I think I know what I'm talking about on this one, and FON is not a pyramid scam.

I'm not sure what <a href=http://www.nyctv.com/why_spitzer_pushing_wifi_instead_of_911_justice.htm">this delusional person is talking about when they say:

If you're one of the folks who is testing out (or using the now released) new Firefox then you've probably seen an error message saying something like "Security Error: Domain Name Mismatch" and then it says a bunch of jargony stuff and then you see that the domain is for "sb-ssl.google.com error 12263... however the security certificate presented belongs to www.google.com...If you suspect the certificate shown does not belong to sb-ssl.google.com please cancel the connection and notify the site administrator". What the heck is that?

As of now, you just install Gaim from http://gaim.sourceforge.net/downloads.php

Then, install OTR from http://www.cypherpunks.ca/otr/.

Then, if you're using the Gaim beta, you need to install the files form this zip: http://lists.cypherpunks.ca/pipermail/otr-users/2006-January/000531.html

I'm a big proponent of the Fair Trade movement. It's a market solution to a problem that legislators haven't done anything on except for Berkely where they tried (and failed) to pass something. Regulation would be too rigid and cumbersome - this is a problem that needs a market solution.

In his English language blog, Martin Varsavsky mentions that "In the last 24 hours alone we placed 800 access points." and also discusses how they have 100,000 registered Foneros and placed an order for 100k Foneras that they expect to use up by February of next year. That's all pretty impressive stuff. Or is it?

A little while ago there was a post that caused some serious uproar and division in the FON community basically bringing to a head what has already been happening: Fonero dissatisfaction. Unfortunately, rather than respond to the claims that their UI mislead users, FON simply disabled the ability to get the statistics that had been used to determine the actual growth rate of FON access points. So, now when Martin says in his blog "we are huge and growing insanely quickly!" what evidence do we have of that growth?

Additionally, and this is where having a Spanish literate wife comes in handy, in the
last
24 hours Martin has offered FREE Foneras to three different user communities - Meneama, Bandaanchast, and people who have commented in his Blog. The pessimistic view of this is a very bad one!

The Pessimistic View of FON

This was all a calculated scheme. Martin specifically gave the free FON devices to these communities so that he could artificially increase the number of units "placed" in the last 24 hours. Notice the use of the word "placed" as opposed to "sold". That's kind of sketchy behavior, but I think the even worse situation is this: people who get a router for free are not committed to the project. So, of the 800 "placed" in the last 24 hours what percent will actually get turned on? What percent of the group that get turned on will still be in use 24 hours after they are turned on? How about 24 weeks down the road? PLUS - I've already commented on the folly of this idea in Martin's first discussion of the point. The quality of the network is hugely important, so you don't want to have to send people around to test the points and there are plenty of sites that will teach you how to "crack" the router so it pretends to be working even though it's just serving up private WiFi. Free Foneras degrade the quality of the network. Bad idea. So, it's both shady accounting and it was done in a way that yields very little long term value for FON.

Images are fun. A little while ago Mozilla told the Debian folks that if Debian wanted to keep shipping the browser as "Firefox" and use the Firefox art then they have to follow the rules for using the Firefox name and art. These are in place to protect the Mozilla brand and security - e.g. you can't recompile Firefox with a cookie/traffic snooper and still call it Firefox.

Several Debian folks got upset about this because it didn't feel Free enough to them. Interestingly, Debian has a very similar policy about the use of their artwork:

1. This logo may only be used if:
   • the product it is used for is made using a documented procedure as published on www.debian.org (for example official CD-creation)
   • official approval is given by Debian for its use in this purpose
2. May be used if an official part of debian (decided using the rules in I) is part of the complete product, if it is made clear that only this part is officially approved
3. We reserve the right to revoke a license for a product

This morning I was reading stuff from planet mozilla which pointed me to the below photo (original source).

Well, this was frustrating to me. So, I decided to grab a little Debian artwork and have some fun in Inkscape.

Resolution to the Problem

And just so that I'm not another log on the fire - it would be nice if some folks (e.g. Mitchell Baker and Anthony Towns) to say "Enough is enough, we're both great and well respected Open Source projects that have to protect our respective trademarks and we will honor the each other's trademark terms - no hypocritical criticism necessary".

There are several new companies coming out of the woodwork to help smaller publishers make money from their blog or blogs. I see this as just another step on the path from traditional media to distributed citizen media. It's also a great development in terms of enabling individuals to take control of their financial destiny.

History and Progress

Newspapers, radio shows, and other traditional media have always written favorable articles about advertisers. That is, after all, a big part of the motivation for Consumer Reports - to provide unbiased reviews of products. There are also several watchdog agencies that are pointing out the commercial bias in traditional media as Andy Hagans points out in the ReviewMe Blog. So, this is just a further step in an existing trend. And, as a further step, it's not surprising that a lot of the same contentious issues play out.

If you send a free gadget to a reviewer is that a "pay per review" situation? Martin Varsavsky debates this point but in his case he's lucky to just have a $5 product! But, when jounalists given over $500 worth of multimedia/cell phone kit, can you really expect them to be totally unbiased in writing about Nokia? Some people are bashing this new wave of "paid blogging" as biasing the blogosphere, but it's not as cut/clear of an issue as some

At the same time we've all heard the statistics about people ignoring advertising more and more - so marketers are a bit concerned about how to keep getting their ideas passed along in meme sex.

Review of the Companies