The Official FF Open Source Fight Thrad

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by lisarea

Elon Musk is not shutting up

Didn't need to continue that sentence.

[Crumb]

Originally Posted by ceptimus

3D cinema technology has come and gone several times over the last seventy years, and whatever happened to all the 3D televisions people were buying around 2010?

They are being used to watch 2D shows and movies.

[viscousmemories]

I wasn't too disappointed with the HTC Vive and I had the first generation one, I've heard it has improved. It's unwieldy enough that I haven't hooked it up in the last few places I've lived though.

Speaking of new tech though, my brother has an 77" LG OLED TV with a Sonos soundbar and holy shit is that like being in a theatre. I even stayed awake through Dune.

[steve_bank]

All things considered, right now we do not need more escapes from reality. We need to learn to cope without escapes.

[lisarea]

Creative commons stories belong in an open source thrad, right?

Inside a former S.F. church, a battle for the future of knowledge | Datebook

That story's kind of thin, but the gist is that a bunch of publishers are suing to stop Controlled Digital Lending, which allows lenders (Internet Archive, regular libraries, etc.) to provide temporary access to books that are still under copyright but widely available for lending.

That's not all Internet Archive does or anything, but it's pretty important. It fills out their collection enough that you have a much better chance of finding what you're looking for, and it's not like it's going to affect sales much if at all. I use Internet Archive all the time, and whenever I've found something for loan, it's only available for an hour at a time--so it's for looking up a single thing or skimming the contents or something. I can't speak for everyone, but not being able to do that is not going to cause me to buy those books. If anything, I'm less likely to buy if I can't look it over first.

[But]

451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons
Sorry, this content is not available in your region.

[lisarea]

The first article? Like I said, it's pretty thin, but it does provide valuable context about Brewster Kahle's eyebrows.

Inside a former S.F. church, a battle for the future of knowledge
Barbara Lane

You may have passed the white Classic Revival building at 300 Funston St. with its massive columns, maybe even wondered what goes on inside.

Built in 1923 as a Christian Science church, it was bought in 2009 by the Internet Archive. The mission of the IA sounds both magnificent and impossible: “To provide universal access to all knowledge,” according to founder Brewster Kahle. That translates to creating a digital library of internet sites and other cultural artifacts, including books, music and TV shows in digital form. The archive provides free access to researchers, historians, scholars, people with print disabilities and the general public.

The old church building in San Francisco’s Richmond District was chosen largely because the front of the church resembles the Internet Archive’s logo, which features the Library of Alexandria’s Greek columns.

On a recent weekday, Kahle (pronounced “kale”) was delighted to show me around. He seemed to miss the good old pre-COVID days and the building’s normal hubbub: dozens of employees and volunteers digitizing everything from home movies to old LPs to 8-bit video games.

With his unruly eyebrows and wildly enthusiastic demeanor, Kahle is clearly the Willy Wonka of the place. Shoeless, he practically leaps around as he shows me the microfiche (remember that?) files and the scanners, actually breaking into a dance when he comes to the antique hand-cranked Victrola, which plays 78 rpm records. Charlie Ventura’s “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles” blares from its large horn, filling the cavernous room with its irresistible melody. I can’t resist dancing around the room with him.

But Kahle is in trouble. If a lawsuit filed by publishers Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins and Wiley succeeds, he will have to not only shut the archive down, but also fork over about $60 million.

The lawsuit aims to stop the longstanding and widespread library practice of Controlled Digital Lending, which would stop the hundreds of libraries using that system, including the Internet Archive, from providing their patrons with digital books.

Through Controlled Digital Lending, libraries lend a digitized version of the physical books they have acquired, as long as the physical copy doesn’t circulate and the digital files are protected from redistribution. Only one digital copy is lent at a time. The publishers say copyright law does not allow this practice.

The lawsuit was a gut punch to Kahle. “We’ve worked cooperatively with them for years,” Kahle said, adding that the archive takes down books when requested to do so. “We love books,” he asserted more than once during our meeting.

I, too, have worked with publishers for years, as a television and public events producer, for bookstores, and as a book reviewer and columnist. The people I’ve met in publishing are true book lovers and care passionately about their work. I’m grateful to them for bringing books into the world and supporting authors.

But does the digital lending process really hurt authors? A digital book, even Kahle acknowledges, is actually kind of sad looking, a poor substitute for a real book, even several notches below a Kindle reader version. I’ve used the service in the past, as Kahle says is common, to check a quote or reread a portion of something I need for research. Is an author, especially a best-seller, a la John Grisham or Malcolm Gladwell, really hurt by that?

In the church’s old chapel, which remains intact with its wooden pews and gorgeous stained-glass windows, are lifelike clay statues of all the people who have worked at IA for more than three years, made by Petaluma sculptor Nuala Creed. They were inspired by the terra cotta warriors of Xi’an, China, depicting the armies of the first emperor of China.

The Internet Archive is definitely engaged in a battle. It will be interesting to see how it turns out.

[ceptimus]

Not sure if this is the right thread. Do we have a DRM thread? Dymo have started selling label printers that require you to buy Dymo's own DRM crippled paper rolls.

EEVblog 1462 - Dymo Label Printer DRM SUCKS! -...

[lisarea]

I vote that it fits. It's definitely in the "if you don't control it, you don't own it" wheelhouse. Also, I think I've posted some DRM stuff here before.

And this is why I try to stick with mechanical tools whenever it's a reasonable option. Thus why I have one of those old-school manual embossing label makers.

[Ensign Steve]

Those are so fun because you can use them to emboss lots of things. Like I have this fancy cardstock that has color on the outside but the core is white, so if you scratch into it it exposes the white (so embossing really pops). I will cut it into thin strips and feed it through my mechanical label maker to make little word quotes or whatever for my craft projects.

[lisarea]

Patent troll attacks against open source projects are up 100% since last year. Here's why | ZDNET

One reason. Give me one justification for software patents. ONE.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by lisarea

One reason. Give me one justification for software patents. ONE.

They increase your post count.