Phillip Greenspan's Blog

Phillip Greenspan spoke at a Seybold Conference three or four years ago. He's at the Laboratory for Computer Science/Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He just started a  blog even though he's had his  own web site for years.  Its interesting to compare the two - with which do you think he most identifies?

12:09:19 PM    

I didn't get to read this in Harper's, which as I wrote previously has a lame web site, but I did listen to Jonathan Schell's discussion of his book, his recent Harper's articles,a nd the war in general on Fresh Air last week I strongly urge you to find the articles, buy his book, and listen to the following:

Listen to Author Jonathan Schell

In his new book, ,The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People, he rethinks the relationship between war and political power. Schell writes that military power is not as effective as it once was, and that a more useful approach is one of cooperation with other nations. Schell is also the author of the 1982 classic The Fate of the Earth. He has written for The Nation, The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly.
Read more about Jonathan Schell

12:07:07 PM    

Well, I'm not surprised.  This post underscores how Bush and his cohorts will say anything that they think will help sell a program regardless of how remote from the turth theri points are.  maybe this comes from their corporate, MB training - in the corporate world, you expect company CEO's to be on msg to promote the company's products and services wtih no regard to the actual objective value of those products and services.  Generally, we expect our political leaders to at least from their spin within the parameters of the truth.  But for a number of years now the Republicans in particular have exercised a slash-and-burn, take-no-prisoners approach to politics.  Think about it. The Clinton's were hounded for years by the entire Republican Congree over the  nickle and dime  > Whitewater scandal and in the end no one found anything except Clinton's semen on Monica Lewinsky's dress.  Cheny's links to Ken Lay and the Enron Scandal, and his former company's  current sweetheart deal to reconstruct the Iraqi oil wells worth billions , both have gone virtually unchallenged.   

11:35:26 AM    

I never, ever publish news releases - except when they are announcing something truly significant and beneficial to the commonweal.....

For Immediate Release

April 23, 2000

For more information, contact: Sara Winge (707) 827-7109 or sara@oreilly.com

O'Reilly is First to Adopt Founders' Copyright: Publisher Restores Balance to Copyright with New Legal Option from Creative Commons

Santa Clara, CA--Technology publisher O'Reilly & Associates has launched the latest of its initiatives to shake up the intellectual property establishment. At the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference today, founder and CEO Tim O'Reilly announced his company's commitment to applying the Founders' Copyright to O'Reilly books. Developed by Creative Commons, the Founders' Copyright is a legal option that allows copyright holders to voluntarily release their works to the public after the period envisioned in the original 1790 US copyright law--14 years, with the option of one 14-year extension.

O'Reilly will be releasing its books under the Creative Commons Attribution license, which permits others to copy and distribute work as long as they give the original author and publisher credit."Copyright law is a foundation of my business," said O'Reilly. "But the original copyright balance has been distorted to tip heavily in favor of creators and publishers. The 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act increased the copyright term to the author's life plus seventy years,yet only a few works are still in active use over that length of time.

This copyright extension, enacted to protect a small number of very valuable works, has had the unintended consequence of depriving the public of access to a far greater number of other works." "As a publisher, I want to profit fairly from my work, but also nourish the intellectual commons. It's in my best interest to ensure that the public domain continues to be a deep well from which we all can draw. By adopting the Founders' Copyright, my company can protect our intellectual property for a reasonable term, and then give it back to the public."

Although in most cases it owns the rights to the books it has published, O'Reilly will release books under the Founders' Copyright only with the author's permission. The company is in the process of soliciting that permission, and 80% of the authors who have responded to date have agreed to honor the Founders' Copyright. O'Reilly is also applying the Creative Commons Attribution license to hundreds of out-of-print books, pending author approval.

O'Reilly has been exploring alternative forms of copyright and content licensing since the January, 1995 release of the "Linux Network Administrator's Guide." Author Olaf Kirch posted the first version of the book online in September 1993, and when O'Reilly offered to publish a print version, Kirch wanted to ensure that the content of the book was still freely available, as Linux was. O'Reilly agreed, publishing the book under the Free Software Foundation's GNU Free Documentation License, and contributing its extensive edits back into the online version. In his preface to the print book, Kirsch noted, "In my view,the great service O'Reilly is doing to the Linux community (apart from the book becoming readily available at your local bookstore) is that it may help Linux be recognized as something to be taken seriously."

O'Reilly has since released a number of books under various open source licenses, either because the author requested it or because the book's sales didn't warrant keeping it in print, but the content was very useful to a particular group of people. A complete list of available titles is at http://www.oreilly.com/openbook. As they implement the Founders' Copyright, O'Reilly will continue to make more titles available online under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

More about the Founders' Copyright:

http://www.creativecommons.org/projects/founderscopyright

A list of the O'Reilly titles to be released under the Founders' Copyright:

http://creativecommons.org/projects/founderscopyright/oreilly

A description of the Creative Commons Attribution license:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0

About O'Reilly

O'Reilly & Associates is the premier information source for leading-edge computer technologies. The company's books, conferences, and web sites bring to light the knowledge of technology innovators. O'Reilly books, known for the animals on their covers, occupy a treasured place on the shelves of the developers building the next generation of software. O'Reilly conferences and summits bring alpha geeks and forward-thinking business leaders together to shape the revolutionary ideas that spark new industries. From the Internet to XML, open source, .NET, Java, and web services, O'Reilly puts technologies on the map. For more information: http://www.oreilly.com

# # #

O'Reilly is a registered trademark of O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

 

10:59:02 AM    

I'm sure anyone who reads my blog must also read The Daily Kos but if you don't and you care about the war and the peace please do so.

 

 

9:23:28 AM