The recent decision of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project to go into full production for the first time marks a watershed in computer usage in the home. For the best part of two decades, home computers have been dominated by one company - Microsoft - and although many incremental improvements have happened during that time there hasn't really been a seismic shift in the approach to computers since the rise of the internet. I believe that the OLPC project, if it succeeds in its aims, will mark a new era of computer use. Let me outline the reasons why I believe this is the case.
1. It brings computers to a completely new section of society
The intended recipients of the OLPC are schoolchildren, mainly from poor nations, most of whom will never have had the opportunity to use a computer before. Most of these will benefit greatly from their exposure to modern technology and what it has to offer in terms of communication, learning and an ability to see what's happening in the wider world. A small proportion of these children will grow up to have successful careers in computing and related technologies, which as well as empowering these individuals is likely to invigorate the economies in which they operate. This simply would not be possible if they never had the opportunity to learn in this way. A much larger proportion will be empowered to go on to careers where computers are an essential tool of the job rather than an end in itself - virtually all office-based jobs involve computers, and nearly every company can benefit from crucial functions (accounting, stock-keeping etc.) being computerised. Whilst these functions already exist, the OLPC project provides a means of bringing these skills to people who otherwise would not have this opportunity.
2. It brings a new, fresh approach to the desktop
The desktop paradigm has changed very little on the last 10 years. People are familiar with icons representing files or applications and possibly 'folders' (directories) but the approach of the Sugar interface used by OLPC is more human-orientated - icons represent other individuals in the user's sphere of acquaintance who are online. The tools it provides are geared very much towards learning, so for example many applications have a "View Source" capability to facilitate this. The 'source' might be the source code for an application or it might be the raw HTML of a web page for example, but it encourages children to look beneath the surface and investigate. Many of these children will develop their own enhancements for their own purposes, and share these with their neighbours.
3. The hardware design spec is radically different from the current 'norm'
For as long as I have been on this planet (and even before), Moore's law has held true. There has been an incessant push for hardware to become more and more powerful which shows no sign of abating (although it's clear that the method by which this is accomplished is changing now that multi-core processors are the norm). This has led to a large number of benefits for users. However computers have stayed resolutely in the office, or at least with laptops in a clean, dry environment where mains electricity is available. The OLPC breaks away from this totally - it is designed to be rugged and used where mains electricity might not be available or at least not in every home. The display has been specially developed to be usable in full sunlight, an important consideration for children who receive their schooling in the open air. The focus is on power saving and maximising battery life - a simple processor is more than powerful enough to run desktop applications.
4. It will mark the introduction of mesh networking to the mass market.
Mesh networking is not a completely new technology, but in the wealthy parts of the world the wide availability of broadband internet at affordable prices means that there just isn't a huge requirement for using it. However in rural locations in developing nations this is not the case. The ability for a single internet connection to be shared among potentially hundreds of users makes the difference between having and not having access to the internet, and all the services and benefits that come with it. Mesh networking enables the reach of the internet to be massively increased without the need for a large amount of expensive infrastructure to be installed. It may not represent a totally reliable, always available internet at any particular location but this is less important as the children will still be able to research and communicate at least some of the time. Their eyes will therefore be opened to the wider world.
5. By increasing production volumes of lower-end components, it will bring the entry-level cost down thus reducing the barriers to adoption of home computers around the world.
By reaching to a sector of the market that is, frankly, huge - economies of scale should mean that the cost comes down. The aim is for the laptop to have a bill of materials of less that USD100. Currently it is more expensive than this but over time it's realistic to expect this to come down. However this will also have knock-on effects for other products aimed at different markets. Ultimately, every market sector should benefit from this.
6. It actively promotes open learning.
OLPC is built upon a version of Red Hat's GNU/Linux distribution, which can be freely downloaded by anyone and shared out. The fact that every part of it is Free Software is vitally important here - no one company can lock in the users to their products (in the way that Microsoft has done very succesfully, albeit illegally, with Windows and related products). Red Hat is just one of a large number of organisations developing GNU/Linux-based offerings. However due to the innovative licensing of these products, enhancements developed by one organisation can be used by any other organisation. The net result is a bit like a mutually beneficial cooperative. My personal favourite GNU/Linux distribution is Kubuntu (a version of Ubuntu using the KDE desktop rather than Gnome which is standard in the default ubuntu). However the vast majority of the software is common between Ubuntu and Red Hat (and indeed other distributions). Each distribution takes what it believes to be the best applications, makes them even better then makes money by providing support services. Expect to see other distributions using variants of the Sugar interface - although it was developed specifically for OLPC, other projects can tweak and optimise it for other, different markets. That's a win-win situation, both for the consumer and for the individual developers. Some of the enhancements made by others will be adopted by the OLPC project itself in future versions.
03 August 2007
24 May 2007
Home working - a boon to productivity?
As a general rule I work from home one day a week. There are a number of reasons for this:
(1) It saves me a significant amount of travel time
(2) It saves me the cost of a train ticket
(3) I can get on with work with few, if any, distractions
(4) The coffee is better
(5) I can take my daughter to school
In general terms, the time I save not having to travel to work is extra time I spend working. On top of this, having fewer distractions means that I am much more productive with my time, so it's a win-win scenario. There are of course some things that I really need to be in the office for - meetings of various types, and also to be available for people to come and discuss issues with me. This is all part and parcel of the job, but when I have a specific task to accomplish they can feel more like distractions than anything else.
However there are times when it doesn't go as smoothly as I'd like. This morning I logged into the internal network as usual and was able to pick up my email, but then it all went dead. I tested basic connectivity (I could surf the web, which proved that the local wireless link was working, the ADSL Router was successfully connected to the internet, DNS and local DHCP were working etc) so it was definitely a problem with the software for accessing the company's network. After trying various things I resorted to a telephone call to our support teams, who after going through all the basic networking possibilities (why is it they can't trust me when I say that the problem is neither with the Wifi nor the ADSL link?) recommended enabling a service then rebooting the PC. After this, it all came back to life.
So yet another cycle of having to close down all my applications, reboot the entire PC and then wait for ages for everything to start up again, followed by trying to figure out what I was doing previously. What is it with the mentality of 'reboot the PC' after making any changes? Anyone would think this is the way things should happen.
Still, at least I could drink the coffee that I had roasted myself last night while I was doing all of this. It all didn't seem quite as painful as a result...
(1) It saves me a significant amount of travel time
(2) It saves me the cost of a train ticket
(3) I can get on with work with few, if any, distractions
(4) The coffee is better
(5) I can take my daughter to school
In general terms, the time I save not having to travel to work is extra time I spend working. On top of this, having fewer distractions means that I am much more productive with my time, so it's a win-win scenario. There are of course some things that I really need to be in the office for - meetings of various types, and also to be available for people to come and discuss issues with me. This is all part and parcel of the job, but when I have a specific task to accomplish they can feel more like distractions than anything else.
However there are times when it doesn't go as smoothly as I'd like. This morning I logged into the internal network as usual and was able to pick up my email, but then it all went dead. I tested basic connectivity (I could surf the web, which proved that the local wireless link was working, the ADSL Router was successfully connected to the internet, DNS and local DHCP were working etc) so it was definitely a problem with the software for accessing the company's network. After trying various things I resorted to a telephone call to our support teams, who after going through all the basic networking possibilities (why is it they can't trust me when I say that the problem is neither with the Wifi nor the ADSL link?) recommended enabling a service then rebooting the PC. After this, it all came back to life.
So yet another cycle of having to close down all my applications, reboot the entire PC and then wait for ages for everything to start up again, followed by trying to figure out what I was doing previously. What is it with the mentality of 'reboot the PC' after making any changes? Anyone would think this is the way things should happen.
Still, at least I could drink the coffee that I had roasted myself last night while I was doing all of this. It all didn't seem quite as painful as a result...
20 May 2007
Proprietary vs Free software - an overview of the current state of the market.
As you will know, I am a big fan on GNU/Linux, and although I have tried a number of distributions in my time my current favourite is Kubuntu, as it combines an almost trivially easy installation and configuration process with the powerful KDE desktop environment. However, due to the requirements of my employers over the years it has to be said that I have spend significantly more time staring at a Microsoft Windows desktop than a Linux desktop. I'd like to outline my view of the current state of computer desktop operating systems, and make a few predictions for the future. I will not in this post consider server operating systems as the dynamics of the server market are quite different from the desktop.
The current situation, on the surface, looks much like it has done for the last 15 years. One company, Microsoft, has dominated the market almost to the total exclusion of all others. When people think about a computer, they think about Microsoft Windows. They expect to see a button labelled "Start" at the bottom left of the screen and small number of icons labelled "Internet", "My Computer" and so forth. The exact look and feel has changed a few times but the basic idea is the same. To the non-technical user any departure from this familiarity would represent a step into the unknown. I've not tried it, but I suspect if I were to move the taskbar to the left hand side (my current work PC is configured like this to make better use of the widescreen display) and ask an average user to use this, they would succeed but very slowly and uncomfortably. It represents a departure from what they are familiar with, although not such a huge departure that they couldn't figure it out and adapt. There are a core of Mac users who use a different operating system but the likelihood is that most of these will also be familiar with Microsoft Windows though friends, employers, internet cafès and the like. There is also a small technically savvy core of users who use other operating systems - mainly various GNU/Linux distributions, but the BSDs and Solaris probably also feature on this list.
However, I think we are seeing an accelerating sea-change. Until Microsoft Vista was released, there were essentially no changes to the user experience for the overwhelming majority of computer users since late 2001 - that's just over 5 years. At the start of this time, GNU/Linux really was just for the technically savvy or the curious. However over time, the ecosystem surrounding it has grown and the user experience has improved at what I can only describe as a phenomenal rate. Installation has become trivially easy, most distributions come with a sane set of defaults that require no configuration, the desktop environments (multiple) have improved in their usability and the range of high quality software to perform almost any task has increased immensely. Underneath, support for hardware has improved to the point where the vast majority of hardware 'just works'; this is as it should be, but in some cases that's not thanks to the efforts of the manufacturer of the hardware. My honest impression is that in late 2006, the GNU/Linux experience was far smoother than the Microsoft Windows experience for the vast majority of users, when comparing like for like.
So why hasn't everyone switched to GNU/Linux? The short answer is resistance to change, but conversations with Microsoft Windows users have revealed the following being given as reasons:
"Everyone else still uses Windows, so I don't want to be non-standard"
"Linux doesn't have any decent games"
"I can't use Microsoft Office on Linux"
"Last time I tried, my hardware wasn't supported"
"My customers want Windows so I'm sticking with it for the sake of my business"
"I use Dreamweaver|Adobe Acrobat|Photoshop which doens't run on Windows"
"The computer came with it, why should I change?"
Now let us fast forward a tiny bit to 2007 - Microsoft has released a long-awaited new operating system. And trying to identify what benefits it brings to the consumer is where I get writer's block. Improvements for Microsoft's ability to lock out competitors? Yes. A reason for people to bring more business to the hardware vendors? For sure. A "my new computer is shinier than your old one" feeling for some, definitely. A nice big kick-back from the entertainment industry to Microsoft for it's lock-down features aimed a preventing copyright infringement? No doubt. But for the user the only positive thing I can think of is a shiny new 3-D user interface, for those who have expensive enough hardware to support it. Now I'm going to be honest here - I've never actually seen Vista running, so I can only go by what I've read here but people say the 3-D interface is nice. But even such well-known companies as Dell have re-started shipping their PCs with XP instead as an option, and are about to start selling some of their range with Ubuntu pre-installed, at least in the US. Times are changing.
So here's a list of the bad things Vista brings the consumer that I've read about:
Lack of familiarity through a change of user-interface.
Reduced battery life on laptops
Difficulty burning CD-Roms
Won't run on anything but the newest, most expensive hardware
Attempts at locking out the user when using supposedly pirated multimedia end up locking her out when using any multimedia
Lack of compatibility with existing applications
An approach to security which is very annoying to the user
Lack of hardware compatibility
Expensive
So the simple question is that if people are going to have to upgrade from Windows XP, they are going to see a few changes anyway so they might as well switch to GNU/Linux instead and save a few hundred pounds/euros/dollars. Here is a list of what they will find:
Good battery life on laptops
Good hardware compatibility
Runs well on older hardware
A slight change of user interface, depending on chosen distribution/desktop environment
Doesn't attempt to lock out the user in any circumstances
Free (as in zero cost)
A security approach that works and isn't intrusive
A very good selection of applications, although for a few people their favourite application won't be supported.
So where does this mean things are likely to go in the future?
Well, there is another revolution taking place that could make the choice of operating system less relevant. That is the shift to online applications. The most advanced proponent of this is Google. Just take a look at some of the things that Google has done:
Google Earth - works on GNU/Linux as well as on Microsoft Windows. This has wasted many hours of my life.
Google Maps - works in (almost) any browser. The mapping code is even available for others to use in their websites, leading to some very cool uses. My favourites are flood.firetree.net which tells you which parts of the planet will be under water for a given rise in sea level, and fillthathole.org.uk for reporting road surface defects in the UK.
Google Docs and Spreadsheets - Write any Office-style text document or spreadsheet from within your browser, using the industry-standard Open Document Format (ODF).
Google Search - seems so far ahead of the competition and it is no surprise that this is a huge money-maker for Google. They are not the first to implement search by a long way but others tried to monetise it by adding intrusive adverts that annoyed the user.
Google Checkout - provides payment services for online retailers.
YouTube - recently bought by Google and rapidly making the old-style entertainment industries less relevant.
...and much more. Of course Google are the only company with some cool online services that aim to revolutionise the way the internet works. Many others have tried to move into this market, but for one reason or another have been less successful (Yahoo! anyone? Or even Microsoft?). But innovative websites such as Cannonical's Launchpad provides project management tools for Free Software projects of which Ubuntu (unsurprisingly) is the largest. These have a much smaller niche but are essentially following the same model of an online approach to a computing resource requirement.
So will Microsoft be able to fight back? In short, not if it continues to treat its customers like criminals to be fleeced for as much money as possible. It's been a very lucrative approach for them until now, but its days are clearly numbered unless it can develop in a completely new direction. No longer when it releases the latest and greatest of its wares do people think 'Wow', I must have that.
The current situation, on the surface, looks much like it has done for the last 15 years. One company, Microsoft, has dominated the market almost to the total exclusion of all others. When people think about a computer, they think about Microsoft Windows. They expect to see a button labelled "Start" at the bottom left of the screen and small number of icons labelled "Internet", "My Computer" and so forth. The exact look and feel has changed a few times but the basic idea is the same. To the non-technical user any departure from this familiarity would represent a step into the unknown. I've not tried it, but I suspect if I were to move the taskbar to the left hand side (my current work PC is configured like this to make better use of the widescreen display) and ask an average user to use this, they would succeed but very slowly and uncomfortably. It represents a departure from what they are familiar with, although not such a huge departure that they couldn't figure it out and adapt. There are a core of Mac users who use a different operating system but the likelihood is that most of these will also be familiar with Microsoft Windows though friends, employers, internet cafès and the like. There is also a small technically savvy core of users who use other operating systems - mainly various GNU/Linux distributions, but the BSDs and Solaris probably also feature on this list.
However, I think we are seeing an accelerating sea-change. Until Microsoft Vista was released, there were essentially no changes to the user experience for the overwhelming majority of computer users since late 2001 - that's just over 5 years. At the start of this time, GNU/Linux really was just for the technically savvy or the curious. However over time, the ecosystem surrounding it has grown and the user experience has improved at what I can only describe as a phenomenal rate. Installation has become trivially easy, most distributions come with a sane set of defaults that require no configuration, the desktop environments (multiple) have improved in their usability and the range of high quality software to perform almost any task has increased immensely. Underneath, support for hardware has improved to the point where the vast majority of hardware 'just works'; this is as it should be, but in some cases that's not thanks to the efforts of the manufacturer of the hardware. My honest impression is that in late 2006, the GNU/Linux experience was far smoother than the Microsoft Windows experience for the vast majority of users, when comparing like for like.
So why hasn't everyone switched to GNU/Linux? The short answer is resistance to change, but conversations with Microsoft Windows users have revealed the following being given as reasons:
"Everyone else still uses Windows, so I don't want to be non-standard"
"Linux doesn't have any decent games"
"I can't use Microsoft Office on Linux"
"Last time I tried, my hardware wasn't supported"
"My customers want Windows so I'm sticking with it for the sake of my business"
"I use Dreamweaver|Adobe Acrobat|Photoshop which doens't run on Windows"
"The computer came with it, why should I change?"
Now let us fast forward a tiny bit to 2007 - Microsoft has released a long-awaited new operating system. And trying to identify what benefits it brings to the consumer is where I get writer's block. Improvements for Microsoft's ability to lock out competitors? Yes. A reason for people to bring more business to the hardware vendors? For sure. A "my new computer is shinier than your old one" feeling for some, definitely. A nice big kick-back from the entertainment industry to Microsoft for it's lock-down features aimed a preventing copyright infringement? No doubt. But for the user the only positive thing I can think of is a shiny new 3-D user interface, for those who have expensive enough hardware to support it. Now I'm going to be honest here - I've never actually seen Vista running, so I can only go by what I've read here but people say the 3-D interface is nice. But even such well-known companies as Dell have re-started shipping their PCs with XP instead as an option, and are about to start selling some of their range with Ubuntu pre-installed, at least in the US. Times are changing.
So here's a list of the bad things Vista brings the consumer that I've read about:
Lack of familiarity through a change of user-interface.
Reduced battery life on laptops
Difficulty burning CD-Roms
Won't run on anything but the newest, most expensive hardware
Attempts at locking out the user when using supposedly pirated multimedia end up locking her out when using any multimedia
Lack of compatibility with existing applications
An approach to security which is very annoying to the user
Lack of hardware compatibility
Expensive
So the simple question is that if people are going to have to upgrade from Windows XP, they are going to see a few changes anyway so they might as well switch to GNU/Linux instead and save a few hundred pounds/euros/dollars. Here is a list of what they will find:
Good battery life on laptops
Good hardware compatibility
Runs well on older hardware
A slight change of user interface, depending on chosen distribution/desktop environment
Doesn't attempt to lock out the user in any circumstances
Free (as in zero cost)
A security approach that works and isn't intrusive
A very good selection of applications, although for a few people their favourite application won't be supported.
So where does this mean things are likely to go in the future?
Well, there is another revolution taking place that could make the choice of operating system less relevant. That is the shift to online applications. The most advanced proponent of this is Google. Just take a look at some of the things that Google has done:
Google Earth - works on GNU/Linux as well as on Microsoft Windows. This has wasted many hours of my life.
Google Maps - works in (almost) any browser. The mapping code is even available for others to use in their websites, leading to some very cool uses. My favourites are flood.firetree.net which tells you which parts of the planet will be under water for a given rise in sea level, and fillthathole.org.uk for reporting road surface defects in the UK.
Google Docs and Spreadsheets - Write any Office-style text document or spreadsheet from within your browser, using the industry-standard Open Document Format (ODF).
Google Search - seems so far ahead of the competition and it is no surprise that this is a huge money-maker for Google. They are not the first to implement search by a long way but others tried to monetise it by adding intrusive adverts that annoyed the user.
Google Checkout - provides payment services for online retailers.
YouTube - recently bought by Google and rapidly making the old-style entertainment industries less relevant.
...and much more. Of course Google are the only company with some cool online services that aim to revolutionise the way the internet works. Many others have tried to move into this market, but for one reason or another have been less successful (Yahoo! anyone? Or even Microsoft?). But innovative websites such as Cannonical's Launchpad provides project management tools for Free Software projects of which Ubuntu (unsurprisingly) is the largest. These have a much smaller niche but are essentially following the same model of an online approach to a computing resource requirement.
So will Microsoft be able to fight back? In short, not if it continues to treat its customers like criminals to be fleeced for as much money as possible. It's been a very lucrative approach for them until now, but its days are clearly numbered unless it can develop in a completely new direction. No longer when it releases the latest and greatest of its wares do people think 'Wow', I must have that.
04 May 2007
02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
The title of this post is a hexademical number. It is not a controversial number in any sense, but adding a few more digits at the start would turn it into a controversial number. So my question to you is, is my publishing of this number in any way illegal? No, because the controversy only exists in another jurisdiction, other that the one I reside in. It's perfectly possible that the hoster of this blog site may be required to remove this post because they do reside in such a jurisdiction, but that's not my problem. Let me explain.
In the USA there is a piece of legislation called the DMCA (google for it if you've not heard of it). Among it's provisions, residents of the USA are prohibited from distributing anything that " is (or is a component of) a circumvention technology". This is part of a hexadecimal key, now revoked, that can be used in decrypting HD-DVD discs. Using this key and appropriate software, I can decrypt, and therefore watch, any HD-DVD disc that uses this key. If I were resident in the USA, then I would be in breach of this law.
In fact, I'm about to blatantly break that law again: 0.
My challenge to the MPAA's lawyers is to argue that, if I were resident in the USA, this publication is illegal. If they fail in that, then they surely have no argument that publication of the whole key (just another number) is illegal?
0 is a part of the key too, and if you do a search on google for "09-F9" (yet another hexadecimal number) you can find out a bit more about this.
Note that I have been very careful in this posting not to reveal the real value of this hexadecimal number, as even if you put the various parts I've hinted at together, you don't have the whole picture. I will leave it to the readers to do their own research if they wish to find the whole number.
30 April 2007
Seamless Hardware Support is now the Top Priority for GNU/Linux
I have just installed a PCI wireless card from a company that I'd previously not heard of into an old PC, and booted the PC into a Xubuntu GNU/Linux Live distribution. I wanted to find out if the card was supported by Ubuntu (Xubuntu is a variant of Ubuntu, but using the lightweight XFCE desktop which makes it more suitable for use with older hardware). After booting up, it took a couple of mouse clicks to enable the wireless card, I entered the security details of my access point and 'voila', I was connected. It really could not have been easier. This was in sharp contrast to previous attempts with cards from different manufacturers.
So what was special about this particular card? In short, it was ordered from a supplier (The Linux Emporium) who make a business out of selecting hardware that is known to be compatible with Linux and selling to the general public. So, I could be fairly sure that this card would have a good level of support. In fact, the card was supplied with very detailed instructions from Linux Emporium themselves about what I might need to do to get it up and running; it looks like these were worst case instructions that you might need to follow if you were using an older version of Linux. As it happens, I was using a late release candidate of Xubuntu 7.04, otherwise known as Feisty Fawn, which was released just last week. As far as being up to date is concerned, you don't get more up to date than that without having to do a lot of the work yourself.
It is true that over the 4 years that I have been using various GNU/Linux distributions, I have seen a huge improvement in the level of support for hardware. It used to be the case that virtually no manufacturers of graphics cards, chipsets, WiFi cards, cameras, printers and so forth provided Linux drivers for their wares. Now it seems, either the Free Software community have reverse engineered proprietary drivers and written fully functional Free drivers, or the manufacturers themselves have provided them or at the very least provided full specifications to enable others to do so.
There are a few glaring exceptions to this. Nvidia provide a fairly good quality set of drivers for Linux, but these are proprietary and no distributor of Linux stands a chance of being able to support these as they don't have access to the source code - they are totally at the mercy of Nvidia to fix bugs, security issues and the like and provide updated drivers. They are also reliant on Nvidia not to drop support for older chiipsets - see my earlier post on this matter. The other main graphics card manufacturer ATI (now owned by AMD) also provide proprietary drivers for Linux, although the general consensus seems to be that they are not particularly good (I don't own an ATI card so have not tried them myself). Out of the graphics chip manufacturers only Intel provide good, Free drivers for Linux, but their chips are not as capable as those from Nvidia or ATI so are of little appeal to gamers for example.
When I ask myself what barriers there are to the adoption of GNU/Linux, it's clear that from an applications perspective there is very little that Linux cannot provide but which other operating systems can - OpenOffice.org is an excellent office productivity suite similar to Microsoft Office; Mozilla Firefox and Konqueror are excellent web browsers; Evolution and Kontact provide fully-featured email and calendaring functionality; Amarok and Rhythmbox are excellent music players similar in style to Apple's iTunes; F-Spot and digiKam manage photos admirably; there are mature apps for bittorrent, web development, software development, CD-burning, playing vidoes, watching TV that equal or surpass the equivalent on proprietary operating systems. However, what does still occur far more often is that people attempt to install their chosen GNU/Linux distribution onto their laptop, only to find that there is one or more piece of hardware that isn't supported. This, in almost all cases, is enough to make them go back to their proprietary OS, maybe only to try again a year later. It may be their WiFi, scanner, printer, graphics card or something else but it only takes one failure to put people off. It's clear to me that this must now be the number one priority to adoption of GNU/Linux on the desktop. There has been a suggestion that the next release of Ubuntu (codenamed The Gutsy Gibbon) should focus on this.
According to this article it looks like Dell may be about to start offering Ubuntu pre-installed on some of their models. It also suggests that they understand the hardware compatibility issue well, and are making an effort to ensure that all of their hardware choices are supported by Linux. Given that many Dell owners will at some stage try GNU/Linux out, the last thing Dell wants is to have a reputation for things not working. This will persuade a proportion of potential buyers to look elsewhere, so their bottom line depends on good cross-platform hardware support.
If you find yourself in the unfortunate position of having a piece of hardware that isn't supported in Linux, please bug the manufacturers about this, rather than the provider of your distribution. The manufacturers won't provide support if they don't believe the Linux market for their hardware is big enough, so they need to know that you are part of that market and wish to use their hardware. After all, you won't buy from them again nor recommend them to your friends. Due to the nature of Free Software it's hard to know the true size of that market - it's undoubtedly a lot bigger than any 'official' figures will be able to tell you.
So what was special about this particular card? In short, it was ordered from a supplier (The Linux Emporium) who make a business out of selecting hardware that is known to be compatible with Linux and selling to the general public. So, I could be fairly sure that this card would have a good level of support. In fact, the card was supplied with very detailed instructions from Linux Emporium themselves about what I might need to do to get it up and running; it looks like these were worst case instructions that you might need to follow if you were using an older version of Linux. As it happens, I was using a late release candidate of Xubuntu 7.04, otherwise known as Feisty Fawn, which was released just last week. As far as being up to date is concerned, you don't get more up to date than that without having to do a lot of the work yourself.
It is true that over the 4 years that I have been using various GNU/Linux distributions, I have seen a huge improvement in the level of support for hardware. It used to be the case that virtually no manufacturers of graphics cards, chipsets, WiFi cards, cameras, printers and so forth provided Linux drivers for their wares. Now it seems, either the Free Software community have reverse engineered proprietary drivers and written fully functional Free drivers, or the manufacturers themselves have provided them or at the very least provided full specifications to enable others to do so.
There are a few glaring exceptions to this. Nvidia provide a fairly good quality set of drivers for Linux, but these are proprietary and no distributor of Linux stands a chance of being able to support these as they don't have access to the source code - they are totally at the mercy of Nvidia to fix bugs, security issues and the like and provide updated drivers. They are also reliant on Nvidia not to drop support for older chiipsets - see my earlier post on this matter. The other main graphics card manufacturer ATI (now owned by AMD) also provide proprietary drivers for Linux, although the general consensus seems to be that they are not particularly good (I don't own an ATI card so have not tried them myself). Out of the graphics chip manufacturers only Intel provide good, Free drivers for Linux, but their chips are not as capable as those from Nvidia or ATI so are of little appeal to gamers for example.
When I ask myself what barriers there are to the adoption of GNU/Linux, it's clear that from an applications perspective there is very little that Linux cannot provide but which other operating systems can - OpenOffice.org is an excellent office productivity suite similar to Microsoft Office; Mozilla Firefox and Konqueror are excellent web browsers; Evolution and Kontact provide fully-featured email and calendaring functionality; Amarok and Rhythmbox are excellent music players similar in style to Apple's iTunes; F-Spot and digiKam manage photos admirably; there are mature apps for bittorrent, web development, software development, CD-burning, playing vidoes, watching TV that equal or surpass the equivalent on proprietary operating systems. However, what does still occur far more often is that people attempt to install their chosen GNU/Linux distribution onto their laptop, only to find that there is one or more piece of hardware that isn't supported. This, in almost all cases, is enough to make them go back to their proprietary OS, maybe only to try again a year later. It may be their WiFi, scanner, printer, graphics card or something else but it only takes one failure to put people off. It's clear to me that this must now be the number one priority to adoption of GNU/Linux on the desktop. There has been a suggestion that the next release of Ubuntu (codenamed The Gutsy Gibbon) should focus on this.
According to this article it looks like Dell may be about to start offering Ubuntu pre-installed on some of their models. It also suggests that they understand the hardware compatibility issue well, and are making an effort to ensure that all of their hardware choices are supported by Linux. Given that many Dell owners will at some stage try GNU/Linux out, the last thing Dell wants is to have a reputation for things not working. This will persuade a proportion of potential buyers to look elsewhere, so their bottom line depends on good cross-platform hardware support.
If you find yourself in the unfortunate position of having a piece of hardware that isn't supported in Linux, please bug the manufacturers about this, rather than the provider of your distribution. The manufacturers won't provide support if they don't believe the Linux market for their hardware is big enough, so they need to know that you are part of that market and wish to use their hardware. After all, you won't buy from them again nor recommend them to your friends. Due to the nature of Free Software it's hard to know the true size of that market - it's undoubtedly a lot bigger than any 'official' figures will be able to tell you.
03 April 2007
The Hijacking of the Green Movement
From an early age, I have worried about the environment. I have seen how our natural environment is gradually being eroded, polluted, destroyed, species made extinct and many other forms of damage - all as a result of the actions of man. For sure, in my early years my understanding of this was fairly limited. I was aware of traffic pollution, of oil tankers spilling their cargo being reported on the news, of the risk of extinction of various species and so forth. At some point, I became aware of the risk of global warming due to man's addition of large quantities of carbon dioxide and other chemicals to the atmosphere. All of this bothered me, and I vowed to do everything I realistically could to avoid making the situation worse. I have even been known to get on my soap-box and comment on those who flagrantly abuse the environment out of their own material greed, or in many cases, sheer apathy and carelessness when with little or no effort they could be more responsible.
And then, being 'green' suddenly became trendy. I can't pinpoint an exact date when this happened, but if pressed I would say it became clear this was happening during the latter half of 2006, although in reality some things were happening long before then. Politicians started espousing their green credentials in an attempt to win votes. Large multinationals started using the green message in their advertising, and many made big announcements about how they were now 'doing their bit' for the environment. Environmental activists suddenly seemed no longer to be shouting from the sidelines, but were a central part of the action. Documentaries about the environment started appearing much more frequently on the TV.
And yet, despite this bluster, I am left with a deep feeling of dissatisfaction, and at times despair. Toyota will use the fact that they sell the Prius Hybrid car with its improved miles per gallon compared to similar petrol-only cars to claim they are environmentally friendly, and yet their Chelsea tractors (4-wheel-drive vehicles) outsell the Prius by a huge margin. Tesco tell you they are working to use less energy in their stores, and that they will soon be labelling their food with 'food miles' - and yet they continue to develop huge out-of-town stores, thus making town centres like ghost towns where you can't go shopping unless you have a car. BP will tell you that they are investing huge amounts of money into solar panel technology, and yet they still continue to be at heart an oil company, whose only real financial interest is in selling as much oil as possible. Local authorities are even replacing perfectly good bus services with 'park and ride' schemes, which are the worst of all worlds - you still need to use a car to get into town, but you also incur the time and inconvenience of making part of your journey by bus. David Cameron is even installing a micro wind turbine in his house, an ostentatious act which will cost far more and be far less effective than simply installing more loft insulation. And the biofuels industry, while on the face of it providing a real, near-carbon-neutral alternative to petroleum, is actually guilty of wholescale destruction of the Indonesian rainforests for palm oil plantations, in the process releasing vastly more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than could possibly be saved by the reduction in petroleum-derived fuel. They are also largely responsible for inflating the price of maize and wheat on the world market, as the demand for feedstock for ethanol production increases - and causing hunger and hardship among certain groups who rely on these as their staple diet. This puts food and fuel production in direct competition with each other - there is only so much arable land available, and to supply the UK with biofuel would require vastly more land to be planted with oilseed rape than we actually have.
Where is this all leading us? There seems to me to be a very real danger that these high-profile conversions to the green cause will pull the wool over our eyes and convince us with marketing waffle, thus distracting us from the real issues. The individuals and organisations involved will convince the naive majority that they're doing something real, whereas they will in fact just carry on almost exactly as before.
So my question is, who is actually proposing the real solutions to the problem? When was the last time a politician tried to get elected by telling us we should drive more-efficient cars, or use public transport instead for some of our journeys? Where are the companies that are telling us they are setting up in city centres so as to reduce the need for their customers to travel, not to mention the convenience of not needing to use a car, therefore expanding their potential customer base very significantly? Where are the high-profile environmental activists who refuse to travel by air to the latest environmental conferences in far away lands? Where is the new legislation that requires all new dwellings to be built to standards similar to the Passivhaus standard developed in Germany, which is so well insulated that it eliminates the need for expensive central heating systems to be installed? Where are the tax measures to encourage use of environmentally less damaging products? OK, I will concede a very small amount of credit to Gordon Brown in his recent budget speech on that one, but he did the absolute minimum he could and still be seen to be doing something. All the real solutions to the problem (and their are many, I have not seen any one solution that solves more than a small part of the problem, but when many are used together the whole is greater than the sum of the parts) are strangely absent from the mainstream and can only be found when you look in the places you have always found them - small co-operatives, individuals with a passion, the third world.
Despite appearances, nothing has changed at all.
Copyright © 2007 Donald Allwright
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted without royalty in any medium provided this notice is preserved.
And then, being 'green' suddenly became trendy. I can't pinpoint an exact date when this happened, but if pressed I would say it became clear this was happening during the latter half of 2006, although in reality some things were happening long before then. Politicians started espousing their green credentials in an attempt to win votes. Large multinationals started using the green message in their advertising, and many made big announcements about how they were now 'doing their bit' for the environment. Environmental activists suddenly seemed no longer to be shouting from the sidelines, but were a central part of the action. Documentaries about the environment started appearing much more frequently on the TV.
And yet, despite this bluster, I am left with a deep feeling of dissatisfaction, and at times despair. Toyota will use the fact that they sell the Prius Hybrid car with its improved miles per gallon compared to similar petrol-only cars to claim they are environmentally friendly, and yet their Chelsea tractors (4-wheel-drive vehicles) outsell the Prius by a huge margin. Tesco tell you they are working to use less energy in their stores, and that they will soon be labelling their food with 'food miles' - and yet they continue to develop huge out-of-town stores, thus making town centres like ghost towns where you can't go shopping unless you have a car. BP will tell you that they are investing huge amounts of money into solar panel technology, and yet they still continue to be at heart an oil company, whose only real financial interest is in selling as much oil as possible. Local authorities are even replacing perfectly good bus services with 'park and ride' schemes, which are the worst of all worlds - you still need to use a car to get into town, but you also incur the time and inconvenience of making part of your journey by bus. David Cameron is even installing a micro wind turbine in his house, an ostentatious act which will cost far more and be far less effective than simply installing more loft insulation. And the biofuels industry, while on the face of it providing a real, near-carbon-neutral alternative to petroleum, is actually guilty of wholescale destruction of the Indonesian rainforests for palm oil plantations, in the process releasing vastly more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than could possibly be saved by the reduction in petroleum-derived fuel. They are also largely responsible for inflating the price of maize and wheat on the world market, as the demand for feedstock for ethanol production increases - and causing hunger and hardship among certain groups who rely on these as their staple diet. This puts food and fuel production in direct competition with each other - there is only so much arable land available, and to supply the UK with biofuel would require vastly more land to be planted with oilseed rape than we actually have.
Where is this all leading us? There seems to me to be a very real danger that these high-profile conversions to the green cause will pull the wool over our eyes and convince us with marketing waffle, thus distracting us from the real issues. The individuals and organisations involved will convince the naive majority that they're doing something real, whereas they will in fact just carry on almost exactly as before.
So my question is, who is actually proposing the real solutions to the problem? When was the last time a politician tried to get elected by telling us we should drive more-efficient cars, or use public transport instead for some of our journeys? Where are the companies that are telling us they are setting up in city centres so as to reduce the need for their customers to travel, not to mention the convenience of not needing to use a car, therefore expanding their potential customer base very significantly? Where are the high-profile environmental activists who refuse to travel by air to the latest environmental conferences in far away lands? Where is the new legislation that requires all new dwellings to be built to standards similar to the Passivhaus standard developed in Germany, which is so well insulated that it eliminates the need for expensive central heating systems to be installed? Where are the tax measures to encourage use of environmentally less damaging products? OK, I will concede a very small amount of credit to Gordon Brown in his recent budget speech on that one, but he did the absolute minimum he could and still be seen to be doing something. All the real solutions to the problem (and their are many, I have not seen any one solution that solves more than a small part of the problem, but when many are used together the whole is greater than the sum of the parts) are strangely absent from the mainstream and can only be found when you look in the places you have always found them - small co-operatives, individuals with a passion, the third world.
Despite appearances, nothing has changed at all.
Copyright © 2007 Donald Allwright
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted without royalty in any medium provided this notice is preserved.
29 March 2007
The dangers of proprietary software
In recent times I have become a great fan of Kubuntu, a distribution of GNU/Linux that is based upon Debian GNU/Linux which uses the KDE desktop environment to provide a pre-configured, easy to use desktop operating system suitable for general use particularly by those who wouldn't consider themselves to be experts in computer operating systems. The current released version is 6.10, also known as 'Edgy Eft' but I am currently running the beta version of the next version known as 'Feisty Fawn'. This has proved to be remarkably stable for beta software, and does everything I could possibly want with remarkably little intervention required to configure it. However, a few days ago I had a nasty shock. I downloaded and installed the latest updates (as I usually do), continued to use my PC as usual and then shut it down for the night. The next morning when I tried to boot up, I was left with no graphical desktop and little clue as to what had gone wrong.
Now I consider myself to be in the vast middle ground between novice and expert, but it took me quite a while (and an experimental fresh install to a spare partition to rule out my own inept tweaking) to work out that the problem was with the proprietary driver I was using with my NVIDIA graphics card. One of the updates had installed a later version of the proprietary driver, but unknown to me at the time, NVIDIA had just dropped support from this driver for a large number of their less recent cards. Given that my graphics card is less than 3 years old, I was somewhat dismayed about this.
Now it's true that NVIDIA do provide an even older driver series that supports my card (but with reduced functionality) but to pay good money to a company for their product only for them to effectively pull the rug out from under me is, to say the least a bit of an insult. Now to be fair to NVIDIA, they have subsequently clarified that the previous version of the driver which I was using (and which the Ubuntu folks had kindly packaged for my convenience) will continue to be supported, but this wasn't clear at the time. You could even quite justifiably say that as I was running beta software, this was, essentially, my own fault.
So why am I writing about this? Essentially, if I choose to run proprietary software then I am totally at the mercy of the provider to continue to support that software. In this particular case it is a kernel module and were any security issues to be found with it the consequences could be serious - and there would be absolutely nothing I could do about it, apart from ceasing to use that software. In many situations that would be next to impractical. However, I know from experience that I can have much greater confidence in the continued support for the Free software I use because, quite simply, there are a large number of organisations that support it, but failing that I can support it myself. After all, the four essential freedoms of Free software ensure that I am able to do this.
So having got my fingers burnt (along with many others) by this issue, I am increasingly wary of proprietary software. Although I try to achieve everything I possibly can using just Free software, there are still a few areas where this is less than easy. Graphics card drivers are one, as are Wi-Fi drivers (although there are a number of Wi-Fi solutions available now that don't require any proprietary software). For the rest, I find that the Free software stack (in my cased based on Kubuntu GNU/Linux, but there are many other options here) provides for my needs far better than any of the proprietary operating system environments I have tried to date. I do have very extensive experience of one proprietary operating system environment provider over nearly a couple of decades, but I have to say that I have no incentive to even try their latest offering. If their past behaviour is an accurate indication of their future behaviour then I am clear that they will use whatever method they can (including many illegal methods) to lock me in to their products and try to extract money from my at every opportunity. I would say 'Thanks but no thanks' to that, except that you can miss off the initial 'Thanks'.
Copyright © 2007 Donald Allwright
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted without royalty in any medium provided this notice is preserved.
01 July 2005
What's wrong with GNU/Linux
I've been a fan of GNU/Linux (hereafter referred to as Linux for convenience) for about two years now. Compared to what I was used to before (an operating system specific to the x86 architecture from a company based near Seattle, if I remember correctly) Linux is immensely powerful and flexible, and a great learning tool. Before switching, my learning about computing had pretty much ground to a halt. Since then, however, I have learnt a huge amount about networking, security, graphics, processor architecture, system configuration and much more. Oh, and I've also learnt a lot about freedom, why it's important and how certain vested interests are trying to deny us any freedom that doesn't suit their business model, And of course I've learnt about many communities that exist online, and I've even had the pleasure of drinking beer with some of the members of these communities too.
When discussing the merits (or otherwise) of Linux with people who have either never tried it or have merely dabbled with it. there is a consistent complaint that I hear. Essentially people say that you require a lot of knowledge about the system before you can use it, its command line syntax is obscure and non-obvious and there are too many things that are just that much harder to do than on certain other operating systems that they may be familiar with. Certainly I cannot argue that historically the latter has been the case, as the ecosystem surrounding Linux is relatively young, and certain key parts of the software chain have only become available more recently. But the rate at which Free Software is being developed is absolutely astounding, and every time I have come across a "missing application", I don't have to wait long for 3 or 4 to come along to fill the gap. And they will be 3 or 4 very good applications too. That is not what is wrong with Linux.
But what does seem to be wrong with Linux is exactly the same as what is wrong with proprietary software - the best known distributions are produced by commercial companies that don't have the resources to do sufficient testing. As a Software Engineer writing proprietary software and delivering it to customers during my day job, I see this problem from the inside and it's a simple problem - testing costs money, and proper testing costs lots of money. You therefore do as little as you think you can get away with without damaging your reputation or losing your customers. That usually means merely ensuring that you are not significantly worse than your competitors.
Red Hat, Mandriva, Novell and the many smaller players suffer from exactly these problems. Fair enough, the fact that they are delivering Free Software means that some of their testing is external, which should at least give them a significant advantage over proprietary companies. But what cannot be external are the processes of configuring and packaging the software for each distribution. They are competing against each other totally in this respect. All too often using Suse I have found little configuration issues that cause me problems. As I'm now reasonably knowledgeable I can usually figure out how it should be configured, but it takes time, and to a business using the software, time equals money. The software itself almost always works brilliantly once configured correctly. So it's often merely the choice of default configuration that makes the difference between "It requires significant tweaking before you can use it" and "It just works".
Let's take a step out of the commercial Linux world for a moment to the distributions that are purely community based. I have been a keen Gentoo user for a while, and am now discovering the world of Debian and in particular KUbuntu, the KDE version of Ubuntu.
Gentoo has a well-deserved reputation for being hard to install, but once installed I have found that it's pretty easy to maintain. The community is large enough that most configuration problems, if they occur at all, get solved pretty quickly. If a package doesn't work, just wait a few hours then emerge the updated package that fixes the issue. Nine times out of 10 it really is this easy. Apart from the installation procedure there is only one major disadvantage to Gentoo - because all software is compiled locally, it can take a while to install. That's not a problem for many situations, but on my slow laptop it was the one reason I decided to investigate Debian and its derivatives as an alternative.
My experience of Debian itself is pretty limited, but I have now been using KUbuntu for a couple of months. With Debian, configuration issues are very rare just as they are in Gentoo. The main reason I am not so keen on Debian Stable is that the software is quite old (translation: nearly all the bugs have been flushed out now, so it's well suited to use on a server. My requirements are for a desktop, which is quite different). It was my hope in using KUbuntu that I would have all the advantages of Debian, combined with all the advantages of very up-to-date software, combined with all the advantages of a large community supporting it. So have I found this to be the case? In a nutshell, yes. True, it sometimes feels like the fairly young distribution that it really is (8 months old as I write this), but to be up there with the best so quickly is, quite frankly, amazing. If it carries on improving at this rate it should sweep the others aside in the next couple of years to become the de facto Linux distribution for the desktop.
On second thoughts, maybe it isn't so amazing how well it has done, when you look at how it's developed:
It's based on a long-standing, solid, community-based foundation (Debian)
It only uses Free Software so avoids all the various proprietary traps, but without precluding the use of non-Free software if that's what tickles your fancy
It uses the (now very large) community as an integral part of the process of debugging it so that everyone can benefit right from the start
The whole development process is totally open, so any problems are caught early.
Whilst I was writing this, it looks like another snapshot of Breezy Badger, the next release of Ubuntu has just been announced. I should probably start downloading it and finish this off.
Donald
When discussing the merits (or otherwise) of Linux with people who have either never tried it or have merely dabbled with it. there is a consistent complaint that I hear. Essentially people say that you require a lot of knowledge about the system before you can use it, its command line syntax is obscure and non-obvious and there are too many things that are just that much harder to do than on certain other operating systems that they may be familiar with. Certainly I cannot argue that historically the latter has been the case, as the ecosystem surrounding Linux is relatively young, and certain key parts of the software chain have only become available more recently. But the rate at which Free Software is being developed is absolutely astounding, and every time I have come across a "missing application", I don't have to wait long for 3 or 4 to come along to fill the gap. And they will be 3 or 4 very good applications too. That is not what is wrong with Linux.
But what does seem to be wrong with Linux is exactly the same as what is wrong with proprietary software - the best known distributions are produced by commercial companies that don't have the resources to do sufficient testing. As a Software Engineer writing proprietary software and delivering it to customers during my day job, I see this problem from the inside and it's a simple problem - testing costs money, and proper testing costs lots of money. You therefore do as little as you think you can get away with without damaging your reputation or losing your customers. That usually means merely ensuring that you are not significantly worse than your competitors.
Red Hat, Mandriva, Novell and the many smaller players suffer from exactly these problems. Fair enough, the fact that they are delivering Free Software means that some of their testing is external, which should at least give them a significant advantage over proprietary companies. But what cannot be external are the processes of configuring and packaging the software for each distribution. They are competing against each other totally in this respect. All too often using Suse I have found little configuration issues that cause me problems. As I'm now reasonably knowledgeable I can usually figure out how it should be configured, but it takes time, and to a business using the software, time equals money. The software itself almost always works brilliantly once configured correctly. So it's often merely the choice of default configuration that makes the difference between "It requires significant tweaking before you can use it" and "It just works".
Let's take a step out of the commercial Linux world for a moment to the distributions that are purely community based. I have been a keen Gentoo user for a while, and am now discovering the world of Debian and in particular KUbuntu, the KDE version of Ubuntu.
Gentoo has a well-deserved reputation for being hard to install, but once installed I have found that it's pretty easy to maintain. The community is large enough that most configuration problems, if they occur at all, get solved pretty quickly. If a package doesn't work, just wait a few hours then emerge the updated package that fixes the issue. Nine times out of 10 it really is this easy. Apart from the installation procedure there is only one major disadvantage to Gentoo - because all software is compiled locally, it can take a while to install. That's not a problem for many situations, but on my slow laptop it was the one reason I decided to investigate Debian and its derivatives as an alternative.
My experience of Debian itself is pretty limited, but I have now been using KUbuntu for a couple of months. With Debian, configuration issues are very rare just as they are in Gentoo. The main reason I am not so keen on Debian Stable is that the software is quite old (translation: nearly all the bugs have been flushed out now, so it's well suited to use on a server. My requirements are for a desktop, which is quite different). It was my hope in using KUbuntu that I would have all the advantages of Debian, combined with all the advantages of very up-to-date software, combined with all the advantages of a large community supporting it. So have I found this to be the case? In a nutshell, yes. True, it sometimes feels like the fairly young distribution that it really is (8 months old as I write this), but to be up there with the best so quickly is, quite frankly, amazing. If it carries on improving at this rate it should sweep the others aside in the next couple of years to become the de facto Linux distribution for the desktop.
On second thoughts, maybe it isn't so amazing how well it has done, when you look at how it's developed:
It's based on a long-standing, solid, community-based foundation (Debian)
It only uses Free Software so avoids all the various proprietary traps, but without precluding the use of non-Free software if that's what tickles your fancy
It uses the (now very large) community as an integral part of the process of debugging it so that everyone can benefit right from the start
The whole development process is totally open, so any problems are caught early.
Whilst I was writing this, it looks like another snapshot of Breezy Badger, the next release of Ubuntu has just been announced. I should probably start downloading it and finish this off.
Donald
14 June 2005
Freedom - guard it with your life, while you still can
For the last few years, I have become increasingly concerned about the number of areas in which our freedoms are being eroded. Surely, I hear you say, this is a problem in some parts of the world, but not in the developed nations? There is no doubt that some of the worst restrictions on freedom have happened in places like China, Zimbabwe, Sout Africa, Iraq, Burma, Saudi Arabia, Palestine and other nations. These may hit the mainstream headlines, but because they are highly visible this generally has the effect of restraining those who seek to oppress. I have no doubt that the Chinese government realises that the Tiananmen Square massacre did nothing to improve its image overseas, and the fact that it has not been repeated is possibly a consequence of this. Likewise, high profile campaigning against apartheid in South Africa eventually lead to that system being dismantled, and the country now enjoys much greater freedoms than it did previously.
However, I don't intend to talk primarily about these restrictions which, by and large, are confined to the poorer nations. I want to talk about the restrictions that occur in wealthy, so-called developed nations. I will use three examples to illustrate the point.
1) Software Patents in Europe
2) Proposed Introduction of Identity Cards in the UK
3) Microsoft's Censorship of the words "Democracy", "Freedom" and "Demonstration" in China.
Let me just clarify something about this third point. What I wish to talk about here is the part that Microsoft, one of the wealthiest companies from one of the wealthiest nations, is playing in this.
1) Software Patents in Europe.
For the background to this, please take a look at This website.
Let's take a quick look at what patents are, and what purpose they intend to serve. Patents were introduced in order to encourage disclosure of inventions. Prior to the introduction of patents, many inventors protected their ideas by keeping them secret. Once others found out about an idea, they were able to reproduce the idea freely and compete with its original inventor. This gave the inventor a strong reason to avoid disclosing any details, much to the detriment of the advancement of science and technology. Patents were introduced in order to give inventors a time limited monopoly in exploiting their idea, in return for fully disclosing their ideas. There was no requirement that an inventor use this scheme, they could choose to remain in secrecy and hope that no-one copies their ideas. But by and large patents have been the better route for inventors to take.
So why are patents such a problem in software?
Firstly, software is just mathematics, expressed in a formalised manner and applied to solving a particular problem. Mathematics in not so much invented as 'discovered'. Looked at another way, the mathematical realities would still exist whether or not someone had discovered them, or formalised them into a particular algebraic language or used them in some other way. Secondly, any software program of any complexity will use a vast number of different mathematical constructs, so if these were all patented then even writing a simple "Hello World" program would make you potentially liable to be sued for patent infringement by multiple parties.
So what is the fuss about?
Software patents have been allowed in the USA for some time. In practice, large corporations such as Microsoft, IBM, Novell have the resources to acquire patents in large numbers. They have then used these as weapons against each other, or more importantly, against those that have no patents. In effect the major patent holders have become like a cartel, wielding a large amount of power and shutting smaller players out of the process. It doesn't matter whether the patents are valid or fulfil the purpose for which patents were created - challenging a patent's validity is an expensive process which smaller companies cannot afford. All they can do is give in to the bullying and pay a patent licence to the big players.
So it comes as no surprise that those who are trying to introduce patentability of software into the European Union are the big companies with deep pockets. The only people who could benefit from this are the big companies themselves - the smaller companies, the individual users of software (that's you if you're reading this) and the general public all lose out. Free Software developers stand to lose a lot in particular, because many of them are young individuals with no financial resources behind them, often students. Incidentally, a deeper look at the process of how this has been handled in the EU shows the EU to be deeply undemocratic in its inner workings - but that's a story for another article.
So briefly, the large companies that support software patents are trying to take away our rights to use software, on the often dubious premise that they invented some part of the whole and that we should pay them a licence fee. It's a bit like travelling down a road when someone jumps out in front of you and demands a fee to let you pass. Except that, unlike the traditional highway bandit, software patents would make this legal. That is why this move should be opposed in every way possible.
2) Proposed Introduction of Identity Cards in the UK
See the UK Home Office press release and this discussion of the impact were they to be introduced.
It is a fact that many countries require their citizens to hold identity cards, including many European nations. Tony Blair's government has used this as an excuse to attempt to introduce them in the UK. They claim that the technology is foolproof, and that it will help to reduce terrorism and crime. It is also a fact that these ID cards will prove very expensive to introduce.
Let me state a few facts. The terrorists who hijacked planes on the 11th September 2001 were all in the USA totally legally, and their paperwork was in order. A legal requirement to carry ID cards at all times does not mean that everyone will carry them, and those who have no problem with committing terrorist acts will certainly not see a problem with failing to carry an ID card at the moment they commit those acts. The cost per person of introducing ID cards could go a long way towards alleviating the problems that lead to people becoming terrorists. In fact terrorists usually are influenced very strongly by situations that severely restrict their freedoms to live as they wish; Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, western exploitation of oil in poorer countries spring to mind as obvious examples.
So at best, Tony Blair's intention to bring in ID cards is based on erroneous premises and will fail to achieve its stated aims. At worst it is a pretext to increase government control over the population and restrict our freedoms further. ID cards may only be used for specified purposes today, but in 30 years' time their scope could very easily be extended by a new goverment over which today's government has no control or influence. How do you know you can trust the generation that has yet to be born? You can't even trust the current generation.
3) Microsoft's Censorship of the words "Democracy", "Freedom" and "Demonstration" in China.
I use this example not because I dislike Microsoft, but because it is current at the time of writing and illustrated the principle very well. See This Article for more details. Microsoft are not the first organisation to give in to pressure and put profit above principle, and I am sure they will not be the last. But by giving in to Chinese demands to censor their web users, they are effectively saying "censorship is fine with us". Yes I know they are only doing it because they don't want to lose their business in China, but I would ask "What price are you willing to pay for profit?". If everyone gives in to others' demands to restrict our freedoms, we will be living under a global dictatorship within a very short space of time, and have very few freedoms.
It has taken me years of thinking hard about the issues of freedom but this is the conclusion I have come to:
"Everyone should be totally free to do whatever they want, at any time, in any place, and in any manner they wish, except in cases where it can be shown to be in the public interest that certain acts, behaviour or choices should not be allowed."
Note that I said the public interest - not the individual interest, not the government interest and certainly not corporate interests. So for example murder, drink driving and theft should not be allowed as that would lead, ultimately, to total breakdown of society. Patents, if they are to be awarded at all, should only exist if it can be shown to be in the public interest. I do not believe that Software Patents are in the public interest, nor are ID cards, nor is censorship implemented by businesses to protect its profits.
However, I don't intend to talk primarily about these restrictions which, by and large, are confined to the poorer nations. I want to talk about the restrictions that occur in wealthy, so-called developed nations. I will use three examples to illustrate the point.
1) Software Patents in Europe
2) Proposed Introduction of Identity Cards in the UK
3) Microsoft's Censorship of the words "Democracy", "Freedom" and "Demonstration" in China.
Let me just clarify something about this third point. What I wish to talk about here is the part that Microsoft, one of the wealthiest companies from one of the wealthiest nations, is playing in this.
1) Software Patents in Europe.
For the background to this, please take a look at This website.
Let's take a quick look at what patents are, and what purpose they intend to serve. Patents were introduced in order to encourage disclosure of inventions. Prior to the introduction of patents, many inventors protected their ideas by keeping them secret. Once others found out about an idea, they were able to reproduce the idea freely and compete with its original inventor. This gave the inventor a strong reason to avoid disclosing any details, much to the detriment of the advancement of science and technology. Patents were introduced in order to give inventors a time limited monopoly in exploiting their idea, in return for fully disclosing their ideas. There was no requirement that an inventor use this scheme, they could choose to remain in secrecy and hope that no-one copies their ideas. But by and large patents have been the better route for inventors to take.
So why are patents such a problem in software?
Firstly, software is just mathematics, expressed in a formalised manner and applied to solving a particular problem. Mathematics in not so much invented as 'discovered'. Looked at another way, the mathematical realities would still exist whether or not someone had discovered them, or formalised them into a particular algebraic language or used them in some other way. Secondly, any software program of any complexity will use a vast number of different mathematical constructs, so if these were all patented then even writing a simple "Hello World" program would make you potentially liable to be sued for patent infringement by multiple parties.
So what is the fuss about?
Software patents have been allowed in the USA for some time. In practice, large corporations such as Microsoft, IBM, Novell have the resources to acquire patents in large numbers. They have then used these as weapons against each other, or more importantly, against those that have no patents. In effect the major patent holders have become like a cartel, wielding a large amount of power and shutting smaller players out of the process. It doesn't matter whether the patents are valid or fulfil the purpose for which patents were created - challenging a patent's validity is an expensive process which smaller companies cannot afford. All they can do is give in to the bullying and pay a patent licence to the big players.
So it comes as no surprise that those who are trying to introduce patentability of software into the European Union are the big companies with deep pockets. The only people who could benefit from this are the big companies themselves - the smaller companies, the individual users of software (that's you if you're reading this) and the general public all lose out. Free Software developers stand to lose a lot in particular, because many of them are young individuals with no financial resources behind them, often students. Incidentally, a deeper look at the process of how this has been handled in the EU shows the EU to be deeply undemocratic in its inner workings - but that's a story for another article.
So briefly, the large companies that support software patents are trying to take away our rights to use software, on the often dubious premise that they invented some part of the whole and that we should pay them a licence fee. It's a bit like travelling down a road when someone jumps out in front of you and demands a fee to let you pass. Except that, unlike the traditional highway bandit, software patents would make this legal. That is why this move should be opposed in every way possible.
2) Proposed Introduction of Identity Cards in the UK
See the UK Home Office press release and this discussion of the impact were they to be introduced.
It is a fact that many countries require their citizens to hold identity cards, including many European nations. Tony Blair's government has used this as an excuse to attempt to introduce them in the UK. They claim that the technology is foolproof, and that it will help to reduce terrorism and crime. It is also a fact that these ID cards will prove very expensive to introduce.
Let me state a few facts. The terrorists who hijacked planes on the 11th September 2001 were all in the USA totally legally, and their paperwork was in order. A legal requirement to carry ID cards at all times does not mean that everyone will carry them, and those who have no problem with committing terrorist acts will certainly not see a problem with failing to carry an ID card at the moment they commit those acts. The cost per person of introducing ID cards could go a long way towards alleviating the problems that lead to people becoming terrorists. In fact terrorists usually are influenced very strongly by situations that severely restrict their freedoms to live as they wish; Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, western exploitation of oil in poorer countries spring to mind as obvious examples.
So at best, Tony Blair's intention to bring in ID cards is based on erroneous premises and will fail to achieve its stated aims. At worst it is a pretext to increase government control over the population and restrict our freedoms further. ID cards may only be used for specified purposes today, but in 30 years' time their scope could very easily be extended by a new goverment over which today's government has no control or influence. How do you know you can trust the generation that has yet to be born? You can't even trust the current generation.
3) Microsoft's Censorship of the words "Democracy", "Freedom" and "Demonstration" in China.
I use this example not because I dislike Microsoft, but because it is current at the time of writing and illustrated the principle very well. See This Article for more details. Microsoft are not the first organisation to give in to pressure and put profit above principle, and I am sure they will not be the last. But by giving in to Chinese demands to censor their web users, they are effectively saying "censorship is fine with us". Yes I know they are only doing it because they don't want to lose their business in China, but I would ask "What price are you willing to pay for profit?". If everyone gives in to others' demands to restrict our freedoms, we will be living under a global dictatorship within a very short space of time, and have very few freedoms.
It has taken me years of thinking hard about the issues of freedom but this is the conclusion I have come to:
"Everyone should be totally free to do whatever they want, at any time, in any place, and in any manner they wish, except in cases where it can be shown to be in the public interest that certain acts, behaviour or choices should not be allowed."
Note that I said the public interest - not the individual interest, not the government interest and certainly not corporate interests. So for example murder, drink driving and theft should not be allowed as that would lead, ultimately, to total breakdown of society. Patents, if they are to be awarded at all, should only exist if it can be shown to be in the public interest. I do not believe that Software Patents are in the public interest, nor are ID cards, nor is censorship implemented by businesses to protect its profits.
24 May 2005
Justice and Poverty - a Closer Look
For those of you who don't know, I am from a wealthy country (UK) but married to someone from a poor country (Peru). As I have an interest in human geography and how humans interact with each other and their environment, I have thought long and hard about why some countries are rich and others are poor. There are many obvious factors that could be relevant such as the abundance of natural resources or a favourable climate, but so often the relative wealth of a country appears to be totally unrelated to these factors. Why is Sweden with its very harsh winters a rich country, whereas Peru, with vast mineral and agricultural resources and a generally favourable climate across much of the country, poor?
To find answers to these questions we have to dig a little deeper. But first, we have to identify what poverty really is.
Psychological poverty
My first observation is that some people 'feel' poor whereas others don't. This often has little relationship with how much money someone has, but is more to do with whether they constantly see others who appear to be better off than them.
Material Poverty
Some people have all that they need to survive on this planet, whereas others don't - or at least we could say that the ease with which someone can acquire these necessities varies a lot, as do the necessities themselves.
Financial Poverty
Often, people are quoted as being poor because they live on 'less than a dollar a day'. This of course is a problem if the basic necessities of life cost more than this, but that may not always be the case. This is a dramatic oversimplification of what poverty is, and often serves to obscure the real issues.
Social Poverty
Some people live in rich countries and have a lot of money, but for a variety of reasons are unable to be part of a circle of friends. Families also provide a similar social network for many people. Those who are very much alone in the world could be considered to be 'socially poor'.
I was fortunate enough to be able to spend time with a family in the coastal jungle of Ecuador a few years ago. This family had very little in the way of financial resources, but as they lived largely outside the monetary system this was mostly irrelevant. In fact they grew or raised nearly everything they needed, and didn't seem to be unhappy or suffering. This experience probably above all others has forced me to reevaluate my understanding of poverty. It is not simply lacking finances - although often a lack of finances is one of the more obvious consequences of poverty. So for sake of argument lets say that Poverty is where many of the above factors (and possibly others I haven't listed) are present to a significant degree, and that it is a kind of sliding scale where you can draw arbitrary lines below which someone is defined as 'poor'. I won't get into discussion here of exactly how these multiple factors get added into the mix.
Now we have a working understanding of what poverty is, we can ask "why do some people become poor"? I think this boils down to one thing: They don't have the power to reach their full potential. This can be for a number of reasons.
Corruption
In many of the poorer countries there is endemic corruption. At one end of the scale this can be politicians embezzling public funds (or sometimes fleeing the country with the funds), and at the other end local officials demanding bribes, for example to avoid an official fine for a purported minor traffic offence. Corruption generally exists at all levels of society in poor countries. It is very hard to remove because those who benefit from it are generally the ones who have the power to deal with it, but not the will.
Economic clout of wealthy nations
It cannot be denied that the nations of North America and Europe (among others) benefit greatly by have cheap sources of primary goods in the third world. However this is not by pure coincidence. Problems of third world debt could be removed at a stroke if wealthy nation governments wanted too. However that would have the effect of giving more economic power to the poorer nations - they could demand higher prices for the goods they provide, and the balance of economic power would tip a little more in their favour.
Economic clout of large multinationals
Here in Britain there is a standing joke - "Why is there only one monopolies and mergers commision?". For those of you from elsewhere in the world, the monopolies and mergers commission exists to prevent overly powerful companies from merging and forming de facto monopolies in their field. By and large this works well, although it is not a total solution to the problems of monopoly. But in many parts of the world, multinationals have no constraints and can buy local companies, form partnerships and impose terms and conditions on their customers or suppliers which lead them to have a de facto monopoly. Companies such as Nestle, Coca Cola and Telefonica have monopolies in supplying their respective products across much of Latin America, for example. This has often come about by taking over their competitors without any constraints to prevent this from happening.
Lack of economic flexibility
This is something I have thought about in detail but struggle to describe succinctly. One aspect of this is flexibility of labour, both from the point of view of employers (who may want to recruit or lay off large numbers to cater for changes in their markets) and employees, who may wish to work longer hours in order to pay, for example, for a new house. If there is only one type of work contract available which is a 38 hour week Monday to Friday, then no-one is able to work extra hours to earn more. On the other hand if there is a high availability of well-paid, flexible work then people can easily accommodate short term financial needs by working extra hours.
Another aspect of this is 'flexibility of spending'. For example if there is only one type of house available in a city at a more or less fixed price, you are unable to save money by moving somewhere cheaper. Likewise a lack of choice can constrain our other spending habits. But if we are able to move somewhere cheaper and buy cheaper food of a lower quality, again we have the flexibility to accommodate short term financial needs.
Both of these types of flexibility are built in to the way society works to varying degrees, and a more flexible society is less likely to have people really suffering because they are unable to pay their bills - it offers them more options that can help them in their needs.
What are not causes of poverty
This is my most controversial statement here - Natural disasters do not cause poverty. Now before you accuse me of being insensitive, I am not denying that much suffering results from natural disasters such as the recent Tsunami in Asia, or from many earthquakes that have destroyed entire cities. But have a think about where these disasters don't happen. California and Japan, for example are in very earthquake-prone areas of the world. But because they are wealthy areas, they are able to use technology to mitigate the effects. Buildings are all built to resist earthquakes, so what would be a natural disaster ends up causing very few major problems. If Thailand, Sri Lank and Indonesia had a suitable tsunami warning system in place, much of the suffering from the tsunami could have been avoided. the fact remains that wealthy nations are able to either mitigate the effects of, or recover rapidly from natural disasters. Where suffering does occur, public funds are usually available to deal with the issues such that poverty does not occur among those affected. This certainly cannot be said for what happens in poorer nations.
Lack of natural resources
Historically, towns and cities have grown up on rivers, near the sea, on fertile land or near mineral resources. However there are many megacities in the world which have vastly outgrown the resources that led to their creation in the first place. Through man's ingenuity these cities are able to import all they need, and still be economically strong.
To sum up, I believe the issues surrounding poverty are much more complicated than most people realise. I hope by writing this, you as my readers will be able to understand a bit more about it, and maybe will take action accordingly. you could write to your government representatives to persuade them to drop a bad policy, or maybe stop buying products from an abusive company. Even better, you could pass this knowledge and understanding onto someone else who may be motivated to act accordingly.
To find answers to these questions we have to dig a little deeper. But first, we have to identify what poverty really is.
Psychological poverty
My first observation is that some people 'feel' poor whereas others don't. This often has little relationship with how much money someone has, but is more to do with whether they constantly see others who appear to be better off than them.
Material Poverty
Some people have all that they need to survive on this planet, whereas others don't - or at least we could say that the ease with which someone can acquire these necessities varies a lot, as do the necessities themselves.
Financial Poverty
Often, people are quoted as being poor because they live on 'less than a dollar a day'. This of course is a problem if the basic necessities of life cost more than this, but that may not always be the case. This is a dramatic oversimplification of what poverty is, and often serves to obscure the real issues.
Social Poverty
Some people live in rich countries and have a lot of money, but for a variety of reasons are unable to be part of a circle of friends. Families also provide a similar social network for many people. Those who are very much alone in the world could be considered to be 'socially poor'.
I was fortunate enough to be able to spend time with a family in the coastal jungle of Ecuador a few years ago. This family had very little in the way of financial resources, but as they lived largely outside the monetary system this was mostly irrelevant. In fact they grew or raised nearly everything they needed, and didn't seem to be unhappy or suffering. This experience probably above all others has forced me to reevaluate my understanding of poverty. It is not simply lacking finances - although often a lack of finances is one of the more obvious consequences of poverty. So for sake of argument lets say that Poverty is where many of the above factors (and possibly others I haven't listed) are present to a significant degree, and that it is a kind of sliding scale where you can draw arbitrary lines below which someone is defined as 'poor'. I won't get into discussion here of exactly how these multiple factors get added into the mix.
Now we have a working understanding of what poverty is, we can ask "why do some people become poor"? I think this boils down to one thing: They don't have the power to reach their full potential. This can be for a number of reasons.
Corruption
In many of the poorer countries there is endemic corruption. At one end of the scale this can be politicians embezzling public funds (or sometimes fleeing the country with the funds), and at the other end local officials demanding bribes, for example to avoid an official fine for a purported minor traffic offence. Corruption generally exists at all levels of society in poor countries. It is very hard to remove because those who benefit from it are generally the ones who have the power to deal with it, but not the will.
Economic clout of wealthy nations
It cannot be denied that the nations of North America and Europe (among others) benefit greatly by have cheap sources of primary goods in the third world. However this is not by pure coincidence. Problems of third world debt could be removed at a stroke if wealthy nation governments wanted too. However that would have the effect of giving more economic power to the poorer nations - they could demand higher prices for the goods they provide, and the balance of economic power would tip a little more in their favour.
Economic clout of large multinationals
Here in Britain there is a standing joke - "Why is there only one monopolies and mergers commision?". For those of you from elsewhere in the world, the monopolies and mergers commission exists to prevent overly powerful companies from merging and forming de facto monopolies in their field. By and large this works well, although it is not a total solution to the problems of monopoly. But in many parts of the world, multinationals have no constraints and can buy local companies, form partnerships and impose terms and conditions on their customers or suppliers which lead them to have a de facto monopoly. Companies such as Nestle, Coca Cola and Telefonica have monopolies in supplying their respective products across much of Latin America, for example. This has often come about by taking over their competitors without any constraints to prevent this from happening.
Lack of economic flexibility
This is something I have thought about in detail but struggle to describe succinctly. One aspect of this is flexibility of labour, both from the point of view of employers (who may want to recruit or lay off large numbers to cater for changes in their markets) and employees, who may wish to work longer hours in order to pay, for example, for a new house. If there is only one type of work contract available which is a 38 hour week Monday to Friday, then no-one is able to work extra hours to earn more. On the other hand if there is a high availability of well-paid, flexible work then people can easily accommodate short term financial needs by working extra hours.
Another aspect of this is 'flexibility of spending'. For example if there is only one type of house available in a city at a more or less fixed price, you are unable to save money by moving somewhere cheaper. Likewise a lack of choice can constrain our other spending habits. But if we are able to move somewhere cheaper and buy cheaper food of a lower quality, again we have the flexibility to accommodate short term financial needs.
Both of these types of flexibility are built in to the way society works to varying degrees, and a more flexible society is less likely to have people really suffering because they are unable to pay their bills - it offers them more options that can help them in their needs.
What are not causes of poverty
This is my most controversial statement here - Natural disasters do not cause poverty. Now before you accuse me of being insensitive, I am not denying that much suffering results from natural disasters such as the recent Tsunami in Asia, or from many earthquakes that have destroyed entire cities. But have a think about where these disasters don't happen. California and Japan, for example are in very earthquake-prone areas of the world. But because they are wealthy areas, they are able to use technology to mitigate the effects. Buildings are all built to resist earthquakes, so what would be a natural disaster ends up causing very few major problems. If Thailand, Sri Lank and Indonesia had a suitable tsunami warning system in place, much of the suffering from the tsunami could have been avoided. the fact remains that wealthy nations are able to either mitigate the effects of, or recover rapidly from natural disasters. Where suffering does occur, public funds are usually available to deal with the issues such that poverty does not occur among those affected. This certainly cannot be said for what happens in poorer nations.
Lack of natural resources
Historically, towns and cities have grown up on rivers, near the sea, on fertile land or near mineral resources. However there are many megacities in the world which have vastly outgrown the resources that led to their creation in the first place. Through man's ingenuity these cities are able to import all they need, and still be economically strong.
To sum up, I believe the issues surrounding poverty are much more complicated than most people realise. I hope by writing this, you as my readers will be able to understand a bit more about it, and maybe will take action accordingly. you could write to your government representatives to persuade them to drop a bad policy, or maybe stop buying products from an abusive company. Even better, you could pass this knowledge and understanding onto someone else who may be motivated to act accordingly.
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