June 2002 Reader Letters

Dismayed

I've been quite disappointed since the big transformation to New Architect. I read your magazines because of the technical and scripting columns. This was one of the few magazines that I could find that covered several different Web development technologies. I liked seeing code snippets. I liked seeing markup. Now that's all gone! Instead of the shining developer's resource that Web Techniques once was, New Architect has become a completely different magazine that now seems to cater to administrators and executives instead of developers.

Eric Lund
[email protected]

Thanks

Just wanted to drop you a note to let you know I really enjoyed the April 2002 issue of New Architect. I especially liked the two articles discussing the creation of the Orbitz and BART Web sites. It's articles like these that have made Web Techniques, and now New Architect, just about the only Internet/computing magazine I look forward to receiving.

Jay Dreyer
[email protected]

.Net's True Beneficiary

The last page of New Architect's April 2002 issue has a very good article by Barry Parr ("The Next Big Thing") about Web services. I hope all of your subscribers get to the last page to read it. Microsoft is fooling a lot of developers into thinking that they had better get on board with all of Microsoft's .Net and Web Services propaganda, or they'll be left in the dust.

I don't think the majority of developers realize that Microsoft will be the real beneficiary of .Net, not the developers or the end-user. Barry hits the nail on the head with the parts of his article about "the dream behind Passport and Web Services" and building solutions where there is no problem. I hope you run that article again, maybe closer to the front.

Steve Hughes
[email protected]

Fair Use

I enjoyed the depth and breadth of the articles about digital rights management (DRM) in the March 2002 issue of New Architect. The digital medium changes the way information can be stored, retrieved, and distributed. It is the creators of information who will turn publishing, in its myriad forms, upside down. They don't need publishers and distributors anymore. At some point, the creators may want the services of a publisher, but they don't need it to start. When they realize this, DRM will manifest itself as a simple method for buying and selling content digitally.

As a writer, I care very much about my copyrights. I defend them vigorously, but I also recognize that word of mouth and sharing are still the best kinds of marketing available. People share my works legally all the time when they provide links to my online writing to their friends. I'm sure some people print my articles and pass them on to others. Fair use is a wonderful marketing tool.

It puzzles me that the term shared is so prevalent in the dialog about DRM. Everyone knows what it means to share, and that sharing is different from stealing or conveying property illegally. Yet, the practice of sharing is too often confused with the concept of fair use. While big publishers and distributors work on ludicrous DRM methods to prevent sharing, as a writer and consumer, I will continue to take advantage of fair use. When I want the convenience of using information on my computer, I will copy a CD to my hard drive or seek out a digital copy of a written work.

I predict that the DRM methods the publishers are developing will fail because publishers are really trying to avoid fair use.

Nick Corcodilos
[email protected]

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May 2002

Our readers send praise, criticism, and air concerns about DRM and the interpretation of the term fair use.

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