Licenses in open software have a double purpose: set conditions of use for end users and reflect the values of the community of developers working on open source model.
IE dropped below 60% — 59.79% to be precise. 59.79% sounds like a lot, but you need to remember that IE comes pre-installed on most computers sold in the world.
So, a great percentage of that 40.21% who doesn’t use explorer are people who had to actively do something (see: download another browser and install it) to give IE the boot.
It will be hard for IE to get that market share back. The trend is not looking good. Even if the other browsers magically started declining, IE has another problem: the mobile world.
I have only ever met one person in my life with a Windows Mobile phone, and they hated using it.
We did it for the browser, and it was quite a challenge. We did it with hard work, advocacy, sweat. We did it for the browser… and we can do the same for the desktop world as a whole.
No, I don't agree that Internet Explorer is dead. However, there has been a significant progress in the adoption of alternative browsers, which is a healthy way to avoid a monopoly in browsers, which are the gate to internet for end users.
The decline in the use of IE thanks to the participation of open source browsers is acknowledged here.
As part of our ongoing effort to develop an open platform for WhiteHouse.gov, we're releasing some of the custom code we've developed. This code is available for anyone to review, use, or modify. We're excited to see how developers across the world put our work to good use in their own applications.
With a few deft maneuvers, Facebook is aiming to make itself the center of the internet, the central repository and publisher of what users like and do online.
Facebook’s main lever to get all this data funneled to them is a simple “I Like” button, which websites can embed on their pages with very little effort.
Facebook built much of this easy-to-use system on “open” standards, as WebMonkey’s Michael Calore reports, even as it sucks the data into a closed community. But those standards are used almost exclusively by Facebook, and ignore the work that’s been done by others to create universally understandable meta-data
You can opt out of some of this through Facebook’s increasingly arcane privacy settings, though most won’t do anything to stop Facebook’s relentless push to make people’s profiles public.
So, we ask what is code? Not
expecting to find answers, but rather to raise questions. To survey and
map realms that are yet to come (AO:5). The key for us lies in code's connectivity,
it is a semiotic-chain, rhizomatic (rather like a non-hierarchical network
of nodes) and hence our map must allow for it to be interconnected
from anything to anything.
code is pure
concept instantiated into the languages of machines. Coding is the art of
forming, inventing and fabricating structures based on these languages. Structures
that constrain use as well as free. The coder is the friend of the
code, the potentiality of the code, not merely forming, inventing
and fabricating code but also desiring. The electric hymn book
that Happolati invented. With electric letters that shine in the dark?
People who own land and have invested on having properties on Second Life have filed a demand against Linden Lab.
An interesting study case that illustrate how online issues can have deep impact on offline matters.
Google shows in this maps the requests that different governments have done to remove contents from their services, including the Australian government.
A more than respectable effort on transparency.
The strong view from parents was that the government's proposal goes too far and would take away their freedom of choice around what information they and their children can access.
Google Australia says here that the mandatory internet filtering is too wide and they believe that the filtering not only would slow user access speeds, but also questions the legitimacy of the measure because of the associated restrictions on access to information
Developers are not thrilled with Apple's new rules. The restrictions imposed affect the work of developers like Jack Freeman, who here declares himself as a "former loyal developer"
The Mexican government approved a law that creates a national registry of mobile phone users, forcing people to provide their private information to associate mobile numbers with a registrated customer. More than 30m citizens are facing the possibility of service disruption if they don't comply with the forced registration.
As a response to lobbying from entertainment industry, the UK has become the second country to approve laws to punish piracy, where offenders can face temporary suspensions of their internet accounts
Court decision suggests that American internet operators are not forced to maintain net neutrality. The sentence implies that FCC has no authority to demand from internet providers a neutral treatment of the traffic that they manage on their networks
Digital Due Process is the name of a new coalition composed among other companies by Google, Microsoft and AT&T advocationg for a new legislation to strenght online privacy laws to prevent government access to private digital information in the US
Google's position about internet filtering on China reveals the need for internet companies to develop their own foreign policies. Clay Shirky is interviewed on the topic and he shares his view about how the social effects of internet and how different are the mentalities behind microsoft and google