way to do this. "Running code" is the final arbiter.

Maybe this is as good as it gets? Unfortunately, a fully blown word processor runs to many, many thousands of lines of code and the semantic devil is buried way down in the details...

Linux pre-installed on a Dell laptop

I'm currently a very, very happy Lenovo Thinkpad user but if Dell
offer me Linux pre-installed on one of their boxes, I would be very inclined to go back to Dells.

Application Research

"As a sanity preservation device, I have devised a little litmus test that I use when evaluating software applications..." -- A simple litmus test for where to spend your application research time

Identity management and virtual worlds

"Virtual worlds are on the rise all over the world. The 'new' thing called the Web has met its first serious challenger in the form of immersive, 3D environments..." Identity management and virtual worlds

One Python Per Child

The fact that the One Laptop Per Child makes extensive use of Python in Sugar etc. is, well, potentially massive actually.