Ted Leung puts Robert Lefkowitz’s open-source economics argument, which I linked to yesterday (below), more succinctly: “I’ve no problem paying for software. But I’m not paying for the software that I got. I’m paying to make sure that there’s a future for that software.”

I don’t fully understand the math, but Robert Lefkowitz at the O’Reilly Network writes in “Calculating the True Price of Software” that “the major difference in worldview between open source advocates and proprietary software license advocates is explainable as a differing opinion on the correct value of the volatility of maintenance and upgrade pricing. People who believe that the pricing on maintenance is stable and unlikely to change see greater intrinsic value in the software. People who fear that the pricing is subject to large fluctuations see no intrinsic value in the up-front license; stripped of the options, the license value approaches $0.”

Scott Berkun: “You can only learn from a mistake after you admit you’ve made it. As soon as you start blaming other people (or the universe itself) you distance yourself from any possible lesson. Wise people admit their mistakes easily. They know progress accelerates when they do. This advice runs counter to the cultural assumptions we have about mistakes and failure, namely that they are shameful things.”

Martin Ertl, Navarik’s Vice-President of Corporate Development and General Counsel, attended the AlwaysOn Innovation Summit at Stanford University this week. Here is his report:

The event is growing into the premier conference for thought leaders in technology and the business of technology. It links apparently disparate topics, including terrorism, the rapid emergence of China as a global power (not just politically, but also in business and technology), and the ascendence of the “open” web and web services.

Participants focused significant attention on openness of various kinds:

* Open standards
* Open content
* Web services with APIs that can be stitched together

A key point was also keeping users’ data (and the metadata describing what that data is and does) as the users’ property, not that of the companies and organizations providing the web services. The openness reduces risk for customers and distributes innovation to a broader group than closed, proprietary platforms do.

The conference was unusual in that the sessions were webcast online for free (and are available in archives), with live participation from people all over the world via real-time chat, which included projecting chat conversations onto the session screens. One chat participant said that the next big thing in the online world will be _intelligent trust networks_. Those networks will help people determine whether particular web services are trustworthy and viable.

Navarik has been heavily involved with these technologies and approaches since our inception in 2000; our latest projects involve using open data exchange and storage standards to connect IT systems from several of our customers, so that information generated in one can flow to another automatically. Navarik acts as a trusted intermediary—while keeping data safe, secure, and in the control of the people and companies who create and manage it. The companies we’re working with in this effort include some of the largest shipping firms in the world.

Truckers who handle shipping containers in Vancouver have now been on strike for several weeks, in a dispute over rising fuel costs. The effects of the strike are now reaching Seattle in neighbouring Washington State.

The Port of Vancouver is now considering turning away vessels with containers intended for trucks, in order to make sure there is enough room for containers intended for trains, which continue to operate, and make up more than two-thirds of the port’s container traffic. Many of those ships will divert to Seattle.

The economic impact of the strike is growing, and shipping associations are now calling on the Canadian and British Columbia governments to put an end to the strike, which some consider illegal. Container truckers claim that the rates they are paid to move containers have not kept up with record fuel prices, meaning that some may lose money on each shipment they take.