Following the UK government’s announcement last week, I’ve posted a link collection related to copyright reform with commentary over on ComputerWorldUK today.
Filed under: Copyright | Tagged: CWUK | Comments Off on ☝ Links: Copyright Reform
☞ Challenging Intrusion
Posted on November 8, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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EPIC (the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a US group) has challenged the US government over the new body scanners in use over there. The combination of scanners irradiating and exposing travellers, the abusive and humiliating alternatives and the lack of any humanity on the party of the authorities means this is a symbol that the American public may finally have had enough. Let’s hope – looks like the immoral murdering scum they think they are targeting think it’s a good enough development that they are increasing their activity so as to give the TSA extra reasons for removing more dignity and liberty from travellers unchallenged.
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The CfP is open for the Free Java DevRoom at FOSDEM. Get some good quality submissions in there, space will be in great demand.
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☞ Overhaul
Posted on November 7, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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Excellent move from a very wise and capable scholar – I have huge respect for him. He is completely right.
The copyright system was never designed for a world where every act of use involved a copy, and the consequence has been a huge swing of undeserved power towards the middle-men of every media industry. If we truly want to encourage the creative arts we should rebalance copyrights so that they are fair to the modern analogues of readers and writers and printers, rather than only the latter.
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Simple enough, but useful.
Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Overhaul
♫ Imogen Heap at the Albert Hall
Posted on November 6, 2010 by Simon Phipps
We were in London yesterday on our way back from a family celebration (congratulations Alastair!) and were lucky enough to have great tickets for Imogen Heap’s concert at the Royal Albert Hall. I’ve uploaded a sample of photos from the concert as well as (since it was a “cameras permitted” event) a video of one of the songs.
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☞ Bad News
Posted on November 5, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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The truly awful nightmare at the end of this short article is the reason I strive to keep my personal life personal despite a high public profile. I encourage you to do the same – privacy is not just for the paranoid.
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Some excellent advice that’s hard for passionate and informed people to follow. I have the same motivation behind my series of blog posts describing the differentiating positive values of open source software.
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☂ Open Core Essay Posted
Posted on November 5, 2010 by Simon Phipps
My essay on the open core business model is now available in the Essays section.
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☞ UK Copyright Reform: Good News Or Corporate Attack?
Posted on November 4, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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“The founders of Google have said they could never have started their company in Britain. … Over there [in the US], they have what are called ‘fair-use’ provisions, which some people believe gives companies more breathing space to create new products and services. So I can announce today that we are reviewing our IP laws, to see if we can make them fit for the internet age. I want to encourage the sort of creative innovation that exists in America.”
If this actually leads to liberty-enhancing changes to the UK’s laws, them I’m delighted. But the track record of this government so far has been to announce good things and then actually do bad things – LibDem spin shamelessly disguising old-fashioned Tory policies.
I greatly fear this moment being seized by corporate interests to introduce draconian enforcement measures and easier patenting to “balance” the introduction of fair-use provisions. Those provisions sound more like “safe harbour” than “fair use” anyway and are framed suspiciously as if they are only to benefit business and not citizens. We need to watch this like hawks.
Also:
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Interesting article (and discussion below it) explores whether there is a way to do an apples-to-oranges comparison of open source and proprietary software. Pretty raw, plenty to argue with, but interesting all the same.
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“Android has gone through versions 1.6, 2.0, 2.1, and 2.2, with version 2.3 expected some time in the fourth quarter of the year, version 3.0 expected in early 2011, and version 4.0 rumored to ready some time around the middle of 2011.Making the equivalent changes to Windows could take close to a decade. Working that slowly simply doesn’t work anymore; technology and the world change too fast. “
Filed under: Copyright, Links | 1 Comment »
☞ Restraining Trade
Posted on November 3, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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“To summarize:
- The App Store terms apply to GPLed software in the App Store.
- Those terms force strict Usage Rules on customers that prohibit many activities that are allowed under the GPL.
- Those restrictions are not allowed under GPLv2 section 6.”
In a posting to the VLC mailing list Brett Smith gives expert advice on the compatibility of the GPL and the App Store’s rules. Ultimately this conflict arises because of Apple’s desire to place what it regards as “fair use restrictions” based on the assumption that everything is proprietary. They could pretty easily fix it by adding an open source exception to the terms. Paging Ernie Prabhakar…
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I’ve written in the past about the state of competitive tendering, and the problem that’s caused by competitors needing to be the ones who enforce regulations by litigating. This case is a rarity, as the costs of initiating an action like this – not least in loss of customer goodwill – are huge. There really should be an update to the legislative frameworks around public competitive tendering so that it’s possible for anyone to make a complaint to a regulator who then takes up and pursues the case – as happens in anti-trust cases.
Also:
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Stormy has served GNOME well, but she’s leaving them for Mozilla where she’s going to be doing developer marketing by the looks of things.
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While this event is sponsored by Oracle, there’s a substantial Document Foundation component to the content. In my dreams I hope this will lead to Oracle choosing to work with rather than compete with the community they created.
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☂ DRM Essay Posted
Posted on November 3, 2010 by Simon Phipps
My essay explaining why DRM (Digital Restriction Measures) are toxic to culture is now available in the Essays section.
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☝ Community Escrow
Posted on November 2, 2010 by Simon Phipps
I’ve written previously about the freedom to leave, but there’s another value delivered by the liberties open source provides, one which it would even be worth paying extra to get. When your vendor changes direction, what do you do?
With open source software, there’s an option proprietary software can’t offer, one that it might even be worth paying extra to obtain. As long as it’s really open source and not compromised in some way, the community around the free-software commons can just “Rehost And Carry On“. Another company can step in to take the lead, or in the case that the project was already a truly diverse co-development community like PostgreSQL or an Apache community, there will already be a choice of alternatives available.
[Continue to read over at ComputerWorldUK…]
Filed under: Open Source | Tagged: CWUK | Comments Off on ☝ Community Escrow
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