Slashdot Mirror

IEEE v. DMCA. Reacting to the IEEE's changing publication rules, Boone^ writes: "The IEEE has backed away from their stance that all papers submitted must comply with the DMCA. Their reason? 'The IEEE, publisher of nearly one-third of all computer science journals, said it is removing the requirement because it turned out to be more contentious than expected.' Personally I'd have preferred their reason to be based on the law instead of popular backlash, but maybe that's a step in the right direction to eventually bring about new legislation."

Many readers also pointed out this New Scientist story on the reversal.

Free as in Blender? tinus writes: "Ton Roosendaal, creator of Blender, submitted an update to Elysiun.com about finding solutions for continueing activities of the Blender projects. He describes the way Blender has been split up into smaller projects to make it both profitable as public domain software. Also, he gives us a preview of his setup for his new community plan, which even mentions 'Blender sources will be opened for members.'

Seems like there is a very promising future for Blender after all. Read the full story here."

Water meets your processor. Foss writes "You may remember this story about the dodgy-yet-extremely-cheap DIY water cooling block. Well, thanks to all your emails, Rob's getting better. It's still extremely cheap (under £10), but it's now pretty stable too, running a P3 933@1.1GHz for a few hours at a very stable 28 degrees. No dental floss this time round either!"

But don't worry, all the other patents issued were A-OK. Worried about getting slapped with a lawsuit for swinging different? f00zbll writes: "Cnet is running an follow up article on the patent posted earlier in the week. Apparently, the kid doesn't plan on suing anyone over swinging side ways."

We're here to save you money, Ma'am. Now, where do you keep it? guttentag writes "The NYTimes (reg req'd) is reporting on a MS and Mexico plan to develop digital community centers as part of a broader 'eMexico' initiative meant to bring the entire nation online by 2006. Microsoft will license its Windows, Office and Encarta software on the same terms that colleges and universities use. Some background: Microsoft's licensing deal with the University System of Maryland resulted in a mandatory $14 Microsoft tax imposed on all 130,000 students. Apparently, if you want to attend one of MD's taxpayer-funded university, you must pay MS. Is eMexico Microsoft's plan to tax Mexican citizens?" Hope they keep their licenses up -- Virginia Beach's taxpayers got to foot a city-size bill. The tab in Texas wasn't low either. What would it look like for all of Mexico?

You can also get a baby-grape, see pictures on http://www.astro.umd.edu/~teuben/pics/japan/09/p70 90014.html which runs a good fraction of a TFlop, and will cost somewhere around 10k$.

I have some more pictures on http://www.astro.umd.edu/~teuben/pics/japan/08/ which shows the 1/4 size Grape6 running 32 Gflop. The final full version would cost about 1M$. Compare that to the AsciWhite at 12 Tflop for 100M$. Drawback of course is that the Grape only computes things similar to the gravitational N-body problem (also useful for pharmaceutical industries).

Btw, also spent some time in Akihabara on sunday, I guess we're deprived on the US east coast, the amount of DVD writers you can get here is amazing. Also very popular here seem to be all kinds of embedded units, e.g. the GPS in your car to not get lost in Tokyo!

There was an ABC news story earlier in the year on the GRAPE, but at the time it was running alpha's with their unix. They have now fully switched to linux, and this system has been running since July 5."

You can also get a baby-grape, see pictures on http://www.astro.umd.edu/~teuben/pics/japan/09/p70 90014.html which runs a good fraction of a TFlop, and will cost somewhere around 10k$.

I have some more pictures on http://www.astro.umd.edu/~teuben/pics/japan/08/ which shows the 1/4 size Grape6 running 32 Gflop. The final full version would cost about 1M$. Compare that to the AsciWhite at 12 Tflop for 100M$. Drawback of course is that the Grape only computes things similar to the gravitational N-body problem (also useful for pharmaceutical industries).

Btw, also spent some time in Akihabara on sunday, I guess we're deprived on the US east coast, the amount of DVD writers you can get here is amazing. Also very popular here seem to be all kinds of embedded units, e.g. the GPS in your car to not get lost in Tokyo!

There was an ABC news story earlier in the year on the GRAPE, but at the time it was running alpha's with their unix. They have now fully switched to linux, and this system has been running since July 5."

You can also get a baby-grape, see pictures on http://www.astro.umd.edu/~teuben/pics/japan/09/p70 90014.html which runs a good fraction of a TFlop, and will cost somewhere around 10k$.

I have some more pictures on http://www.astro.umd.edu/~teuben/pics/japan/08/ which shows the 1/4 size Grape6 running 32 Gflop. The final full version would cost about 1M$. Compare that to the AsciWhite at 12 Tflop for 100M$. Drawback of course is that the Grape only computes things similar to the gravitational N-body problem (also useful for pharmaceutical industries).

Btw, also spent some time in Akihabara on sunday, I guess we're deprived on the US east coast, the amount of DVD writers you can get here is amazing. Also very popular here seem to be all kinds of embedded units, e.g. the GPS in your car to not get lost in Tokyo!

There was an ABC news story earlier in the year on the GRAPE, but at the time it was running alpha's with their unix. They have now fully switched to linux, and this system has been running since July 5."

Here's an "official" email I've gotten.

****************************************
Domain Name: XXXXX.COM
****************************************
Creation Date: 03/28/2000
****************************************

June 22, 2000

Kohn Doe
XXXXXXXX@cfl.rr.com

Important Message Regarding a Modification to Your Domain Name Registration Service Agreement
------------------------------------------------

Dear Customer,

Network Solutions' records indicate that you are the Administrative Contact for the domain name listed above, but we have not yet received payment for our services, as your agreement with us requires. We have already sent two notices to the registrant's billing contact and have deactivated, but not deleted, your registration. We are now modifying your agreement to provide you with three options to satisfy your payment obligation and avoid collection agency action. The options are:

1. PAY: Pay in full by June 28, 2000 at: http://payment.networksolutions.com/go/tind/payments/ Upon payment in full, the registrant will enjoy the balance of their term of service and full rights to their domain name under the agreement. PLEASE DO NOT SEND A CHECK. Payment must be made online.

2. DELETE: reply to this email by June 28, 2000, instructing us to delete your Name immediately and we will do so. You will still be liable for payment in full and may be subject to collection agency action.

3. AUCTION: if you do not PAY or DELETE as above by June 28, 2000, we will enter the domain name in Network Solutions' new auction site in an attempt to satisfy the registrant's payment obligation. Any and all proceeds that we receive from the transfer of your domain name registration (up to the full registration fee) will be retained by Network Solutions and your domain name will be transferred to the successful bidder. By selecting this option, you hereby authorize us to act as your contact to perform all necessary actions relating to the auction and transfer of your domain name registration.

If this domain name account lists your hosting provider as the billing contact, please contact them directly. For others, please call our customer service at 1-800-779-1710 from the United States and Canada. Outside of these areas, call (703) 742-4777 Monday - Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. We hope this modification to your agreement is helpful to you.

Regards,

Network Solutions(R)
A VeriSign(R) Company

It began in David Niemi's head early this year.

Niemi is a Washington D.C. system administrator who decided he didn't want the restrictions embodied in last year's Digitial Millennium Copyright Act to sweep into effect unnoticed, and organized a protest demonstration that took place this morning outside the U.S. Capitol building. Speaking a few days before today's event, he explained that the idea took hold of him "[a]bout two months ago. It started when I had just read the DMCA, and realized what exactly the problems were, and gave a short talk to DC LUG and later to NovaLUG, after which I enjoined people to take a day off of work and help protest. If we have even half of those people [who said they would come], it'll be great."

The chance to show up in person to show dissatisfction with the law and start spreading the news of its dangers ended up attracting an interesting cross section of the software community -- between 20 and 25 people -- and one observer for the Copyright Control Association. Members of the DC, Virginia and Maryland LUGs which helped publicize the event, and others who heard about the event (here on Slashdot, or through mailing lists and forums which were forwarded the information) showed up to create and hold signs with messages like "Restore Fair Use -- Repair the copyright law" and a banner reading "The Digital Millennium Copyright Act Promotes Digital Monopolies." Most of the demonstrators were professional programmers or sysadmins, students, or both.

Why spend so much time and energy fighting a law that was passed last year? In part, because not all of the provisions of the law have yet been enacted, and their implementation can still be altered. And, as Niemi points out, "[t]he DMCA is actually fairly readable -- it's quite easy to see why it's unreasonable. UCITA is quite a bit harder [to understand], especially as amended by Virginia, which was done as edits to a long piece of code." Efforts to curtail DMCA's effects will be good practice in fighting the other laws which no doubt will follow, starting with UCITA and stretching into the forseeable future.

University of Maryland researcher and some-time instructor Peter Teuben was the only representative today from the University of Marlyand's LUG. "Probably because the others have classes to go to," said Teuben with a smile. "I just took off because I didn't have to teach. The software that I write is open source, so I have been been an active participant for at least 15 years in the whole idea of open source. I come from an academic background where that's normal." But there is another reason he was in Washington today "This is near to my heart. The simplest reason is the fact that I bought a DVD player, and now that I've bought it, suddenly I 've learned that I can't play the DVDs that I buy in Holland. I was totally shocked -- I didn't know that. It makes no it makes no sense to me, because it's digital, just like CDs -- even the same size." Something as simple as watching a movie purchased or shipped from abroad is made complicated by the restrictions the DVD license holders have attached to the medium. "The funny thing is that software allows you to do that [switch region settings] five times, but that's still limited. There's ways around that, but they're illegal."

Economist Doug Galbi also took time off work to show up on the street west of the Capitol building. Galbi said his interest was mostly philosophical. "I don't do that much programming, but I have a sense that this [isuue] is huge." Galbi said that for consumers, "The fear is that reasonable, common-sense fair use would be outlawed ... that their actions would be vulnerable as a felony act under the law. What if I'm going down the street singing a Beatles song, are they going to arrest me because I don't have the rights to it?"

Marsha Wilbur, studying at Connecticut's Three Rivers College and about to continue her computer science studies at Arizona State, hopped on a train when she heard about the demonstration on a mailing list from the Open Law project at Harvard's Berkman Center. "I said 'Oh, I'm there!' Also, there's a guy in Connecticut who's being sued, and they're using this -- " She gestured at a copy of the law -- "to harrass him. That's my feeling. And I don't think it's right. That's why I'm here."

Because seniors at his school graduate in 3 1/2 years instead of four, Lenny Grover spent the morning in Washington, while he waits for responses to both job and college applications. "I'm always interested in things that affect the technological community. And I think the provision that products with, I believe it says, limited commercial potential which circumvent copy protection, would also have prevented the VCR. And that turned into billions of dollars a year! These people are so shortsighted -- they don't even see the benefit it could bring." Pointing out that programs like Napster/Wrapster and Gnutella are essentially content-neutral distributed file systems, Grover said, "The question is, where do you draw the line between innovation and breaking copyright?"

Discussions among the participants about the nature of software and the best ways to balance individual, public and corporate rights simmered throughout the protest, which ended at noon with a walk that took us from the Capitol past the Supreme Court. During the hike network engineer Rama Kant voiced a thought about the perceived lack of tolerance among copyright holders for what has traditionally been called fair use: "I feel that it impinges on your ability to watch or listen to what you paid for. I sort of disagree with that. If I buy a CD, I want to be able to listen to it at whatever time I want, whatever conditions I want." Kant, who does contract work for various organizations in the area, heard about the event through his membership in NoVaLUG. "I've been a Linux user for a while, and that's how I got into this. I use Linux, and Unix also. I use a lot of Linux boxes in my work."

Perhaps the least-expected person to show up this morning was Penny Kozakos, an employee of public relations firm Burson-Marsteller who came to observe and collect literature from the protesters. Kozakos seemed puzzled by the demonstration, and listened curiously to an explanation of what computer operating systems have to do with watching the movies her agency's client keeps encrypted, and why the DCMA was poised to drastically change the scope of what consumers and computer scientists could do legally and without asking industry permission. "This is all new to me," she said, explaining that she was merely doing a favor for the Los Angeles branch of the company by showing up to make a report. "This isn't what I deal with normally at all."

Was today's demonstration a success? Perhaps not in any spectacular way; fewer people showed up than Niemi initially hoped for. However, the flyers and DMCA summaries handed out today were mostly to passers-by who expressed no knowledge of the DMCA at all, and most of whom seemed shocked by its brazen assertion of control over purchased entertainment media. Cultivating public knowledge that there even is such a thing as the DMCA seems like a minor success to me. And if more than 20 Linux users can collect themselves at short notice for three hours on a Washington weekday, it bodes well for similar actions in the future.

Wish I could get a court order to prevent the spam I have got so far this week. I'd love my own beowulf cluster.