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My apologies for any offense ... I'm not a zealot for either desktop (indeed, until 11 months ago, I used fvwm).
I happened to see over at Linux Today that both were released, and it struck me as relevant to a story on beta desktop updates.
Christopher A. Bohn

I've been doing research on this for the last month or three, and the news isn't entirely good. First, you need to figure out exactly what you want your TiVo-esque set-top box to do. "Personal TV" features like live pause and live rewind? Digital, full-frame recording? MPEG1, MJPEG or MPEG2 compression? Channel guides and automatic VCR programming? CD playing? DVD playing? Lastly, what will you put it all in?

Let's start with personal TV features. You can currently record live, full-resolution video and audio onto your HD without dropping frames -- assuming you've got at least a 500mHz processor and a fast HD. That's just a live dump to a raw AVI, and you'll fill up your HD pretty fast that way, at roughly 1-2 meg a second. But if you can blow 4gb for an hour of programming to be able to do a live pause/rewind for a while, then that's not too big a deal. But what if you want to include digital VCR features, not just live pause/rewind?

Now, things get a little more expensive. The crux of the problem is to do live, full-frame MPEG2 video and audio encoding in software, you need at least ANOTHER 500mhz of horsepower, and a single 1gHz processor won't cut it. MPEG1 quality blows if you're recording off satellite or even decent cable TV (if you want the low-end, though, the Broadway MPEG1 encoder is cheap, around $800), leaving you with just MJPEG or MPEG2 video. MJPEG is much larger than MPEG2, because it doesn't have temporal compression, but you can get consumer-grade hardware MJPEG encoders on Matrox hardware, so for a build-your-own box, if you 2-3x your HD size, you should be okay. But to do it right, you want full-frame D1 MPEG2 encoding (half-D1 MPEG2 is MPEG1 resolution, but MPEG2 quality), like you have on DVDs. And to do that in hardware will cost you over a thousand dollars, and may not include an MPEG DEcoding solution!. Yuck. Darim's MPEGator2 can do full D1 encoding for (only) US$1800, VisionTech's MVcast is US$1995, DV Studio's Apollo Expert is US$1995 and includes both encoding and decoding, making it possibly the best buy. I have no idea if Linux drivers are available for any of them, but the price alone puts that sort of tech out of the realm of most people's hands.

With that sobering realization in mind, let's forge forward to channel guides and VCR programming. Channel guides are easy. Just have a Perl script rip and reformat any of the listings from the online providers, including Excite TV, Ultimate TV, GIST TV (which also provides the Yahoo TV listings), Ask TV (in the UK), Click TV (what TiVo uses), TV Quest, TV Grid or TV Guide Online. And once you have this set up, it's not much farther to program an IR transmitter to sit in front of your VCR's IR port to have it automatically record shows for you.

CD playing in a set-top box is a nice feature. Pop the CD in, and have it hit CDDB for the disc info, and give track options. Shouldn't be too hard.

DVD playing in a homebuild Linux-based set-top box is nearly possible now, too. As of this weekend, I believe that you can now put a DVD in the drive, and play it, entirely software decoded, no ripping VOBs or copying to a HD, full-screen, full-frame, with real-time AC3/48kHz audio downsampling to 44kHz, and audio/video sync is probably only a few hours of coding away. Now all we need is hardware MPEG acceleration in the ATI Rage chipsets, and maybe that attractive Apollo encoder/decoder.

Lastly, what are you going to put this monstrosity of open-source software engineering in? What we've just explained above is that for around $3000, you can build a combination cable box (we'll ignore the open source software cable descramblers for the moment), real-time MPEG2 digital VCR, timeshifting personal TV player, channel guide, CD player and region-code-less, restriction-less DVD player, that utterly blows the quality of anything else on the market out of the water. This is what TiVo WANTS to be. But what are you going to do? Stick a fat, ugly, beige desktop case on top of your TV? Bah. T-A-C-K-Y. Even the recently rediscovered BookPC (aka NLX) cases still look like PCs. But most people can't afford to mint custom cases, yet you want something that doesn't look like a PC. How about a 1U or 2U black rackmount case, sans locking front panel and rails? 19" wide makes it a bit wide for small TVs, but that's okay. You've got a bay for a floppy drive or small LCD panel, a DVD drive, and enough room inside for at least one HD, and in some 1U cases, both the TV card and the MPEG card! Otherwise, just go 2U, which isn't TOO much larger. Whee.

I think that's it. I don't know what the state of TV input on Linux is, but I assume it's pretty good, or you wouldn't even be able to consider this project, so that's not a big deal. And even through you can record in real-time, without compression, straight to AVI (bleagh!), I left out the possibility to post-process the AVI to MPEG, because really, that's so tacky. That's like having to play DVDs by copying them to a HD first. Do it realtime, and Do It Right(tm). Lists of MPEG hardware encoders I got from a Canadian distributor called BernClare Multimedia, Inc. Seems like a nice place. Other URLs I used for reference (no, my personal project doesn't have a site; I just posted most of my knowledge here!) include the still-conceptual LinuxVCR project, the LinuxToday article on How to Build Your Own 1U Rackmount, the Calibri 300R 1U rackmount Linux-based router, and LCDproc for that LCD display you know you'll need on the front to perpetually blink 12:00.

I don't understand why you expect to find a ChangeLog in these places, since none has ever existed there before.

You can grab the changes from a Linux Today search. For example, here are the 2.2.15-pre17 changes, which is pretty close to 2.2.15 proper.

And eventually the changes will also be posted by Alan Cox on the Linux.Org.UK home page along with the other 2.2.x release notes.

Jeff

I don't understand why you expect to find a ChangeLog in these places, since none has ever existed there before.

You can grab the changes from a Linux Today search. For example, here are the 2.2.15-pre17 changes, which is pretty close to 2.2.15 proper.

And eventually the changes will also be posted by Alan Cox on the Linux.Org.UK home page along with the other 2.2.x release notes.

Jeff

Maybe something can be done about the equally crazy patents that have been accepted by the USPTO though. Citizens can nominate members of the US Patent Office Advisory committee but --- TODAY April 28th is THE LAST DAY!!!! Take a look at the LinuxToday article and its links.

What are your opinions on patenting and OSS

I think his call for a boycott of Amazon over patent activities spells this answer out pretty vividly.

--

LinuxToday has a little piece by ESR where he acknowledges that it's not really a backdoor as ZD and the experts who found it said. But the point of his original article still stands, security through obscurity doesn't work.

A good quote: "Ironically enough, one result of my getting rich is that I will probably start charging for speaking appearances, now that nobody can plausibly accuse me of doing it for the money. I won't charge open-source user groups or schools, but I will cheerfully extract a per diem from all the business conferences that keep wanting me to to boost their box office. Charging a price for my time will separate the expensive conferences that attract powerful people from the marginal events where the hacker community would get less leverage from my presence."
Be thankful you are not my student. You would not get a high grade for such a design :-)

Funny how this bit of ignorance comes from one of the largest penguins out there. Miguel de Icaza! Miguel's Incompetence

Miguel is wrong.

I never find core files for the stock OpenBSD binaries.

When bash.core stops being found, perhaps he can make some claims.

When they stop having security holes, perhaps they can start to claim that their userland tools are non-ancient.

When they stop calling mktemp(), inet_addr(), and strcpy, then perhaps they can start to claim something like that. Their source code is unmaintained. Theo's response

I think this is the kind of story for a site like linuxtoday. This story hasn't changed very at all since the last time it was run (Tuesday). It's just a different news agency reporting it.

Is Here

Looks like this internet site discovered the true merits vaunted by Closed Secret Source Software and will be making the switch to a more open peer reviewed system.

The following is a rant I wrote on Saturday, when I first found out about Mattel being awarded the injunction. Anybody may feel free to copy or reproduce parts of it.

My mirror does not include any of the program files, but only the published analysis, Mattel's complaint, and an English translation of the Swedish copyright law 1960:729. I have no relation to the defendants in this case, and am only an interested third party.

- David Michael Turover(Perpetual Newbie)

(begin rant)

I am not in a good mood right now.

I've just had to troubleshoot NT's braindead permissions scheme, I've taken a test where several of the "correct answers" are wrong, my right wrist is aching(not good for a CS student), and it's barely noon. On my lunch break I crack open Netscape to read the news, and find that a United States federal judge has ordered two cryptology researchers to remove an essay that they had published on a Swedish website.

The two researchers in question are Matthew Skala, a Canadian, and Eddy L. O. Jansson, a Swede. They have reverse-engineered a program called Cyber Patrol, and described in detail the cryptography and computer file formats used by the program.

Cyber Patrol is a product made by Microsystems Software, which is a subsidiary of Mattel. The purpose of the product is to prevent any user of a computer where it is installed from accessing any of a list of several Internet web sites, ostensibly to prevent children from viewing pornography. As part of their report, Skala and Jansson offered a Win32 binary named cphack.exe, a utility which decodes Cyber Patrol's list of blocked URLs(website addresses).

Mattel promptly sued the authors of the report, charging them with copyright violations and ordering them to remove their program, report, and all supporting and related documents and materiel, claiming that the report and software will cost them over $75,000 in lost sales. On Friday March 17th, two days after Mattel's complaint was registered, Judge Edward F. Harrington awarded Mattel a preliminary injunction against the two. Jansson's internet service provider, though in Sweden and not subject to U.S. law, has removed his account and deleted the documents.

Reverse-engineering is the process of examining a product to see how it works. In almost every industry it is not only expected to occur but considered an integral part of the free market. In the software industry, however, products are often sold with "shrinkwrap licenses" that restrict reverse-engineering. A shrinkwrap license is a contract describing terms of use for a product, in which these terms cannot be read until after the product has been purchased, can not be disputed, and must be agreed to for the consumer to use the product which they have already paid for and in most cases cannot return. In most Western countries these shrinkwrap contracts are unenforcable, and in the U.S. their legality is disputed, although the upcoming UCITA bill will make them law.

In most Western countries, including Sweden, reverse-engineering of software is a right explicitly allowed by law that cannot be taken away by a contract(1960:729 26 g). Legal protections against reverse engineering can be obtained; they are called "Patents". Furthermore, an action undertaken in Canada and Sweden should be out of the United States' jurisdiction; However, the U.S. court did not refuse to hear the case as it should have done, and instead granted the injunction by weighing the action under U.S. law.

To make the situation more repugnant, Cyber Patrol doesn't work. And not just Cyber Patrol. It is well known that all content-blocking programs such as Cyber Patrol have a high rate of failure, and a high rate of erroneously blocking acceptable content despite any claims by their marketing departments of being 100% accurate.

This is not the first time Microsystems/Mattel's lawyers have been aggressive. A Microsystems software engineer who was fired from his job for seeking medical attention for his sore wrists has since been sued by Mattel for documenting his experiences. Outrageous lawsuits such as this have been happening often lately, and what is frightening is that in the United States' court culture, they have a good chance of succcess.

However, at the end they recomend four job portals: Linux.com, Linux Today, User Friendly's GeekFinder and Linux.org.au. I agree with the first two, and (since I'm in North America) have no valid opinion on Linux.org.au.

The problem with Geek Finder is that it is really just a front for Dice.com. Unlike all the other resources mentioned, dice.com charges employers for listings, instead of being community-based and advertiser-supported.

Instead, I would recomend the following additional job portals, where I have actually posted jobs:

• Superexpert.com: not great, but it does host linux jobs.
• JustLinux: a smaller Linux portal, with a nice jobs page.
• Free Software Jobs Page: This is the GNU jobs page. It is strictly for free software jobs, so only hard-core open source jobs get posted there.

Crispin
-----
Crispin Cowan, CTO, WireX Communications, Inc.
Immunix: Free Hardened Linux Distribution
Jobs!

Adaptec has high bandwidth Hard drive controllers to sell on the x86 market. They believe iNTEL's claim that this will be Itanium in just a few short months. Therefore they must make this available for Itanium and support it as much as possible.

Since there is only one complete OS that's correctly capable of doing real work on Itanium today; they really have no choice. See this story for details about Turbo Linux on Itanium. This isn't just a kernel or a compiler but a full, functional Linux distribution. The closest thing anyone has to a Linux distribution ( in terms of included Apps ) is Microsoft's "Back Office suite".

Slashdot may say that they represent the open source community, but that is just their limited opinion. Slashdot is far and away from representing the 'open source' community, and getting farther by the day judging by the childish quality of the posts here.

Check out Advogato for opinions that are a lot closer to the open source movement...or even Linux Today.

Secondly, assuming you aren't a big troll, I'd like to know WHY you think that the open source model is going to fade? You missed the point of this article entirely with your example of ESR and BP...the whole point is that even the clashing of two supposed 'titans' of the movement didn't come anywhere close to derailing the movement. Open Source is a LOT bigger than ESR and BP...they are just voices of the many (who happen to have their own web sites). The BP/ESR feud certainly did NOT tear the community apart..did Linux kernel development stop? Did the Gnome/KDE folks all colletively hold their breaths waiting for the outcome? Did Redhat go on full red alert? Hell no...the whole incident was a side show in Rob Malda's Flying Circus, and nothing more. If anything came of it, the community at large realized that such arguments are bound to confuse the less educated media...we became much more conscious of what we were saying and doing. It's called evolution, something closed sourcers know nothing about.

I think your own desire to see Linux fade away clouds your vision (or lack thereof). Sorry to inform you that we're here to stay...

Well, this is a refreshing way to look at the Free Software community. Get that knee-jerk reaction we are so known for, and put it to your use. Now, I'd like to look at Mr. Bertrand's letter.

The name was taken by a someone not affiliated with the OpenSSH development team when news of OpenSSH was first leaked to the community.

Hmm, "when news of OpenSSH was first leaked." Let's look at those seven words, shall we? When was this news leaked?

Performing a search on this here web site (Slashdot for those not in the know) for "openssh" yieds two results. This very article, and one from November 18, 1999, entitled, "OpenSSH Project Now at openssh.com."

Next I moved to LinuxTod ay.com. They have articles for everything under the sun. Their first article mentioning OpenSSH is one at Security Portal dated October 27, 1999.

I search Google (both plain Google and the Linux subsearch), and they have never heard of openssh.

Finally, I visted the very site for this project, openssh.com. Looking for an "about this project" sort of link, I clicked on the Project Goals link right up at the top of the left column of links. What's that it says at the very bottom? "OpenBSD: goals.html,v 1.4 1999/11/17 14:14:15 provos Exp $" That looks much like a cvs (or related) entry. That date is November 11, 1999. I also visited the link to the devel mail list archives, and the earliest date there is November 16, 1999.

Looking at all these, I'd guess their formal announcement was around November 17. But the "leak" award goes to Security Portal on October 27, 1999. I'm sure they got their information from somewhere else, but I'm tired of searching. :) Back on track, when did openssh.org register it's domain? Whois gives me the date of November 4, 1999. I count eight days from that "leak." That's not an extremely brief time, but it is before their formal announcement.

Back to the letter, Mr. Bertrand says, "The OpenSSH developers wanted to register under the .ORG top level domain,[...] but the name had already been taken. They settled for the .COM in the interim."

Ok. Well that sure sounds unfortunate. Let's take a look at when they registered openssh.com, shall we? Returning to my favorite domain searching services, whois, it yields October 25, 1999, as the date the record was created. What's this, I see? That looks a lot like a date before the openssh.org was registered. It's even two days before the slight mention by Security Portal. So, they "settled" on the COM top level domain ten days before the ORG one was "taken by a someone not affiliated with the OpenSSH development team." Uh huh, sure thing buddy.

Next Mr. Burtrand discusses the owner of openssh.org, "Mr. de Joode has repeatedly refused requests to sell or turn the .ORG name over to the OpenSSH developers.

Since when must anyone turn over a domain to anyone who asks for it? In my book, domain names are a first-come, first-served service. The OpenSSH group had plenty of time to register any domains they wanted. What if the real SSH group wants the openssh.com domain? Would you, Mr. Bertrand, be so giving and just surrender it?

Now comes the discussion of openssh.org's web site, "The OpenSSH.ORG web site currently is a blank page with a link to the official site."

Ok, this is somewhat true. Going to openssh.org, you are presented with a link to www.openssh.org. But Mr. Bertrand, did you really stop reading there and not see a few blank lines below (9 lines if you telnetted to port 80)? From openssh.org's page I quote, "For information about OpenBSD' OpenSSH implementation please goto..." and they link to the OpenSSH group's web site, openssh.com. This ommission is purely ridiculous, Mr. Bertrand.

Finally, Mr. Bertrand pushes one of the hottest buttons in the community, privacy. "This is more than just a request to boycott: there could be privacy issues, possibly data mining or building a mailing list of security conscious users. We simply don't know Mr. de Joode's motives, and we recommend caution." Hmm, a very strong accusation. None of us like being spammed, tracked where we go, etc. So, I asked myself, "What data mining is openssh.org doing?"

Let's take a gander at the HTML source code. This site is afterally a mere two pages. There could be some JavaScript performing some hidden actions users won't see when just using Netscape (or other JavaScript enabled browsers). And there it is, plain HTML. What?! No fancy, shmancy Netscape Composer, FrontPage or other editor META tags? No META tags at all to con search engines to pointing to them instead of openssh.com. I find it refreshing that someone else codes HTML in plain, simple HTML. But I see nothing hidden here.

Ok, but I have my Netscape set to just accept all cookies. I could have been slipped one of those and now they have access to my whole hard drive, right (I'm kidding, of course)? Let's give the Netscape cookies file a good grepping, shall we?

316-1 Mon/11:55pm ~> grep -i ssh .netscape/cookies
317-1 Mon/11:56pm ~>

Hmm, exactly zero references to anything SSH related. I still haven't found any maliciousness. What about the "building a mailing list" bit? I've seen many sites with "Click here to receive our free newsletter" sort of links. No doubt many of them then give out your email address to every spammer in the universe. Is there any similar line in these web pages? Not that I can see, the bottom of the second page does contain a simple "For more information about freessh.org, please contact:" mailto link. I haven't sent an email to that address yet, so I can't say if it's a secret email net. But since I'm sending this analysis to Mr. Bertrand, I'll send one to that address as well with a brand new email address. If I get spammed there, I'll know who's to blame. If openssh.org really is using this link to catch people for a spam list, I must sahe's doing a poor job of it. At least claim you can get free porn if you send an email. ;)

In closing, as Mr. Bertrand says "Any help or suggestions in breaking the deadlock are appreciated.", so I say, Mr. Bertrand, I sincerely hope you recosider your position, because well, it has no leg to stand on. A) You registered the .COM ten days prior to Mr. de Joode registered the .ORG one. That is a right-out lie, never a good thing to have right out the starting gate. I will ask, how do you base your allegation of data mining and mail list gathering? If it is also a lie, that's doubly bad. B) Openssh.org is not using the domain for squatting (there isn't a "Pay $10,000US if you want this domain" message like we've all seen so many times). It is about free SSH programs, perfectly reasonable and on target. C) Mr. de Joode provides links on both of it's web pages to openssh.com. Any users looking for it will easily see that and go to the appropriate web site.

If a reasonable agreement between these two parties is made, that's great, but to seek out the outrage of the free software communities by deceiving them like this is not the way to go about it. I sincerely hope you reconsider your position Mr. Bertrand.

Thank you.
John Corey

Copies sent to both Mr. Bertrand and Mr. de Joode.

This statement is being made about the UCITA as well, I think that the gist of the argument is this: Open source projects often need to be able to compete against entreched programs such as Microsoft Word. Using this as an example, a Linux office suite is created, which will read and modify Word files. This Linux software is used to promote Linux as a viable office workstation solution (no need to worry about your office being incompatible with other offices/old documents). Microsoft sees this and decides to encrypt their file format. Now, to be compatible, you would first have to defeat the encryption, but doing do is now illegal. Because Microsoft already has x amount of the word processor market, no one wants to use something that is not compatible, but nothing can be made which is compatible. Translate this to any program which works on data files, and you can see that this could certainly be a problem for getting things like Linux adopted.

This article by Richard Stallman has the situation described well.

Foxfire

Those who can, do. Those who can't, apparently wind up somewhere in Congress.

Is here (http://linuxtoday.com/stories/12846.html).

Richard Stallman wrote about these proposals last November in Linux today.

Chris

--

This was posted in this article on Linux Today. The ZDNet article referenced within can be found here.

This was posted in this article on Linux Today. The ZDNet article referenced within can be found here.

Dr. Jakob Nielsen

In a recent amazon.com interview you said that one of the aims of your new book Designing web usability: the practice of simplicity is to "Make the Internet easy to use: if we want to build a new economy, we have to make it simple and pleasant for normal people". What then are your thoughts on amazon's 1-Click and affiliate patents?

PS: After reading the rms boycott call I cancelled my amazon.com order for your book, and got it for US$5 less with a books.com discount thru B&N.

Seems to me that it's an MS rumour which they spread regularly ...

-- Neil

Seems to me that it's an MS rumour which they spread regularly ...

-- Neil

Seems to me that it's an MS rumour which they spread regularly ...

-- Neil

For a nice summary, see http://linuxtoday.com/stories/15936.html >

It may be updated periodically, thus rendering this link obselete, tho'.

Enjoy. (Yes, TV Card support may be easier, the article says... ;-)

_______________________________

My favorite change going into 2.4 is the halving of the filesystem caching structures. Instead of a read buffer and a write buffer, there is a single buffer. That makes the buffering data files use far less memory. Systems like mine will benefit greatly from this because the key to good performance at my site is getting all the game files in memory to avoid the awful penalty of disk IO. ;)

Other changes are detailed in a story over on Linuxtoday.

My favorite change going into 2.4 is the halving of the filesystem caching structures. Instead of a read buffer and a write buffer, there is a single buffer. That makes the buffering data files use far less memory. Systems like mine will benefit greatly from this because the key to good performance at my site is getting all the game files in memory to avoid the awful penalty of disk IO. ;)

Other changes are detailed in a story over on Linuxtoday.

Actually, this is not about open or closed-source software at all. It's about making a distinction between shrink-wrapped distributed software and otherwise distributed software.

It does not even change a lot for shrink-wrapped software: most EULA's already waiver all liability and have odd clauses. The damning part of the UCITA is that liability is default and without a shrink-wrapped distribution you cannot dismiss that liability and distribute "as is".

Perhaps you should not be so lazy and read the text, or Richard M. Stallman's reaction to the UCITA.

This will take away consumer *and* developer rights. And there will be no turning to free software because the UCITA could possibly make some of the foundations of the bazaar model or open source idealism impossible or illegal.

if the battle in the courts right now over DVD is lost it WILL hurt. Yes, I know the code is out there and it can never be repealed but there is more going on than that!

If the courts rule that, according to the DMCA, the reverse engineering that was done to create the DeCSS code is illegal then nobody can ever use it to create a commercial DVD player (in the US) without 1) doing do illegally or 2) paying licensing fees. Not only that, but it also sets a strong legal precendent for reverse engineering other things like DVD audio.

Without being able to legally reverse engineer DVD's nobody is going to be able to make and sell DVD players or DVD content without paying some licensing fees. That hurts! It gives a tremendous amount of money and control the the media monguls who control DVD.

Ten years from now when DVD software still costs money or is in the underground it should start to be clear how "this will effect you." And heaven forbid you should actually be trying to break into the movie business with a startup company of your own without paying license fees to create your DVD's.

I think now is a great time to try and get this legislation changed. Certainly the sooner the better.

That is all.
-Derek

P.S. This article explains it much better than I have.

It isn't too hard to see this as a way to sue the writers of free
software, without being able to sue commercial distributors of
software, as Stallman argued in linux today.

Lastly UCITA doesn't explicitly introduce measures against reverse
engineering, but the kind of clauses UCITA allows manufacturers to
introduce into their software explicitly include restrictions on use,
and so it is feared manufacturers could forbid reverse engineering of
their products. I don't think this would hold: there are federal laws
explicitly permitting reverse engineering of software, which
autmoatically overrides UCITA, but this only increases the ease with
which bullying lawsuits may be made.

The UCITA affects Open Source/GPL/etc. software as well. Check out this article by Stallman:

http://linuxtoday.com/stories/15948.html

We who are informed about the TRUE (read: not mainstream, 'hyped-up') nature of computers have an obligation to speak up about this. If you've heard about this, and have gotten angry, or felt shocked that anyone could even CONSIDER the ideas set forth in UCITA, it is your responsibility not just to write to the appropriate legislators, but also to write to newspapers, and magazines. Inform your friends and co-workers about this! Encourage them to read Stallman's article @ Linuxtoday.com

We must increase the public's knowledge of this issue. We MUST take a stand now.

Is this what you were looking for?:

http://linuxtoday.com/stories/16220.html

if so, click here

And second, what kind of architecture - software and hardware -can do for this Internet generation what the Net protocols did for the last one?

I beleive the hardware which will encourage freedom in the "second Internet generation" has to be by far free or very low cost PCs. At the present, there are many people with PCs and Internet access, but still the majority does not have a PC or Internet access (barring public terminals, libraries, etc). I beleive once more people start to get a PC and get onto the Internet, they will begin to realize what is out there for them (on the Internet) and how they will be able to find almost anything they could ever dream of. There are some folks (governments in particular) which wish to limit the free flow of ideas and information on the Internet, and the more people who get on the Internet and find out the limitless amount of ideas, information and content available to them, the more new Internet users (hopefuly) will pay attention to what they have to lose when laws and "innovations" (such as SDMI or UCITA) are introduced.

The software which will help ensure freedom in the "second Internet generation" would be, of course, OSS solutions. Along with my theme of low cost PCs, free, readily available and reliable operating systems (Linux, *BSD, etc) are available at the present. Combine Linux with a low cost PC and Internet access, and consumers could be on the Internet with a $300 PC and $10/month Internet access (or $400 for 3 years of Internet access and a PC from some offers I've seen). $400 is a price I realistically feel many consumers can afford, as opposed to 2 or 3 years ago when consumers would have to spend at least $1500 for a PC with a modem and $25/month for Internet access.

My second answer to the "software" question would be free Intenet access. At the present, most free acess providers are limited in the OSes they support (Windows NT or 9x). However, if free service providers supply Linux clients, not only do they increase their customer base, but help more people discover what this whole "Intenet" thing they've been missing is. If you have a Windows PC and and no Internet access (how are you reading this?!), there are plenty of free access providers available (a good list can be seen here on Yahoo!). Personally, I would rather pay for Inernet access since I can't stand advertising, but if you live with some banners on your screen, it's a splendid deal.

The protocols which will help the second generation Internet thrive will be IP v6. Not only is it an open protocol available for all OSes, vendors and individuals to use, but it also comes with other features such as built in encryption which helps to keep what someone wants to be private, well, private.

One problem with my ideas is that history has shown that the majority of people don't keep up on proposed and new laws, nor do they research what they buy before it's too late. I quick and easy example of this would be the low voter turnout each year.

The other issue is that, as much as we hate to admit it, Linux has a ways to go for usability. I've seen the "My grandma can use Linux!" discussion many times before here on Slashdot, but I feel installation, configuration, GUIs and easy ways to update the OS (to add new features and patch bugs) need to be improved before Linux will be the OS of choice for first time PC users.

So, in summary, PCs, OSes and Internet access which are at low or no cost will help more people to get onto the Internet, see all of the wonders it has to offer, and hopefuly realize what we all have to lose in the future if we do not protect the freedoms we have now.

Read this for more.

Start your own. No one here will stop you. It's what Rob and Jeff did, it's what Scoop did, it's what Joe P. did, it's what the guys behind Themes.org did. Hey, even Bruce did it, and he had some money already.

Unless VA or Andover somehow make it so that people can't visit my site, I won't worry.

--

Obviously this story is of very limited general interest. This isn't news. What we have
is a truth that dare not speak its name -- the ongoing decline of Freebsd. You know it's not
politically correct to say so. We all must pretend that the Freebsd isn't in a tailspin. In stark
contrast, check out the success stories at Linux Today or BeNews.

What is it that we notice? We notice a surge of interest and third party support for both BeOS
and Linux. But look at Freebsd news -- it is not news at all but self-generated press releases
and vanity stories. Contrast that with ascending systems like Linux. More real independent
news appears in one day about Linux than appears in a year about all the BSDs combined.
That is indisputable fact.

We should all recognize that Nik Clayton who posted this story is really not an impartial
observer. Clayton is not even a journalist. He is a member of the Freebsd organization who only
posts Freebsd press releases. But he won't tell you that. Even when burdened with his known
reputation for dishonesty he wants you to believe that the press releases are "news". You can
write to Clayton at his real mail address: nik@freebsd.org. He's not fooling anyone, this master
of deceit.

It's high time that journalistic integrity is restored to Slashdot. The blatant dishonesty
and conflict of interest as epitomized by Nik Clayton would not be tolerated in any legitimate
media organization. When we read Slashdot, we no longer can assume what we read was selected
for its news value, or whether it is a press release charade crafted by those pandering to some
fringe element.

Obviously this story is of very limited general interest. This isn't news. What we have
is a truth that dare not speak its name -- the ongoing decline of Freebsd. You know it's not
politically correct to say so. We all must pretend that the Freebsd isn't in a tailspin. In stark
contrast, check out the success stories at Linux Today or BeNews.

What is it that we notice? We notice a surge of interest and third party support for both BeOS
and Linux. But look at Freebsd news -- it is not news at all but self-generated press releases
and vanity stories. Contrast that with ascending systems like Linux. More real independent
news appears in one day about Linux than appears in a year about all the BSDs combined.
That is indisputable fact.

We should all recognize that Nik Clayton who posted this story is really not an impartial
observer. Clayton is not even a journalist. He is a member of the Freebsd organization who only
posts Freebsd press releases. But he won't tell you that. He want's you to believe that the
press releases are "news". You can write to Nik at his real email address: nik@freebsd.org.
He's not fooling anyone.

It's high time that journalistic integrity is restored to Slashdot. The blatant dishonesty
and conflict of interest as epitomized by Nik Clayton would not be tolerated in any legitimate
media organization. When we read Slashdot, we no longer can assume what we read was selected
for its news value, or whether it is a press release charade crafted by those pandering to some
fringe element.

It stands for Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act.

Check out www.badsoftware.com or www.2bguide.com. Also, look at the bottom of the article for links. It even gives the e-mail address of someone to contact if you want to help.

Obviously this story is of very limited general interest. This is hardly news. What we have
is a truth that dare not speak its name -- the ongoing decline of Freebsd. You know it's not
politically correct to say so. We all must pretend that the Freebsd isn't in a tailspin. In stark
contrast, check out the success stories at Linux Today or BeNews.

What is it that we notice? We notice a surge of interest and third party support for both BeOS
and Linux. But look at Freebsd news - it is not news at all but self-generated press releases
and vanity stories. Contrast that with ascending systems like Linux. More real independent
news appears in one day about Linux than appears in a year about all the BSDs combined.
That is indisputable fact.

We should all recognize that Nik Clayton who posted this story is really not an impartial
observer. He is not even a journalist. He is a member of the Freebsd organization who only
posts Freebsd press releases. But he won't tell you that. He want's you to believe that the
press releases are "news". You can write to Nik at his REAL email address: nik@freebsd.org.
He's not fooling anyone.

It's high time that journalistic integrity is restored to Slashdot. The blatant dishonesty
and conflict of interest as epitomized by Nik Clayton would not be tolerated in any legitimate
media organization. When we read Slashdot, we no longer can assume what we read was selected
for its news value, or whether it is a press release charade crafted by those pandering to some
fringe element.

Obviously this story is of very limited general interest. This is phony news. What we have
is a truth that dare not speak its name - the ongoing decline of Freebsd. You know it's not
politically correct to say so. We all must pretend that the Freebsd isn't in a tailspin. In stark
contrast, check out the success stories at Linux Today or BeNews.

What is it that we notice? We notice a surge of interest and third party support for both BeOS
and Linux. But look at Freebsd news -- it is not news at all but self-generated press releases
and vanity stories. Contrast that with ascending systems like Linux. More real independent
news appears in one day about Linux than appears in a year about all the BSDs combined.
That is indisputable fact.

We should all recognize that Nik Clayton who posted this story is really not an impartial
observer. He is not even a journalist. He is a member of the Freebsd organization who only
posts Freebsd press releases. But he won't tell you that. He want's you to believe that the
press releases are "news". You can write to Nik at his real email address: nik@freebsd.org.
He's not fooling anyone.

It's high time that journalistic integrity is restored to Slashdot. The blatant dishonesty
and conflict of interest as epitomized by Nik Clayton would not be tolerated in any legitimate
media organization. When we read Slashdot, we no longer can assume what we read was selected
for its news value, or whether it is a press release charade crafted by those pandering to some
fringe element.

What is it that we notice? We notice a surge of interest and third party support for both BeOS and Linux. But look at Freebsd news -- it is not news at all but self-generated press releases and vanity stories. Contrast that with ascending systems like Linux. More real independent news appears in one day about Linux than appears in a year about all the BSDs combined. That is indisputable fact.

We should all recognize that Nik Clayton who posted this story is really not an impartial observer. He is not even a journalist. He is a member of the Freebsd organization who only posts Freebsd press releases. But he won't tell you that. He want's you to believe that the press releases are "news". You can write to Nik at his real email address: nik@freebsd.org. He's not fooling anyone.

It's high time that journalistic integrity is restored to Slashdot. The blatant dishonesty and conflict of interest as epitomized by Nik Clayton would not be tolerated in any legitimate media organization. When we read Slashdot, we no longer can assume what we read was selected for its news value, or whether it is a press release charade crafted by those pandering to some fringe element.

For an alternative, Tuxtops is now taking preorders for Linux on Laptops, with an expected ship date of February 15th.

A note on pricing, from a somewhat informed view - while Linux is free, there are costs associated with it. The LinuxCare certification, for one. We're in the process of certification right now. It costs $1000/system for a one-time certification, or $10000/system for a lifetime certification, where they'll test upgrades periodically. (I think the second is more useful for a company without a lot of in-house Linux talent.)

Additionally, we've got a deal to offer a free hour of LinuxCare support with our laptops, which costs us $50/system. I'm pretty sure Dell has a similar deal - maybe a better price, since they have more volume, but it's likely comparable to their windows cost. Of course, they don't need to pay support staff for Linux, either. I don't know if they pay MS for systems shipped with Linux as part of a blanket deal. (I do know that we don't pay MS anything at all.)

Why are we better? I haven't yet had my hands on a Dell Linux setup, so I don't know if the product is better or not. Dell has a good reputation and some Linux experience from desktops, so I expect them to be reasonably comparable technically. We ship with things like X, Sound, IR support, and APM working out of the box - I'd be surprised if Dell didn't.

What we _do_ plan on doing, that I doubt dell does, is contributing back to the Open Source community. We want to fund projects that are released under the GPL, including device drivers and good support for winmodems, as well as software that improves mobile computing for linux like a good location manager. We want to offer non-Red Hat distributions - some flavor of Debian, first, in the near future. We'd like to offer a BSD flavor, eventually.

You can read our press release on Linux Today.

What is it that we notice? We notice a surge of interest and third party support for both BeOS and Linux. But look at Freebsd news -- it is not news at all but self-generated press releases and vanity stories. Contrast that with ascending systems like Linux. More real independent news appears in one day about Linux than appears in a year of all the BSDs combined. That is indisputable fact.

We must all recognize that Nik Clayton who posted this story is really not an impartial observer. Clayton is not even a journalist. He is a member of the Freebsd organization who essentially only posts Freebsd press releases. But he won't tell you that. He wants you to believe that the press releases are "news". You can write to Nik at his real email address: nik@freebsd.org. He's not fooling anyone.

It is high time that journalistic integrity is restored to Slashdot. The blatant dishonesty and conflict of interest as epitomized by Nik Clayton would not be tolerated in any legitimate media organization. When we read Slashdot, we no longer can assume what we read was selected for its news value, or whether it is a press release charade crafted by those pandering to some fringe element.

What is it that we notice? We notice a surge of interest and third party support for both BeOS and Linux. But look at Freebsd news -- it is not news at all but self-generated press releases and vanity stories. Contrast that with ascending systems like Linux. More real independent news appears in one day about Linux than appears in a year of all the BSDs combined. That is indisputable fact.

We must all recognize that Nik Clayton who posted this story is really not an impartial observer. He is not even a journalist. He is a member of the Freebsd organization who essentially only posts Freebsd press releases. But he won't tell you that. He wants you to believe that the press releases are "news". You can write to Nik at his real email address: nik@freebsd.org. He's not fooling anyone.

It is high time that journalistic integrity is restored to Slashdot. The blatant dishonesty and conflict of interest as epitomized by Nik Clayton would not be tolerated in any legitimate media organization. When we read Slashdot, we no longer can assume what we read was selected for its news value, or whether it is a press release charade crafted by those pandering to some fringe element.

What is it that we notice? We notice a surge of interest and third party support for both BeOS and Linux. But look at Freebsd news -- it is not news at all but self-generated press releases and vanity stories. Contrast that with ascending systems like Linux. More real independent news appears in one day about Linux than appears in a year of all the BSDs combined. That is indisputable fact.

We should all recognize that Nik Clayton who posted this story is really not an impartial observer. He is not even a journalist. He is a member of the Freebsd organization who essentially only posts Freebsd press releases. But he won't tell you that. He wants you to believe that the press releases are "news". You can write to Nik at his real email address: nik@freebsd.org. He's not fooling anyone.

It is high time that journalistic integrity is restored to Slashdot. The blatant dishonesty and conflict of interest as epitomized by Nik Clayton would not be tolerated in any legitimate media organization. When we read Slashdot, we no longer can assume what we read was selected for its news value, or whether it is a press release charade crafted by those pandering to the fringe element.

What is it that we notice? We notice a surge of interest and third party support for both BeOS and Linux. But look at Freebsd news -- it is not news at all but self-generated press releases and vanity stories. Contrast that with ascending systems like Linux. More real independent news appears in one day about Linux than appears in a year about all the BSDs combined. That is indisputable fact.

We should all recognize that Nik Clayton who posted this story is really not an impartial observer. He is not even a journalist. He is a member of the Freebsd organization who essentially only posts Freebsd press releases. But he won't tell you that. He wants you to believe that the press releases are "news". You can write to Nik at his real email address: nik@freebsd.org. He's not fooling anyone.

It's high time that journalistic integrity is restored to Slashdot. The blatant dishonesty and conflict of interest as epitomized by Nik Clayton would not be tolerated in any legitimate media organization. When we read Slashdot, we no longer can assume what we read was selected for its news value, or whether it is a press release charade crafted by those pandering to the fringe element.