Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Mars, Linksys, Torrent
Fork carefully or be forked preemptively. BSD Forums writes "The leader of the open-source JBoss Java application server environment said that if the group of developers that left his organization attempts to splitâ"or "fork" as it's called in the industryâ"the JBoss code base, he would sue them. Marc Fleury, president of JBoss Group LLC, Atlanta, said he is prepared to take legal action if the group of developers who left the JBoss Group to form a new company, known as Core Developers Network LLC, attempts to diverge from the JBoss code base."
They can learn in the classroom, or outside it. MVP writes "Fridrik "frisk" Skulason, of F-Prot fame (you know, that good old DOS free for personal use antivirus, up-to-date & usable for windows), has a very acid reaction against the decision of University of Calgary to start teaching virus-writing classes (see previous Slashdot thread)."
Just let me control the textbooks ... After a few stories like this one, it may please some people to see at least a partial turnaround from Microsoft on computers donated to schools without Windows licenses. Patrick Cable II writes "I got an interesting letter from Microsoft today at work. Microsoft has started a "Fresh Start" program for educational instutions that basically makes it so schools who have had computers donated to them without licenses or media can get media and a letter stating the computer is licensed to use a Windows operating system (98 or 2000). More information can be found here. Anyone think they're trying to figure out a way to deal with the whole Linux thing?"
Software in the Public Interest has yet to respond with a lower licensing fee for Debian.
More fun than "The Winds of War." For fans of Kim Stanley Robinson, space exploration and colonization, space elevators et cetera, reader Unbeliever writes with new that Hurd will soon meet Mars. "No, not GNU/Hurd, but Gale Ann Hurd. Hurd just signed a deal with Sci-Fi to produce Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars as a Sci-Fi 6-hour miniseries. Red Mars is the first of the Robinson's Red/Green/Blue Mars Trilogy, an 'almost plausible sci-fi' future-history approach about Colonizing and Terraforming Mars. The trilogy looks at the technological, sociological, personal, and political challenges of terraforming a different planet. Also of interest to Slashdotters in general is Robinson's ideas on the growth of multi-national corporations into Meta-Nations, and their effects on world politics."
But doesn't that make it radio their way? In the recent Radio Your Way review, our reviewer said of the device that it had "[n]o off button! As far as I can tell, once you turn the device on there is no way to manually turn it off other than to wait for it to enter sleep mode after several minutes. Very annoying."
Another reader writes with this workaround: "In any mode, hold down the stop button (a little square under the play button) for 2-3 seconds to turn off the unit. This is listed in the manual, which you are right, is a very poorly done Korean effort."
Calm down that jerking knee, then apply ice. In response a post which raised the question of whether Linksys was in violation of the GPL by not distributing, nor offering links to, the source code for the software controlling their 802.11g base stations. A representative from Linksys-PR sent in this note about the "missing" source code:
Linksys is a strong proponent of both Linux and the Open Source movement. The code within our routers is using User Space code without linking dynamically or statically to any GPL (GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE) code. Any code which does not have a static or dynamic link to anything covered by the General Public License is not GPL'ed, and can be considered closed source.
We regret it took some time to respond to this posting. To assure timely responses to inquiries like this in the future, please use the following procedure which complies with the requirements of the General Public License:
1. Please put your request in writing or in an email addressed to info@Linksys.com
2. You have to request the code for the specific modules you want. It is not valid to issue a request for any "code you may be using."
3. Technically, you are also supposed to provide us with a self-addressed stamped envelope, along with funds to cover the cost of providing the code to you. But Linksys will handle requests on a case-by-case basis. Thank you."
Straight from the Tiger's mouth. Tiger Direct Executive Vice President Richard Wallet wrote to contradict Michael Robertson's claims that Microsoft was targeting Tiger Direct customers who purchased Lindows systems to offer them steep discounts on Windows XP. Wallet writes:
"TigerDirect is not selling any version of Windows for $50. We are selling Microsoft Windows XP just like any other reseller and we are in compliance with all of Microsoft's licensing agreements, no better, no worse, and no different.TigerDirect does sell low-cost systems with the Lindows operating system. TigerDirect also sells low-cost systems with Microsoft Windows XP. TigerDirect even sells systems with NO operating systems. The only parties who can tell us which products are or aren't worth selling are our customers. Neither Microsoft nor Lindows has a significant influence on what we buy and sell. We aim to serve our customers with the products they want at the very best values available and world-class customer service.
TigerDirect did in fact perform a survey of its customers as it does on a regular basis. Contrary to the author's claim, this survey was not only sent to Lindows buyers. It was sent to everybody who bought systems from TigerDirect during a specific time period. The purpose of the survey was to help us better serve the needs of our customers by getting a better understanding of what they're using the systems for, what they're running on them, and why they purchased what they did. The result of the survey is going to be to help us better align our PC product mix to increase sales."
Many monkeys make slick visuals. IamTheRealMike writes "Hi all, there is a BitTorrent of the XD2 RPMs for Red Hat 9 available, please be gentle with it. It comes as a directory that contains a readme and an ISO - make sure you read the readme first as there is a bug in the installer you need to know about. When all is done and you've read the instructions, just mount the ISO using the loopback device and point the installer at it. For all those who have been trying and failing to get it using the mirror network, this might provide a useful alternative."
So, a suit was only threatened in the case the forked version used the same name as the original (presumably on trademark grounds).
Actually, bittorrent performs a check sum for you during download so you don't have to MD5SUM all 1000 or so RPMS.
He's prepared to take legal action if the guys who walked out fork the code and call the new product JBoss. I understand the Fleury's organization has trademarked "JBoss".
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
According to guy who reported Linksys possibly not providing source code, his contact within Linksys finally responded and said the lack of source with the WRT54G was unintential. His contact also said that previously they shipped their products with source code on a CD. I found this on the lkml shortly after the slashdot article.
BT checks file integrity by SHA1 hashing; MD5ing the files is redundant, unless you do not trust the original seed.
If you're serious, it's Ximian Desktop 2, although I find it odd that someone with such a low user id would ask in such an lame way.
Read the GPL. There is no requirement that the sources be made available except when requested and only to the one who requested it. AND the requesting party has to pay for shipping and handling. Linksys is being nice by providing the media for free.
Linksys could in addition just send you the source on magnetic tape as per the GPL, but that wouldn't do you any good, would it, Linuxboy?
What you think the GPL says and what is actually written are fairly divergent. Best you get to reading it if you want to know what kind of protections and rights it gives you and takes away.
Fair is fair; however, it is Linksys who is distributing the programs in binary form to begin with. They cannot simply provide a copy of the GPL in the documentation with their product and say that this covers "all GPL code distributed with this product" without themselves identifying what software the product contains which falls under the GPL. Here, check out the TiVO website for an example of how it's done.
-renard
As usual, the trade rag is unnecessarily alarmist and so is the referring /. blurb. The quote of interest is:
"I did think about them forking," Fleury said. "If they fork JBoss, that's another problem. If there's a new JBoss, if they fork it and call it JBoss I would sue them. There is only one version that we control."
Fleury's saying he would not sue over a mere fork, per se, but instead a violation of the JBoss trademark. In other words, if CDN forked the code but called it something other than JBoss, there would be nothing to sue about.
I'm sure what Mr Fleury means is that he owns the JBoss trademark (it is a trademark, see the little â in the logo?), just like Linus owns the Linux trademark.
If the Core developer group forks the code, then they JBoss LLC would be within thier rights to prevent the Core Developer Network using the trademark.
The CDN guys would have to come up with their own name for the app server.
They should be able to do it sucessfully. And it would be another case of history repeating itself. JBoss used to be called EJBoss, but Sun stomped on them for using _their_ EJB trademark.
Here is the readme if you're wondering about it before downloading that 473 MB file ;-)
/mnt/cdrom for RedHat)
btw, I love bittorrent... downloading at 250-400 k/s !
--
Note!
To Install Ximian Desktop 2 for RedHat 9 (x86), please do the following:
1) Burn the ISO to a CD.
2) Mount the CD, and run installer-i386. make sure you have network
connectivity. The installer will need a file from ximian.com, but it's only
300k.
3) Select "Local Media" and point it at where you mounted the cd (usually
4) THIS IS IMPORTANT!
You'll get to a point where you verify what packages the installer will
install. LOOK AT THE VERSIONS of the packages that will be installed.
Note all the packages that do NOT have 'ximian' in the version number.
These need to be installed from RedHat 9 media BEFORE continuing.
If you see any packages that lack 'ximian' in its version, QUIT THE INSTALLER,
install the missing packages, and rerun the installer.
5) After noting 4, and installing the "missing" packages, rerun the installer.
In a few minutes, you'll be able to enjoy your new XD2 install!
I suggest you read the GPL yourself. In section 3, you have three choices on what to do if you distribute GPLed code.
a) Include the source in human readible form on a medium *customarily* used for software exchange (this would rule out magnetic tapes for virtually all platforms).
b) Include an offer to do (a) under the provision that the cost is not more than the cost of distribution.
c) If you're given (b), then include this information. Note, this is only valid for noncommercial ventures which receive an object or executable file.
Linksys doesn't appear to be including the kernel sources with their router, they can't use options c since they're commercial (not to mention that they're almost certaintly compiling the source themselves), and option b would work except they *haven't* been including an offer to give out the source. Ie, Linksys has it backwards. They should include the offer with the router, and people just need to mail in possibly a letter + self addressed stamped envelope + some change for the CD/floppies. That's not what was happening, so Linksys is clearly in the wrong.
Section 3 of version 2 of the GNU General Public License provides three options for those wishing to distribute GPL'ed software: (a) "Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code [...]" (as I understand it, Linksys did not do this), (b) "Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party , for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code [...]", or, (c) an option available "allowed only for noncommercial distribution" (not the case of Linksys). So, I infer that Linksys is now trying to get close to following option (b).
The problem that I see with Linksys's claim that "It is not valid to issue a request for any 'code you may be using.'" is that without written offers that specifically identify exactly what GPL'ed software Linksys is using, and without source code to begin with, we cannot be sure that we know all of the source code that Linksys is using. For example, we don't know everything that was linked into their busybox image, and we might not even know every kernel device driver they use.
It seems that Linksys sees two different specificity requirements in the GPL. Firstly, they seem to think that a blanket offer to provide code without identifying the source code that they are referring to satisifies the written offer requirements of section 3b. Secondly, they seem to think that they are not obliged to fulfill the acceptance of that offer when it is made with the same level of specificity. Linksys seems to think that they are fulfilling the GPL's requirements if they provide an offer to do x, but refuse to actually do it if someone simply says, "okay, I accept your offer." In other words, Linksys is not providing enough information in their offer for people to fully avail themselves of it. This is similar to offering to provide source code, but providing no contact information by which people can accept the offer. I expect that under some sort of "reasonable man" standard, a court would decide that these shenanigans are not in the intended meaning of the GPL.
If I were in Linksys's shoes, I'd just dump of all of the GPL'ed source code involved into a CD image, send out CD's as needed, and also put it on an FTP site, which would probably reduce the requests for physical media to about a dozen (and, besides, the media costs less than postage and it's useful to have a mailing list of likely Linux wireless access point developers).
Personally, I am mostly interested in the 802.11g drivers, although I suspect that some useful software may have been linked into busybox, which might be helpful to have too. I am glad that Linksys is trying to conform to the requirements of the GNU General Public License. Hopefully we can help them actually achieve that.
By the way, I just sent info@linksys.com a request for the source code to the kernel and any software linked against BusyBox. I sure wish I knew what other GPL'ed software is in the WRT54G.
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
They took linux, compiled it, and are running it on their boxes. They then wrote a program which runs, under Linux, on those boxes.
End of story. They have modified NOTHING which is under the GPL, so they don't have to release their own stuff. They are NOT required to post the parts of Linux they're using on their website, they're required to give it to whoever a) owns their product and b) specifically asks for it. They're also allowed to charge the cost of giving it to the person; hence the self-addressed stamped envelope.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.