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You may re-publish this material. You may excerpt it, reformat it and translate it as necessary for your presentation. You may not edit it to deliberately misrepresent my opinion.

An SCO presentation shown in Las Vegas on August 18th alleged infringement by the Linux developers. The presentation, in Microsoft PowerPoint format is here, and an conversion of the presentation that can be viewed using a web browser is here .

SCO released the presentation to Bob McMillan, a reporter for IDG News Service, without any non-disclosure terms. Bob asked me to comment upon it. here's his story.

I will start with SCO's demonstrations regarding "copied" software. It is likely that SCO would present the very best examples that they have of "copied" code in their slide show. But I was easily able to determine that of the two examples, one isn't SCO's property at all, and the other is used in Linux under a valid license. If this is the best SCO has to offer, they will lose.

Slide 15 shows purports to show "Obfuscated Copying" from Unix System V into Linux. SCO further obfuscated the code on this slide by switching it to a Greek font, but that was easily undone. It's entertaining that the SCO folks had no clue that the font-change could be so easily reversed. I'm glad they don't work on my computer security :-)

The code shown in this slide implements the Berkeley Packet Filter, internet firewall software often abbreviated as "BPF". SCO doesn't own BPF. It was created at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory with funding from the U.S. Government, and is itself derived from an older version called "enet", developed by Stanford and Carnegie-Mellon Universities. BPF was first deployed on the 4.3 BSD system produced by the University of California at Berkeley. SCO later copied the software into Unix System V.

The BPF source code is here on the Lab's web site. A paper on its design, published in 1993, is here

BPF is under the BSD license. That license allowed SCO to legally copy the code into Unix System V in 1996, but since SCO doesn't own the code, they have no right to prevent others from using it.

So, in this case the SCO "pattern-recognition" team correctly deduced that the Linux and SCO implementations of BPF were similar. But I was able to determine the origin of BPF after a few minutes of web searches on google.com . Why couldn't a "pattern-recognition team" do the same? It's difficult to believe they simply didn't bother to check. It's also likely that SCO dropped attribution of the Lab's copyright from the System V copy of the BPF source code, or the team would have known.

The Linux version of BPF is not an obfuscation of the BPF code. It is a clean-room re-implementation of BPF by Jay Schulist of the Linux developers, sharing none of the original source code, but carefully following the documentation of the Lab's product. The System V and Linux BPF versions shown in slide 15 implement the same virtual machine instruction set, which is used to filter (allow, reject, change, or reroute) internet packets. And the documentation for that VM even specifies field names. Thus Schulist's and the Lab's implementations appear similar. Had Schulist chosen to directly use the Lab's code, it still would have been legal. But the version in Linux is entirely original to the Linux developers. There is no legal theory that would give SCO any claim upon it.

Slides 10 through 14 show memory allocation functions from Unix System V, and their correspondence to very similar mat

Summarizing yesterday's events that put SCO's demands of payments into perspective (for references read analysis by Bruce Perens):

On Monday at their trade show in Las Vegas, SCO showed code that they claimed was copied illegally into Linux. Many who saw the slides in Vegas were convinced of SCO's case.

However, probably unknown to and unauthorized by SCO, the German publisher Heise obtained photographs of two slides in SCO's presentation and published them yesterday.

It turned out that the code SCO showed in Vegas originated from 1973. The code has appeared in programming text books already in 70s and it has been released under BSD license several times by many parties, including SCO (then Caldera) itself last year. The code SCO showed, allegedly violating their rights, was therefore in Linux legally.

If this really was a sample of their "best evidence" then SCO and their executives are in deep trouble - considering all unsubstantiated allegations they have made, legal threats, demands of payments and stock pumping and insiders dumping.

(links gleaned from Google News) I'd submit these into the story submission but my submissions have 99% rejection rate.

SCO's proof bogus, Linux advocate says The creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds, said he was not surprised by Perens analysis. "It sure as hell looks like its BSD-licensed and has been around forever," Linus said. "This was what we claimed was the likely source of any common code in the first place: BSD code and various vendor stuff." ...

...and, hold onto your seat because...

SCO Preparing Legal Action Against Customer Talking to ComputerWire, McBride added SCO is identifying Linux users for possible litigation. He said SCO had for the last month gathered information on Linux users, and identified about 10% of the total Linux servers sold last year. McBride added that he expected that figure to rise to 40% over the coming weeks before SCO would take action. ...

Didn't anyone read the links? Especially this one? Analysis of Linux Code that SCO Alleges Is In Violation Of Their Copyright and Trade Secrets

Bruce Perens clearly shows how this code was released under the BSD license a while ago and how it was in circulation for almost 30 years! I hope the stock price of SCO goes way down now that we have analyzed thier best example and shown how it is FUD.

Didn't anyone read the links? Especially this one? Analysis of Linux Code that SCO Alleges Is In Violation Of Their Copyright and Trade Secrets

Bruce Perens clearly shows how this code was released under the BSD license a while ago and how it was in circulation for almost 30 years! I hope the stock price of SCO goes way down now that we have analyzed thier best example and shown how it is FUD.

Perens has done a great job of collating what all of us have dug up here.

Short form is, this comment and the code in the second slide go together (although the actual code on the second slide has obviously been tampered with, and will not compile,) and the original work on which it is all based was written by Dennis Ritchie ca. August 1973. It traces not only in the V6 and V5 code I've posted links to, but to V3, the oldest version of Unix which survives for us to read today, and beyond. Several derivatives have been released under BSD licensing, so it occurence in (old) versions of Linux is completely legal.

As many of us have suspected since the first rumours of Caldera/SCOs new business model surfaced, they've got a lot of pattern matches but not the brains to realise that just because a string of characters occurs in a file they bought from the Santa Cruz Operation it doesn't necessarily follow that they have unencumbered copyright on it wherever it might appear.

At SCO's annual reseller show, the company's executives put up a couple of slides as a way of demonstrating how Unix code had been "stolen" and put into Linux. The two slides were photographed and have since appeared on Heise Online; see them here and here. The escape of these slides has allowed the Linux community to do something it has been craving since the beginning of the SCO case: track down the real origins of the code that SCO claims as its own. The results, in this case, came quick and clear. They do not bode well for SCO.

The code in question is found in arch/ia64/sn/io/ate_utils.c in the 2.4 tree. It carries an SGI copyright. It seems that SGI was not entirely forthcoming in documenting the source of its source; some of the code in question was, indisputably, not written at SGI. So where does it really come from?

This code is from sys/sys/malloc.c in V7 Unix. It has been widely published; among other things, it can be found in Lion's Commentary on Unix (if you can get a copy). It featured in this 1984 Usenet posting. And, crucially, it has been circulated with the V7 Unix source, which was released by Caldera (now the SCO Group) under the BSD license. SCO would like the world to forget about that release now, but the Wayback Machine remembers.

So...SCO's code demonstration, the one that it put up to convince its resellers of its case, comes from a version of Unix which first came out in 1979. The code was publicly circulated in the 1980's, and explicitly released under the BSD license by [the company now known as] SCO at the beginning of 2002. SCO might well have a complaint that SGI did not properly give credit for the code it used. But there is no possible way the company can argue that this code's presence in Linux is an infringement of its copyrights.

And this, of course, is why SCO refuses to show the code that, it claims, is copied. These claims do not stand up to even a few hours' scrutiny on the net. SCO may yet have an interesting contract dispute with IBM, but, from what we have seen so far, its claims of direct copying of code are hollow.

(Many thanks to those who commented on an earlier LWN posting on this subject - those comments are the source for just about everything that appears in this article. Many thanks are due to LWN's readers; you have shown the best of what the community can do. Update: see also: this analysis of SCO's code by Bruce Perens.)

While I'm here, I have my own comments, that I really don't think that that chunk is copyrightable... It's far too direct an implementation of a simple algorithm to make it past copyright rules.

Bruce Perens has written an analysis of the code that SCO claims was wrongfully copied into Linux: http://perens.com/Articles/SCOCopiedCode.html

Every single app that I would want to run is already available and runs under Linux natively. For example:

mozilla, neverwinter nights(w/ expansion pack), gcc, gdb, make, gnuplot, bc, gimp, icebreaker, valgrind, electric fence, Crossfire, LyX, angband, Nethack (falcon's eye), vim, XFree86, pekwm and netpbm.

There are few apps that I run that are not on that list. Really, if you think about it. On any computer system the top 90% of the apps you run could probably be counted on one hand.

But I'm one of those unusual people who has his laser printer working in Linux and only has a windows box to test the software I write. I compile the windows version on Linux of course. (using these scripts to build the cross compiler).

I think the assumption that these are contrictory is incorrect. OS was started by people scratching their itch. Scratching these itches and contributing the results benefits the community. Period.

Certainly many (in fact, most) OSS-savvy IT industry workers I have come across think Apple is merely using open source for a free ride. Certainly Bruce Perens thought so, and Richard Stallman very pubicly rejected Apple's licensing efforts and questioned their intentions. The Free Software Foundation even boycotted the company. These comments have reinforced IT scepticism of Apple Computer and acceptance of Apple technologies in this field remains close to nil. ZDnet's Evan Leibovitch points out many problems with Apple's (lack of) efforts in Open Source's Black Hole, problems which still remain more than 2 years later.

Your question is good because it would be interesting to see if Bruce's opinions on Apple are still the same, and does he now think the company is genuine? Has it given back a sufficient amount or is it paying lip service only?

Works for C, but probably can be made to work with C++ too by writing an operator new that uses malloc() internally. Not sure if glibc actually does that.

This is merely speculation, but the drive to Debian might have been led by Bruce Perens (Bruce used to be the Project Leader for Debian GNU/Linux) when he was an exec at HP. Now that he's left, it might explain why the association has disappeared.

Do not be confused by the name. "Open Forum" have a history of being a pro-patent/IP and anti-open-source as exposed by Bruce Perens a few months back. They are Masters of FUD who have in the past made false claims to speak for the open source community.

You may re-publish this message or excerpts of it.

FALSE OPEN SOURCE REPRESENTATIVE CALLS FOR EUROPEAN SOFTWARE PATENTS

A false or misled "open source representative" has signed an industry resolution calling for the EU to allow software patenting, which has been sent to members of the European Parliament. Copies of the resolution are here and here . The European Legal Affairs Committee holds a plenary vote on software patenting this Wednesday, and may have been influenced by the false representation.

Graham Taylor is director of Open Forum Europe, an organization that is purported to work for broader acceptance of Open Source. Taylor has appeared at various trade shows in Europe, saying reasoanble things about Open Source, for the past year. Open Forum Europe is a division of IT Forum Foundation and InterForum. InterForum's membership includes a number of large companies that have a vested interest in the promotion of software patenting in Europe. Mr. Taylor's sponsor organization is well connected with the EU government.

I would encourage Mr. Taylor to evangelize Open Source software, something he's done successfully for a while. However, he does not have the credentials to represent the Linux, Open Source and Free Software developer communities, especially when he contradicts our extremely strong opposition to software patenting. While Mr. Taylor has been visible as a public speaker, it does not appear that he has any engagement with Open Source projects and developers, or that he brought this matter up with representative organizations such as the Free Software Foundation, the Open Source Initiative, and Software in the Public Interest. No legitimate Open Source representative would think of taking this sort of position with government without first holding a public consultation with the developer community.

Software patents could be fatal for Open Source software in the U.S. and Europe. Since we do not collect royalties from the distribution of our own software, we have no funds to pay royalties to patent holders. Rather than sue us to collect money, expect patent holders to sue Open Source developers to restrain them from distributing their software or carrying out further development. Companies that produce proprietary software would bring that sort of suit to kill us off as a competitor.

While we can sometimes work around a patented algorithm that we know about, the Open Source developer is not able to defend himself from patent infringement claims, even invalid ones. In the U.S., the cost of a patent infringement defense often exceeds US$500,000. The Open Source developer, an individual working on his own time, won't have the funds to defend himself. He will be compelled to settle with his accuser, regardless of the merits of the case, in order to preserve what assets the plaintiff deigns to leave him. The copyrights of his own software won't be among those assets.

We are especially threatened by royalty-bearing software patents that are embedded in industry standards. In many cases, it is impossible to achieve compliance with a standard without infringing upon the patented algorithms that are specified by that standard. Standard compliance is critical for interoperability, and thus software patents in standards can make an un-communicating island of a Linux system. For example, the IEEE 1488 FireWire standard is encumbered by patents that apply to the software interfacing to it, and a patent r

bruce@perens.com, take some speeth pathology before you open your fucking mouth in THIS forum, bitch.

Rank | Real name | Occupation | /. nickname | # fans
1) Rob Malda - Slashdot founder - "CmdrTaco" - 975
2) Wil Wheaton - Actor/Activist - "CleverNickName" - 784
3) John Carmack - Programmer, id Software - "John Carmack" - 606
4) Eric Krout - Bucknell engineering major - "ekrout" - 535
5) Bruce Perens - Writer - "Bruce Perens" - 516
6) Josh Marotti - J2EE consultant - "FortKnox" - 381
7) Jeff Bates - Slashdot co-founder - "hemos" - 318

Please notify me of any corrections. Updates: Added Wil Wheaton per AC comment; Added Bruce Perens; Added John Carmack; Moved Eric Krout up one spot to #4 after overtaking Bruce Perens

As it stands, I'm more than halfway there toward gaining more fans than Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. That would be a neat accomplishment and one that I'd be very proud of.

If I can come through (I was on sabatical for a week), I think it would only be proper for Rob to give me some leadership position here at Slashdot. Perhaps I could serve as a liaison between the members and the editors/coders to ensure that Slashdot continues to develop and "scale" with its increasing membership and database size.

Thanks for reading. I truly love you all and enjoy the time I spend here at Slashdot. If I can help any of you with anything (even non-Slashdot related), please let me know. I'm always there for friends (and fans ;-D).

Rank | Real name | Occupation | /. nickname | # fans
1) Rob Malda - Slashdot founder - "CmdrTaco" - 975
2) Wil Wheaton - Actor/Activist - "CleverNickName" - 784
3) John Carmack - Programmer, id Software - "John Carmack" - 606
4) Eric Krout - Bucknell engineering major - "ekrout" - 522
5) Bruce Perens - Writer - "Bruce Perens" - 516
6) Josh Marotti - J2EE consultant - "FortKnox" - 381
7) Jeff Bates - Slashdot co-founder - "hemos" - 318

Please notify me of any corrections. Updates: Added Wil Wheaton per AC comment; Added Bruce Perens; Added John Carmack; Moved Eric Krout up one spot to #4 after overtaking Bruce Perens

As it stands, I'm more than halfway there toward gaining more fans than Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. That would be a neat accomplishment and one that I'd be very proud of.

If I can come through (I was on sabatical for a week), I think it would only be proper for Rob to give me some leadership position here at Slashdot. Perhaps I could serve as a liaison between the members and the editors/coders to ensure that Slashdot continues to develop and "scale" with its increasing membership and database size.

Thanks for reading. I truly love you all and enjoy the time I spend here at Slashdot. If I can help any of you with anything (even non-Slashdot related), please let me know. I'm always there for friends (and fans ;-D).

Rank | Real name | Occupation | /. nickname | # fans
1) Rob Malda - Slashdot founder - "CmdrTaco" - 975
2) Wil Wheaton - Actor/Activist - "CleverNickName" - 784
3) John Carmack - Programmer, id Software - "John Carmack" - 606
4) Bruce Perens - Writer - "Bruce Perens" - 516
5) Eric Krout - Bucknell engineering major - "ekrout" - 513
6) Josh Marotti - J2EE consultant - "FortKnox" - 381
7) Jeff Bates - Slashdot co-founder - "hemos" - 318

Please notify me of any corrections. Update: Added Wil Wheaton per AC comment; Added Bruce Perens; Added John Carmack

As it stands, I'm more than halfway there toward gaining more fans than Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. That would be a neat accomplishment and one that I'd be very proud of.

If I can come through (I was on sabatical for a week), I think it would only be proper for Rob to give me some leadership position here at Slashdot. Perhaps I could serve as a liaison between the members and the editors/coders to ensure that Slashdot continues to develop and "scale" with its increasing membership and database size.

Thanks for reading. I truly love you all and enjoy the time I spend here at Slashdot. If I can help any of you with anything (even non-Slashdot related), please let me know. I'm always there for friends (and fans ;-D).

Also have a look at this comment from Bruce Perens and this comment from Eric S. Raymond from when the same thing happened in USA nearly two years ago.

-Filik.

Some of my personal favorites include:

• Exceptions in C. You can get quite natural-looking exception handling in C, with some convoluted macros. I'm sure most hardcore C coders have come up with their own implementations. Many security bugs happen in parts of the code that handle errors, precisely because errors are rare, and those parts of the code don't get tested well. Using a unified, exception-driven approach to error handling can cut down the risks. IF you do it right.
• The alloca() function. This allocates memory directly off the stack, which is freed when the function returns. Very useful for cases where you want a stack buffer but aren't sure how big it needs to be. Like any other stack buffer, you need to take care not to overflow it. There are portability concerns with this function, but it can still be useful.
• Variable-sized block-chained allocators, which pull chunks of memory out of preallocated segments. The segments are chained together in a linked list. Very effective when you need to make a lot of variable-sized allocations, and do it fast, dammit. It also makes freeing the allocated memory blazingly fast, although it's a "free all or none" approach.
• "Hardened" allocators, which allocate blocks in multiples of the page size, and set memory protections in such a way that buffer overruns cause crashes. This is the easiest way to prevent ANY kind of buffer overrun vulnerability, but wastes memory. See Electric Fence.

DISCIPLINE, DISCPLINE, DISCIPLINE. I fully expect to see the usual barrage of comments to the tune of: "C is outdated, insecure, brittle, yadda yadda..." No. Some PROGRAMMERS are "outdated, insecure, and brittle."

The C language doesn't write bugs. Programmers write bugs. If the programmer can't handle C, then take it away from him. But don't try to take it away from ME.

Bruce

There's no excuse for programs getting a SIGKILL instead of a segfault, but if you think you're running into memory problems I would suggest using some sort of malloc debugger.

I use Electric Fence on linux, and have been rather happy with it. I've never tried it on SGI, but I think it would work.

Its very easy to use too -- just link with -lefence or set $LD_PRELOAD to load it.

With it being out for so many years, its a wonder that people don't make it standard practice to use it!

Bruce's website is very interesting.... especially his bio/resume. I can understand having an inflated ego after all that a man like Bruce has accomplished, but to put that crap up on the internet and tell the population at large that you basically invented open source, the internet and life as we know it... I have less respect for this man. It's not that I don't believe him, it's that he makes himself sound like God.

here

"I am no longer with Hewlett-Packard. If your company would like to use my expertise in forming an Open Source policy and processes, or operating a relationship with the Open Source developer community, please contact me."

here

"I am no longer with Hewlett-Packard. If your company would like to use my expertise in forming an Open Source policy and processes, or operating a relationship with the Open Source developer community, please contact me."

On Bruce Perens Bio:
Among my assignments is to challenge HP management.

That's what he thought!

I wrote this piece to criticize the Apple Public Source License version 1.0 , and the Debian project leader and the president of Software in the Public Interest, who asked me to write it, also signed it. Apple incorporated all of the changes I asked for into version 1.1 of their license, which thus is unquestionably an Open Source license.

I wrote this piece to criticize the Apple Public Source License version 1.0 , and the Debian project leader and the president of Software in the Public Interest, who asked me to write it, also signed it. Apple incorporated all of the changes I asked for into version 1.1 of their license, which thus is unquestionably an Open Source license.

Looks like Bruce came up with a good, common sense idea again. Sincere Choice is not only just a good idea for the government, but a good idea for computing as a whole. It makes sense from both the business point of view and a developer's point of view.

It's a good start and people can support it by really trying to only use open standards. You don't need to go to either extreme to make a point (either proprietary or free software extremes); open source and specifically open standards give an excellent compromise between proprietary and free software. It will give an even playing field and promote competition, so that everyone will really have a choice. Or if you don't like it you can always write your own software to meet the open standards.

Actual competition in the software / computer industry? Well with open standards it's much closer to being a posibility.

Simple question besides posting to /. what the hell has Michael ever done?
Bruce on the other hand. So I think Bruce wins.

Just in case few of us here don't know about him. You can find his homepage here
, and in his Bio you can find:

" Hewlett-Packard Corporation - 2000 to Present

Senior strategist, Linux and Open Source. I am the first Open Source evangelist to gain a role in top management of a multi-Billion-dollar corporation. On the org chart there are only three people between me and the CEO - a general manager, a vice president, and a president. Among my assignments is to challenge HP management."

So he's in position to speak up in this case.

Note: I don't know if it's redundent but I'm sure some people would like to know. I don't ask for any mod point.

Just in case few of us here don't know about him. You can find his homepage here
, and in his Bio you can find:

" Hewlett-Packard Corporation - 2000 to Present

Senior strategist, Linux and Open Source. I am the first Open Source evangelist to gain a role in top management of a multi-Billion-dollar corporation. On the org chart there are only three people between me and the CEO - a general manager, a vice president, and a president. Among my assignments is to challenge HP management."

So he's in position to speak up in this case.

Note: I don't know if it's redundent but I'm sure some people would like to know. I don't ask for any mod point.

WHAT'S BETTER -- PURIFY, from Purify Systems, does a much better job than Electric Fence, and does much more. It's available at this writing on SPARC and HP. I'm not affiliated with Purify, I just think it's a wonderful product and you should check it out.

If you are looking for data (the original askslashdot doesn't mention needing any, but jic) EROS Data Center and the GIS Data Depot are my favorite spots. Oh, yes, and the data are free.

Thank you Bruce, for all you've done for Free Software.

Intelligent citizens, industry professionals and academics will read, understand, and probably agree with this article.

This is also the sort of writing that could really color the public debate if average Joe Citizen had any reason to value the opinion of Bruce Perens over Craig Mundie.

But why should they?

What does the average person know about Perens? What do they know about the Open Source Initiative? Correct me if I'm wrong, but probably very little. What does the average person know about MicroSoft? That they build the software that runs on every computer that they sit behind every day.

There's a bit of a credibility gap.

Craig Mundie could conceivably be any employee with the MicroSoft backing, and he would get press and general public recognition that Perens doesn't.

Pro-Open Source writers are often honest and, while not unbiased or impartial, are at least driven more by a cooperative and edifying spirit than a monopolistic one. If the general public had more reason to trust them, the articles they write would more effectively influence public opinion.

Think about how can this community help people like Perens while he's busy trying to help us.

• Bruce Perens, Free Software Evangelist.
• Larry Rosen, Attorney, Executive Director: Open Source Initiative
• Eben Moglen, General Counsel, Free Software Foundation.

• We don't get everything we want, but we've done pretty well.

  Bruce

Bruce

IIRC Murdock worked for an university and is now the CEO of Progeny.
www.progeny.com (Progeny Debian 1.0 looks promising, btw)

I suppose Bruce Perens is the connection between Debian and Pixar.
He is a former debian project leader and he worked twelve years at pixar.
www.perens.com/Articles/Bio.html

This page sums up pretty much what I feel about software patents.

The problem with e-mail is the ability it gives to send many millions of e-mails to lots of people.

That's not a problem with email (note the lack of the hyphen--Don Knuth has a good linguistic analysis of why email is hyphenless somewhere on his site), but with people abusing email. It's pretty much like saying, "the problem with cars is the ability it gives people to drink and drive".

I can't let anyone but the most trusted members of my family know about it.

Wow. You mean all of us here at Slashdot are trusted members of your family? Really? Free hint: just by having a address for us Slashdotters to submit to, you undercut the very point you're trying to make.

My own email address, posted at the top of this message, is a spambouncer. It checks email and forwards them on to my real email account, where I can decide if I want to share my email addy with you or not.

So far, I've managed to stay (mostly) spam-free by a combination of judicious filtering and using proxy addresses.

Other people (like this guy) manage to do just fine, too, to the point where he has his Palm VII set up to receive wireless email from complete strangers, just because he thinks it's cool.

(Bruce, if you're reading this: you rock. Way to be accessible to the community. I would email this to you directly, but I don't want to spam you.)

So in other words, KTB, your "I can't let anyone but the most trusted members of my family" argument only holds water for you. There are lots of other people--ESR, BP, RMS, Linus, just to name a few--who manage to get by just fine, even though they get reams more email than you do.

The lack of trustworthyness [sic] and the dilution of feeling that is a result of mass e-mailing does not lend itself to mass communication, I have found.

If you're finding this, you're looking in the wrong places. Some mailing lists, such as the Continuing Time and Millennium's End lists which I'm on, are actual communities. If you think mass email is "remote", then how do you account for the vibrant BBS communities of old?

How can you beat the handwritten letter for the personal touch?

Try investing a little of yourself in your emails. Believe it or not, it really does work.

It happens that if you write me and I'm not at home, I get your mail via Palm VII wirelessly. Whoever you are. Even if I've never heard of you. And sometimes, that matters to people.

Spam really is a problem on the Palm, because it takes time to download it, there's only 2MB RAM so there's no space for it, and so on.

So, I want to filter spam, and I want to deter spammers because deterrence is more effective than a filter. The RBL has been a positive force for me, it's kept the S/N to the point that I can read your mail.

Thanks

Bruce

And, it appears that using the Preview button just mangulated that post, because the preview looked quite different from that post, which includes a quote from Perens' site on this page.

"Most hackers know that Free Software and Open Source are just two words for the same thing. Unfortunately, though, Open Source has de-emphasized the importance of the freedoms involved in Free Software. It's time for us to fix that. We must make it clear to the world that those freedoms are still important, and that software such as Linux would not be around without them."

The TIGER database is also available, along with a mailing list talking about it, courtesy of Bruce Perens, who sprang a few hundred (thousand?) bucks to buy the CD-ROMs and put them on the net. It's more of a research project than a product, however. You can start looking at his Free software website; it's the top item in the list.

Bruce

Where, TIGER Line Data, but first look at Bruce's free software page. The map data is 2.6GBytes at 90% compression. Download the manual first, then and only if you are really going to do mapping software get the data. Better yet only get the data for one state and work with it first. I've been working with a small subset and using a 30GByte scratch space that feels a bit tight. My goal is to reduce it to CD-ROM size but still have a useable data set. Unfortunately I stalled out awhile back on it. I do have a mostly correct set of DB file table and appendix data entered. The errors are easy to spot, I just forgot where they were so the files aren't corrected. Once my life becomes stable again I plan on working on the size reduction again. Disk space was one of the factors that stalled me out.