14:39, Wednesday September 3rd, 2003 • feeling relaxed • no comments
I just had a conversation with one of my managers about the need for project managers and specifications. He totally understood the need for careful management of projects and I was very happy to hear that it sounds like he will be taking steps to take the weight of management off my shoulders.
It's hard because managing all the phone calls and collating demands and verifying problems takes up a lot of my time, but that's because it needs somebody who's very familiar with the project to do it and nobody else has been available. I spent as much time on the phone last week as I did coding. Software is complicated and good seperation of roles helps simplify the development process. I get much more done when I'm given a list of tasks and I can just get my head down and do them. It also means that if things need to be rescheduled, it's not a case of me saying sorry I didn't get it done, because the project manager is so close to the developers they hold a stake in getting it done right and will help take the responsibility of updating the project plan and make sure it stays workable.
I also sent my first invoice since June. My shares earnings have alleviated the urgency of invoicing. This one was the biggest I've ever sent, by a factor of three.
17:26, Tuesday September 2nd, 2003 • feeling relaxed • no comments
I'm just chucking out versions at the moment. There are still some minor bugs, but, by the end, I'm confident that wwWebflow 2 is going to be a powerful and very stable product.
15:15, Tuesday September 2nd, 2003 • feeling enthusiastic • no comments
Dear Ben
Directive Patent law: patentability of computer-implemented inventions COM(2002)0092
Thank you very much for your letter expressing your concern on the issue of
EU software patenting.
I share your concerns on this Directive. Current proposals to extend
patentability to basic elements of knowledge and to mathematical operations
are extremely worrying and a potential danger to a variety of sectors (such
as the software industry and the education and charity sectors).
Pretending to protect inventors and their inventions, the Directive instead
allows predominantly US corporations to lock up the market at the expense
of the open-sourced software industry which, by more than a coincidence, is
primarily a European sector.
Patenting software is as absurd as patenting a novel or a recipe. The
Directive goes against the expectation of the public and stakeholders
including the Economic and Social Council, the Industry committee, the
Culture committee, 140,000 people and 30 leading software scientists who
signed two petitions to the Parliament, as well as the 91% of the European
citizens who took part in a European Commission public consultation.
The Commission admits in the preamble that the public consultation of 19
October 2000 received 91% negative answers. However it considers the
position of economic key players such as the UNICE as determining. The
influence of the Business Software Alliance (whose main members are
Microsoft and IBM) behind the project has been widely condemned. It is
interesting to note that companies that have lobbied for patenting do not
necessarily produce software themselves.
If this Directive were implemented, it would conclude the transfer of our data-processing control to the US. In the wake of protests by computer scientists, economists and the Greens the vote has now been postponed and will take place between the 22-26th of September. You can be sure that the Directive will have a very bumpy ride when it goes to vote in the Parliament in late September but please keep up your pressure on other political groups in the Parliament as there are still many who support the directive. The Greens believe that copyright on software is a far more reasonable alternative, which protects a certain solution, while not preventing the development of alternative programs on a similar basis.
The Greens will continue to lobby the Parliament in this way over the voting
period. Thank you again for your letter.
Yours sincerely,
Jean Lambert
Green MEP for London
Office of Jean Lambert MEP
Suite 58, The Hop Exchange
24 Southwark Street
London, SE1 1TY
Tel: 00 44 (0)20 7407 6269
Fax: 00 44 (0)20 7234 0183
Email: jeanlambert@greenmeps.org.uk
Webaddress: www.jeanlambertmep.org.uk
14:24, Tuesday September 2nd, 2003 • feeling enthusiastic • no comments
Help defeat the proposed EU software patents!
Sign the petition
Link to the petition site and urge others to sign it
Write to your MEP, the easiest way to find out who they are is to Google your area and the phrase "Member European Parliament", like this
I'm writing to each of the MEPs for Hammersmith and Fulham. There follows the text of my email but it's a bunch of crap hacked together too quickly by stealing bits of the petition.eurolinux.org site and a few others. Do your own one better than me!
Dear <MEP>,
I am writing to you because I am concerned by current plans to legalise software patents in Europe despite the damaging effect on innovation and competition.
I am a resident of Fulham and a software developer myself. Software patents prevent me from exploring my ideas fully and creating derivative works which further the knowledge of the community, both in my work and in the greater context of the IT industry worldwide. It acts contrary to the public interest and provides another avenue to increase the power held by large private corporations. These corporations are the economic powerhouses of Europe, but they must not be allowed to stop or slow the advancement of knowledge.
Current EU law expressly prohibits patents on computer programs. Patents are often abused to prohibit or restrict the dissemination of computer programs and intellectual methods in other parts of the world, e.g. the US.
I can not express the ramifications of this decision as well as some of my friends and so I urge you to consider the following websites and articles:
3:10, Tuesday September 2nd, 2003 • feeling relaxed • no comments
Hands up who's DSL connection has been down all day. Just me? That's OK then. I'd hate for everybody to have to suffer the humiliation of being an ice cream man without an ice cream van. Audible-frequency modems simultaneously suck and blow. I can't believe I used to live in a house where about five of us shared a V.90 modem!
Anyway, to attempt to return to normal blogging practice, what did I get up to this weekend? My little baby sister, now 16, came to visit me. When I was still living at home she and I used to spend virtually all of our free time sat watching telly in the front room at my mum's house, strictly her domain these days. I used to force her to watch Star Trek on Wednesdays and everything. My relationship with her hasn't been quite the same since I left for Norwich, which saddens me a bit. When I left she was young and we were very close, now she is a teenager and I'm just a walk-on in her life. That's fair enough I guess, and just shows yet another way that I'm getting suckered by nostalgia.
On Friday Louise and I went and met her from her train at St Pancras and then took her to the Conran by Tower Bridge, demonstrating some pretty good sights along the way, including the best view of the gherkin building I've seen since I went and explored the great buildings of the city and stood at it's base and stared up. We had a nice meal and then copped out of going to the cinema and got Solaris on DVD instead. Tom came home riotously pissed and shouted a bunch. I don't know how familiar Nell (my sister) is with very pissed people, but she got to see Tom on full form.
On Saturday Nell wanted to go to Oxford Street/Soho/Covent Garden etc and we tripped in on a packed Piccadilly. She liked the little streets but it was Topshop on Oxford Street, the world's biggest fashion store, that really hit the mark. Even Louise had four things to try on. It really was huge. Then we went to Selfridges and meandered around. I found that the cheese counter in the food hall there sells Reblochon, my Mum's favourite stinky french cheese and a love of my own as well. It will do well as part of a birthday present. My mum is fifty in 15 days time.
On Saturday night I finished setting up my old iBook for Nell. It is to be her A-levels computer. She's quite into her art, so I loaded her up with Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash and Dreamweaver. I'm not sure how she will be able to learn to use them though. They have little in the way of internet access at my Mum's house, something which has annoyed me for some eight years now, though much less these days. I have a plan to convince them to invest in ADSL and I give it 50/50 odds at the moment. I need to sit down and work out the costs actually. It all hinges on the fact that they can buy an Airport hub to supply my Mum's iMac and Nell's iBook and then use the ethernet port to provide for Bernie's PC. This would be an ideal set up pretty much and the fact that there would be no cables might just sell it to my mother. We shall see...
Yesterday, Nell and I went up the London Eye and then on to Camden. The London Eye was great the second time around as well, although I don't think a third trip will be necessary! I got much higher res pictures of the scenery this time, being equipped with my shiny new Fuji rather than, um, my crap old Fuji. I took a bunch of pictures of the South Bank as well.
Nell liked the London Eye not just because of the cool view, but because of it's scientific achievement. I like that, it's something we have in common - an appreciation of objects on both scientific and aesthetic levels. It's lead me deep into computing. For Nell, she's kind of occupying both ends rather than any middle ground. She's been doing GNVQ art for the last two years and got a distinction for it, but her A-levels are all full-on sciences. I'm interested to see where she ends up.
Camden seemed even busier than usual. We ate geographically diverse food from the market and drank fresh lemonade - tangy! Nell bought a cool pink printed bag and I hunted for fashionable t-shirts, but to no avail. In the process, however, we did discover tracts more market. The whole bit around by Cyberdog and up to the old horse hospital was completely new to me.
Camden Market is pretty much teen girl heaven. There are three Punky Fish stores dotted about and this pretty much sets the theme for many of the other stalls. This isn't a bad thing though and there is a fantastically diverse range of sub-culture stuff to be had. One of my favourite aspects of the market is the amount of home made or small business stuff about. If you make your own hats or t-shirts or bags, you just go up and grab a stall. It's sweet. I'd quite like to have a go really.
After Camden I stuck Nell on a bus to Oxford to go and visit my other sister. She seemed pretty happy with the way the weekend had gone and I had a really nice time hanging out with her as well.
One of our old Norwich cohorts and Tom's ex-housemate, Al had flown into Gatwick yesterday and stayed with us last night. We got drunk down the sloany pony and watched Almost Famous, the Cameron Crowe story. It was excellent, a sequel in spirit to Dazed and Confused. Not sure quite how the virtually pornographic front cover related to the story though, but that's marketing for you.
The oddest thing that happened this weekend was on Friday night at dinner when Nell was talking about one of my two step-sisters, Anna. Apparently she's seven months pregnant! Shows how good I am at keeping up with the family.
Anna is a nursery nurse and has always liked being with children. The father, Tom, is a teacher apparently. I can't really think of a better couple to bring up a child and I'm sure they'll all be very happy. All the best, Anna!
