News and views from a software developer's perspective
Tuesday, April 09, 2002Loki: A promising plan gone terribly wrong [Linux And Main]
A fascinating story about the now defunct start-up Loki.
Don't Buy Hollywood's Broadband Script [ BusinessWeek Online]
Hollings' bill isn't about helping consumers. It's about protecting Hollywood. And using the broadband mess to address the digital-copyright issue is just a ploy. Hollywood has already shown it isn't interested simply in protecting digital versions of copyrighted works -- it also wants to control how those works are used.
XML and Emergent Simplicity[ITWorld.com]
As to the first question, I believe that XML could not have happened without SGML. If not for the groundwork laid by the SGML work, the map of the territory that it created, then XML would have contained a lot more mistakes. This seems to reference another fundamental rule of the universe that can be stated thus: Complexity is a necessary but not sufficient pre-cursor for the emergence of simplicity.
Three other examples of this law apart from SGML/XML spring to mind: C++ to Java, ISO Seven Layered Model to TCP/IP, and X.500 to LDAP. Interestingly, the metamorphosis from complex, niche standards to simple, pervasive standards seems to take about a decade or so. Perhaps the greatest progress in standards setting we could make would be reducing this incubation period.
One of the things I learned from my days as a mathematician, is that the first proof of anything is very complex. But after a few decades the proof can often be stripped down to a few paragraphs. Abstraction in mathematics is quite relative. What is quite well understood today was considered highly abstruse decades ago.
Just How Trusty Is Truste?. Even one of the originators of the Internet's wannabe consumer seal -- ubiquitous technologist Esther Dyson -- is disappointed in the way the service has panned out. By Paul Boutin. [Wired News]
Enron had Arthur Andersen. Yahoo has Truste, the nonprofit privacy organization whose seal of approval is designed to assuage consumer fears about giving personal information to websites.
Everybody Gets Hacked But You. An FBI survey shows 90 percent of respondents have been hacked and cracked in the past year -- but the general consumer still has little to worry about, experts say. By Michelle Delio. [Wired News]
"Except for a virus delivered by e-mail, most home users are unlikely to be affected by the security holes that have been plaguing the corporate world," Paul McNabb, deputy director of the Center for Advanced Research in Information Security, said. "Very few hackers have much interest in attacking home computers."
Wow, I hate this kind of talk. "You're just a home user. You don't really need to worry about security. Just don't open any email attachments and you'll be fine." Then, baamm! Home users get hit in a big way. This is called reactive security.
I take a different view. If you have an always on Internet connection, even if it's a dial-up modem connection, you need to pay attention to security.
pyRXP - the fastest XML parser? (ReportLab) [IBM DeveloperWorks: XML News]
pyRXP, like the underlying RXP parser, is available under the GNU General Public License. If you wish to use it in closed-source commercial products, you need to obtain a separate license from us and also from University of Edinburgh; email info@reportlab.com for more information.Yet another product available under dual licensing! You can use it under terms of the GPL if you are writing free software. Alternatively, you can get a commercial license.
Time Warner: Bandwidth hogs, pay up! The all-you-can-eat bandwidth buffet that cable modem users enjoy may soon come to an end. [Network World Fusion]
So, what do the cable companies think that we want cable modems for, just to get our email faster? On the one hand, they promote broadband access by telling you that you can view video clips, download MP3s, listen to audio broadcasts -- in short, that you get lots of broadband goodies -- then they want to charge you if you use your broadband connection to do broadband things.
On the other hand, the cable companies are the companies that are accustomed to raising your prices on a regular basis for cable TV. Why not raise prices regularly for Internet access, too?
Larry and the Supremes On Feb. 19, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear the appeal of Eric Eldred, who runs a small organization dedicated to putting public domain literature online, against the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. [Network World Fusion]
I would love to see the Copyright Term Extension Act eliminated. But how can the Supreme Court do that? The U.S. Constitution gives the U.S. Congress the duty to establish copyright law. The Constitution says "for limited times." If Congress says 95 years is "limited times," what's the Supreme Court to do. The Supreme Court can't just say, "Hey, 'limited times' means no more than N years." That would be a wonderful example of judicial activism -- also known as "legislating from the bench." However, as Scott Bradner points out, the Supreme Court could find the Copyright Term Extension Act unconstitutional because it applies to current works. Now, that makes sense to me. If the goal of copyright is to promote the continual creation of new works, how does extending the copyright term of existing works promote the creation of new works? (The answer: it doesn't.) Therefore, the CTEA could be unconstitutional because it appears to extend copyrights on existing works indefinitely. Makes perfect sense to me. On the other hand, if Congress rewrites the law to say that the new copyright terms apply to new works only, gee, then I'll just feel so inspired to create new works!