Karl Jonsson’s Weblog

About Me

I suppose it’s about time I wrote a little bit about myself here. I’ve just signed up for the course Open Source/Free Software: Philosophy and Theory at Göteborg university, department of Informatics and our first assignment is to write a little bit about ourselves so I figure I might as well write something that fits here as well.

I was born in 1976, went to school, played some football, table tennis and heavy metal. My parents got their first computer in the eighties, I guess. It was an Amstrad PC running DOS. I was not that impressed. My friends had Commodores and there were far more games available for that platform. Some time in the early nineties my father got access to the internet. Again, I was not that impressed by the early web (which, sadly, was the only part of the net I found) in black and white on a Powerbook with Netscape 1. I have fond memories of the early OLGA, however.

In 1995 I started my “career” at GU by studying English. In 1996, I spent the spring term studying English at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK. Since then, I’ve been studying here in Gothenburg. So far, I’ve managed to take various courses in English, Literature, Law (my main subject), Political Science and Informatics.

When I returned from Brighton, I suddenly had my own computer (a 486 which was already old by then) and my parents (with whom I lived) got a dial-up internet connection. Around this time, I started “surfing” the web, I discovered Usenet and, like everyone else, I made some pointless homepages (which, thankfully, the archive seems to have missed).

Then, around the time of Red Hat Linux 5, I heard that open source was some new cool thing to check out. Being somewhat unsatisfied with Microsoft Windows 95, I jumped at the chance to try something new. I managed to install Red Hat Linux and I have been dual booting ever since. Around Red Hat 7.something, I felt that GNU/Linux was good enough to be my main OS. I still have Windows installed but I rarely use it.

Throughout this process, I started hearing more and more about “open source” and “free software”. I think Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture speech was what really won me over. I remember sitting in my bed, very late, with a laptop and a pair of headphones listening to that speech. It all made sense! Here was someone who could explain a lot of things that I had always felt, but not really understood or been able to express.

Since then, I’ve read quite a bit about these things. Some of the things I’ve read are listed on All Consuming.

• Books I’m reading now
• Books I’ve read
• Books I’ve read parts of
• Books I plan to read

Well, that’s about it for now. Obviously there is a lot more to say (like something not computer related . . .). I will probably update this page some time.

Oh, by the way, my e-mail address is kj at this domain (without the www part). I have a GnuPG key that you can use to encrypt mail to me.

Photo copyright © 2004 Karin Jonsson, not covered by CC-license (yet?)

Hilary Rosen Likes Creative Commons!

What is happening to the world? Hilary Rosen, former chair and CEO of the RIAA, has written an article in Wired about the virues of Creative Commons!

Think about your kids. After they get bored downloading all the music they can find, they’re going to discover the power - practically bundled into the machine if it’s a Mac - to remix the culture they’ve collected. They could add a bass track to a violin concerto. They could make a home movie and sync Tom Petty to the images. They could splice together a politician’s speeches to prove she’s a waffler. These activities will become second nature to the iGeneration and could well represent the next great digital revolution - exploding demand for machines, bandwidth, and software.
. . .
If John Coltrane didn’t need a lawyer to create his immortal version of The Sound of Music’s “My Favorite Things,” why should our kids?*

(via Slashdot)

Sakligt om mp3

Jag sitter och bläddrar i dagens Computer Sweden och på sidan 2 finns en ovanligt saklig artikel om mp3. Under rubriken “Trenden du missade” skriver Anders Lotsson lite om mp3-formatet utan att använda ord som “pirat” eller “stöld” en enda gång. Han använder i stället de klart mer neutrala uttrycken “obetalda kopior” och “otillåten kopiering”.

Snart kommer IFPI och hämtar honom . . .

Comment Spam . . .

A comment spammer is posting lots of comments here at the moment. It started yesterday and since then there has been a steady flow of these “comments”. They have some characteristics that make them very easy to filter out (only the first few were actually visible on the site) but they all come from different IP-addresses which makes me wonder if the comment spammers have started to use hacked computers these days?

Ny distans- och hemförsäljningslag m.m.

I propositionen 2004/05:13 (PDF) föreslår regeringen att en ny distans- och hemförsäljningslag ska ersätta lagen om konsumentskydd vid distansavtal och hemförsäljningsavtal (distansavtalslagen).

Information från Regeringskansliet

Does Your Library Filter Blogs?

I have not heard of any filters here at GU or GUB but go ahead and test your local library and post a comment here. (Via The Volokh Conspiracy)

Regulating Knowledge Conference

I just found a conference invitation in my inbox. This conference seems interersting but I have neither the time, nor the money, to go.

FFII The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure: Brussels 9-10 Nov: Regulating Knowledge: Costs, Risks, and Models of Innovation

iDebate

Joi Ito has posted a rather funny image. The discussion that follows is very interesting.

Like most images you come across on the web, there is no information about who holds the rights to it and if and how it can be reused. Joi Ito chose to publish the picture with the following note: “This image may be copyrighted. I don’t know the origin of the image. If someone knows, please let me know.”

This sparked a discussion about the legal/ethical aspects of this behaviour. This is certainly an important issue and the following discussion is interesting.

“Verkligheten anropar plagiatministern”

Mikael Pawlo kritiserar justitieminister Thomas Bodström: Verkligheten anropar plagiatministern

Faran med ISP-ansvar

Piratbyrån berättar om ytterligare ett fall som visar att på hur upphovsrätt, i kombination med fega ISP:ar, kan användas för censur.

[Den holländska gruppen Bits of Freedom] lade upp ett antal texter av den holländska författaren Multatuli, som dog 1887 och följaktligen inte kan censureras enligt upphovsrätten, med hjälp av landets 10 största ISP:er och webhostingföretag. Sedan låtsades man att man ägde upphovsrätten till verken och mailade internetleverantörerna från ett vanligt Hotmailkonto om att upphovsrätten kränktes. Sju av tio leverantörer plockade ned sajterna utan någon som helst kontroll.*

• Läs hela rapporten (PDF).
• Artikel i The Register
  

Detta fall (och liknande fall) visar att “notice and takedown” inte är ett bra system. Enligt den amerikanska Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) är en ISP ansvarig för användarnas upphovsrättsintrång om man inte tar bort materialet i fråga sedan man gjorts uppmärksam på det. Liknande regler finns tydligen redan i Europa genom e-handelsdirektivet (något jag hade missat).

När internet blir allt viktigare som debattforum är det olyckligt att det är så lätt att tysta kritiker (om än tillfälligt). Jag blir mer och mer övertygad om att man borde göra tvärt om och lagstifta om att en ISP inte har något ansvar alls för vad användarna publicerar. Den som anser att en hemsida bryter mot en lag kan väl använda sig av det vanliga rättssystemet? Lämna in en stämning eller polisanmälan så får saken prövas av en domstol i stället för av supportpersonal.