Placeholder for publishing a version of my dissertation manuscript.

The story about Sony's new copyright right protection software keeps getting more and more twisted. In response to the many security problems, apparently Sony will be recalling some 4.7 million CD's. It now sounds like Sony has engaged in massive IP piracy. Members of the open source community have determined that part of the application makes use of LAME, an open source MP3 encoder. LAME is made available under the copyleft LGPL, "which requires that any program that tightly integrates its code into its executable must acknowledge this use and release the full source code to their program" (Ars Technica). According to Wired News, Sony and "First4Internet, which sold the XCP software program used by Sony BMG on its CDs, declined to comment after repeated requests since Monday." I seriously hope the FSF sues Sony for copyright infringement.

Ars Technica notes that IBM, Sony, Philips, Novell, and Redhat have launched the Open Invention Network, a patent sharing company for Linux and Linux related applications:

The OIN patents are available, royalty-free, to anyone that agrees not to use Linux-related patents against other OIN participants. Any company that wishes to take advantage of the OIN patents would effectively have to make their own Linux-related intellectual properties available to the open source community. The OIN will stimulate Linux development and derail lawsuits that could potentially harm Linux and companies that rely upon Linux technologies.

I like the thinking here. It's very copyleft, very viral in a sense. So now those that work with Linux and release it have to share the code under the GPL and all other intellectual property rights. Meanwhile, it seems that this does not preclude the patent owners from blocking other non-Linux related applications from using their patents. Will patents given to and purchased by the Open Invention Network be permitted to be used royalty-free in all other open source applications? I would say that potentially, this is a very unique form of enclosure which preserves a specific public commons but could be exclusive of all other use.

I was glad to find Clancy's post on Kairosnews pointing to AKMA's Random Thoughts highlight of a discussion going on about "open scholarship." For example, the taxonomy of "openness":

Moving to the Public: Weblogs in the Writing Classroom is © 2004 by Charles Lowe and Terra Williams with Some Rights Reserved. This text is available under the copyleft Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.

If possible when distributing any copies of this text or derivative works, although it is not required by the CC license, please also cite the Minnesota Blog Collective and its editors, and provide a link to Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs. Thanks!

As the saying goes, there's no such thing as a free ride. Well, as dive into mark explains, Movable Type announced a new licensing scheme this week for MT 3.0 which will charge for multiple author sites or a single user with more than 3 sites:

And yesterday I learned, as most of you have probably also learned, that Movable Type 3.0 comes with a new licensing plan. 1 author and 3 sites is free. Up to 3 authors and 5 sites: $100. Up to 6 authors and 8 sites: $150. Up to 9 authors and 10 sites: $190.

I have 11 Movable Type sites. To upgrade to Movable Type 3.0 would cost me $700.

I remember when Blackboard was offering free sites to individual teachers. That is, until they also reached a dominant market share where they no longer needed to provide a free version. So MT users beware. Who's to say that 4.0 will have any free versions at all?

Best just to stick to GNU GPL'd software ;)