The Problems of the Public Domain

Here's an interesting exploration of the perils of putting your stuff into the public domain:

Countries with moral rights protections, the right of the artist to be attributed for their work among other elements, often make those rights inalienable, meaning they can not be given away under any circumstance.

Therefore, in these countries attribution rights still rest with the respective authors and these dedications are little more than a promise not to sue if those rights are infringed. That is a promise that can be revoked at any time.

Second, there are some theories that hold that putting a work in the public domain might be seen as a gift and not a legal agreement. If such a gift were found to be an “unenforceable promise”, it could be retracted at a later date.

Third, the posts themselves were not written by attorneys and are very informal in nature. Though Creative Commons has a public domain dedication system, they both chose not to use it. It remains to be seen how these dedications would hold up in court if ever they were challenged.

Finally, the dedications only extend to existing works. The authors reserve the right in the future to reserve some or all rights in newer works. This could be seen as a block on activities such as scraping that are ongoing and automatic.

So while the dedications certainly are intended to forfeit all copyright protections on their work, they do not do so completely because it is impossible to do so.

Copyright law resists the public domain and favors automatic protection. This frustrates many in the field, but it is the nature of the beast.

The whole post is quite long, but it's well worth a read for the interesting perspective it puts on the public domain. (Via P2P Foundation.)

UMPC from Lenovo, Low-Cost Box from Shuttle

And here's another ultra-mobile PC:

At Lenovo's press dinner the other night there was this unidentifiable handheld placed on display... it runs Linux and uses new 45-nanometer chips from Intel.

Update: And here's an ultra low-cost box from Shuttle:

its $199 KPC Linux PC

...

It'll have an Intel Celeron processor, a 945GC chipset, 512MB of memory and either a 60GB or 80GB hard drive. What it won't have: an optical drive or a PCI Express slot. Despite that, it's a pretty good-looking box, and comes in red, blue, white, and black, each with a different icon stamped on the front.

The Saga of Erik

Saith he:

Finally, I wanted to address some stories that have been spread by a handful of individuals in the open source community. It is true that I worked at Microsoft for a long time and frankly speaking, I am proud of that. Right now, my loyalties are to the BBC and the BBC alone. I will only make decisions that are in the best interest of the licence fee payer. My actions will speak louder than my words...

Well, I look forward to that. But I do wonder how wide the purview will be when deciding what exactly is "in the best interest of the licence fee payer": defending fundamental principles of openness and neutrality, or just going for the cheapest deal in the short term? We shall see....

The IT Department in Cloud Cuckoo Land

On Open Enterprise blog.

The Shrinking Water Commons

Bad precedent:

Historically, the public trust doctrine has assured public access to the bodies of water within a state’s borders. This has usually meant the historic high-water mark for a lake or ocean. But in Ohio last month, a state judge issued a ruling that revises the definition of the public trust doctrine as it applies to the Lake Erie shoreline. The public no longer has access to the high-water mark, but only to the “water’s edge” – a redefinition that could be significant as the water levels of the Great Lakes drop. (Some of this drop, it must be added, will come from mass extractions of water by private bottlers – which means that one act of enclosure will be accelerating another act of enclosure.)

Changing Chandler

On Open Enterprise blog.

Hypercapitalism and Open Source

I noted before that I find some of Umair Haque's posts on Bubblegeneration a little, er, opaque, but this one seems crystal-clear:

I usually make predictions at the beginning of the year. Not this time. I think 2008 is going to be an important year - and it's important for us all to kick it off with more depth.

What's gonna happen in 2008? The macropocalypse.

It's not a credit crunch, or a liquidity crisis. Unfortunately, it's a lot deeper than most of us think.

Let me try and explain what's really going on here.

The real problem is that the firm - the corporation, as the fundamental institution of production - is deeply and irrevocably broken. It's DNA is in shock. The corporation we've created is a monster; a form of organization growing more pathological by the day.

...

But think about how food players have created an obesity epidemic. Or how pharma players have spent billions upon billions - to subvert and replace value creation in healthcare with push marketing. Or how Detroit spent continues to focus on coercing people, cities, states, and nations into consuming car afer car - instead of on durable, sustainable long-run productivity and efficiency gains.

The virus is rotting the system from inside. The hypercapitalist economy we've built isn't about deep, sustainable value creation. It's become about simply shifting value from one party to another.

Whether it's from small towns to Wall Street bonuses, or from Chinese migrant workers to Wal-Mart's income statement - what most firms are doing - what they are actively built to do - is exactly the same: actively and deliberately failing to create value.

But the game is fast coming to an end. The emperor has no clothes. The masquerade of value creation is can't go on forever. No economy can survive where value doesn't get created.

It's time.

The need for fundamental, systemic reinvention has never been greater and more pressing. Tomorrow's revolutionaries are going to face the task of reinventing the institutions of production - and they will unleash tidal waves of new value by doing so.

Sounds like a cue for the open source way to me. But maybe I've misunderstood (again).

More Micro Mobile Computers

I mentioned Everex's imminent Cloudbook a little while back, and now it's here:

The CloudBook, model CE1200V, showcases the Linux based gOS operating system and familiar applications from Mozilla, Skype, Google, Facebook, Faqly and OpenOffice.org. Available January 25th, the computer will be available at Walmart.com for $399.

Slightly different but also small and running GNU/Linux, is the LimePC:

The LimePC devices all run LimeOS, based closely on the LimeFree OS maintained by the LimeFree.org open source community. LimeOS is described as a full-screen HTML rendering environment that runs on top of a single-user Debian Linux OS and server stack. LimeOS and LimePC's LimeSuite applications are said to be designed to support multimedia and Web 2.0.

...

The LimePC products will ship "later in 2008" says THTF. The company expects the tiny M1 model to sell for $300. Although initially targeted at the Chinese market, THTF says the LimePC will appear in U.S. stores for the 2008 holiday season.

They just keep on coming.

Data Non-Ownership

There has been a bit of a kerfuffle over Robert Scoble's run-in with Facebook. In this clear-headed analysis, Ed Felten points out that the problem is everyone tries to frame it in terms of who owns the personal data on Facebook:

Once we give up the idea that the fact of Robert Scoble’s friendship with (say) Lee Aase, or the fact that that friendship has been memorialized on Facebook, has to be somebody’s exclusive property, we can see things more clearly. Scoble and Aase both have an interest in the facts of their Facebook-friendship and their real friendship (if any). Facebook has an interest in how its computer systems are used, but Scoble and Aase also have an interest in being able to access Facebook’s systems. Even you and I have an interest here, though probably not so strong as the others, in knowing whether Scoble and Aase are Facebook-friends.

How can all of these interests best be balanced in principle? What rights do Scoble, Aase, and Facebook have under existing law? What should public policy says about data access? All of these are difficult questions whose answers we should debate. Declaring these facts to be property doesn’t resolve the debate — all it does is rule out solutions that might turn out to be the best.

This is going to become an even bigger issue in the future - which makes sensible thinking about it all-the-more necessary and valuable.

Getting Going with Gowers

The Gower Review was an important document for the UK. It offered a thoughtful and rigorous analysis of the current copyright situation there, and looked at some of the problems the new digital world has with current copyright legislation. It also made a number of pretty sensible recommendations - even if it chickened out of calling for a reduction in some copyright terms, which Gowers himself admits that pure logic calls for.

Now we have the question of how that Review will be implemented. To move things on, here's a consultation document from the UK Government asking for people's views.

The main issues it considers are how to:

* enable schools and universities to make the most of digital technologies and facilitate distance learning;

* allow libraries and archives to use technology to preserve valuable material before it deteriorates or the format it is stored on becomes obsolete;

* introduce a format shifting exception to allow consumers to copy legitimately purchased content to another format, for example CD to MP3, in a manner that does not damage the interests of copyright owners; and

* provide a new exception for parody.

Specifically, it asks how those exceptions should be implemented. And I have to say, it does that with real intelligence. The questions it poses, soliciting input, are spot-on in terms of exploring the ramifications of copyright changes. I thoroughly recommend a slow perusal of the main document, since it provides a wonderful introduction to the thorny issues that copyright in the digital age must deal with.

None is thornier than DRM. Again and again in this document, questions arise about how people can be given the ability to derive the full benefit of copyright material when DRM gets in the way - and to what extent they should be allowed to circumvent it.

Of course, my answer is simple: get rid of the whole damn lot. Even a year or two that might have seemed radical or utopian, but with nearly all the main record labels embracing that strategy - and the film companies about to begin their own slow slouch towards Bethlehem - I think it will soon be seen as the best and most sensible thing to do.

OLPC's Founding CTO Mary Lou Jepsen

OLPC's XO has been much in the headlines recently. If you want to find out it all from someone who knows, there's a good interview on Groklaw with the ex-CTO, Mary Lou Jepsen. And no punches pulled, either:

Q: The world is now very aware of the spoiler role that apparently Intel tried to play. Can you though talk to us about the differences technically between the Classmate and the XO?

Mary Lou Jepsen: Where to start: Classmate is more expensive, consumes 10 times the power, has 1/3 the wifi range, and can't be used outside. Also, the Classmate doesn't use neighboring laptops to extend the reach of the internet via hopping (mesh-networking) like the XO does. So not only is the XO cheaper than the Classmate, the XO requires less infrastructre expenditure for electricity and for internet access. In Peru we can run off of solar during the day and handcrank at night for an additional $25 or so per student – this is one-time expense – the solar panel and the crank will last 10 or perhaps 20 years. Just try running electricity cables up and down the Peruvian Andes for that cost while making sure it's environmentally clean energy. The Classmate isn't as durable as the XO, and its screen is about 30% smaller, the batteries are the type that can explode and only last 1-2 years and can't be removed by the user and harm the environment. The batteries are expensive to replace: $30-40 per replacement. The XO batteries last for 5 years and cost less than $10 to replace. Finally, the XO is the greenest laptop ever made, the Classmate isn't – this matters a great deal when one proposes to put millions of them in the developing world.

I Fear the Greeks, Not Bearing Gifts

As a big fan of the Greek national television channel ERT (available as a stream), I was interested in this campaign to gain open access to the ERT audiovisual archive:

Greek citizens, but also citizens of other countries, we jointly sign this text on the occasion of ERT’s choice to distribute its audiovisual archive non-freely to the public. Our aim and ambition is to publicize our propositions so that they become the starting point of an open dialog among the Greek society, the European and global public audience and to signal the revision of backward policies and the creation of common political wealth.

Few days ago, the ERT administration presented the beginning of the availability, only via Internet streaming, of a part of its audiovisual archive. This move constitutes an important first step, which, however, in our opinion, is tarnished by the fact that the public availability of the archive is not made free, although the Greek and European citizens have paid their money to make the production and digitization of the archive feasible.

To which I can only say: σωστά. (Via Open Access News.)

The Value of Scarcity in the Age of Ubiquity

This is the future:

Just when digital reproduction makes it possible to create a “Rembrandt” good enough to fool the eye, the “real” Rembrandt becomes more expensive than ever. Why? Because the same free flow that makes information cheap and reproducible helps us treasure the sight of information that is not. A story gains power from its attachment, however tenuous, to a physical object. The object gains power from the story. The abstract version may flash by on a screen, but the worn parchment and the fading ink make us pause. The extreme of scarcity is intensified by the extreme of ubiquity.

(Via Boing Boing.)

Paying the Price for Google

An interesting analogy here between Google and markets - with a nasty ecological payoff that we will all pay for people gaming the system (just as spam games the email system, and threatens to destroy it):

As every web content producer adjusts to Google, its results become necessarily less and less compelling. The joy of Google past was to think hard about the search query and get a first screen result full of relevant but quirky, even obscure material. A Google result today is much less sensitive to the driver, because every content maker is trying to "buy" space that it can't pay for in genuine links. SEO [Search Engine Optimisation] will ossify Google and a better solution will wipe it out with the speed of an epidemic. The web has become over-fitted to Google like a strain of wheat becomes over-designed to a specific ecology. The web is covered in content strategies over-designed to Google, and new mechanism will find a source of meaningful, un-manipulated information---just as the hyper-link was before PageRank made it a gameable commodity.

Is That All? Or, From "e" to "Social"

Here's a sharp observation:

if not Enterprise 2.0, then what? The only other concept that seems to connect is "Social," though I'm conflicted about that prefix. It's obviously just as prevalent as "2.0" and more accurately descriptive, but the word "social" is often met with a raised eyebrow in the enterprise. "Social" sounds like it's about wasting time though I imagine with enough momentum, the term could be redefined (people take the word "Google" seriously). The whole nomenclature debate reminds me of the hype cycle that the prefix "e" traversed in the mid to late 1990s and some of the "e"-words survived. Regardless, it would appear that "Social" is the moniker of our time.

Open Source Shopping Baskets

On Open Enterprise blog.

ODF Alliance Annual Report

On Open Enterprise blog.

Firefox Users Against Boredom

Statistics show that Firefox Users are more inclined to have rich, exciting experiences on the web and in everyday life. Others, however, find themselves paralyzed by the death grip of boredom. It's not their fault. Many are good people who simply got off to a bad start. It's our duty to show them that the numbers can be in their favor. So spread the word because hope of a more interesting life is only a download away.

Ha! (Via netzpolitik.org.)

Confirmed! Sony is Barking

Sony BMG Music Entertainment on Jan. 15 becomes the last major record company to sell downloads without copy restrictions

which would be great, were it not for that this tiny sting in the tail:

— but only to buyers who first visit a retail store.

Now, why do I get the strange feeling that Sony doesn't fully understand this tubey Internet thingamy-bob?

Noahpad: The Asus Eee Wannabe(ee)

I've written several times about the Asus Eee PC, and how I see it as the start of a new market sector where open source possesses considerable advantages. Here's further proof of that: the Noahpad UMPC:

‧ Smaller than A5 size and only 0.78 kg .
‧ 7” TFT compact design to display 10” window.
‧ Apply Noahpad technology.
‧ Laptop and palmtop two operation modes.
‧ 30G super large storage.
‧ Rich network and wireless connectivity.
‧ External battery.
‧ Over 50 function keys for learning, working and playing…

And, needless to say, it runs GNU/Linux (although it also mutters about "Windows XP compatible" whatever that means.) I predict we'll see many more of these Asus Eee wannabes. (Via Linux Loop.)

Desperately Seeking Google

Speaking of Google's global ambitions, here's an article in The New Yorker on the same subject - and more:

In its 2004 annual report, Google, amending its basic corporate strategy, officially signalled its intent to be more than a search engine. The company announced that seventy per cent of its efforts would continue to be directed to its “core” mission, “our web search engine and our advertising network.” Another twenty per cent of its energies would be devoted to “adjacent areas such as Gmail”—the free e-mail accounts available to just about anyone who wants one—and the range of software that falls under the heading of “apps.” Finally, the report said, “the remaining 10 per cent is saved for anything else, giving us the freedom to innovate.” To other media companies, this sounded suspiciously like declaring, “We are in the search business, but we might be in your business.”

The piece is by Ken Auletta, which is both an advantage, and a disadvantage. He's not really a deep technology writer, but he does write well and - most importantly - he has access to all the top people, including the holy trinity at Google - Larry, Sergey and Eric. This makes the feature a nice mosaic of juicy quotes that you won't find elsewhere.

Wikia: Weak, but Working on It

So, the much-bruited Wikia has finally launched, in alpha at least:

Wikia is working to develop and popularize a freely licensed (open source) search engine. What you see here is our first alpha release.

We are aware that the quality of the search results is low..

Wikia's search engine concept is that of trusted user feedback from a community of users acting together in an open, transparent, public way. Of course, before we start, we have no user feedback data. So the results are pretty bad. But we expect them to improve rapidly in coming weeks, so please bookmark the site and return often.

What's most interesting about this is how everything is merging into everything else: Wikipedia's co-founder is doing Wikia, Amazon has an on-demand cloud computing service, Google is beginning to enter the mobile phone business. Everyone is competing with everyone.

OLPC XO-1 Exposed

The OLPC XO-1 project has been something of a roller-coaster ride. Widely praised when it launched, and then progressively pooh-poohed (including by me) as the wrong solution, more recently praised once more for the execution of the underlying idea, and finally put in doubt following Intel's rather suspect ship-jumping.

For what it's worth, in the light of the reality, rather the idea, I've changed my view: the OLPC XO-1 really seems to serve its intended audience well, and to be a well-desinged bit of kit. Confirming that is this splendid deconstruction by arch-hacker Andrew "bunnie" Huang , founder of the similarly-spirited Chumby project:

If I were to make one general comment about the OLPC XO-1, it’s that its mechanical design is brilliant. It’s a fairly clean-sheet redesign of traditional notebook PC mechanics around the goal of survivability, serviceability, and robustness (then again, I’ve never taken apart any of the ruggedized notebooks out there). When closed up for “travel”, all the ports are covered, and the cooling system is extremely simple so it should survive in dusty and dirty environments. Significantly, the port coverings aren’t done with rubberized end caps that you can lose or forget to put on–they are done using the wifi antennae, and the basic design causes the user to swivel them back to cover the ports when they are packing up the laptop to go. That’s thoughtful design.

If you're interested in what makes innovative hardware tick, don't miss this fascinating exploration. (Via Boing Boing.)

Searching for Free Software's Shared Space

Sharing lies at the heart of free software, so I was naturally intrigued to read about the concept of "shared space" traffic management in WorldChanging:

The premise of shared space is that people pay more attention when they're not distracted by "highway clutter," in the words of its founder, traffic engineer Hans Monderman. Shared space relies on environmental context--in this case, a landscape unlittered by signs--to influence human behavior. "Our behavior in a theatre or a church differs from a pub or in a football stadium as we understand the signs and signals through years of cultural immersion," Monderman told an interviewer in 2006. "Likewise if we see children playing in the street, we are more likely to slow down than if we saw a sign saying 'Danger, Children!'"

Put less diplomatically, shared space makes people confused. People who are confused slow down, calming traffic and reducing accidents. That's exactly how it has worked in Bohmte, where city officials plan to gradually expand the program to include other public spaces where pedestrians and cyclists share roads with drivers--roads, in other words, other than highways. The changes have had the added benefit of improving the experience of walking or cycling down the road, as a maze of unattractive signs and lane markers have given way to a single stretch of red-brick-colored pavement and as drivers have moderated their speeds.

Fascinating. But I can't quite work out what it all means for free software: anyone have any suggestions?

Open Hardware: Soon to be Boring

The New York Times has a feature on the Neuros OSD (for open source device):

The Neuros OSD connects to your TV or home theater system and allows you to archive all of your DVD and video content.

Plug the Neuros OSD into your TV, connect your DVD Player or VCR, and hit play. Your movie will be safely and legally transferred into a digital library! It works with home movies too. Just plug your video camera into the OSD, push play, and your memories are digitized.

With the Neuros OSD, you can store hundreds of hours of video in one location (like an external hard drive), get rid of those bulky cases, put an end to DVD damage, and instantly access any of your videos with the push of a button on a remote. You can even transfer your video content to a portable device (video iPod, PSP, mobile phone, etc.) to watch on the go, or email your home movies to friends and family.

It runs GNU/Linux (of course) and Samba, but also features hackable hardware, as detailed on the company's wiki (where else?).

What's remarkable about all this is not so much that a company should be adopting openness in both hardware and software (though that's good), but that it should be pointing out the fact that it is doing so, and that the New York Times picked it up. That open meme is certainly spreading.