Slashback: OpenOffice, SuitSat, Google Books

Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including Sutor's response to OpenOffice control, Google forgives BMW, SunComm vows to make right their DRM debacle, SuitSat-1 still transmitting, and Defense of Google Book Search -- Read on for details.

Sutor says "no way" to VNUnet OpenOffice story. Andy Updegrove writes "Earlier today a story by Tom Sanders at Vnunet.com covered by Slashdot didn't make sense to me, as it ran counter to the joint determination of Sun and IBM to make ODF succeed. In part, the story relied on an email exchange with Bob Sutor, IBM's Vice President of Standards and Open Source, so I asked Bob whether the story got it wrong. The answer? Sutor said: 'To be more clear, and on the record, IBM and Sun are working together happily and effectively on the OpenDocument Format. I think we've made a terrific amount of progress in the last year and that's because of the broad cooperation by the community. I'm not sure why we were dragged into the referenced story, but it was certainly nothing we initiated.'"

Google forgives BMW after delisting. dbucowboy writes "According to Matt Cutts, Google has re-included BMW.de in the Google index due to their willingness to cease supposed blackhat SEO practices." From the article: "I appreciate BMW's quick response on removing JavaScript-redirecting pages from BMW properties. The webspam team at Google has been in contact with BMW, and Google has reincluded bmw.de in our index. Likewise, ricoh.de has also removed similar doorway pages and has been reincluded in Google's index."

SunComm vows to make right their DRM debacle. Rinisari writes "SunnComm, creators of the highly controversial MediaMax DRM implementation on a number of Sony BMG and indie CDs have issued a statement through the EFF that they are committed to notifying consumers and issuing updates/patches to fix security holes caused by the software. MediaMax is one of the two copy protection schemes about which Sony is being sued class-action style."

SuitSat-1 weak but not dead. zark22 writes "Suitsat, the amateur radio transmitter stuffed inside a surplus Russian spacesuit and chucked out the International Space station is alive and well, if somewhat weak and staticky. Users can still follow its progress at the Suitsat webpage."

UMich President defends Google book search. eaj writes "University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman defended the legality and ethics [PDF] of the Google Book Search project to a meeting of the Association of American Publishers on Monday. The AAP is suing Google over the book scanning involved in the project. From the article: '[We] believe this is a legal, ethical, and noble endeavor that will transform our society. Legal because we believe copyright law allows us the fair use of millions of books that are being digitized. Ethical because the preservation and protection of knowledge is critically important to the betterment of humankind. And noble because this enterprise is right for the time, right for the future, right for the world of publishing, right for all of us.' CNet news also has a video."

Re:I'm tired of these ham-handed appeals to morali

[hhawk]

Google is only putting part of the books online.. The whole book is searchable but you can't download it. That is well within both the spirit and the meaning of fair use law. In fact if anything it will lead to more request to get the book both from libraries and to purchase it; both of which will ultimately increase sales of these books. Given that some of these books are not in print, it is also of great benefit to society.

Re:I'm tired of these ham-handed appeals to morali

[Badluck]

http://books.google.ca/intl/en/googlebooks/help.ht ml [google.ca]
# Why can't I read the entire book?
We respect copyright law and the tremendous creative effort authors put into their work. So, unless any given book's publisher has given us permission to show sample pages, you'll only be able to see the Snippet View which, like a card catalog, shows information about the book plus a few snippets - a few sentences of your search term in context. If the book isn't under copyright at all, you can browse the entire book in the Full Book View, but the aim of Google Book Search is to help you discover books and learn where to buy or borrow them, not read them from start to finish. It's like going to a bookstore and browsing - with a Google twist.

Re:I'm tired of these ham-handed appeals to morali

[Apparition-X]

Time to burn some karma. How the holy fuck does this nonsense get moderated insightful. This topic has been discussed repeatedly on /. Flogged to death in a rather ham fisted manner, one might say, if one were inclined to mix metaphors. And each and every time some number of posters need to be reminded, as does the parent here, that Google is not offering up entire copyrighted works for browsing, but rather just snippets. So, I ask, again: why does factually inaccurate nonsense get moderated as insightful? Anybody?

Re:OpenOffice, OpenDocument, who cares?

[iabervon]

Actually, the blurb on Slashdot talks about ODF, but the actual article almost exclusively talks about OpenOffice. The IBM statement is only about ODF, but Suter also says that his earlier email about OpenOffice was entirely non-committal; IBM's not holding anything back for copyright ownership reasons. Furthermore, the OpenOffice project lead quoted in both articles actually says that he doesn't think Sun should spin off OpenOffice to a foundation. He says that, if IBM wanted them to (which is not the case), maybe that would be a good idea. IBM's statement is probably directly mostly at the situation where Sun decided they didn't want to employ 80% of the OpenOffice developers any more, and were spinning it off to a foundation for that reason; in this case, IBM would want to talk to them, probably to work something out where the project membership is maintained by IBM hiring the developers.

I'm a bit mystified that Andy Updegrove, when writing the blurb, failed to write it to cover the overall subject material, after covering it accurately in the linked article. I wouldn't be surprised if he'd written it as a full article, and the slashdot editors cut it down for slashback to a portion that wasn't a good summary.

Re:Suit Sat

[leighklotz]

I don't suppose there's any online sites for predicting a pass over a given location?
http://science.nasa.gov/Realtime/jtrack/Amateur.ht ml [nasa.gov]

Try heavens-above.com

[robbak]

http://heavens-above.com/ [heavens-above.com] carries suitsat data.

Google Scholar levels the playing field

[Call me Ishmael]

I found the post about using Google Scholar to research soul-catchers interesting. My initial reaction was one of dismisal as anyone with access to a decent set of library databases (MLA, Wilson, J-Store, MUSE) could have found that information much faster with full text to boot. But what if you're a HS student at East HogWaller High, or an adult doing some independent research. If you don't have access to a substantial library with all the latest tools, Google Scholar allows you a level of access to scholarly materials you may not have otherwise enjoyed.

Still pissed about the China page, though.