Slashdot Mirror

the_real_tigga writes "OpenMag features a benchmark review of the Intel C/C++ compiler as opposed to gcc on linux and Microsoft Visual Studio compiler on Windows XP. Not surprisingly (for me at least), icc beats them both, with dramatic performance improvements. Too bad they chose to review gcc version 2.95, and not the 3.x series, which is known to produce faster code. What is surprising, even AMD CPUs benefit from the icc-compiled code. There is another version of the article here, and they provide a download of the used tools , so you can try it at home too!"

Screaming Lunatic writes "GCC will finally get precompiled header support which should help with faster compile times. GCC will also be fitted with a new recursive descent parser that fixes more than 100 bugs in GCC. I'm not sure how they decomposed C++ into a context free grammar so that it could be parsed using recursive descent."

Screaming Lunatic writes "GCC will finally get precompiled header support which should help with faster compile times. GCC will also be fitted with a new recursive descent parser that fixes more than 100 bugs in GCC. I'm not sure how they decomposed C++ into a context free grammar so that it could be parsed using recursive descent."

Screaming Lunatic writes "GCC will finally get precompiled header support which should help with faster compile times. GCC will also be fitted with a new recursive descent parser that fixes more than 100 bugs in GCC. I'm not sure how they decomposed C++ into a context free grammar so that it could be parsed using recursive descent."

rtphokie writes "C|Net is reporting that the Cleveland Public Library is making ebooks available. Sounds like the 1000 books in the system initially will feature more than just public domain titles including 'the latest from authors such as Michael Crichton, Clive Barker and Joyce Carol Oates.'" The article also mentions that "only a limited number of each eBook will be available, and after a preset number of days, the eBook will lock out the current reader so another patron can check it out." A good time to re-read The Right to Read.

Mark Wielaard writes "Your friendly neighbourhood GNU did it again. A year ago IBM made much noise about placing $40 million of its software tools under a free software license. Technically these tools, called Eclipse, are great for developing (java) software. There was only one catch, it was build on top of the proprietary java platform. This made it useless for the Free Software community. Luckily the GNU project has two projects that come to the rescue. GNU Classpath, core libraries for java, and gcj, the GNU Compiler for Java. We are now able to run Eclipse on a completely free platform! It is not yet complete, but you can already edit, compile and browse CVS with it. And since Eclipse uses GTK+ it also looks very nice. I setup a page with instructions on how to get this working so you can help us make it work even better or just so you can view a couple of nice screenshots."

Mark Wielaard writes "Your friendly neighbourhood GNU did it again. A year ago IBM made much noise about placing $40 million of its software tools under a free software license. Technically these tools, called Eclipse, are great for developing (java) software. There was only one catch, it was build on top of the proprietary java platform. This made it useless for the Free Software community. Luckily the GNU project has two projects that come to the rescue. GNU Classpath, core libraries for java, and gcj, the GNU Compiler for Java. We are now able to run Eclipse on a completely free platform! It is not yet complete, but you can already edit, compile and browse CVS with it. And since Eclipse uses GTK+ it also looks very nice. I setup a page with instructions on how to get this working so you can help us make it work even better or just so you can view a couple of nice screenshots."

Mark Wielaard writes "Your friendly neighbourhood GNU did it again. A year ago IBM made much noise about placing $40 million of its software tools under a free software license. Technically these tools, called Eclipse, are great for developing (java) software. There was only one catch, it was build on top of the proprietary java platform. This made it useless for the Free Software community. Luckily the GNU project has two projects that come to the rescue. GNU Classpath, core libraries for java, and gcj, the GNU Compiler for Java. We are now able to run Eclipse on a completely free platform! It is not yet complete, but you can already edit, compile and browse CVS with it. And since Eclipse uses GTK+ it also looks very nice. I setup a page with instructions on how to get this working so you can help us make it work even better or just so you can view a couple of nice screenshots."

Slashback with more on GNU Radio; BeUnited's ongoing bid for Gobe Productive's source code; AOL, IM and the USPTO; the consequences one observer faced for watching spammer Alan Ralsky and more. Read on for the details.

Don't Post While Sleepy: Hi, Chrisd here apologizing about that false post on Sony/Nintendo Playstation Trademark Settlement. Oops. Doh. No excuse. Mea Culpa. I'll be more careful next time.

Is "Rubber stamping everything" a patentable business practice? Brian Dear writes "With all the news these days about the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issuing a patent to AOL/ICQ/Mirabilis for Instant Messaging, I thought the Slashdot community would be interested in reading about TERM-talk on PLATO, which was announced on the PLATO network on this day in 1973. Here is the URL with a screen shot of the actual announcement."

Turing, Marconi and Rosen: pick any two. squiggleslash writes "Salon is running an informative and sympathetic story about GNU radio. The article discusses how the project could end up pre-empting the Hollywood producers and other content cartel's attempts to destroy modifiable consumer hardware by creating a blatently legitimate space where programmable hardware is a requirement, as well as opening up radio to groups outside of the current cabals. Good stuff."

We've mentioned quite a bit about GNU Radio before (see also Eric Blossom's interview questions and answers; this article delves into the fight that the GNU Radio folks are gearing up for over broadcast flags.

Suiteness and light. To follow up on our mention of the effort to buy from Gobe (and release as Free software) the sourcecode of Gobe Productive, Simon Gauvin of beunited.org writes "beunited.org has been pledged over $10,000.00 by the public and corporate community for the release of Gobe Productive for BeOS. Linux users have also pledged, and we encourage more members of the Linux community to participate for the release of the Linux version. Call all your friends and send them over to beunited.org to help raise awareness!"

Here's the relevant discussion thread if you'd like to learn more about this effort; I wish the site had a bar chart of some sort showing how much money was currently raised, and an obvious PayPal link or similar. Note that for now, beunited's first goal is to open the source for the BeOS version of Productive.

Ralsky, Ralsky, Ralsky ... IsoRashi writes "Over at the Register they have this short article about a guy who took some photos of spammer Alan Ralsky's home. After taking the photographs, the man was chased by someone in a black jaguar and he began receiving threatening phone calls the next day. Here is a direct link to the site the photographer set up."

Read your TOS carefully before you start downloading ... Sergeant Beavis writes "Nate Carlson was kind enough to create a HOWTO for connecting your Linux box to Sprint's Vision network via a Sanyo SCP-4900 phone. However Sanyo's store shows the cable to be out of stock. Now comes FutureDial to the rescue with both the USB cable and SnapDialer software for connecting to the Vision network with Windows instead of Linux. Oh, the cable only cost $19.99 at your local Radio Shack. Enjoy!"

And let this be a lesson (of sorts) to you! gh0ul writes "Looks like Uzi Nissan (for those of you who don't recall owns nissan.com) has lost his fight with Nissan Motors to keep his nissan.com (last name by birthright/company) domain. The site now reads "In compliance with a ruling issued by the United States District Court in Los Angeles on November 14, 2002, in the lawsuit of Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. v. Nissan Computer Corporation, this web site has been converted to non-commercial use." Are we ever going to have any protection against these kind of things?"

The Eye was never there. You never saw it. It was not creepy. Finally, Rob writes "The creepy all-seeing eye logo from John Poindexter and the Total Information Awareness project is suddenly missing from the TIA web site. Old site ; Current site Perhaps TIA is seeking suggestions for a new logo?"

I've heard a lot of people describe Richard Stallman as "unreasonable." I find Stallman instead to be one of the most persistently, relentlessly reasonable people whose thoughts I've ever encountered. Stallman may be a dogmatist, but the dogma is sincere and his own, not borrowed. A new book from the GNU Press called Free Software, Free Society collects several of his essays (and some other material) into one slim book. Stallman's essays document what his actions (as a programmer and through projects like GNU) have demonstrated concretely -- that the software future can be one primarily of rigorously open and freely, explicitly shareable code: a nightmare of control is not the only option. Free software enthusiasts might find little actually new: Those readers are probably already aware that control exercised through hidden, inaccessible bits is becoming more odious, more ubiquitous and more invisible. This makes the book worth reading especially to people who are currently not interested in the distribution and disclosure of software's source code. Unless you can completely disentangle the future of society from the future of software, this should concern you. Free Software, Free Society author Richard Stallman pages 220 publisher GNU Press rating 9 reviewer timothy ISBN 18822114981 summary Philosophy and practicality don't have to clash; this book makes the case that software can be open, and why it should be.

What's between the covers Free Software, Free Society is divided into four sections:

• One: The GNU Project and Free Software (10 chapters)
• Two: Copyright, Copyleft, and Patents (6 chapters)
• Three: Freedom, Society and Software (5 chapters)
• Four: The Licenses

Despite the division into chapters, the book's content does not conform to a single straight line, so I will deal with the chapters I mention out of the order in which they appear.

The book starts off on a good note. Key to understanding nearly everything in the book is a basic understanding of what source code is. Since Stallman's usual audiences don't need to have this explained, Richard E. Buckman and book editor Joshua Gay provide a three-page introduction ("A Note on Software") which is as good and concise an explanation as I've ever seen of the meaning of "source code," "compiler," "assembler," "machine code" and "operating system." Without quibbling over details that space has made them gloss over, this section is a good mental boot camp for anyone reading the book with no programming knowledge at all.

This note is followed by a topic guide which walks a prospective reader through the contents of the book better than a table of contents can, pointing out what concepts are dealt with in the book's chapters, a sort of micro-index. (And in a book this brief, it helps make up for the lack of a more thorough index.)

Lawrence Lessig's introduction largely repeats what Lessig has said in the past about the openness of software. One paragraph in particular sums up one of my favorite analogies when it comes to Free software, and one which I think translates well to those familiar with other fields, like art and architecture:

"... Law firms have enough incentive to produce great briefs even though the stuff they build can be taken and copied by someone else. The lawyer is a craftsman; his or her product is public. Yet the crafting is not charity. Lawyers get paid; the public doesn't demand such work without price. Instead this economy flourishes, with later work added to the earlier."

Old hat, new hat.

Those familiar with Richard Stallman will no doubt recognize at least some of these essays, or at least their cores, because of the persistence with which Stallman has spread the word of the origins and underlying philosophies of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation. The first chapters of the book may bore readers who have heard dozens of times the story of Stallman's experiences with the Incompatible Timesharing System (ITS) in the MIT AI lab, the dissolution of the software-sharing society there, and how it directly led to his quest for a complete Free operating system. Stallman is an engaging writer, though, and I found myself enjoying it even though I have heard the story several times before.

The chapter in this section most likely to trouble those set in conventional thinking when it comes to software is Chapter 4, "Why Software Should Not Have Owners."

Despite the title, the book does not consist entirely of essays; it also includes a transcript of Stallman's speech at NYU in May of 2001, which shows how consistent Stallman's speaking is with his writing style. Some people have derided Stallman (and the FSF) as too academic, removed from the realities of normal computer users and the business world which right now implicitly favors non-Free software, so it's interesting to note the context of that speech -- it was a direct, welcome reaction to the prodding of Microsoft Vice President Craig Mundie's speech on the same campus earlier the same month, in which Mundie casually referred to the "viral aspect" of the GPL, and declared that Free software "puts at risk the continued vitality of the independent software sector."

There's also Stallman's short story "The Right to Read" and even (Chapter 10) the text and score of the Free Software Song. 'The Right to Read" may be the part of the book most appropriate for reprinting in tract form to leave around public libraries: this is a story, not quite hypothetical enough, about a future where every time a book is read, it must be unlocked with a password and authorized by those who hold the strings of copyright -- and sharing books is prohibited. Replace "books" with "e-books" and the story becomes less an allegory as a description of current reality.

Just as current are Chapters 12 ("Misinterpreting Copyright -- A Series of Errors") and 16 ("The Danger of Software Patents"). Stallman's arguments here, despite his protests that practicality is secondary to ethical interests, are eminently practical and should be read by everyone whose work touches either copyright or patents. And contrary to disparagement sometimes heaped on the Free software movement, he does not dismiss either of these in toto -- he simply points out forcefully ways in which these protections can be dangerously perverted.

Some of Free Software, Free Society's contents may strike readers (whatever their level of interest) as needlessly pedantic. I'm thinking here specifically of Chapter 21, "Words to Avoid," which lists 14 words and phrases Stallman discourages in the context of Free software as he defines it. On second glance, I think even this chapter is well suited to the book, since the reasoning presented for his objections to each word on this list (a paragraph or two apiece) will be most informative to people not already steeped in the lore and leanings of the Free Software movement. Some of these (I'll tease by saying that the entry for "content" is my favorite) squeeze in some humor as well.

Stallman's philosophy is what drives his attachment to Free software, but this book is not just a collection of harangues -- there's a great deal of practical advice as well.

Chapter 8, "Selling Free Software" is an essay found in earlier form on the GNU website, which in a few hundred words obliterates a persistent myth about Free software -- that it can't be sold or can't make its sellers a profit. Stallman emphasizes the differences that the GPL has on distribution terms, but lays out the terms clearly:

"Except for one special situation*, The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) has no requirements about how much you can charge for distributing a copy of free software. You can charge nothing, a penny, a dollar, or a billion dollars. It's up to you, and the marketplace, so don't complain to us if nobody wants to pay a billion dollars for a copy."

Helpfully, that older chapter is preceded by one written earlier this year, "Releasing Free Software if You Work at a University." This is a particularly short chapter -- it takes up only two pages -- but the brevity is to Stallman's credit. I would like to see many more case studies beyond the single example presented (a GNU Ada compiler developed at NYU with Air Force funding, with a contract that specified its source code would be donated to the FSF) but these would probably be better in a book with a narrower scope. By not dwelling on unneeded specifics, Stallman has saved space to explain arguments and tactics which may be useful in persuading your school to endorse a Free software license. I also learned in this chapter that "The University of Texas has a policy that, by default, all software developed there is released as free software under the GNU General Public License." (Can anyone tell me more schools where this is true?)

The practical upshot of a philosophical book. Free Software, Free Society is not a book for casual reading, and has no thrills, cliffhangers or suspense -- unless you apply the thoughts within to current, real situations, in which case you can probably find more excitement than you might care for. When Stallman wrote "The Right to Read," no one had yet been arrested for making eBooks accessible or copyable. This book is intentionally didactic and persuasive.

Your library (local or school) should carry a copy of this book because it is distillation of ideas that are philosophically important but by no means abstract. And if the libraries available to you don't carry it, I suggest filling out a book request form -- which you may be able to do right from your computer. (Here are two online examples from Yale and New York City's branch libraries.) Likewise for (as appropriate) your school's computer science department, law school and business school. It would also make a nice gift to your Congressional representatives, since many of them seem to have forgotten that preserving a free society supposed to be their highest aim.

This is a book worth buying, reading, and passing on.

* That exception is when source code is not physically included with binaries; the source code must then be available upon request from the binaries' provider.

You can purchase Free Software, Free Society directly from the GNU Press site. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

I've heard a lot of people describe Richard Stallman as "unreasonable." I find Stallman instead to be one of the most persistently, relentlessly reasonable people whose thoughts I've ever encountered. Stallman may be a dogmatist, but the dogma is sincere and his own, not borrowed. A new book from the GNU Press called Free Software, Free Society collects several of his essays (and some other material) into one slim book. Stallman's essays document what his actions (as a programmer and through projects like GNU) have demonstrated concretely -- that the software future can be one primarily of rigorously open and freely, explicitly shareable code: a nightmare of control is not the only option. Free software enthusiasts might find little actually new: Those readers are probably already aware that control exercised through hidden, inaccessible bits is becoming more odious, more ubiquitous and more invisible. This makes the book worth reading especially to people who are currently not interested in the distribution and disclosure of software's source code. Unless you can completely disentangle the future of society from the future of software, this should concern you. Free Software, Free Society author Richard Stallman pages 220 publisher GNU Press rating 9 reviewer timothy ISBN 18822114981 summary Philosophy and practicality don't have to clash; this book makes the case that software can be open, and why it should be.

What's between the covers Free Software, Free Society is divided into four sections:

• One: The GNU Project and Free Software (10 chapters)
• Two: Copyright, Copyleft, and Patents (6 chapters)
• Three: Freedom, Society and Software (5 chapters)
• Four: The Licenses

Despite the division into chapters, the book's content does not conform to a single straight line, so I will deal with the chapters I mention out of the order in which they appear.

The book starts off on a good note. Key to understanding nearly everything in the book is a basic understanding of what source code is. Since Stallman's usual audiences don't need to have this explained, Richard E. Buckman and book editor Joshua Gay provide a three-page introduction ("A Note on Software") which is as good and concise an explanation as I've ever seen of the meaning of "source code," "compiler," "assembler," "machine code" and "operating system." Without quibbling over details that space has made them gloss over, this section is a good mental boot camp for anyone reading the book with no programming knowledge at all.

This note is followed by a topic guide which walks a prospective reader through the contents of the book better than a table of contents can, pointing out what concepts are dealt with in the book's chapters, a sort of micro-index. (And in a book this brief, it helps make up for the lack of a more thorough index.)

Lawrence Lessig's introduction largely repeats what Lessig has said in the past about the openness of software. One paragraph in particular sums up one of my favorite analogies when it comes to Free software, and one which I think translates well to those familiar with other fields, like art and architecture:

"... Law firms have enough incentive to produce great briefs even though the stuff they build can be taken and copied by someone else. The lawyer is a craftsman; his or her product is public. Yet the crafting is not charity. Lawyers get paid; the public doesn't demand such work without price. Instead this economy flourishes, with later work added to the earlier."

Old hat, new hat.

Those familiar with Richard Stallman will no doubt recognize at least some of these essays, or at least their cores, because of the persistence with which Stallman has spread the word of the origins and underlying philosophies of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation. The first chapters of the book may bore readers who have heard dozens of times the story of Stallman's experiences with the Incompatible Timesharing System (ITS) in the MIT AI lab, the dissolution of the software-sharing society there, and how it directly led to his quest for a complete Free operating system. Stallman is an engaging writer, though, and I found myself enjoying it even though I have heard the story several times before.

The chapter in this section most likely to trouble those set in conventional thinking when it comes to software is Chapter 4, "Why Software Should Not Have Owners."

Despite the title, the book does not consist entirely of essays; it also includes a transcript of Stallman's speech at NYU in May of 2001, which shows how consistent Stallman's speaking is with his writing style. Some people have derided Stallman (and the FSF) as too academic, removed from the realities of normal computer users and the business world which right now implicitly favors non-Free software, so it's interesting to note the context of that speech -- it was a direct, welcome reaction to the prodding of Microsoft Vice President Craig Mundie's speech on the same campus earlier the same month, in which Mundie casually referred to the "viral aspect" of the GPL, and declared that Free software "puts at risk the continued vitality of the independent software sector."

There's also Stallman's short story "The Right to Read" and even (Chapter 10) the text and score of the Free Software Song. 'The Right to Read" may be the part of the book most appropriate for reprinting in tract form to leave around public libraries: this is a story, not quite hypothetical enough, about a future where every time a book is read, it must be unlocked with a password and authorized by those who hold the strings of copyright -- and sharing books is prohibited. Replace "books" with "e-books" and the story becomes less an allegory as a description of current reality.

Just as current are Chapters 12 ("Misinterpreting Copyright -- A Series of Errors") and 16 ("The Danger of Software Patents"). Stallman's arguments here, despite his protests that practicality is secondary to ethical interests, are eminently practical and should be read by everyone whose work touches either copyright or patents. And contrary to disparagement sometimes heaped on the Free software movement, he does not dismiss either of these in toto -- he simply points out forcefully ways in which these protections can be dangerously perverted.

Some of Free Software, Free Society's contents may strike readers (whatever their level of interest) as needlessly pedantic. I'm thinking here specifically of Chapter 21, "Words to Avoid," which lists 14 words and phrases Stallman discourages in the context of Free software as he defines it. On second glance, I think even this chapter is well suited to the book, since the reasoning presented for his objections to each word on this list (a paragraph or two apiece) will be most informative to people not already steeped in the lore and leanings of the Free Software movement. Some of these (I'll tease by saying that the entry for "content" is my favorite) squeeze in some humor as well.

Stallman's philosophy is what drives his attachment to Free software, but this book is not just a collection of harangues -- there's a great deal of practical advice as well.

Chapter 8, "Selling Free Software" is an essay found in earlier form on the GNU website, which in a few hundred words obliterates a persistent myth about Free software -- that it can't be sold or can't make its sellers a profit. Stallman emphasizes the differences that the GPL has on distribution terms, but lays out the terms clearly:

"Except for one special situation*, The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) has no requirements about how much you can charge for distributing a copy of free software. You can charge nothing, a penny, a dollar, or a billion dollars. It's up to you, and the marketplace, so don't complain to us if nobody wants to pay a billion dollars for a copy."

Helpfully, that older chapter is preceded by one written earlier this year, "Releasing Free Software if You Work at a University." This is a particularly short chapter -- it takes up only two pages -- but the brevity is to Stallman's credit. I would like to see many more case studies beyond the single example presented (a GNU Ada compiler developed at NYU with Air Force funding, with a contract that specified its source code would be donated to the FSF) but these would probably be better in a book with a narrower scope. By not dwelling on unneeded specifics, Stallman has saved space to explain arguments and tactics which may be useful in persuading your school to endorse a Free software license. I also learned in this chapter that "The University of Texas has a policy that, by default, all software developed there is released as free software under the GNU General Public License." (Can anyone tell me more schools where this is true?)

The practical upshot of a philosophical book. Free Software, Free Society is not a book for casual reading, and has no thrills, cliffhangers or suspense -- unless you apply the thoughts within to current, real situations, in which case you can probably find more excitement than you might care for. When Stallman wrote "The Right to Read," no one had yet been arrested for making eBooks accessible or copyable. This book is intentionally didactic and persuasive.

Your library (local or school) should carry a copy of this book because it is distillation of ideas that are philosophically important but by no means abstract. And if the libraries available to you don't carry it, I suggest filling out a book request form -- which you may be able to do right from your computer. (Here are two online examples from Yale and New York City's branch libraries.) Likewise for (as appropriate) your school's computer science department, law school and business school. It would also make a nice gift to your Congressional representatives, since many of them seem to have forgotten that preserving a free society supposed to be their highest aim.

This is a book worth buying, reading, and passing on.

* That exception is when source code is not physically included with binaries; the source code must then be available upon request from the binaries' provider.

You can purchase Free Software, Free Society directly from the GNU Press site. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

I've heard a lot of people describe Richard Stallman as "unreasonable." I find Stallman instead to be one of the most persistently, relentlessly reasonable people whose thoughts I've ever encountered. Stallman may be a dogmatist, but the dogma is sincere and his own, not borrowed. A new book from the GNU Press called Free Software, Free Society collects several of his essays (and some other material) into one slim book. Stallman's essays document what his actions (as a programmer and through projects like GNU) have demonstrated concretely -- that the software future can be one primarily of rigorously open and freely, explicitly shareable code: a nightmare of control is not the only option. Free software enthusiasts might find little actually new: Those readers are probably already aware that control exercised through hidden, inaccessible bits is becoming more odious, more ubiquitous and more invisible. This makes the book worth reading especially to people who are currently not interested in the distribution and disclosure of software's source code. Unless you can completely disentangle the future of society from the future of software, this should concern you. Free Software, Free Society author Richard Stallman pages 220 publisher GNU Press rating 9 reviewer timothy ISBN 18822114981 summary Philosophy and practicality don't have to clash; this book makes the case that software can be open, and why it should be.

What's between the covers Free Software, Free Society is divided into four sections:

• One: The GNU Project and Free Software (10 chapters)
• Two: Copyright, Copyleft, and Patents (6 chapters)
• Three: Freedom, Society and Software (5 chapters)
• Four: The Licenses

Despite the division into chapters, the book's content does not conform to a single straight line, so I will deal with the chapters I mention out of the order in which they appear.

The book starts off on a good note. Key to understanding nearly everything in the book is a basic understanding of what source code is. Since Stallman's usual audiences don't need to have this explained, Richard E. Buckman and book editor Joshua Gay provide a three-page introduction ("A Note on Software") which is as good and concise an explanation as I've ever seen of the meaning of "source code," "compiler," "assembler," "machine code" and "operating system." Without quibbling over details that space has made them gloss over, this section is a good mental boot camp for anyone reading the book with no programming knowledge at all.

This note is followed by a topic guide which walks a prospective reader through the contents of the book better than a table of contents can, pointing out what concepts are dealt with in the book's chapters, a sort of micro-index. (And in a book this brief, it helps make up for the lack of a more thorough index.)

Lawrence Lessig's introduction largely repeats what Lessig has said in the past about the openness of software. One paragraph in particular sums up one of my favorite analogies when it comes to Free software, and one which I think translates well to those familiar with other fields, like art and architecture:

"... Law firms have enough incentive to produce great briefs even though the stuff they build can be taken and copied by someone else. The lawyer is a craftsman; his or her product is public. Yet the crafting is not charity. Lawyers get paid; the public doesn't demand such work without price. Instead this economy flourishes, with later work added to the earlier."

Old hat, new hat.

Those familiar with Richard Stallman will no doubt recognize at least some of these essays, or at least their cores, because of the persistence with which Stallman has spread the word of the origins and underlying philosophies of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation. The first chapters of the book may bore readers who have heard dozens of times the story of Stallman's experiences with the Incompatible Timesharing System (ITS) in the MIT AI lab, the dissolution of the software-sharing society there, and how it directly led to his quest for a complete Free operating system. Stallman is an engaging writer, though, and I found myself enjoying it even though I have heard the story several times before.

The chapter in this section most likely to trouble those set in conventional thinking when it comes to software is Chapter 4, "Why Software Should Not Have Owners."

Despite the title, the book does not consist entirely of essays; it also includes a transcript of Stallman's speech at NYU in May of 2001, which shows how consistent Stallman's speaking is with his writing style. Some people have derided Stallman (and the FSF) as too academic, removed from the realities of normal computer users and the business world which right now implicitly favors non-Free software, so it's interesting to note the context of that speech -- it was a direct, welcome reaction to the prodding of Microsoft Vice President Craig Mundie's speech on the same campus earlier the same month, in which Mundie casually referred to the "viral aspect" of the GPL, and declared that Free software "puts at risk the continued vitality of the independent software sector."

There's also Stallman's short story "The Right to Read" and even (Chapter 10) the text and score of the Free Software Song. 'The Right to Read" may be the part of the book most appropriate for reprinting in tract form to leave around public libraries: this is a story, not quite hypothetical enough, about a future where every time a book is read, it must be unlocked with a password and authorized by those who hold the strings of copyright -- and sharing books is prohibited. Replace "books" with "e-books" and the story becomes less an allegory as a description of current reality.

Just as current are Chapters 12 ("Misinterpreting Copyright -- A Series of Errors") and 16 ("The Danger of Software Patents"). Stallman's arguments here, despite his protests that practicality is secondary to ethical interests, are eminently practical and should be read by everyone whose work touches either copyright or patents. And contrary to disparagement sometimes heaped on the Free software movement, he does not dismiss either of these in toto -- he simply points out forcefully ways in which these protections can be dangerously perverted.

Some of Free Software, Free Society's contents may strike readers (whatever their level of interest) as needlessly pedantic. I'm thinking here specifically of Chapter 21, "Words to Avoid," which lists 14 words and phrases Stallman discourages in the context of Free software as he defines it. On second glance, I think even this chapter is well suited to the book, since the reasoning presented for his objections to each word on this list (a paragraph or two apiece) will be most informative to people not already steeped in the lore and leanings of the Free Software movement. Some of these (I'll tease by saying that the entry for "content" is my favorite) squeeze in some humor as well.

Stallman's philosophy is what drives his attachment to Free software, but this book is not just a collection of harangues -- there's a great deal of practical advice as well.

Chapter 8, "Selling Free Software" is an essay found in earlier form on the GNU website, which in a few hundred words obliterates a persistent myth about Free software -- that it can't be sold or can't make its sellers a profit. Stallman emphasizes the differences that the GPL has on distribution terms, but lays out the terms clearly:

"Except for one special situation*, The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) has no requirements about how much you can charge for distributing a copy of free software. You can charge nothing, a penny, a dollar, or a billion dollars. It's up to you, and the marketplace, so don't complain to us if nobody wants to pay a billion dollars for a copy."

Helpfully, that older chapter is preceded by one written earlier this year, "Releasing Free Software if You Work at a University." This is a particularly short chapter -- it takes up only two pages -- but the brevity is to Stallman's credit. I would like to see many more case studies beyond the single example presented (a GNU Ada compiler developed at NYU with Air Force funding, with a contract that specified its source code would be donated to the FSF) but these would probably be better in a book with a narrower scope. By not dwelling on unneeded specifics, Stallman has saved space to explain arguments and tactics which may be useful in persuading your school to endorse a Free software license. I also learned in this chapter that "The University of Texas has a policy that, by default, all software developed there is released as free software under the GNU General Public License." (Can anyone tell me more schools where this is true?)

The practical upshot of a philosophical book. Free Software, Free Society is not a book for casual reading, and has no thrills, cliffhangers or suspense -- unless you apply the thoughts within to current, real situations, in which case you can probably find more excitement than you might care for. When Stallman wrote "The Right to Read," no one had yet been arrested for making eBooks accessible or copyable. This book is intentionally didactic and persuasive.

Your library (local or school) should carry a copy of this book because it is distillation of ideas that are philosophically important but by no means abstract. And if the libraries available to you don't carry it, I suggest filling out a book request form -- which you may be able to do right from your computer. (Here are two online examples from Yale and New York City's branch libraries.) Likewise for (as appropriate) your school's computer science department, law school and business school. It would also make a nice gift to your Congressional representatives, since many of them seem to have forgotten that preserving a free society supposed to be their highest aim.

This is a book worth buying, reading, and passing on.

* That exception is when source code is not physically included with binaries; the source code must then be available upon request from the binaries' provider.

You can purchase Free Software, Free Society directly from the GNU Press site. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Jonathan Riddell writes "The FSF have quietly released The GNU Free Documentation License 1.2. There's been some controversy about the creation of this license and possible abuse of non-editable sections to make documents non-Free. A diff shows that there's been a fair number of changes. The FDL is in my opinion the most flexible way to keep documentation Free while preventing abuse from publishers."

Szplug writes "GCC 3.2.1 has been released; many C++ bugs, & notably for x86 users, MMX code generation has been fixed. From the notice, ".. the number of bug fixes is quite large, so it is strongly recommended that users of earlier GCC 3.x releases upgrade to GCC 3.2.1."
Here are overview and detailed change notices. Download here [gnu mirror site]."

Szplug writes "GCC 3.2.1 has been released; many C++ bugs, & notably for x86 users, MMX code generation has been fixed. From the notice, ".. the number of bug fixes is quite large, so it is strongly recommended that users of earlier GCC 3.x releases upgrade to GCC 3.2.1."
Here are overview and detailed change notices. Download here [gnu mirror site]."

Szplug writes "GCC 3.2.1 has been released; many C++ bugs, & notably for x86 users, MMX code generation has been fixed. From the notice, ".. the number of bug fixes is quite large, so it is strongly recommended that users of earlier GCC 3.x releases upgrade to GCC 3.2.1."
Here are overview and detailed change notices. Download here [gnu mirror site]."

Steve G Swine writes "That mammoth ECMA standards implementation project now builds on Mac OS X 10.2. The license is a little corporate, but actually seems clearer and less strident than some other licenses. Go, build, learn, have fun!"

jamesva asks: "The telecommunications industry is rapidly converging on Windows NT/2000 for all telephony and voice-related needs. Most ACD systems, virtual operators, and voicemail are being ported to Windows if they're not already running on it. In the past, telephony apps have existed most notably on OS/2, SCO, and even DOS. However, free Unix (or unix-like) platforms have absolutely no penetration in this area, with seemingly no chance on the horizon. The Bayonne app server from the GNU folks seems to be the one exception, but even then there doesn't seem to much built around it or anyone using it. It reached a 1.0 release in September and was met with no fanfare. Even the LinuxTelephony doesn't seem to have much news. Can someone prove me wrong? Why is this the case? I'm interested in finding out if anyone is using Linux (or any free OS) in a production environment for something like voicemail or ACD. These types of systems require high availability and reliability and Linux just seems like a natural fit."

Eric Blossom has responded to your questions about GNU Radio. He notes that he's gotten a lot of inquiries from people wanting to help out, and that they have their "hands full with the software and are hoping that some other folks will chip in on the hardware", so if you're interested in assisting, go to it.

1) Hardware requirements
by wowbagger

The GNU radio page is a little thin on the hardware requirements to run the code - could you spell them out?

I realize this might be complex, and that the answer might be of the form:

"to demodulate a 16QAM signal at 115.2kBaud, you would need an XYZ digitizer card reading the 455 kHz IF and a AAA GHz Athlon CPU. To recover standard multplex FM, you would need a 123 digitizer reading the 455 kHz IF and a BBB GHz Athlon. To decode GSM you need a FFF digitizer reading the 10.7 MHz IF and a quad Athlon."

But as both a ham and one who designs SDRs, I'd like to know where this resides on the Home Hacking Scale....

Eric: There are two basic paths down the software radio path. One I'll call "narrow band", and this corresponds to most of what you're seeing sold as "DSP enhanced" transceivers. The TAPR DSP-10 kit would fall in this category. In effect, these are conventional radios which are down converting to baseband, or near baseband, and have an IF bandwidth in the 20 kHz range.

For narrow band work with GNU Radio, you'll need some kind of RF tuner/transverter. Someone pointed out that in one of the latest issues of QEX magazine there's an article about a kit that is designed to be the RF front end for a software radio that connects to a sound card. I haven't seen the article so I can't comment. The TAPR DSP-10 would also work. Just leave out the Analog Devices DSP and plug the kit into your sound card. You could wiggle the control lines using the parallel port.

To summarize, for narrow band software radio work, you'll need your sound card and some kind of RF front end. Pretty much any contemporary Pentium/Athlon machine will have plenty of horsepower.

The other path I'll call "wide band". This is personally the area that I find most interesting because it is with wide band that you are able to do things that you can't do with a conventional radio. Chief among these is the ability to concurrently receive (or transmit) multiple channels/stations/frequencies. In the examples directory of the GNU Radio code, you'll find an example that receives and demodulates 2 FM broadcast stations and puts one out the left channel and one out the right. Matt Ettus, another GNU Radio developer, has built a demo that receives 4 narrow band FM channels concurrently. These demos run fine on a 1800+ Athlon, or 1.7 GHz P4.

For the wide band stuff our "standard configuration" is a TV tuner module designed for cable modems that tunes from 50MHz to 890MHz with an IF of 5.75 MHz. The module is a Microtune 4937 DI5. We connect the output of the tuner directly to a 20M sample/second 12-bit A/D converter. The converter we're using is the Measurement Computing PCI DAS4020/12. It'll do 4 channels at 10M sample/sec or 2 channels at 20M sample/second. From the hobbyist's point of view, it's not cheap, about $1300, but it is the cheapest, fastest off the shelf solution that we found.

With our "standard configuration" we ought to be able to handle IS-136. GSM would be possible if our RF front end would cover the 1.9 GHz range. Vanu, Inc has a GSM receiver running on a 1GHz pentium laptop, so we know it's possible.


2) Re:Hardware requirements
by d.valued

Tangential to this.. is there any talk amongst the GNU Radio folks on building a piece of hardware that complements this software project, or is supposed to work with whatever devices the user has on hand/will build?

Eric: This question comes up frequently. Mostly we've got our hands full with the software and are hoping that some other folks will chip in on the hardware. From our software point of view, we'll talk to any hardware that you can provide a driver for. Fundamentally all we need is a way to get samples into and out of memory.

We do have some ideas about our ideal hardware. See ettus.com/sdr/. The key items are:

• 14-bit A/D converter 40-100 Msamples/sec (e.g., AD6645 or AD9244)
• 14-bit D/A converter 40-100 Msamples/sec
• FPGA (digital downconverter / upconverter / bus interface)
• some kind of bus interface, either 64-bit PCI or USB-2

For flexibility, we keep the RF to IF conversion on a separate board.

There are also a few threads in the mailing list archives about ideal hardware.


3) Sounds familiar
by FreshMeat-BWG

As in WinModems doing the modulation/demodulation. These devices were a nightmare. After trying several I went back to a good old hardware-based-modulation modem.

Are there parallels to this technology? and if so, how will GNU Radio avoid those pitfalls?

Eric: Part of the problem with WinModems is the "Win" part of the equation. Modems place pretty substantial hard real time demands on the OS. It's not necessarily the total amount of CPU that's a problem. It's that it the code needs to be run on time or it's no good at all.

So far most of our work has been receive only, and we dodge the bullet by using the Measurement Computing A/D card which combined with the driver I wrote DMAs directly into user space. Given say, 16 MB of buffer, you can cover all sorts of non-real time problems. The driver is written so that it only needs service about once every 10ms, no problem on today's hardware, and will sustain 80 MB / second across the PCI bus.

When we attempt a TDMA transceiver, we may need hardware that will support time stamps so that we can synchronize our input and output streams. See above for ideal hardware with FPGA.


4) What external hardware?
by Consul

I read through the GNU Radio website, and even though I found it informative in terms of the basic idea and examples, I couldn't find anything relating to what extra hardware is needed. (Maybe I just didn't look long enough?)

What extra hardware is needed in addition to a computer? Are we talking DSP chips and boards, or something a little more exotic?

Thank you for a potentially exciting project, though. This makes me want to renew my ham radio license.:o)

Eric: See above. No DSP chips or boards. Today's commodity PC hardware kicks ass on just about all DSPs as long as you're not worried about power consumption. You'll need some kind of RF to IF transverter and A/D & D/A converters (either a sound card, or something with more bandwidth, depending on your interest and budget.)


5) Describe your dream hardware for a software radio
by geirt

I want a feature list containing all the geeky details:

Frequency range.

Eric: 30 MHz up to about 2.5 GHz.

Coverage in the 5 GHz unlicensed band would be nice too.

Bandwidth (do you want to sample the whole FM band (or GSM/GPS/CB/ham bands), or just a single channel/station).

Eric: Whole swaths of the RF spectrum!

12.5 MHz would be nice.

Sample frequency and depth (ie, fast and few bits, and do decimation in software or slow and many bits with less CPU overhead)

Eric: For 12.5 MHz we'll need about 31M samples/sec, call it 40M samples/sec. 14-bits. More is better.

Necessary spurious free dynamic range, or some other dynamic range specification.

Eric: More is better. The best part I know of is the AD6645, and they're claiming 100 dB multitone SFDR.

Interface to the PC (PCI, firewire, USB...).

Eric: 64-bit PCI would work, but it's a lousy interface for a laptop. Maybe USB-2. Firewire would be OK, but I think it's got more hair on both ends. We've also thought about Gig ethernet.

Antenna connector (OK, I know that one: BNC)

Eric: BNC.


6) Convergence Devices
by Nomad7674

This technology sounds like the kind of thing which could greatly add to the convergence of devices that clutter the electronic life. You could extend convergence not only as a Smartphone but have in one device (though perhaps not simultaneously):
1. Cell phone
2. Computing power (PDA)
3. FRS radio device
4. 802.11x network device
5. Police scanner
6. Television reciever
7. etc.

Eric: I believe that convergence is ultimately where we're headed. We're a way off, mostly with respect to power consumption, but I believe that that will take care of itself eventually. The MIPS/Watt of programmable hardware is unlikely to beat that of dedicated ASICs, but ultimately, if my universal reconfigurable communication device runs all day on a single charge, who cares?

Have you been approached by police departments, FedEx, etc. to develop devices to allow their people to do more stuff in fewer packages?

Eric: We haven't. I can see a scenario where somebody else is building the hardware and we're providing the software.


7) As a college student, how do I get involved? by McCart42

If I'm interested in doing research in this field someday, and I'm currently a computer engineering major, what are some good electives that I might take? Aside from general programming necessities, what sort of signal processing courses are necessary to understand the underlying aspects of software-defined radio?

Eric::

• DSP fundamentals, filtering, FFT, freq-vs-time domain, etc.
• Basic RF might be useful; you don't need to be a specialist
• Digital comms. Builds on the DSP stuff, but adds specifics for communications. Coding theory, ideal receiver design, channel capacity, phase lock loops, etc.
• Anything about protocols in general. Once you get up above the raw bits, software radios don't look that much different than any other layered communication protocol.

8) FCC vs. Software Radio
by minddog

I was recently at H2K2 and heard this forum which right away made me ecstatic(sp?). An issue that was brought up was how this can impact the DMCA, FCC, and the big corps. You guys were saying Sony, and the other conglomerates were forming a committee that would do a digital signature to say what was allowed to be copied, and not through a dual channel checking...My question is what is the status of digital radio and its rights in the present world? To my understanding you can have a very high number of digital channels inside a single band which makes licensed analog frequencies just a waste of money to corporations if they use GNURadio as a means to transmit data long distances. Anyways, looking forward to some feedback and goodwork, I'll be joining this revolution soon, just got the dual server built;)

Eric: Here are three subtopics under the "FCC vs Software Radio" flag:

(1) General prohibition on receiving certain signals

The FCC, throwing a bone to cell phone operators, banned the reception of certain frequency bands used by cellular phones. In addition, the Electronic Communication Privacy Act (ECPA) expanded the ban to include other communications such as pagers. These provisions have been called by others "The Foreign Intelligence Empowerment Act". That is, they ban the interception of signals that are trivially interceptable, as if making it illegal would "keep the customers safe". In fact, this same sham extends into the world of digital cellular, where the signals are still effectively in the clear, and are vulnerable to eavesdropping.

Free software has no problem complying with such regulations as the code below illustrates:

#ifdef IM_IN_THE_USA
if (freq >= 825e6 && freq throw "Forbidden Frequency";
#endif

(2) ATSC Digital TV "Broadcast Flag" MPAA/CPTWG/BPDG

Alphabet soup:

ATSC: Advanced Television Standards Committee (digital broadcast TV)
MPAA: Motion Picture Association of America (Disney, Fox, et al)
CPTWG: Copy Protection Technology Working Group (www.cptwg.org)
BPDG: Broadcast Protection Discussion Group.

Short form: Certain content providers (MPAA) want TV broadcasters to set a bit, called the "Broadcast Flag", in the MPEG transport stream that TV stations are broadcasting in the clear (i.e., no crypto). The flag is intended to mean "Don't copy me". The MPAA/CPTWG/BPDG folks are then trying to convince the consumer electronics manufacturers that it is in their best interest to build crippled devices that honor the bit, and finally, since it's not obvious than any consumer would buy such a damaged device, they want to ban non-compliant receivers.

After conversations with MPAA/CPTWG/BPDG, we have been unable to find any solution where open source or free software can comply with their proposed "Robustness Requirements". Hence, open source and free software implementations of ATSC receivers, VSB demodulators and VSB modulators would be banned under their proposals. Several fundamental issues are at stake: freedom of choice, freedom to innovate, and software as protected first amendment speech.

The FCC has issued a "Notice of Proposed Rule Making" about the Broadcast Flag. In addition, it is rumored that a bill is being drafted in case the FCC won't play along.

The EFF has a wonderful blog covering this topic in detail.

(3) SDR upgrades and FCC

Recognizing the importance of SDR, the FCC, in its First Report and Order dated September 14, 2001, created a new class of equipment and associated authorization procedures. In its Report the Commission stated, "We anticipate that software defined radio technology will allow manufacturers to develop reconfigurable transmitters or transceivers that can be multi-service, multi-standard and multi-band." Continuing, the FCC stated, "These changes will facilitate the deployment and use of this promising new technology, which we believe will facilitate more efficient use of the spectrum."

From the free software point of view, what remains to be seen is what kind of "authorization procedures" will be approved. What is envisioned is some kind of digitally signed configuration or executable that can be loaded into the existing hardware. In an free software/hardware world with no clear administrative hierarchy, it's not evident who gets to say what signatures the hardware will accept. This looks like a ruling that "software radio is OK for the incumbents", but doesn't really spell out what the situation is for the free software / open source / open spectrum point of view.


9) Re:Interference
by Louis_Wu

"This is one project where hacking the code can kill people or land you in jail. Don't broadcast on the wrong frequency! Keep this away from radio telescopes!"

Eric: OK.

That brings up a good question. Are there going to be some software restrictions on which frequencies you can use? Would those restrictions be in the source or options you can change on the fly?

Eric: Ultimately the frequency range that can be transmitted depends on the RF hardware, not the software. The vast majority (all?) of the code in a software radio has no idea of the final RF frequency. It's doing its processing at some IF frequency, which is ultimately up converted once the samples leave the CPU.

It seems like a good idea to put at least one barrier between users and transmitting on police frequencies. But what kind of barrier? Should any restrictions prevent listening as well? What about military transmissions? Or air traffic control frequencies? Or the band the Secret Service uses?

Eric: In general, my philosophy is that if people don't want their communications listened to they should encrypt them. This has been standard practice for thousands of years (see Kahn, "The Codebreakers").

I agree the that hardware should be designed such that accidents are minimized. One possible route for hobbyists would be to design the RF hardware such that it would only transmit on one of the unlicensed bands. There are still requirements about transmitted power, and these requirements vary depending on the band and the modulation strategy, but that would at least reduce the chances of accidental interference.

Note however, if you're building a software radio that bridges between different public safety networks, you'd certainly want to be able to transmit.

Where should the line be drawn? What does the law say?

Eric: Do no evil? The law of what land?

For another perspective on "interference" and who "owns" spectrum, I heartily recommend the "Open Spectrum Resource Page".


10) Hardware patents?
by cornice

Up until now, free software has mostly threatened closed commercial software. GNU Radio, however, might make some hardware manufacturers squirm a bit. If I can use a generic device along with GNU Radio to emulate a range of devices how will this impact the makers of those devices and are you (or users of GNU Radio) possibly violating patents for some of those devices? It seems that GNU Radio will stir up more mud in the IP and DRM debates. What are your thoughts on this?

Eric: Since the hardware manufacturers make their money selling hardware, and we want to buy hardware I don't really see a problem. I'd just like them to build some nice, inexpensive, fully documented hardware on which I can run my free software.

Yes, we will be able to emulate a bunch of devices, and it might cause some heart burn for certain folks. For example, I don't generally want to be carrying around a GPS receiver, but in the moment that I want to know where I am, it would be handy for my universal communication device to configure itself as one and figure out where we are. I'm not sure of the patent specifics on that particular application, but I understand your point nevertheless.

I think the mud will be stirred far and wide. I think that this is a good thing. General purpose hardware keeps getting more useful and powerful, and hence valuable to the end user. At the same time, in certain situations, dedicated devices clearly win over the general purpose in areas of convenience, size and ease of use. I think this tension is good, and better products will emerge from it.


11) Plans for UWB
by wfrp01

Will GNU Radio support Ultra Wide Band? Soon, someday, never?

Great project. Thanks.

Eric: We currently don't support Ultra Wide Band. GNU Radio is a signal processing toolbox. If you had the appropriate UWB RF front end, you could use GNU Radio for the signal processing.

See aetherwire.com for background info on ultra-wideband technology.

Eric Blossom has responded to your questions about GNU Radio. He notes that he's gotten a lot of inquiries from people wanting to help out, and that they have their "hands full with the software and are hoping that some other folks will chip in on the hardware", so if you're interested in assisting, go to it.

1) Hardware requirements
by wowbagger

The GNU radio page is a little thin on the hardware requirements to run the code - could you spell them out?

I realize this might be complex, and that the answer might be of the form:

"to demodulate a 16QAM signal at 115.2kBaud, you would need an XYZ digitizer card reading the 455 kHz IF and a AAA GHz Athlon CPU. To recover standard multplex FM, you would need a 123 digitizer reading the 455 kHz IF and a BBB GHz Athlon. To decode GSM you need a FFF digitizer reading the 10.7 MHz IF and a quad Athlon."

But as both a ham and one who designs SDRs, I'd like to know where this resides on the Home Hacking Scale....

Eric: There are two basic paths down the software radio path. One I'll call "narrow band", and this corresponds to most of what you're seeing sold as "DSP enhanced" transceivers. The TAPR DSP-10 kit would fall in this category. In effect, these are conventional radios which are down converting to baseband, or near baseband, and have an IF bandwidth in the 20 kHz range.

For narrow band work with GNU Radio, you'll need some kind of RF tuner/transverter. Someone pointed out that in one of the latest issues of QEX magazine there's an article about a kit that is designed to be the RF front end for a software radio that connects to a sound card. I haven't seen the article so I can't comment. The TAPR DSP-10 would also work. Just leave out the Analog Devices DSP and plug the kit into your sound card. You could wiggle the control lines using the parallel port.

To summarize, for narrow band software radio work, you'll need your sound card and some kind of RF front end. Pretty much any contemporary Pentium/Athlon machine will have plenty of horsepower.

The other path I'll call "wide band". This is personally the area that I find most interesting because it is with wide band that you are able to do things that you can't do with a conventional radio. Chief among these is the ability to concurrently receive (or transmit) multiple channels/stations/frequencies. In the examples directory of the GNU Radio code, you'll find an example that receives and demodulates 2 FM broadcast stations and puts one out the left channel and one out the right. Matt Ettus, another GNU Radio developer, has built a demo that receives 4 narrow band FM channels concurrently. These demos run fine on a 1800+ Athlon, or 1.7 GHz P4.

For the wide band stuff our "standard configuration" is a TV tuner module designed for cable modems that tunes from 50MHz to 890MHz with an IF of 5.75 MHz. The module is a Microtune 4937 DI5. We connect the output of the tuner directly to a 20M sample/second 12-bit A/D converter. The converter we're using is the Measurement Computing PCI DAS4020/12. It'll do 4 channels at 10M sample/sec or 2 channels at 20M sample/second. From the hobbyist's point of view, it's not cheap, about $1300, but it is the cheapest, fastest off the shelf solution that we found.

With our "standard configuration" we ought to be able to handle IS-136. GSM would be possible if our RF front end would cover the 1.9 GHz range. Vanu, Inc has a GSM receiver running on a 1GHz pentium laptop, so we know it's possible.


2) Re:Hardware requirements
by d.valued

Tangential to this.. is there any talk amongst the GNU Radio folks on building a piece of hardware that complements this software project, or is supposed to work with whatever devices the user has on hand/will build?

Eric: This question comes up frequently. Mostly we've got our hands full with the software and are hoping that some other folks will chip in on the hardware. From our software point of view, we'll talk to any hardware that you can provide a driver for. Fundamentally all we need is a way to get samples into and out of memory.

We do have some ideas about our ideal hardware. See ettus.com/sdr/. The key items are:

• 14-bit A/D converter 40-100 Msamples/sec (e.g., AD6645 or AD9244)
• 14-bit D/A converter 40-100 Msamples/sec
• FPGA (digital downconverter / upconverter / bus interface)
• some kind of bus interface, either 64-bit PCI or USB-2

For flexibility, we keep the RF to IF conversion on a separate board.

There are also a few threads in the mailing list archives about ideal hardware.


3) Sounds familiar
by FreshMeat-BWG

As in WinModems doing the modulation/demodulation. These devices were a nightmare. After trying several I went back to a good old hardware-based-modulation modem.

Are there parallels to this technology? and if so, how will GNU Radio avoid those pitfalls?

Eric: Part of the problem with WinModems is the "Win" part of the equation. Modems place pretty substantial hard real time demands on the OS. It's not necessarily the total amount of CPU that's a problem. It's that it the code needs to be run on time or it's no good at all.

So far most of our work has been receive only, and we dodge the bullet by using the Measurement Computing A/D card which combined with the driver I wrote DMAs directly into user space. Given say, 16 MB of buffer, you can cover all sorts of non-real time problems. The driver is written so that it only needs service about once every 10ms, no problem on today's hardware, and will sustain 80 MB / second across the PCI bus.

When we attempt a TDMA transceiver, we may need hardware that will support time stamps so that we can synchronize our input and output streams. See above for ideal hardware with FPGA.


4) What external hardware?
by Consul

I read through the GNU Radio website, and even though I found it informative in terms of the basic idea and examples, I couldn't find anything relating to what extra hardware is needed. (Maybe I just didn't look long enough?)

What extra hardware is needed in addition to a computer? Are we talking DSP chips and boards, or something a little more exotic?

Thank you for a potentially exciting project, though. This makes me want to renew my ham radio license.:o)

Eric: See above. No DSP chips or boards. Today's commodity PC hardware kicks ass on just about all DSPs as long as you're not worried about power consumption. You'll need some kind of RF to IF transverter and A/D & D/A converters (either a sound card, or something with more bandwidth, depending on your interest and budget.)


5) Describe your dream hardware for a software radio
by geirt

I want a feature list containing all the geeky details:

Frequency range.

Eric: 30 MHz up to about 2.5 GHz.

Coverage in the 5 GHz unlicensed band would be nice too.

Bandwidth (do you want to sample the whole FM band (or GSM/GPS/CB/ham bands), or just a single channel/station).

Eric: Whole swaths of the RF spectrum!

12.5 MHz would be nice.

Sample frequency and depth (ie, fast and few bits, and do decimation in software or slow and many bits with less CPU overhead)

Eric: For 12.5 MHz we'll need about 31M samples/sec, call it 40M samples/sec. 14-bits. More is better.

Necessary spurious free dynamic range, or some other dynamic range specification.

Eric: More is better. The best part I know of is the AD6645, and they're claiming 100 dB multitone SFDR.

Interface to the PC (PCI, firewire, USB...).

Eric: 64-bit PCI would work, but it's a lousy interface for a laptop. Maybe USB-2. Firewire would be OK, but I think it's got more hair on both ends. We've also thought about Gig ethernet.

Antenna connector (OK, I know that one: BNC)

Eric: BNC.


6) Convergence Devices
by Nomad7674

This technology sounds like the kind of thing which could greatly add to the convergence of devices that clutter the electronic life. You could extend convergence not only as a Smartphone but have in one device (though perhaps not simultaneously):
1. Cell phone
2. Computing power (PDA)
3. FRS radio device
4. 802.11x network device
5. Police scanner
6. Television reciever
7. etc.

Eric: I believe that convergence is ultimately where we're headed. We're a way off, mostly with respect to power consumption, but I believe that that will take care of itself eventually. The MIPS/Watt of programmable hardware is unlikely to beat that of dedicated ASICs, but ultimately, if my universal reconfigurable communication device runs all day on a single charge, who cares?

Have you been approached by police departments, FedEx, etc. to develop devices to allow their people to do more stuff in fewer packages?

Eric: We haven't. I can see a scenario where somebody else is building the hardware and we're providing the software.


7) As a college student, how do I get involved? by McCart42

If I'm interested in doing research in this field someday, and I'm currently a computer engineering major, what are some good electives that I might take? Aside from general programming necessities, what sort of signal processing courses are necessary to understand the underlying aspects of software-defined radio?

Eric::

• DSP fundamentals, filtering, FFT, freq-vs-time domain, etc.
• Basic RF might be useful; you don't need to be a specialist
• Digital comms. Builds on the DSP stuff, but adds specifics for communications. Coding theory, ideal receiver design, channel capacity, phase lock loops, etc.
• Anything about protocols in general. Once you get up above the raw bits, software radios don't look that much different than any other layered communication protocol.

8) FCC vs. Software Radio
by minddog

I was recently at H2K2 and heard this forum which right away made me ecstatic(sp?). An issue that was brought up was how this can impact the DMCA, FCC, and the big corps. You guys were saying Sony, and the other conglomerates were forming a committee that would do a digital signature to say what was allowed to be copied, and not through a dual channel checking...My question is what is the status of digital radio and its rights in the present world? To my understanding you can have a very high number of digital channels inside a single band which makes licensed analog frequencies just a waste of money to corporations if they use GNURadio as a means to transmit data long distances. Anyways, looking forward to some feedback and goodwork, I'll be joining this revolution soon, just got the dual server built;)

Eric: Here are three subtopics under the "FCC vs Software Radio" flag:

(1) General prohibition on receiving certain signals

The FCC, throwing a bone to cell phone operators, banned the reception of certain frequency bands used by cellular phones. In addition, the Electronic Communication Privacy Act (ECPA) expanded the ban to include other communications such as pagers. These provisions have been called by others "The Foreign Intelligence Empowerment Act". That is, they ban the interception of signals that are trivially interceptable, as if making it illegal would "keep the customers safe". In fact, this same sham extends into the world of digital cellular, where the signals are still effectively in the clear, and are vulnerable to eavesdropping.

Free software has no problem complying with such regulations as the code below illustrates:

#ifdef IM_IN_THE_USA
if (freq >= 825e6 && freq throw "Forbidden Frequency";
#endif

(2) ATSC Digital TV "Broadcast Flag" MPAA/CPTWG/BPDG

Alphabet soup:

ATSC: Advanced Television Standards Committee (digital broadcast TV)
MPAA: Motion Picture Association of America (Disney, Fox, et al)
CPTWG: Copy Protection Technology Working Group (www.cptwg.org)
BPDG: Broadcast Protection Discussion Group.

Short form: Certain content providers (MPAA) want TV broadcasters to set a bit, called the "Broadcast Flag", in the MPEG transport stream that TV stations are broadcasting in the clear (i.e., no crypto). The flag is intended to mean "Don't copy me". The MPAA/CPTWG/BPDG folks are then trying to convince the consumer electronics manufacturers that it is in their best interest to build crippled devices that honor the bit, and finally, since it's not obvious than any consumer would buy such a damaged device, they want to ban non-compliant receivers.

After conversations with MPAA/CPTWG/BPDG, we have been unable to find any solution where open source or free software can comply with their proposed "Robustness Requirements". Hence, open source and free software implementations of ATSC receivers, VSB demodulators and VSB modulators would be banned under their proposals. Several fundamental issues are at stake: freedom of choice, freedom to innovate, and software as protected first amendment speech.

The FCC has issued a "Notice of Proposed Rule Making" about the Broadcast Flag. In addition, it is rumored that a bill is being drafted in case the FCC won't play along.

The EFF has a wonderful blog covering this topic in detail.

(3) SDR upgrades and FCC

Recognizing the importance of SDR, the FCC, in its First Report and Order dated September 14, 2001, created a new class of equipment and associated authorization procedures. In its Report the Commission stated, "We anticipate that software defined radio technology will allow manufacturers to develop reconfigurable transmitters or transceivers that can be multi-service, multi-standard and multi-band." Continuing, the FCC stated, "These changes will facilitate the deployment and use of this promising new technology, which we believe will facilitate more efficient use of the spectrum."

From the free software point of view, what remains to be seen is what kind of "authorization procedures" will be approved. What is envisioned is some kind of digitally signed configuration or executable that can be loaded into the existing hardware. In an free software/hardware world with no clear administrative hierarchy, it's not evident who gets to say what signatures the hardware will accept. This looks like a ruling that "software radio is OK for the incumbents", but doesn't really spell out what the situation is for the free software / open source / open spectrum point of view.


9) Re:Interference
by Louis_Wu

"This is one project where hacking the code can kill people or land you in jail. Don't broadcast on the wrong frequency! Keep this away from radio telescopes!"

Eric: OK.

That brings up a good question. Are there going to be some software restrictions on which frequencies you can use? Would those restrictions be in the source or options you can change on the fly?

Eric: Ultimately the frequency range that can be transmitted depends on the RF hardware, not the software. The vast majority (all?) of the code in a software radio has no idea of the final RF frequency. It's doing its processing at some IF frequency, which is ultimately up converted once the samples leave the CPU.

It seems like a good idea to put at least one barrier between users and transmitting on police frequencies. But what kind of barrier? Should any restrictions prevent listening as well? What about military transmissions? Or air traffic control frequencies? Or the band the Secret Service uses?

Eric: In general, my philosophy is that if people don't want their communications listened to they should encrypt them. This has been standard practice for thousands of years (see Kahn, "The Codebreakers").

I agree the that hardware should be designed such that accidents are minimized. One possible route for hobbyists would be to design the RF hardware such that it would only transmit on one of the unlicensed bands. There are still requirements about transmitted power, and these requirements vary depending on the band and the modulation strategy, but that would at least reduce the chances of accidental interference.

Note however, if you're building a software radio that bridges between different public safety networks, you'd certainly want to be able to transmit.

Where should the line be drawn? What does the law say?

Eric: Do no evil? The law of what land?

For another perspective on "interference" and who "owns" spectrum, I heartily recommend the "Open Spectrum Resource Page".


10) Hardware patents?
by cornice

Up until now, free software has mostly threatened closed commercial software. GNU Radio, however, might make some hardware manufacturers squirm a bit. If I can use a generic device along with GNU Radio to emulate a range of devices how will this impact the makers of those devices and are you (or users of GNU Radio) possibly violating patents for some of those devices? It seems that GNU Radio will stir up more mud in the IP and DRM debates. What are your thoughts on this?

Eric: Since the hardware manufacturers make their money selling hardware, and we want to buy hardware I don't really see a problem. I'd just like them to build some nice, inexpensive, fully documented hardware on which I can run my free software.

Yes, we will be able to emulate a bunch of devices, and it might cause some heart burn for certain folks. For example, I don't generally want to be carrying around a GPS receiver, but in the moment that I want to know where I am, it would be handy for my universal communication device to configure itself as one and figure out where we are. I'm not sure of the patent specifics on that particular application, but I understand your point nevertheless.

I think the mud will be stirred far and wide. I think that this is a good thing. General purpose hardware keeps getting more useful and powerful, and hence valuable to the end user. At the same time, in certain situations, dedicated devices clearly win over the general purpose in areas of convenience, size and ease of use. I think this tension is good, and better products will emerge from it.


11) Plans for UWB
by wfrp01

Will GNU Radio support Ultra Wide Band? Soon, someday, never?

Great project. Thanks.

Eric: We currently don't support Ultra Wide Band. GNU Radio is a signal processing toolbox. If you had the appropriate UWB RF front end, you could use GNU Radio for the signal processing.

See aetherwire.com for background info on ultra-wideband technology.

jdavidb writes "The FSF has issued a FAQ about why they believe you should say "GNU/Linux." Surprisingly long." They're certainly... thorough.

Eric Blossom is an electrical engineer with a history of working with radio and communications security. He gave a presentation at the recent H2K2 conference about his work with GNU Radio, which is, bar none, the single most exciting software project in existence today. (Imagine computing devices that communicate seamlessly across the entire electromagnetic spectrum.) As usual, we'll forward some of the best questions to Eric and post his responses when we receive them.

bkuhn writes "The FSF has posted a a call for nominations for the 2002 FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software. Get your nominations in to <award-nominations@gnu.org> by 15 October 2002."

bkuhn writes "The FSF has posted a a call for nominations for the 2002 FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software. Get your nominations in to <award-nominations@gnu.org> by 15 October 2002."

bkuhn writes "The FSF has posted a a call for nominations for the 2002 FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software. Get your nominations in to <award-nominations@gnu.org> by 15 October 2002."

bkor forwards the GCC 3.2 release announcement, without attributing it as such: "The GCC 3.2 release is now available, or making its way to, the GNU FTP sites. The purpose of this release is to provide a stable platform for OS distributors to use building their next OS releases. A primary objective was to stabilize the C++ ABI; we believe that the interface to the compiler and the C++ standard library are now stable. There are almost no other bug-fixes or improvements in this compiler, relative to GCC 3.1.1. Be aware that C++ code compiled by GCC 3.2 will not interoperate with code compiled by GCC 3.1.1. More detail about the release is available. Many people contributed to this release -- too many to name here!"

bkor forwards the GCC 3.2 release announcement, without attributing it as such: "The GCC 3.2 release is now available, or making its way to, the GNU FTP sites. The purpose of this release is to provide a stable platform for OS distributors to use building their next OS releases. A primary objective was to stabilize the C++ ABI; we believe that the interface to the compiler and the C++ standard library are now stable. There are almost no other bug-fixes or improvements in this compiler, relative to GCC 3.1.1. Be aware that C++ code compiled by GCC 3.2 will not interoperate with code compiled by GCC 3.1.1. More detail about the release is available. Many people contributed to this release -- too many to name here!"

death00 writes: "GameDev has an interesting story about the success of Garage Games Torque engine (the engine behind Tribes 2). I especially find it interesting to see the number of developers working on high-quality games based on the Torque engine. The basic premise is that Garage Games gives a full license of the Torque engine to a team for a project for $100 USD per developer. The only caveat is that you must publish any finished works through Garage Games. Perhaps id software might consider doing this with the Quake III engine once the Doom III engine comes out. From my understanding, the Quake III engine currently licenses for significantly ($250,000 USD) more than that. Instead of waiting 2 more years and GPL'ing the full source, why not license it for cheap after Doom III comes out, then GPL later?"

Verizon Guy writes: "News.com is reporting that a group called The Initiative for Software Choice, led by the CompTIA, but backed primarily by Microsoft and Intel, is lobbying against Open Source-only laws in for example, the State of California government and the government of Peru. While their goals don't specifically mention open source, they do mention that publicly-funded research should steer clear of licenses such as the GPL. Interesting read."

XNormal writes "It's not exactly new but for some reason it doesn't seem to be getting the attention it deserves. The stack smashing-protector developed by Hiroaki Etoh at IBM's Tokyo Research Lab is a patch for GCC that provides effective protection against buffer overflows. It protects against cases not covered by StackGuard and StackShield. It it well-supported on multiple versions of GCC and multiple platforms. Why is it not getting enough attention? Perhaps it needs a CatchyName instead of 'ssp'? I'll ponder this question while I'm recompiling all my executables that have an open port and the libraries they depend on."

foobar104 asks: "I'm fascinated by the idea of putting in a home PBX or key system. I don't really have a good justification for this; it just sounds like a neat thing to have. There are commercially available small PBX systems available for $500 to $2,000, plus another $500 to $2,000 for voicemail, but putting in one of those doesn't sound like as much fun as building one from scratch using an older PC and some off-the-shelf components. I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions for sources of information, tips, HOWTOs or other knowledge on this subject? I'm sure it's been done before; GNUCOMM and GNU Bayonne are out there, but I'm not having much luck finding tutorial-type info about them."

"The system I want to build doesn't need to be complicated. I'd like to have two outside lines and about five inside lines. I'd like the system to have all the standard cool features, like intercomm and station-to-station calls and such, but I'd also like to do some exotic things. For example, I'd like to implement a call whitelist system, where during certain hours of the day, only calls from numbers on a pre-defined "white list" ring through, and all other calls go to voicemail. I'm guessing that something like that will require programming, and I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty. I just don't know where to start.

It sounds like a fun hobby project-- to me anyway. Can anyone point me in the right direction?"

foobar104 asks: "I'm fascinated by the idea of putting in a home PBX or key system. I don't really have a good justification for this; it just sounds like a neat thing to have. There are commercially available small PBX systems available for $500 to $2,000, plus another $500 to $2,000 for voicemail, but putting in one of those doesn't sound like as much fun as building one from scratch using an older PC and some off-the-shelf components. I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions for sources of information, tips, HOWTOs or other knowledge on this subject? I'm sure it's been done before; GNUCOMM and GNU Bayonne are out there, but I'm not having much luck finding tutorial-type info about them."

"The system I want to build doesn't need to be complicated. I'd like to have two outside lines and about five inside lines. I'd like the system to have all the standard cool features, like intercomm and station-to-station calls and such, but I'd also like to do some exotic things. For example, I'd like to implement a call whitelist system, where during certain hours of the day, only calls from numbers on a pre-defined "white list" ring through, and all other calls go to voicemail. I'm guessing that something like that will require programming, and I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty. I just don't know where to start.

It sounds like a fun hobby project-- to me anyway. Can anyone point me in the right direction?"

With the usual round of updates, corrections, reactions and related stories, Slashback tonight has word of yet another giant Euronerd conclave, as well as some news on the odds of being smashed into a pulp in the year 2019, and a gentle response from Richard M. Stallman on appropriate behavior in absurd circumstances.

Good place for a lemonade stand. The march of the gigantic temporary European computer city-state goes on: Late writes that "Assembly 2002 starts in Finland on Thursday at 12.00 EET-DST (GMT +3). With over 2800 computer places and an expected total of over 4500 visitors, Assembly is one of the largest combined demo- and lanparties in the world. Those of you who can't make it, can watch our streamed TV broadcast. We'll be broadcasting all the competitions, at least part of the seminars that include such speakers as Rob Hubbard (C64 music legend) and a whole bunch of other programs."

You are condemned to live even longer. h4mmer5tein writes: "The BBC has an update on the asteroid story from a few days ago saying that it won't, after all, hit the earth in 2019. More information is being collated but it seems that 2060 is unlikely to see an impact either."

Iron IronGorilla adds: "Much like a Microsoft crash^H^H^H^H^Hrelease date being pushed back, NASA is reporting here that we are not, in fact, all going to die on February 1st, 2019 ..."

The dangers of meeting someone who means what he says. A few weeks ago, reader Al3x wrote his account ("Results of the Commerce Dept's DRM Workshop") of the recent gathering in DC of (officially invited) representatives of the entertainment industry and the less-officially invited members of the public. Alex criticized the approach of several members of the Free software community on hand for the discussion, including Richard Stallman.

Stallman writes in response:

"Al3x went to the July 17 Washington Digital Restrictions Management panel feeling admiration for me, but left disappointed with my views and actions. I think his disappointment was partly due to a couple of misconceptions, so I hope this explanation will partly restore his good opinion of my work and methods.

I cannot deny Al3x's charge that I, and the rest of us, defied the rules of the meeting by refusing to be completely silent. If it is wrong to disobey an unfair system, I stand convicted, but I am not ashamed. However, in the scale of civil disobedience, ours was very mild. Women demanding the vote sometimes chained themselves to doorways, which might have been inconvenient for some passersby. Blacks demanding an end to segregation sometimes broke rules, and even laws, by sitting in a Whites-only diner or at the front of a bus. It is up to each of you to decide your ethical approach to judging acts of disobedience to an unfair system.

Al3x criticized NY Fair Use for 'preferring to show up and disrupt the debate' rather than ask for a seat on the panel. Our occasional laughter and less frequent verbal comments did not disrupt the panel, and all the panelists were able to express their views; but because our means were so limited, we could not communicate very much. We would have much preferred to participate officially, on an equal footing with Jack Valenti, but they had refused our request, just as they refused the EFF. Our measured protest appears to have obtained for us the chance for a seat on a subsequent panel.

After the meeting, Al3x asked me for my views on intellectual property. As it happens, I think it is a grave mistake to formulate one's views in terms of 'intellectual property,' and I explained why.

I explained that the term 'intellectual property' lumps together disparate areas of law, including copyright, patent, trademark, and others, and that they are so different that it is a mistake to try to group them together. The public policy issues of these various areas of law result from the details of how they restrict the public, and those details are different; if you try to form your opinions about 'intellectual property,' you will miss all of these issues, and you will be led to propose sweeping generalizations which cannot help being foolish. I explained the problems of the term 'intellectual property' to Al3x hoping this would help him and others he communicates with avoid that pitfall in thinking.

I suspect a miscommunication took place there, because when I said that his proposed copyright system for music might be a good one, he perceived that as a contradiction. Perhaps when I said 'the term "intellectual property" is bad,' he heard me as saying 'everything people call "intellectual property" is bad.' That, however, is exactly the sort of sweeping overgeneralization that the term 'intellectual property' leads people to form; it is to discourage such simplistic views that I ask people to avoid the term. I have views on copyright, views on patent, and views on trademark, but I do not have *any* position on 'intellectual property.' As Al3x learned, I'm not 100% opposed to copyright, though I believe it should be much less restrictive to the public than it is now.

See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.htm for more explanation of the problems of the term 'intellectual property.' If you're interested in my views on copyright, see www.gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-and-globalization.html.

acidblood writes "GCC 3.1.1 has been released. Many improvements in performance, code optimization, standards compliance, and a few bug fixes in the C++ ABI (full changelog here). Download from the main GNU FTP or use the nearest mirror."

acidblood writes "GCC 3.1.1 has been released. Many improvements in performance, code optimization, standards compliance, and a few bug fixes in the C++ ABI (full changelog here). Download from the main GNU FTP or use the nearest mirror."

acidblood writes "GCC 3.1.1 has been released. Many improvements in performance, code optimization, standards compliance, and a few bug fixes in the C++ ABI (full changelog here). Download from the main GNU FTP or use the nearest mirror."

acidblood writes "GCC 3.1.1 has been released. Many improvements in performance, code optimization, standards compliance, and a few bug fixes in the C++ ABI (full changelog here). Download from the main GNU FTP or use the nearest mirror."

acidblood writes "GCC 3.1.1 has been released. Many improvements in performance, code optimization, standards compliance, and a few bug fixes in the C++ ABI (full changelog here). Download from the main GNU FTP or use the nearest mirror."

InspectorPraline asks: "I'm currently working on a cookbook that is intended to provide good food at a reasonable price - the kind of stuff you'd make before sitting down for a long coding session, with the occasional idea that would feed a LAN party. I've got some ideas I can put down, but the book would be quite thin, so I thought I'd put the call for submissions to Slashdot. I'm calling it 'The Open Source Cookbook,' and I'd release it under the GFDL, in PDF, ASCII text, and Word formats. Of course, I'd take submissions as comments here or via email. I'd 'publish' the book via the web once I got enough submissions to make the book at least about 40-50 pages in length or 30 recipes (whichever comes last), and as submissions came in I'd update the book. Anyway, I'm asking for submissions for the book, which could be recipes for dinners, lunches, even drinks. Two webpages that will serve as temporary homes for the project can be found here and here, and those addresses list my email as well as some submission guidelines. So, any ideas, folks?" Hey, if you ever wanted to share your favorite dishes with geeks around the world, this might be the way to do it. What great dishes have you prepared?

Your intrepid reporter took a jaunt down to the H2K2 conference this past weekend, held in the lovely Hotel Pennsylvania. The conference had much more floor space than they had two years ago, and it seemed like more attendance as well. Wireless networks were available, though overcrowded, and if you didn't encrypt your communications, well, you've probably already paid the price. My notes on the conference and the sessions I attended are below, followed by a couple of reader submissions.

The conference took up the 18th floor of the Hotel Pennsylvania[1], with the second floor being devoted to network operations/music/gawking at the old computers. Unlike the last conference, both major session tracks were on the same floor, preventing the logjams that occurred in 2000 when hundreds of people decided to use the elevators every hour between sessions. Lesson learned for future conference organizers: don't split your major crowd-drawing events between floors if you can possibly help it.

Siva Vaidhyanathan was the first keynote speaker. He described the internet as a cynical technology -- a technology which promotes seeing things as they are, not veiled by smokescreen or corporate PR -- and noted the attacks on cynical technologies since Sept. 11, tying that in to the copyright wars with Valenti, the DMCA, WIPO, and so on. It was good, well-reasoned speech, but honestly, Slashdot readers have heard it before so I'm not going to spend much time on it.

Andy Mueller-Maguhn (probably best known to U.S. readers as the European At-Large ICANN representative) and Paul Garrin of Name.space gave a talk about ICANN and the DNS. Mueller-Maguhn described the attendance at ICANN's Montevideo meeting: about 450 people overall, of which 320 were representatives of the Intellectual Property community (RIAA, MPAA, many others), 100 or so from the world's various governments, and even a few technical people. He drove home the fact that the IP people have the funds and personnel to participate in these meetings, and that few other organizations do. Mueller-Maguhn was critical of the recent decisions by various U.S. civil liberties groups to stop trying to affect ICANN (nothing they've done has had any effect) and to start working on the U.S. Commerce department to cause change in the DNS -- Mueller-Maguhn prefers to work within the system, even when his efforts bear no fruit. Garrin talked briefly about Name.space's efforts to provide a free-speech alternative to the current DNS system.

Goldstein and Macki of 2600, and Robin Gross of the EFF, discussed the DeCSS case. Again, this a topic thoroughly covered on Slashdot, so I see no need to recap the talk. They noted that Jon Johansen is still facing charges in Norway, and that the EFF is still interesting in overturning various provisions of the DMCA, so if you have a situation that might represent a good test case, please contact them.

The next day, Eric Grimm and Robin Gross did a presentation on the DMCA, almost a continuation of the DeCSS presentation. Notice and takedown, ReplayTV, the Eldred and Golan lawsuits against the most recent copyright extensions; Slashdot covers these pretty well.

This was followed by journalist Declan McCullagh and cryptographer Matt Blaze, with a talk titled "Educating Lawmakers: is it possible?". McCullagh told his favorite anecdotes about Congressional stupidity, while Blaze described his interactions with the NSA during the dark days of crypto prohibition. Blaze described his work on the Clipper chip, which may be before the time of some Slashdot readers: in a nutshell, the U.S. government decided that they would promote a cryptographic solution which had a Federal backdoor, allowing users to secure their secrets against anyone but the government. Blaze expressed interest in it, and was invited to visit Ft. Meade, where he was given a sample Clipper chip by NSA techies -- except they weren't sure if he would allowed to take it out of the facility. The techies gave him a brown paper bag to carry out the sample -- a burn bag for *classified* materials. Which he successfully carried out, with Clipper chip inside. Blaze discovered major flaws in Clipper's backdoor, which would have allowed anyone to gain access through it, and which eventually helped torpedo the Clipper plan. (Of course, Microsoft's Palladium plan will accomplish much the same purpose: just as the Federal government had final control over the design of Clipper, Microsoft will have final control of your PC, making government wiretapping trivial, so saying "key escrow is dead" is not even close to true.) Blaze concluded by describing his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee: he noted that when he consulted with other witnesses after the testimony, each of them had independently decided to liberate one of the stationery notepads provided in the hearing chamber for a souvenir, and "one of us got the gavel".

Aaron McGruder gave a very interesting speech. I had barely heard of him before (not a Boondocks reader, sorry), so I wasn't sure what to expect. McGruder covered his experiences getting into cartooning, and described getting his thoughts into a few hundred newspapers daily as a "hack," which I suppose it is. His speech was mostly about his cartooning and recent politics -- suffice it to say that he isn't a fan of Bush and the current corporate government.

Philip Kaplan, best known for fuckedcompany.com, talked about the secrets of making money on the net. His secret is basically: when you scratch an itch for yourself, scratch it for others as well, since probably thousands of people worldwide have the same itch you do. He also described some of the trials and tribulations of running his dot-com deadpool site, the inevitable legal hassles, etc.

Jello Biafra wasn't originally scheduled to speak, but happened to be in town. His address last time with the refrain of "Become the media" brought the house down, and he gave a late-night wide-ranging ramble working from handwritten notes which again proved to be quite popular. The talk centered mainly on music, with a secondary helping of politics, touching on his legal troubles with the rest of his former band, current developments in digital music, and ad-busting counter-culture efforts (he was following Mark Hosler of Negativland). Biafra came prepared with some old vinyl albums of corporate morale-boosting and sales songs -- imagine songs composed at corporate retreats and sung by miscellaneous employees, extolling the joys of using company X's products, or a song about the joys of being a Ford employee's wife who (of course) stays home to cook him dinner and bring his slippers when he comes home after a hard day at work. Hilarious stuff.

On Sunday, Maximilian Dornseif gave a talk about digital demonstrations. Obstructive demonstrations and sit-ins are more popular in Europe than in the U.S., and they are branching out into digital versions, electronic sit-ins that attempt to slow down or DDOS targeted websites for political ends. Dornseif described several previous attempts: programs distributed to automatically reload a targeted website, for instance. Some of them were quite sophisticated, including one with smart date-checking to make sure it was used only during the designated protest time. Dornseif described his ideals for an electronic protest, to make it as similar as possible to a real-world one: persons involved should be identifiable, outside observers should be able to know the goal of the protest, etc. Overall, an electronic protest should have strong parallels to physical protests, so that if the judicial system examines the legality of what you are doing, the judge is tempted to find it a legitimate protest rather than an illegitimate attack by cyber-criminals. Dornseif suggested making "slow" connections to HTTP servers ("G" sleep 10 "E" sleep 10 "T" sleep 10 ...), as well as "accept flooding" -- completing the TCP handshake, but not actually making any HTTP request -- these are "slow" versions of regular connections, which make effective DOS's, but also mimic regular users and might find acceptance in the courts as part of a planned protest.

Finally we come to some of the most interesting presentations. The lockpicking presentation, by Barry "The Key" Wels and Mike Glasser, was given to an utterly packed room. Wels and Glasser described many common and uncommon types of locks, and proceeded to pick them with great success. Those combination Master locks that are so popular on high school lockers? Takes one second to open any of those with the proper tool, a bent piece of metal that allows the shackle to simply pop out. You might want to invest in better protection for your varsity jacket. Thought your bicycle U-bolt lock was too strong to cut? It only takes ten seconds to pick it with the right tool, a circular pick that mimics any key. This might help explain the two bicycles I've had stolen in New York City. Normal house deadbolts? Maybe 30 seconds. They covered an assortment of high-security locks, such as ones with side dimple keys instead of teeth, 3 or 4-edged keys, disk keys, locks with magnetic pins, and so on. It was a remarkable presentation, and Mr. Wels especially represents a true hacker in every good sense of the word. He suggested starting at locktools.nl or security.nl or lockpicking.org if you'd like to try your hand.

Douglas Rushkoff was next with a wide-ranging speech about the true role of hackers in modern society. I probably can't do justice to his argument - read through his website, which has a lot of various essays and articles, if you want to get a sense of it -- but essentially he made a very Matrix-like argument about hackers, storytellers, the media, and empowerment. Starting from a premise that stories control reality (as an example he used the Ewoks in Star Wars, who were convinced to die for the Rebellion by the stories told to them by C3PO), he said that recently we have been empowered to alter and participate in our own stories (empowerment through devices such as the joystick, remote control and computer keyboard, each of which allows us to control our experiences), but this time is now ending. We are currently in a Golden Age of interactivity, where most of the attackers that attempted to control computing and the internet in round 1 have been beat down (the dot-com bust), but they're coming back, and hackers are the only ones who have the ability to see through the veils (computer GUIs and the like) that blind us to true reality. Very fun to listen to, and way too full of information to summarize effectively. I'll leave you with one memorable analogy -- Rushkoff said business and government were like bacteria and fungus, they have to stay in balance and if you suppress one of them the other one grows out of control. Not a bad analogy at all considering the times we live in.

Eric Blossom gave another fascinating presentation about GNU radio, whose goal is to develop a Free software-defined radio system that runs on commodity hardware. Software-defined radios are a tremendous concept which are going to cause revolution when they are deployed. Think about a PC or other electronic device that has complete access to every bit of information in every radio-frequency wave passing through it, in constant wireless communications with any nearby similar device. Maybe if the devices are close, they adopt a high-frequency unlicensed band to communicate, if they're farther apart they pick a lower frequency ... Slashdot gets a lot of Ask Slashdot questions which say roughly "What open source software project should I work on?" or "I know I like computers, what should I do in college?" We delete most of them. Here is the answer for everyone who asks those questions: software-defined radio. Trust me. It's going to be big. The GNU radio people are concentrating mainly on television applications right now, because the tuners and such are readily available, and they have a lot of pieces which each work but still have a lot of work to do to create a turnkey system.

Ryan Lackey and Avi Freedman talked about the past, present and future of Sealand. We've covered this pretty extensively on Slashdot. Havenco is doing acceptably well, with their only significant problem being that the major European ISPs keep going bankrupt. They hinted that they are planning to do more things to promote free speech in the very near future - they already run an anonymous remailer and host a copy of DeCSS. An offhand comment by Freedman gave me a very good idea of what they're planning, but I'm not going to spoil their surprise by mentioning it here.

And finally, the time-honored Social Engineering panel. Again, the largest conference room available was packed with attendees. After a few funny stories about legendary hacks, Goldstein read the AT&T memo and noted, "If that's not an invitation I don't know what is." Coincidentally or not, the two lines which Verizon had installed in the conference room were mysteriously unable to dial long distance numbers or AT&T, though they had been able to yesterday. (Um, the phone companies are slow but they're not stupid - when a conference of phone hackers wants phone lines installed, it has to set off a few alarm bells somewhere.) When Goldstein eventually got an AT&T operator, she was suspicious and refused to assist him - obviously she had read the memo. :) Goldstein decided to hit easier targets, and starting paging through the phone book, eventually settling on a Starbucks outlet. He was able to get a Starbucks employee to provide him with customers' credit card information, without much difficulty. If you used an American Express card to make a $3.57 purchase at a Manhattan Starbucks on Sunday morning, you might want to check your next statement (although the A/V crew kept the card number from being heard by the crowd). Next up was the Russian Tea Room, a high-class restaurant in Manhattan, where Goldstein had no difficulty in changing some poor woman's reservations and getting her phone number, then calling her and notifying her of the changed reservations, due to a "health inspection". He said he'd call and change them back to the original time, showing the hacker's spirit: inquisitiveness without destructiveness.

Overall, I had a great time at the conference, and so did a couple of non-computer geeks that I dragged along with me. I'm looking forward to H2K4 already.

[1] That's the third time I've linked to that Dave Barry piece, and it's still funny.

Reader lokii202 takes a look at the Social Engineering presentation: lokii202 writes "I attended the Social Engineering panel discussion today at the H.O.P.E. conference, and thought it might be nice to follow up on the previous article about AT&T's Hacker Warning memo. The AT&T security number was tried and the attempt failed, although one of the members of the large crowd in attendence offered up an AT&T HRID number. The operator got suspicious and shut us down.

However, no fair 'cause they were ready for it. Starbucks, to our enjoyment, had no such warning memo circulating, and here are the results...

Our panelist made a call over a standard phone line to a Starbuck's store using a calling card. Asked the underling if they were having network problems. Underling, following the standard underling procedure, got the Assistant Manager. AM told us that yes, they were having problems with the credit card system. Oops. Within about 5 minutes he was reading off transaction times, dates, and more chillingly an American Express card number and expiration date. Our panelist stopped the guy before he exposed the whole number (the phone was hooked into a P.A. system for the conference and the experiment). The point was made very clearly.

Next, our guy called up the Russian Tea Room, which is a pretty classy joint in NYC, and posed as the flustered husband who needed to change dinner reservations for this evening. He had no names, no prior knowledge, etc. He managed to get some poor guys' reservations changed to 9pm and also got the guy's cell number. Next, he called the guy and posed as a Russian Tea Room host and apologized that his reservations were changed to 9pm, due to a health department inspection.

That was kinda funny.

High tech gizmos and uber-gear might get one pretty far, but when you come down to it security starts with the user. This demonstration, and others like it at H2K2, made it embarassingly apparent that to obtain sensitive data one only needs a little ingenuity and some acting skills."

Reader weave takes a look at the whole conference (this may seem repetitive, but it's good to look at things through others' eyes...) He writes "H2K2 (or HOPE 2002 or Hackers On Planet Earth 2002) was held this past weekend in New York City at the Hotel Pennsylvania. I've been to previous HOPE conferences and this one was much better than ones in the past, but it still had a few problems.

Aaron McGruder, the creator of Boondocks comic strip was keynote. Jello Biafra makes a repeat appearance as well as some other past favorites, such as the "former spy" Robert Steele, as well as some surprise guests such as former Taliban fighter, Aukai Collins.

This is my personal review of h2k2. There were so many things happening at once that one person can't obviously see it all. This is based on what I saw, experienced, felt, and my personal opinions.

Keynote Speaker: Aaron MgGruder, author of Boondocks, spoke on Saturday. This was my favorite speaker and worth the price of admission. He was invited because he did a short sequence of strips covering the DeCSS subject and, as Emmanuel Goldstein said, "the only person in popular media to get it right." Aaron was very articulate, intelligent, and of course, opinionated. What I liked most about him was his admitting that he does not know it all. He made fun of political experts who sit around and debate political topics based on what they are spoon fed by popular media. He says there is not much difference between us and people who live in censored countries except they KNOW they aren't getting the full story. We all think we are smart and know it all. His advice to people who love to rant about political topics, "Shut the hell up, you don't know anything."

McGruder thinks our society is falling apart and the only thing that can fix it is revolution. He has hope, but not much. He spoke about Bush's line that countries that hurt American are going to have to pay, which means we kill a bunch of their innocent civilians so they get to claim that we will then have to pay, where they kill a bunch of us. McGruder's solution is that people should just go kill the leaders of these nations. He then back-pedaled (remembering the place was probably full of feds) and disclaimed that he wasn't advocating that anyone go out and shoot Bush (who he has no love for). He reminded us that if Bush was killed, we'd be left with Cheney, who is far far worse in his opinion. "If Cheney was President, Afghanistan and Iraq would be glass, and we may give the neighboring countries 30 minutes of warning to get away from the borders."

Jello Biafra: Jello was keynote at H2K in 2000 and returned this year to speak late Saturday night. He was well loved by most people there, based on the reactions I saw that night. I didn't like him. He reminded me of Rush Limbaugh except on the left side. Loads of rhetoric, wild claims, and positioning himself as an expert. He was supposed to speak for one hour, and then the film "Freedom Downtime" was to be shown. He rambled on for two and a half hours, then took his shoe off and asked for donations for his legal defense fund involving his former record label. People flocked up and stuffed it full of money as he started to spin records. At this point it was 12:30am and I gave up and went to my room and and got some sleep.

Robert Steele : Former spy, and backer of a concept called "Open Source Intelligence" where countries share intelligence information freely with each other and their citizens. His speech on Hacking National Intelligence was, to me, frightening. He claims that 9/11 involved a serious failure of our intelligence network and Washington is trying to whitewash it all. He also claims that he has no doubt at all that New York City will be the target of another terrorist attack soon. "When foreigners think of the U.S. they think of New York City. It is the center of capitalism." He is an excellent speaker. I hope he returns next time.

During his talk, he introduced Aukai Collins who told us of his experiences fighting for bin Laden (during the 90s when we were paying bin Laden's salary and he allegedly was a good guy). When the embassy bombings started to occur, he went to the CIA and offered himself as an intelligence source. He worked for them and the FBI a few years and during that time was invited by bin Laden's runners to come work closely with him. When he bought this opportunity to get close to bin Laden to his superiors, they told him not to go. He feels we lost probably our only opportunity to get one of our guys close to bin Laden. He has written a book on this called My Jihad.

If this so far sounds like h2k2 was more politics than tech, I got the same impression. I skipped out on most of the DMCA updates and other legal updates. They were hosted by members of EFF and their lawyers. The small bits I saw sounded very informative and I applaud their works in these areas. Since I've kept up on all the news on these cases, I decided to skip these forums.

The best of the tech presentations was Fun with 802.11b hosted by Dragorn, Porkchop, and StAtic FuSIOn. (I sometimes hate silly handles). During the days before h2k2, they mapped out over 400 open wireless networks accessible from within three blocks of the hotel in midtown Manhattan. They demonstrated passive snoopers like kismet and showed us different directional high-gain antennas. Their recommendation for a good PCMCIA 802.11b card was Cisco's 352, which I of course didn't have. I ran out and bought an SMC card for my company laptop before the conference and had a tech load Linux on my laptop. I told him he could pick the distro of his choice, but unfortunately he picked the one I'm least familiar with, Slackware. I could not get the damn card working for the life of me. I wanted to scream.

A big disappointment was the Cult of the Dead Cow Extravaganza . It was to be held down on the lower level in the network room and broadcast up to the conference rooms on the 18th floor. Well, it didn't work. I was upstairs and they mucked with the equipment for an hour trying to get a a/v feed going. After all this time of wondering whether we should fight our way downstairs to watch it in person, we got an announcement. "Sorry, but we can't get it to work. Oh, by the way, they have already started downstairs."

Urge to kill. My friend and I wondered how they screwed this one up and traced the wires to a display table and behind a closed stairwell door. We looked at each other and said "Nooo". We popped into a neighboring stairwell as everyone fought for the elevators. We went down one floor then popped over to the stairwell that we saw the wires going down. Sure enough, they had run the wires down the open portion of the stairs so they were hanging by their own weight for a distance of about 22 floors (the hotel has 18 number floors, about 4 lettered floors like A, B, C, D, a mezzanine floor, and lobby floor). I'm not sure what the stress would be introduced by a cable hanging by its own weight for that kind of distance, but I bet the center copper core couldn't bear it and broke inside.

So we run downstairs and saw some talented but unwanted female singing about how great the CDC was. Then someone else got up and swung a black briefcase looking device around. Had no idea what it was because we couldn't understand squat in the back. Basically we said to hell with them all, and left.

So while the presentations were hit and miss, the overall best part of the conference were the attendees. Freaks, geeks, and misfits everywhere, all being good to each other, curious, intelligent, and sometimes a bit too paranoid. Of course it was mostly guys, but there were women as well as one person who had a male voice but noticeable breasts and a feminine face and shape. Many other guys dressed up a bit too flamboyant for my tastes as well. My point being, everyone was accepted for who they are and all got along great together. I didn't meet a single person who I talked to who was rude, or unwilling to strike up a conversation. The network room had wired and wireless internet access and was open 24 hours a day and the source for some of the most fun at the conference. But by all means, the best part of h2k2 was the attendees and they are the reason why I will want to go again in the future."

An anonymous reader submits: "The Savannah site (the Free Software sequel of SourceForge) has just announced a much enhanced Bug Tracking System contributed by Xerox. From the news it sounds like Xerox has engaged into an internal source code sharing initiative based on the SourceForge platform and it has decided to contribute all their changes to the Savannah project ..."

An anonymous reader submits: "The Savannah site (the Free Software sequel of SourceForge) has just announced a much enhanced Bug Tracking System contributed by Xerox. From the news it sounds like Xerox has engaged into an internal source code sharing initiative based on the SourceForge platform and it has decided to contribute all their changes to the Savannah project ..."

Karin Kosina writes: "Real-time Free Software solutions are moving forward with the first release of ADEOS, a hardware abstraction layer allowing a real-time kernel and a general purpose kernel to co-exist. RTAI will eventually use ADEOS services, thus offering a real-time kernel based on a principle clearly different from the 5,995,745 US Patent. Read the official press release by Philippe Gerum, Karim Yaghmour, Paolo Mantegazza et al. for details."

Anonymous Coward writes "I don't know if there is much interest out there, but GNU Mach Kernel 1.3 was just released a couple days ago. (May 28)." Looking forward to that 2002 release...

Anonymous Coward writes "I don't know if there is much interest out there, but GNU Mach Kernel 1.3 was just released a couple days ago. (May 28)." Looking forward to that 2002 release...

colonel writes "In a followup to an earlier story about Red Hat filing for software patents, a "promise" has appeared on RedHat's website stating that they do not intend to pursue patents against software licensed under a specific set of licenses. It's not binding in perpetuity, and some licenses are notably absent in the list of approved licences, like the LGPL. But, at least Red Hat's made their intentions clear now."

At first, there was mbox, then there was Maildir, and Bill begat Outlook and .mbx. CaraCalla wonders if there is a better way to store mail than the way we currently store it today. I admit, with the changes that email has undergone over the past 5 years (changes in what is being sent, not necessarily in how it is sent), it may be time to reinvent the mail format. Read on for CaraCalla's analysis of the current mail options, and his thoughts on where we may go in the future. If you were to design your own MUA, how would you design its mail storage? CaraCalla asks: "Does anybody know a good, free solution for storing mail on unix hosts? The reason that I ask this question is my discontent with available techniques:

• mbox: There are problems with locking, corruption, access-times, and bloat.
• Maildir: Do you really want to clutter your system with millions of small files? That's waste of inodes, space (unless perhaps you use Linux/ReiserFS or SGi) and just try to open a Maildir with 1000+ mails and see how long it takes your favorite Mailprogram to only display the subjects.
• Cyrus: Basically the same as Maildir with database features.
• UW-Imap mbx: That's classical mbox with extensions allowing multiple access.
• Evolution: Basically mbox with database features.
• Windows clients: Typically some proprietary db-format. Pathetic.

But the thing that bugs me most is disk space. Typical inboxes are made of 5% to 10% of Text including Headers and HTML. The rest are BASE64- (or UU-) encoded pictures, word documents, zip archives and so on. The problem here is the encoding which wastes considerable amounts of space (at least one third).

Some ideas about the ideal mail-storage:

• One file per Mailbox-folder, allowing multiple folders per user. Should those files reside in one central location or in users Homedirs?
• Compression: Should messages be broken into pieces and the MIME-attachments stored separately (thus searching of the text parts would still be possible without decompressing the whole file)?
• File format: gdbm, Sleepycat db? Something new?
• Should the security model allow users to directly access their files, grep them, copy them around?
• Shared folders, virtual domains?
• Unicode support in folder names? Imap message-IDs, flags, useragent specific state-information?
• How would MTAs deliver mail? How would clients access? File-locking (NFS)?
• What about backwards-compatibility? Writing libmailstore (anyone)? adopting UW c-client?

Does my ideal mailstorage exist somewhere? Is somebody working on a project addressing this? Does anybody have some other hints? And please no mbox/Maildir flamewar!"

mpawlo writes: "How much do you know about free software licensing? Time to find out! In a quiz presented by the Free Software Foundation you can test your abilities. How should Joan license her web browser?"

axehind writes "IBM announced release 1.9.0 of NGPT (Next Generation POSIX Threading). The goal of this project is to attempt to solve the problems associated with the use of the pthreads library on Linux and improve significantly on the POSIX compliance of pthreads on Linux. It's licensed under the LGPL and can be downloaded here."

gergnz writes "Just popped into my inbox, GCC 3.1 released. There are many bug fixes over 3.0. "we focused more on quality than new features" Mark Michell. Here are the changes, and you can see a list of ftp servers here. This is the release I have been waiting for. I will now upgrade :-) Well Done to all involved!"