Bruce Perens IRC Q&A Tonight

TheLivng1 writes "Bruce Perens will on the NewNet network (irc.newnet.net) Sunday, January 23rd at 6p Pacific/9p Eastern in #astepcloser." Bruce and I have our differences, but he's a good guy and worth meeting. I've never had a conversation with Bruce that I didn't enjoy. I urge anyone who only knows Bruce from his Slashdot posts or by reputation to "tune in" tonight and get better acquainted with him via IRC.

Comments

Red, not Yellow

[Roblimo]

Well, Bruce, for *literate* hackers, the title "Hole in GNU GPL?" with a question mark at the end (which is how it ran) indicated that it was a question, rather than a statement of fact. But be that as it may. I know that you're human, and like most humans you feel that "responsible reporting" and "unbiased journalism" are phrases that only apply to stories which you totally agree - and that any story that doesn't adhere strictly to the Official Bruce Perens Party Line is wrong, sensationalist, biased, and (no doubt) irresponsible.

;-)

But we all have our flaws; I have mine, you have yours, and since we're both trying to achieve many of the same long-term goals, I have nothing against you and wish you well in every way. Why, I even read TECHNOCRAT.NET at least two or three times every week -- and enjoy it! (Free plug!)

And so, since I'm a "don't sweat the small stuff" person and know it's scary getting ready to be a father for the first time, I'll overlook your poor fact-checking on the taxi front. A tiny bit of research would have told you that Royal Cab in Baltimore, for which I both drove and dispatched, has red taxis, not yellow ones.

I hope I have time to drop in on your chat tonight. You're an interesting guy and decent person (with a few tiny flaws) and I think this is going to be a fine and worthy event.

Take care,

-- Robin "roblimo" Miller
Baltimore Cab License #6714
Maryland Limo Permit #1273

Re:Or, use a bit of logic.

[Trepidity]

Perhaps, but the majority of the internet's population (or close to it) does in fact live in the US.

Anyway, the reason time zones are given like this is because GMT sucks. Half the year I'm GMT -0600 and half the year I'm GMT -0500, and i can't remember which is which. If you give me a point of reference that switches daylight savings time along with everybody else, I'll use that. However, the way it is, I'd rather you give me the time in, say, CET (Central European Time) than in GMT - at least I know I'm always -0700 from CET.

Re:Or, use a bit of logic.

[Trepidity]

Actually the US and Europe change at approximately the same time (within a week of each other). Sure, some places don't change at all, but they form an extremely small percentage of internet users. Kenya doesn't change, but either does Arizona. Arizona is in the US and we still don't make special accomodations for them, so this isn't some sort of US snobbery thing.

Re:Or, use a bit of logic.

[Trepidity]

When the rest of the world think of USA they think Arrogance; the USA think that the world IS the USA; heck they even refer to it as America?

A lot of other languages refer to the USA as America as well. Greeks, for example, call it "Ameriki," not "Enomenes Polities Ths Amerikis."

Excuse me but USA is only 1/12 of the worlds pop; please show a little bit of inclusiveness especially when talking on the NET which is a global community.

You seem to have contradicted yourself there. On the one hand you're talking about the net, and on the other hand you quote total population statistics, which are completely irrelevant. Since we are talking about the internet, the proportion of internet users who are Americans is important, not the proportion of total humans who are Americans. People who don't have internet access obviously do not count in this, since they really don't care what time zones we use in our internet discussions. The US forms a substantially larger proportion than 1/12 of the Internet. I'd be surprised if it was less than 1/2, when you count users.

Re:Or, use a bit of logic.

[Trepidity]

Europe and the United States use DST (and the switch is very nearly coordinated). Europe and the United States also form the overwhelming majority of internet users.

And my "ranting" wasn't moderated up, my posts start by 2 at default since my Karma is over 30 (it's around 70). Go bitch at malda@slashdot.org if you dislike this.

Re:Or, use a bit of logic.

[Trepidity]

I agree, I'd rather not have Daylight Savings time to begin with. I'm just saying that since the vast majority of Internet users do have Daylight Savings time, the posting of time on the internet should reflect this.

Re:Uh-oh

[Bruce Perens]

Nobody else sees the humor in someone reacting to criticism based on the color of their car?

Re:Uh-oh

[Bruce Perens]

You sound like a broken record. I have better things to do than play the ascending karma game here. If I wanted karma, I would implement it on technocrat.net .

Re:Uh-oh

[Bruce Perens]

But it's an Open Source copycat :-)

Ouch!

[Bruce Perens]

Since there were technical problems I dictated my replies to Kevin for part of the interview, and it's clear there was some degree of garble.

Re:Log

[Bruce Perens]

I hope I get to edit that log, because one or two answers are really garbled. Thinks like "years" becoming "users" and "anarchic" becoming "old-fashioned". For that answer I sound like a recent stroke victim, no kidding. That's because we had technical trouble and I ended up dictating the answer over the phone and Kevin just typed it as fast as he could.

Thanks

Bruce

Log, in edited form.

[Bruce Perens]

A version of the log with the garble edited out is here. Some people were ping-flooding my system so I ended up having to dictate the answers over the phone, and Kevin, who was also moderating the questions at the same time, typed them in to IRC. Some garble resulted.

Bruce

Re:addendum

[Bruce Perens]

It's not that he ran the story, but how. If some script kiddie determined that Linux sux, it would not make headlines on Slashdot. This was sort of the same thing. The posting was based on someone who was quite clueless about licensing, with nobody else to balance him. If you read the headline, and if, like most hackers, you didn't know much about licensing, you might have thought there was a real problem. I didn't feel it was responsible reporting.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:Log

[Bruce Perens]

A corrected log is here. The original is garbled because I was dictating answers over the phone.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:Why newnet?

[Bruce Perens]

I didn't choose it. I chose to grant the interview. I left the technical details up to the interviewer. I am afraid I am quite ignorant of IRC - I don't generally have time to make much use of it.

Thanks

Bruce

Uh-oh

[Bruce Perens]

Robin says we have our differences. I think his feelings are still hurt over the GPL loophole story - after which I threw him about the worst insult you can throw a limo driver. I said his car was yellow :-) . Gosh, I'm such a hothead sometimes.

Bruce

Re:Uh-oh

[Darchmare]

I am. :>

- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)

[OT] Time zones

[Mawbid]

Instead of putting raw text into articles to indicate time, how about offering article (and comment) writers a time tag that gets translated to the reader's selected time zone?

Or at least put the UTC time in there so that people will only have to know their own time zone.
--

Logs?

[Uruk]

I'm unfortunately not going to be able to jump on IRC at that time to ask him some questions, but I'm sure it's going to generate some interesting info.

This is almost like an extended slashdot interview chance in my mind, with more judicious moderation since there will probably be several "Green Beret" IRC ops there to kick/ban anybody who goes off on some damn grits/natalie portman tangent.

Are we going to see an IRC log of this tomorrow? (Please say yes)

Easy! Oh, wait...

[kuro5hin]

Hey, that'll be easy! I'll just fire up my editor here and grab the latest slash code...

Oh, damn. I knew there was something wrong with that plan. Well, I guess you'll just have to wait until Rob applies Service Pack 6 for Slash2000, and you know, he's been so busy counting his money lately and everything... well, it might be a while.

"Moderation is good, in theory."
-Larry Wall

Win98 0wNz j00r L4M3R Azz? (Not a Troll)

[kuro5hin]

Well, Bruce, for *literate* hackers, the title "Win98 0wNz j00r L4M3R Azz" with a question mark at the end (which is how it ran) indicated that it was a question, rather than a statement of fact. But be that as it may. I know that you're human, and like most humans you feel that "0wNz" and "L4M3R Azz" are phrases that only apply to 'l337 H4x0Rz with whom you totally agree - and that any 'l337 H4x0R that doesn't adhere strictly to the Official Bruce Perens Party Line is wrong, sensationalist, biased, and (no doubt) an irresponsible l4M3r.

I posted this piece because I felt "l33td00d@aol.com" raised some subtle but interesting technical points about r00ting L4m3Rz that were worth discussion and clarification. I honestly did not expect to get flamed over my decision to post his submission.

I believe that l33t H4x0r tricks and h4X, like l33t h4x0rz themselves, should be discussed as openly and publicly as possible so that everyone knows who is 0wN3d by whom. However, words (especially l33t H4x0r words) are far more slippery than code. With words the question, "R j00 4 L4m3R?" is often far harder to answer than it is in software.

Please accept my humble apology. I was wrong. I will try not to make the mistake of posting anything on Slashdot ever again.

-----------------------------

Ok, the last bit was only wishful thinking. But before you dismiss this as a menaingless troll, read it carefully. How different is posting the legal opinions of someone who has no legal knowledge from posting the technical opinions of somone who has no technical knowledge? Robin would have been run out of town on a rail if he had actually posted "Win98 0wNz j00r L4M3R Azz?" but since it was "arcane legal matters," he was perfectly justified? Hackers tend to have very finely tuned bullshit detectors, and mine goes to full alert whenever Robin-the-Taxi-Guy starts defending himself.

Slashdot is dying. I started reading here for the articles. I hardly ever even read the comments. Whatever I may say about CmdrTaco, he has a good nose for interesting content. As soon as he pretty much stopped being the editorial manager, and turned it over to this joker, the content went to hell. But there's still the community, which is often a rich source of information and new ideas. So now I read the comments more than I even pay attention to the stories.

But how long can a site maintain an interesting community if it no longer has the content to draw interesting people. Sooner or later (sooner, I think) the smart people here will get sick of all the crap and move somewhere else (like technocrat.net, where the S/N is still blissfully high).

The life of slashdot is like a microcosm of the life of Silicon Valley. First there were the geeks, geeking out and doing cool stuff. Then they made some money, and the businesspeople moved in. Now you can't swing a patch cable without hitting twelve lawyers and eighteen CEO's. But where are all the geeks? They're moving on.

Farewell /. It was fun while it lasted.

"Moderation is good, in theory."
-Larry Wall

Re:Or, use a bit of logic.

[Gonwin]

Another person who thinks the world is a Hemisphere and not a sphere. Hello in there this may shock you but the world is a globe, a round ball; it has lots of different dates the Day light saving takes effect and lots of places that have no DST.

One of my major gripes is when someone announces the X will be out in the fall 2000'; as if winter happened the same time all round the globe. how much harder is it to say 2nd Quarter of 2000?

When the rest of the world think of USA they think Arrogance; the USA think that the world IS the USA; heck they even refer to it as America?

Excuse me but USA is only 1/12 of the worlds pop; please show a little bit of inclusiveness especially when talking on the NET which is a global community.

---

technocrat.net for slashdot criticism

[doom]

It's been brought up a few times already, but I wanted to give one more plug to Bruce Perens' site (technocrat.net). Lately there have been a number of threads there discussing slashdot itself (like, "where's the code?").

You don't get to read stuff like this on slashdot itself, except in little bursts that are quickly labeled "off-topic".

I recommend reading: A proposal to Slashdot

Re:Red, not Yellow (Getting very OT)

[the way]

(For those wondering what this is all about, see this story.)

I'm astonished that you're still not apologising about this, Robin.

I'd point you to the original story to show why Bruce had every right to criticise, but of course I can't. Why not? Because you changed the story header after the criticism, rather than adding an 'Update' after the story without editing the original (as has been customary at Slashdot for a long time).

The original story was certainly sensationalist, and Bruce is exactly right that since the 'discover' of this 'hole' was not a noted license reviewer, and since his 'discovery' was not supported by anyone, it was not news.

I've got no strong interest here, so you can't fob off my criticism like you fobbed off Bruce's. I had the same reaction to your story as Bruce (before reading any comments), even although I don't hold the GPL in such high regard as he does (although I do find it an intruiging document worthy of discussion).

And let me remind you again that this kind of behaviour from you is doing Slashdot a disservice.

Re:Transcript?

[toastyman]

A transcript of this chat, (and all the other's we've done) will be up at www.astepcloser.com within an hour or two of completion.

-- Kevin

Re:The aftermath. :)

[toastyman]

Ack, that should be 'subscribe astepcloser' in the body. :)

Re:Bad scheduling

[toastyman]

Hey, In my defense, they didn't announce the new show until after Bruce and I scheduled this. :) It was originally going to be a week later. :)

Although, I did get to meet most of the X-files cast last week. Perhaps I can talk a few into doing a chat like this.


Kevin

Re:Why newnet?

[toastyman]

As an administrator for a couple of servers on NewNet, as well as a software developer, I can assure you that this kind of association with NewNet isn't desirable.

I'm actively working to bring interesting things to NewNet that aren't warez/porn/whatever related. Things like this help.

-- Kevin

The aftermath. :)

[toastyman]

Ok... First of all, a offical transcript is here:

http://www.a stepcloser.com/Zope/astepcloser/forum/948687822/in dex_html

Secondly, we learned quite a bit. :)

1) Even if your guest says they have a DSL line and can handle script kiddies, insist on a proxy of some sort before hand. :)

2) Plan for many more people than you expect. I honestly expected a lesser crowd than the ones I've had before for events like this, since I couldn't promote it well.

3) Implement the hacks I've got to ircd to allow for a forum like this. (Hide joins/parts from non-opers, disallow nick changes, etc).


But, a lot of really good questions got asked, and Bruce did a wonderful job of answering them. We'll be doing more of these, so please subscribe to the mailing list, if you want to be informed of them... (majordomo@dragondata.com - put 'subscribe irc' in the body).

Also, we're holding a contest to see who can bring the most interesting person for a future chat.... Go here for details... Win a t-shirt from Think Geek, or a $20 gift certificate from B&N.

Thanks to everyone who came. :)

Kevin

Wow, this is a bit much. :)

[toastyman]

Hi, I'm Kevin Day, the guy who's kinda running this interview tonight.

I really had no idea this was actually going to make it up on here, so this will definately be a learning experience as how to handle larger crowds. Right now it's 7 hours before the chat starts, and there are already more people here than there were for some tv/movie stars that I've done this with.

I'm gonna post a 'how this is gonna work' to www.astepcloser.com in a few minutes, but briefly:

The channel is moderated during the Q&A. This means nobody can talk who isn't running the show, or Bruce. With hundreds of people here, there's no sensible way of doing this.

To have a question asked, you'll send it to me, or one of the people helping out. (They'll have @'s next to their name).

We'll pick the interesting looking questions, and post them in the channel. Bruce will answer.

The realtime nature of this will allow followup questions to his responses, as well as the hint of unpredictability. (I hope!) :)

You're welcome to hang out before and after the event. We've got one other interview scheduled two weeks from now, with more on their way.

(And yes, please don't flame me that www.astepcloser.com looks a whole awful lot like www.slashdot.org. That's the default SquishDot look that I haven't had the chance to change much yet) :)


We'll definately be exploring the slashdot effect on irc servers tonight. :)

-- Kevin

Re:Wow, this is a bit much. :)

[toastyman]

Ok, I know how poor taste it is to follow up your own post, but... :)

The channel is #astepcloser. If that's full, please use #astepcloser-mirror. (Exact same content, just mirrored to another channel).

Also, irc.newnet.net is a dns roundrobin pointing to all of the servers. In case it picks one that is down or full, and it's not giving you a new one, here's a list:

irc.dragondata.com
|-irc.away.net
|-services2.newnet.net
|-security.dragondata.com
`-hub.dragondata.com
|-irc.rma.edu
|-hub.stinger.org
| |-irc.chelmsford.com
| |-irc.bootsector.org
| |-irc.Neticus.COM
| |-irc.busprod.com
| `-matrix.tlh.fdt.net
| |-irc.kbnet.org
| |-irc.aye.net
| |-irc.qpalzm.com
| |-irc.uplink.net.nz
| |-irc.gravestone.net
| |-irc.cybertrails.com
| |-hub.aohell.org
| | |-irc.keytech.com
| | |-renegade.midv.net
| | |-irc.gry.DE
| | | `-irc.oasis-net.net
| | |-irc.freshworld.de
| | |-irc.aohell.org
| | `-irc.jaxn.com
| `-irc.fsn.net
|-newnet.telia.NO
| |-newnet.grolier.fr
| |-newnet.online.be
| `-irc.kvalito.no
`-hub.eskimo.com
|-services.newnet.net
`-irc.eskimo.com

I promise that if I had known this was going to happen, I would have prepared better. :)

The thinking is too US-centric

[barzok]

The US isn't the only country that has a timezone labeled "Eastern" - there's an EST in Australia as well.

Use UTC. It's a common reference point that everyone *should* be able to convert to their local time. Otherwise, you have to say "well, I'm 11 hours ahead of UTC, USEST is 5 hours behind" and go through more crap.

Re:Or, use a bit of logic.

[debrain]

True. I've never even heard of US Eastern, and I'm in it! (in Canada)

Re:Who?

[myers]

"Bruce is well known in the Open Source software circles as for being the
leader of the Debian Linux distribution for several years, being co-founder
of the Open Source Initiative, and a vocal protector of free software. Bruce
has also worked as the Sr. Systems Programmer at Pixar (makers of Toy Story
and A Bug's Life) for twelve years."

That should help somewhat. I hope to see some of the /. crowd here tonight.

myers
NewNet Admin
irc.neticus.com

Re:Or, use a bit of logic.

[SomeOne2]

It's not at all hard to remember that the US Eastern time zone is GMT -0500. It's one of the two most commonly-used time zones in the world, so you SHOULD know it.

I'm a little bit amused by this. Have you ever considered that the majority of world's population lives outside the US and really doesn't care to learn the names of US timezones?

Why newnet?

[QuoteMstr]

Newnet has long been known for its large number of warez, vcd, mp3, etc. channels. If you /list them all, you'll find that the majority of the channels are warez channels, and all of the channels with >=25 people. I wonder why Bruce chose this network when he could have chosen Efnet, irc.slashdot.org, or many of the other networks in existance that don't have a warez connotation. Is it symbolic in some way?

Re:Why newnet?

[Issue9mm]

Cause that's where Bruce gets all his MP3s. When there aren't any questions pending, he'll be in #Cablemp3z sucking up Fserves and the like.

Also, I heard he's gonna have an onopen invite bot running to sucker you into #technocrat, which will be housing his devious plans for opening Slash code.

No doubt, he's an evil mastermind, and we should all bow down before him. (CmdrTaco, I am your father...)

PS. Just kidding.

Re:Why newnet?

[tidepool]

As an IRC addict^h^h^h^h^h regular, I could understand why one would prefer to reside on a smaller network.

Although I have never been on the so-called "Newnet", I think it's safe to assume that it does not have as many netsplits as say, Undernet or Efnet. Although 'Newnet' may have many warez channels, Both Undernet and Efnet have their fair share.

Another thing to be concerned about on Efnet, is the over-abundance of packet monkies that reside on the network. These are packet monkies with 'skill' (skill in the denial of service field, hardly resume material), who could easily take large servers and/or individual connections down.

Just my Cent's worth.


Ben Brewer
brewer@nullified.org

Log Part 1, be archived forever !

[hernick]

I would like to know Bruce's opinion on linux standards, with regaurds in particular to a standard desktop, and package manager. because as a software developer i feel it is tough to support so many distributions with many different directory layouts and different package formats.

That's a pretty big question, and I think we should talk about GUI's since there's more than one of them. And I should talk about distros, with regard to standards. The Linux standard base, is working on issues like filesystem layouts, names of libraries, what's in the libraries, and in general the nuts and bolts of how things works. However, they're not standardizing on a GUI. So, it looks like for the forseeable future, we're going to have KDE and Gnome both. I think they address different markets.


As AT&T awaits for the aproval of the merger with the 3rd largest cable company in the US, MediaOne, and as AOL may change it's tune of open acess cable for the internet if it's merger with TimeWarner, the 2nd largest cable operator, goes through, what do you envision the Future holds for the freedom to acess the Internet, for the freedom _of_ the Internet, and for grassroots sites such as yours, Technocrat?

Well, several users ago, I commented to the FCC on the creation of a personal digital radio service. And my intent at that time was that the service be used to establish a fidonet or usenet sort of relay system, that would allow people to do internet like things. Without the wired internet. So far, we don't have good radios to do this, except for maybe for some radios that AT&T is manufacturing. I've worked on this problem for as L0pht, and I'd like to see more radio and software develeopment, for a disconnected internet. A totally old-fashioned thing, which takes a lot of money. I actually tried to fund this, about a year ago, and did not succeed. It's possible I'll have better success now, once Linux Capital Group has funded some linux projects.


What is your opinion of the Wine project? Do you think a functional/reliable Windows emulator is important for Linux's success on the desktop, and do you believe it is possible for Wine to achieve a high level of compatibility with Windows?

Wine is one of the most difficult products in Linux. They're chasing a moving target, and a poorly documented one at that. Look at the commercial ones, like Wabi, which suddenly disappeared one day. I would like to see Wine succeed, I'd certainly help them any way I could. But, I think in the end, we need Linux applications for linux systems.


I'm wondering what your thoughts on the recent DVD DeCSS brouhaha are?

I was in the courtroom, for the first hearing. Unfortunately I missed the second one, where the prelim injunction was granted. I think that Linux folks just want to play DVD discs, and you should be able to play them with open source software. I think that US law is going too far, as far as intellectual propertly protection, when that kind of protection puts constraints in our hardware. And I think that the DVD folks, who are the movie studios, have nothing to lose, because DeCSS is not enabling the wholesale bootleggers. They have professional equipment. So, I'd hope that they could eventually be persuaded to drop the issue, but they've shown a history of being shortsighted. When the first Video Tape Recorders (betamax) came into homes, the movie studios did the same sort of lawsuit. They lost, and boy are they glad they did. They now make more from videotape sales, then they do from theatrical presentation. And the videotapes have only the lamest copy protection.


With the recent success of Loki distributing and porting games to linux, and the recent anouncement of more ports do you think application developers will start to hop on and port the killer apps over?

Well, I don't think of games as the killer aps for Linux, but maybe I'm prejudiced :-) I am actually trying to run a porting operation in Linux Capital Group. However, there are ethical problems. By porting commercial windows apps to Linux, and keeping them proprietary, do I make it more difficult for an open source solution to happen? And is the open source solution where I should be putting my company's efforts ? I figure I have to decide this on a item-by-item basis. If TurboTax wants a port, they will get it. If some FTP program wants a port, I'd just explain what the competition is like.


Being a Java developer, I'm interested in how you see the future of the language considering Sun's current licencing position. Also, what advice would you have for Sun, keeping in mind the fact that they are trying hard to stop third parties (like MS) from polluting the language?

Sun is in big trouble. They are painting themselves into smaller and smaller corners. This is because nobody has to listen to Sun unless they are using Sun's own software. Surely Transvirtual can sell Microsoft any version of Kaffe they wish. And now sun is going to release Solaris under SCSL. That will be a big boost to Linux. Linux programmers will copy what they like, but not close enough to violate copyright. Solaris will still have a dumb license and will gain market share more slowly than Linux, if it gains it at all. So, I am of mixed minds. I would prefer that sun use a good Open Source license. But at the same time I don't think this will hurt linux, it will help it if sun uses a bad license.


Do you think the recent relaxation of the restrictions on crypto by the US DoC is really a step forward, or just a straw-move to placate crypto-activists?

Regarding the crypto question, I have not had time to read the new law. So, I can only make a general answer. Open Source needs good crypto to work. If we can not tell where our programs come from, we will not know if they have trojan horses. So, we need digital signature very badly. So I'd like to see crypto laws support free import and export of open source crypto.

Re:Who?

[Issue9mm]

Well, to learn more about Bruce, you can check out his "competition to /." page at Technocrat.net, or his personal site at Perens.com. His BIO can be found here.

All in all, Bruce is an okay guy. I haven't really interacted with him much, but he at least appears to make sense most of the time. (Really, all you can ask out of anyone, IMHO)

Log

[Townshend]

There will be a log of the whole convorsation at http://people.ce.mediaone.net/t0w nshend/index.htm.