depth first search

Given today’s news, a rule of thumb for developers. All platform dependencies are subject to rents.

I was reading about Kiln recently and wondering how something built on top of Mercurial (which is GPLv2) could have a proprietary license. Turns out the GPLv2 FAQ has the answer: Can I release a non-free program that’s designed to load a GPL-covered plug-in?It depends on how the program invokes its plug-ins. If the program [...]

The buzz on the Internet is that Google search has turned a corner in quality, and that the forces of darkness (content farm/SEO/spam) have triumphed at the cost of millions of unanswered queries. This latest Chrome extension is something like an admission of defeat. I’ve been thinking a bit about what will come next, and [...]

Like the cold war, patent law has for better or worse become a strategic domain governed by the principle of mutually assured destruction. The big companies have built up massive arsenals of patents and assumed somewhat defensive postures towards similarly armed counter-parties. The Google WebM/Apple H.264 conflict seems to represent a new kind of hot war, [...]

I’m usually fairly skeptical of software patents, but the case of H.264 seems like a shining example of software patents working, bringing together the best technological ideas in a sort of win-win-win where customers get access to high quality online video streaming, content providers have a mechanism for providing relatively low-bandwidth high-definition video, and hardware [...]

This is an interesting take on the present and future of cloud computing. The writing is so slick you may not even notice the howler at the end. I’m currently trying to sync my iPod Touch, and I can tell you that iOS is definitely not a cloud based OS.

One of the most exciting things about Google is that even when they do cost cutting, they innovate.

It’s not that Google is worse on net neutrality than other companies with a stake in the mobile phone game. It’s that they made such a show of being better, of being on the side of the public interest — before they had a big stake in the game. Echoing my thoughts from the other [...]

One interesting comparison worth making in the context of “net neutrality” is between the positions of Apple and Google. They are now competing in the same mobile space. Among Apple observers, the coverage of Google has been fairly negative recently, but I don’t think this has to do with some kind of fanboi reaction against [...]

I’m a heavy Linux user, though I’m not a Linux evangelist. For casual computer users Microsoft (if you’re on a budget) or Apple (affordable luxury!) are both better options. That being said, the typical Ubuntu install is actually quite nice and probably worth playing around with if you are a hobbyist. Part of the reason [...]