Friday, April 30, 2010

Untitled

[FSF] FSF responds to Jobs's "Thoughts on Flash"

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------ Forwarded message ------
From: Matt Lee
Subject: [FSF] FSF responds to Jobs's "Thoughts on Flash"
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 15:56:59 -0400
To: info-fsf@gnu.org
Reply-To: info@fsf.org


Apple's use of proprietary software and recommendation of an
explicitly patent-afflicted standard (H.264) are inconsistent
with the free web.

Ars Technica has published our response to Steve Jobs's "Thoughts
on Flash":

*

> Watching two proprietary software companies deeply opposed to
> computer user freedom lob accusations back and forth about who
> is more opposed to freedom has been surreal, to say the
> least. But what's been crystal clear is that the freedom these
> companies are arguing about is their own, not that of their
> users. And what they are calling freedom isn't freedom at all
> -- it is the ability to control those users. Adobe is mad at
> Apple for not letting Adobe control iPhone, iPad, and iPod
> Touch users via Flash, and Apple is mad at Adobe for suggesting
> that Apple is arbitrarily abusing its control over Application
> Store users.

> Steve Jobs's "Thoughts on Flash" is the latest volley in this
> bout between pot and kettle, and while it makes many dead-on
> criticisms of Adobe and Flash, it does not change the
> fundamental character of this disagreement, nor does it solve
> any concerns about Apple's broader intentions.

Apple's use of proprietary software and recommendation of an
explicitly patent-afflicted standard (H.264) are inconsistent
with the free web.

In a response to an open letter from Hugo Roy of the Free
Software Foundation Europe, Jobs claimed that free codecs like
Ogg Theora could also infringe patents, but that does not justify
making the internet standard for video a technology that is known
to be patented by a group who is actively collecting royalties
and suing people for infringement.

*

*

We have legal assurances from the only publicly claimed patent
holders that Ogg Theora can be used both commercially and
noncommercially, in any software, by anyone, without royalty.

Of course, other patents may arise, and we will have to fight
them if they do. H.264 could also find itself dealing with some
hitherto unknown patent claims in the future; that's just the
nature of the system. Buying a license to H.264 does not
magically protect you from such submarine attacks.

The software patent system is broken and we will continue
campaigning for its abolition.

*

You can help with this campaign by watching and sharing the new
film, Patent Absurdity: How software patents broke the system.

*

In the meantime, "Everything could be patented anyway" is not an
argument for "Give up even trying and just submit to MPEG-LA."

It's an argument for Ogg Theora, and against software patents.

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Michael L. Love: Social media, blogging, emerging trends http://ping.fm/4WHmw

Posted via web from proclus-gnu-darwin's posterous

Michael L. Love: Social media, blogging, emerging trends

Several months ago I undertook a futuristic analysis. What I have found
is that I may have caught up with the present. Without that analysis, I
would be lagging. I am again perhaps abit ahead of the pack. What
follows is some random musings, upshot, and further projections.

The question arises at this juncture, does bit.ly have a distinct
advantage over other IT companies?

On the solidification of bubbles:

Blogging is an example. Is social media another bubble heading for
solidification? If so, the implication is that it will exert a profound
influence, but that it will also be relegated to its own domain,
limiting the effect. The old web will endure it, as it did blogosphere
emergence. The extreme example of this may be Technorati, a mountain
island. Twitter is arguably the latest mountain island, but the
situation is still evolving. Mountain island is a wonderful metaphor. Think of it. Japan is a mountain island. What if there were two
Japans? Three? etc? Now, break out of the metaphor. Can the old web
endure that? We are facing another wave of disruption. Services that
have intentionally broken meta-data for temporary advantage will be
hardest hit, and they should be getting busy before it is too late for
them.

Google is giving much precedence to the blogosphere over the social
networking space, because of the depth of the content. Can Google really care about soundbytes, tiny bubbles as it were. Another reason
for this precedence could be that the blogosphere predates the social
media space, and it is fully established. Social media is relatively
new and an upstart. One possible future direction for all of this
resides in the current trend to exploit file meta-data in twitter
clients in order to enrich the twitter user experience. An examination
of twitter-friendly apache file meta-data configuration is indicated,
because this trend may be moving into other arenas.

What about other trends; gay rights, cloning and biotech, infectious
disease, telepresence? On telepresence, services will emerge to provide twitter-friendly
personal files for access by social media. Those with blogs and
certain other services have sensed this, and they are already doing
it, but this trend is bound to grow. I see Google moving in this
direction, with a vastly improved personal profile and microblog
system. It is already happening. They are projecting inward to the
user, but the better aim is for the user to project outwards. Of course
this is also in part what blogging and social media actually is.

The other trends may recieve attention in future articles, as it were
;-}.

Back to bit.ly...

Meta-data munging by url-shortening services and link content caching
would be a possible projection, and one imagines that the plan is
already underway, and some aspects are already happening now.

On constriction of bubble size and solidification:

There are vested interests who would like to see all of these trends
limited in their scope. There are various strategies, such as
redirection of users to a small group of friends and related strategies.
Diversion. Degradation. Derision. Slander. These are integrative and
progressive strategies. "Shut up, no one cares what you have to say!";
a self-negating statement, but it often works.

All of this points again to a GNU-Darwin blog service. Blogs are
already well tailored to accurate meta-data representation and
telepresence projection. Maybe I will actually do it this time ;-}.

Regards,
proclus
http://www.gnu-darwin.org/

Michael L. Love

Posted via email from proclus-gnu-darwin's posterous