Category Archives: Digital Citizen

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Why “open source” misses the point of software freedom

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Tristan Rhodes describes the pitch and allure of the open source movement perfectly and simultaneously (perhaps inadvertently) describes why that pitch has so little allure to those who frame the issue in terms of price:

What is the main benefit of open source?

The short answer is that open source reduces the cost of software. It is widely accepted that software is a necessary cost of doing business in today’s environment. Therefore, it is beneficial for companies to find ways to acquire software that minimizes that cost.

If price is chiefly important, there’s no reason to favor “open source” software over an illicit copy of a proprietary program that performs better. Some proprietors exploit this weakness and offer their software at low or no cost. There’s no way to teach people to favor fundamentally important issues such as building and defending community. It’s a great example of knowing the cost of something and not its value.

The philosophy of the younger open source movement is an inadequate response to the older free software movement; the ethics the open source movement never discuss keep coming up (any discussion of digital management restrictions (DRM), the recent update Microsoft pushed on Windows users without the the user’s consent are recent examples). An ethical approach to computing is critically important in the short and long run. As a result of not stressing free software freedoms for their own sake, one learns how to lose those freedoms. This issue is explored more deeply in the essay “Why “Open Source” misses the point of Free Software” (an updated version of the older essay “Why “Free Software” is better than “Open Source”“):

The idea of open source is that allowing users to change and redistribute the software will make it more powerful and reliable. But this is not guaranteed. Developers of proprietary software are not necessarily incompetent. Sometimes they produce a program which is powerful and reliable, even though it does not respect the users’ freedom. How will free software activists and open source enthusiasts react to that?

A pure open source enthusiast, one that is not at all influenced by the ideals of free software, will say, “I am surprised you were able to make the program work so well without using our development model, but you did. How can I get a copy?” This attitude will reward schemes that take away our freedom, leading to its loss.

The free software activist will say, “Your program is very attractive, but not at the price of my freedom. So I have to do without it. Instead I will support a project to develop a free replacement.” If we value our freedom, we can act to maintain and defend it.

Marybeth Peters, Register of US copyrights, still a corporate sycophant

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She likes the largest multinational corporations and disfavors the smaller ones. Cory Doctorow on Marybeth Peters is illuminating:

Marybeth Peters, the US Register of Copyrights, has come out in favor of the controversial 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, saying “it did what it was supposed to do.” The DMCA makes it possible to sue companies that make music, video and ebook players that play back DRM file-formats without permission, giving Apple the right to sue Real for making its own music player to run on the iPod. This aspect of the DMCA is a form of “private law,” allowing companies to attach any conditions they want to their offerings, and criminalizing competition that gives you a better deal.

The DMCA also makes it possible to censor the Internet by sending “takedown notices” to web-hosting companies alleging that some of their content infringes copyright. This system has been widely abused — Diebold used it in an attempt to silence critics who’d published a whistleblower memo that showed that the company had supplied faulty voting machines in US elections; the Church of Scientology uses it to silence their critics; serial troll Michael Crook used it against websites that criticized him, and the Science Fiction Writers of America recently sent a notice that resulted in the removal of dozens of non-infringing works and works by authors whose copyright they don’t represent, including my own novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and a list of good sf books for junior high students. Andrew Burt, the Science Fiction Writers of America VP who sent out the list, has since characterized it as containing only three errors because only three people complained — but most people who receive DMCA takedown orders assume that they must be infringers and do not complain.

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Microsoft’s latest slap on the wrist for anti-competitive behavior

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Democracy Now! made a typical error when describing the latest Microsoft antitrust violation fine. Here’s how DN! put it on today’s show:

In business news, Microsoft has lost an anti-trust appeal before Europe’s second highest court and has been ordered to pay a record $690 million fine for abusing its dominance in computer operator systems. The court upheld a 2004 antitrust ruling from the European Commission.

Amy Goodman (audio, high-quality audio, video, and transcript)

But DN! doesn’t put that figure in perspective. Without understanding how much money that is to Microsoft, this figure is left to be interpreted in the context of the reader’s pocketbook. Such an interpretation will not accurately convey what a slap on the wrist this really is.

In late 2005 Gervase Markham, a free software hacker who works for Mozilla, placed the 2004 Microsoft €497 million fine in a larger context—In 2003, they made £14 million a day from Windows client operating system licences alone.. This doesn’t include any other Microsoft activity (such as hardware, documentation, or their other proprietary software such as Microsoft Office) all of which benefit from their illegal and anti-competitive activities.

According to the XE.com currency converter £14 million a day is roughly $28 million a day (as of 2007-09-17), so Microsoft’s latest fine of $690 million is worth about 24 days of Microsoft Windows OS licenses at their 2003 level. Microsoft has delayed this for so long they’ve made enough money to cover this fine many times over. Suddenly the new fine doesn’t sound that large unless you are naive enough to believe that a month’s worth of money from only one of Microsoft’s many lucrative activities will effect substantive change in Microsoft’s behavior.

And the kicker is that Microsoft is only a symptom of the real problem with software proprietors. All software proprietors are monopolists who would behave similarly if given the chance.

36 hours later Apple’s latest exclusion scheme is broken…again

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The latest change to iPod software that rendered the audio listening device less interoperable has been broken. This isn’t the first time iPod and iTunes-related algorithms were broken and it won’t be the last.

Read more about the news or download a local copy of the public domain source code that implements the new hashing algorithm.

Here’s a sample of what people are saying about the latest break:

Really the only “correct” solution is for folks to stop using Apple products.

Ian Monroe

screw you and your pathetic failed attempt to use your ridiculously trendy device to lock its owners into your sorry excuse for music playing software.

i know you’re afraid of the linux desktop eating away at your precious niche market, but at least you could play fair.

Ryan Lortie

Although we -the Linux community- can choose not to buy iPods, many other people will. And it is our goal to make Linux a viable modern computing platform that allows people to use all of their existing devices.

Breaking the hash is not really a long-term solution, as they can keep making the process harder every time. The long-term solution is for iPods to have a standard interface that third parties can communicate with.

This probably should be compounded to the EU’s findings on Apple’s anti-trust practices to ensure open access to a popular device.

Miguel de Icaza

Apple’s iPod vendor lock-in gets worse

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Background

Apple has changed the way iPods work so that only Apple’s software can successfully manipulate the songs on an iPod. Until the new arrangement is reverse-engineered, Apple has locked in iPod users into their software, transforming a more useful general-purpose audio listening and file carrying device to something that chiefly obeys Apple’s wishes.

Lennart Poettering is a free software hacker, author of important software including Avahi (which helps computers connect to each other and discover services) and PulseAudio (which allows computers to play multiple sounds simultaneously, even sending audio over networks to be heard somewhere else). He is quite familiar with the relevant protocols Apple uses to allow iTunes to share files and send audio around the network. These aren’t the kinds of programs one uses directly but they’re quite necessary for any modern system.

Analysis

Poettering’s analysis of Apple’s latest move is quite apt. There’s more on this issue from Boing Boing and Hubert Figuiere, another free software hacker.

At one point, Poettering concludes to use a technically inferior protocol to do the job DAAP does because DAAP is not an open protocol and UPnP is an open protocol:

I believe that DAAP is the superior protocol in comparison to UPnP MediaServer. (Not really surprising, since I wrote most of Avahi, which is a free implementation of mDNS/DNS-SD (“Zeroconf”), the (open) Apple technology that is the basis for DAAP.) However, due to the closedness of DAAP I would recommend everyone to favour UPnP MediaServer over DAAP. It’s a pity.

Apple did the right thing with the mDNS/DNS-SD protocol (which allows computers to see what services they offer and help make it easier for ordinary users to connect computers together on a local network). Apple allows everyone to use mDNS/DNS-SD and encourage broad acceptance by publishing complete specs under a license that encourages implementation, allow an Apple employee to help with technical questions, and build valuable programs and devices which use the protocol.

But make no mistake, if Apple were a more popular consumer electronics company they would treat you no better than they could get away with. Best not to become dependent on them.

Update

A little over a day after this news broke, Apple’s latest exclusion scheme has been broken.

Happy Software Freedom Day!

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Today is Software Freedom DaySoftware Freedom Day 2007, a day when we celebrate the freedom of free software for its own sake, relishing in the community we’ve built around sharing and treating each other as partners. Free software is software that respects the user’s freedom to run, share, inspect, and modify the program for any purpose at any time. You don’t have to do these things, they’re permissions not commands, but (like freedom of speech) you miss the freedoms when they’re absent. The price of the software is not the central issue despite that the freedom to share the software means you can often get free software for free (yes, English uses the same word for both price and permission). You never know when you’ll need the freedoms of free software, so it’s good to have these freedoms all the time for all of your software.

So here’s hoping you’ll install and use more free software! What programs could you use? There are too many free software programs to mention them all, but you can visit the FSF/UNESCO Free Software Directory or try these favorites of mine (which happen to be on my computer as I type this):

  • Firefox & Thunderbird—a great web browser and email program. If you’re distributing modified versions of these programs you’ll probably be more interested in working with the IceWeasel and IceDove derivatives which don’t carry Mozilla’s restrictive trademark license or the non-free crash reporter program “Talkback” (one can easily uninstall this from Firefox and Thunderbird as well by going to the Tools menu and picking Add-ons then finding the Talkback add-on and clicking its “Uninstall” button and restarting Firefox or Thunderbird).
  • The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program)—my preferred bitmap image editing program
  • Inkscape—my preferred vector image editing program
  • BZFlag—a great shoot-em-up tank game you can play online or solo
  • VideoLAN Client—a nice all-in-one media player
  • Rhythmbox—a fairly simple audio player you can use to share music as well
  • gNewSense GNU/Linux—a free software operating system
  • Fedora GNU/Linux—a free software operating system (tends to carry more up-to-date software than gNewSense)
  • K3B—CD/DVD burning and copying software
  • Frozen Bubble—a very addictive game you can play over a network or solo. I hear an operating system release was delayed due to the developers getting hooked on this game.

Democrats support domestic spying and continuing the occupation of Iraq

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More and more people recognize that the Democrats are no opposition party.

It’s outrageous. One word, it’s outrageous. And I rarely use that word, because it’s such [hyperbole]. And the Democrats didn’t join, the Democrats led, because — let’s be very clear. The House leader and the Senate leader, Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid, could have stopped that legislation from happening. They were the ones who handled the calendar of Congress. As the party in power, they could have stopped it from being enacted. And let’s be very clear that it’s not just joining or being complicit. It’s leading, of sorts, I guess. And further, this FISA fix and this change further even more greatly guts the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero on today’s Democracy Now! regarding the Democratic support for legalizing spying by American telecommunication corporations (audio, video, transcript)

More on this issue from:

  • Marjorie Cohn—the new law requires telephone companies to collect data and turn it over to the federal government. It also grants immunity against lawsuits to these companies, many of which are currently defendants in civil cases. and her recent DN! interview
  • Dave Lindorff—Make no mistake: the Democrats did not have to pass this latest piece of legislation, loosing the NSA spies on us all. They had the power to kill that bill in its tracks. Instead, they succumbed to the President’s empty threat to label them all “soft on terror” if they didn’t give him what he wanted: a blank check. They caved, just as they did when they had the power to end the war in Iraq last April by cutting off funding for it, and instead, voted to fund it in full.

However I should note that, unlike Lindorff, I do not believe that “The Democrats in this Congress are a bunch of spineless cowards”. I believe this kind of agreement comes doing precisely what their parties are designed to do—benefit their paymasters. Perhaps Lindorff and I don’t really disagree on this point. Lindorff’s “The Case for Impeachment”, raises another point of shame for the party in power and the progressive Left: who is holding the Democratic candidates feet to the fire on impeachment?

DRM and proprietary software screw users again.

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Background

When you install or first run a Microsoft operating system, the computer wants to communicate with a server at Microsoft to learn if it is a legally obtained copy or not. If the OS isn’t deemed legal by Microsoft’s server, or if there’s no response from Microsoft’s server, the OS will run with what is described as “reduced functionality” by one Microsoft representative. This is also known as a form of DRM (digital restrictions management); the proprietor gets to determine how legally obtained software will operate even after it has been obtained. Some proprietors, like Apple, use the power of DRM software to change the terms of the deal after a sale is made. The only way to implement DRM is with proprietary software. After all, if the software respected a user’s freedoms to share and modify the program, someone would distribute their version with the DRM parts ripped out. Only proprietors like DRM. Paraphrasing Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing, nobody wakes up and wishes they could do less with their computer than they expected to do when they bought it.

What just happened

Today Microsoft Windows XP and Vista users received an unpleasant education in the power of proprietary software and DRM.

Boing Boing has the scoop: Microsoft’s DRM server died.

The result: users of legitimate Microsoft Windows XP and Vista are being told their installations are counterfeit and denied the full use of the software. Only the proprietor (Microsoft, in this case) can restore the full functionality of the software.

On the Microsoft forums “Doug in Singapore” says Microsoft’s response is:

Thank you for your response.

I’m sorry to inform you that the Windows Genuine server might be down for few days. I have escalate the issue to our Genuine team, kindly try to validate again on Tuesday 28 Aug 2007.

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Technical Support.

One of the more hilarious responses comes from “ARGlen” (apparently a Windows Vista user) who writes

I was contemplating going back to XP and this may just be the straw that does it.

Yeah, that’ll show ’em who’s boss.

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Support instant runoff voting in Urbana, Illinois

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Champaign County Illinois, USA uses a pair of ES&S machines to prepare and count (plus physically store) the ballots. Use of the ballot preparation machine is optional—one can fill in the bubbles manually with a pen or pencil. This first machine can also (at the voter’s option) scan a completed ballot and report to the voter how it read the ballot, informing the voter of their vote as well as any mistakes such as voting for too many or too few candidates in a race. But all voters must feed their voter-verified paper ballot into the counting+storage machine. I despise the use of the counting machine.

I also despise that both of these machines run on proprietary software; citizens in Urbana, Illinois are fighting for instant runoff voting (IRV) for local elections. You should help them in their fight. IRV requires voters to rank the candidates instead of voting for one candidate; if the voter’s first choice doesn’t win, the vote rolls over to the second choice, and on down the line. With IRV, voters don’t need to fear that they’re “throwing their vote away” on an unpopular candidate who supports their political goals. IRV is a great step to increasing participation in elections both for broadening the candidate pool and encouraging voting.

Unfortunately there are dark clouds in the forecast: If Urbana and Champaign County stick with computer vote counting, they’ll have to convince the proprietor (ES&S) to change the vote-counting software to work with instant runoff voting. This is one reason I endorse the use of free software, software that respects a user’s freedom to run, share, and modify programs. Urbana ought to have the freedom to get whomever they want to alter the software to support IRV. Urbana can pay to send their modified software through the government-required approval process and then use the software in citywide elections.

The silver lining in this cloud is the Champaign County Clerk, Mark Shelden: When I was part of the recommendation committee that evaluated electronic voting machines for Champaign County, I discussed this issue with Mark Shelden and he agrees that a free software voting machine is preferable. Free software voting systems also mean jobs for our community: Champaign County could become a hub of voting software development. We didn’t have any such machines to choose from back then, and ES&S was not interested in selling us a license to their software under a free software license. But as more people evaluate voting machines and find serious problems with them, I think this position will change.

Let’s not give Microsoft all the credit…

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Save some room for Apple, whose behavior would be as objectionable as Microsoft if Apple had the clout Microsoft does. Apple distributes proprietary software, thus denying its users software freedom. Apple’s proprietary word processor doesn’t support OpenDocument (ODF), a file format for electronic office documents which is fully published and available for any developer to implement in any program they wish. ODF is quite unlike the formats used with Microsoft Office programs which are ill-documented and changing from time to time to throw off compatible alternatives (better known as competition). ODF will help you keep your documents readable long after you stop using whatever office programs you use now. In 5 years, you’ll be glad you can still read the old files. Imagine how necessary this is for governments which retain documents for hundreds of years. We don’t know what the complexities come with that requirement, but it’s a safe bet that relying on software nobody will run is unwise.

There’s a petition to get Apple to make their programs read and write ODF documents in their proprietary office suite. Apple has already added code to work with Microsoft’s alternative office format—Microsoft Office Open XML—a format which is considerably younger than ODF, seen less use than ODF in the real world, and has considerable technical problems (including needlessly reinventing the wheel instead of relying on standards for math and scalable graphics, Microsoft wants programmers to follow their unique path to embedding math and scalable graphics; why be compatible with other programs when one can do what Microsoft wants?). Microsoft is currently pressuring governments foreign and domestic to adopt Microsoft OOXML as a viable means of storing documents electronically.

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