* Posts by Lou Gosselin

487 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2007

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US trade body decides Apple has case to answer

Lou Gosselin

Re: The patent system is broken

It's especially damaging to the software fields where the "invention" under protection is code, user interfaces, and math. A patent is supposed to prove that no other implementation of an algorithm existed, but it's impossible to prove a negative. The amount of software in existence increases exponentially, the probability of two independent developers working in the same domain on the same algorithm is very high.

It won't change though, companies who use patents have more money than those being hurt by patents.

Open source webAndroidiPhoneiPad kit betas for BlackBerry

Lou Gosselin

Wish him the best of luck...

"Effectively, what we're doing is machine-generating Objective C and then compiling just as the developer would do if they had originally written in the language"

"And he's confident Apple's ban on translated code won't affect his kit. "

Cross compiling is not a bad thing, in fact chances are apple would be none the wiser if developers did it secretly. It liberates developers to choose the best tools for the job. But lets be real, what he's doing is cross compiling, by definition, which allows developers to develop portable applications. That is what apple intended to to ban.

Microsoft rejects porn, iPad protesters fake it

Lou Gosselin

@Martin Nicholls

I know, but then you've got posters like DZ-Jay arguing that less choice and freedom is beneficial for customers. That's so irrational I have to assume that he's affiliated with apple. Read his posts, you'll see what I mean.

Lou Gosselin

@DZ-Jay

"Screw giving end-users the confidence of what will be available on their devices."

So you feel that microsoft's explicit developer terms are bad for end users, but you don't have a problem with apple's "we can and will do anything we want, at any time, without good reason" developer terms?

I'm no microsoft sympathizer, hell they're copying apple's closed garden so that both developers and users loose. However with regards to treating developers as grown ups, I trust that microsoft will do a far better job than apple.

BTW you never got around to answering what your affiliation is with apple.

Finland mulls legalizing use of unsecured Wi-Fi

Lou Gosselin

Sounds good to me.

If it's not secured from anonymous connections, then let them connect. No laws needed here.

People worried about wiretapping should be using encryption already anyways. (What, people trust their ISP?)

In a technological utopia, wifi access points would be open everywhere so one could get a decent (high bandwidth, low latency) connection where ever one happens to be. Regular people, using off the shelf equipment (see FON), could build a more powerful and scalable wireless network than any cell phone technology, for much cheaper than phone companies can offer.

Of course the major issue today being that wifi owners are liable for the actions of other users instead of being protected like an ISP.

Apple lifts iPhone code ban (for chosen few)

Lou Gosselin

Re: Fail

Your probably right. I wonder if apple would agree in writing before an app's written, or if they expect the developer to write the app first, then submit it for approval.

If it's the later, then nothing has changed.

Lou Gosselin

Re: interesting explanation from his Steveness

"Hence developers only have access to the lowest common denominator set of features."

Ok.

"Again, we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms."

Hmm, the problem I have with this logic is that conversely, apple does accept an outcome where developers are blocked from the innovations and enhancements of others because apple doesn't control it.

Lou Gosselin

@Steven Knox

You got it right "Yes, and most of what comes from closed systems is crap."

The poster made an unwarranted association between a closed platform and better quality, and between open platform and poor quality.

Some of the best applications happen to be open sourced.

I think the poster also missed the fact that "high quality" closed applications could be sold on an open platform, and that "low quality" open applications can be sold on the closed platform (assuming they get passed the apple censors).

Microsoft says XP netbooks die on October 22

Lou Gosselin

Re: Linux anyone?

I'm sold on Linux. I wouldn't even mind "bring your own OS" models.

Most people expect windows, and many manufacturers only cater to the majority, unfortunately.

Apple bans competing ads from the iPhone

Lou Gosselin

@AC

"I've seen this comment thrown around by so many non-lawyer types it's not funny. There is no anti-trust violation."

I may be a non-lawyer type, but then again I never said there was an anti-trust violation, at least not yet. It simply looks like they're headed that way in the future.

"Apple aren't anti-competitive, they are just competitive."

Now that's obviously untrue: "Apple bans competing ads from the iPhone".

If apple were a monopoly, it's hardly debatable that apple would be committing anti-competitive practices. Just because the legal definition of monopoly is 50% market share, does not mean a company cannot apply anti-competitive tactics well before then.

Lou Gosselin

@DZ-Jay

DZ-Jay,

Everyone knows this is a power play by apple, and nothing else. Unscrupulous apps will continue to collect information behind apple's back through web services, so your argument of protecting users' privacy is a bit of a red herring. Especially since apple makes no indication that apple will not use that information.

You've defended every single apple tactic out there, so I'll ask this plainly...

What's your affiliation with apple?

Lou Gosselin

Slowly???

"Apple are slowly creeping towards a walled internet garden like MS tried to do back in the 90's and appear to be getting away with it."

Lou Gosselin

Re: I feel an anti trust coming on

Unlike microsoft, I think apple is smart enough to pre-emptively defend itself against anti-trust hearings. In the future, when today's records are being investigated, there will be no internal evidence with which to convict apple. They might even plant counter-evidence today, for a trial which hasn't even begun.

Remember, it's not unlawful to be a monopoly, it's only unlawful to use that power to knowingly impede competitor's abilities to participate in the market.

Lou Gosselin

People are too stupid

I hate to blame the people here, since that's usually a diversion tactic away from the real issue, but in this case I think it's legitimate.

People are too stupid to see how anti-competitive apple have become. In the future, when they realize how much harm apple's preemptive strikes against all competition have done, they will finally turn on apple only to realize that it's too late. Apple will have profited handsomely and pocketed all the politicians they'll ever need to control the market. Like someone else said, this is very much the microsoft model to success. Big win for apple, big loss for the rest of us.

Red Hat notches up another KVM cloud win

Lou Gosselin

I like KVM

It works and behaves like another process. One can easily use it in an adhoc manner from their desktop or shell. XEN on the other hand requires significant changes to the system setup & kernel. I spent a lot of time fiddling with XEN on my desktop, but there were significant incompatibilities with my graphics card, it was far from plug and play.

For large scale server deployments with domain experts this may be ok, but there is no question KVM is more intuitive and user friendly.

Unfortunately, all my KVMs were bricked by the most recent kernel update from ubuntu. The virtualized systems would crash a couple seconds into execution. Meanwhile, KVM's predecessor QEMU, which uses emulation instead of virtualization, continued to work.

While this bug was disappointing, I believe red hat's distribution is little more stable (less cutting edge) than ubuntu. Anyone with commercial support should be ok.

Apple releases moving pictures of Steve Jobs keynote

Lou Gosselin

But the rest was missing the wow factor

Not an apple user myself, but if he had announced that apple's OS4 was going to be open to developers & end users, then I would even be temped to forgive him his arrogance and participate in the joyous celebration.

As is, I can't help but feel unimpressed with a platform where apple holds all the keys to my apps.

Mozilla man blasts Apple and Google for HTML5 abuse

Lou Gosselin

Valid Points

Don't know who he is, but Chris Blizzard has some valid points.

Bank of America insider admits he stole sensitive customer data

Lou Gosselin

Will this ever get fixed?

"sell them names, dates of birth, telephonic passwords, and other details for Bank of America customers,"

This case (and others just like them) show how stupid the whole banking system is.

Static numbers can not provide security or authentication, period. This is especially true given how many people have access to our #'s in every day transactions.

One shouldn't have to trust the waitress at a restaurant in order to use their credit card there. A library staff member shouldn't have the opportunity to commit id fraud simply because they have access to SSNs.

Anyone versed in cryptography knows the difference between identification and authentication. Banking technology is decades behind the cryptography and this is the reason id theft is possible in the first place.

I needed to vent, it disturbs me every time I see the consequences of banks mistaking identification as authentication.

Apple adds 'make the web go away' button to Safari 5

Lou Gosselin

iAds

Having a standard ad serving mechanism in apps means that apple can charge users a fee to flip the kill switch so that premium users can disable all the ads showing up on their ipads.

Accessing this switch may be another reason users may wish to consider jailbreaking.

Prisoner of iTunes - the iPad file transfer horror

Lou Gosselin

@The Other Steve

Well, you are assuming that the developers who continue to develop for apple are happy with the terms they get. I'll go out on a limb and suggest that the majority of them are disappointed with all the restrictions.

"their app store generates a similar amount of revenue, and they challenge Apple's market share you might, just might, see some change of attitude from Apple, but I doubt it."

I agree with your conclusion though, apple just doesn't care because it only takes a few thousand developers to build the types of apps that apple's interested in selling in their app store. However, until apple changes it's stance on artificially imposed limitations, the i-device is restricted to toy-status, which is unfortunate because the device itself looks like it has a great deal of potential if it were open.

Lou Gosselin

Re: Complicating the iPad

"Very SIMPLE - easy to use BUT if you want more and more complicated, YOU ARE FREE to go down that path - if it's too confusing for YOU personally, just choose the built path."

Are you trying to be sarcastic? I do not understand your post, end users are limited by apple's gatekeepers whether they want to be or not.

The suggestion that apple ought to give users a choice in the OS to "install only apple approved apps" and "install 3rd party apps" is a wonderful idea, but then developers would form third party app stores with which apple would have to compete. Obviously apple's intention all along was to prevent this.

Lou Gosselin

Re: Apple vs Productivity

"Surely apple is better off not allowing end users to have such powerful productivity tools"

I wasn't clear, I think the users should be free to use their tablets as *they* see fit, but that it wouldn't be in *apples* best interests.

Lou Gosselin

What productivity?

"Why oh why do you try to use it as a productivity tool?"

Why not?

It's like installing additional apps on a consumer nas device or access point. Just because the manufacturer was unwilling or unable to unlock the device's full potential doesn't mean the device doesn't have a higher potential.

Can you think of one good reason (other than breaking apple's legal terms and conditions) that consumers should not be able to use the hardware to its full potential?

Lou Gosselin

Apple vs Productivity

If they are not very careful, then apple's terms, which are so unappealing to developers, may need to be applied to more sophisticated end user content as well, this would cause users to echo the outrage felt by developers. Surely apple is better off not allowing end users to have such powerful productivity tools*.

* For example, think of all the creative applications which could be "turing complete":

An office suite with macro capability.

An RPG game development interface.

Mathematica

TI 85 simulator/clone

User Mode Linux inside an ipad.

etc.

AT&T to ax unlimited data plans on iPhone Monday

Lou Gosselin

@Trevor_Pott

Absolutely. The free market will eventually degenerate into oligopolies and monopolies unless there is some kind of intervention to balance them.

Consider the simplified economics of the game monopoly, where players start out evenly. Anyone has a change to become the winner, if they take the right risks. The more resources a player accumulates over other players, the more the resources themselves become responsible for the player's success rather than the player's skill. Consider if a new player were to join near the end, or if the winner swapped places with the looser, he'd have no chance of winning. Although more complex and regulated, the real world does share this same natural trait.

As unpopular as I know this will be, the free market without regulation is not a viable long term model. Instead of using resources to make products better, monopolists often (and more effectively) use corrupt deals and manipulation to guarantee their rivals never get a chance to compete. Without competition, everyone including workers and consumers, loose out.

Hack on e-commerce co. exposes records for 200,000

Lou Gosselin

@Martin Milan

You'd really think it's caused by the "lowest bidder", but it happens very often on expensive contracts too.

I remember one company was contracted to work on webservices would allow me, as a subcontractor, to repair a webservice known to be vulnerable to sql injeciton. I said "this MUST be fixed", since any web user could come along and read every record, or even delete the whole DB. Well it didn't get fixed. The irony was that the contracting company was asked to do a security audit, but they didn't follow through to fix anything.

Security just isn't a priority for most companies, who aim to please with cost saving measures rather than improving quality.

Ballmer says Windows will shame iPad

Lou Gosselin

Re: The thing is...

"I doubt they'd even give a shit if they did. I doubt it'd change many consumers opinions either."

That's a good question, I wouldn't know where to get the answer though. I suspect some would care if they knew, but it is an unlikely topic for the general media to cover.

Lou Gosselin

Re: Luckily, that's not the choice

Yes, I agree entirely, and I agree with the down votes as well. There's simply no winner if consumers are stuck with just microsoft and apple, the monopolist versus the monopolist wannabe (since those were the focus of the article). However as you pointed out, we do have more choices. I sincerely hope consumers educate themselves enough to support non DRM platforms. I doubt many iphone users realize how uniquely awful apple's developer terms are.

http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/Xcode/Conceptual/iphone_development/145-Publishing_Applications_for_Testing/user_testing.html

Lou Gosselin

microsoft vs apple

Anyone following my posts knows that I really don't want to go with windows, especially in new environments which don't benefit from backwards compatibility.

However if the choice is an unlocked windows platform and a locked apple one, then there's no contest. Apple's terms treat other developers as adversaries. Whereas microsoft is much more developer friendly.

Microsoft is by no means innocent, I'm still furious at the DRM they've used in the windows kernel to stamp out open source drivers. But the difference is clear, apple want 100% control of literally every app & developer, whereas microsoft merely want the developers to choose their platform.

Google blames Wi-Fi snooping on rogue engineer

Lou Gosselin

Re: But

No, I believe google captured all packets in raw form as their radio was channel hopping to find channels to intercept. Much as you can using the madwifi driver and a standard atheros WIFI nic under wireshark.

Wireshark by the way decodes wireless 802.11 frames in their entirety just fine, and if you provide the key, it will decode and display decrypted frames as well.

Other projects exist to decrypt packets with weak wep keys in a matter of minutes, however so far nobody's accused google of doing this.

Rash of Facebook 'likejacks' still flaring

Lou Gosselin

Duh?

"The attacks exploit a flaw present in virtually every browser that allows unscrupulous webmasters to control the links a visitor clicks on."

If one doesn't trust the webmaster of the page their viewing, why should they trust the links do what the webmaster claims they do?

I think a much bigger security problem stems from the fact that 3rd parties like google, through it's adsense and analytics programs, has access to modify entire pages, capture cookies and other information through it's client side javascripts.

I'm not sure if people who use those programs are ignorant, or just don't care that google has complete access?

HP whips out winsome threesome

Lou Gosselin

@This sounded interesting until

Exactly, not interested in windows at all.

It'd be nice if the OS could be unbundled from the hardware. All too often they sell a nice piece of kit locked down to an inferior software solution. Something I've never understood is why is buying just the hardware frequently more expensive???

Force10 adds rack-topping Gigabit switch

Lou Gosselin

@quartzie & @AC

Thanks guys.

"Again, you need to buffer it if you don't want to do things like tcp backoff. If you start dropping packets, backing off TCP, and reducing window sizes, you are killing througput that could be avoided by simply adding some RAM to the switches for buffer."

I somewhat disagree with this quote, because for constant/static saturated traffic, the buffer will not and can not increase throughput, it will just increase latency. However the rest makes sense to me.

For constant traffic where the sender endpoints are slower than the receiver endpoints, obviously the buffers will never fill up, and therefor don't help this scenario.

So I think quartzie's post about dynamic spikes is the main scenario where this might help, as long as the spike is temporary, since it avoided packet loss.

I wonder how likely the spike scenario is versus the over saturation scenario on a typical lan?

Lou Gosselin

The S60 also has 1.25GB of deep packet buffering

"The fix for congestion is not necessarily to move to 10 Gigabit switches, according to Force10, but rather to push line rates in a Gigabit switch and give the device ultra-deep buffering to cope with those momentary rogue waves on the network."

"The S60 also has 1.25GB of deep packet buffering"

I'm assuming this means gigabytes, as written, and not gigabits.

Can someone explain why such large buffers are needed? My previous understanding was that excessively large buffers in routers could be detrimental because it doesn't do anything to actually increase the transmitting speed, but will accumulate a large backlog of packets that ultimately causes significant latency.

Consider a 1gbps generator and a 100mbps consumer, what's the net benefit of keeping an enormous buffer in the middle?

Sliding window TCP implementations would ensure the buffer remains full (since the packets are not being dropped) which happens to be the worst case for latency.

I'll admit this is not my domain, so anyone who knows better feel free to let me know.

Mozilla sidesteps iPhone code ban with Firefox Home

Lou Gosselin

@DZ-Jay

Just because it doesn't affect you personally, does not mean it doesn't affect others.

I don't care if there are a hundred browser front ends on the ipad running off of safari's engine, that's still a subset of viable browser technologies. That you continue to deny the restrictions on choice, competition, and alternatives is insane. The only way a knowledgeable person can adamantly deny the extreme restrictions apple puts in place must either be affiliated with apple, or must have a severe case of reality distortion.

I'm tired of this discussion, this is my last post.

Lou Gosselin

@DZ-Jay

You are still wrong, firefox is a browser, and apple's terms do not allow it to be ported to their mobile platforms. People like firefox, people want firefox on their iphone. Well too bad since apple will only accept a "third party browser" that is based on their own technology. Maybe you feel this is good enough, fine, but don't make false claims about apple letting competing (browser) products into the iphone, they are not. I dare say you know it too.

Like I said, why should apple (or you...) dictate what a browser is? Let the developers be innovative and let the users choose what they want.

Rationalizing with you is evidently not possible, it's seems very likely that you'd say anything at all to defend apple, but would suddenly change your argument for any other company pulling the same stunts.

Lou Gosselin

"Likewise, Apple is not *preventing* anybody

"Likewise, Apple is not *preventing* anybody from creating a browser for the iPhone. Anybody can (and some have), as long as they use the same underlying engine--which, again, is not the only defining and differentiating quality."

Except that your wrong. If any developer creates a proper browser on their own terms, apple will disallow it. Apple has disallowed apps for far lesser things.

Lou Gosselin

@DZ-Jay

"While the rest of the planet considers a "Web Browser" to be an HTTP "user-agent" client, one that is capable of rendering HTML documents and execute JavaScript, Mozilla seems to imply that a Web Browser is the underlying architecture that actually performs these tasks, not the overall application itself."

Mozilla are far from the only ones disappointed with apple antics.

In any case, why should apple have any say as to what a browser can or cannot do? Instead of forcing corporate policy down their throats, let the users decide.

The fact is apple doesn't want anyone to build a better, more powerful, and open browser for the ipad, since powerful online apps could very well yield the app store redundant. Apple are smart, they foresaw this and took preemptive anti-competitive measures to shut down this vector.

I understand the typical consumer doesn't think or care about these things, but that's no reason for me personally not to. I'd rather embrace a platform which is open and embraces all innovation, even that of third parties.

Lou Gosselin

@DZ-Jay

"Apple does not prohibit Web browsers on the App Store. It does require any HTML rendering to be done using its own API (which is the same Safari uses, being WebKit) and any JavaScript execution must also be done through its own API (again, provided by the WebKit framework, the same one used by Safari)."

Even assuming that's all true, it entirely misses the point.

Taking an existing browser, and then changing the "skin" to make it say "Firefox" is not the same as actually running firefox. Ignoring that, assuming the other browsers did just that, there is very little they can do to improve the browser now that it's running safari's back end.

Hypothetically, lets say safari fails some html5 test cases, and one would expect firefox or opera to work like they do on all other platforms, except they cannot because they're just shells around safari.

Another more serious example, firefox is likely to support ogg/theora on all platforms potentially offering a very significant benefit to end users. When it comes to the ipad version, they'll have to say the feature isn't supported since apple decided not to support it in safari.

Another example, firefox on the ipad would probably not be able to support standard plugins such as adblock, greasemonkey. This would be a major setback for the mozilla project on this platform.

In the end, users would blame mozilla for a shoddy/undifferentiated experience on the ipad, when in fact apple is the real culprit. Mozilla's decision was to have no browser on the ipad rather than one with apple pulling the string. Can you imagine how bad the situation would be if every device manufacturer acted the same way as apple?

Lou Gosselin

The Great Wall of Apple

Apple is the abusive partner in a bad relationship. Instead of leaving apple, the other partner makes excuses, enabling apple to become even more abusive.

Apple are obviously pleased with themselves, with customers lining up at their feet. Still, even they must be surprised at how willing their users are to give into their monarchist model. That users don't revolt is a serious testimony to their loyalty for apple. I find it ironic though, that a free people, who claim to value choice and democracy for everyone, should spend their own hard earned money to support a walled garden under dictator control. I suppose people deserve whatever they want to pay for.

Steve Jobs talks Flash, 'lying S.O.B' devs, sex, and Gizmodocrime

Lou Gosselin

@Stuff

"FYI, you own all rights to the hardware it's yours but not the software."

Actually, that argument is misconceived, this debate has little to do with software owned by apple. The concern for developers is the right to run software which we own the rights to, not apple.

There are numerous applications, open source and otherwise, which we would have the rights to compile and use on an ipad, except that apple's drm prevents us from doing so.

Maybe I'm old fashioned and closed platforms are the way of the future, but I'll fight tooth and nail to protect the freedoms developers once had.

iPeds, iRobots, and the Chinese iPad clone machine

Lou Gosselin

@An open world is so nice...

Who cares about flash...if the device is open (I'm only assuming that's the case, someone let us know), then one can install whatever one pleases!

Fewer end user restrictions make these devices much more valuable than apple's own gear, and for a significantly lower cost. I can't wait for these to come to the US.

That said, it's terribly unfortunate they decided to promote the product using confusingly similar trademarked material and names. Obviously though it seems to have gotten them the publicity they were after.

Fanboi's lament – falling out of love with the iPad

Lou Gosselin

@Writing apps for yourself and friends

Really, thank you for that info.

It still doesn't satisfy me however. I dislike that I'd need to pay yearly to be in the iPhone Developer Program (as opposed to a one time fee for the development kit which I could use indefinitely). Apple can change the terms and fees at any time, it just doesn't seem right.

I could possibly overlook the above, but even then as a legal user the process itself seems to be unnecessarily complicated, and restrictive.

"An iPhone application in development can run only on devices with provisioning profiles generated by the application developer. As iPhone Developer Program members, you and your fellow team members install these files on your devices as part of your development process. To include users that are not part of your team (also known as testers) in your testing strategy, you must add them as part of your team in the Program Portal and issue them test provisioning profiles (also known as ad-hoc provisioning profiles), which allow them to install on their devices applications that have not been published to the App Store."

"Before a developer can send you an application for testing, they must register your device with Apple under their application-testing program."

So now, even as a registered developer, I have to deal with crappy DRM administered by apple so that me and my friends can run our own apps? With all this hassle, it'd be more palettable to jailbreak the thing and accept the consequences. I'm sure this is exactly what the majority of developers end up doing.

I'm sorry but my vote is still for an open platform.

Lou Gosselin

@Robert Brockway

"Quite right which is why I don't own any of them. Apple's devices are too proprietary for me."

Same here. The devices seem nice enough. But the fact that I cannot write apps for myself and friends without jail-breaking is a deal breaker. I simply will not use my engineering talents to support someone's proprietary walled garden.

"For all that you say that you don't like the device, Apple still has your money. They don't care anymore."

That's a good point, apple has no incentive to open up since apple already knows its users are willing to part with their money for the closed models.

Ballmer will not appear at Apple conference

Lou Gosselin

Two wrongs don't make a right

I can't deny apple has been successful with it's business model, but it is very sad that they had to do it with such a closed model. I doubt they want to change it now, unless they're feeling some pressure from washington.

"What better for Apple to stress its 'openness' by not only allowing third-parties to create iPhone OS development tools but for the first of them to be the old enemy - a company that now has a smaller market capitalisation than its arch-rival?"

Reminds me of the old expression, see title.

Google open video codec may face patent clash

Lou Gosselin

@Stephen Bungay

That is well put. Your examples are fine for traditional patents. In the context of software patents though, they are still very problematic. Even if the software patent does cover a specific implementation, the software patent may establish a monopoly on logic and mathematical algorithms, which should not be patentable.

Lou Gosselin

@Not so

"But they won't work when you two corporations that control almost the entire computer industry. These laws were never designed to promote monopolies."

Isn't true that monopolies are exactly what patent laws were designed to promote?

Color ebook reader for 200 clams? Yup

Lou Gosselin

Is this device open?

This could be a great device if the end users are not prevented from installing their own apps.

The specs are weak, but in cases where it's sufficient that's no problem. What made the "IBM PC" so powerful wasn't it's CPU, it was the openness.

UK's secret surveillance regime 'does not breach human rights'

Lou Gosselin

Eh indeed

I don't know the specifics of UK law, but this is very similar to cases in the US where the government is untouchable because citizens collectively cannot prove the government wiretapped them.

It's one thing to suppress information until a case is closed, but this shows that the government doesn't want people to know what it's doing even after the fact. If people cannot learn what their government is doing, then people cannot make the informed decisions required to make democracy work and they loose the ability to fix government programs when they're broken. In a genuine democracy, government must always be held accountable to the people. Even if people choose to be less safe, that is their right. Non-disclosure means people have no idea about the scope or effectiveness of the secret programs. Telling citizens how and when they are wiretapped may very well "undermine the usefulness of any intelligence gathered against them". Still, it is their right to know and the government's responsibility to obey.

That the government believes it is an entity above the people is worrisome. Whatever the justifications, people are loosing the right to rule themselves.

Google open sources $124.6m video codec

Lou Gosselin

@But WebM is ITSELF patented

Yes, I'm well aware VP8 is patented. But there's no way to know whether On2's patents are the only ones which apply.

According to a quick search VP8 was released late 2008. This means it could infringe on any patents up until that point, even pending patents. There's no way for anyone to know, including google, whether this codec infringes.

Does MPEG-LA produce any products at all? If they are merely patent trolls, then there is no risk to them of being sued or counter sued. Although indirectly I suppose they might care since their constituencies might be at risk.

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