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"Abstract: The anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA) was originally meant to harmonise and enforce intellectual property rights (IPR) provisions in existing trade agreements within a wider group of countries. This was commendable in itself, so ACTA's failure was all the more disappointing. In this article, I wish to contribute to the post-ACTA debate by proposing a specific analysis of the ethical reasons why ACTA failed, and what we can learn from them. I argue that five kinds of objections- namely, secret negotiations, lack of consultation, vague- ness of formulation, negotiations outside any international body, and the creation of a new governing body outside already existing forums-had only indirect ethical impli- cations. "

[And three-quarters downloaded nothing in last quarter By John Oates * Get more from this author Posted in Music and Media, 29th September 2010 11:31 GMT A survey of previous NPD research has found US consumers not fully embracing the connected future so beloved of tech marketeers. Researchers found that for most US users a PC, with email and web browsing, is enough. Although some are using games consoles and smartphones to get online the vast majority are not. ...]

Interesting discussion about a universal web application layer able to wrok across devices, browsers and web service systems. I reponded with a very lengthy post about WebKit.

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Excellent comment focused on the clash between Flash and Apple. Apple promotes JavaScript, CSS and AJAX: the WebKit- SproutCore recipe

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I reformatted my response to marbux concerning HTML5 and web application lack of interoperability. The original article these comments were posted to is titled, "Siding with HTML over XHTML, My Decision to Switch.... ".

everything we do here at Mozilla is, for the most part, a contribution to the Web platform. I blogged previously about the low esteem I reserve for arguments that favor proprietary platforms (which typically pit rapid proprietary innovation against dawdling Web Platform standardization cycles), but even in that upbeat blog post, I acknowledge that the standards process leaves much room for improvement.

ptsefton continues his rant that OpenOffice does not support the Open Web. He's been on this rant for so long, i'm wondering if he really thinks there's a chance the lords of ODF and the OpenOffice source code are listening? In this post he describes how useless it is to submit his findings and frustrations with OOo in a bug report. Pretty funny stuff even if you do end up joining the Michael Meeks trek along this trail of tears. Maybe there's another way?

What would happen if pt moved from targeting the not so open OpenOffice, to target governments and enterprises trying to set future information system requirements?

NY State is next up on this endless list. Most likely they will follow the lessons of exhaustive pilot studies conducted by Massachusetts, California, Belgium, Denmark and England, and end up mandating the use of both open standard "XML" formats, ODF and OOXML.

The pilots concluded that there was a need for both XML formats; depending on the needs of different departments and workgroups. The pilot studies scream out a general rule of thumb; if your department has day-to-day business processes bound to MSOffice workgroups, then it makes sense to use MSOffice OOXML going forward. If there is no legacy MSOffice bound workgroup or workflow, it makes sense to move to OpenOffice ODF.

One thing the pilots make clear is that it is prohibitively costly and disruptive to try to replace MSOffice bound workgroups.

What NY State might consider is that the Web is going to be an important part of their informations systems future. What a surprise. Every pilot recognized and indeed, emphasized this fact. Yet, they fell short of the obvious conclusion; mandating that desktop applications provide native support for Open Web formats, protocols and interfaces!

What's wrong with insisting that desktop applciations and office suites support the rapidly advancing HTML+ technologies as well as the applicat

The Post too says that DG Competition ordered the unbundling of MSIE from Windows. But again no attribution for the statement. They also leave the impression that Opera's complaint regarding the undermining of open web standards was upheld, something not stated in either the Microsoft or DG Competition announcements. So the questions of the day are: [i] did the Commission order the unbundling of MSIE from Windows; and [ii] did the Commission also rule on the undermining of open web standards. The latter question could be of critical importance in the still ongoing proceeding regarding the ECIS complaint in regard to the undermining of ODF by Microsoft pushing OOXML.

I posted a digg on Peter Glaskowsky's CNET article discussing the Intel - TSMC deal. In 1995, i somehow managed to get between Intel and TSMC regarding funding for Virtual Realty, a video conferencing based loan origination / real estate transaction processing company that used Intel ProShare. TSMC wanted to invest a ton of money in VRi, with the idea of providing a full graphical listing, brokerage and transaction service for all of Asia. Intel needed a business model proving the value of ProShare, and capable of putting down the basics of a wide bandwidth video conferencing communications-data network they could grow into a platform.

At first this seemed to me like a win-win for everyone. Then i found out how seriously pissed Intel was about TSMC's deal with ViA and the resulting "WinBook". Although this is not the time or place to tell the story, i was truly stunned and shocked when i saw the Intel-TSMC deal announcement. Wow!

My response to Peter focuses on his comments about how this deal will impact Nvidia. And then, how the Nvidia vision of an ION-Atom motherboard impacts WebKit and the future of the Open Web.

Apple has posted an interesting page describing Safari technologies. Innovations and support for existing standards as well as the ACID3 test are covered.

Many people think that the Apple WebKit-Safari-iPhone innovations are pushing Open Web Standards beyond beyond the limits of "Open", and deep into the verboten realm of vendor specific extensions. Others, myself included, believe that the WebKit community has to do this if Open Web technologies are to be anyway competitive with Microsoft's RiA (XAML-Silverlight-WPF).

Adobe RiA (AiR-Flex-Flash) is also an alternative to WebKit and Microsoft RiA; kind of half Open Web, half proprietary though. Adobe Flash is of course proprietary. While Adobe AiR implements the WebKit layout engine and visual document model. I suspect that as Adobe RiA loses ground to Microsoft Silverlight, they will open up Flash. But that's not something the Open Web can afford to wait for.

In many ways, WebKit is at the cutting edge of Ajax Open Web technologies. The problems of Ajax not scaling well are being solved as shared JavaScript libraries continue to amaze, and the JavaScript engines roar with horsepower. Innovations in WebKit, even the vendor-device specific ones, are being picked up by the JS Libraries, Firefox, and the other Open Web browsers.

At the end of the day though, it is the balance between the ACiD3 test on one side and the incredible market surge of WebKit smartphones, countertops, and netbook devices at the edge of the Web that seem to hold things together.

The surge at the edge is washing back over the greater Web, as cross-browser frustrated Web designers and developers roll out the iPhone welcome. Let's hope the ACiD3 test holds. So far it's proving to be a far more important consideration for maintaining Open Web interop, without sacrificing innovation, than anything going on at the stalled W3C.

"..... Safari continues to lead the way, implementing

The recent announcements by Microsoft detailing Windows Mobile (WM) 6.5 and to a lesser degree WM 7.0 have left many questioning the continued relevance of Windows Mobile in the future.  The incremental update to WM has been received as expected with some excited for the future and others declaring "too little, too late."  Take the next version of WM as you will, Microsoft faces a great challenge to keep WM relevant in today's smartphone market"...... Good discussion about Microsoft's failure to show at the Barcelona World Mobility Conference with anything worth talking about. Apple doesn't even show up, but the iPhone dominates all discussions! So what's up with Microsoft? Have they finally dropped the ball on the device end of their emerging Web platform? I've posted a lengthy comment about WebKit, the iPhone and the emergence of a next generation visual document model that also works as a Web application.

Rick Jelliffe posts a frank view of the OOXML compatibility framework, a document I've studied myself in the past. There is much that is laudable about the framework, but there are also aspects that are troublesome. Jelliffe identifies one red flag item, the freedom for a vendor to "proprietize" OOXML using the MustUnderstand attribute and offers some suggestions for lessening that danger through redrafting of the spec. One issue he does not touch, however, is the Microsoft Open Specification Promise covenant not to sue, a deeply flawed document in terms of anyone implementing OOXML other than Microsoft. Still, there is so much prior art for the OOXML compatibility framework that I doubt any patent reading on it would survive judicial review. E.g., a highly similar framework has been implemented in WordPerfect since version 6.0. and the OOXML framework is remarkably similar to the compatibility framework specified by OASIS OpenDocument 1.0 but subsequently gutted at ISO. The Jelliffe article offers a good overview of factors that must be considered in designing a standard's compatibility framework. For those that go on to read the compatibility framework's specification, keep in mind that in several places the document falsely claims that it is an interoperability framework. It is not. It is a framework designed for one-way transfer of data, not interoperability which involves round-trip 2-way of exchange of data without data loss.

To sum up: character encoding is complicated, and it has not been made any easier by several decades of poorly written software used by copy-and-paste-educated authors. You should always specify a character encoding on every HTML document, or bad things will happen. You can do it the hard way (HTTP Content-Type header), the easy way ( declaration), or the new way ( attribute), but please do it. The web thanks you. Good post, lots of links to other "MUST READ" commentaries and explanations of character encoding. Including Joel Spolsky and Tim Bray.

I've pretty much stayed out of the EU action against Microsoft primarily because it misses the mark by so much. The browser is not the means by which Microsoft seeks to create a Web based monopoly. MSIE is a useful tool used to frustrate Web developers and systems providers, but we are way beyond the point where removing/replacing MSIE becomes an effective remedy to Microsoft monopolist abuses. Way beyond! There is however no doubt in my mind that the browser is going to be the portable WebOS of the future. The problem is that browser runtimes are also host for proprietary runtime plug-ins. Like MS Silverlight! Read on freind. My comments are three part, and posted down the line, somewhere around 183. Heavy on the WebKit stuff as usual! Look for "gary.edwards".

Matt Assay has posted an interesting article arguing the point of view that Google Chrome will have a difficult time catching up Microsoft SharePoint. While everyone is moving to the Web, many will be surprised ot find that Microsoft is already there. Very surprised.

Good article from Matt Assay

There's a change in Google's business model indicated by that last paragraph, sharing Google ad revenues with publishers. Publishers have been suing Google in Europe and the U.S. for indexing their web site news content. Is sharing Google Ad-Sense revenue with publishers the compromise that will bring the world an explosion of information previously unavailable online in easily searchable form? Most newspapers' archives are not available online and with far too many that are, subscriptions are required to search a single newspaper's archives; e.g., the New York Times. Sounds like Google may have its sights set on eroding the information subscription business model that the news business -- along with advertising -- has been built around for centuries. This announcement might mark a paradigm shift.

The consensus of the developers who are using WebKit is clear: it's an outstanding rendering engine that lends itself to an extremely diverse assortment of practical uses. It is everywhere, and it is gaining traction at a very impressive rate. That traction is causing some developers to question whether Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine is still relevant.

Historical walkthrough comparing two great rendering engines (layout); Mozilla Gecko and WebKit.

"The biggest rival for Microsoft's next-generation Silverlight web technology will be JavaScript, not Adobe's ubiquitous Flash, according to experts speaking at Microsoft's TechEd conference in Sydney on Friday. " Good article capturing Microsoft's early response to Google Chrome. Not surprisingly they try to pit Chrome against Adobe AiR, and argue that Chrome is a bigger threat to Microsot's XAML-Silverlight RiA than Adobe Flash (AiR). I posted a comment to this article, Divide and Conquer".