Again not getting in to opinions of the man or his politics I think Obama is wired enough that we will see a push for more tech in government. I noticed whitehouse.gov got a face lift which makes it look like his other sites so I think he brought his developers to washington. You will also not how he has used the internet pre and post election to generate votes, fill jobs etc. Again I am not big on his politics but he may be the one to push the infrastructure  and technologies  America has been folling short on. You will note the invasion of Georga was the first major example of future warfare, hackers took down the Georga government via the keyboard before the raid  we need to ensure when WW3 happens or sooner that We can defend against such attacks because any country who wishes to come take us on will likely go after our technology first.

James Finstrom
Rhino Equipment Corp.
http://rhinoequipment.com ~ http://postug.com





On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 11:46 PM, Mike Schwartz <schwartz@acm.org> wrote:
[1] book review by Edward J. Valauskas, of James Boyle's recent book, The public domain: Enclosing the commons of the mind:
   http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2350/2080 
((quote from the above book review: "Anyone with even the slightest interest in intellectual property, government policy, and the Internet should read this book. Highly, highly recommended!"))
see also: 
   http://www.law.duke.edu/boylesite/    [1a]
which says (in part) this: 
<< "NEW  . . .  My new book, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind has just been published by Yale University Press. The book is available under a Creative Commons License for free download or online reading at http://thepublicdomain.org" >>
There is also a link to another "op/ed" item about it: 
    http://www.boingboing.net/2008/11/30/james-boyles-the-pub.html 
which in turn has a link to the [worthy] "cause" on Facebook -- called "Support Jamie Boyle for IP Czar", (see [2] below) at 
    http://apps.facebook.com/causes/182181
[2] some "advice" (? for Obama?) from an expert, saying the US needs a CTO (and a better "IT" policy):
   http://www.bakerinstitute.org/publications/TSPP-pub-ObamaTransitionBronk-121908.pdf 
I am not sure what the connection is -- "if any" -- between a CTO and an "IP Czar", but I just thought this was interesting.
[0] [comment:]  In some ways this fits right in with some discussions of prices, licenses, DRM, "piracy", etc. in another recent "OT" thread ("Re: OT: Microsoft layoffs").
I labeled this "OT" too. 
I haven't read the book [yet], but it seems like it might be very relevant to the "philosophy" of FLOSS etc.  Hence I said "OT: <--[maybe]". 
YMMV.
--
Mike Schwartz    
Glendale  AZ
schwartz@acm.org

---------------------------------------------------
PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss