The first article is Ubuntu is a Poor Standard Bearer for Linux but you need to read the follow up article, How Canonical Can Do Ubuntu Right to get a fair understanding of her position.

Cheers,
-pmh

Knowing the BBC, the following link is likely to disappear after about 7 days. Why? Because BBC policy is to remove podcasts for (some?) shows after a week. Why? Nobody knows… not the fellow who responded on behalf of the BBC to my question and not the thousands of listeners, many of whom pay for the BBC as a public service.

Anyway if these podcasts interest you, get them now!

Peter Day’s World of Business page

Press Under Pressure, part 1

Press Under Pressure, part 2

Sigh,
-pmh

ps: Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to share these legally downloaded podcasts with those who were unfortunate enough to have missed the publication window. These podcasts will self-destruct in 7 days.

No need for links, just search on ‘pubsubhubbub’… all hits will be relevant! -LOL
-pmh

So this is the first time since picking up Tapscott’s Grown Up Digital that the Portable Consultant watched what he was really doing as he searched for interesting content on the Net. He now has a greater appreciation for what’s happening here:

Join the dots…
A friend tells me, via email, about a song their kids like and includes a this link to the Hide and Seek video by Imogen Heap.

Yes, I like the song (actually, I’m struck by similarities to Kate Bush) and check Heap’s Wikipedia entry where…

…I find out that, yes, others have made comparisons to Kate Bush’s style and…

…I go(ogle) to Imogen Heap’s web site where I spot a link to…

…her Twitter page where I see she’s got an online concert tonight!, so I…

…loop back an email with that last link to my friend suggesting that they might want to catch the concert too.

But then, since I’m liking the music and I now know she’s got a new album out…

…I check out First Train Home, one of Imogen’s other videos on YouTube and,…

…in the YouTube page’s Video Responses list, I spot an acoustic cover by Anne Legras, who, yes, blows me away so I check out Anne’s YouTube channel, too and…

…loop back again to my friend with a link to another Legras’ YouTube video of L’encre de tes Yeux, a song that almost immediately became one of my favourite songs of all time!

Alright. This, of course, is exactly what everyone under 30 (and many under 40′s) are doing with music. No surprise.

Shining the spotlight…
I have to smile when I hear Roger Faxon, head of EMI, interviewed on a podcast by The Economist. Mr. Faxon takes pains to justify his business’ role in the modern music scene – describing the need for “shining the spotlight” on new performers that deserve to stand out. Explaining why it is necessary for his business to choose the hits Faxon says: “There’s this sort of view of the world that the Internet is this huge democracy and everybody gets to vote. Most people don’t want to vote.”

Nothing new there either, right? There are whole political parties that base their campaigns on that premise. Why shouldn’t those of us who enjoy popular music just follow along as well.

Who makes the choices now?
Still, I can’t help feeling that unless Big Music adapts itself to the world of social networking their business model is doomed. We are now in an environment where a personal search for the music of Imogen Heap (who is, by the way, an indie artist) can uncover a Parisian metro busker with “undiscovered” talent. Now that such undiscovered performers have the capability to make and sell their CD or mp3 directly to me, why in this world wouldn’t I vote for what I want to hear? It’s all about who makes the choices, now.

All the best for your future success, Anne. I’ll be pointing my friends in your direction.

Cheers!

-pmh

Let’s be clear: if your property can be altered, recalled, or reclaimed by the seller without your permission and knowledge you never really owned that property. Home foreclosure and car repossession are other examples that come to mind. The CBC article is right to refer to it as the Amazon Kindle Service – a service may be discontinued at any time.

George Orwell would indeed smile to see Amazon fulfilling his vision of the future – along with such better known examples as MS Windows (Genuine Advantage program and the .NET framework assistant) and locked cell phones.

Yes, there are probably legitimate copyright issues here – but this is no way to run an eBusiness. Bad Amazon… bad, bad!

-pmh

Update:

1. This MSNBC article on the Amazon 1984 scandal has a more humorous (sarcastic?) tone.
2. This Fictionmatters article provides balanced and deeper coverage of the underlying issues. (…but I still say “Bad, Amazon… bad, bad!”)
3. Microsoft has apparently updated its .NET Framework Assistant to allow you to uninstall it from Firefox without the need to edit the Windows registry, locate remove system files, etc.

Update 2, The Apology:

Here’s word on Amazon’s apology but note that “…the apology failed to state that Amazon would not do the same thing again in similar circumstances…”

There are countless ways to do this, and countless web sites to show you how, but what’s striking is the vast array of open source options. Not only Linux OS spin-offs like MythTV and Mythbuntu, but what appear to be very smooth products like Elisa and Neuros LINK from Fluendo and Neuros respectively.

These companies are not only using Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS), but many of them are actively inciting FLOSS developers to join their open source development communities to contribute to and hack their products. Neuros, for example, sends interested developers to its developer wiki directly from the same web page that directs customers to online support forums.

After years of denial from commercial software vendors, the FLOSS paradigm of development and support is proving increasingly useful for commercial consumer products.

These media related software & hardware products, and not the home Linux PC, appear to be the arena where the consumer is meeting open source systems for the first time… whether they know it or not.

Cheers,
-pmh

2. a new Nokia N800 Internet Tablet… pocket sized, blazingly fast at connecting to WiFi networks and bluetooth devices, a fine podcatcher and Internet Radio – with a linux terminal interface where I can enter most of the same shell commands I once used to manage big UNIX boxes.

3. a new unlocked Nokia 6300 GSM cell phone… a phone not only capable of going “native” in most countries of the world with local SIM cards, but also the miniature camera I’ve always needed to get those unexpected photos at unexpected times in unexpected places.

The whole, however, is greater than the sum of the parts. Together these devices enhance the capabilities of each other in ways I’m only beginning to appreciate.

I’ll be writing more about how these devices play together in the near future.

Cheers,
-pmh

It’s also yet another nail in the coffin for DRM. Can you hear the chorus of “I told you so!” from the anti-DRM movement?

Hi Ho!
-pmh

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win” -Ghandi

“You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.” -Arlo Guthrie

The Portable Consultant has been silent on recent developments involving Microsoft and Linux. This is not because of lack of interest – I’ve been busy working out my own open source issues primarily upgrades to this blog site and my company site – but because it is being so fully covered elsewhere (and especially here, and here).

It seem that Microsoft has finally realized that open source is more than Linux or OpenOffice… it is, in the immortal lyrics of Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant, a movement (“…and all you’ve got to do is sing it next time it comes ’round on the guitar.”)

If there is anything that Microsoft doesn’t want to miss out on, it’s a movement. I mean, that Internet thing really did catch on after all, didn’t it?

Ok, so in Microsoft terms “joining them” means threatening the Linux community and their business clients with FUD in the form of 200+ patents while forging some relationships where they may figure they will have the upper hand. Novell, Xandros, and Linspire are not likely to bring down the house that Bill built, right? Ah, but will MS enter into an similar open source agreements with IBM? Hmmm… In any case, a few Linux “partners” may prove useful some day (probably in court).

It’s very early days yet, but I have the feeling that Microsoft may have jumped the shark with respect to Linux. In their own way they are now treating Linux, and all open source, as the popular movement it really is.

All together now… “You can get anything you want…”

Cheers,
-pmh

ps: Apologies to those sensitive readers who abhor boomer references.