Issuing a position to the upcoming EU consultation on RFID

The European Commission is soon to start a consultation on RFID ( http://www.rfidconsultation.eu/docs/ficheiros/JdS_RevGS.pdf) through 'your voice in Europe'. We proposed the idea of coming up with an ObjectWeb position to contribute to this consultation. Such document may typically be a four-page paper.

We are not starting from scratch.

You will find attached a report from a working group run in the framework of a study from the French Ministry of Industry. This document (in French) covers many aspects that, to me, seem fairly well aligned with ObjectWeb's (emerging) position. During the first 2006 architecture meeting, Humberto Moran (OSI) proposed to work along the line of 'privacy friendliness'. I think this is to be taken into account too.

DADVSI Law to be Voted Tommorrow

The French government has been pushing for the adoption of a law (known as DADVSI) that may significantly increase the level of legal risk for open source projects and communities based in France. The press has started to echo this kind of concerns, including wrt ObjectWeb's situation:

http://www.theserverside.com/tss?service=direct/0/PostNewsReply/postReply&sp=l39953&sp=F&sp=l206387

ObjectWeb Chairman Jean-Pierre Laisné sent a few weeks ago an open letter to all senators, expressing our concerns. Amongst others, we ask the question of keeping ObjectWeb headquartered in France, or moving to another - more 'open source friendly' country.

Gartner OSS Summit, Barcelona

In Barcelona only for 1 day. Attended two presentations: one from M. Felix (Amadeus) about their use of open source, the other from Mark Driver (Gartner) about OSS Business Models. Sounds like 2005 was a transition year and today, visions on OSS business models tend to converge. There's definitely no one business model for open source. According to Mark, all other facts being mitigated, close source will not gain over open source. All other things equal, close source will never win. He lists 7 models for vendors: Consultancy, Service & Support, Packaging, Stack Integration, Patronage (aka 'Loss Leader'), Extend & Enhance (aka 'Embedded'). Jean-Pierre Laisné sat in a panel this morning.

ObjectWeb Architecture meeting, Q2-06

The quarterly meeting was in Lille this quarter - hot weather, by the way, I was not expecting that! Hot presentations too, with a first talk by Peter Andersen about PalCom. Peter was so kind as to schedule his trip to Lille only 4 days in advance when we confirmed we had a slot for him. The project aims to research and develop a new perspective on ambient computing denoted palpable computing. This sounds well aligned with ObjectWeb's scope and we feel there may be opportunities to work together.

Impressive presentation by representatives of Orientware who presented the projects they work on, including that at ObjectWeb: PKU-AS, XService, ISTX, OrientwareCCM. I would say they talked of so much technology I just can't give an account of it.

Another day well spent!

OSS2006, Como, Italy

It's definitely not a pain to go to Como (Italy) for a conference. Although I leave all year surrounded by mountains (Grenoble), I must admit Como has a very special atmosphere, due to the steep mountains around, the lake, villas, warm weather, vegetation and.. Italian pasta! The OSS2006 convention in addition brought excellent papers. I want to highlight here the paper from CALIBRE team about business models. It really brings new answers to the question of open source business models, with the concept of "whole product" and, by the way, gives good insight on the value proposition that ObjectWeb may offer to its members.
Also speznt some time sitting in a panel with Stefano de Panfilis and Brian Fitzgerald. Interestingly enough, Brian came up with this concept of OSS 2.0 - which is roughly what I call "3rd generation of open source". It seems that we are converging here - except for the version number...
This trip to Como and OSS2006 definitely was time well spent!