Slashback: Arch, Bubbles, Keystrokes

Slashback with updates tonight on keystroke tracking (but not spying), OddTodd's interesting approach to unemployment, cold fusion, and an appeal from the Arch folks. Read on below for the details.

This research could still lead to new and powerful sink cleansers. mrsalty writes "A topic of brief and skeptical discussion back in april, Sonoluminescence as a fusion catalyst seems to be circling the drain. According to this BBC News article, new research shows that the collapsing bubbles' temperatures fall a bit short of that needed for fusion. A bit in this case being a few million degrees."

Discretion is sometimes the better part of avoiding attention. stinky wizzleteats writes: "Looks like OddTodd got off on charges that he defrauded the State of New York by starting www.oddtodd.com (Laid Off Land) while receiving unemployment payments. I didn't know he was only getting 67% of the take (his provider was getting the rest, which sort of explains why the site didn't get /.ed when the first story about him was run."

Try explaining this one to your parents. Earlier this year, we posted about Project Dolphin, an effort to measure the number of keystrokes you make as you IRC, email, program, whatever. Now, Wes N. a.k.a c3 writes with a largish update from the project's homepage, excerpting:

To this end, Dolphin has found itself its own dedicated server that serves as a home that is now (finally) suitably equipped to handle the growth we want to see, and fully expect. Previous participants will notice that this site itself has been fully redesigned and revamped toward a more professional look, while remaining commercial free in the original spirit of the project.

At the very core, this is a research project for its designers. It's made by geeks and it's made for geeks. The positive feedback received over the last few months since its initial launch has ensured that it will continue along it's current path of growth in the spirit of fun and experimentation for the forseeable future. (end from website) The new version of project-dolphin's Pulse is due to come out any time now. The new version is supposed to have a few bug fixes and how loads of new features. to check how the progress is coming along check out The development website some of the new features include . Typing Activity tab, Keystroke Frequencies chart , and alot of other neat stuff check it out on the website or goto irc.project-dolphin.net #projectdolphin on IRC."

"Arch" is adjective, verb and noun in one. When it comes to replacing CVS, Subversion is not the only game in town. We posted in May about the even-more-ambitious arch revision control system. Now, bshanks writes: "Tom Lord, the author of the revolutionary arch revision control system (slashdot article here), needs some monetary help."

Comments

thanks for the press, slashdot

[tomlord]

I am grateful to supporters for the purchases and contributions received so far.

I'm still a rather far from having enough to stay on-line, but the contributions so far suggest that there is a chance.

The problems faced by arch aren't unique. Whenever I've talked to those more senior engineers who are my friends and who have lots of "open source" involvement, they say "We're hearing this same sad story from a large number of very talented hackers.".

The botttom line: please do contribute to arch. It really is a fiscal emergency and your support is much appreciated. But in addition to sending support, please also send a short, polite note to your favorite budgeted manager or exec at an open source or free software friendly company. Point out to them that you are doing their job and spending money in a way that will benefit them. Ask them to be more proactive in supporting free software researchers, including working on their host organizations to establish some winning policies in this regard.

No, it isn't.

[anno1602]

Dual-Licensing works only with libraries, because the GPL prohibits linking between GPL and non-GPL code. However, arch is a program. You don't need to link it to your project to use it for generating your project. According to the GPL, you can use GPL'ed programs for commercial projects (e.g. using Kdevelop as IDE an arch as version control). As long as you don't use them as part of your project, everything's fine.

So the difference is: When we're talking using GPL'ed stuff as tools, you can use it in any way you like. It's only when it comes to modifying or linking GPL'ed code that you get restrictions.

Check out opencm, too

[darrylo]

As others have hinted (but did not provide any details), an alternative to subversion and arch is "opencm":

http://www.opencm.org

Unfortunately, like subversion, opencm is still a work-in-progress, but it appears to have a lot of potential. Progress appears to be occurring at a steady, but moderate, pace.

Features:

• Doesn't require (part of?) apache to build, unlike subversion. (yay!)

• Developers have explicitly stated that repository replication and disconnected commits will be implemented in a future version. I think subverion might someday support these (and I wouldn't hold my breath), but the opencm developers seem to have put a much higher priority on these (i.e., explicit mention as "coming soon" features).