The new QST Online is delivered via a DRM platform! I sent this to the
ARRL president and my division directors this morning.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
--- Begin Message ---
Hello President Cragie, Director Vallio and Vice-Director Tiemstra,
To introduce myself, I have twice been the keynote speaker at the
ARRL/TAPR Digital Communications Conference. I am one of the founders of
the Open Source movement in software. I was founder of No-Code
International, which evangelized the much-needed change in Amateur
licensing. I'm currently working on Codec2 (see codec2.org
<http://codec2.org/>), a project in which Amateur Radio is leading the
telecommunications industry rather than following it.
I'm sure everyone appreciates the additional availability of QST online.
However, I was distressed to see it presented through a Digital Rights
Management platform. In this particular case, it's "nxbook.com". Digital
Rights Management attempts to "lock down" media so that it can't be
viewed, copied, or printed except under the close control of the vendor.
When it works, that is. It's also known for arbitrarily discriminating
against readers according to the computer platform they use, and in
general getting in the way of the reader.
This is a stark contrast to the way we innovate on Amateur Radio. Open
Source is a big part of that, because we want to homebrew, to share in
development, and to improve what's already been done. QST has called for
Open Source in article submissions so that schematics and software can
be copied and improved without concern over intellectual property.
So, it was no surprise that NXBook's presentation of QST crashed
repeatedly on my Linux desktop this morning. I could probably make it
work through installing old proprietary software that is no longer
supported, but the point is that QST should be viewable through
something that is an Open Standard and supports implementations in Open
Source software. PDF is the obvious example for QST. SVG would be
another, since it is part of the HTML 5 specification and thus is
supported in modern web browsers.
I called Steve Ford at HQ. He confirmed that the policy, at present, is
not to distribute QST in PDF form.
Obviously, the choice of NXBook is due to fear that QST would be widely
copied by non-ARRL-members, resulting in a revenue decline for ARRL.
This, of course, is assuming that many hams will be thieves, which is a
scandalous position for ARRL to take. It is more likely that QST might
gain readership in the poorest parts of the world, by people whom we
would otherwise not reach at any cost. It's obviously in Amateur Radio's
interest for those folks to read QST, as long as it doesn't result in
economic hardship for ARRL.
Of course, this is not the position you'll arrive at if you listen only
to the shrill and overstated messages of media companies, who
simultaneously bemoan how abused they are by pirates and revel in being
some of America's richest businesses. As a film-maker (credited on /Toy
Story II /and /A Bug's Life/) and an intellectual-property specialist/,
/I know the truth: profits are up, not down, in the digital age. Revenue
truly lost from piracy, meaning actual lost sales rather than
theoretical ones that would never have been made, is an insignificant loss.
So, I am calling for ARRL to support the reading of QST on a platform
that is an Open Standard and can be implemented in Open Source software,
thus supporting the platforms and methods used for Amateur Radio innovation.
Obviously QST is encoded in PDF form before delivery to NXBook, and
distribution of QST to members in this form would be appropriate. There
are various technical means to encode recipient-specific information in
downloaded PDF files that would support the rapid detection of anyone
who actually does abuse the process.
Respectfully Submitted
Bruce Perens K6BP
--- End Message ---
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