Current developments in Open Source Software

Open Source Software (OSS) has hit the mainstream in recent years and its scope is set to increase. Best seen as a range of associated licensing techniques, there are many different types of OSS licences. Coupled with a lack of settled case law and rapidly developing market practice, legal interpretation of the OSS world presents challenges to lawyers. Of the ‘top 20’ OSS licences, the GPL is the most commonly used and among the most radical in legal effect. The GPL's legal radicalism centres on its Article 2(b) concept of ‘copyleft’. Copyleft is an inheritance requirement to pass on the GPL's terms to other software that ‘contains’ or is ‘derived from’ the initially used GPL software. I illustrations of Article 2(b) issues from the Linux and Java worlds are provided. Current case law (such as it is) is then overviewed. Finally, contractual and policy implications of OSS governance are then reviewed as the increasing uptake of OSS in the organisation is mirrored in the growing importance of OSS governance.     

Making Government Work: Pragmatic Priorities for Interagency Coordination

Numerous studies outlining what needs to be done to improve the U.S. interagency system have been conducted in the past few decades. Together, these studies reflect a growing consensus on the range of changes needed across the government, from personnel reform, to changes in processes and structures. This article does not quibble with this consensus. Rather, in light of the current economic crisis and the challenges we face in Iraq and Afghanistan, this piece argues that dramatic reform may be a luxury we cannot afford right now. Instead of offering another proposal for large-scale reorganization, the author suggests a way to get started now; one that focuses on winning the fights we are currently in while setting the trajectory for long-term change.     

WWWMDs: Cyber-attacks against infrastructure in domestic anti-terror laws

This article compares and contrasts the legislation that would be used to prosecute acts of cyber-terrorism in five western democracies: Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. It argues that each of the four Commonwealth jurisdictions sets too low a threshold for prosecuting acts of cyber-terrorism against electronic and other infrastructure systems. By contrast, the United States has enacted more finely calibrated legislation that sets a much higher threshold for acts of cyber-terrorism deserving life imprisonment.     

Social Work and the Security Issue in the Netherlands and Belgium

Over the past years security has become a central issue in political discussions both in the Netherlands and Belgium. This has led to the setting of new governmental schemes in urban areas that rely upon the commitment of social workers to a large extent. Besides that, a number of new professions linked to social intervention have appeared. The purpose of this article is to analyse the emergence of security as an issue and the effects of the new governmental schemes in the field of social work, and to compare the political and social backgrounds, how security is dealt with and the effects on social work in Belgium and the Netherlands. The general assumption is that the practice of social professions tends to a new balance between change and control, the two usual poles of social work, at the expense of emancipatory practices towards marginalised people. In other words, it is wondered whether the action of social workers is to put in place a system of control and risk prevention as a mix of social work and people policing. The article shows that the development in this direction in the two countries is similar, in spite of significant background differences.     

The Foreign Policy of Abraham Lincoln

This article explores Lincoln's relationship with William H. Seward, his Secretary of State; examines several cases of foreign policy in action—particularly during 1861 and 1862—years fraught with peril for the Union cause, and concludes with how Lincoln's foreign policy is relevant today.     

Towards a Balanced and Sustainable Defense

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates defines “balance” as the critical principle of his defense strategy. This emphasizes achieving a balance between current conflicts and dangerous and more conventional wars in the future. But finding the right balance between types of war is only one form of balance. We also need to balance the nation's checkbook, and define the balance between what we spend on defense and what we can afford for the long term. Balance is not enough, our defense investments must be sustainable. Defense spending today, in inflation adjusted dollars, is at an all time high and exceeds Cold War levels. This has helped sustain the world's finest military, but the funding for this buildup and two wars has been borrowed from foreign sources. The accumulated debt and subsequent interest payments have reduced our ability to weather the current economic crisis and will drag on our economic recovery for years to come. The Obama administration must craft a grand strategy to get us out of the red—strategically and fiscally. This essay offers a set of strategy, structure and investment shifts to that end.     

Grand Strategy after the Vietnam War

The perceived history of the Vietnam War profoundly influenced American discussions on grand strategy during the postwar period. The two largest schools of thought, one favoring confrontation with the Soviet Union and the other favoring engagement, drew lessons from the war based upon differing historical interpretations and used those lessons as support beams in constructing grand strategy. Compelling world events during the Carter presidency caused only a few individuals to shift positions in the debate, but one of those individuals was Jimmy Carter himself. Subsequent discoveries by historians indicate that the confrontation school understood the war's history and the postwar world better than did the engagement school and consequently crafted a superior grand strategy. The post-Vietnam debate contains numerous parallels to present-day discussions of grand strategy and offers a variety of lessons salient to contemporary strategic formulation.     

The Age of Liberal Imperialism: Twenty-five Years of a Flawed U.S. Foreign Policy

The most common assertion about U.S. foreign policy appearing in scholarly journals and opinion articles is that it is incoherent. This article will show that nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, it is a growing cohesiveness from political science centered around the democratic peace thesis and a growing interdisciplinary consensus that western human rights need to be granted and enforced around that world that has fed into a highly cohesive, highly militarized, foreign policy of what will be defined as Liberal Imperialism.