Apropos: Da gab es doch mal einen Privacy Scanner, der die Privatsphäreneinstellungen von Facebook unter Verwendung eines Javascripts überprüft hat. Schade nur, dass er aktuell laut Homepage (reclaimprivacy.org) nicht mehr zu funktionieren scheint.
Off topic: Für Freunde wummernder Bassboxen ist auch “Exodus”, die Abschlussarbeit von Alexander Lehmann für seinen Bachelor of Arts in Virtual Design, absolut einen Click wert. Ein Musikvideo mit NOISIA & Mayhem ft. KRS one.
Once upon a time SourceForge.net used to be the biggest and most popular platform for Free Open Source Software (FOSS) in the world. Just in the field of medical FOSS they hosted more than 900 projects and in total more than 230,000 projects. People from all around the world could search for projects of interest, collaboratively develop them via the platform, seek for support or just download the source code or precompiled binaries.
It appears really strange to me that they still show phrases like “Find and develop Open Source software” or “SourceForge is your location to download and develop free Open Source software.” on their front page. I am not yet sure if they should add the note “… in case you are from a ‘good’ country” or better remove the term “Open”.
At least it is clear that it is not Open Source anymore what they are doing as they are infringing two of the most crucial principles of the Open Source Definition which read like this:
“5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups: The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.”
“6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor: The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.”
SourceForge seems not to be familiar with these and is blocking users to comply with the US law … and hell yes, the US is the country whose Secretary of State recently gave a widely honored speech about Internet Freedom.
Happily there are dozens of other real FOSS portals/platforms where you can now move to and host your FOSS project while preserving the original idea of Open Source.
Hey … the news and blogosphere are full of praise after Google announced that they are considering to discontinue their Chinese business (Google.cn) if they still have to censor search results and to reveal critical privacy information of dissidents to be compliant with Chinese domestic policy.
It is just hard to imagine that Google now suddenly cares more about human rights than about their own wallet. I like more the way how Evgeny Morozov puts it in his post “Doubting the sincerity of Google’s threat” [via netzpolitik.org]:
“Google was in need of some positive PR to correct its worsening image (especially in Europe, where concerns about privacy are mounting on a daily basis). Google.cn is the goat that would be sacrificed, for it will generate most positive headlines and may not result in devastating losses to Google’s business (Google.cn holds roughly 30 percent of the Chinese market).”
Until now apfelkraut.org is still accessible from within Germany, but as I have quite some occurrences of the terms “open” and “free” on this page, I was wondering (like Horatiorama did) if my site can be reached from behind the Great Firewall: Positive, according to just-ping.com and websitepulse.com it is not blocked. So happily at least I do not have to rethink my Chinese business …
For those still wondering what the heck Open Source Software and Open Access Publishing is all about, this short video could be a proper starting point to approach this topic:
For more information see for example OnTheCommons.org. If you feel like publishing your own work under a similar license, check out the Creative Commons. Within a few easy steps you can create your own Creative Commons license with the conditions you prefer while preserving your copyright.
I just realized while searching for new or emerging medical open source projects that freshmeat.net looks and works quite differently compared to former times. Seems they launched already in March 2009 their new Freshmeat 3.0 platform.
Now tagging is used for indexing the projects while the categories have been thrown overboard. Regarding medical FOSS the project admins seem not to really make use of this feature. Tags similar to hospital information system, PACS, EMR or patient management have never been used or I was just too dumb to find some health care related ones. Only two projects are tagged with “Medical“, the tag “Medical Science” is associated with 146 projects. One and a half year ago the category “Medical Science Apps” contained 139 projects there.
Nach “Du bist Terrorist” hat Alexander Lehmann gestern seinen neuen Clip zum Thema Internetzensur – neudeutsch: Zugangserschwerungsgesetz – veröffentlicht:
Das Autonummernschilder nicht nur bei Rasterfahndungen – also auch ohne konkreten Verdacht – im großen Rahmen erfasst und gespeichert werden, ist schon länger bekannt.
iPhone CarIndex-App
In der Schweiz hat nicht nur der Staat, sondern auch jede Privatperson die Möglichkeit, den Fahrzeughalter an Hand des Kennzeichens per Telefon oder SMS-Abfrage zu ermitteln. In Zeiten des iPhones ist es nun auch möglich, dies ganz bequem online über die App “CarIndex” zu machen. Als Ergebnis erhält man abgesehen vom Namen auch die Adresse und Telefonnummer des Eigentümers angezeigt.
Damit sind ganz neue Anwendungsfälle im Straßenverkehr möglich:
Statt Hupen oder dem pauschalen A********-Schreien kann man nun andere Verkehrsteilnehmer freundlich per Telefonanruf auf das sicherlich unabsichtliche Missachten der eigenen Vorfahrt hinweisen.
