Library of Congress's $3M Deal With Microsoft 297
Cory Doctorow sounds the alarm over a Library of Congress deal with Microsoft that will have collections locked up in Silverlight. I'll double the Microsoft deal and offer them $6M in perl scripts and an infinite value of free OS software if they let me (or Google or any other honest company) publish their collections in free formats. "This deal involves the donation of 'technology, services and funding' (e.g., mostly not money) with a purported value of $3M from Microsoft to the Library of Congress. The Library, in turn, agrees to put kiosks running Vista in the library and to use Microsoft Silverlight to 'help power the library's new Web site, www.myloc.gov.'"
Re:where's the advantage? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Locked up? (Score:5, Informative)
Silverlight on Linux (Score:4, Informative)
Re:where's the advantage? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:where's the advantage? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Silverlight (Score:2, Informative)
Re:So? (Score:3, Informative)
It isn't just proprietary, closed-source companies who offer support.
Re:Is the US government this poor? (Score:4, Informative)
The LoC also gives away a lot of money, in the form of grants, for fellowships & university programs. So they could cut some of that, but someone else will feel the pain.
where's the disadvantage? (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight [mono-project.com]
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/development_tools/silverlight.html [apple.com]
It's just another piece of software that will need to be installed to access information. They haven't excluded anyone that I am aware of, unless you're still using a Commodore VIC-20.
Re:where's the advantage? (Score:5, Informative)
I hope all the linux users here like using Novell's distro, here's some evidence that Silverlight is entirely patent encumbered That's Miguel and Novell speaking.
be sure to contact mray@loc.gov (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Silverlight (Score:3, Informative)
Such as found on the front page, http://www.loc.gov/ [loc.gov] (homepage/swf/main.swf)
Re:Silverlight on Linux (Score:3, Informative)
What is the most horrible thing that could be? Gasp, the UI is built by Microsoft technology? Would you be more happy with Flash Instead? You simply can't do as light or rich UI without a technology like Silverlight unless you buy into Adobe and Flash, which still has many parts undocumented, in contrast to Silverlight.
Silverlight also implies two things.
1) The images will all be part of the new JPEG standard(See Microsoft HD Photo approved as Next JPEG Standard)
2) The video will also be a standard, VC-1.
What would you rather have content stored in?
These are 'the' two leading standards of the day with the expection of MPEG4 which doesn't perform as well as VC1 and there are additional licensing issues with real MPEG4 content.
Re:where's the advantage? (Score:5, Informative)
To Whom It May Concern:
In my opinion, it is a bad idea to restrict access to some of this nation's most prized possessions by requiring a non-standardized, non-open software package in order to access valuable information both in an online format and to visitors at the Library in Washington D.C.
Microsoft's Silverlight is an unproven and immature new technology. While Microsoft believes that the software will become very valuable, it does so by restricting access to operating systems and web browsers that only Microsoft deems worthy of using this new technology. With respect to Microsoft's anti-trust history, it would behoove the Library of Congress to steer clear of this technology. Especially considering several states fear Silverlight may be a source of future anti-trust violations.
I would strongly urge you to reconsider implementing Microsoft's Silverlight in favor of an open and freely available technology such as AJAX, SVG, and H.264. By using open and free standards and technology, you will be: 1. Allowing open access to all citizens, not just those deemed worthy by Microsoft. 2. Guaranteeing open access to all citizens for the foreseeable future, without restrictions imposed by Microsoft as upgrading becomes a necessity. 3. Guaranteeing open access to all citizens for the foreseeable future, should Microsoft demand a fee for access to its technology. 4. Allowing open access to all citizens without requiring them to bow to Microsoft's restrictive licensing agreement.
Thank you,
(your name here)
Re:where's the advantage? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.loc.gov/aba/contact/ [loc.gov]
All the way at the bottom.
I'm using this one, someone please post if there's a more appropriate place.
Web Site Comments. Let them know what you think. (Score:5, Informative)
Web Site Comments [loc.gov] looks like the appropriate place to tell them what you think of non free information and non free formats.
The LOC should not host works that can't be exactly reproduced for non commercial purposes. Rights holders who disagree with that can host content on their own dime and pay for their own advertising. At the very least, the copyright status of works on the LOC site should be unambiguous. Serving them that content with restrictions is a waste of everyone's time and money. Sooner or later, all of the work will have to be redone because non free formats are always flash in the pan. Non free content will violate everyone's rights and pocketbook in the mean time. There's no amount of equipment, software or money that M$ can come up with overcome the cost of giving them control of our national library. Our heritage and freedom is worth more than the $20 billion in cash they have.
Re:where's the advantage? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Silverlight and Firefox (Score:4, Informative)
Re:where's the advantage? (Score:5, Informative)
Check out this site for all the horrifying details of how librairies are selling out:
http://www.stratford.library.on.ca/downloadlibrary.html [library.on.ca]
Re:Silverlight (Score:5, Informative)
Re:where's the advantage? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Readers of Slashdot could be powerful. (Score:4, Informative)
Since when do the editors tag stories? I was under the impression they only filtered tags from users (and even then, only subscribers got to tag publicly).
Re:Unproven Technology (Score:2, Informative)
It IS also an issue about Mac and Linux users (Score:2, Informative)
Silverlight for Mac PowerPC is at version 1.0, with Intel Mac at 1.1. And Silverlight for Linux is vaporware. Either way, though, it's wrong to require a plugin to do things that don't need it. The few silverlight things I've seen (on a Windows box at work), most could have used plain old HTML + JPEGs -- the Silverlight requirement was flat-out gratuitous. A few had inline videos. And the fancies could have easily used flash -- flash is already ubiquotus, reinventing the wheel is ridiculous
Re:Readers of Slashdot could be powerful. (Score:2, Informative)