One of the scariest political events of late is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations being held between the EU, US, Japan and more. These negotiations are kept secret from the people[9][1.3][13]. Luckily the Internet is difficult to silence and much of the discussions has been leaked [1][8][17].
They are claiming that the trade agreement won’t change any local laws, and I certainly hope that is true, but then what are they discussing, really, and why behind closed doors?[10]

The ACTA negotiations are said to be strengthening the intellectual protection already present in the TRIPS agreement [2][3][4], which was called “murder” [5] by Professor Joseph Stiglitz, a 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics. He also says ACTA stifles science and innovation in the world [6][7].

I wish they would take the agreement public and let people debate the proposals. Especially as the ramifications of this agreement may be felt by everybody. It has the potential to kill the Internet as we know it[11][12][1.4][14].

“IP is often compared to physical property rights but knowledge is fundamentally different.” –IP Watch on Professor Joseph Stiglitz

“Patent monopolies are believed to drive innovation but they actually impede the pace of science and innovation, Stiglitz said. The current “patent thicket,” in which anyone who writes a successful software programme is sued for alleged patent infringement, highlights the current IP system’s failure to encourage innovation, he said.” –IP Watch on Professor Joseph Stiglitz

Update February 8, 2010
Even though the negotiations in Mexico are concluded, we’re still left wondering what is really going on[18][19][20][21][22].

References:
[1.1] The ACTA Guide, Part One: The Talks To-Date,
[1.2] The ACTA Guide, Part Two: The Documents (Official and Leaked),
[1.3] ACTA Guide, Part Three: Transparency and ACTA Secrecy,
[1.4] ACTA Guide: Part Four: What Will ACTA Mean To My Domestic Law?,
[1.5] ACTA Guide, Part Five: Speaking Out?
[2] Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
[3] Overview: the TRIPS Agreement
[4] Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
[5] Joseph Stiglitz on Why TRIPS (Patents) is Like Murder
[6] Intellectual Property Regime Stifles Science and Innovation, Nobel Laureates Say
[7] ACTA Murders
[8] Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
[9] ACTA One Step Closer To Being Done; Concerns About Transparency Ignored
[10] Blogging ACTA Across The Globe: FFII’s Ante Wessels on Exporting Europe’s Flaws
[11] The Similarity Between ACTA And Chinese Internet Censorship
[12] But, Wait, Didn’t The Entertainment Industry Insist ACTA Wouldn’t Change US Law?
[13] USTR: A Lot Of Misperception Over ACTA, But We Won’t Clear It Up Or Anything
[14] News.com Prevents Falsely Accused Grandmother Of Getting Kicked Off The Internet By The MPAA
[15] Blogging ACTA Across The Globe: FFII’s Ante Wessels on Exporting Europe’s Flaws
[16] Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure e.V. (FFII ACTA WG) presents an analysis of the planned Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)
[17] The ACTA Internet Chapter: Putting Pieces Together
[18] What Really Happened At the ACTA Talks in Mexico?
[19] ACTA Negotiators Report No Breakthroughs On Transparency
[20] ACTA absurdity continues, may only get worse
[21] ACTA goes on charm offensive sans charm
[22] EU Official caught in ACTA

Google Android is a free and open source operating system for mobile Internet devices. The promise of Android is freedom over your device, which allows you to use the software and services you want. No longer can the operators, service providers or anyone else decide what you do with your device. Nor can they dictate which services to allow and charge extra for them. You can install the applications you want, even if you made them yourself. The operators only provide the data communication service, which brings me to the subject of net neutrality, but that I leave for another post.

By the end of summer last year I was in the process of buying an Android phone. I call it a process as I try to make a market survey to make the best possible choice for me. All I had heard and read about the Android platform made me believe that it held the most promise for the future. It was already then very flexible and offered a lot of functionality, but the icing on the cake was, for me, that it was open. I believe very strongly in open source, or FOSS, and think it will push proprietary software into niche markets. Since I had already decided on the android operating system, the main focus was on the hardware. It basically boiled down to two choices. Samsung Galaxy or HTC Hero. The former has better hardware specifications, but the latter had a more smooth user interface. As I believed in the future of Android I wanted to see its evolution unmodified. I don’t want anyone to disguise the true Android experience and put a layer on top of it, which would only serve to delay upgrades to newer versions. Therefore I went with the Samsung Galaxy and bought it from Germany where it was a full €150 cheaper than in Sweden.

I really liked the phone. Sure there was some quirks and it’s not the fastest. The user interface sometimes lags terribly, but for the most part it works wonderfully. By the end of the year the next version (1.6) of Android appeared, then another just before Christmas (2.0) and now we’re seeing version 2.1 arrive. In the meantime Samsung decided to not upgrade the phone! I refused to believe it for a while, but more and more rumors suggested that Samsung had chosen to not to upgrade their first models and instead bring new ones to the market [1].

I did think of this as a possibility, but as it was open source I feared not. Because open source means that you always have access to the software free of charge. Then I discovered that the promise, that was Android, was a broken one. Sure, the Android operating system was still open, but the problem is the device drivers. The operating system relies on device drivers to talk to the hardware. These are not part of Android itself, but required to access the hardware capabilities of the underlying hardware. Samsung has chosen to use another WiFi chip than other manufacturers and, also, another camera (5 Mega pixel). While most of the other hardware was the same as other manufacturers were using, these two examples were exclusive to the Samsung Galaxy. If you cannot upgrade the operating system, then you cannot use the new features and the new class of applications that use them. Because if the open source nature of Android, it didn’t take long before someone created an upgrade for the cellphone [2][3]. Unfortunately you had to crack the phone to install it. An operation which voids your warranty. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any of the manufacturers releasing any device drivers under open source and the newer version of Android requires updates to the device drivers. Much of the hardware is the same as in other phones that have received an upgrade and those updated device drivers can be used by Samsung Galaxy too, but the device drivers for hardware that is exclusive to the phone doesn’t have any updates. It is, in my experience, usually a simple task to update the device drivers, but writing new ones is a huge task. As Samsung won’t release the device drivers as open source, then no-one can help them do the update, and believe me people would help them for free. This all leaves the exclusive parts of your phone inaccessible after the upgrade and that is where the promise of Android breaks down. Also, the bits and pieces of Android that made it into the Linux kernel have now fallen out again[4].

My advice to you: Buy an Android cellphone! Just NOT from Samsung, because they aren’t serious about Android and won’t upgrade the software. Hey, I’m talking from experience here.

References:
[1] Samsung’s Galaxy stuck in history
[2] Utvecklare tar saken i egna händer – Android 2.0 till Galaxy i7500 (Swedish only)
[3] Samsung I7500 mustymod ROM (Android 2.0), Android 2.0 (Eclair) for Samsung Galaxy
[4] Android code removed from Linux kernel

Hillary gave a pretty strong speech about digital freedom. If she does anything to back it up, I have to give kudos to her and Obama.