HTML name and id tokens

The HTML 4.01 spec says:

ID and NAME tokens must begin with a letter ([A-Za-z]) and may be followed by any number of letters, digits ([0-9]), hyphens ("-"), underscores ("_"), colons (":"), and periods (".").

But it also says:

Use id or name? Authors should consider the following issues when deciding whether to use id or name for an anchor name:

• The id attribute can act as more than just an anchor name (e.g., style sheet selector, processing identifier, etc.).
  
• Some older user agents don't support anchors created with the id attribute.
• The name attribute allows richer anchor names (with entities).
  
  

It is strange that name attributes are supposed to allow richer anchor names (with entities) when the none of the characters necessary for specifying entities, other than digits, are allowed in name tokens - the ampersand (&), without which one cannot specify an entity, is not allowed in a name token, nor a semicolon (;) nor a hash/pound (#).

Some browsers allow many characters other than those specified, including non-letter initial character, but not all. No doubt some browsers are attempting to conform strictly to the specification when they ignore anchors with disallowed characters in their name tokens.

Demographics, Corporatization and Democracy

Here is an interesting presentation on trends in demographics, with some discussion of their implications to prosperity and stability of countries around the world.

The world has never been a static place and the future is certain to be different from what we know today. Having grown up in a long period of peace and propsperity in "western" countries, it is easy to forget the preponderance of conflict and hardship in the overall human experience. It seems unlikely that the pervasive ease of life that I have known will continue much longer.

We are still in the early stages of global integration and corporatization. As global integration progresses, the significance of geographically based organizations declines. For example, in Europe, after many centuries of violent conflict, there is no longer enough concern in the geographically based nation states to continue the conflicts - European union better serves the corporations. The corporations already transcend nations. Their conflicts are in other realms than the geographic extents of nations.

National governments are of progressively less significance. Consider, for example, how many countries remain free to pass legislation independently on issues that affect the corporations. They are bound by economic necessity and international treaties and have progressively less independence as they become more integrated economically.

Corporations, on the other hand, are becoming ever more powerful. They are revising the laws of all nations to facilitate their objectives. They are powerful enough now to be able to subvert the democracy in even the most powerful and most dogmatically democratic countries. And they have long since disposed of democracy and independent local governments in less powerful countries in which they have an interest.

In the past 250 years, the struggle for democracy in national governments was won to a significant extent in several of the more powerful countries in the world. But the new powers, the corporations, are in no way democratic.

If you want to know how it will be, re-read Machiavelli's The Prince and remember that the shareholders are the new princes. The nature of the conflict has changed, from military to economic, but the desire for power and the consequences of the struggles for power, for the general population, remain the same.

Very broad markets in consumer goods and services may be the last bastions of democracy in the new world. Unless democratic nations reverse the handover of power to international corporations, they will soon cease to yeild any significant power, after which their democratic nature will be irrelevant.

The rise of third world nations and cultures will not save the democracies - they are already un-democratic and easy prey for the corporations.

Religious fervor may be the only force that the corporations find difficult to overcome. But the concentration of power that is often associated with religious organizations makes them vulnerable to corruption, so even this is uncertain.

The corporations will continue to consolidate and amass power and wealth, until even the wealthiest nation states are unable to compete with them.

Connections

Please read Bill Joy's article in Wired: Why the future doesn't need us. It is insightful, thought provoking and worthy of careful consideration. The issues he discusses should be of concern to everyone.

How I came to read the article today seems not unrelated to the concerns raised in it and increases rather than relieves my anxiety. In what follows, I will try to explain why.

Progress in understanding often comes from associating previously disjoint information. Combining facts or ideas that previously had never been considered together can lead to new insights, understanding and abilities - new knowledge that is more significant than might be expected.

When I was in university, I worked for a professor with several degrees in the biological and physical sciences. He told me, in effect, that the most interesting, capable and impressive people he had ever met or expected to meet all had multi-disciplinary backgrounds and it was this diversity of their knowledge and experience which allowed them to bring together what had previously been separate, producing new knowledge and insight.

Today, I read a humorous posting regarding a question from a somewhat naieve user of computers that, among other things, included a link to a picture of Bill Joy. Somewhat embarassingly, but as is increasingly frequent as I get older, I was certain that I knew who Bill Joy was, but couldn't recall anything specific, so I googled him. Of course, Wikipedia has an article on him, which I read and which jogged my memory.

That article had an intriguing link: "Why the future doesn't need us". - another Wikipedia page with a link to the Wired article of the same name. So, having some time to spare today, I followed the link and read the article.

Please read the article, but to paraphrase and condense extremely, I will say that the essence of the article is that there are risks associated with the advancement of our knowledge and technology; that the risks are growing as the power of our technology increases; and that, with the speed at which knowledge and technology are advancing, these risks are now or will very soon be so great that we need to be more cautious in our further development and use of knowledge and technology.

My reading the article today is related to all this, and compunds my concerns arroused by the article, because I began reading about a problem in programming and ended up, only a few minutes later, reading an article that I think is of quite profound importance. Had it not been for the Internet and Google and Wikipedia, I never would have come across these very different bits of information in the same day and almost certainly wouldn't have associated them with each other in any way, yet now, they are associated for me, and the gap between them is as easily bridged by others as it was by me. I am no one special.

In this case, the combination of ideas does not result in anything that will change the world, but the linking and association of information that is inherent in the Internet, Google, Wikipedia, PerlMonks, Wired (the sites I browsed in this case), and many other similar resources, is staggering and profoundly significant. While many of the links created are trivial, no doubt there are many nascent links of profound importance, easily but not yet followed or anticipated, and without precedent in anyones consideration.

The Internet exposes a vast resource of information and the bits of information made accessible by it are more significant as a part of the whole than they would be separately because they can be so easily related and combined, even by people like me without particularly significant education or connections or experience.

There was a time when individuals made discoveries of great import. Then, for a while, it seemed, only relatively large and well funded teams of people could make much progress in extending our collective knowledge and ability. But the Internet empowers everyone to learn and access a vast diversity of information. It seems again that individuals have at their disposal the means to learn and significantly advance our understanding.

Why is this troubling? A basic principle of security that I have been taught and learned to appreciate through the years is that security can be improved if systems can be created such that several people would have to collude over a period of time in order to successfully subvert the system to their own ends. The risk of several "bad apples" successfully working together in secrecy is lower than the risk of one "bad apple" working in secrecy. The need for large teams and substantial financial resources in order to significantly advance knowledge and technology provided some assurance that the effort would not long remain secret. And exposure would allow a broader consideration and control of the activity.

Maybe I was just naieve to think that there was much impedement to individuals making breakthroughs in isolation, but certianly doing so is made easier by the Internet.

Thus, the Internet and the information and tools it provides access to, increase the risk that someone will accidentally or thoughtlessly or maliciously develop something of great harm to us all, as individuals and as a society.

I am concerned most of all because of my experience of the profound inability of people, on average and in general, to successfully manage even very simple things successfully for long and with reasonable consideration and accommodation of the needs and interests of the broader community. Just think of your own experience of errors and accidents. How many of them, in hindsight, seem like they could have and should have been avoided. Yet we continue, collectivley, to make them.

It is somewhat amazing, given all the "accidents" and ignorantly self-interested and intentionally malicious or destructive acts that are committed so frequently, that we have survived as long as we have with the technology we already have. As our power, and in particular the power of individuals and small groups, continues to increase, how long can it be before something harmful on a grand scale occurs?

Compounding my worries, I came across John Perkins' "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" yesterday. I was pessimistic at best that there were sufficient feelings of fellowship in the world, and this confirms and compounds my worries.

I think I will read the Dalai Lama's "Ethics for the New Millennium", mentioned in Bill Joy's article. Maybe that will cheer me up. In the mean time, maybe I'll read the study guide.

In the mean time, the sun shone today and the grass is green and it is quiet and peaceful here were I am. There is much to be happy about.

Can't locate package XXX for @XXX::ISA

You may see this error and think that package XXX can't be found in @INC and then be stumped when you find that module XXX.pm is in @INC.

The problem here is that "Can't locate package XXX" is not refering to the module XXX.pm and is not indicating that this module can't be found. It is referring to the package XXX and it is indicating that the stash of the package XXX isn't defined. This usually results from the module that defines the package not having been loaded (by use, require or do).

While there is often a one-to-one correspondence between them, packages and modules are not the same thing. A module is a file containing Perl code. A package is a namespace with its own stash containing the names in the namespace.

When @ISA is being processed, each package in the @ISA list must already be loaded (by use or require or do or whatever). If the stash for the package namespace isn't defined, then this error is produced.

The solution is to load the module that provides the package before including the package in @INC.

Testing with Module::Build

Module::Build is a system for building, testing, and installing Perl modules.

Much of what you need to know is documented in the POD of Module::Build. In particular see the entry for the test function.

You may wonder how the as-yet-uninstalled module is tested when the test files do not explicity reference the build directories. This isn't covered in the POD.

Before running the tests, Module::Build prepends the blib/lib and blib/arch directories of the build directory to @INC. In this way, when modules are loaded the local copies are found and loaded rather than those already installed.

A Few Thoughts on Copyright

A friend sent me a link to a YouTube video that is a tutorial and advertisement for a website that provides "unlimited free games" for xbox 360. This was in the context of an ongoing discussion regarding copyright stimulated by recently enacted changes to the copyright act here in New Zealand. He sent the link with the comment that he understands why the industry wants new rules. He suggested I post my reply, so here it is...

It appears that the xbox360 site is copying games in breach of the copyright holders' copyrights. I understand why those copyright holders would want to enforce their copyrights but it is less clear whether any fundamental change in copyright law is necessary, appropriate or beneficial for society as a whole.

The current law, as it is in most countries (164 signatories to the Berne convention and others indirectly controlled via membership in the WTO) allows those copyright holders who's copyrights are being breached to prosecute the owners of the xbox360 site. No change in the law is required. All they have to do is prove the copyright violation in a court and sue for damages, including their legal costs.

There is a potential problem that copyright holders might prove breach of copyright in court but then find that the guilty party does not have sufficient wealth to cover the legal costs of proving their guilt. This same potential exists in any other civil litigation. In general, it is easy for people to cause harm to others that would be monetized to values far exceeding their net worth. Consider, for example, all the people worth less than a few hundred million dollars and without third party liability insurance for a similar amount who continue to engage in activities which create the risk of fires on a large scale (e.g. owning accommodations, driving to work, camping, etc.). There are many other risks that people take that might result in harm to others.

If breach of copyright were deemed to be criminal activity, the copyright holder would be relieved of a large part of the cost of litigation, which would be shifted to the tax payer. This would greatly reduce the downside risk for the copyright holder. If this were done, it may be necessary to ensure public resources were not wasted on frivolous cases as there would be little to inhibit the copyright holder after the cost of litigation were removed. It would also be necessary to ensure reasonable protection of the accused from the harm of false or frivolous accusation.

Some copyright holders are frustrated by the assumption inherent in the current law that people are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. This requires them to prove who is violating copyright in order to obtain compensation for damages. Some would prefer to be able to obtain the compensation without the burden of proving who is guilty of breaching their copyright or even that their copyright has been breached. They might also appreciate the restoration of the Greek practice of debt slavery, for dealing with those who are unable to promptly pay their presumed damages.

There are two conflicting trends: one is progressively more legal rights being granted to corporate interests, seemingly on the premise that all corporate profit is inherently good for society, and the other is a growing number of people who are willing to disregard those legal rights. The widespread disregard for the legal rights of copyright holders (the evidence presented by some of the more vocal copyright holders suggests that in the case of copyright this disregard is extremely widespread - for example, to the extent that a universally applied tax and payment to the copyright holders has been proposed) combined with the ongoing trends in legislation makes one wonder if in fact we live in a democratic society. The answer may be that there is a growing discrepancy with individuals between their public personae (in which they support strong property rights) and their private personals (in which they disregard property rights). If this is the case, then this moral disintegration of individuals will lead to disintegration of society and widespread strife.

There was a day when one held land at the pleasure of the king and only land holders had rights. Those days were only slightly removed from the days when those most effective in battle had rights at the expense of all others. We have come a long way, in many countries, to current society based largely in the rule of law applied, in principal at least, equally to all. There is a broad consensus with regard to physical property rights, gained through many centuries of experience with various laws.

Modern technology combined with a very rapid pace of change has created a transient situation in which "intellectual property" can have a very high value. Under current regimes, all copyrights and all patents eventually expire, after which the affected information comes to the public domain. At the moment, an unusually high percentage of information relevant to modern life is recently obtained and subject to copyright or patent.

At the same time, modern technology has reduced the barriers to replicating information to levels that are almost completely negligible. For example, the cost of replicating a movie is now less than the cost of the popcorn that one might eat while watching it.

These conflicting trends have been identified for some time. One of the earliest and most profound expressions of the conflict that I know is that of Stewart Brand of the Whole Earth Catalog and other endeavors.

This is layered on top of the more fundamental and persistent conflict between individual and common interests, well defined in Garrett Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons and elsewhere.

There were many revolutions in the course of resolving land rights and other physical property rights to their current state and, I expect, there will be more in the course of resolving a reasonable state or management for intellectual "property" rights. These are not insignificant issues.

My personal inclination is that neither the interests of society as a whole nor the interests of individuals on average are best served by granting long term monopolies on "intellectual property" as a default. Current timeframes for copyright were established at a time when little new arose in the span of 100 years. Patentable inventions are now arising so rapidly that the pace of change is disruptive to society and exceeds the capacity of many to cope. Further extension of monopolies seems to be of dubious benefit and may be harmful. 

To the extent that monopolies are granted and enforced for "intellectual property" (i.e. copyrights and patents) the holders of those rights should be subject to property tax on the value of those properties on the same basis that land owners are taxed on the value of the land they own. This would not resolve all the conflicts but it would redress some of them in a way that is easy to manage. One would, of course, always have the option of turning one's "intellectual property" over to the public domain, after which no further taxes would be due.

Information Wants to be Free and Expensive

Note: it seems that blogger.com or blogspot considers the following to be blog SPAM. My appologies if it offends anyone. I have requested a review and will remove the content and/or the blog, subject to the result of the review.

This isn't my idea. Roger Clarke has provided a nice writeup. And while you are there, his page Freedom of Information? The Internet as Harbinger of the New Dark Ages is also worth a read.

There are many others. If you have a few spare minutes a quick search will yield much interesting reading.

Intellectual Property Tax

Intellectual property should be taxed on the same basis as land and other real estate.

The legislation regulating intellectual property is changing. As well as increasing the scope of what is intellectual property and the time during which property rights are assigned to individuals, the rights themselves are being changed to make the property more rivalrous and excludable - to make intellectual property more like land and real estate.

In agrarian society, land is the essential asset of value. There are other assets of value, but ownership or at least the right to use land is essential to survival and the ability to produce wealth. Everything else is secondary.

In the modern "Information Age" the importance of information is recognized. It is not that information was not important in earlier ages, but the ability to gather, produce, manipulate, control and extract value from information is greater now than ever before.

The importance of intellectual property is increased both by the increasing ability to produce and use it and by changes to legislation which increase the proprietary rights to intellectual property which are granted to the deemed owners of the property.

An increasing portion of society's wealth and resources is now invested in the creation, acquisition and control of information and intellectual property. While it was, historically, somewhat incidental to the key elements of the economy, wealth and power, it is increasingly central and essential to them. Information and intellectual property are becoming more important than land, real-estate and other physical property.

The burden of government is distributed by the means of taxes and fees on income, consumption and properties. How this burden is distributed is rife with tension, conflict and contradiction. On the one hand, the burden is expected to be on those who benefit. On the other hand, the burden is expected to be on those able to bear it. While everyone might agree that the distribution should be fair, it is difficult to find two or more people who agree as what is fair or even what the basis of fair is.

As well as distributing the burden of government, taxes and fees are also used to influence behavior. Relative decreases or increases of taxes and fees can encourage or discourage particular behaviors.

Intellectual property should be taxed now as land and real estate have long been taxed, for the same reasons that land and real estate have been taxed. Just as land and real estate were the principle assets in agrarian society, intellectual property is the key asset in our modern information based society. Along with the privileges and benefits of owning these key assets come the responsibility of assuming a greater portion of the burden of government.

Yet there is an important difference between intellectual property and real estate. Real estate cannot be reproduced and distributed like information can. Intellectual property is rivalrous and exclusive only because of regulations, not because of its essential nature. Thus while granting intellectual property rights increases the value to the property owner it significantly decreases the total value of that intellectual property to society as a whole by excluding many from benefiting from it. Compare this with the value of a field - it can be used to grow only one crop at a time and it cannot grow more or less depending on which farmer owns it.

Given that the value of intellectual property can be maximized by allowing it to be reproduced and used freely, why are intellectual property right granted in the first place? A common argument for intellectual property rights is that they produce a market for intellectual property and this market provides incentive for the production of intellectual property and a means for allocating scarce resources to produce intellectual property and that these benefits outweigh the loss of utility of the intellectual property produced.

But excessive prolongation of intellectual property rights does little or noting to increase incentive to produce intellectual property while it continues to decrease utility and utilization.

Intellectual property tax can provide a reasonable disincentive to excessive prolongation of intellectual property rights that responds to market conditions. If the owners of intellectual property were required to pay property tax but could avoid the tax by turning the property over to the public domain, then there would be an incentive to put intellectual property into the public domain. The benefit is that information in the public domain can have higher utility and utilization that proprietary intellectual property.

Intellectual property tax would also put an end to the copyright black hole, whereby many copyrighted works are no longer available because the copyright owner is unknown or unavailable to approve and be paid for the right to produce and sell copies of the work. If tax was due, the works could be seized and put into the public domain if the taxes are not paid.