Live 8 in my Living Room

Every once and a while I get an insight into just how extraordinary much of the technology we take for granted actually is.

This Saturday morning in my living room in a small city in the northeastern tip of North America, I was walking around with my little laptop. The speakers on the laptop were playing the live audio of Bono and 200,000 people singing Unchained Melody in Hyde Park in London.

 

Iraq: The Musical

Inspired by Dick Cheney’s youthful enthusiasm about the “war” in Iraq, I’ve written a brief synopsis for a musical about Iraq.

Act 1: Liberation

Heavy on trumpets, flags, and narrated by a plucky young “embedded” reporter in a khaki reporter vest.

Reporter: “Back to you…”
Trumpets: “bap bahda!”
Reporter: [sadder this time] “Back to you…”
Trumpets: “bap bahda!”
Reporter: [slowly, with longing] “in Atlanta”
Act 2: The Insurgency!

Lots of minor chords and flashing lights. A longing father/son duet featuring George Bush Senior and “dubya” in the style of “Somewhere Out There” from Fivel Goes West:

Father Bush: “How many bombs…”
Dubya: “How many bombs…”
Father and Son together: [harmony] “until they love me”
Act 3: Victory

A three part orgasmic climax featuring the hit spin-off singles “Big Mac in Baghdad” and “Freedom is on the March” and the memorable dance number, “Give Freedom a High Five!”

Chorus: “If you’re still alive…”
Chorus: “When democrazy arrives…”
[High-five the person to your right and then left]
Chrous: “Give Freedom a high five…”
 

The Catch-22 of Open Format Adoption, Part 3: Office Documents

Having looked at music formats and instant messaging protocols, this final installment of a short series on open formats covers what may be the most ubiquitous of digital file formats: office documents. Spreadsheets, presentations, desktop databases, and the common text document hold most of the business information of our age.

In North America, at least, most of this information lives inside a set of patent-protected, binary (which makes them difficult to reverse-engineer), and undocumented file formats. The Microsoft Office formats, the most well known of which is the Microsoft Word format, are used to store millions (billions?) of documents, from personal journals to government legislation.

For those creating these documents, the problem is inherently disguised. If you create a Microsoft Word document, then you must have access to Microsoft Office and can therefore open, read, and modify the document. The problem arises when you don’t have access to a copy of Microsoft Office. This may be due to financial limitations, or it may be because you are running on a platform that is not supported by Microsoft. No matter how much money you have, you can’t buy a copy of Microsoft Office for Linux.

The frustration of receiving Microsoft Word documents as email attachments led Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, to write a brief manifesto covering the perils of this proprietary format.

The essential problem with a proprietary document format like Microsoft Word is that a private corporation owns the ability to access the works you have created. While it’s not likely that Microsoft is going to deny you access to your Microsoft Word-formatted love letters and chili recipes tomorrow, they do theoretically hold that right.

Confusion and Optimism

The closed binary format in Microsoft Office has been enormously broad in its reach. However, the life of this format is limited. Microsoft recently announced plans to move to a documented format that could potentially be accessed through non-Microsoft means.

The meaning of this announcement has yet to be truly understood. Some see this as the end of the proprietary Microsoft format and a great victory for freedom and openness, as millions of documents will be created in an openly documented format. Others are more cynical, citing licensing issues that will limit what people can do with the formats.

It seems clear, though, that while the legal issues around the new Microsoft formats remain disputed, their technical architecture (basically XML in Zip files) will be much more easily accessible regardless of whether access is endorsed by Microsoft or not.

I don’t clearly understand the issues around this yet myself. The Microsoft community/weblog site, Channel 9, posted a video interview about the new Office formats with Jean Paoli. Watching this video shows the Microsoft engineer’s obvious enthusiasm for openness. However, the video ironically requires proprietary Windows Media technologies for playback.

Alternatives and Workarounds

As Ogg Vorbis is to MP3, and as Jabber is to MSN/ICQ/AIM, so OpenDocument is to Microsoft Office formats. OpenDocument is a new set of standard office file formats for text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and charts. This open and standard format is the default format in the forthcoming OpenOffice.org 2.0 office suite, but could theoretically be implemented by other applications as well.

Saving your documents in the OpenDocument format means that no one owns the ability to access your works. While the specifications aren’t perfect (I was dismayed to here complaints about the spreadsheet component), it remains a critical standard.

As is the case with instant messaging protocols, the move from proprietary to open office file formats can be eased with the help of transitional software. The OpenOffie.org suite (both the 1.x and upcoming 2.0 versions) can open, edit, and save the main Microsoft Office formats quite well. Using OpenOffice.org, I can easily open any Microsoft Word attachments I might get in my email.

For those that are still stuck with Microsoft Office as an overall platform in their organization, but are looking to move away from Microsoft Windows, there are more promising options. The Wine project is a compatibility layer for running Windows applications on Linux. Especially when packaged in the Codeweavers CrossOver Office product, it is surprisingly easy to actually run Microsoft Office on Linux. This is obviously only a transitional aid, and not a long term solution, but it is helpful.

Conclusion: Freedom Should Be On By Default

The core idea behind this series on open formats and protocols is that you should not be limited in access to what you have created yourself, regardless of the tools you used to create. No one would buy a pen that produced writing that could only be read through special glasses sold by the same company. Even more so, no one would allow their governments to publish documents created by this crippled pen.

Being locked out of content that should be free or that you have legitimately purchased is bad enough. I have to use illegal software to watch DVDs (that I have bought and paid for) on my laptop. However, it is even worse when you are locked out of content that you have created yourself.

If your mom buys a computer, writes you a letter, and emails it to you in the Microsoft Word format, you have to pay Microsoft to read the letter. Of course, your mom doesn’t have to use Microsoft Office, but if it is the default word processor on her new computer, she may not realize the issue.

If you have your wedding video-recorded and it is given to you by the production company in DVD format, you can’t make copies for your family or as a backup. Again, the production company doesn’t have to use the proprietary DVD format, but it is the only one that will play in everyone’s home DVD player. [UPDATE: Several people have corretly pointed out that the proprietary DVD encryption (CSS) is optional and need not be used on personal DVDs – good point.]

For these reasons, it is not good enough that freedom be available as an option. Freedom must be on by default.

The Catch-22 of Open Formats mini-series
  1. The Catch-22 of Open Format Adoption, Part 1: Music
  2. The Catch-22 of Open Format Adoption, Part 2: Instant Messaging
  3. The Catch-22 of Open Format Adoption, Part 3: Office Documents (you are here)
 

The Catch-22 of Open Format Adoption, Part 2: Instant Messaging

I wrote last week about the catch-22 of open audio formats. Online music isn’t the only domain in which open formats are emerging, nor is it the most significant. The world of instant messaging (IM) is another case where open protocols have emerged to compete with their proprietary predecessors.

Chances are if you’re online to read this article, you use one of the major commercial IM services. MSN, AIM (which now includes iChat users and ICQ), and Yahoo’s IM services are all enormously popular.

In this case, Jabber is the free/open-source alternative. While the end-user experience is basically the same, Jabber has a different significantly architecture from the dominant IM.

I’m not an expert in this area, so I’ll keep my description as basic as possible. The Jabber protocol is similar to the email infrastructure, where anyone can setup a server that clients connect to. The server then relays messages to other clients on that same server, or to other servers to reach other clients. Like with email, then, you can setup your own server – though this isn’t practical for most people. The more likely scenario involves companies or internet services providers (ISPs) setting up Jabber servers much like they do with email. This differs from MSN, Yahoo, and AIM in that each of these services have their own central server systems that are controlled by the company that owns each network.

As with music file formats, most people don’t care about instant messaging protocols. They just want to chat with their friends and co-workers. You have to use the same protocol/service as your friends, or you’ve got no-one to talk to.

There are some key software applications that can help bridge the gap between proprietary protocols and the open Jabber protocol. Several instant messaging client applications, including Gaim, Trillian, and Adium, allow you to connect to all of the major IM networks. You can have contacts from MSN, AIM, and others, all on the same contact list as your Jabber contacts.

These multiple-protocol clients help ease the transition to open protocols. If I were to switch entirely to Jabber today, I would no longer be able to talk to many of my friends. However, using Gaim, I can use Jabber whenever possible, but still maintain contact with those of my friends still using proprietary protocols.

Of the 20 to 30 contacts I have in my instant messaging client, a little more than half of those are using Jabber. The remain contacts are either AIM, ICQ, or IRC (I’ve managed to drop any MSN contacts).

This is likely a higher ratio of Jabber-to-proprietary contacts than many. This is because at the small business where I work we have our own Jabber sever setup that allows us to have secure (and free) instant messaging (both for one-on-one chat and for group chats). The open-source nature of Jabber allows our company to easily control and manage our own instant messaging server. I would encourage other businesses to do the same. It has been a great tool for us.

The Catch-22 of Open Formats mini-series
  1. The Catch-22 of Open Format Adoption, Part 1: Music
  2. The Catch-22 of Open Format Adoption, Part 2: Instant Messaging (you are here)
  3. Part 3: Coming soon
 

The Catch-22 of Open Format Adoption, Part 1: Music

We’re all familiar with the MP3 file format. As far as most people are concerned, the format implies free music. The software required to play MP3 files is usually free as well. That said, neither of these things necessarily follow from use of the MP3 format.

What most people don’t realize is that the MP3 format itself is not free. If you want to create a device or a piece of software that plays back or creates MP3 files, you have to pay Thomson Consumer Electronics for a license to do so.

Companies that sell products that support MP3 are paying Thomson for each sale. That means Microsoft Windows, Apple’s Mac OS X and iPod. This even applies to software that is free for the end-user to download, such as Apple’s iTunes or Winamp. That’s right – Winamp had to pay for a license for every copy of the player that all of us got to download for free.

What the heck is Ogg Vorbis?

There is an alternative format that is a technical match to MP3 that is not encumbered with patent or licensing issues. The Ogg Vorbis format is as good or better than MP3 and is completely free (both in terms of price and licensing).

Why, then, hasn’t Ogg Vorbis taken off? I see a few reasons for this. The first is that the term “MP3” became a brand name associated with free music. Companies involved in music-related products and services wanted to be able to say “MP3”.

Apple had the opportunity to make the move when they introduced iTunes and the iPod. Both are compatible with MP3, but the default format is AAC, something Apple presumably used for the ability to control playback (“digital rights management”).

So What?

The most significant reason that Ogg Vorbis didn’t overtake MP3 is that MP3 did what people wanted. End users weren’t paying the license fee. Winamp was free, iTunes was free. Why change?

We see the real problem with a non-free file format when free/open-source software starts to become more prevalent on the rest of the desktop. Completely free/open-source desktop Linux distributions cannot include support for MP3 playback, because they would have to track (and pay for) each download. As a result, Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, and other popular Linux distributions can’t play a simple MP3 file out of the box. This is because the file is simple, but the lisencing is not.

Why Not Just Use Ogg Vorbis, Then?

What then, is a music publisher who cares about free and open software to do? I produce an amateur radio show made available for download in MP3 format. I would like to publish in Ogg Vorbis format, but a lot of my potential listeners would have to jump through hoops to be able to play the show.

Consider John Q. Listener. He’d like to listen to my radio show on his new iBook. However, iTunes doesn’t support Ogg Vorbis playback by default. A plug-in is available, but is he really going to go install it just to listen to my dorky little show? Even if John does find a way to play the Ogg Vorbis files on his laptop, he won’t be able to play them on his iPod. The same goes for overwhelming majority of computer users who are running Windows.

I want to support the open file format, but I also want people to listen to my show. I want people walking around with my favourite songs on their iPod. What am I to do? I have three options:

  1. Publish only in MP3 – This works for everyone but a small number of Linux users (most of whom know how to get MP3 playback for their Linux computers anyhow). Free file format be damned, John Q. Listener is walking around with my show on his iPod.
  2. Publish only in Ogg Vorbis – People learn about the format. Some may even find the software required to play it on the Mac or Windows PC. However, many (most?) people won’t bother listening since they don’t have support for the file format already installed. No one with an iPod can listen to it (unless they convert it to MP3, and it’s not that good of a show to be worth that kind of time and effort). The world is a better place, but I’ll never get famous this way…
  3. Publish two versions, one in MP3 and one in Ogg Vorbis – many online media outlets go this route with streaming formats (publishing simultaneously in Real, Windows Media, Quicktime formats) to ensure the widest possible reach. However, this adds a new layer of complexity for my John Q. Listener. Now, instead of just downloading and listening, he has to choose between two formats. He doesn’t care, he just wants to rawk. Also, much of the benefit of publishing in Ogg Vorbis is now lost, since only those who are already familiar with it and using it will bother choosing it as a format.

I went with option . I’m still not entirely comfortable with this, but I want as many people as possible to hear by show. Obviously, I’m not writing here with a clear recommendation. Rather, I hope to highlight the benefits and issues surrounding the move to free/open formats.

I’ll be writing more about the catch-22 of open formats, and with a bit more optimism, in the coming days.

The Catch-22 of Open Formats mini-series
  1. The Catch-22 of Open Format Adoption, Part 1: Music (you are here)
  2. The Catch-22 of Open Format Adoption, Part 2: Instant Messaging
  3. Part 3: Coming soon
 

Thomas Friedman Notices the Decline of the American Empire

Flag Art

Thomas Friedman has published an editorial in the New York Times Magazine entitled It’s a Flat World, After All. While the article lays on the technology utopia cheese a little thick (wireless internet will save us all, etc.), he hits on a critical point: the political and economic dominance of America is going to end.

“The percentage of a population with a college degree is important, but so are sheer numbers. In 2001, India graduated almost a million more students from college than the United States did. China graduates twice as many students with bachelor’s degrees as the U.S., and they have six times as many graduates majoring in engineering. In the international competition to have the biggest and best supply of knowledge workers, America is falling behind.”

And so The Descent of the American Empire continues.

 

The Internet Revolution has Little to do with Technology

A minor epiphany this weekend, courtesy of my friend Peter Rukavina and a post on his weblog about cowboys. Peter writes:

It’s how the web changes how we think about the world that interests me.

I think that some of the ways the Internet is organized (decentralized, ubiquitous, anarchic, open source) and some of the the ways weblogs are constructed (interconnected, distributed, personal, opinionated) have inspired me (and others, including Rob, I think) to realize that we can do other things ” things that perhaps we’ve always done in a top-down, centralized, expensive, carefully controlled, closed source way ” differently.

For example, the Zap Your PRAM conference. This conference had no outside funding, no advertising, required no meetings to organize. And yet we had people from three countries gather in one place, almost spontaneously, for an interesting weekend of discussion.

Exactly! I wonder where I would be had I not found the world of technology and the web. Part of me pictures a utopia where I read more and spend all of my time with family and friends. The reality would probably involve watching a lot more television.

I’m not suggesting that the web saved me from a life of mediocrity. However, when you look at some of the fundamental ideas behind the web, a system where the power lies at the ends and there is no real centralization, it is easy to see how this could affect your general mindset.

Imagine a child who grows up in an environment where television is the primary medium. They are unlikely to ever be involved in the production of any television, or even to have a venue to provide input into what is broadcast beyond their commercial buying habits. Those involved with the production of television are distant and inaccessible celebrities.

Contrast this with a child who grows up where the web is the primary medium. They have a weblog, they read the weblogs, emails, and instant messages as much as any commercial media. They have access to the producers of much of the media they consume. In many cases the word consume is inadequate to describe the activity and participate may be a better term.

The ideology behind the world in which you develop must have a strong influence over how you see the world. The ideas behind the web have had a strong influence over my world. It’s not just about hardware and software. It’s about ideas.

 

Music licensing keeping shows from DVD

A few years ago, I started a small petition on this site for the release of the Northern Exposure television series on DVD. I am mocked to this days by my friends and co-workers, and justifiably so, for having undertaken a cause of such massive dorkitude.

Since then, completely unrelated to my embarrassing crusade, Universal has released Season One and Season Two of the show.

Fellow die-hard Northern Exposure fan, Art Pattison, posted an update after the second season DVD release in a reply here Acts of Volition:

“The latest word on commercial releases by Universal is that since they did such a poor job on Season 2, by substituting much of the music which needed (expensive?) copyright approval by the artists with elevator muzak, many fans are complaining to Universal about what they call “fraud” (since the music is such an integral part of the story lines). As a result, Universal may not issue any more releases of our beloved Northern Exposure. Too bad! We would all lose if this happened!”

Another disappointed fan writes:

“Something was vaguely dissapointing about it and then I realised it was the annoying music which quite often simply fails to synch with the scenes in a convincing manner. Now it is hard to enjoy watching it once you realise what has been done.”

Apparently, the issue of licensing music for DVD releases of TV series’ goes far beyond Northern Exposure. Wired News writes about how Copyrights Keep TV Shows off DVD.

It’s sad to see a copyright issue holding back the release of shows that people want to watch and own. I’m not sure if it’s the television studios, the record companies, or both that are most to blame. Regardless, they’ll all lose out when they realize that fans will go underground and get copies of the original shows, soundtrack and all, without paying a cent to the record companies or studios.

 

Orwell’s War

George Orwell’s 1984 seems more pertinent and alive than ever upon a recent reading. Chapter 9 of his great book includes excerpts from a fictional manifesto of rebellion by the primary enemy of the ruling party, Emanuel Goldstein. Some of the excerpts are quite striking (in a “now-more-than-ever” kind of way):

Chapter III: War is Peace

“War, however, is no longer the desperate, annihilating struggle that it was in the early decades of the twentieth century. It is a warfare of limited aims between combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material cause for fighting and are not divided by any genuine ideological difference. This is not to say that either the conduct of war, or the prevailing attitude towards it, has become less bloodthirsty or more chivalrous. On the contrary, war hysteria is continuous and universal in all countries, and such acts as raping, looting, the slaughter of children, the reduction of whole populations to slavery, and reprisals against prisoners which extend even to boiling and burying alive, are looked upon as normal, and, when they are committed by one’s own side and not by the enemy, meritorious.”

“…in a physical sense war involves very small numbers of people, mostly highly-trained specialists, and causes comparatively few casualties. The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the vague frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at…”

“In the centres of civilization war means no more than a continuous shortage of consumption goods, and the occasional crash of a rocket bomb which may cause a few scores of deaths. War has in fact changed its character.”

“The primary aim of modern warfare […] is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living.”

“The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed.”

“In past ages, a war, almost by definition, was something that sooner or later came to an end, usually in unmistakable victory or defeat.”

“War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word ‘war’, therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist.”

To complete the trilogy of dystopian future novels, it is also worth revisiting Aldus Huxley’s Brave New World and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. These two novels predict a narcotic entertainment culture and dawn of violent reality television, respectively. Collect all three!