It’s not been a Good Year for the Good Guys

It’s August and here in the South we often call these the “Dog Days”. While I’ve never gotten a strait answer out of my antecedents as to why we call these the “Dog Days”, I can only imagine that stems from the hopelessness we see in dogs because of the oppressive heat.

I have to admit I’m feeling some of that hopelessness right now.

This year has seen a series of victories for the forces opposed to freedom and innovation, in favor of status-quo greed at the expense of the helpless.

The events that have trigger my blasé attitude occurred in a specific order, but in my mind they have become a jumble, so here they are in no specific order.

The RIAA litigation victories. The Music Cartels really have done it. They managed to finically obliterate two families trying to show them up pas “examples” to all those who dare fight their dubious (and I feel illegal) “settlement” camping. I recently read a powerful analogy showing that committing Second Degree Murder is less finically devastating to a perpetrator than what the RIAA is doing. To rub salt into the wound, the Obama administration is supporting these actions by the RIAA. I expected more from a person use used “hope” as a campaign slogan.

The Pirate Bay. The blow was the convection of the founders of the Pirate Bay by a Swedish court. The “crime” which they are found guilty of was “accessory to commit copyright violations”. But the prosecutors never fully established the underlying crime. To me this is extremely dubious, boarding on the notion of P.K. Dicks “pre-crime”. Aside from the Pirate Bay case, it seems more and more that police and prosecutors are shortcutting the law and trying to find ways of silencing people they find undesirable.

SCO and Novell. I had hoped this case was over. SCO perhaps as much as the RIAA represents the worst aspects of Corporate America. This company no longer makes, dells, or supports products, they only exist now to litigate the issue of who “owns” Unix. Just this week we have seen the 10th Circuit Court of apples overturn a 2007 ruling that stated Novell owned Unix. Now the issues has to go before a Utah jury. I’m still hoping that 12 men and women can shut down SCO and Darl McBride for good this time. Of course I care little about Unix, but the under pinnings of this trail are that if SCO wins they are going to resume their litigation ageist the free and open source Linux. SCO will not benefit from that, but Microsoft will, and Microsoft has been pumping money into SCO for some time. When or lose I think SCO will go bankrupt and go away (bankrupt as in “go out of business” not the bankrupt “we restructuring” that they are currently in), but the ramifications of them winning are to terrible to think about.

Steve Jobs and Apple really are evil. This one hurt just about as much as finding out that the Obama administration is in bed with the RIAA. I’ve always known that Steve Jobs personally was a less-than-pleasant person. He’s hyper competitive and somewhat neurotic, and seems cultivate a cult of personality around him with like minded people. But that’s been ok with me and millions of other Apple fans/owners. However now that Apple has a lead in a market, smartphone with the iPhone, the authoritarian practices of Apple are starting to rub me the wrong way. I really feel hurt and betrayed by this. On the one hand I enjoy the seamless integration and easy of use that Apple Products offer, but on the other hand it dumbfounds me that some things take forever to get from Apple. (Like 2 years to get cut-copy-paste on the iPhone). On the Windows/Linux side of the world, this is not such an issue because being open, if a vendor does not give me the features I want (for example: my iPhone streaming from my iTunes Library like my AppleTV), then third party developers can come in and provide those features. The iPhone is so closed however that to get these features you MUST get them from Apple. To compound the problem Apple makes these ridiculous statements about how “Jail-breaking” your iPhone is akin to being a terrorist.  Apples suite with Psystar is also a good example of using litigation as an anti-compeavtive tool. Apple could just as easily “break” all of the hackentosh clones with software updates. But rather than try to better their product, Apple’s army of lawyers have to justify their billable hours by suing a two bit company making sub-standard computers.

Aside from computers, I think the absurd allegations being bantered around the Healthcare debate are also wearing on me. Ignorance is a tiresome thing for the intelligent to abide. I am also settling in for a protracted battle with the State of Tennessee over imminent domain.

I’m hoping that the last quart of the year can seem some improved situations. Perhaps we’ll see VOIP services accelerate the demise of traditional phone companies. I’m hoping that the new Credit Card reform bill might start to rope in that industry. There is still a chances that the economic down turn will force some of these big companies to change their practices. At least I for one am no longer sending my consumer dollars to them.

Footnote: After some Wikipedia work, I discovered exactly why we call these the “Dog Days”. It comes from the prevalence of Sirius, the dog star, in the late summer sky. Wikipedia is both a blessing and a sadness in that it gives me craved information, but at the expense sometimes of childhood legends and mystique.