Aqua Vītae

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Danger of Software Patents

Richard Matthew Stallman (RMS) was in İstanbul on February 26th, 2011 and he delivered an impressive speech on the danger of software patents in Yeditepe University. You can access the videos of this event via several web sources.

The event was an annual gathering for Turkish computer engineering students so there were hundreds of undergraduate computer engineering stundents in the conference hall. Since I had my bachelor's degree more than 10 years ago, breathing the same athmosphere with the young students was a refreshing experience for me. I liked that.

Most of the guys around me was not aware of who RMS is or what the free software movement is. However, this lack of general knowledge was not a major obstacle for them because it was a Wi-Fi enabled room and most students were having their computers with themselves. They just Googled RMS and had the brief information about him, in a couple of minutes. This is a notable sign of transformation of the education and culture, I think. In the era of high performance information access, what is the meaning of remembering things? Is it still valuable? Should we memorize the sonnets by Shakespeare for a good reputation as an intellectual being in the future?

I really did not think deep enough to find the answers but my quick response is that it won't be so important to know or memorize lots of things in the future. On the other hand, we should know about the metadata which provide us the knowledge about where the information needed resides. Furthermore, we should be smart enough to ask the right questions. Education must give our kids the ability to ask the powerful questions and to access the answers of those questions fast. As a result, availability of reliable and free information sources will be a vital issue for the system. It really is a deep topic to dig now...
My other exploration of the RMS's speech was about the questions and answers part of the session. As usual, lots of the questions to Stallman were out of the context :) Kids were asking about, so called, contradiction between free software and earning the money, software realiability, software security etc... They were prejudice about human nature and dynamics of the society. Therefore, they constructed their questions on fallacies most of the times. As a result, RMS responded them with sharp and short sentences. He frequently interrupted the students, who had just started their questions,  after listening their first few words:

Student A: Dear RMS, as we all agree, people are jealous....
RMS: Hey my friend. Please stop. People are not jealous....
etc...

I don't blame them. It might be natural to think like that for the guys whose ages are ranging from 17 to 20-21. However, the consequence of those empty questions is the boredom, which kills minority of the audience having much more stronger intellectual background than the ones, asking questions in an unstoppable fashion, have. If you are above the average of your society and cannot isolate yourself in an appropriate way, you will suffer. The excerpt below from the great book, Shibumi, by Trevanian tells much about that suffering:

(Otake-san gives advice to Nikko about average men)
"Your scorn for mediocrity blinds you to its vast primitive power. You stand in the glare of your own brilliance, unable to see into the dim comers of he room, to dilate your eyes  and see the potential dangers of the mass, the wad of humanity. Even as I tell you this, dear student, you cannot quite believe that lesser men, in whatever numbers, can really defeat you. But we are in the age of the mediocre man. He is dull, colorless, boring but inevitably victorious. The amoeba outlives the tiger because it divides and continues in its immortal monotony. The masses are the final tyrants. See how, in the arts, Kabuki wanes and Nowithers while popular novels of violence and mindless action swamp the mind of the mass reader. And even in that timid genre, no author dares to produce a genuinely superior man as his hero, for in his rage of shame the mass man will send his yojimbo, the critic, to defend him. The roar of the plodders is inarticulate, but deafening. They have no brain, but they have a thousand arms to grasp and clutch at you, drag you down." 

Shibumi, page 64

by Trevanian

Türkan 2

The last book which reveals the Türkan SAYLAN's final words defending herself against the heartless accusations, that were targeting herself in her last days, published several days ago. The name of the book is sharp and impressive: Son nefeste son savunma (The last defence in the last breath).

The author is Hüseyin Karataş. He was SAYLAN's attorney. And he states that completing this book was her last request to him. 

To conclude, I just want to share Karataş's words about Türkan SAYLAN below: 

Hocamın iki çığlığı vardı unutamadığım. ÇYDD yöneticisi Prof. Ayşe Yüksel tutuklandığında, Saylan hastanedeydi, son günlerini yaşıyordu. Yanındakilere “Fişimi çekin” demiş. O gün Yüksel’in tahliye edildiğini haber vermek için aradım. “Sizi ziyarete geleceğim. Ayşe Hanım’ı da yanımda getireceğim” dedim. Türkan Hocam’ın dakikalarca süren sevinç çığlığını unutamıyorum. Nasıl birden o enerjiye kavuştu, nasıl mutluluktu öyle... Yatağından doğrulmuş hemen. Yanından eksik etmediği kırmızı rujunu sürmüş. O günkü sevincini unutamayacağım. Ergenekon aramalarının sadece kendisiyle ilgili olduğunu sanıyordu. Haberlerden diğer ÇYDD yöneticilerine de aynı şeyin yapıldığını öğrendiğinde attığı çığlığı da unutamıyorum. Ama hüzün doluydu bu çığlık. Türkan Saylan benim için yaşama çığlık katan kadındır.

Av. Hüseyin Karataş

Hürriyet, 20 Mart 2011

My translation is:

There are two screams came out of professor that I can never forget. When ÇYDD executive Prof. Ayşe Yüksel had been arrested, Saylan was living her last days plugged to the life supporting machines in the hospital. When she heard the news about the Yüksel's arrest, she asked her physicians to unplug herself from the machines. At the end of the day, I had called Saylan and said that "Ayşe Yüksel was released by the court and I would take Ayşe with me to the hospital to see her". After that call, she screamed for minutes with a great happiness. She recharged her batteries by the this good news, straightened herself up in the bed, wore her famous red lipstick... I cannot forget her felicity that day. 

She was supposing that she was the only person, whose house was searched by the police for Ergenekon investigation. When she watched the news and saw that the other top ÇYDD executives were conducted in the same manner by the prosecutor and the police, she screamed so sadly that I couldn't forget.

To me, Türkan SAYLAN is the lady who brings the scream to the life.

Atty. Hüseyin Karataş

Hürriyet, March 20th, 2011

   

Restricted Web Access

We, two engineers working as IT professionals for more than 10 years, were trying to read the most popular newspaper of our country by using our computers at the office. I was sitting just beside his desk and watching his actions...

He tried to check the headlines of the paper. Corporate web access filter denied his attempts due to the category of the pages he wanted to open. Some of the forbidden categories were  "Provocative Attire", "Entertainment" and "Media Sharing"... Too dangerous!

The paper was Hürriyet. The year was 2011. He was 38 and I was 33 years old. Our arrogant and nitwit web proxy controller application was very persistent about disciplining us.

My friend strived to open 10 headline links on the newspaper. The system allowed only 3 or 4 of them. And the things we saw on the pages, we succeeded to reach, were ugly guys and their boring words and some depressing news like that.

My friend's witty statement was outstanding:

"Hey Bora, what sort of a security concept is it? It blocks all the pages with joy and cheer but shows every possible disgusting men and their stories! Do we really pay for this system? It is a psycho! It must be broken. Look at that thumbnail: If it is a smiling lady, proxy stops that link; if it is a fat serial killer proxy lets me visit the page! "

After a simple black box test, his conclusion was correct: "It must be broken."

I know that it is a common story.
I discussed the problematic perspectives of this prevalent protective approach with my colleagues who are responsible for network security of the company several times. Unfortunately, we were not talking the same language :) So nothing got better.

We demand free communication everywhere! School, home, office, street...

What is the solution?

Blogger is Banned in Turkey

Digiturk, the digital telecaster, sued Google for infringing the Turkish Soccer Games' broadcasting license, held by itself. As a result, the responsible court found Digiturk rightful and decided to block access to Blogger web site from Turkey.
The scenario is that some guys are recording the soccer matches broadcasted by Digiturk and putting the streaming video in the web pages, provided by Blogger, in a nearly real-time fashion. At first sight, Digiturk might be recognized as the victim of the bandits and we can support the verdict of the court. However, when it comes to the technological perception of the case, things are starting to get different. In this era, a high technology provider such as Digiturk must be aware of the abilities of the Internet, Internet users as "living creatures", their rights, contemporary tendencies in the context of communication over Internet and their effects to the old fashioned business. Internet is transforming the human behaviour including the aspects of how they consume things, how they receive services, how they trade, in an unstoppable way and the laws which are to regulate the commerce have to be adapted to the current way of life immediately. Otherwise, applying the ancient laws to our "post-modern" lives will be resulting in odd situations. Banning the Blogger in Turkey is a good example of those weird situations.
As we all know, Blogger is an open platform and every blogger user must sign the "terms of service" before creating their blogs. Some users may violate the terms and Google may suspend or purge their accounts. It seems like a solution but those guys can immediately create new accounts and continue violating the terms they signed. It is not so difficult to see the truth that the material contained in a user's page is in his/her responsibility, not Google's. So shutting down the access paths to a huge platform like Blogger, in which millions of free human beings are expressing theirselves, running business, communicate, collaborate, just living there, due to the misbehaviour of its small number of users is not a decent way of regulating the commerce by law. If you could, please find the "real" persons who are broadcasting the Digiturk's content by violating the licenses and judge them in a fair way but DO NOT block the whole Blogger platform. Because this rough way make all innocent Blogger users suffer. Personally, I do not care about soccer or Digiturk or the licenses of Digiturk. I just want to follow the blogs and share my opinions in my blog. Why do you stop me? What is your point of view? Can you explain your attitude by regarding the rules of public welfare or any other story?
My last words are for Digiturk: Why did you pay for the license of telecasting the content that you cannot protect from pirates? What was your business plan? Broadening the subscriber base of yours or making judges block several parts of the Internet domain by domain? Isn't it your problem to save your property from illegal access by using criptology or any other way you can benefit? To me, you are very very unsuccessful and do not have the fundemantal perception of the concepts of human rights, IP based communication, world wide web, and even basic business :) Besides, in my opinion, your vision is too narrow for a technology provider. It is a surprise that you receive financial support from TÜBİTAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) for your research and development projects. Don't you think that you have to be much more innovative and smarter about finding the methods for protecting your core asset? If I were the CFO of TÜBİTAK, I would cut off your financial support, just after I got informed about your lawsuit against Google. Yes, you seem you are the winner of the lawsuit but I consider you as the loser party in the long run.
I have to admit that I will never be a Digiturk subscriber just because of your odd claim against Google! You add no value to my life. You don't seem to be capable of making things smarter in your business. You better sell eggs in bazaar and sue the ones who try to steal your eggs :) But with your current mindset, I have no doubt that you would ask judge to collapse the streets to the bazaar, where possible thieves are wandering, instead of catching the thieves :))

The Departed

The Departed is one of my favourite movies and Captain Ellerby's words about marriage below are really great.

God bless wedding ring ;)

Ellerby: How is your wedding coming along?

Colin Sullivan: Great, great; she's a doctor.

Ellerby: That's outstanding.

Colin Sullivan: Yeah.

Ellerby: Marriage is an important part of getting ahead: lets people know you're not a homo; married guy seems more stable; people see the ring, they think at least somebody can stand the son of a bitch; ladies see the ring, they know immediately you must have some cash or your cock must work.

[laughs]

Colin Sullivan: [laughing] Yeah, it's working... Overtime!

Ellerby: I'm glad to hear that.

Colin Sullivan: Yeah... Thank you.



The Gift

December 9 is my birthday.
To be honest, I have never been a fan of birthday celebrations or any other "special day" ceremonies.
I never expect my entourage to plan any events for my birthday and most of them knows my nonchalant thoughts on this topic. I've got several reasons for thinking that way, but I am not going to dig it now.
I just have to admit that this year I received one of the most impressive birthday gifts ever. My friends presented me 2 tickets for the Viktor Lazlo concert on December 21st, 2010. I know that it is the rising tendency among people to give distinguishing experiences as the gifts and mine was a very good example of this.
I have just come home from the concert. It was two hours of total refreshment, peace and tranquility for me and my wife: Viktor Lazlo (Sonia Dronier) was looking gorgeous (you can never believe she is 50), singing excellent as usual; music was perfect; audience was elegant; the concert hall was great.
I am feeling good :)
So thank you, guys, for giving me such a graceful gift. Life is so much better with you.