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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."
JBoss is open source... doesn't the license protect the guys that walked out? Does this mean that Mr. Fleury will sue me as well if I do a JBoss knockoff?
1. Please put your request in writing or in an email addressed to info@Linksys.com
I think that you forgot something, or the post office got way more efficient.
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
Speaking of which, Microsoft has decided it makes more sense to embrace schools
Kids beware, Microsoft now embraces schools. Learn to recognize Microsoft employees : they're the funny-looking people with long raincoats waiting for you outside the school.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
So, a suit was only threatened in the case the forked version used the same name as the original (presumably on trademark grounds).
Here's a revolutionary idea. Instead of posting hysterical flamebait stories to the front page, how about you do your homework before the fact? Is it so difficult to email the guy beforehand and ask him for the real story? You sit on submissions for days sometimes, so how problematic would this be?
I know that posting another "M$ is doing evil" story contributes to the bottom line with all the ad impressions and whatnot, but taken as a whole your FUD is no better than Microsoft's. And that puts you on the same ethical bandwagon.
That makes sense, I always thought GNU/Hurd qualified as computer science-fiction
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.
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!
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.
Thats fine. But as maintainer of BusyBox, which is being illegally shipped with their router without source in violation of the GPL, I had my lawyer send them a lease-compily-with-the-license letter on May 13th. Then did not respond. So I had my lawyer send them a letter letting them know we will sue them if they have not responded by June 16th. I don't care what their PR department says. I expect a proper response from their legal department or we will see them in court. I am tired of people trampling over the GPL and then giving a lame little "oops, sorry" when they get caught. When I walk into the local CompUSA, there is a isle filled with GPL violating routers. Until each of these routers includes a copy of the GPL'd sources, or includes a written offer to obtain the sources for the cost of the media, they will still be violating the GPL. They do not include the source with these routers. And they do not include a written offer for source. Therefore, they must offer source via their website to comply with the GPL. Anything less then that, and they are what microsft would term "software pirates" -- shipping software in violation of the software license agreement.
-Erik -- --This message was written using 73% post-consumer electrons--