Ars Technica has a great article today on Professor Lessig's potential run for Congress that I mentioned yesterday. The article does an excellent job of outlining Lessig's platform in far better detail than the one sentence I gave it. What's particularly interesting about his position is his desire to build a Creative Commons in Congress, where "[i]f politicians begin foreswearing PAC money, the theory runs, voters may come to see the failure to refuse lobbyist dollars as a badge of shame rather than simply the way things are done." This sounds like a very necessary change and requires the proverbial "Washington outsider" to really get going - Lessig is that outsider. Further, the article elaborates on the difference between Lessig and his greatest rival in the race, Jackie Speier. Lessig mentions that there aren't many differences, but that a focus on technology would give him an edge and that even though many prominent California Democrats have thrown their support behind Speier, the rush to consolidate support has frustrated voters who want more options. As I said yesterday, I can't wait to see how this plays out.
Technorati Tags: Larry Lessig, Lessig, Congress, Tom Lantos, Jackie Speier, Creative Commons, Free Culture, Change Congress, Draft Lessig
I wrote about Professor Larry Lessig's shift in focus from Free Culture to corruption in Washington when he gave his last Free Culture talk. Since then, a seat has opened up in Congress as a result of the death of California Congressman Tom Lantos. Lessig posted on his weblog earlier today that a Facebook group and the draftlessig08.org website have caused him to actually consider running.
I think Lessig has a great chance of winning thanks to support from the tech community. Having him in Congress would not only be excellent for his next project, but would also help along causes that current Congress members are either too tech illiterate or too influenced by money to really address the right way (one such cause being Net Neutrality).
There's no word on when he'll make a decision, but along with the rest of the tech community, I wait with bated breath.
Technorati Tags: Larry Lessig, Lessig, Congress, Tom Lantos, Free Culture, Change Congress, Draft Lessig
Slashdot reports that Florida courts will hear arguments on the accuracy of breathalyzer results because the manufacturer of the devices refuses to release the source code to the devices.
Some judges have dismissed DUI cases because the defendant asked how the breathalyzer worked. The manufacturer was unwilling to release the source and the cases were dismissed.
The story contributer brings up an interesting point:
With software bugs being a fact of life, consumers and organizations could claim that they need to be able to verify an application's source code before they accept that their calculations are accurate. Think credit card transactions, speed detecting radar guns, electronic voting machines…
While I think that requiring open source for pretty much anything for these types of reasons is out of the question, there does need to be some balance between the right of the user to have solid software and the right of the manufacturer to protect their intellectual property. This balance exists for most products in competitive markets in the form of competition, but for monopolized markets (such as with breathalyzers), there does need to be some governmental or other third-party certification.
Much like a crime suspect could be required to submit to blood/DNA testing, products with suspected inaccuracies used to determine guilt should be required to submit to source code "testing." Since the source code will only be seen by the court, and the court has no economic motivation for using the source code outside of the bounds of the case at hand, the product's manufacturer should be able to rest assured that its source code is still protected.
Technorati Tags: DUI, source code, open source, florida, breathalyzer
There is currently a bill out there in the British Parliament that, if passed, "will make it illegal to combine words like 'games', 'medals', 'gold', '2012', 'sponsor' or 'summer' in any form of advertising." Violators can be punished by fines of up to £20,000. So basically, anyone who isn't an official sponsor must completely ignore the Olympics are taking place. Will movie studios be sued because their movies are coming out in "summer 2012"? Will developers come under fire when they issue a press release mentioning that a video game has gone gold?
Sure, the word "Windows" is an every day word and it's trademarked, but you don't see Microsoft going around suing Home Depot for selling window treatments. The difference between "Windows" and the words the IOC is trying to effectively trademark is that the IOC's words include a year and a season. Not only that, since they have sponsors in a vast number of industries (from airliners to restaurants to clothing manufacturers), they can claim that practically anything using "their" words is an infringing use of those trademarks.
How much of our every day language will companies be able to own? Will we have to eventually pay royalties for every word we post in our blog or send over IM? What if we had a word surcharge line on our cell phone bills?
You know, I have to make money to survive. I'm going to get legislation passed that prevents any advertisers from using dollar and cents signs and periods. After all, why should other people cash in at my expense?
(from the BBC via Slashdot)
Technorati Tags: olympics, london, trademarks, government, 2012, games
