My first computing experience was on the family computer, a 386 running Windows 3.1 in my parents’ den. It was truly a family computer—my parents used it for work, and the kids used it for games. A few years later, my parents moved to IBM ThinkPads with Windows 95 (vehicles for my first Internet experiences, dialing into chat rooms to talk about my dog with strangers… I was 9!), but the kids’ computer was still the shared desktop. When the 386 was no longer able to run our games, it was replaced with a new Windows 98 desktop. That shared kids’ computer spent most of its life out in the open, in our family room.

In the next five years, our home computing landscape changed drastically. I got my own desktop when I started high school in 2001. A few years later, I acquired a laptop after a summer trip overseas, and my two siblings (3 and 6 years younger) both got recycled older desktops in their rooms for homework. My desktop became the new kids’ computer, but it was quickly phased out as gaming shifted to consoles and my siblings got upgraded machines. By 2005, our computing took place in separate rooms.

But in 2007, I entered the free software world and developed an interest in bringing old neglected Windows machines back to life with GNU/Linux. I bought a TV tuner card, and turned my old Windows 98 desktop into a MythTV server (among other things). It was an odd project, since I rarely watch TV, but soon enough I had another old computer connected to my MythTV server and setup on the big screen TV in our family room

I soon realized that we didn’t just have a new way of watching TV, but a fully-featured PC hooked up to a giant screen. With a couch and a wireless keyboard, I began using it to browse the web and consume other forms of media (especially useful when we had company!) and even used it for some work (handy for group projects!). It provided a stark contrast to the tethered appliance computers nearby—an XBOX 360 and a Rogers HD PVR (which broke!).

I don’t want any proprietary tethered appliances when I move out. I want a general purpose computer that opens up to the room—not a personal computer that family members take turns using, or a TV that people just watch, but a group computer that brings other people into the computing experience.

With a general purpose computer, I can specialize with software (MythTV for television channels, Firefox for web content, etc.). MythTV is cool, but video is moving from TV to the web—why not focus on that? I don’t know of a real group user interface for general purpose operating systems yet (i.e. like on video game consoles), but a big display goes a long way to involving a room in the meantime. I’m also fascinated to think about how handheld devices fit into the picture, with large tablets for media consumption or smaller tablets as controllers.

A TV is just a big screen. I’d rather have a computer I can own, control and create with hooked up to it, instead of the black box proprietary tethered appliances that commonly broadcast into a room. I don’t want a “home entertainment system;” I want a shared computing experience.

Is there a name for this? I’ve been calling it “family room computing”—or just “room computing”—but suggestions are welcome. I’m just getting some rough thoughts out. What do you think family room computing could look like, with computer users in charge?

ps that original family room computer? It’s still semi-set up in our basement—I installed Debian on it a few years ago to give Fluxbox a try!

Just hours before the iPad announcement yesterday, I wrote the following:

When we think of mobile computers as merely “phones,” we tolerate restrictions that we would otherwise reject on our computers. How many iPhone users would come to Apple’s defence if they instituted the same strict policies and arbitrary limitations on third-party applications for a Macbook as they do on their mobile computer?

The iPad is a general purpose computer with precisely those restrictions.

Today, Apple launched a computer that will never belong to its owner… By making a computer where every application is under total, centralized control, Apple is endangering freedom to increase profits… Their record of App Store rejections and removals gives us no reason to trust them. The iPad’s unprecedented use of DRM to control all capabilities of a general purpose computer is a dangerous step backward for computing and for media distribution.

Talk about lockdown. I’m still waiting for them to ban third-party apps on Macbooks that haven’t been approved through the app store. The Vista bodyguard may be annoying, but with new Apple products, there’s simply no “allow” button. Apple has become what it sought to destroy.

It’s worth quoting the rest of that paragraph from yesterday’s blog post:

Recognizing that these devices are really mobile computers is an essential step to gaining control over our mobile computing. Carriers and handset makers control our phones. We should control our own computers.

The same goes for tablets (and for “TVs” for that matter). Say no to computers that can’t be ours.

People keep asking me about my new “cell phone,” but the Nokia N900 isn’t a phone. It’s a handheld, mobile computer. Calling it a phone is like calling a house a bed—sleeping is just one thing you do inside a house.

I became interested in the Nokia N900 in the fall, and after a several good reviews, I ordered one off eBay earlier this month. The N900 is the first from a series of Nokia Internet tablets to have cellular capabilities, but the SIM card doesn’t overshadow all the other things you can do with the device—it just frees you to connect to the Internet on the go. The day after it arrived, I signed up with WIND Mobile (another contributing factor to the purchase: leaving Rogers). The combination of a powerful mobile computer, and unlimited 3G data for just $35/month has changed the way I use the Internet.

Yes, it can handle phone calls and SMS messages, but it’s totally arbitrary that a call is a cellular call as opposed to over Google Talk or SIP / VOIP, or that a message is SMS rather than IM; the same applications are used in either case. I can use it as a cell phone, but I can also use it as an Internet tablet, GPS, digital audio player, camera, etc.

Maemo, the operating system that comes installed on the N900, is a fully-featured GNU/Linux distribution. Android shares a common (ish) kernel with other Linux-based distributions, but Maemo has much more in common with the operating system running on my laptop. It uses the same system for finding and installing new software, and it has a lot of the same applications available, since it’s easier to port from other GNU/Linux distributions. Rather than forcing developers to write Java “apps,” Maemo makes a variety of common development environments available. Thus, it’s the first platform to see a Firefox mobile release.

It’s a computer, not a phone. And it’s not just semantics. When we think of mobile computers as merely “phones,” we tolerate restrictions that we would otherwise reject on our computers. How many iPhone users would come to Apple’s defence if they instituted the same strict policies and arbitrary limitations on third-party applications for a Macbook as they do on their mobile computer? (Update: I spoke literally hours too soon.) Recognizing that these devices are really mobile computers is an essential step to gaining control over our mobile computing. Carriers and handset makers control our phones. We should control our own computers.

Google has tried to replace the term “smartphone” with it’s own buzzword — “superphone” — but it’s not just the “smart” part that’s become inadequate. It doesn’t make sense to call these devices “cell phones” anymore than it would make sense to call the buildings we live in “beds.” I have a handheld computer, and my carrier is my ISP.

ps I wrote and edited this post on my N900 using MaStory

It’s just that I’m so incredibly excited and energized right now. I’m starting to move on a variety of really cool projects and endeavours.

A little over a year ago, I claimed I was about to “up the diversity” on this blog. Better late than never. Here’s me committing to actually begin talking about a Catholic case for free culture. I have been giving it a lot of thought and making lots of notes, but I just need to get over the urge to write an essay instead of blog post so that I can start getting the ideas out.

The other theme I hope to explore in depth is the full potential of a true free culture approach to transform music. I’ve had some fascinating conversations with Nathan Simpson, Roman Verzub, Matt York and Josh Newman, and I’ve been putting the pieces in place at blaise.ca/music to start turning some of these ideas into action. I plan to expand on this at length in future posts.

I feel like these two ideas will be prominent themes in much of what I do in the next few years, and beyond.

Then, there’s the work I’ve been doing on the Drupal Creative Commons module and, more recently, the new Creative Commons Canada website (hope to have something to show soon…), among many of the other cool things I get to do through Alleyne Inc. My band is showing signs of life again, and I’ve been gigging on violin. I’ve also been part of a great team with the University of Toronto Students for Life, and I’ll be putting on another pops concert with the Hart House Chamber Strings in February. The day after that, I’m headed to Philadelphia for a week-long immersion course with one of the leading scholars on the Theology of the Body.

Oh, and I’m getting married next summer.

I’m hitting the release candidate stage for version 1.0 of my life. And there are a lot of things I’m going to create.

A month later, he wrote a post arguing that open clouds are more important than open phones. Astoundingly, he points to Bradley Kuhn’s post on the lack of a truly free mobile operating system as evidence that software freedom types are focused on the wrong things. Except… as Bradley points out in the comments:

Matt, I find it troubling that you would fail to mention that I’ve historically written and spoken *much* more about software freedom in the “Cloud” than I have about freedom in mobile space. In fact, I and my colleagues at autonomo.us were well along looking at the issue of “Freedom 2.0″ long before we started dealing with the freedom issues in the mobile phone space.

Indeed, for my part, my blog post you quote is exactly the first time I’ve talked publicly about software freedom on mobile phone platforms. Meanwhile, if you had done any research, you’d have found me speaking and writing about freedom in the Cloud going back to at least November 2007 (and even further if you consider the work I did with Henry Poole and Eben Moglen on the AGPLv1 in early 2002).

Matt Asay, caught up in open source pragmatism, is way behind the free software crowd. How can you mention an “open cloud” without talking about autonomo.us? And projects like Identi.ca/StatusNet and Libre.fm? This is the future of free networked services. Once again, free software advocates are leading the way. In five or ten years, I suppose open source folks like Matt Asay will arrive just in time declare the free software pioneers irrelevant again.

“Open source” in the “cloud” is about more than just infrastructure. Yes, software freedom is about more than source code, but source code is the foundation of software freedom. If you control the software, things like data portability and federated services come much more naturally. The open source movement won’t understand that until the free software movement makes it manifestly obvious — but don’t expect a thank you.

Free Doesn’t Mean Devalued:

The concept of zero took ages for societies to recognize, let alone understand. Mike has explained before how it’s been a stumbling block in economics for some libertarian and “free market” types more recently. People who think about economics in terms of scarcity get upset when abundance pushes price down towards zero, as if the economic equation were broken. But if you flip the equation and think of it as a cost of zero, you realize that the trick is to use as much of those abundant goods as possible, adding value to complementary scarcities for which you can charge. Zero doesn’t break economics, it just requires a different approach.

But artists and other creators hit a different stumbling block than libertarians (libertarian artists aside…). Zero is a problem because they feel like their art is worthless; they aren’t hung up on scarcity, they’re hung up on “devaluation.” We’ve heard it from journalists. I hear it most often from fellow songwriters. The economic theory makes them feel as though their work is just viewed as some sort of cheap commodity. The thing is, value and price are not the same. Price is monetary value, but value is so much more than money. Price is what gets driven down to marginal cost, but value factors into the demand side of the equation. Expensive things aren’t necessarily valuable, and valuable things aren’t necessarily expensive. I value oxygen a lot, but it seems silly to pay for the air I breathe each minute, given the abundant supply.

More importantly, songwriters who get hung up on “devaluation” confuse recordings with music. They equate the two. A recording is not the song, it’s just an instance of it, and a digital audio file is just an instance of the recording. Equating these reduces music to recordings to files. As important as recordings are, there’s so much more to music. When you think of a song, do you think of the recording, or a memory you had connecting with the music? Do you think of the file and how much it cost, or the emotions, people and experiences that the music conjures up? The recordings are just a means through which we experience the music. Songwriters (of all people!) should know that the value in music is so much more than the price of a recording. It’s not devaluing music to give it away for free, but it can increase its value by allowing more people to connect with it, to know, love and understand it — to value it. It’s through that experience that music is valued, not price!

Ironically, the underlying concern ends up being economic — how will we make money? A price of zero for digital audio files doesn’t mean that no one values the songwriting profession, or that no one is willing to spend money on music and keep songwriters in business. Sharing digital audio files makes the music more valuable and leads to more opportunities for monetization. When you give music away and connect with an audience, the opportunity for monetization is in the associated scarcities — access, containers, community, merchandise, relationships, unique goods, the creation of new music, etc. — by giving people a reason to buy. Getting hung up on “devaluation” is a distraction from the opportunity — the necessity — to experiment with new business models.

So, can we please stop complaining that free means devalued?

Check out the lively discussion in the comments. Also, usually I’m pretty obsessive with backlinks, but somehow I missed an obvious post worth a link: Free Doesn’t Mean Unpaid

Mike Masnick questions the word “balance” in the copyright debate:

I’ve long thought that balance is the wrong way to look at it. The purpose of copyright law is to incentivize the creation of new content, and thus the standard on which copyright law should be judged is one where the [benefits of the] creation of content is maximized. As such, there shouldn’t be a question of balance, because the ideal situation where content is maximized should make everyone better off. Talking about balance is figuring out how both sides should compromise to meet in the middle. Talking about maximizing content creation, on the other hand, is talking about ways to improve the marketplace of options for everyone.

He links to a paper by Abraham Drassinower of the U of T Law School arguing that balance is the wrong way to view copyright policy. “Balance” as a concept in copyright suggests that the law is designed to reward a content creator for their labour (the “sweat of the brow” argument), Drassinower argues, though Masnick has to tease out the main point: “Balance” falsely implies that this is a zero sum game, when “the goal of copyright should be maximizing the [benefits of the] creation of content overall, such that everyone is better off.”

I’m sold. I tried to use this point at the Toronto Copyright Townhall and in my submission to the consultation.

But, if not balance, then what?

Words like “balance” are used often to make sure that the interests of the public aren’t forgotten in the face of copyright holders’ interests. I strongly support the group, Fair Copyright for Canada, but “fair” has similar problems to “balance.” What words might serve to include the public interest without suggesting a zero sum game? Mike described it as “maximizing [the benefits of] content creation,” but that seems more useful in explanation than at the sound bite stage.

What about “calibrate?” I notice that Mike used the word in a subsequent post on why morality isn’t relevant in copyright: “A properly calibrated system is one where there’s the greatest overall economic good and everyone has the greatest opportunity to benefit” (strongly related — if it’s an economic question rather than a moral one, rights holders interests are not necessarily opposed to the public interest). “Calibrate” seems like the most accurate word. It doesn’t directly conjure up the notion of the public interest, but it does so indirectly by suggesting an approach that’s about more than “protection.” But it’s too technical for a mainstream audience.

Is there a more accessible synonym for “calibrate?” Optimize? It works, but “optimizing copyright law” seems a bit too vague, and doesn’t really capture the non-zero sum game and the public interest. Thesaurus.com doesn’t help much either.

So what else? I’m not sure. I like “calibrate,” but it won’t work with all audiences. “Optimize” is nice to use in passing to reinforce the point, but it doesn’t introduce it. “Balance” and “fair” are still useful for drawing attention to the interests beyond that of rights holders, but I won’t offer those terms without a caveat or disclaimer.

Other suggestions?

This comic, like all comics, consists of written and drawn elements. The written element, the story, will be somewhat guided by my hand as the author. Mostly though, it will be the result of zillions and trillions of books, movies, videogames, TV shows, albums, magazines, websites, and other comics entering my brain, being processed and compiled by the unusual factory within, and emerging the other side transformed into what you see here. On the surface it may look like I’m “writing” the comic, in the traditional sense, but I make no effort to hide the fact that I’m really just manipulating, mutating, repurposing, and reinterpreting the countless stories that have come before mine. Hopefully I can reorganize the impossibly cluttered contents of the Culture Sponge I call a brain into a finished product that is interesting, exciting, fun to read, challenging at times, will make people think, and most importantly, will trick people into thinking that these were all my ideas.

Outstanding. Webcomics, music, writing, even software applications — every creator builds on the works of others. How’s that for recognizing it upfront? (Lest anyone jump on the last line, it’s a joke!)

Now, Pat, how about dropping the “no derivatives” and switching to a Share-Alike licence, like you mentioned?

Copyright matters to me for a variety of reasons. I’m a musician, writer and programming. I was recently a student at the University of Toronto. I’m a consumer, a computer user. In my work and leisure I interact with the Copyright Act in hundreds of ways each day.

Copyright is a set of social relationships, an incentive that the government provides to creators on behalf of the public, for the benefit of all (including creators). Talk about balance can be misleading, if we consider it a zero sum game. In reality, with the right approach to copyright law, everyone should be better off (like any good economic transaction) — creators for having tools available which they can use to earn an income, the public for having more works created.

Copyright isn’t inherently good. It’s not simply, “the more copyright, the better.” The right approach to copyright depends on keeping these broader goals and interests in mind.

Some specific suggestions:

1. Abolish Crown Copyright.

The government doesn’t need to hold copyright on the works it creates. The government already has an incentive to create those works. It’s called an election.

2. Don’t extend copyright any further.

Copyright term should not be extended. There are already legitimate questions as to whether it is too long in many respects now. That’s a discussion and debate for another time. For now, we should commit to not extending it any further.

3. Flexible fair dealing.

Simply adding the words “such as” to the Copyright Act, making the categories of fair dealing non-exhaustive, would be a huge step forward. The Supreme Court has already ruled that fair dealing should be interpreted broadly, and this would allow for things like parody or satire under fair dealing, making the law in tune with how many creators operate in this country already.

4. Technology Neutral Approach.

Don’t ban specific tools or technologies. I use peer-to-peer file sharing technologies to access and distribute materials — both music and software — released under free licences, like the GNU GPL or the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike licence. There are artists and creators who use these technologies to legitimately distribute their works and reach a wider audience (even the CBC has distributed content through BitTorrent). If the record and movie industry had their way, technologies like the VCR would illegal. Clearly, these technologies can prove to be useful to both creators and the public over time, and can create new business opportunities as well.

Any changes to copyright law should focus on the act of infringement, rather than banning tools which may or may not be used to infringe copyright.

5. Any anti-circumvention laws should be tied to actual infringement.

There are plenty of problems with anti-circumvention laws, but if we are going to introduce them in Canada, they must be tied to actual infringement of copyright. Breaking a digital lock for an activity that would otherwise not be considered an infringement of copyright should not be an infringement of copyright. I need to break digital locks to access materials all the time. For example, I’m a GNU/Linux user, and I need to circumvent the digital lock inherent in the DVD format just to watch a movie on my computer.

Don’t ban circumvention tools — there are plenty of legitimate uses, and plenty of uses for them within the realm of fair dealing. Any anti-circumvention restrictions should be tied explicitly to acts of infringement.

6. Don’t implement an ISP levy.

I’m a member of the Songwriters Association of Canada. They do great work for Canadian songwriters. But don’t implement their proposal to “monetize file sharing.” It’s untenable and undesirable on a variety of levels: what if someone doesn’t download unauthorized content? what about movies, poetry, newspapers, and other content that’s shared online? how would money be distributed fairly (the internet is much different than radio, with a long tail of artists producing content)?

Plus, artists are already monetizing file sharing. Artists and companies are doing it right now. Canadian songwriter and musician Brad Turcotte, for example, uses the promotion he gets through Frostwire (a peer-to-peer file sharing application) to connect with fans, grow his audience so that he can book shows and sell merchandise.

Also, why would we increase the cost of connecting to the internet in a country that already suffers from limited broadband competition, and when broadband penetration is another important technological concern?

7. Don’t extend the levy to digital audio players.

Many creator groups have called for the levy to be extended to digital audio players. That would be a huge mistake, and it would be in direct contradiction to “withstanding the test of time.”

For example, the proposed levy on digital audio players in 2002 was $21/GB. That would make a levy on an 120 GB iPod today $2520! Certainly, the Canadian Private Copying Collective could lower the cost over time, but that would likely be in reaction to an increased absurdity. Adding a levy on digital audio players would discourage investment in that sort of technology in Canada, and inhibit the ability of Canadian creators to offer new business models (if it’s less affordable for Canadian consumers to acquire digital audio players, how are Canadian artists supposed to implement digital business models?).

Also, the digital audio player space is rapidly converging with other areas of computing. With Android devices and iPhones, the distinction between digital audio players and cell phones is quickly becoming a thing of the past, and netbooks and tablet computers are rapidly blurring the lines between mobile and laptop computing. To imposed a levy on “digital audio players” — whatever that will include 5 years from now — would be extremely short-sighted from the perspective of encouraging innovation and investment in new technologies in Canada, and all the new business opportunities which can be had from their widespread adoption.

8. Don’t legislate business models.

On that note, as a broader point, the Copyright Act should not legislate specific business models. Copyright can provide tools for creators to build a business model on, but, for example, in the area of music, much success in the digital environment has been had by ignoring rights granted by copyright (e.g. letting fans distribute music or remix it), rather than following the route copyright law would suggest (e.g. excluding others from those rights).

In order to foster innovation and creativity, the Copyright Act must not stand as a barrier to new ways of doing business and to new business models in the digital era. We don’t yet know what sort of system will support artists going forward. Rather than trying to build one into the law, the law should enabled creators and entrepreneurs to experiment with new business models suited for a digital environment — whether that means providing tools, or simply getting out of the way. A copyright law that is too prescriptive, with too many restrictions and too many assumptions about a particular business model (e.g. selling copies) runs the risk of impeding innovative business models that may take a different approach.

This past year was my last at the University of Toronto, making this summer my last chance to participate in the Google Summer of Code. I searched hard for a project and mentor organization that would suit my interests, and when I noticed that the Creative Commons Drupal module was in need of some developer love, I knew exactly what I wanted to spend my summer doing. With John Doig as my CC mentor, and Kevin Reynen (the module’s maintainer and initial author) as an unofficial Drupal mentor, I’ve been privileged to have spent the past few months updating and extending the module.

A couple years ago, development for Drupal 4.7 was begun, but it was never quite completed. CC Lite came to be the reliable choice for Drupal 6. However, CC Lite’s scope is limited — it allows you to attach a license to content in Drupal, but that’s about it. The main CC module’s vision is broader — to fully integrate CC technology with the Drupal platform — and I hope I’ve helped to realize that just a little.

Some of the module’s features:

• it uses the CC API for license selection and information (so, for example, when new license versions are released, they become available on your Drupal site automatically)
• you can set a site-wide default license/jurisdictoin, and user’s can set their own default license/jurisdiction
• ccREL metadata is supported, output in RDFa (and, optionally, RDF/XML for legacy systems)
• supports CC0, along with the 6 standard licenses and the Public Domain Certification tool
• you can control which licenses and metadata fields are available to users
• basic support for the Views API has been added (including a default /creativecommons view)
• there’s a CC site search option

The module is still listed as a beta release, as some folks have been submitting bug fixes and patches over the past few weeks, though it’s quite usable. Special thanks to Turadg Aleahmad, who’s helped with a lot of the recent bug fixes towards the end of the GSoC term, and committed to being active in future development. If you’re into Drupal development, we could use help with testing, and any translations would be greatly appreciated too.

Right now, the focus is on getting to a stable release, but we’ve got lots of ideas for the future too. Thanks to John and Kevin for their support through the summer, and to Turadg for his recent help. I look forward to seeing the module put to good use!

Check it out!