Creative Commons Plugin
Part of the work I've been doing with JD Lasica for his Social Brite project (yes, there is an irony in the fact that a careless, sarcastic SoB teamed up with a caring, polite and nice guy such as JD) included creating a Creative Commons plugin. I'm quite proud to say that I've released the plugin for the public in version 0.1 0.1.1.
It is based on the amazing Job by Nathan R. Yergler and his WP-Licencse Plugin.
What WP-license Reloaded does is allowing per-post licensing. This is particularly helpful for multiple author blogs and sites.
This plugin is on its early stages. For the future I have planned:
- Defaulting licenses (on a per blog and per author basis)
- Bulk Updating licienses (for older posts)
- I18n of the plugin.
- Anything else you might suggest and that I find cool enough to implement.
I've always thought that copyright (the traditional one) is a big halt to human and knowledge progress. Now I can lie to myself and think I made some progress by unleashing this plugin to the public.
Feel free to add suggestions in the comments.
Chrome: how relevant is it?
Waking up and seeing all hell brake loose in my RSS subscriptions was a nice way to start last Wednesday. The culprit? Google and its Chrome OS announcement. I have been paying a lot of attention to the netbook / OS / mobile / cloud /always on market lately, so I payed a tad more attention to this announcement than I would normally do.
Lets start by stating the obvious: that Google, being the gigantic technology player it is, announces that it will launch an OS of its own is big news. It is game changing and no minor treat. That being said...
The always acid Dennis Howlett does quite a decent job in slaughtering the quick and not too well though early posts.
Fake Steve has a valid point on his post about Chrome OS when he states that:
The hacks who are foaming at the mouth about this big threat to Microsoft are the very same halfwits who a couple years back were declaring that the desktop OS was dead, Windows Vista would be the last one ever made, Apple shouldn't bother making any more versions of OS X, blah blah. Now they're saying nope, the world does need more operating systems, especially ones like this that are designed to work extra super specially well on computers that are hooked up to the Internet. Whatever that means.
True that. Detractors are now promoters, just because Google is behind it? I mean, come on.
Does the world need another OS? No. But we were never good to spot what was good for us on the first place so lets scrape that question.
What are the implications of Google's entry on the OS arena? No way to do futurology well enough with the little evidence we have so far. They can:
- Completely screw it with an horrible UX and lack of compatibility for PnP devices, drivers etc.
- Get it moderately right and get a decent (~10%) share of the netbook market.
- Somewhat revolutionize the market and get a 50% share of the netbook market plus a 5% of hacked higher-end PCs.
I think the answer will be something in between point 1 and point 2.
And why is Google doing all of this? Cringley nails it:
So why does Google even bother?
To keep Microsoft on its toes.
Although I don't share Cringley's point of view on Eric Schmidt being all paranoid on Microsoft shutting down google entirely I do think Google feels it needs to show Microsoft it can attack where it hurts.
In that it will succeed.
But it will not do achieve much more than that. Chrome OS is not meant for the users, it is meant for Microsoft . That is the very reason why the aim is Netbooks, that is also the reason why they are building upon Linux, they want to invest as little as possible because they don’t really want to achieve anything market-wise but rather “look-what-I-can-do-wise”.
That partly answers why Google decided to build upon Linux and not upon Android. Google has a legitimate interest in the mobile area. It is a growing segment where they have still to prove their worth. Maybe they didn't want to slaughter the Android brand, maybe Android does not scale all that well to bigger / more complex devices.
And Google has big allies: OEMs. Because we all like alternatives. But I can’t say much about that, after all an OEM is my employer.
So, the potential impacts of Chrome OS are:
- Get Microsoft a little bit more edgy (if they prevent them from pulling another Vista I’ll be eternally grateful).
- Give the users another alternative
- Segment the OS market even more, making life harder for everyone.
But lets get our heads out of our rear ends for a second here. After next year, what can we all expect from the OS market?
I’d love to be in a position where I can say “the OS will become irrelevant, an invisible layer for the end user”. Truth is, it will not work that way. At least not for the foreseeable future. The OS will be relevant for most users as long as it meddles in what people are trying to do. And they do. OS’s create invisible barriers when you try to plug a peripheral and it will work with a certain OS and not with the next one.
OSs screw people’s lives when you try to share a folder and the attempt fails because of incompatibilities between OS 1 and OS 2.
OSs are important for people when they UI’s become part of the OS. Since the OS is such a core part of the user experience it is still relevant.
The operating system enables or prevents people form doing stuff, as long as that statement remains true, the Operating System will remain relevant.
And there are a lot of people who are interested in keeping things working that way. And Microsoft is just one of them. With this new Chrome OS thing Google is functional to that desire.
And why is Google doing all of this? Cringley nails it:
So why does Google even bother?
To keep Microsoft on its toes.
Although I don't share Cringley's point of view on Eric Schmidt being all paranoid on Microsoft shutting down google entirely I do think Google feels it needs to show Microsoft it can attack where it hurts.
In that it will succeed.
But it will not do much more than that. Chrome OS is not meant for the users, it is meant for Microsoft (Unlike Andriod, I think Google has a legitimate interest in trying to make a real play on mobile). That is the reason why the aim is Netbooks, that is the reason why they are building upon Linux, they want to invest as little as possible because they don’t really want to achieve anything market-wise but rather “look-what-I-have-wise”.
And Google has big allies: OEMs. Because we all like alternatives. But I can’t say much about that, after all an OEM is my employer.
So, the potential impacts of Chrome OS are:
Get Microsoft a little bit more edgy (if they prevent them from pulling another Vista I’ll be eternally grateful)
Give the users another alternative
Segment the OS market even more, making life harder for everyone.
But lets get our heads out of our rear ends for a second here. After next year, what can we all expect from the OS market.
I’d love to be in a position where I can say “the OS will become irrelevant, an invisible layer for the end user”. Truth is, it will not work that way. At least not for the foreseeable future. The OS will be relevant for most users as long as it meddles in what people are trying to do. And they do. OS’s create invisible barriers when you try to plug a peripheral and it will work with a certain OS and not with the next one.
OS’s screw people’s lives when you try to share a folder and the attempt fails because of incompatibilities between OS 1 and OS 2.
OS are important for people when they UI’s become part of the OS. Since the OS is such a core part of the user experience it is still relevant.
The operating system enables or prevents people form doing a lot of stuff, as long as that is true it will be relevant.
And there are a lot of people who are interested in keeping things working that way. And Microsoft is just one of them. With this new Chrome OS thing Google is functional to that desire.