So we’re gearing up to start our beta program, and I wanted to provide a bit more information about how this is going to work.
The first phase of the beta will use an activation-key restricted version of the software. We are doing this so that we can maintain some level of control over the propagation of the software at the beginning. Of course, using a program like AllPeers is no fun if you can’t try it out with a few friends. So over the next few days, registered beta testers will be receiving a mail inviting them to provide additional emails of people they want to get keys for. On a first-come, first-serve basis, we’ll then send out activation codes to a limited number of testers.
Once we are comfortable that the software is working reliably, scaling well, etc., we’ll release an unrestricted version and invite the rest of the registered beta testers. I’m hoping we can do this pretty quickly, but of course it depends on what problems we run into during the first phase.
I can’t stress enough that this beta program is all about testing AllPeers. There will be problems initially… there always are. So if you want to be one of the first to try out a very cool piece of new software, please sign up for your activation keys when you get your invite mail. If you want a fully tested, unrestricted release of the software, please wait until we’ve finished the first phase of the beta test.
Geodog has published a transcript of a hilarious interaction with his hosting company (via Techdirt). I’m not sure I would have found this any funnier than the author if it had happened to me in the midse of a technical crisis, but it is pretty darn amusing. Here’s a question: how do we balance the need for efficient business interactions with the undeniable appeal of being able to maintain a sense of humor about our work?
I noticed the other day that Scrumptious had stopped displaying existing tags and comments for webpages. Sure enough, the del.icio.us crew has radically changed the format of the link page. Since this data is not available via the XML API, I would have to adapt the HTML screen scraping code that I use to extract it. Problem is, I don’t really have time to do this right now, what with releasing AllPeers and all.
At first I figured I would just put Scrumptious out to pasture, since now del.icio.us has its own Firefox extension, written and maintained by a real team. I installed the extension, and it’s undeniably better than nothing. At the same time, I still prefer Scrumptious, mainly because I like the sidebar more than a popup window.
So in the admittedly unlikely event that someone wants to update Scrumptious, please let me know. I’ll happily provide some guidance about how to do so, ample acknowledgement, eternal gratitude, etc. Otherwise I guess I’ll have to get used to the del.icio.us extension.
Some time in the late 1990s, probably ‘97 or ‘98, I saw XML co-creator Tim Bray speaking at one of those XML (or SGML?) conferences. This was back when Microsoft was at the height of its Imperial Evilness and Netscape was the hip new kid on the block. Or so conventional wisdom would have had it. According to Bray, who was working with both companies on the new XML spec, Microsoft was acting how you would expect Netscape to, and vice versa. (These are my memories of something that happened ten years ago, so I may have some or all of this totally wrong.) It seems that the Redmond juggernaut, feeling the heat of the web paradigm shift, was playing nice with third parties, whereas by all accounts Netscape had become insufferably arrogant and hard to work with.
I was reminded of this just now when, for the hundredth time already this week, I typed a few keywords into my Google Toolbar, snagged the first link with “Copy Link Location” and pasted it into a chat program. Only the link was all ugly and obfuscated, because Google intercepts your clicks for its own nefarious data gathering purposes before it redirects them to the appropriate site. Frustrated, I tried Yahoo Search to see if it was any better in this regard, but it fiddles with the search result links as well. Of the Big Three, only MSN Search seems to provide clean results. A minor thing, perhaps, but the offerings are so close that I’m almost tempted to switch over to MSN. In any case, link crapola (it’s old news, I know) is one of a host of things about Google that strike me as more or less evil, and it’s intriguing that, in this case at least, Microsoft is the one to have chosen the path of good.
Update: As stated in the comments, it turns out Google doesn’t mess with the URLs if you’re not logged in. Depending on how you look at it, this might be more or less evil than I originally postulated. Personally I’m not entirely comfortable with the fact that a site that I always considered a simple search engine (enter text, see results) has morphed into a portal that seems hellbent on gathering stats about me without my explicit permission. Yahoo appears to modify the URLs whether you are logged in or not. But the weirdest result is MSN. Despite what I said yesterday, when I tried it today I got screwy links just like with Yahoo (i.e. whether logged in or not). I guess this kind of invalidates my point about Microsoft (surprising no one, I’m sure), but I can’t understand why I experienced different behavior just now. Maybe I’m working too hard?
Anyone remotely interested in what France is doing with the newly voted law on DRM and its impact on Apple must read Christian Paul’s entry on his blog entitled Interoperability: Freedom for consumers and innovators. Christian is one of the author of the interoperable DRM amendment to the much talked about new French law.
To reinforce my comments about language pedants, here’s a link to the Language Log, where Geoffrey Pullum’s joke illustrates nicely the linguist’s view on this question.
Since he freely admits that the joke is a rip-off, I feel no remorse in stealing this post’s subject line from him.
About a year ago I had a heated debate with the head of one of the most technically advanced company in the online adult market. I was intellectually interested in this market since the adult industry has always been a test bed for new technologies. We were of course talking about how Peer-to-Peer was the most efficient way to distribute video content and how he could start selling some of his productions for 10$ per file instead of 60$ per DVD.
However, our views diverged very quickly on 2 issues: DRM and device. His goal in life was to ship a set-top box that would connect to a Peer-to-Peer network full of movies loaded with heavy DRM (”to stop the hacker kids from stealing my content”).
I fully disagreed (and still do) with his views. First, his hacker kids can’t afford his $60 movies so he is not losing revenue if they hack it and no DRM is unhackable anyway. So instead of giving freedom to his genuine consumers (who actually might have no ideas on how to get hold of the movies for free), he was prepared to put heavy restrictions on them to protect revenue he would have not booked anyway.
What really got me going was his set-top box vision. He wanted to own the box and that every single consumer of his files would buy the box (yes buy!) and subscribe to various channels where they could buy movies from various producers: “The Ultimate Adult Entertainment Box”. At a time when Personal Computers are turning into media centric devices, why on earth would someone want to add another box in their living room and learn new propriatery software?
We never managed to agree on the above issues and we agreed to stay in touch. He did however give me a couple of sample productions to help me research more about the issues his industry is faced with. I have to say if I were him, I would not spend time and money on DRMising this content. I had seen it all before.
This was one year ago. He still has not launched his DRMed box but more recently I heard of at least two major media companies basing their video distribution strategy on a set top box.
Time to start a new business: Rack-a-Box; the shelves for set-top boxes company.
Build your own rack of boxes for your living-room. Comes in brushed aluminium or wood imitation for your cosy interior. Fully extensible and adjustable. Works for TiVo, VCR, DVD Players, Cable, Video-On-Demand, Games Consoles, Satellite, Adult Boxes and many more! Wanna watch the last blockbuster but don’t have the box from the right company? Just call us. We’ll bring you the shelves extension and the box together. Free basket for remote controls included for any new customer until stock lasts. Only $9.99 per empty shelf.
Since today is the first day of spring or the last day of winter or whatever, perhaps it’s time for a quick point check on a couple of my 2006 predictions. First of all, I predicted a declining stock price for Google about a week before the GOOG began its downward slide. If the year would hurry up and end, I’d at least get that one right.
I also speculated that portable electronic reading devices would make their first push into the mainstream this year. The other day I saw a guy in a tram, of all places, with his laptop perched on his lap, reading. This kind of anecdotal evidence speaks volumes to me, since a Prague tram is not exactly a hotbed of technological gadgetry. And now Cedric sends me a link from Libération about how French paper Les Echos is launching an e-paper edition (English summary). I’m sure trees everywhere are rejoicing.
Definitely a trend to follow.
More from the IMDb Studio Briefing about movie release windows (remember my Bubble Blower boycott?):
Hollywood blockbusters are not likely ever to be released simultaneously in theaters and on DVD, leading filmmakers have told USA Today. In an interview with today’s (Monday) edition, writer-director M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense) commented, “What some people don’t get is that a movie makes a much stronger connection with audiences than DVDs. … If someone really loves something they see in theaters, they champion it in a way they don’t with DVDs. … They work harder to get people to come to theaters. And that creates a demand when the DVD finally does come out. Financially, messing with that model is dumb.” Twentieth Century Fox distribution chief Bruce Snyder observed that Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash biopic, would have tanked if the window had been shut. “People didn’t know the story, didn’t know about the performances. It needed to be in theaters and get people talking before they were going to buy a copy to keep forever,” he said. J.J. Abrams, who is director of Mission: Impossible III, remarked that he made the movie “for theaters … not for DVD.” Abrams, who also created Lost and Alias for TV, commented, “Story is important, but people also come to the theater for spectacle.”
Taken at face value, these filmmakers are simply arguing that the experience of watching a movie in the cinema is qualitatively different (and better) than watching on DVD. Nothing earthshattering there: it’s pretty obvious that the big screen has a unique appeal. But what the heck does this have to do with simultaneous release? If there are compelling reasons for moviegoers to opt for the cinema, why is that a reason not to offer them the choice of viewing on DVD? I still smell a protecting-you-from-yourself agenda. Maybe they’re just claiming that it won’t be economical to devote shelf space to DVDs if they have to compete with movie theatre exhibition in the early days of release. But shelf space is so 20th century. Simultaneous release is coming, whatever the Hollywood elite might claim, and cinemas had better be prepared to compete on their own merits.
Our sysadmin Greg, who is French, sent us an article from Le Monde in a mail entitled “AllPeers illégal en France ?” Later in the day, Daniel Glazman gave me a heads up about the same issue. The article brings us the latest and greatest from the French National Assembly’s debate on revisions to their copyright law. I should probably be following this more closely since the action is apparently intense, in that “chaque article, chaque amendement a donné lieu à de longs débats sous l’oeil des internautes et des auteurs” (”every article and every amendment has given rise to long debates under close scrutiny from copyright holders and internet users”).
The article goes on to explain that “le fait d’éditer et de mettre ’sciemment’ à disposition du public un logiciel permettant le téléchargement illégal ‘d’œuvres ou d’objets protégés’ est passible de trois ans d’emprisonnement et 300 000 d’euros d’amende” (”publishing and ‘knowingly’ making available to the public software that enables the illegal downloading of ‘protected works or objects’ is punishable by three years imprisonment and a fine of 300,000 euros”).
My reaction was predictably sanguine. I still don’t believe that anything we’re doing could be construed as illegal. Legislation of this type, in the same way as recent American judicial decisions, is clearly intended to sanction software that is explicitly designed to assist in the illegal transfer of copyrighted works. In fact, the discussion of the amendment in question actually makes reference to MGM vs. Grokster:
Le 27 juin 2005, dans un litige qui opposait les éditeurs de logiciels de peer-to-peer Grokster et StreamCast aux studios Metro-Godwyn-Mayer (MGM), les neuf juges de la Cour suprême des Etats-Unis ont reconnu à l’unanimité la responsabilité de Grokster et Streamcast pour trois motifs : ils encourageaient les utilisateurs à violer le droit d’auteur, n’avaient pas mis en place de dispositif destiné à réduire la réalisation d’actes de contrefaçon, et tiraient un avantage financier de ces contrefaçons.
(”On June 27, 2005, in a case that pitted the vendors of P2P software Grokster and Streamcast against MGM studios, the nine judges of the Supreme Court unanimously recognized the culpability of Grokster and Streamcast for three reasons: they encouraged users to violate copyrights, they did not put into place mechanisms designed to reduce the prevalence of acts of copyright violation and they profited financially from these acts.”)
Needless to say, none of these three points applies to AllPeers.
It’s worth mention that Tristan Nitot, president of Mozilla Europe, has been doing an outstanding job chronicling this drama as it unfolds, and he’s apoplectic about the latest developments. I don’t think either of us needs to worry about incarceration just yet. This isn’t to say that the insanely broad and ambiguous wording of the law is a good thing, but sometimes this can constitute a protection in and of itself. They will never be allowed to apply the law broadly since the consequences would be so manifestly absurd.
That said, let me say just in case that, for any Peer Pressure reader who might want to visit me in French jail: I really prefer pains au chocolat, but I could make do with a chausson aux pommes in a pinch.
Congratulation to the 40,000th registered beta-tester who arrived today at 16:39 CET.
Sorry there was nothing to win though.
Cedric got the scoop on the Rocketboom thing before I could post, which is probably just as well since he miscapitalized “Rocketboom”, sweet revenge for their miscapitalization of “AllPeers”. Is internal capitalization now a matter of personal taste? I’m pretty sure this happened to the Romans too round about AD 400 and is a clear sign that the end of civilization is nigh. Next thing you know people will be misusing the phrase “beg the question”…
My first take home point is that, after taking endless crap about my purple turtleneck sweater, it actually looks great, at least in a lowish-resolution stream with slightly washed out colors. So there!
My second take home point is that I talk really, really fast, especially when I’m excited. And I’m very excited about AllPeers.
Anyway, as a regular Rocketboom watcher it’s a total honor to be profiled. Thanks guys!
Update: I forgot the most important take home point of all: the front door of our building has an awful lot of grafitti on it. This must give us the most amazing startup street cred.
I also wanted to mention that I almost called the local mental ward the other day because my roommate was having hysterical laughing fits in the next room. Turns out he found my copy of “The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide” by none other than Graham Walker, the creative genius behind the Rocketboom/AllPeers segment. Consider it hereby plugged. It’s hilarious.
A few weeks ago Graham Walker from RocketBoom came to visit us in our Prague office to find out more about AllPeers and figure out if the product was or not vaporware as some people have been saying here and there on the web.
Well, have a look for yourself. This is the first ever public broadcast demo of AllPeers (it will be worth a fortune in 10 years time).
And in case you were wondering; no this is not a trailer for “Inspector Clouzeau meets Dr Evil” 
Back in 2002 when we first started developing AllPeers (way before we switched from Win32 to Mozilla as a platform), we had a heated internal discussion about whether to use C++ exceptions or error codes in our APIs. I argued for former, on the principle that we should use a mechanism that is actually intended for the purpose we are expecting it to fulfill. My esteemed colleagues ganged up on me and eventually beat me into submission. While they agreed in principle that exceptions were the right tool for the job, they argued that the C++ implementation was flawed (no declaration of what exceptions a method might throw, no finally clause, etc.) and that the devil you know has a comforting familiarity. Personally I’m all for strange devils, but Czechs are pretty conservative, and their programmers are no exception different.
Unsurprisingly, given this history, my interest was piqued when Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich proposed on his blog that Mozilla move from its snake pit of writhing return codes to an exception-based approach. He based his suggestion mainly on its performance and footprint implications, citing:
the terrible effects on register pressure, instruction cache utilization, memory bandwidth wasted on the out param that wants to be the return value, etc.
Benjamin Smedberg, XULRunner supremo and walking software development encyclopedia, took exception issue with this stance. Exceptions, he explains, break binary compatibility with existing XPCOM (and Microsoft COM), raise the spectre of intercompiler incompatibilities, make programming harder and might not even have the positive effects that Brendan postulates. None of this constitutes a slam dunk, of course, but it would be foolish to dismiss these reservations out of hand.
I was looking forward to Benjamin and Brendan duking it out, but after the initial skirmish, the discussion appears to have lost steam. Of course, Benjamin has been pretty busy lately, so that might have something to with it. In any case, I’ll throw my two cents into the ring, seeing as it’s always safer to pick a fight with a couple of heavyweights when you know that one of them is on your side.
I don’t see binary compatibility as the overriding consideration. I guess there’s a reason why MS COM interoperability is seen as a plus, but no one has shared it with me. Considering that most XPCOM interfaces are still in flux, it would appear sensible to make big breaks with the past now, before things stabilize, so if anything this might be reason to accelerate the move to exceptions if that’s considered the right path.
From my perspective as a user of the Mozilla APIs, the strongest reason for making the shift is one that Brendan glossed over: using an API where every method returns a result code is a major pain in the butt. Consider the following line of JavaScript (which uses exceptions):
ds.Assert(resource,
rdfService.GetResource("propertyURI"),
rdfService.GetResource("targetURI"),
true);
This single line translates into about 10 lines of C++ because you have to check the result code returned by each function call, with the actual (semantically relevant) return value in an “out” parameter. As a consequence, the code is very verbose and taxing to write, and the invaluable technique of chaining function calls together using return values is totally lost.
I’ve removed the “Boycott Bubble Blowers” button from the Peer Pressure homepage, and I’m in the process of figuring out exactly what hoops I need to jump through to cancel the web hosting account I set up for it. (I supposedly signed up for one month only, but of course the company has kindly decided to renew my subscription monthly without asking me, and I haven’t been able to dig up information on their website about how to cancel… though of course the option to upgrade to a more expensive plan is displayed prominently. If you want to host a website and honest business practices matter to you, don’t use DomainIt.)
Clearly my first foray into consumer activism was a dismal failure. I probably couldn’t have attracted less visitors to a website if I’d tried (though this might make an interesting exercise). A number of plausible explanations spring to mind: my poor organizational or motivational skills, lack of concern among the general population regarding the stifling of consumer choice (at least with respect to movie release windows), widespread sympathy for brutally downtrodden movie theater operators, etc. One hypothesis stands out, however: Bubble sucked. Next time I boycott media exhibitors for illegal collusion, I’ll make sure that the someone actually wants to see the movie they’re refusing to show.
