Slashdot Mirror

twitter writes "Bruce Perens has pulled the plug on Technocrat.net. 'The technocrat.net public discussion site is shut down. This has happened because the site never achieved the ability to financially sustain its editorial staff and system expenses with its revenues. When it became evident that Technocrat was un-viable as a business, I found that I did not wish to keep supporting the site as a hobby. Certain elements of the community that developed here, unfortunately, creep me out. At the end I faced the decision of asking for donations to keep the site running, or letting it die, and it became clear to me that I'd feel better if it would just die. I am very busy building a new software business, with some great new (and yet unannounced) Open Source software in development. I must focus on that for now. Best holiday wishes to you all.'"

Bruce Perens writes "Ari Jaaski of Nokia is concerned that the Linux developers need to learn to live with DRM, SIM-locking, and 'IPR'. But they won't. Fortunately, Nokia can do all that it wants with Linux, while being GPL2 and even GPL3-compatible. The key is knowing how to draw bright lines between different parts of the system. That's a legal term, and in this case it means a line between the Free Software and the rest of the system, that is 'bright' in that the two pieces are very well separated, and there is no dispute that one could be a derivative work of the other, or infringes on the other in any way. All of the Free Software goes on one side of that line, and all of the lock-down stuff on the other side." A very interesting read, and a good how-to for any company that is looking to use GPLed code as part of their products, or even just make their products to be hacker-friendly.

Bruce Perens writes "Red Hat has settled patent suits with Firestar Software, Inc., Amphion, and Datatern on a patent covering the Object-Relational Database Model, which those companies asserted was used in the jBoss Hibernate package — not in Red Hat Linux. The settlement is said to protect upstream developers and derivative works of the upstream software, thus protecting the overall Open Source community. Full terms of the settlement and patent licenses are not available at this time." Reader Koohoolinn adds a link to RedHat's own report of the settlement and adds that the deal "is GPLv2 and even GPLv3-compatible." Koohoolinn also points out commentary on Groklaw that this deal "means that those who claim the GPL isolates itself from standards bodies' IP pledges are wrong. It is possible to come up with language that satisfies the GPL and still acknowledges patents, and this is the proof. That means Microsoft could do it for OOXML if it wanted to. So who is isolating whom?"

theodp writes "Mary Lou Jepsen, who left her One Laptop Per Child CTO gig on Dec. 31st, has reemerged with her sights set on a $75 laptop that will be designed by her new company, Pixel Qi, which is described as a 'spin-out' from OLPC. In a Groklaw interview, Jepsen calls for 'a $50-75 laptop in the next 2-3 years' and says it's time to go Crazy-Eddie on touchscreen prices as well." This is probably good news to Bruce Perens, who thinks that the recent report of Microsoft's dual-boot XO project (with Windows as well as the Linux-based Sugar OS) is a feint driven by Microsoft's fear of "the entire third world learning Linux as children." Update: 01/10 21:22 GMT by T : ChelleChelle adds a link to an excellent interview with Jepsen in the ACM Queue, in which she discusses OLPC and some of the technologies it contains.

mpapet writes "According to WINE developer Tom Wickline, the Microsoft/Novell deal for Suse support may one day control commercial customers' use of Free Software. Is this the end of commercial OSS developers who are not a part of the Microsoft/Suse pact?" From the article: "Wickline said that the pact means that there will now be a Microsoft-blessed path for such people to make use of Open Source ... 'A logical next move for Microsoft could be to crack down on 'unlicensed Linux' and 'unlicensed Free Software,' now that it can tell the courts that there is a Microsoft-licensed path. Or they can just passively let that threat stay there as a deterrent to anyone who would use Open Source without going through the Microsoft-approved Novell path,' Wickline said." Bruce Perens dropped a line to point out that most of the content actually comes from his post.

Bruce Perens writes "We've warned you for a decade. Now the monster has finally arrived: patent holders are filing suit against OSS developers." From the article: "We should not be confident that we will continue to have the right to use and develop Open Source software. A coordinated patent attack by a few companies, or even one large company, could completely destroy Open Source in the United States and cripple it in other nations. Funds and patent portfolios that have been established to help defend Open Source would not be sufficient to defend it. Only legislative changes to the patent system can fully protect Open Source and maintain it as a viable source of innovation for our future."

jar writes to tell us Bruce Perens has a short editorial on why DRM could have an impact on much more than just our record collections. From the article: "Within the last century, electronic communications have increasingly become the vehicle of democratic discourse. Because radio and television broadcasting are expensive with limited frequencies available, the wealthy have dominated broadcasting. The Internet and World Wide Web place into the common man's hands the capability of global electronic broadcasting. [...] In order to protect democratic discourse in the future, the Internet must remain a fair and level playing field for the distribution of political speech. The full capability of the Internet must remain available to all, without restriction by religious, business, or political interests."

jar writes to tell us Bruce Perens has a short editorial on why DRM could have an impact on much more than just our record collections. From the article: "Within the last century, electronic communications have increasingly become the vehicle of democratic discourse. Because radio and television broadcasting are expensive with limited frequencies available, the wealthy have dominated broadcasting. The Internet and World Wide Web place into the common man's hands the capability of global electronic broadcasting. [...] In order to protect democratic discourse in the future, the Internet must remain a fair and level playing field for the distribution of political speech. The full capability of the Internet must remain available to all, without restriction by religious, business, or political interests."

Lars Lehtonen writes to tell us that Bruce Perens has posted the text of his LinuxWorld press conference. In his talk he takes a look at many of the hot topics surrounding the open source community including ODF, NTP vs RIM, and GPLv3. From the article: "It's interesting to note that Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist implicated in scandal with Republican Tom Delay, was employed by Bill Gates' dad's law firm "Preston Gates", a political proxy for Microsoft. Microsoft succeeded in lobbying both Republicans and Democrats to oppose ODF."

Bruce Perens writes "I wanted to be able to listen to net audio and my ham station around the house and yard. Those iPod FM transmitters don't have enough range. So, I bought a digital controlled, 100 miliwatt transmitter that covered my whole block the first time I plugged it into what was, until then, a recieving antenna."

Bruce Perens writes "The Gyration Media Center Remote is a radio keyboard and mouse with 100-foot range. The mouse uses an accelerometer rather than a mouse wheel, and thus has the unique feature that you can make mouse gestures in the air. The mouse should be perfect for a public speaker who wants to move around during a speech, without giving up control of his laptop. It would also make a nifty remote for a Linux PVR user, since it has VCR controls and channel and volume buttons. But does it work with Linux?" Bruce Perens tried it out and says the answer is a qualified Yes.

Bruce Perens writes "Many system admins have learned how to use syslog to log events of remote systems. But when the kernel crashes, its final messages never get to syslog. If you don't have a remote console manager, you won't see them, unless you run netconsole."

Bruce Perens writes "Slashdot has often featured attempts at improvement upon the QWERTY keyboard. Here's a one-handed USB keyboard that you can buy for $25 online, or a bit more at the CompUSA. There's one catch: someone will have to design a keying pattern and hack up software for it. It's a task just crying out for an Open Source project." Bruce has also included on the linked page code with which to read the output from the device.

Elvis Maximus writes "Technocrat.net has an interesting piece on an effort in London to create a wireless alternative to traditional ISPs called consume.net. Similar projects discussed include guerilla.net, SFLAN and SeattleWireless." Interesting both from the technological and legal sides.

A reader wrote to us saying: "Technocrat.net has this story about how Inprise is pissing off the developers and users of Interbase, who were creating a vibrant community around the open source RDBMS. As a result, It looks as like the project is about to fork, and the independent branch will be called Firebird."

A reader wrote to us saying: "Technocrat.net has this story about how Inprise is pissing off the developers and users of Interbase, who were creating a vibrant community around the open source RDBMS. As a result, It looks as like the project is about to fork, and the independent branch will be called Firebird."

Bruce Perens submitted a story he wrote for his website on overflows and who's fault they are. I'm pretty skeptical of almost every point raised in this story, but it's an interesting read. [Updated 21:13 by t] As Sea Monkey points out, Bruce has now taken down the article, with a brief note: "I've withdrawn this article after enough people convinced me that I didn't know what I was talking about. It happens sometimes. Thanks." What if everyone displayed such grace?

ten thirty writes: "TECHNOCRAT.NET recently featured a great article regarding the dawning (well, it's only a few of years old anyway) of speech recognition software within the open source community. In particular, the Sphinx project of Carnegie Mellon University is discussed, as well as some other systems such as Festival and a public domain project at the University of Missouri. The notion here is that eventually the GUI, which has come so far over the past two decades, will eventually be supplanted, at least for some applications, by the VUI. The question is, will the open-source community allow the integration of this technology into our society be spearheaded by closed-source vendors?"

ten thirty writes: "TECHNOCRAT.NET recently featured a great article regarding the dawning (well, it's only a few of years old anyway) of speech recognition software within the open source community. In particular, the Sphinx project of Carnegie Mellon University is discussed, as well as some other systems such as Festival and a public domain project at the University of Missouri. The notion here is that eventually the GUI, which has come so far over the past two decades, will eventually be supplanted, at least for some applications, by the VUI. The question is, will the open-source community allow the integration of this technology into our society be spearheaded by closed-source vendors?"

If you've tossed and turned wondering whether the Plan 9 License is Free or merely free, or tossed back the warm milk and cookies waiting for the first stabilizations for XFree86 4.0 to arrive, or counted sheep as you daydream about a cheap Linux-based terminal without monthly fees, or forced deep breathing exercises to get over the thought that perhaps you could doing something to stamp out discourteous Web page behavior ... relax. Go to sleep right after you read these updates.

How soon is now? Unlike a lot of cool-sounding soon-to-be-released, wouldn't-it-be-cool promiseware, it's interesting to see hardware that actually makes it to market before its underlying idea is doomed by advances sweeping past. Larry Ellison's $199 Linux box mentioned on Slashdot a while back appears to have reached that point. The NIC Web site has changed, and no longer is the only way to order one donating it to an underserved school.

Why don't you find out for yourself? jesser writes "Many slashdotters asked on the lock-in attack story whether/when mozilla would be safe from this type of attack. Here are some links to bugzilla bug entries in case any slashdotters would like to work on making mozilla more secure:

• bug 29346: Prevent repeating pop-up windows
• bug 33448: disable 'new window' when close box clicked
• bug 22049: javascript alert should not put up extermely modal dialog"

You've got everything now. Patrick Mullen writes "I just finished my review of XFree86 4.0.1. I've had a lot of requests to see a feature on this when it hit (apparently they liked the last article), and here it is. There's benchmarks, overview of the bug fixes, and new features. In addition to the review, I've also got the new NVidia 0.9-4 drivers which allow NVidia's line of cards to function correctly on XFree86 4.0.1 available on the website-and these are not available on even NVidia's website at the time."

That joke isn't funny any more. A number of readers wrote in with harsh words about the report that Apple forced the removal of rumors regarding an alleged next-generation translucent-cased machine.

Kaufmann, for instance, wrote: "Remember the whole story about MOSR's article regarding the new generation of Macs getting pulled at the request of Apple Legal? Well, an Alan Smithee is claiming that it's a hoax. To prove it, he's put up the very same article on the Personal Homepage service provided by Apple at Mac.com. Further investigation seems necessary." Note: not that putting an article on Apple's Personal Homepage service proves it's worthiness, but it does beg the question of Apple being quick to pounce on it. "Alan Smithee" doesn't exactly inspire confidence either, though -- that's the pseudonym directors traditionally use to distance themselves from films they consider too bad to bear their real names;)

Similarly, an unnamed correpsondent had this to say: "The Apple cube that has been talked about the past few days is a total hoax. Some guy sent an email with fake specs to MacOSRumors and they posted it. Kind of makes one question the credibility of Ryan Meader saying that Apple forced him to take it down. Anyways you can see the fake email at: [this link]."

Stop me if you think you've heard this one before ... QBasic_Dude writes "Richard Stallman wrote about the Problems of the Plan Nine License. Technocrat has a discussion about this, and so does Advogato."

Richard cites what he considers odious provisions in the putatively "open source" Plan 9 license (like this one: "You agree to provide the Original Contributor, at its request, with a copy of the complete Source Code version, Object Code version and related documentation for Modifications created or contributed to by You if used for any purpose.") and responds with typical Stallman pithiness, "This prohibits modifications for private use, denying the users a basic right." There's much more to read there, and worth your time. (As are the discussions at Advogato and Technocrat!)

If you've tossed and turned wondering whether the Plan 9 License is Free or merely free, or tossed back the warm milk and cookies waiting for the first stabilizations for XFree86 4.0 to arrive, or counted sheep as you daydream about a cheap Linux-based terminal without monthly fees, or forced deep breathing exercises to get over the thought that perhaps you could doing something to stamp out discourteous Web page behavior ... relax. Go to sleep right after you read these updates.

How soon is now? Unlike a lot of cool-sounding soon-to-be-released, wouldn't-it-be-cool promiseware, it's interesting to see hardware that actually makes it to market before its underlying idea is doomed by advances sweeping past. Larry Ellison's $199 Linux box mentioned on Slashdot a while back appears to have reached that point. The NIC Web site has changed, and no longer is the only way to order one donating it to an underserved school.

Why don't you find out for yourself? jesser writes "Many slashdotters asked on the lock-in attack story whether/when mozilla would be safe from this type of attack. Here are some links to bugzilla bug entries in case any slashdotters would like to work on making mozilla more secure:

• bug 29346: Prevent repeating pop-up windows
• bug 33448: disable 'new window' when close box clicked
• bug 22049: javascript alert should not put up extermely modal dialog"

You've got everything now. Patrick Mullen writes "I just finished my review of XFree86 4.0.1. I've had a lot of requests to see a feature on this when it hit (apparently they liked the last article), and here it is. There's benchmarks, overview of the bug fixes, and new features. In addition to the review, I've also got the new NVidia 0.9-4 drivers which allow NVidia's line of cards to function correctly on XFree86 4.0.1 available on the website-and these are not available on even NVidia's website at the time."

That joke isn't funny any more. A number of readers wrote in with harsh words about the report that Apple forced the removal of rumors regarding an alleged next-generation translucent-cased machine.

Kaufmann, for instance, wrote: "Remember the whole story about MOSR's article regarding the new generation of Macs getting pulled at the request of Apple Legal? Well, an Alan Smithee is claiming that it's a hoax. To prove it, he's put up the very same article on the Personal Homepage service provided by Apple at Mac.com. Further investigation seems necessary." Note: not that putting an article on Apple's Personal Homepage service proves it's worthiness, but it does beg the question of Apple being quick to pounce on it. "Alan Smithee" doesn't exactly inspire confidence either, though -- that's the pseudonym directors traditionally use to distance themselves from films they consider too bad to bear their real names;)

Similarly, an unnamed correpsondent had this to say: "The Apple cube that has been talked about the past few days is a total hoax. Some guy sent an email with fake specs to MacOSRumors and they posted it. Kind of makes one question the credibility of Ryan Meader saying that Apple forced him to take it down. Anyways you can see the fake email at: [this link]."

Stop me if you think you've heard this one before ... QBasic_Dude writes "Richard Stallman wrote about the Problems of the Plan Nine License. Technocrat has a discussion about this, and so does Advogato."

Richard cites what he considers odious provisions in the putatively "open source" Plan 9 license (like this one: "You agree to provide the Original Contributor, at its request, with a copy of the complete Source Code version, Object Code version and related documentation for Modifications created or contributed to by You if used for any purpose.") and responds with typical Stallman pithiness, "This prohibits modifications for private use, denying the users a basic right." There's much more to read there, and worth your time. (As are the discussions at Advogato and Technocrat!)

Bruce Perens writes: "The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is running a forum on software warranties and UCITA. This is of interest to free software authors because UCITA and other proposed law actually require warranties on the software you give away that would cause great hardship to free software authors. It's of interest for proprietary software users because the warranties attached to software that you pay for are generally considered inadequate.FTC is soliciting written comments, the due date is Sept. 11. Full details on how to comment are here."

More information below -- for your edification and amusement -- on black holes (if they exist), Napster (a happy outcome for once), comparitive computer languages (after Chris Rijk's Java / C comparison) and more. Even a (gasp) positive statement about Microsoft. Hope you enjoy it.

What goes up must go SPLOOSH. Detritus writes: "The BBC is reporting that GRO has reentered the atmosphere and splashed down in the Pacific ocean, as predicted." So just what is the space equivalent of Davy Jones' Locker?

Serbo-Croatian, Swahili, Esperanto. After many spirited comments regarding Chris Rijk's Java / C shootout, Nilsson writes: "John Pierce has done some interesting language performance tests. Instead of benchmarking how a problem can be solved in the fastest possible way he tries to benchmark how an average programmer would have solved the problem in various languages. C, Awk, Java, Perl, Pike and Tcl are tested. You can probably start religious wars with this document." Tools for the job, tools for the job ...

Just like an after-school special. Landaras writes "NYC pointed out in a thread that The Offspring and Napster have reached a very amicable settlement over the whole t-shirt issue link Since you clarified that Napster wasn't suing (it was a cease and decist) you might want to again clarify that the cease and decist has been dropped. In fact, Napster is now helping The Offspring create new products." Writing in with more detail, mishaco pointed out this link to an NME story noting that " Napster have now backed down, allowing the band to sell the material, but only if the proceeds are donated to charity."

If it exists, it blows. Which doesn't suck, necessarily. dthor writes: "The Hubble Space Telescope finds more freaks of space: a black hole that's been switched from suck to blow. Apparently, a black hole in the Virgo cluster has begun to emit largish bubbles of colourful nebula gas (or rather...began to emit hundreds of years ago, but CNN is just now catching up). Read the article, complete with an "interactive" Anatomy of a Black Hole (the regular sucking kind). Neato." [Updated 8 June 12:05GMT by timothy] Note that, as readers like daVinci1980 point out below, this is entirely consistent with current black hole theory and observations. There's not really a "suck / blow" switch on black holes' control panels. That we know of.

How the suits saw it. Duncan Lawie penned -- err, "tapped" -- his account of the UK Linux Expo 2000 in London, and it was at least partly about code, distributions and drinking beer. On the other side of the aisle, meanwhile ... Xolution writes "There's a small article on CNN.com about Linux starting to come into the mainstream."

Out of the goodness of their 8-chambered hearts? Kaufmann writes: "Bruce reports: they've received email from a MS product manager, promising to fix the Interix GPL violation (recently reported on Slashdot as well). That's a relief." Nice to hear; thanks for Bruce and company for the sharp eye and persistence.

More information below -- for your edification and amusement -- on black holes (if they exist), Napster (a happy outcome for once), comparitive computer languages (after Chris Rijk's Java / C comparison) and more. Even a (gasp) positive statement about Microsoft. Hope you enjoy it.

What goes up must go SPLOOSH. Detritus writes: "The BBC is reporting that GRO has reentered the atmosphere and splashed down in the Pacific ocean, as predicted." So just what is the space equivalent of Davy Jones' Locker?

Serbo-Croatian, Swahili, Esperanto. After many spirited comments regarding Chris Rijk's Java / C shootout, Nilsson writes: "John Pierce has done some interesting language performance tests. Instead of benchmarking how a problem can be solved in the fastest possible way he tries to benchmark how an average programmer would have solved the problem in various languages. C, Awk, Java, Perl, Pike and Tcl are tested. You can probably start religious wars with this document." Tools for the job, tools for the job ...

Just like an after-school special. Landaras writes "NYC pointed out in a thread that The Offspring and Napster have reached a very amicable settlement over the whole t-shirt issue link Since you clarified that Napster wasn't suing (it was a cease and decist) you might want to again clarify that the cease and decist has been dropped. In fact, Napster is now helping The Offspring create new products." Writing in with more detail, mishaco pointed out this link to an NME story noting that " Napster have now backed down, allowing the band to sell the material, but only if the proceeds are donated to charity."

If it exists, it blows. Which doesn't suck, necessarily. dthor writes: "The Hubble Space Telescope finds more freaks of space: a black hole that's been switched from suck to blow. Apparently, a black hole in the Virgo cluster has begun to emit largish bubbles of colourful nebula gas (or rather...began to emit hundreds of years ago, but CNN is just now catching up). Read the article, complete with an "interactive" Anatomy of a Black Hole (the regular sucking kind). Neato." [Updated 8 June 12:05GMT by timothy] Note that, as readers like daVinci1980 point out below, this is entirely consistent with current black hole theory and observations. There's not really a "suck / blow" switch on black holes' control panels. That we know of.

How the suits saw it. Duncan Lawie penned -- err, "tapped" -- his account of the UK Linux Expo 2000 in London, and it was at least partly about code, distributions and drinking beer. On the other side of the aisle, meanwhile ... Xolution writes "There's a small article on CNN.com about Linux starting to come into the mainstream."

Out of the goodness of their 8-chambered hearts? Kaufmann writes: "Bruce reports: they've received email from a MS product manager, promising to fix the Interix GPL violation (recently reported on Slashdot as well). That's a relief." Nice to hear; thanks for Bruce and company for the sharp eye and persistence.

Beating plows into ploughshares, turning lead into gold, casting new light through windows opened only just last week, it's another spellbinding outbreak of Slashback. Stand back, breathe slowly as the scent of humble correction wafts over you, mingling with the essence of new and perhaps intriguing information. Bruce Perens, too.

"That's not censorship, mate. This is censorship!" Carnage4Life writes: "After causing a murder trial to be aborted last month CrimeNet has been ordered by the attorney general of the Australian state of Victoria to be shut down. If the site operators refuse to shut down they will face jail time. The story can be found here. In news which can only be considered related, an anonymous kangaroo wrote: "Found a reference to this article on LISNews. Seems the Aussie Parliament pitched a hissy fit when their internet access got filtered. Oh gee, how the fsck do you think the rest of the country feels?" How indeed. That's what happens when you start introducing clashing premises, I guess. Geese, ganders, sauce.

To the moon, Alice -- To the moon! We've frequently linked to NASA photos from Slashdot; what if they said "(registration required)" after them like links to the New York Times? MousePotato writes: "NASA announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Dreamtime Holdings to provide multimedia coverage of astronaut activities. The press release details "creating a state-of-the-art multimedia portal, www.Dreamtime.com, that will, with the click of a mouse, open the door to thousands of images, sounds, documents, blueprints and plans from NASA's currently underused archives. " Interesting to note about it is the fact that they will be using HDTV to give us as well as NASA engineers high quality video." Interesting, too, that billions of space research tax dollars are being used "to create new market opportunities in the multimedia arena."

Does this mean I can watch my -- errr ... "classics" again? The DVD-under-Linux story continues, specifically with an update on LinDVD; soon, the MPAA's claims that there are legal DVD players for Linux users may hold at least a sprinking of water; johnnick writes: "Another update in the DeCSS saga. One of the arguments for DeCSS was that there was no legal DVD decoder for Linux boxes. CNET reports that InterVideo, a licensee of the software that enables DVD information to be decoded, plans to release beta software called LinDVD this month that allows people to watch DVDs on Linux machines."

Microsoft not making a run for the border: Calz writes: "Both Microsoft and B.C.'s Investment Minister have denied that Microsoft is considering moving, as reported in this Yahoo article."

In other news from planet Microsoft, the indefatigable Bruce Perens has this to say about mixed-case licensing:

"Microsoft has been caught in a trivial, easily remedied, GPL violation, which is detailed here. They have been contacted, and their response was, well, dumb.

Why do companies get involved in trivial GPL violations? Because the company picks up Free Software as part of one of their products without making a commitment to do the simple, easy, inexpensive things that are required to comply with the Free Software license. Folks, if you can't comply with license requirements as easy as those in the GPL, find other software, please.

One of these examples comes up at least once a month, and I'm going to keep submitting these stories until the situation improves. Maybe that means forever. Today's wakeup call goes to Microsoft corporation, read the account from Tim Burlowski. "

As Bruce says, this looks like a relatively easy one to fix. It could be explained by the complexities of mergers and acquisitions, general confusion, alignment of planets etc, but eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, including as applied to software. Unless Microsoft would like to declare all EULAs null and void ...

Beating plows into ploughshares, turning lead into gold, casting new light through windows opened only just last week, it's another spellbinding outbreak of Slashback. Stand back, breathe slowly as the scent of humble correction wafts over you, mingling with the essence of new and perhaps intriguing information. Bruce Perens, too.

"That's not censorship, mate. This is censorship!" Carnage4Life writes: "After causing a murder trial to be aborted last month CrimeNet has been ordered by the attorney general of the Australian state of Victoria to be shut down. If the site operators refuse to shut down they will face jail time. The story can be found here. In news which can only be considered related, an anonymous kangaroo wrote: "Found a reference to this article on LISNews. Seems the Aussie Parliament pitched a hissy fit when their internet access got filtered. Oh gee, how the fsck do you think the rest of the country feels?" How indeed. That's what happens when you start introducing clashing premises, I guess. Geese, ganders, sauce.

To the moon, Alice -- To the moon! We've frequently linked to NASA photos from Slashdot; what if they said "(registration required)" after them like links to the New York Times? MousePotato writes: "NASA announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Dreamtime Holdings to provide multimedia coverage of astronaut activities. The press release details "creating a state-of-the-art multimedia portal, www.Dreamtime.com, that will, with the click of a mouse, open the door to thousands of images, sounds, documents, blueprints and plans from NASA's currently underused archives. " Interesting to note about it is the fact that they will be using HDTV to give us as well as NASA engineers high quality video." Interesting, too, that billions of space research tax dollars are being used "to create new market opportunities in the multimedia arena."

Does this mean I can watch my -- errr ... "classics" again? The DVD-under-Linux story continues, specifically with an update on LinDVD; soon, the MPAA's claims that there are legal DVD players for Linux users may hold at least a sprinking of water; johnnick writes: "Another update in the DeCSS saga. One of the arguments for DeCSS was that there was no legal DVD decoder for Linux boxes. CNET reports that InterVideo, a licensee of the software that enables DVD information to be decoded, plans to release beta software called LinDVD this month that allows people to watch DVDs on Linux machines."

Microsoft not making a run for the border: Calz writes: "Both Microsoft and B.C.'s Investment Minister have denied that Microsoft is considering moving, as reported in this Yahoo article."

In other news from planet Microsoft, the indefatigable Bruce Perens has this to say about mixed-case licensing:

"Microsoft has been caught in a trivial, easily remedied, GPL violation, which is detailed here. They have been contacted, and their response was, well, dumb.

Why do companies get involved in trivial GPL violations? Because the company picks up Free Software as part of one of their products without making a commitment to do the simple, easy, inexpensive things that are required to comply with the Free Software license. Folks, if you can't comply with license requirements as easy as those in the GPL, find other software, please.

One of these examples comes up at least once a month, and I'm going to keep submitting these stories until the situation improves. Maybe that means forever. Today's wakeup call goes to Microsoft corporation, read the account from Tim Burlowski. "

As Bruce says, this looks like a relatively easy one to fix. It could be explained by the complexities of mergers and acquisitions, general confusion, alignment of planets etc, but eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, including as applied to software. Unless Microsoft would like to declare all EULAs null and void ...

We've been choking on submissions about Napster and MP3 so here's a selection of them: Alexander Burke shared this ZDNet Article about how TVT Records (the fine folks who bring you Snoop Dogg) is getting into the let's-sue-Napster game. Borodir wrote in about how Suzanne Vega influenced the mp3 compression format, and Slashdot reader Napster Online told us about the Salon interview with Napster iCEO Hank Barry. Here's an editorial by John Perry Barlow about the whole Napster mess and a finally a ZD UK story about MP3 pirates going to jail in the future.

Members of the band Metallica have agreed, through their publicist, to answer questions from Slashdot readers about their recent legal actions against Napster and Napster users. They did a live chat interview Tuesday on the subject with a crowd rounded up by artistdirect.com and Yahoo!. Now it's our turn, so let's give them a fine, thorough, Slashdot-style grilling. (more)

Notes before you post:

1) Due to an anticipated high volume of questions, please confine yourself to one question per post, and keep it short! As usual, we'll allow 24 hours for posting and moderation, then select 10 - 15 of the highest-moderated questions and send them to our interview guest(s) by e-mail. Answers will be posted as soon as we get them back, hopefully within the next week.

2) Please read some of what other people have had to say before posting; Richard Stallman made some comments about Napster and Metallica in his interview here earlier this week. Bruce Perens has written an interesting piece on Napster and Free Software which we also suggest reading, along with Jon Katz's most recent editorial about this brou-ha-ha. We also suggest a fast look at this story (and the comments attached to it), and possibly a quick perusal of other material on the subject previously published here and elsewhere.

3. Credit where credit is due: Emmett Plant set this up. It wasn't easy. Please thank him profusely. He deserves it.

Bruce Perens writes "Be is violating the GPL on my software. While it's something they can easily fix, it's a good example of why people need to keep track of where the software they are using came from, and what license is applied to it. We've got the full story over on Technocrat.net." Updated 23:15GMT by timothy: Thanks to reader Eugenia Loli, who wrote: "Andrew Kimpton from Be, was on the phone with Bruce Perens earlier, and Be is clearing up the issue once and for good! Please read the important update."

Bruce Perens writes "Novell has submitted its Open Source license for review. You can find it, and a few details about license-review, here. "

SilentReproach writes "According to Bruce Perens at Technocrat.net, the latest version of the Corel beta license is up to par - victory declared for the GPL!"

We sent a stack of questions to Bruce Perens earler this week, and here are the answers. But before you start reading what Bruce has to say and taking it as gospel, he has a reminder for you: "I have to make the disclaimer that I am not attempting to practice law. The advice I give is to help you formulate strategies for participatation in the free software community, you may still need to consult an attorney regarding how you implement those strategies."

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From: Jason Hammerschmidt jasonh@cyberplex.com

Open Source Licensing, and the latest craze to go public (such as RedHat's IPO) sometimes have conflicting values. When public, you have to cater to your stock holders, this can easily conflict with the open source communities goals. Although you can build a business model around secondary and tertiary services such as support and manuals, etc. there will still be a conflict of interest at the center of it all. Most important, the philosophy and integrity of our community can be easily compromised and undermined by stock holders. The fact that our community has the same ability to acquire stock means little unless we own the majority of stock, and this is unlikely to happen. What, Bruce Perens, is your view on this subject? And how can we ensure the safety of our beliefs?

yes I know this is two questions :) and I also know this isn't a strictly licensing question, but it is very closely related.

Jason,

You'll notice that a some of the companies that are already participating in free software development have been public-stock companies for a long time: IBM, and Apple, for example. Yet, these companies found a way to participate in Open Source. In IBM's case, it's making something of research-derived products it might not have been able to continue in development or market otherwise. In Apple's case, they're attempting to keep up with Linux - truly a daunting task - by being open too. Also, they are trying to return benefit they've already gotten from the community, and they might be able to open some secondary markets in the future from ports of their free software. You'll notice that when we had a problem with Apple's and IBM's original licenses, we used publicity to influence them. Public-stock companies are very sensitive to publicity because their stock price can go up or down depending on what people are saying about them. If their strategy is one that will prevent them from getting effective participation from the community, that won't help their bottom line and the market will notice.

There is no conflict of interest here - it's a quid-pro-quo. If the participation of the community is not important enough, the company will exit the free software arena.

Every for-profit company that participates in free software development will have to find a balance between its own needs and those of the community if it is to participate at all. I have a scale that I use to describe free software participants that runs from benefactor to symbiote to parisite. I'd put Red Hat in the symbiote position right now, NASA is a benefactor, and the parisites know who they are :-). Parisites eventually lose because the community is too eager to help out their competition.

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from adamc@email.unc.edu

To what extent have the various "free" and not-so-free licenses been evaluated by people with serious legal expertise? I hear charges against, e.g. the GPL that it won't stand up in court, that it's too vague, and other things of that ilk. Has the FSF ever had a crackerack patent (or whatever area of the law is involved) go over their license with a fine-toothed comb?

Adam,

The GPL has actually had a good deal of evaluation. Richard Stallman has an MIT law professor who helps him, and there has been a law school thesis and some private analysis.There are definitely holes, but there's also evidence that it could be enforced. Ironicaly, the UCITA, a proposed U.S. "uniform state law" that poses us problems because places a ban on reverse-engineering, also has provisions that make the GPL and other free software licenses much eaiser to enforce.

One of the biggest problems with the GPL and all other free software licenses concerns the definition of a derived work. The definition of a derived work in copyright law is mostly concerned with print, film, and sound works, and was formulated before software came along. Thus, it doesn't say anything about how reference should be treated. For example, if you copy my function into your own program, it's a derived work. If you simply call my function without copying it, it's not a derived work according to U.S. copyright law, although you are having the exact same effect that you would if you'd copied the function. It's trivial to make any program a shared library or a callable object through object brokers like CORBA or COM, so you can easily circumvent license restrictions about derived works if you are considering copyright law alone. However, licenses are a combination of copyright law and contract law, and under contract law you can be restricted from performing certain activities that the software author might consider the creation of a derived work, activities that you would otherwise be permitted to do under copyright law. And of course, if you don't except the license, you have no right to use or copy the software at all. The problem is that the GPL doesn't really define what those activities are. That should change.

However, we don't generally have to go to court to enforce licenses, so they aren't getting tested for enforcibility in court, which is the only real test. Publicity is our primary enforcement tool, and it's surprising just how effective that has been so far.

I am soliciting attorneys to do pro bono work (donated work for the public good) to help address problems with licenses. There's a BOF about this at the LinuxWorld conference in August.

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from parkerd@tegris.com

Hi Bruce,

I recently started programming open source software for Windows (due to my unfamiliarity with Linux programming), and organized various OSS projects under the title of "Neon Goat Productions". However, I don't feel that I have a good grasp on the ideas behind some more advanced licensing techniques. First of all, if I release software under the GNU GPL, or other licenses, do I (as the sole owner of the copyright) have the option to change the license later on, either to another OSS license, or a closed source license? I don't intend on doing anything like this, but I definitely want to have the ability to control the future of my work. Also, if I release a project under the GPL, am I allowed to use portions of my GPL'd code in an independent, commercial program? I don't want to end up rewriting the same code for another job, just because the licenses aren't exactly the same. Finally, I am a bit unclear on releasing software under two licenses (for example, having the choice between either the GPL or the Artistic licenses). Since the Artistic license is less restrictive than the GPL, what would be the difference if the software was only released under the Artistic license instead of having an either/or clause?

Sincerely,

David Parker

David,

If you are the copyright holder of a program, you may issue that program under any number of licenses simultaneously. While you can't take the GPL back once you release a GPL-ed version, there is nothing that compels you to release later versions under the GPL. But this is all ignoring the issue of other people's contributions to your program.

The situation is much more complicated when other people contribute. They own the copyright to their modifications.

You can deal with this in several ways if you want to keep the option to distribute your work under a different license:

1. Simply don't use their contributions in your commercial product.

2. Insist that they sign the copyright of the modifications over to you before you before you will put any of their modifications in your main source thread. This is what FSF does, so that they have the option to revise the GPL later on without having to go to everybody who made a modification and ask their permission.

3. Use a license like the Netscape Public License that gives you the right to distribute contributed modifications under other licenses. Note, however, that the NPL only requires that for modifications to your files, and that if somone creates a separate file and links it in, they are not required to give you the right to distribute that file under other licenses. Of course you can write your own license that says something different.

Regarding the Artistic license, I'd suggest that you do dual-license with the GPL if you choose to use the Artistic, becuase that makes it absolutely clear that your work can be united with other work that is already under the GPL to make one product. I also don't like the language of the Artistic license. I discuss why near the end of my article on the OSD.

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from: Mike Moses" moses@pobox.com

Would it be rude, inconsiderate, or copyleft infringing for a group of midnight coders to gather together collectively and form a company with a name like 'Open Source Consultants' or some other derivative with 'Open Source' in the name?

Mike,

If you use the name Open Source in the title of an organization, that organization should use only software licenses that comply with the Open Source Definition, and not any "Open Source Definition", I mean the one that the Debian folks and I wrote and that we all know and love :-). I'd object to an "Open Source Magazine" that advertised non-Open-Source products, for example, simply because it would act to confuse people about what is Open Source and what isn't. That would be inconsiderate. It wouldn't be copyright-infringing because we're talking about a trademark, not a copyright. Also, the status of that trademark is rather iffy right now: it's still a trademark, but currently has no federal registration pending.

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from: John L Grantham grantha@hannover.sgh-net.de

I note that the companies that you say deserve praise for their efforts, Apple and IBM, are both hardware companies that in effect happen to produce software. In both cases, they make far more money from their hardware than they do software, so in effect they have less to lose by giving an open source license a shot, but have much to gain in the form of increased sales of hardware.

But what about companies that are primarily in software? How do you see them making money off of open source, when that is after all their main motive--earning cash? In other words, why buy an open source package when you can download or copy it for free? Finally, are there any large "traditional" software companies (ones from before open source became a buzzword) that you see making commendable moves like IBM and Apple? Best regards, John a.k.a. Ethelred

John,

Obviously, it's easy for companies that vend free software as an accessory to hardware to make money, because it's a lot easier to copy a disk than it is to copy a PC! Companies like VA Linux Systems come to mind.

If your business must primarily be software, not support, not anything else, you can't make everything free. This, for example, is the strategy of Sendmail Inc., which makes proprietary add-ons for the free sendmail mail delivery agent. Digital Creations, makers of the Zope web content management software, aren't quite a software pure-play: They give away their core software, and they sell services to customize that core to vertical markets for specific customers, newspapers for example. Some of that customization work may not make its way back into the free product. They have also announced some proprietary add-ons for Zope.

Yes, there is a large traditional software company making a commendable move. Unfortunately, I can't tell you who they are yet. It's not nice for me to pre-empt other people's announcements - I did that to Troll Tech once and they got (justifiably) very annoyed with me.

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from: Bill Gladen

With all of the companies that are coming up with Open Source Definition compliant licenses, it is getting difficult to keep track of what the various licenses actually contain. Is there any work being done on a template license that companies could just post a delta of?; For instance, if you had an Open Source Base License O, which contained clauses A-N, then companies could just draft their license which stated "This license modifies O in the following ways: remove clause B, replace clause C with clause C', and add clause T."

I am certainly encouraging new entries to use one of the existing licenses rather than complicate the situation with another incompatible license. However, when the choice is having them make their own license or not release the software under an Open-Source-Definition-compliant license at all, I'd obviously rather see them release the software.

We are still in the learning period where companies are figuring out how to meet their own needs while participate in free software while meeting their own needs at the same time. This is sort of winding down now, and in a year or so we'll be able to get together and draft some standard licenses. I'd prefer not to have companies release deltas to a license, becuase that isn't much better than having them make their own licenses if the delta gets big. I'd just want some check-boxes for license options that would all be qualified under the Open Source Definition.

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from: Corinna Cohn gemini@indy.net

Amiga, Inc. has recently anounced that they will use Linux as the kernel for their new operating system. They have said that they will make heavy modifications to the kernel. As far as I know, this is the first highly adultered distribution of Linux. Can you explain, of the changes they will make, what parts of the source code must be released back into the community?

Thank you,

Corinna Cohn

Unfortunately, I have not yet been contacted by Amiga, Inc., so I can't say for sure what they are doing. If they make modifications to the kernel in the form of modularized device drivers, they can probably keep those proprietary. I'd hate to see it, though. I'd prefer to see them contribute all of their modifications back to the community, and there is little reason for them not to, since they are selling hardware and their device drivers would probably not run on anything else. If they modify Linux in general, not just the device drivers, they are compelled to distribute the source for those modifications.

It would be silly for them to embrace Linux without the benefits of free software. That would be missing the point. I don't think they'd do anything that dumb.

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from D. Dale Gulledge ddg@americasm01.nt.com

One of the hot issues in open source development in general right now is the issue of licensing an open source project in such a way as to maintain a profitable niche for the company that created the product. The issue is a hot one for me because a former boss of mine approached me for suggestions on how to handle a project as open source within a corporate environment.

As an example, Troll Tech attempted to deal with the controversy over the non-free status of Qt with their QPL. My own interpretation of their solution and that of other companies is that they make their work free for use in other open source projects but not for commercial use. Much of the controversy has arisen from where the boundary is drawn, since there are several companies selling distributions of and support for open source software. Neither those companies nor a significant portion of the open source community wants to see a license that would prohibit them from offering distribution and support services.

My question is, what is the best model for an open source license to be used for software produced within a corporate environment? The problem is twofold. First, the license must be acceptable to the open source community or it is a failure both as an open source project and as a component of a business case. Second, there must be a business case for it.

-- Dale Gulledge, Sr. Developer, Nortel Networks
Also, the author of the Emacs Calendar/Diary Desk Calendar formatting code, team leader for the Esperanto translation team for the Free Translation Project, and host of the Linux Users' Group of Rochester.

I know both sides of the issue, but I don't yet have the answer.

Dale,

If I were doing it, I'd release my software under the GPL, and I'd also offer it under a commercial license. This part's a bit complicated: I'd insist that people who wanted their modifications to go into my main source thread must sign a separate and independent copyright for those modifications over to me, while they'd also maintain their own copyright. In other words, each party would own the modification and would have the right to do anything they wanted with that modification without consulting the other party. That way, I'd have the right to issue modifications under my commercial license, but I'd also commit to release all modifications that were submitted to me under the GPL. Becuase I'm using a split copyright rather than license terms to get the rights to the modifications, I'm not putting any odious terms on code that other people write. I'd continue to be an active maintainer and architect of the product so that people would want to submit their modifications to me.

In my opinion, this is the best of all worlds. The software is always available under the GPL. It's also available under a commercial license from which I can generate revenue. My original contribution continues to be a big enough part that it doesn't make sense for someone else to come out with a clone, but if I ever go out of business or lose interest in the program, someone else can make a commercial clone, writing out my contribution, and can get the modifications from their contributors under the same terms that I did. Until I do go out of business, there's not much reason for contributors to deal with anyone else.

Circumvention is an important principle in free software. I feel OK about Red Hat selling my software becuase I can always circumvent them and sell it myself. The circumvention provision here might make developers more willing to contribute to a commercial product.

Sorry if this is a bit deep. I'd be happy to discuss it in more detail.

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from: Larry_Harkrider@radian.com

What licensing issues apply to older software written by now-defunct companies? Is there a point at which such software enters the public domain?

Software eventually enters the public domain, but it takes so long that no computer that can execute it The situation with software from defunct companies is a sad one. Someone always owns it, because in the case of bankruptcy, there's always a creditor (generally more than one) who assumes the property of the bankrupt company. So, the situation is that your old license still applies but you probably can't get any service or upgrades or enforce your warranty, and you might not even be able to establish who owns the software without an expensive legal search. But you still can't give away copies of that software without infringing on someone's property rights, and that someone might come after you to enforce them.

Big customers have tried insisting that their vendors place the source code in escrow, so that the customer will have rights to that source code if the company goes out of business or declines to fulfill certain responsibilities like upgrades and warranty service. That works great if you wield enough power that your software vendor will negociate with you, for example if you are the only customer for a particular product or if you are paying a very large sum. It doesn't work for anyone else. It would be nice if there were laws about source-code escrow that protected the little guy. It would also be nice if the terms of copyrights didn't run so long and thus work did enter the public domain within one person's lifetime. Every 20 years, the international copyright convention meets and makes the copyright term 20 years longer. This is an abuse of the intent of the original copyright law, which was meant to exchange legal protection for your work for your releasing that work into the public domain eventually.

Hey, these were great questions! I enjoyed this, thanks!

Bruce Perens

Editor's note: Bruce Perens' latest venture is the Web site TECHNOCRAT.NET

Bruce Perens is one of the mainstays of Linux and the Open Source movement, but he has never gotten as much publicity as Linus Torvalds, Richard M. Stallman or Eric S. Raymond. His latest project is TECHNOCRAT.NET. He sent in a few notes (hit "Read More" to see them) about what's happening on the Open Source licensing front, an area in which he is one of the World's Leading Experts(tm). Bruce will happily answer questions about Open Source and related software licensing issues. Instead of posting your questions here, please send them to questions@slashdot.org. We'll choose the 10 or 12 best ones, forward them to Bruce, and post the answers in a day or two. When to Stop Complaining I'm known for complaining, publicly, when I think something's wrong. There's another side to that, though, if you want to be an agent for constructive change and be taken seriously. When people fix what you are complaining about, you can't just keep complaining, you have a choice of shutting up or saying something nice. So, it's time to say something nice about two huge companies. Good News From IBM A while ago, I publicly complained about IBM's termination clause in their original Jikes license. Lots of people read my complaint and made it clear they felt the same way, and IBM noticed. An IBM product manager and attorney contacted me, they fixed their license, they released the license for public criticism, and they put the new license on Jikes and PostFix (IBM Secure Mailer). IBM is referred to as the 600-pound-gorilla of the computer industry, but in this case they were an extremely polite and accommodating 600-pound-gorilla that did the right thing for the community. They should be praised for that. I like their new license so much that I'm going to use PostFix as the mail-delivery agent on my own system. I've been using qmail, but its license isn't really compliant with the Open Source Definition so it's time to switch. Apple, Too The Debian developers and I publicly complained about the original Apple Public Source license. Again, lots of people read our complaint and helped get the message across to Apple. The press and even some Open Source pundits handled our complaints very poorly, treating them as an "attack" rather than the constructive criticism we meant. Apple, however, handled our criticism extremely well. They addressed our complaints in the APSL version 1.1 . Again, a big company that should be praised for doing the right thing for the community. Other Companies Lots of other companies have recently come out with software that complies with the Open Source Definition. They all seem to be taking an OSD-compliant license quite seriously as a prerequisite for community participation in their projects, and many companies are contacting me for a reality-check before they release their licenses for public criticism. I've been able to save a few of them from embarassing gaffes. I'm currently working with several really big companies on OSD-compliant licenses.