|
|
|
| Authored by: ThrPilgrim on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 01:01 PM EDT |
A big thanks to all who have signed the ODF petition.
And a
bigger thanks to those who spread the word [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: tinkerghost on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 02:50 PM EDT |
I think Mitch Ratcliffe
completely missed the point from last week.
It will raise questions
about what a publisher's liability is with regards to information on their Web
site, just as last week everyone was accusing creators of a site of being
responsible for vandalism on the site that threatened a female blogger with rape
and death.
Sorry Mitch, we weren't accusing the creators of the
site of being responsible for the threats, we were accusing them of being
irresponsible afterwards. It was their blogs which contained the threats
of bodily harm & sexual assult, it was their responsibility to remove them.
Failure to do so shows both a calousness towards the victim of the threats and a
blatant disreguard for the spirit of the law.
Since the internet is a
'telecommunications device' I believe using it to make a death threat is a
Federal Crime. If not, it's still a state level one. By refusing to remove those
posts, I do believe that the hosts of the blogs should bear some responsibility
for the continued distres they cause the victim.
I note that Mitch's blog has
a 'report inapropriate comments' button, so I am assuming that he, or at least
ZDnet, also believe that it is the Blog host's responsibility to moderate the
comments - so why the inability to see that the argument wasn't the presence of
offensive material, but the refusal to remove it?
---
You patented
WHAT?!?!?! [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: davidf on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 03:09 PM EDT |
The press, and by press I mean people who's articles I read in the Business
Week. (See the
article in the Headlines column of Groklaw), are pretty sure of
their own
expertise. They do not hesitate to correct others with obfuscations of
the
truth. Oh? FUD? OK! I'll try to keep the sarcasm to a minimum.
In
talking about his friends lack or correct information about Apple's iTunes
and
the EMI deal, he managed to walk the plank from good sound technical
information
and plunge into the depths of political intrigue and FUD.
To be sure
there is no love lost between Apple and M$, however to say that Apple
is
making this deal to state here (from headlines section)
that "... the real target is Microsoft. What
we now have is a
good old-fashioned standards war heating up, ..." is in
itself,
fuelling media talk of a standards war.
Some may think
that where there is smoke there is fire is true. It is obviously
not true.
Everyone has heard of a good old fashioned smoke screen. This article
is a good
example of one which obscures the true nature of what has just
happened in the
deal between Apple and EMI. Two large corporations did something
together which
was basically good. Of course that doesn't make a good
sensational news story or
editorial comment.
In accusing Apple of stoking a standards war the
article skillfully obscures the fact that the MPEG standards roadmap has been
public for years.
(
MPEG Home
Page ).
Indeed, it's part of the
ISO.
We all
know that M$ is quite capable of joining standards groups and working with
or against them. This is one where Micro$oft has barely bothered with any
standards but its own. We've see it do this most adroitly with its recent
attempts at interference with implementation of ODF. Its Media player sort
of, but not really implements the MPEG4 standard. Its Media Player works
only on Windows. That is deliberate, not accidental. Micro$oft could write a
standards compliant Media Player if they wanted to, but they don't really want a
public standard, they want their own standard, one which will exclude all
operating systems except its own.
Apple, on the other hand, was
instrumental in the design and implementation of these standards (paten encumber
though they might be), and absolutely insisted that the end user not be charged
anything for decoding media files using the standard.
The author, Arik
Hesseldahl,
cannot layout the most basic factual information before spouting his own
theories of political intrigue. If you click on the bio information in the link,
you will find that he has done post graduate work in
journalism at two respected
institutions, one of which might be called prestigious. This is an example of
good journalism? I don't need years of post graduate studies in journalism to
see flawed logic and misinformation.
Whether you like Apple or not is
irrelevant. Journalists should feel free to praise or criticise Apple as he
pleases, but only after laying out the basic facts. Of course, if those facts
work against your theory, then of course you wouldn't want ot include them. I
can only hope that this is an oversight on his part, but that is something like
hoping that a snow flake could survive in
hell.
There is a tendency to
always look for something rotten and bad in everything. But occasionally,
something good is just what it seems to be. One is frequently reminded of Dr.
Freud's cigar.
I would, however, say that in this case the shoe is on
the other foot. It is Micro$oft wishing to undermine Apple's customers by
dropping support for the only other platform their Media Player sort of
supported. That is another fact which was conveniently left out of the article.
One is also reminded of the infamous "kill the baby" comment (the baby in
question is QuickTime Link:
here) made to
Avie Tevanian ( Vice
President Software Engineering at Apple and also one of the developers of the
Mach
Kernel)
Funny how the only way to defend Micro$oft is with
more FUD. And by the way, I have no degree(s) in Journalism, I accomplished this
quite easily with only a text editor, my web browser and google. Its to bad I
don't get paid for this and he gets paid for the kind of psuedo-journalism he
seems to be pawing off as the genuine article.
Cheers,
davidf
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Simon G Best on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 03:15 PM EDT |
Inspired by Dan Lyons' recent stuff about PJ, "bomb-tossing loonies", and the
like, I've started a new blog, Sinking Point.
:-)
---
"Public
relations" is a public relations term for propaganda. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 04:53 PM EDT |
| I have an email apparently originating from Microsoft asking people to support
their opposition to California A.B. 1668 - Open Document Format, Open Source.
by writing to the California Assemblymen involved in this bill. This email has
contact information for the Assemblymen involved, and a lot of information about
their position regarding ODF.
[...] on behalf of Microsoft to
ask you to support the opposition to the proposed legislation California A.B.
1668 : Open Document Format, Open Source. I have included [...] issues with
California A.B. 1668 as summarized Assembly Member Mark Leno[...]
...support
our opposition to this legislation by sending a letter or faxing a letter
to:
The Honorable Juan Arambula
Chair, Assembly Committee on Jobs,
Economic Development & the Economy
State Capitol
Sacramento, CA
95814
Faxed copies can be sent to the attention of Les Spahnn (Committee
Consultant) at 916-319-2190.
and
The Honorable Mark
Leno
California State Assembly
State Capitol
Sacramento, CA
95814
Faxed copies can be sent to the attention of Carlos Machado (Leno's
Legislative Director) at 916-319-2113 or email at Carlos.Machado@asm.ca.gov
CALIFORNIA A.B. 1668 - OPEN DOCUMENT FORMAT, OPEN SOURCE
Sponsor:
Assembly Member Mark Leno (D)
Summary: States that beginning on or after
January 1, 2008, all documents, including, but not limited to, text,
spreadsheets, and presentations, produced by any state agency shall be created,
exchanged, and preserved in an open extensible markup language-based, XML-based
file format, as specified by the department.
AB 1668 establishes a
"procurement preference" for Open Document Format (ODF) which is an open source
software format only supported by a few software vendors.[...]
We believe that
Open XML represents an exciting advance toward achieving the original vision of
XML, where broad interoperability allows documents to be archived, restructured,
aggregated and re-used in new and dynamic ways.
[...]
Customers,
particularly government customers, have told us they would prefer that Open XML
become an open standard.
[...]
We submitted it to Ecma International, a
highly respected standardization body that has developed hundreds of
international technology standards over the past 46 years. Ecma formed a
technical committee that represented a wide range of interests, including
information technology companies (Apple, Intel, Novell, Microsoft, NextPage,
Toshiba)
[...]
ODF and Open XML [...] It is important to recognize
that ODF and Open XML were created with very different design goals
[...]
ODF
is closely tied to OpenOffice and related products, and reflects the
functionality in those products.
[...]
IBM led a global campaign
urging national bodies to demand that ISO/IEC JTC1 not even consider Open
XML[...]
This campaign to stop even the consideration of Open XML in ISO/IEC
JTC1 is a blatant attempt to use the standards process to limit choice in the
marketplace for ulterior commercial motives - and without regard for the
negative impact on consumer choice and technological innovation. It is not a
coincidence that IBM's Lotus Notes product, which IBM is actively promoting in
the marketplace, fails to support the Open XML international standard.
[...]
We have listened to our customers. They want choice. They
want interoperability. They want innovation. We and others believe that Open
XML achieves all these goals, and we look forward to supporting Ecma as it works
positively with national standards bodies throughout the ISO/IEC process.
[...]
Tom Robertson
GM Interoperability &
Standards
Microsoft
Jean Paoli
GM Interoperability & XML
Architecture
Microsoft
I agree with their ideas that
people with an interest one way or the other should contact the Assemblymen
mentioned - but rather than say what positions people should take in their
response, I'd hope people express their opinions both in favor of and any
concerns they might have with the legislation.
Also, it seem the Groklaw
community knows more about this than I do, so if anyone would care to educate us
about those issues in this thread, that'd be interesting too.
There was
quite a bit more in the letter - marked by [...]s - but I hope I didn't
misrepresent what it was saying by quoting selectively. The whole letter would
have been pretty long for a message, though. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
- Microsoft asking people to write leters opposing California A.B. 1668 - Open Document Format, - Authored by: PJ on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 04:58 PM EDT
- Speaking of "Closely Tied"... - Authored by: Steve Martin on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 05:01 PM EDT
- Microsoft asking people to write leters opposing California A.B. 1668 - Open Document Format, - Authored by: PolR on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 06:42 PM EDT
- This stuff should be forwarded... - Authored by: nessuno on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 07:55 PM EDT
- We should ask people to write letters supporting California A.B. 1668 - Open Document Format - Authored by: ankylosaurus on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 11:03 PM EDT
- Full text of Ca. A.B. 1668 - ODF ... Microsoft asking people to write letters opposing - Authored by: NoCalDrummer on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 11:39 PM EDT
- Microsoft asking people to write leters opposing California A.B. 1668 - Open Document Format, - Authored by: N_au on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 11:53 PM EDT
- MS' attempts backfiring - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 07 2007 @ 11:47 AM EDT
| |
| Authored by: Steve Martin on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 05:05 PM EDT |
For the record...
Groklaw member rsteinmetz70112 picked up yesterday on a bit of a boo-boo TSG
made in the Memorandum in Support of "PJ's Motion". TSG originally
claimed that they and Novell had stipulated to a May 31 deadline for TSG to
subpoena and depose PJ. Today, TSG filed a Corrected Memorandum in Support, in
which they have corrected this date to April 30. No other changes were made.
Makes me wonder if perhaps they got word of the mistake by someone there reading
Groklaw...
---
"When I say something, I put my name next to it." -- Isaac Jaffee, "Sports
Night"[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: MDT on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 05:23 PM EDT |
An editorial by people who ran a specialty music shop. They go into a bit of
detail on what happened, and why their shop, which used to be the bread &
butter of the music industry closed up. And basically, they lay the blame
squarely on the RIAA and the labels themselves. This is the perspective of
people who were in the retail music industry. So it's a decent read.
Clicky
---
MDT [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: The Mad Hatter on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 08:23 PM EDT |
I dropped back to Dan Lyons blog tonight to see if he'd put my comments back up,
and he hadn't, so I posted another comment asking why they were removed.
Interestingly enough moderation has now been enabled. Now Dan has the right to
moderate all comments to his blog. I just think that it's interesting that he
would turn moderation on now, but didn't before.
---
Wayne
http://urbanterrorist.blogspot.com/
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: Brian S. on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 08:41 PM EDT |
The European Commission is once again attempting to introduce
a Europe-wide software patenting system.
Its plans lay in tatters in 2005
when the European Parliament rejected the proposal, with fears that big business
would squeeze smaller developers in the technology development
market....Internal market and services commissioner Charlie McCreevy said,
"Patents are a driving force for promoting innovation, growth and
competitiveness, but the single market for patents is still
incomplete.
“Our consultation showed that the EU simply must
deliver.... Computer WeeklyMy
emphasis.
Brian S. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
- "Silicon Valley IP Lobby Goes to Washington" - Authored by: Brian S. on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 08:46 PM EDT
- "Vonage, Barred From Adding Customers, Wins Delay (Update2) " - Authored by: Brian S. on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 09:01 PM EDT
- "Google Evades Question About Software Similarities" - Authored by: Brian S. on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 09:17 PM EDT
- March 21, 2007 "Thomson to Unveil NexGuard(TM) for Microsoft Windows Media® Video 9" - Authored by: Brian S. on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 09:29 PM EDT
- "Report: EU wants MS to charge little for Windows info" - Authored by: Brian S. on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 10:41 PM EDT
- "Ubuntu-based Linux Mint tests KDE version" - Authored by: Brian S. on Friday, April 06 2007 @ 10:53 PM EDT
- has anyone patented this yet? - Authored by: Illiander on Saturday, April 07 2007 @ 09:44 AM EDT
| |
| Authored by: NoCalDrummer on Saturday, April 07 2007 @ 12:44 AM EDT |
An interesting article in Tom's Hardware today. Seems that Microsoft to also offer DRM-free music Funny... Isn't this
the same Microsoft which said (through Robbie Bach, president of
Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division) to Forbes.com that "We've been
very focused on producing a DRM system." and "We think DRM is important..." And
that was only two months ago. Hmmm.... Well, decide for yourself by reading
the Forbes.com Article
Man, are these guys full
of FUD or what?!?
--"You don't always get what you paid for, but you
always pay for what you get." --NoCalDrummer
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: warner on Saturday, April 07 2007 @ 03:26 AM EDT |
Chris Stone's blog
http://blogs.streamserve.com/chris/CommentView,guid,927e3a33-2a59-4348-904f-b27b
853ae31e.aspx
Your post is a a mess of confusion. I suspect it is willful, willful in the
sense of not wanting to acknowledge reality.
You start with addressing how the *GPL* is slowing down Open Source,
"I think the GPL is beginning to slow down and hamper open source adoption
for exactly the reason it was created. It’s time to change."
Sir, the GPL is not *Open Source* it is *Free Software*, just because some folks
came along and created a name and a definition designed to encompass and subsume
Free Software doesn't mean it or it's aims cease to exist, except in the minds
of the intentionally ignorant.
You have been "a proponent of open source since 1997", I know you
understand this. You may not agree with the aims of the Free Software movement,
I don't agree with the aims of the Microsoft corporation, but what is constantly
amazing to me is that people keep trying to deny the FSF's goals, their
existence, even their right to exist.
*It*is*absurd*, imagine if I went around talking about how Microsoft's licenses
were not in line with company X, Y, and Z's interests,
*and*I*felt*justified*in*demanding*they*change*it*.
You would think me ridiculous, the common response would be “It's Microsoft's
license if you don't like their terms don't use it”. However this simple
conclusion doesn't get applied to the *FSF's* GPL, because there is no such
thing as Free Software, only Open Source.
Nobody can figure out why the FSF keeps trying to apply their aims the OSI's GPL
license, it's a big mystery, a shock, shocking, why do they keep trying to do
that.
Because it's not the OSI's GPL, it's the FSF's GPL.
It wasn't created to advance Proprietary software businesses, it wasn't created
to advance the aims of the OSI, it was created to give advantage to end users
(by “end-users” I mean *everyone* that is not a proprietary software company).
It was created to advance the aims of the *FSF*.
“The GPL effectively prohibits any sort of commercial use.”
What you mean is it prohibits any sort of commercial use based on closed code,
or restrictions to the end users. Obviously RedHat, MySql, IBM, Sun, and many,
many others are finding ways to grow their services business that don't depend
on restricting the *end user*.
“The GPL attempts to force people and businesses to release their source code.”
This is as absurd as saying Microsoft “attempts to force people to pay them
money if they want to use their code”. If I want to use their code I have to
agree to their price.
Microsoft's price = bucket of money
GPL's price = bucket of code
BSD/MIT (non-copy left) price = nothing (allow anyone (esp. competitors) to use
your code and provide nothing in return)
If someone doesn't like the price no one is “forcing” them to use the code.
“Okay, but that doesn’t mean it’s free. It’s free as in a puppy is free.”
*All* code is like a puppy, *all* code takes work to use or make into something,
whether proprietary, Free or Open Source, it *all* takes work.
“If a closed-source company decides to use some GPL open-source code in its
product, the company will do one of three things:
use the open-source code, shut up and lie…because of the restrictions
write their own code from scratch… because of the restrictions
“provide” it (download it yourself), but not integrate it with anything (arms
length)…because of the restrictions
Is this really a productive way to move the open source community forward? It
might have worked in the beginning with Linux but is it really necessary now?
Don’t you think Linux (server and desktop) would grow exponentially faster
without the GPL? Why spend so much time trying to cheat or get around the GPL?”
What you are really asking is “Is [the GPL] really a productive way to move
[closed-source companies] forward?” The answer, obviously, is no. The GPL was
designed to enable the opposite of closed source companies.
Ironically, one of Open Sources most stalwart advocates, Linus himself is a
strong proponent of the share and share alike copy-left provision of the GPL.
There are many people that have articulated what you state here in this blog,
it's almost like circulating talking points. It would be better if you actually
delved into some deeper reasoning.
Obviously for a closed source company it is better if *other* developers use a
BSD/MIT style license as you can use their work and give nothing (whatever you
want) in return, but how does that provide value for the original developer?
Everyone keeps going on about how advantageous BSD/MIT licenses are for
business, but the unspoken context is almost always advantageous for business
that didn't write the original code.
The other argument for BSD/MIT style licenses is that for your own code you can
develop parts of your application that are proprietary and monetize that, there
are a couple classic problems with this argument.
First is the Microsoft problem, facing a much larger competitor that has decided
it is time to eat your little corner of the software universe, thanks to your
choice to use a BSD/MIT style license they get to start by taking your open base
and, forking and closing it, adding proprietary extensions, bundling it with
some other proprietary product or service, innumerable ways of unleveling the
playing field.
Second is what happens when a GPL competitor appears. You assert that “Linux”
would have grown faster if it were under a BSD/MIT style license. I would love
to see *any* evidence, empirical or anecdotal, to support that. How long has BSD
the operating system existed? Why isn't it the most popular if your reasoning is
correct? Surely OpenSolaris with GNU userland on top will shortly become the
next star right (rather than Sun dual GPL licensing)? The anecdotal evidence
suggests that the GPL is more popular with *developers* and a great many
companies that do not have their business based on closed source software, and
there are compelling reasons why that is.
The anecdotal evidence, to me, suggests it is the copy-left provision itself
that is responsible for the success of Free Software (and by OSI's definition
Open Source as well). It is exactly the copy-left provision that gives so many
developers companies and end users, the assurance that some proprietary, or
“hybrid” software company won't come along and take unfair or uncompensated
advantage of their hard work.
“Why spend so much time trying to cheat or get around the GPL” this is really
the sentence that matters, the people so often calling for the use of BSD/MIT
licenses want *you* to use these licenses so *they* can use *your* code in
*their* product and give you neither code or money.
It's easier for them if you cheat yourself.
---
free software, for free minds and a free world.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: warner on Saturday, April 07 2007 @ 05:32 AM EDT |
http://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/archive/gpl-3-democracy
---
free software, for free minds and a free world.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
| |
| Authored by: wal on Saturday, April 07 2007 @ 11:06 AM EDT |
This has me confused. I went to Jonathan Schwart's Weblog and he started
with
we just signed a deal with Marvell Technology to license them
the core intellectual property in our Neptune ASIC.
How does
this fit in with non-proprietary? Doesn't licensing Intellectual Property imply
proprietary? He finished by defining open as open to opportunity but I must be
too dense to be able to figure it out. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
|
|
|
|
