Chapter 20 - the Digital Enforcement

Applicability of copying restrictions

I agree that coping of software, music or some multimedia information is not prohibited if the owner has not made the source open or available for unlimited downloads. But I'm sure that in some cases the e.g the musicians/managers have been behind the scene to upload the music to promote the record and tours. 

In some cases the rights you buy for some records are not equal. E.g. when I buy a music cd and upload the files to my computer and then to my ipod I should have got this way a good backup of my music if I should lost the cd etc. But actually I don't.  The ipod has its own encryption system and is not really used like a hard drive.  In that case I might look for a program to decrypt the files.

If one buys audio language lesson cd from a shop he has it physically. When he or she has learned it they may give it as a gift for someone else. But if you buy the cd from internet you basically just have the right to use it in your computer. While putting this to a cd makes one automatically a pirate. If you have bought the one medium rights then it should work everywhere. 

I have head that it is ten times easier to download a music song from peer-to-peer networks than to be able to buy a genuine product from internet music stores. Quite often I have seen the site muusika24.ee out of order or there has just not been the record what i have looked for. 

On thing that has concerned me are the different file formats. Who does always have the propriate programs to open e.g .dwg, .psd, .ai suffix files? There should be at least a possibility to view the information of the files in any case. The medium my consist of vital important information what needs to be seen on earliest convenience. It does not make sense to buy the license of 1000 euro program which you may need to use it once.

I bought myself a TomTom navigation system. It worked fine until I borrowed it to a friend. He had accidentally hit the "delete" button of the Eastern Europe map. When I went back to the store to ask if it was possible to restore it they said no. If you bought it we told you to back it up to your pc. Unfortunately no one had told me so and I always believed there was a installation cd with the maps in the box. Wouldn't it make you mad and want to download the map from somewhere? Friend bought me a new map and I have the backup now.

There is a thin line between the right or wrong use of multimedia. Sometimes It has been the problem of some programs design and usability that have caused lost of software or data. Why shouldn't I cheat them if they have done it to me.

Review of Sonjacky and The Boys wiki project

The Wiki project by Cosmin, Mart, Marin and Sonja made an in depth research about Ubiquitous computing. The project was divided into 6 parts consist of definition, history, references in articles and videos, future visions and the the global awareness of ubiquitous computing. 

Maybe they should have used illustrative picture about how the wireless computer devices amount will rise and where these devices would be used. I got the real point of one users and many computers relationship from ubiq.com. 

If was extremely clever and illustrative that they had collected so many good media files. It builded the big picture together from fragments and made a clear idea of the topic.

I like that they have used a lof of bulletin system to point out for example the future challenges of ubicomp. It clearly points out what kind of challenges there can become, how do they see usage of the ubicomp and what kind of possible problems like privacy my arise.

But what concerned me a bit was that the sub-topic "article" links where from past century. There should have been used links and references from closest period possible. Also they should have refered to the source more clearly inside the articles and give straight links for definitions e.g ubicomp. But good that they have used a variety of different recourses with articles, media videos and present innovation prospects in this researched area of Czech, Estonia and Finland. As it can be seen the Finns have got many research centers and are one of the top countries to make improvements on this area. 

Chapter 17 - Development of free license

GNU GPL stands for GNU's Not Unix General Public License that describes the mainstay of free software.  The first version of the license was develeoped by Richard Stallman and his collegues in 1989. Presently there is a third version of it. 

Subsequently we are going to look at the GNU GPL thru SWOT analyze.

Strenghts:

-Freedom to use, change, share the software according to ones needs(1)

-According to the license it can have unlimited amount of developers

-The source code can be revised and edited by any users according to the license

-Lot of Ministries in Estonia have started to use software based on open source to reduce the costs

Weaknesses:

- Operating systems like Windows XP or OS X are already pre-installed in new computer. People will most likely not change the operating system.

-Quite often the open software e.g Open Office has compatible problems with the other software like Windows office. As mostly users use the MS office sending our files in Open office format may cause unpleasentness.

Opportunities:

- The openness of software helps a lot for variety of developers to be in involved in production(write code, suggestion to development, share ideas an thought in community)

-It definitely help to launch lot of new applications that are useful to everybody.

Threats

-With the constant development and improvement of the open source software it has earned more and more fans. With a wider attention of publicity the software used under this license will go stronger and will become more used in computers.

-Eventually all new applications, services that have been free are going to be commercial. It is quite common that new products are promoted as free and when the users are a beginning to love it, it becomes not free any more.

So sum up the software of open source is very useful. It brings the internet and computers closer to more users and reduces the digital divide. The more the free open source software is beginning to be used the more new users attention it will attract.