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It would be something of an understatement to say that the world of
public libraries is undergoing rapid change at the moment. On the one
hand, the rise of open access
means that people are increasingly able to find information online that
was formerly held in serried ranks of volumes stored on library stacks.
On the other, publishers' reluctance
to allow ebooks to be lent out puts a key traditional function of
libraries under threat. So what exactly should public libraries being
doing in the digital age? Eric F. Van de Velde has written a a fascinating exploration of that question, along with a few suggestions.
On
Techdirt.
Techdirt has published several posts recently about the growing anger
among scholars over the way their work is exploited by academic
publishers. But there's another angle to the story, that of the
academic institutions who have to pay for the journals needed by their
professors and students. Via a number of people, we learn that the scholars' revolt has spread there, too:
On
Techdirt.
Yesterday I looked
at the first part of a long document that Microsoft sent the Cabinet
Office in October last year. Here I'd like to explore one of the other
sections, which is headed as follows:
On
Open Enterprise blog.
In my first two posts about Microsoft's lobbying against true open
standards, I concentrated on a document sent to the Cabinet Office in
May 2011. Here, I'd like to look at another, sent in October 2011
(available in both html and pdf formats.)
On
Open Enterprise blog.
We reported last week that the Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament had decided to vote against the ratification of ACTA; now the Liberals and Democrats are following suit:
On
Techdirt.
A constant theme here on Techdirt is that it's not the idea that's crucial, but the execution. Here's someone who seems to agree:
On
Techdirt.
Even though most of the focus around here has been on the UK government's Open Standards consultation (I do hope you've managed to reply by now - time is running out), the ACTA monster is still slouching towards Bethlehem. Things have gone better than I expected, with the ACTA rapporteur
recommending against ratification, the socialists confirming they will
vote against it, and rumours that the liberals will also vote against
it. But it's important to emphasise that it's not dead yet.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
Governments around the world are seeking to monitor more and more of
their citizens' online activities -- and it's not just the most
obviously repressive regimes doing this. In the US, there is CISPA, while the UK is drawing up the Communications Capability Development Programme.
Thomas Steen alerts us to a further escalation of this desire to spy
on the public, in Norway. The secret service there (known by the
acronym PST) want details about comments posted on all Web sites
retained (via Google Translate):
On
Techdirt.
The dramatic announcement that the EU's rapporteur on ACTA, David
Martin, would be recommending that the European Parliament should reject
the treaty was made at the end of a morning conference on the subject
organized by Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament. One
of those speaking in favor of ACTA at that meeting was Helienne
Lindvall, a professional songwriter and musician, who has now blogged about it:
On
Techdirt.
As you may have noticed, open standards are a hot topic currently. One person who deals with them all the time in a variety of ways is Charles-H. Schulz.
That's because he's one of the leaders of The Document Foundation, home to the LibreOffice fork of the ODF-based OpenOffice.org, and he's also on the board of the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). The following is an interview exploring his views about standards - open and not so open.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
Back in 2009, Techdirt wrote
about an interesting challenge to a then-new law against counterfeits
in Kenya, on the grounds that it might be used to stop perfectly legal
generic variants of drugs being imported into the country. That
matters, because around 90% of drugs used in Kenya are generics, which
means that blocking them would have serious implications for healthcare
in that country.
On
Techdirt.
One of open source's great strengths is that it is not a company.
This means that traditional methods of nullifying its threat – such as
buying it or causing it to go bankrupt – simply don't work. This is one
reason why traditional software companies have had such a hard time
getting their heads around free software and coming up with a sensible
response.
On
The H Open.
Open Access continues to gain momentum,
as more and more researchers seek to make their work freely available
online. One way of doing that is by modifying the contract that
academic publishers routinely send to potential authors, inserting a
clause that allows digital copies to be distributed.
On
Techdirt.
As Techdirt has reported,
the London 2012 Olympics bring with them a range of "special" measures
guaranteed to make London a place for lovers of freedom to avoid this
summer. But it seems that the organizers wish to ensure that anyone attending will also have a rather miserable time:
On
Techdirt.
In may last column, I wrote about Microsoft's efforts last year to derail any possible adoption of ODF.
That's very telling, because in a way it's quite separate from the
issue of open standards, and it shows that one of Microsoft's chief
fears is losing the extremely lucrative office suite business. But just
how lucrative is it? An email from Microsoft that is apparently
circulating around the Treasury department sheds some interesting light
on this. Here's what it says:
On
Open Enterprise blog.
Not content with inventing the Web and then giving it away, Tim Berners-Lee remains highly active in warning about the threats the Internet and its users face. Most recently he has taken on the British government's disproportionate plans to store information about every email sent and Web page visited in the UK:
On
Techdirt.
As if Italians didn't have enough problems, it seems that their government is trying to sneak through a proposal supposedly designed to provide those who are libelled online with an automatic recourse, which activists thought they had managed to kill off five months ago. Here's the plan:
On
Techdirt.
As China continues to climb up the economic rankings (it became number two
last year, in case you missed it) its domestic policy begins to have
wider implications for the rest of the world. A case in point is this
news from Slashdot about proposed changes to China's copyright laws. Two sections in particular are proving controversial:
On
Techdirt.
In yesterday's post
about Microsoft's lobbying of the Cabinet Office against truly open
standards based on RF licensing, I spent some time examining the first
part of a letter sent by the company on 20 May last year. The second
part concentrates on the issue of open standards for document exchange.
This touches on one of the most brutal episodes in recent computing
history - the submission of Microsoft's OOXML file format to ISO for approval.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
As Techdirt reported
a couple of years ago, a hard-fought campaign in New Zealand to prevent
software patents being granted there seemed to have paid off, with a Patents Bill explicitly excluding them that came with the following commentary:
On
Techdirt.
In my last post, I wrote
about my Freedom of Information request to find out how Microsoft had
been lobbying against true open standards that mandated RF licensing.
In fact, I made another at the same time, asking a similar question
about the Business Software Alliance's contacts with the Cabinet Office.
There turned out to be only two meetings, and one email, so clearly
the BSA played less of a role than Microsoft in this area.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
Last week, the EU Rapporteur on ACTA, David Martin, announced he would recommend that the European Parliament reject the treaty. He has now made good on that promise in his report, available in draft form (pdf):
On
Techdirt.
Light Blue Touchpaper is a blog written by researchers in the
Security Group at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory (don't
miss the explanation
of the blog's rather witty name). It's normally full of deep stuff
about computer security and vulnerabilities, and is well worth reading
for that reason.
On
The H Open.
Regular readers may recall that I was not a little taken aback by an astonishing U-turn performed by the Cabinet Office on the matter of open standards. As I pointed out in a follow-up article, this seemed to bear the hallmarks of a Microsoft intervention, but I didn't have any proof of that.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
Last week we saw the Socialists and Democrats, the second-largest bloc in the European Parliament, turn against
ACTA. Combined with the stated position of the Green party there, that
means ACTA is closer to being thrown out when the vote for ratification
takes place in Brussels this summer.
On
Techdirt.
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