dave.ofmassdestruction.com

When the idea of web-based apps first started to look more viable there was an interesting debate within the open source community. The debate came down to the question of whether it mattered if you had the source-code of web hosted software. For the most part I think it does – especially if the developer wants faster development and more eyes looking at bugs/holes.

Having said that, freedom for a web-app means something completely different when it comes to the users data. This could not be more evident than with the recent news of hapless Microsoft destroying all data on T-Mobile Sidekick phones. After this news broke the tech-blogs were awash with damnation of “the cloud”. How could we ever trust anyone to store our data elsewhere? What were we thinking?

Well, we were thinking that its nice to always have our apps and our data available no matter where we are or what device we are using. We thought, its nice to have someone else provide storage for our ever-growing bits. But they are right in questioning our reliance on others to always get it right when it comes to protecting that data from rookie mistakes, changes in the direction of the app, or becoming evil.

So for the cloud to work, user must always have access to their data. That doesn’t mean the user simply gets to see their data in the app, that means that the user is at all times able to retrieve their data, and in a format that is transferable to other applications. Period. End of story. Anything less than that is a failure due to the reasons the Microsoft case so aptly showcased. Of course this means that the user must also be proactive in retrieving their data from time to time if it is truly important to them, but that has always been the case.

Its important to note that the largest purveyor of apps “in the cloud”, Google, has had a somewhat quiet campaign to provide this type of data retrieval for a while now. Called “Data Liberation” (and tracked at the Data Liberation Blog) they have been slowly making sure all their apps have some way for users to retrieve their data. The newest tool comes to Google Dos which has just added the “Convert, Zip, and Download” feature which allows you to easily grab some or all of your documents as a zip file (converted to whichever available format you would like). This is the most powerful of Google’s data retrieval tools so far and I hope all of their apps make it this easy (including Gmail which can do better than simply offering POP downloads). Still, it is good to point out Google proactively “not being evil” when so many folks currently attempt to disprove their famous motto.

Well I must say that I have had my share of criticism over the years – most of it in the old flame-wars that revolved around GNOME or other free software projects – but this one really cuts to the core. Its not really a criticism as much as it is a total rejection of my being.

In responding to the claim that software patents were adverse to innovation and discourage competition, a South African Microsoft manager actually claimed that I do not exist!!

But Paulo Ferreira, the platform strategy manager at Microsoft South Africa, said: “There is no such thing as free software. Nobody develops software for charity.”

(It hurts even more that one of Chelsea FCs left backs is named “Paolo Ferreira”)

Its interesting (or perhaps infuriating) to me that lately Microsoft has been going on and on about interoperability whenever open source is brought up. Using Linux in a mostly Microsoft-based office environment, I can assure anyone that interoperability is non existent with their products.

You know, a lot has been said about the OLPC – good and bad. Many folks have tried to make some controversy out of the project (most expectedly, Microsoft but also some non-MS techy folks). But when you see the photos of the first kids to get the computers I find it baffling that anyone could be against such a thing.

Now that my Australian friends aren’t talking to me anymore (I can’t help it, the Simpsons are funny!) I’ll turn my attention back to the world of licenses (I’m a party guy)

I read on the New York Times’ Freakonomics Blog a pretty interesting and clever article about making anti-EULA clauses via email. The EULA, of course, is End User License Agreement most famously used by Microsoft in their “if you break this shrinkwrap, you accept the terms…” maneuvers. This article posits that maybe the customer can send their own EULA right back to the company whose software or service presented them with a EULA to begin with.

Something like:

READ CAREFULLY. By reading this email, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies (”BOGUS AGREEMENTS”) that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

I like it. This appeals to some mischievous side I have and to my non-legal brain has about as much merit as most presentations of EULAs. Still, I do think it misses the point a bit.

There was one passage in this article that caught my attention which leads me to why they are missing the point:

In thinking about this issue, it’s useful to separate the question of whether the seller’s or the buyer’s terms are reasonable. There are certainly plenty examples of obnoxious EULAs that have prohibited users from criticizing the seller’s product. But anti-EULAs could also be oppressive — for example, voiding even the reasonable restrictions of the Free Software Foundation’s GNU General Public License.

I wonder if our friends at Freakonomics have actually looked into what has happened to those who have broken the conditions of the GPL? If my memory serves me correctly, only the most recent case has someone actually been taken to court for doing so. Mostly people are sent letters asking them to correct their mistake. Am I wrong in this? I really don’t think so. If anything, the FSF probably could have been more aggressive in this regard.

But let’s not forget that the GPL and a EULA are very much the same thing: copy-right: the right to copy. All this is is a method that defines the rights a creator is granting for someone to have a copy. If you really don’t agree with the rights you are being granted – by all means don’t use it. You can make a fuss about it. You can tell your friends, or even tell the company why you aren’t using it. Yes, the shrinkwrap acceptance is backhanded but just because you don’t like that practice, the license the company has chosen isn’t somehow magically voided. If you want to use their software, you accept the terms. It doesn’t get much simpler.

The Freakonomics guys suggest that we can get around these pesky rights decisions through online payment systems offering anti-EULA protections when paying through their service (of course, that comes after accepting the EULA for their services). Is the idea to use the muscle of Paypal or Google Payments to come down on the evil EULA-doer? This cheapens the law…. or at least moves it into a market-driven corporate realm where the bigger the market-cap, the more correct they are. “I paid you through Google whose market cap is $211B, therefore your copyright is void.” That, to me, is scarier than a EULA.

The system that really needs to be in place is one of education. Lets inform companies that overly-protective rights are not consumer-friendly and are simply bad business. What better way to start that education than clicking on “I do not agree”?

Seeing Tufte speak was well worth the time and the money. He’s a great speaker and I feel like I learned quite a bit even though I had read all his books going into it. There is obviously far too much information from the day-long event to share here, and really if you are interested you should probably just go see him. Considering you get copies of all his books, the price of the event is quite cheap.

One thing I was pleased to learn is that Tufte is quite fond of first edition publications and has obviously acquired some at great expense. He had his white-gloved assistant take a first edition copy of Galileo’s Sidereus Nuncius(The Starry Messenger) around the room. All our eyes were wide. So too when the 16th century first edition of the English translation of Euclid’s Elements of Geometry came by with the little pop-up pyramids which were still in prefect shape. Worth the price of admission alone.

I will point out a few of the choice quotes from the day:

• There is no such thing as clutter. There is just bad design.
• Talent imitates, genius steals (T.S. Elliot)
• Interest and Boredom is a content problem
• The principle of design is just the same as analytical thinking: Comparison and causality
• What would Feynman do?
• Get better content

OK, so that’s disjointed and doesn’t tell you much, but it was a loooong day!

Finally, I will mention that Tufte’s tirade against Powerpoint was beautiful. He mentioned over and over that Microsoft was a convicted monopoly and complained about their design in other apps beyond PP. He really doesn’t like them. I can’t blame him.

Update: I talked about the course a little more on the work blog.

We decided to install a gas stove after our old stove died and as such we’ve had service people in and out of the house (long story that needs not be told here). At one point this last week, my lovely wife was home when one of the servicemen was here. She was sitting at the table using her computer (Ubuntu on an old, but very good Fujitsu) and the guy asked her what she was using. “Linux” was her reply. The serviceman said he didn’t use Linux “for personal reasons”. But he did use a UNIX.

So I’ve been thinking about that… “personal reasons”? It occurs to me that generally if a linux company or group does something a user doesn’t like they tend to go to another distribution. Likewise, if they decided to go to a BSD I don’t think they hold the whole linux community responsible for the issue.

Personally, I don’t like the Novell deal with Microsoft but I can’t possibly apply their actions to Red Hat, Canonical, or most especially Debian. And if it drove me to BSD I think that would have more to do with the differences between the GPL and LGPL versus the BSD licenses. Wouldn’t it?

These days I go with whatever makes the most sense. For example, that aforementioned Fujistu has Ubuntu on it because when it was first installed Ubuntu provided the easiest install due to including the mad wifi drivers. Decision made. After that, its all about the same as long as GNOME and Firefox are there.

Actually, I am sure that serviceman (a loser for other reasons) is sitting at home on his new Vista machine watching his second life avatar use a DEC Alpha or something. In other words, I’m not worrying about it, it just made me think.

Its been interesting to watch my colleagues at work who are on the Windows side of the universe. What’s apparent to me is how well Microsoft hooks their users. When something isn’t working right, and everyone knows its time to upgrade, not one person will actually look at anything outside of whatever Microsoft offers. For example, its time to upgrade the mail server (probably always has been) and whats the option? The new version of Exchange. Period. Never mind that there are hundreds of options in the world to deliver email. Never mind that they could throw and IMAP server up for free saving the organization loads of money. We are one version behind on an Microsoft product… BUY IT!

I don’t write this to damn or blame my friends – I write it to marvel at how the Microsoft universe operates.

One could say that I am the same in that I am always going to recommend the free version – but for me its somewhat of a moral stance and the drive to see the community or company win. I know that’s not how my windows brethren look at Microsoft products. At least, I don’t hear people cheering on Microsoft.

I do think there is an immediate assumption that the MS version is going to be easier. Despite my bitching about getting an external monitor to work, that’s really not always the case. Sometimes its definitely not the case. But perception is reality far too often.

Note:
To get back to the example – It is time to replace that Exchange server… but not with Exchange. No, with something everyone can use. I tend to be a bigger interoperability proponent than a free software proponent. Despite me being somewhat able to hook up to the Exchange server with Evolution – its lame. Evolution is far from stable despite their many years of development (guess that’s what happens when the main guys abandon it) and it struggles with the better features of Exchange. Yes, I can get mail via IMAP with Exchange with any mail reader I want but that does nothing for the calendar part which is a very used feature in our environment. If someone here wanted to use a Mac they’d be SOL.

With the new job I find myself, really for the first time, in a mixed OS environment. Almost everyone here uses Windows and most of the servers are Windows (though I have plans to undermine that). We have nice admins, though the last thing they want to worry about is the freak in the corner (literally) using Linux. Everything works for the most part – printers, getting to file servers, even browsing that joke of an overly-complicated-wiki – Sharepoint. However, one thing continually gives me trouble and it is the most important. Email.

We have an Exchange server running (ugh). The admins were nice enough to me to turn on the IMAP port and that’s good. I’ve tried Evolution with the Exchange plugin and it does a fairly admirable job but its not all the way there. And that’s just it. Each app I try is just “not quite there”. Especially the merging of calendar and mail together. I think Microsoft actually got that one right – really right. Evolution does come the closest but for some reason, after a week of working, it decided to no recognize calender invite requests(though I’m not convinced it handled them correctly to begin with). Now its basically useless. I also don’t get the sense that the Exchange plug-in is an actively developed item now that those guys are at Novell. Am I wrong about that?

This stuff is important – not just to me and my daily work habits – I’ll get by. No, its important to the greater computing fraternity. Linux distros could make a huge splash by getting this right. Its really surprising to me that the mozilla teams haven’t worked on getting thunderbird to understand Exchange for example – with the number of Universities running Exchange it seems like a must. Its not a matter of admitting defeat to MS’s mail server either, its a simply grand opportunity to show the world how flexible well-written free software can be. It seems to me this stuff is right up Ubuntu’s alley too. This is desktop usability at its finest.

A while back Lawrence Lessig wrote on his blog that Microsoft had released a plug-in for Word that allowed the user to select a Creative Commons license to mark your document with. I was a bit incredulous when first seeing this post but today I was doing some thinking about the Creative Commons for a project at work when I remembered it. On my desk at work I have a basically unused Windows machine which has Word on it… gotta grab that CC plug-in…

Here it is, in all its glory. Its kinda neat actually and its good to see Microsoft take that incredibly small step towards our hippie-commie-left…. I mean “good side”.