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It would be hard to write an anti-obsucation clause I imagine

Not that hard; in fact, it's already been done. The GNU GPL, section 3, states: "The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it." I don't think any reasonable U.S. district court judge would consider robo-obfuscated C to count as the "preferred form" for that purpose. See #3117740 for another explanation.

Why did it take so many posts for someone to point this out? Do people not read the GPL?

What a day to be without moderator points...

For those too lazy to read the whole thing, read section three, point #3 very carefully. Just because something compiles does NOT mean that it is source according to the GPL. That you would not do development on the obfuscated gobbledegook clearly shows that the obfuscated version is NOT the preferred form for modification. I would be highly suspicious that your lawyer is insufficiently anal when reading contracts if they missed this.

As for precedent, can anyone find a discussion of GPL'ed yacc/bison grammars? This would fit exactly the case above - the original source that must be distributed is the .y file, not the result of compiling the .y to a .c file. Unfortunately, I don't think that anyone has ever been tempted to rip off a GPL'ed grammar.

Your company is breaking the law... enough said.

Read this The Right to read

Read the license.

You're allowed to point people to the upstream source, if: a) you're distributing for non-commercial reasons (Redhat and Morpheus don't apply, I would imagine)... and b) you haven't modified the code (presumably if you've modified the source, simply redirecting to the original, unmodified source would not be satisfactory... after all, the GPL requires you to distribute the source code to all your modifications.)

But IANAL. If you find fault with this explanation, please don't be shy... I'll quote the relavant section of the GPL below:

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

I would like to share with you a story - a story of pain, rejection, denial, loneliness, and perhaps, at the end, triumph and a happy ending. This story begins just three short years ago...

I was in my senior year of highschool, and as was the style at the time, I was very much interested in computers. I loved to take them apart, figure out how they worked, write programs with Microsoft's fine development environment, Visual Studio. As was also the style at the time, I loved to read webpages, in particularly, Slashdot.org. Perhaps you can guess what happened next. I began to slowly change - I developed an unhealthy obsession with computers, began to dislike and openly question America's policies, started shamelessly pirating music and software, and most dangerously, got turned on to that most deviant operating system of all - Linux.

Now I know many of you must be shaking your head in disgust at this point - "This must just be another one of those M$ trolls, hardee har har," but please, hear me out. This is very important.

As time went on, I got deeper and deeper in the Linux underground. I progressed through the various levels of "distros," from Mandrake, to Suse, to RedHat, finally to Debian, like a drug user going from harmless marijuana to cocaine and heroin. I thought I was so smart; I began sneering at other people who didn't use Linux - "Clueless Windo$e luzers," I would say. I was changing outwardly as well. I became a loner, hunched over the keyboard late into the night with the lights off, listening to my illegally downloaded music. All my friends left me after I broke their computers trying to install Linux on them. My hair grew long and unkempt, I stopped bathing and using deodorant, calling them "tools of capitalism and American greed." I got fired from my sysadmin job for installing slackware over the Solaris servers, and installing Debian over the Windows desktops. My bosses told me I cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I would not listen. "How could I be wrong, I'm using Linux?" I thought, "They must be M$ shills." You can see how far gone I was. No girls would look at me, let alone speak to me. I was in a world of pain, anger, and confusion.

But, then one day, I took a long hard look at myself. I saw that something was wrong, but did not know what. I must confess, for a long time I denied what I knew deep down inside my heart - Linux was the cause of all my troubles. I saw what I had allowed myself to become. I was no longer a human being, I was a Linux Zealot. Instead of judging people by their thoughts, feelings, and actions, I judged them by their choice of Operating System. And so began the long road toward recovery...

I am still not fully recovered from my affliction, for you see, I have only one desktop machine, and cannot install Windows without losing much of my data. That's right, I am healthy enough to admit it, Linux is not for desktop use. I am planning my next desktop machine purchase, which will be an Apple iBook. The one good thing that came out of my years of torment is that I learned the power of Unix. Therefore, I will use MacOSX - a true Unix with excellent support and commercial software backing, something Linux will never have. By paying for my software from now on, I will be supporting the American economy. I want to help get America out of this economic tailspin brought on by open source software and the dot com bust. More importantly, I will no longer be an operating system zealot. I will be friendly, kind, and generous to my fellow humans, no matter which operating system they use. I am now slowly regaining my friends, and last weekend I actually got invited to a party - my first party! Perhaps this weekend I will ask a cute girl out on a date. Since I have cleaned myself up and changed my attitude, I have noticed a few girls giving me flirty looks around campus. I'm so excited about my new life!

Please, Fellow Readers of Slashdot, I implore you to look at what you have become. Although it will be long and difficult, you too can change. I have faith in that. You can start by saying this with me - "Microsoft is not evil, Linux is not good for the desktop." Repeat that every time you feel yourself slipping. Together, we can right this horrible wrong.

Thank You.

I would like to share with you a story - a story of pain, rejection, denial, loneliness, and perhaps, at the end, triumph and a happy ending. This story begins just three short years ago...

I was in my senior year of highschool, and as was the style at the time, I was very much interested in computers. I loved to take them apart, figure out how they worked, write programs with Microsoft's fine development environment, Visual Studio. As was also the style at the time, I loved to read webpages, in particularly, Slashdot.org. Perhaps you can guess what happened next. I began to slowly change - I developed an unhealthy obsession with computers, began to dislike and openly question America's policies, started shamelessly pirating music and software, and most dangerously, got turned on to that most deviant operating system of all - Linux.

Now I know many of you must be shaking your head in disgust at this point - "This must just be another one of those M$ trolls, hardee har har," but please, hear me out. This is very important.

As time went on, I got deeper and deeper in the Linux underground. I progressed through the various levels of "distros," from Mandrake, to Suse, to RedHat, finally to Debian, like a drug user going from harmless marijuana to cocaine and heroin. I thought I was so smart; I began sneering at other people who didn't use Linux - "Clueless Windo$e luzers," I would say. I was changing outwardly as well. I became a loner, hunched over the keyboard late into the night with the lights off, listening to my illegally downloaded music. All my friends left me after I broke their computers trying to install Linux on them. My hair grew long and unkempt, I stopped bathing and using deodorant, calling them "tools of capitalism and American greed." I got fired from my sysadmin job for installing slackware over the Solaris servers, and installing Debian over the Windows desktops. My bosses told me I cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I would not listen. "How could I be wrong, I'm using Linux?" I thought, "They must be M$ shills." You can see how far gone I was. No girls would look at me, let alone speak to me. I was in a world of pain, anger, and confusion.

But, then one day, I took a long hard look at myself. I saw that something was wrong, but did not know what. I must confess, for a long time I denied what I knew deep down inside my heart - Linux was the cause of all my troubles. I saw what I had allowed myself to become. I was no longer a human being, I was a Linux Zealot. Instead of judging people by their thoughts, feelings, and actions, I judged them by their choice of Operating System. And so began the long road toward recovery...

I am still not fully recovered from my affliction, for you see, I have only one desktop machine, and cannot install Windows without losing much of my data. That's right, I am healthy enough to admit it, Linux is not for desktop use. I am planning my next desktop machine purchase, which will be an Apple iBook. The one good thing that came out of my years of torment is that I learned the power of Unix. Therefore, I will use MacOSX - a true Unix with excellent support and commercial software backing, something Linux will never have. By paying for my software from now on, I will be supporting the American economy. I want to help get America out of this economic tailspin brought on by open source software and the dot com bust. More importantly, I will no longer be an operating system zealot. I will be friendly, kind, and generous to my fellow humans, no matter which operating system they use. I am now slowly regaining my friends, and last weekend I actually got invited to a party - my first party! Perhaps this weekend I will ask a cute girl out on a date. Since I have cleaned myself up and changed my attitude, I have noticed a few girls giving me flirty looks around campus. I'm so excited about my new life!

Please, Fellow Readers of Slashdot, I implore you to look at what you have become. Although it will be long and difficult, you too can change. I have faith in that. You can start by saying this with me - "Microsoft is not evil, Linux is not good for the desktop." Repeat that every time you feel yourself slipping. Together, we can right this horrible wrong.

Thank You.

The first two are already open source

I would like to share with you a story - a story of pain, rejection, denial, loneliness, and perhaps, at the end, triumph and a happy ending. This story begins just three short years ago...

I was in my senior year of highschool, and as was the style at the time, I was very much interested in computers. I loved to take them apart, figure out how they worked, write programs with Microsoft's fine development environment, Visual Studio. As was also the style at the time, I loved to read webpages, in particularly, Slashdot.org. Perhaps you can guess what happened next. I began to slowly change - I developed an unhealthy obsession with computers, began to dislike and openly question America's policies, started shamelessly pirating music and software, and most dangerously, got turned on to that most deviant operating system of all - Linux.

Now I know many of you must be shaking your head in disgust at this point - "This must just be another one of those M$ trolls, hardee har har," but please, hear me out. This is very important.

As time went on, I got deeper and deeper in the Linux underground. I progressed through the various levels of "distros," from Mandrake, to Suse, to RedHat, finally to Debian, like a drug user going from harmless marijuana to cocaine and heroin. I thought I was so smart; I began sneering at other people who didn't use Linux - "Clueless Windo$e luzers," I would say. I was changing outwardly as well. I became a loner, hunched over the keyboard late into the night with the lights off, listening to my illegally downloaded music. All my friends left me after I broke their computers trying to install Linux on them. My hair grew long and unkempt, I stopped bathing and using deodorant, calling them "tools of capitalism and American greed." I got fired from my sysadmin job for installing slackware over the Solaris servers, and installing Debian over the Windows desktops. My bosses told me I cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I would not listen. "How could I be wrong, I'm using Linux?" I thought, "They must be M$ shills." You can see how far gone I was. No girls would look at me, let alone speak to me. I was in a world of pain, anger, and confusion.

But, then one day, I took a long hard look at myself. I saw that something was wrong, but did not know what. I must confess, for a long time I denied what I knew deep down inside my heart - Linux was the cause of all my troubles. I saw what I had allowed myself to become. I was no longer a human being, I was a Linux Zealot. Instead of judging people by their thoughts, feelings, and actions, I judged them by their choice of Operating System. And so began the long road toward recovery...

I am still not fully recovered from my affliction, for you see, I have only one desktop machine, and cannot install Windows without losing much of my data. That's right, I am healthy enough to admit it, Linux is not for desktop use. I am planning my next desktop machine purchase, which will be an Apple iBook. The one good thing that came out of my years of torment is that I learned the power of Unix. Therefore, I will use MacOSX - a true Unix with excellent support and commercial software backing, something Linux will never have. By paying for my software from now on, I will be supporting the American economy. I want to help get America out of this economic tailspin brought on by open source software and the dot com bust. More importantly, I will no longer be an operating system zealot. I will be friendly, kind, and generous to my fellow humans, no matter which operating system they use. I am now slowly regaining my friends, and last weekend I actually got invited to a party - my first party! Perhaps this weekend I will ask a cute girl out on a date. Since I have cleaned myself up and changed my attitude, I have noticed a few girls giving me flirty looks around campus. I'm so excited about my new life!

Please, Fellow Readers of Slashdot, I implore you to look at what you have become. Although it will be long and difficult, you too can change. I have faith in that. You can start by saying this with me - "Microsoft is not evil, Linux is not good for the desktop." Repeat that every time you feel yourself slipping. Together, we can right this horrible wrong.

Thank You.

I would like to share with you a story - a story of pain, rejection, denial, loneliness, and perhaps, at the end, triumph and a happy ending. This story begins just three short years ago...

I was in my senior year of highschool, and as was the style at the time, I was very much interested in computers. I loved to take them apart, figure out how they worked, write programs with Microsoft's fine development environment, Visual Studio. As was also the style at the time, I loved to read webpages, in particularly, Slashdot.org. Perhaps you can guess what happened next. I began to slowly change - I developed an unhealthy obsession with computers, began to dislike and openly question America's policies, started shamelessly pirating music and software, and most dangerously, got turned on to that most deviant operating system of all - Linux.

Now I know many of you must be shaking your head in disgust at this point - "This must just be another one of those M$ trolls, hardee har har," but please, hear me out. This is very important.

As time went on, I got deeper and deeper in the Linux underground. I progressed through the various levels of "distros," from Mandrake, to Suse, to RedHat, finally to Debian, like a drug user going from harmless marijuana to cocaine and heroin. I thought I was so smart; I began sneering at other people who didn't use Linux - "Clueless Windo$e luzers," I would say. I was changing outwardly as well. I became a loner, hunched over the keyboard late into the night with the lights off, listening to my illegally downloaded music. All my friends left me after I broke their computers trying to install Linux on them. My hair grew long and unkempt, I stopped bathing and using deodorant, calling them "tools of capitalism and American greed." I got fired from my sysadmin job for installing slackware over the Solaris servers, and installing Debian over the Windows desktops. My bosses told me I cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I would not listen. "How could I be wrong, I'm using Linux?" I thought, "They must be M$ shills." You can see how far gone I was. No girls would look at me, let alone speak to me. I was in a world of pain, anger, and confusion.

But, then one day, I took a long hard look at myself. I saw that something was wrong, but did not know what. I must confess, for a long time I denied what I knew deep down inside my heart - Linux was the cause of all my troubles. I saw what I had allowed myself to become. I was no longer a human being, I was a Linux Zealot. Instead of judging people by their thoughts, feelings, and actions, I judged them by their choice of Operating System. And so began the long road toward recovery...

I am still not fully recovered from my affliction, for you see, I have only one desktop machine, and cannot install Windows without losing much of my data. That's right, I am healthy enough to admit it, Linux is not for desktop use. I am planning my next desktop machine purchase, which will be an Apple iBook. The one good thing that came out of my years of torment is that I learned the power of Unix. Therefore, I will use MacOSX - a true Unix with excellent support and commercial software backing, something Linux will never have. By paying for my software from now on, I will be supporting the American economy. I want to help get America out of this economic tailspin brought on by open source software and the dot com bust. More importantly, I will no longer be an operating system zealot. I will be friendly, kind, and generous to my fellow humans, no matter which operating system they use. I am now slowly regaining my friends, and last weekend I actually got invited to a party - my first party! Perhaps this weekend I will ask a cute girl out on a date. Since I have cleaned myself up and changed my attitude, I have noticed a few girls giving me flirty looks around campus. I'm so excited about my new life!

Please, Fellow Readers of Slashdot, I implore you to look at what you have become. Although it will be long and difficult, you too can change. I have faith in that. You can start by saying this with me - "Microsoft is not evil, Linux is not good for the desktop." Repeat that every time you feel yourself slipping. Together, we can right this horrible wrong.

Thank You.

An old april-fools joke, this snippet will give you a good chuckle at the expense of C:

"We stopped when we got a clean compile on the following syntax:

for(;P("\n"),R--;P("|"))for(e=C;e--;P("_"+*u++/8)% 2))P("| "+(*u/4)%2);

To think that modern programmers would try to use a language that allowed such a statement was beyond our comprehension!"

Also check out shooting yourself in the foot in various programming languages.

Donate money to EFF and other groups which defend our rights. Whats a petition going to tell the industry who already knows 60 million+ people disagree with them from the Napster Saga.

Donate to EFF EFF
Donate to GNU
Donate to Linux Mandrake Linux Mandrake
Donate to Freenet

We should donate to all of these groups because these groups are doing the actual fighting, stupid pettitions arent doing anything. Its like a kid who gets down on the ground banging their fists crying, thats not going to stop the bully from kicking your ass. Not giving the bully the money is also not going to stop the bully from kicking your ass. Hiring people to help you fight the bully will help you kick the bullies ass. Its the only way.

Well, I pretty much was just trying to be funny, but since you brought it up....

I don't think holding the world's email hostage is a terribly productive way to go about things. Reichschancellor Ashcroft would probably send you up the river on terrorism charges for that. Some of the more positive geek activities that spring to mind include

1. This geek wrote his own operating system which Microsoft now considers its biggest threat.
2. A few more geeks enabled us "illegally" to watch DVDs with that operating system.
3. A young geek got the whole music industry *all* pissed off with this little program, the offspring of which are the very reason for this discussion.

Um, maybe that's because it really is called the General Public License.

If you ask me GNU Applications and a few other programs are the killer apps for GNU/Linux as a CS student.

1. GCC, Binutils, Emacs/Vim (General Hacking)

2. Mesa (Graphics)

3. Bison/Flex (Compilers)

4. Linux (Operating Systems)

5. Various Packet Analyizers (Networking/Security)

5. MySQL/Postgres (Databases)

The only non opensource application I use is Mathematica, but Wolfram provides student discouts and packages such as Combinatorica are opensource.

If you ask me GNU Applications and a few other programs are the killer apps for GNU/Linux as a CS student.

1. GCC, Binutils, Emacs/Vim (General Hacking)

2. Mesa (Graphics)

3. Bison/Flex (Compilers)

4. Linux (Operating Systems)

5. Various Packet Analyizers (Networking/Security)

5. MySQL/Postgres (Databases)

The only non opensource application I use is Mathematica, but Wolfram provides student discouts and packages such as Combinatorica are opensource.

If you ask me GNU Applications and a few other programs are the killer apps for GNU/Linux as a CS student.

1. GCC, Binutils, Emacs/Vim (General Hacking)

2. Mesa (Graphics)

3. Bison/Flex (Compilers)

4. Linux (Operating Systems)

5. Various Packet Analyizers (Networking/Security)

5. MySQL/Postgres (Databases)

The only non opensource application I use is Mathematica, but Wolfram provides student discouts and packages such as Combinatorica are opensource.

If you ask me GNU Applications and a few other programs are the killer apps for GNU/Linux as a CS student.

1. GCC, Binutils, Emacs/Vim (General Hacking)

2. Mesa (Graphics)

3. Bison/Flex (Compilers)

4. Linux (Operating Systems)

5. Various Packet Analyizers (Networking/Security)

5. MySQL/Postgres (Databases)

The only non opensource application I use is Mathematica, but Wolfram provides student discouts and packages such as Combinatorica are opensource.

snail mail of a cd is an acceptable manner of distribution under the gpl. go read it yourself.

Can someone please explain this to me? To me "machine readable copy of the source code" is another word for binary. If this is what they're trying to say, this is the most pathetic excuse to get out of the GPL that I've ever heard of. Does the GPL have a three year clause built in to it? And doesn't the source have to be included with the dist. not just made available?

You could always check the authoritative document itself:

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

• a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
• b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
• c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

Just so there's no misunderstandings, "machine-readable source code" means, for all intents and purposes, "an electronic copy of the source code". Would you prefer to have a nice tarball, or a version printed on paper? Also, "medium customarily used for software interchange" is to prevent things like offering the source code on an eighty-foot-high stack of punch cards or reel-to-reel tape (since those media are no longer "customarily" utilized for exchanging software). I presume they left the source out of the main package in order to make a smaller download. The GPL is okay with this.

Might I suggest that you take a few minutes to read the GPL? I don't mean this as flamebait, but it's painfully obvious you haven't.

Not necessarily. Recall from this slashdot story about this article the intel compiler also showed similar results over GCC when targetting the Athlon.

GCC's mission statement is not the running time of executable code, we've recently been having a thread about it on the plan9 mailing list (or comp.os.plan9). (although ours started as a flame from Thomas Bushnell that plan9's 8c was nothing more than a "cute toy" - 8c is more concerned with compilation speed than execution time where it beats GCC hands down, if you want raw execution speed look elsewhere).

It could well be that Intel's compiler will show similar performance gains over GCC on the Hammer.

I wonder if every problem will start to look like a nail when the hammer claws it's way out of the AMD tool box.

Take a look at GCC main page and you'll see a note on the x86-64 port contributed by SuSE.

At the risk of restating the obvious, GNU is Not Unix. "Linux" is GNU, in that it is a Free Software OS that depends on the Linux kernel. For someone so "insightful", you don't seem to grasp some very fundamental concepts.

That being said, there is nothing "Free" or "Linux"-like about Mac OS X, other than it's POSIX compliance. If that is significant, than Linux users should just as readily get behind Solaris, or any other commercial Unix. Even Windows NT/2000 offers the option of POSIX compliance, with proven useability for Joe Sixpack. If Mac OS X will combat Windows, it fights Linux just as much. If your mother leaves Windows for Mac OS X, that might hurt MS, but it doesn't help Linux, or any other Free Software.

The point of Linux is not supplication to the Church of Unix, which is as corrupt as the Cult of Microsoft. That end would be more directly achieved by supporting SCO/Caldera. The most important point, which is glossed over in all of this hype over the "Open Source Linux OS" is the Freedom.

This is the exact environment that bred the Open Source Darwin component of Mac OS X. Yes, developers can access the source code - but Darwin is not Free. Similar confusion led to hype about BeOS being based on "Linux". Like Mac OS X, BeOS had nothing to do with Linux, but it did leverage GNU utilites, providing much functionality that is associated with Linux. GNU and Linux don't you to destroy Microsoft to be successful, they can only succeed by the strength of their own merits. I find it very disingenuous of you to claim that popularity of Mac OS X will further interest in Linux.

That is not to say that Mac OS X is not an excellent system. If I had OS X handy, I wouldn't care very much about Linux or other Free OSes either. The point is, I don't. To run such an excellent OS, one requires a currentl Apple system. To hack on it requires complete submission to the Cult of Apple. Together, that can prove unduly expensive. BeOS was almost as good as OS X in most aspects, and superior in a few. It ran on a much wider variet of commodity hardware. While the kernel wasn't Free or Open Source, there was much openness in the higher levels... almost the inverse of Mac OS X.

While BeOS was doomed to die with Be because it wasn't Free Software, at least some of the higher levels are still available for society to enjoy. This is being leveraged in both OpenBeOS and BlueOS. So KDE or GNOME alone won't make your mother leave Windows... perhaps BlueOS will!

Mac OS X is NOT Linux's true way to combat Windows! Mac OS X is an alluring, but very dangerous trap that is just as bad as Microsoft. BeOS was once just another detour from freedom, but in its death, it can atone for it sins. It can lend some of its strengths to Linux via BlueOS, and the BeOS may live once again - this time, basking in the glory of Freedom.

-castlan

yeah, this was a bit over the top. But then again, the parent definitely doesn't deserve +3 and +4 Insightful.

When you have a crime to investigate, and you have no suspects, where do you start? Obviously you begin by looking at the person or persons who have the most to gain by perpetrating the crime.

This is why we must consider: who had something to gain from the disasterous crimes of September 11th? Obviously not Osama Bin Laden, who would net no financial windfall from the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Although he has loudly applauded the "terrorist" acts of September 11th and even tacitly taken credit for them, there is no reason to believe that he is anything more than a bandwagon jumper. Being blamed for the destruction of the World Trade Center has done more for his image than any amount of militant Islamic rhetoric.

But if not Bin Laden, then who?

It so happens that on December 11th, "coincidentally" 2 months after the tragedy, Credit Suisse First Boston quietly agreed to pay out US$100 million in order to settle an 18 month old investigation into its handling of certain high-profile technology IPOs (Initial Public Offerings). One of the most controversial amongst these being the IPO of VA Linux Systems, Inc. (LNUX) .

VA Linux Systems, Inc., now known as VA Software, is widely derided as a poster child of the dot-com bust, though inexplicably still in business. At the time of the IPO, VA Linux (Software) shares opened trading at nearly 10 times their $30 offer price, closing the first day of trading at $239.25. This meteoric rise made many early investors rich, strangely on account of a company which purports to sell a hobbyist operating system which can be obtained for free on the Internet. "The VA Linux initial public offering is a prime example of market manipulation in an IPO by investment banks, their customers and the issuing firm," said Steven Schulman, a partner in the law firm Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, which specializes in filing shareholder suits.

"Because certain favored customers of the investment banks agreed to buy shares in a new issue at inflated prices in the aftermarket (in return for getting an allocation of the shares at the initial offering price) the share prices to which the IPO eventually soared were actually driven by artificial market forces," continues Schulman.

But what does the VA Software (Linux) IPO have to do with the attacks on September 11th, and what has that to do with the Credit Suisse settlement? Well, considering that VA Linux (Software) got CSFB into trouble in the first place, it stands to reason that the VA Linux (Software) Board of Directors were complicit in the stock fraud from beginning to end. As the investigation progressed against CSFB, the unscrupulous VA Software/Linux executives, their pockets bulging with filthy lucre plundered from trusting, hard-working investors, must have realized that their days in the country club were numbered if the SEC discovered their wrongdoings.

The SEC, or Securities Exchange Commission, is a federal regulatory agency, and cannot be bribed. Therefore, with a possible stint in federal prison looming large, Larry Augustin and the rest of the crooks, including outspoken gun violence advocate Eric S. Raymond, decided to undertake more active means to halt the investigation.

The Plan

It so happened that all the evidence in the CSFB/VA Linux investigation was held at the SEC Northeast Regional Office in Manhattan. More specifically, 7 World Trade Center, Suite 1300. The board decided that a simple burglary or arson attempt would not be satisfactory to destroy the evidence; anything so simple had a significant chance of being botched, and regardless of success would leave too many witnesses or living accomplices.

It was then that Eric S. Raymond suggested something he had read in a book by Tom Clancy. Crashing two planes into the World Trade Center Plaza would guarantee the destruction of the SEC offices, killing the operatives and possibly a number of SEC investigators at the same time. The plan seemed flawless, and would cost little more than the price of a few plane tickets. In a secret session, the board voted unanimously in favour of Eric's suggestion, and began to put it into action.

VA Software/Linux, at the time of planning the attacks, had no shortage of H1-B visa workers, who they employed for the purpose of writing and improving hacking, encryption, and other terrorist tools for the Linux operating system. It had been decided that a hand-picked few of these foreign H1-B workers would be used as the "patsies" in the operation. A contest was held, and the most zealotous Linux advocates were chosen for this secret assignment, direct from the board of directors. They accepted their mission after being told that, if successful, it would guarantee the adoption of Linux in the desktop market.

Alan Cox was brought into the fold to provide some planning and logistics for the mission. It was he who determined that since there was no adequate flight simulator software for Linux, the patsies would need to train at a flight school in order to pull off the plan successfully. It was also his idea to hijack a third and fourth plane for the purpose of crashing them into Washington D.C., to express his extreme rage over the DMCA, or Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The board of directors agreed with this addition to the plan in the hopes that it would help divert attention from the purpose of the WTC attack.

The H1-B workers were given false identities by using Linux hacking tools. Once they had attended the necessary flight training, they stayed at the Massachusetts home of Richard M. Stallman for a brief "faith building" retreat. During this time spent at the house of Stallman, between the nauseating stench of patchouli, Stallman's incessant, pitiful recorder playing, and Stallman's droning seminars on the grammatical and syntactical accuracy of various statements by Microsoft representatives, the H1-B workers were effectively hypnotized to the point that they were ready to lay down their lives for Free Software. It was then that they departed for Boston's Logan International Airport to board the planes.

(The preceding inside information has been obtained from a credible source close to the VA Linux/Software Board of Directors. He/she is in hiding for obvious reasons in light of this damning evidence, but has presented hard, physical evidence of VA Software/Linux's complicity in the events of 9/11 to federal investigators.)

From the annals of the Troll Library .

When you have a crime to investigate, and you have no suspects, where do you start? Obviously you begin by looking at the person or persons who have the most to gain by perpetrating the crime.

This is why we must consider: who had something to gain from the disasterous crimes of September 11th? Obviously not Osama Bin Laden, who would net no financial windfall from the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Although he has loudly applauded the "terrorist" acts of September 11th and even tacitly taken credit for them, there is no reason to believe that he is anything more than a bandwagon jumper. Being blamed for the destruction of the World Trade Center has done more for his image than any amount of militant Islamic rhetoric.

But if not Bin Laden, then who?

It so happens that on December 11th, "coincidentally" 2 months after the tragedy, Credit Suisse First Boston quietly agreed to pay out US$100 million in order to settle an 18 month old investigation into its handling of certain high-profile technology IPOs (Initial Public Offerings). One of the most controversial amongst these being the IPO of VA Linux Systems, Inc. (LNUX) .

VA Linux Systems, Inc., now known as VA Software, is widely derided as a poster child of the dot-com bust, though inexplicably still in business. At the time of the IPO, VA Linux (Software) shares opened trading at nearly 10 times their $30 offer price, closing the first day of trading at $239.25. This meteoric rise made many early investors rich, strangely on account of a company which purports to sell a hobbyist operating system which can be obtained for free on the Internet. "The VA Linux initial public offering is a prime example of market manipulation in an IPO by investment banks, their customers and the issuing firm," said Steven Schulman, a partner in the law firm Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, which specializes in filing shareholder suits.

"Because certain favored customers of the investment banks agreed to buy shares in a new issue at inflated prices in the aftermarket (in return for getting an allocation of the shares at the initial offering price) the share prices to which the IPO eventually soared were actually driven by artificial market forces," continues Schulman.

But what does the VA Software (Linux) IPO have to do with the attacks on September 11th, and what has that to do with the Credit Suisse settlement? Well, considering that VA Linux (Software) got CSFB into trouble in the first place, it stands to reason that the VA Linux (Software) Board of Directors were complicit in the stock fraud from beginning to end. As the investigation progressed against CSFB, the unscrupulous VA Software/Linux executives, their pockets bulging with filthy lucre plundered from trusting, hard-working investors, must have realized that their days in the country club were numbered if the SEC discovered their wrongdoings.

The SEC, or Securities Exchange Commission, is a federal regulatory agency, and cannot be bribed. Therefore, with a possible stint in federal prison looming large, Larry Augustin and the rest of the crooks, including outspoken gun violence advocate Eric S. Raymond, decided to undertake more active means to halt the investigation.

The Plan

It so happened that all the evidence in the CSFB/VA Linux investigation was held at the SEC Northeast Regional Office in Manhattan. More specifically, 7 World Trade Center, Suite 1300. The board decided that a simple burglary or arson attempt would not be satisfactory to destroy the evidence; anything so simple had a significant chance of being botched, and regardless of success would leave too many witnesses or living accomplices.

It was then that Eric S. Raymond suggested something he had read in a book by Tom Clancy. Crashing two planes into the World Trade Center Plaza would guarantee the destruction of the SEC offices, killing the operatives and possibly a number of SEC investigators at the same time. The plan seemed flawless, and would cost little more than the price of a few plane tickets. In a secret session, the board voted unanimously in favour of Eric's suggestion, and began to put it into action.

VA Software/Linux, at the time of planning the attacks, had no shortage of H1-B visa workers, who they employed for the purpose of writing and improving hacking, encryption, and other terrorist tools for the Linux operating system. It had been decided that a hand-picked few of these foreign H1-B workers would be used as the "patsies" in the operation. A contest was held, and the most zealotous Linux advocates were chosen for this secret assignment, direct from the board of directors. They accepted their mission after being told that, if successful, it would guarantee the adoption of Linux in the desktop market.

Alan Cox was brought into the fold to provide some planning and logistics for the mission. It was he who determined that since there was no adequate flight simulator software for Linux, the patsies would need to train at a flight school in order to pull off the plan successfully. It was also his idea to hijack a third and fourth plane for the purpose of crashing them into Washington D.C., to express his extreme rage over the DMCA, or Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The board of directors agreed with this addition to the plan in the hopes that it would help divert attention from the purpose of the WTC attack.

The H1-B workers were given false identities by using Linux hacking tools. Once they had attended the necessary flight training, they stayed at the Massachusetts home of Richard M. Stallman for a brief "faith building" retreat. During this time spent at the house of Stallman, between the nauseating stench of patchouli, Stallman's incessant, pitiful recorder playing, and Stallman's droning seminars on the grammatical and syntactical accuracy of various statements by Microsoft representatives, the H1-B workers were effectively hypnotized to the point that they were ready to lay down their lives for Free Software. It was then that they departed for Boston's Logan International Airport to board the planes.

(The preceding inside information has been obtained from a credible source close to the VA Linux/Software Board of Directors. He/she is in hiding for obvious reasons in light of this damning evidence, but has presented hard, physical evidence of VA Software/Linux's complicity in the events of 9/11 to federal investigators.)

From the annals of the Troll Library .

That GPL code is *not* free.

Shit, really? Better change the name then.

The press release does not have much info on what the suit is actually about. Here are some links to explain the dispute:

• MySQL FAQ about the dispute
• Eben Moglen's affidavit, which very clearly lays out MySQL's side of things

I couldn't find any propaganda on the Nusphere site. I guess they're downplaying the story.

And already, the OSDN has played with the usage and privacy policies at sourceforge enough that the GNU project has taken an old snap shot of sourceforge and opened their own alternative, Savannah. As much as I've enjoyed using Slashdot, I can't help but worry that down the road we may see more of the same issues cropping up here. Hopefully not, hopefully the use of a subscription system to bring in revenue will avoid the need to resort to anything more draconian.

I just want to write free software and give it to the world. I want the thrill of producing something with my peers that is as good or better as what the commercial world offers.

We're not interested in breaking copyrights; I don't even listen to any music from the last 30 years, and the only movies I watch are Star Wars. (Well, almost.)

The net effect of this is to reserve the privilege of publishing software to the elite few that can be certified as providing DRM. The Internet brought publishing to the masses -- now the big guys want to shut that off with trademark domain name rackets, etc. The free software revolution brought the art of producing software, the high art of hackery, to the masses. Now that's going to be shut off, too.

Fundamentally there's no difference between a gigantic big-city newspaper and a tiny neighborhood newsletter. Both should be accorded the same rights and protections. Well, fundamentally there's no difference between Microsoft and me, except Microsoft is big enough to be able to survive this DRM stuff. If it goes through, I won't be able to write software any more. Children won't be able to legally learn to program in the 4th grade like I did. Software will only come from crufty companies, and you can forget about free software (as in speech or as in beer, either one). There will be NO innovation anymore, and society will get what it justly deserves for passing such laws. I guess at that point only a revolution will bring back liberty.

Richard Stallman once wrote an essay dipicting a future of software controls and unreasonable DRM. In the story, debuggers had been declared illegal because their primary purpose was to subvert copyright protections. I laughed the first time I read it, thinking that was ludicrous.

so it is a contract, then? anyway, your memory is fucking shitty.

Because the program is licensed free of charge, there is no warranty for the program, to the extent permitted by applicable law. Except when otherwise stated in writing the copyright holders and/or other parties provide the program "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk as to the quality and performance of the program is with you. Should the program prove defective, you assume the cost of all necessary servicing, repair or correction..

and i love the fact that the gpl gets caught by the lameness filter; i had to change the case to get it to post.

Great advice.

"Contact me and I'll fix your broken website or supervise your webmasters for very affordable prices."

Too bad your email info was too cryptic for me to add you to my little virtual rolodex of cool people. Maybe that was your intent all along.

contact shiny at key dot salt after cracking crypt(3)'ed "plfeY04jaJnYI"

is too cryptic? Or you mean it's too crypt(3)'ic, as a joke? I ask because it would be a very good joke, in my opinion.

Anyway, I'm afraid that's all I can say... I have to keep my identity in secret, otherwise the phrase "very affordable prices" could be used against me.

But to brake the encryption, feel free to use this program, Shiny Metal Brute Force Crypt Cracker version 3.1.9:

#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# Shiny Metal Brute Force Crypt Cracker v3.1.9
#
# Copyright (C) 2001,2002 shiny@key.salt (shiny@output)
# http://slashdot.org/~Shiny+Metal+S./
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
# modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
# as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
# of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General
# Public License along with this program;
# if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
# 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
#
$x=substr$q,q,0,,q,2,if$q=q,plfeY04jaJnYI,;for
(++$_..$_<<3){qq,$q,eq crypt$_,$x and die
qq,$_.$x,for q,a,x$_..q,z,x$_}

When you do, just contact shiny@output. This program is free software released under the GPL (which is (the version from 2002-02-28 08:06:10 +0100 last modified on 2001-07-15 13:13:30 +0200) valid HTML 3.2 and valid HTML 4.01 Transitional (except DOCTYPE which says HTML 2.0 and Character Encoding which is undefined)). Let me know when you find this program useful or otherwise valuable to the community.

Great advice.

"Contact me and I'll fix your broken website or supervise your webmasters for very affordable prices."

Too bad your email info was too cryptic for me to add you to my little virtual rolodex of cool people. Maybe that was your intent all along.

contact shiny at key dot salt after cracking crypt(3)'ed "plfeY04jaJnYI"

is too cryptic? Or you mean it's too crypt(3)'ic, as a joke? I ask because it would be a very good joke, in my opinion.

Anyway, I'm afraid that's all I can say... I have to keep my identity in secret, otherwise the phrase "very affordable prices" could be used against me.

But to brake the encryption, feel free to use this program, Shiny Metal Brute Force Crypt Cracker version 3.1.9:

#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# Shiny Metal Brute Force Crypt Cracker v3.1.9
#
# Copyright (C) 2001,2002 shiny@key.salt (shiny@output)
# http://slashdot.org/~Shiny+Metal+S./
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
# modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
# as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
# of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General
# Public License along with this program;
# if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
# 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
#
$x=substr$q,q,0,,q,2,if$q=q,plfeY04jaJnYI,;for
(++$_..$_<<3){qq,$q,eq crypt$_,$x and die
qq,$_.$x,for q,a,x$_..q,z,x$_}

When you do, just contact shiny@output. This program is free software released under the GPL (which is (the version from 2002-02-28 08:06:10 +0100 last modified on 2001-07-15 13:13:30 +0200) valid HTML 3.2 and valid HTML 4.01 Transitional (except DOCTYPE which says HTML 2.0 and Character Encoding which is undefined)). Let me know when you find this program useful or otherwise valuable to the community.

Damn, that was a good post. I'm keeping a copy of it.

Thanks, that's nice to hear. :) I'm keeping a copy too, and maybe one day I'll make a website from it. It's good to know that people actually find it interesting. These are all important things, but unfortunately most of web designers don't care about them. When my Lynx or Galeon can't render a website which I absolutely have to see (and it's the only place with the information I need), I can always use Netscape and everything is fine (except for microsoft.com which usually crash my Netscape for some reason). But there are people who can't use Netscape or Internet Explorer on their Braille terminal or speech synthesiser and they are effectively unable to use most of the Web. That's very sad. We have 21st century, all the informations they need are there on-line, but they can't reach them because of web designers ignorance. There are no borders for them other than ignorance of web designers.

Web Pages That Suck is a great site for learning about good design through bad design.

Very good one, I didn't know it before. It reminded me ESR's HTML Hell Page: How not to design junk Web pages. I see it has changed a lot in the last few years since I last saw it. Now there are many things from my post (or maybe in my post there are many things from HTML Hell), but I'll still tell you about it even if it makes my comment less insightful. ;) So, the HTML Hell Page is surely worth reading, there are also links to other similar websites:

Here's a list of gripes similar to this one. And there's a fine rant about web page design by C. J. Silverio. Horrible Examples of bad technique are listed at Web Pages That Suck. Jakob Nielsen's column Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design is very good. The Yale Style Guide is worth reading.

I haven't seen all of the above links yet, but I'm sure they're interesting.

Regarding disabled access, try Bobbie as your automatic checker.

Thanks. I knew about it, but I forgot the name. It's a great tool. But there's one thing I don't like about Bobby, it's the license:

"No Reverse Engineering. Licensee shall not modify, adapt, translate, prepare derivative works from, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble or otherwise attempt to derive source code from the Licensed Software or documentation therefor, except and only to the extent that such activity is expressly permitted by applicable law notwithstanding this limitation. Licensee shall not remove, obscure, or alter any copyright notices, trademark notices, or other proprietary rights notices affixed to or contained within the Licensed Software or documentation."

"License Fee. Licensee shall pay CAST or its designee a license fee for each simultaneous user of the Licensed Software ("Single User License Fee") or each server on which it shall install the Licensed Software ("Server License Fee") as set forth at http://www.cast.org/bobby/DownloadBobby316.cfm."

They say on the main page:

"Bobby was created by CAST to help Web page authors identify and repair significant barriers to access by individuals with disabilities."

"Center for Applied Special Technology, CAST is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to expand opportunities for people with disabilities through innovative uses of computer technology."

"Above, you can test a Web page using our server version of Bobby Worldwide. This server version gives you a preview of the downloadable version of Bobby Worldwide."

But the downloadable version costs:

Single User copy: $99.00
Site License of server version: $3,000.00 per server
Multiple server site license: $2,000.00 per server for 5 or more servers

I think it's exactly the kind of software which should be released as a free software. Yes, I'm a free software freak, so in my opinion every software is exactly the kind of software which should be released as a free software...

But this is software made by "a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to expand opportunities for people with disabilities through innovative uses of computer technology".

I could tell my employer:
-- Hey, maybe we could install Bobby on the servers?
-- What's that?
-- It's a program to expand opportunities for people with disabilities.
-- Does it cost anything?
-- It's free-as-in-beer.
-- Sure, why not.
but when I tell him that it'll cost him $3k per server... You know what the answer would be even if we only need a single user copy for 100 bucks.

Bobby would serve its purpose much better if it was released as a free software. I'd be proud to contribute patches to Bobby, as I'm sure would lots of other people, and best of all, much more people would use Bobby. If there is any place for proprietary software, it's not software which "was created [...] to help [...] identify and repair significant barriers to access by individuals with disabilities."

In other words: great idea, fatal license.

Keep graphics content (hence download time) low, and always compress images using Gifbot or something similar.

Good point, it's a very important thing which I didn't say about at all. I noticed that I wait the same time for the average website to load today on 768kb/s DSL, as I waited few years ago on 28.8kb/s modem.

I didn't know Gifbot. It's great, because people who don't understand the image compression techniques (i.e. most of people making personal webpages) can improve ther graphics and save time and bandwidth. It only lacks PNG output which is important to me, not only because of the GIF problems, but because it's a great format, even recommended by The World Wide Web Consortium and it has Adam7 interlacing feature for great progressive loading on slow connections, very good for the WWW (see this image or this one if your connection is to fast to notice the effect), read more about Adam7 interlacing on stl.caltech.edu Introduction to PNG.

What I would add about the graphics is to first of all, always use JPEG for photographs, and always use PNG for computer generated graphics (logos, headers, text, screenshots). Of course there are sitiations when it's better to use PNG for photo or JPEG for something generated (like rendered landscapes), but for most of situations (especially for usual homepages) this rule works great: JPEG for photos, PNG for logos.

People sometimes use JPEG for flat few-color logos, which looks terrible on the hard edges and solid color areas. People also (however not so often) use PNG or GIF to save photos, and they are ten times larger than JPEG of the same quality.

My personal choice for editing web graphics is The Gimp, it's a great tool especially for web designing purposes. It has a great JPEG saving dialog, where you can set different quality values and see the real-time preview, so you can save at the lowest quality (highest compression) when you don't see the difference, You can also set subsampling type or DCT method and restart markers for more advanced users.

I almost forgot! See the Cooltext.com:

"Cooltext.com is an online graphics generator for web pages and anywhere else you might need an impressive logo without a lot of work. We provides real-time generation of graphics customized exactly the way you want them.

Simply choose what kind of image you would like to create. Then, fill out a form and you'll have your own images created on the fly.

Cooltext.com will always be available for use free of charge."

They use Gimp as the backend so it's a great introduction to Gimp power as a web graphics authoring tool. Everyone should check out Cooltext, you can make great logos in few seconds. Great for lazy webmasters who want to have nice websites with no effort. Great preview of Gimp.

Speaking about the software, another great tool I use daily is ImageMagick. The best set of programs I've seen for conversion, optimizing and compression of lots of pictures at the same time. Once I used it to automatically scale, stretch contrast, add logos, compress and save over 10,000 pictures. It took over two days to my PC back then, but it was two days of rest for me. It would've taken me weeks if I'd had to do it manually.

Important links: PNG home, PNG at W3C, JPEG home, JPEG at W3C, The Gimp, Cooltext, ImageMagick.

Great, I wrote another comment for ten screens, while I should work instead... But what can I do, when I have a subject which is one of the main areas of my interest? Actually I didn't realize that I have so much to say about web design, maybe I should write a book, teach or something... It reminds me a funny situation I had few months ago:

A friend of mine phoned me once and asked:
-- Tell me, how do you make websites?
I saw all of my life scrolling before my eyes. I was trying to figure out where to start my answer, and after ten seconds of my silence, he said:
-- But hurry up, I'm using a cell phone.
Here I started to laugh like a mad man, and I couldn't explain him why I laughed when he kept asking me, because I couldn't stop laughing.

He really thought that I could explain everything to him in few minutes... Later I told him, that I had been learning how to make websites for many years, and now he's proud that he's the man who asked me to summarize many years of my life in few minutes. I tried to give him few books but he thought it'd be faster and even when I suggested Netscape Composer, it wasn't worth the effort for him... :) Great story, I always laugh when I remember it.

That's about it. I say again, Damn that was a good post. 5++ (Moderators please mod original post up).

Thanks once again. It's good to know that there's someone who likes it more than the moderators. :)

From the last minute: I just found The greatest WWW page ever!

Damn, that was a good post. I'm keeping a copy of it.

Thanks, that's nice to hear. :) I'm keeping a copy too, and maybe one day I'll make a website from it. It's good to know that people actually find it interesting. These are all important things, but unfortunately most of web designers don't care about them. When my Lynx or Galeon can't render a website which I absolutely have to see (and it's the only place with the information I need), I can always use Netscape and everything is fine (except for microsoft.com which usually crash my Netscape for some reason). But there are people who can't use Netscape or Internet Explorer on their Braille terminal or speech synthesiser and they are effectively unable to use most of the Web. That's very sad. We have 21st century, all the informations they need are there on-line, but they can't reach them because of web designers ignorance. There are no borders for them other than ignorance of web designers.

Web Pages That Suck is a great site for learning about good design through bad design.

Very good one, I didn't know it before. It reminded me ESR's HTML Hell Page: How not to design junk Web pages. I see it has changed a lot in the last few years since I last saw it. Now there are many things from my post (or maybe in my post there are many things from HTML Hell), but I'll still tell you about it even if it makes my comment less insightful. ;) So, the HTML Hell Page is surely worth reading, there are also links to other similar websites:

Here's a list of gripes similar to this one. And there's a fine rant about web page design by C. J. Silverio. Horrible Examples of bad technique are listed at Web Pages That Suck. Jakob Nielsen's column Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design is very good. The Yale Style Guide is worth reading.

I haven't seen all of the above links yet, but I'm sure they're interesting.

Regarding disabled access, try Bobbie as your automatic checker.

Thanks. I knew about it, but I forgot the name. It's a great tool. But there's one thing I don't like about Bobby, it's the license:

"No Reverse Engineering. Licensee shall not modify, adapt, translate, prepare derivative works from, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble or otherwise attempt to derive source code from the Licensed Software or documentation therefor, except and only to the extent that such activity is expressly permitted by applicable law notwithstanding this limitation. Licensee shall not remove, obscure, or alter any copyright notices, trademark notices, or other proprietary rights notices affixed to or contained within the Licensed Software or documentation."

"License Fee. Licensee shall pay CAST or its designee a license fee for each simultaneous user of the Licensed Software ("Single User License Fee") or each server on which it shall install the Licensed Software ("Server License Fee") as set forth at http://www.cast.org/bobby/DownloadBobby316.cfm."

They say on the main page:

"Bobby was created by CAST to help Web page authors identify and repair significant barriers to access by individuals with disabilities."

"Center for Applied Special Technology, CAST is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to expand opportunities for people with disabilities through innovative uses of computer technology."

"Above, you can test a Web page using our server version of Bobby Worldwide. This server version gives you a preview of the downloadable version of Bobby Worldwide."

But the downloadable version costs:

Single User copy: $99.00
Site License of server version: $3,000.00 per server
Multiple server site license: $2,000.00 per server for 5 or more servers

I think it's exactly the kind of software which should be released as a free software. Yes, I'm a free software freak, so in my opinion every software is exactly the kind of software which should be released as a free software...

But this is software made by "a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to expand opportunities for people with disabilities through innovative uses of computer technology".

I could tell my employer:
-- Hey, maybe we could install Bobby on the servers?
-- What's that?
-- It's a program to expand opportunities for people with disabilities.
-- Does it cost anything?
-- It's free-as-in-beer.
-- Sure, why not.
but when I tell him that it'll cost him $3k per server... You know what the answer would be even if we only need a single user copy for 100 bucks.

Bobby would serve its purpose much better if it was released as a free software. I'd be proud to contribute patches to Bobby, as I'm sure would lots of other people, and best of all, much more people would use Bobby. If there is any place for proprietary software, it's not software which "was created [...] to help [...] identify and repair significant barriers to access by individuals with disabilities."

In other words: great idea, fatal license.

Keep graphics content (hence download time) low, and always compress images using Gifbot or something similar.

Good point, it's a very important thing which I didn't say about at all. I noticed that I wait the same time for the average website to load today on 768kb/s DSL, as I waited few years ago on 28.8kb/s modem.

I didn't know Gifbot. It's great, because people who don't understand the image compression techniques (i.e. most of people making personal webpages) can improve ther graphics and save time and bandwidth. It only lacks PNG output which is important to me, not only because of the GIF problems, but because it's a great format, even recommended by The World Wide Web Consortium and it has Adam7 interlacing feature for great progressive loading on slow connections, very good for the WWW (see this image or this one if your connection is to fast to notice the effect), read more about Adam7 interlacing on stl.caltech.edu Introduction to PNG.

What I would add about the graphics is to first of all, always use JPEG for photographs, and always use PNG for computer generated graphics (logos, headers, text, screenshots). Of course there are sitiations when it's better to use PNG for photo or JPEG for something generated (like rendered landscapes), but for most of situations (especially for usual homepages) this rule works great: JPEG for photos, PNG for logos.

People sometimes use JPEG for flat few-color logos, which looks terrible on the hard edges and solid color areas. People also (however not so often) use PNG or GIF to save photos, and they are ten times larger than JPEG of the same quality.

My personal choice for editing web graphics is The Gimp, it's a great tool especially for web designing purposes. It has a great JPEG saving dialog, where you can set different quality values and see the real-time preview, so you can save at the lowest quality (highest compression) when you don't see the difference, You can also set subsampling type or DCT method and restart markers for more advanced users.

I almost forgot! See the Cooltext.com:

"Cooltext.com is an online graphics generator for web pages and anywhere else you might need an impressive logo without a lot of work. We provides real-time generation of graphics customized exactly the way you want them.

Simply choose what kind of image you would like to create. Then, fill out a form and you'll have your own images created on the fly.

Cooltext.com will always be available for use free of charge."

They use Gimp as the backend so it's a great introduction to Gimp power as a web graphics authoring tool. Everyone should check out Cooltext, you can make great logos in few seconds. Great for lazy webmasters who want to have nice websites with no effort. Great preview of Gimp.

Speaking about the software, another great tool I use daily is ImageMagick. The best set of programs I've seen for conversion, optimizing and compression of lots of pictures at the same time. Once I used it to automatically scale, stretch contrast, add logos, compress and save over 10,000 pictures. It took over two days to my PC back then, but it was two days of rest for me. It would've taken me weeks if I'd had to do it manually.

Important links: PNG home, PNG at W3C, JPEG home, JPEG at W3C, The Gimp, Cooltext, ImageMagick.

Great, I wrote another comment for ten screens, while I should work instead... But what can I do, when I have a subject which is one of the main areas of my interest? Actually I didn't realize that I have so much to say about web design, maybe I should write a book, teach or something... It reminds me a funny situation I had few months ago:

A friend of mine phoned me once and asked:
-- Tell me, how do you make websites?
I saw all of my life scrolling before my eyes. I was trying to figure out where to start my answer, and after ten seconds of my silence, he said:
-- But hurry up, I'm using a cell phone.
Here I started to laugh like a mad man, and I couldn't explain him why I laughed when he kept asking me, because I couldn't stop laughing.

He really thought that I could explain everything to him in few minutes... Later I told him, that I had been learning how to make websites for many years, and now he's proud that he's the man who asked me to summarize many years of my life in few minutes. I tried to give him few books but he thought it'd be faster and even when I suggested Netscape Composer, it wasn't worth the effort for him... :) Great story, I always laugh when I remember it.

That's about it. I say again, Damn that was a good post. 5++ (Moderators please mod original post up).

Thanks once again. It's good to know that there's someone who likes it more than the moderators. :)

From the last minute: I just found The greatest WWW page ever!

Nusphere fixed the basic issue here; they no longer distribute without source code.

Assuming this is true (I have read conflicting reports), the GPL does not actually allow you to 'fix the basic issue' and then continue on as you wish.

Section four of the GPL states:

You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.

Once Nusphere initially released without source code (they claimed source would be available later), they were, strictly speaking, in violation of the GPL and by section 4, automatically terminated any claims to a license that they had.

Now, most reasonable companies would allow them to get into compliance with the GPL, then drop the matter. MySQL decided not to. While I do not agree with this action, it is, strictly legally speaking, the right thing for MySQL to do in this situation.

Thought a link to the actual GPL might be helpful. Here it is. My (limited) understanding is that NuSphere released a product statically linked to MySQL, but did not release the software under GPL and therefore violated GPL.

• Content

  If you don't have anything interesting to say, don't even bother.

• Animations

  Do not use any animations or blinking text on a page, when there's any text to read, especially if they can't be turned off by simply pressing Escape or clicking Stop. I don't mind ads, as long as they don't interfere with reading, and animations do interfere.

• Valid HTML

  Don't publish invalid HTML. Always use W3C HTML Validator and CSS Validator on your pages online. Always use HTML Tidy before your new pages are online. If you don't write HTML but you use a WYSIWYG Web authoring tool instead, and its output gives any errors or warnings when tested with HTML Validator, complain to the vendor of this tool you use asking to remove the bugs.

• HTML is not a typesetting language

  HTML or XHTML are for the logical informations about your document. CSS is for defining the look and feel.

• <NOSCRIPT> tags

  The <NOSCRIPT> tag is not for writing "Your browser is bad, come back when you install better" but for providing the same functionality for browser without JavaScript or with JavaScript turned off.

  (By the way, texts like "If you can see this text, that means you have no JavaScript" are as stupid as "If you can see this text, that means you have a kernel panic")

  If your website is unusable without JavaScript, it needs a redesign. Don't use <a href="javascript:..."> links if you don't have equivalent <a href="http:..."> links inside a <NOSCRIPT>.

• Remember about other browsers than yours

  If your website is best viewed with any specific browser, or in any specific resolution, you're not a good web designer and worst of all, you don't understand what the Web is all about. See the Any Browser Campaign. Install Lynx (a text-mode browser) and see how your website looks like. If it's unusable, it's poorly designed. Remember to always use ALT property in IMG tags, aspecially in navigation buttons.

• Remember about people with disabilities

  See the Web Accessibility Initiative and always try to meet the Triple-A, Double-A or at least Level A Conformance. Use Web Accessibility Initiative logos on your website, or just a text information about your level of conformance.

  "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." - Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web

  People may access your website using Braille terminals or voice synthesis. Testing your website with Lynx is always a good idea.

• Colors

  Remember that 10% of your visitors are color-blind in some degree. Remember that black text on white background is the best combination for any text longer than few lines. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

• Fonts

  Remember that the best font for text longer than few lines is a serif, variable width font, like Times. Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

• User defaults

  You should always use the default font face and default font size for the normal text content on your website. Just don't define the face and size, and it'll be ok. Remember that when you use size "-2" for the whole text on your page it means: "For the text on this page, use the font two levels smaller than what the user has chosen as his/her default and favorite size of font".

  Use your own font faces, sizes and colors other than black on white, only for logos, headers etc., but not for the main text to read, longer than few lines and especially longer than a paragraph. Soemone has set a bigger size as a default for a reason - maybe he/she has a small screen, maybe he/she has problems with eyes, maybe he/she just likes big fonts - respect this decision.

• Accept-Language

  If your site is multilingual, use the Accept-Language HTTP header. My browser sends Accept-Language in every single request and it's stupid that I have to click English version links, after I've already told it in my HTTP request. See the RFC 1945 - HTTP/1.0 (May 1996)

  D.2.4 Accept-Language

  The Accept-Language request-header field is similar to Accept, but restricts the set of natural languages that are preferred as a response to the request.

  It's nearly 6 years old feature, still most of people don't use it. RFC 2616 - HTTP/1.1 (June 1999) defines much richer Accept-Language header (See section 14.4), but please, use HTTP/1.0 functionality at least. See www.debian.org which is a great example of this feature functionality.
• See good websites and learn from them
  • debian.org
  • gnu.org
  • google.com
  • dmoz.org
  • w3.org
• Try to learn from the good old books

  Try to learn from the good old books, not from the magazines about the latest celebrity gossips.

• Hire an expert, like me

  Contact me and I'll fix your broken website or supervise your webmasters for very affordable prices.

See gnu.org for that great 90s look.

I disagree with your interpretation, specifically "that is: it must be supplied together with the binaries at the same time. If the software is distributed without source, then it is in violation of the license agreement." I disagree because of the written offer, which doesn't specify a timeline...

My comment referred to (a), but it is applicable to all three options. All begin with "Accompany it...", which means come together with, so either the source, or a written offer of the source must be bundled with the binaries at the time of distribution.

Earlier comments have stated that (at least at first), the software/product/binaries were distributed without complying with any of (a), (b), or (c), and so violated the GNU GPL.

I disagree with your interpretation, specifically "that is: it must be supplied together with the binaries at the same time. If the software is distributed without source, then it is in violation of the license agreement." I disagree because of the written offer, which doesn't specify a timeline...

My comment referred to (a), but it is applicable to all three options. All begin with "Accompany it...", which means come together with, so either the source, or a written offer of the source must be bundled with the binaries at the time of distribution.

Earlier comments have stated that (at least at first), the software/product/binaries were distributed without complying with any of (a), (b), or (c), and so violated the GNU GPL.

The site also has a 64-bit simulator for you favorite 32-bit processor based Linux system.

Long live His Majesty, Hengist Duval, Emperor of the Imperial Empire, Duke of Achenar, Friend of the victims of crime, Hard on the causes of crime, Enemy of Open Source and Free Software, Protector of the mentally weak.

If I play around with the Linux kernel and add some code, are the FSF Gestapo going to come crashing down my door demanding me to release all the code?

Long live His Majesty, Hengist Duval, Emperor of the Imperial Empire, Duke of Achenar, Friend of the victims of crime, Hard on the causes of crime, Enemy of Open Source and Free Software, Protector of the mentally weak.

Long live His Majesty, Hengist Duval, Emperor of the Imperial Empire, Duke of Achenar, Friend of the victims of crime, Hard on the causes of crime, Enemy of Open Source and Free Software, Protector of the mentally weak.

Could this be? Someone who has actually read the article and understood what the lawyers were getting at, unlike the hundreds of slashbots jumping around adn screaming how "they just don't get it" ??? I AM AMAZED! There just might be a chance that humanity will survive to witness the dawn of the next century!

Long live His Majesty, Hengist Duval, Emperor of the Imperial Empire, Duke of Achenar, Friend of the victims of crime, Hard on the causes of crime, Enemy of Open Source and Free Software, Protector of the mentally weak.

Long live His Majesty, Hengist Duval, Emperor of the Imperial Empire, Duke of Achenar, Friend of the victims of crime, Hard on the causes of crime, Enemy of Open Source and Free Software, Protector of the mentally weak.

You can find out more about this on the GCC web site in this FAQ entry and in the release timeline.

You can find out more about this on the GCC web site in this FAQ entry and in the release timeline.

Or look here: libstdc++ FAQ For the same information, with annotations.