21 Feb 2003
XP Here I Come

Well, since my laptop's away for repair, and I'll probably be snowed in all weekend, I figured that this would be as good a time as any to really try and screw my systems up by installing WinXP Pro on my main Windoze box. I've got good backups of everything, so I hope it runs as advertised. I know I'm really getting fed up with the constant reboots on Win98SE, especially when doing some heavy coding. We shall see, I suppose. And if all else fails, I've always got the Mac - if I can get Kris off it long enough! Gotta get myself one of those ....

00:00 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

Rights Management

Lot's of news all over the place about this Microsoft White Paper on Rights Management Solutions.

It struck me as I was reading over the stories and comments that what's really changing on the 'intellectual property' front is the enforcement mechanism. We're strengthening the laws, to be sure, but we're also adding technical impediments to copyright violation in a way that's never been attempted before.

Obviously, this kind of technology would have tremendous benefits to places like law firms, hospitals, government agencies and other businesses that need to maintain some degree of secrecy and/or privacy. But rather than placing the onus on the legal system to sniff out and find infringing parties, these new measures aim to make the infringement itself impossible.

Why could this be a bad thing? Well, if the Pentagon Papers had been protected in this manner, chances are they would never have seen the light of day. And who knows where that would have led the country.... what about the other "whistle blowing" cases, famous and infamous, like Enron, Brown and Williamson, RJR Nabisco to name a few?

My point is that sometimes the public's need to know trumps the public's right to know. The proper way to sort this out is with a finely tuned legal system, not with the blanket application of strong cryptographic technology to "manage rights".

That phrase - "manage rights" makes me about as uncomfortable as "human resource". Human beings are not resources, and rights do not need management.

00:00 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

Coding as Art

A fine bit of writing by Bruce Perens on Open Source, why it works and why Programmers Are Like Artists

00:00 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link