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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."
Cause then you know you have an *exact* copy of the CD. I hated having to download individual files cause you'd never know if you got them all properly. Try running an MD5 sum on 10000 files.
It's good to see Microsoft doing something about licensing for schools, but I wonder how many people will actually know about or apply for this? Or more precisely, how useful will this really be? I can see only a limited amount of success with this program.
The NY Times article on 'Thedeacon' had it all wrong, apparently because of a personal vendetta or simply bad journalism:
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http://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php
I was wondering this same thing myself...I would think the University would be partly liable in a court of law, though I don't really know if it should be. They are supplying the resources the student needs to create the virus, and educating them on how to do it. Now if they can show that they took every reasonable precaution to prevent it from getting out and the student still somehow snuck it out, then they might be OK--but consider the biological parallel: it's like showing someone how to make anthrax, giving them the means to do so, and then not having a secure lab environment, thus creating a hazard to the community.
Like I said though, it ultimately comes down to the student's will to pull the trigger, but considering that the University is supplying the gun...it's shaky ground.
"I may be quite wrong." - Socrates
I always thought that was a terrible name anyway. I'd call their product "J2Free-e"
Linksys should not require you to reverse-engineer their product to figure out which portions are GPL before they will comply with a request for the GPL portions of the code.
This is clearly not acceptable.
They need to tell you which portions are GPL so you can request them. Also, a SASE should be considered a distribution mechanism of unreasonable cost in time and effort to the person requesting the code. The Internet is ubiquitous, and practically every Linksys customer will have access to it. They should provide it for free download.
If they're worried about everybody downloading it, they only need to require you to enter the serial number of one of their products. That would stop most random people who they didn't distribute a binary version to.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
"In any mode, hold down the stop button (a little square under the play button) for 2-3 seconds to turn off the unit."
The CD stereo (an aftermarket Blaupunkt) in my car does something like this: to turn it off, you have to press and hold the power button for three seconds. Otherwise, it just reduces the volume significantly but continues to play. I've seen other brands do this, too.
WHY?
When I hit the power button, I want the radio to turn OFF. Right at that moment. If I'm turning off the radio, there's a good chance that I'm doing so because it's distracting me and I need to concentrate on the traffic and roads around me. Now, I'm forced to keep my hand at the radio (making it useless for steering or operating other controls, and it restricts my ability to look over my shoulders to check traffic in the blind spots) for several seconds. It's annoying.
When I look at new radios, that's the first thing I check: the power button must work instantly. (I didn't pick this radio myself--it was installed by the dealer when I purchased the car.)
If the manufacturers want to include a "mute" feature, fine, just add another button for it. Or better yet, use a volume knob; my other car has one and it works perfectly.
--RJ
The Slashdot story and the Blog buzz all say this is about a bunch of developers wanting their own JBoss fork. The Core Developers party line is that they just don't want to be tied to JBoss to the exclusion of competing products. Any other explanations?
Probably there's some truth to all these stories.
Well, according to Sun, the reason they won't certify JBoss is just that JBoss won't cough up the (reasonable) money for testing. Core Developers might be more inclined to pay if they create their own fork.
Probably Sun will be the real winner as this encourages one fork or the other to give them some cash money. More bling bling gold chains for McNealy : )
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
My mother-in-law delivers mail in a small town of about 5,000 people. My favourite post-office story is from a few years ago, when they received an envelope with a child's handwriting on the outside. The envelope contained only two words on the outside - "Mom", and the name of the small town.
The post office staff figured it out, and the mail went through. I think they used the postmark, which identified the city from which it was sent, and successfully guessed which divorced / separated woman had children living in that city.
Slashdot - the place where you can look like a genius by restating the obvious
It's only plausible if you still think that technology is advancing linearly, instead of exponentially, and only if you assume humans will still be stuck in our fragile biological form for a period longer than the centuries it takes to terraform a planet in the first place. So no, IMHO, I think we'll sooner end up ripping Mars apart (oh the humanity!) to make better use of its matter, than wasting space & energy by living on its limited surface area.
(Yeah, I've had a slight problem suspending my disbelief for most SF in recent years :)
I'd much rather see Iain Banks' Culture brought to the screen, though that would be just a tad bit more difficult.
--
Power to the Peaceful
I have to disagree there. Awhile back, I was working on a benign project that involved fiddling with and understanding the low-level details of DOS executables. Some of the best online sources I found were virus-writing tutorials.
As a (pirate, at the moment) distributer of GPL software, it's their legal responsibility to inform us about which pieces of they're using so that we can then ask them for the source code. and given that they're the ones who violate the license, I figure that they should be the ones beending over backwards to make things easier for us not the other way 'round.
Technically: having violated the GPL, on the code in their routers, they're now GPL limbo. They have lost all rights distribute the software, and must now do whatever it takes to satisfy the GPL copyright owners that they're not going to do this again.
I take that back.
They have to do whatever it takes to satisfy the GPL copyright owners period. Nominally, I would expect this to be something like payment of legal fees, putting a prominent notice on their website and distributing free source CD's via all of their distributors -- but there's no reason why it couldn't include a $500K 'administrative fee' as well.
Of course, if they keep on stonewalling, some GPL owners could just refuse permission outright.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
I think it is more like spreading viruses is illegal while writing viruses is unethical. And I don't think you have to actually write a virus just to know how they work either.
.bat files and that was written in DOS batch language. I succeeded. That was almost as much fun as doing the boot sector stuff.
:-) ) with which to fix it.
Hm. I just can't see that. I have written more than one virus in my time. Nobody got hurt. I played with them on isolated machines. I learnt something from doing it. It was a challenge and it was lots of fun. For example, I set myself the challenge of writing a virus that infected DOS
It turned out useful some time later when I had a non-bootable harddisk and only an assembler on a bootable floppy (a magazine cover disk
And at the end of all this, nothing got damaged. No people got hurt. I had fun watching my code wander around my systems. I played in assembler, and eventually deleted the viruses and moved on to other things, like artificial life simulations and genetic algorithms. 14 years later, I still have people oohing and ahing over the leet assembler skills I use on their embedded projects.
How was this unethical?
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But it hasn't always been this way. Horror stories about lost mail and general screwups were legion. UPS wouldn't even be in business if the Parcel Post hadn't been a complete disaster for years and years.
I'm old enough to remember when the USPS was the federal Post Office Department and the Postmaster-General was appointed by the President. The job always went to the chairman of the party in power, because of all the patronage jobs. Needless to say, efficiency and quality of service were not top priorities. Most of the USPS's unfortunate reputation dates from this period.
I suppose it helps that only a dozen people in the UK have our surname, but even so, it must be tempting to just chuck such items away.
[FUCK BETA]