Stark warning for internet's future
,----[ Quote ]
| He contrasts generative devices with "sterile appliances", closed systems
| which appear to give consumers access to the net.
|
| He argued such devices were damaging innovation and potentially putting
| easilly-abused powers into the hands of a few companies and governments.
|
| "Consumers are eagerly asking for technologies, which can be used to surveil
| or control them," said professor Zittrain.
|
| He said he was concerned that users who wanted basic access to the web were
| driving the adoption of closed systems.
`----
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7364901.stm
He is in favour of "programmable" blocks. Another new example of the dangers:
Why DRM Must Die
,----[ Quote ]
| Luckily, I bought only a few songs before I came to my senses, so this isn't
| a complete disaster. I'll either find a way to break the copy protection, or
| I'll buy the songs again--this time as .mp3s. I can assure you I won't be
| buying them from Zune.net.
|
| It's easy to dismiss this as a typical Microsoft move, and there's a lot of
| truth to that. But the simple fact is that Napster, MusicMatch, and even the
| much-beloved Apple could pull the same stunt tomorrow.
|
| As long as you can't play your music without permission from the store that
| sold it to you, you haven't bought that music; you're only renting it.
`---- ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/006850.html
Related:
Proprietors not as friendly to infringers as Free Software copyright holders
,----[ Quote ]
| Quite to the contrary, the SFLC is using litigation as a last resort: I doubt
| any well-known proprietor would take all the steps the SFLC has taken to
| remedy the infringement without publicity or lawsuit. Eben Moglen has
| enforced the GPL for many years and says that “compliance with the license,
| and security for future good behavior, are the most important goals”, which
| meant Moglen was in private talks with many infringers, rarely requiring from
| them public admission of wrongdoing. This is, Moglen says, a big reason why
| the lack of GPL court cases shows how strong the GPL is: it’s rare to find
| anyone who wanted to test the waters...
`----
http://www.digitalcitizen.info/2007/11/29/proprietors-not-as-friendly-to-infringers-as-free-software-copyright-holders/
http://tinyurl.com/3yp37e
Why does Humanity needs Free Software ?
,----[ Quote ]
| These projects are directly bound to social movements which cares about
| individuals integrity and world peace. Open source do not care about politics
| and your rights. The actual capitalism system tends to harm life, liberty and
| freedom. Don’t take me wrong, I am not talking against capitalism as long as
| it doesn’t walk on the democracy’s feet. But an economical system which
| threaten human life, is a system which has to be improved, and that’s what
| free software tends to do by spreading social values.
|
| Liberty is the right to choose. Freedom is the result of the right choice.
`----
http://kin.calvin.free.fr/blog/?p=5
Free Software as a Social Innovation
,----[ Quote ]
| Free Software is a unique social innovation which promotes an empowered,
| sustainable and inclusive information society through its freedoms of use,
| studying, modification and redistribution. Popular Free Software applications
| include the Firefox web browser, the Wordpress blog engine and the Juice
| podcast receiver. The philosophy behind Free Software has also inspired new
| social projects like Wikipedia, Creative Commons and Open Access.
`----
http://electronicpapercommunication.blog.20minutes.fr/archive/2007/10/23/free-software-as-a-social-innovation.html
Fair Use Advocates Issue Principles for Protecting Online Videos
,----[ Quote ]
| To accompany the "Fair Use Principles" document, EFF has also posted a
| gallery of videos that could be jeopardized by automated copyright filters,
| in hopes that video hosting services and content owners will be able to test
| their filters against these fair use videos.
`----
http://www.linuxelectrons.com/news/general/13914/fair-use-advocates-issue-principles-protecting-online-videos
http://tinyurl.com/2pgn7x
Oppression and exploitation may be profitable, but it's immoral:
.----[ Quote ]
| I wanted to be able to live in freedom, I wanted to be able to
| change software that I didn't like, and I wanted to be able to
| cooperate with other people - distribute software to other people.
| I didn't want to accept being forbidden to share, but how could I
| possibly escape from that? The only straightforward way was - don't
| use a computer. There was no other way to escape from those
| restrictions in 1983. The only way there could be another way, was
| to build a free operating system, so that's what I decided to do.
|
| [...]
|
| I don't bring this issue up, from the viewpoint of why you,
| developing a program, would find it advantageous to respect other
| people's freedom, because the point is it's your moral /duty/.
| You've got no right to trample other people's freedom. Non-free
| software's a social problem, it's wrong, and /that's/ what I argue.
| I argue that position with programmers or non-programmers, whoever
| it happens to be, because it's the same issue. And so what I tell
| people is not "whatever your aims are you will achieve them more
| if you respect other people's freedom", because that's not always
| true. There are aims for which subjugating other people is
| advantageous ... but it isn't /right/.
`----
http://cisx1.uma.maine.edu/~wbackman/bsdtalk/bsdtalk132.ogg
|
|
