IBM Patents Developer Payment Method
As IBM continues down the path of Open Source and Linux support, they are also continuing their efforts – in full force – with proprietary software and intellectual property. I recently read where IBM has filed the most patents of any company in 2003. It was also interesting to learn from this article that one half of their patents are coming from software, along with generating ~$1 billion in *PROFIT* from licensing their technologies.

Thit article hit me as almost amusing … they have now patented a process for paying Open Source developers to create software. So the Open Source community will have to pay IBM to license this process if they happen to conflict with the patent or violate any of the claims. Who pays licensing fees for the Open Source community? (Ok … I’m kidding!)

IBM Patents Developer Payment Method
Darryl K. Taft, eWEEK

In a nod to the open-source development model, IBM has patented a scheme that maps out a method of payment for broad numbers of developers working together on projects, a move that has upset some developers. The patent describes the current software development environment, where pressure to turn out quality software quickly is pushing companies to rely on developers outside their corporate walls. IBM’s patent defines a mechanism for paying programmers who work in an open-source-like model.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1462778,00.asp

Get used to being an “earthling”
Of course, then you’ll have to get used to being a Solar System Inhabitant (SSI?) or some other abstracted categorization. It’s all just a matter of time. In the mean time, you might want to consider that if you continue to think and believe that you are an “American” and everyone else is a “non-American” then you are going to continue to grapple with the issues presented in this article.

With all of the technology and innovation that we create, we further enable others – and other countries – to grow and develop more rapidly. This is an ongoing process of creation, replication, commoditization, and abstraction.

With the first step, something new is created … I’ll refer to this as a ‘substrate’ … be it biological or technological. If it is valued and works within an environment, you will see this new substrate replicated and copied. This is where things like “network effect” begin to kick in and real growth occurs. The next stage is commoditization … where the relative cost of this substrate begins to erode and this only adds to the adoption and usage. Lastly, there is the abstraction phase. This is where the substrate has become so available and present that a new substrate emerges and builds on top of the previous substrate.

John Smart writes about this a lot, and introduced me to these intertwined evolutionary models. From his web site:

There is apparent further support for the resource limits argument when we consider the nature of biological growth within any particular species. The classic pattern is called logistic or “sigmoidal” (“S curve”) growth, where population growth is initially exponential, but matter, energy, or space limits and competitive species interaction (another form of resource limits) always slow down this growth, leading to a “saturation” in a population size over finite time.

This same model can be applied to the technologic substrates that we are creating. And as we improve and commoditize these products and solutions they are usable by more and more of the worlds population. As we enable the worlds population, they are able to – and hungry to – contribute to the momentum by using these enabling products and solutions to create new ones. The cycle continues.

What once could only happen in American – due to the conditions present for the emergence of technology – is now able to happen around the globe. The communications infrastructure required for teams of people to create, and then market, their products and solutions has expanded via the Internet and is now global.

This article discusses some of the growing trends that we are actually enabling. People worried about “American Jobs” ought to begin to think about “Earthling Jobs”. We are going to see a growing trend of technologically enabled humans from all parts of the globe beginning to fight for their “fair share” of the “American Dream” … and are going to be doing it at home. They are not coming to American to get it. They are turning it into the “Earthling Dream” and are building in their own countries.

I hope that the average American is ready to work just as hard – or harder – for their dreams. They are going to have to.

Creative Class War: Reverse Brain Drain in US?. AlterNet is carrying an interesting article by CMU’s Richard Florida called the Creative Class War. The article details the decline of what the author terms the “creative class” in the US and how these people are now both not immigrating to the US and how US policies are resulting in a reverse brain drain of educated people fleeing the US. Among examples cited are how Peter Jackson’s (LOTR) new movie facilities in New Zealand contributes to the decline of Hollywood, IT outsourcing trends, how MIT had to cancel a large AI project “because the university couldn’t find enough graduate students who weren’t foreigners and who could thus clear new security regulations,” down to individual examples such as stem cell researcher Roger Pederson leaving California to do research in the UK because “they haven’t made such a political football out of stem cells.” Overall, a fascinating and thought-provoking article. [kuro5hin.org]

Another amazing Internet icon … and what the Internet future holds
I had the opportunity to hear Vint Cerf speak at a Java conference almost a decade ago. He was an awesome person to listen too. He has an incredible perspective of the ‘Net. It was really impressive to hear him talk about the early days of the Internet and what they were thinking. He also talked about taking the Internet into the solar system, and defining the IPv6 addressing. He talked about inter-planet routing … how Internet traffic will be routed off the planet to Mars, for example.

I came across the article below and want to thank Adam for pointing it out. The quote below is an example of the depth of thought that occurs within Vint, and I can truly identify with his thoughts. I am not sure that I agree that society requires “fixing”, however I do believe that people could choose a different way to be.

Along with the things that Vint talks about, I have to admit that I never believed I would be so close to one of the largest acts of cyber-terrorism that we might witness so far in Internet history. The MyDoom virus is looking like one of the largest attacks of this type ever seen. Working at SCO provides an interesting viewpoint on how people are treated when they follow the defined judicial process, within a democratic society, in pursuing their rights and asking for their day in court. Hopefully the writers of this virus are caught and prosecuted. It would be great to see someone from the “Open Source Community” turn them in …

I hope that as world governments and global businesses evaluate their options in choosing who will control their destiny, they fully understand that they are dealing with a very amorphous entity that is able to strike outside the boundaries defined by laws, and that can choose to defy the structures that we have put in place for “modern” society to exist. No matter what people think about other peoples actions or behaviors … there is no excuse for terroristic attacks, of any kind, towards anyone. Period.

I believe that we are witnessing an aspect of one segment of society. If they are choosing to attack like this now … over this issue … then who is next on the list? First Microsoft, then SCO, then who? What will they do to a government that might find in favor of SCO? Or a company that does business with SCO? And what will be the collateral damage?

Vint Cerf: “The internet is a reflection of our society and that mirror is going to be reflecting what we see,” he said. “If we do not like what we see in that mirror the problem is not to fix the mirror, we have to fix society.” [Adam Curry: Adam Curry’s Weblog]