4 September 2006

I wish the nascent Debian France organization all the best of luck on the implementation of the Vandoeuvre Prospectus. May your organization be run with galit . Nobody likes being a second class citizen.

Any Day Now, The Official Ubuntu Book will show up in stores. I have a rubber-banded-together copy of the folded and gathered sheets and the the first batch of books should be bound (or being bound) right now. Those who have pre-ordered it from Amazon or elsewhere should have it in their hands quickly. In addition to my own name on the author page is (future Ubuntu Community Manager) Jono Bacon, Corey Burger, Jonathan Jesse, and Ivan Krsti . Many more members of the Ubuntu community and many editors at Prentice Hall deserve credit as well. I'm proud of the book. I sense that it's more consistent, better organized, and of a higher overall quality than my last book. Even better though, is the fact that the book is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. Several chapters are already being shipped by default on the Ubuntu desktop and several translations are underway. You can read more about the book on the publishers site and order it from any number of places online. Books under such licenses are economically risky for publishers so please support the project by buying it if you end up finding the text useful!

During Wikimania, I was explaining to someone that Aziz Ridouan (Audionautes) was staying at Elizabeth Stark's apartment, that Elizabeth Stark was staying at Jean-Baptiste Soufron's apartment, and that Jean-Baptiste Soufron was staying at my apartment. In fact, all four of us have slept at least one night at both the Acetarium and at Jean-Baptiste's apartment in the last month and a half.

In my mailbox today (links are added):

Dear Boston Vegetarian Society List, The curator of the World Carrot Museum will be joining us at Happy Buddha on a visit from the UK!

I've never met anyone who has created a museum about a vegetable but I'm intrigued. I'm also pleased to see that similar ventures exist for vegetables that I enjoy even more than carrots.

In the last couple years, I've earned something of a reputation for giving Creative Commons a hard time. This fact hit home a few weeks ago when a reporter for the San Antonio Current called me up to get "the other side" on a story he was doing on CC. Apparently, the journalist had found my name in the criticism section of Wikipedia's Creative Commons article. Now, while I'm not happy with CC's reticence to take a normative stance of any kind and I'm not thrilled with many CC licenses that don't respect what I believe are essential freedoms, I should give credit to CC where credit is due. Over the past half year or so, I've had the pleasure of helping represent Debian in conversations between a Debian team and folks at CC to help iron out a number of nits with the CC licenses that seemed to be (unnecessarily) creating barriers to Debian blessing some more permissive licenses as DFSG free. Throughout this process, folks at CC have been helpful, responsive, flexible, and seriously willing to make changes based on our suggestions. The first and hardest stage of this work culminated with CC's release of the discussion draft of their 3.0 licenses. Evan Prodromou published a great in-depth report on the talks between Debian and CC that helped shape these drafts. While we didn't get 100% of what we were asking, I'm personally quite confident that we have or will get all of what is necessary to ensure that the licenses are DFSG free both in letter and spirit. Not only does CC build several great licenses, they are willing to work with the community in difficult meaningful ways. When we build a real social movement around calls for essential freedom of culture and content, we'll be lucky to have CC writing some of the licenses that help make it happen.

I bought a TV-B-Gone a few years back. It's been fun. I make a point of never turning off a TV that anyone is obviously watching and have only once had anyone turn a television back on. Most people find it easier to just talk to the person sitting across the table than to turn the TV back on. The only problem is that I can never really tell in advance when I'll need my TV-B-Gone and so frequently end somewhere wishing I had one when I've left it at home. What I really need is a TV-B-Gone-B-Here.

It's worth nothing that many people seem to have a hard time spelling, "it's worth noting."

(This is mostly reposted from an Advogato article I just submitted).

About a year ago, I posted an article on Advogato entitled, Towards a Standard of Freedom: Creative Commons and the Free Software Movement. In it, I argued that Creative Commons and the free culture movement were struggling to build a cohesive freedom movement in the way that free and open source software had succeeded in doing by never stopping to define the ground rules of the commons movement. I argued that Free Software built a movement around calls for essential freedoms and against the actions of software producers who failed to live up to this standard. On the other hand, Creative Commons has argued for "some rights reserved" but never explained which rights were unreservable. In the process, they've done the invaluable service of creating a stable of powerful, internationalized licenses. But they failed to build the type social movement that some of us wanted. While this was never their goal, it left some people unsatisfied. In a later version of the essay published in Mute Magazine, I concluded by stating:

Whether in unison or cooperating in separate groups, it is time for those those of us that feel strongly about freedom to discuss, decide, and move forward with our own free information movement built upon a standard of freedom. When we have defined free information in terms of essential freedoms, a subset of Creative Commons works and a subset of Creative Commons licenses will provide tools and texts through which a social movement can be built.

I'm thrilled to say that that day is now within sight. A few weeks ago, Larry Lessig introduced me to Erik M ller, a Wikipedian who had read my article and was planning on launching the same project that I had been planning. It only seemed sensible to collaborate. Today, we have launched a draft of a Free Content and Expression Definition online at freedomdefined.org. The website is a wiki and we welcome feedback, suggestions, and alternative versions of the document. So far, we've have decided to stick closely to the freedoms of free software but are actively interested in updating these to be more relevant for other types of creative works. Of course, anything, even the name, can be changed at this point. To guide us through the project of debating and further refining a definition are four moderators who will ultimately be called upon to resolve disputes and disagreements about what the definition should and will say. These moderators are myself, Erik M ller, Creative Commons General Counsel Mia Garlick, and Wikimedia Foundation Trustee Angela Beesley. You can view the announcement of the definition, please take a look at:

• http://freedomdefined.org/Announcement

To view the definition itself, please visit:

• http://freedomdefined.org

There's a disturbing little press release floating around where the Sun-backed Open Media Commons announces it's release of a new DRM specification to be implemented using free software. That people are creating DRM systems under open source and free software licenses is not surprising; much of the encryption technology on which DRM is based has been free and open for a long time. What is disturbing is that it contains what appears to be an endorsement by Lawrence Lessig:

Lawrence Lessig, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Creative Commons and Professor of Law at Stanford Law School: "In a world where DRM has become ubiquitous, we need to ensure that the ecology for creativity is bolstered, not stifled, by technology. We applaud Sun's efforts to rally the community around the development of open-source, royalty-free DRM standards that support "fair use" and that don't block the development of Creative Commons ideals."

Lessig's position seems to be that DRM is bad and should not exist. But in a world where it does exist, he thinks that not-quite-so-bad DRM is better than the alternatives. Is that the sort of message we want to be sending? The fact that the software is "open source" is hardly good enough if the purpose of the software is to take away users freedom -- in precisely the way that DRM does. It doesn't help that EFF has already spoken out against this project. Lessig is on the board of directors of both EFF and FSF. I think it is smart for members of either organization who are opposed to DRM, even when it's sweetened up, to contact those organizations and let them know how you feel. On the OMC website, there is a photo of two young attractive people listening to a single pair of headphones. Apparently, the people in the picture need to share a single pair of headphones because the Open Media Commons rights management system won't allow them to share the digital media itself.

Several days ago, I got a message from David G. Reichert, my representative in the U.S. House of Representatives (and the incumbent candidate in one of the New York Time's "Races to Watch"). His letter started out:

As your Representative in Congress, I want to share with you some of the work I have been doing to assist orphans in underdeveloped countries.

I grew up in a family that adopted several orphans from underdeveloped countries so I'm glad to see this happening -- I really am. But what really makes me happy is that I get to hear from my elected representative unsolicited -- for the first time, no less -- advertising his work on such a controversial subject. He seems perfectly willing to stand up for what he believes in, even if it means that he loses the crucial anti-developing-nation-orphan vote.

Yesterday was St. Patrick's day. I saw a group of WASP Harvard College students wearing green St. Patrick's Day sombreros. In the words of Joe Wenderoth, "This Freak Show is too long."

Who would design consumer electronic products around technological necessity when they could design them around clever bits of word play? I came up with the idea for an "iPod Tripod" -- if you will, a "TriPod" -- and was thrilled to see that someone else had already (a) stumbled upon the same little rhyme and (b) followed through on the idea and was already selling a product! The review I read seemed to indicate that the execution was not quite as good as the name. But then again, how could it be?

XM Radio claims that it's "Beyond AM. Beyond FM." I'm sure that's the case. I'm a little less clear on what it is, outside of the first letter in the acronym, they are modulating.

My friends Marcell and Tomislav organized a show called System.hack() that aimed to highlight many of the last half-centuries greatest "hacks" as a means of celebrating the hacks themselves while exposing them, and the idea of hacking and hackers, to a larger audience. As part of their show, I procured an original circa-1960's Cap'n Crunch whistle (the one that emits 2600 Hz when one hole is covered) and wrote a short essay for a book published along with the show. You'll have to track down Tomi and Marcell in Zagreb if you want to find my whistle but you can read about the hack in either English or Croatian on the exhibit's wiki. You should also check out the whole System.hack() wiki because there's some other good stuff up there from other contributors.

I feel like people should not give software for physicians names that are a one letter substitution away from "malpractice".

If you're in the Seattle area and are concerned about DRM, you should be at a "flash" protest against DRM tomorrow (Tuesday May, 23) before work (8-9AM) to kick off a major anti-DRM campaign. There will be costumes and fun to be had by all. These sorts of things are great if a bunch of people participate and just seem impotent if not enough do. This is important enough that I would consider flying back to Seattle for it if I had a little more time and money to do so. It's worth it to make sure this campaign starts off on the right foot. We have a lot to lose if it doesn't. If you are in the area and can possible spare an hour or two and be in downtown Seattle tomorrow morning, I think it is really important that you do so. You can get more information from someone at the FSF by emailing action@defectivebydesign.org and announcing that you want to participate.

Here's an addition to my personal list of villains. Imagine someone who intentionally leaves their mobile phone on -- perhaps even on an extra loud "outdoor mode" and with an particularly obnoxious ringtone -- during movies, symphonies, plays, or lectures. While this person isn't so nasty that they would plan or prompt a call, they enjoy the thrill of knowing, at any moment (but especially during the quiet or emotionally charged parts of the performance), that it could all be ruined. And that it would be their fault. Of course, they would act embarrassed and brush it off as an honest mistake.

In my infinite spare time, I think it would be fun to make a parody of an MTV style "documentary" about one day in the life a person with a Hitler mustache to show ridiculous that genre has become. The video will be done with 15 second cuts and and with a bumping soundtrack by an eclectic selection of artists from the full spectrum of popular music. It will follow around a person for one day as they have a barber chisel out a Hitler mustache and then spend one day in that form. These scenes will, of course, be interspersed up with snippets from interviews with vapid onlookers, fashion gurus, and celebrities weighing in on all sides of the many "issues" that wearing a Hitler mustache raises. These issues might include:

• Is it now or will it ever been long enough to make the Hitler mustache OK again? Did Hitler really ruin that mustache for ever and for everybody? Do fashionistas believe that this is that a good or a bad thing?
• What about Charlie Chaplin and others who wore similar mustaches before or concurrent with Hitler?
• In what sense does living with a Hitler mustache teach either the wearer or the public that "it's what inside that really counts."

If you would like to donate resources or time to this project, please let me know.

I gave a talk last week at a gathering at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS). The gathering was called Come Together and the theme was technology, social movements, and social change. The line-up included 8 people in addition to myself and ended with a talk by Noam Chomsky. The talk focused on introducing folks to the idea of social movements around information freedom by introducing a big picture view of problems introduced by contemporary IP and a quick breakdown of some of the types of ways that people are attempting to resist, provide alternatives to, or change the system for the better. I did not use slides but I have (very rough) notes available for those that are interested. Information Freedom talk notes:

• HTML
• ReStructured Text

While adding the notes to my website, I noticed that I never uploaded the slides or notes from the longer (better) version of a talk on a similar topic that I gave at the Darklight Film Festival's annual symposium last year. The talk was titled, Software, Freedom, and the World Beyond Computer Programs. Aimed a non-technical audience, the talk began by introducing intellectual property and tries to describe the history of the current problems created by modern IP policy. Like the Come Together talk, it continued by offering the same rough classification of the types of "solutions" being offered. Unlike the Come Together talk, I then went into much more depth on the reasons Free Software has succeeded in the information technology realm and tried to describe some of the benefits and limitations of applying the "open source" model to the production of other types of creative works. I gave the talk on October 28, 2005 in Dublin, Ireland. Slides and talk notes are available. Software, Freedom, and the World Beyond Computer Programs slides:

• PDF
• Open Document Presentation (i.e., OpenOffice.org 2.0)

Software, Freedom, and the World Beyond Computer Programs talk notes:

• HTML
• ReStructured Text

Today I heard someone say, "apparently, it's not visible. Clearly, a confused statement.