Luis VillaRamblings on software, law, and the spaces in between.

As I mentioned in my lwn interview a few weeks ago, I’m curious about where the Open Collaboration Services/Social Desktop is going- while I have not been able to figure out if this is the right way to do it, it is obvious that the Free desktop needs to start experimenting with and exploring this sort of space, and this project seems to be leading in that direction.

That curiosity has now turned into a bit more; I’m going to be a judge for the application contest that Social Desktop is now running. The contest closes in late August; could be a fun way to spend part of your summer hacking time.

While I’m obviously not going to be hacking, I expect this will be an interesting educational opportunity for me- I want to learn more about what these APIs can do, and this should be a good way for me to do it. :) More importantly, this is an interesting way to get eyeballs and hackers focused on this space, and I hope it (or something like it) succeeds.

Early this week I published Columbia Science and Technology Law Review Volume 10, completing my responsibilities as Editor-in-Chief.

We have some interesting articles that I’m glad to have worked on – particularly, I think, the very interesting (and readable!) article on what is known in contract law as the ‘mailbox rule’- and how it is obsolete in the internet age.

Of perhaps more personal pride to me is the letter from the EIC that I was able to write, explaining that the journal is going Open Access and complying with the Durham Statement on Open Access, recently published by the librarians of several leading law schools. In practical terms, this was not a huge change for us- we already published online and in pdf. However, moving to library servers is important for our permanence, and it is an important symbolic change as well. Frankly, I expect that the economic hit many law schools are taking right now, combined with new accreditation standards that are likely to reduce or eliminate mandatory journal purchases by libraries, is going to push a lot of journals away from expensive paper publication and towards online publication, and my hope is that we’re ahead of the trend here- showing others that you can still do good scholarship this way.

We’ve got a variety of news coverage out of it, most notably from Open Access News and Berkman.

I can’t say I’m completely thrilled with the process; specifically, we decided to go with the more conservative non-commercial no-derivatives Creative Commons license, when I would have preferred a more open share-alike policy. But we’re talking baby steps here, and I think even this restrictive license is good for our authors (open access increases citation counts) and good for law as a whole.

And with that I’m done with STLR, and really with Columbia. Thanks to my entire staff; you were great under all circumstances (pleasant and otherwise) and to Krissa for putting up with me for another year. :)