Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's GPL IPv6 Web Server. Not Really.
So, quite a number of people have submitted this hideously poorly titled story that talks about a GPLed IPv6 Web Server that's on Microsoft.com. A number of people thought it means everything will be GPLed starting this afternoon - it's their research server called Fnord!. Now, please stop submitting it *grin*
Not the first time Brian has helped MS: http://www.wpi.edu/News/Wire/May97/microsoft.html fnord was his login at WPI, too, apparently.
There's a whole bunch of un-jazzy material at research.microsoft.com and, to be fair, some jazzy stuff as well.
Statement of interest: I'm responsible for some of the un-jazzy material. Not, unfortunately, for the layout of my home page itself where I had to take a predefined template.
Paul
Kala bandar aaya hai!!!!
Anybody who wants a usable POSIX subsystem to run
on NT buys Interix, which is now sold directly by
Microsoft. It represents an entire independent
POSIX subsystem that runs directly on the NT
kernel, and includes all the POSIX utilites, and
even a fully working copy of the GNU C Compiler.
They distribute the bare minimum of GPL'd utility
versions, of course, similar to the BSD OSes,
because there are BSD licensed versions of most
of the utilities.
Cygwin, on the other hand, is a psuedo-POSIX
implementation. It's just a thin layer that runs
on top of the Win32 subsystem, all wrapped in a
few DLLs,
INTERIX is a certified POSIX implementation, by
the way. When you install INTERIX on an NT
system, it's a legally branded Unix box, someting
Linux only wishes it could be.
http://douglas.min.net/~drw/msripv6-fnord-1.5.exe
It looks like someone else wrote the software, and Microsoft is complying with the terms of the GPL. You are free to use or not use the product, it doesn't "belong" to Microsoft.
Maybe the fact that Microsoft didn't write it? They just ported its networking code to their research IPv6 stack?
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
I mean, a web server named after a punctuation mark? How do you pronounce "!"? I'm going to get some weird looks from my hacker buddies if I say I'm running Microsoft's GPL-ed IPv6 web server, "bang".
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
(They've said much the same thing about multicasting too. Sadly, IMHO, multicasting is dying and will soon enter the Great Betamax in the Sky, where all wonderful, but pathetically handled technologies go when they perish from this Earth.)
Personally, I doubt the Microsoft IPv6 stack is even close in quality or readiness to, say, the KAME stack, or the Japanese alternative Linux IPv6 stack.
But that's not the point. The point is, this is Microsoft. Never mind it's not an "official" MS site. It's got the Microsoft label on it. All it would take is for one or two major news outlets (besides Slashdot!) to cover this, and IPv6 will be =THE= technology to use. Simply because of the label.
Played right, this could make or break IPv6, as a practical, day-to-day alternative to IPv4, simply because of the value on the sticker.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It strikes me that the reason MS has been coming down so hard on the GPL could be to get managers at MS Research to keep people from doing this.
It seems to me that they could be worried that carelessness or malice at MS Research could put them in a situation of having GPLed code they own but whose licensing they can't withdraw infect their main products.
The entry is copied from the Jargon File. Maybe you can try asking ESR to add your example... =)
I used to run an Fnord! web server back in college (pre linux days) it was a pretty kewl web server. I tried to find it again a couple of years ago, but 99% of the links to the software were dead, or said this software has been removed at the request of the author. I guess I now know what happened to it.
--pug
Oh, wait, it's Microsoft. Guess I do know.
Why are you doing that anyhow - it's annoying.
Back to the topic I doubt MSR has any admonition against reading GPL'd code. Certainly many of the folks they hire have read GPL'd code before MSR employment and many are likely exposed to it in the course of their jobs, looking at snippets, holding discussions with peers in academia and other research areas, etc.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
The real significance of this event is that their researchers are quietly disproving what their marketing and executive leadership says. This is *exactly* why Free Software is useful. These folks realized that it would take a long time to modify IIS and it would have been buggy. All they want is a way to test their IPv6 stack. Now, why should they go to all the hassle of rolling their own when it's so easy to "stand on the shoulders of giants"?
Well, the production server that runs on www.apache.org seems to have been supporting IPv6 for a long time.
According to this document.
Apache is now IPv6-capable. On systems where APR supports IPv6, Apache gets IPv6 listening sockets by default. Additionally, the Listen, NameVirtualHost, and directives support IPv6 numeric address strings (e.g., "Listen [fe80::1]:8080").
[Jeff Trawick]
--
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb15CB32EF3AF9C0E5D727
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
good lord, I remember using EMWACS on NT 3.5.
Huh, I just thought: "What are we going to fnord do tonight, Brain?" I guess that it would make sense for mice that intend to take over the world to qualify as "elaborate conspiracy" theorists.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
The fnord URL has mysteriously disappeared! ALso the link from MS's IPv6 research page has gone too! MS's PR department is obviously very quick and must be reading /. often
Hey, if y'all had lived through a four-hour power failure last night, like I did, you'd think this was funny too! I'm off to shop for a fuel cell...
If I were Steve Ballmer I would fire the people who put it up there. It's a danger to society in general and Microsoft in particular.
-- Cheers!
Why is this not moderated `troll', while my comment (#13) is?
-- Cheers!
If they haven't distributed the software, they are under no object to release the code. Since this is an internal R&D effort and has not been distributed, you don't get to see the code.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Maybe it's time to hire some real journalists?
"Real journalists" thought Linux was RedHats property..
The great IP shortage was news.. 2 years ago...
A hacker convention was a gathering of technology terroists.
Macintosh was news.. So was the release of Windows 95. But not SunOs, Solarus, or OS/2 warp.
Also Windows crashed durring a demo.. thats news.. Other demos crash.. not news.. Ok Slashdot agreed but there is the point...
When it comes to technology news the reason it's not reported on CNN isn't becouse they know better.. but becouse they don't understand it.
When they do they'll report garbage more often than Slashdot.
If you want good technology reporting you need to fork it over to publications that pay technology experts... not jernalists.. Taco is some sort of hybred between a jernalist and a tech expert.
Also you want the good people who still need to build a name for accuracy and technical understanding not the old guys who need only mouth press releases. The later is worse than Slashdot and almost as bad as jernalists.
Also you want publications with editers who know the diffrence between someone who understands technology and someone who mouths what Bill Gates or RMS say.
"How do you feel about FidoNet" would be an example of a question a good editor should ask of a prospective reporter..
It dosn't matter if his opinion matches the editors. As long as it's a coherent opinon that shows he knows what fidonet is...
I don't actually exist.
I considered it ethicaly and perhaps legally wrong.
;)
Yeah. Clearly the GPL is ethically and legally bankrupt - it impedes your employers "ability to innovate and to create Great Software(TM)".
I know this isn't what you meant, but it reads that way anyway
*Please* stop using that neologism - it's lame, it's intensely annoying, and it marks you out as a smug, arrogant fool.
Perhaps you'll understand when you're older.
*Please* stop using that cliche - it's lame, it's intensely annoying, and it marks you out as a smug, arrogant fool.
I *AM* older, and any time I hear somebody of my generation chiding a younger person with that taunt I cringe.
It very rarely has the effect they are looking for.
I don't think it is a joke. This truely was the name of a GPL webserver written by Brian Morin, who was a student at WPI. I've used Fnord! before. IT was a nifty web server for Windows. But then, Morin got hired by Microsoft and the project seemed to have been abandoned.
Such as the ones we see all the time on
:)
It's funny to see a Microsoft domain with completely unformatted text, just plain jane text, no graphics, funny verbage, etc. Everything they do on the web is so incredibly over-produced, it just screams "ad agency", but then you come to this page and it's just black text on a big white blank page. It reminds me of when I first started surfing the internet, and how everything was really content-driven instead of image-driven.
It bowled me over. I was actually excited to see this page, because I'm sure the guys who wrote it (and posted the server) are just as excited. They're working on cutting edge stuff (well, IPv6 is more cutting edge than MY projects) and they're probably having a blast. You don't hear about this often from the MS camp - by the time things make it to their web site, you get the feeling a dozen graphic artists and content managers have put their OK on it, and it's completely sanitized of humor.
I can't help but wonder what's going to happen to these poor guys when some image-driven schmuck from MS catches this page. "What?!? This is our first IPv6 web server, and it's this plain and ugly? It should be jazzy! It should have lots of IE-only controls! And take out that humor! Now hop to it!"
What's your damage, Heather?
"Fnord" and "Illuminati" are both trademarks of Steve Jackson Games (http://www.sjgames.com/general/faq.html) and may not be used without permission. Please report to the Intellectual Property Re-Education Center for debriefing.
Still, this is another example of shoddy, biased reporting in the Linux media. After all, why use the whole truth when half of it will do just as well! Now that's efficiency!
/. for cogent evaluations of bad reports, like the above. Also, news.com tends to "not get it" as much as the specifically Linux-oriented sites, but they have some excellent general technology reporting (in spite of being CNet).
Actually, Linux Today is one of internet.com's rags (INT Media Group, Inc). They are more mainstream media than most of the well-known on-line Linux news services.
I suggest that if you want decent Linux reporting you go to linux.com or LWN.net, or just read
I used to use that back when. May not have been the best web server ever written, but it was preferable to Microsoft's "Personal Web Server" and IIRC it was out earlier. I even got Perl CGI working on it!
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
Unless IIS version 5 is GPL all of a sudden, it looks like this story has been cut off. Are they trying to cover their tracks here?
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Well if they were the sole authors they have the right to change the licence and release future code under without the source. But all previous code will still be under the gpl and you cannot retroactivly change the licence.
or MS has been infiltrated by the Illuminati.
The truth about this can be found here.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
With all the things that "corporate" Microsoft does, it's very easy to dislike everything that is Microsoft. But then, you see a page like this and you realize that MS has some pretty cool geeks workin' for them, too.
Note: If in any way you might take from this note that I consider myself a cool geek, DON'T.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
WELP, It's hidden now! They took it off their webpage. No GPL for you!, microsoft says. Bahhahahaha *Watches as 10 weeks of carefully planned PR Streak across the sky like the comet the killed the dinosaurs* (link)
yeah i remember using Fnord! in 1996 or so for my personal web site. wasn't Brian Morin involved in the ANSI art scene or something? i know a lot of ANSI scene people used Fnord! to host their art sites. i didn't know it was GPL though, but perhaps that's a recent thing.
- j
This is not a good test of the GPL. They fully give you the source. They include the copywrite and the credit to the author. They do not violate the GPL at all.
It also should be noted that MS did not develop the fnord web server. They just adapted it to use IPv6 and contributed back there changes.
This is just a case of, "instead of reinventing the wheel lets take an open source wheel and put IPv6 spokes on it."
They then did the right thing by releasing the IPv6 code back. Though they would not have to if they intended to only use the code internaly.
Just cuz MS uses GPL code does not mean they violated it. Hell if you look at the NT4 Extra (or something like that) the GNU tools come on it, with the GPL and sources.
Only they would think of naming software with only a punctuation mark fnord.
-><-
Zaphod B
Zaphod B
When duplication is outlawed, only outlaws will have
For the lazy(read: efficient) among us who find it too much work to hit google, would somebody care to describe the status of linux and apache with ipv6? or any other web server, for that matter. and since at least one freebsd freak is going to post 'we've had ipv6 working for ages now. that just proves we're better.' well, who cares? but post it anyway.
Do you see the sig? Do you have it in your sights? Why yes, Miss Moneypenny...
MS is just followinf their normal use of other peoples code as a base for their own products.
This time the code where licensed GPL and it is code to see they include the source as they must.
They probably will not make a full blown program out of this one as they have done to IE, BSD TCP/IP, paint etc. But in the name of the GPL other programmers can.
Remember, GPL is a licence. The original author have the choice to do whatever he want's with his code but if it is released under GPL newer versions may or may not be GPL. What is released GPL stays GPL. If other programmers make changes and included it in his code he may not just take that source and release it with another licence. In short. you are still the owner of te source when you release GPL.
This Star Wars quote edited for content by (Not available at your clearance level).
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
--
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
SecurityFocus is a non-profit hobby site run by a handful of volunteers in their free time. Each staff member at SecurityFocus has a day job that takes a considerable amount of time, as well as other hobbies, and a social life (despite popular rumor). Over the last two years, the site has moved from a few random specialty pages to an archive of over seven gigs of diverse material and specialized content. With no corporate backing, no income, no 'guidance', no leash and no muzzle, SecurityFocus continued to move in a direction that values truth and bluntness over sugar coated words and fluff.
Decision
One of the most predominant sections of SecurityFocus has been the Microsoft vulnerabilites mirror. What began as a small collection of minor hacks soon turned into a near 24/7 chore of keeping it up to date. In the last month, we have experienced single days of mirroring over 100 vulnerabilities, over three times the total for 1995 and 1996 combined. With the rapid increase in hacking, there are times when it requires one of us to take mirrors for four or five hours straight to catch up. Add to that the scripts and utilities needed to keep the mirror updated, statistics generated, mail lists maintained, and the time required for basic functionality is immense. A "hobby" is supposed to be enjoyable. Maintaining the mirror is becoming a thankless chore.
During this time, we have struggled to keep up various other sections of SecurityFocus that have been a core part of the site. As the mirror grew and began to consume more resources, the other sections have found themselves on the backburner and rarely updated. In essence, what was once a hobby site run in spare time for fun has turned into a beleaguring second job. A job that comes with more headache, complaints, criticisms, slander and attacks than productive output or reward. In two years we have turned away countless computer security work that could have been fulfilled by a number of us. The abuse and ignorance we deal with from defacers and defacement victims is staggering, and some of that abuse spills over into actual attacks. SecurityFocus has been taken down more than once by massive denial of service attacks which have inconvenienced our generous upstream provider, hundreds of other colo customers, and thousands of dialup customers, making our job even more difficult.
With that, and the announcement of a new Microsoft IPv6 web server, the Microsoft vulnerabilites mirror will no longer be maintained. We've served our time."
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
Back in earlier days of the web, sometime around 1995 or 1996, I recall finding this on the website of the student who wrote it. At the time, I needed a personal webserver and I don't think that Apache had released a port to Win32 at that point (I may be wrong). Anyway, I installed this sucker and it ran beautifully. It also had a tiny little Illuminati pyramid that sat in the systray.
Interesting that M$ picked it up for experimentation. I would hasten to point out though that they are merely complying with the previous software license, since I doubt they would have used the GPL of their own accord.
Project ELF - Anonymous Distributed Filesharing
Heh. That's not what I think of when I see 'Fnord' :) Then again, I think reading the Illuminatus! trilogy did plenty of brain damage as well.
You're my hero.
Peace,
Amit
ICQ 77863057
[o]_O
Woohoo! My School is famous once again. Go here. Better than MIT (they are lifeless losers), because we DRINK.
Lemure, wtf! Don't you mean Lemur?
why release it under GPL?
um, **because they had to**? This is the whole damn point of the GPL: if you take and modify GPLed software you must license any release under the GPL or a fully compatible license.
When will people understand this? It's really not difficult.
Yes, you're missing something.
From the file `readme.msr' inclded in the downloadable zip file:
This release contains:
Fnord! Server version 1.0.0.23 (Feb 10 97) sources to which we have
made MSRIPv6 modifications.
A new Makefile for building Fnord! Server in the MSRIPv6 environment.
Precompiled compressed executables (fnord.ex_ and fnordnt.ex_) built
with MSRIPv6 defined.
All of the IPv6 related Microsoft Research modifications to the Fnord!
Server sources are contained within #ifdef MSRIPv6 contructs. In addition,
we made a few minor changes to allow the sources to compile using Microsoft
Visual C++ and wrote a Makefile for building the executable (the original
author apparantly used the Borland IDE). The Makefile we've included
defines MSRIPv6. If MSRIPv6 is NOT defined, these sources will build a
IPv4 version of Fnord! Server.
From _The_Golden_Apple_ by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
[as extracted from pp.438f of _The_Illuminatus!_Trilogy_ compilation]
``Very nice,'' I said. ``But why did you bring me up here?''
``It's time for you to see the fnords,'' he replied. Then I woke up in bed
and it was the next morning. I made breakfast in a pretty nasty mood, wondering
if I'd seen the fnords, whatever the fell they were, in the hours he had
blacked out, or if I would see them as soon as I went out into the street. I
has some pretty gruesome ideas about them, I must admit. Creatures with three
eyes and tentacles, survivors from Atlantis, who walked among us, invisible due
to some form of mind shield, and did hideous work for the Illuminati. It was
unnerving to contemplate, and I finally gave in to my fears and peeked out the
window, thinking it might be better to see them from a distance first.
Nothing. Just ordinary sleepy people, heading for their busses and subways.
That calmed me a little, so I set out the toast and coffee and fetched the
_New_York_Times_ from the hallway. I turned the radio to WBAI and caught some
good Vivaldi, sat down, grabbed a piece of toast and started skimming the first
page.
Then I saw the fnords.
The feature story involved another of the endless squabbles between Russia ad
the U.S. in the UN General Assembly, and after each direct quote from the
Russian delegate I read a quite distinct ``Fnord!'' The second lead was about a
debate in congress on getting the troops out of costa Rica; every argument
presented by Senator Bacon was followed by another ``Fnord!'' At the bottom of
the page was a _Times_ depth-type study of the growing pollution problem and
the increasing use of gas masks among New Yorkers; the most distressing
chemical facts were interpolated with more ``Fnords.''
Suddenly I saw Hagbard's eyes burning into me and heard his voice: ``Your
heart will remain calm. Your adrenalin gland will remain calm. Calm, all-over
calm. You will not panic. you will look at the fnord and see the it. You will
not evade it or black it out. you will stay calm and face it.'' And further
back, way back: my first-grade teacher writing FNORD on the blackboard, while a
wheel with a spiral design turned and turned on his desk, turned and turned,
and his voice droned on, IF YOU DON'T SEE THE FNORD IT CAN'T EAT YOU, DON'T SEE
THE FNORD, DON'T SEE THE FNORD . . .
I looked back at the paper and still saw the fnords.
This was one step beyond Pavlov, I realized. The first conditioned reflex
was to experience the panic reaction (the activation syndrome, it's technically
called) whenever encountering the word ``fnord.'' The second conditioned reflex
was to black out what happened, including the word itself, and just to feel a
general low-grade emergency without knowing why. And the third step, of course,
was to attribute this anxiety to the news stories, which were bad enough in
themselves anyway.
Of course, the essence of control is fear. The fnords produced a whole
population walking around in chronic low-grade emergency, tormented by ulcers,
dizzy spells, nightmares, heart palpitations and all the other symptoms of too
much adrenalin. All my left-wing arrogance and contempt for my countrymen
melted, and I felt a genuine pity. No wonder the poor bastards believe anything
they're told, walk through pollution and overcrowding without complaining,
watch their son hauled off to endless wars and butchered, never protest, never
fight back, never show much happiness or eroticism or curiosity or normal human
emotion, live with perpetual tunnel vision, walk past a slum without seeing
either the human misery it contains or the potential threat it poses to their
security . . . Then I got a hunch, and turned quickly to the advertisements. it
was as I expected: no fnords. That was part of the gimmick, too: only in
consumption, endless consumption, could they escape the amorphous threat of the
invisible fnords.
I kept thinking about it on my way to the office. If I pointed out a fnord to
somebody who hadn't been deconditioned, as Hagbard deconditioned me, what would
he or she say? They'd probably read the word before or after it. ``No _this_
word,'' I'd say. And they would again read an adjacent word. But would their
panic level rise as the threat came closer to consciousness? I preferred not to
try the experiment; it might have ended with a psychotic fugue in the subject.
The conditioning, after all, went back to grade school. No wonder we all hate
those teachers so much: we have a dim, masked memory of what they've done to us
in converting us into good and faithful servants for the Illuminati.
Henry Fnord
Yes
Henry Fnord
Damn does that picture bring back memories. Wow do we look like a bunch of geeks....
Henry Fnord
To be clear. What I ment was I just spent a summer working with one of the best web severs ever written. It would be grossly unfair to apply what I had learned to Fnord and release the result of that GPL.
:-)
As for my personal view of GPL and free software, lets just say I'm more conservitive than Karl Marx and more liberal than Jim Allchin. But lean a lot closer to Jim Allchin.
Henry Fnord
It's funny how these things just keep comming back. I always got a kick out of seeing it show up on the Netcraft survey (at least at recently as a year ago.) Anyway I guess a few comments are in order (easy Karma too.)
I wrote Fnord back in my Junior yeah of college (96-97.) Partialy because EWACs (or something like that) was the dominant web server at the time with IIS just comming around with it's magical version 3. Partitialy just to learn how they worked under the covers. The name Fnord was a joke that stuck. The thought of Fnords on the web being served by a Fnord Sever had a certain ring to it. Why GPL? Since part of my goal was understanding how these things work and would work under NT, GPL was as good of a way as any to share my work with others. I ended getting a little help from a couple people in the process. Overall, it was a fun experience I learned a lot from.
The summer of '97 I accepted an internship at Microsoft on the IIS ASP team. In the process I learned a hell of a lot about stuff I didn't know that I didn't know. After that experience, by my own initiative, I ceased to work on Fnord. I considered it ethicaly and perhaps legally wrong. So it laid idle on my homepage at WPI. Around then I got a letter from Steve Jackson of Steve Jackson games asking me to cease and desist using the pyrimid and eye icon. However, by that point there wasn't much to cease and desist doing. Being a fan of his work made it all the more humorous. After graduation I accepted a postion at Microsoft.
After working for Microsoft for about a year, someone from research called me and asked me if they could use Fnord as an example for their IP6 effort. They needed a server example, releasing a subset of IIS was not possible (I suspect size and intellectual property issues) so Fnord fit the bill. Other than saying yes and being glad Fnord still was of some use to someone, I had no other role in MS release it.
Currently, I'm still working for Microsoft in XBox Online.
Hope this sheds some light on how this little inside joke came to be.
Brian Morin
aka
Henry Fnord
Fnord isn't owned by Microsoft, it's a GPL'd webserver they ported to run on their IPv6 IP stack so they're required to GPL their version of it.
Guess what's up at fnord.org :)
Get your facts straight. The software is on Microsoft's site because they ported it to W2K. It doesn't just happen to work with W2K, as you implied. From their page:
Fnord! is a web server for Windows NT/2000 which we have ported to run on our IPv6 stack.
--
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
I can't get to the page...get a 404...looks like it's either been removed from the site, or they've got it on some separate server that has fallen to the /.effect.
Karma: Non-existant. Due mostly to the fact that you smell funny and nobody likes you.
in case anyone was wondering, here's the dictionary.com definition of fnord
The Slashdot effect only affects your server if you have one or more of the following:
a) a crappy server/bad configuration (more prevalent than you might think)
b) slowus connectionus (don't host your site on your cable modem, mmmkay?)
c) you are too cheap to enjoy the amount of traffic you get and you shut it down
That probably explains the majority of sites that die because of a Slashdot link, there could be other problems as well (script kiddies, DOS attacks, etc).
---
Hammer of Truth
Ok, this story is kinda tripping me out. I just finished reading the Illuminati trilogy yesterday, and am seeing fives and fnords everywhere I look. Damn Gruad.
Yeah but fnord was written for Windows. Now they could have used apache for window, but thats a webserver that competes with IIS. Fnord will never be a heavy hitter. There not going to use a non MS operating system because there testing Microsofts IPv6 stack.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
Well, if you look at the parent page, you can see a whole list of Windows software they have ported to IPv6:
From Third-Parties:
In fact, they even ported Quake to IPv6! So I think you can't exactly read this as a reversal of M$'s intellectual property strategy... just a bunch of software engineers messing around with the IP stack.Fnord! is a Windows web server we found on the net and ported to run on our stack.
"Ackk! We've been infected! get those nasty Linux germs out of here! AcKK!"
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
One time when i was a little boy in third grade my teacher made me write 23 times on the board, "If you can't see the fnords, they can't hurt you." I could never figure it out, but i do like shopping...
Point is, just because you tweak a GPL'd project does not immediately mean you are under threat of lawsuit to publish that code somewhere to give it back to the public. Redistribution means you have to provide the source to the people that downloaded/purchased the product. It's also dependant on the terms the original author put out what they permit and don't permit. As always, individual products using the GPL may vary their terms. Duh.
That's just my little nit to pick.
Anyone want to take bets as to how long the Powers That Be Microsoft are going to let that stay up?
The phrase "GNU Public License" alone is anathema to MS these days.
Well, they essentially release IIS for free and have been releasing IE for free for some time now, though they aren't GPL'd. I would be willing to say that in a few hours (once the work day begins in Redmond) that this page will undergo a dramatic and sudden disappearance.
'Fnord' is a term that any "fringer" or geek will recognize, and it's a word with absolutely no meaning; I wonder if the codeworkers in MS have more of a sense of humor than we'd give them credit for (above and beyond 'Netscape engineers are weenies.')
Maybe the sheeple of the world aren't supposed to see this little gem? =)
---
Chief Technician, Helpdesk at the End of the World
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
Sorry; didn't think it would press a button quite that hard. =6
You make a good point, though; ironically, there was a discussion some friends were having a while ago about how slang helps a subculture to make itself elitist. Thank you; your point about the smugness of the term 'sheeple' is well received.
(Betcha were expecting a flame, huh? ;)
Seriously, though, I just found it interesting that they called the thing 'Fnord,' which is, in Robert Shea's Illuminatus! Trilogy, everywhere but seen by almost nobody. That'll probably map pretty well here; almost everyone won't see this server, one of the few (if there are even any others?) GPL'd packages to come out of Microsoft.
Then again, this IS less than a beta; it's some codeworkers cobbling together an IPv6 web server.
---
Chief Technician, Helpdesk at the End of the World
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
As others pointed out, yeah, it's not MS code, it's code that MS ported. =) It's good that the engineers are respecting the GPL (I believe the original code was GPL'd, at least.)
---
Chief Technician, Helpdesk at the End of the World
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
Come on folks, as if Microsoft would ever GPL any of their stuff! I mean, if they're anything, they're always looking out for their bottom line, and they're not going to do something so obviously dangerous to their profitability...
Still, this is another example of shoddy, biased reporting in the Linux media. After all, why use the whole truth when half of it will do just as well! Now that's efficiency!
I know that these sites are strictly amateur, but amongst professionals like myself it just tarnishes the reputation of free software as a whole when such blatent propaganda pieces come to light.
Maybe it's time to hire some real journalists?
Jon Erikson, IT guru
Whatever you may think of their commercial arm, Microsoft have a flourishing and highly-respected research division, who knock out stuff like this all the time. Some of it is GPLed, some of it is BSDed, etc etc. What's the big deal?
arnald
What are you talking about? I don't see the fnord.
This is Microsoft we're talking about. How many different meanings are going to be read into this little foo of theirs? The only reality is that the only time M$ will release an IPv6 server to the public will be when they 1) can no longer deny that IPv6 is needed and popular and 2) can make a mint off of it. Thus, the chances of them releasing anything valuable to the community now and under the GPL are about the same as Taco finally admitting his preference for Thai boys.
If using Linux is about choice, how come people complain when I choose to use Windows?
Seriously, though, I just found it interesting that they called the thing 'Fnord,' which is, in Robert Shea's Illuminatus! Trilogy, everywhere but seen by almost nobody. That'll probably map pretty well here; almost everyone won't see this server, one of the few (if there are even any others?) GPL'd packages to come out of Microsoft.
Being on of the biggest fans of Robert Shea's (and Robert Anton Wilson cowrote!) Illuminatus Triology, I immediately started laughing when I saw the name of the program and the page it was on.. the most perfect thing ever.. but unfortunately I realized that it is a program that has been around for several years and has been called Fnord! since it's inception, when it was written by a college student (that is now a MS employee). In other words, MS didn't name it, the name was already there..
I thought someone said there was going to be free beer!
Well.. within the last 10 mins or so the page has gone 404.. I clicked on it, it was there.. read a few comments.. it was gone.. so either some strange slashdotting, or more likely.. they've yanked the file! :)
I thought someone said there was going to be free beer!
I don't like the microsoft attitude and blue screens, but I must recognise I always had some pleasure to browse research.microsoft.com.
Yes, they are here to provide amunitions to the bad guys, but they also provide some community services, for example hosting some IEEE publications and making them available for free.
So, they respect the licence for a server someone else developed and they ported to IPv6, great. Remember, Microsoft is build on licensing, so it's not so strange.
You're webserver are belong to us.
-Jeff
or MS has been infiltrated by the Illuminati.
I think the second one is more likely, I can even feel the mind control beams emenating from the NT I'm typing at.
it was written by someone else after all. What's more surprising is that it's visible to the world.
fnord
1. A word used in electronic mail and news messages to tag utterances as surrealist mind-play or humour, especially in connection with Discordianism and elaborate conspiracy theories. "I heard that David Koresh is sharing an apartment in Argentina with Hitler. (Fnord.)" "Where can I fnord get the Principia Discordia from?"
I should ask dictionary.com to include "MS releases a server under the GPL." as an example.
BOSTON SUCKS!
Yeah, they are happy with building shell over shell on top of their crappy early-80's OS. (stolen). :)
Um, some of the new versions of windows, like NT, were reimplemented from scratch. And DOS wasn't stolen, just bought for a very low price from some people who should have known better. It wasn't such a great piece of work anyway, even by the standards of the time.
Personally, I'd like to run a vaccum-tube/plugboard simulator and play with all the ballistics stuff from even earlier. Now *that* would be an OS...
Whatever floats your boat. However, you managed to pick one of the few areas of computing that doesn't involve the OS at all. Better luck next time.
"Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental." -Slashdot
Ok everyone, calm down. Fnord isn't written by MS. The researchers probally choose it because they needed some kind of server application to test out on their IPv6 machine, and adding IPv6 support to IIS isn't pratical for their research and testing. So they found this small open source webserver that they could hack at and get running on IPv6 in a few hours. As required by the GPL, they've released their modifications to the public. Personally, I think it would have been fun if they forced you to download the code via IPv6. Would have given the /. community a reason to setup IPv6.
5 -25-005-20-OS-MS ) and automatically reject the story (since you're motivation for posting this story was "stop fscking submitting it!")
In the grand scheme of things, there really isn't much to see here. It's a Microsoft research/test server running something besides IIS, on IPv6. The webserver is a small, GPLed little server that they made a few patches to. I'm still trying to figure out how the hell this is newsworthy. Did everyone download the fnord code and check them for GPL complience? Don't bother. It's there. The author of the Linux today article obviously has no idea about the orgin of fnord, or the nature of research. Why the hell would IPv6 support get into IIS before their IPv6 stack was ready? Why would a small research team modify IIS to support IPv6? They wouldn't. That's what MS pays the IIS developers to do. Please, use you're grey matter just a little bit.
Why not add a feature to slash that will look for a URL ( in this case http://research.microsoft.com/msripv6/fnord.htm and http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-0
Ok, I think I'm done now.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
why release it under GPL? a few days back they were chiding GPL. may be to get help from outside to test it??
Nope. It stands for "Foundation for Neuro Ontological Research and Development.
Ewige Blumenkraft!
Ewige Blumenkraft!
I have a Question on the GPL. This server is under the GPL now. Pretend that the authors eventually have a final release version, can they remove it from the GPL and just give away the binaries without source? Or are they obliged to give away the souce, because now it is the "community's" code, and not theirs? But who would stop them from un-GPL'ing it, since they are the original authors, they are the only ones who can stop themselves in a way, right? So would that be OK or not?
Yeah, and the icon is a pyramid with an eye in it. *shiver*
--
"I'm not downloaded, I'm just loaded and down"
They're still distributing GPL'd software, whether they wrote it or not, whether it's an official capital-R Release or just something a few engineers threw up one weekend...
--
"I'm not downloaded, I'm just loaded and down"
Perhaps you'll understand when you're older.
--
"I'm not downloaded, I'm just loaded and down"
Of course, Microsoft already include a bunch of GPL'd software with the NT4 Resource Kit, including a horrible old build of Perl, some GNU utilities etc. IIRC these were licensed from MKS. Anyone know whether the W2K Resource Kit comes with similar goodies? Or have MS noticed that everyone who wants a usable Windows system these days gets this stuff (and tons more) from cygwin?
--
"I'm not downloaded, I'm just loaded and down"
Microsoft Research (MSR) generally prohibit
their researchers from reading GPL'ed code.
I should think they would have an awkward
time if someone else modified their code
and distributed the modifications (under
the GPL). Would the original MSR folk
be able to read the modifications?
Ooh, I hadn't noticed before that MSR is
an anagram of RMS. Spooky...
http://www.illuminati.com/secret
God, it's nice to see them admitting that they can't come up with anything. I loved the "apparently" in their credit. Watch them try to sell it, claiming that they reverse engineered the server after reading the code. Oh, and they added some "enhancements," too.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
Apperently it is very important to MicroSoft because they are trying to hide the fact that it was ever there. They have erased the page and taken the program off there FTP server. They have also erased all mention of gpl and fnord from there pages. unfortunately, there search engine needs to be reindexed because you can still search on fnord or gpl and turn up pages, but the pages themselves contain no mention. HAH HAH HAH Check out the cached pages on google and you can see what they took out. Can't wait for Mundie or one of the other idiots to open there big mouths again, there own developers who are responsible for new "innovations" are using GPL'd software. They can't even convince there own developers with there FUD. How embarrasing.
nothing official -- except the microsoft.com part! If microsoft ported perl to windows, it would have to be open source (gpl or artistic, I belive), and that would be equally impressive.
---
___
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
Why does it say "not really"? How is this not really releasing a GPL IPv6 Web Server? Just because it isn't shipping with windows 2000 doesn't mean it isn't out there in the wild. I think this is great! It IS gpl'd and it IS microsoft.
Someone is probably about to get fired tho when the higher ups get wind of this.
---
___
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
Actually, that was inherent in the metaphor. Consider: my first trip into the 'dacks, I picked a flower for a girl I liked, who didn't like me and was a consumate woodsman. "You shouldn't pick the flowers," she said, "because there aren't many wild flowers left. If you pick them, they won't grow back, and then there won't be anything left for the next group."
Wise young girl, with the exception of her taste in guys...her current boyfriend is a dipshit.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
You know, I've always thought something like this had to exist at Microsoft.
.Net, ASP), has been doing a lot of great shit. Fast XML parsers. Semi stable windowing OSs. A decent scripting language (or, rather, engine...i write my WSH stuff in Perl or JavaScript). All of these things well documented in MSDN with text files that were obviously not hit with the same marketeering technical writers who tried to sell us on Windows Media 8, the death of the paper clip or the "excitement" of .Net: The Network is the Comput-oh wait, that's not .Net!
You see, I've seen a lot of smart, talented young coders and scientists get recruited by Microsoft. Half of them go in for the huge stock options, their name on a blue MS shirt, and, of course, the booth babes. The other half are misfits and nutjobs who really want to change the world. In fact, that's the reason why I'm not anti-MS...I've known too many good men entering the behemoth to think that it's all fluff and marketeering.
We all like to think of Windows as an underpowered, oversimplified mush...but Microsoft, despite its market crap (XP,
This "Fnord" box is apparently the house of some of these innovators at Micrsoft. The ones taking the ideas that UN*X users come up with and adapting them for the mass market. These are the guys that are going to eventually build the Ipv6 core that us Windows users will have underneath it all in four or five years -- before marketting makes them paint it yellow and cover it with MSIPv6 logos.
Don't hate MS for looking at GPL code...that's what GPL code is for. Hate the marketeers who cover this free code with bumper stickers and sell it back to us at a premium. We're all in a field of flowers, but Microsoft is picking them and selling them to folks who are too lazy to come to the countryside.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
We're all in a field of flowers, but Microsoft is picking them and selling them to folks who are too lazy to come to the countryside.
Too true. And in the process, they first have to destroy that which they are selling us.
Nope, no sig
"Fnords? I see the fnords; they're everywhere! Aaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!"
Runs from room screaming, and impales himself on a minuature, jewel encrusted pyramid, and disappears in a flash of light.
Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
Microsoft says that has ported the GPLed Fnord to run on their IPv6 stack but I can't see the source code for their port.
Am I missing something here?
1) This isn't new. I downloaded their IPv6 version of Fnord! 3 months ago, and it's been around longer than that (The oldest version on their FTP server is from 9/2000.)
/pub, /users, and several other directories.
2) This isn't 'hidden', it's linked off the Microsoft Research IPv6 homepage, which in turn is linked off of the Current Research page (Although they want you to register if you go in that way).
3) This isn't Microsoft, the OS maker, it's Microsoft Research, the R&D Lab.
4) Microsoft didn't write Fnord!, it specifically says on their page 'Fnord! is a Windows web server we found on the net and ported to run on our stack.' and 'Fnord! was apparently written by Brian Morin while a student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.' The readme.msr goes on to give the URL of the authors website (now defunct) and a URL of a Tucows mirror where the original could still be found when they wrote the readme. (I didn't check if that mirror still works.)
5) Yes, they included the source code in their port. No, it's not for Visual C++. It's actually a Borland C++ 4.5 project, although I believe their binaries are compiled with VC++.
6) Finally, I'd like to point out that there are a lot of other interesting-sounding files available on ftp.research.microsoft.com, from the
-Jade E.
I urgently need a copy of the (now unavailable) zip file. If you have it, please drop me a line off-/. davesbox@canoemail.com
So...?
What is the big deal with that? If someone makes a piece of software that works with their software it's wise to support it. It's not like they are GPLing their own software.
If you look a little longer than your nose you will notice that the fnordserver is written by somebody else but is put on the Microsoft site because it works on W2K.
It isn't Microsoft's software; it's just hosted there.
Yeah, they are happy with building shell over shell on top of their crappy early-80's OS. (stolen). :)
Personally, I'd like to run a vaccum-tube/plugboard simulator and play with all the ballistics stuff from even earlier. Now *that* would be an OS...
Fnord stands for Found Not On Road Dead. Appearently, msft is struggling to convince themself of that the inevitable won't happen. ;-)
As I understand they have taken a GPLed product and modified it for use with IPv6. Since it's a derivative of a GPLed product, it's under the GPL as well. That's the whole point with this license.
Of course it's very fun that MS research people work with and even release anything with the GPL. (They could have kept it to themselves, then they wouldn't have to release the source code). Dare I hope this is the way things are heading? Research people probably are the smartest people over at Microsoft, right?
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Gotta love google... http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:NSB-lq3OTUY:r esearch.microsoft.com/msripv6/fnord.htm+&hl=en
BN
Haha, I'm surprised Microsoft didn't slap a disclaimer on this: "Opinions expressed are those of researchers and do not express the views of Microsoft"... haha ...
Ok i know anytime the words Microsoft and GPL are combined anywhere someones going to send it to /., but come on this is getting rediculous. The server is GPL not because Microsoft GPL'ed it, but because the original creator did. Microsoft has no choice but to comply with the GPL otherwise risking copyright infringement. Haha, it is nice to know that even though Microsoft may not like the GPL at least it respects its legality and bounds. Although I'm more of the opinion that this is more the decision of the researchers than out of necessity than microsoft.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
as if /. was the measure of all intelligence
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
Oh and the reason you have a -1 and are considered a troll by /. is because what you post for the most part makes no sense in context to the topic (and yes i checked)
tool
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
Yeah, no doubt they are infiltrated, but how does it come I can see the Fnord!?
And is this the first step towards the end-phase for Illuminatus Primus Bill Gates, whatever this might be?
However, I am scared...