MESSAGE
| DATE | 2003-04-30 |
| FROM | Dave Williams
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] Resource for Education Initiatives
|
Perhaps this document can provide some pointers or insights into good
angles for recommending Free Software in schools. It contains a lot of
"smart" quotes unfortunately, which end up as question marks on my
screen, but otherwise makes for a good read.
- Dave
RESOLUTION FOR UNIVERSITY SUPPORT OF OPEN SOFTWARE AND STANDARDS
Approved by the Faculty Senate,
University at Buffalo, State University of New York,
April 1, 2003.
1 WHEREAS, direct unmediated unfettered access to information is
fundamental and essential to scholarly inquiry, academic dialog,
research, the advancement of research methods, academic freedom, and
freedom of speech; and
2 WHEREAS, complete control by a computer-user of the computer?s
operating system and hardware is essential to the use and adaptation of
computers in research and to the preservation of privacy; and
3 WHEREAS, the free flow of information has for many years been hampered
by incompatibilities between Microsoft software and non-Microsoft
systems caused by Microsoft-specific modifications to open protocols
(such as Kerberos[1]), document formats (such as HTML[2]), and
programming languages (such as Java[3]); and
4 WHEREAS, there appears to be significant risk that future Microsoft
operating systems will serve to curtail the rights of scholars and the
public to Fair Use of copyrighted material, as is suggested by
Microsoft?s patent for a ?Digital Rights Management Operating System?
(US Patent #6330670, Dec. 2001)[4], and its development of Palladium[5]
and Secure Audio Path[6], which are technologies that prevent direct
access by computer users to data on their own computers; and
5a WHEREAS, the restrictions imposed by the license agreement of the
web-page composition tool Microsoft Frontpage 2002, which states ?You
may not use the Software in connection with any site that disparages
Microsoft, MSN, MSNBC, Expedia, or their products or services"[7], are
an unacceptable restriction of freedom of expression; and
5b WHEREAS, the ?security patch? Q320920 for Windows Media Player, which
gives to Microsoft remote administration privileges on the user?s
computer and the right to ?disable your ability to copy and/or play
Secure Content and use other software on your computer"[8], involves a
substantial surrender of control and privacy on the part of the
computer-user; and
5c WHEREAS, the fact that Windows Media Player logs and reports to
Microsoft every instance of access to a DVD by the user[9] is a
troubling invasion of privacy; and
6 WHEREAS, a closed-source proprietary operating system such as
Microsoft Windows cannot be modified by the user to accommodate specific
research or personal needs[10]; and
7 WHEREAS, excessive dependence of the University at Buffalo on a single
supplier of proprietary operating systems and/or application software
renders the University powerless to resist unreasonable price increases
for software licenses and other unreasonable demands such as license
changes forbidding benchmarking[11] or reverse-engineering for
compatibility; and
8 WHEREAS, the use of closed proprietary document formats and
information management systems to store the work of faculty, students,
and staff limits the ways these works can be accessed and archived, and
jeopardizes access itself in the long term; and
9 WHEREAS, open-source, or ?free? software provides an alternative to
proprietary operating systems and application software that is robust,
reliable and trustworthy, and provides a means for the University
community to retain complete control of its computer hardware and
software, and to retain the rights of Fair Use of information, and
preserve the means to adapt computer systems to specific research and
personal needs; and
10 WHEREAS, significant savings can be achieved by the use of
open-source software, which has (in almost all cases) zero licensing
costs, and requires no involuntary upgrades such as are an integral part
of the current UB Microsoft Campus Agreement; and
11 WHEREAS, for the reasons enumerated above, the exclusive or
predominant use of proprietary operating systems and application
software is detrimental to the core missions of the University at
Buffalo; and
12 WHEREAS, open-source software provides an alternative through whose
use the core missions of the University at Buffalo can be preserved,
nurtured, and enhanced; now, therefore, be it
13 RESOLVED that the Faculty of the University at Buffalo call on the
University to provide support for the use by interested students,
faculty, and administrators of the GNU/Linux operating system;
and be it further
14 RESOLVED that the Faculty of the University at Buffalo call on the
University to provide support for the use by students, faculty, and
administrators, of OpenOffice and/or other open-source productivity
suites; and be it further
15 RESOLVED that the Faculty of the University at Buffalo call on the
University to provide support for the use by students, faculty, and
administrators, of open-source alternatives to proprietary application
software wherever possible; and be it further
16 RESOLVED that the Faculty of the University at Buffalo call on the
University to implement a policy of promoting open document formats and
communication protocols wherever possible and, in the case of broadcast
announcements and other documents intended for a general audience,
discouraging the use of secret and proprietary formats (such as
Microsoft Word format) in favor of open formats (such as plain text or
HTML) that are universally accessible.
NOTES AND REFERENCES:
[1] See The Industry Standard, May 11, 2000:
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,14996,00.html.
[2] ?It was in this meeting that Microsoft executives said they intended
to ?embrace, extend, extinguish? competing technologies, including
Internet standard HTML, McGeady [Intel Vice President and Government
witness] said.?, ZDNet News, November 8, 1998,
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-512681.html?legacy=zdnn.
[3] See, for example, Java World, December 1998,
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-12-1998/jw-12-injunction.html
?...the injunction requires Microsoft to stop shipping incompatible
versions of the virtual machine and to support the standard
native-language interface (JNI) in any versions it does ship. It
requires Microsoft to stop shipping the current version of its language
development environments, to make the standard-Java mode of its language
compiler the default mode, to issue a warning to developers if they
enable the non-standard mode, and to include a note in that warning that
the Microsoft extensions they are enabling ?may be disallowed by court
order? in the future.?
News.com, January 22, 1999,
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-220539.html?tag=bplst
Specifically, the court required programming tools to be set by default
to disable Microsoft extensions to Java.
[4] US Patent Office, http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/srchnum.htm.
Search for 6330670. See also 6327652.
[5] From Microsoft Developer Network website, 2/26/2003:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wmrm/htm/understandingthesecureaudiopathmodel.asp
?In the Secure Audio Path model, applications cannot be used to modify
packaged music in any way. For example, when an application is used to
intercept a music signal, the signal sounds like random noise. As a
result, applications used to modify signals (such as an equalizer)
cannot change the sound of the music.?
[6] http://www.epic.org/privacy/consumer/microsoft/palladium.html.
[7] Infoworld Jan 10, 2001,
http://archive.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/01/10/01/011001opfoster.xml
[8] InfoWorld, July 12, 2002,
http://www.infoworld.com/article/02/07/12/020715opestrat_1.html
[9] ITworld.com 2/21/02,
http://www.itworld.com/AppDev/1471/IDG020221mediaplayer/
?Serious privacy problems in Windows Media Player for Windows XP? by
Richard M. Smith, Details at
http://www.computerbytesman.com/privacy/wmp8dvd.htm:
?Each time a new DVD movie is played on a computer, the WMP software
contacts a Microsoft Web server to get title and chapter information for
the DVD. When this contact is made, the Microsoft Web server is given an
electronic fingerprint which identifies the DVD movie being watched and
a cookie which uniquely identifies a particular WMP player. With this
two pieces of information Microsoft can track what DVD movies are being
watched on a particular computer.?
See also ?Microsoft WinXP Update spies on other PC software?, The
Inquirer, 2/25/2003, http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=7980.
[10] For example, there is no real-time patch for Windows for
experimentalists and musicians who need sub-millisecond latency. In
contrast, there are such patches for Linux: see
http://www.ittc.ku.edu/kurt/.
[11] SQL Server benchmarks prohibited, ITWorld 4/17/2001,
http://www.itworld.com/AppDev/136/IWD010417opfoster/
____________________________
NYLXS: New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
Fair Use -
because it's either fair use or useless....
NYLXS is a trademark of NYLXS, Inc
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