Nifty Nate informs me that
Radio Canada, the francophone side of the CBC, is now streaming in ogg:
- Première Chaîne (currently pointing at http://ms2.radio-canada.ca:80/PremiereChaine.ogg)
- Espace musique (currently pointing at http://ms2.radio-canada.ca:80/EspaceMusique.ogg)
48kbps of Free goodness.
I’m glad the francophone side finally caught of with the anglophone side (which has been streaming ogg for a while).
Merci Nate! Mes pensées exactement.
Got 20 minutes? Of course you do. Watch “The Story of Stuff
” and learn about how we’re killing ourselves and each other with corporate power, government subservience to corporate power, unsustainable development, marketing, and the linchpin that keeps it all going: shopping for stuff we really don’t need (and will likely throw away less than a year after we get it).
Free software can play a role here. Annie Leonard talks about her 5-year old computer, a model that looks huge compared to other sleek modern computers. I’m using a 10-year old computer right now to type this message. I’ve been keeping my computer going without forgoing security, software updates, or modern online conveniences by using free software. Sure, I can’t play the latest video games on this computer, it’s too slow for all of the very latest 3D free software games. But that’s a secondary issue; I don’t need games to get work done and there are plenty of free software games I can play.
I can do all the things most people do on their computers: watch movies, read email, surf the web, play music, and chat with my friends. I upgrade small parts of my computer hardware occasionally when things fail such as replacing a hard drive and adding a new DVD burner when my old CD burner stopped burning CDs. I plan to use this computer until it simply won’t run anymore.
The key is changing the priorities of our lives: I spend more time away from my computer now so I can get some exercise. By prioritizing my software freedom above following the latest glitzy trends, I can use less than the latest model of computer. When I can’t run this computer anymore, I’ll spend a little extra money to get a computer that will last another 10 years and keep it going.
The XO-1 is an impressively low-power computer with a monitor that doesn’t contain as much mercury as common LCD monitors. The XO-1 also has some recyclable parts. The XO-1 shows by example that we can make better computers. I hope the technology that goes into innovative machines like the XO-1 make it into popular mainstream computers.
The Story of Stuff is compelling however it took far too long for my ordered copy to arrive. Feedback from the producers indicated that they are overwhelmed by the number of orders for the DVD. The signed slip of paper that came with my copy of the DVD says that I should “Feel free to copy and share it freely for any non-commercial use” so I am.
You can also order a copy for someone else and give StoryOfStuff.com the $10. In any case, enjoy the downloaded version now.
Boing Boing celebrated Public Domain Day today, when many works by authors who died in 1957 enter the public domain in countries that use a “life plus 50 years” term of copyright for personal works (the minimum term required by the Berne Convention). Celebrations like these invariably remind us of what we’re restricted from doing if we abide by the law. One of the Boing Boing followups struck me as interesting:
Eclectro says “I consider the Copyright Term Extension act the most vile piece of copyright legislation to date, moreso than the horrible DMCA.”
Neither is desirable, both should be repealed, and there should be no more extensions to the term of copyright. I’d rather not get into a dispute over which is worse. However the effects of the DMCA which allow copyright holders to control access to works last far longer than the US Constitution would let copyright’s term last outright. The term of copyright is finite but the anti-circumvention provisions in the DMCA don’t expire. Magnetic media (like videotapes) will eventually become unplayable and there’s plenty of work only distributed on digital media with digital restrictions management (DRM) applied. When the DMCA was signed into law it was possible that a movie on an encrypted DVD could enter the public domain while disallowing you from breaking the DRM to get to that PD movie.
DMCA exceptions are artificially hard to obtain, they’re only considered periodically, and they have to be renewed to last. The DMCA makes it hard to do things people will want and need to do including legally circumvent the encryption on an encrypted DVD, tell anyone how to break it, or distribute a device that breaks it. One could make their own deCSS on their own but that’s very unlikely to happen yet people need a way to leverage fair use by copying extracts of their legally obtained media.
DRM must be implemented with proprietary software because people won’t tolerate digital restrictions if they don’t have to. Free software hackers will remove the DRM from free software and distribute their improved DRM-less version of a program which will then become the more preferred version of the program to run, study, and build upon.
Publishers are pushing for electronic media which give the copyright holder unprecedented power over how the media is used. It’s not hard for engineers to imagine how GPS data (which tells where the device is on the planet), wireless communication devices, and clocks can be used together to make a media player that restricts where and when the user can play, read, or see certain tracks, books, or movies. Digital restrictions seem to come before good answers to social questions like how one lends a digital work, transfers ownership of a digital work without a copyright holder’s permission or notification, or how someone sees or hears in a digital work without copyright holder permission or notification—in short, how do we do the things we are all used to doing with paper books, DVDs, and older audio players?
Should anyone have to live sub rosa so they can enjoy their new digital media at least as freely they used to enjoy older media? Is it appropriate to give up treating one’s friends like friends and withholding copies or lending in order to satisfy publisher’s profit and control desires?
No matter how glib and sarcastic the proprietor, proprietary software denies users the freedoms to inspect, share, and modify the program.
Users of Adobe’s proprietary Creative Suite software recently discovered that the programs communicate over the network with a machine apparently owned by Omniture, a company that tracks web usage. The Adobe software sends some data to a machine with a hostname of “192.168.112.2O7.net”. Users of Adobe’s CS3 software wondered why they were being spied on and what data was sent. Some users also complained about the hostname of the Omniture machine which, at first glance, looks like the network address of a machine on one’s own network; a machine which is likely already under the user’s control.
If these users were running free software instead of proprietary alternatives (such as The GNU Image Manipulation Program and Inkscape for editing graphics) they’d be free to consult the program’s source code and learn precisely what the program did. They could cite lines of source code instead of speculating about the inclinations of a proprietor. If any curious user wasn’t technical enough to know how to properly interpret the source code to aid their own understanding, they could get help from people they trust to work on their behalf.
But there’s more going on here than any proprietor will explain.
It’s needlessly hard to see a movie on the web because there are no widely-accepted standards for how movies should be encoded as data. Currently popular choices become unpopular later and none of them are well-documented (in a technical sense) or legally in the clear so that all browser programmers can implement them. We end up with a set of incompatible methods to do roughly the same thing.
Ogg Theora+Vorbis can change that but Apple and Nokia are fighting it. They want their preferred patent-encumbered formats to become the standard means for distributing video online. This is a real problem for anyone who can’t pay for the relevant patent licenses, which means all free software hackers.
“Ogg” is a wrapper that ties together “Theora” encoded video and “Vorbis” encoded sound. Together, Ogg Theora+Vorbis give users a way to see movies on your computer. Ogg Vorbis+Theora are not known to be encumbered by any patents (the only applicable patent on Theora’s predecessor, called “VP3”, was licensed for everyone to use in any way they want). Ogg Theora+Vorbis are implementable on nearly all modern computers. There is free software (zero-cost and freely to sharable and modifiable) to make and play Ogg Vorbis+Theora movies. Ogg Vorbis+Theora are a great basis for interoperability and a fine choice to recommend in any standard that uses multimedia files precisely because everyone can use Ogg Theora+Vorbis.
Ogg Theora+Vorbis was in the drafts for the next generation of HTML (the lingua franca of webpages) as a suggestion; nobody would have been required to implement support for Ogg Theora+Vorbis. But that didn’t stop the proprietors from complaining.
Ian Hickson, speaking for the HTML5 working group, recently announced that he removed the suggested Ogg Theora+Vorbis language from the HTML5 specification. The replacement language says that there should be unencumbered common audio and video formats in HTML but it doesn’t suggest any specific means of accomplishing that.
How did this situation come to pass? What happened between the time this spec was drafted and now? Corporate influence, in a nutshell. Apple and Nokia’s complaints have found an ear with those working on HTML specs.
What can you do to stop this? Raise the issue far and wide with everyone, even non-technical computer users. It’s time that these issues no longer live exclusively in the realm where only geeks tread.
More Microsoft advocates than I can link to (1, 2 are a couple) recently wrote non-critically about Microsoft’s recent announcement: Internet Explorer 8, the upcoming version of Microsoft’s proprietary web browser, will pass a standards-compliance test called “Acid2“. As this was covered widely in mainstream corporate press, this is not really news.
What’s news is how people commenting in and on this story don’t question why they should believe Microsoft at all. Why shouldn’t everyone continue to push for the use of free software web browsers? Why should we treat vaporware as good news?
It’s quite common to be able to get free software programs as soon as they’re updated to do something new. Firefox, for instance, is recompiled and distributed nightly. You can download a nightly version and test it all you want. All Microsoft did was produce a screenshot ostensibly demonstrating MSIE8 passing Acid2. They distributed no code for people to verify this alleged standards compliance for themselves, not even proprietary code. To me this represents a significant low in how many people are willing to give credit for something they can’t verify, something typically called vaporware.
At best this is another example of a proprietor making tiny steps toward something resembling what users want, but only when the proprietor is pushed: Microsoft’s announcement comes on the heels of Opera (another web browser proprietor) launching a Microsoft antitrust complaint. Merely a coincidence or unsurprising behavior coming from the target of significant antitrust action (the largest American antitrust case is the Microsoft case and a recent EU antitrust action that resulted in Microsoft getting paid to produce some protocol documentation under NDA)?
The Samba team will soon get the fruits of the EU antitrust suit against Microsoft. Samba is software which allows an operating system to communicate with Microsoft Windows shared folders and printers over a network. The network protocols Microsoft uses are secret and had to be determined by Samba programmers by listening on the wire to see what Microsoft’s proprietary software would do given a particular input. Microsoft had to be forced to produce the documentation for various network protocols they use. This protocol documentation allows Samba to fully interoperate with the Microsoft Windows workgroup server products so they can make free software that implements those protocols.
The Samba team will become a subcontractor of the newly-formed Protocol Freedom Information Foundation (PFIF) which will pay Microsoft €10,000 for the documentation and agree to keep certain aspects of the docs secret. The PFIF will allow other programmers access as well, this is not a deal exclusive to Samba programmers. This deal doesn’t include patent licenses for any patents covering anything described in these docs but Microsoft has to list their patents which read on the ideas in these docs.
Hello Digital Citizen readers
from the XO, an impressive new free software laptop for children all over the world.
I’ve recently received my XO, installed the battery, powered it up, and I’m on my way to doing all sorts of things with it. This machine comes with a free software operating system so it teaches great social values as well as educates on a number of other topics (making music, getting around the World Wide Web, editing text, and more stuff I haven’t tried yet).
I think children will love exploring this machine and its software. I look forward to trying more stuff out if I can pry it away from someone who has already claimed ownership of the machine I’m using right now.
Marco Tabini describes why he finds the GPL to be “morally repugnant” in the context of discussing the copyright infringement lawsuit facing Verizon right now. Verizon is accused of distributing the GNU General Public Licensed software “BusyBox” without distributing the complete corresponding source code as that license requires. Verizon is clearly in the wrong here, there’s no question about what they’re doing, and GPL enforcement is generally an open-and-shut case. Tabini has problems with what he perceives are the GPL’s terms and he’s sympathetic to would-be proprietary derivatives of free software.
Morally, however, I find the GPL repugnant. Its fight-fire-with-fire principle of forcing anyone who uses a piece of software to disclose all their source code in turn betrays its purported ideals of freedom in a disgusting way. There is nothing free about inflicting the GPL on someone just because they use GPL’ed software””it is no different from, say, your cellular provider preventing you from connecting anything but their devices to their network, or forcing you into a contract in exchange for a discount on the cost of your handset.
The GPL says no such thing; anyone is free to use GPLed software without distributing source code to anyone else, or even possessing a copy of the source code to a GPLed program. Under GPL version 2, distributing complete corresponding source code (or a written promise for said source code) is required only when one distributes a copy of the GPLed program. Merely running the program doesn’t require the user to do anything with the program’s source code. In GPL version 3 the requirements are much the same while the language has changed (the GPLv3 talks about “conveyance” instead of distribution for increased portability among copyright regimes).
Distributing (GPLv2) or conveying (GPLv3) a copy of the complete corresponding source code (the code a human can read but a computer can’t) is required so that the recipients of the GPLed program can have the same freedom the distributor had. Allowing one to distribute only the object code (the code a computer can read but a human generally can’t) would let a recipient of the program run the program but not inspect the program (to see what the program is really doing), change the program (to make it do what one wants the program to do), and share the improved program (for the benefit of others). The GPL exists to spread and defend a user’s software freedom—the freedom to run, share, and modify computer software.
Tabini continues
Open-source software should exist and thrive not necessarily because it is better from a technical perspective (although that is usually a consequence of its other characteristics), but because it is unencumbered with artificial limitations that throttle’s someone’s ability to use it. These could take the form of a commercial developer preventing changes that encroach on their business model, or non-commercial developers who impose limitations on usage and development on others to “encourage” transparency and openness.
Now we see why Tabini has such strong objections to the preservation of software freedom—he argues against the GPL from the open source movement’s perspective. That movement was founded to be more acceptable to business, and in the eyes of the founders that meant, in part, to never raise a user’s software freedom as an issue. The Open Source Initiative, the organization that coined the term “open source”, does not teach that users deserve software freedom. So it’s not surprising that open source advocates take the side of a business over society at large or side with a proprietor over a free software activist by agitating for apparently desirable software to be released under a license that would allow proprietary derivatives (such as the new BSD license as Tabini mentions).
The GPL doesn’t prevent any commercial developer from using, sharing, or improving the program. The GPL merely requires that those who get a copy of the program get the freedom to use, share, and modify the program further. This is fair and just. Defending software freedom means defending against any “developer [who would prevent] changes that encroach on their business model” because software freedom says that every computer user should be free to make their computer do what they want, limited only by their own expertise, willingess, time, and money (all factors beyond a licenses purview). Not just commercial developers.
But more importantly, we shouldn’t prioritize commercial interests. Commercial development and distribution is a fine thing, but it’s properly a secondary concern. What’s chiefly important is social solidarity and free people. We need to be free to organize as we deem necessary, not as commercial interests are said to require. That’s what the free software movement is really all about. The free software movement is a social movement that advocates for the freedom to determine one’s own fate, to build and defend a society of such people who are free to work together for our mutual benefit.
Of course we can’t have all possible freedoms, as some freedoms conflict. So we have to choose which freedoms we want to value and then curtail conflicting freedoms. Hence the GPL disallows proprietary derivatives.
Update (2007-12-17): Marco Tabini responds saying that he “believe[s] that true freedom doesn’t need to be picked-and-chosen”.
“True freedom” doesn’t tell us which freedoms we’re talking about. Conflicting freedoms occur frequently—the freedom to drive your car anywhere you want conflicts with a pedestrian’s freedom to walk down that street in safety. Society must choose which freedoms it wishes to value and then curtail conflicting freedoms accordingly. Societies which value pedestrians more than drivers restrict cars to traveling on roads and require their drivers to obey traffic rules which often give the right-of-way to pedestrians.
Given what the free software movement values (more on this), it’s not surprising that this movement finds the new BSD license to be acceptable (as it grants users of covered software these freedoms). It’s also not surprising that this movement places a higher value on licenses which also preserve these freedoms for derivative programs as well (what’s known as a “copyleft” free software license—where copyright denies copying, distribution, and modification by default, copyleft is a method which ensures these freedoms).
Digital restrictions management (DRM) and software patents also threaten a user’s software freedom by reducing a user’s means to technically and legally change a program and share a program with others. Hence it’s also no surprise that the GPL would be changed to ensure these freedoms in the face of those threats by neutralizing DRM for GPLv3-covered software (closing the “Tivoization” hole, so named for the first major use of the GPLv2 weakness which allows Tivo to distribute GPLv2-covered software that users cannot effectively modify), and clarify language about the threat of software patents. By contrast, the new BSD license says nothing about software patents or DRM. This is part of why proprietors like that license; proprietors can use their superior advertising power to make their DRM and/or patent-encumbered derivative of a free software program more widely used than the free version. Then the free software developers are left to compete against a derivative of their own work, which is quite demoralizing. The act of licensing is itself a power, not a freedom, but free software licenses use that power to help the community mindful of the psycho-social effect it has when people are prohibited from helping themselves and their fellows. The new BSD license and the MIT X11 licenses allow anyone to turn a freedom into a power.
Tabini also asks “is the value of BusyBox enhanced or reduced by their choice of license? Or, otherwise stated, if there were a compatible BusyBox replacement that were licensed under a BSD-style license, would it be more successful?”. Until we know which value we’re being asked about and how success is being measured it’s impossible to have an answer. Typically when people ask questions like this they use the term “success” to mean popularity. Popularity can be beneficial when it is coupled with teaching people to value software freedom for its own sake; making software freedom popular is a fine goal to have. When people learn why we fight for software freedom they tend to favor free software, so there’s an increase in popularity while teaching others about the more important goal of of software freedom.
The Motion Picture Association, a corporate movie lobby group, was distributing software which allows the installer (and, of course, the MPA) to get more information on bandwidth usage. The MPA hopes that this will more clearly indicate who is using the Internet to share copies of movies whose copyrights are held by the MPA’s clients. The MPA sends speakers around the world to discourage copyright infringement of its client’s movies. What are the odds the MPA would commit copyright infringement?
Update: Matthew Garrett tells more about his dealing with the MPAA.