Defendant Pavlovich is a leader in the so-called "open source" movement, which is dedicated to the
proposition that material, copyrighted or not, should be made available over the Internet for free.
I imagine that some publisher back in the 19th century said almost the same thing regarding libraries. Which then went on to become one of the publishers steadiest and most reliable customers.
One of the little noted side effects of the internet's rise has been the squeeze it's put on libraries (both in the US and elsewhere).
Libraries have been changing rapidly in the face of increased financial stress in the last few years. There is the pressure to keep up with technology ($20,000 for a MS certified solution:p) and there is budget pressure from parent governments as well.
This has unfortunately led to changes in the way they serve their patrons. For instance my local library will gladly rent you a recent bestseller for $0.50 a day, now you can wait till it shows up in the general circulation stacks but this can take some time. They have also begun charging for InterLibraryLoan materials as have most of the academic libraries in the region.
So What Does this have to do with DVDCCA?
Well what's happening with libraries is only one of many signs of the erosion of intellectual freedom in modern life, universities beholden to megacorps, elementary schools brought to you by (flavored-sugar-water inc.) etc. Is a teacher who stands to vest in a company based on what he's teaching going to tell you about the downside? Is a library under pressure from a major donor going to aquire the muckraking corporate history? The stakes are higher than you think!
If Pavlovich and friends are crushed, if Kaplan's decision stands, we will all be much worse off than when we started.
So, here's an idea for you: Distributed instant messaging. Why has no one done it yet? Or if they
have, where is the "+1 Informative" linked reply to this comment to prove me wrong? (Or a "+1
Funny" link to sendmail.com)
Look at Jabber from the docs "
The Jabber instant messaging architechture is modeled after the internet email system. There can exist
any number of independent Jabber servers which accept connections from clients as well as
communicate to other jabber servers. Each server functions independent of others, and maintains its
own user list. Any Jabber server can talk to any other Jabber server that is accessable via the internet."
What's really needed of course is a distributed DNS service, although that would be
a major security risk
speed up net.balkanization
However at present DNS is the one part of the net still tangled in a hierarchy;-)
Ok so Mozilla is going to support an SVG rendering engine which makes a pretty good target for the display layer. The conceptual model is the tough part; graphical navigation of a unix or DOS filesystem is an inherently mixed metaphor, the underlying system is textual so you are basically restricted to a document tree display. A better, or at least "more graphical" way of doing it would be to represent the local area(define local as you like) of your network as a scenegraph consisting of a set of nodes and the links between them. Restrict the types of nodes to a simplified object hierarchy.
Object
Person
place
Thing
file
stream
device
That users can subclass and that can support simple messaging(a well defined interface is inherited from Object and used by all nodes on the scene).
WHY?
well the advantages are obvious aren't they? In this age of always(we wish)on networking it would make sense to represent the most commonly dealt with domain objects as clearly as possible. Bruce Tognazzini made the suggestion that people ought to be first class elements of any net oriented UI. And of course if you have people they have places to go things to do people they do them with, things they need to do them, places where they can work undisturbed, places where they can choose things or make things, places to meet other people, etc, etc. until you reach a place that... well you don't really want to go there now do you?
The neat thing is that it's possible to do almost all of the messy parts in the XML layer, for which there are numerous commodity tools and libraries. It should (in theory) be crossplatform (assuming platforms are compatible to standard).
My major worry right now is whether most of the SVG clients are going to support in-picture-links as that would be the way to implement most of the method calls on objects. Greatest possible thing would be to be able to write the methods in scheme;-)
"Research into this area must be halted immediately. "
>>>(troll? ("there are some problems with this")) value:.78 weighted by forum
On the off chance that this isn't a troll, here's a short list of reasons why this technology won't lead to a new dark ages at least not by itself.
Coevolution
AlphabetSoup agencies and other power groups will find new ways to keep secrets, and there will always be a rough balance between what can/can't be protected.
Resource differential
Govt.'s secret and open have way more resources than individuals. Order will be maintained.
One of the most encouraging trends in OSS developments these days is the development of new tools allowing people to communicate while minimizing strife and misunderstanding.
Sourceforge is a centralized depot where tools like CVS, mailing lists, and such are to be found, one problem is that sf does not have anything like a moderation/review system in place to discriminate the good the bad and the ugly.
Wiki is more a paradigm than a piece of software. The best explanation of Wiki is that it's a section of serverspace that anyone can edit at any time. Totally insecure, extremely open, it's very much public cyberspace. One of the surprising things about wikis is that even though they are very open the level of discourse is usually quite high...
What's generally lacking so far in Opensource is a widely used means of prioritizing projects and recruiting resources. But that may not be such a bad thing, after all experimentation is what drives the whole ball of mud forward, eh?
All kidding aside, we can either whine about how corrupt and mean the govt. is or we can participate in improving it (read replacing it a bit at a time rather than ripping the whole thing apart and hoping to profit from the ensuing chaos).
The right and timely thing to do would be to turn it into a civil courtroom where a Dept. of Commerce Administrative Judge would be able to hear/view/browse evidence, hear arguments and render judgment regarding things like domain name disputes, peering agreements gone wrong, and all the other administrivia that a functional marketplace and public forum need to have sorted out by a court, so that everyone knows where they stand.
In other words a cyber court for cyberspace.
The Governments' role in enabling a functional exchange economy has always been primarily one of adjudicating disputes rather than laying down the law. And I certainly think that an Online court dedicated to disputes that occur over Internet related issues makes a lot of sense.
Certainly, only a court that is online can hope to react with the speed demanded by the environment.
Another poster commented that the 1990s don't look very much like SF writers in the 1960s said they would, either. Bang on. Bang off, I'd say; check out John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider which was if anything too prescient about some things. And of course totally wrong about others. Thats why it's called science-FICTION
Re:Will Apple finally see OpenSource light at last
on
MacOS X DP3
·
· Score: 1
There is an Advocacy group that is trying to get Apple to see thelight on this issue.
It's the Rhapsody on Intel group and they have an automated petition as well as a couple of articles arguing the Open Source/Free Software business case for Apple's releasing a bundle of source, BTW they point out that much of what's in mac OS X is already available, just in pieces.
Which brings up an important point, GNU/Hurd is based on the same microkernel and wouldn't it be rather a kick to have a fully free environment that was source/compatible with Yellowbox frameworks?
I have seen versions of this idea posted here on slashdot and in other forums; but it makes sense to reiterate it and hopefully bring it into focus. The current furor over copyrights will eventually settle into a metastable arrangement where the rights of creators and consumers are balanced de facto if not de jure. It seems likely that what it will settle down towards is a mixture of subscription funded digital archives (sort of like what MP3.com is attempting to build) but based on the backcatalogues of the major recording labels; and trade/sharing networks like napster and various IRC channels. Now it might seem odd to predict that the majors will have a (very) profitable business going when anybody can effectively make perfect copies of their product and pass it out to a few hundred thousand of their friends. But they will, keeping a large archive organized and accessible is a chore one that most people would gladly pay ~$5 a month for, especially if it allowed them immediate access to just about any piece of music ever recorded. The thing is that it would be a worthwhile service even to people who could load up a sharing server (like napster) and find what they were looking for IF it was available right then and IF it didn't take too long to find it. However, and I'm making one of those bold predictions that could be quite wrong. It's the file-sharing networks that will determine who the stars are. I'm betting the majors with a clue are already working on ways to maximise penetration of message to the various sharing groups.
What about using the Xtensibility of this new (XML 1.0) standard to introduce some tags that would allow for client side scripting. Sorta like Javascript only with a syntax that's more consistent with the rest of what's going on. Actually I'd be happy with just a few basic data structures. For Instance: a <tree> tag that would enclose <node> tags ; or an <array> tag. Seems like I remember Tim Sweeney (of Unreal) talking about parametric data types nd such and being mentioned on these pages this would be kind of the same idea.
OK according to the web site, the UNL aka "the meta language" Will be based off of english with a means for defining new words, as long as you can provide a word in your original language, AND locate it in the conceptual hierarchy. The most effective step they could take at this point, to increase the propagation would be to come up with an XML dtd, for UNL dictionary entries, and conversion/deconversion mappings. BTW it looks like the web site was produced using UNL technology, and it's not too bad, not as good as a native speaker with strong rhetorical skills but sufficient to carry technical and commercial traffic. The one thing it probably won't be very good at is translating persuasive text meant to convince people. Not such a great loss.
Slashdot Mirror
I imagine that some publisher back in the 19th century said almost the same thing regarding libraries. Which then went on to become one of the publishers steadiest and most reliable customers.
One of the little noted side effects of the internet's rise has been the squeeze it's put on libraries (both in the US and elsewhere).
Libraries have been changing rapidly in the face of increased financial stress in the last few years. There is the pressure to keep up with technology ($20,000 for a MS certified solution :p) and there is budget pressure from parent governments as well.
This has unfortunately led to changes in the way they serve their patrons. For instance my local library will gladly rent you a recent bestseller for $0.50 a day, now you can wait till it shows up in the general circulation stacks but this can take some time. They have also begun charging for InterLibraryLoan materials as have most of the academic libraries in the region.
So What Does this have to do with DVDCCA?
Well what's happening with libraries is only one of many signs of the erosion of intellectual freedom in modern life, universities beholden to megacorps, elementary schools brought to you by (flavored-sugar-water inc.) etc. Is a teacher who stands to vest in a company based on what he's teaching going to tell you about the downside? Is a library under pressure from a major donor going to aquire the muckraking corporate history?
The stakes are higher than you think!
If Pavlovich and friends are crushed, if Kaplan's decision stands, we will all be much worse off than when we started.
Look at Jabber from the docs " The Jabber instant messaging architechture is modeled after the internet email system. There can exist any number of independent Jabber servers which accept connections from clients as well as communicate to other jabber servers. Each server functions independent of others, and maintains its own user list. Any Jabber server can talk to any other Jabber server that is accessable via the internet."
What's really needed of course is a distributed DNS service, although that would be
- a major security risk
- speed up net.balkanization
However at present DNS is the one part of the net still tangled in a hierarchyThat users can subclass and that can support simple messaging(a well defined interface is inherited from Object and used by all nodes on the scene).
WHY? well the advantages are obvious aren't they? In this age of always(we wish)on networking it would make sense to represent the most commonly dealt with domain objects as clearly as possible. Bruce Tognazzini made the suggestion that people ought to be first class elements of any net oriented UI. And of course if you have people they have places to go things to do people they do them with, things they need to do them, places where they can work undisturbed, places where they can choose things or make things, places to meet other people, etc, etc. until you reach a place that... well you don't really want to go there now do you?
The neat thing is that it's possible to do almost all of the messy parts in the XML layer, for which there are numerous commodity tools and libraries. It should (in theory) be crossplatform (assuming platforms are compatible to standard). ;-)
My major worry right now is whether most of the SVG clients are going to support in-picture-links as that would be the way to implement most of the method calls on objects. Greatest possible thing would be to be able to write the methods in scheme
value:
On the off chance that this isn't a troll, here's a short list of reasons why this technology won't lead to a new dark ages at least not by itself.
AlphabetSoup agencies and other power groups will find new ways to keep secrets, and there will always be a rough balance between what can/can't be protected.
Govt.'s secret and open have way more resources than individuals. Order will be maintained.
who gets these things first?
humanity will adapt, transparency is good.
One of the most encouraging trends in OSS developments these days is the development of new tools allowing people to communicate while minimizing strife and misunderstanding.
Some examples that really work:Sourceforge is a centralized depot where tools like CVS, mailing lists, and such are to be found, one problem is that sf does not have anything like a moderation/review system in place to discriminate the good the bad and the ugly.
Zope is a publishing environment that allows pretty much infinite flexibility and supports many different styles of communication.
Wiki is more a paradigm than a piece of software. The best explanation of Wiki is that it's a section of serverspace that anyone can edit at any time. Totally insecure, extremely open, it's very much public cyberspace. One of the surprising things about wikis is that even though they are very open the level of discourse is usually quite high...
What's generally lacking so far in Opensource is a widely used means of prioritizing projects and recruiting resources. But that may not be such a bad thing, after all experimentation is what drives the whole ball of mud forward, eh?
All kidding aside, we can either whine about how corrupt and mean the govt. is or we can participate in improving it (read replacing it a bit at a time rather than ripping the whole thing apart and hoping to profit from the ensuing chaos).
The right and timely thing to do would be to turn it into a civil courtroom where a Dept. of Commerce Administrative Judge would be able to hear/view/browse evidence, hear arguments and render judgment regarding things like domain name disputes, peering agreements gone wrong, and all the other administrivia that a functional marketplace and public forum need to have sorted out by a court, so that everyone knows where they stand.
In other words a cyber court for cyberspace.
The Governments' role in enabling a functional exchange economy has always been primarily one of adjudicating disputes rather than laying down the law. And I certainly think that an Online court dedicated to disputes that occur over Internet related issues makes a lot of sense.
Certainly, only a court that is online can hope to react with the speed demanded by the environment.
Another poster commented that the 1990s don't look very much like SF writers in the 1960s said they would, either. Bang on.
Bang off, I'd say; check out John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider which was if anything too prescient about some things. And of course totally wrong about others. Thats why it's called science-FICTION
There is an Advocacy group that is trying to get Apple to see thelight on this issue.
It's the Rhapsody on Intel group and they have an automated petition as well as a couple of articles arguing the Open Source/Free Software business case for Apple's releasing a bundle of source, BTW they point out that much of what's in mac OS X is already available, just in pieces.
Which brings up an important point, GNU/Hurd is based on the same microkernel and wouldn't it be rather a kick to have a fully free environment that was source/compatible with Yellowbox frameworks?
I have seen versions of this idea posted here on slashdot and in other forums; but it makes sense to reiterate it and hopefully bring it into focus. The current furor over copyrights will eventually settle into a metastable arrangement where the rights of creators and consumers are balanced de facto if not de jure. It seems likely that what it will settle down towards is a mixture of subscription funded digital archives (sort of like what MP3.com is attempting to build) but based on the backcatalogues of the major recording labels; and trade/sharing networks like napster and various IRC channels.
Now it might seem odd to predict that the majors will have a (very) profitable business going when anybody can effectively make perfect copies of their product and pass it out to a few hundred thousand of their friends. But they will, keeping a large archive organized and accessible is a chore one that most people would gladly pay ~$5 a month for, especially if it allowed them immediate access to just about any piece of music ever recorded.
The thing is that it would be a worthwhile service even to people who could load up a sharing server (like napster) and find what they were looking for IF it was available right then and IF it didn't take too long to find it.
However, and I'm making one of those bold predictions that could be quite wrong. It's the file-sharing networks that will determine who the stars are. I'm betting the majors with a clue are already working on ways to maximise penetration of message to the various sharing groups.
What about using the Xtensibility of this new (XML 1.0) standard to introduce some tags that would allow for client side scripting.
Sorta like Javascript only with a syntax that's more consistent with the rest of what's going on.
Actually I'd be happy with just a few basic data structures.
For Instance:
a <tree> tag that would enclose <node> tags ; or an <array> tag.
Seems like I remember Tim Sweeney (of Unreal) talking about parametric data types nd such and being mentioned on these pages this would be kind of the same idea.
OK according to the web site, the UNL aka "the meta language" Will be based off of english with a means for defining new words, as long as you can provide a word in your original language, AND locate it in the conceptual hierarchy. The most effective step they could take at this point, to increase the propagation would be to come up with an XML dtd, for UNL dictionary entries, and conversion/deconversion mappings. BTW it looks like the web site was produced using UNL technology, and it's not too bad, not as good as a native speaker with strong rhetorical skills but sufficient to carry technical and commercial traffic. The one thing it probably won't be very good at is translating persuasive text meant to convince people. Not such a great loss.