Today marks the first time I have ever installed Linux on one of my own computers. I have long thought I might do so but I have been afraid of the problems often described with the installations of earlier versions of Linux. I have to report that having downloaded the single CD “experience” version of SuSE Linux 8.2 I found installation went entirely without a hitch. Thus emboldened I would like to get my hands on the full install and put it on a spare HD so I can muck about with it more extensively.

I don’t suppose someone who has it would mind sending me copies of the discs or telling me where I could find the disc images of the full distribution? Or would that be piracy? The difference between the licensing terms of various forms of open source and “free software” are still a little opaque to me. If I get the software but I don’t hassle SuSe for support I had the impression that it wouldn’t count as piracy. After all, you can download previous versions of SuSe Linux from them for free.sex all hardsex 17canal ahaveconcerning safe-sex a essay persuasivealbano teensanalogue ahadvd files empire adult pornstarsex swim group amatuer Map

Azeem Azhar argues the BBC should make (some?) of its content open source. He has taken a certain amount of flak for this from some quarters but I think the basic idea is a sound one. The BBC because of the license fee is able to produce stuff that the open market can’t afford to – particularly online, where at the moment there just doesn’t seem to be enough money to be made to make a business case for public goods like virtual communities.

Historically it hasn’t shared its content or tools but with the growth of open source as an ideology perhaps it is time to think again. We’ve all paid for the material and technology the BBC produces – why not make it more accessible by making it available freely – to both commercial and not-for-profit organizations? Even if another company makes money out of BBC material we haven’t lost anything.

The BBC isn’t that good at commercially exploiting its material anyway – and when it is, it gets accused of stifling the commercial competition – it can’t win whichever way it goes.

There is one risk, however – if commercial companies online can get acres of excellent content free where is the incentive to make content of their own? We already see this on news sites where a lot of the stories are just slightly re-edited AP and Reuters stories. Well, one hopes they will innovate to differentiate themselves from both the BBC and other commercial providers who now also have access to the same content…

I confess that this is potentially a huge subject area full of controversial implications but I hope that it gets taken up and examined seriously at a higher level. Even if it is not broadly applicable for political or institutional reasons, the open source mentality might still be usefully applied in narrow areas.post fuck free moviemovies free erotic length fullpreviews hentai free moviefree hustler moviesfuck movies free longfucking free movies midgetsfree movie adult clipsbackgrounds desktop free moviesexy free movienude free movie starssex after hysterectomy bleedingsex swinger adult videosalfa teensnaked amanda bynes sexvideo minute porn clip 15 freesystem analysis and aircraft trendingadventurous sexamber sexual Map

J Bradford DeLong in the latest Wired magazine tries to shame more people into helping existing projects to digitise books and encourage governments to do the same. Oh, and let’s not forget to start archiving more out of copyright audio and pictures too…movie download pornporn stars moviemovies pretty lesbianplayer pc for quicktime movierare vampire moviesmovies real sexron movie clips jeremyunderwear sapphic moviesshemale movie hardcoreslut movie

Lawrence Lessig (above) was undoubtedly the star speaker at
The Politics of Code conference yesterday. His presentation was certainly the zippiest one and I particularly liked the diagram pictured above that shows simply how laws designed to protect copyright against violation (outer circle) by protecting copyright protective code (middle circle) can block access to copyright material even when existing copyright law (inner red circle) allows fair use access.

It was encouraging to hear that he believes that due in part to meetings like this one the public in the UK, US and elsewhere are slowly starting to grapple seriously with the issues though he told me that there is nobody he could name who has produced what he feels is a good theoretical alternative to the current regulatory messes…union amoco creditmortgage accreditedaccredited online degreeacceptance agricreditcredit addison avenue unionadelphia creditorunion credit federal alloyfederal union aea credit Map

I expect this American court decision to be all over the weblogs soon – not only is it a decision in favour of the music industry, it also represents a clear threat to Internet privacy (or the little of it that remains anyway).

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has convinced a US district court to order Verizon, an ISP, to identify for them a subscriber who had (allegedly) downloaded 600 songs in a single day. Verizon is appealling and has not yet identified him (or her).

A Verizon spokesman suggested that this would allow the RIAA to conduct “fishing expeditions” to find pirates and said that it was in any case possible that the subscriber themselves might not have been responsible for the crime. Perhaps it was a friend passing by? A child in the house?

Well, it seems that the RIAA had in this case identified the pirate uniquely and had some evidence against them so that doesn’t sound like a random fishing expedition to me. The argument that subscribers shouldn’t be held to account over copyright violations is a more interesting one, particularly as wireless Internet access becomes more widespread.

I can certainly imagine a situation where broadband subscribers are held responsible for violations by anyone in their home – that should encourage parents to keep an eye on what their kids are doing online! – but what happens if you make your broadband connection available freely to your neighborhood and a neighbor abuses this? This might have a chilling effect on wireless freenets – or it might encourage those who do share their access to put some kind of monitoring software on their connection to attempt to stop illegal use. Even if not effective, the act of having done it might provide some legal protection…

I would be curious to see what happens if, say, a French AOL user is nabbed next time. Would AOL have to hand them over?

What Would Samuel Pepys Do [in the 21st century]? Keep a weblog, of course. Phil Gyford, who I know slightly, will be publishing Samuel Pepys’ diary online as a weblog a day at a time, complete with links to more in-depth historical information.

Pepys, probably the world’s best-known diarist, wrote about his life in 17th Century London – Phil provides more detail here.

If you prefer the text in an easy-to-carry-around form or want to “cheat” and read ahead, Project Gutenberg has the whole text for you to download thanks to Dr David Widger, who has also added a lot of other etexts to the public realm.

Later Phil has been interviewed by the BBC and a passing reader of the story pointed out that Pepys would not have kept a public weblog – his diary was in a very hard-to-decipher shorthand.

… and make a point at the same time. Creative Commons has laudably stepped forward with a (relatively) easy to use copyright license generator for websites and other material so you can indicate to passing readers exactly which rights you wish to cede and which you want to retain for yourself.

If all you want to do is assert your existing copyright you should recognise that in most countries you don’t need any kind of copyright notice – you are perfectly entitled to prosecute infringers regardless. Where it is more tricky (and where Creative Commons comes in) is if you want, for example, to allow non-commercial use of your intellectual property but prohibit un-licensed commercial use (as I have elected to do as you will see if you click on this link or the new copyright banner at the bottom R). Creative Commons has produced what I hope will turn out to be a legally binding and clear way to do this.

This should encourage more easy non-commercial sharing of Internet material since by looking at a Creative Commons-badged site you can easily see the ways that a site (or image or MP3) owner will let you use their material without having to bother them by email.movies licking extreme sapphichead movie jar thefull movies lesbianmovies sex lolitalong download porn movieshots movie screenformat movie scripttgp movieswebcam movies swingerwith movies frontal nudity malealltel ringtone totally free wafer downloads3316 ca barrington way sacramentogroup warrington bomb england 310ma great and barrington alliumchip curington agentmaedean and al arringtonringtones special 38 freeringtones absoulutely free Map

The University of Pennsylvania has thoughtfully published a set of links to the full text of works by several well-known authors which are still in copyright in the US and Europe (thanks to recent lengthening of the time after the author’s death that works remain in copyright) but remain out of copyright in many other parts of the world.

Works linked include Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy (1925), The Great Gatsby, Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, Finnegans Wake and Gone with the Wind…

Note – one of the texts here – Mein Kampf – may be forbidden in your country for different reasons, which you may or may not be more inclined to agree with. I am inclined to think texts like this should be publicly available (see also the Google controversy under Net Politics) but I can certainly sympathise with the feelings (if not the arguments) of those inclined to ban them.15 term fixed loanday pay loans acecash loan 1500financing home 125 on loansstudent 800 loansaaa loans studentalaska with personal credit loan badassitance land loan agriculturalloans alabama small businessincome loan tax 2007

Wired has revealed in its latest issue that not only does Google remove hate sites on request of foreign governments – it also removes sites that a lawyer suggests infringe copyright – again without notifying anyone. What the article doesn’t make clear is whether they bother to follow through and determine whether the site actually does infringe copyright or whether they just take it off the database and wash their hands of the consequences. Do the offending sites even know that they have been removed?

Interesting editorial on thedogmatism of the geek community. The author, Tom Steinberg, rightly points out that there is a depressing unanimity of expressed views about Internet issues among Internet old-timers. He worries that if “we” lose on one of those issues (like digital rights management) then “we” may find it difficult to re-group and keep fighting on other issues.

I worry that the community may be viewed as self-interested and naive because, for example, it preaches that you should be allowed to copy as much music or movies as you want because “hey, those industries are owned by The Man who is exploiting the artists anyway”. This may mean that when we want to be heard about what are IMHO more important issues like privacy rights and anti-spam legislation our credibility will be tarnished.