• “When we try to pick up anything by itself we find it is attached to everything in the universe.” — John Muir
• “I throw a spear into the dark — that is intuition. Then I have to send an expedition into the jungle
  to find the way of the spear — that is logic.” — Ingmar Bergman
• “Lovers of wisdom must be inquirers into many things indeed.” — Heraclitus, 5th Century B. C.
• “You have about 10 minutes to act on an idea before it recedes back into dreamland.” — Buckminster Fuller paraphrased by Stewart Brand
• “Tool: Something with a use on one end and a grasp on the other end.” — Stewart Brand
• “If you cannot think of three ways of abusing a tool, you do not understand how to use it.” — Gregory Bateson
• “Big whorls have little whorls / Which feed on their velocity, / And little whorls have lesser whorls / And so on to viscosity.” — Lewis F. Richardson
• “I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.” — Tolstoy, quoted by Joseph Ford, 1985, in “Chaos: Solving the Unsolvable, Predicting the Unpredictable”
• “Technology without morality is barbarous; morality without technology is impotent.” — Freeman Dyson
• “Words challenge eternity.” — Horace
• “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.” — Thomas Pynchon
• “When the looms spin by themselves, we’ll have no need for slaves.” — Aristotle

In America, largely for historical reasons, residential customers have “all you can eat” plans. Buffet bandwidth is the order of the day, every day. As the number of people online continues to grow, and they do more bandwidth-intensive things (YouTube movies vs all-text web pages), telcos must buy new hardware. “How do they pay for it?” the article asks, and offers up three solutions: charge heavy consumers more (the Australian and New Zealand “metered Internet” solution); charge the people serving lots of data rather than we who consume it (which pisses Google off and starts a “network neutrality” war); or just suck up the costs themselves.

One element missing from this discussion is that every year brings more demand for bandwidth. Over time, we build more sophisticated applications that gain wider use: last.fm, Skype, YouTube, video chat, BitTorrent. To pick a number and say “this amount of traffic is reasonable use and will incur a reasonable charge” is to prevent the uptake of new applications that would drive the network use past the “reasonable” point. Unfettered, I’d expect to see this natural growth in our bandwidth use year on year. However, fetters are exactly what the ISPs have put in place to keep that down.

I suspect that the current ISP charging model is really: “3% of users take 50% of the traffic, so if we just price them out we’ll be able to get twice as many customers without having to buy any more hardware!”. The longer they can keep down our demands for bandwidth, the more customers they can “serve” without having to invest in new hardware.

But capital outlay is what growth is all about. If you want to double the number of customers, you should expect to have to double your bandwidth. One of the ISP CEOs said “I don’t subscribe to the view that network capacity is finite at all …. Optical fibre basically doesn’t run out of capacity, it’s just a question of how fast you blink the bits at each end.” Well if it’s not about capacity, mate, what’s left?

It certainly feels like you want your cake and you want to eat it: you want new customers without having to put in new hardware to increase your capacity, and you want existing customers to stay at their current levels so you won’t have to put in new hardware to increase capacity.

And if that’s not rorting your customers because you’re a greedy bastard, I don’t know what is.

Wednesday night in Wellington is a lot more exciting when the New Zealand Open Source Award ceremony is on! The Minister for Communications and Information Technology, David Cunliffe, made a brief speech lauding open source and was around to hand awards to the winners. We gave out prizes for best project, contributor, use in government, use in business, use in education, use in community organization, and use for infrastructure, as well as two special awards.

I was a judge (along with Don Christie, Rochelle Hume, Colin Jackson, Janet Mazenier, Chris Daish, and Paul Matthews) and presented the Project award to Silverstripe and one of the special awards. It was quite the honour to be on stage with the wonderful winners. A list of the finalists and winners is on the NZOSA web site.

As all awards should be, they were very hard to judge. Everyone finalist was doing great work, and it was almost impossible to pick one over another. Nonetheless, Robert O’Callahan from Mozilla edged out Debian, Perl, and OpenSolaris contenders for Best Contributor. Richard Hulse from Radio New Zealand took home the award for use of Open Source in Government (their online presence is built on open source and they even offer Ogg Vorbis show downloads, e.g. for science show This Way Up). Dave Lane from Egressive in Christchurch won Best Use in Business for almost singlehandedly building the open source business scene in Christchurch. FLOSS Manuals won for Best Use for Community Organisation, beating out Wellington’s rising star Brenda Wallace. CityLink won for Best Use in Infrastructure.

There were two Special Achievement awards handed out. Colin presented one to New Zealand’s CIO, Laurence Millar, to acknowledge the great work the State Services Commission has done in levelling the playing field for open source and open data within Government. I was honoured to present one to Matthew Holloway, whose work on the ISO OOXML proposal was a key part of the great work that Standards New Zealand did to establish their position (they voted against it becoming a standard). Well, I would have been if Matthew had been there, but it was accepted in his absence by Peter Lambrechtsen who was also part of the Standards NZ process.

There was even drama on the stage. Colin Jackson gave the Minister some stick over the ISP-hostile DMCA-esque provisions of the latest Copyright Act being snuck in after the bill had passed the Select Committee without it. Then I, as part of my speech above Matthew, got to observe that the transparency of the Standards NZ process was something that New Zealand could be proud of–unlike the ACTA and US Free Trade agreements which are being negotiated in secret and have considerable potential to interfere with the computer industry. The Minister stood up afterward and extended an offer to us and the relevant industry representatives to meet the appropriate people after a Cabinet meeting and go over our objections with the people who need to hear them.

Many thanks to MC Mark Cubey (by day the producer of the Kim Hill show), and to Catalyst IT Limited, the NZ open source consulting company that has funded the NZOSA for the last two years and built it into the great event that it deserves to be. Go Kiwis!

When preparing slides for others, they MUST read them when you’re done and MUST give a trial presentation with the hardware in place and MUST be the presenter doing these things.

Yes, I made slides for someone, and then discovered that the remote control started the slideshow just fine but didn’t advance; that I’d put the sections in a different order; that the person I’d made slides for wasn’t comfortable with the forward and backward keys; … and on it went.

Also valuable advice: put a blank slide at the end so it doesn’t revert back to the application immediately.

ACTA is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Proposed by Japan and USA, but not limited to them at all. About eight countries, mainly G8 and a few others like us and Morocco. Mainly about IP. Calling it “counterfeit” gets it under the radar.

Also very much about the Internet. While it did talk about physical products, morphed over last four years and now about more. Don’t really know what it is about: unnerving level of secrecy. Can’t find anything official about what it is, other than US trade representatives office official line “it’s about enforcement”, a universal framework of enforcement procedures around the world. All have signed non-disclosure agreements.

Silence leads to supposition. People are supposing the worst. Are they trying to pull our teeth by getting us to say how bad it is, then come back with “it’s not that bad” but still bad.

Started at a congress sponsored by Interpol, International Trademark Association, WTO, and others. GBLAAC mystery group. From record of the congress, had one each year for last four years, no longer mentions that group. GBLAAC speakers from Proctor and Gamble, Unilever, Philip Morris, Coca-Cola. Also sponsored by Baker-McKenzie (global law firm), and Rouse & Co. (specialists in patent and IP law). Not RIAA and MPAA, the usual media players involved in IP restrictions and copyright restrictions. These are serious players with long-term aims and much patience. If they’re in the game then it’s moved to a whole new level of worry.

Tried to get it through WIPO first, and got a big fail. Developing countries said, “we’ve got more important things to worry about”. WTO failed for same reasons. In Oct 2007, Bush’s trade rep decided to push it through USTR. Put out press release, and invited people to pre-negotiation meetings (Nov, Jan, and May this year). First actual negotiation meeting in June, before the deadline for submissions on what MED should talk about there.

At July 2008 meeting, they said expected negotiations to be completed by end of this year. Suspicion: they want to get it through while Bush is still President. Still must go through Congress. Don and Mark went to see Judith Tizard, the Minister (Assoc. Min of Commerce), but the Minister opened with “all this lunatic talk on the web”. MED doing driving says this isn’t about counterfeit, it’s about IP.

While talking to them, were addressing Mark’s submission. Also talking about whether concept was a good idea. American publishing industry built through piracy. Didn’t become full member of Berne Convention until 1989. Books published in UK said “not to be sold in US or Canada”. Until US worked out they were becoming an exporter of IP.

Tried to find what NZ’s position was, what they were negotiating about. Failed. They said, “all we’re doing is talking about enforcing existing law”. Obvious question: does that mean changes on Copyright Act that’s come through recently. They denied correlation, and said there was no need to change the Copyright Act. Nobody’s sure what law they’re talking about enforcing.

MED are policy people, not experts–know crap about copyright (lost all the people who did know about copyright). They are historically very inflexible.

Fear is that it will affect knowledge, books, music. Fear is that it will move enforcement from courts to the front-line officers. Certainly talking about enforcement at front line for DVDs, etc. “So Customs will be regulating online stuff as well?” “Oh no nono” but wouldn’t say who would. We suspect ISPs.

“It’s not practical to do that!” Yes, but governments haven’t been worried about what’s practical. Looks unenforcable but if someone decides they want to enforce it, they have carte-blanche to decide how to go about it.

A third party, like a corporate, can use customs officials as enforcers. “We want to know what’s on Don Christie’s laptop every time he goes through customs, whether his MP3s comply with TPM provisions, does he have rights to them”. Becomes something for a busy, technically ignorant customs official to begin evaluating. Imagine the damage someone could do trying.

Worried about chilling effects.

USTR published the submissions they got. The summaries were written by MED and may not reflect exactly what was in the submissions.

Asked officials, “what’s IP? Anti-counterfeiting for pharmaceuticals and consumer goods–all for it”. They talked about the copyright industry, patents, and trademarks. Four distinct areas of legislation. By conflating trademarks (in perpetuity while defended) with patents and copyrights (limited term rights with obligations to publish).

Don’t have to prove you’re an infringer before they can have your stuff taken away. Container of DVDs that might be Debian, could be claimed as “our IP” by SCO, and you’ll have to fight to get it back. If it hasn’t been destroyed–possibility that seizure can be accompanied by destruction.

Mark made a FOIA request the same day he heard about it. Supposed to get answer in 20 working days. On 4:45 on the 20th working day, got a note they’re extending two weeks. They extended his submission date one week. When it came, 91 documents were identified in their index, and they supplied 13. The rest were withheld for various reasons under the act, and the ones they did send were redacted. Though I did want to know who we had negotiating.

Q: Talk to Ombudsman? A: Haven’t gone there yet, but still in the quiver of arrows.

Documents say nothing. What was redacted: anything that referred to the NZ position. Their argument is that they entered the negotiations with an agreement to maintain confidentiality, particularly around other country’s positions. Don and Mark said: we don’t care about other positions, just ours. NZ is not a net exporter of IP.

Q: China putting ENZA labels on apples. A: That’s counterfeiting. If you buy an Apple iPhone, you want to know it’s real. If you buy food or a drug or even smoking Rothmans cigarettes, you’ll want to know you’re getting what you paid for. The whole presentation of this agreement is around counterfeiting, but we know it’s more than anti-counterfeiting because they talk about the copyright and patent industry.

Q: From MED’s point of view, our exports of physical primary goods is single biggest chunk of our export earnings. So that’s what they care about. It won’t occur about them to worry about IT sector. Even if it explodes, better IT than dairy. A: Don saw figures that ITC’s contribution to GDP is significant. There is concern about ICT-they know and have been pushing ICT as enabler of NZ and talk about “Knowledge Economy” etc.

For last 15 minutes, what should we do about it? First thing, make non-hysterical fact-based noise. Focus on what we know is wrong, secrecy. Contact your MP. If 30ppl put in an OIA to MED, they won’t be able to deny that there’s a lot of interest in this. Raise it with your MP and your party. Ask them “what is your position on this?”, with a link to MED’s stuff. Mark’s waiting to hear back from doing that. Writing letters on paper better than emailing, although they’re required to acknowledge and answer electronic comms same as paper.

Then get the public to understand. Educate not evangelize. Computerworld been good, and Glynn Moodie in the UK. Don’t shoot the messengers, MED and the officials, because they’re acting in good faith and probably think they’re doing the right thing.

Don: with the Copyright Act, we didn’t talk to writers, artists, musicians well about it. What three statements can we take to musicians about why this would be bad?

My take: NZ artists biggest problem is breaking into overseas markets, not piracy. You need as few obstacles as possible. If untrained border guards stop only .01%, it’ll be the small acts like Kiwis rather than big US acts that bear the brunt. Keep powers in the hands of the courts, don’t devolve them to decentralized rent-a-cops.

• Jane McGonigal: she creates Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), games that add a fictional layer to the real world. The Wellington team won records in her most recent game, The Lost Ring, that was run in the lead-up to the Olympics. How many people can say that they were flown to Beijing so people could play HER game during the Olympics? Jane can. She’s currently working on games about the future for the Institute For The Future. I’m hoping to learn from her how to bring the addictiveness and excitement of games to my own endeavours.
• Matt Jones: Matt was part of the amazing team at the BBC before he was director of User Experience at Nokia. Nobody can shake your thinking about design, about the value and role of technology in your life, and the possible futures of mobile and web technology, like Matt can. He’s founder and “Chief Pretty Officer” for Dopplr. (Dopplr’s CTO, Matt Biddulph, is also speaking at Webstock, returning for his second New Zealand visit—his first was to the inaugural Kiwi Foo Camp). I want to learn what makes Dopplr so frigging good—how does he think about it, what techniques does he use? so I can make my own web sites better for their users.
• Bruce Sterling: most people know Bruce as a science fiction writer, one of the founders and leaders of the Cyberpunk movement. Fewer know that he’s an absolutely incredible speaker and thinker about the (non-fictional) future. For example, check out his address to the Library Information Technology Association. Isn’t this prescient?
  

  What’s information really about? It seems to me there’s something direly wrong with the “Information Economy.” It’s not about data, it’s about attention. In a few years you may be able to carry the Library of Congress around in your hip pocket. So? You’re never gonna read the Library of Congress. You’ll die long before you access one tenth of one percent of it. What’s important — increasingly important — is the process by which you figure out what to look at. This is the beginning of the real and true economics of information. Not who owns the books, who prints the books, who has the holdings. The crux here is access, not holdings. And not even access itself, but the signposts that tell you what to access — what to pay attention to. In the Information Economy everything is plentiful — except attention.

  Guess when that was written? 2000? 1998? Wrong. 1992. The whole essay is full of wow moments, as is every minute of conversation with Bruce. I think he’s going to be my own personal highlight. I want his take on the future mobile embedded web, his work on “Spimes”, thinking about how to hide complexity and simplify design when we’re building a world where every object is networked, intelligent, and useful.

And that’s not even mentioning: Derek and Heather, beyond whose halo of Flickr/web goodness lies an amazing vision of transforming and democratising print magazines; Annalee, whose insight into privacy is only matched by her intelligence in communication; Adrian, who has simultaneously cemented Python’s place at the forefront of the web and reinvented newspapers and journalism for the digital age; and ZE FUCKING FRANK holy shit Ze Frank is coming to New Zealand!

Sorry, lost control of myself there. See you in Wellington Feb 16-20 2009. This is gonna rock!

That’s a hard message for we net heads to hear. We’re used to saying that the Internet can help us overcome the tyranny of distance, the fact that we’re four million people on a small island in a big ocean far far away from the rest of the world. We’re learning that if we can’t find investment in NZ, then we are immediately on the back foot because of our distance from capital.

And it’s not only investment, it’s bizdev as well. It’s a cliche that sales are built on relationships, but it’s true. If you build a great product, you’ve still got to get it in the hands of customers. This means understanding the market so you know where they look, it means knowing what they’re looking for and what they make buying decisions on, it means knowing where to advertise, it means meeting and being trusted by the distribution partners who’ll get your products into the hands of customers. Not all of these apply for virtual products, but every startup founder I’ve ever met has said that getting people to use the product was harder than building it. And most of these things are so much easier if you’re in the same country as your customers.

So what to do? I’m not sure. I still think it’s possible to use the net to beat distance, but it needs more NZ investment and a lot more of the hard-earned experience that the NZ entrepreneur community is just beginning to get. And we need to share the lessons from that experience as far and as fast as possible. I guess that’s something I’ll work on for Kiwi Foo Camp 2009.