Lars Pind

Clay Shirky: Is Social Software Bad for the Dean Campaign?. It’s a valid question: Does meeting like-minded online make you more complacent in the real world?

I’m overseas and not an American, and haven’t paid all that much attention to the campaign so far, but I can also tell from my experience, that I’m more fascinated that he’s using these tools in the first place, than I’m thrilled with the man himself. But in the end, of course, if he’s going to be president, it would matter. Just look at the differences between Dubya’s campaign and his presidency.

How to “Cast Off”—just in case you need it …

Okay, it’s old, but I hadn’t seen it before. Sounds like fun: FUFME.

The Register: Techno utopians’ Net Candidate falters. Their point is that the man, the message, and finding enough people who like the man and the message is what ultimately determines the outcome of elections, not some mythical internet creature. That’s all true.

But they’re missing the point that to a lot of people who have seen their views on the media and politics transformed by their ability to publish, reading what other “normal” people are writing, and in general participating in two-way conversations instead of the usual one-way broadcast—these people actually see Dean’s untraditional campaign as part of the message. Or part of the person, I’m not sure. But in that sense, it does become part of what determines the election.

Not the internet per se, of course, but people that see the power of the internet, and who like it when politicians do too.

Looking at going to Berlin by car.

All looked hunky-dory for a minute: Car rental is DKK 1.000 for a whole weekend, including insurance. But wait, that only includes 250 km. There are 1.500 km from Copenhagen to Berlin. Adds up to DKK 4.000, not including gas. Forget it!

(You can rent a car in Sweden with free miles, but then you’re not allowed to take it into Denmark, unless you get some transit permit from the police.)

Question: Does anybody know of a car rental in Denmark that has free or very cheap miles?

Or does anybody have a car that they’re willing to lend us (for money) in the weekend Feb 14-15?

UPDATE: I’ve received quite some response so far, including Sille/Caroline who pointed me to dyt-dyt.dk. They advertise free miles, but then when we called them, they quoted a price of 2.500, which is 1.000 above what it should be according to their price list, becase we were going so far … so while still cheap, the miles apparently still aren’t all free, like they claim. Is that legal according to Danish marketing laws?

The Register: Microsoft prepares Mike Rowe legal exit – interesting dissection of Microsoft’s legal and press tactics.

Three noteworthy points:

• Using a low-ball bid to trick the opponent into asking for money, thus proving bad faith.
• The clear misrepresentation this as an “obligation” under trademark law – making it seems like they’re just honestly and faithfully enforcing the law, however much they don’t want to.
• Backing off without apologizing or making any promises until the media storm is over, then relaunching the efforts, when the story won’t run, because it’ll be old news.

I have argued here and elsewhere that Microsoft’s pathological competitiveness has created exactly the kind of competition it can’t deal with, in the same way casual antibiotic use creates super-bugs in the hospital. That would give MySQL an edge, but it doesn’t mean they will win.

John O’Sullivan in NewsForge: Database deathmatch?

It’s interesting to follow MySQL’s on-march, and their dual-licensing policy, which is definitely a different approach from how we do things in the OpenACS community.

I couldn’t easily find the article(s) referenced above, but it’s an obviously plausible explanation. Every would-be IT business entrepreneur over the past half decade have had to decide how to deal with Microsoft, either getting in their slipstream, while avoiding getting in their way and getting squashed, or by competing in ways that make you immune to their competition – open source being one obvious way to accomplish that.

Torvalds, after telling us to come back when there are more than one or two kernel hackers complaining, said, “Basic rule of thumb: on the internet, anybody can complain. And people do. Whether it has any basis in fact is another matter. It’s easier to come up with rumors about evil-doers than it is to debunk them.

From OSDL: Linux center of gravity? in NewsForge.

Newsforge: IBM on leaked memo: Nothing to see here. Move along…. I tend to believe that there is a push to move to Linux on the desktop, but hat they’re too afraid of the reaction to talk openly about it. Or maybe that’s just what I’m hoping. But it sure smells that way …

For those following this space, but not the other, I just wanted to let you know taht I’ve started blogging much more intensively over at Collaboraid’s Developer Blog on my thoughts and work on the OpenACS platform.

It only picked up in speed yesterday, but I’m expecting it to continue being active, and I’m encouraging my coworkers to post there as well.

Stallman started GNU 20 years ago yesterday. He writes in Newsforge: The Free Software Community After 20 Years: With great but incomplete success, what now?.

Steve Gillmor: Best and Worst of Messaging & Collaboration in ‘03. RSS, Technorati, and friends take up a very large share of the best list.