noirExtreme

from Slashdot:

The market for open source developers seems to be heating up. Asterisk, Gnome, Horde, and Mozilla all have bounties for desired features. Recently, Lime Wire updated its wish list to include bounties on open source development work! Similarly, i2p also released a bounty list. Is it time to consider quitting my day job to do open source development full time?

I have thought about this many times without ever being able to decide whether it was good news or not.
On the one hand it is a way for non-developer users to influence development in a certain direction and get their requirements covered. On the other hand it may lead to a deterioration of the quality of the code as developers rush the work an favour quick and dirty fixes over proper integration. And what would happen if a project lead refuses to integrate a contribution to which a bounty is attached because the quality of the code is poor?

I just discovered a funny curiosity in Firefox.

I got distracted as I was typing an URL in the address bar of Firefox and mistakenly typed twice the protocol identifier (http://) before the address of the site I wanted to visit. To my immense surprise, when I pressed enter I didn't see the familiar page I expected but the most unexpected home page of all...

If you are using Firefox, just click http://http://www.mozilla.org and see for yourself...

Note for the others: the unfortunate Firefox user is simply taken straight to Microsoft's home page! It works on Windows and Linux.

No conspiracy here though, it works with any URL, not just mozilla.org.

This blog I was reading is supposedly on the phenomenon of Groupthink in Blogging but it doesn't really make any point (well I guess that is why it is called "Part I"...).
The interesting bit is that the quote from James Surowiecki that it contains is probably more telling when transposed from this context to that of Open Source:

BlogThink/GroupThink (or the Ignorance of Crowds): Part I
[...][James] Surowiecki dissects a number of studies which all seem to show that groups - when organized and led correctly - almost always outhink the best individual performers. But not all distributed groups are alike, and the benefits of collective wisdom come to play only when the following conditions exist:

• independence (each group member has to believe he or she can contribute)
• diversity (different types of group members -- different types of intelligence, personality, style, etc.)
• decentralization (less emphasis on central authority, more emphasis on individual accountability)
• aggregation (a system for processing, synthesizing all the contributions).

How does this apply to the blogger community?[...]
Source: Always-On

I don't know how it applies to the blogger community but these attributes describe an emerging form of organisation that is already delivering compelling results when applied to Open Source software development and that will give birth to new forms of business organisations more flexible, more agile and more efficient than today's corporation but —more importantly— more respectful of people's personal styles.

I can only assume that it is desperation that pushed Microsoft to come up with yet another ridiculous initiative to try and resist the pressure they receive from Open Source on all fronts.

In an effort to fend off the growing threat of governments considering open source software due to continued security flaws in Windows, Microsoft has launched a new initiative to keep governmental organizations in the loop. Through its Security Cooperation Program (SCP), Microsoft will provide information on vulnerabilities not yet available to the public.
Source: BetaNews

While everybody will agree that early notification of vulnerabilities is critical for administrators to secure their systems, any government signing up for this would only encourage Microsoft to hold back some vital security information from the public simply to justify the existence and demonstrate the value of this Security Cooperation Program. Essentially Microsoft is saying "let's be friends and I'll be open with you".
Can anybody explain how it can possibly beat the Open Source philosophy: "regardless of whether you are my friend or not, I will be fully open with you"?

And, as spiffyjeff points out in a comment to the article, it is likely that "open source software has critical updates sooner that MS would be able to inform government about problems" anyway.

Yesterday the JURI has decided to restart the whole process from scratch. The war is not over yet but it is a major step in the right direction.

The Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (JURI) has decided with a large majority to ask the Commission for a renewed referral of the software patents directive. With only two or three votes against and one abstention, the resolution had overwhelming support from the committee, and all-party backing.
Source: Groklaw.net

Now is a great time to remember that this coming Friday February 2 the European Parliament's committee on legal affairs is set to pass a law that would legalise software patents. Bruce Perens (Open Source Initiative) just wrote a great overview:

The Open Source Conundrum
The latest tactic in the software patenting battle is the granting of patent rights to open-source developers. But are the grants really the equivalent of wolves in sheep's clothing?

That's not the only movement on the patent front. The possible approval of a software patenting measure in Europe this Wednesday could bring a barrage of lawsuits on both sides of the Atlantic, affecting proprietary software as well as the open-source community.
Source: CNet News.com