http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/ en-us massa@itc.it 2006-12-15T16:14:01+01:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 include="Italiano"> http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/archives/2006/12/15/help_in_making_ryzom_a_free_mmorpg.html This blog permanently moved to gnuband.org. This post is cross-posted from gnuband.org where it was originally written. Please, if you want to follow my rants, update your bookmarks to the new blog URL http://gnuband.org and more importantly subscribe to the new RSS feed at http://gnuband.org/feed/. One of the big advantages of using GNU/Linux is that most of the computer games don't run on it and, as a consequence, I don't have the risk of trying one, become addicted and hence even less productive (whatever productive means). However I somehow feel isolated from conversations and frontier experiences for not being able to try World of Warcraft or SecondLife. I once tried to find some Free Software alternatives and downloaded PlaneShift, a very cool Free Software MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role-playing game) that runs also under GNU/Linux, but what happened is that I played until 6 in the morning and the following day I was sooo sleepy! Another game that might soon become Free is Ryzom. "Ryzom is an innovative MMORPG, which has been developed since the year 2000 by the independent studio, Nevrax. For the past two years Ryzom has been marketed and sold to gamers, developing a fiercly loyal fanbase. Unfortunately, due to market conditions and other unforseen cirucumstances, a request to begin bankruptcy proceedings has been filed at the commerce tribunal." The Free Ryzom Campaign is soliciting donations in order to "help us purchase the source code, artwork and other game data associated with Ryzom, so we can breathe new life into it as an open, democratically run player project". It is great to read that the Free Software Foundation announced that it will officially support the Free Ryzom Campaign with a pledge of $60,000. Lack of games is often mentioned as one of the main reasons for people not to switching to GNU/Linux. And Ryzom seems incredibly cool too (see the YouTube video), so who will need the non-free software World of Warcraft or SecondLife anymore?!? You might want to support this initiative and donate to The Free Ryzom Campaign or donate to the Free Software Foundation. [via gnuvox] (this post was also an excuse to try how embedding YouTube videos works) 581@http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/ Free software 2006-12-15T16:14:01+01:00 include="Italiano"> http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/archives/2006/12/05/i_moved_to_gnubandorg_follow_me_there.html This blog permanently moved to http://gnuband.org. In case you are interested, you can subscribe to the new RSS feed that is conviniently located at http://gnuband.org/feed. Summaryzing: Follow the new blog at http://gnuband.org Subscribe to the new RSS feed at http://gnuband.org/feed 579@http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/ Blogging 2006-12-05T23:21:47+01:00 include="Italiano"> http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/archives/2005/11/23/agent_reputation_and_trust_art_testbed.html Wow, I received an email with another trust-related project. The Agent Reputation and Trust (ART) Testbed initiative has been launched with the goal of establishing a testbed for agent reputation- and trust-related technologies. The ART Testbed is designed to serve in two roles: * as a competition forum in which researchers can compare their technologies against objective metrics, and * as an experimental tool, with flexible parameters, allowing researchers to perform customizable, easily-repeatable experiments. You can play with the code released on Sourceforge and you can also enjoy the explanation movie! 542@http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/ Trust and Reputation 2005-11-23T23:49:05+01:00 include="Italiano"> http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/archives/2005/11/23/another_workshop_reinventing_trust_collaboration_and_compliance_in_social_systems.html Today is a day of interesting conferences about trust. Reinventing trust, collaboration and compliance in social systems A workshop exploring novel insights and solutions for social systems design April - 2006 in conjunction with CHI 2006 541@http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/ Trust and Reputation 2005-11-23T23:06:43+01:00 include="Italiano"> http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/archives/2005/11/23/more_from_delicioustagtrust.html - 22nd Chaos Communication Congress - Private Investigations - Breaking Down the Web of Trust Even with tutorials on the WoT and good trust policies the concept of "trust" can still be hard to grasp. Here we'll look at trust metrics, ways of using current trust systems better, and some non-crypto applications of trust. - Microformats Proposal for Reputation and Trust Metrics By Charles Iliya Krempeaux, B.Sc. Very interesting!!! [From http://del.icio.us/tag/trust, subscribe to the rss feed (http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/trust)] 540@http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/ Trust and Reputation 2005-11-23T18:39:52+01:00 include="Italiano"> http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/archives/2005/11/23/lies_damn_lies_and_facts_found_on_the_web.html "There are three types of lies - lies, damn lies, and facts found on the Web." Dr. Tim Finin, paraphrasing the well known quotation by Benjamin Disraeli on Statistics This quotation opens the "Workshop Motivation and Goal" of the Models of Trust for the Web (MTW'06), a workshop at the 15th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW2006), May 23-26, 2006, Edinburgh, Scotland. The workshop seems incredibly interesting. (via del.icio.us/tag/trust) 539@http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/ Trust and Reputation 2005-11-23T18:06:33+01:00 include="Italiano"> http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/archives/2005/11/18/repressing_the_expression_under_repression_workshop_at_wsis.html I read from Ethan Zuckermann who is currently in Tunis for the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) some shocking news. I’m here to help run a workshop titled “Expression Under Repression”, hosted by Hivos and organzied by the Global Voices team. When we arrived at the exhibition hall this morning, we were warned that our workshop could be cancelled. (...) Specifically, it was suggested by Tunisian authorities that “expression under repression has nothing to do with ICT for development. and Yesterday, we were warned that our session could be cancelled by the Tunisian authorities. We also discovered that the session wasn’t listed in the official program guide. Today, we came to the room where the session was to be held and there was a sign on the door stating that the workshop was cancelled. Friends who passed by the UNDP booth on the WSIS floor earlier today heard gossip that the security forces would appear at our session and anyone who attended would be arrested. And I got a few SMSs from people who’d asked about our session at the information booths and had been told there was no information on our session. It is incredibly stupid for Tunisia to just show its repressive and censorship face when all the world is looking in their direction for the WSIS. And we all should really think about it more often, many countries control Internet and negate freedom of expression to their citizens. Something you can do (but only a tiny contribution of what we should do) is to join the Electronic Frontier Foundation which, among millions of other worthy campaigns, published How to Blog Safely (see also GlobalVoices technical extension and the Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Just one more shocking news, RSF head Robert Menard was not allowed by Tunisian security officials to leave the plane after his arrival from Paris in Tunis. Too often, leaving in a country where Internet is not (too much) filtered and there is (enough) freedom of expression I forgot about these important matters. If you care about these matters, do join EFF and follow Ethan's blog. 538@http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/ ICT4D 2005-11-18T18:09:42+01:00 include="Italiano"> http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/archives/2005/11/16/apple_offers_for_free_macosx_for_100_laptops_mit_says_no_thanks.html You probably have heard of the MIT initiative One Laptop Per Child, a plan to develop a $100 laptop computer for distribution to millions of schoolchildren in developing countries. Today I read from WallStreetJournal: Steve Jobs, Apple Computer Inc.'s chief executive, offered to provide free copies of the company's operating system, OS X, for the machine, according to Seymour Papert, a professor emeritus at MIT who is one of the initiative's founders. "We declined because it's not open source," says Dr. Papert, noting the designers want an operating system that can be tinkered with. Wow! Apple offers for free its fabolous operating system and the MIT has the strenght to refuse such an offer. Just think if this would have happened 5 years ago. MIT would probably have been so happy and thanking. But now GNU/Linux on the desktop is almost as usable as other operating systems, and it will be better in few years. Of course MIT's refusal makes a lot, a lot of sense and I totally support their decision, even if they should speak fo Free Software and not Open Source. Anyway, embracing a proprietary operating system would not give to schoolchildren in developing countries the freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0), the freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). [Access to the source code is a precondition for this.], the freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2), the freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). [Access to the source code is a precondition for this]. These are the freedom that Free Software gives you. The $100 laptop is just a mean for achieving a goal, that is reducing poverty (that can be defined as inability to improve your current conditions). In this sense, only the ability to "play with" and study how your tool works, the ability to be an active player in the game and not just a passive swallower of information can produce empowerment. So being able to play with the tool (i.e. access to its source code) is mandatory. And the before mentioned freedoms as well. 536@http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/ Free software 2005-11-16T20:42:39+01:00 include="Italiano"> http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/archives/2005/11/14/users_reviews_are_the_market.html Users reviews of products (like "I bought an Ipod and it was not working" or "I went yesterday to XYZ Restaurant and it was fabolous" or "i saw 'paradise now' and it was great") are the basic building blocks of Recommender Systems. And of course they are able to determine the success or failure of a product. Many people nowadays before buying a product check "what Internet is saying about this product?", usually the level of information awareness is precisely this one. So, it should not be surprising that: - There are authors on Amazon who write reviews of their own books under pseudonyms at least one U.S. author was mistakenly outed on Amazon.com's Canadian website as having written a review of his own work. The real names of thousands of people who had posted anonymous customer reviews under pseudonyms like "a reader from St. Louis" were revealed online for several days - a mistake that finally was corrected after reviewers, some of them authors themselves, complained. - a restaurant is suing zSurvey.com, a company that collects restaurant reviews from common consumers and posts them online and in a book, for damaging its reputation. (...) seeking a public apology and 50,000 yuan (US$6,173) each in compensation.They are also demanding the Website delete all of the negative comments it has posted online and stop publishing a guide book with negative comments". - and mainly that Amazon Gets Patents on Consumer Reviews Review your local dry cleaner, pay $10 million? User reviews are a hot new content area, being used by Google (Quote, Chart), Yahoo (Quote, Chart) and MSN to sweeten their local search results. But as of Thursday, such consumer reviews could put search providers, as well as thousands of e-commerce sites, video rental or review sites and online booksellers, in the sights of Amazon.com's (Quote, Chart) lawyers. The patents are simply absurd (you can read them in the article) and I'm not going to comment them and I'm very happy that at least for now Europe voted against Software Patents). About reviews, I think that creators should be free to publish their opinions (in term of reviews in this case), they should own their reviews (hreview seems a great format for this task), reviews should be released under very liberal licences and everyone should be allowed to aggregate the reviews and do whatever she prefers with this information: offer a Recommender System service, use them for her own decisions, .... Reviews are one of the cornerstones of the Information society and they should be usable by anyone who has an idea. 533@http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/ Recommender Systems 2005-11-14T14:56:04+01:00 include="Italiano"> http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/archives/2005/11/14/spyware_sony_seems_to_breach_copyright.html From dewinter.com: The spyware that Sony installs on the computers of music fans does not even seem to be correct in terms of copyright law. It is simply great. While Sony claims that it installed software secretly on the computers of unaware customers in order to protect the copyright of its musicians (while everyone knows that Sony is just trying to perpetuate its dying business model), Sony itself does not care about not respecting the copyright of the author of the software LAME that is licensed under the so called Lesser Gnu Public License (LGPL). It turns out that the rootkit contains pieces of code that are identical to LAME, an open source mp3-encoder, and thereby breach the license. This software is licensed under the so called Lesser Gnu Public License (LGPL). According to this license Sony must comply with a couple of demands. Amongst others, they have to indicate in a copyright notice that they make use of the software. The company must also deliver the source code to the open-source libraries or otherwise make these available. And finally, they must deliver or otherwise make available the in between form between source code and executable code, the so called objectfiles, with which others can make comparable software. 532@http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/ Copyright 2005-11-14T14:43:37+01:00 include="Italiano"> http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/archives/2005/11/10/a_semantic_mobs_manifesto_for_the_revolutionary_web_rejected.html One night, many days ago, Bru and I had a night divertissement (as I liked to call it). During a funny Skype session, we created a paper for SWAP2005 (Semantic Web Applications and Perspectives, 2nd Italian Semantic Web Workshop, Trento, Faculty of Economics,14-15-16 December, 2005). The title of the paper is "A Semantic Mobs Manifesto for the (r)Evolutionary Web" (pdf). Since the conference is in Trento, I'll probably go anyway so the idea was to get one more publication (is there another reason for sending a paper to a conference? ;-)). As I already said, it was a night divertissement, it took us few hours creating it, well, most of the time was spent in chatting about the possible title. We skyped really improbable titles I think I remember. And it was a lot of fun. Anyway I received few days ago an email saying that the paper was rejected (in the following there are the reviews in case you are curious). I think reviewers did the right thing in rejecting it. It was not a serious contribution to science but more a provocation (and a funny-for-us night divertissement). So how we created the paper? We took verbatim a blog post by Ryan King titled "An Evolutionary Revolution - On the shoulders of giants" and we inserted it in the paper. Since the blog post was resealed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence, we could import it legally, in fact we of course gave credit to Ryan King in the paper, we re-released the paper under the same licence and the paper was not a commercial work. Then we added a short quibbling about how with the Semantic Web envisioned in the conference, a paper like this one would be easily creatable by some software tool, expecially when i a short future the number of creative commons released text works will be huge. The last lines of the abstract hinted a matrix-like scenario in which (human) researchers will be no more needed. The title was entirely Bru's fault. Don't tell him but I think we got rejected because of the title ;-) So, well, enjoy it, it is released under a creative commons licence, respect the licence and do whatever you want with it, yes you might even want to cite it in a "real"paper, that would be a larger point about "what are conferences for in an era of free, decentralized publishing?" but I guess you will have to wait another post for it. Anyway, don't worry, it is not a unexpected or clever post, nothing more that our rejected submission for SWAP ;-) In the following you find the reviews we got and at the really bottom the text version of the paper. I wonder if Danny Ayers was one of the reviewer since he writes "I nearly had a dilemma over whether to give something a positive rating simply because it was really cool, rather than bringing significant academic value to the field. Again fortunately for me the material in question did have value in the latter sense as well, so I could call it a Clear Accept without any ethical worries." But it can't be because our paper has no value in the latter sense ;-) 530@http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/ Semantic web 2005-11-10T00:20:54+01:00 include="Italiano"> http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/archives/2005/10/04/googlesun_os_announced_check_microsofts_shares_and_predict_the_next_future.html [Update: re-released under CC-by for Sys-con (my blog posts are usually released under CC-by-sa)] From Yahoo!News: Google, Sun Challenge Microsoft's Office Google Inc. took a big step toward challenging Microsoft Corp.'s dominance in computer word-processing and spreadsheets with the announcement Tuesday that it would distribute Java technology from Sun Microsystems Inc. Few days ago I got a phone call, it was Jason Stamper from London, wow, I never got an interview call from London. He wanted to know about my forecast: Ajax Office available in less than one year. The article ended up in Computer Business Review and then got slashdotted. Wow, I have never been slashdotted. But let me be clear about it: I opened a project called AjaxOffice on Sourceforge because I was thinking about writing some code (I played with Javascript and the DOM model and you can create magic and this is easy-enough). I was thinking that a community would possibly gather around the project. In the process I set up a wiki and start collecting many similar projects and useful packages (some of them are Free Software). But I received many emails saying that the project is just vaporware, that I just want to get credit for something that other people are doing (I suspect all of them generated from few persons but I cannot tell of course). So let me clear about it: yes, there is no code and, since I should write my PhD thesis and since there are already many interesting projects, I don't have plan to write any code about it in the next few months. I plan to shout down the project shortly and just leave pointers to other Free Software projects that are already ahead creating a Web Office suite (Zimbra manages emails and contacts by now but check the video and hold your jaw (it is Free Software). But there are other intersting projects as well, just look in the ajaxoffice wiki). Anyway, it seems that with the "one year" forecast I have been conservative. In fact, this post is about the today joint announcement of Google and Sun. This is really disruptive for the entire computer, software industry. Don't you think that Google and Sun have already spoken with Hardware producers in order to have their system pre-installed on normal computers sold to normal people? I think so. And I can already foresee the scene in a normal computer shop: the seller is going to ask: "Ok, we have chosen your computer. So, which system do you want on? The crappy Windows XP or the new shiny Sun system with bright OpenOffice and Google widgets already integrated? By the way, the Microsoft one costs 100 euros more." Well, if you want a first idea, check the stocks: quotes of Microsoft vs Google (last 5 days) and quotes of Microsoft vs Sun (last 5 days). And look at what Scoble keeps saying: the thick client is coming back. I understand that you have to say it but really, Scoble, do you believe your own words? Or are you secretly selling all your Microsoft stocks? Question for you, reader: "which you would rather give up - your browser, or all the rest of your desktop apps?". First, answer. Ok, Jonathan Schwartz, Sun President, asked this very same question to the audience at a keynote and I can imagine you can predict the answers he got. Last point of an already too long post: having an alternative in the software market will be simply great for everyone, having concurrency is always better, having a monopoly is always worst. In this way, normal people will start undestanding that there is an alternative (TIAA), i.e. Windows is not the computer. The fact that OpenOffice is in the new system is good since OpenOffice is Free Software, software that gives you freedom. I don't think that the Java Desktop code is Free Software (see licence) but I think sooner or later Sun will have to release it under GPL. [The fact that most of this new Google+Sun system will use online services, for which they don't have to release the code, is the topic of another long post]. By the way, I think this is a great opportunity for a Free Software GNU/Linux system to really become available pre-installed on normal computers sold to normal people, my forecast this time is that it will be Ubuntu. Yours? 522@http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/ Future 2005-10-04T19:55:02+01:00 include="Italiano"> http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/archives/2005/09/30/the_path_to_identity_20_as_everything_these_days.html I just saw the presentation by Dick Hardt at OSCON2005 about Identity2.0. The style of the presentation is great, it is almost a cartoon, check it. And it is a great for getting to know in a quick way many of the current efforts in providing an identity system that can really work on the Internet (decentralized, open, ...). I'm currently lurking the OpenID mailinglist and I discovered Passel that seems interesting. The presentation is available in WMV, QuickTime and as Flash, so you should have no problems. The last slide says that the presentation style was borrowed by Lawrence Lessig. As the online world moves towards Web 2.0, the concept of digital identity is evolving, and existing identity systems are falling behind. New systems are emerging that place identity in the hands of users instead of directories. Simple, secure and open, these systems will provide the scalable, user-centric mechanism for authenticating and managing real-world identities online, enabling truly distinct and portable Internet identities. 520@http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/ Trust and Reputation 2005-09-30T10:44:51+01:00 include="Italiano"> http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/archives/2005/09/26/orwellian_microsoft_openness_is_closeness.html From news.com: Massachusetts has decided to use only products that conform to the Open Document Format for Office Applications which is developed by the standards body OASIS. (...)The move to adopt OpenDocument shuts Microsoft out of the state's procurement process because the software giant, which dominates the office application market, has said it does not intend to support the OpenDocument format. Microsoft of course is trying to stop a precedent that would be possible followed by many other states all over the world (and terminate its global monopoly). So Microsoft manager Alan Yates wrote a letter (15 pages PDF available on mass.gov site). I hightlight just one paragraph of the Microsoft letter: In short, the proposed policy is costly and unnecessary and would limit the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to a desktop software policy that is less functional, less open, and less flexible than the Commonwealth’s current policy. Tim Bray comments on this precise claim: That barn-floor stench threatens to overcome me. In particular, the claim that office technology based on an open, standardized, file format that has already been implemented multiple times is necessarily “less functional, less open, and less flexible” is outrageous. Summaryzing, "Openness is Closeness". I think Big Brother Microsoft is suggesting to add this new slogan to the 3 Orwellian ones, “War is Peace”, "Freedom is Slavery” and “Ignorance is Strength" [by the way, if you have not read 1984, I strongly recommend it. And of course, after reading it, you may want to join SOS: Students for an Orwellian Society.] 516@http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/ Free software 2005-09-26T12:52:47+01:00 include="Italiano"> http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/archives/2005/09/25/google_maps_fun.html Some time ago I had fun playing with Google Maps but then I didn't follow evolutions. Today I tried a quick search and I found already 2 gems (but I guess many more exist). Animated Route, Integrate layers on map from NASA WMS server. Check this page and the additional Javascript library by which you can create similar gems. 515@http://moloko.itc.it/paoloblog/ GeoBlogging 2005-09-25T16:24:42+01:00