Rob Pegoraro - Fast Forward: FCC Takes Sides in Net-Neutrality Debate - washingtonpost.com

On Monday, the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission said the agency would write rules requiring Internet providers to do something many of them already say they do: deliver online content without discrimination. So why were there so many long faces in telecom afterward?

I think I've posted about a thousand comments on this in various places, here is simply the latest, and maybe most succinct:

Several points:

You mention that new Federal monitoring would invite corruption down the road.

No, I'd say it pretty much guarantees it. And at considerable expense, only to prevent what is commonly accepted as a vendor infringement that has rarely taken place. Also consider that in the cases where it has taken place, existing laws have handled the situation.

You mentioned that you, as a consumer, would rather have usage caps than have a particular application you use stop working.

But what about ME, as a consumer? I hate usage caps and have stuck with DSL over Cable for my Internet primarily for that distinction. If I use any of the applications you refer to then I guess I've never noticed the difference. Now that's subject to change, as are usage caps. Suppose after such new legislation all carriers either established low caps, or cut their existing caps in half or quarter as a defensive measure? Would "network neutrality" be worth it still?

I resent the continued implication that all these still potential problems we face are the result of free enterprise and all we need is yet another government agency to make it all better. There is very little about cable, telephone or cell phone service that resembles free enterprise as all are heavily taxed, and government granted monopoly based.

If we all had a dozen high speed Internet providers to chose from I have little doubt that some would offer plans that satisfy my needs, and others would offer plans that satisfy yours. I'd rather see our legislatures try and figure out how to spur the existence of that many alternatives.

Let's just confess right now that the only way to have a single plan that satisfies everyone is for men from Mars for come down and offer us free unlimited Internet service. Any other option, whether government based or not will have to either limit choice (pleasing one customer but not another) or run at a loss that will have to be paid for unequally by the consumer base.

Not surprisingly this same solution set applies to many other things in our lives and ultimately the decisions we make will determine whether the first two hundred years of our country's history were a waste of time or not.

Bezos: We've got issues with Google Book Search | The Social - CNET News

"We have strong opinions about that issue which I'm not going to share," Bezos said to interviewer Steven Levy at the Wired Business Conference. "But, clearly, that settlement in our opinion needs to be revisited and it is being revisited."

What? You have a copyright on your opinions too?

My problem with Amazon is that after they came out with the Kindle they acquired Mobipocket and on the homepage of that site are listed the "100 last arrivals", which it seems came to an abrupt halt on 2006-03-19. Fortunately there are alternate (and better) sources of public domain books in Kindle compatible format, but no thanks to Amazon, who would much rather direct you to moth-eaten hardcopies at their partner sites (used bookstores who pay Amazon for the privilege of selling through them).

I like the Kindle, but I don't like some of the self serving attitude that goes with it. Amazon can keep their strong opinions to themselves.

Whitacre Vows to ‘Learn About Cars’ as Chairman of New GM Board - Bloomberg.com

June 10 (Bloomberg) -- Edward E. Whitacre Jr. built AT&T Inc. into the biggest U.S. provider of telephone service over a 43-year-career. By his own admission, he becomes chairman of General Motors Corp. knowing nothing about the auto industry.

Not to criticize his selection (I don't know enough one way or the other), but if you look at the history of AT&T you will see that it was for most of it's history a monopoly until roughly 1984 when it was busted up into several smaller regional monopolies providing local phone service. AT&T then proceeded to flounder around either merging with other companies or spinning off parts of itself in a desperate struggle to survive as a non-monopoly company.

The regional bells, continuing to rake in unearned profits wisely sought to diversify themselves, going into publishing, cable TV, cellular, and even the furniture business. It would be at least very difficult to catalogue where all the monopoly money ended up, except to say that some of it, if not most of it, ended up wasted on dead-end products and projects. In the process all the baby-bells as they cam to be called went on wild rebranding sprees yielding meaningless names such as Verizon, Qwest and SBC (which might have stood for Southwest Bell Corporation at one time but just stands for SBC (nothing ) now).

I certainly don't know what Whitacre's real resume would look like, but he was at least NOT with AT&T during most of this time, but when AT&T re-merged with SBC in 2005 (AT&T as the company being acquired) he was head of SBC, not AT&T.

Someone else can figure out to what extent he was responsible for the success of what was still a mini-monopoly, I'm more interested in the principle than the individual.

The principle being, as someone put it recently, that most of these companies are not too big to fail, they are in fact too big to exist. I personally think that busting the AT&T monopoly was a good thing, particularly as it wasn't just a big company it was almost an extension of the government in its monopoly powers.

Now, in saving GM (and some banking and investment businesses), we are moving in the opposite direction, that of combining more and more businesses into government run monopolies (including offloading of Chrystler to the Italians so that we at Government Motors only have one remaining private company, Ford, to deal with). Of course we are told that all of this is only temporary. Problem with that is that temporary can turn into a very long time.

The two most likely outcomes are that GM will succeed, at the expense of the only other large American car company, ending real choice, or that through gross mismanagement, it will fail, leaving taxpayers with a big bill to pay and also leaving Americans with only one company to chose from.

Very little that is good can come from this, but our die has been cast, and I will not let those around me forget who (which voters that is) are the responsible parties. Before anyone protests, no, the Obama administration didn't cause it all, they have just provided the "punch line" that shifts our course from heading toward simple socialism to something much much more sinister.

For the real punch in the gut, we should all remember that none of these recent course changes can be corrected during most of our lifetimes, assuming we start correcting them in 2010, which is still doubtful considering new high school graduates know almost nothing about this country's history or how its government was designed to work. Congratulations to all of you who "won".

Does She Look Like a Music Pirate?

Over the next few months, Lybeck and the record industry tussled over Andersen's computer. The court ordered Andersen to hand over the computer, and the RIAA took it to an expert so it could be searched for signs of music piracy. But then the industry's lawyers refused to release the expert's report. Ultimately, Donald C. Ashmanskas, the U.S. District Court judge overseeing the case in Portland, ordered the RIAA to turn over the information, which it did in January, 2007. The result? No evidence of piracy.

Lybeck was convinced his defense was airtight. On May 14, he asked the Portland court for summary judgment. Ashmanskas gave the RIAA until June 1 to provide more evidence linking Andersen to the alleged infringement. In the week leading up to the deadline, the RIAA told Andersen it would drop its case if she agreed not to pursue counterclaims. She refused. Finally on the deadline, industry lawyers dropped the case without conditions and agreed not to sue Andersen again.

AOL adopting XMPP aka Jabber

"Proprietary protocols are things from yesterday. Today, Opensource technologies are taking over the world! AOL / ICQ has just launched a test server using XMPP, an open technology. This means that you’ll soon be able to talk to your ICQ / AIM contacts via Jabber. Google has already started using it. So who’s next? MSN!"

I guess anything is possible. One of the comments on linked blog post indicates MS is indeed working on some sort of Gtalk compatibility (as of Oct. 2007). I certainly look forward to only having to signed on to one thing to do IM, E-mail, and a few other things, but more importantly, I look forward to having a choice of who I sign on with without locking myself away from those who chose differently. E-mail ought to serve as an example of how everything else should work on the internet. I shouldn't have to be an AOL user to communicate with AOL users, or a Microsoft user to communicate with other Microsoft users. Clearly the technologists at these companies understand this even if the MBAs do not.

Yahoo to Support OpenID Single Sign-On - New York Times

I've posted something good about Yahoo. Day ruined.

Amazon MP3 Music Downloads

Amazon MP3 Frequently Asked Questions
Which computer operating systems are compatible with Amazon MP3?

You can buy songs from any computer with a web browser capable of downloading files from the Internet. The MP3 files you purchase will download directly to your computer and are compatible with any system that can read the MP3 music format. The Amazon MP3 Downloader is a tiny application that is required for purchasing and downloading an entire album and is currently available for Mac and Windows operating systems. If you use Linux, you can currently buy individual songs. A Linux version of the Amazon MP3 Downloader is under development, and when released will allow entire album purchases. For more information, please visit the Amazon MP3 Downloader Help page.

Good news everyone.

** UPDATE **

I downloaded two songs using Linux. Works great!

You need a special utility to download an entire album, but that utility is not available for Linux (yet). Promised RSN.

Someone somewhere asked hadn't Amazon figured out how to create zip files yet. Possibly they don't want to count on users being able to deal with them and are rolling whatever file packaging they are going to do into a "foolproof" interface they supply. If that's all that's going on, it shouldn't take long. One less proprietary OS dependency for me (I've bought music through iTunes, but use Linux software to serve and play them).

Get with the program Apple! Don't become just another Microsoft mini-me! (Lock-in)

Vote for (against) INCITS 2341 by IBM Corp

If, by chance, this flawed specification is approved despite the process outlined in the JTC 1 Directives, what will be the incentive for the submitting organization and company to resolve all of the known submitted technical comments if the ballot has already been passed?

Ooops, forgot to quote that.

Slashdot | Open Library Goes Online With Public Domain Books

From one of the articles:

With the backing of some of the groups opposed to the Google Library project, the Open Content Alliance should experience smooth sailing.

In other words, the group trying to tie up Google in the courts is off doing something very similar on it's own. Typical outcomes for such efforts is to plod along offering competition to the product being litigated and in the process try to make the venture unprofitable for the target organization. Once case is settle out of court (or in) competing product is dropped like a hot potato.

Why would ANYONE trust Yahoo, MSN, HP or Adobe with content of any kind?

I fail to see what is wrong with the Google approach: I can search on content with strings. If the found content is not under copyright I have full access to it right away. If the found content is still under copyright I can at least verify that it actually covers the topic I'm interested in (as opposed to just containing a word or two in the glossary) and I can then procede to order the book, go to my public library, or whatever I need to do to get the information.

I love Project Gutenberg and the like, but considering the players involved this thing stinks to high heaven.

Of course Google could just make it easy on themselves and pull the plug on their efforts right now. Let these bandwagoneers do the heavy lifting and just provide searches on it all (which they are likely to do in any event).

My guess is though that this group will disband about a day after Google stops scanning.

We WILL get fooled again!

Adobe wants to be the Microsoft of the Web

"What is not appealing is going back to a technology which is single sourced and controlled by a single vendor. If web applications liberated us from the domination of a single company on the desktop, why would we be eager to be dominated by a different company on the web? Yet, this is what Adobe would have us do, as would the many who are (understandably, along some dimensions, anyway) excited about Flex? Read Anne Zelenka’s post on Open Flash if you don’t think that Flash has an openness problem. I’m not eager to go from being beholden to Microsoft to being beholden to Adobe."

Apple - Thoughts on Music

"In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves. The music companies sell the vast majority of their music DRM-free, and show no signs of changing this behavior, since the overwhelming majority of their revenues depend on selling CDs which must play in CD players that support no DRM system."

Divide and Conquer: The Microsoft/Novell deal is more about disruption than cooperation.

We saw this happen before when 3Com tied its fortunes to Microsoft in the late 1980s with the lamented 3Com-Microsoft LAN Manager network operating system, which was ironically Microsoft's answer to Novell at that time. Then 3Com CEO Bill Krause felt the only way to compete with Novell was through an alliance with Microsoft. So 3Com bought its way into the relationship, ended up doing all the work (MORE THAN all the work if you count recoding Microsoft blunders), then had to BUY ITS WAY BACK OUT when the product failed.

After that deal was over and the blood had dried, 3Com founder Bob Metcalfe claims that a Microsoft exec told him, "You made a fatal error, you trusted us."

IBM Sues Amazon Over Patents

The patents at the center of the dispute are broad, and IBM alleges they cover parts of Amazon's elaborate product-recommendation system. That system shows customers products related to the one they're looking at, and also shows them other products purchased by like-minded customers. The patents also cover the way Amazon displays advertising on its site to match customer preferences, and how the retailer stores shopping data to build customer profiles.

Some of the patents were first filed in the 1980s, including one titled "Ordering Items Using an Electronic Catalog."

hmmmm

Idiots or Pathological Liars?

We report, you decide:
(if short on time read the last one first)

October 11

October 13

October 16

Get this information to every Windows user you know who might have occasion to reinstall the OS.

Novell goes for SCO's throat

"In short, Novell is arguing that even if the court doesn't immediately agree with Novell about the Microsoft and Sun payments, SCO is going broke and Novell's share of the money should be put into a trust so SCO can't spend any more of it.

By not focusing on the arguments over who owns what in Unix but instead hammering on the far more simple matter of SCO not living up to its business contract, Novell hopes to put a quick end to SCO and its seemingly endless Linux litigation."

MS Claims Patent on the English Language (and others)

'But Microsoft's move is sparking criticism. Dan Ravicher, executive director of the Public Patent Foundation, said this is just another example of how "completely out of control" the patent system is.'

Not to be outdone, Apple has patented fingers.

Licensing Fun!

Thanks for actually listening and reasoning with me. :) - Our management team responds best to issues like this when communication is clear and to the point. Microsoft does not actually take the media back to "destroy" it. It is the responsibility of the selling company to do this when reported. (I know, I know)

I definitely understand your position, and can relate to wonder "Why" this is occuring - many times users wonder what their repair shops have done with their machine (well, yours is an entirely different issue).

Note: I don't actually use Windows any more, but my guilty conscience over being a member of the computer profession causes me to try and help others use it from time to time (an occurrence I try more and more to minimize).

What I find ever more interesting is all the things that Microsoft doesn't do! Many people are surprised when I tell them that Microsoft doesn't actually create the Windows CDs or documentation (if there is any) that comes with their new machines. Now we find that they can't be bothered to shred inventory that has been reported not available for sale.

With the sub contracting out of Windows coding and bug fixing to other countries (and as far as I know they are contract people not actual Microsoft employees) they approach a Nirvana that only the like of the RIAA can match, namely collecting the largest part of the funds for a product while at the same time having the least possible responsibility for producing it.

Must be nice you old "softies".. Must be nice.

update: here is thhe link to the forum, which Blogger seems to be ignoring (I'm using a beta, oh wait, they are ALL betas!):

*link*

Why Bill Gates Wants 3,000 New Patents - New York Times

Why Bill Gates Wants 3,000 New Patents - New York Times: "I have not seen the software in use. But if I were in a position to make a ruling, and even if I accepted the originality claim on its face, I would process these swiftly: Rejected.

Microsoft's other pending applications - 3,368 at last count - should receive the same treatment. And while tidying up, let's also toss out the 3,955 patents that Microsoft has already been issued."

All I can add is: Amen.