Older blog entries for mpawlo (starting at number 9)

So, here is an odd and very fresh story (I just spoke to Declan at Wired and he will most probably write something about it).

Reuters picture of pro-taliban rallies in Bangladesh:

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/p/nm/ 20011009/wl/imdf09102001085522a.html

Check the picture by the ear of Osama Bin Laden on the poster. Yes, it is indeed Bert of Sesame Street.

Today this picture was published in Swedens leading tabloid (removed from the online edition after a few hours):

http:// harvard.pawlo.com/bangladesh.jpg

Check by the ear again.

Of course I know about the Evil Bert web site ( http://www.fractalcow.com/ bert/bert.htm ), but this is something else.

This seems to be actual footage of the rallies.

It looks like whoever made the poster included the picture of Usama Bin Laden and Bert of Sesame Street found at the < following URL:

http://www.angelfire.com/de/cheatsbert/ p3laden.html

So this is what copyright infringement on the Internet will lead to in practice .-D

Amazing - isn't it!?

Regards

Mikael Pawlo

Some evangelism this week as well. Picked up a glove dropped by Nicklas Lundblad. Lundblad wrote an article published in the Swedish equivalent of ComputerWorld, Computer Sweden.

Anyway, Lundblad wrote a confused article on free software, mixing it with both open source, Eric S Raymond and free as in gratis. I just felt I had to set the record straight, why I wrote a 8000+ characters text explaining the fundamentals of free software, the difference from open source and the concept of source code as an architecture (the Lessig theory). Basically, I state that Richard M Stallman is not an idiot and that RMS knows that not everyone will start to code new Microsoft Word programs if the source code is available, but that freedoms are important in a society even when not everyone is excercising his or her rights.

Something like that .-)

Further, some thoughts on the need for businesses to grasp this concept and a possible need for other regulation if nothing happens over time.

I named my article "Fri programvara ar inte gratis" (Free software is not gratis).

I hope this clear things up a little.

Following my reply was two different replies from Mr Lundblad. Lundblad wrote one reply for my longer version article and one for the shorter version.

If you understand Swedish you might want to read something of this:

My article - long version (published at www.idg.se) .

My article - shorter version (published in Computer Sweden).

Nicklas Lundblads original article (published in Computer Sweden).

Nicklas Lundblads reply (published at www.idg.se).

Nicklas Lundblads second reply (published in Computer Sweden).

I just got a fresh link with the evangelism of the day, some Richard M Stallman pop.

As most of you probably know Voidmain has put a Stallman speech into a pop context in "Follow the GNU". The concept is similiar to the Larry Lessig pop tune I thought we knew that:

http://mp3.com/voidmain

If you do not like MP3 you might like the fact that I converted the MP3-file to the free Ogg Vorbis file format:

http:// harvard.pawlo.com/gnu.ogg

The Lessig tune:

http:// harvard.pawlo.com/lessig.ogg

or in Mp3 format:

http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/content/ index.html

Use this code if you want to join the "Support freedom" campaign hosted by Lycos (more info on ht tp://clubs.lycos.com/live/events/september11.asp ). There might be other initiatives like this, but this is the first one I've seen and it's easy to contribute. /Mikael

<BR><DIV ALIGN="CENTER">
<A HREF="http://clubs.lycos.com/live/events/september11.asp"&gt ;
<IMG SRC="http://a1032.g.akamai.net/f/1032/81/30m/www.gamesville. lycos.com/art_gv/ribbon_small.gif" ALT="[Flag Campaign icon]" WIDTH="49" HEIGHT="86" BORDER="0" ALIGN="MIDDLE">
<BR>
Support freedom</A>
</DIV>
<BR>

The EU declares a moment of silence, CET 12.00 - 12.03, on Friday, September 14. All governments in the Member States urges upon citizens to join in a moment of unity and mourning.

Official information from http://www.eu2001.be/ :

Nicole Fontaine, President of the European Parliament, Guy Verhofstadt, President of the European Council, Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, Louis Michel, President of the General Affairs Council, and Javier Solana, High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union, hereby announce, on behalf of the European Union, that Friday, 14 September will be a day of mourning and solidarity with the American people. The heads of state and government of the 15 EU Member States will issue a joint statement at 6 a.m. (Brussels time). At 12 noon (Brussels time), a 3-minute silence will be observed, with all activity coming to a standstill.

Countries that are candidates for EU accession are also invited to take part in this display of solidarity.

In observing this silence, the people of the European Union wish to express their deep sympathy with the grief and pain suffered by the people of the United States of America.

Do not forget about Sklyarov, DMCA and open source evanglism during the fall. Here is some information from the fire hydrant of information.

Read the extensive interview made by Linux Weekly News after Lessigs keynote address at the August 2001 LinuxWorld Conference in San Francisco:

http://lwn.net/2001/features/LawrenceLessig.php3

on Sklyarov, DMCA and more

and about the keynote

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003- 200-7004860.html?tag=mn_hd#

"The desire of entrenched commercial interests to control information is crushing the spirit of innovation that allowed the Internet to blossom, Stanford Law School professor and technology pundit Lawrence Lessig said Wednesday."

Do not forget to watch the web cast.

Mikael

"A small icon from back when the Internet used to be quirky and fun has passed. Click not for a few moments, veteran Netizens. Hold still. Hank, The Angry Drunken Dwarf is dead."

Read all about it at Wired.

Submitted one of my new findings to Slashdot, Newsforge and Linuxtoday. Slashdot rejected it (as usual). I thought it was hilarious, though.

Here it is:

What happens when a professor of law at Stanford--a strong advocate for free software and freedom of speech--does music?

Larry Lessig provides us with an answer in I Thought We Knew That. I am not a critic, but it sounds like The Orbs Little Fluffy Cloud meeting Peter Gabriel. Quite an interesting twist in the advocacy of a free Internet.

Download song (MP3-format, 4,7 MB).

If you prefer a free format, you could download my conversion to Ogg Vorbis.

Regards

Mikael

I will be away from Advogato for a week now. See you in September. /M

One way of introducing myself, is to to present some of my new writings. Most things I publish are published in Swedish. I written some columns in English lately, though, and they might be of interest to some of the Advogate evangelists.

First an article on Internet regulation in general, published in the International edition of the Swedish magazine Vision:

Only when the Internet is at the stage of Henry Ford's T-ford will it be useful to discuss whether we should have left or right hand traffic on the Net. We are still far from the Internet's equivalent to the airbag. Internet is not even ready for the introduction of traffic lights.

It is primarily for this reason that I think one must be careful with regulating the Internet. At least until we know ehat the problem that needs to be solved is. Perhaps we can find a few ground rules for which we can find a standard, like the right to Internet access, the right to link, the right to opinions on the Internet, and the right to use Internet anonymously. Such regulation could be established both by business agreements and by international treaties and national legislation. A more sophisticated regulation is out of the question as far as I am concerned. It is too early, whether one is Post, Lessig or Rosengren.

Read the entire column.

Cnet published one of my columns recently:

"Your favorite lobbyist is quite busy now. He spends his time in Brussels and Washington D.C., working on new copyright acts. Your favorite lawyer is quite busy as well. Both of them have the same objective: to stop you from communicating freely and efficiently on the Internet. They are afraid that your freedom will make their clients--the music industry-- lose money."

Read the entire column.

So - hardly a worthy member and I never will be. However, anyone who checks this web site several times a week should register. So I did it.

I guess you will be seeing me around. I am not a programmer and I will stay out of your code. I might submit some comments in respect of policy, though. You find me here, on Slashdot and Kuro5hin on occasions. Mostly I hang out on my web site Gnuheter, a Swedish Slashdot clone, together with co- founder and friend and Advogato longtimer Pawal.

Regards

Mikael Pawlo.