This article is a write up of the talk I gave at OggCamp10, and some of the discussions thereafter. It's not a reiteration of the talk, however. There's a video that I'll link to once it's uploaded.

My idea started when someone suggested to my that I should apply for a patent if I wanted to market a piece of my software. I thought this was a terrible idea - software patents are destructive to software innovation. But not having a succinct way to explain why to someone who's not an open source programmer, I just shrugged off the issue.

Then, at the first OggCamp, I saw an excellent talk by Bruno Bord on explaining programming and open source to non-techies. He used an analogy of Jam making to show how he explained programming to his grandmother. This seemed like a good method of explaining software patents, if I could think of the right analogy.

There are 2 reasons I wished to give this talk at OggCamp. Firstly, to see if my analogy worked, and secondly to see if my arguments held water. Let's face it, if I couldn't convince a bunch of Open Source Geeks that I was along the right lines with a criticism of software patents, I certainly couldn't convince anyone else!

The analogy I settled on was chess. In a chess set, you have a board and pieces, which are analogous to a the computer hardware. You also have a book if defined rules which are analogous to a computer's instruction set, the basic operations that can be performed by a processor. By combining these rules with the board and pieces you can create games of chess, just like you use the computer's instruction set to write programs. Whatever language you write, whatever you do with the data, they all boil down to a sequence of the same instructions executing on the processor in the same way.

There are 3 conditions any invention must satisfy to be granted a patent: It must be new, it must have an industrial application, and it must represent an inventive step. Now, there's no denying that software has an industrial application, and some of it is certainly new, but does it represent an inventive step? I'd say not.
As a programmer, when I get asked to solve a problem with software, I certainly never have to invent anything to do so. I may need to write a lot of code, I may have to rewrite it to work a bit differently to how I have before. But would other programmers in my field, given the same problem, have ended up with a solution that fundamentally does the same thing in the same way? Almost certainly. If it's as obvious to them as it is to me, it's not an inventive step.

One of the counter-arguments presented to my viewpoint was that if all inventions are merely the sum of their parts, then surely nothing represents an inventive step?
This put me in my place for a moment or two. Had I known when I was writing the talk that I'd be delivering it on the main stage, I'd certainly have prepared better for this sort of question. However, while it's true that physical patented inventions do use the same processes that have come before, those processes aren't the end product like they are with software. A Dyson vacuum cleaner may be made with conventional plastic molding techniques, but the end result is a fundamentally different way of moving air within the device to extract dirt without the need for a bag. When a piece of software is written, the end result is always that of moving data around the hardware. You can't change how the processor manipulates electrons with code.

Other arguments were raised about how best to protect your inventions. The example of SQL's invention, a completely new way of querying databases at the time, was cited. Had it been protected, IBM could have prevented companies like Oracle from even have existing, yet they didn't. It was suggested that the best way to protect your interests is to "be first to market and shut up," the very behaviour that real-world patents were created to discourage. However, in the open source world, we've seen that sharing ideas and technologies isn't incompatible with commercial interest. Red Hat releases all it's code as open source, yet it still makes money. There's even CentOS who give away exactly the same product for free that Red Hat sell, and yet their stocks are on a recession-defying rise.

The final point that was raised was that of copyright. Do I think that copyright needs to be strengthened, or that the terms of open source licences be more restrictive to provide us with the protection we lose out on by rejecting patents? No, I don't. Copyright is already effective immediately, and it's effective for longer than any technology created today will still be useful for. As far as licencing goes, we even have licences that enforce sharing if we want to, which is what patents were for in the first place.

In conclusion, I think that my analogy works quite well. My argument as a whole needed work, but now I've seen the counter arguments, I think that the modern, open software industry has moved beyond patents to a place where we don't need to sue the competition into submission in order to protect our interests.

Last week I had the fortune of being at the JISC Developer Happiness Days, or Dev8D. I'd like to write a little about what went on there, and why events like it are important.

The format of the event is somewhat unconventional, and therefore quite hard to justify. A large number of developers, not necessarily with any previous affiliation, are brought together for 4 days to work on whatever they feel like. There's no real schedule, just a few pre-planned events which are constantly subject to change. No-one's obliged to take part in any of the sessions. And it's free, which means someone other than the developers' employers have to stump up a not unsubstantial amount of cash. And it's during the week, so their employers are still paying them.

The event is described as "4 days of 100% pure software developer heaven," and that's right on the money. There's unlimited tea, coffee, snacks, electricity and dodgy WiFi. There's everyone from gurus to newbies, and most people are both in one respect or another. Any developer in this environment is going to be happy, but to justify its expenditure the event has to provide more than just smiles.

The first argument in support of the event can be taken straight from The Simpsons. There's an episode where Homer gets promoted to an executive position after growing hair with a baldness cure, and he tells Mr. Burns that there's not enough tartar sauce in the cafeterias at lunch time. After more explanation, Mr. Burns realises that a "happy worker is a busy worker," and by the gods he's right. While I was at Dev8D I achieved more in a day than I sometimes achieve in a week in my office (where I'm the only full time developer). We learned programming languages, we built applications, we designed algorithms, we gave talks, and all for fun! You can see that happiness can be an end in itself, because happiness provides motivation.

Another clear justification is looking at what he developer community produced during just 4 days. Everyone was encouraged to documents their doings on the wiki, and the list is as long as the printout of MPs expenses receipts that was produced on the Friday. A few developers including myself produced a set of web widgets to integrate with VLEs that I'll describe more in another post. People found new uses for existing public APIs. The Arduino workshops produced a storm of ideas for new electronic devices.

Finally, one of the most powerful outcomes from Dev8D is the community it builds. Bringing together like minded people in a situation where they aren't under pressure to see talks and report back to their bosses, but instead have the chance to meet each other and find out what makes each other tick promotes some of the strongest professional and social connections you're likely to find. The whole point of Dev8D is to bring the "chat in the pub" part of the conference (which, in all honesty, is where a lot of the best ideas and connections are made) to the fore, and it truly succeeds.

Here's to Dev8D 2011!

I've been concerned for a while about the Digital Economy bill. So concerned that with a little encouragement from the Open Rights Group, I've been writing to my MP, John Denham (JD from now on). He's from Labour, and is currently Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. While I may not agree with his party's policies, I'd like to start this post by applauding him for doing a great job of representing his constituents. Without him, I wouldn't have anything to write this post about.

So, this all began with me sending an email to JD about the Bill, outlining some of my concerns about it, mainly focused on the provision to disconnect users accused (not convicted) of file sharing, and the introduction of reserve powers allowing the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act (CDPA) to be amended, in order to (in JD's words) "allow the Government to tackle quickly any misuse of emerging technologies for copyright infringement and provide element [sic] of future proofing."
I sent a reply to the initial response I received, and yesterday received a copy of a response to my queries from Stephen Timms. I'd like to look at some key points of that response here, as I think they make some things abundantly clear about the nature of this bill. I'll take very good care not misquote or take any of this out of context. I've added some emphasis to make the key points stand out:

The first point I would like to make is to correct Mr. Johnson's understanding of our aim. We do want to bring about a reduction in on-line copyright infringement, but do not want to mate it easier for copyright owners to prosecute alleged infringers.
Rather we want to bring about a shift in consumer behavior from the unlawful to the legal, and the deterrent to back up the educational message is a means by which the copyright owners can take targeted legal action against the most serious infringers.

I think that this pretty much covers the crux of the issue. The problem that the Government's faced with is essentially a black market. There's demand for a product (media available over the web, without DRM, at a reasonable price), but no supply. When you have demand but supply is illegal, you create a black market. Another example of this is the industry for recreational drugs.

The Government's solution to this problem is to make people stop wanting the product. However, they don't seem to have made any suggestion that they might do (in my view) the sensible thing, and encourage the entertainment industry to provide the product that's being demanded. This would not only satisfy the consumers, but bring about a tidy profit for the industry from a sector who's currently giving them nothing. I'm sure industry spokespeople would say that file sharers are costing the industry money, but can you seriously expect me to believe that every person who downloads a film would have paid £8 each to see it in the cinema if they couldn't? I know people who downloaded Avatar, and yet it made $2 billion dollars in 7 weeks. Now, I bet I can find a fair few of those downloaders who'd happily pay a few quid to download the movie in decent quality, so they can watch it a couple of times on their TV. They might even buy the DVD later on so they could get the extra features. Am I missing something here?

Next, with regards to the "technical measures" (the power to disconnect or throttle bandwidth of those accused, not convicted, of filesharing):

We are all too aware of the issues surrounding wireless hi-jacking and indeed other measures such as use of proxy servers or the like to avoid detection. We have always accepted that there will be a hard core of infringers who will be hard to stop. We also realise that it is possible for these evasive activities to point towards the innocent neighbour, although in truth their is no indication that this will be anything other than the exception.

I wonder if there's any indication that this won't be anything other than the exception? I can't believe that they interviewed filesharers, and when asked "Would you use someone else's network to avoid detection so you can avoid our measures" they said no.
This paragraph sums up quite nicely that it's pretty futile trying to stop people filesharing altogether, just like it's futile trying to stop people in Iran speaking out against the election results online.

...we would accompany any technical measures with a two-stage robust appeals mechanism including an appear to a 1st Tier Tribunal, which is a judicial body. No measures will be applied without the appeals process having been exhausted.

This made me feel a bit better at first, but then I read a quote from the Open Rights Group, which I think counters that point very well:
Appeals are not the same thing as ‘due process’. They circumvent a priori requirements to test the evidence. Given that severe punishments are being suggested – and the evidence may be flawed – there is a fundamental obligation to presume innocence and test the case. Due process is more important when dealing with new fields of evidence and misdemeanour, not less.

Finally, regarding the CDPA:

The bill itself makes very clear in Clause 17 (7) that: "The power does not include the power to create or modify a criminal offense," and is strictly limited in its scope. Furthermore, this power would only be used after consultation with stakeholders and the public, and with approval of both Houses of Parliament via the "super-affirmative" procedure which involves a very high level of scrutiny.

So, it can't change any offenses, and it needs to go through both Houses, but it's obviously preferable from the Government's point of view to having to put a bill forward to amend the CDPA. I don't know enough about the super-affirmative procedure to fully understand why, but it doesn't help quell my fears.

In general, this letter makes it pretty clear to me that this bill is not in the public interest. It's in the interest of an entertainment industry whose business model is stuck in the 1990s and who are very happy about it. An industry who won't move with the times is bad for consumers, and shouldn't be protected by legislation like this. If you think your MP will vote for this bill, let them know you wont be voting for them.

So back in February I wrote a post about Twitter, and why I was joining. That was 5 months ago now, so here's the conclusions I've drawn.

Trends

When I started, you were able to search keywords and view trending topics (the words/phrases that featured the most) on a subdomain, search.twitter.com. This has since been moved to a sidebar on the main site. Terrible idea. This has generated to end of spam and pointless bandwagoning. Not only do you get people posting relentlessly to get their tag on the trending topics list, but you actually get people who write a post consisting entirely of trending phrases then saying "Follow me plz!!". If I follow someone, it's because I find them amusing, interesting or informative, not coz they post bollocks. Go away.

You also get trends that are the same post retweeted a thousand times, which makes being able to search for a trending topic useless. The intention is that you get DIFFERENT posts about the same topic, not so that you get the same post you've just read by someone else again and again. Lookout for followers of mashable on this one.

Followers/Followees

The whole point of twitter is that everything you post is publicly viewable, much like a blog. Anyone can read and respond to your tweets, and you can see anyones. This differs from Facebook who, since I joined Twitter, have tried to make themselves more like Twitter each day, where only your approved friends can see your posts. I think this is great. The only problem is that 50% of the people who have started following me are "hot girls wanting hot sex in my area," or someone who seems to be following everyone on Twitter in the hope that some will follow them back.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong here, please, but why would you want anyone to follow you unless they find you interesting, and do so of their own accord? If you want your voice to be heard, then surely you only want it heard by those to whom it will matter? Anyone like this gets an instant block from me. I don't care for follower numbers, I'd rather have 10 who want to hear what I have to say that 100 that don't.

The people I follow, on the other hand, are brilliant. In particular, I'd recommend jamescridland, Andrew_Taylor and stephenfry. I also started following a few news-type sites, but it turned out that (with the notable exception of a few like BBCClick), they just posted links to stories syndicated via RSS. If that's all you're posting, I'll just subscribe to your RSS feed, and not have your links clutter my timeline, thanks.

Direct Message/@ replies

This is actually a pretty big relief. When I saw these features I thought they'd be prime spam targets, with people posting as many usernames as they could with a link to their website and it landing in your @replies box, but no. The posts I get there are generally a good piece of conversation, a well thought-out reply to what I've posted, or a retweet of something I've posted (very flattering, btw). Top marks.

API/Clients

One of Twitter's strengths is it's API allowing you to tweet easily from anywhere (within reason). However, I find myself in the small part of the Twitter community that's somewhat hard done by. I have an old phone which can just about run a basic J2ME Twitter client, and a linux desktop. What I'd really like is a desktop widget that gets my timeline, and lets me post tweets. Hold on, what's this? A KDE Plama widget that does just that!
Then I see a post from another user that's come from Spaz, so I check it out. It looks amazing! All the stuff in my Plasma widget, plus searching, retweeting, the lot! I then find Tweetdeck and whole host of awesome-looking Twitter apps. How can I run them on Linux? Do I need Wine? No! They run on AIR, which should work on Linux with no problem. I install spaz, play with my window manager to get it behaving like a desktop widget, and hey presto.... AIR stops working. No errors, it just won't start. Great.

Never mind, someone will have written a sexy, full-featured Twitter client for Linux that doesn't need AIR, right? Err... no. It seems that AIR is the de facto platform for Twitter clients. Hohum.
The result of this is that I tend just to use the website. Not that this is a problem, it's just not as cool as it should be.

Verdict

Twitter is excellent. It's users can be idiots. I only follow the ones that aren't. We need a non-AIR linux client that's as cool as Spaz.

Well, time for a nice hefty blog post I think, as I haven't done one in a while.
I got my final results from university this week. I got a first. Everyone I know has been congratulating me, which is quite overwhelming. I'm happy, but I don't seem to be as happy for myself as everyone else is for me! It's probably becuase I was worried that I wouldn't get one, that when I did it was more a cause for relief then celebration.
Nonetheless, it's the weekend now, so party time tonight. Hells Yeah.

I've also moved into a new flat with my lovely girlfriend, and started a new job. I'm working at Taunton's College in Southampton as their in-house web developer. This involves working primarily with Moodle, the open-source Course Management System/Virtual Learning Environment. This is awesome, for 2 reasons. 1 - I get paid to code PHP, which is what I do for fun anyway. 2 - I get paid to contribute to an open source project, which is a position I've always wanted to be in. And it pays well enough for my nice new flat. And I get a local government pension. And I get to help people teach. Winner. Dream first job? I think so.

Moodle in itself is a pretty cool system, although it's suffered a bit from it's evolutionary development. The main problems are that when new and better solutions get introduced, the old ones remain. This is mainly a backwards-compatibility thing which means a lot of it is being culled for version 2 (the upcoming major release), but it means at the moment there are 3 different ways of keeping track of which javacscript files a page needs, a really flexible permission system which relies on an older "roles" system for assigning the permissions, and lang files for older components all over the place.

That said, the current "best practice" provides some really nifty plug-in APIs,and the database abstraction layer makes interacting with the database a breeze. Hopefully once version 2 hits the mirrors, the cruft will have been cut back, and the new plug-in points will make it an even more versatile platform than it already is (come on, gradebook plugins!).

The Moodle community's also brilliant, as are my Taunton's colleagues. I look forward to working with them all to make Moodle better!

I was looking at Twitter's trending topics today, and noticed the #stemcellresearch hashtag. A bit of research revealed that the tag referred to the new proposed regarding state-funded stem cell research, which is currently open for comment from the public.

Here's the rub: The NIH website has a form for people to post their views about the proposed guidelines before they're finalised and enforced. However, as you'd expect, there's opposition to the suggestion of Stem Cell research being allowed at all. The main opposition has come from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, who have essentially instructed their followers to flood the NIH with comments opposing the guidelines. According to this forum post 99% of the 6000+ comments were opposing the guidelines on this basis. Of course, the scientific community weren't keen on letting this lie.

This Message was published informing people of the situation, and requesting that they post comments in support of the research, and of some amendments to the guidelines.
It wasn't long before this found it's way onto Twitter, with the associated hashtag, thanks to Niel Gaiman, and became a trending topic.

Personally, I'm all for Stem Cell research. I don't agree with the USCCB that it constitutes government funded "killing". I don't think an embryo is a human being any more than a strand of hair is.

The real question this poses is, who will win the debate? Obviously, the comments will have to be reviewed a bit more than "Who shouted loudest?" to assess how the guidelines should be reviewed, but I'm interested to see how much sway Twitter has. Can Twitter get more people to comment than the Catholic Church? Personally, I think that people will be more concerned with re-tweeting the message than actually commenting on the guidelines, but if a cat can get half a million followers, surely the Twitter community could make a dent on 6000 comments?

Oh, and if you're on Twitter, you might want to check out What The Trend?, which keeps track of trending topics, and what they're about. It's pretty handy for explaining some of the more obscure hashtags.

So through my Twitter account today (specifically as I'm following Stephen Fry) I found out about this new law coming into effect in New Zealand. Essentially, if an Internet user is accused 3 times of copyright infringement (note the word "accused" not "found guilty of"), their ISP is obliged to sever their Internet connection. Obviously there's a lot of issues brought up be this - copyright and filesharing in general, NZ's relationship with the US and whether this is a reaction to international pressures, but those are discussions for other places and times. The issue here is assumption of guilt and enforcing punishment based on accusation, not on trial. It's an outrage. The "blackout" campaign has been started to raise awareness of the travesty. All it involves is changing your avatars etc. to a completely black image until the law comes into force on 23rd of Feb. Of course, the NZ government aren't going to repeal any laws because of a few black avatars, but the more people who know this is going on, the better.

Further to my modern web experimentation, I took the step to join Digg, the social bookmarking site. I don't use non-social bookmarking so I've never seen the point before, but a lot of the sites I visit have a "Digg This" button so I'll give it a go.

So, I've decided to get myself to grips with some modern webby stuff. I'd call it "Web 2.0" but that's a rubbish term. As such, I've now subscribed to a load of RSS feeds and signed up to Twitter. I've also actually decided to start writing stuff in my blog, rather than just having it as an empty page.
This was all prompted by a presentation at university during one of my web design lessons from the MD of a web design company called ClickFire, who recommended we get involved in as much of this stuff as we can to "keep our finger on the pulse of the industry", so to speak.

My thoughts so far:

RSS is good. I used it many moons ago when I still used Windows and had an RSS reader plugin for Trillian. I've subscribed to Wired and Slashdot which were the 2 main feeds I read then, along with various other computer related stuff, Linuxy stuff and general news. It's certainly helped me keep up-to-date with the latest and greatest from the computer industry.

Twitter, I'm not sure about yet. My girlfriend said "isn't that a new Facebook type thing?" so I tried to explain it to her. She understood what it was but said she didn't get why people care what you're doing every 10 minutes. I tend to agree with her to the most extent. Besides following Stephen Fry's daily antics, there's not a huge amount I've gotten out of it as of yet, and my only follower is 10 Downing Street, who only added me because I added them. All the RSS is saying that Twitter is on the tipping point of becoming mainstream, but we'll wait and see. All I know is that I waited about as long as I did after hearing about Twitter before joining it as I did with Facebook. When I joined Facebook, about 60% of my friends where on there. None of my friends are on Twitter.

So here's to my Web 2.0 adventure. I'll keep you posted.