Yoruba: Free Software's Shame

One of the advantages of free software that I've often touted is the ability to produce localised versions in situations where Microsoft would find the market too small. But it seems that Microsoft is waking up to some languages that free software is neglecting:

A post on the Yoruba Affairs newsgroup, which I subscribe to, recently announced that (a draft of?) the Yoruba Glossary for Microsoft's Language Interface Pack has just been released, as a partnership between ALT-i and Microsoft Unlimited Potential (whose acronym is, of course, "UP", not "MUP"). At 196 pages and 2000-3000 terms, this is a substantial document.

And there's worse news:

In response to my 2004 post about the confused NYT article, Bill Poser added some background about localization efforts in general, and registered a complaint about Microsoft "not localizing their software when they didn't see enough profit in it". But in fairness to Microsoft, they've had a large and effective localization effort for many years. They've certainly done much more than other computer companies have done, and in this case, perhaps more than the free software community has done.

Eek.

The post also talks about Wazobia Linux:

a distribution with (some programs?) localized in Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo. But it is apparently not actually free — only a demo version can be downloaded from the company's site, and those interested in the full version are invited to contact the company by email to discuss prices. The "where to buy" link is "currently under construction", and the Wazobia page at DistroWatch.com characterized this distribution as "dormant". I don't know of any other Linux distributions with a significant amount of localization in Yoruba — for example, the Yoruba pages for KDE localization and for Mandriva Tools localization don't show very much progress.

Now, I've managed to find some ISO images of Wazobia, but it's not clear whether they are full or demos: does anyone know? I'm reluctant to download the images, since I'm conscious that I would probably be clogging up the site's link to Europe, which it might have better uses for.

Anyway, it certainly looks like free software needs to pull up its Yoruban socks if we don't want to lose an entire dialect continuum to Microsoft....

Spot the Disconnect

On the one hand, we have a bunch of people I've never heard of whingeing in the Times:

We are very concerned that the successes of the creative industries in the UK are being undermined by the illegal online file-sharing of film and TV content. At a time when so many jobs are being lost in the wider economy, it is especially important that this issue be taken seriously by the Government and that it devotes the resources necessary to enforce the law.

In 2007, an estimated 98 million illegal downloads and streams of films took place in the UK, while it is believed that more than six million people illegally file-share regularly. In relation to illegal downloads of TV programmes, the UK is the world leader, with up to 25 per cent of all online TV piracy taking place in the UK. Popular shows are downloaded illegally hundreds of thousands of times per episode.

On the other, we have this perceptive comment from TorrentFreak:

when just this year it was reported that UK commercial TV broadcasters “enjoyed a bumper April with the highest viewing figures in five years”, that total TV viewing was up 10% year-on-year, and “the valuable yet hard-to-reach 16 to 24-year-old demographic [i.e the typical file-sharer] watched 4.9% more commercial TV in April year-on-year and saw 12% more ads,” you have to wonder exactly what the problem is.

So how do we reconcile those? Well, could it be, dear Times whingers, that the Internet actually *drives* traffic to your precious films and TV programmes, whatever they are? Could it be that the Internet is actually going to keep you all employed and so fraffly well-paid?

Learning from Education

Last week I went along to the Westminster Education Forum. The programme was only peripherally concerned with open source – Mark Taylor from Sirius was talking – but I wanted to get a feel for the context in which computers were being used in schools. As well as Mark, there was a representative from Microsoft: no surprise there, but what was very noticeable was the way that Microsoft's software was simply a given in the educational context. This is extremely unfortunate, at many levels...

On Open Enteprise blog.

Abandon Hope, All Ye (IE) Users

Interesting that when the BBC dares to carry a negative story about Microsoft, it immediately becomes the most-read and most-emailed - perhaps they should do it more often:

Users of the world's most common web browser have been advised to switch to another browser until a serious security flaw has been fixed.

Good advice, by why only until fixed: surely, the logical thing to do would be to abandon IE altogether, thus avoiding future problems too?

Good for Gowers

When the Gowers Review on intellectual monopolies came out almost exactly two years ago, it was remarkable for its eminently sensible approach, which was rigorously based on hard-headed economics. One of its key recommendations was the following....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Environmental Evo

Everything began with the industrial revolution in 1750, which gave birth to the capitalist system. In two and a half centuries, the so called “developed” countries have consumed a large part of the fossil fuels created over five million centuries.

Yup, it's all Britain's fault....

The Rise and Rise of Asianux

The free software organisation Asianux continues to grow in importance:

Viet Nam has officially become a member of Asianux, an organisation dedicated to the development of free software, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Tran Quoc Thang has announced.

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Over the past four years, Viet Nam has adopted policies designed to encourage the development and application of the OSS, resulting in a total of between 14,000 and 20,000 personal computers using OpenOffice, Firefox, Unikey and other free software.

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Prior to Viet Nam joining Asianux, its membership consisted of Japan, China and South Korea.

(Via LXer.)

Setting Standards

As the world of computing moves to embrace openness in all its forms, open standards are becoming increasingly important – and the battles over them increasingly dirty, as the OOXML standardisation process has shown. One of the most vexed issues within open standards is the place of patents....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Wot Police State?

Papers acquired by the Liberal Democrats via Freedom of Information requests show that the 1,500 officers policing the Kingsnorth climate camp near the Medway estuary in Kent, suffered only 12 reportable injuries during the protest during August.

The Home Office has now admitted that the protesters had not been responsible for any injuries. In a three-line written answer to a parliamentary question, the Home Office minister Vernon Coaker wrote to the Lib Dem justice spokesman, David Howarth, saying: "Kent police have informed the Home Office that there were no recorded injuries sustained as a result of direct contact with the protesters."

Only four of the 12 reportable injuries involved any contact with protesters at all and all were at the lowest level of seriousness with no further action taken.

The other injuries reported included "stung on finger by possible wasp"; "officer injured sitting in car"; and "officer succumbed to sun and heat". One officer cut his arm on a fence when climbing over it, another cut his finger while mending a car, and one "used leg to open door and next day had pain in lower back".

Keep up the good work, Jacqui.

Sussing Climate Change Sceptics

I have a big problem with climate change sceptics: I just do no understand how they can maintain their position in the face of overwhelming evidence from overwhelming numbers of overwhleming well-qualified scientists.

It's as if several hundred doctors, all acknowledged experts in their field, tell you that you are seriously ill, and must do something or you will die, and you say: "Well, I'm sorry, I just happen to disagree. I think you're all telling me this just to provide work for yourselves. And besides, I've found three doctors who tell me I'm fine."

Now, would anyone seriously take that attitude when it came to their own health, or of their family? I think not; so why would anyone take this view when it comes to humanity - that is, *every* family on this planet?

Well, here's one stab at explaining this literally suicidal state of affairs:

I do think that lots of potentially reachable people like my lawyer friend genuinely don't understand the difference between what happens in a scientific debate and what happens in a political one. And especially when such people are on the political right, they tend to suspect that the climatologists' global-overwarming consensus is not really settled science, but is only a sort of fairly well reasoned technical conjecture.They tend to think it probably has some merit, but that it requires caution because it's distorted by a political desire to multiply the power of federal economic planners who'll limit the natural workings of free markets. They see scientists and government officials as an interrelated elite with a closed outlook and a definite agenda....

Interesting: politics as kind of conceptual poison that taints people's world-views. I hope the rest of the analysis quoted in the post above turns out to be just as perceptive.

Weighing Up the Internet Watch Foundation

Wise words from Mike Godwin, chief counsel to the Wikimedia Foundation:

Even though we won this particular censorship skirmish, it bears repeating that the IWF signifies a very problematic approach to content control by governments, including, sadly, the United Kingdom. Not only is the process obscure, transparent, arbitrary, and capricious, but also, because the IWF is not itself a governmental entity, it is essentially unaccountable to the public it is supposed to be serving. That is something that citizens in the UK and elsewhere may feel requires some reform.

ID Card Support Shrinking, Says UK Government

The latest Home Office poll on public attitudes to the planned National ID card indicates that support for the scheme has eroded slightly, with the proportion of those in favour down from 60 to 55 per cent.

The survey, carried out among 2,098 randomly selected Brits from 31 October to 4 November, showed opposition to the Card remaining steady. Seventeen per cent of respondents disagreed strongly with the plans and 9 per cent slightly, up from August by a single percentage point each.

The top reason given for disagreeing with the card stayed the same - that it would interfere with personal freedom. Other common objections were that the scheme was unnecessary, wouldn't work, and would be a waste of money.

Twenty-three per cent of those disagreeing also said that the government could not be trusted to keep personal data secure, up from 19 per cent in August. Before August's survey this concern wasn't cited often enough to figure in the results, reflecting the rash of data-loss scandals suffered this year.

Come on, put this beast out of its agony.

GPL Violations: Is Cisco the Big One?

Many sceptics were convinced that as free software spread out beyond hackers into the general computing sector the rigorous GNU GPL licence would gradually be replaced by more accommodating – meaning weaker – forms, since it was “obvious” that its unbending rules were too strict for widespread use. In fact, the GPL has grown in importance, until today it is probably fair to say that it underpins most of the free software world, including enterprise applications. This makes any violation of its terms particularly worrying, because if left unchallenged, it threatens to undermine the entire ecosystem.

On Linux Journal.

Brazil Seeks 150,000 GNU/Linux Notebooks for 300 Schools

Once again, Brazil showing itself at the forefront of open source use in schools:

Depois de uma licitação realizada, mas não consumada, no final de 2007, o Ministério da Educação e Cultura (MEC) marcou para o dia 17 de dezembro um novo pregão eletrônico para a compra de 150 mil notebooks voltados à educação, com os quais espera equipar 300 escolas públicas.

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O edital não dá base de preço, só as especificações da máquina, que incluem sistema operacional Linux instalado e configurado, manual em português, memória RAM de no mínimo 512 MB e tela de cristal líquido de no mínimo 7 polegadas. A máquina ainda deve ter requisitos de segurança e ser resistente a choques e quedas, além de ser confortável para o transporte pelas crianças.

[Via Google Translate: After a bidding held, but not consummated at the end of 2007, the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) to mark the day on December 17 a new electronic bidding for the purchase of 150 thousand notebooks aimed at education, which expects equip 300 public schools.

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The announcement does not give a basis of price, only the specifications of the machine, which includes Linux operating system installed and configured, manual in Portuguese, at a minimum of RAM and 512 MB screen liquid crystal at least 7 inches. The machine also must have security requirements and be resistant to shocks and falls, besides being comfortable to carry the children.]

It will be interesting to see who wins this contract, since it could well influence others looking to roll out large numbers of GNU/Linux notebooks.

Open Me Kangaroo Up, Sport

Having had their plan to combine their broadband TV services kyboshed by the Competition Commmission, the BBC and ITV today said they plan to do it anyway - but this time to open up the infrastructure to all comers.

The two broadcasters, along with BT, said they want to foster a "common industry approach" that's "open for all public service broadcasters, device developers and other ISPs". All this will be founded upon "a standards based open environment".

Yes, but *how* open?

Ecuador Update

I wrote earlier this year about the rapid uptake of free software in Ecuador, which adds to the growing use of open source across Latin America. Here's a useful report on a Congress on Free Software and Democratisation of Knowledge held in Quito recently, which provides plenty of info on what's happening in that part of the world:

Ecuador started later than other South America countries to promote official adoption of Free Software, but it’s doing the best it can to catch up. A recent presidential decree demands that many central Public Administration migrate to use exclusively Free Software. This was one of the first thing we heard in the opening speech. In the same occasion, Fr Filiberto Gonzalez Plascencia, Salesian Councillor for Social Communication, pointed out how Salesians want to promote Free/Open Source software because of the important role it can play in the democratization of knowledge and in “educommunication” or education to communication, both fields where they want to play an active role. Even in the closing speech Dr Edgar Loyola, Vice Rector of UPS, renewed the committment of the University for the spread of the knowledge and use of Free Software.

Source Code for Civilisation

Simon Phipps points out the centrality of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

This document is one of the most important documents created in the 20th century, delimiting the unarguable rights of every person, and doing it in in cool, clear prose. Flowing out of revulsion at the excesses of the Second World War, it sets a benchmark that is still vibrantly relevant to world society. For example, it makes clear that the Guantanamo concentration camp that the US is still running is abhorrent (see articles 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 - even arguing articles 3 and 28 implicitly allow it is dealt with in article 30). It casts light on the US wiretaps and the UK's surveillance society (article 12 supported by articles 7 and 11), on the TSA (article 13), on internet filtering (articles 18 & 19) and on so many more issues.

The more I look at it, the more convinced I am that this visionary document, born from the lessons humanity wanted to learn after the horrors of 1939-45, is a source text that can guide so much we're all trying to achieve. As we're working on the future, be it Web 2.0, rebuilding our political life in the west or freedom for Tibet, I'm struck that the Declaration is a primary source document against which to measure our intent and action.

Nice to see that Tibet is not forgotten.

Standing up to the Bully-Boy Lawyers

Davenport Lyons have engaged in such morally-repugnant behaviour that they are fast becoming one of the worst possible advertisments for their profession. At last, someone is calling their bluff:

Lawyers for the consumer rights lobby Which? have filed an official complaint to the body that regulates solicitors over Davenport Lyons' campaign of letters alleging illegal filesharing.

For several months Davenport Lyons has been sending letters to individuals accusing them of pirating videogames via peer-to-peer networks, and demanding £500 on behalf of rights holders. The London-based law firm recently branched out into threats on behalf of producers of hardcore gay porn.

Now Which?, formerly known as the Consumers' Association, has reported Davenport Lyons to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). Announcing the move, Which? said it had drawn regulators' attention to the detail of Davenport Lyons' letters. The complaint includes claims they "make incorrect assertions about the nature of copyright infringement; ignore the evidence presented in defence; and increase the level of compensation claimed over the period of correspondence".

The only positive aspect of this sordid case is that Davenport Lyons are bringing the whole idea of enforcing copyright into such disrepute that the general public will turn against it sooner rather than later.

Update: If you should be unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of any of this, there's great advice here about what to do.

HP Adds Some Open Source to the Desktop

Now that Dell is offering a range of desktop systems, HP has become the most important supplier wedded to Windows Vista. Its resistance to offering GNU/Linux there is rather ironic, since it was one of the pioneers in the GNU/Linux world nearly ten years ago. In January 1999 a press release stated....

On Open Enterprise blog.

World Bank Botches it Again

When is this apology for an international body going to sort itself out - or be shut down?

The World Bank has been in a hurry to get its Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) up and running, meaning that the process to date has been "rushed" and "corners have been cut," according to a new report by scientists from the Forests and the European Union Resource Network (FERN) and the Forest Peoples Programme.

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The report points out that while various scientists and research organisations have identified recognition of indigenous peoples' tenure rights as an essential first step for an effective REDD mechanism, the issue has been neglected. None of the country notes explicitly deal with the need to clarify land ownership, nor do they address human rights issues, it laments.

Moreover, the scientists find that the notes do not require 'Free, Prior and Informed Consent', a concept recognised in international law as mandatory for any project affecting indigenous and tribal peoples. They also claim that the REDD process failed to consult local peoples and civil society organisations.

Hence the report argues that the FCPF promotes centralised planning, and is thus in danger of repeating the mistakes of past experiments with centralised forest management strategies. This would lead to increased deforestation and corruption, pushing local communities into poverty and alienating them from their land, it concludes.

Not so much World Bank as Worse Bank.

A Different View of Viewdle

Viewdle is a company that has been winning plaudits recently; I'm not so sure:

Viewdle is a facial-recognition powered digital media platform for indexing, searching and monetizing video assets. Viewdle automatically looks inside the video, frame-by-frame, to create a real-time index of true on-screen appearances with unrivaled accuracy and relevance. With multiple patents in preparation, we are quickly building the world’s largest people-in-video reference database.

"Monetizing video assets"? "Multiple patents"? Great. But I'm sure the British government will be interested in all that facial-recognition technology in order to build its own people-in-video reference database, and thus screw down UK society even more....

UN Accredits Blogger for First Time

A good one, too:

After two days of deliberations, the United Nations officials at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Poznan, Poland, agreed to give media accreditation to the DeSmogBlog, the first time in history that the UN has accredited a blog, according to UNFCCC Public Information and Media Assistant Carrie Assheuer.

"It was quote the ordeal," said DeSmogBlog Editor Richard Littlemore. "The UN system is set up to accommodate mainstream media and it's not an institution that's designed to be flexible or innovative."

Let's hope it's the first of many.

What Shall We Do About Software Patents?

One of the central issues facing free software around the world is what can be done about the threat of software patents. These are fundamentally incompatible with free software, since patents are about enclosing the intellectual commons – giving ideas an owner - and free software is about expanding it for all to enjoy by sharing ideas. But the particular challenges are quite different in different jurisdictions....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Analogue Steganography

Steganography is about hiding stuff in such as way that it isn't even apparent stuff is hidden. For example, you might change predetermined pixels in a digital image so as to encode a hidden message, but not in such a way as to be obvious to anyone looking at said pic.

That's clever, but this is even more clever: a USB drive that doesn't look like a USB drive.

* 2GB flash drive cleverly disguised as a frayed and broken USB cable
* Easily transfer and store files, photos and music
* USB 2.0 with 1.1 backwards compatibility
* Mac, Windows and Linux compatible, of course

(Via Bruce Schneier.)

Is this Google's ActiveX Disaster?

I remember very well the days in the mid 1990s when it became clear that Microsoft's ActiveX technology, which grew out of OLE, a way for creating compound documents, was essentially the world's greatest browser malware construction kit. Since then, ActiveX exploits have probably caused more harm in the Windows world than any other aspect of Microsoft's flawed platform. So it is with some consternation that I find that Google seems to have learned nothing from history....

On Open Enterprise blog.