Ellison: Censorship ain't my problem
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When it comes to touting his company's software, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is never one to mince words. But when it's the principle of free speech versus the almighty dollar, the bad boy of Silicon Valley is a veritable shrinking violet. [Missing Links]
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Google made the list of the World's Most Ethical Companies, but Microsoft, Apple and Sony did not. In response, Don asks a simple question: why?
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Inside the search giant's quiet push in Washington to fight Internet censorship.
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Blog: A day after a federal agency urged against new rules for broadband operators, Democratic leaders in Congress say they're not giving up on enacting the divisive anti-discrimination laws.
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A corporation is not the person the legal fiction makes it so much as a collection of different interests. I was reminded of this fact a couple of weeks ago when I went shopping for a laptop. Remembering that Hewlett-Packard almost singlehandedly solved the basic problem of laser printer support for GNU/Linux, I ended up buying one of the company's laptops. Consumer reports, price, and HP's listing as one of the greener hardware manufacturers according to Greenpeace also affected my decision, but my impression of HP as a free software friendly company was a large criteria.
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Keith Ellison, who will become the first Muslim member of Congress next month, has offended some conservatives with his plan to use the Quran during his ceremonial swearing-in.
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By Stephen Foley  The American internet company Yahoo! has defended its record on human rights in China, and said it was asking the US government to challenge censorship in the communist country.
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Rep. Mary Bono Mack says Congress shouldn't get in the way of Internet service providers that want to detect illegal sharing of copyrighted material.
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A programmer has rebutted an accusation that he contributed proprietary software to an open-source project called Mambo, while his accuser has moderated his legal threats.
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A not-so anonymous Anonymous Coward asks: &quot;The administrator at my work gave me the following reason for not using Mozilla. What do you think?
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The always-entertaining Larry Ellison is at it again.
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Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, testifying in a Delaware court as part of Oracle's efforts to get PeopleSoft to pull back anti-takeover measures, denied that his company is trying to kill off its smaller software rival.
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It looks like Oracle/PeopleSoft is a done deal. But why would Larry Ellison spend $10.3 billion for overlapping technology? For me, the answer comes in two parts.
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Consumer groups tell the FCC it's censorship, but services say they're saving customers from spam.
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A lawyer specializing in freedom of speech and the Internet said Wednesday he will defend free of charge a 19-year-old publisher of a Web site facing a lawsuit over an article that revealed trade secrets about an Apple computer.
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Thereâs nothing like a little regulatory scrutiny to get Internet companies talking about privacy. Even if some of their words ring somewhat hollow.
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(InfoWorld) - Timothy Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, advocated that the U.S. Congress protect net neutrality and questioned the value of DRM (digital rights management) Thursday. Berners-Lee, speaking before the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet in the U.S. House of Representatives, said it was "very, very important" for lawmakers to protect the ability of users to access the Web content they want regardless of their ISP. Berners-Lee didn't endorse specific net neutrality proposals largely supported by congressional Democrats, but he said the Web as a communications medium deserves "special treatment" to protect its nondiscriminatory approach to content. While he was growing up in the U.K., there were high penalties for interfering with mail delivery because mail was one of the main ways to communicate, Berners-Lee said. Now, the Web is a major communications medium worthy of protections, he said. One company or country shouldn't control access to the Web, he added. "We are a society only in as much as we are individuals communicating," said Berners-Lee, founder of the World Wide Web Consortium and author of the first version of HTML. For the past two years, many e-commerce companies and consumer groups have called on Congress to pass a law prohibiting broadband carriers from blocking or slowing Web content from competitors or from speeding up partners' content. In mid-2005, the U.S. Supreme Court and the Federal Communications Commission freed broadband providers from nondiscriminatory carriage rules, and net neutrality backers say large broadband providersÂ like Verizon and ComcastÂ will now be tempted to provide tiered speeds based on which Internet companies pay them the most. Broadband providers and many Republicans have opposed a net neutrality law, andÂ efforts to pass one failed in a Republican-controlled Congress in 2006. Democrats took over Congress this year. While Berners-Lee didn't hear a lot of opposition to his net neutrality comments at the hearing, Representative Mary Bono, a California Republican, challenged his assertion that DRM copy protections could hinder the growth of some parts of the Web. Berners-Lee called for open standards instead of closed DRM technologies. Instead of DRM, copyright holders should "allow people to do the right thing" by providing the information on how to legally use the material, he said. Bono questioned if his idea would prevent mass stealing of copyright materials. "Is that not the equivalent of having a speed limit but not enforcing the speed limit?" she asked. But Berners-Lee suggested DRM limits the market for digital music downloads, echoing recent statements by AppleÂ CEO Steve Jobs. "What is the enforcement for speeding?" he said. "The enforcement for is not that the car grinds to a halt. [Instead of DRM] I'm inclined to make software to allow people to do the right thing first." But Bono said strong protections for digital content are needed. "With great respect to Steve Jobs, he's trying to sell hardware, first and foremost," she said. "I wonder if he would feel the same way about his patents being on the Internet free of patent protection."