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So what happens when Matt Asay interviews Red Hat’s new CEO, Jim Whitehurst?
Sparks fly, that’s what.
Q:Tell me a little bit about yourself. What are the last three bands you listened to on your iPod?
A: I don’t have an iPod (or a Zune). It won’t play Ogg Vorbis files.
Q: You’re serious?!
A: Absolutely.
Q: Are you a geek or something?
Do I have to throw away my iPod now?
Intel drops out of One Laptop Per Child program: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance
“The OLPC board ‘had asked Intel to end its support for non-OLPC platforms including the Classmate PC and other systems,’ Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said. ‘They wanted us to focus our support exclusively on the OLPC system.’”
Will fans pay? Reznor opens books on ‘Net music experiment
Radiohead isn’t talking numbers, but Trent Reznor is. After producing Saul Williams’ The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust and offering it to fans online, Reznor yesterday laid out the numbers from his experiment. Saying that it’s easy for artists to know “what NOT to do these days, but less obvious to know what’s right,” Reznor found that 18.3 percent of users who grabbed the album paid $5 for it; the rest paid nothing. Is this what success looks like?
Leading surveillance societies in the EU and the World 2007
“Each year since 1997, the US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center and the UK-based Privacy International have undertaken what has now become the most comprehensive survey of global privacy ever published. The Privacy & Human Rights Report surveys developments in 70 countries, assessing the state of surveillance and privacy protection.”
“The intention behind this project is two-fold. First, we hope to recognize countries in which privacy protection and respect for privacy is nurtured. This is done in the hope that others can learn from their example. Second we intend to identify countries in which governments and privacy regulators have failed to create a healthy privacy environment. The aim is not to humiliate the worst ranking nations, but to demonstrate that it is possible to maintain a healthy respect for privacy within a secure and fully functional democracy.”
Key Findings:
# The 2007 rankings indicate an overall worsening of privacy protection across the world, reflecting an increase in surveillance and a declining performance o privacy safeguards.
# Concern over immigration and border control dominated the world agenda in 2007. Countries have moved swiftly to implement database, identity and fingerprinting systems, often without regard to the privacy implications for their own citizens
# The 2007 rankings show an increasing trend amongst governments to archive data on the geographic, communications and financial records of all their citizens and residents. This trend leads to the conclusion that all citizens, regardless of legal status, are under suspicion.
# The privacy trends have been fueled by the emergence of a profitable surveillance industry dominated by global IT companies and the creation of numerous international treaties that frequently operate outside judicial or democratic processes.
# Despite political shifts in the US Congress, surveillance initiatives in the US continue to expand, affecting visitors and citizens alike.
# Surveillance initiatives initiated by Brussels have caused a substantial decline in privacy across Europe, eroding protections even in those countries that have shown a traditionally high regard for privacy.
# The privacy performance of older democracies in Europe is generally failing, while the performance of newer democracies is becoming generally stronger.
# The lowest ranking countries in the survey continue to be Malaysia, Russia and China. The highest-ranking countries in 2007 are Greece, Romania and Canada.
# The 2006 leader, Germany, slipped significantly in the 2007 rankings, dropping from 1st to 7th place behind Portugal and Slovenia.
# In terms of statutory protections and privacy enforcement, the US is the worst ranking country in the democratic world. In terms of overall privacy protection the United States has performed very poorly, being out-ranked by both India and the Philippines and falling into the “black” category, denoting endemic surveillance.
# The worst ranking EU country is the United Kingdom, which again fell into the “black” category along with Russia and Singapore. However for the first time Scotland has been given its own ranking score and performed significantly better than England & Wales.
# Argentina scored higher than 18 of the 27 EU countries.
# Australia ranks higher than Slovakia but lower than South Africa and New Zealand.
Red Hat Opens Call for Papers for Fourth-Annual Red Hat Summit
Submissions are being accepted for the following Red Hat Summit content categories:
– Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Infrastructure: Focused on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform and related infrastructure solutions, including applications, virtualization, security, performance optimization and more.
– JBoss and Middleware: Focused on Red Hat middleware technologies, featuring platforms and frameworks for building and deploying web applications in a service-oriented architecture.
– Open Source: Focused on examining the current issues and future opportunities facing open source advocates — the meaning of open source, how it’s changing the software world and its effect on businesses, governments and society. Topics may include intellectual property, collaboration, best practices, Creative Commons and licensing.
– Emerging Technologies: Focused on the future of open source and Linux technology, where the Linux platform is being extended today and discussions on Linux and related open source technologies and projects from a long-term perspective.
– Business Perspectives: Focused on current and prospective customers who will discuss the value that Linux and open source bring to organizations, business trends, Red Hat partner programs and ways open source technology can help solve business problems.
“The Red Hat Summit in June 2008 will present an opportunity for our customers, partners and the community to share their experiences and perspectives on open source,” said Michael Chen, vice president of Corporate Marketing at Red Hat. “This is an excellent opportunity for our community to submit cutting-edge topics and content that will provide value to all Red Hat Summit attendees.”
The Red Hat Summit call for papers closes on Friday, February 8, 2008. For more information on the call for papers, or to make a submission, visit www.redhat.com/apps/include/webforms/paper.html. For more information about the Red Hat Summit 2008 in Boston, Mass., visit www.redhat.com/promo/summit/2008.
Davis Freeberg’s Digital Connection » Bad COPP No Netflix
The irony in all of this, is that the DRM that Hollywood is so much in love with, is really only harming their paying customers. When you do a DRM reset, it’s not your pirated files that get revoked, it’s the ones that you already paid for that are at risk. I’m not allowed to watch low res Netflix files, even though I have the capability to download high def torrents? How does this even make sense? It’s as if the studios want their digital strategies to fail.
Daily Kos: States Scramble To Address E-Voting Concerns
And so we continue to play this game. During the year, individual states endeavor to fix this vulnerable and broken system. Molasses-like progress is made on a national level as various election reform bills slink through committees. And as primaries and general elections roll around, Americans shuffle to the polls, touching screens that should never have been certified and trusting their votes to systems that have less verification than ATMs. The press, in turn, does it part, with video clips of long lines and blurbs about sporadic machine malfunctions. And as long as the margin of victory is large enough to make people nod their heads and move along, we engage in a national shrug and move along ourselves, deceiving ourselves that this fragile system based entirely on trust is worthy of repetition again.
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Open Source Software Licensing Train Wreck Averted
The Liability of License Enforcement
Universities grow weary of pirate chase
Twelve steps to building an open source community
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