A Crutch for the Crab

_The Last Samurai

Dr. Hideaki Shirata is one of the foremost scholars on Japanese copyright law, and he is also a member of the advisory board for our organization, MIAU. One of his hobbies is disguise, or so-called "Cosplay". He is prudent enough not to dress himself like Sailor Moon, and this time he chose to become a Samurai. The result is hilarious. Other great pictures can be found in his profile page, if you could read Japanese.

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_What I did in 2007, What I will do in 2008

I just came back from Taiwan(went there basically for TWDebCamp2007) tonight. I met lots of great people down there and had lots of fun. I'll write about it later. Theoretically speaking, I was supposed to have decent Internet connections everywhere, but in most cases it didn't work or I was away from it anyway(and we had busy schedule!). So now I'm kinda catching up things quickly, especially what happend on the Net lately. Anywise, it would be a good time to look back 2007 and foresee 2008.

Personally, these things were significant for me in 2007:

Finished GPLv3

GPLv3 is finally out, and I'm proud I took part in the revision process. Also I could manage to finish my Japanese translation of GPLv3/LGPLv3. Now my translations are being reviewed by lawyers and other legal professionals, so it will be more sophisticated soon.

Establishing MIAU

As I wrote before, we founded a little organization called MIAU, in hope of becoming a Japanese version of EFF. At the copyright war front in Japan, we are partly losing the battle since the Japanese government essentially ignored our 1800+ unique public comments and seems dare to go the wrong direction somehow. However, we are not going to give up easily -- next year, we will sophisticate our tactics and try to get more people involved. Chris Salzberg wrote up a series of great articles on these or related issues in English, and also submitted his story to Slashdot.

Joined Wikimania 2007

This was also a great fun in Taiwan. I gave a talk at there and also met many great people.

Released GNU a2ps 4.14

Well, this is far less significant, but the new release is now out. I hacked up this release in my hotel room just before I left, so may contain stupid bugs. anyway, as usual, enjoy.

So, now we seem to be in 2008 now. Happy New Year or whatever. I'm gonna do the following this year, at least:

Finish my PhD thesis

This will be the highest priority, of course. I'm planning to make it be a comprehensive study on FLOSS from management/organizational theorists' view. Will contain some math. Maybe not.

Finish my book

I'm still writing a book on Open Source licensing. This was supposed to be done within 2007, so it's long overdue now.

Finish translations

I'm still translating Peter Seibel's great book Practical Common Lisp into Japanese. Also, I guess I should update my Japanese translations of www.gnu.org.

Reduce weight

I'm obviously overweight. I'm gonna go to swim, cycling, or even jogging, and do my best not to eat too much. I'm serious!

Anyway, again I'd say Happy New Year to all, and enjoy your life.

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