Announcing Penny Red, a Python solution to integrate Hashcash into Mutt, licensed under the GPLv3. I chose the name “Penny Red” for a two reasons:

1. Penny Red was the second British postal stamp which was debuted in 1841, the first being the Penny Black stamp. The color was changed, so the black cancellation mark could be easily seen on a red stamp, versus the previous black stamp. Because the goal of the project is to implement a payment system through minted tokens, and a previous solution had existed in Perl (without documentation, mind you), this seemed appropriate.
2. Unfortunately, in the English language, the words “red” and “read” have the same sound, yet different spelling. After reading your email, you would say “I have read my mail”. Because it had postage attached in the headers, you read mail that was paid for. So, “Penny Red” is a play on “Penny Read”

The great thing with the Python scripts in Penny Red is their portability. The “mint_hashcash.py” script reads a file as a passed argument, and then writes to the headers. The “verify_hashcash.py” script reads the mail from STDIN and prints the message and the verified tokens back to STDOUT. Nothing specific about Mutt is in either script! As a result, as long as the MUA supports STDIN and STDOUT with each message, and modifying the headers, these scripts can be used. I guess what I’m saying is, I would like to extend these scripts to Pine, Alpine, Gnus (although not really necessary as Gnus supports Hashcash out of the box), Elm, and others, without forking the project. Penny Red should be able to support multiple MUAs.

At any event, I just wanted to get this post out there, seeing as though I just barely setup the project. I’m pretty excited. Should be fun, and give me something to do after graduation.

Question: Are you one that pirates music? Movies? Software? Any other digital media that is otherwise copyrighted in a manner that would consider your actions piracy? If so, then I have a second question for you: Do you believe in the principles of freedom and liberty? Then this post is for you.

I’m going to shoot straight- piracy is a slap in the face for those of us fighting for copyright restrictions to be lifted, for Digital Restrictions Management wiped from the face of the Earth, and the DCMA over turned. The fact of the matter is, we hate the RIAA, MPAA, blood sucking lawyers, and everything else wrong with copyright just as much as pirates. However, we recognize there are more mature ways to reaching our goals, and we further recognize that piracy is just hurting our cause, not helping it.

Think about it for a second. If you pirate music, books, movies, software, or any other copyright material, what are you saying? At first thought, you’re sticking it to the man, right? You’re also harming material that is open, in the public domain, or otherwise copyrighted in a manner that let’s you share to your hearts content (commonly referred to as “copyleft”). Look at all the artists who have chosen independent labels, if any label at all, that encourages sharing of their music. Instead, you’re sharing Tori Amos, Metallica or some other artist. What you’re saying, is their music is better, but I doubt you’ve given the other music a try, haven’t you? What about proprietary software? You’re saying that you don’t want to pay these outrageous prices on software. You’re also saying that this application is superior to Free Software. The same can be said for images, books, videos, and other digital works. Piracy isn’t liberating anything, it’s just making it so you don’t have to pay, and it’s making more laws on copyright further complicating the system. It’s not the solution to the problem.

Now, I understand the want, or even need, to get these materials. Maybe school requires Microsoft Office. Can you use OpenOffice.org, or some other Open Source office suite? If so, why pirate Microsoft Office? If you absolutely need that specific office suite, surely the school has student discounts. What about Metallica? I was just as pissed as the next guy when they went against Napster, but pirating their music only says you still like the band, and you still like their tunes. Why not boycott them? Why not find another artist in metal that allows sharing and free distribution? If you just like their tunes so much, why not listen to them on a radio service, like Last.fm? Using a service like this, not only will you get Metallica tunes, you’ll also get similar artists that you may not have known about. Discovering new artists is a great way to support music in the Free Culture. If you must have their stuff, is it really that hard to pay a dollar on Amazon or iTunes? If you don’t want the money reaching Metallica, why not get their albums from a gray market shop?

Piracy just doesn’t equate to honesty as well, no matter how you look at it. You’re not being honest in your dealings with your fellowman, and if you’re engaging in piracy, how can others trust you in different aspects of your life? Sure, you can admit that you’re a pirate, but you’re still not honest with the law. You’re not honest with the artists or developers. As much as it sucks sometimes, we should believe in honoring, obeying and sustaining the law. I’m not saying follow the law blindly, and there are always times when we should lobby changes to the law. This seems more the right path than ignoring the law and engaging in piracy, don’t you think? Now, we’re not perfect law abiding citizens. I for one have a hard time sticking to posted speed limits on the road and coming to a complete stop at stop signs, so I’m certainly not one get all high and mighty, but is that an excuse for me to break other laws? Further, what if I place something in your care that requires your trust? Can I trust you won’t put it on bittorrent, or otherwise break my trust?

Piracy especially is troubling for those of us who believe in the Free Software ideals. Here, we’re fighting the good fight for software freedom, then in the dark corners of the basement, we’re pirating proprietary software. Isn’t this hypocritical? You either believe in the ideals or you don’t. Playing both sides doesn’t work. Further, as already mentioned, pirating the software only pisses off the software execs and their lawyers, making the whole copyright process more complicated- it’s doing nothing to liberate the software at all. Boycotting the software, and using competitive open source applications are a couple ways of getting the point out that software should be liberated. If no one is using their software, how can they continue with their business models?

Finally, I admit to being a pirate many years ago. I had a collection of gigabytes of music, videos and software. I was on the peer-to-peer networks night and day. However, when I thought about it, I realized that my actions could not be justified. How could I promote and advocate “copyleft” licenses and continue doing what I was doing? No man can serve two masters, and I had to make a choice. I deleted my entire repository of music, videos, books, software and anything else that was pirated, and started anew. This was nearly five years ago, and guess what? I don’t miss any of it. I have all the music I want to listen to through Last.fm. I have all the software I want to install through my distribution’s software repositories. When I need movies or music, I hit up the gray market shops, getting them for cheap and in excellent condition.

Give yourself a soul-searching moment. Think about your beliefs and then your actions. I think you’ll find that piracy just isn’t the right way to go about removing all the restrictions we currently face. Piracy only makes more ridiculous laws and prevents the Free Culture from furthering it’s cause.

GNote can bring Tomboy to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, as Red Hat will not ship mono with its flagship product.

Whatever Red Hat’s reasons are for not shipping mono with RHEL, GNote is a major win for the open source community. Different people and different operating systems have different needs, and providing yet another application to fill a need is what Free Software is all about. This gives Red Hat the opportunity, if it desires, to bring Tomboy to RHEL through GNote.

Lastly, let’s not forget the Free Software Definition, which it seems GNote is taking advantage of:

• Run the program, for any purpose
• Study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs
• Redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
• Improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits

When you tell me I should give proprietary software a fair technical evaluation because its features are so nice, what you are actually doing is saying “Look at the shine on those manacles!” to someone who remembers feeling like a slave.

I use Identi.ca for two reasons: it’s Free Software, licensed under the GPL and it’s based on an Open Standard. I use Jabber for the same reasons. I use everything in my life for those very reasons. Free Software and Open Standards. If the software doesn’t fall under one of those two categories, it doesn’t have a place on my computer. Like Eric S. Raymond, I am anti-proprietary software.

• The code powering the service is Free Software, licensed under the GNU Affero GPL.
• Create an account and login to the account using OpenID
• Stable (so far) Jabber support
• Utilizes the Open Service Definition

Wait a minute. Rehash that list. Free Software, OpenID, Jabber and an Open Network Service. Sense what I’m sensing? Identi.ca is all about openness and freedom\. Uh, yeah. Signed up, and ditched the other proprietary solutions. I would be surprised if RMS had issues with this service (actually, I probably wouldn’t be surprised, but you get my point).

However, Identi.ca is a bit wet behind the ears currently. Jabber interactivity with the bot is extremely limited. SMS is planned, but not currently implemented. Subscribing to other users is a bit of a pain currently. No search feature. Other shortcomings are listed as bugs and feature requests are welcomed.

You can subscribe to my posts at my page. Happy microblogging.

First, is the license itself, which should always be looked at when dealing with fonts, media, codecs or software. These fonts are not Free Software in the least, as the license is extremely restrictive. Directly from the mouth of Microsoft (emphasis mine):

Q. What can I do with the fonts supplied with Microsoft products?
A. The fonts are governed by the same restrictions as the products they are supplied with. You are not allowed to copy, redistribute or reverse engineer the font files. For full details see the license agreement supplied with the product.

Why would you want to intentionally install non-free software on your machine? Especially, when there is such a massive availability of Free Software fonts? Are these fonts really that great? I took a look over them (PDF), and I think not. These are just core fonts, and I personally think there are better ones out there.

To start, there are the Liberation fonts from Red Hat. These are also core fonts, which personally, I think have the upper hand on the ClearType fonts from Microsoft. Not only are they Free Software, licensed under the GPL, they are tight, clear and good looking. Next, I found a core font list from Fedora listed by license, most of which are very appealing. These can be found here. Finally, Debian only includes Free Software in their main distribution, including a great list of Free Software fonts.

Please don’t take this negatively, but promoting non-free software on Planet Ubuntu should be discouraged. We want to encourage the use of Free Software whenever possible. Of course, Free Software doesn’t meet everyone’s needs, but nevertheless, still should be advocated. We want to advocate the use of Free Software drivers, fonts, media, codecs and software at all costs. We want to encourage hardware vendors to open their specs. We are the GNU Generation- what message are we sending when we install and advocate the use of non-free software?

Carthik- thank you for your post, but I hope people do not install the Microsoft ClearType fonts, and choose Free alternatives instead.

Thanks for reading.

First off, I would like to thank Congressman Bishop for taking the time out of his busy schedule to contact me directly. Sometimes, even after lobbying exhaustively, you feel like you are never heard. No matter how loud you shout, or how hard you scream, sometimes, it feels like it falls on deaf ears. So, the fact that Congressman Bishop contacted me on my personal cell phone, shows that in fact, you can make a difference.

I don’t say this to brag, but rather, hope to encourage others to lobby their issues through blogging. It works, and I’m walking proof of that tonight. However, if it’s okay with Congressman Bishop, I’d like to discuss some of the conversation that we had on the phone this evening.

First, the letter that I received is incomplete. There seems to be a paragraph missing in the letter stating the position that Congressman Bishop stands regarding the issue. I am hoping to receive a copy of that letter with the included paragraph, so I can update my blog accordingly. Because to me, that paragraph stating his stance seems to be the most important, paragraph of the letter.

There are 2 bills that have been brought forth to nullify the Copyright Royalty Board’s (CRB) rate hike, but have yet to reach the floor. One is from the Senate (S. 1353), and the other from the House of Representatives (H.R. 2060). Congressman Bishop wanted to make it clear how he would vote: he would vote to support the bill nullifying the CRB’s rate hike.

This is good news on several levels, and I want to publicly apologize for my emotions in my previous post (it’s been updated a bit). It’s good to know that there is a congressman that is concerned for yours and mine best interests when it comes to this specific issue. Even if this isn’t his expertise, and he needs to rely on his experts for making these decisions, it’s still good to know that he is listening.

Most importantly, bill H.R. 2060 will be presented, as per news on savenetradio.org (PDF ahead). This means that our voice is being heard. We seem to be raising the volume levels loud enough to be heard at Washington D.C. I’m glad to know that Rob Bishop will be supporting that bill.

Next, during our conversation on the phone, I had the opportunity to voice my concerns personally about what these rate hikes mean to me. At work, we listen to radioparadise.com, an ad-free user-supported radio. All income comes from donations and purchased merchandise from users. Radio Paradise has made it clear, that if the CRB’s rate hikes take effect, they will be forced to go offline, as they will not be able to shoulder the financial burden. This would mean that we would be forced to listen to another online radio alternative, and we love Radio Paradise. Unfortunately, there aren’t many alternatives to turn to, as just about every Internet radio broadcaster is singing the same song: the royalty rate hikes will force them offline. So, where do we turn when Internet radio is effectively killed? How will we discover music and turn to new or mainstream artists and labels?

Finally, to close our conversation, Congressman Bishop assured me that he understands my stance and how this will not only affect my life and music tastes, but everyone else’s as well. He has my back, and is looking forward to see the rate hikes killed.

It was an absolute pleasure to talk with Congressman Bishop directly, and I’m glad that some of the confusion is cleared up. I am going to hold him to his word that he will vote in support of bill H.R. 2060 and I hope that his vote will be unanimous with the rest of the House of Representatives supporting the bill. I am glad that he took time out of his busy schedule to talk with me. Rob Bishop- thanks for reading and calling me.

Bloggers- DON’T GIVE UP!!! Blog, blog, blog! Make some noise. Get your voice heard. I assume that my congressman contacted me by either him, or one of his team, watching his online presence with Technorati. So, mention their names directly, as I am sure that other congressmen and senators are doing the exact same thing, and you’ll most likely get noticed. If you don’t have a blog, or an online presence, then write them or call them, and let your voice be heard. The fight to save Internet radio isn’t over. Let’s pick up the vigor and stop the rate hikes dead in their tracks!

Stay tuned- DRM is next.

Fundamentalism: Movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles.

Fanatic: An emotion of being filled with excessive, uncritical zeal, particularly for an extreme religious or political cause, or with an obsessive enthusiasm for a pastime or hobby.

You can call me a fundamentalist fanatic when it comes to music, online radio stations and the RIAA with their puppet labels. Today was a river, no, a tsunami of events all dealing with my music tastes and political views. I’d like to transcribe the events that happened today, and hopefully, convince you to be a fundamentalist fanatic towards the political nature of music freedom. So, let’s begin.

First, as many of you are aware, today was the Internet radio broadcasters “Day of Silence“. If you are unaware what the Day of Silence is all about, let me explain. Thanks to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the United States Congress passed a bill that will increase royalty rates for broadcasters to play music from RIAA-owned labels. These rates start next month and are retroactive to the beginning of the year, January 1, 2007. This will most certainly put most, if not all, Internet radio broadcasters out of business. To protest the event, radio broadcasters created the Day of Silence to help illustrate what the rates would do to online radio: produce silence.

I for one, found the virtual protest, for lack of a better phrase, very exciting. To be part of something that you believe firmly in, especially to make a stand, feels good inside. I hope the RIAA was listening (no pun intended), because if these rates pass, that’s exactly what’s going to happen- independent Internet broadcasters will go silent. Now, think about that for a second. If independent online radio goes silent, how will I be able to support artists and music that I like? Both independent and main-stream? Not only does this hurt the artists trying to get their name out, and their music heard, but it hurts the industry in the long term. The RIAA wants more money for their music being played, but what will happen, is they will get paid less, as very few broadcasters will be able to afford the rates. The RIAA is cutting off their own lifeline, and they seem like nothing is the matter.

Just about every last online radio broadcaster participated in the Day of Silence, except for my favorite broadcaster: Last.fm. There were rumors leading up to today that Last.fm would not participate, and I hoped with all my might that they would go silent for a day. Reading the explanation on their blog made it sound like it was a corporate problem, and not an end-user problem, as Last.FM is ultimately the one who has to shoulder the rate hike, and not it’s listeners. While this is true, the principle is being simply overlooked. It’s not just about Last.FM, but EVERY radio broadcaster. Last.FM isn’t the only one to shoulder the burden (not everyone has as deep of pockets as CBS, who just recently purchased Last.fm). But aside from that, by not taking a stand, whatever your reasons may be, you are telling the listeners that you are okay supporting the RIAA and the royalty rate hike, which has been labeled by the Consumerist, as the Worst Company in America. Sorry Last.FM, but your decision in not supporting a cause to keep rates down, has inspired my decision to not support your service. I’ll most likely be deleting my account.

I wrote my congressman and my senator about the Internet radio rate hike, as obviously, I’m violently opposed to it, and I received a formatted letter in the mail from Rob Bishop, my congressional representative. Here’s what the letter says verbatim:

Dear Mr. Toponce:

I thank you for contacting my office regading the Copyright Royalty Board’s recent decision to change royalty rates for internet radio. It is always a pleasure to hear from my constituents.

Royalty rates are determined by the Copyright Royalty Board which is comprised of three copyright royalty judges. These judges are appointed by the Librarian of Congress who is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. In 2004 Congress passed the Copyright Royalty and Distribution Reform Act which put into place the Copyright Royalty Board. Previous to this the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel determined copyright royalty rates.

Congress is aware of the ever growing use of the internet which has resulted in a new form of cyber crime including fraud, pirating, identity theft, and intellectual property law violations. Copyright and royalty laws are necessary to protect the work of creative minds. I am committed to pass legislation that will protect the intellectual property of authors, artists, musicians and other producers while providing a practical solution to the distribution of intellectual property.

I am, however, concerned with the current system. I contact the Royalty Copyright Board requesting the appeals process and the replied, “The appeal of our decision is to the United States Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia.” This basically means that the appeals process for the Copyright Royalty Board’s decisions is only through a Court of Appeals for civil and legal appeals. Three judges appointed by the Librarian of Congress who are not responsible to Congress is a pretty elitist system. This system places too much unchecked and unchallenged power into the hands of these judges.

H.R 2060, the Internet Radio Equality Act, has been introduced in the House. The intent of this bill is to check the power of copyright royalty judges, which I support in principle. H.R. 2060 has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee; I do not set on either of these committees. It is still early in the legislative process for this bill, and many changes could be still be made before it reaches the Floor of the House. If the bill does make it to the House Floor, though, I would likely support it. (Emphasis mine to show the updated missing paragraph)

Once again, thank you for your letter. Please feel free to contact my office with any further questions or comments.

Sincerly,
Rob Bishop
Member of Congress

There are several things wrong with this letter. First off, this is the exact, and I mean word-for-word, letter that I received from Senator Orrin Hatch over 3 months ago. Second, Rob Bishop never states in the letter where he stands on the issue, and what he is doing, if anything, to solve it. Sure, he explains the system, and it’s fallacies, but nothing about his resolve, or lack thereof, to stop the royalty rates from taking hold. Third, the letter is about the Copyright Royalty Board, and not what I wrote him about- Internet radio. the word ‘Internet’ is only used twice in the letter, with ‘radio’ only being used once. Lastly, the letter pretty much told me that Rob Bishop is creating excuses why nothing can get done on his end.

So, here I sit in my den, reading this letter, thinking that Internet radio is doomed, and I feel completely helpless. Then, my favorite online radio broadcaster decides to continue to broadcast, despite the Day of Silence protest. Depressed as ever, my wife and I decide to head to our local FYE, and purchase some music. Before we leave, I grabbed my list of 11 pages of record labels owned by the RIAA. I am determined now, more than ever, to completely, and flat out boycott the RIAA and it’s record label puppets, so I need the list to know what is safe to purchase, and what isn’t.

As we browse through the massive CD library that FYE offers, I get more and more frustrated and depressed. You see, every artist that I’m interested in listening to, recorded their music under an RIAA-owned label. I keep my list close by checking each one off. EMI, Warner, Geffin, A&M, BMG… The list just goes on and on, and every album I grab, under an RIAA label.

Basically, going to the music store was supposed to lift my spirits, and get me listening to the music I like, but in reality, it made me feel worse. You see, it’s not because every artist decided to go with one of the Big Four labels, but rather, there were so few, if any, artists that chose independent labels. I understand exposure versus principle. Even if the artists don’t like the RIAA, they would rather get their music mass produced and exposed with a major label, then take the chance with a smaller label. Money talks I guess. It just must mean that my money isn’t talking loud enough, or something.

By-the-way, a great way to support the artists you love, and bypass the RIAA, would be to receive the song illegally, either through downloading or copying from a friend, then pay the artist directly for the song(s) you copied. This way, the artist gets paid for their work and time, and the label doesn’t get a dime for it. Sounds fair to me.

If you would have come to me 15 years ago, asking me to boycott the company that produces the music I love, I would have laughed in your face, and told you to keep dreaming. However, now that I’ve grown, and I’ve seen the effects of and consequences of many political and industrial blunders, I stand firm in my ground, that I just will no longer purchase any music that I love, if it falls under an RIAA label, to support the RIAA. It just means too much to me to support independent artists, and to see the RIAA make some changes in the way they conduct business.

For example, take a look at the current way of thinking. Right now, artists put out album after album. Usually, one album will only contain 1 or 2 songs that you are familiar with. The rest, you probably haven’t heard. What’s unfortunate, is most of the time, the unfamiliar material is just filler. It’s not really worth listening to, let alone, purchasing an entire album for. But you just had to have that one song, so you got the album.

Well, fortunately, society is moving away from the concept of albums, and to the idea of playlists. You see, the paradigm has changed. A core way of thinking has evolved. No longer do you go to your local FYE to get the album with that one song. Rather, you pull up iTunes, or another music download service, to grab just the one song that you like, while ignoring the filler. Then, you create a mix, whether on your MP3 player, or on a CD, of all the songs that you like, with none of the garbage. This holds true for not only popular music, but hard to find, unique, or independent music as well. You see, no longer is the listener letting the artist choose what should be listened to through an album, but now the listener is in charge of what is heard.

You see the paradigm shift? It’s a completely new way of thinking. It’s even a higher way of thinking, and a more mature approach, as the listener is now in charge, not the label. This is why Napster and KaZaA were so popular: listeners getting just the music they want. It’s why Internet radio is also so popular: listeners deciding what station, via tags or genre, to listen to. No one else is making the decision for you (except the DJ mixing the music you already like). Yet, the RIAA doesn’t seem to grasp this concept. Rather, they would rather bite the hand that feeds them through lawsuits and shady legal practices. Don’t they understand that they will be the ones hurt, and the listeners, as well as many artists, will win out in the long run? I take it that they haven’t gotten the memo.

At any event, today proved to be an interesting day music-wise in my house. It generated a lot of discussion with both my boss and my wife. If anything, it’s strengthened my resolve to boycott the RIAA, and support the independents. Would you call me a fundamentalist fanatic when it comes to music? Naturally, and I’m proud to stand with such noble people who hold the same views. I just hope, that after my travels and emotions today, that you as a reader, will find yourself in the same camp that I, and so many others are in. Help us defeat the RIAA. Help us break down the Big Four music labels. More importantly, and I haven’t even touched this area, but help us demolish Digital Restrictions Management (DRM).

UPDATE (June 26, 2007 07:30): I leave you the reader hanging here, as I mention that we need to demolish DRM, as a most important cause, then say nothing about it, as though it were an afterthought. For this, I apologize. It was getting late when I was finishing this post, and I wasn’t thinking clearly. I would like to follow up this post with a piece about DRM, it’s effects on society, and why we need to be concerned about it. I feel that topic isn’t appropriate here, however, and that’s why I merely mention it. Please stay tuned, and I’ll satisfy your need for my interpretations and concern of Digital Restrictions Management.

UPDATE 2 (June 26, 2007 21:30): After Congressman Rob Bishop contacted me regarding this post, we went over the letter that I received. Apparently, I have a copy that is missing a crucial paragraph, namely, the paragraph stating the stance that he would take regarding bill H.R. 2060. He has our full support as Internet radio listeners, and is voting to nullify the Copyright Royalty Board’s rate hikes. I hope to receive a copy of that letter, so I can update this post accordingly. See my follow-up to this post regarding our discussion.

UPDATE 3 (July 16, 2007 20:11): I just received the updated letter from Rob Bishop with a Post-It note attached saying this is the letter that they sent me. I have photocopied my letter, and have sent the original off to Rob Bishop, so hopefully, they can track down how I received a letter with a missing paragraph.

Thanks for reading.

Techdirt ran an article about a Windows developer who created a software tool for Visual Studio.NET, and Microsoft is threatening litigation, AFTER they initially rewarded him for his work. Here’s the article from Techdirt:

Someone who prefers to remain anonymous, pointed us to the story of Jamie Cansdale. Cansdale wrote an add-on for Microsoft Visual Studio that was so useful that Microsoft rewarded him with MVP status. Then they realized that his add-on was designed to work on the free “Express” version of Visual Studio, and they began to threaten him, saying that he had violated the terms of service. This was doubly ridiculous, since Cansdale notes that, as a hobbyist, he only had access to the free Express version when developing his add-on, so it was only natural that his version was designed to work with it. As Cansdale pointed out that he doesn’t appear to have done anything wrong (and kept asking Microsoft for evidence of what terms he violated specifically), the legal threats just got stronger and stronger, and apparently, the guy has until tomorrow to make changes to the same software Microsoft gave him an award for writing, even though no one can explain exactly what he did wrong or why he received an award one day and a legal threat afterwards. Update: In the comments, someone points us to a detailed version that gives Microsoft’s side of the story and suggests this isn’t as clear cut as the Register’s article would have you believe.

Here’s the lowdown, if you don’t read the story in full at the Register. Basically, a hobby developer created a tool for improving .NET development using all versions of Visual Studio. At first, Microsoft was so impressed with his work, that they awarded him the Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award. It was only later upon discovering that the tool also worked with Visual Studio.NET Express (the freeware edition that can be downloaded from Microsoft’s site), that they revoked his MVP status, and began threatening him with legal action.

Being told how and where Cansdale can distribute his software, when it is apparently not violating any licenses or terms of service, is draconian. If Microsoft feels that they are in the right, and even if they technically are, once awarding Cansdale with MVP, they should not revoked it. Microsoft should have done a bit more research into his work, before awarding him with MVP status. I look at my work in the Free Software community, and my status as an Ubuntu Member. If that status was initially given for developing a software tool, than later revoked, because the tool that I wrote for the Ubuntu developing community actually violated some license or terms of service for another software application, I probably wouldn’t be involved with the project anymore, especially if threatened with legal action. However, I know that as long as I abide by the Ubuntu Code of Conduct, my membership status will never be revoked, other than naturally expiring after 2 years, of which, I’m given the option to renew.

See? This is one of the BIG reasons I don’t run Windows, or want anything to do with it. You are treated as a criminal from the start. Cansdale sticks to his guns, and has even sought legal counsel, which advise him to hold his ground, and that he has used publicly available APIs to Visual Studio.NET Express. So, if using a tool that has such APIs, and enhancing the product with another tool using said APIs, means lawsuits and financial ruin, count me out. Funny thing is, there are still Windows developers and users who seem to put blinders over the issues, as if they don’t exist. Why support a company, software or not, that is going to treat you as guilty, unless proven innocent? Would you shop at a grocery store if you were arrested for potential theft, even if you haven’t started actually shopping?

I guess this would be reason #6 why I don’t run Windows, or develop for that platform. I like my Freedoms, but more importantly, I like the parent company of the product I endorse, namely Canonical, because they respect my Freedoms as well.

I blogged about this last year as well, and since then, I have only been using Jabber. I haven’t looked back. I had some family and friends on MSN and a few on ICQ, Yahoo! and AIM, so making the change wasn’t easy. In fact, it took a great deal of discussion with my wife and family members. When it came down to it, I had to do what was important for me, and being a Free Software advocate, I needed to drop proprietary protocols, and use only Jabber. It’s been one of the best decisions that I have made in my life.

So, for those reading, I encourage you to do the same. Ditch MSN, AIM, ICQ, Yahoo! and others, and go completely Free with a Jabber account. You’ll be glad you did, and if your family and friends want to IM you, they can just register a Jabber account, or use their Gmail, to get in touch with you. If you are a Free Software advocate, then I submit that using those legacy proprietary protocols is a bit hypocritical, don’t you think?

Not only should you switch to Jabber as your IM, but Ogg Vorbis for your music, Ogg Theora for your video, OpenDocument Format for your documents, Jingle for VOIP, etc. The underlying goal is to use open formats and protocols to the inferior proprietary alternatives.

Take a stop by the Open Discussion Day wiki as well. May serve to be useful and informative.

P.S.- I changed my personal Jabber server from Wildfire to ejabberd recently, and as such, lost a lot of my contacts. Fortunately, I had a backup of my roster. Unfortunately, the majority are Gmail users. Due to the way Gmail handles it’s invite system, I cannot re-request an authorization to add you to my roster. You need to delete me from your roster, and re-add me. It sucks, but don’t blame me, blame Gmail. So, either get a better Jabber account, or, if you want to IM me, and you’re using Gmail, you’ll need to remove my contact from your list, and re-add it.

UPDATE Feb 9, 2011: Added a QR Code to the mix. It too is licensed under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 U.S. license.

UPDATE: Justin wrote up a good review of the conference on his blog. You can find his post here.

I had the opportunity today, along with John, Kyle, Justin and Mike (some local LUG members), to meet with Bruce Perens during the Novell Brainshare Conference. Although, this meeting was not part of Brainshare, and was strictly a press conference. However, the insights that were shed on the Novell / Microsoft deal were priceless.

The press conference was good. It was held at the Shilo Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. My friends and I arrived about an hour early to help get a few details coordinated before the meeting started at 12 noon. When 12 hit, there were only a couple press present, so we were worried that a good turnout would not show. But, apparently, Novell had them held up in a Q&A session that went a few minutes over. It wasn’t long before the room was filled, seating about 20 or so. The meeting lasted an hour, which went by too quickly, and was loaded with really good information.

Pete Ashdown, Democratic Candidate for the U.S. Senate last year and CEO of XMission, was present and introduced Bruce to the press. I would like to thank Pete for allowing us to use XMission to host the images and media of the event. I would also like to thank my employer introPLAY, for sharing their account on the XMission servers.

You can find all the images and audio from the event here.

A few highlights from the meeting:

• Microsoft is spreading FUD with this deal with Novell to the Open Source community.
• The Novell / Microsoft deal poses a real threat to Open Source due to software patents.
• Novell and Microsoft both hope to sue end users if the Open Source Software is not purchased from them.
• Version 3 of the GNU General Public License is written to thwart those lawsuits.
• Every piece of software, Free and non-Free infringes on a software patent one way or another.
• Software patents are the ability for corporations to protect themselves first and innovate later.
• Software patents stifle Open Source Software development.

The conclusion of the meeting? Nothing good is coming from this deal between Microsoft and Novell. If it were just a technical partnership, everything would be okay, but it’s not. Bruce kept saying “is this really a Novell exit strategy?” I can’t help but wonder if it is. The worst nightmares of every Open Source developer is becoming a realization. The GPLv3 is our savior from a potential litigation nightmare on Open Source that will come about because of this.

At any rate, I would highly encourage you to listen to the audio provided on the XMission page. Very insightful stuff.

Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.

I’d like to expand on this for a minute, and describe the latest government disaster coming out of Utah. If you will for a moment, follow me to this link: Governor Huntsman to sign anti-porn resolution.

The gist of the article is this: The ICPA is proposing to turn the Internet into a television, by separating content by port. Thus, you will have adult content on one port (channel), and family content on another port (channel). The idea is to move pornography off of the default web browsing port, namely port 80. The idea is being chaired by Ralph Yarrow, who is chairman of the SCO Group. If you’ve been following Slashdot, this story hit front page yesterday.

First off, this really boils my blood. Getting stereotypical, this is why Republicans shouldn’t be in office: they are clueless to the digital rights and freedoms that we as consumers are entitled too (not that the Democrats are really doing any better, though, are they? (If Pete Ashdown was elected Senator, I’d feel safer about the decisions being made in our state)). Stepping away for a minute, and taking a look at the bigger picture, however, separating content by port is just silly. Rather, let’s look at a number of better options to filter pornography out, to those who are interested:

    1. RFC 3514- Set a security flag in the IPv4 header. With this standard, it would be easy to filter out unwanted online material.
    2. XXX TLD- Have a top level domain of .xxx, and force adult content to use the TLD. Again, using this approach, it is easy to filter out questionable material using simple software.
    3. Non-neutral tiered Internet- Rather than one dumb pipe serving all traffic for all types, we can tier the Internet, putting certain content and services on different pipes through your ISP. You want the porn? You’ll need to pay for it. Don’t want it? No worries- you won’t get it.

There are a number of other solutions to combating the problem with pornography. Probably the biggest, is just plain education. Parents need to teach their children and put the computer in high traffic areas. There are also a number of great tools already in place to filter out unwanted adult material.

The point of all this is: rather than messing with the underlying framework of the system, enhance existing technology to better fit the solution.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t stand the thought of government officials, namely Republicans John Huntsman and Orrin Hatch (those who manage what they do not understand), making decisions for me regarding technology. We need officials who understand the technology, and are consulted regularly about digital rights and management. We need, as Archibald Putt puts it, a “Technocrat” in office. One who understands what they manage.

    1. Financially support the cause to fight for and protect my digital freedoms.
    2. Raise awareness about the legalities and rights of blogging and online journalism.

EFF is something that I am looking forward to being a member of and being involved with. I have toyed with the idea of becoming a member for sometime now, but finally made the plunge yesterday. It’s money put to good use. I would, of course, encourage you to join as well. Don’t let congress, corporations, lawyers or anybody/anything else control how your digital lifestyle should be defined.

Make a change!
Take a stance!
Join EFF.