Meeting 2008-03-12

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Contents

Information

  • Date: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
  • Time: 8:30PM
  • Place: Torgerson 3180

News

New campaign formed to help end software patents

A new coalition of patent reform organizations had formed and are launching a campaign to end software patents. It consist of the Free Software Foundation, the Public Patent Foundation, and the Software Freedom Law Center. The campaign aims to educate people about the dangers of software patents, as well as to help companies challenge software patents in court.

Neil Gaiman puts American Gods online for free

Neil Gaiman's bestselling novel American Gods has just been put online by the publisher for download free of charge. The publisher is running a one month trial to test how the book's online presence will affect sales of physical copies. Gaiman's blog says that if the trial is successful, and more books are sold, then they may either put up another book or permanently give away the book electronically.

Disclaimer: I've never read or even heard of this book before, so don't ask me about this entry. I just saw it on Slashdot and figured it related to free culture in some small way. --Matt 05:23, 1 March 2008 (JST)

NiN follows Radiohead in offering their album online for free, is very successful

Following the success of Radiohead's 2007 album In Rainbows, NiN's Trent Reznor has decided to make the band's new album, Ghosts I - IV (Ghosts Volumes One though Four) available online for free on the official site. NiN's digital experiment will consist of several bundle options. The first 9 tracks are being released online in high-quality MP3 formats free of charge, along with a digital PDF booklet and several extras. The $5 bundle contains the rest of the album as well and offers the choice of either 320 kbps MP3, FLAC, or Apple Lossless. The $10 option comes with two audio CDs, the $75 option comes with a data DVD with WAVs for remixing as well as a Blu-Ray stereo mix and slideshow, and the $300 autographed Limited Edition offers all of this plus vinyl LPs. The album has also been licensed to Sony BMG for sale in traditional retial stores, so this isn't a complete departure from the major labels. Reportedly the experiment has been very successful; the Limited Edition sold out after only one day and Reznor made $750,000 from that option alone.

PS: TECH.BLORGE is also reporting in their updated article that Ghosts I - IV is released under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike license.

AOL opens up their AIM service to third-party developers

AOL, traditionally keeping almost everything about their prized AIM service under closed doors and requiring third-party clients like the online Meebo or the free alternative Pidgin to use reverse-engineering, has decided to launch Open AIM, a new service to provide uninhibited access to AIM's OSCAR protocol and other features of the AIM service.

"Compilation" section of the PRO-IP Act removed

The PRO-IP Act, an attempt to make serious changes to the existing copyright laws, has just had its controversial "compilation" section removed. Under current law, if someone is caught infringing upon a compilation of works, then the compilation in question is treated as an infringement of a single work. The PRO-IP Act would change the law so that an infringer could be charged with infringement of each individual work in the compilation, potentially raising the maximum statutory damage that can be sought from $150,000 to millions of dollars. Digital rights groups have voiced that this could cause legitimate businesses to fear using copyrighted works in compilations, as any licensing mishaps could now cause the company in question to go out of business if it were to be sued. After several hearings on the issue, Representative Howard Berman has agreed to remove the section from the PRO-IP Act. However, the PRO-IP Act still contains provisions for punishment for "attempted infringement" and the creation of a new government office to deal with infringements, complete with the authority to seize the equipment of any suspected infringer.

Peach premiere scheduled for April 10th

Peach

It's late, but what project releases on time?

Apricot gets Claire Fitch

She has her own company fitchsounds. Fitchsounds was established (2001) to provide quality interactive audio for a wide range of projects. Claire Fitch has written music for games, film, television, corporate video, animation, elearning projects and provided bespoke cello recordings for many pop tracks, film cues and advertising slots.

Since January 1995 Claire has worked with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and has performed on stage and in the studio with artists such as U2, Kate Bush, The Corrs, Shania Twain, Riverdance, Elmer Bernstein and Michael Crawford. As a recording artist she has also contributed to various film soundtracks, such as The Tailor of Panama, The Tie That Binds, The Boxer, Some Mothers’ Son, War Of The Buttons, Thumbelina and Lassie.

Apricot

What an excellent resume. --Conley 01:39, 11 March 2008 (JST)

Negroponte seeks CEO for OLPC

Business Week

Netzpolitik interviews Doctorow (in English)

Netzpolitik.

$200 linux machines discontinued at Walmart

Slashdot summary: The $200 Linux PCs discussed earlier last year have been discontinued for sale at Wal-Mart's physical locations, though they will remain for sale at walmart.com. All this despite the systems repeatedly selling out. From the article, 'Paul Kim, brand manager for Everex, said selling the gPC online was "significantly more effective" than selling it in stores.'

Canadian Press

RIAA Tells Ars We're Not Hypocrites

Ars accused the RIAA of hypocrisy for wanting to pay songwriters a percentage when it asks for a fixed sum from web casters and their ilk. This is particularly bothersome because currently profits are on the downfall. The RIAA in turn points out to Ars that they asked for a a percentage system with a minimum. Ars in turn notes that RIAA wanted 30% (this is 4 times what the satellite radio companies pay), or a per track fee, whichever is a greater.

"Now you know; it wasn't about hypocrisy, but one of the seven deadly sins may still have been involved." -- Ars Technica

SFFC @ VT blog

As you all know, Conley does a terrible job at keeping up the blog. Would someone willing to contribute like to be given administrative privileges?

SFFC SFTP dropbox

Another responsibility...

Stallman's Speech

Info

  • 8:00 PM
  • Tuesday, March 25
  • Torgerson 2150

Advertising

We need to get on the ball with advertising.

Here's a link to the flyers.

Two issues in the bio: MacArthur is one word and there's an extra the on the third-to-last line. Cov
Fixed --Conley 12:14, 12 March 2008 (EDT)
I've also added attribution for XKCD...are there any more problems? --Conley 12:59, 12 March 2008 (EDT)
You guys just love the Purisa font, don't you? --Matt 01:21, 12 March 2008 (EDT)
I vectorized the XKCD images. I'd replace the raster graphics in the flyers with them but I'll need an editable file, preferably in ODF, before I can do that. Or I could just send you the SVGs. Whatever. --Matt 01:30, 12 March 2008 (EDT)
Never mind. I just noticed that your images are in fact vectorized. They just looked a little blurry. --Matt 05:43, 12 March 2008 (EDT)

Recruit the help of:

I've uploaded odts in case someone wants to make the pictures look nicer. I don't really feel like spending any more time on this. --Conley 13:14, 12 March 2008 (EDT)
So how did you make ODF files out of a PDF without the source? --Matt 23:51, 12 March 2008 (EDT)
They were originally ODFs. --Conley 08:11, 13 March 2008 (EDT)
Actually we really need to plug our club on this thing...--Conley 13:17, 12 March 2008 (EDT)
  • VTLUUG (Check this thread in their forums)
  • ACM
  • CS dept
  • ENGE dept

We also need to contact the CT to advertise.

Getting announced on the engineering listserv would be nice (maybe that's what's meant by recruiting the help of the CS department?). I'm going to write my professors and see what I can do about addressing my freshmen peers during the massive ENGE 1104 and ECE 1574 lectures. When might be best time to make the announcement? The day before so they don't forget? Maybe the ECE 1574 lab on Thursday evening given that the lecture is at 8:00 AM and many overworked freshmen engineers have a tendency to prefer sleeping in at such an hour ;). Don't forget word of mouth! Tell all your friends. I've made a Facebook group for FC@VT and an event for RMS's speech. Cov 00:49, 12 March 2008 (EDT)

This chapter already has a Facebook group. Great job otherwise. --Matt 03:40, 12 March 2008 (EDT)

Arrangements

VTU Movie Night

So.

Nine days till the showing of His Girl Friday.   We've got a ton of fliers; anyone have any suggestions as to where to put them?    Also, since we need to have chosen the next movie by a week before the showing of this one, that means we pretty much need to choose now.   I think everyone should represent a possible film choice and wrestle to see which we pick.

But I'm up for other suggestions.

T-shirts

Prices

Price quotes for 25 white-T-shirts, single sided:

Blacksburg 

T-shirt Factory: 
 221.25 (8.85 x 25) (two colors)
University Sportwear:
 Number Disconnected
Exper-T's:
 213.75 (8.55 x 25) (one color)
 242.50 (9.70 x 25) (two colors)

Christiansburg 

KillaTee
 213.75 (8.55 x 25)

Internet Alternatives 

CafePress
 Shirts:   227.25 (9.09 x 25)
 Shipping: 16.60
 Total:    243.85
UberPrints
 Shirts:   161.00 (6.44 x 25)
 Shipping: 0.00
 Total:    161.00
SpreadShirt
 Shirts:   234.00 (9.36 x 25)  (with discount)
 Shipping: 0.00
 Total:    234.00

Or...Make our own

(written with Dvorak!)

Yay for dvorak! --Conley 23:26, 11 March 2008 (JST)

Faf urp "<>PYF! --Matt 11:45, 11 March 2008 (EDT)
G kjglv lske (Don't you type *everything* in Dvorak?) --Sarah 18:37, 12 March 2008 (EDT)

Design

Does someone want to crank out a design? If you want to create a design, please have it ready for the meeting so we can discuss it.

FC@VT entertainment archive

What do you all say to creating a repository of high quality free entertainment, in free formats?

I say: What's going in it and where will it be located? Matt 11:07, 11 March 2008 (JST)
I have some webspace with bluehost that we can use. I was thinking that every week, we would vote on albums and movies, and every week, one piece of media would be added. --Conley 23:27, 11 March 2008 (JST)

Year book photo

Do we want to get a yearbook photo?

This is the last chance for Free Culture to get their group photo taken for the 2008 Bugle. Sign up for an appointment for MARCH 18, 2008 4:00PM – 10:30PM in Old Dominion Ballroom for the last session of group photos. This is the only way to guarantee your organization to be in the yearbook. Appointments are every 10 minutes and there are only 28 slots left, so sign up today since last time the slots filled in 2 days.

For more information please go to:

http://www.bugleonline.com/organizations.html

Steal this Film

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

Show and tell

Conley: Met some Ubuntu users in Venezuela

They were both impressed about Stallman coming to Tech. One was a Sun student rep and gave me an open solaris handbook in Spanish. --Conley 04:03, 11 March 2008 (JST)

I remember when I went on vacation in the Caribbean I saw a guy with a GNU t-shirt on our tour of Cozumel, Mexico. I don't remember if he was a native or a tourist. Matt 11:18, 11 March 2008 (JST)

In Venezuela, no one enforces copyright laws.

Conley and Sarah: Sarah bought Conley freebeer.org in London

Free as in Freedom! --Conley 04:03, 11 March 2008 (JST)

Matt's motherboard was replaced with the wrong model

Bad news: My video card's memory has been halved. Can't leave the dual-screen settings in xorg.conf on anymore without severe 3D slowdown.

Good news: Ubuntu finally wakes up from suspend.

I'd still throw a wad of cash at anyone who perfects those free ATI drivers, but I'm wondering whether to even tell the OEM about this. Seems more like a win than a loss. --Matt 03:47, 12 March 2008 (EDT)

Open floor

In the (time) zone

Matt, I have a present for you. Can you figure out what it is? --Conley 11:45, 11 March 2008 (EDT)

Is it this? --> --Matt 11:48, 11 March 2008 (EDT)
Indeed. --Conley 11:58, 11 March 2008 (EDT)

More WRTJ soon?

zeroinfluencer (online alias of a Where are the Joneses producer) has a Where are the Joneses? presentation on Monday for the Open Rights Group.

I follow his twitter --Conley 18:13, 11 March 2008 (EDT)

Stalker --Sarah 18:41, 12 March 2008 (EDT)
Sarah, just use 4 tildes and it puts the name and timestamp down for you. --Conley 19:48, 12 March 2008 (EDT)

Free Film

Check out a list of free films.

Suggestions:

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