Reflections on DigiCiv

It's been one crazy semester, but that's college for you. Lucky for me, it was my last full semester! Ok, I do have one class to take this spring, and I may end up doing grad school part-time while I work at Apple (Stanford, please let me in?), but the end of balancing a hectic load of five or more classes, work, and home life is at an end. Whew! So time to review how I have met the five learning outcomes for Digital Civilization this semester:

History

The 19th Century, Participation, and Me
Old News
Beethoven vs. Lil Wayne
Revolutions
Notes on Marx
More Marx: The Communist Manifesto

Picking my top blog posts for each section was difficult considering this is my 30th blog post for this class and I really strived to take a strong stance with each post. In the end, these are the best posts that highlight my historical learnings from this class. I started out strong with an introductory blog post discussing the 19th century and the digital concept of participation. Ariel actually gave a shout-out to my post as a great example of an introductory blog post. A class discussion on Copernicus led me to linking his "discovery" to the Book of Mormon. I compared Beethoven and Lil Wayne after a class discussion on music and how it has changed. I talked about past revolutions and modern revolutions. But my absolute favorite was my study on Marx. I really tried to dive in on Karl Marx and Marxism, and I was fascinated with what I found. There are a lot of things that have a hint of goodness and truth, and a lot of hypocritical things in Marx's life. I could have talked about Marx for days, but I had to try to sum up my most important learnings in two posts.

I had more posts with historical links, but these where the highlights. Connecting history and modern issues is extremely important, for it is crucial that we learn from our past instead of making the same mistakes over and over again, and this class has definitely helped me do that. In fact, pulling historical examples and patterns into discussions on modern topics has become second nature, like comparing the patent stockpiling to the Cold War or the inability of the US government to reform the patent system anytime soon just like it's unable to pay off its national debt anytime soon. Bringing in historical examples gives so much more depth and strength to arguments.

Core Concepts

Steve Jobs
Control: A Judge's Order
Open Crowd Sourcing Fail.
Presentations Done Right.
Continuing to Innovate.
Bringing it all together.
Fifth Amendment for Encrypted Hard Drives

I definitely had fun with the core concepts. As a computer science major and an avid fan of technology, this was my territory. One of my favorites was the recap I gave of the Steve Jobs biography. I appreciated its honesty and open criticism of Steve, as well as the recognition of the way he got things done and revolutionized seven different markets in his lifetime.

I also loved discussing the issues of encrypted hard drives and the Fifth Amendment that were making the news. In fact, the Control group basically presented on my blog posts, and I'm not even in the Control group!

My most popular post in terms of views was my Presentations Done Right post. This was written 10 days after Dr. Burton's post on Making Killer Presentations. I felt the general feeling of the class was that slide-based presentations were of the devil, and though slide-based presentations can be so bad they actually might be of the devil (just kidding), there is actually a right way to use slides to support your argument. I drew upon my time at Apple where I learned a lot about giving presentations, giving one presentation to Apple's CIO and another in Apple's Town Hall where Steve Jobs had presented on numerous occasions. I know I struggled a bit during class rehearsals before the final event, but this was mostly due to a lack of time spent preparing and practicing with my group as other classes with more relevancy to my future as a computer scientist and deadlines closer at hand took precedence. The biggest indication I have that I wasn't just blowing steam was the final event where I really feel Gabe and I knocked our presentation out of the park. We showed passion, told a story, made bold claims and gave a call to action! It was a fantastic event, and our hard work and practice paid off.

Digital Literacy

Consume. I always strived to remain up to speed with current events, especially those relating to our digital concepts and my eBook chapter on Intellectual Property. I even got a shout-out by Hwanhi Chung as "a great, consistent source for the latest news" which was awesome! I would share links to important stories via Google+, and wrote about the ones I was most passionate about like encrypted hard drives and the fifth amendment, and Andy Baio and Yahoo weaponizing his work. Of course, I consumed way more than I shared, filtering out the most relevant things to our class that I was the most passionate about.

Create. This is my 30th blog post on this blog. If I copy and pasted my posts into a normal, single-spaced, size 12 font document, I estimate my posts would come out to something like 60 pages of content. I'm pretty proud, because that's quite a lot to write for one class in one semester. I also shared several links on Google+, and participated in various discussions with class members via Google+.

I also wrote a lot of content related to our eBook chapter, forming the foundation of the chapter and was probably the biggest single contributor to our chapter on Intellectual Property in terms of the amount of content written as well as remained in use in our chapter. I was responsible for synthesizing our presentation into a final form I could feel proud speaking in front of, and I got to use my favorite presentation program Keynote to do the trick.

Connect. I was really excited about my outcomes for this section. Before this class, I was more of a silent digital citizen, always consuming but not actively participating or connecting with others. But this class taught us to dream big and reach out to the thought leaders in our respective areas of study. I decided to take the challenge to heart. After reading Andy Baio's article on Yahoo weaponizing his work, I was really impressed with his writing and decided to reach out to him. Andy writes a weekly column for Wired, which is kind of a big deal, so I wasn't sure if he'd give me the time of day. Still, I tracked down his email and sent him a message describing our class, our final event, and our chapter of the eBook. I even sent him a link to our Google Doc with our final draft we were working on. One day in class, I opened up the document to see a note from Andy! He had read at least part of our chapter, and caught and embarrassing factual error. He left a comment to help set us straight, and he even corrected a typo we had.  I would have loved to have more feedback from him, such as his feelings on our position statements, but this guy writes for Wired! I'll take what I can get!

Another awesome experience I had was on Google+. I decided to track down some other experts who write about Intellectual Property when I came across Gina Smith. She is a tech writer who writes about a lot of things in the tech world, with a recent story on tech vendors funding patent trolls. I read her story, shared it on Google+, and then tried to reach out to her to invite her to our event. Unfortunately, she didn't respond, but she did add me to one of her circles! I just hope it wasn't the "Crazy College Kids - Ignore" circle.

Other than my two small incidents with some pretty big tech writers, I did my best to make my positions public on Google+, and to talk about what I was writing about with my peers. A few of my peers outside of this class commented on my posts, and one was even the inspiration behind my whole position on the patent system! I tried to do all I could to connect my writings to real people who cared, and the small successes I saw were an inspiration to keep reaching out.

Self-Directed Learning

Burned out yet? That's what you get for giving us five sections to report on, and challenging us to strive for rewarding experiences we get excited about and blabber on about in our last post! I honestly strived to take my learning where I was most interested. I didn't wait around for people to tell me what to study or write about; I found the things that interested me, the things that connected in my mind, and I shared them. I think my reaching out to tech writers Andy Baio and Gina Smith is a great example. I hunted these people down, I found out how to contact them, and I reached out to them the best way I knew how. I really made the most of my semester in Digital Civilization, and I loved it.

Collaboration

My experience as a group leader for the Intellectual Property group was honestly a bit challenging. I was so busy with other classes and work, and so were the rest of the members of my group. Two of them had scheduling conflicts that made it impossible to be there for our final event. Coordinating everybody's writing into a single cohesive chapter with a common theme was a real challenge, but I think we did it. We all did some research and writing about stuff that didn't make it into our chapter, but in the end it was for the better. My other group projects were a success as well: my 19th century group had a lot of fun using the idea of voting as a theme for our group, and I got to suggest the voting activity in the beginning that led to our common theme. Our Participation group was also fun, as we discussed the various aspects of crowd sourcing, wise crowds, and crowd decision making. Collaborating in so many different groups on substantial projects was challenging, but it was fun, especially as we leveraged digital tools to get the job done.

TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read)

It's been a blast. I learned a ton, I produced a ton, my IP group hit it out of the park at our final event, I connected in some small way to tech writers Andy Baio and Gina Smith, and I finally came out of my shell. Look out digital world, here I come!

Event Recap

Well, our Digital Citizens Unite event was fantastic! I really enjoyed presenting on Intellectual Property with Gabriel Meyr, and after practicing and reviewing our presentation extensively, I feel we nailed it! We made our position clear, we declared our challenge to the world, and we made our voices heard!

Prior to the event, I took seriously the challenge to personally invite at least 10 interested persons. Since I am a computer science major and I was presenting specifically on the patent system, it was fitting that I should invite people interested in the technology world. I invited:

1. Five fellow CS majors: Tobias Kin Hou Lei, Dallin Christensen, Jonathan Willis, Matt Berteaux, and Nathan Cerny.
2. A co-worker at Apple who will probably be my supervisor when I start there, Reed Olsen.
3. Another former Apple coworker who is studying at Cornell right now, Javier Campanini.
4. A former computer science professor: Dr. Charles Knutson, who has been called on as an expert witness in several cases.
5. Gina Smith, a tech writer I discovered on Google Plus and wrote a great article on patent trolls for Computer World.
6. Andy Baio, who writes the column "Codeword" for Wired, who wrote a great article called "How Yahoo Weaponized My Work."
7. A former coworker who is a software engineer at Qualtrics, Zack Young.
8. Of course, my wife, Madison Lottermoser.
9. I also posted a general invitation to Google Plus and Twitter about the event, and gave some flyers to some random people on BYU :)

At the time of this writing, the only people I know of for sure who were able to catch the event via the webcast was Javier, who took a screenshot and posted it on his Facebook wall, and my wife, who remembered to tune in to the question and answer period. I was certainly hoping to reach more of my friends, and was especially hoping Gina and Andy would be able to catch the event, but I haven't heard back from any of them yet except Reed, who was busy putting out fires related to his duties at Apple that night and couldn't catch the event. I think part of the problem was that it was the last day of classes, which meant all of my Computer Science friends were too busy to be able to come to the event as they rushed to finish and turn in final projects.

In all of my invitations, I included a description of our class, our goals, the event description, a link to the course web site, and a summary of what I would be presenting on. I did all I could to get people involved, but in the end, it was just a very busy day for a lot of people. Maybe next time :)

Continuos Innovation: Revised

As part of an upcoming e-book for my Digital Civilization Class, I have been revising and synthesizing some of the ideas I've posted about on this blog. The meat of my contribution to the chapter on Intellectual Property and Creative Commons has to do with the idea of continuous innovation. The idea is that companies today should worry less about patents and patent infringement by copycats, and more about continuous innovation: bringing new ideas to the table and leaving their copycats in the dust. I first got this idea from Jared Smith, my manager while I worked as a software engineer at Qualtrics, Inc. The idea stuck with me, and I think its a great solution to going around the broken patent system instead of waiting for it to fix itself. Here's my revised section on the matter:

Patent Law Reform: Continuous Innovation

In the end, there are just too many problems with the patent system. So many people want information to be liberated, and to be done with the patent system altogether. That's not necessarily a good idea. We need something to protect the small guys from the big guys. If I go start a company selling some cool new product or invention, what's to stop some large company from taking my idea and stomping all over me, selling my product for less than I can and running me out of business? And let's say someday I did become big. Does that mean I lose all protection from any further innovations I create? As in other large companies are free to take my product and make it an essentially worthless product, selling it for cost just so I don't get the profits? Or maybe some little guy has some contacts in China that can make essentially the same product (though a crappier version), but sell it for a quarter my price. What protections should I be afforded then?

Some people might say that if other companies can draw customers away from you with a twin product, that's just how the market works. Others want protection and rights to their own inventions. Even if other companies violate patents, enforcing patents is messy. Simply viewing the countless legal battles over patents is a clear indication that the system is broken. Some form of patent law and protection is important, but waiting for patent reformation is like waiting for the US to pay off its national debt. It’s not going to happen anytime soon.

This is why the citizens of the digital world must learn to go around the mountain that is the broken patent system. This takes two forms. First, consumers need to let the giant media and tech companies know how they feel about their pointless patent disputes. Patent trolls should be digitally hazed until they leave others alone and go get a real job. Consumers should send a clear message to other companies like Apple and Samsung that their patent battles are not ok. They need to lay aside their differences and return to focusing all their efforts on innovating and bringing great new products to the market.

This brings up the second form of going around the mountain. Companies need to stop worrying about their competitors and others violating their precious patents. Instead, they should rely on the idea of continuous innovation. I learned this best while I was working as a software engineering intern at Qualtrics. They have several copycat competitors, but instead of whining about it and calling foul, they simply continue to innovate, bring more new and awesome features to the table, and always striving to innovate ahead of the competition. I think their client page is a testament to the great job they're doing.

So that's the best answer. We still need to design the system to protect against big company bullies, but if companies relied on continuous innovation to justify their existence, and left their copycats in the dust, it would be a great start. Consumers can encourage this by acting accordingly in the market, rewarding the innovators and shunning the copycats. As companies cater to the consumer, ditch their patent battles and start competing with each other, the consumer will ultimately win. Competition in the same market-space is always great for the consumer because it drives prices down and brings innovation out. And that's how companies in America and America itself will continue to succeed: by bringing the best ideas to the table and letting the market respond.

IP&CC: An Annotated Biliography

In my research about intellectual property, I have mostly focused on the patent system and its problems. This is the are of intellectual property most relevant to me and I am a software engineer, finishing up my degree in computer science at Brigham Young University. My research has mostly drawn on my experience as a software engineer working at Qualtrics, where my manager Jared Smith (formerly head of product over Google Asia) inspired me with the idea of continuous innovation. I also took a class on doing venture startups from Josh Coates, the founder and former CEO of Mozy and current CEO of Instructure where I also currently work. This is where I gained most of my foundational knowledge about the different types of intellectual property. Lastly, must of my research has been done online, searching for great books relevant to my study and looking for the thought leaders on patent reform.

My group is making the claim that laws and systems related to intellectual property are broken in our increasingly digital world, specifically the patent and copyright systems. I have focused on patents, and as such, my annotated bibliography concerns further reading and thought leaders related to the broken patent system and solutions to going around it.

Further Reading

Jaffe, Adam B. and Josh Lerner. (Innovation and Its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System is Endangering Innovation and Progress, and What to Do About It. Princeton, New Jersey, 2004). An important look at how the US patent system is stifling innovation rather than fostering it as it was originally designed to do. Also puts forth a three part solution to fixing the patent system: create incentives to motivate parties who have information about the novelty of a patent; provide multiple levels of patent review; and replace juries with judges and special masters to preside over certain aspects of infringement cases. [I found this as I was looking for others proposing patent reform by going around the patent system and stumbled across this post: Patent Reform without Congress].

Mulligan, Christina and Timothy B. Lee. (Scaling the Patent System, NYU Annual Survey of American Law, Forthcoming, 6 March, 2012). Proposes a simple but novel answer to the question about why firms in some industries ignore patents when developing new products. The answer is that firms are unable to discover all the patents their activities might infringe as the cost of finding all such relevant patents is prohibitively high. Attacks core premises of patent law, and provides suggestions to reforming the patent system to alleviate the problems created by non-indexable patents. [I found this searching for papers about the problems with the patent system].

NPR. (When Patents Attack, 22 July, 2011). A very interesting story about companies (i.e. patent trolls) acquiring and using patents to extort money from other companies, much like mafia shake-downs. Notes the general opinion of most software engineers and their disapproval of the patent system and patents in general. [I found this article mentioned in several articles critiquing the patent system and its existing problems].

Thought Leaders

Paul Graham (The Patent Pledge, August 2011). Paul Graham is a co-founder of the Y-Combinator seed capital firm, one of the most successful such firms helping many startups in their early days. His article The Patent Pledge puts forth the idea of creating a social norm where large companies agree not to go after small companies for patent infringement, and instead letting them gain traction and either licensing the patents or reforming as they get larger to not infringe. He is important as an influential thinker in the technology startup world and his idea of patent reform through social pressure vs. waiting on government reform. [I found a link to Paul's article through an article on patent reform, though Paul Graham and Y-Combinator are well-known in the technology world].

Baio, Andy (A Patent Lie: How Yahoo Weaponized My Work, Wired.com, 13 March , 2012). Andy Baio writes an opinion article each week for Wired, often about things related to intellectual property. Wired is well-regarded in the tech world. His article about how Yahoo used one of his patents in an attack against Facebook, and his point that patents are unnecessary in the software world as software code is covered by copyright law anyway, aligns well with our position on patent reform. [I found this article via a LinkedIn mailing on top headlines on the Internet the week the article was published].

Lawrence Lessig (Lessig 2.0). Lawrence Lessig is an academic an political activist. He has spoken out for copyright reform, legislative reform, free culture and the threat of patents to free/open source software and innovation, and net neutrality. [Found at the suggestion of Dr. Gideon Burton].

And I thought patents used to be cool...

Recently I found an article on Wired called A Patent Lie: How Yahoo Weaponized My Work. The article was written by Andy Baio, a software engineer turned tech writer and entrepreneur who writes a weekly column for Wired and did things like help start Kickstarter. 

His article is all about how Yahoo acquired his company and convinced him and his coworkers to disclose anything patentable to Yahoo so Yahoo could file for the patents. Andy, weary of what Yahoo intended to do with said patents, hesitated, but Yahoo insisted they only wanted the patents for protection against other companies and patent trolls. They just need to build their stockpile of nukes not to ever use them, but to convince the other guy not to set off his. Andy and his group finally complied, and years later Yahoo was filing a patent claim against Facebook, most likely using one of the patents Andy helped Yahoo gain. 

I used to think patents and patent-holders were awesome. To be recognized as the inventor of something is really cool. Too bad the patents have been turned into weapons and totally abused. Andy thought he was just helping Yahoo protect itself, but years passed and leadership changed several times. Now his work is being used in ways he never intended and never would have agreed to. All software engineers and other people out there take note: when considering whether or not to help your company obtain patents for your inventions, be weary. They may claim it's only for protection and not for evil, but things change. 

Of course, they can always file the patent for you anyway, listing you as a non-compliant inventor...

Intellectual Property: Summary of Types

People often get each of the different types confused. A patent lawyer is not the same thing as a copyright lawyer, just like a patent and a copyright are two different things. Here is a quick summary of each form of intellectual property:

Patents can be granted for new, useful, and non-obvious inventions for which the inventor applies for in a formal patent application, and grants them certain protective rights. Inventions qualifying for patents in the US fall into three categories: utility, design, or plant.

In contrast, copyrights are automatically granted to the creator of an original work at the time of creation, and apply to things like books, movies, music, and art.

Trademarks refer to a mark used to promote a brand or product, like a word, symbol, phrase, or name. They can be unregistered or registered, with registration indefinitely renewable.

The last form of intellectual property is a trade secret. It’s a company’s secret sauce they haven’t disclosed to the public, like Google’s search engine algorithms. They last indefinitely, but there’s no protection. If someone discovers it or invents it separately, it’s fair game.

Each of the forms of intellectual property is different, has different requirements to qualify as that type of intellectual property, and different protections afforded to owner. In the following sections, we will examine in depth each form and the problems that have risen with each in the digital era.

Intellectual Property: Copyright, Trademarks, and Trade Secrets.

Copyright

A copyright is the exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, sell, or distribute the matter and form of something (as a literary, musical, or artistic work). The power to administer copyrights is given to Congress in what is known as the “Copyright Clause” in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

How do you obtain a copyright? Unlike a US patent, a copyright is created automagically upon creation of the “Original Work of Authorship.” Optionally, one can file with the US Copyright office, but that’s not strictly necessary. A copyright applies to:

1. Any writing (including code)
2. Drawings
3. Paintings
4. Computer generated image, etc
5. Sculptures
6. Architectural designs / drawings
7. Music
8. Videos
9. Audio
10. Video games
11. Film
12. And more!

Things that can’t be copyrighted that sometimes people think can be:

1. A process or method
2. An idea
3. A machine
4. A title of phrase

A copyrighted item must take substantive and nontrivial mental activity, be a fixed creation of the mind, nonfunctional, and original. A copyright expires like a patent does, though lasts much longer, currently expiring when whichever of the following comes first:

1. 70 years after the death of authors(s)
2. 95 years after publication
3. 120 years after creation of anonymous works or works made for hire.

Copyright law is rather strict, so some choose to place their items under the public domain, meaning anyone can use them. Others have come up with the idea of copyleft, a less restrictive form of copyright. There is a spectrum of copyleft implementation, most notably in the software world, from less restrictive to more restrictive. The BSD or Berkeley Software Distribution License is restrictive only in the sense that you must cite the author of the code. Other than that, it can be used however you’d like, and is on the less restrictive end of the spectrum. LGPL is a little more restrictive in that the originally source code under LGPL license must remain open source, but it can be linked to and use non-LGPL (most likely closed-source) code. GPL is the most restrictive. It requires its source code to always remain open, any modifications to the code must be made open, and cannot be linked to non-GPL software. Many companies that make their own programs they don’t want to make GPL and open to everyone have to take care not to use GPL code.

Trademark

A Trademark is also nown as a product identifier. Its a device (as a word) pointing distinctly to the origin or ownership of merchandise to which it is applied and legally reserved to the exclusive use of the owner as a maker or seller. A trademark is automatic when you user it in commerce for a while. Optionally, it can be registered with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The little ™ or SM marks on packages don’t really mean anything as those are automatic and anyone can use them on product labels, etc. The ® actually does mean something: the trademark is actually registered with the USPTO. Trademark registration lasts 10 years, and can be renewed indefinitely.

Trade secrets

A trade secret has no expiration. It’s simply something a company has chosen to keep secret instead of applying for the appropriate intellectual property protection. There’s no expiration to a trade secret, but is someone discovers your trade secret or independently comes up with it, the company that originally had the trade secret has no protection.

Intellectual Property: Defining Patents

The term patent stems from the Latin word patere, which means to lay open. The patent holder lays open or describes something for all to see in a patent, but with US patent law the patent holder is granted 20 years of preotection and supposedly exclusive rights to the productino of the item in the patent. Patents are so difficult to enforce, so they basically become marketing techniques. There are three different types of patents:

1. Utility patents (eg. method, process, or machine)
2. Design (eg. look & feel)
3. Plant (eg. flowers)

Yes, you can patent flowers. Crazy, right? Along with the three patent types, US patent law lays out several requirements to being granted a patent in the US:

1. Must be useful.
2. Must be credible.
3. Must be practicable.
4. Must be non-obvious to someone in the industry.
5. Applicant must be inventor.
6. Applicant must be the first to invent in the US.
7. Can't be known or used by others in the US.
8. Can't be published more than 1 year ago.
9. Can't be in public use or on sale in the US more than 1 year.
10. Can't be abandoned.
11. Can’t have a foreign patent older than 1 year.

There’s also something called a provisional patent, somewhat like a patent draft. It holds your place in line to actually obtain the patent, but discloses your secret so someone else can file for a patent very similar.

Point seven in the requirements list usually has the term “prior art” associated with it. This simply refers to evidence that the patent-pending item was used or known before a patent was granted. That way if a small company invents something new and start selling it, a larger company can’t rush in a patent application and bully out the smaller company. The small company still has prior art, namely their item on the market. However, they must apply for the patent within one year, and even then enforcing the patent and trying to prevent other companies from producing the same item is difficult. It can cost a lot of money in legal fees, and another company can simply tweak one little thing and claim they are producing something entirely different, not infringing on the patent. If the original company tried to prove otherwise, it would take a lot of time and money.

Along with patents comes the idea of patent trolls, or non-practicing entities. A patent troll is basically an empty or dead company who owns nothing but patents. They don’t have an active product on the market using those patents, and they might not even have been the original owners of the patents since patents are transferable. Patent trolls try to seek money from other companies they feel are selling products or using in some way items falling under their patents in some way. They threaten with legal battles over these patent violations, and sometimes companies end up paying some lump some to these trolls because they just want them to go away instead of being drawn into lengthy and costly legal battles. Remember the Three Billy Goats Gruff? A patent troll is the big ugly troll underneath the bridge doing nothing at all but threatening any who come near it thinks it can exploit.

Another problem in the patent system is point four of the patent requirements: “must be non-obvious to someone in the industry.” You would think that the patent office would employ a bunch of industry experts to decide whether a patent application from a certain industry is valid. Nope. The people approving patents are rarely if ever knowledgeable about the industry to which the patent applies, and so industry-obvious things get patented all the time. Eventually in a lengthy court case a patent can be invalidated after an entity proves the obvious nature of a patent to someone in the industry, but again, that costs time and money.

With so many problems in the patent system, the tech world, and more specifically the mobile world, has seen rise of patent wars. Companies threaten other companies, waving their patent portfolios over their heads and threatening legal action. The other company responds with their patent portfolios and assertions that the attacking company is violating their patents too, and if they act against them they’ll attack back. It’s a lot like a war in which companies brandish their weapons like their stockpile of nukes and the other country shows their piles of nukes, saying “Really? Are you sure you want to start something?” Unfortunately, companies in the mobile world haven’t been backing down lately and ending uneventfully like the Cold War, so the mobile tech world is tied up like a giant spider web of legal disputes and patent battles. 

In the end, our patent courts are tied up, companies are paying millions in legal fees, and consumers pay the hidden cost in product prices. Innovation is slowed down in these companies as resources are devoted to protecting their precious patents and treading carefully with new products to not further entangle themselves in patent disputes. The whole point of the patent system was to encourage innovation and creation by protecting the inventor for sometime so he or she could get their product out there instead of being bullied out by large companies. Instead, patent law has become complex and burdensome, stifling the very creativity it was supposed to protect.

Intellectual Property: Beginnings

Henry George

Intellectual Property stemmed from the idea of Georgism, or Geonomics. Things in nature, especially land, is free and given by God, so should be held equally by all. People own what they create instead.

Lizzie Maggie was a big supporter of Henry George, the creator of Georgism, and built a game showing the evils of land ownership called "The Landlord's Game." Remember the board game Monopoly? Maggie’s idea kind of backfired when the game became so popular.
The term intellectual property applies to a whole host of different types of intellectual property:

1. Patents
2. Copyrights
3. Trademarks
4. Trade Secrets

People often get each of the different types confused. A patent lawyer is not the same thing as a copyright, just like a patent and a copyright are two different things.

The Original Monopoly:
The Landlord's Game

Beginning to Clarify

I'm really excited to start work on the final project of our Digital Civilization class. I will be working in the Intellectual Property and Creative Commons group along with Spencer Stevens, Gabriel Meyr, and Andre Benhaim. Intellectual Property is such a hot topic right now, as there are many lawsuits going on related to copyright infringement and patent violations. The goal of our group starting out is going to lay out the differences between all the intellectual property terms people get confused about, like what a copyright, trademark, registered trademark, license, patent, and trade secret is.

Intellectual property isn't any one of these, but rather the umbrella under which all of these fall. A copyright is a type of intellectual property. So is a patent. So is a trademark. Yet each one is different, and each one is governed by different laws, either on the federal or state level. Since each one is different, a copyright lawyer is not the same thing as a patent lawyer. To get along in today's digital world, especially if one wants to do business in today's digital world, understanding intellectual property and the differences between its different types is critical.

This isn't the place where all things related to intellectual property is going to be clarified, but here's a good link to get started: http://corecopyright.org/2009/12/03/copyright_ip/. Enjoy, and stay tuned :)

Fifth Amendment for Encrypted Hard Drives

Here's the followup post I promised about the story of the 11th Circuit Appeals Court upholding the Fifth Amendment as protection preventing forcing people to decrypt their hard drives. I actually started reading the source link at the article, which is the actual court document describing the court's ruling. It's really fascinating, and I was instantly absorbed. That's something I never thought I'd say about reading a legal document.

In class on Thursday, the control group brought up the case I talked about in my first post relating to the Fifth Amendment and encrypted hard drives, as well as the article sparking this followup post. I got so excited that they were bringing these two articles up that I immediately shared my biased opinion to the entire class about the matter. I think I may have ruined the exercise a bit, because the class definitely seemed poisoned my way, for the prosecuting half was definitely weak in their arguments. I couldn't even participate in the prosecuting half, to which I was assigned, because I had already made up my mind.

For those new to the matter at hand, let's talk about the problem. With the rise of technology in society, more and more cases are being brought to court where a evidence is suspected to be found on the encrypted hard drive of the defendant. With physical evidence, such as something in a safe or in someone's house, the court can issue warrants to search the house or break into the safe. An encrypted hard drive is another story. If the right encryption is used the right way, it can be virtually impossible to break the encryption and recover the data on the drive without the defendant's key. That key is usually in the form of a password.

This is how physical evidence and digital evidence differs. With physical evidence, the court can simply recover it with or without the express permission of the defendant, such as cracking a safe or breaking down the front door. With a properly encrypted hard drive, it could be impossible without the defendant's cooperation. Because of this, the prosecution wants to subpoena the defendant to cooperate or be held in contempt of the court.

The defendant's argument usually relies on the Fifth Amendment:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The bolded phrase, stating that the defendant shall not be compelled to be a witness against themselves, is the key part. The court is asking the defendant to produce the unencrypted contents of the defendant's hard drive. However, the very act of turning what is encrypted to unencrypted implies ownership of the data on the hard drive. It therefore implies guilt is condemning evidence is to be found on the drive, and if the defendant is proven guilty solely or largely based on the unencrypted contents, then their producing the evidence is quite self-incriminating.

That's precisely what the lengthy court document upholding the defendant's right not to produce the unencrypted contents argues. I agree with their decision. The case in particular concerns child pornography, something so terribly the guilty should have millstone's strung about their necks and tossed into the sea. However, the principle of upholding the Fifth, not forcing self-incrimination is important. Imagine a corrupt government planting an encrypted hard rive in someone's home, and then throwing them in jail for contempt of the court when they failed to produce the encrypted contents. Or a person producing an unencrypted hard drive only to find documents placed their by someone else while the drive was unlocked, but a jury deciding the implicit ownership of the files by the defendant and pronouncing guilt.  Our Founding Fathers designed our system to let a few guilty men go free rather than condemn the innocent.

Tough Decision: What To Do Next.

In Thursday's class, we had a great discussion about our historical topics and typing them into the digital concepts we've studied, and identifying themes or areas we'd like to explore. There were so many great ideas brought up, I just don't know what to choose! Here's my top three:

1. Socialism and Marxism. I've written two extensive blog posts about Marx and socialism, but I feel I've only scratched the surface. My shallow study has led to me to belive there are so many problems and contradictions in fundamental Marxism, it is a wonder to me that anyone found him an inspiration or built upon his ideas in the first place. Yes, his ideas seem like they could be the start of a utopian society if the government could be trusted to actually get everything right in favor of the people, but as history and revolutions have proven, any government has flaws. Giving a flawed government the powers Marx would seems like a serious mistake, and I feel history has shown us that. Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, and most communist and socialist governments seem like they have been directly responsible for deaths and horrible lives for thousands if not millions.
   
   Maybe I'm wrong though. Maybe that's a result of a biased capitalist Western view. Or maybe Marx would have denounced everyone of these dictators as imposters, not practicing his ideals at all. That's exactly why this topic is so fascinating to me. I want to do a deeper study of Marxism and identify how supposed Marxist followers differed from or followed Marxist ideals, what went wrong and what went right, and what would have to change in order to create an ideal Marxist society in today's world. And then I'd take all those findings and apply them to a digital world. Is the digital world more like capitalism or Marxism? Which system works better? What evidence is there to back such findings up? As you can see, I could quickly get carried away on this path. I'd have to find a way to trim all that down into a this semester timeline. :)
   
2. Comparing historical revolutions to modern revolutions, like the Arab spring. Analyzing crowd dynamics both. We've talked a lot about crowd sourcing and the wisdom of the crowd. How did such principles play into historical revolutions? How did the rebellion of a few turn into a rebellion of the many? Why did it do so? How did rebels act together towards a common goal, and what were the crowd dynamics in the aftermath? How does all that compare to today's revolutions?
   
   
   
3. Participation in the modern age. In the past, true participation was somewhat limited. The wealthy had more privilege to communicate. The newspapers and editors became a way to circulate ideas, but only a small percentage of the population actually wrote for newspapers. It evolved to radio, then television, and now the Internet. How many of our population fully participate online? To what extent? Why is that only a smaller percentage of our friends seem to constantly be posting on Facebook instead of everyone? And why the heck do they post what they do? I don't care what they ate for lunch today. What is participation really like now, not just quantity, but quality?

There are so many questions to ask for each of these topics, and the amount of information to consume is overwhelming. These are the three areas that interest me more, but they sound like better topics for graduate research than for a class project for the last half of the semester. Maybe I'll have to give up on these for now, or at least seriously trim down the scope of whichever one I end up doing. Of course, actually getting to use one of these depends on the interests of others. Anyone interested? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Bringing it all together.

As I reflect on the semester so far and the posts I've written for my blog, it is time to synthesize my previous seventeen posts into a thesis. I first went back and read my posts, searching for outliers to prune out before I try to combine the others or identify common themes. It's been a struggle, Individually, every post seems to be an outlier, haha. But overall I see a pattern of trying to tie in historical lessons with living in today's digital world.

As the computer scientist in the family, I often feel it's my job to educate relatives on all things digital, alleviating any struggles or concerns they have, and just helping them get along. I'm always excited to see family members using technology in some way that makes their day-to-day routines easier. The same feeling extends to people everywhere, not just family. The digital world is an exciting one, but it's not as scary as some might at first feel. The most important thing to remember about the digital world is that it has a lot in common with the real world. Bring your opinions and character with you. Bring in the lessons of your past, and the lessons of the past. And as always, remember moderation in all things.

So maybe I've found a thesis for my blog. Everyone can survive in the digital world, if they remember the lessons of the past, stay true to their real life selves, practice critical awareness, and use moderation. It's a long statement, but each part is important. 

History has taught us so many lessons, and we don't want to make them all over just because we added technology to our lives.

 Sure you can have some fake personality online, but the best way to contribute to our digital civilization is to just be you. 

And while you're just being you online, pay attention to what's going on around you. Be aware of the discussions going on, form your own opinions, and pass the discussion along to others you know who might not have  had a chance to see that discussion yet. 

And always remember moderation. Forming your own opinions is vital, but being aware enough to realize you're not always right is important, too. There's often more than one right answer, especially in the digital world. Open source is great, and so is closed source. There's more than one social network, and more than one digital video service. Most important of all: there's a digital world, and a real one. Don't get stuck in just one.

Continuing to Innovate.

Recently, a good friend of mine asked me on Google+ what I though about copyright laws. There has been a lot about the patent wars recently on the news, in tech blogs, by professors, etc. It just seems like they're never ending, with every tech giant in the world (mostly related to mobile devices) is suing each other. I think the graphic above says it all. What's amazing to me is the lack of lines between Apple and Samsung, who have a lot of lawsuits going with each other.

I have to admit, as a former Apple intern and a future Apple employee, I'm in a tough spot. I'm very loyal to Apple, because I had a great experience there and really respect the products they make. However, I can't say I approve of the many, many lawsuits they're involved in. Certainly, they feel wronged by these other companies. Whether they're right or not, I'm not sure. You'd have to take it on a case-by-case basis, and there are so many cases I haven't the information to forming an opinion on each one. But for a funny story on what Scott Forstall really thinks of Android, come talk to me in private sometime :) But obviously, Apple's not the only company tied up in the patent wars.

In the end, there are just too many problems with the patent system. So many people want information tio be liberated, and to be done with the patent system altogether. I don't think that's necessarily a good idea. We need something to protect the small guys from the big guys. If I go start a company and start selling some cool new product or invention, what's to stop some large company from taking my idea and stomping all over me, selling my product for less than I can and running me out of business. And let's say someday I did become big. Does that mean I lose all protection from any further innovations I create? As in other large companies are free to take my product and make it an essentially worthless product, selling it for cost just so I don't get the profits? Or maybe some little guy has some contacts in China that can make essentially the same product (though a crappier version), but sell it for a quarter my price. What protections should I be afforded then?

Some people might say that if other companies can draw customers away from you with a twin product, that's just how the market works. Others want protection and rights to their own inventions. Patent laws, copyright laws, etc, are complicated, so going into them here is pointless. Even if other companies violate patents, enforcing patents is messy (hence the fun image at the beginning of the post). The best answer I have seen to the problem is continued innovation. I learned this best while I was working as a software engineering intern at Qualtrics. They have several copy-cat competitors, but instead of whining about it and calling foul, they simply continue to innovate, bring more new and awesome features to the table, and always striving to innovate ahead of the competition. I think their client page is a testament to the great job they're doing. 

So maybe that's the best answer. We still need to design the system to protect against big company bullies, but if companies relied on continued innovation to justify their existence, and left their copycats in the dust, it would be a great start. Competition in the same market-space is always great for the consumer because it drives prices down and brings innovation out. And that's how companies in America and America itself will continue to succeed: by bringing the best ideas to the table and letting the market respond.

More Marx: The Communist Manifesto

As I studied about Marx and socialism, I decided to dive deeper into the Communist Manifesto, as that can be argued to be Marx (and Engels)'s most important work. I didn't end up reading it, but as I mentioned some of my findings in my previous post on Marx. However, there was one portion of the Manifesto in particular that I didn't take time to dive into that I saved for here. That portion was the second section of the Communist Manifesto, a section called the Proletarians and the Communists. This section
outlines the relationship of communists to the rest of the working class, saying they should not form a separate class but instead will always represent the interests and will of the entire proletariat (working class). It defends some attacks against communism, and in the end puts forth ten short-term demands. The following points were summarized in the Wikipedia article on the Manifesto, but can easily be derived from the original text here. Here are the ten main points from the section:

1. Abolition of land property and using land rents for public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the all property of emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralism of credit in the hands of the State, with national bank owned by State with an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralized State communications (newspapers, etc), and transportation.
7. Extensive State-owned factores and such, and land cultivation being done according to a common State-wide plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment fo industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries, gradual end of distinction between town and country, a more even distribution of the population across the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. End of child factory labor, and combination of education with industrial production.

First of all, most of these points completely scare me. These were the "short-term" demands. Yet after giving all of this power to the State, what left is there to give? Looking at these points alone as one of the bases of Marxism that many future communist governments built off of, it is easy to see why those governments often ended up with corrupt dictators at their heads with way too much power and who abused that power. Think of the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba.

I like the general idea of communism, where everyone in a country works together for the common good, but I simply don't think we humans can pull it off, especially not according to the ten points laid forth here. There's simply too much power given to one entity, and no easy way to balance that power should the State become corrupt. 

But besides my general problems with the points Marx put forth for Communism, I have a general problem with Marx. I call hypocrite. These points don't work out too well for Marx. Abolition of all rights of inheritance? The only reason Marx could ever comfortably provide for his family was because of the many inheritances he received form various wealthy relatives.

Confiscation of all property of emigrants and rebels? That's Marx. He was a total rebel, criticizing the Prussian government and getting kicked out of three different countries, so he was a total emigrant as well (though not necessarily by his own choice).

The Communist Manifesto calls for centralized communications, but the only attempt at a career Marx really made was as a journalist for various independent, start-up newspapers where he could publish his socialist political views.

He called for the equality for all to labor, but he labored mostly to put forth his own ideas, criticizing the ideas of others including other communists, and relied on Engels to be able to put bread on the family dinner table.

Oh, and don't forget the claims against communism that this section tried to defend against, like the idea of "free love" (i.e. an end to marriage). Marx fathered an illegitimate son with the family maid, and had him raised by foster parents outside of the home to avoid scandal while he kept the maid around.

I freely admit, I have only skimmed the surface in my study of Marx and the Communist Manifesto. But in my first fly-by, I already see tons of things I have problems with. I'm open to corrections of my findings, but some serious new light would have to be shed here in order for me to change my view of Marx and communism to a positive one.

Notes on Marx

This past week, I gave a short presentation on Marx during my group's presentation on the 19th century. I really struggled with this one, because there is so much to say about Marx and the results of his ideas. However, a blog post is a great place to follow up on all the things I couldn't say. Here are some of my notes on Marx: 


Karl Marx was born into Germany's middle class, though he himself was on the relatively wealthy end. He was married and have several children, though not all of them made it to adulthood. Only three of his children with his wife, and his illegitimate son with the maid, made it to adulthood. His illegitimate son was raised by foster parents out of the home to avoid scandal, but the maid stayed with the family.


Marx started out at the University of Bonn, but then transferred to the University of Berlin because his father wanted him to take his studies more seriously. There, Marx was heavily influenced by the ideology of the recently deceased Berlin professor and philosopher G.W.F Hegel. Hegel was popular for his philosophy of the Mind, in which the Mind is kind of everything, and we are all apart of this universal Mind. Marx spent time with the Young Hegelians, but eventually decided he needed to finish his PhD and move on. He submitted his thesis not to the University of Berlin, but to the University of Jena, which was said to be somewhat of a degree mill of the the time.


Marx moved around various countries, getting kicked out by the Prussians who ruled Germany at the time because of his socialist views on politics that were very anti-Prussian. He eventually got kicked out of France and later Belgium, and spent the latter half of his life in England. He collaborated extensively with Friedrich Engels, and constantly bummed off him. Marx was relatively poor in the first half of his life because of his political views and activities, and his family really only got along because of the charity of Engels. Later, when Marx became relatively affluent due to several inheritences and moved to an eight-bedroom home in London, he still bummed money off of Engels.

One of Marx's earlier and well-known written works is the Theses on Feuerbach. This was made famous for the quote: “the philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it.” In it, Marx put forth his idea of historical materialism: the world is changed not by ideas but by actual, physical, material activity and practice.

Marx's most famous work is the Communist Manifesto, a political pamphlet both he and Engels wrote. In the opening lines of the pamphlet, the principle of Marxism is presented: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” The Communist Manifesto examined the struggle between the bourgeoisie (wealthy middle class) and the proletariat (industrial working class). Its main purpose was to establish why the Communist League was in the best interest of the proletariat, which was the political group Marx (and Engels) was heavily influencing.

Marx was very critical of the socio-economic system of the time: capitalism. He called it the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, run by the wealthy classes purely for their own benefit. Marx believed that like previous socio-economic systems it would produce internal struggles and collapse, and be replaced by socialism. In a socialist society, the working class would govern in a workers’ democracy. Socialism, in turn, would be replaced by a stateless, classless society called communism. He believed both were inevitable, but fought for the actual implementation of the former, calling upon the underprivileged and social theorists to perform and organized revolution to topple capitalism.

In a large multi-part work called the Capital, Marx analyzed the capital system in great depth, noting its various stages and characteristics and put forth theories why it must inevitably fail. I obviously have not read his work on capitalism, but thinking of the capital system at the time, I wonder if Marx was right that it would have failed as it stood. However, I don't think capitalism then and capitalism today is the same. Instead, the system evolved and hopefully a great deal of its flaws and weaknesses of the time have been overcome.

Marx was characterized as one of the most influential thinkers of his time. I don't believe he was the first one to think of socialism or communism, but rather he put forth strong ideas about both that many people adopted as a basis for later forms of socialism and communism. Socialist governments building on Marxist theories arrived in the 20th century: the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. These governments built on Marxist principles and developed into Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, and Maoism

To me, Marx was very contradictory. His Communist Manifesto calls for the abolition of inheritances, yet he clearly needed and enjoyed his several inheritances. It calls for the working class to work together, etc, but he seemed kind of a bum if you ask me, always bumming off Engels. He defended against the idea that communism supports free love, yet fathered a son with the house maid. I barely skimmed the surface of Marx's life here, and lifetimes could be spent discussing his theories and the impact they had on society, and whether they were for good or bad. I am am from the United States, which is a capitalist society, and it is somehow driven into our minds growing up that capitalism is good and socialism and communism is bad. Our history books pretty clearly pain this picture, painting historical figures like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Castro as corrupt dictators who abused their power. And from our perspective in the USA, it certainly looks that way. But have you ever wondered what it would have been like to grow up in a communist country, and what their textbooks have to say about us?

Presentations Done Right.

In class we've talked a lot about death by Powerpoint. Some people have decided to shun slides altogether, while others may have felt that a Prezi is okay because it's not Powerpoint. Katherine Carlsen actually pointed us to an awesome TED talk on Dance vs. Powerpoint. My solution to the Powerpoint problem? Keynote. And some great tips I picked up as an intern at Apple.

For those who don't know, Keynote is Apple's answer to Powerpoint. It's actually really slick, and it's way easy to make really good-looking presentations. My favorite tool in Keynote is the Instant Alpha tool. It lets you obliterate a color in an image you put in your presentation. Ever downloaded some graphic that looked good on Google's white image results page, only to drop it into Powerpoint and have your graphic surrounded by a big ugly white square on your dark background? With instant alpha, zap away that white square and have an awesome graphic looking like it was made for your presentation.

But really, this isn't a rant about how awesome Keynote is and how Powerpoint is blech. The first time I used Keynote, I actually brought a lot of bad habits with me into my slide deck and made an embarrassing presentation. The truth is, slide presentations suck because people make terrible presentations, not because the software they're using sucks. You can make a great presentation in Keynote, Prezi, and even Powerpoint. And you can make terrible ones in all three, too. While I interned at Apple, my internship climaxed with a presentation I gave before the CIO of Apple, Niall O'Connar. I prepared for and practiced that presentation for weeks, and my presentation got slashed to bits by several different managers as I refined it along the way. I thought I knew how to make and give presentations before that summer, but how wrong I was. In the end, here are some simple tips I picked up on making presentations:

1. Pictures are a 1,000 words. 
2. 3-5 word sentences. 
3. Say what's on your slides.
4. Delete unspoken text from slides.
5. Make your presentation look good.
6. Use a consistent font.
7. Don't nauseate your audience.

All of these points look like no-brainers, and they should be. So why is it that every presentation you've ever seen that sucked not followed these? If I were giving a presentation, I could easily insert this list into my slides. I'd probably have it split up onto two slides. And then as I gave my presentation, I'd elaborate as follows:

Use more pictures. Google image search is not that hard. Don't put ugly, pixelated pictures in there, and don't put funny joke images in there unless absolutely everyone is going to get it or you're going to explain the joke so everyone laughs (i.e. not in a lame, humor-killing way). Take the time to clean up images. This is why Keynote's Instant Alpha tool rocks. Lame white squares with your graphic in the middle look lame, and if your presentation looks like sucks and only half-effort was put in, chances are it will suck because you only put in half the effort you should have.

Don't pollute your audience's eyes with the amount of text you put on each slide. Sentences should be as short and crisp as possible. 3-5 words it the ideal target. Make definitive statements, and each statement with a period. That includes each point in a list where applicable.

Say everything that is on your slides. If you have text on your slide you're not using in the audible form of your presentation, it shouldn't be on your slide. This is very contrary to the traditional Powerpoint model where people put a ton of text with every nitty-gritty detail on every slide, and only say 10% of what their slides say. If you do this, your audience will not be paying attention to you while you speak. They'll be squinting and trying to read the bajillion words on your slides, and trying to decipher their meaning. Don't do it. Just don't. Copy/paste those right now into your presenter notes, and then write what you're really trying to say in short, concise statements.

Again, your slides is not a place for your to paste your 50-page thesis. Delete everything you're not going to say, and then delete 80% more of what's left. Only have the most critical, plain, and necessary statements in your presentation. Your audience can go read your thesis (or blog post) later.

Make it look good. Your presentation shouldn't look like a 5th grader made it. There are a lot of good themes for slide presentations out there, so use them. Keynote's built-in themes are just plain hot. Unfortunately, that's an entirely subjective statement (unlike anything else in this post), and Keynote is only for Mac and iPad. But there are some good Powerpoint themes. You just have to look a little harder.

I messed up on this one a few times. I mixed fonts from the presentation theme and external fonts. It looks ugly, and people will notice. Use consistent fonts throughout the entire presentation. Details matter.

Don't make me want to throw up as I watch your presentation. That applies to both looks and transitions. This is where I feel Prezi's aren't always so good. They try to be dynamic and hip, and I admit Prezi is a pretty cool piece of software, but when you're hunting for that slide that says what you wanted to say next, and you switch more than one slide, Dr. Zappala is suffering from his vertigo. And I'm getting sick. So just practice your presentation, know your slide order, and be aware of and avoid nauseating transitions.

So there you have it. My excruciating long blog post about presentations. I wish I could have given you the Keynote version. It would have been much less painless. But hopefully now you've remembered what exactly makes you scared of Powerpoints, and how you can fix it. Slide presentations aren't bad. They can be used as a very effective tool, and help your audience visualize what you're presenting. However, they can be done horribly wrong and have us shouting "Death By Powerpoint!" in an instant. 

UPDATE: Here's a link to the Keynote I gave on Thursday about Wise Crowds. You don't to have a Mac to view it; you can check it out in your web browser.

Revolutions.

This week we talked a lot about the revolutions of the 18th century, namely the American, French, and Industrial revolutions. Our revolutions did a lot to talk about people and the way they participated in these revolutions. Revolutions have always been so interesting to me. How do revolutions get enough people to participate that it reaches a tipping point and the revolution is successful? How do people individually reach the point of decision to do something, to join the cause, potentially sacrificing everything for the unknown? And how do the individual decisions of so many sum up to the movement as a whole? How do critical key players and moments factor in to each revolution? Every time I study a revolution, tons of questions like these come to mind, with the most critical reflection being: what would I have done I had been there?

With the talks of these three revolutions, and our emphasis on participation, I was surprised we didn't talk about more modern revolutions. The most famous one of these of late was the Egyptian revolution, which is technically still going on. The most famous character in this revolution has been Wael Ghonin, a Google executive who moonlighted as the revolution's leader. He used Facebook and Twitter to organize the rebellion that eventually led to the end of a 30 year regime and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepping down. Ghonin told reporters: "If you want a free society give them Internet access," coining the phrase Revolution 2.0.

Ghonin is not the first person to use social media in recent years to organize a rebellion, and he certainly won't be the last. Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody talks extnsively about the rise of citizen journalism, and the voice given to the masses by technology. Syria actually banned the iPhone as a way of trying to suppress reports of its crackdown on protesters going viral on the Internet. Wikipedia links the term "Twitter Revolution" to a variety of revolutions where Twitter and other social media tools were utilized.

We study revolutions, like they are a thing of the past, but revolutions are alive and happening in our day. And people are using the Internet and social media to do them. Since the power and ability to participate has exponentially increased with these tools, so have revolutions. Its not the American Revolution one decade, and the French another, but several revolutions in a few years all taking place because people can finally make themselves heard like never before.

Are You an Open Source Bigot?

As we have talked in class about openness, and especially as we have focused on the merits of open source movements and relating them to things like open government and open education, I have often reflected on the following article by Josh Coates: Are You an Open Source Bigot? Josh Coates is the founder and former-CEO of Mozy, and is currently working as the CEO of Instructure, an open source LMS competitor to Blackboard. I actually work at Instructure as an iOS Developer, and wish we used Instructure's Canvas in our class :/ But that's not the point of this post.

In the world of software, there are two main camps: open vs. proprietary. Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe are some of the big names in the proprietary software camp, while the biggest names in open source would have to be Linux and Apache. It's easy to hate the big guys raking in the money, and toute the merits of open source products because they usually come with a small to no pricetag, but the truth is they all have their merits. To simply cast out one camp or the other is foolish.

Josh talks about how he has interviewed countless software engineers, and one of his favorite questions is about which is best: FreeBSD, Windows, Solaris, or Linux? The answer according to Josh is that they all more or less equally suck. And he's absolutely right. In the end, every platform out there has its merits and its downfalls. Both proprietary and open source are right. So when we advocate only one right answer, and refuse to acknowledge the merits of others, we risk serious bigotry.

Josh's article is mostly directed towards the open source camp, which is why I think it is so relevant to our class. We are trying to think different, and since most of us grew up conforming to the society around us including the proprietary or closed methods of doing things, our immediate reaction to the call to think different is to cry for open source, open government, open education, open everything! In championing our various open causes, we look down on anything closed or proprietary, directly associating it with the man and all things evil. But this kind of exclusive thinking is dangerous. It's the kind of thing that has gotten a lot of people in trouble in history. As always, moderation is the best answer, taking in all the different camps into consideration and forming the best combination. When championing a cause for openness, remember the points Josh makes in his article and reflect: am I an open source bigot?

As we move forward in class trying to think different, remember that one of the greatest champions of that slogan is also one of the greatest advocates of proprietary software: Apple.