Why Everyone Should Care About DRM's Punishment Of The Visually Impaired

Techdirt writes a lot about the problems with DRM, and how inefficient and inconvenient it is. But for millions of visually-impaired people, those "inconveniences" represent something much deeper, and much worse. Somebody who has started writing eloquently about this issue is Rupert Goodwins. He is one of the UK's most respected technology journalists and also, sadly, is losing his sight. As he points out in a powerful new piece, things ought to be getting better for the visually impaired in the Internet age: 

On Techdirt.

Will Adobe See the Light (of Day)?

The content management company Day Software may not be the world's most famous outfit making money from open source – perhaps a function of the fact that it is located in Basel, hardly known as a hotbed of hackers – but it's certainly an important one, particularly in the Apache part of the open source ecosystem.

On Open Enterprise blog.

A Timeline of Microsoft Hurt

I've often written about particular instances where Microsoft has bullied competitors; it's a pretty sorry tale. But that story becomes extraordinary when told in detail, and as a sequence of actions whose sole purpose was to drive off competition by any means.

If you're interested in how Microsoft sought to undermine DR-DOS, WordPerfect, Netscape and Java - to say nothing of GNU/Linux - you can find out here in this document from the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS). As you might guess from the subject matter of the report, this is a bunch of companies who are not overly enamoured of Microsoft:

ECIS has acted as an advocate of interoperability since its inception in 1989. The association believes strongly in the benefits of a competitive and innovative ICT sector, and seeks to support such an environment by actively participating in the promotion of any initiative aimed at favoring interoperability, competition on the merits, innovation, and consumers' interests in the area of information and communication technology.

ECIS’ members include large and smaller information and communications technology hardware and software providers Adobe Systems, Corel, IBM, Nokia, Opera, Oracle, RealNetworks, Red Hat, and Sun Microsystems.

Leaving aside the sad fact that a European organisation can't spell "favouring", it's pretty clear that this is not an objective, balanced picture. But as far as I can tell, it's not untruthful, and its statements are butteressed with references to relevant documents and news items that make it useful for further exploration.

Adobe and Nokia Fund Open Screen Project

The Open Screen Project was set up in May 2008:

Partners in the Open Screen Project are working together to provide a consistent runtime environment for open web browsing and standalone applications — taking advantage of Adobe Flash Player and, in the future, Adobe AIR. This consistent runtime environment will remove barriers to publishing content and applications across desktops, mobile phones, televisions, and other consumer electronics.

Now, Adobe's AIR ain't open source, so I'm a bit sceptical of the "open" bit in the name of Open Screen Project, but AIR does, at least, run on GNU/Linux. I've been using the AIR-based TweetDeck on Ubuntu, and memory leaks aside, it just works.

The Open Screen Project has received a wad of dosh:

At the GSMA Mobile World Congress, Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) and Nokia Corporation (NYSE: NOK) today announced a $10 million Open Screen Project fund designed to help developers create applications and services for mobile, desktop and consumer electronics devices using the Adobe Flash® Platform. The new fund is a result of the Open Screen Project, an industry-wide initiative of more than 20 industry leaders set to enable a consistent experience for web browsing and standalone applications. Additional Open Screen Project partners are expected to join the fund in the future.

Apparently, AIR projects are also eligible, which is something.

Now, if they could just open source AIR, as they will probably have to if they want to see off the threat from Microsoft's Silverlight...

Respect, Nathive

In the world of closed-source software, it's hard to get a project going in a sector with established players. Since everything must be built from scratch - no building on the work of others *here* - it requires considerable financial backing.

Of course, that's not the case with free software, where the archetypal person in a bedroom can just start hacking for the sheer love of it - like this, for example:

Unfortunately I do not have much help... in fact I'm not a Gnu/Linux Expert, I'm not a superstar programmer, Simply one day I promised myself to do this, life is something strange... Born in 1985, like FSF, I became Gnu/Linux user in 2007 (never too late) and this is my first C program. I love to learn!

I would like to form a working group and continue learning more and more quickly.

The project is Nathive:

Nathive is a libre software image editor, similar to Adobe Photoshop, Corel Photo-Paint or The GIMP, but focusing on usability, logic and provide a smooth learning curve for everyone. The project run over Gnome desktop and everyone can colaborate in it with code, translations or ideas.

The project is in alpha phase, so it is an incomplete work, the intention is to achieve progressively a professional graphic editor without giving up the initial usability. It's a made from scratch code, with C programming language and GTK+, simple, lightweight, easy to install and use.

I particularly liked the first statement of the following:

Nathive Philosophy

* Show respect and gratitude to GIMP community.
* First make it easy, then make it powerfull.
* The user don't need to see every options all time.
* If it seems absolutely absurd, might work.
* Everything should be obvious.

Respect and gratitude begets the same.... Good luck, Nathive.

Want to Open Flash? Ask Sun How

I'm not the world's biggest fan of Flash, but there's no denying an open version would at least be better than a closed one. Here's why that's not happening:

Now whether we would publish the entire Flash Player as open source is something that first of all would be somewhat challenging in that there are some codices in Flash that we don't have the rights to all the source to. That's one challenge with that. The other is that I think in terms of what's best here for consistency of Flash on the web, having multiple implementations and having forking and splintering of that code would be a big loss for the web in terms of that consistency. So we're really working to be a good steward of Flash and making sure that it runs across operating systems on the web. And we really want to make sure that we don't end up in a situation where it's fragmented and loses the value that it has brought to the web so far. That's really what we're working to do is to maintain the consistency, but we're very inclusive of open source and involved in open source to enable that innovation of the open source community to be part of the success story with Flash.

Now replace the word "Flash" with "Java", and you have *precisely* the argument that Sun used to give for not open-sourcing Java. Which is now available under the GNU GPL.

Adobe, are you listening...? (Via Aral Balkan.)

How Open is the Open Video Player Initiative?

Here's that “open” meme again:

Interactive agencies, ad technology firms and software firms joined with Akamai to build a best practices approach to online video player development. The goal of the project was to give the industry a resource that promotes existing best practices around rich media development. Over the last three years thousands of applications have been developed based on this standard powering millions of video plays....

On Open Enterprise blog.

I Don't Want to Say We Told You so...

...but we told you so. If you use proprietary programs and proprietary formats, this is what happens:

A number of European startups - and many others globally - will be thrown into chaos today with the news that Adobe is discontinuing development of its Flashpaper product.

Adobe will continue to sell and support the current FlashPaper 2 version, but won’t be updating the technology to support Microsoft Windows Vista and IE7, which will make it virtually worthless.

The news will hit US sites like Scribd and Docstoc, and European sites like the UK’s edocr and Germany’s Twidox which only recently won funding. edocr currently bases all its document sharing on Flashpaper.

Twidox CEO Nicholas MacGowan von Holstein contacted TechCrunch UK today to say the move would have a major impact: “What about all the websites that have been storing all their documents with Flashpaper? It will be a major job having to transfer all those documents to a new solution.”

Give Me a Platform...

...and I will infect the world:

Symantec has warned of a security hole in Adobe's Flash Player that is already being exploited by web sites to install trojans onto users' computers. Adobe is still analysing the bug and has not yet been able to release an update.

...

The malicious code only appears to be attacking Windows at present. ISC reports that it downloads the files ax.exe and setip.exe. However, the vulnerability probably affects Flash Player for other operating systems as well. It is therefore likely to be just a question of time before malware coders are distributing malicious code for Linux and Mac OS X.

Another reason to flee Flash.

OK, So Adobe Supports GNU/Linux – But How Much?

On Open Enterprise blog.

Adobe Opens Up (A Bit)

On Open Enterprise blog.

Adobe Flash - Now with Added Evil

Another reason to hate Flash:

Now Adobe, which controls Flash and Flash Video, is trying to change that with the introduction of DRM restrictions in version 9 of its Flash Player and version 3 of its Flash Media Server software. Instead of an ordinary web download, these programs can use a proprietary, secret Adobe protocol to talk to each other, encrypting the communication and locking out non-Adobe software players and video tools. We imagine that Adobe has no illusions that this will stop copyright infringement -- any more than dozens of other DRM systems have done so -- but the introduction of encryption does give Adobe and its customers a powerful new legal weapon against competitors and ordinary users through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

(Via Techdirt.)

Photoshop on GNU/Linux

As I've noted elsewhere, free software is absolutely central to Google's success and future. Here's some further proof - it's helping to get Photoshop running on GNU/Linux using Wine:

"Photoshop is one of those applications that Desktop linux users are constantly clamoring for, and we're happy to say they work pretty well now," Google engineer and Wine release manager Dan Kegel wrote. "About 200 patches were committed to winehq, and as of wine-0.9.54, Photoshop CS2 is quite usable," Kegel noted in a separate post.

(Via tuxmachines.org.)

Is Dead Code Worth Open Sourcing?

On Open Enterprise blog.

Open Source Unoriginal? - How Unoriginal

Here's a tired old meme that I've dealt with before, but, zombie-like, it keeps on coming back:

The open-source software community is simply too turbulent to focus its tests and maintain its criteria over an extended duration, and that is a prerequisite to evolving highly original things. There is only one iPhone, but there are hundreds of Linux releases. A closed-software team is a human construction that can tie down enough variables so that software becomes just a little more like a hardware chip—and note that chips, the most encapsulated objects made by humans, get better and better following an exponential pattern of improvement known as Moore’s law.

So let's just look at those statements for a start, shall we?

There is only one iPhone, but there are hundreds of Linux releases.

There's only one iPhone because the business of negotiating with the oligopolistic wireless companies is something that requires huge resources and deep, feral cunning possessed only by unpleasantly aggressive business executives. It has nothing to do with being closed. There are hundreds of GNU/Linux distributions because there are even more different kinds of individuals, who want to do things their way, not Steve's way. But the main, highly-focussed development takes place in the one kernel, with two desktop environments - the rest is just presentation, and has nothing to do with dissipation of effort, as implied by the above juxtaposition.

chips, the most encapsulated objects made by humans, get better and better following an exponential pattern of improvement known as Moore’s law

Chips do not get better because they are closed, they get better because the basic manufacturing processes get better, and those could just as easily be applied to open source chips - the design is irrelevant.

The iPhone is just one of three exhibits that are meant to demonstrate the clear superiority of the closed-source approach. Another is Adobe Flash - no, seriously: what most sensible people would regard as a virus is cited as one of "the more sophisticated examples of code". And what does Flash do for us? Correct: it destroys the very fabric of the Web by turning everything into opaque, URL-less streams of pixels.

The other example is "the page-rank algorithms in the top search engines", which presumably means Google, since it now has nearly two-thirds of the search market, and the page-rank algorithms of Microsoft's search engine are hardly being praised to the sky.

But what do we notice about Google? That it is built almost entirely on the foundation of open source; that its business model - its innovative business model - would not work without open source; that it simply would not exist without open source. And yes, Yahoo also uses huge amounts of open source. No, Microsoft doesn't, but maybe it's not exactly disinterested in its choice of software infrastructure.

Moreover, practically every single, innovative, Web 2.0-y start-up depends on open source. Open source - the LAMP stack, principally - is innovating by virtue of its economics, which make all these new applications possible.

And even if you argue that this is not "real" innovation - whatever that means - could I direct your attention to a certain technology known colloquially as the Internet? The basic TCP/IP protocols? All open. The Web's HTTP and HTML? All open. BIND? Open source. Sendmail? Open source. Apache? Open source. Firefox, initiated in part because Microsoft had not done anything innovative with Internet Explorer 6 for half a decade? Open source.

But there again, for some people maybe the Internet isn't innovative enough compared to Adobe's Flash technology.

What Richard Stallman Wants for Christmas

Bruce Byfield has an interesting write-up of the FSF's High Priority Free Software Projects.

Projects make this list "because there is no adequate free placement," the list's home page explains, which means that "users are continually being seduced into using non-free software."

He concludes with the just observation:

Personally, I find the current list both encouraging and depressing. On the one hand, it is encouraging in that relatively few items affect daily computing for the average user. Moreover, the fact that free software is in reasonable enough shape that it can start thinking beyond immediate needs and worry about such things as the BIOS is a sign of progress.

On the other hand, it is discouraging because progress sometimes seems slow. Video drivers have been a problem for years, and the improvements, while real, are also painfully slow. Similarly, Gnash has not yet developed to the stage where it can rival Adobe's Flash reader, despite several years of work.

Still, over time, the list reflects progress. For instance, since Sun announced last year that it was releasing the Java code, you will no longer find support for free Java implementations listed. By comparing the current list with previous ones, you can get a sense of the gradual evolution of free software, seeing where it's been and where it is heading. For a GNU/Linux watcher, it remains an invaluable resource.

GNU PDF Project

Around ten years ago I fought a fierce battle to get people to use HTML instead of PDF files, which I saw as part of a move to close the Web by making it less transparent.

You may have noticed that I lost.

Now, even the GNU project is joining in:

The goal of the GNU PDF project is to develop and provide a free, high-quality and fully functional set of libraries and programs that implement the PDF file format, and associated technologies.

...

PDF has become the de-facto standard for documentation sharing in the industry.

Almost all enterprises uses PDF documents to communicate all kinds of information: manuals, design documents, presentations, etc, even if it is originally composed with OpenOffice, LaTeX or some other word processor.

Almost all enterprises use proprietary tools to compose, read and manipulate PDF files. Thus, the workers of these enterprises are forced to use proprietary programs.

I still think HTML, suitably developed, would be a better solution. (Via LXer.)

BBC iPlayer: Converted in a Flash

Well, here's an interesting confluence of two of my pet hates:

By adopting Adobe Flash Player software, the BBC will make its free catch-up TV service — BBC iPlayer — available as a streaming service across Macintosh and Linux, as well as Windows, by the end of the year. The strategic relationship will also allow the BBC to provide a single consistent user experience for the majority of streamed video and audio content on www.bbc.co.uk.

Note that this is only for the streaming service: downloads are still Windows only. Still, it's a neat partial solution for GNU/Linux. Not only that, it emphasises an interesting shift that has taken place with Flash.

Once, Flash seemed to be used only for serving up annoying ads or time-wasting games. But increasingly it's turning into the cross-platform media player of choice, a job it does rather well, I have to admit. And so I'm forced to concede that Flash might not be quite so evil as it once was.

Google's Choice of Hercules

Further to yesterday's post about a call to respect free use of copyrighted material, here's an interesting point about Google's participation:

it certainly seems ironic that Google is being associated with this complaint, at the same time as they are putting putting highly misleading notices on scanned public domain works:

The Google notice, found as page 1 on downloadable PDFs of public domain works available via Google Book Search, "asks" users to:

Make non-commercial use of the files. We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for personal, non-commercial purposes...

Maintain attribution The Google “watermark” you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.

There is clear U.S. precedent that scanning a public domain work does not create a new copyright so there seems to be absolutely zero legal basis for restricting use or forcing users to preserve inserted per-page watermarks-cum-advertisements.

So, which side are you on, Google? (Via Michael Hart.)

Google's Gears of War

Gears is a browser extension that we hope -- with time and plenty of input and collaboration from outside of Google -- can make not just our applications but everyone's applications work offline.

Well, not exactly gears of war, not least because Google has wisely made the code freely available under an open source licence:

We are releasing Gears as an open source project and we are working with Adobe, Mozilla and Opera and other industry partners to make sure that Gears is the right solution for everyone.

But certainly likely to represent the start of a skirmish or two in the field of offline working.