Proposed License Amendment to Avoid Content Ghettos in the Commons

The issue of license interoperability is an important one for those involved in creating "free" content. There exists and interoperability issue that arises in the context of content licensed under a Creative Commons license and content licensed under other "free" licenses. As many of these licenses are now crafted, there is no way for creativity to be shared among these licenses, even if the underlying freedoms guaranteed by the licenses are the same.

Creative Commons is now considering a proposal designed to "avoid content ghettos". They have pledged to work "with as many representatives from the free culture movement as we can to build this federation offree licenses".

http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5701

Microsoft to compete with ODF

Seeing that a closed file format isn't going to win market share and seemingly in response to the Open Document Format, Microsoft has announced that it will release its own "Open XML" formats under a non-free license which it calls 'open', rather than taking the technologically much simpler path of supporting their customers' need to interoperate with OpenOffice.org's ODF format. Microsoft intends to submit its standard to the ISO, apparently to compete with ODF for the creation of an ISO standard for document files. This is despite the fact that ODF has already been in the standardization process for some time, and lacks the patent problems of "Open XML".

http://fsdaily.com/article.pl?sid=05/11/23/0749203

Linux powers my new venture

I have started a new web site called The Free Press Release Center and of course it is powered by Linux with PHP, MySQL and of course Apache (this combination is often called LAMP).

FPRC is a free Internet based news and press release distribution service for businesses of all sizes. We are aiming to raise the standard for Internet news distribution.

Press release submission is free and each press release is sorted according to category and keyword. To help you in submiting your press communication we have a sample press release as well as a how to write a press release section.

But the great part about FPRC is the keyword linking. With each press release the you can choose a keyword and a URL (different to your main site URL) which will appear as a link (using the keyword as the anchor text) in your press release. This gives you free links to your site using the anchor text of your choice. Plus it is in a natural context, i.e. the text of their release. To understand this more read the press release and SEO section on the web site.

There is also a PRO upgrade which gives you 3 keywords and URLs and your press release remains permanently in the system. Other benefits of a PRO upgrade are: your press release will remain in our system permanently, after the upgrade you will have access to add your company to our business directory and you can distribute your press release in up to 5 other related industries.

Thanks,

THP

How to shop for Web hosting

Hi,

I have had another article published by the NewsForge people this time on IT Managers Journal. It is called How to shop for Web hosting but its working title was "How to read Linux hosting adverts".

The article is a top level analysis of Linux hosting including shared hosting, Virtual private servers and dedicated hosting.

Enjoy!

THP.

Patent Commons established to defend free software

The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) has established a site for
registering pledges on open source technologies from companies such
as Red Hat, Sun, and IBM. The patent commons site is divided into two
main areas: one for developers, with detailed resources available on
patent commitments, termination provisions, and other guidance, and
the other, dedicated to a library of patents and broader patent
portfolio claims, along with pledges from the companies which hold
these patents. Site maintainers hope it will help to dispel the angst
that open source developers have had in the present software patent
environment.