Articles on AI governance, cybersecurity and systems architecture.
Wireshark 1.0 shipped on 31 March 2008. The architecture weighs more than the version number: over a thousand protocol parsers reading hostile input, and the privilege separation that contains the damage.
Read morePostgreSQL 8.3, released on 4 February 2008, brings full-text search and HOT updates into the core. A technical note on MVCC, GIN/GiST indexes, and what it means for a database to absorb functions previously left to external modules.
Read moreMonths after GPLv3 and on the eve of Linux Day, a technical note on licences, proliferation and compatibility: what it now means to talk about free knowledge.
Read moreDrools 4.0 (July 2007) as an execution engine for clinical logic: the Rete algorithm, a working memory of POJOs and the unresolved data-binding problem, set against Arden Syntax and GELLO.
Read moreOn 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.
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