Subject: Distance Learning Resource Network (DLRN)
Link at: http://www.networx.on.ca/~jwalker
Select Internet Resources and then Educational Resources
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* Grade Level: High School, College, Adult/Professional
* Content Area(s): Education (Distance Learning) [Dewey #370]
* Application type(s): Resource
Courtesy Blue Web'N
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Vive la Conference
by Declan McCullagh February 20, 1998
http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/editorial/0,1012,1754,00.html
Richard Stallman is nothing if not determined. For over two decades
this bristly MIT geek has championed an arcane cause: free computer
programs. Stallman wants you to have the right to twiddle your
software -- to be able to add features, rewrite it and, if you can
figure out how, teach it get down and do the fandango. Last month
Netscape endorsed (http://www.lpf.org/er.com/netly/editorial/0) Stallman's
idea by deciding to open the lid to its software toolbox and
encouraging any interested programmer to tinker with it.
Yesterday Stallman won an award from the (http://www.eff.org/er.com/netly/editorial/0) Electronic
Frontier Foundation for his efforts, including writing the popular (and,
of course, free) EMACS text editor. "I was trying to give people freedom,"
he said during the ceremony at the (http://www.cfp.org/er.com/netly/editorial/0) Computers,
Freedom and Privacy (CFP) conference.
Stallman is the type of fellow who frequents CFP, an annual event that
brings together academics, government officials and Pilot-toting bitheads.
Sparring is commonplace. Lawyers from the ACLU and the
(http://www.cdt.org/er.com/netly/editorial/0) Center for Democracy and Technology shouted at each
other yesterday morning when debating whether to cut deals on legislation
in Congress. Former FTC commissioner Christine Varney said that the
government should regulate corporations' privacy practices, and Solveig
Singleton from the Cato Institute
(http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-295es.html0) argued on a panel that the
private sector should (not that I'm biased or anything). But the folks who
trekked to Austin, Texas, this week generally share a common goal:
preserving the unique culture of the Internet.
This culture -- marked by scientific values like the free exchange of
information and beliefs that a technology is important no matter who
invents it -- has, to the minds of the people here, come under threat.
Microsoft has done its level best to seize control of the Net's
historically open standards. So has Sun Microsystems. Governments from
Australia to Zambia (http://www.gilc.org/pubs/pas/pa-295es.html0) have tried censorship. The
Clinton-Gore administration
(http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/editorial/0,1012,1722,00.html) has
restricted data-scrambling encryption products. Software companies
successfully (http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0/0,1042,1641,00.html)
fought for a new law that imprisons you for up to five years and levies
fines of up to $250,000 if you copy software without permission. In other
words, the last five years have been marked by increasingly fierce
assaults on the freedom that made the online world so attractive to its
early adopters.
Much of this was inevitable when the Net became commercial. Domain names
like (http://www.news.com/r.com/netly/opinion/0/0) news.com or weather.com were suddenly worth
something, and domain-name squatters spread like a nasty virus. Then
copyright holders like Microsoft, Sony and Time-Warner (Netly's corporate
big brother) demanded stricter intellectual property laws. They argued
that without that protection, they wouldn't post their articles, movies or
songs online. Cash became more important than cooperation.
The biotechnology industry has wrestled with similar problems. When
genetic engineering exploded, the industry found itself transformed
from a traditional share-everything scientific environment into one
where the discovery of a gene could be worth billions. Unrestricted
information flow soon stopped. "The culture of the Net was the
culture of science," says (mailto:burkdanl@shu.edu) Dan Burk, a law
professor at Seton Hall University who spoke at CFP. Like science,
information was shared; the technology was more important than the
credentials of who invented it; rewards came mostly through the
recognition of your peers. But then, like biotech, he says, "suddenly
it became worth money."
At dinner last night in an Austin steakhouse, however, money was the last
thing on anyone's mind. At one end of the table, Whitfield Diffie,
coinventor of the mathematics underlying modern encryption, told the story
of his discovery. Frustrated by the lack of public information on crypto,
he took a leave of absence from Stanford University in the 1970s and drove
around the country -- meeting his wife in the process. Then he found
Martin Hellman, and "each of us found the other person the best informed."
Together the duo invented public key cryptography.
Back at the conference hotel, Richard Stallman was talking up his
"copyleft" idea, which he called "a mirror image" of copyright. "If
society forbids cooperation, it attacks its very root," he said at
the awards ceremony. "We should all be able to have information and
use it constructively." Stallman points out how Net culture has
strayed far from its early days of open software to closed,
proprietary systems like Microsoft Windows and suggests the Linux
operating system as a free alternative. Sure, he may be preaching to
the converted at CFP -- but then again, maybe the Net would be a
better, or at least freer, place if more people were converts.
------------------
Also in this issue:
- Marc Kanter Defends His Web Ad Killing Software
A few years ago, those of us in the internet advertising industry
cheered as Solid Oak Software unveiled its new net-friendly product,
CYBERsitter. Finally...a way to block all that surfable smut that
our, uh, friends have told us about.
- Vive la Conference
Richard Stallman is nothing if not determined. For over two decades
this bristly MIT geek has championed an arcane cause: free computer
programs.
- Extensible Markup Language Attracts Publishers
NEW YORK -- Book publishers are looking at Extensible Markup Language
(XML) as an easier way to transport information to the Internet.
- Peace, love and microchips
Author predicts the "Digital Generation' will trade authority for
cooperation
- New Lists and Journals
* SCOUT-TALK - Boy Scouting in New England
* creativelife - Creative Living - "Living the Creative Life"
* The DesignLab Journal - Web promotion e-zine
* INFOLING - Informacion sobre linguistica espanola
Sunday Supplement
- SURVEYS THIS WEEK:
FEATURE OF THE WEEK
: How Many Online in Italy?
INTERNATIONAL
: Girls Catch up on Boys in Germany
TECHNICAL
: ISPs Don't Like Mondays
: The Advent of Set Top?
MARKETING
: Online Resources Complement Magazines
: SMEs Embrace the Internet in the US
GENERAL TRENDS
: Travel Sites Take Off
DEMOGRAPHICS
: 62 Million People Online in the US
MISCELLANEOUS
: Waiting at the bus stop, a thing of the past
: Olympics Helped Atlanta to become Wired
- Review 46-The Logic of Networks
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