[Freegis-list] Protection vs. sharing

[Ian Turton]

On 3/2/06, J.J. Green <j.j.green at sheffield.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> Ian
>
> > I have to disagree here! There is no  inherent conflict between open
> > source code and digital rights management (DRM). If for example I'm
> > working with confidential data ...
>
> No!
>
> DRM has NOTHING to do with security -- it is about
> the deprecation of general purpose machines and their
> replacement by domain-specific consoles controlled by
> "trusted" authorities.


Rubish!  DRM allows me to place data on an open server but only allow the
people I want to use it acess. I could build an entirely closed set of
servers and clients that can only talk to each other but that's hard.

Or maybe you know of some easy to use distributed geospatially aware
security system I could use to protect this dataset with. Remember it has to
work transparently for the user of both web clients and desktop GIS.

DRM is the enemy not just of open source, not just of
> our society, but of our very species! Man without control
> of his tools is no more than a rat in a cage.


You can have the tools - thats what sparked this debate the publication of a
first set of tools to do this.

Lets be honest with our selves some one is going to build GeoDRM systems
would you rather it was done in the open where we can all watch and
participate or would you rather that each national mapping agency and thier
favourite vendor cobble something together in a backroom and impose it on
us. Think how hard mapping would be in Europe if for example you had to an
ESRI tool to draw maps of Britain and Germany but could only draw maps of
France and the low counties using MapInfo and then you needed Cadcorp's
viewer to add Luxemburg and Spain.

Ian
--

Ian Turton
http://www.geotools.org
http://pennspace.blogspot.com/
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