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Information

Date: Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Time: 8:30PM
Place: Torgerson 3180

News

RIAA training video leaked

A "training video" for US prosecutors by the RIAA - "In Trial" - has been leaked onto torrent trackers. It appears this video predates Napster and P2P, as it talks primarily about "CD piracy." However it's notable for suggesting that CD duplication can lead to bigger crimes like drug dealing and terrorism, and even provides instructions on how to "qualify an RIAA investigator as an expert."

Not surprising considering that this is the RIAA we are talking about. --Matt 15:01, 21 February 2008 (JST)

Adobe pushes DRM flash

From EFF: Now Adobe, which controls Flash and Flash Video, is trying to change that with the introduction of DRM restrictions in version 9 of its Flash Player and version 3 of its Flash Media Server software. Instead of an ordinary web download, these programs can use a proprietary, secret Adobe protocol to talk to each other, encrypting the communication and locking out non-Adobe software players and video tools. We imagine that Adobe has no illusions that this will stop copyright infringement -- any more than dozens of other DRM systems have done so -- but the introduction of encryption does give Adobe and its customers a powerful new legal weapon against competitors and ordinary users through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Anyone else find it suspicious that this happened just before Gnash was ready to become a drop-in replacement? You would think Adobe would learn that this was unnecessary by looking at their PDF format: the presence of free alternatives has not in any way prevented Adobe Reader from being the most popular PDF reader or from Acrobat being the most popular editor/converter. --Matt 10:55, 22 February 2008 (JST)

Puerto Rico Launches localized CC licenses

Creative Commons

SciVee.tv launched

CC by research videos.

SciVee.tv

This thing is stinking awesome...I will be transferring my papers to videos and putting them on here. The only thing is that I disagree with site from a technical standpoint. I think it would be better if it aggregated your research blog, videos, etc, from other sites, and put it into a nice research oriented format. There is really no need for a new blog/video site. --Conley 05:34, 22 February 2008 (JST)

Lessig not running

Lessig.org

:( --Matt 07:40, 26 February 2008 (JST)

ACLU uses CC

The ACLU has dedicated itself to using CC (by-nc-nd), starting with marijuanaconversation.org.

CC blog Marijuana Conversation

Blackboard wins patent lawsuit against competitor Desire2Learn

In 2006, Blackboard Inc. received a patent for the Learning Management System (i.e. "e-learning") and the very same day sued competitor Desire2Learn. Despite a re-examination by the United States Patent and Trademark Office at the request of the Software Freedom Law Center, the court has ruled the initial Desire2Learn suit in Blackboard's favor. Desire2Learn will now have to pay $3.1 million in damages and may be barred from selling their software. Blackboard has pledged not to sue free software projects.

I know it's a long shot, but is there any chance that VT can replace Blackboard with some other solution, preferably a free alternative? --Matt 10:38, 26 February 2008 (JST)

The CS dept uses Moodle sometimes (I rarely see a CS teacher use blackboard, they know better). The problem is, blackboard directly interacts with Banner, our student database, whereas Moodle is set up manually. --Conley 11:05, 26 February 2008 (JST)

How is Moodle? For that matter, are there any regular frustrations that your know of regarding Blackboard from the point of view of the IT staff? --Matt 01:40, 27 February 2008 (JST)

I like Moodle; it doesn't randomly crash as often as blackboard does. You know, on the Tech blackboard page, there is a discussion topic about quizzes whose grades don't show up properly. The last paragraph of discussion says "We have talked with Blackboard about this issue, but they seem to believe that this functionality works as it was designed." ~Sarah

Sarah, you can use 4 tildes to sign comments. --Conley 09:02, 28 February 2008 (JST)

As far as "e-learning" goes, Moodle is the best I've seen. The forums have a lot of functionality, and the setup is more intuitive than in Blackboard. Do you know how in Blackboard profs always screw up whether something goes under assignments, documents or something else? Maybe the CS profs using Moodle are just better about organizing their material, but that mixup rarely happens in Moodle. --Conley 09:06, 28 February 2008 (JST)

Fake Shareaza's lawyers threaten real Sharaza after suggested DoS

Last December Discordia Ltd, the company that made pay services out of iMesh and BearShare, took over the shareaza.com domain from Sharaza and have been offering a similar proprietary client with the Sharaza branding. Many at the Shareaza forums accuse Discordia's proprietary client of using code from the real Shareaza in violation of the GPL. One new poster suggested that people use the authentic client to cause a denial-of-service attack against Discordia. Although the suggestion was apparently not endorsed by the other members, a lawyer from Discordia sent a letter threatening legal action.

Stallman's Speech

8:00 PM
Tuesday, March 25
Torgerson 2150

He is letting us use the XKCD stick figures to advertise (yes!). I will make posters, unless someone else wants to. We will go crazy with advertising after break. --Conley 09:20, 28 February 2008 (JST)

VTU Movie Night

3 things:

First, the VTU needs the fliers tomorrow, so they can get them copied before break. Ashton? What's up?

Second, they also need the signed cosponsorship papers taken to their office tomorrow. I can do that before I leave, if the papers are all signed and everything.

Third, we need to decide on a second movie title by a week before the showing of His Girl Friday.

That's all I've got this week.

~Sarah

The movie is on March 21 7:30-11:00 PM --Matt 11:34, 28 February 2008 (JST)

T-shirts

We mentioned making t-shirts once. Does someone want to volunteer to do this?

Steal this Film

We are going to watch half of Steal this Film part I and discuss.

Watching a copyright documentary in place of the after meeting movies usually gets shot down, so it may be a good idea to watch small portions of them throughout the meetings, as there are several recent ones.

I already have it on my PC so we don't need to download. Of course if someone else already downloaded it, then I don't mind us using their laptop, seeing as I did it last week. --Matt 01:42, 27 February 2008 (JST)

Show and tell

Yashton: OLPC hacking

For Matt, posted some details of my OLPC hacking on my blog --Yashton 15:32, 27 February 2008 (JST)

Thanks. The WLAN on my router is broken so I'm bringing in the XO to the meeting to install stuff. --Matt 07:43, 28 February 2008 (JST)

Conley: Steampunk Magazine

Thanks to Boing Boing, I've discovered Steampunk Magazine. It's CC by-nc-sa. --Conley 23:13, 27 February 2008 (JST)

Conley: Love

Also from Boing Boing, I found Love. There's a nice Rock, Paper, Shotgun article about it. It's a weird game that's coming out that uses a blender-based graphics engine that's licensed under the new BSD. I've contacted Eskil (the lone developer) to see what license he is going to release Love under. He has done a lot of FOSS development, so I'm hoping for good things. --Conley 23:13, 27 February 2008 (JST)

Update: "Probably pay to play. client is freely distributable, but access to servers costs 10 Euro a month or so." I sent another email asking for some more specifics. --Conley 00:16, 28 February 2008 (JST)

Update: "Just gratis i guess, for games you cant release source because people will use it to cheat. However all my tools, and libraries are already available under BSD. Love was a commercial project started to fund a lot of free software development i want to do, and to promote verse and the tools. I think that paying for software is just wrong, but i think paying for a service is ok so i chose to make a pay to play game....I would like to make the game free, but i really need some resources, if it ever gets abandoned or it has payed out it part, i will." :| --Conley 00:51, 28 February 2008 (JST)

That's a poor rationale. Proprietary games are modded all the time, especially FPSs. --Matt 07:46, 28 February 2008 (JST)

Open floor

Something is still wrong with the timestamps. I am typing this comment on Wednesday February 27th 2008 at 5:10 AM UTC for comparison with my timestamp. --Matt 14:10, 27 February 2008 (JST)

The timestamps work perfectly for those of us posting from Kuala Lumpur. Are you not posting from Kuala Lumpur? ~Sarah

Free Film

Check out a list of free films.

Suggestions:

Conley

Meeting 2008-02-27