Unprecedented levels of change caused by the pace of innovation are stretching traditional contract models to the breaking point. As more organizations adopt Agile and Lean for the development of innovative/complex products and services, new contract models are needed that accommodate change. The Evolutionary Contract Model, based on Agile / Lean principles, offers promise as a possible solution.
The traditional Waterfall model fits nicely with the way companies buy things: requirements are drawn up, a supplier quotes a price, and everyone signs a legally binding agreement. Contracts written this way seldom offer the freedom to work using an Agile approach. This article examines four separate models available to suppliers and customers for establishing contracts for Agile work.
In this interview, Dr. Mercuri defines computer forensics, then discusses how forensics apply to criminal, civil, and intellectual property law. She addressed the challenges that technological advances, (e.g. RAID, cell phones, GPS devices, and Cloud Computing) increase the challenges faced by the forensic computer scientist. She also discusses appropriate actions if you suspect security issues.
Google, Facebook and other companies operating totally 21 Social Networking websites are facing criminal proceedings in an Indian Court, over objectionable content accessible through the websites. A High Court has warned that the sites can face a ban in India unless they screen content. Is the growing flux of regulations surrounding social media a risk for businesses investing in social?
On 18th January, wikipedia.or among other estimated 10,000 web sites stopped their service in order to protest against the US legislation planning to endorse SOPA and PIPA. Software engineers might think, that they are not affected by the legislation, especially if they are outside the U.S., but considering Big Data, Cloud Computing and other trends this could be a rather naive perspective.
Tom Arbogast, Bas Vodde and Craig Larman have released a sample chapter from their upcoming book on scaling Lean and Agile. The chapter deals with the difficult topic of writing contracts for agile development.
In a recent interview with The San Francisco Chronicle the patent counsel of Google, Tim Porter, claims the patent system itself is broken. Patent offices worldwide have been increasingly granting protection to “innovations” that are not innovative. The IT Industry is currently facing a series of patent trials which some large corporates seem to leverage as weapons for attacking competitors.
Patents are quite often in the news these days, most notably the ones related to smart phone vendors like HTC, Samsung, Google and Apple. This also holds for the rather emotional and controversial discussion about software patents which some consider as a means to ensure innovation and others as a kind of weapon. Do software patents cause more harm than good, or vice versa?
SUSE, formally part of Novell, has renewed its interoperability agreement with Microsoft for five more years. This agreement includes a 100 million investment in “new SUSE Linux Enterprise certificates”. And like the last agreement it raises more questions than answers.
