Simon Phipps

"I'm convinced that the reform that's needed is a root-and-branch reform of the very concept of the patent," contends Simon Phipps (pictured) in his most recent Webmink blog posting (http://www.webmink.net/minkblog.htm). Today's software patents, he believes, breach the social co... (more)

Tim Bray and I hosted a discussion at JavaOne 2004 on the realities of open source development for subscribers to Sun's Inner Circle Newsletter - mainly CIO/CTO types from some of Sun's best customers, plus a few stragglers (an IBM employee or two for example). It was a small, se... (more)

I've described elsewhere the idea of "swarms" - spontaneously federating devices and software services connecting over networks. Some people are now describing this concept as "wireless Web services," extending the group of ideas now being called services-on-demand. As usual, th... (more)

WBT is pleased to showcase some farseeing comments on the emerging new wireless Java world from our International Advisory Board member Simon Phipps, who filed the following article - wirelessly of course - from the MS Volendam (pictured here while berthed at Willemstad, Curacao)... (more)

This article explores the paradox that sharing a common vocabulary can actually restrict the richness and nuances of a business paradigm. The Trend to Share Common Vocabularies One of the trends we find in the rapidly expanding world of XML is a desire to define unified vocabulari... (more)

In the last few years the focus in computing has gradually moved away from the raw technology to settle on the total cost of ownership (tco) for a solution. What makes up the tco? That's hard to say, and everyone has a different answer, which usually depends on what they find eas... (more)

Does the move of C# to ISO really make a difference to programmers, or is it just a sign of continuing intense competition in the software tools market? When Gavin Clark, of the news agency ComputerWire, heard that Microsoft plans greater adherence to ISO/ANSI standards in the upco... (more)