… otherwise know as …
Okay so my last post was meant to be a combination of showcasing the importance of XSLT in the here and now and in the future, and to do so with some fun involved… It was also meant to lead into this post (now maybe the little side show regarding elevator music makes more sense?), one right after the other, but believe or not I got distracted by a thing or twelve and am only now sitting down to write the follow-up. :D
Alex Bosworth’s Weblog: Web Kills Copyright
Today , copyright infringement has never been more widespread, because it’s not about republishing, it’s about communication.
Wow.
So the above quote comes from one of the best summaries I’ve seen of why the current copyright law in place, and even more so how this so called copyright infringement isn’t that at all, and instead simple communication of which doesn’t require the need for EXTENSIVE and DESTRUCTIVE laws and legal actions taken because of these laws to ensure that peoples “property” is protected from “thieves”.
It doesn’t. And it seems to me that Alex has every intention of following in the footsteps of his Father in regards to his leadership ability and overall understanding of how stuff REALLY works in this world, to then act upon this knowledge, creating good things with this ability/skill and knowledge instead of destroying the potential for these good things to ever even exist in the first place.
Thanks Alex!
So three things:
- If you haven’t already, please see my post from a last week regarding the available stream and file downloads of Lawrence Lessig’s “Free Culture”. You can also visit Professor Lessigs follow-up announcement to this post.
- While you’re there (or if you’re still here ;) read this report from Professor Lessig’s recent trip to Japan. AMAZING stuff!
- Read Alex Bosworth’s above linked post from start to finish. Twice.
Actually six things (eight if you read Alex’s post twice :)
- Read all of this again after that and MAKE SURE you visit my previous post and access Free Culture stream, or download the files (there are several links, so please visit the mentioned post to choose the one that fits your needs best) to listen to them on your media device of your own choosing.
It really and truly is one of the most important things you can do today, this week, month, and year.
In fact, it even goes beyond that. This is about our freedom as a culture to continue to be a free culture. This is about each and every one of our lifetimes. This is REALLY important stuff!
Thanks :)
BTW… If AFTER you have visited the above links you have found yourself wondering what the last two titles are all about,
See “The Adam Bosworth Effect” tag on my personal blog which, in essence, starts off with a post regarding Adam Bosworths effect on the various applications that were being developed (like GMail) since his arrival at Google, something that a few months later would be termed Ajax.
Personally I prefer “The Adam Bosworth Effect” but from a marketing perspective TABE [1] is obviously a lot less attractive than Ajax, regardless of the fact that it was Adam Bosworth, Scott Isaacs, Derek Denny-Brown and an extended set of MS developers who originally put all of these technologies together, startfing first with DHTML, to then add the XMLHTTP ActiveX object, and MSXML which provided, among other things, a BLAZINGLY fast XML parser and XSLTransformations engine (with full support for XML Namespaces in their XPath implementation I might add ;) to the mix, and all of which took place in the 1997-2000 time frame.
Of course, all of this work extends from the work of Tim Bray, Jean Paoli, C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, Eve Maler, François Yergeau, and of course James Clarke coupled with an entire force of XML and XSLT activists of which instead of listing them all here, I will instead suggest taking a look at the “Legends of the XSLT Community” list on the left hand side of my personal blog. (which, yes, I know is in DESPERATE need of attention to fix a whole slough of issues… someday Real Soon Now I will get to that ;)
[1] : re: TABE, no, I’m not suggesting that I ACTUALLY attempted to coin any sort of term in regards to what would later be termed Ajax. In fact, as pointed out in both the content and follow-up comments to this post (which is a follow-up a few days later to the original Ajax article by Jesse James Garret), while the article content was something I always thought was a good thing, the subject matter was something that had been in existence for YEARS, and was what Google, and Amazon, and Flickr, etc… have been building various apps in for a while — I don’t think any of us hacker folk ever really thought putting a name to the subject matter beyond what the technologies themselves were called was something that was even necessary. Obviously Jesse James Garret proved that, in fact, it WAS the name that was necessary to spark the revolution.
Who would of thunk(sic)… ;)
Why do I always feel like I'm reading about some massive inside joke when I read the stuff you write. I wish XML.com would stop publishing so many of your articles because the cutsey annoying drivel you write brings down the quality of their page so much. I also can't stand that annoying hip-hop, drugged out, party picture of you in that stupid hat that gets put next to your stories.
You do know you don't HAVE to read it, right? I figure thats probably the easiest solution for you... If you don't like what I write, don't read what I write.
Actually, thats one of my favorite hats. I'm not sure I understand the "drugged out" part of it, but if it comes from the fact that I'm smiling, then so be it. In fact, it seems you could probably do yourself some good if you tried to smile as well. Life was meant to be enjoyed. Enjoy it.
I know I do. (without drugs, btw... don't need 'em -- life is great just as it is) :)
Almost forgot... Thanks for taking the time to read and comment. I don't mean that sarcastically, either. Whether you like what I write or not, or even if you dislike my choice of headware, the fact that you took the time to read, and to then share your comments is something I do appreciate. This type of act helps promote the ideals of free speech, and showcases that even if we don't like what to people have to say, the very fact that we can express our opinions openly and not fear that this could lead to undesirable consequences is whats makes this such an important process.
Please know my desire is never to offend (although it would be tough to find offense in this article... I can only assume it was my last that caused the 'annoyance'?), although I recognize that sometimes it can come across that way.
Instead, my desire is two fold:
- Bring to light some important topics or issues that are not always easy to talk about, and do so in ways as to (hopefully) help us all realize that life shouldn't be about what's wrong, and instead about what's right. In other words, even though the topic might be one of protest against a certain topic, entity, etc... letting all that in which is wrong in this world drive down our own sense of spirit forces us to live in state of depression, anger, frustration, and other forms of self, society, and government-sponsored oppression.
That's not a good thing.
- To push my own creative boundaries (speaking in terms of perceived physical boundaries, not moral) such that I never lose site of the fact that life should ALWAYS be about finding ways to create, rather than to destroy. I've come to believe that one of the side effects of having ones creativity held back, whether by ones own mind, society, or government, is that it causes people to rebel in various ways, often times leading to destruction, often times destruction that starts as a fight for fairness, and equality, and results in either a revolution, civil war, or wars with other nations, in all cases leading to the lifes of innocent people to be lost.
With this in mind, the very act of leaving a comment on a post, regardless of the fact that this very post was, in fact, about the importance of this very topic, helps promote the freedom's in which are crucial to that of a TRULY free culture.
Imagine a world in which we couldn't express ourselves in writing in various forms (such as this post, or your comment, etc...) because the laws of our land made it near to impossible to deal with all of the copyright issues involved, and do so in a way that would allow folks like O'Reilly to be able to implement these author-based blog entry forums in the first place.
I'm not sure if you are the same Alex involved with these last two posts, but if yes, then based on your post, I think we can safely state you understand that this is all about communication, and sharing of information. Even if that information is not necessarily something we like all that much, its the act of open communication that remains at the top of the "importance" list. A lot of folks tend to believe life is a popularity contest, and therefore confine themselves to doing things which can only be soon as cool, and in doing so, censor themselves LONG before anyone else even has the opportunity to even try.
"Hip Hop Party Hat" and all, I gave up the notion of trying to remain the cool, popular dude a long time ago...
Instead, I'm just me...
And "me" has a smile on my face.
All because of the freedom to express, and my choice to invoke this freedom.
Thanks for invoking yours. This stuff is important! :)
Stumbled across this post vanity searching, nope the first reply wasn't me :/
Hi Alex,
I had a tough time believing that this was you as I have read enough of your work to know that this just didn't seem like the same person you come across as in your entries.
Of course, it was difficult to be absolutely positive it wasn't you, thus the reference near the bottom of this last comment. Still, there was nothing lingering in around inside my head attaching you with whomever it was that decided they needed to express their feelings in such a way.
I do appreciate you letting me know, and especially letting any future readers of this post understand that, in fact, this wasn't you. I knew it wasn't (or at very least HIGHLY doubted it was), but you never know what impressions others can walk away with, so thanks for adding this such as to push away any "bad press" being pushed in your direction because of another person's attempt to hide their identity behind your first name. Alex is not an uncommon name, but its also not Mark or David (my first name is Mark, and given that there are enough Mark Peterson's and David Peterson's in this world to form their own large-sized American city, I choose to differentiate myself by using M. David), so given the title/topic of the post, its hard for me to believe that its just by chance that whomever it was that chose to leave the comment did so with the obvious attempt of appearing to be you without outright lieing by using your last name as well.
There are lame people who do lame things for lame reasons. Obviously your not that type of person... Thanks for that! You're doing some really important work which goes WELL beyond the fact that you prefer not using XML namespaces, and I think they're pretty important. The end goal that you are after is obviously something that goes beyond choices and preferences in code in regards to its importance in the grand scheme of our culture and society.
Thanks! If ever I can help with anything you might need to help promote your message, please let me know... I will be happy to help in any way I can. :)