Comments on: Opensource and freedom of movement http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/10/22/opensource-and-freedom-of-movement/ a blog about information Mon, 06 Feb 2012 01:37:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: JP http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/10/22/opensource-and-freedom-of-movement/comment-page-1/#comment-12940 JP Sun, 22 Oct 2006 22:18:31 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/10/22/opensource-and-freedom-of-movement/#comment-12940 Let me try and reply to as many as I can. Clarence, thanks for the link to Pig. I had actually read it (via your blog!) before your comment. I liked it, particularly the emphasis placed on the unintended consequences of DRM. We have to stop this belief that one side or the other is pure evil, it does not help us reach useful conclusions. I will be covering movements like the Pig book in a later post. But I liked it enough to want to order one, which I will do in a couple of days. Peter, there is no question that standards have a key role to play. We have had standards for years, but they have been vendor-dominated. We have had other ad-hoc standards for years as well, but they have been dominant-player dominated. What we need is open market standards, stuff that is best done via an opensource community. I think Don Marti has commented on aspects of this before. We need standards for substitutability and not interoperability. I will be expanding on this in a post next week. Luis, Don, I agree that good work has been done by generations prior to Generation M. Maybe what I should have said is that the tolerance for walled gardens is far lower with Generation M than any prior generation, and as a result there is probably a tipping point coming. And that tipping point will come in ways we can't visualise easily, given the different perspectives applied. Let me try and reply to as many as I can. Clarence, thanks for the link to Pig. I had actually read it (via your blog!) before your comment. I liked it, particularly the emphasis placed on the unintended consequences of DRM. We have to stop this belief that one side or the other is pure evil, it does not help us reach useful conclusions. I will be covering movements like the Pig book in a later post. But I liked it enough to want to order one, which I will do in a couple of days.

Peter, there is no question that standards have a key role to play. We have had standards for years, but they have been vendor-dominated. We have had other ad-hoc standards for years as well, but they have been dominant-player dominated. What we need is open market standards, stuff that is best done via an opensource community.

I think Don Marti has commented on aspects of this before. We need standards for substitutability and not interoperability. I will be expanding on this in a post next week.

Luis, Don, I agree that good work has been done by generations prior to Generation M. Maybe what I should have said is that the tolerance for walled gardens is far lower with Generation M than any prior generation, and as a result there is probably a tipping point coming. And that tipping point will come in ways we can’t visualise easily, given the different perspectives applied.

]]> By: Don Marti http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/10/22/opensource-and-freedom-of-movement/comment-page-1/#comment-12932 Don Marti Sun, 22 Oct 2006 21:07:25 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/10/22/opensource-and-freedom-of-movement/#comment-12932 Let's be fair to the people of pre-Generation M generations. Other people have copynorms, too, and in general they seem to be closer to pre-DMCA US copyright law than to the anticircumvention doctrine. The only DMCA case to go to a jury was Elcomsoft, and that got <a href="http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=233" rel="nofollow">basically jury nullified</a>. Let’s be fair to the people of pre-Generation M generations. Other people have copynorms, too, and in general they seem to be closer to pre-DMCA US copyright law than to the anticircumvention doctrine.

The only DMCA case to go to a jury was Elcomsoft, and that got basically jury nullified.

]]> By: Luis Folch http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/10/22/opensource-and-freedom-of-movement/comment-page-1/#comment-12924 Luis Folch Sun, 22 Oct 2006 20:35:12 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/10/22/opensource-and-freedom-of-movement/#comment-12924 The freedom trying to be gained I think is a freedom of thought and a freedom to apply it. The Lock-ins do not make any sense. It´s like trying to make something impossible by just saying that it shouldn´t be even when people *know* it´s not impossible. And it surely (imho) is not done by a whole generation as yours and is also not the desire of a whole generation like mine or those younger than me in general. It´s a kind of mindset, not specifically a cultural thing but a matter of values maybe based on experience and expectations. It´s where laws are not perceived as being helpful to protect ones rights but to limit them. As freedom of speech was paradoxically being fought for by people like Larry Flint. In the music industry this has been clearly visible as an army of lawyers trying to bust a new peer-to-peer infrastructure and getting their hands on kiddies with their calculation of loss profits that has not changed since the software pirate copy discussion being held in the 80s, 90s, 2000s (2010s?) just because of industries incompetence or slowliness in adapting to new channels and ways *their customers* want to have access to the products. The way is and has been to embrace change, no walls have ever had duration (e.g. German wall or nowadays vendor lock-ins). The freedom trying to be gained I think is a freedom of thought and a freedom to apply it.
The Lock-ins do not make any sense. It´s like trying to make something impossible by just saying that it shouldn´t be even when people *know* it´s not impossible. And it surely (imho) is not done by a whole generation as yours and is also not the desire of a whole generation like mine or those younger than me in general. It´s a kind of mindset, not specifically a cultural thing but a matter of values maybe based on experience and expectations.
It´s where laws are not perceived as being helpful to protect ones rights but to limit them.
As freedom of speech was paradoxically being fought for by people like Larry Flint.
In the music industry this has been clearly visible as an army of lawyers trying to bust a new peer-to-peer infrastructure and getting their hands on kiddies with their calculation of loss profits that has not changed since the software pirate copy discussion being held in the 80s, 90s, 2000s (2010s?) just because of industries incompetence or slowliness in adapting to new channels and ways *their customers* want to have access to the products.
The way is and has been to embrace change, no walls have ever had duration (e.g. German wall or nowadays vendor lock-ins).

]]> By: Peter Hascher http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/10/22/opensource-and-freedom-of-movement/comment-page-1/#comment-12917 Peter Hascher Sun, 22 Oct 2006 19:33:43 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/10/22/opensource-and-freedom-of-movement/#comment-12917 I'd like to add one more aspect to the discussion on Opensource software: Open Standards. Emerging standards are both, key success factor for the Opensource community and thread at the same time. Why? Let's look at the main reasons why we still develop lots of new software even after some 20 or 30 years with computers: 1. New products, new technologies or new cultural developments like extended communications require new software. 2. Especially in enterprises we belief that new applications create higher degrees of efficiency. 3. And in some cases we simply need to replace stuff that reached its End of Life. None of these developments happen in isolation, but all of them are highly integrated. And if there exists a well accepted standard for this integration then Opensource has a role to play, because "the market" is big enough. But if there are propietary integrations only then we will always find vendor-based software only. This is why open standards are a must for Opensource. But where lays the thread? Well, emerging stadards can be adopted by software vendors as well and hence simply the integration. You get to a situation where the highly specialised software components of different vendors work together more or less in a plug and play mode, whereas at the moment we spend most of our time and efforts to integrate the various applications and every vendor tries to defend (or grow) his own claim. This makes us as users less dependent on a particular vendor and we can move away from its products more easily. We are no longer locked-in. As a conclusion all of us should continue and increase our efforts in contributing to new standards as their maturity will increase our flexibility and empower us to really make decisions. All my best, Peter I’d like to add one more aspect to the discussion on Opensource software: Open Standards. Emerging standards are both, key success factor for the Opensource community and thread at the same time. Why?

Let’s look at the main reasons why we still develop lots of new software even after some 20 or 30 years with computers:

1. New products, new technologies or new cultural developments like extended communications require new software.
2. Especially in enterprises we belief that new applications create higher degrees of efficiency.
3. And in some cases we simply need to replace stuff that reached its End of Life.

None of these developments happen in isolation, but all of them are highly integrated. And if there exists a well accepted standard for this integration then Opensource has a role to play, because “the market” is big enough. But if there are propietary integrations only then we will always find vendor-based software only. This is why open standards are a must for Opensource. But where lays the thread?

Well, emerging stadards can be adopted by software vendors as well and hence simply the integration. You get to a situation where the highly specialised software components of different vendors work together more or less in a plug and play mode, whereas at the moment we spend most of our time and efforts to integrate the various applications and every vendor tries to defend (or grow) his own claim. This makes us as users less dependent on a particular vendor and we can move away from its products more easily. We are no longer locked-in.

As a conclusion all of us should continue and increase our efforts in contributing to new standards as their maturity will increase our flexibility and empower us to really make decisions.

All my best,

Peter

]]> By: Clarence Fisher http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/10/22/opensource-and-freedom-of-movement/comment-page-1/#comment-12889 Clarence Fisher Sun, 22 Oct 2006 17:12:18 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2006/10/22/opensource-and-freedom-of-movement/#comment-12889 Interested in what kids will (hopefully) learn of DRM issues? Read the 17 page pdf kids book that was developed. http://dustrunners.blogspot.com/2006/07/pig-and-box.html Interested in what kids will (hopefully) learn of DRM issues? Read the 17 page pdf kids book that was developed.

http://dustrunners.blogspot.com/2006/07/pig-and-box.html

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