Last weekend, the German Pirate Party had their federal party convent and managed to add two amendments out of hundreds of proposals to their agenda. My text about a free democratically controlled technological infrastructure which includes Free Software, Open Standards, no Software Patents, nor DRM was one of the two accepted. More information can be… Continue reading German Pirate Party Adds Free Software to Agenda
Tag: Open Standards
Two systems that should inter-operate need to follow a common standard. A screwdriver that does not fit to the screw is useless. In information technology, manufacturers often create their own standards to lock in customers and to prevent competition. Open Standards can be implemented freely and are not controlled by a single manufacturer.They are essential for society’s access to information and technology.
The following articles touch the subject of Open Standards and are hopefully interesting to you.
Google and Open Video Standards
As some of you might have heard, Google released an experimental player for Youtube that works without Adobe Flash, last Wednesday. While they are “very excited about HTML5 as an open standard” (from the announcement), they surprisingly chose not to offer the content as such and instead serve videos in a patent-encumbered format. As Google… Continue reading Google and Open Video Standards
Microsoft denies certain countries access to its messenger
My recent blog entries were about Skype and about how companies might eventually abuse the power they have over some of our technology. Many of my arguments against Skype also apply to Microsoft’s instant messenger. Now Microsoft gave one more example that this abuse actually happens. Ars technica writes: Microsoft this week decided to turn… Continue reading Microsoft denies certain countries access to its messenger
Brave New Skyping World Revisited
A vigilant reader of my blog challenged my earlier criticism of Skype thoroughly and even though I felt his remarks could have been tempered a bit, here is my thoughtful response. I am very thankful for all of the comments I receive and encourage more people to express their opinions here. It is only when… Continue reading Brave New Skyping World Revisited
Ogg Vorbis and Theora on its way to become a video standard?
The Mozilla Foundation just released native support for the free (as in freedom) audio and video codecs Vorbis and Theora in Firefox. These codecs are possibly the best free codecs existing. Encoding (producing) and decoding (consuming) audio and video files using these codecs is unrestricted by EULAs or license fees for patents. Currently, the largest… Continue reading Ogg Vorbis and Theora on its way to become a video standard?