There are criticisms about the way items are tagged in "Web 2.0" application. Yes, that's true free tagging is sometimes confusing and lead to issues to clearly identify and tag an object. There are sometimes confusion around the tagged object, do we tag the reference of an object (e.g. a LibraryThing link to a book) or really the object (e.g. the book itself) ? The criticisms can be justified but we must not forget that we are coming from the hierarchical and fixed classification. But free tagging works and open the world of "classification" to anyone. It's easy to find content in social web services (e.g. flickr) using the tags given by people without predefined fixed classification. That's nice and it works better than any imposed classification.
But sometimes in free tagging, you want to define extra information about a tag or define a specific value to a tag. The machine tags are there for providing extra information about a tag and better define the scope of the tagged object/reference. For a good introduction, there is a nice explanation about the machine tags implemented in flickr. In that scope, the current practices for tagging the license to an object/work/reference are variable and introduce confusion (Now I hear the criticisms coming from the backstage about free tagging ;-). In that scope, I'm trying to define a specific license namespace to clearly define the license of a tagged object. The idea is to use a well-defined predicate in the license namespace to avoid license confusion.
license:gpl-3
where gpl-3 predicate clearly defines the following :
GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License,
or (at your option) any later version (ref:http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html).
I invite you to make comments or share ideas on the subject on my license namespace draft page or on the machinetags.org wiki. It's clearly open to discussion and nothing is fixed until now.
Tags: classification folksonomy tagging machinetags social license legal
geo: Les Bulles, Chiny
Just this small note about a great art book, Wall and Piece from the "anonymous" street artist : Banksy. Instead of wasting money in crappy product, the art book is really a nice buy and clearly politically engaged. I liked the following tag next to a big flag : "people who enjoy waving flags don't deserve to have one". If you want to see more, just have a look at the banksy tag in flickr. A book to have in your art-book shelve.
Tags: art banksy graffiti street wall book
geo: Les Bulles, Chiny
Being caught by the police when driving too fast… it's not something that we like. In that scope, we (at quuxlabs) are working on a web service to gather and show the ongoing police control called : geopolis. For more information, check out the blog of quuxlabs. Everything is still very alpha. But feel free to provide feedback, that's just the beginning.
Tags: sms quuxlabs geopolis police road traffic mobile
geo: Les Bulles, Chiny
Looking at the latest discussion about the report made by the Magic Quadrant company (Gartner for the ones who are not forced to read their business reports), I discovered that the most important part is not really the report itself but the directive 98/34/EC. The current directive is defining the "approved" standard bodies (their respective publications around standardization) accepted as European policies. The directive 98/34/CE is not bad is not really reflecting the current process of "standardization". Under the current directive the organization like ITU,Cenelec/ISO are somehow accepted but the current "informal" organization like the IETF/IAB, W3C or similar are not part of the directive (and by so not really accepted in the context European policies). In reality, a lot of free standards are clearly coming from the IETF or W3C. The process in such organization is very simple compared to the standard ones like ITU or ISO. The accessibility of the standards are easier too in the Internet community (like the W3C or the IETF) than in the "nationalized" standard bodies (just try to get ISO 9241 and distribute it afterwards).
I really think the directive 98/34/CE should be updated to incorporate the two following points :
- A clear definition of what is a free standard (including its free access and free use without restriction)
- An acceptance of the "informal" groups creating, publishing and distributing free standards (e.g. IETF, W3C or any other groups as long the standard is free)
We are living in a kind of information society and a large part of the current explosion of the market is due to the free standards. Europe should not discard them if they want to be part of the information society (and its major economical gain). It's time to propose an update of the 98/34/EC.
Tags: economy europe iso ietf standards free_standards w3c
geo: Les Bulles, Chiny
Why you should join the FSF ? That's simple, the FSF is a consistent organization. Just take a look at this GNU's Bulletin published in 1987. They were already fighting against DRM (before named like that).
Just when science is making it possible to copy music perfectly, record companies are trying to make it impossible again, with government-enforced copy protection.
Looking in the past, the first GNU's Bulletin shows an interesting historical part :
Schools will be able to provide a much more educational environment by encouraging all students to study and improve the system code. Harvard's computer lab used to have the policy that no program could be installed on the system if its sources were not on public display, and upheld it by actually refusing to install certain programs. I was very much inspired by this.
I'm just now wondering what's the current policy at the computer lab at Harvard. It could be highly symbolic to go at the today Harvard computer lab and check with them if they can show all the sources for the installed software on their system. FSF is still ahead and it's still the right time to join them. We need freedom in today's world and free software is playing a pillar role as the shift to an information society is a reality.
Tags: society software drm fsf freedom free_software
geo: Les Bulles, Chiny
![[FSF
Associate Member]](http://www.foo.be/fsfbutton-adulau.png){kind=small}
