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Here's some relevant US Code:

http://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap/dars/dfars/html/curren t/225_1.htm

Some items are purchased from qualifying foreign countries: http://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap/dars/dfars/html/curren t/225_8.htm#225.872

Anyone see China on the list of qualifying countries? Cause I sure didn't.

And none of these companies look foreign to me, let alone Chinese, but maybe that's just what the Chinese want us to think.

Of course it's a lot more fun to run around waving our hands in the air. Sorry I interrupted.

I googled a bit and found that this is not exactly true. Scroll to Question #10.

Although, from the link: "The radioactive contaminants increase the radiation dose from the DU itself by less than 1 percent, which is considered insignificant.".

Yep. Turtles all the way down.
I forsee a split between the www 'wild, wild, west' and private networks that you pay real cash money and have a smart card with certificates on it to play (or some variation on the military theme you see here), just so the wheat is available, and you can surf the chaff if you want to.
One wonders if some marketing twit won't tie these ideas to IPv6, as a forcing function to sell that technology to an otherwise indifferent market.

But if we're in such a time of peace, why is our army more taxed than at any time DURING the Cold War?

Because during the cold war the Military recieved adequate funding for what it was required to do and had sufficient personel. After the fall of the Soviet Union congress cut back on the number of personell in the military. (Number of personell in the military is regulated by congress directly, the military has no direct power in the matter). Here is a PDF showing a graph of active duty personnel from 1950-2002. It shows that the Army was cut from close to 800K in the late 80s to around 500K around 1996. Similar cuts occured in the Navy and Marines.

Since then, the military has been assigned to do more with less men. That is why our army is so taxed.

USAF C-23 Sherpa
USCG HH-65A Dolphin (Dauphin)
Sony
Panasonic Toughbook
Software for the F-35 Strike Fighter (p.17)
Fox NBC Rec Vehicle

Not huge projects, but not inconsequential, either.

I don't agree that someone who is passionate about video games is inherently suffering from arrested development

Oh, I dunno, I would expect adults to desire more meaning out of their jobs.

Speaking of which - your journal entry about the rejection letter: [...] Sometimes it's just about a fit of the team, and how it gels, and if someone doesn't fit, then that's the way it goes.

And how on Earth did they figure that out so quickly? Years ago I remember seeing an SBIR (sorry, can't find it now) where the military asked for help designing a psychological screening protocol that could detect which soldiers would succeed and which would become disciplinary problems and so on. I think these people, with their apparent superior skills in this area, should track down that SBIR and go become filthy rich! Unless they're just faking it. To me, their stated reasons are obvious BS.

It feels like you're looking for someone to blame for that [...] but just let it go :)

Sorry, but after 2+ years of unemployment, and overly generic & inexplicable rejection letters, and that whole life-falling-apart thing, I'm pissed. Being a nerd is hard enough...but a poor, unemployed nerd? No wonder I look forward to the end of civilization.

Driving to work this morning (in Australia) the discussion on the radio was about the half trillion USD current account deficit and the half trillion USD budget deficit. Using my basic maths but woeful understabding of economics this still adds up to a lot of money the US owes. That some high paid US citizens now have their desperately needed tax cuts (after all, new cars are expensive - not to mention Country Club dues) I guess the rest of you will just have to work a bit harder to pay it off. :(

On reading about the missile test failure earlier today I was prompted to go and visit the MDA website http://www.acq.osd.mil/mda/mdalink/html/mdalink.ht ml to see what spin they put on it. Frankly, for the cost of this supposed program one would have expected a better website!

Seriously though you are right to criticise the cost and waste. That our (Australian) government has signed us up to participate in this program makes me even more depressed.

Repeated studies and analysis by the AAS and US physicists shows the futility of most of the current MDA program. Still, somebody is obviously benefitting from it. Downgrading the NSF grants may eventually get rid of those pesky physicists involved in non-defence research so the criticism will go away.

Note that these are year 2000 U.S. dollars.

Depleted uranium dust is only dangerous if inhaled or ingested, and the dust forms particles large and heavy enough that it settles out of the atmosphere quickly. This is just another example of environmentalist propaganda that isn't based on fact.

(A little light reading on the subject)

Interesting. I didn't know nicotine was that lethal. A google search found several sites that confirm that 50mg number.

Anyway, I did some more digging about Sarin. Here are some more numbers.

A "lethal" dose of sarin (50% would die with that exposure) is 100 mg-min/cu.m. This means that while resting, if you inhaled air with a concentration of 100mg of sarin per cubic meter for 1 minute, you would probably die. It is cumulative, so the same goes with a 50mg per cubic meter concentration for 2 minutes, or 25mg for 4 minites, etc. If you were exercising or breathing heavier, then the concentrations would be lower.

So if my calculations are correct, if this 6kg of sarin was fully mixed and evenly dispursed across 60,000 cubic meters (I know- it wouldn't), it would kill 50% of the people within those 60,000 cubic meters (or everybody within about 30 meters of the detonation) if they breathed it for 1 minute.

I believe the correct US Army term for that is 'GI proofing' the weapon.

"GI proofing" is more about protecting the weapon itself (and it's operator), than other people.

For example, in the original Gulf War, the biggest losses of Abrams tanks was not due to enemy fire, not to friendly fire, but to ammunition detonation after someone had parked and left the heater on.

And then we have the tired DU arguement, when there is NO science whatsoever suggesting any significant danger from DU rounds. Men place those rounds into A-10 Warthogs and AC-130 Gunships every fucking day, and I dont see airmen dropping dead in numbers. Do you? No. Read up on Depleted Uranium before spouting off, why dont you?>

But, hey, never let the facts get in the way of your alarmist nonsense, when its all you have, hell you've got another election to lose! Sorry dude, but you are going to have to come up with another method of scaring voters into voting for your side. The facts dont help you at all.

Nope, it's usually multi-layered and dim and wet and dampness poses one of the biggest problems for gear, generally. The thickness of the cover not only makes solar-power really impossible, but makes getting a GIS signal generally impossible, too. If someone makes it possible, a lot of us would be ecstatic. NASA gives a hand and remote sensing helps, but under a canopy as dense as rainforest can be is about as remote as you can get these days, where satellite at least makes it possible to establish contact with something in the middle of deserts and oceans.

Try some information from other sources (follow the links) which aren't devoted to grinding a single axe.

If you want to see the newpaper he reads go to early bird.

Unfortunately, this kind of thing still starts in the military world. The DoD has been developing requirements for Network Centric Warfare (NCW). Basically turning warfare interfaces into a RTS game like StarCraft, C&C, complete with fog-of-war, semi-autonomous units, comm & data sharing, etc. On the technical side, this is manifesting itself as Command, Control, Communications, Computer, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) architecture. One of the first actual implementations is being worked in in the form of Future Combat Systems (FCS).

These are complex systems, so the DoD has been maturing development of modeling & simulation interoperability by making contractors adhere to High Level Architecture (HLA) so they can properly analyze these systems before deploying them. HLA basically provides a lot of the same data object registration, distribution, and interfaces that older tech like CORBA does, with extra simulation concepts.

These technologies are being commercialized under the buzzwords "Nework Centric Operations" (NCO) and "Network Enabled Operations" (NEO). Advocates usually point to well networked operations like Wal-mart, UPS, et al. as poster children for what could be done (automatic restocking, package tracking, load balancing & route optimization, etc.) with enough NEO infrastructure. A lot of the interchange standards (including C4ISR) are getting established through bodies like the OMG. Other than the interchange standards, there's not all that much new tech involved... maybe RFIDs and various other networking tech (grid/mesh networks, strong encryption/authentication, mobile IP, etc.). Most if it just involves looking at technology that already exists and figuring out how to piece it together to actually do something worthwhile.

Disclaimer: I work for one of the gov't contractors throwing all these buzzwords around.

They also did it in real life. Putting out those fires was nontrivial, to say the least.

While the US presence in europe undoubtedly has helped prevent europe from self destructing into war (again) another factor is the increased co-operation and the knowledge of what another world war would due to Europe. Europe seems content with the idea of preserving each individual countries unique

Saying that European countries do not possess formidable armies is wrong. Germany and France both maintain armies of comparable size to the US' and comparable equipment. Now, air force and navy is quite another matter. They also rely almost wholly upon the US for all their military R&D needs, especially aircraft and high technology weapons systems. In that respect, yes, the US does prop them up a bit. But as of currently, iirc, the US maintains only 2 divisons in Europe plus air and naval forces of course.

Indeed, most military sucess' of the UN have come with US forces involved, most often heavily. This is somewhat due to the fact that only the United States has the resources and equipment necassary to project force on a worldwide scale. No other country in the world can do this.

Pilot's traning may be crucial in situations like this .

Ideally, we'd be able to squirt in some reactive power when needed, but until a few years ago, the electronics for doing so didn't exist. MCTs are getting bigger and faster all the time, which will allow a more graceful response to overloads than throwing the Big Switch.

There is a research proposal on this and other interesting things. While I abhor the military focus, there may be useful scientific or civilian uses of this technology (e.g. energy storage for space propulsion systems).

I have got another list for you. Unfortunately, the lamness filter won't let me list all the biological weapons Ronald Reagan sold to Saddam Hussein, but if you need more you can se a longer list here.

Date: May 2, 1986
Sent to: Ministry of Higher Education
Materials Shipped:

1. Bacillus Anthracis Cohn (ATCC 10)
Batch # 08-20-82 (2 each)
Class III pathogen.

2. Bacillus Subtitles (Ehrenberg) Con (ATCC 82)
Batch # 06-20-84 (2 each)

3. Clostridium botulinum Type A (ATCC 3502)
Batch# 07-07-81 (3 each)
Class III Pathogen

4. Clostridium perfringens (Weillon and Zuber) Hauduroy, et al (ATCC 3624)
Batch# 10-85SV (2 each)

5. Bacillus subtilis (ATCC 6051)
Batch# 12-06-84 (2 each)

6. Francisella tularensis var. tularensis Olsufiev (ATCC 6223)
Batch# 05-14-79 (2 each)
Avirulent; suitable for preparations of diagnostic antigens.

7. Clostridium tetani (ATCC 9441)
Batch 03-94 (3 each)
Highly toxigenic.

8. Clostridium botulinum Type E (ATCC 9564)
Batch# 03-02-79 (2 each)
Class III pathogen

9. Clostridium tetani (ATCC 10779)
Batch# 04-24-84S (3 each)

10. Clostridium perfringens (ATCC 12916)
Batch# 08-14-80 (2 each)
Agglutinating Type 2.

11. Clostridium perfringens (ATCC 13124)
Batch# 08-14-80 (3 each)
Type A, alpha-toxigenic, produces lecithinase C.J. Appl,

12. Bacillus Anthracis (ATCC 14185)
Batch# 01-14-80 (3 each)
G.G. Wright (Fort Detrick) V770-NPI-R. Bovine anthrax,
Class III pathogen

13. Bacillus Anthracis (ATCC 14578)
Batch# 01-06-78 (2 each)
Class III pathogen.

14. Bacillus megaterium (ATCC 14581)
Batch# 04-18-85 (2 each)

15. Bacillus megaterium (ATCC 14945)
Batch# 06-21-81 (2 each)

16. Clostridium botulinum Type E (ATCC 17855)
Batch# 06-21-71
Class III pathogen.

Depends on what you mean by "un-breathable." It's unbreathable in the same way that nitrogen is unbreathable, but I've managed to survive for a few decades breathing approximately 80% nitrogen/20% oxygen.

this means that if someone is in the house when the system releases its gas, that that person/animal is dead. it starves the air of oxygen.

No, that's not true. As the OSHA says, "Not acutely toxic at <10% by volume" and "Generally used at <7% by volume." The National Fire Protection Association agrees, stating that a concentration of 5 percent Halon in air is sufficient for most flame extinguishment. It doesn't work by removing oxygen from the air--CO2 and nitrogen flood systems do that. It works by actively interfering with the chain reaction of a flame.

As the OSHA site mentions, there are some downsides... breathing 15% or so for a couple of minutes might cause some irregular heartbeats in some people. Also, Halon decomposes into hydrofluoric acid and hydrobromic acid when it's exposed to fire. But then again, it'll put out the fire almost instantly (halon will even stop an explosion in progress)--the minute quantities of HF and HBr are much better than the large quantities of other toxic gasses that burning things put out.

But the bottom line is that no, you won't die if the Halon system goes off in a room you're in. I've heard that when Halon was first introduced, they'd demo it by putting a guy in a closed room and have him light a cigarette and candle, then dump in the Halon. The cigarette and candle would go out, and the guy would be in there with no ill effects.

Here is the description of the ABL system from the FY2002 defense budget (the applicable 2004 budget is not out yet). ABL is part of Missle Defense Agency's Boost Phase Segment.

AIR-BASED BOOST
The Airborne Laser (ABL) Block 2008 is an existing project line that will design, build and test an air-based laser weapon system to acquire, track and kill ballistic missiles in their boost phase. This weapon system integrates three major subsystems (Laser, Beam Control and Battle Management, Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (BM/C4I)) into a modified commercial Boeing 747-400F aircraft. It also includes ABL-specific ground support equipment. The ABL program definition and risk reduction contract was awarded to the Boeing/TRW/Lockheed-Martin team in November 1996, to design, fabricate, integrate, and test an ABL aircraft with a laser device providing approximately half the projected power of the production version. This phase culminates in lethality (missile shoot-down) demonstrations against boosting ballistic missile threat-representative targets in CY 2003. Two full power aircraft, one prototype and one production, are to be delivered by FY 2009 as part of an initial operational capability (two full power ABL plus one half power ABL). Procurement of the remaining full power aircraft will be completed by FY 2011.

This has much less to do with ICBM (usually Nuclear)

The ABL has been mentioned as an eventual component in not just Theater Missile Defense (over a battlefield), but also the National Missile Defense system.

The intent is to keep these aircraft flying continual patrols from a base in South Korea. If sensors (on another aircraft, also continually patrolling) detect a blast like an ICBM takeoff, the laser will be fired at the rocket.

It's called Boost Phase Intercept.

Only if a rocket evades the ABL is will interceptor "kinetic-kill vehicles" be fired at it. (This is the NMD component whose questionable testing procedures have been been all over the news)

6. Government End Users. If you are acquiring the Software on behalf of any unit or agency of the United States Government, the following provisions apply. The Government agrees:

(i) if the Software is supplied to the Department of Defense (DoD), the Software is classified as "Commercial Computer Software" and the Government is acquiring only "restricted rights" in the Software and its documentation as that term is defined in Clause 252.227-7013(c)(1) of the DFARS; and

(ii) if the Software is supplied to any unit or agency of the United States Government other than DoD, the Government's rights in the Software and its documentation will be as defined in Clause 52.227-19(c)(2) of the FAR or, in the case of NASA, in Clause 18-52.227-86(d) of the NASA Supplement to the FAR.

Perhaps Al Qaida would see bio-weapons research as too expensive, much like nuclear weapons research. But other nations (hint: Iraq) have the budget and the manpower to pay for mass-production facilities, as well as the movitation (increasing military ergo political power).

I don't think they're afraid of terrorist organizations replicating their research. I think they're afraid of Iraq or someone else doing that, then selling or giving the weapons to terrorist organizations.

Sorry dude, but the biological weapons Bush 1 sold to Iraq is probably enough for a lot of people to start bashing his whole family, including Bush 2.

Oh yeah, and if Saddam uses some of the anthrax he bought from Reagan and Bush 1, I will definitely bash Bush 2 when he responds with a 'nukular' bomb.

Can you imagine what it would be like if the third world, the Middle East, all of Africa, and some spots across Asia join the fold? I can, I really can, and what a great time that will be. But we'll never get there watching on the sidelines. When the world can rid itself of despot rulers and give people like the Iraqis a future beyond Saddam Hussein's despotic predestination, we'll be closer to preventing war than anyone can imagine.

Well, the rough outline of this document has been posted already, but check it out. A lot of it is bureaucratese, but there are some interesting bits. We (my labmates and I) started looking into this topic last summer, and found data on one of our HDs that was ~2 years old (cached search results for the IE4 installer). The drive had been through at least one erasure and OS install, and the machine had been in fairly regular use since then.

How about this one?

1. Sell anthrax and other biological weapons to Saddam Hussein.
2. Wait a few years.
3. "Discover" that Iraq owns weapons of mass destruction, and start a war against them.
4. Replace their nasty military dictator with a friendly military dictator.
5. Steal their oil.
6. Profit!

No, wait...
There is no "?" in that one.

[The] attitude of the lab to the bunker-buster program was that it was quite positive because it was such a large project that fits into the mission of the lab. The lab wanted the project.

No argument there; from the Physicians for Social Responsibility Activist Update:

former Congresswoman Elisabeth Furse (D-OR) sponsored legislation banning development of nuclear weapons with an explosive yield of less than 5 kilotons in 1993....

Stephen Younger, a senior staffer at Los Alamos National Laboratory, has been arguing publicly that a more flexible, usable nuclear arsenal will be needed to meet threats including terrorism with weapons of mass destruction in the coming century.

See, the problem is, mini-nukes are illegal. The Regents of the University of California tend to appoint people to their labs who are accountable to the law. Since Spencer Abraham couldn't get Browne and Salgado to look the other way and go ahead on the project under wraps, he called them to the carpet on $141,000 worth of barbeque grills. That 's nothing! "As of March 31, 2002, approximately 8,000 Air Force cardholders had over $5 million in delinquent debt" on the travel cards, the GAO said.

If you're interested in other programs that the government is funding, check out this and that. You might get funding for your very own bullshit idea!

Err 1990 calling Slashdot. Its been well over a decade since CFC were used as coolants in refrigerators. Hell the US Goverment have replaced CFC/ODS from ICBMs as it says here and other places.

So while its cool the Ozone bit is already being dealt with.

I still find it funny that something capable of killing millions of people is "Ozone friendly" apart of course from Ionising the atmosphere if it is used!

I pay taxes, don't I? But yes, if this war was being funded directly out of citizen's pockets, instead of through taxation, I'd consider my $1,000 well-invested.

Yeah, if we did not have America, who would then save our butt by supplying Saddam Hussein with anthrax and other biological weapons?

I am damn PROUD that we and the Canunks use the most enegery.. we do the most good for the world too.

1. Sell weapons of mass destruction to a military dictatorship.
2. Ignore them for a while.
3. "Discover" that they have weapons of mass destruction, and attack them to destroy these weapons. Replace the hostile military dictatorship with a friendly military dictatorship.
4. Steal their oil.
5. Profit!

... and the scary part is that there is no "????" paragraph.

1. Sell weapons of mass destruction to a military dictatorship.
2. Ignore them for a while.
3. "Discover" that they have weapons of mass destruction, and attack them to destroy these weapons. Replace the hostile military dictatorship with a friendly military dictatorship.
4. Steal their oil.
5. Profit!

... and the scary part is that there is no "????" paragraph.

It's interesting that they put in a Limosine Liberal, but no Conservative Fat Cat (even though he's most likely to have an extra $1 billion laying around).

It would probably go something like this:

• put $500 million into the lobby for tobacco and oil;
• poured $300 million into acquiring White Sands Missile Range for the NRA;
• added $150 million in campaign contributions for his state and federal elected golfing buddies;
• and spent the last $50 million into raising an All-American Family with Great Values and getting his son a seat on the board at Forbes Magazine.

...oh. Wait. Now I see why they didn't include him...

The Scientific name mentioned in one of the Maryland Marine Notes links articles "Namalycastis abiuma" according to another source (Manual for Watershed Health and Water Quality) is:

Scientific Name: Namalycastis abiuma
Description: Segmented white thread-like worm with pad-like legs on every segment; living in vegetation and leaf litter in streams and ponds. Can reach up to 2 cm.

Although the density of DU makes it good for armor, I believe the reason it is often used for armor piercing shells is its self sharpening property. Unlike lead bullets that mushroom out on impact, DU cleaves off at a certain degree, thus retaining a tip as it travels through the armor. A sharp tip of course concentrates the force, easing pentration. This is illustrated in the same domain as your link

I think they're full of crap about the shell. The reason that Depleted Uranium in tank shells, A-10 bullets, and Tank armor is not because it's particularly strong (it might be, but it's not terribly relevant).

It's because it's the most dense material known to man. Shells made of DU have ridiculous amounts of kinetic energy, and armor made of DU have an unprecidented ability to stop it. Hence, stories like this happen. (link contains general information about the use of DU in M1A1 tanks)

The ``physical source lines of code'' (physical SLOC) measure was used as the primary measure of SLOC in this paper. Less formally, a physical SLOC in this paper is a line with something other than comments and whitespace (tabs and spaces). More specifically, physical SLOC is defined as follows: ``a physical source line of code is a line ending in a newline or end-of-file marker, and which contains at least one non-whitespace non-comment character.'' Comment delimiters (characters other than newlines starting and ending a comment) were considered comment characters. Data lines only including whitespace (e.g., lines with only tabs and spaces in multiline strings) were not included.

Note that the ``logical'' SLOC is not the primary measure used here; one example of a logical SLOC measure would be the ``count of all terminating semicolons in a C file.'' The ``physical'' SLOC was chosen instead of the ``logical'' SLOC because there were so many different languages that needed to be measured. I had trouble getting freely-available tools to work on this scale, and the non-free tools were too expensive for my budget (nor is it certain that they would have fared any better). Since I had to develop my own tools, I chose a measure that is much easier to implement. Park [1992] actually recommends the use of the physical SLOC measure (as a minimum), for this and other reasons. There are disadvantages to the ``physical'' SLOC measure. In particular, physical SLOC measures are sensitive to how the code is formatted. However, logical SLOC measures have problems too. First, as noted, implementing tools to measure logical SLOC is more difficult, requiring more sophisticated analysis of the code. Also, there are many different possible logical SLOC measures, requiring even more careful definition. Finally, a logical SLOC measure must be redefined for every language being measured, making inter-language comparisons more difficult. For more information on measuring software size, including the issues and decisions that must be made, see Kalb [1990], Kalb [1996], and Park [1992].

Note that this required that every file be categorized by language type (so that the correct syntax for comments, strings, and so on could be applied). Also, automatically generated files had to be detected and ignored. Thankfully, my tool ``sloccount'' does this automatically. 2.3 Estimation Models

This decision to use physical SLOC also implied that for an effort estimator I needed to use the original COCOMO cost and effort estimation model (see Boehm [1981]), rather than the newer ``COCOMO II'' model. This is simply because COCOMO II requires logical SLOC as an input instead of physical SLOC.

Basic COCOMO is designed to estimate the time from product design (after plans and requirements have been developed) through detailed design, code, unit test, and integration testing. Note that plans and requirement development are not included. COCOMO is designed to include management overhead and the creation of documentation (e.g., user manuals) as well as the code itself. Again, see Boehm [1981] for a more detailed description of the model's assumptions. Of particular note, basic COCOMO does not include the time to develop translations to other human languages (of documentation, data, and program messages) nor fonts.

There is reason to believe that these models, while imperfect, are still valid for estimating effort in open source / free software projects. Although many open source programs don't need management of human resources, they still require technical management, infrastructure maintenance, and so on. Design documentation is captured less formally in open source projects, but it's often captured by necessity because open source projects tend to have many developers separated geographically. Clearly, the systems must still be programmed. Testing is still done, although as with many of today's proprietary programs, a good deal of testing is done through alpha and beta releases. In addition, quality is enhanced in many open source projects through peer review of submitted code. The estimates may be lower than the actual values because they don't include estimates of human language translations and fonts.

Each software source code package, once uncompressed, produced zero or more ``build directories'' of source code. Some packages do not actually contain source code (e.g., they only contain configuration information), and some packages are collections of multiple separate pieces (each in different build directories), but in most cases each package uncompresses into a single build directory containing the source code for that package. Each build directory had its effort estimation computed separately; the efforts of each were then totalled. This approach assumes that each build directory was developed essentially separately from the others, which in nearly all cases is quite accurate. This approach slightly underestimates the actual effort in the rare cases where the development of the code in separate build directories are actually highly interrelated; this effect is not expected to invalidate the overall results.

For programmer salary averages, I used a salary survey from the September 4, 2000 issue of ComputerWorld; their survey claimed that this annual programmer salary averaged $56,286 in the United States. I was unable to find a publicly-backed average value for overhead, also called the ``wrap rate.'' This value is necessary to estimate the costs of office space, equipment, overhead staff, and so on. I talked to two cost analysts, who suggested that 2.4 would be a reasonable overhead (wrap) rate. Some Defense Systems Management College (DSMC) training material gives examples of 2.3 (125.95%+100%) not including general and administrative (G&A) overhead, and 2.81 when including G&A (125% engineering overhead, plus 25% on top of that amount for G&A) [DSMC]. This at least suggests that 2.4 is a plausible estimate. Clearly, these values vary widely by company and region; the information provided in this paper is enough to use different numbers if desired. These are the same values as used in my last report. 2.4 Determining Software Licenses A software license determines how that software can be used and reused, and open source software licensing has been a subject of great debate. The Software Release Practice HOWTO [Raymond 2001] discusses briefly why license choices are so important to open source / free software projects:

The license you choose defines the social contract you wish to set up among your co-developers and users ...

Who counts as an author can be very complicated, especially for software that has been worked on by many hands. This is why licenses are important. By setting out the terms under which material can be used, they grant rights to the users that protect them from arbitrary actions by the copyright holders.

In proprietary software, the license terms are designed to protect the copyright. They're a way of granting a few rights to users while reserving as much legal territory is possible for the owner (the copyright holder). The copyright holder is very important, and the license logic so restrictive that the exact technicalities of the license terms are usually unimportant.

In open-source software, the situation is usually the exact opposite; the copyright exists to protect the license. The only rights the copyright holder always keeps are to enforce the license. Otherwise, only a few rights are reserved and most choices pass to the user. In particular, the copyright holder cannot change the terms on a copy you already have. Therefore, in open-source software the copyright holder is almost irrelevant -- but the license terms are very important.

Well-known open source licenses include the GNU General Public License (GPL), the GNU Library/Lesser General Public License (LGPL), the MIT (X) license, the BSD license, and the Artistic license. The GPL and LGPL are termed ``copylefting'' licenses, that is, the license is designed to prevent the code from becoming proprietary. See Perens [1999] for more information comparing these licenses. Obvious questions include ``what license(s) are developers choosing when they release their software'' and ``how much code has been released under the various licenses?''

An approximation of the amount of software using various licenses can be found for this particular distribution. Red Hat Linux uses the Red Hat Package Manager (RPM), and RPM supports capturing license data for each package (these are the ``Copyright'' and ``License'' fields in the specification file). I used this information to determine how much code was covered by each license. Since this field is simply a string of text, there were some variances in the data that I had to clean up, for example, some entries said ``GNU'' while most said ``GPL''. In some cases Red Hat did not include licensing information with a package. In that case, I wrote a program to attempt to determine the license by looking for certain conventional filenames and contents.

This is an imperfect approach. Some packages contain different pieces of code with difference licenses applying to different pieces. Some packages are ``dual licensed'', that is, they are released under more than one license. Sometimes these other licenses are noted, while at other times they aren't. There are actually two BSD licenses (the ``old'' and ``new'' licenses), but the specification files don't distinguish between them. Also, if the license wasn't one of a small set of common licenses, Red Hat tended to assigned nondescriptive phrases such as ``distributable''. My automated techniques were limited too, in particular, while some licenses (e.g., the GPL and LGPL) are easy to recognize automatically, BSD-like and MIT-like licenses vary the license text and so are more difficult to recognize automatically (and some changes to the license would render them non-open source, non-free software). Thus, when Red Hat did not identify a package's license, a program dual licensed under both the BSD and GPL license might only be labelled as having the GPL using these techniques. Nevertheless, this approach is sufficient to give some insight into the amount of software using various licenses. Future research could examine each license in turn and categorize them; such research might require several lawyers to determine when two licenses in certain circumstances are ``equal.''

One program worth mentioning in this context is Python, which has had several different licenses. Version 1.6 and later (through 2.1) had more complex licenses that the Free Software Foundation (FSF) believes were incompatible with the GPL. Recently this was resolved by another change to the Python license to make Python fully compatible with the GPL. Red Hat Linux 7.1 includes an older version of Python (1.5.2), presumably because of these licensing issues. It can't be because Red Hat is unaware of later versions of Python; Red Hat uses Python in its installation program (which it developed and maintains). Hopefully, the recent resolution of license incompatibilities with the GPL license will enable Red Hat to include the latest versions of Python in the future. In any case, there are several different Python-specific licenses, all of which can legitimately be called the ``Python'' license. Red Hat has labelled Python itself as having a ``Distributable'' license, and package Distutils-1.0.1 is labelled with the ``Python'' license; these labels are kept in this paper.

1. "IRAQ WILL SUFFER INCREASING SHORTAGES OF PURIFIED
2. 
   WATER BECAUSE OF THE LACK OF REOUIRED CHEMICALS AND
   DESALINIZATION MEMBRANES. INCIDENCES OF DISEASE, INCLUDING
   POSSIBLE EPIDEMICS,WILL BECOME PROBABLE..."

lots of good pix here
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/sbl.htm

a paper on SBL for missile defense
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/docs/98-16 5.htm

SBL fact sheet (PDF)
http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/pdf/sbl.pdf

Missile Defense Agency homepage
http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/html/bmdolink . tml

other links
http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/md/sbl/
http://www.sbl.losangeles.af.mil/Divisions/FrontOf fice/body.htm
http://www.trw.com/presskits/detailinfo/0,1067,2_1 2^2^12^40,FF.html

lots of good pix here
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/sbl.htm

a paper on SBL for missile defense
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/docs/98-16 5.htm

SBL fact sheet (PDF)
http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/pdf/sbl.pdf

Missile Defense Agency homepage
http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/html/bmdolink . tml

other links
http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/md/sbl/
http://www.sbl.losangeles.af.mil/Divisions/FrontOf fice/body.htm
http://www.trw.com/presskits/detailinfo/0,1067,2_1 2^2^12^40,FF.html

Speaking of ballistic missile defense:

Last week the US scored its third straight hit-to-kill intercept, this one discriminating amongst a group of decoys.

We've been sending a lot of money on missile defense. We're starting to see the fruits of that labor. I just think its funny that when people were debating feasibility, its the biggest news of the day. But when the engineers start to make it work, it doesn't even make the evening news.

This sounds like a great opportunity to run another test of the National Missile Defense system.

Better yet, let's turn it into an X-Game type competition between the BMDO and National Skeet Shooting Association to see who can hit the first/most chunk(s).

This sounds like a great opportunity to run another test of the National Missile Defense system.

Better yet, let's turn it into an X-Game type competition between the BMDO and National Skeet Shooting Association to see who can hit the first/most chunk(s).