Facebook, Google+, and Centralized Proprietary Monocultures

This week, Google released Google+, which is basically a social network that's a lot like Facebook, but run by Google instead of Facebook. The big deal here is that it's a lot easier to modify privacy settings and configure what information to post to which group(s) ("Circle(s)" in Google+-speak) of contacts. This shows that Google, at least on the surface, takes privacy a lot more seriously than Facebook. I say this because whenever a controversial privacy settings change occurs on Facebook, it's usually in the direction of less privacy, and only when the users get outraged does Facebook do anything at all (and it's usually insignificant), because the truth is that Facebook's business is built upon selling users' data to companies for marketing, advertising, etc. I've also gotten annoyed with Facebook's chat and constant UI changes that occur for no good reason, so I'm a little more drawn in that sense to Google+ because it integrates Google Chat (which I know works), and all of Google's applications have kept pretty much constant, simple UIs over the years. Please note that I haven't actually used Google+, though I have an invitation (it seems like Google can't process that invitation right now); any statements that make it seem like I've used it are actually just my hopes and expectations.

But at the same time, I'm a bit wary of joining yet another centralized, proprietary social network. Why? Because they could screw me over at any time, and that's pretty much what happened to many Facebook users on Linux. You see, this week, Facebook not only blocked KDE applications from uploading pictures to the site (which was among the selling points for KDE 4.6), but it also deleted all pictures that had previously been uploaded that way. That's outrageous! And worse yet, when prominent free software reporters and proponents complained to Facebook, they got a rather cold response, which indicated both that Facebook didn't really care about the KDE users and more third-party uploaders could be blocked soon. Thankfully, that turned out not to be the case, as about a day later, all the KDE applications were allowed to upload to Facebook again, and all the deleted photos were reinstated. It all turned out to be a big mistake/misunderstanding. Whatever.

So the issue is that whether I join Google+ or just stick with Facebook, in either case I'm at the mercy of the company managing that service. No matter who you are, if you plan on uploading pictures to these "cloud" sites, don't delete them from physical storage at home. Always keep backups on hard drives, etc. Because if you put all your eggs in one basket and that basket falls into a black hole, you're sunk. And until Diaspora actually gets going and starts draining users from Facebook (which unfortunately doesn't look likely at all, considering that I haven't heard anything new about the project for a year or so), although I will certainly use Google+ with an open mind, I will continue to remain wary and vigilant.

NVidia, Linux, and Hardware Acceleration

When I got my Asus laptop, I immediately installed Linux Mint 9 "Isadora" GNOME and searched for the proprietary NVidia graphics driver. For some reason, at that time, nothing turned up. I didn't really worry about it, as I could enable 3D acceleration and desktop effects anyway, and they worked really well, as they still do. A few days ago, I got the idea of looking again to see if I could install those proprietary drivers, as those might give my computer using Linux Mint even greater graphics capabilities. To my pleasant surprise, this time, the drivers were found and had already been downloaded; all I needed to do was click "Activate", and I did. I then restarted the computer and logged back in, only to find that I could no longer use desktop effects. Well, that was strange. The thing is, I have 2 graphics cards in this computer (an NVidia GeForce 310M and an Intel GMA 4500); Linux Mint recognizes both (as tested in the terminal), but I don't know for sure which card is being used. Furthermore, deactivating the driver brought back desktop effects. Has anyone else had similar issues? Does anyone else know what to do in such a situation? Thanks in advance!

Adobe vs. Apple in the Fight for Flash

Recently in the computing world, there has been a back-and-forth argument between Steve Jobs and the developers at Adobe. The dispute, of course, comes as a result of Apple's decision not to support Flash for the iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad.
A lot of other people have made remarks about the argument, so what I have to add is very little.
Steve Jobs constantly talks about the need for the web to be open. He mentions that Apple does make proprietary products, but continues with the idea that Flash is too proprietary for the web and that a more open standard is necessary.
The Adobe developers respond by saying that further innovation can't happen without openness. That is very true. They continue by saying that they have made most of the Flash platform open-source and open to modification by anyone. That is commendable.
However, neither side has the moral high ground when it comes to openness. It is still quite difficult to get the proprietary features of Flash to work on truly open systems like Linux and BSD (though that has basically been resolved), and Adobe isn't exactly willing to help out in this regard.
That said, Steve, your company has the most closed computing culture I have seen (in recent years). More so than Microsoft, and that is saying something.
Apple is paranoid about 3rd-party developers of apps for the iPod Touch and iPhone, so it is restricting developers on which programming languages they can use (despite the iPod Touch and iPhone being clearly capable of running apps written in other programming languages).
Apple has on more than one occasion hinted at essentially disallowing any unapproved 3rd-party apps from being installed on the iPad.
All of the hardware for Apple's computers are made by Apple/its manufacturing subsidiaries.
One can't even install Mac OS on a non-Apple-made computer.
How can either company seriously make a claim to hold the moral high ground regarding openness?
That doesn't mean that there is no winner here at all. A common fallacy in these arguments is to regard the 2 sides as the only possibilities.
There are alternatives to Flash, like H.264 (which is proprietary) and Ogg (which is open-source).
So people, start using Ogg (and other open-source multimedia standards) and push for more stability and better features; then only can we have a truly open web.

2010 January 28: iPads, Legos, McDonalds, and Toyotas

There are a few things I wanted to touch on today, so I will do so.
Many of you have doubtless heard of Apple's new tablet PC (Mac?), the iPad. As far as I've read, reaction has been lukewarm; the OS is the iPhone OS (not a full Mac OS X), and the thing can't even render certain (many) sites (i.e. those with Adobe Flash) properly; Apple thinks it can get away with it by offering a stand as an accessory. Hah!
More disturbingly (Linux Today), though, it seems like the iPad is chock-full of DRM. I am an opponent of DRM; if DRM existed in the 1980s, when desktop computers were in their infancy, we would be far behind where we are today in terms of computers. Apple is not allowing anyone to install "unauthorized" (i.e. not from the Apple Store) software, calling it a criminal offense even when no copyright laws are broken. This just goes to show that as a computing culture, Apple is even more closed than Microsoft; variety and quality are no doubt hurt by this. Not only is this applied to consumers - even producers can't opt out of this lock-in, especially free software producers who want to maintain their works' licenses like the GPL. Basically, the only person who benefits from this lock-in is Apple, as now, no outside developers can profit at all from this new machine. The Slashdot article on this also mentions that this may portend bad things for Mac OS X's future in terms of openness; surely, it will, given how much more tightly Apple has been clenching its brushed aluminum fist recently.
I want to switch gears now (no pun intended) to talk about Legos. I'm a huge fan of Legos; I happen to be the president of my school's Robotics Club, which uses Lego Mindstorm kits to build and program robots for in-house competitions (and hopefully BotBall in the future) (I talked about this club's raffle fundraiser in a post from 2009 October). The beauty of these things is that they can be put together in virtually any combination; to be sure, 6 bricks of size 2x4 can be put together in over 100 million ways. Here we are, building robots! The possibilities are endless. But I digress...
I watch Tom and Jerry. It comes on Cartoon Network. It is awesome (and I am not ashamed at all to say that). But I digress yet again...
More to the point, on Cartoon Network I see (between Tom and Jerry shorts) a lot of ads, mainly for kids. Many of these ads are for Lego kits, in the forms of Toy Story, Star Wars, etc.
I am saddened to see the proliferation of these assembly-by-instruction-manual kits. For some of the newer kits, there seem to be only a few large pieces that fit together easily, making the thing worse. I am saddened to see this because the whole point of Lego toys was to be able to create anything from one's imagination using the starter parts (and in the case of robots, an RCX and maybe a few motors and wheels (and maybe not even wheels), but nothing else). That is the point of the Lego set; it allows the imagination to proliferate through reality. Here, with these kits, manufacturers have done the imagination; it's just up to the kids to assemble the pieces as they are. This has also been a gradual process; the early kits had only a few more special pieces to make the action figures or whatever, while the current kits seem to have only specialized pieces that can only fit together to make the figure in question. If I need to get gifts for kids (who are old enough to not swallow small parts), I will be getting them Legos - real Legos.
Also on Cartoon Network, I have been seeing a lot of McDonald's ads. I'm not sure why they still need to advertise, but whatever, it's all good. Except, it's not.
The first questionable ad I saw aired around a year ago (maybe it was a little more recent). The ad shows an elementary-school-age soccer match; the winning team is made of trim, athletic kids, while the losing team is slightly more pudgy on the whole. The winning team gets a trophy and rubs it in the losing team's faces, until one of the losing team member's parents get that team McDonald's food to cheer them up. Then, the pudgy kids start rubbing the fact that they have McDonald's (and the winners don't) into the winners' faces, and the winners actually seem to care more about not having McDonald's (than winning).
What?
It's obvious that according to McDonald's, eating McDonald's food and not staying in too good shape is more important than actually winning sports tournaments (or doing more useful things of a similar vein). That is not a good message to send to growing kids. Then again, maybe it's kind of obvious why the team that lost did so. Maybe?
The second ad is still on the air. It shows a bunch of kids looking through a telescope with Ronald McDonald, saying that they can't see anything. Ronald throws a giant handful of magic through the telescope into the sky, displaying a sparkly sky full of stars, nebulae, and fireworks; in the middle of it all is the McDonald's logo.
I initially nitpicked by saying that the kids were able to see the stars before, so they didn't need Ronald, and I was going to extend this into a rant about how poor basic education is these days, but I'm not. The more worrisome thing is the logo in the center of the sky. The message? McDonald's is the center of the universe.
Maybe I should be like Morgan Spurlock: smack a kid every time we drive by McDonald's to make them hate going (or even going by) there.
The last thing I wanted to talk about is the ongoing Toyota recall. Toyota, since the time of my last writing [about this subject], has recalled a few more million vehicles. Yes, you read that right: a few more million. Also, I did not know this before, but Lexus and Scion models are supposed to not be affected as the cars are all built with the Denso accelerators (good), not the CTS (no relation to Cadillac CTS) accelerators (bad) (Denso and CTS are suppliers of accelerator pedals, with, I believe, Denso being Japanese and CTS being American). In any case, do not buy a Toyota, and when buying a Lexus or Scion, consider all of the other alternatives (yes, there are a lot out there, but it's worth researching), and if that becomes the decided vehicle to purchase, exercise extreme caution before purchasing (i.e. take a test drive (or two), thoroughly inspect the vehicle (especially that driver's footwell) for issues, etc.).
There, I'm done.

FOLLOW-UP: Windows 7 Was NOT My Idea

It's not so much that I've learned anything new as I've had a slightly changed perspective on this.
The ads are of people saying that they had the idea of making Windows more stable, user friendly, fast, etc. They conclude with the people saying, "I'm a PC, and Windows 7 was my idea."
I felt like my previous post on this didn't make the connection as clear, so I intend to fix that.
Yes, Windows is proprietary software. As my dad said, if Windows really was those people's ideas, then why aren't those people getting Windows for free and why aren't they allowed to further contribute to and improve the OS?
That's what really shows how disingenuous the campaign is.
But you may say, "But what you're saying is ridiculous! After all, Microsoft still does harness the development and should have the full control over it in the end. They should still be allowed to charge full price to the users and close the source to all others."
First of all, the reason why Microsoft is trying to promote this image of listening to the users is because it knew that, to an extent, if it didn't address the previous complaints (from users) about Vista, it would lose the OS wars.
Second of all, there are, as you regular readers (whoever you may be) surely know by now, OSs that really do offer open development (and usually distribute the OSs free of charge to all) and don't just pay lip service to it. The most prominent examples are Linux, BSD, and OpenSolaris. (Ironically, the most proprietary OS I have seen is Apple's Mac OS, despite being based on one of the most free (from restrictions) OSs - BSD.)
I leave you with this: may the source be with you.