FDSys Blog Discussion on “Policy Neutral”
There's a discussion going on at the FDSys blog that is very relevant to Jim's posting on the Copyright Office and IE. Continue reading
What the Copyright Office / Internet Explorer rule tells us about government information
The proposal by the Copyright Office (Aug. 4 in the Federal Register) that would make it "necessary to use Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) web browser in order to preregister a work" is more than just a bad policy. It is an excellent example of future problems of e-government implementation and the potential for problems with long term availability of government information through GPO.
A new article (Copyright Office draws heat for proposed IE-only rule By Joab Jackson, Government Computer News, 08/17/05.) quotes the Copyright Office's reasons for the new rule:
The office says its browser choice is limited by the commercial software package it will be using to manage the registration system, as well as the time needed to test other browsers.
There was, and is, no intent to endorse a particular vendor. The office's goal is to make the system available to everyone, and therefore to enable frequently used browsers," said Marybeth Peters, the Register of Copyright.
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Projects and to-do
Here's the projects page for FGI Continue reading
LC creating IE-compatible only copyright registration system
The Library of Congress will soon implement an online registration system for copyright applications that would only be IE compatable. See the full story on News.com and the post in the Federal Register August 4, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 149). Nigel McFarlane warned of a "proprietary global infrastructure" in May, 2004, and LC tying their registration system to IE browser is proof that McFarlane was right. See "Smoke, Mirrors and Silence: The Browser Wars Reignite, InformIT, May 28, 2004. This is a very bad decision on LC's part, especially when more and more people and organizations are moving away from IE because of security concerns (and in many cases, dropping MS products altogether). See for example, "PSU recommends dumping IE". Continue reading
More government podcasts added to our directory
The number of government podcasters continues to increase and us volunteers at Free Government Information are doing our best to keep up by adding podcasts from NOAA and from Michigan's governor. All the podcasts we've found so far can be found our Government Podcasts page.
If you know of a federal, state, or local government podcast not covered on our page, please either note it in the comments section or drop me a line at dnlcornwall "at" alaska.net. Podcasts can either be of government agencies or elected officials. To be a podcast, you should be able to subscribe to the audio or video content through an RSS feed.
Thanks! Continue reading