Slashback: Kororaa GPL, ICANN .XXX, BellSouth NSA

Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories including an update to the Kororaa GPL accusations, BellSouth demands a retraction to NSA story, South Korea rejects Microsft antitrust appeal, Tim Berners Lee continues net neutrality fight, ICANN possibly pressured to nix .XXX domain, another side to Vista Beta2 reviews, and the worst tech IPO in 2 years -- Read on for details.

Kororaa denies GPL violations. AlanS2002 writes "Chris Smart, of the Kororaa Project, has written an update about the accusation that the Kororaa XGL LiveCD is in violation of the GPL. According to Chris, he has been shown no evidence that the nVidia/ATI drivers are derived from any code in the Linux Kernel or that the drivers link to the Kernel. From the best information he has it appears that the drivers make system calls to public interfaces of the Kernel, in the same way that a web browser makes calls to public interfaces of a web server but are not considered to be linked to the web server (they do not link to private functions of the web server). However the Kororaa project has decided to let end users download and install the drivers themselves if need be, which defeats the purpose of continuing to develop their Live CD. As such their will be no Kororaa XGL LiveCD 0.3, however they will continue to make Kororaa XGL LiveCD 0.2 available."

BellSouth demands retraction to NSA story. An anonymous reader writes "CNN reports that BellSouth has moved from strongly denying participation in providing the NSA with calling records to requesting a retraction of the article from USA Today." From the article: "The telecommunications giant sent a letter to USA Today on Thursday asking it to retract last week's story that BellSouth and two other companies helped the NSA compile a massive database of records on domestic phone calls."

South Korea rejects Microsft antitrust appeal. mikesd81 writes "According to MSNBC, the Korean Fair Trade Commission has turned down Microsoft's appeal to separate it's Window's OS and it's media service. The February ruling also included a 34 million dollar fine. Apparently, The commission began investigating Microsoft after a local Internet portal, Daum Communications Corp., filed a complaint with the commission in 2001."

Tim Berners Lee continues net neutrality fight. Kortec writes "As reported by The BCC, Sir Tim Berners Lee has spoken out against the current US bias towards the destruction of network neutrality at the Edinburgh WWW2006 conference. The man behind it all is quoted as saying the two tier system proposed recently on the floor of Congress is not 'part of the internet model,' and that 'the web should remain neutral and resist attempts to fragment it in to different services.'"

ICANN possibly pressured to nix .XXX domain. mobiux writes "Fox News reporting that the US Government allegedly pressured ICANN into denying the .XXX domain, despite orders not to do so. ICM Registry says the e-mails show how the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a branch of the U.S. Department of Commerce, was subjected to intense pressure to intervene on behalf of the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, two socially conservative lobbying organizations."

Another side to Vista Beta2 reviews. lordgreg writes to tell us that while Slashdot already talked about Vista Beta 2 Major Problems, which Gary Krakow addressed in his review. DotProject claims to have the other side of Vista Beta2's Major Problems, the users themselves.

Vonage IPO shaping up to be the worst tech IPO in 2 years. fistfullast33l writes "Vonage went public to great fanfare and poor results today, with it's stock price falling 11% by closing time. Analysts have cited the fact that Vonage has yet to post a profit and increasing competition for the lack of interest. 'It's a wildly unprofitable company still selling at a very high valuation,' said Tom Taulli of Newport Coast, California, an IPO analyst. BusinessWeek also discusses growth barriers listed in Vonage's filings, including 'finding enough customer-support staffers and long delays in getting traditional phone companies to let customers take their existing phone numbers [to Vonage].'"

Comments

Uh huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, the alleged actions that Bell South is denying they performed-- and demanding USA Today retract their reporting of-- is... the same stuff Bell South is currently being sued for. Maybe if we all just close our eyes real hard and think about other things the lawsuits will go away?

Since when can anyone "pressure" ICANN?

[SuperBanana]

ICM Registry says the e-mails show how the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a branch of the U.S. Department of Commerce, was subjected to intense pressure to intervene on behalf of the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, two socially conservative lobbying organizations.

"Intense pressure?" Big guys named Guido and Luigi showed up at the reception desk and asked politely that they pressure ICANN? Concerned mothers sent them very sternly worded letters with comments like "I would send you to bed without dinner"?

The US Government does whatever the hell it wants to, generally. Especially branches nobody's ever heard about, unless someone threatens their budget. We generally term that "extortion", and that's certainly not very family-friendly. Nevermind that it seems absurd that some goofy little branch of the department of Commerce holds -any- sway over ICANN whatsoever; they're also fantastically good at ignoring people and doing whatever the hell they please.

Re:Since when can anyone "pressure" ICANN?

[NutscrapeSucks]

Since the GOP controls Congress and the Executive, it would be quite easy for them to get together and "reform" ICANN out of existence, dump all the graybeards, and create a new Internet committee loaded with the usual party hacks. I think if the ICANN members have half a brain, they take GOP opinions on Internet governance very seriously.

The entire .XXX issue was basically an internal GOP division -- some conservative groups wanted it, others didn't. The fact that ICANN was even considering it was an example of political influence, and if the conservatives were unified behind it, we'd most likely have it by now.

Re:Since when can anyone "pressure" ICANN?

[Firehed]

Watch OutFoxed. Biased in its own sense, as you could imagine, but it does cite numerous examples. As you could imagine, public mood indicates that even places as generally biased as Fox News says that they need to side with the people in the way that they present their information, and Bush's approval ratings aren't exactly stellar at the moment. That and Murdoch may have been a .xxx supporter.

Re:Since when can anyone "pressure" ICANN?

[0x0000]

Big guys named Guido and Luigi showed up at the reception desk and asked politely that they pressure ICANN?

Well, given the history and reputation of the fundie militias, it was probably more of a "weasely little guys in camo with burnt cork rubbed on their faces and sniper rifles" kind of thing...

Re:Since when can anyone "pressure" ICANN?

[rs79]

"Who sits on ICANN? typically, engineers from companies such as HP, Sun, MS,"

Company affiliations notwithstanding, they're lawyers, not engineers. The ones that don't have big company affiliation are lobbyists from the industry.

How can we believe a single thing

[stox]

said by a company that is involved with national security? They don't even need to tell the truth to the SEC, let alone mear mortal human beings:

The memo Bush signed on May 5, which was published seven days later in the Federal Register, had the unrevealing title "Assignment of Function Relating to Granting of Authority for Issuance of Certain Directives: Memorandum for the Director of National Intelligence." In the document, Bush addressed Negroponte, saying: "I hereby assign to you the function of the President under section 13(b)(3)(A) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended."

A trip to the statute books showed that the amended version of the 1934 act states that "with respect to matters concerning the national security of the United States," the President or the head of an Executive Branch agency may exempt companies from certain critical legal obligations. These obligations include keeping accurate "books, records, and accounts" and maintaining "a system of internal accounting controls sufficient" to ensure the propriety of financial transactions and the preparation of financial statements in compliance with "generally accepted accounting principles."

FYI

[CrazyDuke]

"...Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, two socially conservative lobbying organizations."

FYI, both organizations are founded/run by James Dobson. I would not necessarily refer to them as seperate entities rather than appendages of the same one. James Dobson, you know, the guy of Spongebob Squarepants is a conspiracy to turn kids gay fame.

Re:FYI

[jonadab]

Dobson was a child psychologist (and, as near as I can determine, a pretty good one), but the popularity of his books (some of which *are* quite good) apparently went to his head, and he started to see himself as a religious leader (which was dangerous, because he doesn't have the proper training for that; his training is in psychology). Then in order to maintain his popularity and keep selling books and magazines and things, he at some point along the line abandoned all pretenses of discernment and started using his name to publish, basically, whatever sensational thing will get people excited enough to buy subscriptions. His magazines will print virtually anything that purports to be conservative, family-oriented, and Christian, even if it's baldly incoherent nonsense. For instance, around the time LOTR:FOTR came out his magazine ran an article that attempted to claim that LOTR was Christian allegory. Even worse was the malarke they ran about Y2K. I was unaware of the particular stance you mention, but it fits the pattern.

I assume Dobson himself doesn't bother to proofread these articles before they get approved. Not that that excuses him from all responsibility. It doesn't, and he should be ashamed of what he has allowed his name to be used for. I guess what I'm saying is that his organizations do indeed seem to have become entities unto themselves at this point. I don't think everything they do is initiated by one man any more.

Re:FYI

[Seraphim_72]

For instance, around the time LOTR:FOTR came out his magazine ran an article that attempted to claim that LOTR was Christian allegory.

Actually that is old news to the Tolkien folk. If you search around you will find that His works have always been well recieved by the greater christian community, Compare that to any Harry Potter book, universally reviled as witchcraft, satanist, and evil. Good or bad the original Tolkien books were loved by the christian orthodoxy. It has been said that the acceptance of them has been due to JRR's conversion to Catholocism. I dont know. The Triolgy has been given many meanings through the years - the Ring as Nuclear power, as Race relations, as a simple life vs the worldly one. For me, it only showed how different the original Artist's product is different than how the original Artist meant it to be. For me, they are the best stories ever told.

Sera

Re:FYI

[Brandybuck]

James Dobson, you know, the guy of Spongebob Squarepants is a conspiracy to turn kids gay fame.

The more people like you make stuff up like this, the less people will believe you when you decide to say something truthful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Dobson

Re:FYI

[Watts Martin]

For instance, around the time LOTR:FOTR came out his magazine ran an article that attempted to claim that LOTR was Christian allegory.

While I agree Dobson's generally an incoherent idiot, Lord of the Rings very definitely isn't allegory--but it's very definitely Christian. As Tolkien himself wrote, "The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first but consciously in the revision." There's a great deal of scholarly work out there on the Christian themes in the work. (It's something I wrote a term paper on, many years ago.)

Re:FYI

[CrazyDuke]

You'd think someone could read the f'ing websites I link to.

Why is Dr. Dobson objecting to a video featuring characters such as SpongeBob?

From his own website.

"From the outset, let's be clear that this issue is not about objections to any specific cartoon characters. Instead, Dr. Dobson is concerned that these popular animated personalities are being exploited by an organization that's determined to promote the acceptance of homosexuality among our nation's youth."

It reads that a cartoon charactor is being used part of a conspiracy to turn kids gay by making it acceptable. Notice I did not post the oversimplified "Spongebob is gay" line for a reason. But, of course thinking before speaking would be too hard on you.

Re:FYI

[sgtrock]

Kinda difficult when most of the back story had been written long before WWII. He started writing parts of it when he was in the trenches during WWI. LOTR was meant to be just one more chapter (possibly the final one, although I can't remember for sure) of a long mythology. Don't take my word for it. Take the time to read all of his other works to get a feel for where the LOTR and The Hobbit fit in to that larger view.

Programmers Should Stick To Programming.

[QuantumG]

Leave the legal arguments to the lawyers already. If someone doesn't like you linking X component with Y component, the very first thing you should ask them is: are you the copyright holder of X component or Y component? If the answer is "no" then kindly ask them to go away. Only the copyright holder can sue you so why should you pay any attention to them. If you are so worried about someone suing you, just call up the only people who can sue you, the copyright holders, and ask them if what you are doing is ok. If they say yes, put that on your web site and tell the distractors to piss off.

Re:Programmers Should Stick To Programming.

[bigpicture]

This is the kind of thing that is a big problem for Open Source and Linux in particular. When I first read about Kororaa I downloaded it and of course the feature that I wanted to see (the 3D) didn't work, no ATI driver included. Then I read about a second version that included the drivers, so I downloaded that and walla the thing worked as expected, with all the bells and whistles.

Now SUSE 10.1 is supposed to have the same feature. I have it installed exclusively on one of the hard drives, and this feature does not work by default, nor will it work until I jump through hoops and try to find and install the driver. So what is the point of spinning this feature when it does not work?

No matter what version of Linux that I have installed and run, the printer has never worked. If Linux and Open Source want to get into the game they are going to have to come up with a solution for this. Today's consumer expectation is that you install software and it "Just Works", like the way Microsoft does, security bugs and all.

ATI nor Nividia, nor the printer companies are going to Open Source their drivers. Because if you know how the software works, it probably goes a long way to reverse engineering both the hardware and the drivers. There goes your trade secrets and competitive advantage. So Linux and the Open Source community is going to have to find a way to get along with this, and add some kind of driver operating layer that allows non infringing inclusion of propriety drivers on the install disk. If they cannot find a way to do this "just works" operation, then Linux will never be my primary desktop, and I imigine the same goes for millions of others.

Re:Programmers Should Stick To Programming.

[mrchaotica]

so I downloaded that and walla the thing worked as expected

It's voilà, damnit! You people look like morons when you spell it wrong!

Vonage IPO far too late

[mazphil57]

In the good old days, a new company (such as Vonage) would go public long before it was "discovered", allowing early investors to get rich (like Microsoft, for example). In today's world, major banks provide working capital and the objective is to delay the IPO as long as possible, so that only the banks and the founders make any real money. I'm predicting the disappointment seen today with Vonage is going to become the norm for technology IPO's.

Re:XGL and the Java Trap

[crotherm]

But, tautologically, these are not free, so XGL is completely useless to the free software community.

It lets me make use of better graphics on my linux box. Thus, it is useful to me. Now I may not be the free software community, but I like to consider myself a friendly neighbor. I use what works.

Linux has more copyright owners

[tepples]

If someone doesn't like you linking X component with Y component, the very first thing you should ask them is: are you the copyright holder of X component or Y component?

The Linux® brand kernel uses a distributed copyright ownership model, in stark contrast to the copyright-assignment practices that GNU® brand software follows. If I write a patch to Linux, and a kernel maintainer accepts it, then I am an owner of copyright in Linux. I would wager that even FSF, the owner of copyright in GNU software, owns at least some of the Linux copyright.

Re:XGL and the Java Trap

[Bronster]

We all know that, to use XGL in GNU/Linux, you need to use non-free binary drivers from nVidia or ATI.

I call FUD. I have successfully tested XGL in kororaa with the Intel i810 chipset in my Dell Inspiron 510m laptop. I guess we don't "all know" after all.

Re:XGL and the Java Trap

[spuzzzzzzz]

XGL runs very well on my Thinkpad with an ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 using the Free, open source drivers that X.org provides. I imagine the situation is similar for any Radeon cards up to and including the 9200. I also understand that the Free, open source drivers for Intel chips support 3D acceleration.

Re:XGL and the Java Trap

[murdocj]

Realize a vast majority of the world is completely shackled to non-free and downright evil software.

I'd like to reserve the word "evil" for things that are, you know, evil. Like holding prisoners in secret prisons scattered around the world so you can torture them. Selling software without giving away source may not be the best way to produce and deliver software (or maybe it is, I don't know) but isn't "evil".

Speak for yourself

[brunes69]

You != "the free software community".

I am a rabid supporter of Free Software, and have been for many years. But I have no problem with closed source device drivers. Never have, never will.

Why? Because by their very nature, device drivers are not free to begin with, because you have to have possesion of that device to use them in the first place. Thus, "Freedom 0" as defined by the FSF is impossible. I guess RMS doesn't read his own manifestos?

Not to mention the fact that for both of these vendors, it is legally impossible to open their drivers because they license code from other 3rd party companies.

Don't agree with me? Fine, don't buy the hardware from these vendors, or contribute to the relevant projects to replace them. But don't go pushing your views on everyone else in the community - for a lot of us, drivers are a different class of software that do not neccessarily have to be free to be useful.

Kororaa GPL

[Wannabe Code Monkey]

However the Kororaa project has decided to let end users download and install the drivers themselves if need be, which defeats the purpose of continuing to develop their Live CD. As such their will be no Kororaa XGL LiveCD 0.3

This sentence was a little confusing the first seven times I read it. So I did what I hardly ever do, go to the source, read the article and gain a fuller understanding of the situation... instead of just posting here about how the summary was confusing.

My misunderstanding stemmed from my thinking that the Kororaa project was just the Live CD. So I was thinking: if they decided to script the downloading and compiling of the nvidia modules why would they then go and decide to cancel the Live CD development? The key here is that they also have a non-live CD version called Kororaa 2005, and soon to be 2006. They are still continuing this distribution, which will prompt the user to download the modules manually as other distros do.

The author's reasoning was kind of strange though, he leads us on a very logical path towards concluding that the Kororaa Live CD does *not* violate the GPL in its current form. He even says For me, with the information at hand, I cannot see how the drivers constitute a GPL violation. Yet he still decides to discontinue the live CD. He also makes a good case about why he doesn't want to have the user download and compile the drivers themselves on boot.

I can't blame him though. He's clearly a supporter of the GPL. He's striving to adhere to the letter and spirit of the license. Oh well, maybe I should check out the standard Kororaa distribution.

Re:Some economist-geek explain it to me...

[geekoid]

Lets say a company goes public, and is expect to sell 100 shares at a price of 10 bucks per share.
Then they IPO, and only 50 shares are bought. There value would decrease because there is no interest.

  "Now I've taken a small loss on something I expect to shoot way up within the next few days... Would I sell? Hell no! "
you might if there was no interest.
Now if all 100 shares were sold, you would expect the price to go up do to heavy interest, but if an IPO doesn't sparl a lot of interest, there isn't much the company can do.
My examples where very gross, and in the stock world the difference between a hot stoc and a cold one may only a small percentage of sells.

.XXX TLD

[Adrian Lopez]

Unlike many Slashdotters (as evidenced by previous reactions to the subject), I am very happy indeed that ICANN decided to reject the XXX domain, for the reasons given here:

In June 2005, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved the creation of an xxx top-level domain (TLD) for pornographic websites. This reverses their previous decision back in November 2000, when they decided against the creation of the xxx TLD. The Bush administration, responding to the recent decision by ICANN, is objecting to the creation of the new TLD. Meanwhile, many of the folks at Slashdot are objecting to Bush's objection to the xxx TLD.

While the Bush administration's decision is based more on opposition to pornography than on opposition to the xxx TLD, the arguments raised by Slashdot readers are rather problematic. The prevailing argument appears to be that the Bush administration should not interfere with the ICANN's decisions, and that an xxx TLD is a good idea because it could make it easier for parents and system-administrators to filter out pornographic content. The second part of this argument raises important free-speech concerns.

While the xxx domain is currently voluntary, could it eventually become mandatory? The government could require that pornographic content be hosted exclusively on xxx domains, the ICANN could change the rules for com, net and org domains to allow only non-pornographic content, and hosting providers could refuse to host pornographic websites not associated with an xxx domain. In short, there are many ways in which an xxx domain could be abused, all in the name of keeping smut away from impressionable eyes.

The xxx TLD could become a mechanism for the regulation of pornographic websites hosted on xxx domains. According to ZDNet, a "nonprofit organization called the International Foundation For Online Responsibility will be in charge of setting the rules for .xxx. It's intended to have a seven-person board of directors, including a child advocacy advocate, a free-expression aficionado and someone from the adult entertainment industry." What are the rules being set, and why do we need a "child advocacy advocate" to make decisions about adult-oriented domains? Would they require use of AVS (age-verification systems) by websites that use the xxx TLD?

According to an earlier statement by Stuart Lawley, whose company -- ICM Registry -- will administer the xxx TLD, "apart from child pornography, which is completely illegal, we're really not in the content-monitoring business". While this may seem reassuring, how will they decide what constitutes "child pornography"? Which country's definition of "child pornography" will they adopt? Shutting down child pornographers is the government's job, not the registrar's.

There's no good reason why pornographic content should be stuffed into the xxx TLD and isolated from the rest of the Internet's namespace. What is so terrible about pornography that it must be kept in its very own TLD? Who the hell knows. It's a silly decision grounded upon primitive moral codes.

Re:.XXX TLD

[Eccles]

The internet is international. Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue would be .xxx in Iran. Whose .xxx do you use?

Even if voluntary, .xxx is a bad idea. Wife demands ISP-level xxx filter. Husband complies, secretly goes to .com porn sites. Who would register as xxx voluntarily, it would be bad for business.

Re:Some economist-geek explain it to me...

[paulthomas]

There are generally not restrictions on selling the stock after the IPO. You might be thinking of some SEC rules regarding changes to the ownership immediately prior to the IPO (whether such rules exist, I'm unsure).

Not only would you not see a fall, you wouldn't see any movement in the stock for 90 days if trading were suspended (buyers not being able to sell would result in no transactions). This is clearly not true if you look at any IPO. In fact, the possibility to have a run up in the stock price early on is part of the politics of traditional IPO underwriting. The investment bank that underwrites the issue essentially buys all of the stock that will be sold from the company, ensuring that the company receives some fixed amount. The underwriter then sells portions of the stock to major investing concerns at a price fixed higher than what was paid to the company. This spread is the compensation for "insuring" the issue. The stock is initially sold to a small and select group of buyers at this price who anticipate a run-up in the price from the general demand from unwary individual investors.

Everyone early in the chain gets some cut and it is your average joe who generally gets the shaft on the flotation of new issues. In this sense you are correct that IPOs generally don't fail -- the underwriter sets the prices that ensure capital for the firm going public and a profit for the underwriter.

With regard to the business model, who knows. I think this is part of why the IPO wasn't terribly successful (for the people who bought before the decline).

Big Brother

[graveyhead]

I'm sure I'm not the only one here who has wondered why we haven't seen wider circulation of this story and why immigration laws are suddenly the thing to discuss. As one slashdotter pointed out a couple weeks ago, the NSA makes Nixon look like an amateur.

There was a protest today outside the SBC building on Folsom Street here in San Francisco, but it drew hardly any attention and there was no media around.

The building itself is pretty scary looking. It's a huge brown rectangle with tinted windows that also somehow look brown. Compared with the nice architecture of the nearby buildings, it sure is an eyesore.

Anyhow, someone want to offer me any conspiracy theories on why nobody cares?

Re:Big Brother

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I'm sure I'm not the only one here who has wondered why we haven't seen wider circulation of this story and why immigration laws are suddenly the thing to discuss.

Domestic wiretap abuse is ancient news. Been going on since there were wires to tap. Look at the COINTELPRO stuff from half a century back to see some real dirty tricks.

The immigration thing, on the other hand, got 'WAY big when congress decided a fair "compromise" solution would be to add maybe 60 million Mexicans to the 300 million population of the US over the next 20 years - giving them full citizenship (including the vote).

Adding one new voter for every five now present - when the two major parties are so evenly matched that the presidency gets decided by a few hundred votes - sounded to a lot of citizens like an invasion.

Then consider that the people in question grew up in a country where the government is totally corrupt and the laws deserving of contempt, most of them came here, stay here, and work in violation of OUR laws (while our own politicians refuse to enforce them and reward the immigrants for breaking them), and are being educated by a system that keeps them isolated from the general culture. So they started to worry about what will happen to respect for law over the next few decades.

They pushed the congress critters and got ignored. Then they got mad.

The immigration issue is a reboot of US politics on the banana repulic model. If you thought you've seen government corruption in the last couple decades you ain't seen NOTHING yet.

And if it continues in the same vein for even a couple more years it could, in the opinion of many, literally start an avalanche that will lead to the second civil war.

So, yes, it's significantly more "the in thing to discuss" than a little traffic analysis on phone calls by the NSA.

As one slashdotter pointed out a couple weeks ago, the NSA makes Nixon look like an amateur.

Compared to the NSA Nixon's plumbers WERE amateurs. Heck - compared to the NSA the KGB were a garage shop (and NOT the hi-tek startup kind, either.)

Re:What more can be said...

[Petrushka]

Why are you flaming someone for poor English when English is obviously not his native language? I respectfully suggest that until you write a decent tech article in Slovenian and submit it to this guy for him to tear to shreds (and, incidentally, learn what a split infinitive is), you should shut the hell up.

You're mis-applying RMS's point

[Morgaine]

I've just read RMS's very well written essay about Java. It's not about Xgl, and you're mis-applying it to Xgl.

The authors of Sun Java have no (current) intention of making it free, so it's non-free by design and thus quite rightly gets RMS's ire. As RMS suggests, every enhancement that Sun makes to Java just makes matters worse.

In contrast, Xgl is currently tied to nVidia or ATI hardware only because the authors haven't yet made it work with anything else, but it could do so, so it's just a question of manpower and not a matter of non-free intent. It would probably work with Mesa anyway, but excruciatingly slowly.

Xgl is dependent on OpenGL, and you'd better not be complaining about that because it's the standard 3D API for free and open-source software. It just so happens that nVidia and ATI have the most efficient and widely used implementations of OpenGL for consumer PCs, that's all. The fact that the FOSS community hasn't yet fully implemented any competing 3D-accelerated version of OpenGL isn't Xgl's fault, nor is it OpenGL's fault --- there is no non-free OpenGL license blocking such implementations as there is with Java. (You might not be able to call it "OpenGL" unless it's validated, but that's peripheral.)

So, you're confusing the non-freeness of Java with nothing more evil than the early state of Xgl and the lack of 3D-accelerated non-proprietary implementations of OpenGL. Well, it may have escaped your attention, but a collosal proportion of all free programs are incomplete or still being worked on, and that doesn't make them non-free.

You need to use some commonsense here. By all means complain about ATI and nVidia, but not about OpenGL or Xgl. Xgl is free software, and OpenGL is an open standard. Xgl just needs some more work, as does our free OpenGL clone. Work in progress.

Re:You're mis-applying RMS's point

[Andrew Tanenbaum]

Wrong.

Java is just as open of a standard as OpenGL. Anyone can implement a version of it, if they have the resources. The issue, in BOTH cases, is that the free implementations are inadequate.

Whew

[Reality Master 101]

I'm a Vonage customer, and got the notification that they were "rewarding" their customers by allowing them to get in on the IPO, up to 5,000 shares. I had a few hours of excited thoughts, thinking that maybe I should get in on it.

Then, fortunately, my brain kicked in. Why, if the Vonage IPO was going to be a blockbuster, would they give away so many shares to the unwashed masses?

Unless they needed the unwashed masses to drum up demand.

These finance guys aren't typically stupid. Yeah, sure, it was theoretically possible that they were giving out so many shares out of the goodness of their heart, but my experience in life is that there ain't no free lunch.

I'm glad my suspicians were borne out. I'd have been REALLY pissed if it shot up 10x or something. :D

Re:Whew

[Aardpig]

Unless they needed the unwashed masses to drum up demand.

Well, it seems to have worked, despite the price drop. I signed up for 100 shares, but was allocated none; so it's not as if they had to dump loads of stock on the customers.

Re:Whew

[Reality Master 101]

I disagree that it was a tactic on face value. I was a part of the RedHat IPO because of some bug contributions but I didn't consider it a ploy.

The Red Hat precedent did occur to me, but that was a bit of a different deal. First, the pool of people who were contributors is much smaller than the (almost) entire Vonage customer base. Second, I think it was limited to much smaller than 5,000 shares (like 100 shares or something?). Third, contributors to Red Hat seems a bit more honest than any customer that happens to have used the product.

Imagine if Red Hat offered 5,000 shares to anyone who had ever purchased Red Hat (not exactly the same; Red Hat's customer base is even much smaller than Vonage).

Re:Drivers = Software

[KarmaMB84]

You're not exactly going to be using a driver for an ATI Radon X1600 Uber-Dooper Edition on your nVidia GeForce 7900 Ultimate-WTF Edition, so what is the point?

Device drivers and the GPL

[Adrian Lopez]

For user programs, the Linux kernel's license states:

NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work". Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the linux kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it.

Should a similar exemption not apply to device drivers compiled as kernel modules?

The problem as always is - Who decides?

[SuperKendall]

Why shouldn't pornography be censorable, say, by schools or libraries?

It should be, but the problem is a .XXX domain makes too easy a dumping ground for anything that offends anyone. One can in an extreme case imagine requiring the recent Mohammed cartoons being only publishable in a website located in the .XXX domain.

Other possible things that may not be viewable outside of a .XXX domain:

Michelangelo's David
Artistic Nudes
Sites with graphic how-tos on breast exams.

It's all a roll of the dice as to what the panel might keep in or out.

I don't mind the idea of a .xxx domain so long as it is totally volutary for companies to use that domain or not. Then most likley the domain space will naturally fill with things that a great majority of the populace would agree are pornography.

Re:What more can be said...

[Mr. Slippery]

1.) It really is - split infinitive

Er, no, it's not. The infinitive form is the "to X" form; "to boldly split infinitives that no man has split before."

And there's really nothing wrong with splitting infinitives in English, that's a rule from Latin mistakenly carried over.

it's unreadable due to the spelling, grammer,

I love irony.

Even that not granular enough

[SuperKendall]

But even by country is not good enough - people in North Dakota generally have a very different idea of what pornography might be compared to people in California or New York.

Either no-one forces sites into these domains, or it should not be at all.

Economist-geek here...

[Astin]

Point 1 - Umm.. no. It's possible that INSIDERS (ie.- company employees) might have a restriction on them, but 90 days seems extreme. If nobody could sell an stock for 90 days after the IPO, then the stock would do nothing. It would sit there and not trade at all. As soon as it's public, the stock is tradeable by anybody who isn't restricted by their insider (or possibly other) position.

Point 2 - Depends on your strategy. Bear in mind that most stock trades are institutional, not mom and dad buying for their personal account. Pension plans, businesses, hedge funds, etc, will hedge their trades, ie.- They'll buy the stock, but also buy a put (or sell a call) option to cover their position. That's just one example of many though. There could also be stop-loss prices put on them (buy @ $10, but if it hits $9, sell it because I don't want to lose any more than 10%). Other speculators could short sell the stock in anticipation of it dropping. In the case of Vonage, that's quite possible.

As an aside, it's not uncommon in the financial industry that brokerage firm employees have minimum hold times on ALL stock ownership (ie.- you buy a stock, you have to keep it for a minimum of 30 days). The exception to this rule is usually a major price drop (5-10%), in which case the restriction is lifted.

Point 3 - Vonage is hoping on acting like a regular phone company. They sell the service for $40 a month, and tie it to POTS. They also offer your standard package of services - voice mail, caller ID, call forwarding, etc.. They're counting on the fact that people don't change quickly. They trust their phone system as it is. Phone's on the wall in the kitchen, cordless in the den, and it pretty much always works. Saying to them "Hey! Forget that thing on your wall. Just hook up a microphone and headset to your computer!" isn't going to fly. But saying, "We have a new technology that offers you cheaper phone service, cheap long distance, and you won't know the difference from your current phone." is far more appealing. You and I know that we can use Skype for free for VOIP, but the act of talking to a computer is still strange to some people.

Once POTS dies out (which is still likely a long time coming), non-geeks will still need someone to sell them the service, hook them up, etc.. The problem for Vonage is that all the telcos and cable companies will be doing the same thing, and already have a built-in base of users.

One interesting thing I saw a few months ago was that Skype, with almost no advertising, was still being searched for far more than Vonage. Skype announcing that calls to landlines are free in Canada and the US just before the Vonage IPO was a very nice kick in the gut to Vonage.

Regardless, I still use my landline and cell phone.