Slashback: OpenOffice, SuitSat, Google Books

Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including Sutor's response to OpenOffice control, Google forgives BMW, SunComm vows to make right their DRM debacle, SuitSat-1 still transmitting, and Defense of Google Book Search -- Read on for details.

Sutor says "no way" to VNUnet OpenOffice story. Andy Updegrove writes "Earlier today a story by Tom Sanders at Vnunet.com covered by Slashdot didn't make sense to me, as it ran counter to the joint determination of Sun and IBM to make ODF succeed. In part, the story relied on an email exchange with Bob Sutor, IBM's Vice President of Standards and Open Source, so I asked Bob whether the story got it wrong. The answer? Sutor said: 'To be more clear, and on the record, IBM and Sun are working together happily and effectively on the OpenDocument Format. I think we've made a terrific amount of progress in the last year and that's because of the broad cooperation by the community. I'm not sure why we were dragged into the referenced story, but it was certainly nothing we initiated.'"

Google forgives BMW after delisting. dbucowboy writes "According to Matt Cutts, Google has re-included BMW.de in the Google index due to their willingness to cease supposed blackhat SEO practices." From the article: "I appreciate BMW's quick response on removing JavaScript-redirecting pages from BMW properties. The webspam team at Google has been in contact with BMW, and Google has reincluded bmw.de in our index. Likewise, ricoh.de has also removed similar doorway pages and has been reincluded in Google's index."

SunComm vows to make right their DRM debacle. Rinisari writes "SunnComm, creators of the highly controversial MediaMax DRM implementation on a number of Sony BMG and indie CDs have issued a statement through the EFF that they are committed to notifying consumers and issuing updates/patches to fix security holes caused by the software. MediaMax is one of the two copy protection schemes about which Sony is being sued class-action style."

SuitSat-1 weak but not dead. zark22 writes "Suitsat, the amateur radio transmitter stuffed inside a surplus Russian spacesuit and chucked out the International Space station is alive and well, if somewhat weak and staticky. Users can still follow its progress at the Suitsat webpage."

UMich President defends Google book search. eaj writes "University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman defended the legality and ethics [PDF] of the Google Book Search project to a meeting of the Association of American Publishers on Monday. The AAP is suing Google over the book scanning involved in the project. From the article: '[We] believe this is a legal, ethical, and noble endeavor that will transform our society. Legal because we believe copyright law allows us the fair use of millions of books that are being digitized. Ethical because the preservation and protection of knowledge is critically important to the betterment of humankind. And noble because this enterprise is right for the time, right for the future, right for the world of publishing, right for all of us.' CNet news also has a video."

Comments

I'm tired of these ham-handed appeals to morality

[unterderbrucke]

Google has no right to index all the books it wants and throw them online for anyone to browse. They are the property of the rightful owner, not Google.

Their policy of having publishers request to not have their books scanned would be similar to the government forcing one to request not to have their phone tapped. Some fundamental rights should not be assumed to be given up until they actually are, and intellectual property is one of them.

No matter how much they redact irrelavent text or try to keep users from gaining full access to the book, someone will. The Slashdot community, of all, should recognize this. Time and time again encryption schemes are hacked (DeCSS being the simplest example to point to).

Google, University of Michigan and Books.

[randyjg2]

Can't see anything wrong in University of Michigan putting its books online...

However, I fail to see why US taxpayers should be burdened with the cost of facilitating the cost of educating Chinese students at a time when American students are suffering severe reductions and the American workforce is lagging in educational resources. China can afford to pay to educate its own students.

http://www.umich.edu/pres/china/university-of-mich igan-and-china-history/
(or try googling digital library, China, Michigan)

If the University of Michigan is recieving ANY public funding, ANY information from those books should NOT be available outside the United States and protected territories and the consequences to the University should be very severe if that happens, including a loss of all public funding and requirement to pay back any funding it has already recieved during the period when it was exporting material paid for by US taxpayers.