Patenting Open Source Software
dp619 writes "The tactic of patenting open source software to guard against patent trolls and the weaponization of corporate patent portfolios is gaining momentum in the FOSS community. Organizations including the Open Innovation Network, Google and Red Hat have built defensive patent portfolios (the latter two are defending their product lines). This approach has limitations. Penn State law professor Clark Asay writes in an Outercurve Foundation blog examining the trend, 'Patenting FOSS may help in some cases, but the nature of FOSS development itself may mean that patenting some collaboratively developed inventions is inherently more difficult, if not impossible, in many others. Consequently, strategies for mitigating patent risk that rely on FOSS communities patenting their technologies include inherent limitations. It's not entirely clear how best to reform patent law in order to better reconcile it with alternative models of innovation. But in the meantime, FOSS still presents certain ...
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clark
community
development
foss
foundation
google
innovation
invention
limitations
organization
outercurve
penn
red hat
technology
weaponization
Why CrunchGov Is Endorsing Eric Garcetti For Mayor Of LA
“Los Angeles is an underachieving city,” wrote the Los Angeles Times in its 2013 mayoral endorsement. ”The candidate with the most potential to rise to the occasion and lead Los Angeles out of its current malaise and into a more sustainable and confident future is Eric Garcetti.” An overwhelming number of startup founders seem to agree that Garcetti is the best candidate to bring out the best in Silicon Valley’s sister city to the south. “Eric is by far the best candidate for Los Angeles, and has demonstrated a clear plan to grow jobs & our local economy. The proof is in his record, he spearheaded an innovative partnership with our company to provide LA business owners/operators the simplest way to get business licenses,” Jason Nazar, founder and CEO of Docstoc, told us in an email. “He has the overwhelming endorsement of our tech community, and he’s someone I know will work tirelessly to make this the best city for every small business.” Given the strong desire by L.A.’s ...
angelenos
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candidacy
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endorsement
eric
garcetti
government
innovation
jason
lee
los angeles
mayor
mission
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occasion
office
partnership
petition
policy
proposition
regulations
san francisco
silicon valley
techcrunch
technology
Georgia Tech and Udacity Partner for Online M.S. in Computer Science
Georgia Tech and Udacity — the online courseware project led by Sebastian Thrun — have announced a plan to offer an accredited M.S. Computer Science program online. The two organizations are also working with AT&T. This is the first time a major university has made an actual degree available solely through the MOOC format. Getting a degree in this manner is going to be much cheaper than a traditional degree: "... students also will pay a fraction of the cost of traditional on-campus master’s programs; total tuition for the program is initially expected to be below $7,000." U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said, "Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have quickly become one of the most significant catalysts of innovation in higher education. As parents know all too well, America urgently needs new ideas about how to make higher education accessible and affordable. This new collaboration between Georgia Tech, AT&T and Udacity, and the application of the MOOC concept to advanced-degree ...
america
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collaboration
conversation
duncan
education
fraction
georgia
innovation
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mooc
moocs
organization
science
sebastian thrun
secretary
technology
tuition
udacity
united states
university
How A Car Crash Changed Vishal Sikka And The Direction Of SAP
It’s a rare fall rainy day in Palo Alto and SAP Executive Board Member Dr. Vishal Sikka is as sick as a dog. It’s less than a week until SAP Sapphire in Madrid and the community around him are like a worrying family. I had told them that it is okay. I could make the trip another time. But they were insistent I make the trip. Fast forward to May. It has been several months since that cold rainy week in Palo Alto. We’re on the eve of the next Sapphire conference in Orlando this week. Last week, Plattner and Sikka held a press conference, announcing the new HANA Enterprise Cloud. HANA is an in-memory database that Sikka and Plattner developed with a team of about a dozen people around the world. SAP has built four data centers for HANA — two in Europe and two in the United States. It would not be an overstatement to say that HANA is SAP’s future, the first technology in a long time from the German giant that is getting buzz for what it can do. It potentially puts the company into ...
business
combination
community
conference
credibility
curiosity
direction
europe
german
hana
humanists
innovation
jon
legacy
madrid
orlando
overstatement
palo alto
passion
plattner
question
reed
sap
sapphire
service
sikka
technology
united states
vishal
Iterations: Snoopify, The Greatest Mobile Photobombing App Of All Time
“What are the cool new apps you’ve seen lately?” To this oft heard question, lately, there have been lots of answers. So, mobile is indeed exciting and moving fast. And, just recently, a fun new app came out that instantly captured my attention -- no, it’s not from a Stanford dropout or from the "innovation lab" of a large technology company. No. It’s from Snoop Dogg -- excuse me -- Snoop Lion. Yes, that’s right, the same artist so many of you grew up with. He’s diversified his musical career into the business of his own branded apparel, a television show, and now he invades the greatest consumer stage of our times -- our mobile phones. And, what’s more impressive is just how he did it -- the genius to observe and iterate, to pull out the nuggets of lessons we have learned and package it together with marketing that’s both fun, easy, and devilishly derivative yet simultaneously novel.
artist
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business
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innovation
iteration
lion
photobombing
question
snoop
snoopify
stanford
technology
television
yes