Bayosphere

We’ve had a DNS problem today, the result of which was that this site was unvailable for some hours. If you see this, it’s probably been repaired.

Sorry about that.

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Bruce Perens: SCO’s 10K. SCO officers have loudly and repeatedly stated that they own the Unix intellectual property. Those statements were prevarications.

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Bill Moyers: On Candor in Journalism. Every Memorial Day I think about what these men did and what we owe them. They didn’t go through hell so Kenny Boy Lay could betray his investors and workers at Enron, or for a political system built on legal bribery. It wasn’t for corporate tax havens in Bermuda, or an economic system driven by the law of the jungle, or so a handful of media buccaneers could turn the public airwaves into private sewers.

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Back at BlogTalk in Vienna. The wireless network was flaky yesterday afternoon. We’ll see how things work today.

David Weinberger lists lotsa other BlogTalk blogs here.

Running notes to follow:

Rebecca Blood launches the second day keynote. She’s been doing the blogging thing longer than most, and has written one of the more well-known books on the subject.

Blogs are “participatory media,” she says, a way around established outlets. Bloggers can sift through many more sources, pulling together what may be a more accurate picture than traditional media can offer. No one expects objectivity or fairness in blogs.

Lots of varied information, but what’s “commonly known” is shrinking. It’s not just specialized knowledge, but news about specific events.

Most people got their news from just a few sources, but the web gives more choices, she says (actually most still get news from just a few sources).

Democracy threatened? Fair question. “Confirmation bias” leads people to read what confirms their own biases. Danger of group-think is real.

Henry Copeland’s BlogAds is an important experiment in the business model of tomorrow. His BlogTalk paper is currently atop that page.

He realized early that blogs were getting better traffic than newspapers’ online sites.

Self-publishing will swamp traditional publishing, and advertisers will move in the direction of that new media universe, he says. Blogs can offer what advertisers want.

He shows charts of Glenn Reynolds’ blog and Craig’s List, where the big numbers are indeed impressive. A lot of “new media real estate being created daily,” he says.

Advertisers have huge new markets to look at — too many outlets. We need new ways to organize media, Copeland says.

One is “passion” — a new dimension of media. Cites Andrew Sullivan’s money raising from readers, etc.

Hipness means little clubs that anyone can aspire to join and are visible to everyone. It’s easier to become a member of an online community than a journalist for the New York Times.

“Hubness” — combines network hub notion with hipness and business. Degrees of separation, actually networks. If you’re a hub, you are a big deal.

Advertisers need to understand this. But there are hundreds of niches, and you have to target things. Such as a movie company targeting movie blogs. It’s access to the network economy.

Phil Wolff wants to talk bullshit. Okay…

Points:

Blogs will merge with other media. He cites Wikis, mobile blogging, IM projects with blogs and much more. Danger HipTop does blogging. Game industry could get this, but posting to blogs various reports on games. Today’s skills may be insufficient; new learning required to express ourselves.

There will be non-human bloggers. Increasingly the walls can talk; will report back to us. Data from gadgets, toys, TV, etc. Shows TiVo information, equates to blog. Software and devices, with contact to real world, will inform us about things we need to know. Workplace: enterprise tools will be integrated to create RSS feeds etc. Tools report back to manufacturing people, cars to dealers.

We’ll blog things we don’t blog today. Blog++, voice to chorus. We don’t have a single voice. We are a chorus because our moods and immediate interests change.

Gabriela Avram is working on a “Diglit” blog project, a digital literacy project she calls a knowledge log. It has many contributors, but one of the key aspects is keeping an organization diary.

Early model was their own HTML, building from scratch. Then moved to blogging tools. Started in Romanian, moved to English.

Jeremy Cherfas and his colleagues at the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute are doing extraordinary, vital work. They’ve created “>this blog for marketing and media awareness.

He notes that the site’s home page is a huge download, followed by pages that are full of frames. There was a page for news releases, but it was difficult.

Hence the result: “I came to a conclusion that a blog was the answer.” (Check out the two sites and you’ll see which one works.)

The IT department was against it. So with a colleague they created a blog, and osted first comments. He notes “the feeling of success” — like “discovering word processing all over again.”

Entertaining but all-too-common story of how he dealt with IT department, which found the project “not wonderful.” He had to get permission to continue hosting the blog on his friend’s server.

What went right, he says, is that he had a prepared mind; a rogue nation view; friendly colleagues; rapid response; and they got the word out.

What went wrong: Old librarian mentality; unfriendly colleagues; resistance to novelty and empowerment.

Ulrich Van Stipriaan says it all sounds familiar. He’s trying to get out the word about the great science at the technical university in Dresden. Blogs are part of the mix.

If everyone in the Civil Engineering were to write something once in a while, he’d have what he needed. Most ignored his request. But one saw the value and encouraged it.

The blog isn’t getting much in the way of comments, he says, but it’s getting more support among faculty. He continues to send emails asking for support.

Trials and tribulations of software…found Blogger easy. This is important, he notes, because people have to find personal publishing easy enough or they won’t do it. “I don’t want to be a technician, I want to be a writer.”

Blog not published on university server. Wants simple software; didn’t want academic discussion of pros and cons at the beginning.

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I’m on my way to Vienna for the BlogTalk conference, where I’m speaking (and hope to do a lot of interviews for my book).

The hotel may be flaky for connections, so I may not update much for a day or two.

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So, whoopie, WorldCom Agrees to Pay $500 Million, the Washington Post reports. But the company still gets big federal contracts. It gets to use the bankruptcy courts to slide out of fraud-caused debts that should have put it into liquidation, not reorganization. Senior executives remain on the street.

It’s a strange world.

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A new brand of journalism is taking shape in South Korea, and it may be the killer app for a new age. It’s called OhmyNews, and after a visit I’m just dazzled.

More in my Sunday column.

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I got a some hate mail over last Sunday’s column on the FTC’s suit against Rambus and Unocal. I’m posting some of the letters on this page, and plan to add more later.

Some people didn’t leave their names, others asked for anonymity and some sent identical letters, suggesting an orchestrated campaign is at work somewhere. Note: I will not post letters containing gratituitous personal attacks.

Rambus did nothing that Microsoft, Intel, and AMD haven’t done, are doing, and will continue to do. I could go on about GM, Ford, BMW, Toyota, ahh, I run out of typing time. These companies aren’t the problem, nor is the FTC. The problem is lawyers. To damned many of them. I expect, any time now, a lawsuit against Dell, (or any other PC maker), because a serial killer used the Internet to track down a victim. Take it to a logical conclusion, let us sue Kingston or Rambus for making the RAM, and Intel for making the processor. Not Microsoft, we already have seen how good their lawyers are.

see, this is where you need to do some investigating. Our u/s is that what was used by the MMs in the SDRAM spec were critical features from the RMBS RDRAM design. Features that the MMs knew about thru the NDA’s RMBS presented to the MMs in trying to get RMBS to adopt their WHOLE design.

instead, it appears the MMs cherry picked the critical features from RDRAM needed to make SDRAM work. So with that as a starting point, WHO is wrong here?

last, under our patent laws, RMBS has the right to amend their original patent to cover ONLY what was presented in the original patent. That according to the CAFC allowed RMBS to do what it did LEGALLY.

now whats interesting in your articles, you don’t challenge the MMs actions regarding the situation they forced RMBS into. Maybe instead of just pushing the FTCs allegations into the media and then justifying them, you could do a little digging into just WHY RMBS did what it did. WHY don’t you ask the MMs to show us what alternate solution they would have used to make SDRAM? But something that was all THEIR idea, not using cherry picked designs..

Think thats what they call that fair and balanced reporting…

I think you are still missing the story of Rambus’ IP and the key events
in this matter. Rambus invented the IP in question used in the SDRAM
standard and JEDEC members learned of these Rambus inventions through
NDA’s they had with Rambus long before Rambus joined JEDEC. Under NDA,
Rambus taught the DRAM industry this very valuable technology, and the
memory manufactures incorporated it into the SDRAM standard developed by
JEDEC. Rambus was neither a presenter at JEDEC nor did they ever vote
on any measure while a member of JEDEC; they met their disclosure duty
to JEDEC as judged by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (see
their 1/29/03 ruling). Rambus “hoodwinked” no one. Rambus did not “end
up with key intellectual property;” they owned it from the get-go.
Rambus amended their patents to add claims to cover SDRAM. This is
totally legal and is even encouraged by the US Patent Office.
Seven of the 10 DRAM manufactures agree with the above and are paying
royalties to Rambus on SDRAM. The three who are not, Infineon, Hynix,
and Micron are desperate and are doing their best to evade paying
royalties. It’s as simple as that.

I would like for you to consider a different
viewpoint on Rambus’ ethics. Rambus initially joined
JEDEC with the intent of promoting RDRAM as the next
JEDEC memory standard. They were invited by one of the
DRAM manufacturers.

At this point in time, they had shared the RDRAM
inventions with all of the major DRAM vendors and had
non-disclosure agreements with all of them. All of
these companies were cognizant of Rambus technology
and were well aware of the fact that they were
incorporating some of this technology into the SDRAM
standard. Some of them expected to pay royalties to
Rambus and are currently doing so. Others (primarily
Micron and Infineon) believed that they could bully
Rambus in the courts into giving up their IP and are
currently trying to do so.

Rambus was faced with an ethical dilemma during their
tenure with JEDEC. They, and all of the DRAM
manufacturers were aware that the SDRAM spec would
utilize Rambus IP. Rambus had been asked by the USPTO
to divide their original patent into a number of
separate inventions and were in the process of doing
this. One of the US patent laws states that, if a
patent claim is common knowledge prior to being
issued, it is invalid so they could not reveal their
intent to file these claims or they would lose them.
In addition, they were, as you pointed out “swimming
with sharks” and some of these sharks (particularly
Micron) would have done everything in their power to
subvert the patent process and deny Rambus the rights
to their IP if Rambus had revealed their intentions.

So, what would you suggest that Rambus do in this
situation in order to be “ethical”. I don’t see how
they could have done anything much differently without
totally giving away their technology. The one thing
that they could have done was resign from JEDEC when
it became obvious that JEDEC was not going to adopt
RDRAM (about a year before their actual resignation)
but this would not have changed the situation in any
significant way.

Rambus, did not, however, just “end up” with IP
covering SDRAM as you stated in your article. The IP
in the Rambus patents was always theirs and was built
into the SDRAM specs by people who were well aware of
what they were doing. Rambus did not change their
inventions after the fact, they simply clarified them
at the request of the USPTO.

But you are so, so wrong here. JEDEC, like all standards bodies, is now
required to consider — and not reject out of hand — patented technology as
part of its standards. In this case, Rambus had developed a new type of
memory (first generation RDRAM) and was invited to join JEDEC by what we now
know are scheming DRAM manufacturers. When Rambus realized the plan was not
to perhaps standardize on RDRAM or to incorporate features of it openly with
the allowance of a reasonable and nondiscriminatory royalty, but to quietly
rip off those features giving Rambus no credit of royalties, they tried to
protec themselves. Obviously it was a snake pit of interests, but the FTC
action cannot show any harm to consumers, and comes down on the player least
guilty of misleading actions, not ot mention the smallest and
least-sophisticated at the time.

Amusingly the FTC has accused other standards bodies of anitcompetitive
behavior when they refuse to include patented technology as part of a
standard — in one case, keeping an innovative toilet valve out of a
standard to protect manufacturers of toilet valves from competition.

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Jim Fruchterman: Throwing down the gauntlet to Silicon Valley. But now is not the time to lower our aspirations. We can and must do more with less. That’s why it’s especially important that technologists and philanthropists refocus on using technology to change the world. The best way to do this is with a powerful model that we don’t use nearly enough: social enterprise. Combining technology with social enterprise provides immense leverage for good.

The pointer for this came from Marc Levine, who’s working on the interesting Martus Human Rights Bulletin System, a cross-platform system for safely collecting and saving information about human-rights abuses around the world. Martus is, in turn, affiliated with Benetech, an organization that deserves wider notice.

Kudos.

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The ever-amazing Dave Sifry just announced a Technorati API 0.9. Technorati is rapidly becoming the early-warning system for the blogosphere’s most interesting news. This can add to the wealth of possibilities.

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