Posted on September 17, 2011 by Simon Phipps
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Sony demonstrates it still has no respect for its customers. This is the same company that installed an exploitable rootkit on its customers computers. Surely the ability to force your customers to surrender their recourse against you has to be a signal that you have monopoly power or something very close to it? I can’t help thinking that rights to remedy your supplier’s negligence should be inalienable.
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This is what happens when you allow lobbyists for oh-so-trustworthy companies (like Sony) to dominate the framing of law. In this case it’s obvious and explainable what the problem is, but the opportunity for overreach and abuse of laws like this – especially as regulatory creep makes them broader and more severe – is huge. Just look at what happened to badly-framed wiretap laws from a previous era, allowing recording of police outside the context of the original law to be interpreted as criminal by those wishing to escape scrutiny.
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Good job someone is paying attention this time. All the same, the way the overall law is shaped is very worrying, as is the mere fact there are people in the process who believe that breach of Terms of Service should be a felony. Seriously, what planet does that come from?
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Very interesting move to offer a standard and open way to add features to cars.
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I’d probably rent one of these at a transit stop. It would also be interesting to be able to check in for a morning flight the night before and sleep over at the gate…
Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Corporate Actions
Posted on September 16, 2011 by Simon Phipps
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RIM has started up BlackBerry Hands-On Workshops, in which students will take apart BlackBerry smartphones to see how they work.”
Free hoodie with every class? Seriously, we would do far better teaching kids to program and to solder using open source software and hardware than letting major brands teach them how to be respectful consumers. Yet another problem when technological philistines attempt to legislate in areas they don’t respect, let alone understand.
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A problem Cliff Richard and his friends just made worse. Legislators have completely lost sight of the “social contract” behind copyright and are letting the elimination of the cultural commons by the lucky rich few copyright mediators run amok.
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Wonderful, warm, honest, inspiring and brave posting by Jeff Waugh, who I proud to count as a friend.
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While it’s not a surprise it works, it’s good to see proof.
Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Government In Action
Posted on September 15, 2011 by Simon Phipps
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Interesting how the government is keen to protect Cliff Richard’s pension (by criminalising his fans) and to protect celebrities against hacking yet has no policy to pursue scammers or protect against criminal hacking. Instead they prefer to allow the public domain to be eroded and to follow the advice of lobbyists representing outdated monopolistic business, creating dangerously broad laws that are just waiting to be abused.
Think I’m extreme? That’s how US police forces are using poorly-drafted wiretap laws from a previous era to persecute citizens who try to video police misbehaviour, and in the US
the same malign process is running again.
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Still not very compelling writing, and for longer articles it’s definitely the work of a very junior reporter, but you can see the direction this is taking.
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When we speak of free
software, we are referring
to freedom, not price.
I stumbled across this almost-decade-old posting from Danny’s site after being reminded of it by his new postings.
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Interesting move by the venerable and progressive Guardian newspaper from the UK – this is their new US-focussed home page on a new .com domain. About time the US had a new and independent voice…
Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Poetic Justice?
Posted on September 14, 2011 by Simon Phipps
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It will come as no surprise to anyone reading here regularly, but there may be some that still don’t realise their political “representatives” have so little grasp of the dynamics of copyright and patent laws that they are willing to trade your cultural inheritance for short-term political advantage.
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This fits with the rest of the disgraceful behaviour by Microsoft in the same period, discrediting both themselves and the ISO standards process. Microsoft Brazil has a track record of heavy-handed politics too.
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Initial programme for the conference in Paris in October. I’m delighted to have been invited to give the closing address.
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Interesting series of articles that suggests proton pump inhibitors (acid reducers) like omeprazole may actually make things worse. Is this for real, or is it just the drug industry softening us up for something new now PPIs are cheap?
Filed under: Links | 1 Comment »
Posted on September 5, 2011 by Simon Phipps
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Very sensible commentary on Google’s misjudged “real names” strategy. I still have no idea why Google thinks its approach is worth burning vast tanks of karma to secure.
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A heart-warming thank-you letter to United after a warm web experience that takes every opportunity to trick customers into over-spending.
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If it’s just using HTML5 it’s not obvious to me why it needs a browser-specific plug-in to work. Seems to have gone astray – pity.
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While funny, this also contains an essential truth about power and responsibility.
Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Credit Where It’s Due
Posted on August 31, 2011 by Simon Phipps
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It’s just two weeks away, get ready to join in!
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Meshed WiFi in every Linux device? Yes please!
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Listening to the “special interests” who worry about freedom of speech and breaking the Internet? Well, that makes you just as much a criminal as they are.
Don Henley of The Eagles really does need to think more deeply about this and recognise that the 20th century’s music business winners are the problem that needs solving, not the solution that needs defending.
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There’s a depressing ring of truth about this WSJ article. Hopefully it will turn out that there is indeed adult supervision at HP, but since the only corrective they appear to have taken is to reorganise the PR team, maybe not.
Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Freedoms
Posted on August 30, 2011 by Simon Phipps
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I’m not sure what offends me most about Google’s idiotic approach here; the patronising parochialism that says they are the arbiters of what a “real” name is and how it’s constructed, the heavy-handed use of Terms of Service to bully individuals, the disregard for the established privacy strategies of so many people or the “talk to the hand” strategy when it’s all questioned.
Whichever it is, it’s offensive and I have no idea why the anonymous person who has decided to pick this fight and call in air-cover to protect them is being allowed to burn Google’s karma by being digital rednecks.
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It’s no surprise to see proof that the USA was heavily engaged in diplomacy on behalf of one of its richest corporations, and the documents certainly have the ring of truth.
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This new Ward Cunningham project looks both fascinating and brilliant. For those who were looking at what “innovation” might mean today, look here.
Filed under: Links | 5 Comments »
Posted on August 26, 2011 by Simon Phipps
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The incremental adjustment of software patent law in the USA continues. As the global corporate conflict intensifies, we’ll see more and more of these cases reaching the courts.
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This controversial piece makes very interesting reading.
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Handy classification. No software freedom anchor to the the ideas, though.
Filed under: Links | 1 Comment »
Posted on August 24, 2011 by Simon Phipps
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Stallman is right to call the alarm on unitary patents. We need to resume the defence of the barricades against the pro-patent lobby. It’s worth noting, however, that the reason the pro-patent lobby pulled the plug last time (as Stallman says) was not because of the street protests themselves but becuase of the targeted lobbying they permitted. Now would be a great time to consider a donation to the Open Rights Group or FSFE to make sure there will be people in a position to do that direct engagement with legislators this time round; the people who did it last time are no longer available.
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Nokia’s journey to open source seems to have run off the road at stage 3. This bit of history from Bradley is worth reading.
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The Document Foundation and LibreOffice take their next step forward. I’m pleased to be able to contribute in a small way by serving as the Elections Officer so that all the other leaders there are free to stand for election.
Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Clarion Call
Posted on August 22, 2011 by Simon Phipps
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Interesting interview with Mark, who I consider one of the key thinkers of the software freedom movement. I think too many people criticise him too much while failing to understand the larger picture of his philosophy. When we look back in the future, Mark will be seen as one of the most imprtant change-makers in the history of software freedom – and I mean good change.
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New York Times article that may surprise you. Warren Buffet has always been an atypical billionaire, and I think he’s speaking sense here given the system we have (rather than some ideal system we don’t have).
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More reasons to avoid fast food, as if I needed any more.
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While it sounds a little sacrilegious to do this to decent whisky, I do like the idea of the “oak ice cream” and of the “grey dog” from an elderly whisky. The prospect of recombining the best bits of several whiskys is interesting too.
Filed under: Links | Comments Off on ☞ Interesting Reading
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