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Navy to focus only on open systems

Published by irabinovitch on March 13, 2008 in News. 0 Comments

Federal Computer Week has a story covering the US Navy’s position on open source software and open standards. There are a few choice quotes from Vice Adm. Mark Edwards which show the navy understands benefit of unhindered access to information.

“The days of proprietary technology must come to an end,” he said. “We will no longer accept systems that couple hardware, software and data.”

“Above all, we must break the stovepipes of data so that we can share information across domains”

Vice Adm. Edwards is referring to innovation and cost savings which come about when they are able to share data with in the Naval organization. We applaud these forward thinking policies, and believe that these same benefits can be realized when the general citizenry has open access to information. jeux casino rouletteblack jack bettingjeu la roulettele crapsjeux de casino virtuelcasino en ligne gratuites ,casino en ligne,casino barriere en lignejack black productsjeux baccarat en ligne gratuitescasino black jackjeux d casinole supermarché casino en lignewww jeux casino comwww casino on netwww jeux casino frjeu de video poker gratuitesjeux slots en lignewww jeux casinoroulette gratuitementjeu de roulette gratuitesjeu casino 770black jack andblack tailed jackbonus casino 770la roulette rustrecasino roulette gratuitescasino 888jouer a la roulette gratuitementjeu slotsjeux roulette russejeux de cartes casinojeux casinos en lignecoupons bonus casino sans depotjack black soundboardbonus enquete casinojouer au jeu de casinojeu slots gratiscasino gratuites pour le funcasino jeux francejeux pc casinole casino machine à sous gratuiteswww casino 770casino de baccaratcasino blackjackcasino bonus 100jeux casino gratuisjouer roulette casinowww casino en lignegagner a la roulettejeux baccarat en lignebonus des casino


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Lost in the OOXML Fog

Published by John Mark on March 12, 2008 in News. 0 Comments

There’s been a lot of reporting about the ISO fiasco with OOXML. You can read writeups from people much more tuned in to the process than me. You can start here, here and here (the last is a highly recommended roundup from Andy Updegrove).

But somewhere in this process, much of the coverage of this event grew into a horse race spectacle: will OOXML pass? Will developing countries vote no? How will the US vote? And for perfectly understandable reasons - it *was* a spectacle, and many were interested.

The purpose of this post is an attempt to bring the discussion back to why we care about standards in the first place. There are plenty of good, common-sense IT business reasons to do so. But, as this organization is dedicated to advocating for information rights, I’d like to point out that the standardization process will have an effect on real people in their daily lives, as standards efforts will impact their ability to participate in the information economy. Basically, do we want to hand over to the world the keys to massive IT innovation? Unparalleled ability to participate in a global culture and economy?

I haven’t read enough of the OOXML spec to know if it meets my definition of “open”, but I have read enough commentary to feel uneasy about its adoption. In fact, we still don’t know how much the MS Office implementation will differ from the OOXML spec. Nor do we know if it’s possible to create an open ecosystem around the standard. All of these things will impact the ability to view, edit and collaborate and thus will determine how much of a disadvantage the world’s poor will face. This is the central question.

The questions surrounding the ISO processes are no doubt important, and I’m very glad that some reporters are devoting significant time to them. However, as we go through the tug-of-war between OOXML supporters and detractors, let’s not forget the central reason for why we care about this stuff in the first place: its impact on people.


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Groklaw: ISO Statement on the BRM: Public Stay Out - Updated

Published by Groklaw on March 5, 2008 in Extra. 0 Comments
The ISO folk have put out a press release about how wonderful the BRM worked out and what happens next. However, it tells us little people to stay out. Here's the operative language:
The BRM was not intended to be a public event but followed the orderly and inclusive process of ISO and IEC. With the BRM review completed, it is now up to national bodies to determine whether approval of ISO/IEC DIS 29500 is warranted.
Read the rest at groklaw.net.

Do Linux Users Care About Freedom?

Published by John Mark on March 3, 2008 in News. 0 Comments

Over at the TuxToday blog, there’s a post about Linux users not caring about freedom - because they’d rather just use Adobe’s Flash plugin in lieu of Free Software like Gnash. Or they think Richard Stallman and the FSF are morons who are hurting the Open Source movement.

I’m torn by this argument, because I can see both sides of this. On one hand, it is true that fewer Linux and FLOSS users today care about the “free” in Free Software, and I lament this occurrence. On the other hand, however, I would be remiss not to point out that, at times, the FSF and Richard Stallman can be their own worst enemies. Note, however, that I am in full agreement with the stated goals of the FSF.

Also, we must understand why this phenomenon is taking place. I think a big part of it is that simply Free Software has expanded beyond the traditional techno-libertarian space it once occupied. And furthermore - and this is why groups like BytesFree.org even exist at the moment - we have done a very poor job of explaining to people why they should care. If you look beyond the techno elite, very few people understand the underlying problems of the lack of protected freedoms in the digital space.

This is why BytesFree.org is dedicated to the idea that everyone deserves the protected right to access what we own, on our terms. Because identifying the problem in that language makes it apparent to the layman what is wrong, ie. we *don’t* currently have the protected right to access what we own. And in fact, with laws like the DMCA, not only do we not have that right, but we can run afoul of the law simply by acting on the supposition that we have that right.

We believe that the secret to these issues lies in addressing them in a language that everyone can understand. This is about the right to education, our mandate as human beings to wipe out the digital divide and ensure tech access for everyone, and the simple fact that the prominence of technology in 2008 raises information rights to the level of human rights. Note the term I chose there: information rights. Not “digital rights”. “Digital rights” seems to be a term reserved for the technorati, something that everyday people need not care about. “Information rights” - ok, that’s a term more people can identify with.

So, if we want things to change, we’re going to have to get organized and make an effort to speak “right down to earth, in a language that everybody can understand.” At BytesFree.org, we’re working on political efforts to make sure that both politicians and the non-techie audience can understand why we care.

Won’t you consider joining bytesfree.org?


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Even More Fun with dapper.net

Published by John Mark on March 2, 2008 in News. 0 Comments

One of the challenges with getting the Voter Info Project up and running is the fact that so much of the data was in raw HTML pages, with no data feeds that could easily be imported. Remember back in the day when we wrote Perl screenscapers to deal with this? Yeah, I had no desire to go back to that. So, enter dapper.net.

With this, I was able to show it what HTML data I wanted to load in. Then, using a visual tool, I identified what elements on the page I cared about. THEN I simply labeled each field of data and grouped them together. Voila! About 10 seconds later, and I have turned straight HTML into an RSS feed, but I could have just as easily turned it into any sort of XML, RSS, Atom, Google Gadget, iCal, CSV, etc.

Just to give you an idea of what I’ve been able to do, check out these feeds of MPAA PAC contribs, MSFT PAC contribs, and RIAA PAC contribs, respectively, in the state of California.

Now that I have this data in a useful format, I can now focus on importing them into the Voter Information Project.


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The Wonder of dapper.net

Published by John Mark on March 1, 2008 in News. 0 Comments

As we s-l-o-w-l-y get the voter information project up and off the ground, Ilan discovered dapper.net, and I have to admit to being wholly enthralled. Take any kind of web data - HTML, RSS, XML, etc. etc. - and do transforms or simply parse out the stuff you actually want, and voila! Export to various data formats, including “daap XML”, the default. These can then be accessed publicly on the net, or if you prefer, only by you.

It looks like this will greatly ease the import of congressional and state assembly data into the voter information project. Yay! I was not looking forward to copy and paste :)


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Groklaw: OOXML Fails to Get Majority Approval at BRM - Updated 3Xs

Published by Groklaw on February 29, 2008 in Extra. 0 Comments
Andy Updegrove has the results in detail here, including a breakdown of the votes. Basically, there were too many proposed changes to be able to cover them in the BRM, so they tried a workaround, but the upshot is ... it's a mess. Oddly, despite the rules, Alex Brown, Updegrove reports, allowed non P countries to vote, but OOXML still couldn't get a majority of the delegations to back it at the BRM. Nor is it clear that allowing non P countries to vote is even legitimate. Now it's the 30-day voting period, but Updegrove asks, if they never could discuss all the issues, which is the purpose of a BRM, what's the basis for a vote? And with the vast majority either voting to abstain or even refusing to vote as a protest, I think one may conclude this proposal didn't belong on the fast track, and it isn't getting the kind of support you would have thought it might, given all the muscle that has gone into the push to get OOXML approved. See full post at Groklaw.net 

ConsortiumInfo.org: Showdown in Geneva - OOXML BRM Vote

Published by ConsortiumInfo.org The Standards Blog on February 29, 2008 in Extra. 0 Comments
Updated March 1: You can find an interview by Sean Daly at Groklaw where I go into greater detail on what was happening in Geneva and why it matters. See also the links added at the end of this entry, most of which are by BRM delegates
A rather incredible week in Geneva has just ended, bringing to a close the Herculean task assumed by the over 100 delegates from 32 countries that attended the BRM. That challenge, of course, was how to productively resolve the more than 1,100 comments (after elimination of duplicates) registered by the 87 National Bodies that voted last summer with respect to a specification that itself exceeded 6,000 pages. ... Read the full post at the ConsortiumInfo blog 

bytesfree-discuss mailing list

Published by John Mark on February 3, 2008 in News. 0 Comments

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the bytesfree-discuss mailing list. You can subscribe here.


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BytesFree.org to “Launch” at SCALE

Published by John Mark on February 2, 2008 in News. 0 Comments

If you’ve been reading this site, you may be surprised to know that we haven’t ever officially “launched.” We just sort of came to be and started blogging on the AB 1668 process. As we look to extend the number of people involved in bytesfree.org, as well as the scope of what bytesfree.org hopes to accomplish, it became clear that bytesfree.org had to graduate to a real organization with some real infrastructure. And so it begins…

On Friday, February 8, 8pm at SCALE, there will be an Open Source Politics birds-of-a-feather session. If you intend to be at SCALE, and we hope you will be, please do drop by. We will discuss the upcoming June primaries in California (Feb. 5 is just the presidential primary) and the issues that matter to us: copyright reform, information rights, DRM, open formats, digital divide, open voting, etc.

One of the core values for bytesfree.org is that everyone deserves the right to access whatever information they legally possess. Another core value is that these rights, what we call “information rights”, rise to the level of basic human rights, on account of the prominence of the Internet and digital technologies. As we looked around at the organizations dedicated to these issues, 2 things stood out:

  1. they did not communicate those messages effectively, if at all, in our opinion. Or…
  2. they were incorporated as 501 (c)(3) nonprofits, which limited the amount of legislative and election lobbying they could perform

So on February 8, we will announce a few things. First will be an introduction to who is behind this web site, which will be Ilan Rabinovitch, a co-founder of SCALE, John Mark Walker, and 2 other names to be mentioned then. We will also give an update on our application for 501 (c)(4) status, which gives us more leeway in terms of political activities. After that, it will all be about how to get ready for June. We hope to see you there!


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