Articles on AI governance, cybersecurity and systems architecture.
On 29 June 2007 the FSF published version 3 of the GNU GPL. Anti-tivoization, an explicit patent grant and Apache 2.0 compatibility redraw the boundary of copyleft, while the Linux kernel stays on v2.
Read moreAs the FP6 MindRACES project closes, a technical look at the open-source AKIRA framework: a daemon pandemonium, an energy model and schemas for anticipatory agents.
Read moreGlobus Toolkit 4 gives state to stateless web services with WSRF and delegates credentials with X.509 proxy certificates (RFC 3820). How the open-source grid middleware reuses existing standards instead of reinventing them.
Read moreTechnical notes on how a web portal plugs into the X.509 authentication of a computing grid, between Grid Security Infrastructure, RFC 3820 proxy certificates and accredited certification authorities.
Read moreWorking on free software, you sell the services around the code, not the licence. A technical note on the subscription model and the state of licensing at the close of 2006.
Read moreWith OpenCV 1.0 and LIBSVM the defect-detection pipeline on a production line becomes reproducible outside the lab: features, classifiers, and the point where precision is actually lost.
Read moreArden Syntax 2.5 separates clinical logic from the chart's application code, yet leaves access to local data inside non-standardised curly braces. GELLO, approved by HL7 in 2005, tries to close that gap by tying expressions to the RIM.
Read moreThe first Maker Faire (San Mateo, 22-23 April 2006) brings to the fair projects whose value lies in reproducible documentation, not in the specimen on display. Technical notes on licences, schematics and the reproducibility of open hardware.
Read moreSince June 2005 there has been a standard Java API for reading from and writing to a content repository. What changes for open-source document management, and why repository portability weighs more than any single product.
Read moreHow a schema-based cognitive architecture turns into a concurrency problem: parallel threads, activation energy and resource allocation among competing units, from Selfridge's Pandemonium to C++ implementations.
Read moreShipping training material offline on a CD-ROM forces a format decision: a proprietary authoring tool tied to one platform, or XHTML/CSS files read locally by a browser. The second path outlives the vendor.
Read moreAt the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, an ATmega8 board is going around, aimed at people who are not engineers: published schematics, the AVR toolchain hidden behind setup() and loop(), a parts cost under thirty euros. Technical notes by Stefano Noferi.
Read moreThe directive of 19 December 2003 requires Italian public bodies to assess open source software and open data formats. Technical notes on how a Province portal is built today on a free stack.
Read moregit keeps a project's history as a graph of immutable objects, each named by its own SHA-1. What that changes for integrity, branches and distributed work, and where the weak point sits.
Read morepapiNet and ebXML (ISO/TS 15000) give B2B exchanges in the paper supply chain a shared vocabulary. Technical notes on schemas, messaging and transport, from the point of view of someone building portals for the sector.
Read moreAs of a few days ago there is an association of Zope and Plone users in Italy. I note why a Python-based server stack needs local coordination, and which technical knots make it hard to sustain without a structured community.
Read moreAn industrial research project on a CMS can prototype on one Open Source stack and ship the definitive platform on another. When the two phases diverge, the verifiable legacy is the analysis and the modular design, more than the prototype's code.
Read moreAbove ITK and VTK there is a missing layer: software a clinician can actually open and use. 3D Slicer occupies that layer, and the NA-MIC grant of September 2004 has just changed how it is built.
Read moreSince 2002 MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms has been replicating a small group of computer-controlled machines — roughly 20,000 dollars of equipment — outside the campus, in Costa Rica, India, Norway and Boston. Technical notes on the model, the software and the limits, as of mid-2004.
Read moreThe proposed European directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions reopens a question that Article 52 of the European Patent Convention had already bounded. A technical reading of the text, the Parliament's amendments, and what is at stake for those who write software.
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