I've been following the discussions about license proliferation that have been going on the past few weeks.
I'm really glad that they are bringing up all those issues now because they are very closely related to the subject of my master's dissertation and it will surely enrich my research.
But one thought that crossed my mind today was that everyone participating in that discussion knows somehow what licenses should be recommended. But if they just say "ok, here are the licenses" people will complain that they just made that up. So what they are doing is a methodology to choose licenses, and apparently this they can just make up, expecting much less complains.
2008-10-03
2008-09-19
2008-09-03
World Day Against Software Patents
September 24th will be the World Day Against Software Patents.
Although the day celebrates an achievement that has been made at the European Parliament five years ago, there is still a lot to be done. Visit http://stopsoftwarepatents.org/ to learn what else can me accomplished and how you can help.
Although the day celebrates an achievement that has been made at the European Parliament five years ago, there is still a lot to be done. Visit http://stopsoftwarepatents.org/ to learn what else can me accomplished and how you can help.
2008-08-22
Poetic License
Found this license today. It is cute.
(c) 2005 Alexander E Genaud
This work ‘as-is’ we provide.
No warranty express or implied.
We’ve done our best,
to debug and test.
Liability for damages denied.
Permission is granted hereby,
to copy, share, and modify.
Use as is fit,
free or for profit.
These rights, on this notice, rely.
(c) 2005 Alexander E Genaud
2008-08-17
Sharing the responsibilities
Just a rant: when you aren't going to do things right, let other people do it.
2008-08-06
Wikia Evolution
Today the Wikia Search team announced something that dramatically changed how easy it is to help build a better search engine. It is a new Firefox toolbar that lets you add sites and metadata about them to the Wikia Search index in a few clicks, without ever leaving the page. You can also add search results from Google or Yahoo directly to Wikia Search.
Now, if only they could figure out a way to better handle the diversity of languages spoken in the web, that would be great. It bothers me a little how much German gets in my way when doing Wikia Search stuff, and also I'd like to add more Portuguese content, so this area has lots of room for improvement. As far as I know Google is the only search engine that tries to address language issues in search results, but I don't like how they do it either, because you can't choose multiple languages when searching.
I'd say let's wait and see, but actively shaping it is much more fun than waiting ;)
Now, if only they could figure out a way to better handle the diversity of languages spoken in the web, that would be great. It bothers me a little how much German gets in my way when doing Wikia Search stuff, and also I'd like to add more Portuguese content, so this area has lots of room for improvement. As far as I know Google is the only search engine that tries to address language issues in search results, but I don't like how they do it either, because you can't choose multiple languages when searching.
I'd say let's wait and see, but actively shaping it is much more fun than waiting ;)
2008-07-07
Blogging
Since I've read these slides by Jyri Engeström at an OpenSocial meeting I've been thinking if writing shorter and more frequent blogs would be the right way to go.
At the moment I write at two blogs and one microblog. But I also have five inactive blogs.
Here I try to discuss ideas that some people (including me) are really interested in thinking about a little further, to understand what is going on in the environment around us and how it makes a difference in our lives, so that maybe we can shape the future to our best interest. The posts usually have a minimum length so that the ideas can be expressed with a beginning, middle and end. At my other blog I write short news on a more general and popular theme, geek stuff. If I count the number of words written at each blog, they are more or less the same, although at my other blog they are spread in a larger number of posts.
Now, let's see some numbers from Google Analytics. For the blog with shorter posts I have four times the number of visitors I have here, but the average time on site is exactly the same. That almost makes me think I should focus on writing shorter posts with more frequency. On the other hand, the feedback I get from the readers of this blog is much more insightful. So I'd be trading quantity over quality. And I don't want to do that.
However, I can't say there is a linear function between the length of the posts and the value it adds to my own life. When it comes to microblogging, if I interact with the right community of people I can extract useful information while not spending too much time writing or filtering a flood of posts.
Of course, considering that the content of my blogs are very different from each other and that my audiende is very limited I can't really generalize my findings. But one thing that every blogger should keep in mind is who is the target audience, what they expect from you, and what you expect from them.
At the moment I write at two blogs and one microblog. But I also have five inactive blogs.
Here I try to discuss ideas that some people (including me) are really interested in thinking about a little further, to understand what is going on in the environment around us and how it makes a difference in our lives, so that maybe we can shape the future to our best interest. The posts usually have a minimum length so that the ideas can be expressed with a beginning, middle and end. At my other blog I write short news on a more general and popular theme, geek stuff. If I count the number of words written at each blog, they are more or less the same, although at my other blog they are spread in a larger number of posts.
Now, let's see some numbers from Google Analytics. For the blog with shorter posts I have four times the number of visitors I have here, but the average time on site is exactly the same. That almost makes me think I should focus on writing shorter posts with more frequency. On the other hand, the feedback I get from the readers of this blog is much more insightful. So I'd be trading quantity over quality. And I don't want to do that.
However, I can't say there is a linear function between the length of the posts and the value it adds to my own life. When it comes to microblogging, if I interact with the right community of people I can extract useful information while not spending too much time writing or filtering a flood of posts.
Of course, considering that the content of my blogs are very different from each other and that my audiende is very limited I can't really generalize my findings. But one thing that every blogger should keep in mind is who is the target audience, what they expect from you, and what you expect from them.
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