Slashdot Mirror

Pivot writes "Keith Packard wants to fork the XFree86 effort. 'It has been brought to the attention of the XFree86 Core Team that one of its members, Keith Packard, has been actively (but privately) seeking out support for a fork of XFree86 that would be led by himself. He is also in the process of forming a by-invitation-only group of vested interests to discuss privately concerns he has about XFree86 and the future of X. He has consistently refused to even disclose these concerns within the context of the XFree86 Core Team, which makes his membership of that team unviable. As a consequence, Keith Packard is no longer a member of the XFree86 Core Team.' The XFree86 team is trying to become more open, to combat the fork. Keith is a capable developer, having worked on FontConfig, Xft, the X render extension etc. Meanwhile, All is not good in how XFree86 drivers are being developed. Anyone remember the GGI initiative a few years back, and the uproar it caused?"

Pivot writes "Keith Packard wants to fork the XFree86 effort. 'It has been brought to the attention of the XFree86 Core Team that one of its members, Keith Packard, has been actively (but privately) seeking out support for a fork of XFree86 that would be led by himself. He is also in the process of forming a by-invitation-only group of vested interests to discuss privately concerns he has about XFree86 and the future of X. He has consistently refused to even disclose these concerns within the context of the XFree86 Core Team, which makes his membership of that team unviable. As a consequence, Keith Packard is no longer a member of the XFree86 Core Team.' The XFree86 team is trying to become more open, to combat the fork. Keith is a capable developer, having worked on FontConfig, Xft, the X render extension etc. Meanwhile, All is not good in how XFree86 drivers are being developed. Anyone remember the GGI initiative a few years back, and the uproar it caused?"

rts writes "A well written article about how copyrights and patents are anti-free market is running in the Canadian paper "The National Post"." The backdrop to the story is, perhaps inevitably, the Napster case - but it's much better written then most of the other bazillion Napster editorials. Update: 01/28 04:48 PM by S :The article refered to this paper by Stephan Kinsella.

Palisade writes "NASM (The Netwide Assembler) is an open source assembler that can generate code for many platforms/operating systems and is portable to many operating systems. There have been debates in the past over the NASM licence to which NASM itself and all code contributed to the NASM effort is licensed under. The original authors created a license which claims to be compatible with the GPL ^[?] , but which requires unusual restrictions making it incompatible. For developers to continue developing on NASM would mean they would be contributing to a "black hole". A full synopsis can be found on the NASM website at SourceForge." Update: 09/05 04:57 PM by S :It seems the problem is resolved.

darkrot writes "According to the Micron website, Micron is suing Rambus for violations of antitrust laws, as well as asserting its non-infringement and the invalidity of Rambus' patents." So far Hitachi and Toshiba have settled with Rambus. Toshiba still makes RAMs, so its settlement with Rambus was odd in that it could only spur on Rambus to sue more people. This suit might reduce the attraction of business models based on generating patents and suing, rather than bringing products to market. Update: 08/29 07:03 PM by S :Oops: "settled with Rambus" not Micron.

mikpos writes: "A division of Autodesk is apparently going to be releasing a free (speech) stripped-down version of 3D Studio Max, geared towards game developers and users. The product is going to be called gMax, and Autodesk might be licencing some customised versions of it to specific game companies." Sounds like there might be a spate of "genuine free-speech" 3-D modelers in the works, with the release of Blender 2.0 as well. Update: 07/31 05:35 PM by S : Seems to have moved link.

Veck was the first to send us the word that Via Technology (lately of partnership with Intel, as well as being sued by them) has purchased the Cyrix x86 line from National Semiconductor. Despite the huge parity in size, Via Tech seems eager to take on Intel. Update: 06/30 04:10 by S : To clarify: Via Tech will be purchasing the Texas division of Cyrix which makes standalone PC processors fitting into standard sockets (7, 370, and the like). The Colorado division which makes integrated processors (MediaGX) will be absorbed into National Semiconductor to address the Information Appliance market. Interestingly it appears that Via will also offer integrated products, therefore possibly competing with National.

AOL announced today it is teaming up with NCI, as software partner, to build a range of AOL set-top boxes. NCI uses FreeBSD suggesting AOL may be shipping FreeBSD based boxes. The devices will use MediaGX chips from National/Cyrix. Update: 05/12 04:07 by S : Paul Wain of NCI wrote in to tell me in an unofficial capacity that their "Corporate" Machines use a NetBSD derivative but the consumer ones use other OSes. Some of our server products use FreeBSD but not the "Consumer" ones.

Ten years ago, Bill Gates bemoaned competition undermining Microsoft: "Our DOS gold mine is shrinking and our costs are soaring--primarily due to low prices, IBM share, and DR-DOS." This evidence came out in Caldera's lawsuit against Microsoft for predatory practices against DR-DOS. Bill Gates goes on to say "I believe people underestimate the impact DR-DOS has had on us in terms of pricing" Update: 03/31 11:36 by S : More info at Caldera's website is quite interesting, for instance detailing Vobis' attempts at using DR-DOS instead.

Gryphon sent us a link to a Linux Power article on Open Source causing more harm than good. Talks about OSI, ESR, the recent proliferation of "Open Source" and more things that are also being discussed fairly passionately in the article on ESR wanting to retire that we posted earlier. Update: 03/29 11:45 by S : In other reactions to the ESR story, AbiSource's Eric Sink argues replacing ESR is the wrong goal, and Bruce Perens says we need speakers not leaders. Thanks to LT and rokhed.

philc writes "The dispute over the theos.com domain appears to have ended...happily, for Mr. De Raadt.". Look down the page for the term slashdot.org. Update: 03/27 02:16 by S : In related news, UM_Maverick writes "Illiad over at User Friendly says that he received a certified letter confirming that the threats from the "death star" are authentic. He has been advised not to reveal details yet, though... "

SEWilco writes "Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists described Tuesday producing fusion with a mere million-dollar machine. It was described at this APS Centennial session. Bursts of neutrons are detected, the hallmark of fusion that `cold fusion' was missing" Update: 03/27 02:27 by S : In somewhat related news, muggs wrote in about a new laser-based method for watching atoms bond. It relies on using X-ray diffraction patterns to locate the moving atoms.

Skeezix sent us a San Jose Mercury article that reports on a $299 PC being sold by Microworkz. For the first time I guess, PCs cost about as much as TV. The computer in every home dream is getting closer to reality. " Update: 03/16 03:29 by S : In related news, PC Free is to ship Linux-based computers for $40 a month including Internet-Access, initially as a trial run. Link from LinuxToday

An anonymous reader wrote in to say that The KDE screenshots page has been updated and now has exciting new screenshots of KDE 1.1. Several nice ones in there showing off nifty new features for future versions of KDE. Quite smooth. Update: 03/08 03:21 by S : Kurt Granroth of KDE wrote in this correction: "None of the screenshots feature advanced or "future" features. All screenshots are stock 1.1 desktops!"

jdesbonnet writes "Java 2 SDK preview is available". There is a bzipped file on his site, but I did not download it. edgy writes "According to LinuxHQ, Toshiba has relented and has released specifications for IrDA so that Toshiba laptops can use their built-in infrared ports." 3fer writes " The site interactive.linuxjournal.com is now open. Anybody who subscribes to LJ can now search all previous issues via the site. " It's really worth a visit. Tramm Hudson writes "After quite a long time, Digital (now Compaq) has released fast math libraries for Linux. Many people have been using DU's (now Tru-64) compilers to take advantage of the faster routines, but this runs afoul of the rather restrictive licensing on the output of the compiler. The hope is that this signals a possible first step towards releasing the DU compilers for Linux. Possibly one of the most discussed topics on comp.os.linux.alpha is the lack of high performance compilers for Alpha Linux. There is so much computational horsepower in these chips, but egcs just isn't harnessing it... " Finally ASUGeek writes "Reuters has retracted the satellite crack story." Update: 03/05 05:55 by S : Now AntiOnline says Reuters did not retract the story, and NASA's records indicate the satellite drifted by an abnormally high amount. Thanks to Kythe.

Catgut sent us a collection of early screenshots from the playstation 2. Another generation forward... remember intellivision? Wow we've come a ways. Update: 03/02 07:28 by S : RPGamer is reporting that the development OS for the PSX2 will be Linux. That doesn't mean the PSX will run Linux though, just that the tools will run on Linux.

bjb writes "The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Sun plans to announce later today that they are going to distribute designs of their microprocessors to outside developers for free. Similar to the Java license that recently came out, you can modify it, but if you sell you have to pay. The schedule appears that they will release the PicoJava first, the 32-bit SPARC technology by the summer, and the 64-bit UltraSPARC technology by the end of the year." This article requires a paid login to read- what a crock. Anyway, someone please submit a free link. Update: 03/02 12:09 by S : News.com is now carrying the story. It's interesting to see how this move fits into Forbes' analysis Sun's strategy of getting attention with buzz around Java, Jini, and now Sparc Processors, in order to attack the very high-end more effectively. In the world of Starfire and Serengeti (supercomputers), Sun is probably telling the truth when they say that Linux does not compete with them (long term).

Ransom Love from Caldera has published a positional paper about Linux Standard Base and what he thinks about if the Linux community won't adopt it. I think it's a "must read" (thanks to Linux Weekly News). Update: 03/01 03:23 by S : Seems like that LSB needs a boost: now Intel is talking of setting up a new initiative... (see half way down the page)

Miguel de Icaza writes "The people that did the MOSIX cluster system have now made a port for Linux. But they do not provide all the source code of their work. They only provide a binary kernel module which allows the user to run only a cluster of six machines(they show a picture of their 100 cluster node). The binary module requires kernel modifications. (Thus breaking the Linus permission for binary modules). I think we should stand up against this blatant violation of the GPL. " Update: 02/27 11:34 by S : In related news, xose points out other license violations: Linux Network Drivers states "Several drivers have been distributed that are little more than renamed versions of my drivers. Some have my name, the copyright notice or the Gnu GPL license notice removed. The less flagrant violations merely fail to note that the driver has been modified from the original version. (The GPL requires such a note.)" Update: 02/27 11:05 by S : To clarify Miguel's point: Source must be available for any addition to a GPL'd product. Linus and the other core kernel developers gave a special dispensation to allow binary modules to be inserted into the kernel as long as they do not require kernel modifications of their own.

Some posters argue that this is whining, and we should be grateful for more software on Linux. Others argue Linux must let go of its licensing conditions to succeed. Neither argument is relevant. MOSIX is violating the Linux license: it is a binary kernel module that requires kernel modifications. Just as Microsoft would not tolerate violations of its license, the authors of Linux need not tolerate this violation. The fact Linux is available at no cost is irrelevant: the license is based on copyright law and Linux is not in the public domain.

Other posters believe that Mosix could fork the Linux code base and do what they want. This is incorrect. The license terms are determined by all the authors (copyright holders) of a product. Unless Linus and co agreed to change the license it would not change, fork or no fork.

If it is true that the Israeli government does not allow the source of the Mosix kernel module to be made available, it is my understanding that the GPL states that the Hebrew University may NOT distribute Mosix to anyone.

Miguel de Icaza writes "The people that did the MOSIX cluster system have now made a port for Linux. But they do not provide all the source code of their work. They only provide a binary kernel module which allows the user to run only a cluster of six machines(they show a picture of their 100 cluster node). The binary module requires kernel modifications. (Thus breaking the Linus permission for binary modules). I think we should stand up against this blatant violation of the GPL. " Update: 02/27 11:34 by S : In related news, xose points out other license violations: Linux Network Drivers states "Several drivers have been distributed that are little more than renamed versions of my drivers. Some have my name, the copyright notice or the Gnu GPL license notice removed. The less flagrant violations merely fail to note that the driver has been modified from the original version. (The GPL requires such a note.)" Update: 02/27 11:05 by S : To clarify Miguel's point: Source must be available for any addition to a GPL'd product. Linus and the other core kernel developers gave a special dispensation to allow binary modules to be inserted into the kernel as long as they do not require kernel modifications of their own.

Some posters argue that this is whining, and we should be grateful for more software on Linux. Others argue Linux must let go of its licensing conditions to succeed. Neither argument is relevant. MOSIX is violating the Linux license: it is a binary kernel module that requires kernel modifications. Just as Microsoft would not tolerate violations of its license, the authors of Linux need not tolerate this violation. The fact Linux is available at no cost is irrelevant: the license is based on copyright law and Linux is not in the public domain.

Other posters believe that Mosix could fork the Linux code base and do what they want. This is incorrect. The license terms are determined by all the authors (copyright holders) of a product. Unless Linus and co agreed to change the license it would not change, fork or no fork.

If it is true that the Israeli government does not allow the source of the Mosix kernel module to be made available, it is my understanding that the GPL states that the Hebrew University may NOT distribute Mosix to anyone.

Jean-Paul Smets wrote in to tell us that Fujistu has released its first Linux software: AVS5 is a visualization and computer graphics program that includes advanced features such as volume rendering. Apparently Fujitsu has a strong Linux tradition, with Linux already running on its AP1000/AP3000 series of parallel computers. Update: 02/25 11:22 by S : Can someone who reads Japanese confirm this story because... maynard writes "Dudes: I notified /. of AVS-5.4 for Linux back in spetember. Also, you might note that AVS is produced by Advanced Visual Systems in Waltham MA, not Fujitsu. See this freshmeat app index entry."

So: do we have a mix up, or 2 pieces of software with the same name?

Clive Turvey has continued his investigation into KNI, and has documented the instructions he has found so far. MMX coders will be happy to see that KNI contains a 1-cycle shuffle instruction, like Altivec does, but unlike MMX. As expected it has some instructions specifically for 3D (1/x and 1/sqrt(x)). Update: 02/24 12:11 by S : As reader Christopher Thomas points out, Intel has released a manual that includes a functional description of KNI. But I can't find any instruction timings in it. It weighs a hefty 5.5Mb.

shaldannon writes "This morning on National Public Radio there was a story about the ongoing Justice department case against Microsoft. Yesterday Justice Department attorney David Boies challenged Microsoft's Windows licensing policies, particulary the "verbal contracts" not to include Netscape on the desktop. He questioned a Mr. Rose of Compaq on this subject. Mr. Rose tried to distance himself from Microsoft by claiming that he'd never had close dealings with the company or Mr. Gates. Attorney Boies produced an email in which Bill Gates specifically thanks Mr. Rose for his assistance to Microsoft on the DoJ case. Boies then dropped a bombshell announcement: Compaq had been having secret negotiations with BeOS to do some development for them. At the same time, Compaq sent representatives to Microsoft for their blessing on the arrangement. Microsoft killed the deal. Compaq's attorney jumped to his feet, emotionally denying the charge and accusing David Boies of 'cheap courtroom tactics.' Attorney Boies then produced evidence from BeOS substantiating his announcement." ZD-net and PC-Week both also carry the story. Thanks to Rick Irvine (a Furious Be User) and BitMan. In related news,Matthew Tebbens tells us that CNN is reporting that Windows 2000 will need apps to be rebuilt or even rewritten to be compliant (whatever that means). Update: 02/19 06:02 by S : And to top the cake, Microsoft has been charged with monopoly pricing in a California Class Action suit. Thanks Dwight Johnson. Update: 02/20 12:57 by S : More on the Be Story: Alledgedly, Be is making an embedded OS that would have better media capabilities than WinCE for information appliances.

shaldannon writes "This morning on National Public Radio there was a story about the ongoing Justice department case against Microsoft. Yesterday Justice Department attorney David Boies challenged Microsoft's Windows licensing policies, particulary the "verbal contracts" not to include Netscape on the desktop. He questioned a Mr. Rose of Compaq on this subject. Mr. Rose tried to distance himself from Microsoft by claiming that he'd never had close dealings with the company or Mr. Gates. Attorney Boies produced an email in which Bill Gates specifically thanks Mr. Rose for his assistance to Microsoft on the DoJ case. Boies then dropped a bombshell announcement: Compaq had been having secret negotiations with BeOS to do some development for them. At the same time, Compaq sent representatives to Microsoft for their blessing on the arrangement. Microsoft killed the deal. Compaq's attorney jumped to his feet, emotionally denying the charge and accusing David Boies of 'cheap courtroom tactics.' Attorney Boies then produced evidence from BeOS substantiating his announcement." ZD-net and PC-Week both also carry the story. Thanks to Rick Irvine (a Furious Be User) and BitMan. In related news,Matthew Tebbens tells us that CNN is reporting that Windows 2000 will need apps to be rebuilt or even rewritten to be compliant (whatever that means). Update: 02/19 06:02 by S : And to top the cake, Microsoft has been charged with monopoly pricing in a California Class Action suit. Thanks Dwight Johnson. Update: 02/20 12:57 by S : More on the Be Story: Alledgedly, Be is making an embedded OS that would have better media capabilities than WinCE for information appliances.

jpatters tells us that Micro Processor Report is reporting (via MacInTouch) that a russian company (Elbrus International) claims to have a CPU design that achieves 135 SPECint95 and 350 SPECfp95. This compairs to Merced's scores of 45 and 70 respectively. It is claimed to run in a 0.18 micron process at 1.2Ghz consuming only 35 watts and 126 square millimeters of silicon. It includes a 256 Kbyte of on-chip L2 cache. It should also be both x86 and IA-64 compatible. Elbrus 2000 seems to exist (look at what Shevtsov is working on now), and seems to have had some history. Here is Shevtsov's FPU patent. S : I've tried to verify this story, but can't find the copy of MPR -- anybody else have it? Anyone care to speculate how it was done? Assynchronous logic? 256Kb L2 seems rather low though unless they're using a special point-to-point bus. From an Anonymous Contributor

"I get MPR. I've got about 7 minutes before I have to catch a bus, but, from the MPR issue itself:

The processor uses EPIC. The Elbrus team has been together for 40 years, originally designing supercomputers for the Soviet defense establishments. "They've developed computers based on superscalar, shared-memory multiprocessing and EPIC techniques long before papers on those subjects appeared in the West". MPR claims that the lack of a good semiconductor Fab has been what was holding them back. MPR says that the claims would be unbelievable except for the credibility of the team.

The X86 and IA64 compatibility rely on binary compilation assisted by emulation hooks, similar to what Transmeta is apparantly doing. Supposedly Dave Ditzel spent several years while at Sun working with the Elbrus team.

The processor exists only as an executable Verilog database. However, the E2K design is based on the Elbrus-3 processor that was fabricated in 1991. The Elbrus-3 was built in an "ancient process", used 15 million transistors in about 3000 LSI and MSI chips, and delivered twice the performance of a Cray Y-MP."

Some more he sent later:

" It is actually quite a long article... 6 pages plus the cover, I'm about two thirds through it. The architecture is in fact pretty stunning, and very similar to the Merced and the SPARC in several ways. It has a 64K, 4-way instruction cache: one i-cache only. It has two identical, synchronously-loaded 8K L1 data caches, and a 256K, 2-way, 4-bank L2 data cache. In addition, it has a 4K array pre-fetch buffer for use in loop overlapping. There are two regions, each with an L1 data cache, a 256-entry register file, and three ALUs. The regions are symmetric except that only one region has a divide function.

A great deal in this processor is left to the compiler, a fact that is demonstrated by the single, 64K i-cache; this will only work if the compiler does its job. Much also depends on the compiler's ability to identify instructions that can be executed in parallel. With an optimal instruction load, the multi-ported caches can provide a potential operand bandwidth of 288 Gbytes/sec at a processor clock of 1.2GHz. Much effort is expended to avoid branching; extensive branch prediction support is provided, and in some cases it will actually just go ahead and execute both sides of a branch to avoid doing the branch at all; with so many parallel execution paths, the cost of doing so is much lower than what would be the cost of branching.

When loops are identified, an effort is made to overlap the loop execution, taking advantage the same mechanism as used for the sliding register windows. The 4K FIFO Array prefetch buffer helps to feed data to the overlapped loop. In loop mode, for perfectly optimal code, the processor can rates as high as 23 operations per cycle.

Much of the processor is designed in standard static CMOS gates, but some of the critical paths through the processor use self-reset gates, which do not have a clock but rather are triggered by the completion of cycles in previous gates. According to MPR, these are estimated by Elbrus to run 10-15% faster than static CMOS gates.

Just a couple more facts about Elbrus: The Elbrus-1 computer was a "...superscaler, RISC, processor with out-of-order execution, speculative execution, and register renaming..." This machine was designed and built... between 1973 and 1979!! They dumped superscaler designs becuase they were too complex for the payoff. The Elbrus-3, built between 1985 and 1991, used "an EPIC-based VILW CPU", implemented as a "16-processor shared memory system"

They started working on the E2K in 1994, and it is now at Verilog RTL stage, with compilers and binary-compilation software written. MPR expresses great doubt that a home will ever be found to build the processor, what with the Russian economy as bad as it is, and most capable semiconductor houses already in the midst of implementing their own designs or just not wanting to compete with Intel."

Master Switch writes "Microsoft won a six month repreive from Caldera's case against them. They initially asked for 3 months, but due to scheduling conflicts, the judge gave them six. Estimated potential damages are 1.6million if Caldera should win the case " Update: 02/19 03:19 by S : That should say 1.6 billion.

An anonymous reader pointed us a a wired news article where you can read that the authors of the UltraHLE N64 emulator has had its source code released. The article talks about Nintendo considering Legal Action against the authors of the emulator, as well as the Sony/Connectix suit and the fact that another company is working on a Playstation emulator for windows. Update: 02/12 03:51 by CT : My bad. The source code wasn't actually released by the authors- the code is a disasembled bit posted by someone else. It doesn't compile. Will the real UltraHLE authors take the hint? Update: 02/13 03:04 by S : The code has been removed, although anyone could make it again with REC. In the mean time, Dextrose has an UltraHLE-on-Linux Howto which reveals that the combination of UltraHLE-Wine-Linux is faster than the original UltraHLE-Win98: with Zelda running at 21.3 fps under Linux versus 19.6 under Win98.

Jason told me about this extraordinary story of a guy who took 15 years to solve a problem in his free time, only to find that his employer for 2 years (DSC now part of Alcatel) is suing him for the idea. While this story started a long time ago, it's still plodding on. Although I was sceptical, Time, Wired, and others back his story. What's his idea? A method to convert machine code back to a high level language. Would it help him to GPL it? That would make it available to DSC, but would allow him to come up with the best implementation before they do. Since the idea would be out of the bag, DSC couldn't do very much about it, right? Update: 02/11 12:45 by S : Evan pointed out to me that if he GPL'd the idea, he'd be in contempt of court and stuck in jail.

Luca Lizzeri writes "The Europarliament voted with a two thirds majority to include temporary copies in a sweeping new copyright protection blunder^H^H^H^H^H^H^H act. Go see And MEPs lament the fact they don't have enough power. I for one am not going to advocate giving them more now." This is related to the Euro-Parls trying to deal with copy-right protection on the Internet-the 2/3 majority voted against amendments to the bill that would excluded caching. So, from what I can tell, it will be illegal to cache in Europe. Some people's children, I tell ya. The good side is that this will still have to be presented to the member nations, and UK is already saying they will argue against it. Update: 02/10 04:01 by S : The motivation and the actual result are explained in more detail by the BBC. Ireland and Luxembourg also oppose the strengthening of copyright laws.

SEWilco writes "This CNN story on VA Research mentions that Intuit is looking to port Quicken to Linux. They'll really clean up with that. (Pointed out in LWN Daily , and is a PC Week story, but the link which IDG.net came up with was too messy to submit here) " Update: 02/06 12:33 by S : Intuit's disputing this claim. Link from LT.

nelsonrn writes "Two university groups are working on designs for tiny Linux boxen reminiscent of the Compaq Itsy: UNSW's Pocket Linux Embedded Box (PLEB), an Intel/ARM SA-1100 based box, and Ryerson's uClinux simm, a 1" tall Motorola/68K Dragonball-based Linux box on a simm. Both have serial ports and LCD interfaces, but the PLEB has IR and the uClinux simm has Ethernet. Both ports are booting on their respective development platforms. Coincidentally, both projects are currently laying out their boards in preparation for a run of prototypes." Update: 01/31 10:39 by S : In related news, Tarcus posted this ARM multiprocessing set of PCI cards manufactured by Chalice Technology which make for a cheap Beowulf cluster.

James Hall writes "Jon Taylor recently posted a message to the linux-ggi list indicating that he is going to be working for Creative Labs to build both Linux sound drivers for the Live cards as well as drivers (binary only) for all the graphics cards Creative makes (including cards based around 3DFX, nVidia, 3DLabs, and Rendition chipsets). The message has been circulating around (I found it on the opengl-gamedev-l mailing list) but the original can be found here. "

The new EETimes (print edition) hit the canteen tables today, leading with an article about TeraGen's new processor. Like the processor described by Transmeta's patent, this processor is able to emulate multiple instructions sets. But it adds an extra twist: the ability to emulate more than one CPU simultaneously. This allows it to replace a DSP, a CPU and other parallel devices by one chip, making it ideal for embedded applications. Update: 02/02 03:30 by S : More details here.

An anonymous reader sent us a link to Wall Street Journal article about the music industry and MP3s. Talks about efforts by IBM and AT&T to create new formats that will successfully prevent the advancement of music and artistic freedom so that the industry can continue to overcharge consumers and rip off the people that make the music. Not that I'm biased. Update: 01/22 09:55 by B : There's another article in Wired about a recent panel discussion on standards in digital music: "It's become un-American to argue against security, but five companies sell 87 percent of the music. They'll say anything to protect their position." Update: 01/22 03:17 by S : An anonymous contributor emailed me his notes on the digital audio panel session of the Fashion Institute of Technology Software Summit yesterday: Industry in "sad state". The consolidation of music labels and radio stations has resulted in reduced variety.It is hard for artists, who must join the system to have a chance at success, but doing so requires giving up rights to master recordings (forever), royalties of 10-20 per cent, but only after paying back costs to producer, etc. Labels only interested in artists who can sell at least 250,000 albums.

Solution is "digital efficiency". For example, mp3 allows artists to leave at any time, artists get 50 per cent royalties, can have special targetting such as sending e-mail to all fans in a particular area where band is about to give concert.

Issue is that we have now way to separate bits from Intellectual Property via internet, and this will change the way that music is distributed. Music is the simplest case of this, in that it can be done "now". Similar problems with arise with video, etc at later time.

Can have multiple formats, but need means to transfer terms and conditions of use, such as "ok to play this song three times until next Thursday" -- this is goal of SDMI initiative.

Today have oligopoly -- 5 companies sell 87 per cent of the music. On pragmatic level, unrealistic to expect securitysystem that will restrict how people will use content. e.g., today cd discs are not encrypted, so people can make copies, but can't make cd from a2b music format. Result is that vendors will have to add value to maintain price (current model of $15/cd won't persist), or else reduce price.

Music industry is mature with structure that is decades old, with tight control of distribution. There will have to be new model for internet. For example, music is given away via radio, and broadcasters are given special exemptions, but there is yet no realistic solution/approach for internet radio.

ensor sent us a link to a ZD article about Microsoft's Response to all the recent Windows Refund Hoopla. It's not taking is seriously. They consider it a PR stunt. Update: 01/22 02:14 by S : Apparently Microsoft has removed the refund clause from the EULA for Windows 98... which sounds like I can't use Win98 if I don't agree to its EULA, but I must still pay for it if I want a particular notebook? Anybody know what the new EULA is? LWN is claiming the clause removal in Win98 is untrue, any Australian readers care to comment? Update: 01/22 06:42 by S : Dell will not pay a refund because their systems are only quality assured with Windows. Seems like the perfect loop-hole: it is not Microsoft that is requiring Windows on the computer, but the hardware manufacturers... but the tactic could back-fire, since it casts doubts on the PC-compatability of their hardware.

ensor sent us a link to a ZD article about Microsoft's Response to all the recent Windows Refund Hoopla. It's not taking is seriously. They consider it a PR stunt. Update: 01/22 02:14 by S : Apparently Microsoft has removed the refund clause from the EULA for Windows 98... which sounds like I can't use Win98 if I don't agree to its EULA, but I must still pay for it if I want a particular notebook? Anybody know what the new EULA is? LWN is claiming the clause removal in Win98 is untrue, any Australian readers care to comment? Update: 01/22 06:42 by S : Dell will not pay a refund because their systems are only quality assured with Windows. Seems like the perfect loop-hole: it is not Microsoft that is requiring Windows on the computer, but the hardware manufacturers... but the tactic could back-fire, since it casts doubts on the PC-compatability of their hardware.

Norm writes "Corel has agreed to transfer ownership of Corel Computer NetWinder to Hardware Canada Computer (HCC) for a 25% stake in their company. The article is here. Does anyone know anything about HCC? I hope this is good news. Maybe they can make the Netwinders cheaper. " Update: 01/21 03:03 by S : This open letter to netwinder.org participants clarifies that netwinder.org is not part of the transaction.

In an update on the windows refund story, BiGGO writes "Someone was quick enough to open a site about the EULA-refund trick. They are encouraging people who were forced to pay for Windows but never used it to ask for a refund on a special refund day, Feb 15th" 136 people have already joined them in the 24 hours since the site went live. Update: 01/20 07:09 by S : David Cornette contributed this Wired story on it, and elflord forwarded this ZD-Net Story.

Linux Game tome is reporting that Heretic has been ported to Linux, specifically to GGI and X. Go get it here!. Link courtesy of LT. (Note: Due to my 28.8 modem I have not tested it yet).

marcus writes "China has given its airline bosses the ultimate incentive to solve the "Millennium bomb" computer problem by ordering them to take a flight on New Year's day 2000. Update: 01/15 07:11 by S : Well apparently this was a joke which got misreported: Markus Peter writes "Zhang Qi, responsible for y2k problems in China, told the news that an employee of CAAC (chinese airlines) suggested this as a joke to her working group and it somehow leaked to the news" (translation of the german link above). Well, I don't know about you, but I thought that was a good example of really assuming full responsability... they can't chicken out now can they ? ;-)

Jean-Paul Smets has opened his new site Freepatents.org (mostly in English), which encourages Europe to maintain its no-software patents law. This law is apparently under threat. He's also well known for this study of the economics of free software (in french only at the moment, contact me if you can translate it, but you can use babelfish in the meantime). The new site contains the text of a resolution adopted by the french ISOC at its Autrans meeting, which requests that before Europe introduces any patent law a detailed study be conducted to determine the impact of patents on innovation, competition and free software, and that provisions are added to ensure large corporations cannot use patents as a legal manoeuvre to block innovation, competition and free software. The League of Programming cites example of patent misuse and reasons to be against software patents.

Jan Stette writes "This story has made the front page of the UK newspapers today. A 16 year old Irish girl has devised an encryption algorithm that is allegedly as secure as RSA but is much faster at performing the encryption. " Update: 01/15 02:24 by S : A picture of her talking to Gordon Moore.

An Anonymous Coward wrote in with a fascinating story about Microsoft allegedly defrauding its stockholders and the SEC, and firing a superb-by-their-own-admission auditor. It'll be interesting to see how this ends. Of course, Microsoft denying any wrong doing is the short version. Update: 01/23 10:21 by S : Link Moved.

Bob_Dobbs wrote in to tell us that there are major rumors that the next Macs should actually do Playstation Emulation. Requires a G3, but it's not like many people are buying Mac Classics any more. H: Sounds like Jobs will be announcing this officially tomorrow. Very cool. Update: 01/05 12:23 by S : Here's some more info thanks to Narbo: Connectix' press release confirms the story, and lists the games you can play on it.

So a good friend of mine works really hard on his web page. He overhauls the thing to create a new look and feel for it. He ads tons of user interface improvements and in general makes it faster, smoother, and better looking. He put it up today and got his ass flamed for all his hard work. This guy works long hours, he doesn't get paid a nickel for his work. And the world thanks him by insulting him. You don't have a right to flame people for changing their websites. Besides, not all change is bad. Sit back and give it a chance. And while you're at it, a huge number of you owe scoop an apology. He's created one of the best sites on the internet, and he never charged any of you a nickel for his uncountable hours of work. Flames are not the way to say thanks to someone who creates something so great and never asks anything in return. </RANT> Update: 01/02 12:08 by S : Freshmeat's back up.

Emmanuel Marty of the ggi-project wrote to me saying "Thanks to announcements on LinuxToday and /., Paul Jones of UNC Chapel Hill contacted me to offer a new home to the GGI www and ftp servers on the best possible server we could dream of, MetaLab, "the site formerly known as sunsite.unc.edu". Thanks to the kindness of Paul and Adam Fuller, everything is now functional there (to a few minor exceptions), in time for the release. Thanks to everyone who emailed to offer their help, this makes us very proud to belong to the community. Promise, I'll answer every email, even though I've been drowning in them :)" Obviously when the full release comes out, we'll be posting it. In related news, libggi beta 1 is out so please hammer it.

Emmanuel Marty of the ggi-project wrote to me saying "Thanks to announcements on LinuxToday and /., Paul Jones of UNC Chapel Hill contacted me to offer a new home to the GGI www and ftp servers on the best possible server we could dream of, MetaLab, "the site formerly known as sunsite.unc.edu". Thanks to the kindness of Paul and Adam Fuller, everything is now functional there (to a few minor exceptions), in time for the release. Thanks to everyone who emailed to offer their help, this makes us very proud to belong to the community. Promise, I'll answer every email, even though I've been drowning in them :)" Obviously when the full release comes out, we'll be posting it. In related news, libggi beta 1 is out so please hammer it.

John Goerzen writes "In a small press release, Corel reports that there were 82,925 Linux downloads in 12 hours. Corel president & CEO Cowpland said, "We have proven that the Linux community wants access to commercial, mainstream applications. . . and we intend to deliver them." (emphasis mine). Corel also has an interesting site on Linux." S: The actual quote was of attempted downloads, but the number is quite reasonable. Hopefully this will keep Corel motivated in porting all the apps they promised a while back. Any news of their anticipated contributions to Wine?

Robotech_Master writes "A friend of mine, who I trust implicitly, has received a postcard that says "After carefully considering our product line, [CMP Media has] decided Byte will not re-launch as a print publication. [...] CMP will fulfil your remaining subscription to Byte with an equal number of issues of WINDOWS Magazine." Make of that whatever you want to. " Anyone else heard anything about this? update: S: Byte is apparently going to be published by CMP on the web. Thanks to cykix for that.

Apparently Emmanuel Marty of the GGI-project wrote in to tell us that the GGI web site was wiped by the original host provider for no known reason. Opie first alerted us to the story since Emmanuel's post got lost. Could anyone help host the site since the GGI-project is in the pre-beta phase and will soon be making public releases?