Its name is letterboxing. And the fact it’s not being done more is the rip-off. Every year, at the Academy Awards, speakers go on-and-on about how "the movies are better in the theater." Why? Because of the aspect ratio. Movies seen at the movies are wide-screen. TVs are narrower. Of course, there is a solution, […]
The fall of Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI), which went Chapter 11 today, has many lessons, including a vital one for open source. SGI rose to prominence as the maker of a "graphics supercomputer," and led Hollywood’s digital revolution in the 1980s. It was a very important company, led by Jim Clark, who later founded Netscape. […]
Assuming network neutrality fails in the Congress, with Verizon and AT&T favoring specific Web sites (like Yahoo’s) over others, some of their chief rivals are ready: AOL has struck up a deal with Clearwire to co-brand its wireless broadband system (which uses licensed frequencies, as opposed to WiFi). Clearwire, which is slower than DSL and […]
Open source is not seen as a political philosophy because the issues followed by those who understand it are seen as "geek" issues. (That’s Adam Smith to the right.) These are some of the issues I’m talking about: Copyright fairness Defining networking at the edges rather than at the center. Opening up more unlicensed spectrum […]
Everyone knows that blogs are open source journalism. The out-of-pocket cost for me to offer this to you is minimal. Its economic value to me is based on how many of you read it. Every blogger is a publisher as well as an editor, subject to both sets of ethics by the requirements of the […]
G. Pascal Zachary, after a multi-decade career with Big Media, has emerged confused. At John Dvorak’s Uncensored site he urges journalists to embrace their biases, and to state them up-front. He calls this "a new ethos of journalism." He thinks he’s saying something new. He’s not. He’s saying something quite old. Here is what he’s […]
This week I have many of the thoughts you have been reading here for a week, only in a condensed, early version. (I usually write my columns a week ahead of time.) Please consider subscribing to A-Clue.com. Subscribe here. Always free. When I first agreed to do an open source blog at ZDNet my beat […]
Last time we played The 1966 Game we identified Virginia Republican Senator George Allen as being analogous to Bobby Kennedy — the charismatic keeper of the true Reaganite flame. We left by asking who Nelson Rockefeller might be. Remember the ground rules. Rockefeller in 1966 was the leader of the moderate or "Dewey" wing of […]
Scaling the intimacy. This is where Howard Dean failed. His online campaign was unable to give new recruits the same intimate experience he was able to give them six months earlier. His technology platform was wrong. He needed, not a blog, but a Community Network Service. There are many such projects in the open source […]
Is it possible? Could Internet advocates really win the network neutrality fight? It’s still an uphill battle. But the Bell attempts to kill municipal networks on the state level were turned around, after early victories against a backdrop of no publicity. Could the same be happening here? Some news from the front: Bell advocate Mike […]
