__/ [ Mark Kent ] on Wednesday 21 March 2007 12:57 \__
> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>> MIT Faculty and Libraries Refuse DRM; SAE Digital Library Canceled
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>| SAE's DRM technology severely limits use of SAE papers and
>>| imposes unnecessary burdens on readers. With this technology,
>>| users must download a DRM plugin, Adobe?s "FileOpen," in order
>>| to read SAE papers. This plugin limits use to on-screen viewing
>>| and making a single printed copy, and does not work on Linux
>>| or Unix platforms.
>> `----
>>
>>
http://news-libraries.mit.edu/blog/archives/category/subject-areas/engineering/
>>
>
> This is a very good analysis of the whole DRM space, since it considers
> all the issues from trying to make a particular resource scarce in order
> to charge more money for it (ie., restricting access to papers) through
> the status of SAE as a /not for profit/, ending up at the ethos of
> scientific research and how it should be progressing forward.
>
> Personally, I would very much like to encourage the ITU to publish all its
> recommendations in HTML online and PDF to download. There is a wealth of
> work which has gone on over many many years in improving the understanding
> of how networks operate, how to maintain and provision and plan them,
> and how economic arrangementments between carriers can be conducted.
> This work is that of thousands of people over several decades (myself
> being one of those people), and it seems to be a crime to restrict it
> to a few who can afford the required payments, when the documents were
> written in the main to encourage a standard practice.
>
> In fact, I wonder if we should start a campaign to free up all works of
> standardisation bodies of all kinds for open publication, although I
> appreciate that trade bodies might have a case for keeping their own
> secrets.
>
> It would be fantastic to get all of the world's libraries available
> online - if nothing else, the storage of works in multiple locations
> should prevent another disaster like the destruction of the library at
> Alexandria from occuring and reverberating through the ages.
>
> Think of the global market in selling XO computers to everyone in order
> to access this wealth of information?
What I actually thought about when reading this is the effect on research.
You read a paper on which you base your work and a few years later, using a
different computer, you are unable to view this paper again (or forced to
pay for it again). DRM is about /loss/ and expiry of information. Science is
about accumulating wealth of information and gaining rapid access to it. The
whole idea is moronic, not just badly implemented. Do people want to impede
progress in favour of financial benefits that are a nuisance to all? A
scenario of unnecessary chores is in fact quite similar to the security
problems that Windows introduced. An entire indutry (also the criminal
indutry) is nowadays occupied with problems that should never have existed
in the first place. It's like nuke wars. Nobody wins.
--
~~ Best wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | Useless fact: sheep outnumber people in NZ
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