On The Margins

Thursday August 26, 2004

[ Web ] Devices Profile

Quite a number of my friends working for mobile device vendors (or with Sun partners who are mobile device vendors) have approached and asked me what I thought about Microsoft's Devices Profile for Web Services.

My immedate reaction is that I'm not sure if the approach connects to a good idea.

Why invest such amount of effort at the Web Services protocol level when many high-market-share device vendors believe their devices will soon be able to handle the whole WS protocol stack? Second, I point people to JSR 172, where Java APIs such as JAX-RPC and JAX-P have been "profiled" for use within J2ME environment.

2004-08-26 22:11:41.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

[ Networks ] To Share or Not to Share, That's the Question

On August 19, 2004, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in the Grokster case that the makers of peer-to-peer software were not responsible for what users do with their network. The list of plaintiffs vs. defendants is quite interesting to review. Here are some significant paragraphs from the BBC report on the case:

In their ruling, the judges said the case had parallels with older cases which said video recorders should not be banned just because some people put them to illegal ends.

"History has shown that time and market forces often provide equilibrium in balancing interests, whether the new technology be a player piano, a copier, a tape recorder, a video recorder, a personal computer, a karaoke machine, or an MP3 player," wrote the judges in their opinion.

The judges said it should be up to Congress rather than the courts to change copyright laws.

One factor that led the US court to rule in favour of Grokster and StreamCast was the lack of central servers that co-ordinate file-swapping activity.

In the past Napster's use of central servers led the same court to call for that network to be shut down.

"Today's decision should not be viewed as a green light for companies or individuals seeking to build businesses that prey on copyright holders' intellectual property," said Jack Valenti, MPAA chief executive.

Only a few days later, on August 26, 2004, reports said that U.S. FBI agents had raided five homes across America as part of the government's first federal crack-down on file sharing networks. The five peer-to-peer file sharing hobs raided in Wisconsin, New York and Texas operated on Direct Connect software. DoJ siezed equipment but made no arrests, reported the BBC.

The DoJ raid seems to be somewhat at odds with the Grokster ruling. In other words, DoJ is breaking up an "innocent" private network rather than arrest or punish anyone misusing it. Perhaps, an arrest will lead to legal arguments where the concept of fair use will have to be finally settled in more detailed outlines.

Richard Posner has written briefly on the interaction of technology and law in the Grokster case as well as on fair use.

2004-08-26 15:00:57.0 -- Comments [2] ; Permalink ; Trackback.

[ Economics ] Housing Market, Interest and Exchange Rates

Shreedhar has written regarding his surprise at the unfathomable Bay Area housing market. He has noted wages and population moving in a direction that will lead to lower prices. Things are a bit more complicated, as research has shown.

Housing prices are determined by a number of factors, including wages, population growth (as Shreedhar has noted implicitly), interest rates, inventory, "production" (new houses), etc. When interest rates are low, housing market will move faster; when production or inventory is high, prices will be lower.

Historic prices, however, need to rise somewhat to provide an incentive for buying the house and also to help avoid defaults. If prices fall too sharply and too much, borrowers will go into default. This is not good for the borrowers. It's also not good for the banks or other creditors. At the moment, loans on houses form the largest volume of "fixed-income" debt paper (i.e. bonds) out there. So, on its own, any illiquidity in housing debt (bond) markets may have more influence on interest rates in the U.S. than government treasuries.

If bonds on loans become cheap, i.e. once default rises, interest rates will rise, too. However, high interest rates are not good for a sputtering economy because they make money too "slow" to come by. The only saving grace, I've read, is for the U.S. dollar to devalue even further against other currencies.

This could be good for companies such as Sun because of its large revenue footprint abroad, but it also may mean inflation if the U.S. becomes increasing more dependent on imports of basic goods. Any devaluation steps need to be taken very gradually.

2004-08-26 11:36:09.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.